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G I V E M E L I B E R T Y ! A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y  B r i e f F o u r t h E d i t i o n G I V E M E L I B E R T Y ! A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y  B r i e f F o u r t h E d i t i o n E R I C F O N E R B W . W . N O R T O N & C O M P A N Y N E W Y O R K . L O N D O N For my mother, Liza Foner (1909–2005), an accomplished artist who lived through most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program— trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of 400 and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year— W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees. Copyright © 2014, 2012 by Eric Foner All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Fourth Edition Editor: Steve Forman Associate Editor: Justin Cahill Editorial Assistant: Penelope Lin Managing Editor, College: Marian Johnson Managing Editor, College Digital Media: Kim Yi Project Editor: Diane Cipollone Copy Editor: Elizabeth Dubrulle Marketing Manager: Sarah England Media Editors: Steve Hoge, Tacy Quinn Assistant Editor, Media: Stefani Wallace Production Manager: Sean Mintus Art Director: Rubina Yeh Designer: Chin-Yee Lai Photo Editor: Stephanie Romeo Photo Research: Donna Ranieri Permissions Manager: Megan Jackson Permissions Clearing: Bethany Salminen Composition and Layout: Jouve Manufacturing: Transcontinental Since this page cannot accommodate all of the copyright notices, the Credits pages at the end of the book constitute an extension of the copyright page. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for. This edition: ISBN 978-0-393-92034-5 (pbk.) W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110-0017 wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 A B O U T T H E A U T H O R  E R I C F O N E R is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, he focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth-century America. Professor Foner’s publi- cations include Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War; Tom Paine and Revolutionary America; Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy; Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877; The Story of American Free- dom; and Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. His history of Recon- struction won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Parkman Prize. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. In 2006 he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University. His most recent book is The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, winner of the Lincoln Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize.  C O N T E N T S  A b o u t t h e A u t h o r . . . v L i s t o f M a p s , T a b l e s , a n d F i g u r e s . . . x v i i i P r e f a c e . . . x x 1 5 . “ W H A T I S F R E E D O M ? ” : R E C O N S T R U C T I O N , 1 8 6 5 – 1 8 7 7 . . . 4 4 1 T H E M E A N I N G O F F R E E D O M . . . 443 Families in Freedom ... 443  Church and School ... 444  Political Freedom ... 444  Land, Labor, and Freedom ... 445  Masters without Slaves ... 445  The Free Labor Vision ... 447  The Freedmen’s Bureau ... 447  The Failure of Land Reform ... 448  The White Farmer ... 449 Voices of Freedom: From Petition of Committee in Behalf of the Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865), and From A Sharecropping Contract (1866) ... 450 Aftermath of Slavery ... 453 T H E M A K I N G O F R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N . . . 454 Andrew Johnson ... 454  The Failure of Presidential Reconstruction ... 454  The Black Codes ... 455  The Radical Republicans ... 456  The Origins of Civil Rights ... 456  The Fourteenth Amendment ... 457  The Reconstruction Act ... 458  Impeachment and the Election of Grant ... 458  The Fifteenth Amendment ... 460  The “Great Constitutional Revolution” ... 461  The Rights of Women ... 461 R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N I N T H E S O U T H . . . 462 “The Tocsin of Freedom” ... 462  The Black Officeholder ... 464  Carpetbaggers and Scalawags ... 464  Southern Republicans in Power ... 465  The Quest for Prosperity ... 465 T H E O V E R T H R O W O F R E C O N S T R U C T I O N . . . 466 Reconstruction’s Opponents ... 466  “A Reign of Terror” ... 467  The Liberal Republicans ... 469  The North’s Retreat ... 470  The Triumph of the Redeemers ... 471  The Disputed Election and Bargain of 1877 ... 472  The End of Reconstruction ... 473 R E V I E W . . . 4 7 4 1 6 . A M E R I C A ’ S G I L D E D A G E , 1 8 7 0 – 1 8 9 0 . . . 4 7 5 T H E S E C O N D I N D U S T R I A L R E V O L U T I O N . . . 476 The Industrial Economy ... 477  Railroads and the National Market ... 478  The Spirit of Innovation ... 479  Competition and Consolidation ... 480  The Rise of Andrew Carnegie ... 481  The C o n t e n t s v i i Triumph of John D. Rockefeller ... 481  Workers’ Freedom in an Industrial Age ... 482 T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N O F T H E W E S T . . . 483 A Diverse Region ... 484  Farming in the Trans-Mississippi West ... 485  The Cowboy and the Corporate West ... 486  Conflict on the Mormon Frontier ... 487  The Subjugation of the Plains Indians ... 488  “Let Me Be a Free Man” ... 489  Remaking Indian Life ... 489  The Dawes Act and Wounded Knee ... 490  Settler Societies and Global Wests ... 491 Voices of Freedom: From Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth” (1889), and From Ira Steward, “A Second Declaration of Independence” (1879) ... 492 P O L I T I C S I N A G I L D E D A G E . . . 494 The Corruption of Politics ... 494  The Politics of Dead Center ... 495  Government and the Economy ... 496  Reform Legislation ... 497  Political Conflict in the States ... 497 F R E E D O M I N T H E G I L D E D A G E . . . 498 The Social Problem ... 498  Social Darwinism in America ... 499  Liberty of Contract and the Courts ... 500 L A B O R A N D T H E R E P U B L I C . . . 501 “The Overwhelming Labor Question” ... 501  The Knights of Labor and the “Conditions Essential to Liberty” ... 502  Middle-Class Reformers ... 502  Protestants and Moral Reform ... 504  A Social Gospel ... 504  The Haymarket Affair ... 505  Labor and Politics ... 506 R E V I E W . . . 5 0 7 1 7 . F R E E D O M ’ S B O U N D A R I E S , A T H O M E A N D A B R O A D , 1 8 9 0 – 1 9 0 0 . . . 5 0 8 T H E P O P U L I S T C H A L L E N G E . . . 510 The Farmers’ Revolt ... 510  The People’s Party ... 511  The Populist Platform ... 512  The Populist Coalition ... 513  The Government and Labor ... 513  Populism and Labor ... 514  Bryan and Free Silver ... 515  The Campaign of 1896 ... 516 T H E S E G R E G A T E D S O U T H . . . 517 The Redeemers in Power ... 517  The Failure of the New South Dream ... 517  Black Life in the South ... 518  The Kansas Exodus ... 518  The Decline of Black Politics ... 519  The Elimination of Black Voting ... 520  The Law of Segregation ... 521  The Rise of Lynching ... 522  Politics, Religion, and Memory ... 523 R E D R A W I N G T H E B O U N D A R I E S . . . 524 The New Immigration and the New Nativism ... 524  Chinese Exclusion and Chinese Rights ... 525  The Emergence of v i i i Contents Booker T. Washington ... 526  The Rise of the AFL ... 527  The Women’s Era ... 528 B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R . . . 529 The New Imperialism ... 529  American Expansionism ... 529  The Lure of Empire ... 530  The “Splendid Little War” ... 531  Roosevelt at San Juan Hill ... 532  An American Empire ... 533  The Philippine War ... 535 Voices of Freedom: From Josiah Strong, Our Country (1885), and From “Aguinaldo’s Case against the United States” (1899) ... 536 Citizens or Subjects? ... 538  Drawing the Global Color Line ... 539  “Republic or Empire?” ... 539 R E V I E W . . . 5 4 2 1 8 . T H E P R O G R E S S I V E E R A , 1 9 0 0 – 1 9 1 6 . . . 5 4 3 A N U R B A N A G E A N D A C O N S U M E R S O C I E T Y . . . 545 Farms and Cities ... 545  The Muckrakers ... 546  Immigration as a Global Process ... 546  The Immigrant Quest for Freedom ... 548  Consumer Freedom ... 548  The Working Woman ... 549  The Rise of Fordism ... 550  The Promise of Abundance ... 550 V A R I E T I E S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M . . . 551 Industrial Freedom ... 552  The Socialist Presence and Eugene Debs ... 552 Voices of Freedom: From Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics (1898), and From John Mitchell, “A Workingman’s Conception of Industrial Liberty” (1910) ... 554 AFL and IWW ... 556  The New Immigrants on Strike ... 556  Labor and Civil Liberties ... 557  The New Feminism ... 558  The Birth- Control Movement ... 558  Native American Progressivism ... 559 T H E P O L I T I C S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M . . . 559 Effective Freedom ... 559  State and Local Reforms ... 560  Progressive Democracy ... 561  Jane Addams and Hull House ... 562  The Campaign for Woman Suffrage ... 563  Maternalist Reform ... 564 T H E P R O G R E S S I V E P R E S I D E N T S . . . 566 Theodore Roosevelt ... 566  John Muir and the Spirituality of Nature ... 567  The Conservation Movement ... 567  Taft in Office ... 568  The Election of 1912 ... 569  New Freedom and New Nationalism ... 569  Wilson’s First Term ... 570  The Expanding Role of Government ... 571 R E V I E W . . . 5 7 3 C o n t e n t s i x 1 9 . S A F E F O R D E M O C R A C Y : T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S A N D W O R L D W A R I , 1 9 1 6 – 1 9 2 0 . . . 5 7 4 A N E R A O F I N T E R V E N T I O N . . . 576 “I Took the Canal Zone” ... 576  The Roosevelt Corollary ... 578  Moral Imperialism ... 579  Wilson and Mexico ... 579 A M E R I C A A N D T H E G R E A T W A R . . . 580 Neutrality and Preparedness ... 581  The Road to War ... 582  The Fourteen Points ... 582 T H E W A R A T H O M E . . . 584 The Progressives’ War ... 584  The Wartime State ... 584  The Propaganda War ... 585  The Coming of Woman Suffrage ... 586  Prohibition ... 587  Liberty in Wartime ... 587 Voices of Freedom: From Eugene V. Debs, Speech to the Jury before Sentencing under the Espionage Act (1918), and From W. E. B. Du Bois, “Returning Soldiers,” The Crisis (1919) ... 588 The Espionage Act ... 590  Coercive Patriotism ... 590 W H O I S A N A M E R I C A N ? . . . 591 The “Race Problem” ... 591  The Anti-German Crusade ... 592  Toward Immigration Restriction ... 593  Groups Apart: Mexicans and Asian-Americans ... 593  The Color Line ... 594  Roosevelt, Wilson, and Race ... 594  W. E. B. Du Bois and the Revival of Black Protest ... 595  Closing Ranks ... 596  The Great Migration ... 596  Racial Violence, North and South ... 597  The Rise of Garveyism ... 598 1 9 1 9 . . . 599 A Worldwide Upsurge ... 599  Upheaval in America ... 599  The Red Scare ... 600  Wilson at Versailles ... 601  The Wilsonian Moment ... 602  The Seeds of Wars to Come ... 604  The Treaty Debate ... 605 R E V I E W . . . 6 0 7 2 0 . F R O M B U S I N E S S C U L T U R E T O G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N : T H E T W E N T I E S , 1 9 2 0 – 1 9 3 2 . . . 6 0 8 T H E B U S I N E S S O F A M E R I C A . . . 610 A Decade of Prosperity ... 610  A New Society ... 611  The Limits of Prosperity ... 612  The Farmers’ Plight ... 612  The Image of Business ... 613  The Decline of Labor ... 613  The Equal Rights Amendment ... 615  Women’s Freedom ... 615 B U S I N E S S A N D G O V E R N M E N T . . . 616 The Republican Era ... 617  Corruption in Government ... 617  The Election of 1924 ... 618  Economic Diplomacy ... 618 T H E B I R T H O F C I V I L L I B E R T I E S . . . 619 A “Clear and Present Danger” ... 620  The Court and Civil Liberties ... 621 x Contents T H E C U L T U R E W A R S . . . 621 The Fundamentalist Revolt ... 621  The Scopes Trial ... 622  The Second Klan ... 623  Closing the Golden Door ... 624  Race and the Law ... 625  Promoting Tolerance ... 626  The Emergence of Harlem ... 627 Voices of Freedom: From André Siegfried, “The Gulf Between,” Atlantic Monthly (March 1928), and From Majority Opinion, Justice James C. McReynolds, in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) ... 628 The Harlem Renaissance ... 630 T H E G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N . . . 631 The Election of 1928 ... 631  The Coming of the Depression ... 632  Americans and the Depression ... 633  Resignation and Protest ... 635  Hoover’s Response ... 636  The Worsening Economic Outlook ... 636  Freedom in the Modern World ... 637 R E V I E W . . . 6 3 8 2 1 . T H E N E W D E A L , 1 9 3 2 – 1 9 4 0 . . . 6 3 9 T H E F I R S T N E W D E A L . . . 641 FDR and the Election of 1932 ... 641  The Coming of the New Deal ... 642  The Banking Crisis ... 642  The NRA ... 643  Government Jobs ... 644  Public-Works Projects ... 645  The New Deal and Agriculture ... 646  The New Deal and Housing ... 647  The Court and the New Deal ... 648 T H E G R A S S R O O T S R E V O L T . . . 648 Labor’s Great Upheaval ... 648  The Rise of the CIO ... 649  Labor and Politics ... 650  Voices of Protest ... 651  Religion on the Radio ... 651 T H E S E C O N D N E W D E A L . . . 652 The WPA and the Wagner Act ... 653  The American Welfare State: Social Security ... 654 A R E C K O N I N G W I T H L I B E R T Y . . . 655 The Election of 1936 ... 655 Voices of Freedom: From Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat” (1934), and From John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath (1938) ... 656 The Court Fight ... 658  The End of the Second New Deal ... 659 T H E L I M I T S O F C H A N G E . . . 660 The New Deal and American Women ... 660  The Southern Veto ... 661  The Stigma of Welfare ... 661  The Indian New Deal ... 662  The New Deal and Mexican-Americans ... 662  Last Hired, First Fired ... 663  Federal Discrimination ... 664 A N E W C O N C E P T I O N O F A M E R I C A . . . 665 The Heyday of American Communism ... 665  Redefining the People ... 666  Challenging the Color Line ... 667  Labor and Civil C o n t e n t s x i Liberties ... 667  The End of the New Deal ... 668  The New Deal in American History ... 669 R E V I E W . . . 6 7 1 2 2 . F I G H T I N G F O R T H E F O U R F R E E D O M S : W O R L D W A R I I , 1 9 4 1 – 1 9 4 5 . . . 6 7 2 F I G H T I N G W O R L D W A R I I . . . 674 Good Neighbors ... 674  The Road to War ... 675  Isolationism ... 675  War in Europe ... 676  Toward Intervention ... 677  Pearl Harbor ... 677  The War in the Pacific ... 678  The War in Europe ... 679 T H E H O M E F R O N T . . . 682 Mobilizing for War ... 682  Business and the War ... 683  Labor in Wartime ... 684  Fighting for the Four Freedoms ... 684  The Fifth Freedom ... 685  Women at War ... 686 V I S I O N S O F P O S T W A R F R E E D O M . . . 687 Toward an American Century ... 687  “The Way of Life of Free Men” ... 688  The Road to Serfdom ... 689 T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A . . . 689 Patriotic Assimilation ... 690  The Bracero Program ... 690  Indians during the War ... 691  Asian-Americans in Wartime ... 691  Japanese- American Internment ... 692  Blacks and the War ... 694  Blacks and Military Service ... 695  Birth of the Civil Rights Movement ... 695  The Double-V ... 696  The War and Race ... 696  An American Dilemma ... 697 Voices of Freedom: From Henry R. Luce, The American Century (1941), and From Charles H. Wesley, “The Negro Has Always Wanted the Four Freedoms,” in What the Negro Wants (1944) ... 698 Black Internationalism ... 700 T H E E N D O F T H E W A R . . . 700 “The Most Terrible Weapon” ... 701  The Dawn of the Atomic Age ... 701  The Nature of the War ... 702  Planning the Postwar World ... 703  Yalta and Bretton Woods ... 703  The United Nations ... 704  Peace, but not Harmony ... 704 R E V I E W . . . 7 0 6 2 3 . T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S A N D T H E C O L D W A R , 1 9 4 5 – 1 9 5 3 . . . 7 0 7 O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R . . . 709 The Two Powers ... 709  The Roots of Containment ... 709  The Truman Doctrine ... 710  The Marshall Plan ... 711 x i i Contents  The Reconstruction of Japan ... 712  The Berlin Blockade and NATO ... 713  The Growing Communist Challenge ... 713  The Korean War ... 715  Cold War Critics ... 717  Imperialism and Decolonization ... 717 Voices of Freedom: From Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955), and From Henry Steele Commager, “Who Is Loyal to America?” in Harper’s (September 1947) ... 718 T H E C O L D W A R A N D T H E I D E A O F F R E E D O M . . . 720 Freedom and Totalitarianism ... 720  The Rise of Human Rights ... 721  Ambiguities of Human Rights ... 722 T H E T R U M A N P R E S I D E N C Y . . . 722 The Fair Deal ... 722  The Postwar Strike Wave ... 723  The Republican Resurgence ... 723  Postwar Civil Rights ... 724  To Secure These Rights ... 725  The Dixiecrat and Wallace Revolts ... 725 T H E A N T I C O M M U N I S T C R U S A D E . . . 727 Loyalty and Disloyalty ... 728  The Spy Trials ... 729  McCarthy and McCarthyism ... 730  An Atmosphere of Fear ... 731  The Uses of Anticommunism ... 731  Anticommunist Politics ... 732  Cold War Civil Rights ... 733 R E V I E W . . . 7 3 5 2 4 . A N A F F L U E N T S O C I E T Y , 1 9 5 3 – 1 9 6 0 . . . 7 3 6 T H E G O L D E N A G E . . . 738 A Changing Economy ... 738  A Suburban Nation ... 739  The Growth of the West ... 740  The TV World ... 741  Women at Work and at Home ... 741  A Segregated Landscape ... 742  The Divided Society ... 743  Religion and Anticommunism ... 743  Selling Free Enterprise ... 744  The Libertarian Conservatives and the New Conservatives ... 744 T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A . . . 745 Ike and Nixon ... 745  The 1952 Campaign ... 746  Modern Republicanism ... 747  The Social Contract ... 748  Massive Retaliation ... 749  Ike and the Russians ... 749  The Emergence of the Third World ... 750  Origins of the Vietnam War ... 751  Mass Society and Its Critics ... 752  Rebels without a Cause ... 753 T H E F R E E D O M M O V E M E N T . . . 754 Origins of the Movement ... 755  The Legal Assault on Segregation ... 755  The Brown Case ... 757  The Montgomery Bus Boycott ... 758  The Daybreak of Freedom ... 758  The Leadership of King ... 759  Massive Resistance ... 760  Eisenhower and Civil Rights ... 760 C o n t e n t s x i i i Voices of Freedom: From Richard Right, “I Choose Exile” (1950), and From The Southern Manifesto (1956) ... 762 T H E E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 6 0 . . . 764 Kennedy and Nixon ... 764  The End of the 1950s ... 765 R E V I E W . . . 7 6 7 2 5 . T H E S I X T I E S , 1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 8 . . . 7 6 8 T H E C I V I L R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N . . . 770 The Rising Tide of Protest ... 770  Birmingham ... 771  The March on Washington ... 772 T H E K E N N E D Y Y E A R S . . . 773 Kennedy and the World ... 773  The Missile Crisis ... 774  Kennedy and Civil Rights ... 775 L Y N D O N J O H N S O N ’ S P R E S I D E N C Y . . . 776 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ... 776  Freedom Summer ... 776  The 1964 Election ... 777  The Conservative Sixties ... 778  The Voting Rights Act ... 780  Immigration Reform ... 780  The Great Society ... 781  The War on Poverty ... 781  Freedom and Equality ... 782 T H E C H A N G I N G B L A C K M O V E M E N T . . . 782 The Ghetto Uprisings ... 783  Malcolm X ... 784  The Rise of Black Power ... 784 V I E T N A M A N D T H E N E W L E F T . . . 785 Old and New Lefts ... 785  The Fading Consensus ... 786  America and Vietnam ... 787 Voices of Freedom: From Young Americans for Freedom, The Sharon Statement (September 1960), and From Tom Hayden and Others, The Port Huron Statement (June 1962) ... 788 Lyndon Johnson’s War ... 790  The Antiwar Movement ... 792  The Counterculture ... 793  Personal Liberation and the Free Individual ... 793  Faith and the Counterculture ... 794 T H E N E W M O V E M E N T S A N D T H E R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N . . . 7 9 5 The Feminine Mystique ... 795  Women’s Liberation ... 796  Personal Freedom ... 796  Gay Liberation ... 797  Latino Activism ... 797  Red Power ... 798  Silent Spring ... 798  The Rights Revolution ... 799  The Right to Privacy ... 801 1 9 6 8 . . . 802 A Year of Turmoil ... 802  The Global 1968 ... 803  Nixon’s Comeback ... 804  The Legacy of the Sixties ... 804 R E V I E W . . . 8 0 5 x i v Contents 2 6 . T H E T R I U M P H O F C O N S E R V A T I S M , 1 9 6 9 – 1 9 8 8 . . . 8 0 6 P R E S I D E N T N I X O N . . . 807 Nixon’s Domestic Policies ... 808  Nixon and Welfare ... 808  Nixon and Race ... 809  The Burger Court ... 809  The Continuing Sexual Revolution ... 810  Nixon and Détente ... 811 V I E T N A M A N D W A T E R G A T E . . . 813 Nixon and Vietnam ... 813  The End of the Vietnam War ... 814  Watergate ... 815  Nixon’s Fall ... 815 T H E E N D O F T H E G O L D E N A G E . . . 816 The Decline of Manufacturing ... 816  Stagflation ... 818  The Beleaguered Social Compact ... 818  Ford as President ... 819  The Carter Administration ... 820  Carter and the Economic Crisis ... 820  The Emergence of Human Rights Politics ... 821  The Iran Crisis and Afghanistan ... 822 T H E R I S I N G T I D E O F C O N S E R V A T I S M . . . 823 Voices of Freedom: From Redstockings Manifesto (1969), and From Jerry Falwell, Listen, America! (1980) ... 824 The Religious Right ... 826  The Battle over the Equal Rights Amendment ... 827  The Abortion Controversy ... 828  The Tax Revolt ... 829  The Election of 1980 ... 829 T H E R E A G A N R E V O L U T I O N . . . 830 Reagan and American Freedom ... 830  Reaganomics ... 831  Reagan and Labor ... 831  The Problem of Inequality ... 832  The Second Gilded Age ... 833  Conservatives and Reagan ... 834  Reagan and the Cold War ... 834  The Iran-Contra Affair ... 836  Reagan and Gorbachev ... 836  Reagan’s Legacy ... 837  The Election of 1988 ... 837 R E V I E W . . . 8 3 9 2 7 . G L O B A L I Z A T I O N A N D I T S D I S C O N T E N T S , 1 9 8 9 – 2 0 0 0 . . . 8 4 0 T H E P O S T - C O L D W A R W O R L D . . . 842 The Crisis of Communism ... 842  A New World Order? ... 844  The Gulf War ... 845  Visions of America’s Role ... 845  The Election of Clinton ... 845  Clinton in Office ... 846  The “Freedom Revolution” ... 847 Voices of Freedom: From Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing of NAFTA (1993), and From Global Exchange, Seattle, Declaration for Global Democracy (December 1999) ... 848 Clinton’s Political Strategy ... 850  Clinton and World Affairs ... 851  Human Rights ... 852 C o n t e n t s x v A N E W E C O N O M Y ? . . . 853 The Computer Revolution ... 853  The Stock Market Boom and Bust ... 854  The Enron Syndrome ... 855  Fruits of Deregulation ... 855  Rising Inequality ... 856 C U L T U R E W A R S . . . 857 The Newest Immigrants ... 858  The New Diversity ... 859  African- Americans in the 1990s ... 861  The Spread of Imprisonment ... 862  The Continuing Rights Revolution ... 863  Native Americans ... 864  Multiculturalism ... 865  “Family Values” in Retreat ... 866  The Antigovernment Extreme ... 866 I M P E A C H M E N T A N D T H E E L E C T I O N O F 2 0 0 0 . . . 867 The Impeachment of Clinton ... 868  The Disputed Election ... 868  A Challenged Democracy ... 869 F R E E D O M A N D T H E N E W C E N T U R Y . . . 870 Exceptional America ... 871 R E V I E W . . . 8 7 3 2 8 . A N E W C E N T U R Y A N D N E W C R I S E S . . . 8 7 4 T H E W A R O N T E R R O R I S M . . . 876 Bush before September 11 ... 876  “They Hate Freedom” ... 877  The Bush Doctrine ... 877  The “Axis of Evil” ... 878 A N A M E R I C A N E M P I R E ? . . . 878 Confronting Iraq ... 879  The Iraq War ... 880  The World and the War ... 881 T H E A F T E R M A T H O F S E P T E M B E R 1 1 A T H O M E . . . 883 Security and Liberty ... 883  The Power of the President ... 883  The Torture Controversy ... 884  The Economy under Bush ... 885 T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E . . . 885 The 2004 Election ... 885  Bush’s Second Term ... 886  Hurricane Katrina ... 886  The Immigration Debate ... 887  Islam, America, and the “Clash of Civilizations” ... 888  The Constitution and Liberty ... 889  The Court and the President ... 890  The Midterm Elections of 2006 ... 890  The Housing Bubble ... 891  The Great Recession ... 892  “A Conspiracy against the Public” ... 893  Bush and the Crisis ... 894 T H E R I S E O F O B A M A . . . 895 The 2008 Campaign ... 896  The Age of Obama? ... 897  Obama’s First Inauguration ... 897 Voices of Freedom: From The National Security Strategy of the United States (September 2002), and From President Barack Obama, Speech on the Middle East (2011) ... 898 Obama in Office ... 900 x v i Contents O B A M A ’ S F I R S T T E R M . . . 902 The Continuing Economic Crisis ... 902  Obama and the World ... 902  The Republican Revival ... 904  The Occupy Movement ... 905  The 2012 Campaign ... 905 L E A R N I N G F R O M H I S T O R Y . . . 907 R E V I E W . . . 9 0 9 A P P E N D I X D O C U M E N T S The Declaration of Independence (1776) ... A-2 The Constitution of The United States (1787) ... A-5 From George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796) ... A-17 The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments And Resolutions (1848) ... A-22 From Frederick Douglass’s “What, To the Slave, Is The Fourth Of July?” Speech (1852) ... A-25 The Gettysburg Address (1863) ... A-29 Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865) ... A-30 The Populist Platform of 1892 ... A-31 Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address (1933) ... A-34 From The Program For The March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom (1963) ... A-37 Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address (1981) ... A-38 Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address (2009) ... A-42 T A B L E S A N D F I G U R E S Presidential Elections ... A-46 Admission of States ... A-54 Population of the United States ... A-55 Historical Statistics of The United States: Labor Force—Selected Characteristics Expressed As A Percentage of The Labor Force, 1800–2010 ... A-56 Immigration, By Origin ... A-56 Unemployment Rate, 1890–2013 ... A-57 Union Membership As A Percentage Of Nonagricultural Employment, 1880–2012 ... A-57 Voter Participation in Presidential Elections 1824–2012 ... A-57 Birthrate, 1820–2011 ... A-57 S U G G E S T E D R E A D I N G S ... A - 5 9 G L O S S A R Y ... A - 6 9 C R E D I T S ... A - 9 7 I N D E X ... A - 9 9 C o n t e n t s x v i i M A P S Japanese-American Internment, 1942–1945 ... 693 C H A P T E R 1 5 C H A P T E R 2 3 The Barrow Plantation ... 446 Sharecropping in the South, 1880 ... 452 Cold War Europe, 1956 ... 714 The Presidential Election of 1868 ... 460 The Korean War, 1950–1953 ... 716 Reconstruction in the South, 1867–1877 ... 471 The Presidential Election of 1948 ... 727 The Presidential Election of 1876 ... 472 C H A P T E R 2 4 C H A P T E R 1 6 The Interstate Highway System ... 740 The Railroad Network, 1880 ... 479 The Presidential Election of 1952 ... 747 Indian Reservations, ca. 1890 ... 491 The Presidential Election of 1960 ... 765 Political Stalemate, 1876–1892 ... 496 C H A P T E R 2 5 C H A P T E R 1 7 The Presidential Election of 1964 ... 778 Populist Strength, 1892 ... 512 The Vietnam War, 1964–1975 ... 791 The Presidential Election of 1896 ... 516 The Spanish-American War: The Pacific ... 532 C H A P T E R 2 6 The Spanish-American War: The Caribbean ... 532 The Presidential Election of 1980 ... 830 American Empire, 1898 ... 534 The United States in the Caribbean and Central C H A P T E R 1 8 America, 1954–2004 ... 835 Socialist Towns and Cities, 1900–1920 ... 553 C H A P T E R 2 7 The Presidential Election of 1912 ... 571 Eastern Europe after the Cold War ... 844 C H A P T E R 1 9 The Presidential Election of 2000 ... 868 The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1941 ... 577 C H A P T E R 2 8 World War I: The Western Front ... 583 U.S. Presence in the Middle East, Europe in 1914 ... 602 1947–2012 ... 882 Europe in 1919 ... 603 The Presidential Election of 2012 ... 906 C H A P T E R 2 0 T A B L E S A N D F I G U R E S The Presidential Election of 1928 ... 632 C H A P T E R 2 1 C H A P T E R 1 6 The Presidential Election of 1932 ... 641 Table 16.1 Indicators of Economic Change, The Tennessee Valley Authority ... 646 1870–1920 ... 477 C H A P T E R 2 2 C H A P T E R 1 7 World War II in the Pacific, 1941–1945 ... 679 Table 17.1 States with Over 200 Lynchings, World War II in Europe, 1942–1945 ... 681 1889–1918 ... 523 x v i i i List of Maps, Tables, and Figures C H A P T E R 1 8 Figure 24.3 The Baby Boom and Its Decline ... 742 Table 18.1 Rise of the City, 1880–1920 ... 546 Table 18.2 Immigrants and Their Children as C H A P T E R 2 5 Percentage of Population, Ten Major Cities, 1920 ... 547 Figure 25.1 Percentage of Population below Table 18.3 Percentage of Women 14 Years and Poverty Level, by Race, 1959–1969 ... 782 Older in the Labor Force ... 549 Table 18.4 Percentage of Women Workers in C H A P T E R 2 6 Various Occupations ... 550 Figure 26.1 Median Age of First Marriage, Table 18.5 Sales of Passenger Cars ... 551 1947–1981 ... 810 Table 26.1 The Misery Index, 1970–1980 ... 817 C H A P T E R 1 9 Figure 26.2 Real Average Weekly Wages, 1955–1990 ... 819 Table 19.1 The Great Migration ... 597 Figure 26.3 Changes in Families’ Real Income, 1980–1990 ... 832 C H A P T E R 2 0 Figure 20.1 Household Appliances, 1900–1930 ... C H A P T E R 2 7 611 Figure 27.1 U.S. Income Inequality, 1913–2003 ... Table 20.1 Selected Annual Immigration Quotas 856 under the 1924 Immigration Act ... 626 Table 27.1 Immigration to the United States, 1960–2010 ... 858 C H A P T E R 2 1 Figure 27.2 Birthplace of Immigrants, Figure 21.1 The Building Boom and Its Collapse, 1990–2000 ... 860 1919–1939 ... 647 Figure 27.3 The Projected Non-White Majority: Figure 21.2 Unemployment, 1925–1945 ... 659 Racial and Ethnic Breakdown ... 861 Table 27.2 Home Ownership Rates by Group, 1970–2000 ... 862 C H A P T E R 2 2 Figure 27.4 Changes in Family Structure, Table 22.1 Labor Union Membership ... 684 1970–2010 ... 865 Figure 27.5 Women in the Paid Workforce, C H A P T E R 2 4 1940–2000 ... 866 Figure 24.1 Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita, 1790–2000 ... 738 C H A P T E R 2 8 Figure 24.2 Average Daily Television Viewing ... Figure 28.1 Portrait of a Recession ... 893 741 L i s t s o f M a p s , Ta b l e s , a n d F i g u r e s x i x P R E F A C E Since it originally appeared late in 2004, Give Me Liberty! An American History has gone through three editions and been adopted for use in survey courses at close to one thousand two- and four-year colleges in the United States, as well as a good number overseas. Of course, I am extremely gratified by this response. The book offers students a clear narra- tive of American history from the earliest days of European exploration and conquest of the New World to the first decade of the twenty-first century. Its central theme is the changing contours of American freedom. The comments I have received from instructors and students encour- age me to think that Give Me Liberty! has worked well in the classroom. These comments have also included many valuable suggestions, ranging from corrections of typographical and factual errors to thoughts about subjects that need more extensive treatment. In preparing new editions of the book I have tried to take these suggestions into account, as well as incorporating the insights of recent historical scholarship. Since the original edition was written, I have frequently been asked to produce a more succinct version of the textbook, which now runs to some 1,200 pages. This Brief Edition is a response to these requests. The text of the current volume is about one-third shorter than the full version. The result, I believe, is a book more suited to use in one-semester survey courses, classes x x Preface where the instructor wishes to supplement the text with additional read- ings, and in other situations where a briefer volume is desirable. Since some publishers have been known to assign the task of reduction in cases like this to editors rather than the actual author, I wish to empha- size that I did all the cutting and necessary rewriting for this Brief Edition myself. My guiding principle was to preserve the coverage, structure, and emphases of the regular edition and to compress the book by eliminating details of secondary importance, streamlining the narrative of events, and avoiding unnecessary repetition. While the book is significantly shorter, no subject treated in the full edition has been eliminated entirely and noth- ing essential, I believe, has been sacrificed. The sequence of chapters and subjects remains the same, and the freedom theme is present and operative throughout. In abridging the textbook I have retained the original interpretive framework as well as the new emphases added when the second and third editions of the book were published. The second edition incorporated new material about the history of Native Americans, an area of American his- tory that has been the subject of significant new scholarship in the past few years. It also devoted greater attention to the history of immigration and the controversies surrounding it—issues of considerable relevance to Amer- ican social and political life today. The most significant change in the third edition reflected my desire to place American history more fully in a global context. In the past few years, scholars writing about the American past have sought to delineate the influ- ences of the United States on the rest of the world as well as the global devel- opments that have helped to shape the course of events here at home. They have also devoted greater attention to transnational processes—the expan- sion of empires, international labor migrations, the rise and fall of slavery, the globalization of economic enterprise—that cannot be understood solely within the confines of one country’s national boundaries. Without seek- ing in any way to homogenize the history of individual nations or neglect the domestic forces that have shaped American development, this edition retains this emphasis. The most significant changes in this Fourth Edition reflect my desire to integrate more fully into the narrative the history of American religion. Today, this is a thriving subfield of American historical writing, partly because of the increased prominence in our own time of debates over the relations between government and religion and over the definition of reli- gious liberty—issues that are deeply rooted in the American experience. The Brief Edition also employs a bright new design for the text and its various elements. The popular Voices of Freedom feature—a pair of excerpts from primary source documents in each chapter that illuminate divergent inter- pretations of freedom—is present here. So too are the useful chapter opening P r e f a c e x x i focus questions, which appear in the running heads of the relevant text pages as well. There are chapter opening chronologies and end-of- chapter review pages with questions and key terms. As a new feature in the Brief Edition there are marginal glosses in the text pages that are meant to highlight key points and indicate the chapter structure for students. They are also useful means for review. The Brief Edition features more than 400 illustrations and over 100 captioned maps in easy to read four-color renditions. The Fur- ther Readings sections appear in the Appendix along with the Glossary and the collection of key documents. The Brief Edition is fully supported by the same array of print and electronic supplements that support the other edi- tions of Give Me Liberty! These materials have been revised to match the con- tent of the Brief Edition. Americans have always had a divided attitude toward history. On the one hand, they tend to be remarkably future-oriented, dismissing events of even the recent past as “ancient history” and sometimes seeing history as a bur- den to be overcome, a prison from which to escape. On the other hand, like many other peoples, Americans have always looked to history for a sense of personal or group identity and of national cohesiveness. This is why so many Americans devote time and energy to tracing their family trees and why they visit historical museums and National Park Service historical sites in ever-increasing numbers. My hope is that this book will help to con- vince readers with all degrees of interest that history does matter to them. The novelist and essayist James Baldwin once observed that history “does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, . . . [that] history is literally present in all that we do.” As Baldwin recognized, the power of history is evident in our own world. Especially in a political democracy like the United States, whose government is designed to rest on the consent of informed citizens, knowledge of the past is essential—not only for those of us whose profession is the teaching and writing of history, but for everyone. History, to be sure, does not offer simple lessons or imme- diate answers to current questions. Knowing the history of immigration to the United States, and all of the tensions, turmoil, and aspirations associated with it, for example, does not tell us what current immigration policy ought to be. But without that knowledge, we have no way of understanding which approaches have worked and which have not—essential information for the formulation of future public policy. History, it has been said, is what the present chooses to remember about the past. Rather than a fixed collection of facts, or a group of inter- pretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is con- stantly changing. There is nothing unusual in the fact that each generation rewrites history to meet its own needs, or that scholars disagree among x x i i Preface themselves on basic questions like the causes of the Civil War or the rea- sons for the Great Depression. Precisely because each generation asks dif- ferent questions of the past, each generation formulates different answers. The past thirty years have witnessed a remarkable expansion of the scope of historical study. The experiences of groups neglected by earlier scholars, including women, African-Americans, working people, and others, have received unprecedented attention from historians. New subfields—social history, cultural history, and family history among them—have taken their place alongside traditional political and diplomatic history. Give Me Liberty! draws on this voluminous historical literature to pres- ent an up-to-date and inclusive account of the American past, paying due attention to the experience of diverse groups of Americans while in no way neglecting the events and processes Americans have experienced in common. It devotes serious attention to political, social, cultural, and eco- nomic history, and to their interconnections. The narrative brings together major events and prominent leaders with the many groups of ordinary peo- ple who make up American society. Give Me Liberty! has a rich cast of char- acters, from Thomas Jefferson to campaigners for woman suffrage, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to former slaves seeking to breathe meaning into emancipation during and after the Civil War. The unifying theme of freedom that runs through the text gives shape to the narrative and integrates the numerous strands that make up the American experience. This approach builds on that of my earlier book, The Story of American Freedom (1998), although Give Me Liberty! places events and personalities in the foreground and is more geared to the structure of the introductory survey course. Freedom, and battles to define its meaning, has long been central to my own scholarship and undergraduate teaching, which focuses on the nineteenth century and especially the era of Civil War and Reconstruction (1850–1877). This was a time when the future of slavery tore the nation apart and emancipation produced a national debate over what rights the former slaves, and all Americans, should enjoy as free citizens. I have found that attention to clashing definitions of freedom and the struggles of differ- ent groups to achieve freedom as they understood it offers a way of mak- ing sense of the bitter battles and vast transformations of that pivotal era. I believe that the same is true for American history as a whole. No idea is more fundamental to Americans’ sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation than freedom. The central term in our politi- cal language, freedom—or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably—is deeply embedded in the record of our history and the language of everyday life. The Declaration of Independence lists liberty among mankind’s inalienable rights; the Constitution announces its pur- pose as securing liberty’s blessings. The United States fought the Civil War P r e f a c e x x i i i to bring about a new birth of freedom, World War II for the Four Freedoms, and the Cold War to defend the Free World. Americans’ love of liberty has been represented by liberty poles, liberty caps, and statues of liberty, and acted out by burning stamps and burning draft cards, by running away from slavery, and by demonstrating for the right to vote. “Every man in the street, white, black, red or yellow,” wrote the educator and statesman Ralph Bunche in 1940, “knows that this is ‘the land of the free’ . . . ‘the cradle of liberty.’” The very universality of the idea of freedom, however, can be mislead- ing. Freedom is not a fixed, timeless category with a single unchanging defi- nition. Indeed, the history of the United States is, in part, a story of debates, disagreements, and struggles over freedom. Crises like the American Revo- lution, the Civil War, and the Cold War have permanently transformed the idea of freedom. So too have demands by various groups of Americans to enjoy greater freedom. The meaning of freedom has been constructed not only in congressional debates and political treatises, but on plantations and picket lines, in parlors and even bedrooms. Over the course of our history, American freedom has been both a real- ity and a mythic ideal—a living truth for millions of Americans, a cruel mockery for others. For some, freedom has been what some scholars call a “habit of the heart,” an ideal so taken for granted that it is lived out but rarely analyzed. For others, freedom is not a birthright but a distant goal that has inspired great sacrifice. Give Me Liberty! draws attention to three dimensions of freedom that have been critical in American history: (1) the meanings of freedom; (2) the social conditions that make freedom possible; and (3) the boundaries of free- dom that determine who is entitled to enjoy freedom and who is not. All have changed over time. In the era of the American Revolution, for example, freedom was pri- marily a set of rights enjoyed in public activity—including the right of a com- munity to be governed by laws to which its representatives had consented and of individuals to engage in religious worship without governmental interference. In the nineteenth century, freedom came to be closely identi- fied with each person’s opportunity to develop to the fullest his or her innate talents. In the twentieth, the “ability to choose,” in both public and private life, became perhaps the dominant understanding of freedom. This develop- ment was encouraged by the explosive growth of the consumer marketplace which offered Americans an unprecedented array of goods with which to satisfy their needs and desires. During the 1960s, a crucial chapter in the history of American freedom, the idea of personal freedom was extended into virtually every realm, from attire and “lifestyle” to relations between the sexes. Thus, over time, more and more areas of life have been drawn into Americans’ debates about the meaning of freedom. x x i v Preface A second important dimension of freedom focuses on the social con- ditions necessary to allow freedom to flourish. What kinds of economic institutions and relationships best encourage individual freedom? In the colonial era and for more than a century after independence, the answer centered on economic autonomy, enshrined in the glorification of the inde- pendent small producer—the farmer, skilled craftsman, or shopkeeper— who did not have to depend on another person for his livelihood. As the industrial economy matured, new conceptions of economic freedom came to the fore: “liberty of contract” in the Gilded Age, “industrial freedom” (a say in corporate decision making) in the Progressive era, economic security during the New Deal, and, more recently, the ability to enjoy mass consump- tion within a market economy. The boundaries of freedom, the third dimension of this theme, have inspired some of the most intense struggles in American history. Although founded on the premise that liberty is an entitlement of all humanity, the United States for much of its history deprived many of its own people of free- dom. Non-whites have rarely enjoyed the same access to freedom as white Americans. The belief in equal opportunity as the birthright of all Ameri- cans has coexisted with persistent efforts to limit freedom by race, gender, class, and in other ways. Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that one person’s freedom has fre- quently been linked to another’s servitude. In the colonial era and nine- teenth century, expanding freedom for many Americans rested on the lack of freedom—slavery, indentured servitude, the subordinate position of women—for others. By the same token, it has been through battles at the boundaries—the efforts of racial minorities, women, and others to secure greater freedom—that the meaning and experience of freedom have been deepened and the concept extended into new realms. Time and again in American history, freedom has been transformed by the demands of excluded groups for inclusion. The idea of freedom as a universal birthright owes much to abolitionists who sought to extend the blessings of liberty to blacks and to immigrant groups who insisted on full recognition as American citizens. The principle of equal protection of the law without regard to race, which became a central element of American freedom, arose from the antislavery struggle and Civil War and was rein- vigorated by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, which called itself the “freedom movement.” The battle for the right of free speech by labor radicals and birth control advocates in the first part of the twentieth century helped to make civil liberties an essential element of freedom for all Americans. Freedom is the oldest of clichés and the most modern of aspirations. At various times in our history, it has served as the rallying cry of the power- less and as a justification of the status quo. Freedom helps to bind our cul- ture together and exposes the contradictions between what America claims P r e f a c e x x v to be and what it sometimes has been. American history is not a narrative of continual progress toward greater and greater freedom. As the abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson noted after the Civil War, “revolutions may go backward.” While freedom can be achieved, it may also be taken away. This happened, for example, when the equal rights granted to former slaves immediately after the Civil War were essentially nullified during the era of segregation. As was said in the eighteenth century, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. In the early twenty-first century, freedom continues to play a central role in our political and social life and thought. It is invoked by individuals and groups of all kinds, from critics of economic globalization to those who seek to export American freedom overseas. As with the longer version of the book, I hope that this Brief Edition of Give Me Liberty! will offer begin- ning students a clear account of the course of American history, and of its central theme, freedom, which today remains as varied, contentious, and ever-changing as America itself. x x v i Preface A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S All works of history are, to a considerable extent, collaborative books, in that every writer builds on the research and writing of previous scholars. This is especially true of a textbook that covers the entire American experience, over more than five centuries. My greatest debt is to the innumerable histo- rians on whose work I have drawn in preparing this volume. The Suggested Reading list in the Appendix offers only a brief introduction to the vast body of historical scholarship that has influenced and informed this book. More specifically, however, I wish to thank the following scholars, who gener- ously read portions of this work and offered valuable comments, criticisms, and suggestions: Wayne Ackerson, Salisbury University Mary E. Adams, City College of San Francisco Jeff Adler, University of Florida David Anderson, Louisiana Tech University John Barr, Lone Star College, Kingwood Lauren Braun-Strumfels, Raritan Valley Community College James Broussard, Lebanon Valley College Michael Bryan, Greenville Technical College Stephanie Cole, The University of Texas at Arlington Ashley Cruseturner, McLennan Community College Jim Dudlo, Brookhaven College Beverly Gage, Yale University Monica Gisolfi, University of North Carolina, Wilmington Adam Goudsouzian, University of Memphis Mike Green, Community College of Southern Nevada Vanessa Gunther, California State University, Fullerton David E. Hamilton, University of Kentucky Brian Harding, Mott Community College Sandra Harvey, Lone Star College–Cy Fair April Holm, University of Mississippi David Hsiung, Juniata College James Karmel, Harford Community College Kelly Knight, Penn State University Marianne Leeper, Trinity Valley Community College Jeffrey K. Lucas, University of North Carolina at Pembroke Tina Margolis, Westchester Community College Kent McGaughy, HCC Northwest College James Mills, University of Texas, Brownsville Gil Montemayor, McLennan Community College Jonathan Noyalas, Lord Fairfax Community College Robert M. O’Brien, Lone Star College–Cy Fair P r e f a c e x x v i i Joseph Palermo, California State University, Sacramento Ann Plane, University of California, Santa Barbara Nancy Marie Robertson, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Esther Robinson, Lone Star College–Cy Fair Richard Samuelson, California State University, San Bernadino Diane Sager, Maple Woods Community College John Shaw, Portland Community College Mark Spencer, Brock University David Stebenne, Ohio State University Judith Stein, City College, City University of New York George Stevens, Duchess Community College Robert Tinkler, California State University, Chico Elaine Thompson, Louisiana Tech University David Weiman, Barnard College William Young, Maple Woods Community College I am particularly grateful to my colleagues in the Columbia University Department of History: Pablo Piccato, for his advice on Latin American his- tory; Evan Haefeli and Ellen Baker, who read and made many suggestions for improvements in their areas of expertise (colonial America and the history of the West, respectively); and Sarah Phillips, who offered advice on treating the history of the environment. I am also deeply indebted to the graduate students at Columbia Univer- sity’s Department of History who helped with this project. Theresa Ventura offered invaluable assistance in gathering material for the new sections plac- ing American history in a global context. April Holm provided similar assis- tance for new coverage in this edition of the history of American religion and debates over religious freedom. James Delbourgo conducted research for the chapters on the colonial era. Beverly Gage did the same for the twenti- eth century. Daniel Freund provided all-round research assistance. Victoria Cain did a superb job of locating images. I also want to thank my colleagues Elizabeth Blackmar and Alan Brinkley for offering advice and encourage- ment throughout the writing of this book. Many thanks to Joshua Brown, director of the American Social History Project, whose website, History Matters, lists innumerable online resources for the study of American history. Nancy Robertson at IUIPUI did a superb job revising and enhancing the in-book pedagogy. Monica Gisolfi (Univer- sity of North Carolina, Wilmington) and Robert Tinkler (California State University, Chico) did excellent work on the Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank. Kathleen Thomas (University of Wisconsin, Stout) helped greatly in the revisions of the companion media packages. x x v i i i Preface At W. W. Norton & Company, Steve Forman was an ideal editor— patient, encouraging, and always ready to offer sage advice. I would also like to thank Steve’s assistants, Justin Cahill and Penelope Lin, for their indispensable and always cheerful help on all aspects of the project; Ellen Lohman and Debbie Nichols for their careful copyediting and proof read- ing work. Stephanie Romeo and Donna Ranieri for their resourceful atten- tion to the illustrations program; Hope Miller Goodell and Chin-Yee Lai for their refinements of the book design; Mike Fodera and Debra Morton-Hoyt for splendid work on the covers for the Fourth Edition; Kim Yi for keep- ing the many threads of the project aligned and then tying them together; Sean Mintus for his efficiency and care in book production; Steve Hoge for orchestrating the rich media package that accompanies the textbook; Jessica Brannon-Wranosky, Texas A&M University–Commerce, our digital media author for the terrific new web quizzes and outlines; Volker Janssen, Cali- fornia State University, Fullerton, for the helpful new online reading exer- cises; Nicole Netherton, Steve Dunn, and Mike Wright for their alert reads of the U.S. survey market and their hard work in helping establish Give Me Liberty! within it; and Drake McFeely, Roby Harrington, and Julia Reidhead for maintaining Norton as an independent, employee-owned publisher ded- icated to excellence in its work. Many students may have heard stories of how publishing companies alter the language and content of textbooks in an attempt to maximize sales and avoid alienating any potential reader. In this case, I can honestly say that W. W. Norton allowed me a free hand in writing the book and, apart from the usual editorial corrections, did not try to influence its content at all. For this I thank them, while I accept full responsibility for the interpretations pre- sented and for any errors the book may contain. Since no book of this length can be entirely free of mistakes, I welcome readers to send me corrections at [email protected]. My greatest debt, as always, is to my family—my wife, Lynn Garafola, for her good-natured support while I was preoccupied by a project that con- sumed more than its fair share of my time and energy, and my daughter, Daria, who while a ninth and tenth grader read every chapter as it was writ- ten and offered invaluable suggestions about improving the book’s clarity, logic, and grammar. Eric Foner New York City July 2013 P r e f a c e x x i x G I V E M E L I B E R T Y ! A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y  B r i e f F o u r t h E d i t i o n 1865 Special Field Order 15 C H A P T E R 1 5 Freedmen’s Bureau established Lincoln assassinated; Andrew Johnson becomes president 1865– Presidential Reconstruction 1867 Black Codes “ W H A T I S 1866 Civil Rights Bill Ku Klux Klan established 1867 Reconstruction Act of 1867 F R E E D O M ? ” Tenure of Office Act 1867– Radical Reconstruction 1877  1868 Impeachment and trial of President Johnson Fourteenth Amendment ratified R E C O N S T R U C T I O N , 1 8 6 5 – 1 8 7 7 1869 Inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant 1870 Hiram Revels, first black U.S. senator Fifteenth Amendment ratified 1870– Enforcement Acts 1871 1872 Liberal Republicans established 1873 Colfax Massacre Slaughterhouse Cases National economic depression begins 1876 United States v. Cruikshank 1877 Bargain of 1877 The Shackle Broken—by the Genius of Freedom. This 1874 lithograph depicts Robert B. Elliott, a black congressman from South Carolina, delivering celebrated speech supporting the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1875. F O C U S On the evening of January 12, 1865, less than a month after Union forces captured Savannah, Georgia, twenty leaders of the city’s black community gathered for a discussion with General William T. Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. The con- Q U E S T I O N S versation revealed that the black leaders brought out of slavery a clear definition of freedom. Asked what he understood by slavery, Garrison s Frazier, a Baptist minister chosen as the group’s spokesman, responded did the former slaves and that it meant one person’s “receiving by irresistible power the work of slaveholders pursue in the another man, and not by his consent.” Freedom he defined as “placing postwar South? us where we could reap the fruit of our own labor, and take care of our- selves.” The way to accomplish this was “to have land, and turn it and till s it by our own labor.” visions of Reconstruction? Sherman’s meeting with the black leaders foreshadowed some of the radical changes that would take place during the era known s as Reconstruction (meaning, literally, the rebuilding of the shattered political effects of Radi- nation). In the years following the Civil War, former slaves and their cal Reconstruction in the white allies, North and South, would seek to redefine the meaning and South? boundaries of American freedom. Previously an entitlement of whites, freedom would be expanded to include black Americans. The laws and s Constitution would be rewritten to guarantee African-Americans, for tors, in both the North and the first time in the nation’s history, recognition as citizens and equality South, for the abandon- before the law. Black men would be granted the right to vote, ushering ment of Reconstruction? in a period of interracial democracy throughout the South. Black schools, churches, and other institutions would flourish, laying the foundation for the modern African-American community. Many of the advances of Reconstruction would prove temporary, swept away during a campaign of violence in the South and the North’s retreat from the ideal of equal- ity. But Reconstruction laid the foundation for future struggles to extend freedom to all Americans. Four days after the meeting, Sherman responded to the black delegation by issuing Special Field Order 15. This set aside the Sea Islands and a large area along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts for the settlement of black families on forty-acre plots of land. He also offered them broken-down mules that the army could no longer use. In Sherman’s order lay the origins of the phrase, “forty acres and a mule,” which would reverberate across the South in the next few years. Among the emancipated slaves, Sherman’s order raised hopes that the end of slavery would be accompanied by the economic independence that they, like other Americans, believed essential to genuine freedom. 442 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South? T H E M E A N I N G O F F R E E D O M “What is freedom?” asked Congressman James A. Garfield in 1865. “Is it the bare privilege of not being chained? If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion.” Did freedom mean simply the absence of slavery, or did it imply other rights for the former slaves, and if so, which ones? Equal civil rights, the vote, ownership of property? During Reconstruction, freedom became a terrain of conflict, its substance open to different, often contradictory interpretations. Conflicts over freedom African-Americans’ understanding of freedom was shaped by their experiences as slaves and their observation of the free society around them. To begin with, freedom meant escaping the numerous injustices of slavery—punishment by the lash, the separation of families, denial of access to education, the sexual exploitation of black women by their owners—and sharing in the rights and opportunities of American citizens. “If I cannot do like a white man,” Henry Adams, an emancipated slave in Family Record, a lithograph marketed Louisiana, told his former master in 1865, “I am not free.” to former slaves after the Civil War, centers on an idealized portrait of a middle-class black family, with scenes of slavery and freedom. F a m i l i e s i n F r e e d o m With slavery dead, institutions that had existed before the war, like the black family, free blacks’ churches and schools, and the secret slave church, were strength- ened, expanded, and freed from white supervision. The family was central to the postemancipation black community. Former slaves made remarkable efforts to locate loved ones from whom they had been separated under slavery. One northern reporter in 1865 encoun- tered a freedman who had walked more than 600 miles from Georgia to North Carolina, searching for the wife and children from whom he had been sold away before the war. While freedom helped to stabilize family life, it also subtly altered relationships within the family. Immediately after the Civil War, planters complained that freedwomen had “withdrawn” from field labor and work as house servants. Many black women preferred to devote more time to their families than had been pos- sible under slavery, and men considered it a badge of T H E M E A N I N G O F F R E E D O M 443 honor to see their wives remain at home. Eventually, the dire poverty of the black community would compel a far higher proportion of black women than white women to go to work for wages. C h u r c h a n d S c h o o l At the same time, blacks abandoned white-controlled religious institutions to create churches of their own. On the eve of the Civil War, 42,000 black Methodists worshiped in biracial South Carolina churches; by the end of Reconstruction, only 600 remained. As the major institution independent of white control, the church Five Generations of a Black Family, played a central role in the black community. A place of worship, it also an 1862 photograph that suggests housed schools, social events, and political gatherings. Black ministers the power of family ties among came to play a major role in politics. Some 250 held public office during emancipated slaves. Reconstruction. Another striking example of the freedpeople’s quest for individual and community improvement was their desire for education. The thirst for learn- ing sprang from many sources—a desire to read the Bible, the need to prepare for the economic marketplace, and the opportunity, which arose in 1867, to take part in politics. Blacks of all ages flocked to the schools established by Mother and Daughter Reading, Mt. Meigs, Alabama, an 1890 northern missionary societies, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and groups of ex- photograph by Rudolph Eickemeyer. slaves themselves. Reconstruction also witnessed the creation of the nation’s During Reconstruction and for years first black colleges, including Fisk University in Tennessee, Hampton thereafter, former slaves exhibited Institute in Virginia, and Howard University in the nation’s capital. a deep desire for education, and learning took place outside of school as well as within. P o l i t i c a l F r e e d o m In a society that had made political participation a core element of freedom, the right to vote inevitably became central to the former slaves’ desire for empowerment and equality. As Frederick Douglass put it soon after the South’s surrender in 1865, “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” In a “monarchial government,” Douglass explained, no “special” disgrace applied to those denied the right to vote. But in a democ- racy, “where universal suffrage is the rule,” excluding any group meant branding them with “the stigma of inferiority.” Anything less than full citizenship, black spokesmen insisted, would betray the nation’s democratic promise and the war’s meaning. To demon- strate their patriotism, blacks throughout the South organized Fourth of July celebrations. For years after the Civil War, white southerners would 444 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South? The First African Church, Richmond, as depicted in Harper’s Weekly, June 27, 1874. The establishment of independent black churches was an enduring accomplishment of Reconstruction. “shut themselves within doors” on Independence Day, as a white resident of Charleston recorded in her diary, while former slaves commemorated the holiday themselves. L a n d , L a b o r , a n d F r e e d o m Like those of rural people throughout the world, former slaves’ ideas of freedom were directly related to landownership. On the land they would Freedom and landownership develop independent communities free of white control. Many former slaves insisted that through their unpaid labor, they had acquired a right to the land. “The property which they hold,” declared an Alabama black con- vention, “was nearly all earned by the sweat of our brows.” In some parts of the South, blacks in 1865 seized property, insisting that it belonged to them. In its individual elements and much of its language, former slaves’ definition of freedom resembled that of white Americans—self-ownership, Freedom’s meaning for former slaves family stability, religious liberty, political participation, and economic autonomy. But these elements combined to form a vision very much their own. For whites, freedom, no matter how defined, was a given, a birthright to be defended. For African-Americans, it was an open-ended process, a transformation of every aspect of their lives and of the society and cul- ture that had sustained slavery in the first place. Although the freedpeople failed to achieve full freedom as they understood it, their definition did much to shape national debate during the turbulent era of Reconstruction. M a s t e r s w i t h o u t S l a v e s Most white southerners reacted to military defeat and emancipation with The southern white reaction to dismay, not only because of the widespread devastation but also because emancipation they must now submit to northern demands. “The demoralization is T H E M E A N I N G O F F R E E D O M 445 Two maps of the Barrow plantation illustrate the effects of emancipation T H E B A R R O W P L A N T A T I O N on rural life in the South. In 1860, 1860 1881 slaves lived in communal quarters near the owner’s house. Twenty years later, former slaves working as Sabrina sharecroppers lived scattered across Dalton the plantation and had their own Lizzie Dalton iver iver church and school. Frank Maxey Joe Bug Jim Reid ittle R ittle R L W L r Wr Nancy Pope ig i h g t h 's t 's Cane Pope B Church r B an Gus Barrow ra c School Willis n h c Bryant h Gin House Lem Bryant Gin House Lewis Watson Tom Wright Reuben Barrow Ben Thomas Omy Barrow "Granny" Slave Peter Tom Landlord’s Quarters Master's Barrow Thomas House House Milly Barrow Handy Barrow Old Isaac Calvin Tom Tang Branch Creek Parker Branch Creek Beckton Barrow Syll's Fork Syll's Fork Lem Douglas complete,” wrote a Georgia girl. “We are whipped, there is no doubt about it.” The appalling loss of life, a disaster without parallel in the American Confederate deaths experience, affected all classes of southerners. Nearly 260,000 men died for the Confederacy—more than one-fifth of the South’s adult male white population. The widespread destruction of work animals, farm buildings, and machinery ensured that economic revival would be slow and painful. In 1870, the value of property in the South, not counting that represented by slaves, was 30 percent lower than before the war. Planter families faced profound changes in the war’s aftermath. Many Planters lost not only their slaves but their life savings, which they had patrioti- cally invested in now-worthless Confederate bonds. Some, whose slaves departed the plantation, for the first time found themselves compelled to do physical labor. Southern planters sought to implement an understanding of freedom quite different from that of the former slaves. As they struggled to accept the reality of emancipation, most planters defined black freedom in the narrowest manner. As journalist Sidney Andrews discovered late in 1865, “The whites seem wholly unable to comprehend that freedom for the negro means the same thing as freedom for them.” 446 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South? T h e F r e e L a b o r V i s i o n Along with former slaves and former masters, the victorious Republican North tried to implement its own vision of freedom. Central to its defini- tion was the antebellum principle of free labor, now further strengthened as a definition of the good society by the Union’s triumph. In the free labor Free labor and the good society vision of a reconstructed South, emancipated blacks, enjoying the same opportunities for advancement as northern workers, would labor more productively than they had as slaves. At the same time, northern capital and migrants would energize the economy. The South would eventually come to resemble the “free society” of the North, complete with public schools, small towns, and independent farmers. With planters seeking to establish a labor system as close to slavery as possible, and former slaves demanding economic autonomy and access to land, a long period of conflict over the organization and control of labor followed on plantations throughout the South. It fell to the Freedmen’s Winslow Homer’s 1876 painting , A Bureau, an agency established by Congress in March 1865, to attempt to Visit from the Old Mistress, depicts an imaginary meeting between a establish a working free labor system. southern white woman and her former slaves. Their stance and gaze suggest the tensions arising from the birth T h e F r e e d m e n ’ s B u r e a u of a new social order. Homer places his subjects on an equal footing, Under the direction of O. O. Howard, a graduate of Bowdoin College in yet maintains a space of separation Maine and a veteran of the Civil War, the bureau took on responsibilities between them. He exhibited the that can only be described as daunting. The bureau was an experiment in painting to acclaim at the Paris government social policy that seems to belong more comfortably to the Universal Exposition in 1878. New Deal of the 1930s or the Great Society of the 1960s (see Chapters 21 and 25, respec- tively) than to nineteenth-century America. Bureau agents were supposed to establish schools, provide aid to the poor and aged, settle disputes between whites and blacks and among the freedpeople, and secure for former slaves and white Unionists equal treatment before the courts. “It is not . . . in your power to fulfill one-tenth of the expec- tations of those who framed the Bureau,” General William T. Sherman wrote to Howard. “I fear you have Hercules’ task.” The bureau lasted from 1865 to 1870. Even at its peak, there were fewer than T H E M E A N I N G O F F R E E D O M 447 The Freedmen’s Bureau, an engraving from Harper’s Weekly, July 25, 1868, depicts the bureau agent as a promoter of racial peace in the violent postwar South. Achievements of the 1,000 agents in the entire South. Nonetheless, the bureau’s achievements Freedmen’s Bureau in some areas, notably education and health care, were striking. By 1869, nearly 3,000 schools, serving more than 150,000 pupils in the South, reported to the bureau. Bureau agents also ran hospitals established dur- ing the war and provided medical care and drugs to both black and white southerners. T h e F a i l u r e o f L a n d R e f o r m One provision of the law establishing the bureau gave it the authority to divide abandoned and confiscated land into forty-acre plots for rental and eventual sale to the former slaves. In the summer of 1865, however, President Andrew Johnson and land Andrew Johnson, who had succeeded Lincoln, ordered nearly all land in reform federal hands returned to its former owners. A series of confrontations followed, notably in South Carolina and Georgia, where the army forcibly evicted blacks who had settled on “Sherman land.” When O. O. Howard, head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, traveled to the Sea Islands to inform blacks of the new policy, he was greeted with disbelief and protest. A committee of former slaves drew up petitions to Howard and President Johnson. Land, the freedmen insisted, was essential to the meaning of freedom. Without it, they declared, “we have not bettered our condition” from the days of slavery—“you will see, this is not the condition of really free men.” Because no land distribution took place, the vast majority of rural freedpeople remained poor and without property during Reconstruction. 448 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South? They had no alternative but to work on white-owned plantations, often for their former owners. Far from being able to rise in the social scale through hard work, black men were largely confined to farm work, unskilled labor, and service jobs, and black women to positions in pri- vate homes as cooks and maids. The failure of land reform produced a deep sense of betrayal that survived among the former slaves and their descendants long after the end of Reconstruction. “No sir,” Mary Gaffney, an elderly ex-slave, recalled in the 1930s, “we were not given a thing but freedom.” Out of the conflict on the plantations, new systems of labor emerged in the different regions of the South. Sharecropping came to dominate the Cotton Belt and much of the Tobacco Belt of Virginia and North Carolina. Sharecropping initially arose as a compromise between blacks’ desire for land and planters’ demand for labor discipline. The system allowed each A nursemaid and her charge, from a black family to rent a part of a plantation, with the crop divided between daguerreotype around 1865. worker and owner at the end of the year. Sharecropping guaranteed the planters a stable resident labor force. Former slaves preferred it to gang labor because it offered them the prospect of working without day-to- day white supervision. But as the years went on, sharecropping became more and more oppressive. Sharecroppers’ economic opportunities were severely limited by a world market in which the price of farm products suffered a prolonged decline. T h e W h i t e F a r m e r The plight of the small farmer was not confined to blacks in the postwar South. Wartime devastation set in motion a train of events that perma- nently altered the independent way of life of white yeomen, leading to what they considered a loss of freedom. To obtain supplies from mer- chants, farmers were forced to take up the growing of cotton and pledge a part of the crop as collateral (property the creditor can seize if a debt is not paid). This system became known as the “crop lien.” Since interest rates The crop-lien system were extremely high and the price of cotton fell steadily, many farmers found themselves still in debt after marketing their portion of the crop at year’s end. They had no choice but to continue to plant cotton to obtain new loans. By the mid-1870s, white farmers, who cultivated only 10 percent of the South’s cotton crop in 1860, were growing 40 percent, and many who had owned their land had fallen into dependency as sharecroppers who now rented land owned by others. Both black and white farmers found themselves caught in the share- The burden of debt cropping and crop-lien systems. The workings of sharecropping and the T H E M E A N I N G O F F R E E D O M 449 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m P e t i t i o n o f C o m m i t t e e i n B e h a l f o f t h e F r e e d m e n t o A n d r e w J o h n s o n ( 1 8 6 5 ) In the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson ordered land that had been distributed to freed slaves in South Carolina and Georgia returned to its former owners. A committee of freedmen drafted a petition asking for the right to obtain land. Johnson did not, however, change his policy. We the freedmen of Edisto Island, South Carolina, have learned from you through Major General O. O. Howard . . . with deep sorrow and painful hearts of the possibility of [the] government restoring these lands to the former owners. We are well aware of the many perplexing and trying questions that burden your mind, and therefore pray to god (the preserver of all, and who has through our late and beloved President [Lincoln’s] proclamation and the war made us a free people) that he may guide you in making your decisions and give you that wisdom that cometh from above to settle these great and important questions for the best interests of the country and the colored race. Here is where secession was born and nurtured. Here is where we have toiled nearly all our lives as slaves and treated like dumb driven cattle. This is our home, we have made these lands what they were, we are the only true and loyal people that were found in possession of these lands. We have been always ready to strike for liberty and humanity, yea to fight if need be to preserve this glorious Union. Shall not we who are freedmen and have always been true to this Union have the same rights as are enjoyed by others? . . . Are not our rights as a free people and good citizens of these United States to be considered before those who were found in rebellion against this good and just government? . . . [Are] we who have been abused and oppressed for many long years not to be allowed the privilege of purchasing land but be subject to the will of these large land owners? God forbid. Land monopoly is injurious to the advancement of the course of freedom, and if government does not make some provision by which we as freedmen can obtain a homestead, we have not bettered our condition. . . . We look to you . . . for protection and equal rights with the privilege of purchasing a homestead—a homestead right here in the heart of South Carolina. 450 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” F r o m a S h a r e c r o p p i n g C o n t r a c t ( 1 8 6 6 ) Few former slaves were able to acquire land in the post–Civil War South. Most ended up as sharecroppers, working on white-owned land for a share of the crop at the end of the growing season. This contract, typical of thousands of others, originated in Tennessee. The laborers signed with an X, as they were illiterate. Thomas J. Ross agrees to employ the Freedmen to plant and raise a crop on his Rosstown Plantation. . . . On the following Rules, Regulations and Remunerations. The said Ross agrees to furnish the land to cultivate, and a sufficient number of mules & horses and feed them to make and house said crop and all necessary farming utensils to carry on the same and to give unto said Freedmen whose names appear below one half of all the cotton, corn and wheat that is raised on said place for the year 1866 after all the necessary expenses are deducted out that accrues on said crop. Outside of the Freedmen’s labor in harvesting, carrying to market and selling the same the said Freedmen . . . covenant and agrees to and with said Thomas J. Ross that for and in consideration of one half of the crop before mentioned that they will plant, cultivate, and raise under the management control and Superintendence of said Ross, in good faith, a cotton, corn and oat crop under his management for the year 1866. And we the said Freedmen agrees to furnish ourselves & families in provisions, clothing, medicine and medical bills and all, and every kind of other expenses that we may incur on said plantation for the year 1866 free of charge to said Ross. Should the said Ross furnish us any of the above supplies or any other kind of expenses, during said year, [we] are to settle and pay him out of the net proceeds of our part of the crop the retail price of the county at time of sale or any price we may agree upon—The said Ross shall keep a regular book account, against each and every one or the head of every family to be adjusted and settled at the end of the year. We furthermore bind ourselves to and with said Ross that we will do good work and labor ten hours a day on an average, winter and summer. . . . We further agree that we will lose all lost time, or pay at the rate of one dollar per day, rainy days excepted. In sickness and women lying in childbed are to lose the time and account for it to the other hands out Q U E S T I O N S of his or her part of the crop. . . . We furthermore bind ourselves that we will 1. Why do the black petitioners believe obey the orders of said Ross in all things in carrying that owning land is essential to the out and managing said crop for said year and be enjoyment of freedom? docked for disobedience . . . and are also respon- sible to said Ross if we carelessly, maliciously 2. In what ways does the contract limit maltreat any of his stock for said year to said Ross the freedom of the laborers? for damages to be assessed out of our wages. Samuel (X) Johnson, Thomas (X) Richard, 3. What do these documents suggest Tinny (X) Fitch, Jessie (X) Simmons, Sophe (X) about competing definitions of black Pruden, Henry (X) Pruden, Frances (X) Pruden, freedom in the aftermath of slavery? Elijah (X) Smith. V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 451 S H A R E C R O P P I N G I N T H E S O U T H , 1 8 8 0 Percentage of farms sharecropped (by county) 35–80% 26–34% 20–25% 13–19% 0–12% VIRGINIA NORTH CAROLINA TENNESSEE ARKANSAS SOUTH CAROLINA GEORGIA TEXAS MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA A t l a n t i c LOUISIANA O c e a n FLORIDA Gulf of Mexico 0 150 200 miles 0 150 200 kilometers By 1880, sharecropping had become crop-lien system are illustrated by the case of Matt Brown, a Mississippi the dominant form of agricultural farmer who borrowed money each year from a local merchant. He began labor in large parts of the South. The system involved both white and black 1892 with a debt of $226 held over from the previous year. By 1893, farmers. although he produced cotton worth $171, Brown’s debt had increased to $402, because he had borrowed $33 for food, $29 for clothing, $173 for supplies, and $112 for other items. Brown never succeeded in getting out of debt. He died in 1905; the last entry under his name in the merchant’s account book is a coffin. Even as the rural South stagnated economically, southern cities expe- Growth of southern cities rienced remarkable growth after the Civil War. As railroads penetrated the interior, they enabled merchants in market centers like Atlanta to trade directly with the North, bypassing coastal cities that had traditionally monopolized southern commerce. A new urban middle class of merchants, railroad promoters, and bankers reaped the benefits of the spread of cotton production in the postwar South. 452 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What visions of freedom did the former slaves and slaveholders pursue in the postwar South? The cotton depot at Guthrie, Texas. Bales of cotton have been loaded onto trains for shipment. After the Civil War, more and more white farmers began growing cotton to support their families, permanently altering their formerly self-sufficient way of life. A f t e r m a t h o f S l a v e r y The United States, of course, was not the only society to confront the prob- lem of the transition from slavery to freedom. Indeed, many parallels exist Emancipation in the Western between the debates during Reconstruction and struggles that followed Hemisphere slavery in other parts of the Western Hemisphere over the same issues of land, control of labor, and political power. Planters elsewhere held the same stereotypical views of black laborers as were voiced by their coun- terparts in the United States—former slaves were supposedly lazy and lacking in ambition, and thought that freedom meant an absence of labor. For their part, former slaves throughout the hemisphere tried to carve Chinese laborers at work on out as much independence as possible, both in their daily lives and in their a Louisiana plantation during Reconstruction. labor. On small Caribbean islands like Barbados, where no unoccupied land existed, former slaves had no alternative but to return to plantation labor. Elsewhere, the plantations either fell to pieces, as in Haiti, or continued operating with a new labor force composed of indentured ser- vants from India and China, as in Jamaica, Trinidad, and British Guiana. Southern planters in the United States brought in a few Chinese laborers in an attempt to replace freedmen, but since the federal government opposed such efforts, the Chinese remained only a tiny proportion of the southern workforce. But if struggles over land and labor united its poste- mancipation experience with that of other societies, in T H E M E A N I N G O F F R E E D O M 453 one respect the United States was unique. Only in the United States were former slaves, within two years of the end of slavery, granted the right Emancipation and the to vote and, thus, given a major share of political power. Few anticipated right to vote this development when the Civil War ended. It came about as the result of one of the greatest political crises of American history—the battle between President Andrew Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction. The struggle resulted in profound changes in the nature of citizenship, the structure of constitutional authority, and the meaning of American freedom. T H E M A K I N G O F R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N A n d r e w J o h n s o n To Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, fell the task of overseeing the restoration of the Union. Born in poverty in North Carolina, as a youth Johnson’s background Johnson worked as a tailor’s apprentice. Becoming a successful politician after moving to Tennessee, Johnson identified himself as the champion of his state’s “honest yeomen” and a foe of large planters, whom he described as a “bloated, corrupted aristocracy.” A strong defender of the Union, he became the only senator from a seceding state to remain at his post in Washington, D.C., when the Civil War began in 1861. When northern forces occupied Tennessee, Abraham Lincoln named him military gov- ernor. In 1864, Republicans nominated him to run for vice president as a symbol of the party’s hope of extending its organization into the South. Outlook In personality and outlook, Johnson proved unsuited for the respon- sibilities he shouldered after Lincoln’s death. A lonely, stubborn man, he was intolerant of criticism and unable to compromise. He lacked Lincoln’s political skills and keen sense of public opinion. Moreover, while Johnson had supported emancipation once Lincoln made it a goal of the war effort, he held deeply racist views. African-Americans, Johnson believed, had no role to play in Reconstruction. T h e F a i l u r e o f P r e s i d e n t i a l R e c o n s t r u c t i o n A little over a month after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and with Congress out of session until December, Johnson in May 1865 outlined his plan for reuniting the nation. He issued a series of proclamations that 454 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the competing visions of Reconstruction? began the period of Presidential Reconstruction (1865–1867). Johnson offered a pardon (which restored political and property rights, except for Johnson’s program slaves) to nearly all white southerners who took an oath of allegiance. He excluded Confederate leaders and wealthy planters whose prewar property had been valued at more than $20,000. Most of those exempted, however, soon received individual pardons from the president. Johnson also appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state con- ventions, elected by whites alone, that would establish loyal governments in the South. Apart from the requirement that they abolish slavery, repu- diate secession, and refuse to pay the Confederate debt—all unavoidable consequences of southern defeat—he granted the new governments a free hand in managing local affairs. The conduct of the southern governments elected under Johnson’s program turned most of the Republican North against the president. By and large, white voters returned prominent Confederates and members of the old elite to power. Reports of violence directed against former slaves and northern visitors in the South further alarmed Republicans. T h e B l a c k C o d e s But what aroused the most opposition to Johnson’s Reconstruction policy were the Black Codes, laws passed by the new southern governments that attempted to regulate the lives of the former slaves. These laws granted Regulating former slaves blacks certain rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts. But they denied them the rights to testify Selling a Freedman to Pay His Fine at Monticello, Florida, an engraving from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, January 19, 1867. Under the Black Codes enacted by southern legislatures immediately after the Civil War, blacks convicted of “vagrancy”—often because they refused to sign contracts to work on plantations—were fined and, if unable to pay, auctioned off to work for the person who paid the fine. T H E M A K I N G O F R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N 455 against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, or to vote. And in response to planters’ demands that the freedpeople be required to work on the plantations, the Black Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts could be arrested and hired out to white landowners. Clearly, the death of slavery did not automatically mean the birth of freedom. But the Black Codes so completely violated free labor principles Reaction to Black Codes that they called forth a vigorous response from the Republican North. In general, few groups of rebels in history have been treated more leniently than the defeated Confederates. A handful of southern leaders were arrested, but most were quickly released. Only one was executed—Henry Wirz, the commander of Andersonville prison, where thousands of Union prisoners of war had died. Most of the Union army was swiftly demobilized. What moti- vated the North’s turn against Johnson’s policies was not a desire to “punish” the white South, but the inability of the South’s political leaders to accept the reality of emancipation as evidenced by the Black Codes. T h e R a d i c a l R e p u b l i c a n s When Congress assembled in December 1865, Johnson announced that with loyal governments functioning in all the southern states, the nation had been reunited. In response, Radical Republicans, who had grown increas- ingly disenchanted with Johnson during the summer and fall, called for the dissolution of these governments and the establishment of new ones with “rebels” excluded from power and black men guaranteed the right to vote. Thaddeus Stevens, leader of Radicals shared the conviction that Union victory created a golden opportu- the Radical Republicans in the nity to institutionalize the principle of equal rights for all, regardless of race. House of Representatives during Reconstruction. The most prominent Radicals in Congress were Charles Sumner, a senator from Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Stevens, a lawyer and iron manufacturer who represented Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives. Before the Civil War, both had been outspoken foes of slavery and defenders of black rights. Stevens’s most cherished aim was to confiscate the land of disloyal planters and divide it among former slaves and northern migrants to the South. But his plan to make “small indepen- dent landholders” of the former slaves proved too radical even for many of his Radical colleagues and failed to pass. T h e O r i g i n s o f C i v i l R i g h t s With the South unrepresented, Republicans enjoyed an overwhelming majority in Congress. Most Republicans were moderates, not Radicals. Moderates believed that Johnson’s plan was flawed, but they desired to 456 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the competing visions of Reconstruction? work with the president to modify it. They feared that neither northern Radical Republicans versus nor southern whites would accept black suffrage. Moderates and Radicals moderates joined in refusing to seat the southerners recently elected to Congress, but moderates broke with the Radicals by leaving the Johnson governments in place. Early in 1866, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois proposed two bills that reflected the moderates’ belief that Johnson’s policy required modi- fication. The first extended the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which had originally been established for only one year. The second, the Civil Rights Bill, was described by one congressman as “one of the most important bills ever presented to the House for its action.” It defined all persons born in the United States as citizens and spelled out rights they were to enjoy without The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 regard to race. Equality before the law was central to the measure—no longer could states enact laws like the Black Codes discriminating between white and black citizens. So were free labor values. According to the law, no state could deprive any citizen of the right to make contracts, bring lawsuits, or enjoy equal protection of one’s person and property. These, said Trumbull, were the “fundamental rights belonging to every man as a free man.” The bill made no mention of the right to vote for blacks. In President Andrew Johnson, in an constitutional terms, the Civil Rights Bill represented the first attempt to 1868 lithograph by Currier and Ives. define in law the essence of freedom. Because of Johnson’s stubborn To the surprise of Congress, Johnson vetoed both bills. Both, he said, opposition to the congressional would centralize power in the national government and deprive the states Reconstruction policy, one disgruntled citizen drew a crown on of the authority to regulate their own affairs. Moreover, he argued, blacks his head with the words, “I am King.” did not deserve the rights of citizenship. Congress failed by a single vote to muster the two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill (although later in 1866, it did extend the bureau’s life to 1870). But in April 1866, the Civil Rights Bill became the first major law in American history to be passed over a presidential veto. T h e F o u r t e e n t h A m e n d m e n t Congress now proceeded to adopt its own plan of Reconstruction. In June, it approved and sent to the states for ratification the Fourteenth Amendment, which placed in the Constitution the principle of citizenship for all persons born in the United States, and which empowered the fed- eral government to protect the rights of all Americans. The amendment prohibited the states from abridging the “privileges and immunities” of citizens or denying them the “equal protection of the law.” This broad language opened the door for future Congresses and the federal courts to breathe meaning into the guarantee of legal equality. T H E M A K I N G O F R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N 457 In a compromise between the radical and moderate positions on black suffrage, the amendment did not grant blacks the right to vote. But it did provide that if a state denied the vote to any group of men, that state’s representation in Congress would be reduced. (This provision did not apply when states barred women from voting.) The abolition of slavery Black suffrage and political threatened to increase southern political power, since now all blacks, not power merely three-fifths as in the case of slaves, would be counted in determin- ing a state’s representation in Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment offered the leaders of the white South a choice—allow black men to vote and keep their state’s full representation in the House of Representatives, or limit the vote to whites and sacrifice part of their political power. By writing into the Constitution the principle that equality before the law Significance of the Fourteenth regardless of race is a fundamental right of all American citizens, the amend- Amendment ment made the most important change in that document since the adoption of the Bill of Rights. T h e R e c o n s t r u c t i o n A c t The Fourteenth Amendment became the central issue of the political campaign of 1866. Johnson embarked on a speaking tour of the North. Denouncing his critics, the president made wild accusations that the Radicals were plotting to assassinate him. His behavior further under- mined public support for his policies, as did riots that broke out in Memphis and New Orleans, in which white policemen and citizens killed dozens of blacks. In the northern congressional elections that fall, Republicans op posed to Johnson’s policies won a sweeping victory. Nonetheless, at the president’s urging, every southern state but Tennessee refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The intransigence of Johnson and the bulk of the white South pushed moderate Republicans toward the Radicals. In March 1867, over Johnson’s veto, Congress adopted the Reconstruction Act, which temporar- ily divided the South into five military districts and called for the creation of new state governments, with black men given the right to vote. Thus began Radical Reconstruction the period of Radical Reconstruction, which lasted until 1877. I m p e a c h m e n t a n d t h e E l e c t i o n o f G r a n t In March 1867, Congress adopted the Tenure of Office Act, barring the president from removing certain officeholders, including cabinet mem- bers, without the consent of the Senate. Johnson considered this an unconstitutional restriction on his authority. In February 1868, he removed 458 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the competing visions of Reconstruction? A Democratic Party broadside from the election of 1866 in Pennsylvania uses racist imagery to argue that government assistance aids lazy former slaves at the expense of hardworking whites. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, an ally of the Radicals. The House of Representatives responded by approving articles of impeachment—that is, it presented charges against Johnson to the Senate, which had to decide whether to remove him from office. That spring, for the first time in American history, a president was placed on trial before the Senate for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” By this The trial of Andrew Johnson point, virtually all Republicans considered Johnson a failure as president. But some moderates feared that conviction would damage the constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the executive. Johnson’s lawyers assured moderate Republicans that, if acquitted, he would stop interfering with Reconstruction policy. The final tally was 35-19 to convict Johnson, one vote short of the two-thirds necessary to remove him. Seven Republicans had joined the Democrats in voting to acquit the president. A few days after the vote, Republicans nominated Ulysses S. Grant, Ulysses Grant the Union’s most prominent military hero, as their candidate for president. Grant’s Democratic opponent was Horatio Seymour, the former governor of New York. Reconstruction became the central issue of the bitterly fought 1868 campaign. Democrats denounced Reconstruction as unconstitutional and condemned black suffrage as a violation of America’s political tradi- tions. They appealed openly to racism. Seymour’s running mate, Francis P. Blair Jr., charged Republicans with placing the South under the rule of “a T H E M A K I N G O F R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N 459 semi-barbarous race” who longed to “subject T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L the white women to their unbridled lust.” E L E C T I O N O F 1 8 6 8 T h e F i f t e e n t h A m e n d m e n t 5 5 7 Grant won the election of 1868, although 3 4 8 33 12 by a margin—300,000 of 6 million votes 8 4 cast—that many Republicans found uncom- 26 7 6 3 3 8 21 16 13 3 fortably slim. The result led Congress to 5 5 3 11 7 11 adopt the Fifteenth Amendment, which 10 9 prohibited the federal and state govern- 5 6 8 9 ments from denying any citizen the right to 7 vote because of race. Bitterly opposed by the 3 Democratic Party, it was ratified in 1870. Non-voting territory Although the Fifteenth Amendment opened the door to suffrage restrictions Electoral Vote Popular Vote Party Candidate (Share) (Share) not explicitly based on race—literacy tests, Republican Grant 214 (73%) 3,012,833 (53%) property qualifications, and poll taxes—and Southern Democrat Seymour 80 (27%) 2,703,249 (47%) Not voting due to Reconstruction did not extend the right to vote to women, it State legislature cast the electoral votes for Grant marked the culmination of four decades of abolitionist agitation. “Nothing in all his- tory,” exclaimed veteran abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, equaled “this wonderful, quiet, sudden transformation of four millions of human beings from . . . the auction-block to the ballot-box.” The Fifteenth Amendment, an 1870 lithograph marking the ratification of the constitutional amendment prohibiting states from denying citizens the right to vote because of race. Surrounding an image of a celebration parade are portraits of Abraham Lincoln; President Ulysses S. Grant and his vice president, Schuyler Colfax; the abolitionists John Brown, Martin R. Delany, and Frederick Douglass; and Hiram Revels, the first black to serve in the U.S. Senate. At the bottom are scenes of freedom—education, family, political representation, and church life. 460 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the competing visions of Reconstruction? T h e “ G r e a t C o n s t i t u t i o n a l R e v o l u t i o n ” Effects of Reconstruction The laws and amendments of Reconstruction reflected the intersection amendments of two products of the Civil War era—a newly empowered national state, and the idea of a national citizenry enjoying equality before the law. What Republican leader Carl Schurz called the “great Constitutional revolution” of Reconstruction transformed the federal system and with it, the language of freedom so central to American political culture. Before the Civil War, American citizenship had been closely linked to race. But the laws and amendments of Reconstruction repudiated the idea that citizenship was an entitlement of whites alone. And, as one congress- Race and citizenship man noted, the amendments expanded the liberty of whites as well as blacks, including “the millions of people of foreign birth who will flock to our shores.” The new amendments also transformed the relationship between the federal government and the states. The Bill of Rights had linked civil liberties to the autonomy of the states. Its language—“Congress shall make no law”—reflected the belief that concentrated national power posed the greatest threat to freedom. The authors of the Reconstruction amendments assumed that rights required national power to enforce them. Rather than a threat to liberty, the federal government, in Charles Sumner’s words, had become “the custodian of freedom.” The Reconstruction amendments transformed the Constitution from Constitutional significance a document primarily concerned with federal-state relations and the rights of property into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable minori- ties could stake a claim to freedom and seek protection against misconduct by all levels of government. In the twentieth century, many of the Supreme Court’s most important decisions expanding the rights of American citi- zens were based on the Fourteenth Amendment, perhaps most notably the 1954 Brown ruling that outlawed school segregation (see Chapter 24). T h e R i g h t s o f W o m e n “The contest with the South that destroyed slavery,” wrote the Philadelphia lawyer Sidney George Fisher in his diary, “has caused an immense increase in the popular passion for liberty and equality.” But advocates of women’s rights encountered the limits of the Reconstruction commitment Women and the limits of to equality. Women activists saw Reconstruction as the moment to claim equality their own emancipation. The rewriting of the Constitution, declared suf- frage leader Olympia Brown, offered the opportunity to sever the blessings of freedom from sex as well as race and to “bury the black man and the woman in the citizen.” T H E M A K I N G O F R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N 461 Even Radical Republicans insisted that Reconstruction was the “Negro’s hour” (the hour, that is, of the black male). The Fourteenth Amend ment for the first time introduced the word “male” into the Constitution, in its clause penalizing a state for denying any group of men the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment outlawed discrimination in voting based on race but not gender. These measures pro- duced a bitter split both between feminists and Radical Republicans, and within femi- nist circles. Some leaders, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, denounced their former abolitionist allies and moved to sever the women’s rights move- A Delegation of Advocates of Woman ment from its earlier moorings in the antislavery tradition. Suffrage Addressing the House Thus, even as it rejected the racial definition of freedom that had Judiciary Committee, an engraving from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century, Reconstruction left the Newspaper, February 4, 1871. The gender boundary largely intact. When women tried to use the rewritten group includes Elizabeth Cady legal code and Constitution to claim equal rights, they found the courts Stanton, seated just to the right of the unreceptive. Myra Bradwell invoked the idea of free labor in challenging speaker, and Susan B. Anthony, at an Illinois stat ute limiting the practice of law to men, but the Supreme the table on the extreme right. Court in 1873 rebuffed her claim. Free labor principles, the justices declared, did not apply to women, since “the law of the Creator” had assigned them to “the domestic sphere.” Despite their limitations, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments America’s great departure and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 marked a radical departure in American and world history. Alone among the nations that abolished slavery in the nineteenth century, the United States, within a few years of emancipation, clothed its former slaves with citizenship rights equal to those of whites. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 inaugurated America’s first real experi- ment in interracial democracy. R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N I N T H E S O U T H “ T h e T o c s i n o f F r e e d o m ” Among the former slaves, the passage of the Reconstruction Act inspired an Political action by outburst of political organization. At mass political meetings—community African-Americans gatherings attended by men, women, and children—African-Americans 462 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the social and political effects of Radical Reconstruction in the South? Electioneering at the South, an engraving from Harper’s Weekly, July 25, 1868, depicts a speaker at a political meeting in the rural South. Women as well as men took part in these grassroots gatherings. staked their claim to equal citizenship. Blacks, declared an Alabama meeting, deserved “exactly the same rights, privileges and immunities as are enjoyed by white men. We ask for nothing more and will be content with nothing less.” Determined to exercise their new rights as citizens, thousands joined the Union League, an organization closely linked to the Republican Party, and the vast majority of eligible African-Americans registered to vote. James K. Green, a former slave in Hale County, Alabama, and a League The First Vote, an engraving from organizer, went on to serve eight years in the Alabama legislature. In Harper’s Weekly, November 16, 1867, the 1880s, Green looked back on his political career. Before the war, he depicts the first biracial elections in declared, “I was entirely ignorant; I knew nothing more than to obey my southern history. The voters represent master; and there were thousands of us in the same attitude. . . . But the key sources of the black political leadership that emerged during tocsin [warning bell] of freedom sounded and knocked at the door and we Reconstruction—the artisan carrying walked out like free men and shouldered the responsibilities.” his tools, the well-dressed city person By 1870, all the former Confederate states had been readmitted to (probably free before the war), and the Union, and in a region where the Republican Party had not existed the soldier. before the war, nearly all were under Republican control. Their new state constitutions, drafted in 1868 and 1869 by the first public bodies in American history with substantial black representation, marked a consid- erable improvement over those they replaced. The constitutions greatly expanded public responsibilities. They established the region’s first state- funded systems of free public education, and they created new peniten- tiaries, orphan asylums, and homes for the insane. The constitutions guaranteed equality of civil and political rights and abolished practices of the antebellum era such as whipping as a punishment for crime, property qualifications for officeholding, and imprisonment for debt. A few states initially barred former Confederates from voting, but this policy was quickly abandoned by the new state governments. R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N I N T H E S O U T H 463 T h e B l a c k O f f i c e h o l d e r Throughout Reconstruction, black voters provided the bulk of the Republican Party’s support. But African-Americans did not control Reconstruction politics, as their opponents frequently charged. The high- est offices remained almost entirely in white hands, and only in South Carolina, where blacks made up 60 percent of the population, did they form a majority of the legislature. Nonetheless, the fact that some 2,000 African-Americans in African-Americans held public office during Reconstruction marked public office a fundamental shift of power in the South and a radical departure in American government. African-Americans were represented at every level of government. Fourteen were elected to the national House of Representatives. Two blacks served in the U.S. Senate during Reconstruction, both repre- senting Mississippi. Hiram Revels, who had been born free in North Carolina, in 1870 became the first black senator in American history. The second, Blanche K. Bruce, a former slave, was elected in 1875. At state and local levels, the presence of black officeholders and their white allies A portrait of Hiram Revels, the first black U. S. senator, by Theodore made a real difference in southern life, ensuring that blacks accused of Kaufmann, a German-born artist who crimes would be tried before juries of their peers and enforcing fairness emigrated to the United States in in such aspects of local government as road repair, tax assessment, and 1855. Lithograph copies sold widely poor relief. in the North during Reconstruction. In South Carolina and Louisiana, homes of the South’s wealthiest and Frederick Douglass, commenting best-educated free black communities, most prominent Reconstruction on the dignified image, noted that African-Americans “so often see officeholders had never experienced slavery. In addition, a number of ourselves described and painted as black Reconstruction officials, like Pennsylvania-born Jonathan J. Wright, monkeys, that we think it a great who served on the South Carolina Supreme Court, had come from the piece of fortune to find an exception North after the Civil War. The majority, however, were former slaves who to this general rule.” had established their leadership in the black community by serving in the Union army; working as ministers, teachers, or skilled craftsmen; or engaging in Union League organizing. C a r p e t b a g g e r s a n d S c a l a w a g s The new southern governments also brought to power new groups of whites. Many Reconstruction officials were northerners who for one reason or another had made their homes in the South after the war. Their opponents dubbed them “carpetbaggers,” implying that they had packed all their belongings in a suitcase and left their homes in order to reap the spoils of office in the South. Some carpetbaggers were undoubtedly corrupt adventurers. The large majority, however, were former Union 464 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the social and political effects of Radical Reconstruction in the South? soldiers who decided to remain in the South when the war ended, before there was any prospect of going into politics. Most white Republicans, however, had been born in the South. Southern Republicans Former Confederates reserved their greatest scorn for these “scalawags,” whom they considered traitors to their race and region. Some southern- born Republicans were men of stature and wealth, like James L. Alcorn, the owner of one of Mississippi’s largest plantations and the state’s first Republican governor. Most “scalawags,” however, were non-slaveholding white farmers from the southern upcountry. Many had been wartime Unionists, and they now cooperated with the Republicans in order to pre- vent “rebels” from returning to power. S o u t h e r n R e p u b l i c a n s i n P o w e r In view of the daunting challenges they faced, the remarkable thing is not that Reconstruction governments in many respects failed, but how much they did accomplish. Perhaps their greatest achievement lay in establish- ing the South’s first state-supported public schools. The new educational State-supported public schools systems served both black and white children, although generally in schools segregated by race. Only in New Orleans were the public schools integrated during Reconstruction, and only in South Carolina did the state university admit black students (elsewhere, separate colleges were established). The new governments also pioneered civil rights legislation. Civil rights legislation Their laws made it illegal for railroads, hotels, and other institutions to discriminate on the basis of race. Enforcement varied considerably from locality to locality, but Reconstruction established for the first time at the state level a standard of equal citizenship and a recognition of blacks’ right to a share of public services. Republican governments also took steps to strengthen the position of rural laborers and promote the South’s economic recovery. They passed laws to ensure that agricultural laborers and sharecroppers had the first claim on harvested crops, rather than merchants to whom the landowner owed money. South Carolina created a state Land Commission, which by 1876 had settled 14,000 black families and a few poor whites on their own farms. T h e Q u e s t f o r P r o s p e r i t y Rather than on land distribution, however, the Reconstruction governments Economic development during pinned their hopes for southern economic growth and opportunity for Reconstruction African-Americans and poor whites alike on regional economic development. R A D I C A L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N I N T H E S O U T H 465 A group of black students and their teacher in a picture taken by an amateur photographer, probably a Union army veteran, while touring Civil War battlefields. Railroad construction Railroad construction, they believed, was the key to transforming the South into a society of booming factories, bustling towns, and diversified agriculture. Every state during Reconstruction helped to finance railroad construction, and through tax reductions and other incentives tried to attract northern manufacturers to invest in the region. The program had mixed results. Economic development in general remained weak. To their supporters, the governments of Radical Reconstruction presented a complex pattern of disappointment and accomplishment. A revitalized southern economy failed to materialize, and most African- Biracial democracy Americans remained locked in poverty. On the other hand, biracial demo- cratic government, a thing unknown in American history, for the first time functioned effectively in many parts of the South. The conservative elite that had dominated southern government from colonial times to 1867 found itself excluded from political power, while poor whites, newcomers from the North, and former slaves cast ballots, sat on juries, and enacted and administered laws. It is a measure of how far change had progressed that the reaction against Reconstruction proved so extreme. T H E O V E R T H R O W O F R E C O N S T R U C T I O N R e c o n s t r u c t i o n ’ s O p p o n e n t s The South’s traditional leaders—planters, merchants, and Democratic politicians—bitterly opposed the new governments. “Intelligence, virtue, Sources of opposition and patriotism” in public life, declared a protest by prominent southern 466 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction? Democrats, had given way to “ignorance, stupidity, and vice.” Corruption did exist during Reconstruction, but it was con- fined to no race, region, or party. The rapid growth of state budgets and the benefits to be gained from public aid led in some states to a scramble for influence that pro- duced bribery, insider dealing, and a get- rich-quick atmosphere. Southern frauds, however, were dwarfed by those practiced in these years by the Whiskey Ring, which involved high officials of the Grant admin- istration, and by New York’s Tweed Ring, controlled by the Democrats, whose thefts ran into the tens of millions of dollars. (These are discussed in the next chapter.) The rising taxes needed to pay for schools and other new public facilities and to assist railroad development were another cause of opposition to Reconstruction. Many poor whites who had initially supported the Republican Party turned against it when it became clear that their economic situation was not improving. The most basic reason for opposi- tion to Reconstruction, however, was that most white southerners could not accept the idea of former slaves voting, holding office, and enjoying equality before the law. Opponents launched a campaign of violence in an effort to end Republican rule. Their actions posed a fundamental challenge both for Reconstruction A cartoon from around 1870 governments in the South and for policymakers in Washington, D.C. illustrates a key theme of the racist opposition to Reconstruction—that blacks had forced themselves upon “ A R e i g n o f T e r r o r ” whites and gained domination over them. A black school teacher inflicts The Civil War ended in 1865, but violence remained widespread in large punishment on a white student in an integrated classroom, and a racially parts of the postwar South. In the early years of Reconstruction, violence mixed jury judges a white defendant. was mostly local and unorganized. Blacks were assaulted and murdered for refusing to give way to whites on city sidewalks, using “insolent” T H E O V E R T H R O W O F R E C O N S T R U C T I O N 467 language, challenging end-of-year contract settlements, and attempting to buy land. The violence that greeted the advent of Republican governments after 1867, however, was far more pervasive and more directly moti- vated by politics. In wide areas of the South, secret societies sprang Campaigns of violence up with the aim of preventing blacks from voting and destroying the organization of the Republican Party by assassinating local leaders and public officials. The most notorious such organization was the Ku Klux Klan, which in effect served as a military arm of the Democratic Party in the South. From its founding in 1866 in Tennessee, the Klan was a terror- ist organization. It committed some of the most brutal criminal acts in American history. In many counties throughout the South, it launched what one victim called a “reign of terror” against Republican leaders, black and white. A Prospective Scene in the City of The Klan’s victims included white Republicans, among them war- Oaks, a cartoon in the September 1, time Union ists and local officeholders, teachers, and party organizers. 1868, issue of the Independent But African-Americans—local political leaders, those who managed to Monitor, a Democratic newspaper acquire land, and others who in one way or another defied the norms published in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The cartoon sent a warning to of white supremacy—bore the brunt of the violence. On occasion, vio- the Reverend A. S. Lakin, who lence escalated from assaults on individuals to mass terrorism and even had moved from Ohio to become local insurrections. The bloodiest act of violence during Reconstruction president of the University of took place in Colfax, Louisiana, in 1873, where armed whites assaulted Alabama, and Dr. N. B. Cloud, a the town with a small cannon. Hundreds of former slaves were mur- southern-born Republican serving as Alabama’s superintendent of public dered, including fifty members of a black militia unit after they had education. The Ku Klux Klan forced surrendered. both men from their positions. In 1870 and 1871, Congress adopted three Enforcement Acts, outlawing ter- rorist societies and allowing the presi- dent to use the army against them. These laws continued the expansion of national authority during Reconstruction. In 1871, President Grant dispatched federal mar- shals, backed up by troops in some areas, to arrest hundreds of accused Klansmen. Many Klan leaders fled the South. After a series of well-publicized trials, the Klan went out of existence. In 1872, for the first time since the Civil War, peace reigned in most of the former Confederacy. 468 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction? T h e L i b e r a l R e p u b l i c a n s Despite the Grant administration’s effective response to Klan terrorism, Waning commitment to the North’s commitment to Reconstruction waned during the 1870s. the North Northerners increasingly felt that the South should be able to solve its own problems without constant interference from Washington. The federal government had freed the slaves, made them citizens, and given them the right to vote. Now, blacks should rely on their own resources, not demand further assistance. In 1872, an influential group of Republicans, alienated by corruption within the Grant administration and believing that the growth of federal power during and after the war needed to be curtailed, formed their own party. They included Republican founders like Lyman Trumbull and prominent editors and journalists such as E. L. Godkin of The Nation. Calling themselves Liberal Republicans, they nominated Horace Greeley, editor of Liberal Republicans the New York Tribune, for president. Democratic criticisms of Recon struction found a receptive audi- ence among the Liberals. As in the North, they became convinced, the “best men” of the South had been excluded from power while “ignorant” voters controlled politics, producing corruption and mis- government. Greeley had spent most of his career, first as a Whig and then as a Republican, denouncing the Democratic Party. But with the Changes in graphic artist Thomas Nast’s depiction of blacks in Harper’s Weekly mirrored the evolution of Republican sentiment in the North. And Not This Man? August 5, 1865, shows the black soldier as an upstanding citizen deserving of the vote. Colored Rule in a Reconstructed (?) State, March 14, 1874, suggests that Reconstruction legislatures had become travesties of democratic government. T H E O V E R T H R O W O F R E C O N S T R U C T I O N 469 1872 election Republican split presenting an opportunity to repair their political fortunes, Democratic leaders endorsed Greeley as their candidate. But many rank-and-file Democrats, unable to bring themselves to vote for Greeley, stayed at home on election day. As a result, Greeley suffered a devastating defeat by Grant, whose margin of more than 700,000 popular votes was the largest in a nineteenth-century presidential contest. But Greeley’s campaign placed on the northern agenda the one issue on which the Liberal reformers and the Democrats could agree—a new policy toward the South. T h e N o r t h ’ s R e t r e a t The Liberal attack on Reconstruction, which continued after 1872, con- tributed to a resurgence of racism in the North. Journalist James S. Pike, a leading Greeley supporter, in 1874 published The Prostrate State, an influential account of a visit to South Carolina. The book depicted a state engulfed by political corruption, drained by governmental extrava- gance, and under the control of “a mass of black barbarism.” Resurgent racism offered a convenient explanation for the alleged “failure” of Reconstruction. The solution, for many, was to restore leading whites to political power. Factors weakening Other factors also weakened northern support for Reconstruction. Reconstruction In 1873, the country plunged into a severe economic depression. Distracted by economic problems, Republicans were in no mood to devote further attention to the South. The depression dealt the South a severe blow and further weakened the prospect that Republicans could revitalize the region’s economy. Democrats made substantial gains throughout the nation in the elections of 1874. For the first time since the Civil War, their party took control of the House of Representatives. Before the new Congress met, the old one enacted a final piece of Reconstruction legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1875. This outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation like hotels and theaters. But it was clear that the northern public was retreating from Reconstruction. The Supreme Court and The Supreme Court whittled away at the guarantees of black rights Reconstruction Congress had adopted. In the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the justices ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment had not altered traditional fed- eralism. Most of the rights of citizens, it declared, remained under state control. Three years later, in United States v. Cruikshank, the Court gutted 470 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction? the Enforcement Acts by throwing out the convictions of some of those responsible for the Colfax Massacre of 1873. T h e T r i u m p h o f t h e R e d e e m e r s By the mid-1870s, Reconstruction was clearly on the defensive. Democrats had already regained control of states with substantial white voting Democratic victories at majorities such as Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas. The victori- the polls ous Democrats called themselves Redeemers, since they claimed to have “redeemed” the white South from corruption, misgovernment, and north- ern and black control. In those states where Reconstruction governments survived, violence again erupted. This time, the Grant administration showed no desire to intervene. In Mississippi, in 1875, armed Democrats destroyed ballot Return of violence boxes and drove former slaves from the polls. The result was a Democratic landslide and the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi. Similar events R E C O N S T R U C T I O N I N T H E S O U T H , 1 8 6 7 – 1 8 7 7 PENNSYLVANIA COLORADO INDIANA OHIO ILLINOIS MARYLANDDELAWARE KANSAS WEST VIRGINIA MISSOURI VIRGINIA 1870 (1873) KENTUCKY NEW MEXICO NORTH CAROLINA TENNESSEE 1868 (1876) TERRITORY INDIAN 1866 (1870) TERRITORY ARKANSAS 1868 (1874) SOUTH CAROLINA 1868 (1876) MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA 1870 (1875) 1868 (1874) 1870 (1871) TEXAS 1870 (1873) LOUISIANA A t l a n t i c 1868 (1876) O c e a n FLORIDA 1868 (1876) Gulf of Mexico Former Confederate states 1869 Date of readmission to the Union 0 150 300 miles (1873) Date of election that produced Democratic control of legislature 0 150 300 kilometers and governorship T H E O V E R T H R O W O F R E C O N S T R U C T I O N 471 took place in South Carolina in 1876. Democrats nominated for gover- nor former Confederate general Wade Hampton. Hampton promised to respect the rights of all citizens of the state, but his supporters, inspired by Democratic tactics in Mississippi, launched a wave of intimidation. Democrats intended to carry the election, one planter told a black official, “if we have to wade in blood knee-deep.” T h e D i s p u t e d E l e c t i o n a n d B a r g a i n o f 1 8 7 7 Events in South Carolina directly affected the outcome of the presidential campaign of 1876. To succeed Grant, the Republicans nominated Gov- Rutherford B. Hayes ernor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. The Democrats chose as his opponent New York’s governor, Samuel J. Tilden. By this time, only South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana remained under Republican control. The election turned out to be so close that whoever captured these states—which both parties claimed to have carried—would become the next president. Unable to resolve the impasse on its own, Congress in January 1877 appointed a fifteen-member Electoral Commission, composed of sena- tors, representatives, and Supreme Court justices. Republicans enjoyed an 8-7 majority on the commission, and to no one’s surprise, the members decided by T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L that margin that Hayes had carried the dis- E L E C T I O N O F 1 8 7 6 puted southern states and had been elected president. Even as the commission deliberated, 5 5 7 2 5 however, behind-the-scenes negotiations 1 13 10 35 11 took place between leaders of the two par- 4 3 11 29 6 9 ties. Hayes’s representatives agreed to 3 21 22 15 3 3 5 recognize Democratic control of the entire 6 5 15 11 8 12 10 South and to avoid further intervention 12 6 7 in local affairs. For their part, Democrats 8 10 11 promised not to dispute Hayes’s right to 8 8 office and to respect the civil and political 4 rights of blacks. Non-voting territory Thus was concluded the Bargain of Electoral Vote Popular Vote 1877. Hayes became president and quickly Party Candidate (Share) (Share) ordered federal troops to stop guarding Republican Hayes 185 (50%) 4,036,298 (48%) Democrat Tilden 184 (50%) the state houses in Louisiana and South 4,300,590 (51%) Greenback Cooper 0 (0%) 93,895 (1%) Carolina, allowing Democratic claimants Disputed (assigned to Hayes by electoral commission) to become governors. (Contrary to legend, 472 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” What were the main factors, in both the North and South, for the abandonment of Reconstruction? Hayes did not remove the last soldiers from the South—he simply ordered them to return to their barracks.) The triumphant southern Democrats failed to live up to their pledge to recognize blacks as equal citizens. T h e E n d o f R e c o n s t r u c t i o n As a historical process—the nation’s adjustment to the destruction of slavery—Reconstruction continued well after 1877. Blacks continued to vote and, in some states, hold office into the 1890s. But as a distinct era of national history—when Republicans controlled much of the South, blacks exercised significant political power, and the federal government accepted the responsibility for protecting the fundamental rights of all American citizens—Reconstruction had come to an end. Despite its limitations, Reconstruction was a remarkable chapter in the story of American free- dom. Nearly a century would pass before the nation again tried to bring Is This a Republican Form of equal rights to the descendants of slaves. The civil rights era of the 1950s Government?, a cartoon by Thomas and 1960s would sometimes be called the Second Reconstruction. Nast in Harper’s Weekly, September 2, 1876, illustrates his conviction that the overthrow of Reconstruction meant that the United States was not prepared to live up to its democratic ideals or protect the rights of black citizens threatened by violence. T H E O V E R T H R O W O F R E C O N S T R U C T I O N 473 C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. In 1865, the former Confederate general Robert Freedmen’s Bureau (p. 447) Richardson remarked that “the emancipated slaves own sharecropping (p. 449) crop-lien system (p. 449) nothing, because nothing but freedom has been given to Black Codes (p. 455) them.” Explain whether this would be an accurate assess- Civil Rights Bill of 1866 (p. 457) ment of Reconstruction twelve years later. Fourteenth Amendment (p. 457) Reconstruction Act (p. 458) 2. The women’s movement split into two separate national Fifteenth Amendment (p. 460) organizations in part because the Fifteenth Amendment women’s rights (p. 461) did not give women the vote. Explain why the two groups carpetbaggers and scalawags (p. 464) split. Ku Klux Klan (p. 468) Colfax Massacre (p. 468) 3. How did black families, churches, schools, and other Enforcement Acts (p. 468) institutions contribute to the development of African- Civil Rights Act of 1875 (p. 470) American culture and political activism in this period? Slaughterhouse Cases (p. 470) Redeemers (p. 471) 4. Why did ownership of land and control of labor become Bargain of 1877 (p. 472) major points of contention between former slaves and whites in the South? 5. By what methods did southern whites seek to limit African-American civil rights and liberties? How did the federal government respond? 6. How did the failure of land reform and continued poverty lead to new forms of servitude for both blacks and whites? wwnorton.com 7. What caused the confrontation between President /studyspace Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction policies? VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE RESOURCES AND MORE 8. What national issues and attitudes combined to bring an s end to Reconstruction by 1877? s s 9. By 1877, how did the condition of former slaves in the s United States compare with that of freedmen around the s globe? 474 C h a p t e r 1 5  “What Is Freedom?” C H A P T E R 1 6 1872 Crédit Mobilier Scandal 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s Gilded Age 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn 1877 Reconstruction ends A M E R I C A ’ S Great Railroad Strike 1879 Henry George’s Progress and Poverty 1883 Civil Service Act G I L D E D A G E Railroads create time zones 1886 Knights of Labor’s membership peaks Haymarket affair  1887 Interstate Commerce Commission created Dawes Act 1 8 7 0 – 1 8 9 0 1888 Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward 1889 Andrew Carnegie’s “Wealth” 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives Massacre at Wounded Knee 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis 1894 Henry Demarest Lloyd’s Wealth against Commonwealth 1895 United States v. E. C. Knight Co. 1899 Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class 1905 Lochner v. New York Forging the Shaft, a painting from the 1870s by the American artist John Ferguson Weir, depicts workers in a steel factory making a propeller shaft for an ocean liner. Weir illustrates both the dramatic power of the factory at a time when the United States was overtaking European countries in manufacturing, and the fact that industrial production still required hard physical labor. F O C U S An immense crowd gathered in New York Harbor on October 28, 1886, for the dedication of Liberty Enlightening the World, a fitting symbol for a nation now wholly free. The idea for the statue originated in 1865 with Édouard de Laboulaye, a French educator and Q U E S T I O N S the author of several books on the United States, as a response to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Measuring more than 150 feet from s torch to toe and standing atop a huge pedestal, the edifice was the tallest make the United States a man-made structure in the Western Hemisphere. mature industrial society In time, the Statue of Liberty, as it came to be called, would become after the Civil War? Americans’ most revered national icon. For over a century it has stood as a symbol of freedom. The statue has welcomed millions of immigrants— s the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” celebrated in a poem by formed economically and Emma Lazarus inscribed on its base in 1903. In the years since its dedi- socially in this period? cation, the statue’s familiar image has been reproduced by folk artists in every conceivable medium and has been used by advertisers to promote s everything from cigarettes and lawn mowers to war bonds. It has become political system effective a powerful international symbol as well. in meeting its goals? The year of the statue’s dedication, 1886, also witnessed the “great upheaval,” a wave of strikes and labor protests that touched every part s of the nation. The 600 dignitaries (598 of them men) who gathered on development of the Gilded what is now called Liberty Island for the dedication hoped the Statue Age affect American of Liberty would inspire renewed devotion to the nation’s political and freedom? economic system. But for all its grandeur, the statue could not conceal the deep social divisions and fears about the future of American freedom that s accompanied the country’s emergence as the world’s leading industrial the period approach the power. Crucial questions moved to the center stage of American public problems of an industrial life during the 1870s and 1880s and remained there for decades to come: society? What are the social conditions that make freedom possible, and what role should the national government play in defining and protecting the liberty of its citizens? T H E S E C O N D I N D U S T R I A L R E V O L U T I O N Between the end of the Civil War and the early twentieth century, the United States underwent one of the most rapid and profound economic revolutions any country has ever experienced. There were numerous Roots of economic change causes for this explosive economic growth. The country enjoyed abundant natural resources, a growing supply of labor, an expanding market for manufactured goods, and the availability of capital for investment. In 476 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age What factors combined to make the United States a mature industrial society after the Civil War? addition, the federal government actively promoted industrial and agri- cultural development. It enacted high tariffs that protected American industry from foreign competition, granted land to railroad companies to encourage construction, and used the army to remove Indians from west- ern lands desired by farmers and mining companies. T h e I n d u s t r i a l E c o n o m y The rapid expansion of factory production, mining, and railroad construc- tion in all parts of the country except the South signaled the transition from Lincoln’s America—a world centered on the small farm and artisan A changing America TABLE 16.1 Indicators of Economic Change, 1870–1920 1870 1900 1920 &ARMS 5.7 6.4 Land in farms (million acres) 408 841 956 Wheat grown (million bushels) 254 599 843 %MPLOYMENT 28.5 44.5 In manufacturing (millions) 2.5 5.9 11.2 0ERCENTAGE Agricultural 52 27 Industryb 29 44 Trade, service, administrationc 20 27 2AILROAD Steel produced (thousands of tons) 0.8 11.2 46 '.0 18.7 91.5 Per capita (in 1920 dollars) 371 707 920 ,IFE 47 54 a Percentages are rounded and do not total 100 b Includes manufacturing, transportation, mining, construction c Includes trade, finance, public administration T H E S E C O N D I N D U S T R I A L R E V O L U T I O N 477 workshop—to a mature industrial society. By 1913, the United States Industrial growth produced one-third of the world’s industrial output—more than Great Britain, France, and Germany combined. By 1880, for the first time, the U.S. Census Bureau found a majority of the workforce engaged in non- farming jobs. The traditional dream of economic independence seemed obsolete. By 1890, two-thirds of Americans worked for wages, rather than owning a farm, business, or craft shop. Drawn to factories by the promise of employment, a new working class emerged in these years. Between 1870 and 1920, almost 11 million Americans moved from farm to city, and another 25 million immi- grants arrived from overseas. Most manufacturing now took place in industrial cities. The heart- land of what is sometimes called the “second industrial revolution” was The industrial Great Lakes the region around the Great Lakes, with its factories producing iron and region steel, machinery, chemicals, and packaged foods. Pittsburgh had become the world’s center of iron and steel manufacturing. Chicago, by 1900 the nation’s second-largest city with 1.7 million inhabitants, was home to factories producing steel and farm machinery and giant stockyards where cattle were processed into meat products for shipment east in refrigerated rail cars. R a i l r o a d s a n d t h e N a t i o n a l M a r k e t The railroad made possible the second industrial revolution. Spurred by private investment and massive grants of land and money by federal, state, Key role of railroads and local governments, the number of miles of railroad track in the United States tripled between 1860 and 1880 and tripled again by 1920, opening vast new areas to commercial farming and creating a truly national mar- ket for manufactured goods. The railroads even reorganized time itself. In 1883, the major companies divided the nation into the four time zones still in use today. The growing population formed an ever-expanding market for the mass production, mass distribution, and mass marketing of goods, essen- The rise of national brands tial elements of a modern industrial economy. The spread of national brands like Ivory Soap and Quaker Oats symbolized the continuing integration of the economy. So did the growth of national chains, most prominently the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, better known as A & P grocery stores. Based in Chicago, the national mail-order firms Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck & Co. sold clothing, jewelry, farm equipment, and numerous other goods to rural families throughout the country. 478 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age What factors combined to make the United States a mature industrial society after the Civil War? T H E R A I L R O A D N E T W O R K , 1 8 8 0 Pacific Mountain Time Zone Time Zone Central Seattle Time Zone Eastern Time Zone Atlantic Time Zone Portland CANADA Helena Northern Pacific Boise St. Paul Boston Ne Buffalo w York Cen Detroit tral New York Central Pacific Chicago Reno Cleveland U Salt Lake City nion Pacific Pen Omaha n Pittsburgh sylvania Philadelphia San Francisco Il Washington, D.C. l Denver in Baltimore and Ohio o Kansas City is St. Louis C Norfolk entra Los Angeles l Memphis Santa Fe Phoenix A t l a n t i c Atlanta O c e a n Charleston El Paso Dallas So Mobile uthern Pa Houston New Orleans cific MEXICO Gulf of Mexico Pa c i f i c O c e a n 0 250 500 miles Major railroads in 1880 0 250 500 kilometers Time-zone boundaries T h e S p i r i t o f I n n o v a t i o n By 1880, the transnational rail network made possible the creation A remarkable series of technological innovations spurred rapid commu- of a truly national market for goods. nication and economic growth. The opening of the Atlantic cable in 1866 made it possible to send electronic telegraph messages instantaneously between the United States and Europe. During the 1870s and 1880s, the telephone, typewriter, and handheld camera came into use. Scientific breakthroughs poured forth from research laboratories in Menlo Park and Orange, New Jersey, created by the era’s greatest inventor, Edison’s innovations Thomas A. Edison. During the course of his life, Edison helped to establish entirely new industries that transformed private life, public entertainment, and economic activity. Among Edison’s innovations were the phonograph, lightbulb, motion picture, and a system for generating and distributing electric power. The spread of electricity was essential to industrial and Electricity urban growth, providing a more reliable and flexible source of power than water or steam. T H E S E C O N D I N D U S T R I A L R E V O L U T I O N 479 ( Left) Travel became globalized in the second half of the nineteenth century. This advertisement promotes an around-the-world route by railroad and steamboat, beginning in Chicago. ( Right) The cover of the 1897 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog. One of the country’s largest mail- order companies, Sears, Roebuck processed 100,000 orders per day at the end of the nineteenth century. The cornucopia at the center suggests the variety of items one could order by mail: furniture, a piano, a bicycle, and farm tools. C o m p e t i t i o n a n d C o n s o l i d a t i o n Economic growth was dramatic but highly volatile. The combination of a market flooded with goods and the federal monetary policies (discussed later) that removed money from the national economy led to a relentless fall in prices. The world economy suffered prolonged downturns in the 1870s and 1890s. Businesses engaged in ruthless competition. Railroads and other The Electricity Building at the Chicago companies tried various means of bringing order to the chaotic market- World’s Fair of 1893, painted by place. They formed “pools” that divided up markets between suppos- Childe Hassam. The electric lighting edly competing firms and fixed prices. They established “trusts”—legal at the fair astonished visitors and devices whereby the affairs of several rival companies were managed by illustrated how electricity was changing the visual landscape. a single director. Such efforts to coordinate the economic activities of independent companies generally proved short lived. To avoid cutthroat competition, more and more corporations battled to control entire industries. Between 1897 and 1904, some 4,000 firms fell by the wayside or were gobbled up by others. By the time the wave of mergers had been completed, giant corpo- rations like U.S. Steel (created by financier J. P. Morgan in 1901 by combining eight large steel companies into the first billion- dollar economic enterprise), Standard Oil, 480 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age What factors combined to make the United States a mature industrial society after the Civil War? and International Harvester (a manufacturer of agricultural machinery) dominated major parts of the economy. T h e R i s e o f A n d r e w C a r n e g i e In an era without personal or corporate income taxes, some business leaders accumulated enormous fortunes and economic power. During the depression that began in 1873, Andrew Carnegie set out to establish a “vertically integrated” steel company—that is, one that controlled every Vertical integration phase of the business from raw materials to transportation, manufac- turing, and distribution. By the 1890s, he dominated the steel industry and had accumulated a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Carnegie’s complex of steel factories at Homestead, Pennsylvania, were the most technologically advanced in the world. Believing that the rich had a moral obligation to promote the advance- ment of society, Carnegie denounced the “worship of money” and distrib- uted much of his wealth to various philanthropies, especially the creation Philanthropy of public libraries in towns throughout the country. But he ran his com- panies with a dictatorial hand. His factories operated nonstop, with two twelve-hour shifts every day of the year except the Fourth of July. T h e T r i u m p h o f J o h n D . R o c k e f e l l e r Next!, a cartoon from the magazine If any single name became a byword for enormous wealth, it was John Puck, September 7, 1904, depicts the D. Rockefeller, who began his working career as a clerk for a Cleveland Standard Oil Company as an octopus with tentacles wrapped around merchant and rose to dominate the oil industry. He drove out rival the copper, steel, and shipping firms through cutthroat competition, arranging secret deals with rail- industries, as well as a state house road companies, and fixing prices and production quotas. Like Carnegie, and Congress. One tentacle reaches he soon established a vertically integrated for the White House. monopoly, which controlled the drilling, refining, storage, and distribution of oil. By the 1880s, his Standard Oil Company con- trolled 90 percent of the nation’s oil indus- try. Like Carnegie, Rockefeller gave much of his fortune away, establishing foundations to promote education and medical research. And like Carnegie, he bitterly fought his employees’ efforts to organize unions. These and other industrial leaders inspired among ordinary Americans a com- bination of awe, admiration, and hostility. T H E S E C O N D I N D U S T R I A L R E V O L U T I O N 481 Depending on one’s point of view, they were “captains of industry,” whose energy and vision pushed the economy forward, or “robber barons,” who wielded power without any accountability in an unregulated marketplace. Their dictatorial attitudes, unscrupulous methods, repressive labor poli- cies, and exercise of power without any democratic control led to fears that they were undermining political and economic freedom. Concentrated wealth degraded the political process, declared Henry Demarest Lloyd Henry Demarest Lloyd’s Wealth against in Wealth against Commonwealth (1894), an exposé of how Rockefeller’s Commonwealth Standard Oil Company made a mockery of economic competition and political democracy by manipulating the market and bribing legislators. “Liberty and monopoly,” Lloyd concluded, “cannot live together.” W o r k e r s ’ F r e e d o m i n a n I n d u s t r i a l A g e Striking as it was, the country’s economic growth distributed its benefits very unevenly. For a minority of workers, the rapidly expanding indus- trial system created new forms of freedom. In some industries, skilled workers commanded high wages and exercised considerable control over the production process. A worker’s economic independence now rested on technical skill rather than ownership of one’s own shop and tools as in ear- lier times. Through their union, skilled iron- and steelworkers fixed output quotas and controlled the training of apprentices in the technique of iron rolling. These workers often knew more about the details of production than their employers did. Economic insecurity For most workers, however, economic insecurity remained a basic fact of life. During the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s, millions of workers lost their jobs or were forced to accept reductions of pay. The “tramp” became a familiar figure on the social landscape as thousands of men took to the roads in search of work. Between 1880 and 1900, an average of 35,000 workers perished each year in factory and mine accidents, the highest rate in the industrial world. Much of the working class remained desperately poor and to survive needed income from all family members. By 1890, the richest 1 percent of Americans received the same total income as the bottom half of the population and owned more property than the remaining 99 percent. Many of the wealthiest Americans consciously pursued an aristocratic lifestyle, building palatial homes, attending exclusive social clubs, schools, and colleges, holding fancy- Thorstein Veblen’s The dress balls, and marrying into each other’s families. In 1899, the Theory of the Leisure Class economist and social historian Thorstein Veblen published The Theory 482 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age What factors combined to make the United States a mature industrial society after the Civil War? A turn-of-the-century photograph of the Casino Grounds, Newport, Rhode of the Leisure Class, a devastating critique of an upper-class culture Island, an exclusive country club for focused on “conspicuous consumption”—that is, spending money not rich socialites of the Gilded Age. on needed or even desired goods, but simply to demonstrate the pos- session of wealth. At the same time much of the working class lived in desperate con- ditions. Jacob Riis, in How the Other Half Lives (1890), offered a shocking account of living conditions among the urban poor, complete with photo- graphs of apartments in dark, airless, overcrowded tenement houses. Jacob Riis and tenements T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N O F T H E W E S T Nowhere did capitalism penetrate more rapidly or dramatically than in the trans-Mississippi West, whose “vast, trackless spaces,” as the poet Walt Whitman called them, were now absorbed into the expanding economy. At the close of the Civil War, the frontier of continuous white settlement did not extend far beyond the Mississippi River. To the west lay millions of acres of fertile and mineral-rich land roamed by giant herds of buffalo whose meat and hides provided food, clothing, and shelter for a population of more than 250,000 Indians. Ever since the beginning of colonial settlement in British North America, the West—a region whose definition shifted as the population The West as place of expanded—had been seen as a place of opportunity for those seeking to opportunity improve their condition in life. From farmers moving into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in the decades after the American Revolution to prospectors T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N O F T H E W E S T 483 who struck it rich in the California gold rush of the mid-nineteenth century, millions of Americans and immigrants from abroad found in the westward move- ment a path to economic opportunity. But the West was hardly a uniform paradise of small, independent farm- ers. Beginning in the eighteenth century, for example, California was the site of forced Indian labor on mis- sions run by members of religious orders, a system that helped establish the pattern of large agricultural landholdings in that region. Landlords, railroads, and mining companies in the West also utilized Mexican migrant and indentured labor, Chinese working on long-term contracts, and, until the end of the Civil War, African-American slaves. A D i v e r s e R e g i o n The West, of course, was hardly a single area. West of the Mississippi River lay a variety of regions, all marked by remarkable physical beauty—the “vast, trackless” Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the desert of the Baxter Street Court, 1890, one of Southwest, the Sierra Nevada, and the valleys and coastline of California numerous photographs by Jacob Riis depicting living conditions in New and the Pacific Northwest. It would take many decades before individual York City’s slums. settlers and corporate business enterprises penetrated all these areas. But the process was far advanced by the end of the nineteenth century. The political and economic incorporation of the American West was part of a global process. In many parts of the world, indigenous inhabitants—the Zulu in South Africa, aboriginal peoples in Australia, American Indians—were pushed aside (often after fierce resistance) as The worldwide fate of centralizing governments brought large interior regions under their indigenous peoples control. In the United States, the incorporation of the West required the active intervention of the federal government, which acquired Indian land by war and treaty, administered land sales, regulated territorial politics, and distributed land and money to farmers, railroads, and min- ing companies. In the twentieth century, the construction of federally financed irrigation systems and dams would open large areas to commercial farm- ing. Ironically, the West would become known (not least to its own inhab- itants) as a place of rugged individualism and sturdy independence. But Role of government in without active governmental assistance, the region could never have been the West settled and developed. 484 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period? Across the Continent, a lithograph from 1868 by the British-born female artist Frances F. Palmer, celebrates post–Civil War westward expansion as the spread of civilization— represented by the railroad, telegraph, school, church, and wagon trains—into a wilderness that appears totally uninhabited except for two Indians in the far distance and a herd of buffalo. F a r m i n g i n t h e T r a n s - M i s s i s s i p p i W e s t Even as sporadic Indian wars raged, settlers poured into the West. Territo- rial and state governments eager for population and railroad companies anx ious to sell the immense tracts of land they had acquired from the gov- ernment flooded European countries and eastern cities with promotional literature promising easy access to land. More land came into cultivation in the thirty years after the Civil War than in the previous two and a half centuries of American history. Hundreds of thousands of families acquired farms under the Homestead Act, and even more purchased land from spec- The new agricultural empire ulators and from railroad companies. A new agricultural empire produc- of the West ing wheat and corn arose on the Middle Border (Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas), whose population rose from 300,000 in 1860 to 5 million in 1900. The farmers were a diverse group, including native-born easterners, blacks escaping the post-Reconstruction South, and immigrants from Canada, Germany, Scandinavia, and Great Britain. In the late nine- teenth century the most multicultural state in the Union was North Dakota. Despite the promises of promotional pamphlets, farming on the Great Plains was not an easy task. Much of the burden fell on women. Farm fami- Farm women lies generally invested in the kinds of labor-saving machinery that would bring in cash, not machines that would ease women’s burdens in the household (like the back-breaking task of doing laundry). A farm woman in Arizona described her morning chores in her diary: “Get up, turn out my chickens, draw a pail of water . . . make a fire, put potatoes to cook, brush and sweep half inch of dust off floor, feed three litters of chickens, then mix T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N O F T H E W E S T 485 biscuits, get breakfast, milk, besides work in the house, and this morning had to go half mile after calves.” Despite the emergence of a few “bonanza farms” that covered thou- sands of acres and employed large numbers of agricultural wage work- Family farms ers, family farms still dominated the trans-Mississippi West. Even small farmers, however, became increasingly oriented to national and interna- tional markets, specializing in the production of single crops for sale in faraway places. At the same time, railroads brought factory-made goods to rural people, replacing items previously produced in farmers’ homes. Farm families became more and more dependent on loans to purchase land, machinery, and industrial products, and increasingly vulnerable to Vulnerability to global the ups and downs of prices for agricultural goods in the world market. market prices Agriculture reflected how the international economy was becoming more integrated. The combination of economic depressions and expanding agri- cultural production in places like Argentina, Australia, and the American West pushed prices of farm products steadily downward. Small farmers throughout the world suffered severe difficulties in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Many joined the migration to cities within their countries or the increasing international migration of labor. The future of western farming ultimately lay with giant agricultural enterprises relying heavily on irrigation, chemicals, and machinery— investments far beyond the means of family farmers. A preview of the agricultural future was already evident in California, where, as far back The family of David Hilton on their as Spanish and Mexican days, landownership had been concentrated in Nebraska homestead in 1887. large units. In the late nineteenth century, California’s giant fruit and veg- The Hiltons insisted on being photographed with their organ, away etable farms, owned by corporations like the Southern Pacific Railroad, from the modest sod house in which were tilled not by agricultural laborers who could expect to acquire land of they lived, to better represent their their own, but by migrant laborers from China, the Philippines, Japan, and aspiration for prosperity. Mexico, who tramped from place to place following the ripening crops. T h e C o w b o y a n d t h e C o r p o r a t e W e s t The two decades following the Civil War also witnessed the golden age of the cattle kingdom. The Kansas Pacific Railroad’s stations at Abilene, Dodge City, and Wichita, Kansas, became destinations for the fabled drives of millions of cattle from Texas. A collection of white, Mexican, and 486 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period? black men who conducted the cattle drives, the cowboys became symbols of a life of freedom on the open range. Their exploits would later serve as the theme of many a Hollywood movie, and their clothing inspired fash- ions that remain popular today. But there was nothing romantic about the life of the cowboys, most of whom were low-paid wage workers. (Texas cowboys even went on strike for higher pay in 1883.) The days of the long- distance cattle drive ended in the mid-1880s, as farmers enclosed more and more of the open range with barbed-wire fences, making it difficult to graze cattle on the grasslands of the Great Plains, and two terrible winters destroyed millions of cattle. When the industry recuperated, it was reorga- nized in large, enclosed ranches close to rail connections. The West was more than a farming empire. By 1890, a higher percentage of its population lived in cities than was the case in other regions. Large cor- In the late 1800s, California tried to porate enterprises appeared throughout the West. Western mining, from attract immigrants by advertising its Michigan iron ore and copper to gold and silver in California, Nevada, and pleasant climate and the availability of Colorado, fell under the sway of companies that mobilized eastern and land, although large-scale corporate European investment to introduce advanced technology. Gold and silver farms were coming to dominate the rushes took place in the Dakotas in 1876, Idaho in 1883, and Alaska at the state’s agriculture. end of the century. C o n f l i c t o n t h e M o r m o n F r o n t i e r The Mormons had moved to the Great Salt Lake Valley in the 1840s, hop- ing to practice their religion free of the persecution they had encountered in the East. They envisioned their community in Utah as the foundation of a great empire they called Deseret. Given the widespread unpopular- Deseret community ity of Mormon polygamy and the close connection of church and state in Mormon theology, conflict with the growing numbers of non-Mormon settlers moving west became inevitable. When President James Buchanan removed the Mormon leader Brigham Young as Utah’s territorial gov- ernor and Young refused to comply, federal troops entered the Salt Lake Valley, where they remained until the beginning of the Civil War. In 1857, during this time of tension, a group of Mormons attacked a wagon train of non-Mormon settlers traveling through Utah toward California. What came to be called the Mountain Meadows Massacre resulted in the death Mountain Meadows Massacre of all the adults and older children in the wagon train—over 100 persons. Nearly twenty years later, one leader of the assault was convicted of mur- der and executed. After the Civil War, Mormon leaders sought to avoid further antagonizing the federal government. In the 1880s, Utah banned the practice of polygamy (although the practice persists to this day among T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N O F T H E W E S T 487 some fundamentalist Mormons living in isolated areas). But sporadic conflict continued between Mormon families, who spread out across the Southwest, and Native Americans as well as other settlers. T h e S u b j u g a t i o n o f t h e P l a i n s I n d i a n s The incorporation of the West into the national economy spelled the doom of the Plains Indians and their world. Their lives had already undergone Spread of horses profound transformations. In the eighteenth century, the spread of horses, originally introduced by the Spanish, led to a wholesale shift from farming and hunting on foot to mounted hunting of buffalo. Most migrants on the Oregon and California Trails before the Civil War encountered little hostility from Indians, often trading with them for food and supplies. But as settlers encroached on Indian lands, bloody conflict between the army and Plains tribes began in the 1850s and contin- ued for decades. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant announced a new “peace policy” in the West, but warfare soon resumed. Drawing on methods used to defeat the Confederacy, Civil War generals like Philip H. Sheridan set out to destroy the foundations of the Indian economy—villages, horses, and The buffalo especially the buffalo. Hunting by mounted Indians had already reduced the buffalo population—estimated at 30 million in 1800—but it was army campaigns and the depredations of hunters seeking buffalo hides that ren- dered the vast herds all but extinct. Albert Bierstadt’s 1863 painting, The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, depicts Indians as an integral part of the majestic landscape of the West. 488 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period? “ L e t M e B e a F r e e M a n ” The army’s relentless attacks broke the power of one tribe after another. In 1877, troops commanded by former Freedmen’s Bureau commissioner O. O. Howard pursued the Nez Percé Indians on a 1,700-mile chase across the Far West. The Nez Percé (whose name was given them by Lewis and The Nez Percé Clark in 1805 and means “pierced noses” in French) were seeking to escape to Canada after fights with settlers who had encroached on tribal lands in Oregon and Idaho. After four months, Howard forced the Indians to sur- render, and they were removed to Oklahoma. Two years later, the Nez Percé leader, Chief Joseph, delivered a Chief Joseph speech in Washington to a distinguished audience that included President Rutherford B. Hayes. Condemning the policy of confining Indians to res- ervations, Joseph adopted the language of freedom and equal rights before the law so powerfully reinforced by the Civil War and Reconstruction. “Treat all men alike,” he pleaded. “Give them the same law. . . . Let me be a free man—free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to . . . think and talk and act for myself.” Until his death in 1904, Joseph would unsuccessfully petition successive presidents for his people’s right to return to their beloved Oregon homeland. Indians occasionally managed to inflict costly delay and even defeat on army units. The most famous Indian victory took place in June 1876 at Little Bighorn, when General George A. Custer and his entire command of 250 men perished. The Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, were defending tribal land in the Black Hills of the Sitting Bull, probably the best-known Dakota Territory. Native American of the late nineteenth Events like these delayed only temporarily the onward march of white century, in a photograph from 1885. soldiers, settlers, and prospectors. Between the end of the Civil War and 1890, eight new western states entered the Union (Nebraska, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming). Railroads now crisscrossed the Great Plains, farmers and cattlemen exploited land formerly owned by Indians, and the Plains tribes had been concentrated on reservations, where they lived in poverty, preyed on by unscrupulous traders and government agents. R e m a k i n g I n d i a n L i f e “The life my people want is a life of freedom,” Sitting Bull declared. The Indian idea of freedom, however, which centered on preserving their cul- tural and political autonomy and control of ancestral lands, conflicted with the interests and values of most white Americans. T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N O F T H E W E S T 489 In 1871, Congress eliminated the treaty system that dated back to the revolutionary era, by which the federal government negotiated agreements with Indians as if they were independent nations. The federal government also pressed forward with its assault on Indian cul- ture. The Bureau of Indian Affairs established boarding schools where Indian children, removed from the “nega- tive” influences of their parents and tribes, were dressed in non-Indian clothes, given new names, and educated in white ways. T h e D a w e s A c t a n d W o u n d e d K n e e The crucial step in attacking “tribalism” came in 1887 with the passage of the Dawes Act, named for Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, chair of the Senate’s Indian Affairs Committee. The act broke up the land A quilt created by a Sioux woman of nearly all tribes into small parcels to be distributed who lived on a reservation in South to Indian families, with the remainder auctioned off to white purchasers. Dakota around 1900, possibly as Indians who accepted the farms and “adopted the habits of civilized life” a gift for a nearby white family. It would become full-fledged American citizens. The policy proved to be a depicts scenes of traditional daily life disaster, leading to the loss of much tribal land and the erosion of Indian cul- among the Indians, including hunting buffalo and cooking game. The bird’s tural traditions. When the government made 2 million acres of Indian land eggs at the top left corner have available in Oklahoma, 50,000 white settlers poured into the territory to hatched at the bottom right. claim farms on the single day of April 22, 1889. Further land rushes followed in the 1890s. In the half century after the passage of the Dawes Act, Indians lost 86 million of the 138 million acres of land in their possession in 1887. Some Indians sought solace in the Ghost Dance, a religious revitaliza- Despite white efforts to remake Indian tion campaign. Its leaders foretold a day when whites disappear, the buffalo life, traditional crafts survived. This would return, and Indians could once again practice their ancestral customs photograph, taken in 1903, depicts a pottery maker in the Isleta Pueblo “free from misery, death, and disease.” Large numbers of Indians gathered for near Albuquerque, New Mexico. days of singing, dancing, and religious observances. Fearing a general upris- ing, the government sent troops to the reservations. On December 29, 1890, soldiers opened fire on Ghost Dancers encamped near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing between 150 and 200 Indians, mostly women and children. The Wounded Knee massacre was widely applauded in the press. An army court of inquiry essentially exonerated the troops and their com- mander, and twenty soldiers were later awarded the Medal of Honor, a rec- ognition of exceptional heroism in battle, for their actions at Wounded Knee. The Wounded Knee massacre marked the end of four centuries of armed conflict between the continent’s native population and European 490 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age Focus Question How was the West transformed economically and socially in this period? I N D I A N R E S E R V A T I O N S , c a . 1 8 9 0 RIBES MANDAN COLVILLE HIDATSA CANADA L T SPOKAN BLACKFEET MINITARI ASTA REE COEUR D'ALENE CHIPPEWA WASHINGTON FLATHEAD SIOUX EST CO CHIPPEWA YAKIMA SIOUX & TRIBES NEZ PERCÉ MONTANA ASSINIBOIN NORTH DAKOTA NORTHW MINNESOTA UMATILLA WARM SPRING CROW NORTHERN SIOUX OREGON CHEYENNE TRIBES WISCONSIN IDAHO KLAMATH SOUTH DAKOTA MICHIGAN RIVER KLAMATH SHOSHONE & BANNOCK SHOSHONE & ARAPAHO SIOUX SIOUX HOOPA VALLEY WYOMING IOWA SHOSHONE PONCA WINNEBAGO & PAIUTE ROUND OMAHA SAC & FOX VALLEY PAIUTE NEBRASKA INDIANA UTE ILLINOIS POMO NEVADA SAC & FOX PAIUTE UTAH KICKAPOO TERRITORY COLORADO POTTAWATOMI KANSAS CHIPPEWA MUNSEE MISSOURI KENTUCKY CALIFORNIA MOAPA UTE JICARILLA TULE RIVER APACHE RIVER SUPPAI NAVAJO HOPI INDIAN TERRITORY HUALPAI MISSION INDIANS MOHAVE ARIZONA PUEBLO Peoria TERRITORY ZUÑI Chilocco Ottawa Quapaw MOHAVE NEW MEXICO Kansas Wyandotte PIMA Modoc APACHE TERRITORY CHEROKEE Tonkawa Shawnee YUMA OUTLET Ponca Osage Seneca PAPAGO MARICOPA Otoe & Missouri MESCALERO Cherokee APACHE Iowa Pawnee PAPAGO Cheyenne & Pa c i f i c TEXAS Arapaho Kickapoo Sac & Fox O c e a n Wichita Creek Caddo Pottawatomie MEXICO Comanche Seminole Kiowa Choctaw Apache Chickasaw 0 200 400 miles Indian reservations 0 200 400 kilometers By 1890, the vast majority of the settlers and their descendants. By 1900, the Indian population had remaining Indian population had been fallen to 250,000, the lowest point in American history. Of that num- removed to reservations scattered ber, 53,000 had become American citizens by accepting land allotments across the western states. under the Dawes Act. The following year, Congress granted citizenship to 100,000 residents of Indian Territory (in present-day Oklahoma). The remainder would have to wait until 1919 (for those who fought in World War I) and 1924, when Congress made all Indians American citizens. S e t t l e r S o c i e t i e s a n d G l o b a l W e s t s The conquest of the American West was part of a global process whereby set- A global process tlers moved boldly into the interior of regions in temperate climates around the world, bringing their familiar crops and livestock and establishing T H E T R A N S F O R M A T I O N O F T H E W E S T 491 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m A n d r e w C a r n e g i e , “ W e a l t h ” ( 1 8 8 9 ) One of the richest men in Gilded Age America, Andrew Carnegie promoted what he called the gospel of wealth, the idea that those who accumulated money had an obligation to use it to promote the advancement of society. He explained his outlook in this article in the North American Review, one of the era’s most prominent magazines. The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. . . . The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us to-day measures the change which has come with civilization. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. . . . In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves. . . . He is the only true reformer who is as careful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in alms-giving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue. . . . The best means of benefitting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise—parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste, and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people—in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good. Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor. 492 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age F r o m I r a S t e w a r d , “ A S e c o n d D e c l a r a t i o n o f I n d e p e n d e n c e ” ( 1 8 7 9 ) At a Fourth of July celebration in Chicago in 1879, Ira Steward, the most prominent labor leader associated with the movement for the eight-hour day, invoked the legacy of the Declaration of Independence and the abolition of slavery during the Civil War to discuss labor’s grievances. Resolved, That the practical question for an American Fourth of July is not between freedom and slavery, but between wealth and poverty. For if it is true that laborers ought to have as little as possible of the wealth they produce, South Carolina slaveholders were right and the Massachusetts abolitionists were wrong. Because, when the working classes are denied everything but the barest necessities of life, they have no decent use for liberty. . . . Slavery is . . . the child of poverty, instead of poverty the child of slavery: and freedom is the child of wealth, instead of wealth the child of freedom. The only road, therefore, to universal freedom is the road that leads to universal wealth. Resolved, That while the Fourth of July was heralded a hundred years ago in the name of Liberty, we now herald this day in behalf of the great economic measure of Eight Hours, or shorter day’s work for wageworkers everywhere . . . because more leisure, rest and thought will cultivate habits, customs, and expenditures that mean higher wages: and the world’s highest paid laborers now furnish each other with vastly more occupations or days’ work than the lowest paid workers can give to one another. . . . [And] if the worker’s power to buy increases with his power to do, granaries and warehouses will empty their pockets, and farms and factories fill up with producers. . . . And we call to the workers of the whole civilized world, especially those of France, Germany, and Great Britain, to join hands with Q U E S T I O N S the laborers of the United States in this mighty 1. Why does Carnegie think it is better to movement. . . . build public institutions than to give On the . . . issue of eight hours, therefore, or less hours, we join hands with all, regardless charity to the poor? of politics, nationality, color, religion, or sex; 2. Why does Ira Steward appeal to knowing no friends or foes except as they aid other countries for assistance and or oppose this long-postponed and world-wide understanding? movement. And for the soundness of our political econ- 3. Compare the views of Carnegie and omy, as well as the rectitude of our intentions, Stewart about how the economy should we confidently and gladly appeal to the wiser operate. statesmanship of the civilized world. V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 493 mining and other industries. Countries such as Argentina, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, as well as the United States, are often called “settler societies,” because immigrants from overseas quickly outnum- bered and displaced the original inhabitants—unlike in India and most parts of colonial Africa, where fewer Europeans ventured and those who did relied on the labor of the indigenous inhabitants. In many settler societies, native peoples were subjected to cultural reconstruction similar to policies in the United States. In Australia, the government gathered the Aboriginal populations—their numbers devastated by disease—in “reserves” reminiscent of American Indian reservations. Australia went fur- ther than the United States in the forced assimilation of surviving Aboriginal peoples. The government removed large numbers of children from their families to be adopted by whites—a policy abandoned only in the 1970s. A 1911 poster advertising the federal government’s sale of land formerly possessed by Indians. Under the Dawes Act of 1887, Indian families were allotted individual farms and the remaining land P O L I T I C S I N A G I L D E D A G E on reservations, so-called surplus land, was made available to whites. The era from 1870 to 1890 is the only period of American history com- monly known by a derogatory name—the Gilded Age, after the title of an 1873 novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. “Gilded” means covered with a layer of gold, but it also suggests that the glittering surface covers a core of little real value and is therefore deceptive. T h e C o r r u p t i o n o f P o l i t i c s As they had earlier in the nineteenth century, Americans during the Gilded Age saw their nation as an island of political democracy in a world still dominated by undemocratic governments. In Europe, only France and Switzerland enjoyed universal male suffrage. Even in Britain, most of the working class could not vote until the passage of the Reform Act of 1884. The new corporation and Nonetheless, the power of the new corporations, seemingly immune political power to democratic control, raised disturbing questions for the American under- standing of political freedom as popular self-government. Political corrup- tion was rife. In Pennsylvania’s legislature, the “third house” of railroad 494 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age Was the Gilded Age political system effective in meeting its goals? The Bosses of the Senate, a cartoon from Puck, January 23, 1889, shows well-fed monopolists towering over the obedient senators. Above them, a sign rewrites the closing words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “This is the Senate of the Monopolists, by the Monopolists, and for the Monopolists.” lobbyists supposedly exerted as much influence as the elected chambers. In the West, many lawmakers held stock or directorships in lumber com- panies and railroads that received public aid. Urban politics fell under the sway of corrupt political machines like New York’s Tweed Ring, which plundered the city of tens of millions of dollars. “Boss” William M. Tweed’s organization reached into every “Boss” Tweed of New York neighborhood. He won support from the city’s immigrant poor by fashion- ing a kind of private welfare system that provided food, fuel, and jobs in hard times. A combination of political reformers and businessmen tired of paying tribute to the ring ousted Tweed in the early 1870s, although he remained popular among the city’s poor, who considered him an urban Robin Hood. At the national level, the most notorious example of corruption came to light during Grant’s presidency. This was Crédit Mobilier, a corporation The Crédit Mobilier scandal formed by an inner ring of Union Pacific Railroad stockholders to oversee the line’s government-assisted construction. Essentially, it enabled the participants to sign contracts with themselves, at an exorbitant profit, to build the new line. The arrangement was protected by the distribution of stock to influential politicians. T h e P o l i t i c s o f D e a d C e n t e r In national elections, party politics bore the powerful imprint of the Civil War. Republicans controlled the industrial North and Midwest and the Republican strength agrarian West and were particularly strong among members of revival- ist churches, Protestant immigrants, and blacks. Organizations of Union P O L I T I C S I N A G I L D E D A G E 495 veterans formed a bulwark of Republican P O L I T I C A L S T A L E M A T E , support. Every Republican candidate for 1 8 7 6 – 1 8 9 2 president from 1868 to 1900 had fought in the Union army. By 1893, a lavish system of pensions for Union soldiers and their widows and children consumed more than 40 percent of the federal budget. Democrats, after 1877, dominated the South and did well among Catholic voters, especially Irish-Americans, in the nation’s cities. The parties were closely divided. In three of the five presidential elections between 1876 and 1892, the margin sepa- rating the major candidates was less than Non-voting territory 1 percent of the popular vote. Twice, in 1876 and 1888, the candidate with an Elections of 1876–1892 electoral-college majority trailed in the Voted Democrat 4–5 times Voted Republican 4–5 times popular vote. Only for brief periods did the Voted more irregularly same party control the White House and both houses of Congress. More than once, Congress found itself paralyzed as important bills shuttled back and forth between House and Senate, and special sessions to complete legislation became necessary. Gilded Age presidents made little effort to mobilize public opinion or extend executive leadership. In some ways, though, American democracy in the Gilded Age seemed Party activism remarkably healthy. Elections were closely contested, party loyalty was intense, and 80 percent or more of eligible voters turned out to cast ballots. G o v e r n m e n t a n d t h e E c o n o m y The nation’s political structure, however, proved ill equipped to deal with the problems created by the economy’s rapid growth. Despite its expanded scope and powers arising from the Civil War, the federal government remained remarkably small by modern standards. The federal workforce in 1880 numbered 100,000 (today, it exceeds 2.5 million). The parties and business Nationally, both parties came under the control of powerful politi- interest cal managers with close ties to business interests. Republicans strongly supported a high tariff to protect American industry, and throughout the 1870s they pursued a fiscal policy based on reducing federal spending, repaying much of the national debt, and withdrawing greenbacks—the paper money issued by the Union during the Civil War—from circulation. Democrats opposed the high tariff, but the party’s national leadership 496 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age Was the Gilded Age political system effective in meeting its goals? remained closely linked to New York bankers and financiers and resisted demands from debt-ridden agricultural areas for an increase in the money supply. In 1879, for the first time since the war, the United States returned to the gold standard—that is, paper currency became exchangeable for gold at a fixed rate. Republican economic policies strongly favored the interests of eastern industrialists and bankers. These policies worked to the disadvantage of southern and western farmers, who had to pay a premium for manufactured goods while the prices they received for their produce steadily declined. R e f o r m L e g i s l a t i o n Gilded Age national politics did not entirely lack accomplishments. Inspired in part by President Garfield’s assassination by a disappointed office seeker, the Civil Service Act of 1883 created a merit system for fed- eral employees, with appointment via competitive examinations rather than political influence. Although it applied at first to only 10 percent of This political cartoon from the 1884 the more than 100,000 government workers, the act marked the first step presidential campaign depicts Republican nominee James G. Blaine in establishing a professional civil service and removing officeholding as a champion of a high tariff that from the hands of political machines. (However, since funds raised from would protect American workers from political appointees had helped to finance the political parties, civil service cheap foreign labor. Blaine’s attire is reform had the unintended result of increasing politicians’ dependence on a reference to the nominating speech donations from business interests.) at the Republican convention by In 1887, in response to public outcries against railroad practices, Robert G. Ingersoll, who referred to the candidate as a “plumed knight.” Congress established the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to ensure that the rates railroads charged farmers and merchants to trans- port their goods were “reasonable” and did not offer more favorable treat- ment to some shippers over others. The ICC was the first federal agency intended to regulate economic activity, but since it lacked the power to establish rates on its own—it could only sue companies in court—it had little impact on railroad practices. Three years later, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which banned all combinations and practices that restrained free trade. But the language was so vague that the act proved almost impossible to enforce. Weak as they were, these laws helped Legacy of economic reform to establish the precedent that the national government could regulate the legislation economy to promote the public good. P o l i t i c a l C o n f l i c t i n t h e S t a t e s At the state and local level the Gilded Age was an era of political ferment and conflict over the proper uses of governmental authority. In the imme- diate aftermath of the Civil War, state governments in the North, like P O L I T I C S I N A G I L D E D A G E 497 those in the Reconstruction South, greatly expanded their responsibility for public health, welfare, and education, and cities invested heavily in public works such as park construction and improved water and gas services. The policies of railroad companies produced a growing chorus of protest, especially in the West. Farmers and local merchants complained of excessively high freight rates, discrimination in favor of large producers and shippers, and high fees charged by railroad-controlled grain Laying Tracks at Union Square warehouses. Critics of the railroads came for a Railroad, an 1890 painting, together in the Patrons of Husbandry, or Grange (1867), which moved to depicts one of the era’s many public establish cooperatives for storing and marketing farm output in the hope works assisted by state and local of forcing the carriers “to take our produce at a fair price.” governments. At the same time, the labor movement, revitalized during the Civil War, demanded laws establishing eight hours as a legal day’s work. Seven northern legislatures passed such laws, but since most lacked strong means of enforcement they remained dead letters. Nevertheless, the efforts of workers, like those of farmers, inspired a far-reaching national debate. F R E E D O M I N T H E G I L D E D A G E T h e S o c i a l P r o b l e m As the United States matured into an industrial economy, Americans struggled to make sense of the new social order. Debates over politi- cal economy engaged the attention of millions of Americans, reaching far beyond the tiny academic world into the public sphere inhabited by self-educated workingmen and farmers, reformers of all kinds, newspaper editors, and politicians. This broad public discussion produced thousands of books, pamphlets, and articles on such technical issues as land taxation and currency reform, as well as widespread debate over the social and ethi- cal implications of economic change. Many Americans sensed that something had gone wrong in the Social unrest nation’s social development. Talk of “better classes,” “respectable classes,” and “dangerous classes,” dominated public discussion, and bitter labor strikes seemed to have become the rule. In 1881, the Massachusetts Bureau 498 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age How did the economic development of the Gilded Age affect American freedom? of Labor Statistics reported that virtually every worker it interviewed in Fall River, the nation’s largest center of textile production, complained of overwork, poor housing, and tyrannical employers. With factory workers living on the edge of poverty alongside a grow- ing class of millionaires, it became increasingly difficult to view wage Freedom and equality labor as a temporary resting place on the road to economic independence. disconnected Yet given the vast expansion of the nation’s productive capacity, many Americans viewed the concentration of wealth as inevitable, natural, and justified by progress. By the turn of the century, advanced economics taught that wages were determined by the iron law of supply and demand and that wealth rightly flowed not to those who worked the hardest but to men with business skills and access to money. The close link between freedom and equality, forged in the Revolution and reinforced during the Civil War, appeared increasingly out of date. S o c i a l D a r w i n i s m i n A m e r i c a The idea of the natural superiority of some groups to others, which before the Civil War had been invoked to justify slavery in an otherwise free society, now reemerged in the vocabulary of modern science to explain the success and failure of individuals and social classes. In 1859, the British scientist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. One of the most Charles Darwin influential works of science ever to appear, it expounded the theory of evolution whereby plant and animal species best suited to their environ- ment took the place of those less able to adapt. In a highly oversimplified form, language borrowed from Darwin, The misapplication of such as “natural selection,” “the struggle for existence,” and “the survival Darwin’s theory of evolution of the fittest,” entered public discussion of social problems in the Gilded Age. According to what came to be called Social Darwinism, evolution was as natural a process in human society as in nature, and government must not interfere. Especially misguided, in this view, were efforts to uplift those at the bottom of the social order, such as laws regulating conditions of work or public assistance to the poor. The giant industrial corporation, Social Darwinists believed, had emerged because it was better adapted to its environment than earlier forms of enterprise. To restrict its operations by legislation would reduce society to a more primitive level. Even the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s did not shake the widespread view that the poor were essentially responsible for their own fate. Failure to advance in society was widely thought to indicate a lack of character, an absence of self-reliance and determination in the face of adversity. F R E E D O M I N T H E G I L D E D A G E 499 The era’s most influential Social Darwinist was Yale professor William Graham Sumner William Graham Sumner. For Sumner, freedom required frank accep- tance of inequality. Society faced two and only two alternatives: “liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfit- test.” Government, Sumner believed, existed only to protect “the property of men and the honor of women,” not to upset social arrangements decreed by nature. L i b e r t y o f C o n t r a c t a n d t h e C o u r t s The growing influence of Social Darwinism helped to popularize an idea that A new idea of free labor would be embraced by the business and professional classes in the last quar- ter of the nineteenth century—a “negative” definition of freedom as limited government and an unrestrained free market. Central to this social vision was the idea of contract. So long as labor relations were governed by con- tracts freely arrived at by independent individuals, neither the government nor unions had a right to interfere with working conditions, and Americans had no grounds to complain of a loss of freedom. Thus the principle of free labor, which originated as a celebration of the independent small producer in a society of broad equality and social harmony, was transformed into a defense of the unrestrained operations of the capitalist marketplace. State and federal courts regularly struck down state laws regulating The courts and economic economic enterprise as an interference with the right of the free laborer to freedom choose his employment and working conditions, and of the entrepreneur to utilize his property as he saw fit. For decades, the courts viewed state regulation of business—especially laws establishing maximum hours of work and safe working conditions—as an insult to free labor. The courts generally sided with business enterprises that complained of a loss of economic freedom. In 1885, the New York Court of Appeals invalidated a state law that prohibited the manufacture of cigars in tene- ment dwellings on the grounds that such legislation deprived the worker of Women and work the “liberty” to work “where he will.” Although women still lacked political rights, they were increasingly understood to possess the same economic “lib- erty,” defined in this way, as men. The Illinois Supreme Court in 1895 declared unconstitutional a state law that outlawed the production of garments in sweatshops and established a forty-eight-hour work week for women and E. C. Knight case children. In 1895 in United States v. E. C. Knight Co. , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which barred combinations in restraint of trade, could not be used to break up a sugar refining monopoly, because the Constitution empowered Congress to regulate commerce but not manufacturing. Their unwillingness to allow regulation of the economy, 500 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age How did the economic development of the Gilded Age affect American freedom? however, did not prevent the courts from acting to impede labor organization. The Sherman Act, intended to prevent business mergers that stifled competi- tion, was used by judges primarily to issue injunctions prohibiting strikes on the grounds that they illegally interfered with the freedom of trade. In a 1905 case that became almost as notorious as Dred Scott, the Supreme Court in Lochner v. New York voided a state law establishing ten Lochner v. New York hours per day or sixty per week as the maximum hours of work for bak- ers. By this time, the Court was invoking “liberty” in ways that could easily seem absurd. In one case, it overturned as a violation of “personal liberty” a Kansas law prohibiting “yellow-dog” contracts, which made nonmember- ship in a union a condition of employment. In another, it struck down state laws requiring payment of coal miners in money rather than paper usable only at company-owned stores. Workers, observed mine union leader John P. Mitchell, could not but feel that “they are being guaranteed the lib- erties they do not want and denied the liberty that is of real value to them.” L A B O R A N D T H E R E P U B L I C “ T h e O v e r w h e l m i n g L a b o r Q u e s t i o n ” Ruins of the Pittsburgh Round House, As Mitchell’s remark suggests, public debate in the late nineteenth a photograph published in the July century, more than at almost any other moment in American history, 1895 issue of Scribner’s Magazine, divided along class lines. The shift from the slavery controversy to shows the widespread destruction what one politician called “the overwhelming labor question” was dra- of property during the Great Railroad matically illustrated in 1877, the year of both the end of Strike of July 1877. Reconstruction and also the first national labor walkout— the Great Railroad Strike. When workers protesting a pay cut paralyzed rail traffic in much of the country, militia units tried to force them back to work. After troops fired on strikers in Pittsburgh, killing twenty people, workers responded by burning the city’s railroad yards, destroy- ing millions of dollars in property. General strikes para- lyzed Chicago and St. Louis. The strike revealed both a strong sense of solidarity among workers and the close ties between the Republican Party and the new class of industrialists. President Rutherford B. Hayes, who a few months earlier had ordered federal troops in the South to end their involvement in local politics, ordered the army into the North. The workers, the president wrote in his diary, were “put down by force.” L A B O R A N D T H E R E P U B L I C 501 In the aftermath of 1877, the federal government constructed armories in major cities to ensure that troops would be on hand in the event of further labor diffi- culties. Henceforth, national power would be used not to protect beleaguered for- mer slaves but to guarantee the rights of property. T h e K n i g h t s o f L a b o r a n d t h e “ C o n d i t i o n s E s s e n t i a l t o L i b e r t y ” The 1880s witnessed a new wave of labor organizing. At its center stood the Knights The Great Labor Parade of of Labor, led by Terence V. Powderly. The September 1, from Frank Leslie’s Knights were the first group to try to organize unskilled workers as well as Illustrated Newspaper, September 13, skilled, women alongside men, and blacks as well as whites (although even 1884. A placard illustrates how the labor movement identified Gilded Age the Knights excluded the despised Asian immigrants on the West Coast). The employers with the Slave Power of group reached a peak membership of nearly 800,000 in 1886 and involved the pre–Civil War era. millions of workers in strikes, boycotts, political action, and educational and social activities. Labor reformers of the Gilded Age put forward a wide array of pro- grams, from the eight-hour day to public employment in hard times, currency reform, anarchism, socialism, and the creation of a vaguely defined “cooperative commonwealth.” Labor raised the question whether meaning- ful freedom could exist in a situation of extreme economic inequality. M i d d l e - C l a s s R e f o r m e r s Dissatisfaction with social conditions in the Gilded Age extended well beyond aggrieved workers. Alarmed by fear of class warfare and the Social thought in the growing power of concentrated capital, social thinkers offered numerous Gilded Age plans for change. In the last quarter of the century, more than 150 utopian or cataclysmic novels appeared, predicting that social conflict would end either in a new, harmonious social order or in total catastrophe. Of the many books proposing more optimistic remedies for the unequal distribution of wealth, the most popular were Progress and Poverty (1879) by Henry George, The Cooperative Commonwealth (1884) by Laurence Gronlund, and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888). All three were among the century’s greatest best-sellers, their extraordinary success tes- 502 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age How did reformers of the period approach the problems of an industrial society? tifying to what George called “a wide-spread consciousness . . . that there is something radically wrong in the present social organization.” All three writers, though in very different ways, sought to reclaim an imagined golden age of social harmony and American freedom. Henry George’s Progress Progress and Poverty probably commanded more public attention than and Poverty any book on economics in American history. Henry George began with a famous statement of “the problem” suggested by its title—the growth of “squalor and misery” alongside material progress. His solution was the “single tax,” which would replace other taxes with a levy on increases in the value of real estate. No one knows how many of Henry George’s read- ers actually believed in this way of solving the nation’s ills. But millions responded to his clear explanation of economic relationships and his stir- ring account of how the “social distress” long thought to be confined to the Old World had made its appearance in the New. Quite different in outlook was The Cooperative Commonwealth, the first book to popularize socialist ideas for an American audience. Its author, Laurence Gronlund, was a lawyer who had emigrated from Denmark in 1867. Socialism—the belief that private control of economic enterprises Socialism should be replaced by government ownership in order to ensure a fairer dis- tribution of the benefits of the wealth produced—became a major political force in western Europe in the late nineteenth century. In the United States, however, where access to private property was widely considered essential to individual freedom, socialist beliefs were largely confined to immigrants, whose writings, frequently in foreign languages, attracted little attention. Gronlund began the process of socialism’s Americanization. Whereas Edward Bellamy, author of the Karl Marx, the nineteenth century’s most influential socialist theorist, utopian novel Looking Backward. had predicted that socialism would come into being via a working-class revolution, Gronlund portrayed it as the end result of a process of peace- ful evolution, not violent upheaval. He thus made socialism seem more acceptable to middle-class Americans who desired an end to class conflict and the restoration of social harmony. Not until the early twentieth century would socialism become a sig- nificant presence in American public life. As Gronlund himself noted, the most important result of The Cooperative Commonwealth was to prepare an audience for Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, which promoted social- ist ideas while “ignoring that name” (Bellamy wrote of nationalism, not socialism). In Looking Backward, his main character falls asleep in the late nineteenth century only to awaken in the year 2000, in a world where cooperation has replaced class strife, “excessive individualism,” and cutthroat competition. Freedom, Bellamy insisted, was a social condition resting on interdependence, not autonomy. L A B O R A N D T H E R E P U B L I C 503 The book inspired the creation of hundreds of nationalist clubs devoted to bringing into existence the world of 2000 and left a profound mark on a generation of reformers and intellectuals. Bellamy held out the hope of retaining the material abundance made possible by industrial capitalism while eliminating inequality. P r o t e s t a n t s a n d M o r a l R e f o r m Mainstream Protestants played a major role in seeking to stamp out sin during the Gilded Age. What one historian calls a “Christian lobby” pro- moted political solutions to what they saw as the moral problems raised by labor conflict and the growth of cities, and threats to religious faith by Darwinism and other scientific advances. Unlike the pre–Civil War period, when “moral suasion” was the pre- ferred approach of many reformers, powerful national organizations like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, National Reform Association, Legislation on morals and Reform Bureau now campaigned for federal legislation that would “christianize the government” by outlawing sinful behavior. Among the proposed targets were the consumption of alcohol, gambling, prostitu- tion, polygamy, and birth control. In a striking departure from the prewar situation, southerners joined in the campaign for federal regulation of individual behavior, something whites in the region had strongly opposed before the Civil War, fearing it could lead to action against slavery. The key role played by the white South in the campaign for moral legislation The Bible Belt helped earn the region a reputation as the Bible Belt—a place where politi- cal action revolved around religious principles. Although efforts to enact a national law requiring businesses to close on Sunday failed, the Christian lobby’s efforts set the stage for later legislation such as the Mann Act of 1910, banning the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes (an effort to suppress prostitution), and Prohibition. A S o c i a l G o s p e l Most of the era’s Protestant preachers concentrated on attacking individual sins like drinking and Sabbath-breaking and saw nothing immoral about the pursuit of riches. But the outlines of what came to be called the Social Rauschenbusch and Gladden Gospel were taking shape in the writings of Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist minister in New York City; Washington Gladden, a Congregational clergyman in Columbus, Ohio; and others. They insisted that freedom and spiritual self-development required an equalization of wealth and power and that unbridled competition mocked the Christian ideal of brotherhood. 504 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age How did reformers of the period approach the problems of an industrial society? The Social Gospel movement originated as an effort to reform Protestant churches by expanding their appeal in poor urban neighbor- hoods and making them more attentive to the era’s social ills. The move- ment’s adherents established missions and relief programs in urban areas that attempted to alleviate poverty, combat child labor, and encour- age the construction of better working-class housing. Within American Catholicism as well, a group of priests and bishops emerged who attempted to alter the church’s traditional hostility to movements for social reform and its isolation from contemporary currents of social thought. With most of its parishioners working men and women, they argued, the church should lend its support to the labor movement. T h e H a y m a r k e t A f f a i r The year of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, 1886, also witnessed an unprecedented upsurge in labor activity. On May 1, 1886, some 350,000 workers in cities across the country demonstrated for an eight-hour day. Having originated in the United States, May 1, or May Day as it came to The first May Day be called, soon became an annual date of parades, picnics, and protests, celebrated around the world by organized labor. The most dramatic events of 1886 took place in Chicago, a city with a large and vibrant labor movement that brought together native-born and immigrant workers, whose outlooks ranged from immigrant socialism and anarchism to American traditions of equality and anti-monopoly. On May 3, 1886, four strikers were killed by police. The next day, a rally was held in Haymarket Square to protest the killings. Near the end of the Haymarket protests speeches, someone—whose identity has never been determined—threw a bomb into the crowd, killing a policeman. The panicked police opened fire, shooting several bystanders and a number of their own force. Soon after, police raided the offices of labor and radical groups and arrested their leaders. Employers took the opportunity to paint the labor movement as a dangerous and un-American force, prone to violence and controlled by foreign-born radicals. Eight anarchists were charged with plotting and carrying out the bombing. Even though the evidence against them was extremely weak, a jury convicted the “Haymarket martyrs.” Four were hanged, one committed suicide in prison, and the remaining three were imprisoned until John Peter Altgeld, a pro-labor governor of Illinois, com- muted their sentences in 1893. Seven of the eight men accused of plotting the Haymarket bombing were foreign-born—six Germans and an English immigrant. The last was Albert Parsons, a native of Alabama who had served in the Confederate L A B O R A N D T H E R E P U B L I C 505 army in the Civil War, married a black woman, and edited a Republican newspaper in Texas during Reconstruction. Having survived the Ku Klux Klan in Reconstruction Texas, Parsons perished on the Illinois gallows for a crime that he, like the other “Haymarket martyrs,” did not commit. L a b o r a n d P o l i t i c s The Haymarket affair took place amid an outburst of independent labor political activity. In Kansas City, for example, a coalition of black and Irish- American workers and middle-class voters elected Tom Hanna as mayor. He proceeded to side with unions rather than employers in industrial disputes. The most celebrated labor campaign took place in New York City, where in 1886, somewhat to his own surprise, Henry George found him- In this pro-labor cartoon from 1888, a self thrust into the role of labor’s candidate for mayor. George’s aim in workingman rescues liberty from the running was to bring attention to the single tax on land. The labor leaders stranglehold of monopolies and the who organized the United Labor Party had more immediate goals in mind, pro-business major parties. especially stopping the courts from barring strikes and jailing unionists for conspiracy. A few days after the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, New Yorkers flocked to the polls to elect their mayor. Nearly 70,000 voted for George, who finished second, eclipsing the total of the Republican candidate, Theodore Roosevelt, and coming close to defeating Democrat Abram Hewitt. The events of 1886 suggested that labor might be on the verge of establishing itself as a permanent political force. In fact, that year marked the high point of the Knights of Labor. Facing increasing employer hostil- ity and linked by employers and the press to the violence and radicalism Decline of Knights of Labor associated with the Haymarket events, the Knights soon declined. The major parties, moreover, proved remarkably resourceful in appealing to labor voters. In the early twentieth century, reformers would turn to new ways of addressing the social conditions of freedom and new means of increasing ordinary Americans’ political and economic liberty. But before this, in the 1890s, the nation would face its gravest crisis since the Civil War, and the boundaries of freedom would once again be redrawn. 506 C h a p t e r 1 6  America’s Gilded Age C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S “great upheaval” of 1886 1. The American economy thrived because of federal (p. 476) involvement, not the lack of it. How did the federal “trusts” (p. 480) government actively promote industrial and agricultural vertical integration (p. 481) development in this period? “captains of industry” vs. “robber barons” (p. 482) “bonanza farms” (p. 486) 2. Why were railroads so important to America’s second Dawes Act (p. 490) industrial revolution? What events demonstrate their Ghost Dance (p. 490) influence on society and politics as well as the economy? gospel of wealth (p. 492) greenbacks (p. 496) 3. Why did organized efforts of farmers, workers, and local Interstate Commerce reformers largely fail to achieve substantive change in the Commission (p. 497) Gilded Age? Sherman Antitrust Act (p. 497) Patrons of Husbandry (p. 498) 4. Describe the involvement of American family farmers Social Darwinism (p. 499) in the global economy after 1870 and its effects on their liberty of contract (p. 500) Knights of Labor (p. 502) independence. Social Gospel (p. 504) Haymarket Affair (p. 505) 5. How successfully did third parties lead movements for reform at the state level? 6. How did American political leaders seek to remake Indians and change the ways they lived? 7. How do the ideas of Henry George, Edward Bellamy, and other authors conflict with Social Darwinism? 8. How did social reformers such as Edward Bellamy, Henry wwnorton.com George, and advocates of the Social Gospel movement /studyspace conceive of liberty and freedom differently than the proponents of the liberty of contract ideal and laissez- VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE RESOURCES AND MORE faire? s s 9. In what ways did the West provide a “safety valve” for s the problems in the industrial East? In what ways did it s reveal some of the same problems? s C h a p t e r R e v i e w a n d O n l i n e R e s o u r c e s 507 1867 Alaska purchased C H A P T E R 1 7 1874 Women’s Christian Temperance Union founded 1879– Kansas Exodus 1880 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act 1883 Civil Rights Cases F R E E D O M ’ S 1886 American Federation of Labor established 1890 National American Woman Suffrage Association B O U N D A R I E S , A T organized Alfred T. Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History H O M E A N D A B R O A D 1892 Homestead strike Populist Party organized  1893 Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani overthrown Economic depression 1 8 9 0 – 1 9 0 0 begins 1894 Coxey’s Army marches to Washington Pullman strike Immigration Restriction League established 1895 Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta speech 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson The National Association of Colored Women established 1897 William McKinley inaugurated president 1898 Spanish-American War 1899– Philippine War 1903 1900 Gold Standard Act 1901– Insular Cases 1904 A Trifle Embarrassed, a cartoon from the magazine Puck in 1898, depicts Uncle Sam and a female figure of liberty standing at the gate of a Foundling [Orphan] Asylum and being presented with orphans representing Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba, and the Philippines. These were the territories acquired by the United States during the Spanish-American War. (All but Cuba remained American possessions.) The artist seems to question whether the United States is prepared to assume the role of imperial power. One of the most popular songs of 1892 bore the title “Father Was Killed by a Pinkerton Man.” It was inspired by an incident dur- F O C U S ing a bitter strike at Andrew Carnegie’s steelworks at Home- stead, Pennsylvania, the nineteenth century’s most widely publicized Q U E S T I O N S confrontation between labor and capital. Homestead’s twelve steel mills were the most profitable and techno- logically advanced in the world. The union contract gave the Amalgam- s ated Association a considerable say in their operation, including the right and the significance of to approve the hiring of new workers and to regulate the pace of work. Populism? In 1892, Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, his local supervisor, decided to operate the plant on a nonunion basis. Henceforth, only workers who s agreed not to join the union could work at Homestead. In response, blacks after 1877 give way the workers blockaded the steelworks and mobilized support from the to legal segregation across local community. The battle memorialized in song took place on July 6, the South? 1892, when armed strikers confronted 300 private policemen from the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Seven workers and three Pinkerton agents s were killed, and the Pinkertons were forced to retreat. Four days later, boundaries of American the governor of Pennsylvania dispatched 8,000 militiamen to open the freedom grow narrower in complex on management’s terms. In the end, the Amalgamated Associa- this period? tion was destroyed. Homestead demonstrated that neither a powerful union nor public s opinion could influence the conduct of the largest corporations. Moreover, emerge as an imperial two American ideas of freedom collided at Homestead—the employers’ power in the 1890s? definition, based on the idea that property rights, unrestrained by union rules or public regulation, sustained the public good; and the workers’ conception, which stressed economic security and independence from what they considered the “tyranny” of employers. During the 1890s, Andrew Carnegie’s ironworks at many Americans came to believe that they were being denied economic Homestead, Pennsylvania. independence and democratic self-government, long central to the popular understanding of freedom. Millions of farmers joined the Populist movement in an attempt to reverse their declining economic pros- pects and to rescue the government from what they saw as control by powerful corporate interests. The 1890s witnessed the imposition of a new racial system in the South that locked African-Americans into the status of second-class citizenship, denying them many of the freedoms white Americans took for granted. Increasing immigration produced heated debates over whether the country should reconsider its traditional self-definition as a refuge for foreigners seeking greater F R E E D O M ’ S B O U N D A R I E S , A T H O M E A N D A B R O A D 509 freedom on American shores. At the end of the 1890s, in the Spanish- American War, the United States for the first time acquired overseas possessions and found itself ruling over subject peoples from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. Was the democratic republic, many Americans won- dered, becoming an empire like those of Europe? Rarely has the country experienced at one time so many debates over both the meaning of free- dom and freedom’s boundaries. T H E P O P U L I S T C H A L L E N G E T h e F a r m e r s ’ R e v o l t Even as labor unrest crested, a different kind of uprising was ripen- ing in the South and the trans-Mississippi West, a response to falling agricultural prices and growing economic dependency in rural areas. In the South, the sharecropping system, discussed in Chapter 15, locked millions of tenant farmers, white and black, into perpetual poverty. The interruption of cotton exports during the Civil War had led to the rapid Causes of unrest expansion of production in India, Egypt, and Brazil. The glut of cotton on the world market led to declining prices, throwing millions of small farmers deep into debt and threatening them with the loss of their land. In the West, farmers who had mortgaged their property to purchase seed, fertilizer, and equipment faced the prospect of losing their farms when unable to repay their bank loans. Farmers increasingly believed that their plight derived from the high freight rates charged by railroad companies, excessive interest rates for loans from merchants and bank- ers, and the fiscal policies of the federal government (discussed in the previous chapter) that reduced the supply of money and helped to push down farm prices. The Farmers’ Alliance Through the Farmers’ Alliance, the largest citizens’ movement of the nineteenth century, farmers sought to remedy their condition. Founded in Texas in the late 1870s, the Alliance spread to forty-three states by 1890. The Alliance proposed that the federal government establish warehouses where farmers could store their crops until they were sold. Using the crops as collateral, the government would then issue loans to farmers at low interest rates, thereby ending their dependence on bankers and mer- chants. Since it would have to be enacted by Congress, the “subtreasury plan,” as this proposal was called, led the Alliance into politics. 510 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad What were the origins and the significance of Populism? T h e P e o p l e ’ s P a r t y In the early 1890s, the Alliance evolved into the People’s Party (or Populists), the era’s greatest political insurgency. Attempting to speak for all “producing classes,” the party did not just appeal to farmers. It achieved some of its greatest successes in states like Colorado and Idaho, where it won the support of miners and industrial workers. But its major base lay in the cotton and wheat belts of the South and West. The Populists embarked on a remarkable effort of community orga- Populist organizing nization and education. To spread their message they published numer- ous pamphlets on political and economic questions, established more than 1,000 local newspapers, and sent traveling speakers throughout rural America. At great gatherings on the western plains, similar in some ways to religious revival meetings, and in small-town southern country stores, one observer wrote, “people commenced to think who had never thought before, and people talked who had seldom spoken.” Here was the last great political expression of the nineteenth-century vision of America as a commonwealth of small producers whose freedom rested on the ownership of productive property and respect for the dignity of labor. But although the Populists used the familiar language of nineteenth- century radicalism, they were hardly a backward-looking movement. They embraced the modern technologies that made large-scale cooperative The Populist message enterprise possible—the railroad, the telegraph, and the national market— while looking to the federal government to regulate those technologies in the public interest. They promoted agricultural education and believed farmers should adopt modern scientific methods of cultivation. A group of Kansas Populists, perhaps on their way to a political gathering, in a photograph from the 1890s. T H E P O P U L I S T C H A L L E N G E 511 T h e P o p u l i s t P l a t f o r m The Populist platform of 1892, adopted at the party’s Omaha convention, remains a classic document of American reform. Written by Ignatius Donnelly, a Minnesota editor, it spoke of a nation “brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin” by political corruption and eco- Proposals of reform nomic inequality. The platform put forth a long list of proposals to restore democracy and economic opportunity, many of which would be adopted during the next half-century: the direct election of U.S. senators, govern- ment control of the currency, a graduated income tax, a system of low-cost public financing to enable farmers to market their crops, and recognition of the right of workers to form labor unions. In addition, Populists called for public ownership of the railroads to guarantee farmers inexpensive access to markets for their crops. A generation would pass before a major party offered so sweeping a plan for political action to create the social conditions of freedom. P O P U L I S T S T R E N G T H , 1 8 9 2 WASHINGTON CANADA NEW MONTANA NORTH HAMPSHIRE MAINE DAKOTA VERMONT OREGON MINNESOTA IDAHO SOUTH WISCONSIN NEW MASSACHUSETTS WYOMING DAKOTA MICHIGAN YORK RHODE ISLAND NEBRASKA IOWA PENNSYLVANIA CONNECTICUT NEVADA UTAH INDIANA OHIO NEW JERSEY ILLINOIS WEST DELAWARE CALIFORNIA TERRITORY COLORADO KANSAS VIRGINIA MARYLAND MISSOURI VIRGINIA KENTUCKY NORTH ARIZONA OKLAHOMA TENNESSEE CAROLINA TERRITORY NEW MEXICO TERRITORY ARKANSAS SOUTH TERRITORY CAROLINA ALABAMA GEORGIA Populist share of the MISSISSIPPI presidential vote, 1892 TEXAS (percentage) LOUISIANA Over 48 30–48 FLORIDA 15–30 5–15 0–5 MEXICO 0 250 500 miles Not voting 0 250 500 kilometers 512 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad What were the origins and the significance of Populism? T h e P o p u l i s t C o a l i t i o n In some southern states, the Populists made remarkable efforts to unite black and white small farmers on a common political and economic pro- gram. In general, southern white Populists’ racial attitudes did not differ Populism and race significantly from those of their non-Populist neighbors. Nonetheless, rec- ognizing the need for allies to break the Democratic Party’s stranglehold on power in the South, some white Populists insisted that black and white farmers shared common grievances and could unite for common goals. Tom Watson, Georgia’s leading Populist, worked the hardest to forge a black-white alliance. “You are kept apart,” he told interracial audiences, “that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings.” While many blacks refused to abandon the party of Lincoln, others were attracted by the Populist appeal. In most of the South, however, Democrats fended off the Populist challenge by resorting to the tactics they had used to retain power since the 1870s—mobilizing whites with warnings about “Negro suprem- acy,” intimidating black voters, and stuffing ballot boxes on election day. The Populist movement also engaged the energies of thousands of Women reformers reform-minded women from farm and labor backgrounds. Some, like Mary Elizabeth Lease, a former homesteader and one of the first female lawyers in Kansas, became prominent organizers, campaigners, and strategists. During the 1890s, referendums in Colorado and Idaho approved extending the vote to women, whereas in Kansas and California the proposal went down in defeat. Populists in all these states endorsed woman suffrage. Populist presidential candidate James Weaver received more than 1 million votes in 1892. The party carried five western states. In his inau- Presidential election of 1892 gural address in 1893, Lorenzo Lewelling, the new Populist governor of Kansas, anticipated a phrase made famous seventy years later by Martin Luther King Jr.: “I have a dream. . . . A time is foreshadowed when . . . liberty, equality, and justice shall have permanent abiding places in the republic.” T h e G o v e r n m e n t a n d L a b o r Were the Populists on the verge of replacing one of the two major par- ties? The severe depression that began in 1893 led to increased conflict between capital and labor and seemed to create an opportunity for expanding the Populist vote. Time and again, employers brought state or federal authority to bear to protect their own economic power or put down threats to public order. In May 1894, the federal government T H E P O P U L I S T C H A L L E N G E 513 deployed soldiers to disperse Coxey’s Army—a band of several hundred unemployed men led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey, who marched to Washington demanding economic relief. Also in 1894, workers in the company-owned town of Pullman, Illi- nois, where railroad sleeping cars were manufactured, called a strike to protest a reduction in wages. The American Railway Union announced The Pullman Strike that its members would refuse to handle trains with Pullman cars. When the boycott crippled national rail service, President Grover Cleveland’s attorney general, Richard Olney (himself on the board of several railroad companies), obtained a federal court injunction ordering the strikers back to work. Federal troops and U.S. marshals soon occupied railroad centers like Chicago and Sacramento. The strike collapsed when the union’s leaders, including its char- Eugene Debs ismatic president, Eugene V. Debs, were jailed for contempt of court for violating the judicial order. In the case of In re Debs, the Supreme Court unanimously confirmed the sentences and approved the use of injunctions against striking labor unions. On his release from prison in November 1895, more than 100,000 persons greeted Debs at a Chicago railroad depot. P o p u l i s m a n d L a b o r Federal troops pose atop a railroad In 1894, Populists made determined efforts to appeal to industrial work- engine after being sent to Chicago ers. Governor Davis Waite of Colorado, who had edited a labor newspa- to help suppress the Pullman strike per before his election, sent the militia to protect striking miners against of 1894. 514 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad What were the origins and the significance of Populism? company police. In the state and congressional elections of that year, as the economic depression deepened, voters by the millions abandoned the Democratic Party of President Cleveland. In rural areas, the Populist vote increased in 1894. But urban work- ers did not rally to the Populists, whose core issues—the subtreasury plan and lower mortgage interest rates—had little meaning for them. Urban working-class voters instead shifted en masse to the Republicans, Labor votes who claimed that raising tariff rates (which Democrats had recently reduced) would restore prosperity by protecting manufacturers and industrial workers from the competition of imported goods and cheap foreign labor. In one of the most decisive shifts in congressional power in American history, the Republicans gained 117 seats in the House of Representatives. B r y a n a n d F r e e S i l v e r In 1896, Democrats and Populists joined to support William Jennings Bryan for the presidency. A thirty-six-year-old congressman from Nebraska, A cartoon from the magazine Judge, Bryan won the Democratic nomination after delivering to the national con- September 14, 1896, condemns vention an electrifying speech that crystallized the farmers’ pride and griev- William Jennings Bryan and his ances. “Burn down your cities and leave our farms,” Bryan proclaimed, “cross of gold” speech for defiling the symbols of Christianity. Bryan “and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms tramples on the Bible while holding and grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.” Bryan called his golden cross; a vandalized church for the “free coinage” of silver—the unrestricted minting of silver money. In is visible in the background. language ringing with biblical imagery, Bryan condemned the gold stan- dard: “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” Bryan’s demand for “free silver” was the latest expression of the view that increasing the amount of currency in circulation would raise the prices farmers received for their crops and make it easier to pay off their debts. His nomination wrested control of the Democratic Party from long- dominant leaders like President Grover Cleveland, who were closely tied to eastern businessmen. There was more to Bryan’s appeal, however, than simply free silver. A devoutly religious man, he was strongly influenced by the Social Gospel movement (discussed in the previous chapter). He championed a vision of the government helping ordinary Americans that anticipated provisions of the New Deal of the 1930s, including a progressive income tax, banking regulation, and the right of workers to form unions. Bryan also broke with tradition and embarked on a nationwide speaking tour, seeking to rally farmers and workers to his cause. T H E P O P U L I S T C H A L L E N G E 515 T h e C a m p a i g n o f 1 8 9 6 Republicans met the silverite challenge head on, insisting that gold was the only “honest” currency. Abandoning the gold standard, they insisted, would destroy business confidence and prevent recovery from the depres- sion by making creditors unwilling to extend loans, because they could not be certain of the value of the money in which they would be repaid. The William McKinley party nominated for president Ohio governor William McKinley, who as a congressman in 1890 had shepherded to passage the strongly protectionist McKinley Tariff. The election of 1896 is sometimes called the first modern presidential campaign because of the amount of money spent by the Republicans and A modern campaign the efficiency of their national organization. Eastern bankers and industrial- ists, thoroughly alarmed by Bryan’s call for monetary inflation and his fiery speeches denouncing corporate arrogance, poured millions of dollars into Republican coffers. (McKinley’s campaign raised some $10 million; Bryan’s around $300,000.) While McKinley remained at his Ohio home, his politi- cal manager Mark Hanna created a powerful national political machine that flooded the country with pamphlets, posters, and campaign buttons. The results revealed a nation as divided along regional lines as in 1860. Bryan carried the South and West and received 6.5 million votes. McKinley swept the more popu- lous industrial states of the Northeast and T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L Midwest, attracting 7.1 million. Industrial E L E C T I O N O F 1 8 9 6 America, from financiers and managers to workers, now voted solidly Republican, 4 a loyalty reinforced when prosperity 3 3 4 4 6 4 9 returned after 1897. 3 4 12 36 15 14 McKinley’s victory shattered the 3 4 32 8 13 6 political stalemate that had persisted 3 10 3 24 15 23 3 8 4 6 since 1876 and created one of the most 10 17 12 8 12 1 11 enduring political majorities in American 1 12 8 9 history. During McKinley’s presidency, 9 11 13 Republicans placed their stamp on eco- 15 8 nomic policy by passing the Dingley 4 Tariff of 1897, raising rates to the highest Non-voting territory level in history, and the Gold Standard Electoral Vote Popular Vote Act of 1900. Not until 1932, in the midst Party Candidate (Share) (Share) of another economic depression, would Republican McKinley 271 (61%) 7,104,779 (51%) Democrat Bryan 176 (39%) 6,502,925 (47%) the Democrats become the nation’s Minor parties 315,398 (2%) majority party. 516 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South? T H E S E G R E G A T E D S O U T H T h e R e d e e m e r s i n P o w e r The failure of Populism in the South opened the door for the full imposition of a new racial order. The coalition of merchants, planters, and business entrepreneurs who dominated the region’s politics after 1877 called themselves Redeemers, since they claimed to have redeemed the region from the alleged horrors of misgovernment and “black rule.” Undoing Reconstruction On achieving power, they had moved to undo as much as possible of Reconstruction. Hardest hit were the new public school systems. Louisiana spent so little on education that it became the only state in the Union in which the percentage of whites unable to read and write actu- ally increased between 1880 and 1900. Black schools, however, suffered the most, as the gap between expenditures for black and white pupils widened steadily. New laws authorized the arrest of virtually any person without employment and greatly increased the penalties for petty crimes. As the South’s prison population rose, the renting out of convicts became a Convict labor profitable business. Every southern state placed at least a portion of its convicted criminals, the majority of them blacks imprisoned for minor offenses, in the hands of private businessmen. Railroads, mines, and lumber companies competed for this new form of cheap, involuntary labor. Conditions in labor camps were often barbaric, with disease rife and the death rates high. “One dies, get another” was the motto of the A group of Florida convict laborers. system’s architects. Southern states notoriously used convicts for public labor or leased T h e F a i l u r e o f t h e N e w S o u t h D r e a m them out to work in dire conditions for private employers. During the 1880s, Atlanta editor Henry Grady tirelessly promoted the promise of a New South, an era of prosperity based on industrial expan- sion and agricultural diversification. In fact, while planters, merchants, and industrialists prospered, the region as a whole sank deeper and deeper into poverty. Some industry did develop, such as new upcountry cotton factories that offered jobs to entire families of poor whites from the sur- rounding countryside. But since the main attractions for investors were the South’s low wages and taxes and the availability of convict labor, these enterprises made little contribution to regional economic develop- ment. With the exception of Birmingham, Alabama, which by 1900 had developed into an important center for the manufacture of iron and steel, southern cities were mainly export centers for cotton, tobacco, and rice, T H E S E G R E G A T E D S O U T H 517 with little industry or skilled labor. Overall, the region remained depen- dent on the North for capital and manufactured goods. As late as the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt would declare the South the nation’s “number one” economic problem. B l a c k L i f e i n t h e S o u t h Black farmers As the most disadvantaged rural southerners, black farmers suffered the most from the region’s condition. In the Upper South, economic develop- ment offered some opportunities—mines, iron furnaces, and tobacco facto- ries employed black laborers, and a good number of black farmers managed to acquire land. In the rice kingdom of coastal South Carolina and Georgia, most of the great plantations had fallen to pieces by the turn of the century, and many blacks acquired land and took up self-sufficient farming. In most Declining landownership of the Deep South, however, African-Americans owned a smaller percent- age of land in 1900 than they had at the end of Reconstruction. In southern cities, the network of institutions created after the Civil War—schools and colleges, churches, businesses, women’s clubs, and the like—served as the foundation for increasingly diverse black urban com- munities. They supported the growth of a black middle class, mostly pro- Coal miners, in a photograph by fessionals like teachers and physicians, or businessmen like undertakers Lewis Hine. Mining was one and shopkeepers serving the needs of black customers. But the labor mar- occupation in which blacks and whites often worked side by side. ket was rigidly divided along racial lines. Black men were excluded from supervisory positions in factories and work- shops and white-collar jobs such as clerks in offices. A higher percentage of black women than white worked for wages, but mainly as domestic servants. In most occupations, the few unions that existed in the South excluded blacks, forming yet another bar- rier to their economic advancement. T h e K a n s a s E x o d u s Trapped at the bottom of a stagnant economy, some blacks sought a way out through emigration from the South. In 1879 and 1880, an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 African-Americans migrated to Kansas, seeking political equality, freedom 518 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South? from violence, access to education, and economic opportunity. Those promoting the Exodus, including former fugitive slave Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, the organizer of a real estate company, distributed flyers and lithographs picturing Kansas as an idyllic land of rural plenty. Lacking the capital to take up farming, however, most black migrants ended up as unskilled laborers in towns and cities. But few chose to return to the South. In the words of one minister active in the movement, “We had rather suffer and be free.” Despite deteriorating prospects in the South, most African-Americans had little alternative but to stay in the region. The real expansion of job opportunities was taking place in northern cities. But most northern Northern jobs employers refused to offer jobs to blacks in the expanding industrial econ- omy, preferring to hire white migrants from rural areas and immigrants from Europe. T h e D e c l i n e o f B l a c k P o l i t i c s Neither black voting nor black officeholding came to an abrupt end in 1877. A few blacks even served in Congress in the 1880s and 1890s. Nonetheless, political opportunities became more and more restricted. Not until the 1990s would the number of black legislators in the South approach the level seen during Reconstruction. Benjamin “Pap” Singleton (on the left), who helped to organize the “Exodus” of 1879, superimposed on a photograph of a boat carrying African-Americans emigrating from the South to Kansas. T H E S E G R E G A T E D S O U T H 519 With black men of talent and ambition turning away from poli- tics, the banner of political leadership passed to black women activists. The National Association of Colored Women, founded in 1896, brought Black women reformers together local and regional women’s clubs to press for both women’s rights and racial uplift. They aided poor families, offered lessons in home life and childrearing, and battled gambling and drinking in black communities. By insisting on the right of black women to be considered as “respectable” as their white counterparts, the women reformers challenged the racial ideology that consigned all blacks to the status of degraded second-class citizens. For nearly a generation after the end of Reconstruction, despite fraud and violence, black southerners continued to cast ballots in large num- Biracial politics bers. In some states, such as Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina, the Republican Party remained competitive and formed biracial political coalitions that challenged Democratic Party rule. Despite the lim- its of these alliances, especially those involving the Populists, the threat of a biracial political insurgency frightened the ruling Democrats and con- tributed greatly to the disenfranchisement movement. T h e E l i m i n a t i o n o f B l a c k V o t i n g Between 1890 and 1906, every southern state enacted laws or constitu- tional provisions meant to eliminate the black vote. Since the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited the use of race as a qualification for the suffrage, how were such measures even possible? Southern legislatures drafted laws that on paper appeared color-blind but that were actually designed Poll tax to end black voting. The most popular devices were the poll tax (a fee that each citizen had to pay in order to retain the right to vote), literacy tests, and the requirement that a prospective voter demonstrate to election offi- cials an “understanding” of the state constitution. Six southern states also adopted a “grandfather clause,” exempting from the new requirements descendants of persons eligible to vote before the Civil War (when only whites, of course, could cast ballots in the South). The racial intent of the Grandfather clause grandfather clause was so clear that the Supreme Court in 1915 invalidated such laws for violating the Fifteenth Amendment. The other methods of limiting black voting, however, remained on the books. Although election officials often allowed whites who did not meet the new qualifications to register, numerous poor and illiterate whites also lost the right to vote, a result welcomed by many planters and urban reformers. Louisiana, for example, reduced the number of blacks registered to vote 520 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South? from 130,000 in 1894 to 1,342 a decade later. But 80,000 white voters also lost the right. Disenfranchisement led directly to the rise of a generation Scope of disenfranchisement of southern demagogues, who mobilized white voters by extreme appeals to racism. As late as 1940, only 3 percent of adult black southerners were reg- istered to vote. The elimination of black and many white voters, which reversed the nineteenth-century trend toward more inclusive suffrage, could not have been accomplished without the approval of the North and the Supreme Court, both of which gave their approval to disenfranchise- ment laws, in clear violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result, southern congressmen wielded far greater power on the national scene than their tiny electorates warranted. T h e L a w o f S e g r e g a t i o n Along with disenfranchisement, the 1890s saw the widespread impo- sition of segregation in the South. Laws and local customs requiring the separation of the races had numerous precedents. They had existed in many parts of the pre–Civil War North. Southern schools and many other institutions had been segregated during Reconstruction. In the 1880s, however, southern race relations remained unsettled. Some railroads, the- aters, and hotels admitted blacks and whites on an equal basis while others separated them by race or excluded blacks altogether. In 1883, in the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court invalidated Civil Rights Cases the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had outlawed racial discrimination by hotels, theaters, railroads, and other public facilities. In 1896, in the landmark decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court gave its approval to state laws requiring separate facilities for blacks and whites. The case arose in Louisiana, where the legislature had required railroad com- panies to maintain a separate car or section for black passengers. In an 8-1 decision, the Court upheld the Louisiana law, arguing that segregated facilities did not discriminate so long as they were “separate but equal.” The lone dissenter, John Marshall Harlan, reprimanded the majority with an oft-quoted comment: “Our constitution is color-blind.” Segregation, he insisted, violated the principle of equal liberty. To Harlan, freedom for the former slaves meant the right to participate fully and equally in American society. As Harlan predicted, states reacted to the Plessy decision by passing laws mandating racial segregation in every aspect of southern life, from Spread of segregation schools to hospitals, waiting rooms, toilets, and cemeteries. Some states T H E S E G R E G A T E D S O U T H 521 In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that laws forbade taxi drivers to carry members of different races at the same time. establishing racial segregation did Despite the “thin disguise” (Harlan’s phrase) of equality required by the not violate the equal protection Court’s “separate but equal” doctrine, facilities for blacks were either non- clause of the Fourteenth Amendment existent or markedly inferior. so long as facilities were “separate More than a form of racial separation, segregation was one part of an but equal.” In fact, this was almost never the case, as illustrated by all-encompassing system of white domination, in which each component— these photographs of the elementary disenfranchisement, unequal economic status, inferior education— schools for black and white children reinforced the others. in South Boston, Virginia, in the early Segregation affected other groups as well as blacks. In some parts twentieth century. of Mississippi where Chinese laborers had been brought in to work the fields after the Civil War, three separate school systems—white, black, and Chinese—were established. In California, black, Hispanic, and American Indian children were frequently educated alongside whites, but state law required separate schools for those of “mongolian or Chinese descent.” In Segregation and other Texas and California, although Mexicans were legally considered “white,” minority groups they found themselves barred from many restaurants, places of entertain- ment, and other public facilities. T h e R i s e o f L y n c h i n g Those blacks who sought to challenge the system faced not only overwhelming political and legal power but also the threat of violent reprisal. In every year between 1883 and 1905, more than fifty persons, the vast majority of them black men, were lynched in the South—that Mob violence is, murdered by a mob. Lynching continued well into the twentieth century. By mid-century, the total number of victims since 1880 had reached nearly 5,000. Some lynchings occurred secretly at night; others 522 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the liberties of blacks after 1877 give way to legal segregation across the South? were advertised in advance and attracted large crowds of onlookers. Mobs engaged in activities that shocked the TABLE 17.1 States with civilized world. In 1899, Sam Hose, a plantation laborer Over 200 Lynchings, who killed his employer in self-defense, was brutally 1889–1918 murdered near Newman, Georgia, before 2,000 onlook- ers, some of whom arrived on a special excursion train STATE NUMBER OF LYNCHINGS from Atlanta. A crowd including young children watched as his executioners cut off Hose’s ears, fingers, and geni- tals, burned him alive, and then fought over pieces of his Georgia 386 bones as souvenirs. Mississippi 373 Like many victims of lynchings, Hose was accused after Texas 335 his death of having raped a white woman. Yet in nearly all Louisiana 313 cases, as activist Ida B. Wells argued in a newspaper edito- Alabama 276 rial after a Memphis lynching in 1892, the charge of rape was Arkansas 214 a “bare lie.” Born a slave in Mississippi in 1862, Wells had become a schoolteacher and editor. Her essay condemning the lynching of three black men in Memphis led a mob to destroy her newspaper, the Memphis Free Press, while she was out of the city. Wells moved to the North, where she became the nation’s leading antilynch- ing crusader. She bluntly insisted that given the conditions of southern blacks, the United States had no right to call itself the “land of the free.” Part of the crowd of 10,000 that P o l i t i c s , R e l i g i o n , a n d M e m o r y watched the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith in Paris, Texas. Smith was As the white North and South moved toward reconciliation in the 1880s accused of raping and murdering a and 1890s, one cost was the abandonment of the dream of racial equality four-year-old girl. The word “justice” spawned by the Civil War and written into the laws and Constitution dur- was painted on the platform. ing Reconstruction. In popular literature and memoirs by participants, at veterans’ reunions and in public memorials, the Civil War came to be remembered as a tragic family quarrel among white Americans in which blacks had played no signifi- cant part. It was a war of “brother against brother” in which both sides fought gal- lantly for noble causes—local rights on the part of the South, preservation of the Union for the North. Slavery increasingly came to be viewed as a minor issue, not the war’s fundamental cause, and Reconstruction as a regrettable period of “Negro rule.” T H E S E G R E G A T E D S O U T H 523 Southern governments erected monuments to the Lost Cause, a romanticized version of slavery, the Old South, and the Confederate expe- rience. Religion was central to the development of Lost Cause mythology— it offered a way for white southerners to come to terms with defeat in the Civil War without abandoning white supremacy. According to the Lost Cause, Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson were sterling representatives of Christian virtue, while the Yankees had represented the forces of evil. The death of the Confederacy, in many sermons, was equated with the death of Christ, who gave his life for the sins of mankind. Southern churches played a key role in keeping the values of the Old South alive by refusing to reunite with northern branches. In the 1840s, the Methodist and Baptist churches had divided This carving by an unknown into northern and southern branches. Methodists would not reunite until southerner from around 1875 well into the twentieth century; Baptists have yet to do so. juxtaposes Robert E. Lee and the crucified Christ, illustrating the strong religious overtones in the ideology of the Lost Cause. R E D R A W I N G T H E B O U N D A R I E S As the nineteenth century drew to a close, American society seemed to be fracturing along lines of both class and race. The result, commented economist Simon Patten, was a widespread obsession with redrawing the boundary of freedom by identifying and excluding those unworthy of the blessings of liberty. “The South,” he wrote, “has its negro, the city has its slums. . . . The friends of American institutions fear the ignorant immi- grant, and the workingman dislikes the Chinese.” T h e N e w I m m i g r a t i o n a n d t h e N e w N a t i v i s m The 1890s witnessed a major shift in the sources of immigration to the United States. Despite the prolonged depression, 3.5 million newcom- ers entered the United States during the decade, seeking jobs in the industrial centers of the North and Midwest. Over half arrived not from Ireland, England, Germany, and Scandinavia, the traditional sources Southern and eastern Europe of immigration, but from southern and eastern Europe, especially Italy and the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. The “new immigrants” were widely described by native-born Americans as members of distinct “races,” whose lower level of civilization explained everything from their willingness to work for substandard wages to their supposed inborn ten- dency toward criminal behavior. 524 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad In what ways did the boundaries of American freedom grow narrower in this period? A cartoon from the magazine Judge illustrates anti-immigrant sentiment. A tide of newcomers representing the criminal element of other countries washes up on American shores, to the consternation of Uncle Sam. Founded in 1894 by a group of Boston professionals, the Immigration Restriction League called for reducing immigration by barring the illit- erate from entering the United States. Such a measure was adopted by Congress early in 1897 but was vetoed by President Cleveland. Like the South, northern and western states experimented with ways to eliminate Restricting the vote undesirable voters. Nearly all the states during the 1890s adopted the secret or “Australian” ballot, meant both to protect voters’ privacy and to limit the participation of illiterates (who could no longer receive help from party officials at polling places). Suffrage throughout the country was increasingly becoming a privilege, not a right. C h i n e s e E x c l u s i o n a n d C h i n e s e R i g h t s The boundaries of nationhood, expanded so dramatically in the aftermath of the Civil War, slowly contracted. Leaders of both parties expressed vicious opinions regarding immigrants from China—they were “odious, abominable, dangerous, revolting,” declared Republican leader James G. Blaine. Between 1850 and 1870, nearly all Chinese immigrants had Anti-Chinese opinion been unattached men, brought in by labor contractors to work in western gold fields, railroad construction, and factories. In the early 1870s, entire Chinese families began to immigrate, leading Congress in 1875 to exclude Chinese women from entering the country. Beginning in 1882, Congress temporarily excluded immigrants from China from entering the country altogether. Although non-whites had long been barred from becoming naturalized citizens, this was the first R E D R A W I N G T H E B O U N D A R I E S 525 time that race had been used to exclude an entire group of people from entering the United States. Congress renewed the restriction ten years later and made it permanent in 1902. At the time of exclusion, 105,000 persons of Chinese descent lived in the United States. Nearly all of them resided on the West Coast, where they suffered intense discrimination and periodic mob violence. In the late- nineteenth-century West, thousands of Chinese immigrants were expelled from towns and mining camps, and mobs assaulted Chinese residences and businesses. Between 1871 and 1885, San Francisco provided no public edu- cation for Chinese children. In 1885, the California Supreme Court, in Tape v. Hurley, ordered the city to admit Chinese students to public schools. The state legislature responded by passing a law authorizing segregated educa- tion. But Joseph and Mary Tape, who had lived in the United States since the 1860s, insisted that their daughter be allowed to attend her neighbor- A Chinese vegetable peddler in Idaho hood school like other children. “Is it a disgrace to be born a Chinese?” Mary City, Idaho. Tape wrote. “Didn’t God make us all!” But her protest failed. Not until 1947 did California repeal the law authorizing separate schools for the Chinese. The U.S. Supreme Court also considered the status of Chinese- Americans. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment awarded citizenship to children of Chinese immigrants born on American soil. Yet the justices also affirmed the right of Congress to set racial restrictions on immigration. And in its decision Expulsion without due process in Fong Yue Ting (1893), the Court authorized the federal government to expel Chinese aliens without due process of law. In his dissent, Justice David J. Brewer acknowledged that the power was now directed against a people many Americans found “obnoxious.” But “who shall say,” he continued, “it will not be exercised tomorrow against other classes and Result of an anti-Chinese riot in other people?” Brewer proved to be an accurate prophet. In 1904, the Court Seattle, Washington. cited Fong Yue Ting in upholding a law barring anarchists from entering the United States, demonstrating how restric- tions on the rights of one group can become a precedent for infringing on the rights of others. T h e E m e r g e n c e o f B o o k e r T . W a s h i n g t o n The social movements that had helped to expand the nineteenth-century boundaries of freedom now redefined their objectives so that they might be realized within the 526 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad In what ways did the boundaries of American freedom grow narrower in this period? new economic and intellectual framework. Prominent black leaders, for example, took to emphasizing economic self-help and individual advance- ment into the middle class as an alternative to political agitation. Symbolizing the change was the juxtaposition, in 1895, of the death of Frederick Douglass with Booker T. Washington’s widely praised speech at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition that urged blacks to adjust to segrega- tion and abandon agitation for civil and political rights. Born a slave in 1856, Washington had studied as a young man at Hampton Institute, Virginia. He adopted the outlook of Hampton’s founder, General Samuel Armstrong, who emphasized that obtaining farms or skilled jobs was far more important to African-Americans emerging from slavery than the rights of citizenship. Washington put this view into practice when he became head of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a center for vocational edu- cation (education focused on training for a job rather than broad learning). Booker T. Washington, advocate of industrial education and economic In his Atlanta speech, Washington repudiated the abolitionist tra- self-help. dition, which stressed ceaseless agitation for full equality. He urged blacks not to try to combat segregation. Washington’s ascendancy rested in large part on his success in channeling aid from wealthy northern Washington’s appeal whites to Tuskegee and to black politicians and newspapers who backed his program. But his support in the black community also arose from a widespread sense that in the world of the late nineteenth century, frontal assaults on white power were impossible and that blacks should concen- trate on building up their segregated communities. T h e R i s e o f t h e A F L Within the labor movement, the demise of the Knights of Labor and the ascendancy of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) during the 1890s reflected a similar shift away from a broadly reformist past to more lim- ited goals. As the Homestead and Pullman strikes demonstrated, direct confrontations with the large corporations were likely to prove suicidal. Unions, declared Samuel Gompers, the AFL’s founder and longtime Samuel Gompers president, should not pursue the Knights’ utopian dream of creating a “cooperative commonwealth.” Rather, the labor movement should devote itself to negotiating with employers for higher wages and better work- ing conditions for its members. Like Washington, Gompers spoke the language of the era’s business culture. Indeed, the AFL policies he pio- neered were known as “business unionism.” During the 1890s, union membership rebounded from its decline in the late 1880s. But at the same time, the labor movement became less and less inclusive. Abandoning the Knights’ ideal of labor solidarity, the AFL R E D R A W I N G T H E B O U N D A R I E S 527 Skilled workers restricted membership to skilled workers—a small minority of the labor force—effectively excluding the vast majority of unskilled workers and, therefore, nearly all blacks, women, and new European immigrants. AFL membership centered on sectors of the economy like printing and building construction that were dominated by small competitive businesses with workers who frequently were united by craft skill and ethnic background. AFL unions had little presence in basic industries like steel and rubber, or in the large-scale factories that now dominated the economy. T h e W o m e n ’ s E r a Changes in the women’s movement reflected the same combination of expanding activities and narrowing boundaries. The 1890s launched what would later be called the “women’s era”—three decades during which women, although still denied the vote, enjoyed larger opportunities than in the past for economic independence and played a greater and greater Women in the workforce role in public life. Nearly 5 million women worked for wages in 1900. Although most were young, unmarried, and concentrated in traditional jobs such as domestic service and the garment industry, a generation of college-educated women was beginning to take its place in better-paying clerical and professional positions. Through a network of women’s clubs, temperance associations, and social reform organizations, women exerted a growing influence on pub- The Women’s Christian lic affairs. Founded in 1874, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union Temperance Union (WCTU) grew to become the era’s largest female organization, with a membership by 1890 of 150,000. Under the banner of Home Protection, it moved from demanding the prohibition of alcoholic beverages (blamed for leading men to squander their wages on drink and treat their wives abusively) to a comprehensive program of economic and political reform, including the right to vote. Women, insisted Frances Willard, the group’s president, must abandon the idea that “weakness” and dependence were their nature and join assertively in movements to change society. At the same time, the center of gravity of feminism shifted toward an outlook more in keeping with prevailing racial and ethnic norms. The movement continued to argue for women’s equality in employment, education, and politics. But with increasing frequency, the native-born, middle-class women who dominated the suffrage movement claimed the vote as educated members of a “superior race.” Immigrants and former slaves had been enfranchised with “ill- advised haste,” declared Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (created in 1890 to reunite the 528 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad In what ways did the boundaries of American freedom grow narrower in this period? rival suffrage organizations formed after the Civil War). Indeed, Catt suggested, extending the vote to native-born white women would help to counteract the grow- ing power of the “ignorant foreign vote” in the North and the dangerous potential for a second Reconstruction in the South. In 1895, the same year that Booker T. Washington delivered his Atlanta address, the National American Woman Suffrage Association held its annual convention in that segregated city. Like other American institutions, the organized movement for woman suffrage had made its peace with nativism and racism. “A woman’s liquor raid,” an illustration in the National Police Gazette in 1879, depicts a group of temperance crusaders destroying B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R liquor containers in a Frederickstown, Ohio, saloon. T h e N e w I m p e r i a l i s m In world history, the last quarter of the nineteenth century is known as the age of imperialism, when rival European empires carved up large parts of the world among themselves. For most of this period, the United States remained a second-rate power. The “new imperialism” that arose after 1870 was dominated by European powers and Japan. Belgium, Great Britain, and France con- The global context solidated their hold on colonies in Africa, and newly unified Germany acquired colonies there as well. By the early twentieth century, most of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific had been divided among these empires. A m e r i c a n E x p a n s i o n i s m Territorial expansion, of course, had been a feature of American life from well before independence. But the 1890s marked a major turning point in America’s relationship with the rest of the world. Americans were increasingly aware of themselves as an emerging world power. “We are a great imperial Republic destined to exercise a controlling influence upon “A great imperial Republic” the actions of mankind and to affect the future of the world,” proclaimed Henry Watterson, an influential newspaper editor. B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R 529 Until the 1890s, American expansion had taken place on the North American continent. Ever since the Monroe Doctrine (see Chapter 10), to be sure, many Americans had considered the Western Hemisphere an American sphere of influence. The last territorial acquisition before the 1890s had been Alaska, purchased from Russia by Secretary of State William H. Seward in 1867. Most Americans who looked overseas were interested in expanded Expanding trade trade, not territorial possessions. The country’s agricultural and industrial production could no longer be absorbed entirely at home. By 1890, compa- nies like Singer Sewing Machines and John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company aggressively marketed their products abroad. Especially during economic downturns, business leaders insisted on the necessity of greater access to foreign customers. Middle-class American women, moreover, were becoming more and more desirous of clothing and food from abroad, and their demand for consumer goods such as “Oriental” fashions and exotic spices for cooking spurred the economic penetration of the Far East. T h e L u r e o f E m p i r e One group of Americans who spread the nation’s influence overseas Missionaries were religious missionaries, thousands of whom ventured abroad in the late nineteenth century to spread Christianity, prepare the world for the second coming of Christ, and uplift the poor. Inspired by Dwight Moody, a Methodist evangelist, the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions sent more than 8,000 missionaries to “bring light to heathen worlds” across the globe. A small group of late-nineteenth-century thinkers actively promoted American expansionism, warning that the country must not allow itself to be shut out of the scramble for empire. Naval officer Alfred T. Mahan, in The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890), argued that no nation could prosper without a large fleet of ships engaged in international trade, protected by a powerful navy operating from overseas bases. His arguments influenced the outlook of James G. Blaine, who served as secretary of state during Benjamin Harrison’s presidency (1889–1893). Blaine urged the president to try to acquire Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba as strategic naval bases. Hawaii Although independent, Hawaii was already closely tied to the United States through treaties that exempted imports of its sugar from tariff duties and provided for the establishment of an American naval base at Pearl Harbor. Hawaii’s economy was dominated by American-owned sugar plantations that employed a workforce of native islanders and Chinese, 530 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the United States emerge as an imperial power in the 1890s? Japanese, and Filipino laborers under long-term contracts. Early in 1893, a group of American planters organized a rebellion that overthrew the Hawaii government of Queen Liliuokalani. On the eve of leaving office, Harrison submitted a treaty of annexation to the Senate. After determining that a majority of Hawaiians did not favor the treaty, Harrison’s successor, Grover Cleveland, withdrew it. In July 1898, in the midst of the Spanish- American War, the United States finally annexed the Hawaiian Islands. The depression that began in 1893 heightened the belief that a more aggressive foreign policy was necessary to stimulate American exports. Fears of economic and ethnic disunity fueled an assertive nationalism. These were the years when rituals like the Pledge of Allegiance and the practice of standing for the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” came into existence. New, mass-circulation newspapers also promoted nationalistic sentiments. By the late 1890s, papers like William Randolph A cartoon in Puck, December 1, 1897, Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World—dubbed imagines the annexation of Hawaii the “yellow press” by their critics after the color in which Hearst printed by the United States as a shotgun a popular comic strip—were selling a million copies each day by mixing wedding. The minister, President McKinley, reads from a book entitled sensational accounts of crime and political corruption with aggressive Annexation Policy. The Hawaiian appeals to patriotic sentiments. bride appears to be looking for a way to escape. Most Hawaiians did not support annexation. T h e “ S p l e n d i d L i t t l e W a r ” All these factors contributed to America’s emergence as a world power in the Spanish-American War of 1898. But the immediate origins of the war lay not at home but in the long Cuban struggle for independence from Spain. Ten years of guerrilla war had followed a Cuban revolt in 1868. The movement for independence resumed in 1895. As reports circulated of widespread suffering caused by the Spanish policy of rounding up civilians and moving them into detention camps, the Cuban struggle won growing support in the United States. Demands for intervention escalated after February 15, 1898, when an explosion—probably accidental, a later investigation concluded— destroyed the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, with the The U.S.S. Maine loss of nearly 270 lives. After Spain rejected an American demand for a cease-fire on the island and eventual Cuban independence, President McKinley in April asked Congress for a declaration of war. The purpose, declared Senator Henry Teller of Colorado, was to aid Cuban patriots in their struggle for “liberty and freedom.” To underscore the government’s humani- tarian intentions, Congress adopted the Teller Amendment, stating that the The Teller Amendment United States had no intention of annexing or dominating the island. B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R 531 T H E S P A N I S H - A M E R I C A N T H E S P A N I S H - A M E R I C A N W A R : T H E P A C I F I C W A R : T H E C A R I B B E A N CHINA FORMOSA UNITED San Juan Hill (Taiwan) STATES Santiago July 1, 1898 Hong Kong (British) (Japanese) Pa c i f i c De O c e a n w Tampa Spanish fleet destroyed e H a i n a n y July 3, 1898 Lu z o n PHILIPPINE U.S.S. Maine sunk February 1898 A t l a n t i c ISLANDS BAHAMAS O c e a n Manila Havana FRENCH INDOCHINA CUBA South China Santiago PUERTO Sea HAITI RICO JAMAICA DOMINICAN Sulu (British) M i n d a n a o REPUBLIC Sea BRITISH NORTH BORNEO Caribbean Sea SARAWAK (British) Manila surrenders Bataan August 13, 1898 NETHERLANDS Manila EAST INDIES American victories Pa c i f i c Co r r e g i d o r American forces Spanish O c e a n American naval blockade Dewey fleet destroyed 0 200 400 miles 0 200 400 miles Spanish forces May 1, 1898 Spanish possessions 0 200 400 kilometers 0 200 400 kilometers In both the Caribbean and the Pacific, the United States achieved swift Secretary of State John Hay called the Spanish-American conflict a victories over Spain in the Spanish- “splendid little war.” It lasted only four months and resulted in fewer than American War. 400 American combat deaths. The war’s most decisive engagement took place not in Cuba but at Manila Bay, a strategic harbor in the Philippine Islands in the distant Pacific Ocean. Here, on May 1, the American navy under The Spanish-American War Admiral George Dewey defeated a Spanish fleet. Soon afterward, soldiers went ashore, becoming the first American army units to engage in combat outside the Western Hemisphere. July witnessed another naval victory off Santiago, Cuba, and the landing of American troops on Cuba and Puerto Rico. R o o s e v e l t a t S a n J u a n H i l l The most highly publicized land battle of the war took place in Cuba. Rough Riders This was the charge up San Juan Hill, outside Santiago, by Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. An ardent expansionist, Roosevelt had long 532 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the United States emerge as an imperial power in the 1890s? believed that a war would reinvigorate the nation’s unity and sense of manhood, which had suffered, he felt, during the 1890s. A few months shy of his fortieth birthday when war broke out, Roosevelt resigned his post as assistant secretary of the navy to raise a volunteer cavalry unit, which rushed to Cuba to participate in the fighting. His exploits made Roosevelt a national hero. He was elected governor of New York that fall and in 1900 Theodore Roosevelt became McKinley’s vice president. A n A m e r i c a n E m p i r e With the backing of the yellow press, the war quickly escalated from a cru- sade to aid the suffering Cubans to an imperial venture that ended with the United States in possession of a small overseas empire. McKinley became convinced that the United States could neither return the Philippines to Spain nor grant them independence, for which he believed the inhabit- ants unprepared. In an interview with a group of Methodist ministers, the president spoke of receiving a divine revelation that Americans had a duty to “uplift and civilize” the Filipino people and to train them for self- government. In the treaty with Spain that ended the war, the United States acquired the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Pacific island of Guam. Acquiring possessions As for Cuba, before recognizing its independence, McKinley forced the island’s new government to approve the Platt Amendment to the new Cuban constitution (drafted by Senator Orville H. Platt of Connecticut), which authorized the United States to intervene militarily whenever it saw fit. The United States also acquired a permanent lease on naval stations in Cuba, including what is now the facility at Guantánamo Bay. Charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill, a painting by Frederic Remington, depicts the celebrated unit, commanded by Theodore Roosevelt, in action in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Roosevelt, on horseback, leads the troops. Remington had been sent to the island the previous year by publisher William Randolph Hearst to provide pictures of Spanish atrocities during the Cuban war for independence in the hope of boosting the New York Journal’ s circulation. B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R 533 A M E R I C A N E M P I R E , 1 8 9 8 Alaska (purchased from Russia, 1867) RUSSIAN Bering EMPIRE Strait CANADA Aleutian Islands (1867) OUTER MONGOLIA KOREA UNITED STATES JAPAN CHINA A t l a n t i c O c e a n Midway Islands (annexed 1867) Hawaiian Islands Puerto Rico Philippines (annexed 1898) MEXICO (ceded by Spain, (ceded by Spain after Wake Island 1898) Spanish-American War, 1898) (annexed 1898) Guam (ceded by Spain after Spanish-American War, 1898) Pa c i f i c O c e a n American Samoa I n d i a n (annexed 1899) O c e a n 0 1,000 2,000 miles 0 1,000 2,000 kilometers United States territory As a result of the Spanish-American War, the United States became the America’s interest in its new possessions had more to do with trade ruler of a far-flung overseas empire. than with gaining wealth from natural resources or large-scale American settlement. Puerto Rico and Cuba were gateways to Latin America, stra- tegic outposts from which American naval and commercial power could be projected throughout the hemisphere. The Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii lay astride shipping routes to the markets of Japan and China. In 1899, soon after the end of the Spanish-American War, Secretary of State John Hay announced the Open Door policy, demanding that European powers that had recently divided China into commercial spheres of Spheres of influence influence grant equal access to American exports. The Open Door referred to the free movement of goods and money, not people. Even as the United States banned the immigration of Chinese into this country, 534 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the United States emerge as an imperial power in the 1890s? it insisted on access to the markets and investment opportunities of Asia. T h e P h i l i p p i n e W a r Many Cubans, Filipinos, and Puerto Ricans had welcomed American intervention as a way of breaking Spain’s long hold on these colonies. Large planters looked forward to greater access to American markets. Nationalists and labor leaders admired America’s democratic ideals and believed that American participation in the destruc- tion of Spanish rule would lead to social reform and political self-government. In this cartoon comment on the But the American determination to exercise continued control, direct American effort to suppress or indirect, led to a rapid change in local opinion, nowhere more so than the movement for Philippine in the Philippines. Filipinos had been fighting a war against Spain since independence, Uncle Sam tries to subdue a knife-wielding insurgent. 1896. After Dewey’s victory at Manila Bay, their leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, established a provisional government with a constitution modeled on that of the United States. But once McKinley decided to retain possession of the islands, the Filipino movement turned against the United States. The result was a second war, far longer (it lasted from 1899 to 1903) and blood- ier (it cost the lives of more than 100,000 Filipinos and 4,200 Americans) Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the than the Spanish-American conflict. Today, this is perhaps the least Philippine War against American remembered of all American wars. occupation, in a more dignified Once in control of the Philippines, the colonial administration took portrayal than in the cartoon above. seriously the idea of modernizing the islands. It expanded railroads and harbors, brought in American schoolteachers and public health officials, and sought to modernize agriculture (although efforts to persuade local farmers to substitute corn for rice ran afoul of Filipino climate and cultural traditions). The United States, said President McKinley, had an obligation to its “little brown brothers.” Yet in all the new possessions, American policies tended to serve the interests of land-based local elites—and bequeathed enduring poverty to the majority of the rural population. Under American rule, Puerto Rico, previously an island of diversified small farmers, became a low-wage plantation economy controlled by absentee American corpo- rations. By the 1920s, its residents were among the poorest in the entire Caribbean. B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R 535 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m J o s i a h S t r o n g , O u r C o u n t r y ( 1 8 8 5 ) The Congregational minister Josiah Strong promoted both the Social Gospel—a desire, grounded in religious belief, to solve the nation’s social problems—and an updated version of manifest destiny and American expansionism strongly connected to ideas of racial superiority and a Christian missionary impulse. It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is training the Anglo-Saxon race for an hour sure to come in the world’s future. Heretofore there has always been in the history of the world a comparatively unoccupied land westward, into which the crowded countries of the East have poured their surplus populations. But the widening waves of migration, which millenniums ago rolled east and west from the valley of the Euphrates meet to-day on our Pacific coast. There are no more new worlds. The unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will soon be taken. The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history—the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. Long before the thousand millions are here, the mighty centrifugal tendency, inherent in this stock and strengthened in the United States, will assert itself. Then this race of unequaled energy, with all the majesty of numbers and the might of wealth behind it—the representative, let us hope, of the largest liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization—having developed peculiarly aggressive traits calculated to impress its institutions upon mankind, will spread itself over the earth. If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the results of this competition of races will be the “survival of the fittest?”. . . Some of the stronger races, doubtless, may be able to preserve their integrity; but, in order to compete with the Anglo-Saxon, they will probably be forced to adopt his methods and instruments, his civilization and his religion. 536 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad F r o m “ A g u i n a l d o ’ s C a s e a g a i n s t t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s ” ( 1 8 9 9 ) Emilio Aguinaldo, who led the Filipino armed struggle for independence against Spain and then another war against the United States when President McKinley decided to annex the Philippines, explained his reasons for opposing American imperialism in an article in the widely read magazine the North American Review. He contrasted American traditions of self- government with the refusal to grant this right to the Philippines. We Filipinos have all along believed that if the American nation at large knew exactly, as we do, what is daily happening in the Philippine Islands, they would rise en masse, and demand that this barbaric war should stop [and] . . . she would cease to be the laughing stock of other civilized nations, as she became when she abandoned her traditions and set up a double standard of government—government by consent in America, government by force in the Philippine Islands. . . . You have been greatly deceived in the personality of my countrymen. You went to the Philippines under the impression that their inhabitants were ignorant savages. . . . We have been represented by your popular press as if we were Africans or Mohawk Indians. . . . You repeat constantly the dictum that we cannot govern ourselves. . . . With equal reason, you might have said the same thing some fifty or sixty years ago of Japan; and, little over a hundred years ago, it was extremely questionable, when you, also, were rebels against the English Government, if you could govern yourselves. . . . Now, the moral of all this obviously is: Give us the chance; treat us exactly as you demanded to be treated at the hands of England when you rebelled against her autocratic methods. Now, here is a unique spectacle—the Filipinos fighting for liberty, the American people fighting them to give them liberty. . . . You promised us your aid and protection in our attempt to form a government on the principles and after the model of the government of the United States. . . . In combination with our forces, you compelled Spain to surrender. . . . Joy abounded in every heart, Q U E S T I O N S and all went well . . . until . . . the Government at Washington . . . commenc[ed] by ignoring all 1. How does Strong justify the idea of promises that had been made and end[ed] by world domination by Anglo-Saxons? ignoring the Philippine people, their personality and rights, and treating them as a common 2. Why does Aguinaldo think that the enemy. . . . In the face of the world you emblazon United States is betraying its own humanity and Liberty upon your standard, while values? you cast your political constitution to the winds and attempt to trample down and exterminate a 3. How do these documents reflect brave people whose only crime is that they are different definitions of liberty? fighting for their liberty. V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 537 C i t i z e n s o r S u b j e c t s ? American rule also brought with it American racial attitudes. In an 1899 poem, the British writer Rudyard Kipling urged the United States to take up the “white man’s burden” of imperialism. American proponents of empire agreed that the domination of non-white peoples by whites formed part of the progress of civilization. America’s triumphant entry into the ranks of imperial powers sparked an intense debate over the relationship among political democracy, race, Colonies in the American and American citizenship. The American system of government had framework no provision for permanent colonies. The right of every people to self- government was one of the main principles of the Declaration of Independence. The idea of an “empire of liberty” assumed that new ter- ritories would eventually be admitted as equal states and their residents would be American citizens. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American This propaganda photograph War, however, nationalism, democracy, and American freedom emerged from 1898 depicts the Spanish- more closely identified than ever with notions of Anglo-Saxon superiority. American War as a source of national The Foraker Act of 1900 declared Puerto Rico an “insular terri- reconciliation in the United States tory,” different from previous territories in the West. Its 1 million inhab- (with Confederate and Union soldiers itants were defined as citizens of Puerto Rico, not the United States, and shaking hands) and of freedom for denied a future path to statehood. Filipinos occupied a similar status. In Cuba (personified by a girl whose arm holds a broken chain). a series of cases decided between 1901 and 1904 and known collectively as the Insular Cases, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution did not fully apply to the territories recently acquired by the United States—a significant limitation of the scope of American freedom. Thus, two principles central to American freedom since the War of Independence—no taxation without representation and government based on the consent of the governed— were abandoned when it came to the nation’s new pos- sessions. In the twentieth century, the territories acquired in 1898 would follow different paths. Hawaii, which had a sizable population of American missionaries and planters, became a traditional territory. Its popu- lation, except for Asian immigrant laborers, became American citizens, and it was admitted as a state in 1959. After nearly a half-century of American rule, the Philippines achieved independence in 1946. Until 1950, the U.S. Navy administered Guam, which remains today an “unincorporated” territory. As for Puerto Rico, 538 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the United States emerge as an imperial power in the 1890s? it is sometimes called “the world’s oldest colony,” because ever since the Puerto Rico Spanish conquered the island in 1493 it has lacked full self-government. It elects its own government but lacks a voice in Congress (and in the election of the U.S. president). D r a w i n g t h e G l o b a l C o l o r L i n e Just as American ideas about liberty and self- government had circulated An advertisement employs the idea of a “white man’s burden” (borrowed around the world in the Age of Revolution, American racial attitudes had from a poem by Rudyard Kipling) a global impact in the age of empire. The turn of the twentieth century was as a way of promoting the virtues a time of worldwide concern about immigration, race relations, and the of Pears’ Soap. Accompanying text “white man’s burden,” all of which inspired a global sense of fraternity claims that Pears’ is “the ideal toilet among “Anglo-Saxon” nations. Chinese exclusion in the United States soap” for “the cultured of all nations,” strongly influenced anti-Chinese laws adopted in Canada, and American and an agent of civilization in “the dark corners of the earth.” segregation and disenfranchisement became models for Australia and South Africa as they formed new governments; they read in particular the proceedings of the Mississippi constitutional convention of 1890, which pioneered ways to eliminate black voting rights. The Union of South Africa, inaugurated in 1911, saw its own policy of racial separation—later known as apartheid—as following in the footsteps of segregation in the United States. South Africa, however, went much further, enacting laws that limited skilled jobs to whites and dividing the country into areas where black Africans could and could not live. “ R e p u b l i c o r E m p i r e ? ” The emergence of the United States as an imperial power sparked intense debate. Opponents formed the Anti-Imperialist League. It united writers and social reformers who believed American energies should be directed at home, business- men fearful of the cost of maintaining overseas outposts, and racists who did not wish to bring non-white populations into the United States. America’s historic mission, the League declared, B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R 539 was to “help the world by an example of successful self- government,” not to conquer other peoples. The presidential election In 1900, Democrats again nominated William Jennings Bryan to run of 1900 against McKinley. The Democratic platform opposed the Philippine War for placing the United States in the “un-American” position of “crushing with military force” another people’s desire for “liberty and self-government.” George S. Boutwell, president of the Anti-Imperialist League, declared that the most pressing question in the election was the nation’s future character—“republic or empire?” But without any sense of contradiction, proponents of an imperial foreign policy also adopted the language of freedom. America’s was a “benevolent” imperialism, they claimed, rooted in a national mission to uplift backward cultures and spread liberty across the globe. Riding the wave of patriotic sentiment inspired by the war, and with the economy having recovered from the depression of 1893–1897, McKinley in 1900 repeated his 1896 triumph. At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States seemed poised to take its place among the world’s great powers. In 1900, many features that would mark American life for much of the twentieth century were A rising power already apparent. The United States had surpassed Britain, France, and Germany in industrial production. The political system had stabilized. The white North and South had achieved reconciliation, while rigid lines of racial exclusion—the segregation of blacks, Chinese exclusion, Indian reservations—limited the boundaries of freedom and citizenship. A Republican campaign poster from the election of 1900 links prosperity at home and benevolent imperialism abroad as achievements of William McKinley’s first term in office. 540 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad How did the United States emerge as an imperial power in the 1890s? Yet the questions central to nineteenth-century debates over freedom— the relationship between political and economic liberty, the role of govern- ment in creating the conditions of freedom, and the definition of those entitled to enjoy the rights of citizens—had not been permanently answered. Nor had the dilemma of how to reconcile America’s role as an empire with traditional ideas of freedom. These were the challenges bequeathed by the nineteenth century to the first generation of the twentieth. B E C O M I N G A W O R L D P O W E R 541 C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. What economic and political issues gave rise to the People’s Party (or Populists) (p. 511) Populist Party, and what changes did the party advocate? Coxey’s Army (p. 514) “free silver” (p. 515) 2. How did employers use state and federal forces to protect Kansas Exodus (p. 518) their own economic interests, and what were the results? disenfranchisement (p. 521) Plessy v. Ferguson (p. 521) 3. Compare and contrast the goals, strategies, and member- “separate but equal” (p. 521) ship of the American Federation of Labor and the Knights lynching (p. 522) of Labor (you may want to refer back to Chapter 16). the Lost Cause (p. 524) Immigration Restriction League 4. Who were the Redeemers, and how did they change (p. 525) society and politics in the New South? Washington’s Atlanta Speech (p. 526) American Federation of Labor 5. Explain how changes in politics, economics, social factors, (p. 527) and violence interacted to affect the situation of African- “women’s era” (p. 528) Americans in the New South. Alfred T. Mahan (p. 530) “yellow press” (p. 531) 6. How did religion and the idea of the Lost Cause give U.S.S. Maine (p. 531) support to a new understanding of the Civil War? Platt Amendment (p. 533) Open Door policy (p. 534) 7. What ideas and interests motivated the United States to Insular Cases (p. 538) create an empire in the late nineteenth century? “white man’s burden” (p. 539) Anti-Imperialist League (p. 539) 8. Compare the arguments for and against U.S. imperialism. Be sure to consider the views of Josiah Strong and Emilio Aguinaldo. wwnorton.com 9. What rights did Chinese immigrants and Chinese /studyspace Americans gain in these years, and what limitations did they experience? How did their experiences set the stage VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE for other restrictions on immigration? RESOURCES AND MORE s s s s s 542 C h a p t e r 1 7  Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad C H A P T E R 1 8 1889 Hull House founded 1901 Socialist Party founded in United States President McKinley assassinated 1903 Ford Motor Company established T H E P R O G R E S S I V E 1904 Northern Securities dissolved 1905 Industrial Workers of the E R A World established 1906 Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle Meat Inspection Act Pure Food and Drug Act Hepburn Act  John A. Ryan’s A Living Wage 1 9 0 0 – 1 9 1 6 1908 Muller v. Oregon 1909 Uprising of the 20,000 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire Society of American Indians founded 1912 Children’s Bureau established Theodore Roosevelt organizes the Progressive Party 1913 Sixteenth Amendment Seventeenth Amendment Federal Reserve established 1914 Federal Trade Commission established Clayton Act Sixth Avenue and Thirtieth Street, a 1907 painting by John Sloan, depicts a busy street in New York City in an area known as the Tenderloin, with an elevated railroad overhead. Sloan was one of a group of painters called the Ashcan School because of their focus on everyday city life. Here, he emphasizes the vitality of the city and the mingling of people of different social classes on its streets. F O C U S It was late afternoon on March 25, 1911, when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. The factory occupied the top three floors of a ten-story building in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Here some 500 workers, mostly young Jewish and Q U E S T I O N S Italian immigrant women, toiled at sewing machines producing ladies’ blouses, some earning as little as three dollars per week. Those who tried s to escape the blaze discovered that the doors to the stairwell had been central element in Progres- locked—the owner’s way, it was later charged, of discouraging theft and sive America? unauthorized bathroom breaks. The fire department rushed to the scene with high-pressure hoses. But their ladders reached only to the sixth s floor. Onlookers watched in horror as girls leaped from the upper stories. women’s movements By the time the blaze had been put out, 46 bodies lay on the street and expand the meanings of 100 more were found inside the building. American freedom? The Triangle fire was not the worst fire disaster in American history (seven years earlier, over 1,000 people had died in a blaze on the General s Slocum excursion boat in New York Harbor). But it had an unrivaled sivism include both demo- impact on public consciousness. In its wake, efforts to organize the city’s cratic and antidemocratic workers accelerated, and the state legislature passed new factory inspec- impulses? tion laws and fire safety codes. Triangle focused attention on the social divisions that plagued s American society during the first two decades of the twentieth century, presidents foster the rise of a period known as the Progressive era. These were years when economic the nation-state? expansion produced millions of new jobs and brought an unprecedented array of goods within reach of American consumers. Cities expanded rapidly—by 1920, for the first time, more Americans lived in towns and cities than in rural areas. Yet severe inequality remained the most visible feature of the urban landscape, and persistent labor strife raised anew the question of government’s role in combating social inequality. The word “Progressive” came into common use around 1910 as a way of describing a broad, loosely defined political movement of indi- viduals and groups who hoped to bring about significant change in American social and political life. Progressives included forward-looking businessmen who realized that workers must be accorded a voice in economic decision making, and labor activists bent on empowering industrial workers. Other major contributors to Progressivism were members of female reform organizations who hoped to protect women and children from exploitation, social scientists who believed that aca- demic research would help to solve social problems, and members of an anxious middle class who feared that their status was threatened by the rise of big business. 544 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era Why was the city such a central element in Progressive America? As this and the following chapter will discuss, Progressive reform- ers addressed issues of American freedom in varied, contradictory ways. The era saw the expansion of political and economic freedom through the reinvigoration of the movement for woman suffrage, the use of politi- cal power to expand workers’ rights, and efforts to improve democratic government by weakening the power of city bosses and giving ordinary citizens more influence on legislation. It witnessed the flowering of understandings of freedom based on individual fulfillment and personal self-determination. At the same time, many Progressives supported efforts to limit the full enjoyment of freedom to those deemed fit to exer- cise it properly. The new system of white supremacy born in the 1890s became fully consolidated in the South. Growing numbers of native-born Americans demanded that immigrants abandon their traditional cultures and become fully “Americanized.” And efforts were made at the local and national levels to place political decision making in the hands of experts who did not have to answer to the electorate. Even as the idea of freedom expanded, freedom’s boundaries contracted in Progressive America. A N U R B A N A G E A N D A C O N S U M E R S O C I E T Y F a r m s a n d C i t i e s The Progressive era was a period of explosive economic growth, fueled Economic growth by increasing industrial production, a rapid rise in population, and the continued expansion of the consumer marketplace. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the economy’s total output rose by about 85 per- cent. For the last time in American history, farms and cities grew together. Farm families poured into the western Great Plains. More than 1 million claims for free government land were filed under the Homestead Act of 1862—more than in the previous forty years combined. Irrigation trans- formed the Imperial Valley of California and parts of Arizona into major areas of commercial farming. But it was the city that became the focus of Progressive politics and Growth of the cities of a new mass-consumer society. The United States counted twenty-one cities whose population exceeded 100,000 in 1910, the largest of them A N U R B A N A G E A N D A C O N S U M E R S O C I E T Y 545 New York, with 4.7 million residents. The TABLE 18.1 Rise of the City, 1880–1920 twenty-three square miles of Manhattan Island were home to over 2 million people, more than lived in thirty-three of the states. URBAN NUMBER OF CITIES POPULATION WITH The stark urban inequalities of the 100,000+ YEAR (PERCENTAGE) POPULATION 1890s continued into the Progressive era. Immigrant families in New York’s down- 1880 20% 12 town tenements often had no electricity 1890 28 15 or indoor toilets. Three miles to the north 1900 38 18 stood the mansions of Fifth Avenue’s Millionaire’s Row. According to one esti- 1910 50 21 mate, J. P. Morgan’s financial firm directly 1920 68 26 or indirectly controlled 40 percent of all financial and industrial capital in the United States. T h e M u c k r a k e r s Some observers saw the city as a place where corporate greed undermined traditional American values. At a time when more than 2 million children Lewis Hine used his camera to under the age of fifteen worked for wages, Lewis Hine photographed chronicle the plight of child laborers child laborers to draw attention to persistent social inequality. A new such as this young spinner in a generation of journalists writing for mass-circulation national magazines southern cotton factory. exposed the ills of industrial and urban life. The Shame of the Cities (1904) by Lincoln Steffens showed how party bosses and business leaders profited from political corruption. Theodore Roosevelt disparaged such writing as “muckraking,” the use of journalistic skills to expose the underside of American life. Major novelists took a similar unsparing approach to social ills. Perhaps the era’s most influential novel was Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906), whose description of unsanitary slaughterhouses and the sale of rotten meat stirred public outrage and led directly to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. I m m i g r a t i o n a s a G l o b a l P r o c e s s If one thing characterized early-twentieth-century cities, it was their immigrant character. The “new immigration” from southern and eastern Europe (discussed in Chapter 17) had begun around 1890 but reached its peak during the Progressive era. Between 1901 and the outbreak of World 546 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era Why was the city such a central element in Progressive America? War I in Europe in 1914, some 13 million immigrants came to the United Worldwide migration States, the majority from Italy, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian empire. In fact, Progressive-era immigration formed part of a larger process of worldwide migration set in motion by industrial expansion and the decline of traditional agriculture. During the years from 1840 to 1914 (when immigration to the United States would be virtually cut off, first by the outbreak of World War I and then by legislation), perhaps 40 million persons emigrated to the United States and another 20 million to other parts of the Western Hemisphere, including Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and the Caribbean. Millions of persons migrated to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, mainly from India and China. Numerous causes inspired this massive uprooting of population. Causes of emigration Rural southern and eastern Europe and large parts of Asia were regions marked by widespread poverty and illiteracy, burdensome taxation, and declining economies. Political turmoil at home, like the revolution that engulfed Mexico after 1911, also inspired emigration. Most European immigrants to the United States entered through Ellis Island. Located in New York Harbor, this became in 1892 the nation’s main facility for processing immigrants. Millions of Americans today trace their ancestry to immigrants who passed through Ellis Island. At the same time, an influx of Asian and Mexican newcomers was taking place TABLE 18.2 Immigrants and Their in the West. After the exclusion of immi- Children as Percentage of Population, grants from China in the late nineteenth Ten Major Cities, 1920 century, approximately 72,000 Japanese arrived, primarily to work as agricultural laborers in California’s fruit and vegetable CITY PERCENTAGE fields and on Hawaii’s sugar plantations. Between 1910 and 1940, Angel Island New York City 76% in San Francisco Bay—the “Ellis Island Cleveland 72 of the West”—served as the main entry Boston 72 point for immigrants from Asia. Far larger Chicago 71 was Mexican immigration. Between 1900 Detroit 65 and 1930, some 1 million Mexicans (more San Francisco 64 than 10 percent of that country’s popula- Minneapolis 63 tion) entered the United States—a number Pittsburgh 59 exceeded by only a few European countries. Seattle 55 By 1910, one-seventh of the American Los Angeles 45 population was foreign-born, the highest percentage in the country’s history. A N U R B A N A G E A N D A C O N S U M E R S O C I E T Y 547 T h e I m m i g r a n t Q u e s t f o r F r e e d o m Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, the new immigrants arrived imagining the United States as a land of freedom, where all persons enjoyed equality before the law, could worship as they pleased, enjoyed economic opportunity, and had been emancipated from the oppressive social hierarchies of their homelands. “America is a free country,” one Polish immigrant wrote home. “You don’t have to be a serf to anyone.” Agents sent abroad by the American government to investigate the reasons for large-scale immigration reported that the main impetus was a desire to share in the “freedom and prosperity enjoyed by the people of the United States.” Although some of the new immigrants, espe- cially Jews fleeing religious persecution in the Russian empire, thought of themselves as permanent emigrants, A greeting card for Rosh Hashanah, the majority initially planned to earn enough money to return home the Jewish New Year, marketed to and purchase land. Groups like Mexicans and Italians included many early-twentieth-century immigrants, “birds of passage,” who remained only temporarily in the United States. depicts Americanized Jews welcoming traditionally dressed new The new immigrants clustered in close-knit “ethnic” neighborhoods arrivals from Russia. The American with their own shops, theaters, and community organizations, and often eagle holds a banner reading, continued to speak their native tongues. Although most immigrants earned “Shelter us in the shadow of your more than was possible in the impoverished regions from which they came, wings.” Above the immigrants is the they endured low wages, long hours, and dangerous working conditions. In Imperial Russian coat of arms. the mines and factories of Pennsylvania and the Midwest, eastern European immigrants performed low-wage unskilled labor, whereas native-born workers dominated skilled and supervisory jobs. The vast majority of Mexican immigrants became poorly paid agricultural, mine, and railroad laborers, with little prospect of upward economic mobility. “My people are not in America,” remarked one Slavic priest, “they are under it.” C o n s u m e r F r e e d o m The rise of mass consumption Cities, however, were also the birthplace of a mass-consumption society that added new meaning to American freedom. During the Progressive era, large downtown department stores, neighborhood chain stores, and retail mail-order houses made available to consumers throughout the country the vast array of goods now pouring from the nation’s factories. By 1910, Americans could purchase, among many other items, electric sew- ing machines, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and record players. 548 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era Why was the city such a central element in Progressive America? Leisure activities also took on the characteristics of mass consump- tion. Amusement parks, dance halls, and theaters attracted large crowds of city dwellers. By 1910, 25 million Americans per week, mostly working- class urban residents, were attending “nickelodeons”—motion-picture theaters whose five-cent admission charge was far lower than that of vaudeville shows. T h e W o r k i n g W o m a n The new visibility of women in urban public places—at work, as shoppers, and in places of entertainment like cinemas and dance halls—indicated that traditional gender roles were changing dramatically in Progressive America. As the Triangle fire revealed, more and more women were working Women at work in a shoe factory, for wages. Immigrant women were largely confined to low-paying factory 1908. employment. But for native-born white women, the kinds of jobs available expanded enormously. By 1920, around 25 percent of employed women were office workers or telephone operators. Female work was no longer con- fined to young, unmarried white women and adult black women. In 1920, of 8 million women working for wages, one-quarter were married and living with their husbands. The working woman—immigrant and native, working- class and professional—became a symbol of female emancipation. “We enjoy our independence and freedom” was the assertive statement of the Bachelor Girls Social Club, a group of female mail-order clerks in New York. The Return from Toil, a drawing by The desire to participate in the consumer society produced remark- John Sloan for the radical magazine ably similar battles within immigrant families of all nationalities between The Masses, pictures working parents and their self-consciously “free” children, especially daughters. women not as downtrodden but as independent-minded, stylish, and self-confident. TABLE 18.3 Percentage of Women 14 Years and Older in the Labor Force ALL MARRIED WOMEN AS % YEAR WOMEN WOMEN OF LABOR FORCE 1900 20.4% 5.6% 18% 1910 25.2 10.7 24 1920 23.3 9.0 24 1930 24.3 11.7 25 A N U R B A N A G E A N D A C O N S U M E R S O C I E T Y 549 Contemporaries, native and immigrant, TABLE 18.4 Percentage of Women noted how “the novelties and frivolities Workers in Various Occupations of fashion” appealed to young working women, who spent part of their meager wages on clothing and makeup and at places OCCUPATION 1900 1920 of entertainment. Daughters considered parents who tried to impose curfews or Professional, technical 8.2% 11.7% to prevent them from going out alone to Clerical 4.0 18.7 dances or movies as old-fashioned and not Sales workers 4.3 6.2 sufficiently “American.” Unskilled and semiskilled manufacturing 23.7 20.2 T h e R i s e o f F o r d i s m Household workers 28.7 15.7 If any individual exemplified the new con- sumer society, it was Henry Ford. Ford did not invent the automobile, but he developed the techniques of production and marketing that brought it within the reach of ordinary Americans. In 1905, he established the Ford Motor Company, one of dozens of small automobile manufacturing firms that emerged in these years. Three years later, he introduced the Model T, a simple, light vehicle sturdy enough to One of the numerous advertisements navigate the country’s poorly maintained roads. of the early twentieth century that In 1913, Ford’s factory in Highland Park, Michigan, adopted the invoked the Statue of Liberty to method of production known as the moving assembly line, in which car market consumer goods, in this case a brand of crackers. frames were brought to workers on a continuously moving conveyor belt. The process enabled Ford to expand output by greatly reducing the time it took to produce each car. In 1914, he raised wages at his factory to the unheard-of level of five dollars per day (more than double the pay of most industrial workers), enabling him to attract a steady stream of skilled laborers. When other businessmen criticized him for endangering profits by paying high wages, Ford replied that workers must be able to afford the goods being turned out by American factories. Ford’s output rose from 34,000 cars, priced at $700 each, in 1910, to 730,000 Model T’s that sold at a price of $316 (well within the reach of many workers) in 1916. The economic system based on mass production and mass consumption came to be called Fordism. T h e P r o m i s e o f A b u n d a n c e As economic production shifted from capital goods (steel, railroad equip- ment, etc.) to consumer products, the new advertising industry perfected ways of increasing sales, often by linking goods with the idea of freedom. 550 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era Why was the city such a central element in Progressive America? Numerous products took “liberty” as a brand name or used an image of the Statue TABLE 18.5 Sales of Passenger Cars of Liberty as a sales device. Economic abun- dance would eventually come to define the NUMBER OF CARS “American way of life,” in which personal YEAR (IN THOUSANDS) fulfillment was to be found through acquir- ing material goods. 1900 4.1 The maturation of the consumer 1905 24.2 economy gave rise to concepts—a “living 1910 181.0 wage” and an “American standard of liv- 1915 895.9 ing”—that offered a new language for criti- 1920 1,905.5 cizing the inequalities of wealth and power 1925 3,735.1 in Progressive America. Father John A. Ryan’s influential book A Living Wage (1906) described a decent standard of living (one that enabled a person to participate in the consumer economy) as a “natural and absolute” right of citizenship. His book sought to translate into American terms Pope Leo XIII’s powerful statement of 1894, Rerum Novarum, which criticized the divorce of economic life from ethical considerations, endorsed An advertisement for Palmolive soap the right of workers to organize unions, and repudiated competitive individu- illustrates how companies marketed alism in favor of a more cooperative vision of the good society. For the first goods to consumers by creating anxiety and invoking exotic images. time in the nation’s history, mass consumption came to occupy a central place The accompanying text promises in descriptions of American society and its future. “a perfect skin” and includes an imagined image of Cleopatra, claiming that the soap embodies “ancient beauty arts.” By 1915, Palmolive was the best-selling soap V A R I E T I E S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M in the world. The immediate task, in the Progressives’ view, was to humanize indus- trial capitalism and find common ground in a society still racked by labor conflict and experiencing massive immigration from abroad. Some Progressives proposed to return to a competitive marketplace populated by small producers. Others accepted the permanence of the large corpo- ration and looked to the government to reverse the growing concentra- tion of wealth and to ensure social justice. Still others would relocate freedom from the economic and political worlds to a private realm of personal fulfillment and unimpeded self-expression. But nearly all Progressives agreed that freedom must be infused with new meaning to deal with the economic and social conditions of the early twentieth century. V A R I E T I E S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M 551 I n d u s t r i a l F r e e d o m In Progressive America, complaints of a loss of freedom came not only from the most poorly paid factory workers but from better-off employees as well. Large firms in the automobile, electrical, steel, and other industries sought to implement greater control over the work process. Efficiency expert Frederick W. Taylor pioneered what he called “scientific management.” Through scientific study, Taylor believed, the “one best way” of producing goods could be determined and implemented. The role of workers was to obey the detailed instructions of supervisors. Not surprisingly, many skilled workers saw the erosion of their traditional influence over the work process as a loss of freedom. These developments helped to place the ideas of “industrial freedom” Roller skaters with socialist leaflets and “industrial democracy,” which had entered the political vocabulary in during a New York City strike in 1916. the Gilded Age, at the center of political discussion during the Progressive A “scab” is a worker who crosses the picket line during a strike. era. Lack of “industrial freedom” was widely believed to lie at the root of the much-discussed “labor problem.” Many Progressives believed that the key to increasing industrial freedom lay in empowering workers to participate in economic decision making via strong unions. Louis D. Brandeis, an active ally of the labor movement whom President Woodrow Wilson appointed to the Supreme Court in 1916, maintained that unions embodied an essen- tial principle of freedom—the right of people to govern themselves. The contradiction between “political liberty” and “industrial slavery,” Brandeis insisted, was America’s foremost social problem. T h e S o c i a l i s t P r e s e n c e a n d E u g e n e D e b s Economic freedom was also a rallying cry of American socialism, which Peak of American socialism reached its greatest influence during the Progressive era. Founded in 1901, the Socialist Party called for immediate reforms such as free college educa- tion, legislation to improve the condition of laborers, and, as an ultimate goal, democratic control over the economy through public ownership of railroads and factories. By 1912, the Socialist Party claimed 150,000 dues-paying members, published hundreds of newspapers, enjoyed substantial support in the American Federation of Labor, and had elected scores of local officials. Centers of socialist strength Socialism flourished in diverse communities throughout the country. On the Lower East Side of New York City, it arose from the economic exploita- tion of immigrant workers and Judaism’s tradition of social reform. Here, a vibrant socialist culture developed, complete with Yiddish-language newspapers and theaters, as well as large public meetings and street demonstrations. In 1914, the district elected socialist Meyer London to 552 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era How did the labor and women’s movements expand the meanings of American freedom? S O C I A L I S T T O W N S A N D C I T I E S , 1 9 0 0 - 1 9 2 0 Burlington Edmonds Tukwila Hillyard Coeur d'Alene Beatrice Camas WA Missoula Des Lacs Rugby CANADA (2 Commissioners) St. Hilaire Crookston Duluth ME Minot Tenstrike (Commissioner) Coquille Butte MT Minden (Commissioner) Laporte ND Pillager Cloquet Barre OR Brainerd Harbor Springs Sisseton Eagle Bend WI Traverse City Gustin ID VT Dawson Minneapolis NH S. Frankfort Schenectady MN Manitowoc Eureka SD Buffalo MA Wilson W Salem Sheboygan WY NY RI Naugatuck Milwaukee West Allis MI Haledon IA Davis Murray CT Stockton Davenport Rockaway PA Eureka Torino NE Berkeley NV Mammoth Madrid Longmont Silvis Phelps NJ Canton IN OH Daly City UT Nederland Lafayette Red Cloud Wymore MD Riverton Lincoln DE Grand Junction Edgewater Clinton Thayer MO IL Hymera Buena Vista Grafton Jerseyville CA KS WV Cedar City Victor Granite City O'Fallon VA Hillsboro Arma Mascoutah CO Curranville Brookneal Liberal Buckner DorrisvilleKY Girard Buffalo AZ Watts NM Frontenac Mindenmines Gibson NC Lackawanna Winslow Cardwell OK TN Flint Greenville Hartford Chant NY SC Osnaburg Antlers Ashtabula Amsterdam AR AL GA MI Birmingham Conneaut Union City Roulette MS Kalamazoo (Commissioner) Mineral Ridge PA Cleveland Wheatland Williamsport Winnfield Lorain New Castle (Commissioner) Salem TX Massillon Hazeldell McKeesport Shelby LA FL (Controller) Fostoria Mineral City Pitcairn Broad Jenera St. Mary's Canal Dover Toronto Top Twp. Gulfport Gas City Mt. Vernon Martins Ferry Garrett Lima Linden Byesville Lake Worth Barnhill Heights Star City Elwood Sugar Grove Piqua Hendricks Coshocton Adamston IN Hamilton OH WV 0 250 500 miles VA Miami 0 250 500 kilometers Socialist mayor KY Major municipal officer other than mayor Although the Socialist Party never Congress. Another center of socialist strength was Milwaukee, where won more than 6 percent of the Victor Berger, a German-born teacher and newspaper editor, mobilized vote nationally, it gained control of local AFL unions into a potent political force. Socialism also made inroads numerous small and medium-sized among tenant farmers in old Populist areas like Oklahoma, and in the min- cities between 1900 and 1920. ing regions of Idaho and Montana. No one was more important in spreading the socialist gospel or linking it to ideals of equality, self-government, and freedom than Eugene V. Debs, the railroad union leader who, as noted in the previous chapter, had been jailed during the Pullman Strike of 1894. For two decades, Debs crisscrossed Debs and socialism the country preaching that control of the economy by a democratic govern- ment held out the hope of uniting “political equality and economic freedom.” “While there is a lower class,” proclaimed Debs, “I am in it, . . . while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” Throughout the Atlantic world of the early twentieth century, social- ism was a rising presence. Debs would receive more than 900,000 votes V A R I E T I E S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M 553 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m C h a r l o t t e P e r k i n s G i l m a n , W o m e n a n d E c o n o m i c s ( 1 8 9 8 ) Women and Economics, by the prolific feminist social critic and novelist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, influenced the new generation of women aspiring to greater independence. It insisted that how people earned a living shaped their entire lives and that therefore women must free themselves from the home to achieve genuine freedom. It is not motherhood that keeps the housewife on her feet from dawn till dark; it is house service, not child service. Women work longer and harder than most men. . . . A truer spirit is the increasing desire of young girls to be independent, to have a career of their own, at least for a while, and the growing objection of countless wives to the pitiful asking for money, to the beggary of their position. More and more do fathers give their daughters, and husbands their wives, a definite allowance,—a separate bank account,—something . . . all their own. The spirit of personal independence in the women of today is sure proof that a change has come. . . . The radical change in the economic position of women is advancing upon us. . . . The growing individualization of democratic life brings inevitable change to our daughters as well as to our sons. . . . One of its most noticeable features is the demand in women not only for their own money, but for their own work for the sake of personal expression. Few girls today fail to manifest some signs of this desire for individual expression. . . . Economic independence for women necessarily involves a change in the home and family relation. But, if that change is for the advantage of individual and race, we need not fear it. It does not involve a change in the marriage relation except in withdrawing the element of economic dependence, nor in the relation of mother to child save to improve it. But it does involve the exercise of human faculty in women, in social service and exchange rather than in domestic service solely. . . . [Today], when our still developing social needs call for an ever-increasing . . . freedom, the woman in marrying becomes the house-servant, or at least the housekeeper, of the man. . . . When women stand free as economic agents, they will [achieve a] much better fulfilment of their duties as wives and mothers and [contribute] to the vast improvement in health and happiness of the human race. 554 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era F r o m J o h n M i t c h e l l , “ T h e W o r k i n g m a n ’ s C o n c e p t i o n o f I n d u s t r i a l L i b e r t y ” ( 1 9 1 0 ) During the Progressive era, the idea of “industrial liberty” moved to the center of political discussion. Progressive reformers and labor leaders like John Mitchell, head of the United Mine Workers, condemned the prevailing idea of liberty of contract in favor of a broader definition of economic freedom. While the Declaration of Independence established civil and political liberty, it did not, as you all know, establish industrial liberty. . . . Liberty means more than the right to choose the field of one’s employment. He is not a free man whose family must buy food today with the money that is earned tomorrow. He is not really free who is forced to work unduly long hours and for wages so low that he can not provide the necessities of life for himself and his family; who must live in a crowded tenement and see his children go to work in the mills, the mines, and the factories before their bodies are developed and their minds trained. To have freedom a man must be free from the harrowing fear of hunger and want; he must be in such a position that by the exercise of reasonable frugality he can provide his family with all of the necessities and the reasonable comforts of life. He must be able to educate his children and to provide against sickness, accident, and old age. . . . A number of years ago the legislatures of several coal producing States enacted laws requiring employers to pay the wages of their workmen in lawful money of the United States and to cease the practice of paying wages in merchandise. From time immemorial it had been the custom of coal companies to conduct general supply stores, and the workingmen were required, as a condition of employment, to accept products in lieu of money in return for services rendered. This system was a great hardship to the workmen. . . . The question of the constitutionality of this legislation was carried into the courts and by the highest tribunal it was declared to be an invasion of the workman’s liberty to deny him the right to accept merchandise in lieu of money as payment of his wages. . . . [This is] typical of hundreds of instances in which laws Q U E S T I O N S that have been enacted for the protection of the 1. What does Gilman see as the main workingmen have been declared by the courts to be unconstitutional, on the grounds that they obstacles to freedom for women? invaded the liberty of the working people. . . . Is it 2. What does Mitchell believe will be nec- not natural that the workingmen should feel that essary to establish “industrial liberty”? they are being guaranteed the liberties they do not want and denied the liberty that is of real value to 3. How do the authors differ in their view them? May they not exclaim, with Madame Roland of the relationship of the family to [of the French Revolution], “O Liberty! Liberty! individual freedom? How many crimes are committed in thy name!” V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 555 for president (6 percent of the total) in 1912. In that year, the socialist Appeal to Reason, published in Girard, Kansas, with a circulation of 700,000, was the largest weekly newspaper in the country. A F L a n d I W W Socialism was only one example of widespread discontent in Progressive America. Having survived the depression of the 1890s, the American American Federation of Federation of Labor saw its membership triple to 1.6 million between Labor (AFL) 1900 and 1904. At the same time, its president, Samuel Gompers, sought to forge closer ties with forward-looking corporate leaders willing to deal with unions as a way to stabilize employee relations. Most employers nonetheless continued to view unions as an intolerable interference with their authority and resisted them stubbornly. The AFL mainly represented the most privileged American workers— skilled industrial and craft laborers, nearly all of them white, male, and native-born. In 1905, a group of unionists who rejected the AFL’s exclusion- Industrial Workers of ary policies formed the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Part trade the World (IWW) union, part advocate of a workers’ revolution that would seize the means of production and abolish the state, the IWW made solidarity its guiding principle. The organization sought to mobilize those excluded from the AFL—the immigrant factory-labor force, migrant timber and agricultural workers, women, blacks, and even the despised Chinese on the West Coast. T h e N e w I m m i g r a n t s o n S t r i k e A series of mass strikes among immigrant workers placed labor’s demand The right to collective for the right to bargain collectively at the forefront of the reform agenda. bargaining These strikes demonstrated that although ethnic divisions among work- ers impeded labor solidarity, ethnic cohesiveness could also be a basis of unity, so long as strikes were organized on a democratic basis. The IWW did not originate these confrontations but was sometimes called in by local unionists to solidify the strikers. IWW organizers printed leaflets, post- ers, and banners in multiple languages and insisted that each nationality enjoy representation on the committee coordinating a walkout. It drew on the sense of solidarity within immigrant communities to persuade local religious leaders, shopkeepers, and officeholders to support the strikes. The labor conflict that had the greatest impact on public conscious- ness took place in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The city’s huge woolen mills employed 32,000 men, women, and children representing twenty-five nationalities. When the state legislature in January 1912 enacted a fifty- 556 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era How did the labor and women’s movements expand the meanings of American freedom? four-hour limit to the workweek, employ- ers reduced the weekly take-home pay of those who had been laboring longer hours. Workers spontaneously went on strike. In February, strikers devised the idea of sending strikers’ children out of the city for the duration of the walkout. Socialist fami- lies in New York City agreed to take them in. The sight of the children, many of whom appeared pale and half-starved, marching up Fifth Avenue from the train station led to a wave of sympathy for the strikers. The gov- ernor of Massachusetts soon intervened, and the strike was settled on the workers’ terms. A banner carried by the Lawrence strikers gave a new slogan to the labor movement: “We want bread and roses, too”—a declaration that workers sought not only Striking New York City garment higher wages but the opportunity to enjoy the finer things of life. workers carrying signs in multiple languages, 1913. L a b o r a n d C i v i l L i b e r t i e s The fiery organizer Mary “Mother” Jones, who at the age of eighty-three had been jailed after addressing striking Colorado miners, later told a New York audience that the union “had only the Constitution; the other side had the bayonets.” Yet the struggle of workers for the right to strike and The right to strike and the of labor radicals against restraints on open-air speaking made free speech right to free speech a significant public issue in the early twentieth century. By and large, the courts rejected their claims. But these battles laid the foundation for the rise of civil liberties as a central component of freedom in twentieth- century America. The IWW’s battle for freedom of expression is a case in point. Lacking union halls, its organizers relied on songs, street theater, impromptu orga- Forms of political activity nizing meetings, and street corner gatherings to spread their message and attract support. In response to IWW activities, officials in Los Angeles, Spokane, Denver, and more than a dozen other cities limited or prohibited outdoor meetings. To arouse popular support, the IWW filled the jails with members who defied local law by speaking in public. In nearly all the free-speech fights, however, the IWW eventually forced local officials to give way. “Whether they agree or disagree with its methods or aims,” wrote one journalist, “all lovers of liberty everywhere owe a debt to this organization for . . . [keeping] alight the fires of freedom.” V A R I E T I E S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M 557 T h e N e w F e m i n i s m During the Progressive era, the word “feminism” first entered the politi- cal vocabulary. In 1914, a mass meeting at New York’s Cooper Union debated the question “What is Feminism?” Feminism, said one speaker, meant women’s emancipation “both as a human being and a sex-being.” Feminists’ forthright attack on traditional rules of sexual behavior added a new dimension to the discussion of personal freedom. One symbol of the new era was Isadora Duncan, who brought from California a new, expressive dance based on the free movement of a body liberated from the constraints of traditional technique and costume. “I beheld the dance I had always dreamed of,” wrote the novelist Edith Wharton on seeing a Duncan performance, “satisfying every sense as a flower does, or a phrase of Mozart’s.” During this era, as journalist William M. Reedy jested, it struck Isadora Duncan brought a new “sex o’clock” in America. Issues of intimate personal relations previ- freedom to an old art form. ously confined to private discussion blazed forth in popular magazines and public debates. For the generation of women who adopted the word “feminism” to express their demand for greater liberty, free sexual expression and reproductive choice emerged as critical definitions of women’s emancipation. T h e B i r t h - C o n t r o l M o v e m e n t The much-beloved and much-feared Emma Goldman, speaking in favor The growing presence of women in the labor market reinforced demands of birth control to an almost entirely for access to birth control, an issue that gave political expression to chang- male crowd in New York City in 1916. ing sexual behavior. Emma Goldman, who had emigrated to the United States from Lithuania at the age of sixteen, toured the country lecturing on subjects from anarchism to the need for more enlightened attitudes toward homosexuality. She regularly included the right to birth control in her speeches and distributed pamphlets with detailed information about various contraceptive devices. By forthrightly challenging the laws banning contraceptive infor- mation and devices, Margaret Sanger, one of eleven children of an Irish- American working-class family, placed the issue of birth control at the heart of the new feminism. In 1911, she began a column on sex education, “What Every Girl Should Know,” for The Call, a New York socialist news- paper. Postal officials barred one issue, containing a column on venereal disease, from the mails. The next issue of The Call included a blank page with the headline: “What Every Girl Should Know—Nothing; by order of the U. S. Post Office.” 558 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era How did the labor and women’s movements expand the meanings of American freedom? By 1914, the intrepid Sanger was openly advertising birth-control devices in her own journal, The Woman Rebel. “No woman can call herself free,” she proclaimed, “who does not own and control her own body [and] can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” In 1916, Sanger opened a clinic in a working-class neighborhood of Brooklyn and began distributing contraceptive devices to poor Jewish and Italian women, an action for which she was sentenced to a month in prison. N a t i v e A m e r i c a n P r o g r e s s i v i s m Many groups participated in the Progressive impulse. Founded in 1911, the Society of American Indians was a reform organization typical of the era. It brought together Indian intellectuals to promote discussion of the plight of Native Americans in the hope that public exposure would be the first step toward remedying injustice. It created a pan-Indian public space independent of white control. Many of these Indian intellectuals were not unsympathetic to the basic goals of federal Indian policy, including the transformation of Goals of federal Indian policy communal landholdings on reservations into family farms. But Carlos Montezuma, a founder of the Society of American Indians, became an outspoken critic. Born in Arizona, he had been captured as a child by members of a neighboring tribe and sold to a traveling photographer, who brought him to Chicago. There Montezuma attended school and eventu- ally obtained a medical degree. In 1916, Montezuma established a newsletter, Wassaja (meaning “signal- ing”), that called for the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Convinced that outsiders exerted too much power over life on the reservations, he insisted that self-determination was the only way for Indians to escape poverty and marginalization. But he also demanded that Indians be granted full citizenship and all the constitutional rights of other Americans. Indian activists would later rediscover him as a forerunner of Indian radicalism. T H E P O L I T I C S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M E f f e c t i v e F r e e d o m Progressivism was an international movement. In the early twentieth Worldwide progressivism century, cities throughout the world experienced similar social strains arising from rapid industrialization and urban growth. Reformers across the globe exchanged ideas and envisioned new social policies. The Chinese T H E P O L I T I C S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M 559 leader Sun Yat-Sen, for example, was influenced by the writings of Henry George and Edward Bellamy. As governments in Britain, France, and Germany instituted old-age pensions, minimum-wage laws, unemployment insurance, and the regu- lation of workplace safety, American reformers came to believe they had European social legislation much to learn from the Old World. The term “social legislation,” meaning governmental action to address urban problems and the insecurities of working-class life, originated in Germany but soon entered the political vocabulary of the United States. Drawing on the reform programs of the Gilded Age and the example of European legislation, Progressives sought to reinvigorate the idea of an activist, socially conscious government. Progressives could reject the traditional assumption that powerful government posed a threat to free- dom, because their understanding of freedom was itself in flux. “Effective Dewey and freedom freedom,” wrote the philosopher John Dewey, was far different from the “highly formal and limited concept of liberty” as protection from outside restraint. Freedom was a positive, not a negative, concept—the “power to do specific things.” It sometimes required the government to act on behalf of those with little wealth or power. Thus, freedom in the Progressive era inevitably became a political question. Children at play at the Hudson-Bank Gymnasium, built in 1898 in a New York immigrant neighborhood by S t a t e a n d L o c a l R e f o r m s the Outdoor Recreation League, one of many Progressive-era groups In the United States, with a political structure more decentralized than in that sought to improve life in urban European countries, state and local governments enacted most of the era’s centers. reform measures. In cities, Progressives worked to reform the structure of govern- ment to reduce the power of political bosses, establish public control of “natural monopo- lies” like gas and water works, and improve public transportation. They raised prop- erty taxes in order to spend more money on schools, parks, and other public facilities. Gilded Age mayors and governors pioneered urban Progressivism. A former factory worker who became a successful shoe manufacturer, Hazen Pingree served as mayor of Detroit from 1889 to 1897. He battled the business interests that had domi- nated city government, forcing gas and tele- phone companies to lower their rates, and 560 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and antidemocratic impulses? established a municipal power plant. Hiram Johnson, who as public pros- ecutor had secured the conviction for bribery of a San Francisco political boss, was elected governor of California in 1910. Having promised to “kick the Southern Pacific [Railroad] out of politics,” he secured passage of the Public Utilities Act, one of the country’s strongest railroad-regulation mea- Public Utilities Act sures, as well as laws banning child labor and limiting the working hours of women. The most influential Progressive administration at the state level was that of Robert M. La Follette, who made Wisconsin a “laboratory for democracy.” After serving as a Republican member of Congress, La Follette became convinced that an alliance of railroad and lumber com- panies controlled state politics. Elected governor in 1900, he instituted a Robert La Follette and the series of measures known as the Wisconsin Idea, including nominations Wisconsin Idea of candidates for office through primary elections rather than by political bosses, the taxation of corporate wealth, and state regulation of railroads and public utilities. To staff his administration, he drew on nonpartisan faculty members from the University of Wisconsin. P r o g r e s s i v e D e m o c r a c y Progressives hoped to reinvigorate democracy by restoring political power to the citizenry and civic harmony to a divided society. Alarmed Civic harmony by the upsurge in violent class conflict and the unrestricted power of cor- porations, they believed that political reforms could help to create a unified “people” devoted to greater democracy and social reconciliation. Yet increasing the responsibilities of government made it all the more impor- tant to identify who was entitled to political participation and who was not. The Progressive era saw a host of changes implemented in the politi- cal process, many seemingly contradictory in purpose. The electorate was simultaneously expanded and contracted, empowered and removed from direct influence on many functions of government. Democracy was enhanced by the Seventeenth Amendment (1917)—which provided that U.S. senators be chosen by popular vote rather than by state legislatures— by widespread adoption of the popular election of judges, and by the use of primary elections among party members to select candidates for office. Several states, including California under Hiram Johnson, adopted the initiative and referendum (the former allowed voters to propose leg- Initiative and referendum islation, the latter to vote directly on it) and the recall, by which officials could be removed from office by popular vote. The era culminated with a constitutional amendment enfranchising women—the largest expansion of democracy in American history. T H E P O L I T I C S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M 561 But the Progressive era also witnessed numerous restrictions on democratic participation, most strikingly the disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, as noted in Chapter 17. To make city government more honest and efficient, many localities replaced elected mayors with appointed non- Restricting democratic partisan commissions or city managers—a change that insulated officials participation from machine domination but also from popular control. New literacy tests and residency and registration requirements, common in northern as well as southern states, limited the right to vote among the poor. In the eyes of many Progressives, the “fitness” of voters, not their absolute numbers, defined a functioning democracy. Most Progressive thinkers were highly uncomfortable with the real world of politics, which seemed to revolve around the pursuit of narrow class, ethnic, and regional interests. Robert M. La Follette’s reliance on college professors to staff important posts in his administration reflected Government by experts a larger Progressive faith in expertise. The government could best exer- cise intelligent control over society through a democracy run by impar- tial experts who were in many respects unaccountable to the citizenry. Political freedom was less a matter of direct participation in government than of qualified persons devising the best public policies. J a n e A d d a m s a n d H u l l H o u s e But alongside this elitist politics, Progressivism also included a more dem- A staff member greets an immigrant ocratic vision of the activist state. As much as any other group, organized family at Hull House, the settlement house established in Chicago by Jane women reformers spoke for the more democratic side of Progressivism. Addams. Still barred from voting and holding office in most states, women none- theless became central to the political history of the Progressive era. The immediate catalyst was a growing awareness among women reformers of the plight of poor immigrant communities and the emergence of the condition of women and child laborers as a major focus of public concern. The era’s most prominent female reformer was Jane Addams, who had been born in 1860, the daughter of an Illinois businessman. In 1889, she founded Hull House in Chicago, a “settlement house” devoted to improving the lives of the immigrant poor. Unlike previous reformers who had aided the poor from afar, settlement-house workers moved into poor neighbor- hoods. They built kindergartens and playgrounds for children, established employment bureaus and health clinics, and showed female victims of domestic abuse how to gain legal protection. By 1910, more than 400 settle- ment houses had been established in cities throughout the country. Addams was typical of the Progressive era’s “new woman.” By 1900, there were more than 80,000 college-educated women in the United 562 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and antidemocratic impulses? States. Many found a calling in providing social services, nursing, and education to poor families in the growing cities. The efforts of middle-class women to uplift the poor, and of laboring women to uplift themselves, helped to shift the center of gravity of politics toward activist government. Women like Addams discovered that even well-organized social work was not enough to alleviate the problems of inadequate housing, income, and health. Government action was essential. Hull House instigated an array Hull House of reforms in Chicago, soon adopted elsewhere, including stronger build- ing and sanitation codes, shorter working hours and safer labor condi- tions, and the right of labor to organize. The settlement houses have been called “spearheads for reform.” Florence Kelley, a veteran of Hull House, went on to mobilize women’s Florence Kelley power as consumers as a force for social change. Under Kelley’s leader- ship, the National Consumers’ League became the nation’s leading advo- cate of laws governing the working conditions of women and children. T h e C a m p a i g n f o r W o m a n S u f f r a g e After 1900, the campaign for woman suffrage moved beyond the elit- ism of the 1890s to engage a broad coalition ranging from middle-class members of women’s clubs to unionists, socialists, and settlement house workers. For the first time, it became a mass movement. Membership in A mass movement the National American Woman Suffrage Association grew from 13,000 in 1893 to more than 2 million by 1917. By 1900, more than half the states allowed women to vote in local elections dealing with school issues, and A “suffrage float” promotes equal rights for women in Nebraska. Although most of its neighboring states had extended the right to vote to women, Nebraska’s male voters rejected woman suffrage in a 1914 referendum. T H E P O L I T I C S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M 563 Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah had adopted full woman suffrage. Between 1910 and 1914, seven more western states enfranchised women. In 1913, Illinois became the first state east of the Mississippi River to allow women to vote in presidential elections. State campaigns for suffrage These campaigns, which brought women aggressively into the public sphere, were conducted with a new spirit of militancy. They also made effective use of the techniques of advertising, publicity, and mass enter- tainment characteristic of modern consumer society. California’s success- ful 1911 campaign utilized automobile parades, numerous billboards and electric signs, and countless suffrage buttons and badges. Nonetheless, state campaigns were difficult, expensive, and usually unsuccessful. The movement increasingly focused its attention on securing a national consti- tutional amendment giving women the right to vote. M a t e r n a l i s t R e f o r m Ironically, the desire to exalt women’s role within the home did much to inspire the reinvigoration of the suffrage movement. Female reform- Government aid to women and ers helped to launch a mass movement for direct government action to children improve the living standards of poor mothers and children. Laws provid- ing for mothers’ pensions (state aid to mothers of young children who lacked male support) spread rapidly after 1910. These “maternalist” reforms rested on the assumption that the government should encourage women’s capacity for bearing and raising children and enable them to be economically independent at the same time. Both feminists and believers Louisine Havemeyer, one of New York City’s wealthiest women, was a strong advocate of woman suffrage. Here, in a 1915 photograph, she passes the Torch of Liberty to a group of New Jersey women. 564 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and antidemocratic impulses? in conventional domestic roles supported such measures. The former hoped that these laws would subvert women’s dependence on men, the latter that they would strengthen traditional families and the mother-child bond. Other Progressive legislation recognized that large numbers of women did in fact work outside the home but defined them as a dependent group (like children) in need of state protection in ways male workers were Louis D. Brandeis and not. In 1908, in the landmark case of Muller v. Oregon, Louis D. Brandeis Muller v. Oregon filed a famous brief citing scientific and sociological studies to demon- strate that because they had less strength and endurance than men, long hours of labor were dangerous for women, while their unique ability to bear children gave the government a legitimate interest in their working conditions. Per suaded by Brandeis’s argument, the Supreme Court unani- mously upheld the constitutionality of an Oregon law setting maximum working hours for women. Thus, three years after the notorious Lochner decision invalidating a New York law limiting the working hours of male bakers (discussed in Chapter 16), the Court created the first large breach in “liberty of contract” doctrine. But the cost was high: at the very time that women in unprec- The unintended effects of edented numbers were entering the labor market and earning college Muller degrees, Brandeis’s brief and the Court’s opinion solidified the view of women workers as weak, dependent, and incapable of enjoying the same economic rights as men. By 1917, thirty states had enacted laws limiting the hours of labor of female workers. The maternalist agenda that built gender inequality into the early foundations of the welfare state by extension raised the idea that gov- ernment should better the living and working conditions of men as well. Indeed, Brandeis envisioned the welfare state as one rooted in the notion of universal economic entitlements, including the right to a decent income and protection against unemployment and work-related accidents. This vision, too, enjoyed considerable support in the Progressive era. By 1913, twenty-two states had enacted workmen’s compensation laws to benefit workers, male or female, injured on the job. This legislation was the first wedge that opened the way for broader programs of social insurance. A form of social insurance But state minimum-wage laws and most laws regulating working hours applied only to women. Women and children may have needed protection, but interference with the freedom of contract of adult male workers was still widely seen as degrading. The establishment of a standard of living and working conditions beneath which no American should be allowed to fall would await the coming of the New Deal. T H E P O L I T I C S O F P R O G R E S S I V I S M 565 T H E P R O G R E S S I V E P R E S I D E N T S Despite creative experiments in social policy at the city and state levels, the tradition of localism seemed to most Progressives an impediment to a renewed sense of national purpose. Poverty, economic insecurity, and lack of industrial democracy were national problems that demanded national Herbert Croly solutions. The democratic national state, wrote New Republic editor Herbert Croly, offered an alternative to control of Americans’ lives by narrow inter- ests that manipulated politics or by the all-powerful corporations. Croly proposed a new synthesis of American political traditions. To achieve the “Jeffersonian ends” of democratic self-determination and individual free- dom, he insisted, the country needed to employ the “Hamiltonian means” of government intervention in the economy. Each in his own way, the Progressive presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson—tried to address this challenge. T h e o d o r e R o o s e v e l t In September 1901, the anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated William McKinley’s assassination McKinley while the president visited the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. At the age of forty-two, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest man ever to hold the office of president. In many ways, he became the model for the twentieth-century president, an official actively and continuously engaged in domestic and foreign affairs. (The foreign policies of the Progressive presidents will be dis- cussed in the next chapter.) He moved aggressively to set the political President Theodore Roosevelt agenda. addressing a crowd in Evanston, Roosevelt’s domestic program, which he called the Square Deal, Illinois, in 1902. attempted to confront the problems caused by economic consolidation by distinguishing between “good” and “bad” corporations. The former, among which he included U.S. Steel and Standard Oil, served the public interest. The latter were run by greedy financiers interested only in profit and had no right to exist. Soon after assuming office, Roosevelt shocked the corporate world by announcing his intention to prosecute under the Sherman Antitrust Act the Northern Securities Company. Created by financier J. P. Morgan, this “holding company” owned the stock and directed the affairs of three major western railroads. It monopolized transportation between the Great Lakes and the Pacific. In 1904, the Supreme Court ordered Northern Securities dissolved, a major victory for the antitrust movement. 566 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era How did the Progressive presidents foster the rise of the nation-state? Reelected that same year, Roosevelt pushed for more direct federal regulation of the economy. He proposed to strengthen the Interstate Commerce Commission, which the Supreme Court had essentially limited to collecting economic statistics. By this time, journalistic exposés, labor unrest, and the agitation of Progressive reformers had created significant public support for Roosevelt’s regulatory program. In 1906, Congress passed the Hepburn Act, giving the ICC the power to examine railroads’ business records and to set reasonable rates, a significant step in the devel- opment of federal intervention in the corporate economy. That year, as has been noted, also saw the Pure Food and Drug Act. Many businessmen sup- ported these measures, recognizing that they would benefit from greater public confidence in the quality and safety of their products. But they were Putting the Screws on Him, a 1904 alarmed by Roosevelt’s calls for federal inheritance and income taxes and cartoon, depicts President Theodore the regulation of all interstate businesses. Roosevelt squeezing ill-gotten gains out of the trusts. J o h n M u i r a n d t h e S p i r i t u a l i t y o f N a t u r e If the United States lagged behind Europe in many areas of social policy, it led the way in the conservation of natural resources. The first national park, Yellowstone in Wyoming, was created in 1872, partly to preserve an area of remarkable natural beauty and partly at the urging of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which was anxious to promote western tourism. In the 1890s, the Scottish-born naturalist John Muir organized the Sierra Club to help preserve forests from uncontrolled logging by timber companies. Muir’s love of nature stemmed from deep religious feelings. Nearly The Old Faithful geyser, the most blinded in an accident in an Indianapolis machine shop where he worked in famous site in Yellowstone, the his twenties, he found in the restoration of his sight an inspiration to appre- nation’s first national park, in a ciate God’s creation. He called forests “God’s first temples.” In nature, photograph from the 1880s. he believed, men could experience directly the presence of God. Muir was inspired by the Transcendentalists of the pre–Civil War era—like Henry David Thoreau, he lamented the intrusions of civilization on the natural environment. But unlike them, Muir developed a broad following. As more and more Americans lived in cities, they came to see nature less as something to conquer and more as a place for recreation and personal growth. Muir’s spiritual understanding of nature resonated with these urbanites. T h e C o n s e r v a t i o n M o v e m e n t In the 1890s, Congress authorized the president to withdraw “forest reserves” from economic development, a restriction on economic freedom in the name of a greater social good. But it was under Theodore Roosevelt T H E P R O G R E S S I V E P R E S I D E N T S 567 that conservation became a concerted federal policy. A dedicated outdoors- man who built a ranch in North Dakota in the 1880s, Roosevelt moved to preserve parts of the natural environment from economic exploitation. Relying for advice on Gifford Pinchot, the head of the U.S. Forest Service, he ordered that millions of acres be set aside as wildlife preserves and encouraged Congress to create new national parks. In some ways, conservation was a typical Progressive reform. Manned by experts, the government could stand above political and economic battles, serving the public good while preventing “special interests” from causing irreparable damage to the environment. The aim was less to end the economic utili- zation of natural resources than to develop responsible, scientific plans for their use. Pinchot halted timber companies’ reckless assault on the nation’s forests. But unlike Muir, he believed that development and con- Theodore Roosevelt and the conservationist John Muir at Glacier servation could go hand in hand and that logging, mining, and grazing on Point, Yosemite Valley, California, in public lands should be controlled, not eliminated. 1906. Yosemite was set aside as a national park in 1890. T a f t i n O f f i c e Having served nearly eight years as president, Roosevelt did not run again in 1908. His chosen successor, William Howard Taft, defeated William Jennings Bryan, making his third unsuccessful race for the White House. Although temperamentally more conservative than Roosevelt, Taft Taft’s antitrust policy pursued antitrust policy even more aggressively. He persuaded the Supreme Court in 1911 to declare John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company (one of Roosevelt’s “good” trusts) in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and to order its breakup into separate marketing, produc- ing, and refining companies. The government also won a case against American Tobacco, which the Court ordered to end pricing policies that were driving smaller firms out of business. Taft supported the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which The income tax authorized Congress to enact a graduated income tax (one whose rate of taxation is higher for wealthier citizens). It was ratified shortly before he left office. A 2 percent tax on incomes over $4,000 had been included in a tariff enacted in 1894 but had been quickly declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court as a “communistic threat to property.” A key step in the modernization of the federal government, the income tax provided a reliable and flexible source of revenue for a national state whose powers, responsibilities, and expenditures were growing rapidly. Despite these accomplishments, Taft seemed to gravitate toward the more conservative wing of the Republican Party. Taft’s rift with Progressives grew deeper when Richard A. Ballinger, the new secretary 568 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era How did the Progressive presidents foster the rise of the nation-state? of the interior, concluded that Roosevelt had exceeded his authority in placing land in forest reserves. Ballinger decided to return some of this land to the public domain, where mining and lumber companies would have access to it. Gifford Pinchot accused Ballinger of colluding with busi- Ballinger and Pinchot ness interests and repudiating the environmental goals of the Roosevelt administration. When Taft fired Pinchot in 1910, the breach with party Progressives became irreparable. In 1912, Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination. Defeated, Roosevelt launched an independent campaign as the head of the new Progressive Party. T h e E l e c t i o n o f 1 9 1 2 All the crosscurrents of Progressive-era thinking came together in the pres- idential campaign of 1912. The four-way contest between Taft, Roosevelt, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs became a national debate on the relationship between political and economic free- A key election dom in the age of big business. At one end of the political spectrum stood Taft, who stressed that economic individualism could remain the founda- tion of the social order so long as government and private entrepreneurs cooperated in addressing social ills. At the other end was Debs. Relatively few Americans supported the Socialist Party’s goal of abolishing the “capitalistic system” altogether, but its immediate demands—including public ownership of the railroads and banking system, government aid to Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate, speaking in Chicago the unemployed, and laws establishing shorter working hours and a mini- during the 1912 presidential mum wage—summarized forward-looking Progressive thought. campaign. But it was the battle between Wilson and Roosevelt over the role of the fed- eral government in securing economic freedom that galvanized public attention in 1912. The two represented competing strands of Progressivism. Both believed government action necessary to preserve individual freedom, but they differed over the dangers of increasing the gov- ernment’s power and the inevitability of economic concentration. N e w F r e e d o m a n d N e w N a t i o n a l i s m Strongly influenced by Louis D. Brandeis, with whom he consulted frequently during T H E P R O G R E S S I V E P R E S I D E N T S 569 the campaign, Wilson insisted that democracy must be reinvigorated by restoring market competition and freeing government from domination by big business. Wilson feared big government as much as he feared the power Woodrow Wilson’s New of the corporations. The New Freedom, as he called his program, envisioned Freedom the federal government strengthening antitrust laws, protecting the right of workers to unionize, and actively encouraging small businesses—creat- ing, in other words, the conditions for the renewal of economic competition without increasing government regulation of the economy. Wilson warned that corporations were as likely to corrupt government as to be managed by it, a forecast that proved remarkably accurate. To Roosevelt’s supporters, Wilson seemed a relic of a bygone era; his program, they argued, served the needs of small businessmen but ignored the inevitability of economic concentration and the interests of profession- Roosevelt’s New Nationalism als, consumers, and labor. Espousing the New Nationalism, his program of 1912, Roosevelt insisted that only the “controlling and directing power of the government” could restore “the liberty of the oppressed.” He called for heavy taxes on personal and corporate fortunes and federal regulation of industries, including railroads, mining, and oil. The Progressive Party platform offered numerous proposals to promote social justice. Drafted by a group of settlement-house activists, labor reformers, and social scientists, the platform laid out a blueprint for a modern, democratic welfare state, complete with woman suffrage, federal supervision of corporate enterprise, national labor and health The Progressive Party legislation for women and children, an eight-hour day and “living wage” Platform of 1912 for all workers, and a national system of social insurance covering unem- ployment, medical care, and old age. Roosevelt’s campaign helped to give freedom a modern social and economic content and established an agenda that would define political liberalism for much of the twentieth century. W i l s o n ’ s F i r s t T e r m The Republican split ensured a sweeping victory for Wilson, who won about 42 percent of the popular vote, although Roosevelt humiliated Taft by winning about 27 percent to the president’s 23 percent. In office, Wilson proved himself a strong executive leader. He was the first president to hold regular press conferences, and he delivered messages personally to Congress rather than sending them in written form, as did all his predeces- sors since John Adams. 570 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era How did the Progressive presidents foster the rise of the nation-state? With Democrats in control of Congress, T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N Wilson moved aggressively to implement O F 1 9 1 2 his version of Progressivism. The first sig- nificant measure of his presidency was 7 the Underwood Tariff, which substantially 4 5 4 4 6 reduced duties on imports and, to make 5 12 4 up for lost revenue, imposed a gradu- 5 13 45 18 3 15 5 ated income tax on the richest 5 percent of 38 3 8 13 7 29 15 24 14 3 Americans. There followed the Clayton Act 11 4 6 8 10 18 12 8 13 of 1914, which exempted labor unions from 12 2 12 antitrust laws and barred courts from issu- 3 3 10 9 9 ing injunctions curtailing the right to strike. 10 12 14 20 10 In 1916 came the Keating-Owen Act, outlaw- 6 ing child labor in the manufacture of goods sold in interstate commerce; the Adamson Electoral Vote Popular Vote Act, establishing an eight-hour workday on Party Candidate (Share) (Share) the nation’s railroads; and the Warehouse Democrat Wilson 435 (82%) 6,293,454 (41.9%) Act, reminiscent of the Populist subtreasury Progressive Roosevelt 88 (17%) 4,119,207 (27.4%) Republican Taft 8 (1%) 3,483,922 (23.2%) plan, which extended credit to farmers when Socialist Debs 900,369 (6.0%) they stored their crops in federally licensed warehouses. T h e E x p a n d i n g R o l e o f G o v e r n m e n t Some of Wilson’s policies seemed more in tune with Roosevelt’s New Nationalism than the New Freedom of 1912. Wilson presided over the cre- ation of two powerful new public agencies. In 1913, Congress created the Federal Reserve System, consisting of twelve regional banks. They were The Federal Reserve System overseen by a central board appointed by the president and empowered to handle the issuance of currency, aid banks in danger of failing, and influ- ence interest rates so as to promote economic growth. A second expansion of national power occurred in 1914, when Congress established the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate and prohibit “unfair” business activities such as price-fixing and monopo- listic practices. Both the Federal Reserve and the FTC were welcomed by many business leaders as a means of restoring order to the economic marketplace and warding off more radical measures for curbing corporate power. But they reflected the remarkable expansion of the federal role in the economy during the Progressive era. T H E P R O G R E S S I V E P R E S I D E N T S 571 By 1916, the social ferment and political mobilizations of the A new nation-state Progressive era had given birth to a new American state. With new laws, administrative agencies, and independent commissions, government at the local, state, and national levels had assumed the authority to protect and advance “industrial freedom.” Government had established rules for labor relations, business behavior, and financial policy, protected citi- zens from market abuses, and acted as a broker among the groups whose conflicts threatened to destroy social harmony. But a storm was already engulfing Europe that would test the Progressive faith in empowered gov- ernment as the protector of American freedom. 572 C h a p t e r 1 8  The Progressive Era C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S muckrakers (p. 546) 1. Identify the main groups and ideas that drove the Ellis Island and Angel Island Progressive movement. (p. 547) Fordism (p. 550) 2. Explain how immigration to the United States in this Rerum Novarum (p. 551) period was part of a global movement of peoples. “scientific management” (p. 552) Industrial Workers of the World 3. Describe how Fordism transformed American industrial (p. 556) and consumer society. collective bargaining (p. 556) new feminism (p. 558) 4. Socialism was a rising force across the globe in the early birth-control movement (p. 558) twentieth century. How successful was the movement in Society of American Indians (p. 559) the United States? “social legislation” (p. 560) Seventeenth Amendment (p. 561) 5. Explain why the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) “maternalist” reforms (p. 564) grew so rapidly and aroused so much opposition. Muller v. Oregon (p. 565) workmen’s compensation laws 6. How did immigrants adjust to life in America? What (p. 565) institutions or activities became important to their Conservation Movement (p. 567) adjustment, and why? Sixteenth Amendment (p. 568) New Freedom and New 7. What did Progressive era feminists want to change in Nationalism (p. 569) Federal Trade Commission (p. 571) society, and how did their actions help to spearhead broader reforms? 8. How did ideas of women’s roles, shared by maternal- ist reformers, lead to an expansion of activism by and rights for women? wwnorton.com /studyspace 9. How did each Progressive era president view the role of the federal government? VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE RESOURCES AND MORE 10. Pick a Progressive era reform (a movement, a specific s legislation, or an organization) and describe how it s shows how Progressives could work for both the expan- s sion of democracy and restrictions on it. s s C h a p t e r R e v i e w a n d O n l i n e R e s o u r c e s 573 1903 United States secures the C H A P T E R 1 9 Panama Canal Zone W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine 1905 The Niagara movement S A F E F O R D E M O C R A C Y : established 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement with Japan T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S 1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People organized 1910 Mexican Revolution begins A N D W O R L D W A R I 1911 Bailey v. Alabama 1914 Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand 1914– World War I  1919 1915 D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a 1 9 1 6 – 1 9 2 0 Nation premieres Lusitania sinks 1917 Zimmerman Telegram intercepted United States enters the war Espionage Act passed Russian Revolution 1918 Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” speech 1918– Worldwide flu epidemic 1920 1919 Eighteenth Amendment Treaty of Versailles signed 1919– Red Scare 1920 1920 Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles Nineteenth Amendment ratified 1921 Tulsa Riot The Greatest Department Store on Earth, a cartoon from Puck, November 29, 1899, depicts Uncle Sam selling goods, mostly manufactured products, to the nations of the world. The search for markets overseas would be a recurring theme of twentieth- century American foreign policy. In 1902, W. T. Stead published a short volume with the arresting title The Americanization of the World; or, the Trend of the Twentieth Century, in which he predicted that the United States would soon emerge as F O C U S “the greatest of world-powers.” But what was most striking about his Q U E S T I O N S work was that Stead located the source of American power less in the realm of military might or territorial acquisition than in the country’s single-minded commitment to the “pursuit of wealth” and the relentless s international spread of American culture—art, music, journalism, even Progressive presidents ideas about religion and gender relations. He foresaw a future in which promote the expansion of the United States promoted its interests and values through an unending American power overseas? involvement in the affairs of other nations. Stead proved to be an accurate prophet. s The Spanish-American War had established the United States as an get involved in World international empire. Despite the conquest of the Philippines and Puerto War I? Rico, however, the country’s overseas holdings remained tiny compared to those of Britain, France, and Germany. And no more were added, s except for a strip of land surrounding the Panama Canal, acquired in mobilize resources and 1903, and the Virgin Islands, purchased from Denmark in 1917. In 1900, public opinion for the war Great Britain ruled over more than 300 million people in possessions effort? scattered across the globe, and France had nearly 50 million subjects in Asia and Africa. Compared with these, the American presence in the s world seemed very small. As Stead suggested, America’s empire differed race relations in the significantly from those of European countries—it was economic, cul- United States? tural, and intellectual, rather than territorial. The world economy at the dawn of the twentieth century was s already highly globalized. An ever-increasing stream of goods, invest- watershed year for the ments, and people flowed from country to country. Although Britain still United States and the dominated world banking and the British pound remained the major world? currency of international trade, the United States had become the leading industrial power. By 1914, it produced more than one-third of the world’s manufactured goods. Spearheads of American culture like movies and popular music were not far behind. Europeans were fascinated by American ingenuity and mass- production techniques. Many feared American products and culture would overwhelm their own. “What are the chief new features of London life?” one British writer asked in 1901. “They are the telephone, the por- table camera, the phonograph, the electric street car, the automobile, the typewriter. . . . In every one of these the American maker is supreme.” America’s growing connections with the outside world led to increasing military and political involvement. In the two decades after 1900, many of the basic principles that would guide American foreign S A F E F O R D E M O C R A C Y : T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S A N D W O R L D W A R I 575 policy for the rest of the century were formulated. The “open door”—the free flow of trade, investment, information, and culture—emerged as a key principle of American foreign relations. Americans in the twentieth century often discussed foreign policy in the language of freedom. A supreme faith in America’s historic destiny and in the righteousness of its ideals enabled the country’s leaders to think of the United States simultaneously as an emerging great power and as the worldwide embodiment of freedom. More than any other individual, Woodrow Wilson articulated this vision of America’s relationship to the rest of the world. His foreign policy, called by historians “liberal internationalism,” rested on the conviction that economic and political progress went hand in hand. Thus, greater worldwide freedom would follow inevitably from increased American investment and trade abroad. Frequently during the twentieth century, this conviction would serve as a mask for American power and self- interest. It would also inspire sincere efforts to bring freedom to other peoples. In either case, liberal internationalism represented a shift from the nineteenth-century tradition of promoting freedom primarily by example to active intervention to remake the world in the American image. A N E R A O F I N T E R V E N T I O N Just as they expanded the powers of the federal government in domestic affairs, the Progressive presidents were not reluctant to project American power outside the country’s borders. At first, their interventions were confined to the Western Hemisphere, whose affairs the United States had claimed a special right to oversee ever since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. The Caribbean Between 1901 and 1920, U.S. marines landed in Caribbean countries more than twenty times. Usually, they were dispatched to create a welcoming economic environment for American companies that wanted stable access to raw materials like bananas and sugar, and for bankers nervous that their loans to local governments might not be repaid. “ I T o o k t h e C a n a l Z o n e ” Theodore Roosevelt became far more active in international diplomacy than most of his predecessors, helping, for example, to negotiate a settle- ment of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, a feat for which he was awarded 576 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas? T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S I N T H E C A R I B B E A N , 1 8 9 8 – 1 9 4 1 UNITED STATES Columbus A t l a n t i c U.S. Expeditionary Force, 1916–1917 O c e a n Santa Ysabel Houston New Orleans Parral U.S. troops, 1898–1902, 1906–1909, Miami U.S. troops, 1915–1934 MEXICO B a h a m a s Financial supervision, 1916–1941 1912, 1917–1922 Platt Amendment, 1903–1934 ( B r. ) U.S. takes control of customs house, 1905 DOMINICAN Havana U.S. troops, 1916–1924 Tampico Financial supervision, 1905–1941 REPUBLIC U.S. seizure, Mexico City 1914 CUBA Guantanamo U.S. possession after 1898 Veracruz U.S. Naval base, 1903 HAITI V i rg i n I s l a n d s Pu e r t o (p u r c h a s e d f r o m D e n m a r k , 1 9 1 7 ) U.S. troops, 1907, BRITISH J a m a i ca R i co G u a d e l o u p e ( Fr. ) 1924–1925 ( B r. ) HONDURAS U.S. troops, 1909–1910, 1912–1925, 1926–1933, M a r t i n i q u e ( Fr. ) Financial supervision, 1911–1924 GUATEMALA B a r b a d o s ( B r. ) U.S. leases Corn Island, HONDURAS 1914 EL SALVADOR Tr i n i d a d ( B r. ) NICARAGUA PANAMA Caracas COSTA RICA VENEZUELA BRITISH FRENCH Venezuela U.S. acquired Canal Zone, 1904 debt crisis, GUIANA GUIANA Canal completed, 1914 Bogotá 1903–1904 Pa c i f i c DUTCH O c e a n COLOMBIA GUIANA ECUADOR 0 250 500 miles BRAZIL 0 250 500 kilometers PERU Between 1898 and 1941, the United the Nobel Peace Prize. Closer to home, his policies were more aggressive. States intervened militarily numerous “I have always been fond of the West African proverb,” he wrote, “‘ Speak times in Caribbean countries, softly and carry a big stick.’” generally to protect the economic The idea of a canal across the fifty-one-mile-wide Isthmus of Panama interests of American banks and investors. had a long history. A long-time proponent of American naval develop- ment, Roosevelt was convinced that a canal would facilitate the move- ment of naval and commercial vessels between the two oceans. In 1903, when Colombia, of which Panama was a part, refused to cede land for the project, Roosevelt helped set in motion an uprising by Panamanian conspirators. An American gunboat prevented the Colombian army from suppressing the rebellion. On establishing its independence, Panama signed a treaty giving the United States both the right to construct and operate a canal and The Panama Canal sovereignty over the Canal Zone, a ten-mile-wide strip of land through A N E R A O F I N T E R V E N T I O N 577 which the route would run. A remarkable feat of engineering, the canal was the largest construction project in history to that date. Like the build- ing of the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s and much construction Immigrant labor work today, it involved the widespread use of immigrant labor. Most of the 60,000 workers came from the Caribbean islands of Barbados and Jamaica, but others hailed from Europe, Asia, and the United States. When completed in 1914, the canal reduced the sea voyage between the East and West Coasts of the United States by 8,000 miles. “I took the Canal Zone,” Roosevelt exulted. But the manner in which the canal had been initiated, and the continued American rule over the Canal Zone, would long remain a source of tension. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter negotiated treaties that led to turning over the canal’s operation and control of the Canal Zone to Panama in the year 2000 (see Chapter 26). T h e R o o s e v e l t C o r o l l a r y Roosevelt’s actions in Panama reflected a principle that came to be called the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This held that the An international police power United States had the right to exercise “an international police power” in the Western Hemisphere—a significant expansion of James Monroe’s pledge to defend the hemisphere against European intervention. In 1904, Roosevelt ordered American forces to seize the customs houses of the Dominican Republic to ensure payment of its debts to European and American investors. In 1906, he dispatched troops to Cuba to oversee a disputed election; they remained in the country until 1909. The World’s Constable, a cartoon commenting on Theodore Roosevelt’s “new diplomacy,” in Judge, January 14, 1905, portrays Roosevelt as an impartial policeman, holding in one hand the threat of force and in the other the promise of the peaceful settlement of disputes. Roosevelt stands between the undisciplined non-white peoples of the world and the imperialist powers of Europe and Japan. 578 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I In what ways did the Progressive presidents promote the expansion of American power overseas? Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, landed marines in Nicaragua to protect a government friendly to American economic inter- ests. In general, however, Taft emphasized economic investment and loans from American banks, rather than direct military intervention, as the best way to spread American influence. As a result, his foreign policy became known as Dollar Diplomacy. M o r a l I m p e r i a l i s m The son of a Presbyterian minister, Woodrow Wilson brought to the Woodrow Wilson presidency a missionary zeal and a sense of his own and the nation’s moral righteousness. He appointed as secretary of state William Jennings Bryan, a strong anti-imperialist. Wilson promised a new foreign policy that would respect Latin America’s independence and free it from foreign economic domination. But Wilson could not abandon the conviction that the United States had a responsibility to teach other peoples the lessons of democracy. Wilson’s “moral imperialism” produced more military interventions in Latin America than any president before or since. In 1915, he sent marines to occupy Haiti after the government refused to allow American banks to Wilson’s military interventions oversee its financial dealings. In 1916, he established a military govern- in Latin America ment in the Dominican Republic, with the United States controlling the country’s customs collections and paying its debts. American soldiers remained in the Dominican Republic until 1924 and in Haiti until 1934. Wilson’s foreign policy underscored a paradox of modern American history: the presidents who spoke the most about freedom were likely to intervene most frequently in the affairs of other countries. W i l s o n a n d M e x i c o Wilson’s major preoccupation in Latin America was Mexico, where in 1911 a revolution led by Francisco Madero overthrew the government of dictator Porfirio Díaz. Two years later, without Wilson’s knowledge but with the backing of the U.S. ambassador and of American companies Political turmoil that controlled Mexico’s oil and mining industries, military commander Victoriano Huerta assassinated Madero and seized power. Wilson was appalled. He would “teach” Latin Americans, he added, “to elect good men.” When civil war broke out in Mexico, Wilson ordered American troops to land at Vera Cruz to prevent the arrival of weapons meant for Huerta’s forces. But to Wilson’s surprise, Mexicans greeted the marines as invaders rather than liberators. A N E R A O F I N T E R V E N T I O N 579 In 1916, the war spilled over into the United States when “Pancho” Pancho Villa Villa, the leader of one faction, attacked Columbus, New Mexico, where he killed seventeen Americans. Wilson ordered 10,000 troops into northern Mexico on an expedition that unsuccessfully sought to arrest Villa. Mexico was a warning that it might be difficult to use American might to reorder the internal affairs of other nations. A M E R I C A A N D T H E G R E A T W A R In June 1914, a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Fer dinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, in Sarajevo, Bosnia. This deed set in motion a chain of events that plunged Europe into the most Outbreak of war devastating war the world had ever seen. In the years before 1914, European nations had engaged in a scramble to obtain colonial possessions overseas and had constructed a shifting series of alliances seeking military domination within Europe. Within a little more than a month, because of the European powers’ interlocking military alliances, Britain, France, Russia, and Japan (the Allies) found themselves at war with the Central Powers—Germany, Austria- Hungary, and the Ottoman empire, whose holdings included modern-day Turkey and much of the Middle East. German forces quickly overran Belgium and part of northern France. The war then settled into a prolonged stalemate, with bloody, indecisive battles succeeding one another. New military technologies—submarines, New technologies airplanes, machine guns, tanks, and poison gas—produced unprecedented slaughter. In one five-month battle at Verdun, in 1916, 600,000 French In this painting from 1917, the Austrian painter Albin Egger-Leinz portrays World War I soldiers as faceless automatons marching in unison to the slaughter. By this time, the massive loss of life had produced widespread revulsion against the war. 580 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I How did the United States get involved in World War I? and German soldiers perished—nearly as many combatants as in the entire American Civil War. By the time the war ended, an estimated 10 million soldiers, and uncounted millions of civilians, had perished. And Casualties of the Great War the war was followed by widespread famine and a worldwide epidemic of influenza that killed an estimated 21 million people more. The Great War, or World War I as it came to be called, dealt a severe blow to the optimism and self-confidence of Western civilization. For decades, philosophers, reformers, and politicians had hailed the triumph of reason and human progress, an outlook hard to reconcile with the mass slaughter of World War I. The conflict was also a shock to European socialist and labor movements. Karl Marx had called on the “workers of the world” to unite against their oppressors. Instead, they marched off to kill each other. N e u t r a l i t y a n d P r e p a r e d n e s s As war engulfed Europe, Americans found themselves sharply divided. Americans divided British-Americans sided with their nation of origin, as did many other Americans who associated Great Britain with liberty and democracy and Germany with repressive government. On the other hand, German- Americans identified with Germany, and Irish-Americans bitterly opposed any aid to the British. Immigrants from the Russian empire, especially Jews, had no desire to see the United States aid the czar’s regime. When war broke out in 1914, President Wilson proclaimed American The liner Lusitania, pictured on a “peace” postcard. Its sinking neutrality. But naval warfare in Europe reverberated in the United States. by a German submarine in 1915 Britain declared a naval blockade of Germany and began to stop American strengthened the resolve of those merchant vessels. Germany launched submarine warfare against ships who wished to see the United States entering and leaving British ports. In May 1915, a German submarine enter the European war. sank the British liner Lusitania (which was carrying a large cache of arms) off the coast of Ireland, causing the death of 1,198 pas- sengers, including 124 Americans. Wilson composed a note of protest so strong that Bryan resigned as secretary of state, fearing that the president was laying the founda- tion for military intervention. The sinking of the Lusitania outraged American public opinion and strength- ened the hand of those who believed that the United States must prepare for pos- sible entry into the war. Wilson himself A M E R I C A A N D T H E G R E A T W A R 581 had strong pro-British sympathies and viewed Germany as “the natu- ral foe of liberty.” By the end of 1915, he had embarked on a policy of Preparedness “preparedness”—a crash program to expand the American army and navy. T h e R o a d t o W a r In May 1916, Germany announced the suspension of submarine war- fare against noncombatants. Wilson’s preparedness program seemed to have succeeded in securing the right of Americans to travel freely on the high seas. “He kept us out of war” became the slogan of his campaign for reelection. With the Republican Party reunited after its split in 1912, the election proved to be one of the closest in American history. Wilson defeated Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes by only twenty- Wilson’s reelection three electoral votes and about 600,000 popular votes out of more than 18 million cast. Partly because he seemed to promise not to send American soldiers to Europe, Wilson carried ten of the twelve states that had adopted woman suffrage. Without the votes of women, Wilson would not have been reelected. Almost immediately, however, Germany announced its intention to resume submarine warfare against ships sailing to or from the British Isles, and several American merchant vessels were sunk. In March 1917, British spies intercepted and made public the Zimmerman Telegram, a message by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman calling on Mexico to join in a coming war against the United States and promis- A 1916 Wilson campaign truck ing to help it recover territory lost in the Mexican War of 1846–1848. (a new development in political On April 2, Wilson went before Congress to ask for a declaration of war campaigning), promising peace, against Germany. “The world,” he proclaimed, “must be made safe for prosperity, and preparedness. democracy.” The war resolution passed the Senate 82–6 and the House 373–50. T h e F o u r t e e n P o i n t s Not until the spring of 1918 did American forces arrive in Europe in large numbers. By then, the world situation had taken a dramatic turn. In November 1917, a commu- nist revolution headed by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Russian government. Shortly thereafter, Lenin withdrew Russia from the war and published the secret treaties by which the Allies had agreed to divide up 582 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I How did the United States get involved in World War I? W O R L D W A R I : T H E W E S T E R N F R O N T Zeebrugge NETHERLANDS Düsseldorf ENGLAND Dover Nieuport Antwerp Ghent over Calais E Cologne r Ypres Brussels ft R Sieg R. . Lys Offensive R Lys R. Strait of D BELGIUM Liège h August 19– in November 11, 1918A e r Meuse R. R m . Lens istice Sambre R. Coblenz Lahn R. Arras Dinant Abbeville Cambrai Li Frankfurt n S e o mme Somme Offensive R. Amiens August 19– November 11, 1918 LUXEMBOURG Sedan Trier Aisne-Marne Offensive July 18–August 6, 1918 Luxembourg GERMANY Rouen No Aisne R. v S A r g o n n e e aa Soissons m Fo re s t b r R Reims er . S 1 Saarbrücken e 1 in , e 1 9 1 8 R. Meuse-Argonne L September– OR Paris November 1918 RA FRANCE INE Rhine R. Toul Strasbourg Chartres Melun Seine R. Aube Troyes R. ts. 0 25 50 miles Épinal 0 25 50 kilometers Sens es M sg ALSACE Vo Allied victory Allies Armistice line Mulhouse U.S. offensives Central Powers Stabilized front, 1915–1917 Belfort German offensives Neutral nations Maximum advance of Central Powers, 1918 SWITZERLAND After years of stalemate on the western front in World War I, the conquered territory after the war—an embarrassment for Wilson, who arrival of American troops in 1917 had promised a just peace. and 1918 shifted the balance of Partly to assure the country that the war was being fought for a power and made possible the Allied moral cause, Wilson in January 1918 issued the Fourteen Points, the clear- victory. est statement of American war aims and of his vision of a new international order. Among the key principles were self-determination for all nations, freedom of the seas, free trade, open diplomacy (an end to secret treaties), the readjustment of colonial claims with colonized people given “equal weight” in deciding their futures, and the creation of a “general association of nations” to preserve the peace. Wilson envisioned this last provision, which led to the establishment after the war of the League of Nations, as a kind of League of Nations global counterpart to the regulatory commissions Progressives had created A M E R I C A A N D T H E G R E A T W A R 583 at home to maintain social harmony. The Fourteen Points established the agenda for the peace conference that followed the war. The United States threw its economic resources and manpower into the Turning the tide of battle war. When American troops finally arrived in Europe, they turned the tide of battle. In the spring of 1918, they helped repulse a German advance near Paris and by July were participating in a major Allied counter offensive. In September, in the Meuse-Argonne campaign, more than 1 million American soldiers under General John J. Pershing helped push back the outnumbered and exhausted German army. With his forces in full retreat, the German kaiser abdicated on November 9. Two days later, Germany sued for peace. Over 100,000 Americans had died, a substantial number, but they were only 1 percent of the 10 million soldiers killed in the Great War. T H E W A R A T H O M E T h e P r o g r e s s i v e s ’ W a r For most Progressives, the war offered the possibility of reforming American society along scientific lines, instilling a sense of national unity and self-sacrifice, and expanding social justice. That American power could now disseminate Progressive values around the globe heightened the war’s appeal. Almost without exception, Progressive intellectuals and reformers, joined by prominent labor leaders and native-born socialists, rallied to Wilson’s support. The roster included intellectuals like John Dewey, AFL head Samuel Gompers, socialist writers like Upton Sinclair, and promi- nent reformers including Florence Kelley and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. T h e W a r t i m e S t a t e Like the Civil War, World War I created, albeit temporarily, a national An expanded state state with unprecedented powers and a sharply increased presence in Americans’ everyday lives. Under the Selective Service Act of May 1917, 24 million men were required to register with the draft. New federal agencies moved to regulate industry, transportation, labor relations, and agriculture. Headed by Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch, the War Industries Board presided over all elements of war production from the distribution of raw materials to the prices of manufactured goods. To spur efficiency, it established standardized specifications for everything from automobile tires to shoe colors (three were permitted—black, brown, and 584 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I How did the United States mobilize resources and public opinion for the war effort? white). The Railroad Administration took control of the nation’s trans- portation system, and the Fuel Agency rationed coal and oil. The Food Administration instructed farmers on modern methods of cultivation and promoted the more efficient preparation of meals. All combatants raised money by The War Labor Board, which included representatives of govern- selling war bonds. In the German ment, industry, and the American Federation of Labor, pressed for the poster, the text reads: “The war loan establishment of a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday, and the right is the way to peace. The enemies want it this way [referring to the to form unions. During the war, wages rose substantially, working condi- mailed fist]. So subscribe.” The tions in many industries improved, and union membership doubled. To fist conveys sheer power—it offers finance the war, corporate and individual income taxes rose enormously. an image rather different from the By 1918, the wealthiest Americans were paying 60 percent of their income representation of liberty on the in taxes. Tens of millions of Americans answered the call to demonstrate American war poster. their patriotism by purchasing Liberty bonds. T h e P r o p a g a n d a W a r During the Civil War, it had been left to private agencies—Union Leagues, the Loyal Publication Society, and others—to mobilize prowar public opin- ion. But the Wilson administration decided that patriotism was too impor- tant to leave to the private sector. Many Americans opposed American participation, notably the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the bulk of the Socialist Party, which in 1917 condemned the declaration of war as “a crime against the people of the United States” and called on “the workers of all countries” to refuse to fight. In April 1917, the Wilson administration created the Committee on Public Information (CPI) to explain to Americans and the world, as its director, George Creel, put it, “the cause that compelled America to take arms in defense of its liberties and free institutions.” The CPI flooded the country with prowar propaganda, using every available medium from pamphlets (of which it issued 75 million) to posters, newspaper advertise- ments, and motion pictures. The CPI couched its appeal in the Progressive language of social coop- eration and expanded democracy. Abroad, this meant a peace based on the principle of national self-determination. At home, it meant improving “industrial democracy.” The CPI distributed pamphlets foreseeing a postwar society complete with a “universal eight-hour day” and a living wage for all. Although “democracy” served as the key term of wartime mobiliza- tion, “freedom” also took on new significance. The war, a CPI advertise- ment proclaimed, was being fought in “the great cause of freedom.” The most common visual image in wartime propaganda was the Statue of Liberty, employed especially to rally support among immigrants. Buying T H E W A R A T H O M E 585 Liberty bonds became a demonstration of patriotism. Wilson’s speeches cast the United States as a land of liberty fighting alongside a “concert of free people” to secure self-determination for the oppressed peoples of the world. Government propaganda whipped up hatred of the wartime foe by portraying Germany as a nation of barbaric Huns. T h e C o m i n g o f W o m a n S u f f r a g e The enlistment of “democracy” and “freedom” as ideological war weapons inevitably inspired demands for their expansion at home. In 1916, Wilson had cautiously endorsed votes for women. America’s entry into the war threatened to tear the suffrage movement apart, because many advocates had been associated with opposition to American involvement. Indeed, among those who voted against the declaration of war was the first woman Jeannette Rankin member of Congress, the staunch pacifist Jeannette Rankin of Montana. Although defeated in her reelection bid in 1918, Rankin would return to Congress in 1940. She became the only member to oppose the declaration of war against Japan in 1941, which ended her political career. In 1968, at the age of eighty-five, Rankin took part in a giant march on Washington to protest the war in Vietnam. Women and the war As during the Civil War, however, most leaders of woman suffrage organizations enthusiastically enlisted in the effort. Women sold war bonds, organized patriotic rallies, and went to work in war production jobs. Some 22,000 served as clerical workers and nurses with American forces in Europe. At the same time, a new generation of college-educated activists, orga- The National Women’s Party nized in the National Women’s Party, pressed for the right to vote with mili- tant tactics many older suffrage advocates found scandalous. The party’s A 1915 cartoon showing the western states where women had won the right to vote. Women in the East reach out to a western woman carrying a torch of liberty. 586 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I How did the United States mobilize resources and public opinion for the war effort? leader, Alice Paul, had studied in England between 1907 and 1910, when the British suffrage movement adopted a strategy that included arrests, impris- onments, and vigorous denunciations of a male-dominated political system. Paul compared Wilson to the kaiser, and a group of her followers chained themselves to the White House fence, resulting in a seven-month prison sentence. When they began a hunger strike, the prisoners were force-fed. The combination of women’s patriotic service and widespread outrage over the treatment of Paul and her fellow prisoners pushed the adminis- tration toward full-fledged support of woman suffrage. In 1920, the long struggle ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which The Nineteenth Amendment barred states from using sex as a qualification for the suffrage. The United States became the twenty-seventh country to allow women to vote. P r o h i b i t i o n The war gave a powerful impulse to other campaigns that had engaged the energies of many women in the Progressive era. Prohibition, a move- ment inherited from the nineteenth century that had gained new strength and militancy in Progressive America, finally achieved national success during the war. Employers hoped it would create a more disciplined labor force. Urban reformers believed that it would promote a more orderly city environment and undermine urban political machines, which used saloons A 1916 cartoon from the publication of the Women’s Christian as places to organize. Women reformers hoped Prohibition would protect Temperance Union shows petitions wives and children from husbands who engaged in domestic violence for Prohibition flooding into Congress. when drunk or who squandered their wages at saloons. Many native-born Protestants saw Prohibition as a way of imposing “American” values on immigrants. After some success at the state level, Prohibitionists came to see national legislation as their best strategy. The war gave them added ammunition. Many prominent breweries were owned by German-Americans, making beer seem unpatriotic. The Food Administration insisted that grain must be used to produce food, not brewed into beer or distilled into liquor. In December 1917, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor. It was ratified by the states in 1919 and went into effect at the beginning of 1920. L i b e r t y i n W a r t i m e World War I raised questions already glimpsed during the Civil War that would trouble the nation again during the T H E W A R A T H O M E 587 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m E u g e n e V . D e b s , S p e e c h t o t h e J u r y b e f o r e S e n t e n c i n g u n d e r t h e E s p i o n a g e A c t ( 1 9 1 8 ) The most prominent spokesman for American socialism and a fervent opponent of American participation in World War I, Eugene V. Debs was arrested for delivering an antiwar speech and convicted of violating the Espionage Act. In his speech to the jury, he defended the right of dissent in wartime. I wish to admit the truth of all that has been testified to in this proceeding. . . . Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech at Canton on June 16, and I submit that there is not a word in that speech to warrant the charges set out in the indictment. . . . In what I had to say there my purpose was to have the people understand something about the social system in which we live and to prepare them to change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real democracy. . . . I have never advocated violence in any form. I have always believed in education, in intelligence, in enlightenment; and I have always made my appeal to the reason and to the conscience of the people. In every age there have been a few heroic souls who have been in advance of their time, who have been misunderstood, maligned, persecuted, sometimes put to death. . . . Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, and their compeers were the rebels of their day. . . . But they had the moral courage to be true to their convictions. . . . William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton . . . and other leaders of the abolition movement who were regarded as public enemies and treated accordingly, were true to their faith and stood their ground. . . . You are now teaching your children to revere their memories, while all of their detractors are in oblivion. This country has been engaged in a number of wars and every one of them has been condemned by some of the people. The war of 1812 was opposed and condemned by some of the most influential citizens; the Mexican War was vehemently opposed and bitterly denounced, even after the war had been declared and was in progress, by Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Daniel Webster. . . . They were not indicted; they were not charged with treason. . . . I believe in the Constitution. Isn’t it strange that we Socialists stand almost alone today in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States? The revolutionary fathers . . . understood that free speech, a free press and the right of free assemblage by the people were fundamental principles in democratic government. . . . I believe in the right of free speech, in war as well as in peace. 588 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I F r o m W . E . B . D u B o i s , “ R e t u r n i n g S o l d i e r s , ” T h e C r i s i s ( 1 9 1 9 ) Scholar, poet, activist, and founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and editor of its magazine, The Crisis, W. E. B. Du Bois was the most prominent black leader of the first half of the twentieth century. He supported black participation in World War I, but he insisted that black soldiers must now join in the struggle for freedom at home. We are returning from war! The Crisis and tens of thousands of black men were drafted into a great struggle. For bleeding France and what she means and has meant and will mean to us and humanity and against the threat of German race arrogance, we fought gladly and to the last drop of blood; for America and her highest ideals, we fought in far-off hope; for the dominant southern oligarchy entrenched in Washington, we fought in bitter resignation. For the America that represents and gloats in lynching, disfranchisement, caste, brutality and devilish insult—for this, in the hateful upturning and mixing of things, we were forced by vindictive fate to fight, also. But today we return! . . . We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land. It lynches. And lynching is barbarism of a degree of contemptible nastiness unparalleled in human history. Yet for fifty years we have lynched two Negroes a week, and we have kept this up right through the war. It disfranchises its own citizens. Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white. The land that disfranchises its citizens and calls itself a democracy lies and knows it lies. It encourages ignorance. It has never really tried to educate the Negro. Q U E S T I O N S A dominate minority does not want Negroes educated. It wants servants. . . . 1. Why does Debs relate the history of It insults us. wartime dissent in America? It has organized a nationwide and latterly a worldwide propaganda of deliberate and 2. What connections does Du Bois draw continuous insult and defamation of black blood between blacks fighting abroad in the wherever found. . . . war and returning to fight at home? This is the country to which we Soldiers of 3. In what ways does each author Democracy return. This is the fatherland for point up the contradiction between which we fought! But it is our fatherland. It was right for us to fight. . . . America’s professed values and its We return fighting. actual conduct? Make way for Democracy! V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 589 McCarthy era and in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001: What is Security and freedom the balance between security and freedom? Does the Constitution protect citizens’ rights during wartime? Should dissent be equated with lack of patriotism? Despite the administration’s idealistic language of democracy and freedom, the war inaugurated the most intense repression of civil liberties the nation has ever known. “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war,” Wilson remarked in his speech asking Congress to bring America into the conflict. Even he could not have predicted how significant an impact the war would have on American freedom. T h e E s p i o n a g e A c t For the first time since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the federal Restrictions on freedom government enacted laws to restrict freedom of speech. The Espionage of speech Act of 1917 prohibited not only spying and interfering with the draft but also “false statements” that might impede military success. The postmaster general barred from the mails numerous news papers and magazines criti- cal of the administration. In 1918, the Sedition Act made it a crime to make spoken or printed statements that intended to cast “contempt, scorn, or dis- repute” on the “form of government,” or that advocated interference with the war effort. The government charged more than 2,000 persons with vio- lating these laws. Over half were convicted. A court sentenced Ohio farmer John White to twenty-one months in prison for saying that the murder of innocent women and children by German soldiers was no worse than what the United States had done in the Philippines in the war of 1899–1903. The most prominent victim was Eugene V. Debs, convicted in 1918 under the Espionage Act for delivering an antiwar speech. Germany sent a Douglas Fairbanks, one of the socialist leader to prison for four years for opposing the war; in the United era’s most celebrated movie stars, addressing a 1918 rally urging people States, Debs’s sentence was ten years. After the war’s end, Wilson rejected to buy Liberty Bonds. the advice of his attorney general that he commute Debs’s sentence. Debs ran for president while still in prison in 1920 and received 900,000 votes. It was left to Wilson’s successor, Warren G. Harding, to release Debs from prison in 1921. C o e r c i v e P a t r i o t i s m Even more extreme repression took place at the hands of state governments and private groups. During the war, thirty-three states outlawed the possession or display of red or black flags (symbols, respectively, of communism and anarchism), and 590 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I How did the United States mobilize resources and public opinion for the war effort? twenty-three outlawed a newly created offense, “criminal syndicalism,” the advocacy of unlawful acts to accomplish political change or “a change in industrial ownership.” “Who is the real patriot?” Emma Goldman asked when the United States entered the war. She answered, those who “love America with open eyes,” who were not blind to “the wrongs committed in the name of patriotism.” But from the federal government to local authorities and private groups, patriotism came to be equated with support for the gov- ernment, the war, and the American economic system. Throughout the country, schools revised their course offerings to ensure their patriotism and required teachers to sign loyalty oaths. The 250,000 members of the newly formed American Protective The American Protective League League (APL) helped the Justice Department identify radicals and critics of the war by spying on their neighbors and carrying out “slacker raids” in which thousands of men were stopped on the streets of major cities and required to produce draft registration cards. Employers cooperated with the government in crushing the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a move long demanded by business interests. In September 1917, operating under one of the broadest warrants in American history, federal agents swooped down on IWW offices throughout the country, arresting hundreds of leaders and seizing files and publications. Although some Progressives protested individual excesses, most Progressives and civil liberties failed to speak out against the broad suppression of freedom of expres- sion. Civil liberties, by and large, had never been a major concern of Progressives, who had always viewed the national state as the embodi- ment of democratic purpose and insisted that freedom flowed from partici- pating in the life of society, not standing in opposition. Strong believers in the use of national power to improve social conditions, Progressives found themselves ill prepared to develop a defense of minority rights against majority or governmental tyranny. W H O I S A N A M E R I C A N ? T h e “ R a c e P r o b l e m ” Even before American participation in World War I, what contemporaries called the “race problem”—the tensions that arose from the country’s increasing ethnic diversity—had become a major subject of public concern. “Race” referred to far more than black-white relations. The Dictionary of Races of Peoples, published in 1911 by the U.S. Immigration Commission, W H O I S A N A M E R I C A N ? 591 listed no fewer than forty-five immigrant “races,” each supposedly with its own inborn characteristics. They ranged from Anglo-Saxons at the top down to Hebrews, Northern Italians, and, lowest of all, Southern Italians—supposedly violent, undisciplined, and incapable of assimila- tion. The new science of eugenics, which studied the alleged mental characteristics of different races, gave anti-immigrant sentiment an air of professional expertise. Somehow, the very nationalization of politics and economic life served to heighten awareness of ethnic and racial difference and spurred Demands for Americanization demands for “Americanization”—the creation of a more homogeneous national culture. A 1908 play by the Jewish immigrant writer Israel Zangwill, The Melting Pot, gave a popular name to the process by which newcomers were supposed to merge their identity into existing American nationality. Public and private groups of all kinds—including educators, employers, labor leaders, social reformers, and public officials—took up the task of Americanizing new immigrants. Fearful that adult newcomers remained too stuck in their Old World ways, public schools paid great attention to Americanizing immigrants’ children. Moreover, the federal and state governments demanded that immigrants demonstrate their unwavering devotion to the United States. A minority of Progressives questioned Americanization efforts and insisted on respect for immigrant subcultures. Probably the most pen- etrating critique issued from the pen of Randolph Bourne, whose 1916 Randolph Bourne’s “Trans- essay, “Trans-National America,” exposed the fundamental flaw in the National America” Americanization model. “There is no distinctive American culture,” Bourne pointed out. Interaction between individuals and groups had produced the nation’s music, poetry, and other cultural expressions. Bourne envisioned a democratic, cosmopolitan society in which immigrants and natives alike submerged their group identities in a new “trans-national” culture. T h e A n t i - G e r m a n C r u s a d e German-Americans bore the brunt of forced Americanization. The first wave of German immigrants had arrived before the Civil War. By 1914, German-Americans numbered nearly 9 million, including immigrants and persons of German parentage. They had created thriving ethnic insti- German culture in America tutions including clubs, sports associations, schools, and theaters. On the eve of the war, many Americans admired German traditions in literature, music, and philosophy, and one-quarter of all the high school students in the country studied the German language. But after American entry into the war, the use of German and expressions of German culture became a target of prowar organizations. 592 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I How did the war affect race relations in the United States? By 1919, the vast majority of the states had enacted laws restricting the teaching of foreign languages. Popular words of German origin were changed: “hamburger” became “liberty sandwich,” and “sauerkraut” was renamed “liberty cabbage.” The government jailed Karl Müch, the director of the Boston Symphony and a Swiss citizen, as an enemy alien after he insisted on including the works of German composers like Beethoven in his concerts. T o w a r d I m m i g r a t i o n R e s t r i c t i o n A 1919 cartoon, Close the Gate, Even as Americanization programs sought to assimilate immigrants warns that unrestricted immigration into American society, the war strengthened the conviction that certain allows dangerous radicals to enter kinds of undesirable persons ought to be excluded altogether. The new the United States. immigrants, one advocate of restriction declared, appreciated the values of democracy and freedom far less than “the Anglo-Saxon.” Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman introduced the term “IQ” (intel- ligence quotient) in 1916, claiming that this single number could measure an individual’s mental capacity. Intelligence tests administered to recruits by the army seemed to confirm scientifically that blacks and the new immi- grants stood far below native white Protestants on the IQ scale, further spurring demands for immigration restriction. The war accelerated other efforts to upgrade the American population. Some were inspired by the idea of improving the human race by discour- aging reproduction among less “desirable” persons. Indiana in 1907 had passed a law authorizing doctors to sterilize insane and “feeble-minded” inmates in mental institutions so that they would not pass their “defective” genes on to children. Numerous other states now followed suit. In Buck v. Buck v. Bell Bell (1927), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these laws. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s opinion included the famous statement, “three generations of imbeciles are enough.” By the time the practice ended in the 1960s, some 63,000 persons had been involuntarily sterilized. G r o u p s A p a r t : M e x i c a n s a n d A s i a n - A m e r i c a n s No matter how coercive, Americanization programs assumed that European immigrants and especially their children could eventually adjust to the conditions of American life, embrace American ideals, and become productive citizens enjoying the full blessings of American free- dom. This assumption did not apply to non-white immigrants or to blacks. The war led to further growth of the Southwest’s Mexican popula- Mexicans in the Southwest tion. Wartime demand for labor from the area’s mine owners and large farmers led the government to exempt Mexicans temporarily from the W H O I S A N A M E R I C A N ? 593 literacy test enacted in 1917. Segregation, by law and custom, was com- mon in schools, hospitals, theaters, and other institutions in states with significant Mexican populations. By 1920, nearly all Mexican children in California and the Southwest were educated in their own schools or class- rooms. Phoenix, Arizona, established separate public schools for Indians, Mexicans, blacks, and whites. Even more restrictive were policies toward Asian-Americans. In 1906, the San Francisco school board ordered all Asian students confined to a single public school. When the Japanese government protested, President Theodore Roosevelt persuaded the city to rescind the order. The Gentlemen’s Agreement He then negotiated the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, whereby Japan agreed to end migration to the United States except for the wives and children of men already in the country. In 1913, California barred all aliens incapable of becoming naturalized citizens (that is, Asians) from owning or leasing land. T h e C o l o r L i n e By far the largest non-white group, African-Americans, were excluded from nearly every Progressive definition of freedom described in Chapter 18. After their disenfranchisement in the South, few could participate in Exclusion of blacks American democracy. Barred from joining most unions and from skilled employment, black workers had little access to “industrial freedom.” Nor could blacks, the majority desperately poor, participate fully in the emerg- ing consumer economy, either as employees in the new department stores (except as janitors and cleaning women) or as purchasers of the consumer goods now flooding the marketplace. Progressives and race Progressive intellectuals, social scientists, labor reformers, and suf- frage advocates displayed a remarkable indifference to the black condition. Most settlement house reformers accepted segregation as natural and equi- table. White leaders of the woman suffrage movement said little about black disenfranchisement. The amendment that achieved woman suffrage left the states free to limit voting by poll taxes and literacy tests. Living in the South, the vast majority of the country’s black women did not enjoy its benefits. R o o s e v e l t , W i l s o n , a n d R a c e The Progressive presidents shared prevailing attitudes concerning blacks. Theodore Roosevelt shocked white opinion by inviting Booker T. Washington to dine with him in the White House and by appointing a Brownsville affair number of blacks to federal offices. But in 1906, when a small group of 594 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I How did the war affect race relations in the United States? black soldiers shot off their guns in Brownsville, Texas, killing one resi- dent, and none of their fellows would name them, Roosevelt ordered the dishonorable discharge of three black companies—156 men in all, includ- ing six winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Woodrow Wilson, a native of Virginia, could speak without irony of the South’s “genuine representative government” and its exalted “stan- dards of liberty.” His administration imposed racial segregation in federal departments in Washington, D.C., and dismissed numerous black federal employees. Wilson allowed D. W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation, which glorified the Ku Klux Klan as the defender of white civilization during Reconstruction, to have its premiere at the White House in 1915. Blacks subject to disenfranchisement and segregation were under- standably skeptical of the nation’s claim to embody freedom. In one of hun- dreds of lynchings during the Progressive era, a white mob in Springfield, A cartoon from the St. Louis Post- Missouri, in 1906 falsely accused three black men of rape, hanged them Dispatch, April 17, 1906, commenting from an electric light pole, and burned their bodies in a public orgy of vio- on the lynching of three black men lence. Atop the pole stood a replica of the Statue of Liberty. in Springfield, Missouri. The shadow cast by the Statue of Liberty forms a gallows on the ground. W . E . B . D u B o i s a n d t h e R e v i v a l o f B l a c k P r o t e s t Black leaders struggled to find a strategy to rekindle the national commitment to equality that had flickered brightly, if briefly, during Reconstruction. No one thought more deeply, or over so long a period, about the black condition and the challenge it posed to American democ- racy than the scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Born in 1868, and educated at Fisk and Harvard universities, Du Bois lived to his ninety-fifth year. The unifying theme of Du Bois’s career was his effort to reconcile the contradiction between what he called “American freedom for whites and the continuing subjection of Negroes.” His book The Souls of Black Folk The Souls of Black Folk (1903) issued a clarion call for blacks dissatisfied with the accommoda- tionist policies of Booker T. Washington to press for equal rights. Du Bois believed that educated African-Americans like himself—the “talented tenth” of the black community—must use their education and training to challenge inequality. In some ways, Du Bois was a typical Progressive who believed that investigation, exposure, and education would lead to solutions for social problems. But he also understood the necessity of political action. In 1905, Du Bois gathered a group of black leaders at Niagara Falls (meet- The Niagara movement ing on the Canadian side because no American hotel would provide accommodations) and organized the Niagara movement, which sought to reinvigorate the abolitionist tradition. “We claim for ourselves,” Du Bois W H O I S A N A M E R I C A N ? 595 wrote in the group’s manifesto, “every single right that belongs to a free- born American.” Four years later, Du Bois joined with a group of mostly white reformers shocked by a lynching in Springfield, Illinois (Lincoln’s adult home), to create the National Association for the Advancement of The NAACP Colored People. The NAACP, as it was known, launched a long struggle for the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The NAACP’s legal strategy won a few victories. In Bailey v. Alabama (1911), the Supreme Court overturned southern “peonage” laws that made it a crime for sharecroppers to break their labor contracts. Six years later, it ruled unconstitutional a Louisville zoning regulation excluding blacks from living in certain parts of the city (primarily because it interfered with whites’ right to sell their property as they saw fit). Overall, however, the Progressive era witnessed virtually no progress toward racial justice. C l o s i n g R a n k s Among black Americans, the wartime language of freedom inspired hopes for a radical change in the country’s racial system. The black press A 1918 poster celebrates black rallied to the war. Du Bois himself, in a widely reprinted editorial in the soldiers in World War I as “True Sons of Freedom.” At the upper right, NAACP’s monthly magazine, The Crisis, called on African-Americans to Abraham Lincoln looks on, with a “close ranks” and enlist in the army, to help “make our own America a somewhat modified quotation from real land of the free.” the Gettysburg Address. Black participation in the Civil War had helped to secure the destruction of slavery and the achievement of citizenship. But during World War I, closing ranks did not bring significant gains. The navy barred blacks entirely, and the segregated army confined most of the 400,000 blacks who served in the war to supply units rather than combat. Contact with African colonial soldiers fighting alongside the British and French did widen the horizons of black American soldiers. But although colonial troops marched in the victory parade in Paris, the Wilson administration did not allow black Americans to participate. T h e G r e a t M i g r a t i o n Nonetheless, the war unleashed social changes that altered the contours of American race relations. The combination of increased wartime production and a drastic falloff in immigration from Europe once war broke out opened thousands of industrial jobs to black 596 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I How did the war affect race relations in the United States? TABLE 19.1 The Great Migration BLACK POPULATION, BLACK POPULATION, PERCENT CITY 1910 1920 INCREASE New York 91,709 152,467 66.3% Philadelphia 84,459 134,229 58.9 Chicago 44,103 109,458 148.2 St. Louis 43,960 69,854 58.9 Detroit 5,741 40,838 611.3 Pittsburgh 25,623 37,725 47.2 Cleveland 8,448 34,451 307.8 laborers for the first time, inspiring a large-scale migration from South to North. On the eve of World War I, 90 percent of the African-American population still lived in the South. But between 1910 and 1920, half a million blacks left the South. The black population of Chicago more than doubled, New York City’s rose 66 percent, and smaller industrial cities like Akron, Buffalo, and Trenton showed similar gains. Many motives sustained the Great Migration—higher wages in northern factories than Higher wages in northern factories were available in the South (even if blacks remained confined to menial and unskilled positions), opportunities for educating their children, escape from the threat of lynching, and the prospect of exercising the right to vote. The black migrants, mostly young men and women, carried with them “a new vision of opportunity, of social and economic freedom,” as Alain Locke explained in the preface to his influential book, The New Negro (1925). Yet the migrants encountered vast disappointments—severely Racial restrictions in the North restricted employment opportunities, exclusion from unions, rigid hous- ing segregation, and outbreaks of violence that made it clear that no region of the country was free from racial hostility. The new black presence, coupled with demands for change inspired by the war, created a racial tinderbox that needed only an incident to trigger an explosion. R a c i a l V i o l e n c e , N o r t h a n d S o u t h Dozens of blacks were killed during a 1917 riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, where employers had recruited black workers in an attempt to weaken unions (most of which excluded blacks from membership). In 1919, more W H O I S A N A M E R I C A N ? 597 than 250 persons died in riots in the urban North. Most notable was the violence in Chicago, touched off by the drowning by white bathers of a black teenager who acci- dentally crossed the unofficial dividing line between black and white beaches on Lake Michigan. By the time the National Guard restored order, 38 persons had been killed and more than 500 injured. Violence was not confined to the North. In the year after the war ended, seventy-six persons were lynched in the South, includ- Buildings in Tulsa, Oklahoma, burn ing several returning black veterans wearing their uniforms. The worst during the city’s riot of June 1921. race riot in American history occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921, when An estimated 300 people died when white mobs destroyed the city’s black more than 300 blacks were killed and over 10,000 left homeless after a neighborhood in the worst outbreak white mob, including police and National Guardsmen, burned an all-black of racial violence in American history. section of the city to the ground. T h e R i s e o f G a r v e y i s m World War I kindled a new spirit of militancy. The East St. Louis riot of 1917 inspired a widely publicized Silent Protest Parade on New York’s Fifth Avenue in which 10,000 blacks silently carried placards reading, “Mr. President, Why Not Make America Safe for Democracy?” In the new densely populated black ghettos of the North, widespread support The “silent parade” down Fifth emerged for the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a move- Avenue, July 28, 1917, in which ment for African independence and black self-reliance launched by 10,000 black marchers protested the East St. Louis race riot. Marcus Garvey, a recent immigrant from Jamaica. To Garveyites, free- dom meant national self-determination. Blacks, they insisted, should enjoy the same internationally recognized identity enjoyed by other peoples in the aftermath of the war. Du Bois and other established black leaders viewed Garvey as little more than a demagogue. They applauded when the government deported him after a conviction for mail fraud. But the mas- sive following his movement achieved testified to the sense of betrayal that had been kindled in black communities dur- ing and after the war. 598 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the world? 1 9 1 9 A W o r l d w i d e U p s u r g e The combination of militant hopes for social change and disappointment with the war’s outcome was evident far beyond the black community. In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (or Soviet Union), as Russia had been renamed after the revolution, Lenin’s government had nationalized landholdings, banks, and factories and proclaimed the socialist dream of a workers’ government. The Russian Revolution and the democratic Global uprisings aspirations unleashed by World War I sent tremors of hope and fear throughout the world. General strikes demanding the fulfillment of war- time promises of “industrial democracy” took place in Belfast, Glasgow, and Winnipeg. In Spain, anarchist peasants began seizing land. Crowds in India challenged British rule, and nationalist movements in other colonies demanded independence. The worldwide revolutionary upsurge produced a countervailing mobilization by opponents of radical change. Despite Allied attempts to overturn its government, the Soviet regime survived, but in the rest of the world the tide of change receded. By the fall, the mass strikes had been suppressed and conservative governments had been installed in central Europe. U p h e a v a l i n A m e r i c a In the United States, 1919 also brought unprecedented turmoil. It seemed all the more disorienting for occurring in the midst of a worldwide flu epidemic that killed between 20 and 40 million persons, including nearly 700,000 Americans. Racial violence, as noted above, was widespread. In June, bombs exploded at the homes of prominent Americans, including the attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, who escaped uninjured. Among aggrieved American workers, wartime language linking patriotism with democracy and freedom inspired hopes that an era of social justice and economic empowerment was at hand. In 1917, Wilson had told the AFL, “While we are fighting for freedom, we must see to it among other things that labor is free.” Labor took him seriously—more seriously, it seems, than Wilson intended. In 1919, more than 4 million workers engaged in strikes—the Wave of strikes greatest wave of labor unrest in American history. There were walk- outs, among many others, by textile workers, telephone operators, and Broadway actors. They were met by an unprecedented mobilization of employers, government, and private patriotic organizations. 1 9 1 9 599 The wartime rhetoric of economic democracy and freedom helped to inspire the era’s greatest labor uprising, the 1919 steel strike. Centered in Chicago, it united some 365,000 mostly immigrant workers in demands for union recognition, higher wages, and an eight-hour workday. Before 1917, the steel mills were little autocracies where managers arbitrarily established wages and working conditions and suppressed all efforts at union organizing. During the war, workers won an eight-hour day. “For why this war?” asked one Polish immigrant steelworker at a union meet- ing. “For why we buy Liberty bonds? For the mills? No, for freedom and America—for everybody.” In response to the strike, steel magnates launched a concerted coun- terattack. Employers appealed to anti-immigrant sentiment among native-born workers, many of whom returned to work, and conducted a Local police with literature seized propaganda campaign that associated the strikers with the IWW, com- from a Communist Party office munism, and disloyalty. With middle-class opinion having turned against in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the labor movement and the police in Pittsburgh assaulting workers on the November 1919. streets, the strike collapsed in early 1920. T h e R e d S c a r e Wartime repression of dissent reached its peak with the Red Scare of 1919–1920, a short-lived but intense period of political intolerance inspired by the postwar strike wave and the social tensions and fears generated by the Russian Revolution. Convinced that episodes like the steel strike were A. Mitchell Palmer part of a worldwide communist conspiracy, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in November 1919 and January 1920 dispatched federal agents to raid the offices of radical and labor organizations throughout the country. More than 5,000 persons were arrested, most of them without warrants, and held for months without charge. The government deported hundreds of immigrant radicals, including Emma Goldman, the prominent radical speaker mentioned in the previous chapter. The abuse of civil liberties in early 1920 was so severe that Palmer came under heavy criticism from Congress and much of the press. Even the explosion of a bomb outside the New York Stock Exchange in September 1920, which killed forty persons, failed to rekindle the repres- sion of the Red Scare years. (The perpetrators of this terrorist explosion, the worst on American soil until the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, were never identified.) The reaction to the Palmer Raids planted the seeds for a new appre- ciation of the importance of civil liberties that would begin to flourish Effects of Red Scare during the 1920s. But in their immediate impact, the events of 1919 and 600 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the world? 1920 dealt a devastating setback to radi- cal and labor organizations of all kinds and kindled an intense identification of patriotic Americanism with support for the political and economic status quo. The IWW had been effectively destroyed, and many moderate unions lay in disarray. The Socialist Party crumbled under the weight of governmental repression (the New York legislature expelled five Socialist mem- bers, and Congress denied Victor Berger the seat to which he had been elected from Wisconsin) and internal differences over the Russian Revolution. W i l s o n a t V e r s a i l l e s Part of the crowd that greeted President Woodrow Wilson in The beating back of demands for fundamental social change was a severe November 1918 when he traveled rebuke to the hopes with which so many Progressives had enlisted in the to Paris to take part in the peace war effort. Wilson’s inability to achieve a just peace based on the Fourteen conference. An electric sign proclaims Points compounded the sense of failure. Late in 1918, the president trav- “Long Live Wilson.” eled to France to attend the Versailles peace conference. But he proved a less adept negotiator than his British and French counterparts, David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau. Although the Fourteen Points had called for “open covenants openly arrived at,” the negotiations were conducted in secret. The Versailles Treaty did accomplish some of Wilson’s goals. It established the League of Nations, the body central to his vision of a new international order. It applied the principle of self-determination to eastern Europe and redrew the map of that region. From the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian empire and parts of Germany and czarist Russia, new European nations New boundaries in Eastern Europe emerged from the war—Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Yugoslavia. Some enjoyed ethno- linguistic unity, whereas others comprised unstable combinations of diverse nationalities. Despite Wilson’s pledge of a peace without territorial acquisitions or vengeance, the Versailles Treaty was a harsh document that all but guar- anteed future conflict in Europe. Lloyd George persuaded Wilson to agree to a clause declaring Germany morally responsible for the war and setting astronomical reparations payments (they were variously estimated at German reparations between $33 billion and $56 billion), which crippled the German economy. 1 9 1 9 601 E U R O P E I N 1 9 1 4 0 250 500 miles NORWAY 0 250 500 kilometers Petrograd SWEDEN Moscow North Sea GREAT DENMARK BRITAIN Baltic Sea NETHERLANDS RUSSIA London Berlin GERMANY LUXEMBOURG BELGIUM Paris Prague A t l a n t i c Vienna O c e a n FRANCE SWITZERLAND AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE ROMANIA Black Sea Sarajevo PORTUGAL SERBIA BULGARIA SPAIN ITALY MONTENEGRO Rome Constantinople ALBANIA TURKEY (OTTOMAN EMPIRE) GREECE S i c i l y Allies Central Powers Cy p r u s Neutral nations Mediterranean Sea C r e t e World War I and the Versailles Treaty redrew the map of Europe and the T h e W i l s o n i a n M o m e n t Middle East. The Austro-Hungarian Like the ideals of the American Revolution, the Wilsonian rhetoric of self- and Ottoman empires ceased to exist, and Germany and Russia determination reverberated across the globe, especially among oppressed were reduced in size. A group of minorities (including blacks in the United States) and colonial peoples new states emerged in eastern seeking independence. In fact, these groups took Wilson’s rhetoric more Europe, embodying the principle of seriously than he did. Despite his belief in self-determination, he had sup- self-determination, one of Woodrow ported the American annexation of the Philippines, believing that colonial Wilson’s Fourteen Points. peoples required a long period of tutelage before they were ready for independence. Nonetheless, Wilsonian ideals quickly spread around the globe. In Wilsonian ideals around eastern Europe, whose people sought to carve new, independent nations the world from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, many consid- ered Wilson a “popular saint.” The leading Arabic newspaper Al-Ahram, pub- lished in Egypt, then under British rule, gave extensive coverage to Wilson’s 602 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the world? E U R O P E I N 1 9 1 9 0 250 500 miles FINLAND 0 250 500 kilometers NORWAY SWEDEN ESTONIA North LATVIA Sea GREAT DENMARK RUSSIA LITHUANIA BRITAIN Baltic Sea NETHERLANDS EAST PRUSSIA Danzig (GERMANY) (Free City) GERMANY POLAND LUXEMBOURG BELGIUM Rhineland Saar A t l a n t i c CZECHOSLOVAKIA O c e a n Lorraine FRANCE Alsace SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA HUNGARY ROMANIA YUGOSLAVIA Black Sea PORTUGAL BULGARIA SPAIN Co r s i ca ITALY ( Fr. ) ALBANIA TURKEY S a rd i n i a ( I t . ) GREECE S i c i l y New nations D o d e ca n e s e Cy p r u s Demilitarized or Allied occupied zone Mediterranean Sea C r e t e I s . ( I t a l y) speech asking Congress to declare war in the name of democracy, and to the Fourteen Points. In Beijing, students demanding that China free itself of foreign domination gathered at the American embassy shouting, “Long live Wilson.” Japan proposed to include in the charter of the new League of Nations a clause recognizing the equality of all people, regardless of race. Outside of Europe, however, the idea of “self-determination” was Self-determination stillborn. When the Paris peace conference opened, Secretary of State Robert Lansing warned that the phrase was “loaded with dynamite” and would “raise hopes which can never be realized.” As Lansing anticipated, advocates of colonial independence descended on Paris to lobby the peace negotiators. Arabs demanded that a unified independent state be carved from the old Ottoman empire in the Middle East. Nguyen That Thanh, a young Vietnamese patriot working in Paris, pressed his people’s claim for 1 9 1 9 603 greater rights within the French empire. W. E. B. Du Bois organized a Pan- African Congress in Paris that put forward the idea of a self-governing nation to be carved out of Germany’s African colonies. Koreans, Indians, Irish, and others also pressed claims for self-determination. The British and French, however, had no intention of applying this principle to their own empires. During the war, the British had encour- Imperial interests aged Arab nationalism as a weapon against the Ottoman empire and had also pledged to create a homeland in Palestine for the persecuted Jews of Europe. In fact, the victors of World War I divided Ottoman territory into a series of new territories, including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine, con- trolled by the victorious Allies under League of Nations “mandates.” South Africa, Australia, and Japan acquired former German colonies in Africa and Asia. Nor did Ireland achieve its independence at Versailles. Only at the end of 1921 did Britain finally agree to the creation of the Irish Free State while continuing to rule the northeastern corner of the island. As for the Japanese proposal to establish the principle of racial equality, Wilson, with the support of Great Britain and Australia, engineered its defeat. T h e S e e d s o f W a r s t o C o m e Disappointment at the failure to apply the Fourteen Points to the non- European world created a pervasive cynicism about Western use of the language of freedom and democracy. Wilson’s apparent willingness to accede to the demands of the imperial powers helped to spark a series of popular protest movements across the Middle East and Asia, and The rise of anti-Western the rise of a new anti-Western nationalism. Some leaders, like Nguyen nationalism That Thanh, who took the name Ho Chi Minh, turned to communism, in whose name he would lead Vietnam’s long and bloody struggle for independence. The Soviet leader Lenin, in fact, had spoken of “the right of nations to self-determination” before Wilson, and with the collapse of the Wilsonian moment, Lenin’s reputation in the colonial world began to eclipse that of the American president. But whether communist or not, these movements announced the emergence of anticolonial nationalism as a major force in world affairs, which it would remain for the rest of the twentieth century. “Your liberalness,” one Egyptian leader remarked, speaking of Britain and America, “is only for yourselves.” Yet ironically, when colo- nial peoples demanded to be recognized as independent members of the international community, they would invoke the heritage of the American Revolution—the first colonial struggle that produced an independent nation. 604 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I Why was 1919 such a watershed year for the United States and the world? World War I sowed the seeds not of a last- ing peace but of wars to come. German resent- ment over the peace terms would help to fuel the rise of Adolf Hitler and the coming of World War II. In the breakup of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, violence over the status of Northern Ireland, and the seemingly unending conflict in the Middle East between Arabs and Israelis, the world was still haunted by the ghost of Versailles. T h e T r e a t y D e b a t e One final disappointment awaited Wilson on his return from Europe. He viewed the new League of Nations as the war’s finest legacy. But many Americans feared that membership in the League would commit the United States to an open-ended involvement in the affairs of other countries. A considerable majority of senators would Interrupting the Ceremony, a 1918 have accepted the treaty with “reservations” ensuring that the obligation cartoon from the Chicago Tribune, to assist League members against attack did not supersede the power of depicts Senate opponents of the Congress to declare war. Convinced, however, that the treaty reflected “the Versailles Treaty arriving just in time hand of God,” Wilson refused to negotiate with congressional leaders. In to prevent the United States from October 1919, in the midst of the League debate, Wilson suffered a serious becoming permanently ensnared in stroke. Although the extent of his illness was kept secret, he remained “foreign entanglements” through the League of Nations. incapacitated for the rest of his term. In effect, his wife, Edith, headed the government for the next seventeen months. In November 1919 and again in March 1920, the Senate rejected the Versailles Treaty. American involvement in World War I lasted barely nineteen months, but it cast a long shadow over the following decade—and, indeed, the rest of the century. In its immediate aftermath, the country retreated from international involvements. But in the long run, Wilson’s combination of idealism and power politics had an enduring impact. His appeals to The enduring impact of Wilsonian policy democracy, open markets, and a special American mission to instruct the world in freedom, coupled with a willingness to intervene abroad militar- ily to promote American interests and values, would create the model for twentieth-century American international relations. On its own terms, the war to make the world safe for democracy failed. It also led to the eclipse of Progressivism. Republican candidate Warren 1 9 1 9 605 G. Harding, who had no connection with the party’s Progressive wing, swept to victory in the presidential election of 1920. Harding’s campaign “Return to normalcy” centered on a “return to normalcy” and a repudiation of what he called “Wilsonism.” He received 60 percent of the popular vote. Begun with ide- alistic goals and grand hopes for social change, American involvement in the Great War laid the foundation for one of the most conservative decades in the nation’s history. 606 C h a p t e r 1 9  Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. Explain the role of the United States in the global “liberal internationalism” (p. 576) Panama Canal Zone (p. 577) economy by 1920. Roosevelt Corollary (p. 578) 2. What were the assumptions underlying the Roosevelt Dollar Diplomacy (p. 579) “moral imperialism” (p. 579) Corollary? How did the doctrine affect our relations with sinking of the Lusitania (p. 581) European nations and those in the Western Hemisphere? Zimmerman Telegram (p. 582) Fourteen Points (p. 582) 3. What did President Wilson mean by “moral imperial- Selective Service Act (p. 584) ism,” and what measures were taken to apply this to War Industries Board (p. 584) Latin America? Espionage Act (p. 590) Sedition Act (p. 590) 4. How did the ratification of the Eighteenth and National Association for the Nineteenth Amendments show the restrictive Advancement of Colored and democratizing nature of Progressivism? People (p. 596) Great Migration (p. 596) 5. Why did Progressives see in the expansion of govern- Tulsa riot of 1921 (p. 598) mental powers in wartime an opportunity to reform Garveyites (p. 598) American society? flu epidemic (p. 599) Red Scare of 1919–1920 6. What were the goals and methods of the Committee on (p. 600) Public Information during World War I? Versailles Treaty (p. 601) 7. What are governmental and private examples of coercive patriotism during the war? What were the effects of those efforts? 8. What were the major causes—both real and imaginary— of the Red Scare? wwnorton.com /studyspace 9. How did World War I and its aftermath provide African-Americans with opportunities? VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE RESOURCES AND MORE 10. Describe how World War I and the U.S. failure to s join the League of Nations sowed the seeds of future s twentieth-century wars. s s 11. Identify the goals of those pressing for global change in s 1919, and of those who opposed them. C h a p t e r R e v i e w a n d O n l i n e R e s o u r c e s 607 1915 Reemergence of the C H A P T E R 2 0 Ku Klux Klan 1919 Schenck v. United States Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die” 1920 American Civil Liberties Union established 1921 Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti F R O M B U S I N E S S 1922 Washington Naval Arms Conference Hollywood adopts the Hays code C U L T U R E T O G R E A T Cable Act Herbert Hoover’s American Individualism D E P R E S S I O N 1923 Adkins v. Children’s Hospital Meyer v. Nebraska  1924 Immigration Act of 1924 Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 T H E T W E N T I E S , 1 9 2 0 – 1 9 3 2 1925 Scopes trial Bruce Barton’s Man Nobody Knows 1927 Charles Lindbergh flies nonstop over the Atlantic Sacco and Vanzetti executed 1929 Robert and Helen Lynd’s Middletown Sheppard-Towner Act repealed Stock market crashes 1930 Hawley-Smoot Tariff 1932 Reconstruction Finance Corporation established Bonus march on Washington City Activities with Dance Hall. This mural, painted in 1930 by Thomas Hart Benton for the New School for Social Research in New York City, portrays aspects of 1920s urban life. On the left, hands reach for a bottle of liquor, a businessman reads a stock ticker, and patrons enjoy themselves at a dance hall and movie theater. Images on the right include a circus, a woman at a soda fountain, and scenes of family life. In May 1920, at the height of the postwar Red Scare, police arrested two Italian immigrants accused of participating in a robbery at a F O C U S South Braintree, Massachusetts, factory in which a security guard was killed. Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, an Q U E S T I O N S itinerant unskilled laborer, were anarchists who dreamed of a society in which government, churches, and private property would be abolished. They saw violence as an appropriate weapon of class warfare. But very s little evidence linked them to this particular crime. In the atmosphere of who suffered in the new anti-radical and anti-immigrant fervor, however, their conviction was a consumer society of the certainty. 1920s? Although their 1921 trial had aroused little public interest outside the Italian-American community, the case of Sacco and Vanzetti attracted s considerable attention during the lengthy appeals that followed. There ernment promote business were mass protests in Europe against their impending execution. On interests in the 1920s? August 23, 1927, Sacco and Vanzetti died in the electric chair. The Sacco-Vanzetti case laid bare some of the fault lines beneath s the surface of American society during the 1920s. To many native-born civil liberties gain impor- Americans, the two men symbolized an alien threat to their way of life. tance in the 1920s? To Italian-Americans, including respectable middle-class organizations like the Sons of Italy that raised money for the defense, the outcome sym- s bolized the nativist prejudices and stereotypes that haunted immigrant points between fundamen- communities. talism and pluralism in the 1920s? s the Great Depression, and how effective were the government’s responses by 1932? A 1927 photograph shows Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti outside the courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts, surrounded by security agents and onlookers. They are about to enter the courthouse, where the judge will pronounce their death sentence. F R O M B U S I N E S S C U L T U R E T O G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N 609 In popular memory, the decade that followed World War I is recalled as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties. With its flappers (young, sexu- ally liberated women), speakeasies (nightclubs that sold liquor in viola- tion of Prohibition), and a soaring stock market fueled by easy credit and a get-rich-quick outlook, it was a time of revolt against moral rules inherited from the nineteenth century. Observers from Europe, where class divisions were starkly visible in work, politics, and social rela- tions, marveled at the uniformity of American life. Factories poured out standardized consumer goods, their sale promoted by national advertis- ing campaigns. Conservatism dominated a political system from which radical alternatives seemed to have been purged. Radio and the movies spread mass culture throughout the nation. Many Americans, however, did not welcome the new secular, com- mercial culture. They resented and feared the ethnic and racial diversity of America’s cities and what they considered the lax moral standards of Advertisements, like this one for a urban life. The 1920s was a decade of profound social tensions—between refrigerator, promised that consumer goods would enable Americans to rural and urban Americans, traditional and “modern” Christianity, par- fulfill their hearts’ desires. ticipants in the burgeoning consumer culture and those who did not fully share in the new prosperity. T H E B U S I N E S S O F A M E R I C A A D e c a d e o f P r o s p e r i t y “The chief business of the American people,” said Calvin Coolidge, who became president after Warren G. Harding’s sudden death from a heart attack in 1923, “is business.” Rarely in American history had economic growth seemed more dramatic, cooperation between business and govern- ment so close, and business values so widely shared. Productivity and eco- Industrial growth nomic output rose dramatically as new industries—chemicals, aviation, electronics—flourished and older ones like food processing and the manu- facture of household appliances adopted Henry Ford’s moving assembly line. Annual automobile production tripled during the 1920s, from 1.5 to 4.8 million, stimulating steel, rubber, and oil production, and other sectors of the economy. By 1929, half of all Americans owned a car. Multinational corporations During the 1920s, American multinational corporations extended their sway throughout the world. With Europe still recovering from the Great War, American investment overseas far exceeded that of other countries. The dollar replaced the British pound as the most important 610 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression Who benefited and who suffered in the new consumer society of the 1920s? currency of international trade. American companies produced 85 percent of the world’s cars and 40 percent of its manufactured goods. General Electric and International Telephone and Telegraph bought up companies in other countries. International Business Machines (IBM) was the world’s leader in office supplies. American companies took control of raw materi- als abroad, from rubber in Liberia to oil in Venezuela. A N e w S o c i e t y During the 1920s, consumer goods of all kinds proliferated, marketed Consumer goods by salesmen and advertisers who promoted them as ways of satisfy- ing Americans’ psychological desires and everyday needs. Frequently purchased on credit through new installment buying plans, they rapidly altered daily life. Telephones made communication easier. Vacuum clean- ers, washing machines, and refrigerators transformed work in the home and reduced the demand for domestic servants. Boosted by Prohibition and an aggressive advertising campaign that, according to the company’s sales director, made it “impossible for the consumer to escape” the product, Coca-Cola became a symbol of American life. Americans spent more and more of their income on leisure activities Leisure activities like vacations, movies, and sporting events. By 1929, weekly movie atten- dance had reached 80 million, double the figure of 1922. Hollywood films now dominated the world movie market. Radios and phonographs brought mass enter- tainment into American living rooms. The number of radios in American homes rose from 190,000 in 1923 FIGURE 20.1 Household to just under 5 million in 1929. These developments helped create and spread a new celebrity culture, in Appliances, 1900–1930 which recording, film, and sports stars moved to the top of the list of American heroes. During the 1920s, 100 more than 100 million records were sold each year. 90 80 RCA Victor sold so many recordings of the great opera 70 tenor Enrico Caruso that he is sometimes called the first 60 modern celebrity. He was soon joined by the film actor ving an appliance 50 Charlie Chaplin, baseball player Babe Ruth, and boxer electricity 40 Jack Dempsey. Perhaps the decade’s greatest celebrity, telephone 30 in terms of intensive press coverage, was the aviator 20 Charles Lindbergh, who in 1927 made the first solo vacuum cleaner 10 washing machine nonstop flight across the Atlantic. refrigerator 0 Widespread acceptance of going into debt to pur- 1900 1910 Percentage of households ha 1920 1930 Year chase consumer goods replaced the values of thrift and T H E B U S I N E S S O F A M E R I C A 611 self-denial, central to nineteenth-century notions of upstanding character. Work, once seen as a source of pride in craft skill or collective empower- ment via trade unions, now came to be valued as a path to individual ful- fillment through consumption and entertainment. T h e L i m i t s o f P r o s p e r i t y But signs of future trouble could be seen beneath the prosperity of the 1920s. The fruits of increased production were very unequally distrib- uted. Real wages for industrial workers (wages adjusted to take account of inflation) rose by one-quarter between 1922 and 1929, but corporate profits Economic concentration and rose at more than twice that rate. The process of economic concentration its consequences continued unabated. A handful of firms dominated numerous sectors of the economy. In 1929, 1 percent of the nation’s banks controlled half of its financial resources. Most of the small auto companies that had existed earlier in the century had fallen by the wayside. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler now controlled four-fifths of the industry. At the beginning of 1929, a majority of families had no savings, and an estimated 40 percent of the population remained in poverty, unable to Economic weakness participate in the flourishing consumer economy. Improved productivity meant that goods could be produced with fewer workers. During the 1920s, more Americans worked in the professions, retailing, finance, and educa- tion, but the number of manufacturing workers declined by 5 percent, the first such drop in the nation’s history. Parts of New England were already experiencing the chronic unemployment caused by deindustrialization. Many of the region’s textile companies failed in the face of low-wage com- petition from southern factories or shifted production to take advantage of the South’s cheap labor. T h e F a r m e r s ’ P l i g h t Nor did farmers share in the decade’s prosperity. The “golden age” of American farming had reached its peak during World War I, when the need to feed war-torn Europe and government efforts to maintain high farm prices had raised farmers’ incomes and promoted the purchase of more land on credit. Thanks to mechanization and the increased use of fertilizer and insecticides, agricultural production continued to rise even when government subsidies ended and world demand stagnated. As a Rural depression result, farm incomes in the 1920s declined steadily, and banks foreclosed tens of thousands of farms. 612 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression Who benefited and who suffered in the new consumer society of the 1920s? Facing dire conditions, some 3 mil- lion persons migrated out of rural areas. Many headed for southern California, whose rapidly growing economy needed new labor. The population of Los Angeles, the West’s leading industrial center, a pro- ducer of oil, automobiles, aircraft, and, of course, Hollywood movies, rose from 575,000 to 2.2 million during the decade, largely because of an influx of displaced farmers from the Midwest. Well before the 1930s, rural America was in an economic depression. T h e I m a g e o f B u s i n e s s Farmers, such as this family of potato growers in rural Minnesota, did not Despite America’s underlying economic problems, businessmen like share in the prosperity of the 1920s. Henry Ford and engineers like Herbert Hoover were cultural heroes. Photographers like Lewis Hine and Margaret Bourke-White and painters like Charles Sheeler celebrated the beauty of machines and factories. Numerous firms established public relations departments. They aimed to justify corporate practices to the public and counteract its long- standing distrust of big business. They even succeeded in changing popu- lar attitudes toward Wall Street. In the 1920s, as the steadily rising price of stocks made front-page Rise of the stock market news, the market attracted more investors. Many assumed that stock val- ues would keep rising forever. By 1928, an estimated 1.5 million Americans owned stock—still a small minority of the country’s 28 million families, but far more than in the past. T h e D e c l i n e o f L a b o r With the defeat of the labor upsurge of 1919 and the dismantling of the war- time regulatory state, business appropriated the rhetoric of Americanism and “industrial freedom” as weapons against labor unions. Some corpo- rations during the 1920s implemented a new style of management. They provided their employees with private pensions and medical insurance plans, job security, and greater workplace safety. They spoke of “welfare capitalism,” a more socially conscious kind of business leadership, and T H E B U S I N E S S O F A M E R I C A 613 River Rouge Plant, by the artist Charles Sheeler, exemplifies the “machine-age aesthetic” of the 1920s. Sheeler found artistic beauty in Henry Ford’s giant automobile assembly factory. trumpeted the fact that they now paid more attention to the “human factor” in employment. At the same time, however, employers in the 1920s embraced The American Plan the American Plan, at whose core stood the open shop—a workplace free of both government regulation and unions, except, in some cases, “company unions” created and controlled by management. Even the most forward-looking companies continued to employ strikebreakers, private detectives, and the blacklisting of union organizers to prevent or defeat strikes. During the 1920s, organized labor lost more than 2 million mem- bers, and unions agreed to demand after demand by employers in The decline of unions an effort to stave off complete elimination. Uprisings by the most downtrodden workers did occur sporadically throughout the decade. Southern textile mills witnessed desperate strikes by workers who charged employers with “making slaves out of the men and women” who labored there. Facing the combined opposition of business, local politi- cians, and the courts, as well as the threat of violence, such strikes were doomed to defeat. 614 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression Who benefited and who suffered in the new consumer society of the 1920s? T h e E q u a l R i g h t s A m e n d m e n t Like the labor movement, feminists struggled to adapt to the new politi- cal situation. The achievement of suffrage in 1920 eliminated the bond of unity among various activists, each “struggling for her own conception of freedom,” in the words of labor reformer Juliet Stuart Poyntz. Black femi- nists insisted that the movement must now demand enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment in the South, but they won little support from their white counterparts. The long-standing division between two competing conceptions of Debate over the ERA woman’s freedom—one based on motherhood, the other on individual autonomy and the right to work—now crystallized in the debate over an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution promoted by Alice Tipsy, a 1930 painting by the Paul and the National Women’s Party. This amendment proposed to Japanese artist Kobayakawa Kiyoshi, eliminate all legal distinctions “on account of sex.” In Paul’s opinion, the illustrates the global appeal of the ERA followed logically from winning the right to vote. Having gained “new woman” of the 1920s. The political equality, she insisted, women no longer required special legal subject, a moga (“modern girl” in Japanese), sits alone in a nightclub protection—they needed equal access to employment, education, and all wearing Western clothing, makeup, the other opportunities of citizens. To supporters of mothers’ pensions and hairstyle and enjoying a cigarette and laws limiting women’s hours of labor, which the ERA would sweep and a martini. The title of the work away, the proposal represented a giant step backward. Apart from the suggests that Kiyoshi does not National Women’s Party, every major female organization opposed entirely approve of her behavior, but the ERA. he presents her as self-confident and alluring. Japanese police took a dim The ERA campaign failed, and only six states ratified a proposed con- view of “modern” women, arresting stitutional amendment giving Congress the power to prohibit child labor, those who applied makeup in public. which farm groups and business organizations opposed. In 1929, Congress repealed the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, a major achievement of the maternalist reformers that had provided federal assistance to programs for infant and child health. W o m e n ’ s F r e e d o m If political feminism faded, the prewar feminist demand for personal free- dom survived in the vast consumer marketplace and in the actual behavior of the decade’s much-publicized liberated young women. No longer one element in a broader program of social reform, sexual freedom now meant individual autonomy or personal rebellion. With her bobbed hair, short skirts, public smoking and drinking, and unapologetic use of birth-control methods such as the diaphragm, the young, single “flapper” epitomized the change in standards of sexual behavior, at least in large cities. She frequented dance halls and attended sexually charged Hollywood films T H E B U S I N E S S O F A M E R I C A 615 ( Left) Advertisers marketed cigarettes to women as symbols of female independence. This 1929 ad for Lucky Strike reads: “Legally, politically and socially, woman has been emancipated from those chains which bound her. . . . Gone is that ancient prejudice against cigarettes.” ( Right) An ad for Procter & Gamble laundry detergent urges modern women to modernize the methods of their employees. The text relates how a white woman in the Southwest persuaded Felipa, her Mexican-American domestic worker, to abandon her “primitive washing methods.” Felipa, according to the ad, agrees that the laundry is now “whiter, cleaner, and fresher.” featuring stars like Clara Bow, the provocative “ ‘ It’ Girl,” and Rudolph Valentino, the original on-screen “Latin Lover.” Women’s self-conscious pursuit of personal pleasure became a device to market goods from automobiles to cigarettes. In 1904, a woman had been arrested for smoking in public in New York City. Two decades later, Edward Bernays, the “father” of modern public relations, masterminded a campaign to persuade women to smoke, dubbing cigarettes women’s “torches of freedom.” The new freedom, however, was available only dur- Marriage and the new freedom ing one phase of a woman’s life. Marriage, according to one advertisement, remained “the one pursuit that stands foremost in the mind of every girl and woman.” Having found husbands, women were expected to seek free- dom within the confines of the home. B U S I N E S S A N D G O V E R N M E N T Robert and Helen Lynd, In 1929, the sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd published Middletown, a clas- Middletown sic study of life in Muncie, Indiana, a typical community in the American heartland. The Lynds found that new leisure activities and a new empha- sis on consumption had replaced politics as the focus of public concern. Elections were no longer “lively centers” of public attention as in the nine- teenth century, and voter participation had fallen dramatically. National 616 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression In what ways did the government promote business interests in the 1920s? statistics bore out their point; the turnout of eligible voters, over 80 percent Decline in voter in 1896, had dropped to less than 50 percent in 1924. Many factors helped to participation explain this decline, including the consolidation of one-party politics in the South, the long period of Republican dominance in national elections, and the enfranchisement of women, who for many years voted in lower numbers than men. But the shift from public to private concerns also played a part. “The American citizen’s first importance to his country,” declared a Muncie newspaper, “is no longer that of a citizen but that of a consumer.” T h e R e p u b l i c a n E r a Pro-business government Government policies reflected the pro-business ethos of the 1920s. Business policies lobbyists dominated national conventions of the Republican Party. They called on the federal government to lower taxes on personal incomes and business profits, maintain high tariffs, and support employers’ continuing campaign against unions. The administrations of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge obliged. Under William Howard Taft, appointed chief justice in 1921, the Supreme Court remained strongly conservative. A resurgence of laissez-faire jurisprudence eclipsed the Progressive ideal of a socially active national state. The Court struck down a federal law that barred goods pro- duced by child labor from interstate commerce. It even repudiated Muller v. Oregon (see Chapter 18) in a 1923 decision overturning a minimum wage law for women in Washington, D.C. Now that women enjoyed the vote, the justices declared, they were entitled to the same workplace freedom as men. The policies of President Calvin Coolidge were music to the ears of C o r r u p t i o n i n G o v e r n m e n t big business, according to one 1920s cartoonist. Warren G. Harding took office as president in 1921 promising a return to “normalcy” after an era of Progressive reform and world war. Reflecting the prevailing get-rich-quick ethos, his administration quickly became one of the most corrupt in American history. Although his cabinet included men of integrity and talent, like Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, Harding also surrounded himself with cronies who used their offices for private gain. Attorney General Harry Daugherty accepted payments not to prosecute accused criminals. The most notorious scandal involved Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall, who accepted nearly $500,000 from private busi- nessmen to whom he leased government oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. Fall became the first cabinet member in history to be convicted of a felony. B U S I N E S S A N D G O V E R N M E N T 617 A 1924 cartoon commenting on the scandals of the Harding administration. The White House, Capitol, and Washington Monument have been sold to the highest bidder. T h e E l e c t i o n o f 1 9 2 4 Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge, who as governor of Massachusetts had won national fame for using state troops against striking Boston policemen in 1919, was a dour man of few words. But in contrast to his The election of Coolidge predecessor he seemed to exemplify Yankee honesty. In 1924, Coolidge was elected in a landslide, defeating John W. Davis, a Wall Street lawyer nominated on the 103rd ballot by a badly divided Democratic convention. (This was when the comedian Will Rogers made the quip, often repeated in future years, “I am a member of no organized political party; I am a Democrat.”) One-sixth of the electorate in 1924 voted for Robert La Follette, run- ning as the candidate of a new Progressive Party, which called for greater taxation of wealth, the conservation of natural resources, public owner- ship of the railroads, farm relief, and the end of child labor. La Follette carried only his native Wisconsin. But his candidacy demonstrated the survival of some currents of dissent in a highly conservative decade. E c o n o m i c D i p l o m a c y Business and foreign affairs Foreign affairs also reflected the close working relationship between busi- ness and government. The 1920s marked a retreat from Wilson’s goal of internationalism in favor of unilateral American actions mainly designed to increase exports and investment opportunities overseas. Indeed, what is sometimes called the “isolationism” of the 1920s represented a reaction 618 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression Why did the protection of civil liberties gain importance in the 1920s? against the disappointing results of Wilson’s military and diplomatic pursuit of freedom and democracy abroad. The United States did play host to the Washington Naval Arms Conference of 1922, which negotiated reductions in the navies of Britain, France, Japan, Italy, and the United States. But the country remained outside the League of Nations. Even as American diplomats continued to press for access to markets overseas, the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 raised taxes on imported goods to their highest levels in history, a repudiation of Wilson’s principle of promoting free trade. As before World War I, the government dispatched soldiers when a change in government in the Caribbean threatened American economic interests. Having been stationed in Nicaragua since 1912, American Intervention in Nicaragua marines withdrew in 1925. But the troops soon returned in an effort to suppress a nationalist revolt headed by General Augusto César Sandino. Having created a National Guard headed by General Anastasio Somoza, the marines finally departed in 1933. A year later, Somoza assassinated Sandino and seized power. For the next forty-five years, he and his fam- ily ruled and plundered Nicaragua. Somoza was overthrown in 1978 by a popular movement calling itself the Sandinistas (see Chapter 26). T H E B I R T H O F C I V I L L I B E R T I E S Among the casualties of World War I and the 1920s was Progressivism’s faith that an active federal government embodied the national purpose and enhanced the enjoyment of freedom. Wartime and postwar repres- sion, Prohibition, and the pro-business policies of the 1920s all illustrated, in the eyes of many Progressives, how public power could go grievously wrong. This lesson opened the door to a new appreciation of civil liberties— rights an individual may assert even against democratic majorities—as essential elements of American freedom. In the name of a “new freedom for the individual,” the 1920s saw the birth of a coherent concept of civil Rights of the individual liberties and the beginnings of significant legal protection for freedom of speech against the government. Wartime repression continued into the 1920s. Artistic works with sexual themes were subjected to rigorous censorship. The Postal Service removed from the mails books it deemed obscene. The Customs T H E B I R T H O F C I V I L L I B E R T I E S 619 Service barred works by the sixteenth-century French satirist Rabelais, Wartime repression continued the modern novelist James Joyce, and many others from entering the country. A local crusade against indecency made the phrase “Banned in Boston” a term of ridicule among upholders of artistic freedom. Boston’s Watch and Ward Committee excluded sixty-five books from the city’s bookstores, including works by the novelists Upton Sinclair, Theodore Dreiser, and Ernest Hemingway. In 1922, the film industry adopted the Hays code, a sporadically enforced set of guidelines that prohibited movies from depicting nudity, long kisses, and adultery, and barred scripts that portrayed clergymen in a negative light or criminals sympathetically. Disillusionment with the conservatism of American politics and the materialism of the culture inspired some American artists and writ- The Lost Generation ers to emigrate to Paris. The Lost Generation of cultural exiles included novelists and poets like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Europe, they felt, valued art and culture, and appreciated unrestrained freedom of expression (and, of course, allowed individuals to drink legally). A “ C l e a r a n d P r e s e n t D a n g e r ” The arrest of antiwar dissenters under the Espionage and Sedition Acts inspired the formation in 1917 of the Civil Liberties Bureau, which in 1920 became the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). For the rest of the century, the ACLU would take part in most of the landmark cases that helped to bring about a “rights revolution.” Its efforts helped to give mean- ing to traditional civil liberties like freedom of speech and invented new ones, like the right to privacy. When it began, however, the ACLU was a small, beleaguered organization. Prior to World War I, the Supreme Court had done almost nothing to protect the rights of unpopular minorities. Now, it was forced to address the question of the permissible limits on political and economic dissent. In 1919, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act and the conviction of Charles T. Schenck, a socialist who had distributed antidraft leaflets through the mails. Speaking for the Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that the First Amendment did not prevent Congress from prohibiting speech that presented a “clear and present Schenck v. United States danger” of inspiring illegal actions. A week after Schenck v. United States, the Court unanimously upheld the conviction of Eugene V. Debs for a speech condemning the war. 620 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression Why did the protection of civil liberties gain importance in the 1920s? T h e C o u r t a n d C i v i l L i b e r t i e s Also in 1919, the Court upheld the conviction of Jacob Abrams and five other men for distributing pamphlets critical of American intervention in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution. This time, however, Holmes and Louis Brandeis dissented, marking the emergence of a court minority com- mitted to a broader defense of free speech. The tide of civil-liberties decision making slowly began to turn. By the end of the 1920s, the Supreme Court had voided a Kansas law that made it a crime to advocate unlawful acts to change the political or economic sys- A broader defense of free tem and one from Minnesota authorizing censorship of the press. The new speech regard for free speech went beyond political expression. In 1933, a federal court overturned the Customs Service’s ban on James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, a turning point in the battle against the censorship of works of literature. A judicial defense of civil liberties was slowly being born. As Brandeis insisted, “Those who won our independence believed . . . that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are indispensable to the dis- covery and spread of political truth. . . . The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.” T H E C U L T U R E W A R S T h e F u n d a m e n t a l i s t R e v o l t Although many Americans embraced modern urban culture with its religious and ethnic pluralism, mass entertainment, and liberated sexual rules, others found it alarming. Many evangelical Protestants felt threat- ened by the decline of traditional values and the increased visibility of Catholicism and Judaism because of immigration. They also resented the growing presence within mainstream Protestant denominations of “modernists” who sought to integrate science and religion and adapt Christianity to the new secular culture. Convinced that the literal truth of the Bible formed the basis of Christian belief, fundamentalists launched a campaign to rid Protestant denominations of modernism and to combat the new individual freedoms that seemed to contradict traditional morality. Their most flamboyant apostle was Billy Sunday, a talented professional baseball player who Billy Sunday became a revivalist preacher. Between 1900 and 1930, Sunday drew huge crowds with a highly theatrical preaching style and a message denouncing T H E C U L T U R E W A R S 621 A 1923 lithograph by George Bellows captures the dynamic style of the most prominent evangelical preacher of the 1920s, Billy Sunday. sins ranging from Darwinism to alcohol. Fundamentalism remained an important strain of 1920s culture and politics. Prohibition, which funda- mentalists strongly supported, succeeded in reducing the consumption of alcohol as well as public drunkenness and drink-related diseases. Prohibition, however, remained a deeply divisive issue. The greatest expansion of national authority since Reconstruction, it raised major ques- tions of local rights, individual freedom, and the wisdom of attempting to impose religious and moral values on the entire society through legisla- Federal agents with confiscated liquor in Colorado in 1920, shortly after the tion. It divided the Democratic Party into “wet” and “dry” wings, leading advent of Prohibition. to bitter internal battles at the party’s 1924 and 1928 national conventions. Too many Americans deemed Prohi- bition a violation of individual freedom for the flow of illegal liquor to stop. In urban areas, Prohibition led to large profits for the owners of illegal speakeasies and the “boot- leggers” who supplied them. It produced widespread corruption as police and public officials accepted bribes to turn a blind eye to violations of the law. T h e S c o p e s T r i a l In 1925, a trial in Tennessee threw into sharp relief the division between tradi- tional values and modern, secular culture. 622 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression What were the major flash points between fundamentalism and pluralism in the 1920s? John Scopes, a teacher in a Tennessee pub- lic school, was arrested for violating a state law that prohibited the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. His trial became a national sensation. The Scopes trial reflected the endur- ing tension between two American defi- nitions of freedom. Fundamentalist Christians, strongest in rural areas of the South and West, clung to the traditional idea of “moral” liberty— voluntary adher- ence to time-honored religious beliefs. The theory that man had evolved over millions of years from ancestors like apes contra- Because of extreme heat, some dicted the biblical account of creation. To Scopes’s defenders, including the sessions of the Scopes trial were held American Civil Liberties Union, freedom meant above all the right to inde- outdoors, in front of the courthouse in pendent thought and individual self-expression. To them, the Tennessee Dayton, Tennessee. A photographer law offered a lesson in the dangers of religious intolerance and the merger snapped this picture of the trial’s of church and state. climactic moment, when Clarence Darrow (standing at the center) The renowned labor lawyer Clarence Darrow defended Scopes. The questioned William Jennings Bryan trial’s highlight came when Darrow called William Jennings Bryan to the (seated) about his interpretation of stand as an “expert witness” on the Bible. Bryan revealed an almost com- the Bible. plete ignorance of modern science and proved unable to respond effectively to Darrow’s sarcastic questioning. Asked whether God had actually created the world in six days, Bryan replied that these should be understood as Clarence Darrow and William ages, “not six days of twenty-four hours”—thus opening the door to the very Jennings Bryan nonliteral interpretation of the Bible that the fundamentalists rejected. The jury found Scopes guilty, although the Tennessee supreme court later overturned the decision on a technicality. Fundamentalists retreated for many years from battles over public education, preferring to build their own schools and colleges where teaching could be done as they saw fit. The battle would be rejoined, however, toward the end of the twentieth cen- tury. To this day, the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools arouses intense debate in parts of the United States. T h e S e c o n d K l a n Few features of urban life seemed more alien to rural and small-town native-born Protestants than their immigrant populations and cultures. The wartime obsession with “100 percent Americanism” continued “100 percent Americanism” into the 1920s. In 1922, Oregon became the only state ever to require T H E C U L T U R E W A R S 623 all students to attend public schools—a measure aimed, said the state’s attorney general, at abolishing parochial education and preventing “bolshevists, syndicalists and communists” from organizing their own schools. Perhaps the most menacing expres- sion of the idea that enjoyment of American freedom should be limited on religious and ethnic grounds was the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s. The Klan had been reborn in Atlanta in 1915 after the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish fac- tory manager accused of killing a teenage A Ku Klux Klan gathering in girl. By the mid-1920s, it claimed more than 3 million members, nearly all Seattle, Washington, in 1923. The white, native-born Protestants, many of whom held respected positions unrobed members of the audience in their communities. Unlike the Klan of Reconstruction, the organiza- are covering their faces to avoid tion now sank deep roots in parts of the North and West. It became the identification. Unlike the Klan of the largest private organization in Indiana and for a time controlled the state Reconstruction era, the second Ku Klux Klan was more powerful in Republican Party. American civilization, the new Klan insisted, was the North and West than the South. endangered not only by blacks but by immigrants (especially Jews and Catholics) and all the forces (feminism, unions, immorality, even, on occa- sion, the giant corporations) that endangered “individual liberty.” C l o s i n g t h e G o l d e n D o o r The Klan’s influence faded after 1925, when its leader in Indiana was convicted of assaulting a young woman. But the Klan’s attacks on modern secular culture and political radicalism and its demand that control of the nation be returned to “citizens of the old stock” reflected sentiments widely shared in the 1920s. The 1920s produced a fundamental change in immigration policy. Prior to World War I virtually all the white persons who wished to pass through the “golden door” into the United States and become citizens were able to do so. During the 1920s, however, the pressure for wholesale immi- gration restriction became irresistible. Restrictions on European In 1921, a temporary measure restricted immigration from Europe immigration to 357,000 per year (one-third of the annual average before the war). Three years later, Congress permanently limited European immigration to 150,000 per year, distributed according to a series of national quotas 624 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression What were the major flash points between fundamentalism and pluralism in the 1920s? that severely restricted the numbers from southern and eastern Europe. However, to satisfy the demands of large farmers in California who relied heavily on sea- sonal Mexican labor, the 1924 law estab- lished no limits on immigration from the Western Hemisphere. The immigration law did bar the entry of all those ineligible for naturalized citizenship—that is, the entire population of Asia, even though Japan had fought on the American side in World War I. Although a few Chinese had tried to enter the country in the past in spite of exclusion legislation, the law of 1924 estab- lished, in effect, for the first time a new category—the “illegal alien.” With The immigration law of 1924 it came a new enforcement mechanism, the Border Patrol, charged with established the Border Patrol to policing the land boundaries of the United States and empowered to arrest stop those barred from entry from sneaking into the United States from and deport persons who entered the country in violation of the new nation- Mexico. At first, the patrol was a ality quotas or other restrictions. A term later associated almost exclusively modest operation. Here, two officers with Latinos, “illegal aliens” at first referred mainly to southern and eastern police the California-Mexico border. Europeans who tried to sneak across the border from Mexico or Canada. R a c e a n d t h e L a w The new immigration law reflected the heightened emphasis on “race” as a determinant of public policy. By the early 1920s, political leaders of both North and South agreed on the relegation of blacks to second-class citizenship. But “race policy” meant far more than black-white relations. When President Coolidge signed the new law, his secretary of labor, James J. Davis, commented that immigration policy must now rest on a A “biologically ideal” biological definition of the ideal population. Although enacted by a highly population conservative Congress strongly influenced by nativism, the 1924 immi- gration law also reflected the Progressive desire to improve the “quality” of democratic citizenship and to employ scientific methods to set public policy. It revealed how these aims were overlaid with pseudo-scientific assumptions about the superiority and inferiority of particular “races.” But the entire concept of race as a basis for public policy lacked any rational foundation. The Supreme Court admitted as much in 1923 when it rejected the claim of Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian-born World War I T H E C U L T U R E W A R S 625 TABLE 20.1 Selected Annual Immigration Quotas under the 1924 Immigration Act COUNTRY QUOTA IMMIGRANTS IN 1914 .ORTHERN Great Britain and Northern 65,721 48,729 (Great Britain only) Ireland Germany 25,957 35,734 Ireland 17,853 24,688 (includes Northern Ireland) Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, 7,241 29,391 Denmark, Finland) 3OUTHERN Poland 6,524 (Not an independent state; included in Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary) Italy 5,802 283,738 Russia 2,784 255,660 /THER Africa (total of various 1,000 1,539 colonies and countries) Western Hemisphere No quota limit 122,695 Asia (China, India, Japan, Korea) 0 11,652 veteran, who asserted that as a “pure Aryan,” he was actually white and could therefore become an American citizen. “White,” the Court declared, was not a scientific concept at all, but part of “common speech, to be inter- preted with the understanding of the common man” (a forthright state- ment of what later scholars would call the “social construction” of race). P r o m o t i n g T o l e r a n c e In the face of immigration restriction, Prohibition, a revived Ku Klux Klan, and widespread anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism, immigrant groups asserted the validity of cultural diversity and identified toleration of difference—religious, cultural, and individual—as the essence of American Ethnic Americans freedom. In effect, they reinvented themselves as “ethnic” Americans, claiming an equal share in the nation’s life but, in addition, the right to remain in 626 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression What were the major flash points between fundamentalism and pluralism in the 1920s? many respects culturally distinct. The Roman Catholic Church urged immigrants to learn English and embrace “American principles,” but it continued to maintain sep- arate schools and other institutions. Throughout the country, organizations like the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (founded in 1916 to combat anti-Semitism) and the National Catholic Welfare Council lobbied, in the name of “personal liberty,” for laws prohibiting discrimi- nation against immigrants by employers, colleges, and government agencies. The efforts of immigrant communities to resist coerced American ization and of the Catholic Church to defend its school system broadened the definition of liberty for all Americans. In landmark decisions, the Su preme Court struck down Oregon’s law, mentioned earlier, requiring all students to attend public schools and Nebraska’s law prohibiting teaching in a language other than English—one of the anti-German measures of World War I. The Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) decision expanded the freedom of all immigrant groups. In its aftermath, federal Racism severely limited the courts overturned various Hawaii laws imposing special taxes and regu- opportunities open to black Americans. Here, the internationally lations on private Japanese-language schools. In these cases, the Court renowned Peabody Conservatory also interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal lib- of Music informs a black applicant erty to include the right to “marry, establish a home and bring up chil- that he cannot pursue his musical dren” and to practice religion as one chose, “without interference from education there. the state.” The decisions gave pluralism a constitutional foundation. T h e E m e r g e n c e o f H a r l e m The 1920s also witnessed an upsurge of self-consciousness among black Americans, especially in the North’s urban ghettos. With European immigration all but halted, the Great Migration of World War I contin- ued apace as nearly 1 million blacks left the South during the decade. New York’s Harlem gained an international reputation as the “capital” of black America, a mecca for migrants from the South and immigrants from Caribbean immigrants the West Indies, 150,000 of whom entered the United States between 1900 and 1930. Unlike the southern newcomers, most of whom had been agricultural workers, the West Indians included a large number of well- educated professional and white-collar workers. Their encounter with American racism appalled them. “I had heard of prejudice in America,” wrote the poet and novelist Claude McKay, who emigrated from Jamaica in 1912, “but never dreamed of it being so intensely bitter.” T H E C U L T U R E W A R S 627 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m A n d r é S i e g f r i e d , “ T h e G u l f B e t w e e n , ” A t l a n t i c M o n t h l y ( M a r c h 1 9 2 8 ) The French writer André Siegfried in 1928 commented on the rise of an industrial economy and consumer culture and the changes they produced in American society. Never has Europe more eagerly observed, studied, discussed America; and never . . . have the two continents been wider apart in their aspirations and ideals. . . . Europe, after all, is not very different from what it was a generation ago; but there has been born since then a new America. . . . The conquest of the continent has been completed, and—all recent American historians have noted the significance of the event—the western frontier has disappeared; the pioneer is no longer needed, and, with him, the mystic dream of the West . . . has faded away. Thus came the beginning of the era of organization: the new problem was not to conquer adventurously but to produce methodically. The great man of the new generation was no longer a pioneer like Lincoln . . . but . . . Henry Ford. From this time on, America has been no more an unlimited prairie with pure and infinite horizons, in which free men may sport like wild horses, but a huge factory of prodigious efficiency. . . . In the last twenty-five or thirty years America has produced a new civilization. . . . From a moral point of view, it is obvious that Americans have come to consider their standard of living as a somewhat sacred acquisition, which they will defend at any price. This means that they would be ready to make many an intellectual or even moral concession in order to maintain that standard. From a political point of view, it seems that the notion of efficiency of production is on the way to taking [precedence over] the very notion of liberty. In the name of efficiency, one can obtain, from the American, all sorts of sacrifices in relation to his personal and even to certain of his political liberties. . . . Mass production and mass civilization, its natural consequence, are the true characteristics of the new American society. . . . Lincoln, with his Bible and classical tradition, was easier for Europe to understand than Ford, with his total absence of tradition and his proud creation of new methods and new standards, especially conceived for a world entirely different from our own. 628 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression F r o m M a j o r i t y O p i n i o n , J u s t i c e J a m e s C . M c R e y n o l d s , i n M e y e r v . N e b r a s k a ( 1 9 2 3 ) A landmark in the development of civil liberties, the Supreme Court’s decision in Meyer v. Nebraska rebuked the coercive Americanization impulse of World War I, overturning a Nebraska law that required all school instruction to take place in English. The problem for our determination is whether the statute [prohibiting instruction in a language other than English] as construed and applied unreasonably infringes the liberty guaranteed . . . by the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . The American people have always regarded education and acquisition of knowledge as matters of supreme importance which should be diligently promoted. . . . The calling always has been regarded as useful and honorable, essential, indeed, to the public welfare. Mere knowledge of the German language cannot reasonably be regarded as harmful. Heretofore it has been commonly looked upon as helpful and desirable. [Meyer] taught this language in school as part of his occupation. His right to teach and the right of parents to engage him so to instruct their children, we think, are within the liberty of the Amendment. It is said the purpose of the legislation was to promote civil development by inhibiting training and education of the immature in foreign tongues and ideals before they could learn English and acquire American ideals. . . . It is also affirmed that the foreign born population is very large, that certain communities commonly use foreign words, follow foreign leaders, move in a foreign atmosphere, and that the children are therefore hindered from becoming citizens of the most useful type and the public safety is impaired. That the State may do much, go very far, indeed, in order to improve the quality of its Q U E S T I O N S citizens, physically, mentally, and morally, is clear; but the individual has certain fundamental 1. Why does Siegfried feel that rights which must be respected. The protection of Europeans no longer find America the Constitution extends to all, to those who speak understandable? other languages as well as to those born with English on the tongue. Perhaps it would be highly 2. How does the decision in Meyer v. advantageous if all had ready understanding of Nebraska expand the definition of our ordinary speech, but this cannot be coerced by liberty protected by the Fourteenth methods which conflict with the Constitution. . . . Amendment? No emergency has arisen which rendered knowledge by a child of some language other 3. How do the two excerpts reflect the than English so clearly harmful as to justify its changes American society experienced inhibition with the consequent infringement of in the 1910s and 1920s? rights long freely enjoyed. V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 629 A black family arriving in Chicago in 1922, as part of the Great Migration from the rural South. The 1920s became famous for “slumming,” as groups of whites visited Harlem’s dance halls, jazz clubs, and speakeasies in search of exotic adventure. The Harlem of the white imagination was a place of primitive passions, free from the puritanical restraints of mainstream American culture. The real Harlem was a community of widespread poverty, its residents confined to low-wage jobs and, because housing discrimination barred them from other neighborhoods, forced to pay exorbitant rents. T h e H a r l e m R e n a i s s a n c e Vibrant culture But Harlem also was home to a vibrant black cultural community that established links with New York’s artistic mainstream. Poets and novel- ists such as Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay were befriended and sponsored by white intellectuals and published by white presses. Broadway for the first time presented black actors in serious dra- matic roles, as well as shows such as Dixie to Broadway and Blackbirds that featured great entertainers such as the singers Florence Mills and Ethel Waters and the tap dancer Bill Robinson. The term “New Negro,” associated in politics with pan-Africanism and the militancy of the Garvey movement, in art meant the rejection of established stereotypes and a search for black values to put in their place. This quest led the writers of what came to be called the Harlem Renaissance to the roots of the black experience—Africa, the rural South’s 630 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression What were the major flash points between fundamentalism and pluralism in the 1920s? folk traditions, and the life of the urban ghetto. Harlem Renaissance writ- The “New Negro” ings also contained a strong element of protest. This mood was exemplified by McKay’s poem “If We Must Die,” a response to the race riots of 1919. The poem affirmed that blacks would no longer allow themselves to be murdered defenselessly by whites: If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. . . . Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! Winston Churchill would invoke McKay’s words to inspire the British public during World War II. T H E G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N T h e E l e c t i o n o f 1 9 2 8 Few men elected to the presidency have seemed destined for a more successful term in office than Herbert Hoover. Born in Iowa in 1874, Hoover accumulated a fortune as a mining engineer working for firms in Asia, Africa, and Europe. During and immediately after World War I, he gained international fame by coordinating overseas food relief. In 1922, while serving as secretary of commerce, he published American A 1928 campaign poster for the Individualism, which condemned government regulation as an interference Republican ticket of Herbert Hoover with the economic opportunities of ordinary Americans but also insisted and Charles Curtis. that self-interest should be subordinated to public service. Hoover considered himself a Progressive, although he preferred what he called “associational action,” in which private agencies directed regulatory and welfare policies, to government intervention in the economy. After “silent Cal” Coolidge in 1927 handed a piece of paper to a group of reporters that stated, “I do not choose to run for president in 1928,” Hoover quickly emerged as his successor. Accepting the Republican nomination, Hoover celebrated the decade’s prosperity and promised that poverty would “soon be banished from this earth.” His Democratic opponent was Alfred E. Smith, the first Catholic to be nominated by a major T H E G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N 631 party. Although he had no family connection with the new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe (his grandparents had emigrated from Ireland), Smith emerged as their symbolic spokesman. He served three terms as governor of New York, securing passage of laws limiting the hours of working women and children and establishing widows’ pensions. Smith denounced the Red Scare and called for the repeal of Prohibition. Smith’s Catholicism became the focus of the race. Many Protestant ministers and religious publications denounced him for his faith. For the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans carried several southern states, reflecting the strength of anti-Catholicism and nativism among religious fundamentalists. On the other hand, Smith carried the nation’s twelve largest cities and won significant support in economically strug- President Herbert Hoover (at center, gling farm areas. With more than 58 percent of the vote, Hoover was next to the woman), at the opening day baseball game in Washington, elected by a landslide. But Smith’s campaign helped to lay the foundation D.C., April 17, 1929. for the triumphant Democratic coalition of the 1930s, based on urban eth- nic voters, farmers, and the South. T h e C o m i n g o f t h e D e p r e s s i o n On October 21, 1929, President Hoover traveled to Michigan to take part in the Golden Anniversary of the Festival of Light, organized by Henry Ford to commemorate the invention of the lightbulb by Thomas Edison fifty years T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L earlier. Eight days later, on Black Tuesday, E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 2 8 the stock market crashed. As panic sell- ing set in, more than $10 billion in market 7 value (equivalent to more than ten times 4 4 4 6 5 that amount in today’s money) vanished 5 4 12 5 13 45 18 in five hours. Soon, the United States and, 3 15 5 13 38 7 indeed, the entire world found itself in the 3 8 24 14 4 29 15 3 grip of the Great Depression, the greatest 13 6 8 10 18 12 8 13 economic disaster in modern history. 12 12 3 3 10 9 9 Even before 1929, signs of economic 10 12 14 trouble had become evident. Southern 20 10 California and Florida experienced fren- 6 zied real-estate speculation and then spec- tacular busts, with banks failing, land remaining undeveloped, and mortgages Electoral Vote Popular Vote Party Candidate (Share) (Share) foreclosed. The highly unequal distribution Republican Hoover 444 (83.6%) 21,391,381 (58.2%) of income and the prolonged depression in Democrat Smith 87 (16.4%) 15,016,443 (40.9%) farm regions reduced American purchasing 632 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression What were the causes of the Great Depression, and how effective were the government’s responses by 1932? power. Sales of new autos and household consumer goods stagnated after 1926. European demand for American goods also declined, partly because industry there had recovered from wartime destruction. A fall in the bloated stock market, driven ever higher during the 1920s by speculators, was inevitable. But it came with such severity that it destroyed many of the investment companies that had been created to buy and sell stock, wiping out thousands of investors, and it greatly reduced business and consumer confidence. The global financial system was ill-equipped to deal with the down- Global crisis turn. Germany defaulted on reparations payments to France and Britain, leading these governments to stop repaying debts to American banks. Throughout the industrial world, banks failed as depositors withdrew money, fearful that they could no longer count on the promise to redeem paper money in gold. Millions of families lost their life savings. Although stocks recovered somewhat in 1930, they soon resumed A deepening recession their relentless downward slide. Between 1929 and 1932, the price of a share of U.S. Steel fell from $262 to $22, and General Motors from $73 to $8. Four-fifths of the Rockefeller family fortune disappeared. In 1932, the economy hit rock bottom. Since 1929, the gross national product (the value of all the goods and services in the country) had fallen by one-third, prices by nearly 40 percent, and more than 11 million Americans— 25 percent of the labor force—could not find work. U.S. Steel, which had Three months before the stock employed 225,000 full-time workers in 1929, had none at the end of market crash, The Magazine of Wall Street was avidly encouraging 1932. Those who retained their jobs confronted reduced hours and dra- readers to purchase stocks. matically reduced wages. Every industrial economy suffered, but the United States, which had led the way in prosperity in the 1920s, was hit hardest of all. A m e r i c a n s a n d t h e D e p r e s s i o n The Depression transformed American life. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the road in search of work. Hungry men and women lined the streets of major cities. In Detroit, 4,000 children stood in bread lines each day seeking food. Thousands of families, evicted from their homes, moved into ramshackle shanty- towns, dubbed Hoovervilles, that sprang T H E G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N 633 Unemployed men lined up outside a Chicago soup kitchen in 1931. up in parks and on abandoned land. In Chicago, where half the work- Charitable institutions like this one ing population was unemployed at the beginning of 1932, Mayor Anton were overwhelmed by the advent of the Great Depression. Cermak telephoned people individually, begging them to pay their taxes. When the Soviet Union advertised its need for skilled workers, it received more than 100,000 applications from the United States. The Depression actually reversed the long-standing movement of population from farms to cities. Many Americans left cities to try to grow A Hooverville—a shantytown created by homeless squatters—outside Seattle, Washington, in 1933. 634 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression What were the causes of the Great Depression, and how effective were the government’s responses by 1932? food for their families. In 1935, 33 million people lived on farms—more than at any previous point in American history. But rural areas, already poor, saw families reduce the number of meals per day and children go barefoot. With the future shrouded in uncertainty, the American suicide rate rose to the highest level in the nation’s history, and the birthrate fell to the lowest. The image of big business, carefully cultivated during the 1920s, collapsed as congressional investigations revealed massive irregulari- ties committed by bankers and stockbrokers. Banks had knowingly sold worthless bonds. Prominent Wall Streeters had unloaded their own port- folios while advising small investors to maintain their holdings. Richard Whitney, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, was convicted of stealing funds from customers, including from a fund to aid widows and orphans. He ended up in jail. R e s i g n a t i o n a n d P r o t e s t Many Americans reacted to the Depression with resignation or blamed themselves for economic misfortune. Others responded with protests that were at first spontaneous and uncoordinated, since unions, socialist organi- Communist Party headquarters in New York City, 1932. The banners zations, and other groups that might have provided disciplined leadership illustrate the variety of activities the had been decimated during the 1920s. In the spring of 1932, 20,000 unem- party organized in the early 1930s. ployed World War I veterans descended on Washington to demand early payment of a bonus due in 1945, only to be driven away by federal soldiers. That summer, led by the charismatic Milo Reno, a former Iowa Populist, the National Farmers’ Holiday Association protested low prices by tem- porarily blocking roads in the Midwest to prevent farm goods from getting to market. Only the minuscule Communist Party seemed able to give a political focus to the anger and despair. One labor leader later recalled that the Communists “brought misery out of hiding,” forming unemployed councils, sponsoring marches and demon- strations for public assistance, and protest- ing the eviction of unemployed families from their homes. T H E G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N 635 H o o v e r ’ s R e s p o n s e In the eyes of many Americans, President Hoover’s response to the Depression seemed inadequate and uncaring. Leading advisers, including Andrew Mellon Andrew Mellon, the wealthy secretary of the treasury, told Hoover that economic downturns were a normal part of capitalism, which weeded out unproductive firms and encouraged moral virtue among the less fortu- nate. Businessmen strongly opposed federal aid to the unemployed, and many publications called for individual “belt-tightening” as the road to recovery. The federal government had never faced an economic crisis as severe as the Great Depression. Few political leaders understood how important consumer spending had become in the American economy. In 1931, Hoover quoted former president Grover Cleveland from four decades earlier: “The Government should not support the people. . . . Federal aid . . . weakens the sturdiness of our national character.” Strongly opposed on principle to direct federal intervention in the Hoover and associational economy, Hoover remained committed to “associational action.” He put action his faith in voluntary steps by business to maintain investment and employment—something few found it possible to do—and efforts by local charity organizations to assist needy neighbors. He attempted to restore public confidence, making frequent public statements that “the tide had An unemployed man and woman turned.” But these made him increasingly seem out of touch with reality. selling apples on a city street during About the unemployed men who appeared on city streets offering apples the Great Depression. at five cents apiece, Hoover would later write, “Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples.” T h e W o r s e n i n g E c o n o m i c O u t l o o k Some administration remedies, like the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, which Hoover signed with some reluctance in 1930, made the eco- nomic situation worse. Raising the already high taxes on imported goods, it inspired similar increases abroad, further reducing international trade. By 1932, Hoover had to admit that voluntary action had failed to stem the Depression. He signed laws creating the 636 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression What were the causes of the Great Depression, and how effective were the government’s responses by 1932? Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which loaned money to failing banks, railroads, and other businesses, and the Federal Home Loan Bank System, which offered aid to home owners threatened with foreclosure. Having vetoed previous bills to create employment through public-works Government action projects like road and bridge construction, he now approved a measure appropriating nearly $2 billion for such initiatives and helping to fund local relief efforts. These were dramatic departures from previous federal economic policy. But he adamantly opposed offering direct relief to the unemployed. F r e e d o m i n t h e M o d e r n W o r l d In 1927, the New School for Social Research in New York City organized a series of lectures on the theme of freedom in the modern world. The lec- tures painted a depressing portrait of American freedom on the eve of the Great Depression. The “sacred dogmas of patriotism and Big Business,” said the educator Horace Kallen, dominated teaching, the press, and public debate. A definition of freedom reigned supreme that celebrated the unim- peded reign of economic enterprise yet tolerated the surveillance of private life and individual conscience. The prosperity of the 1920s had reinforced this definition of free- dom. With the economic crash, compounded by the ineffectiveness of the Hoover administration’s response, it would be discredited. By 1932, the seeds had already been planted for a new conception of freedom that com- A new conception of freedom bined two different elements in a sometimes uneasy synthesis. One was the Progressive belief in a socially conscious state making constructive changes in economic arrangements. The other, which arose in the 1920s, centered on respect for civil liberties and cultural pluralism and declared that realms of life like group identity, personal behavior, and the free expression of ideas lay outside legitimate state concern. These two prin- ciples would become the hallmarks of modern liberalism, which during the 1930s would redefine American freedom. T H E G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N 637 C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. How did consumerism and the idea of the “American Sacco-Vanzetti case (p. 609) rise of the stock market (p. 613) way of life” affect people’s understanding of American “welfare capitalism” (p. 613) values, including the meaning of freedom, in the 1920s? Equal Rights Amendment (p. 615) 2. Which groups did not share in the prosperity of the “flapper” (p. 615) 1920s and why? Teapot Dome scandal (p. 617) Hays code (p. 620) 3. How did business practices and policies lead to a decline American Civil Liberties Union in union membership in the 1920s? (p. 620) “clear and present danger” (p. 620) 4. President Calvin Coolidge said, “The chief business of fundamentalism (p. 622) the American people is business.” How did the federal Scopes trial (p. 623) government’s policies and practices in the 1920s reflect second Ku Klux Klan (p. 624) this understanding of the importance of business immigration restriction (p. 624) interests? “illegal alien” (p. 625) “New Negro” (p. 631) 5. Who supported restricting immigration in the 1920s stock market crash (p. 632) and why? Why were they more successful in gaining bonus marchers (p. 635) federal legislation to limit immigration in these years? Reconstruction Finance Corporation (p. 637) 6. Did U.S. society in the 1920s reflect the concept of cul- tural pluralism as explained by Horace Kallen? Why or why not? 7. Identify the causes of the Great Depression. wwnorton.com 8. What principles guided President Hoover’s response to the Great Depression, and how did this restrict his abil- /studyspace ity to help the American people? VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE RESOURCES AND MORE 9. What issues were of particular concern to fundamental- s ists in these years and why? s s 10. In what ways did the ideas about (and the reality of) s proper roles for women change in these years? s 638 C h a p t e r 2 0  From Business Culture to Great Depression 1931 Scottsboro case C H A P T E R 2 1 1933 FDR inaugurated Bank holiday The Hundred Days and the First New Deal Twenty-first Amendment ratified 1934 Huey Long launches the Share Our Wealth movement T H E N E W D E A L 1934– Height of the Dust Bowl 1940 1935 Second New Deal launched Social Security Act Supreme Court rules the  National Recovery Associa- tion unconstitutional John L. Lewis organizes the Congress of Industrial 1 9 3 2 – 1 9 4 0 Organizations 1936 Supreme Court rules the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional New Deal coalition leads to Democratic landslide John Maynard Keynes’s The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money 1936– United Auto Workers sit- 1937 down strike 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act passed House Un-American Activities Committee established This panel depicting the construction of a dam was painted in 1939 by William Gropper as part of a mural for the new Department of Interior building in Washington, D.C. Like other artists who found it difficult to obtain work during the Depression, Gropper was hired by the Works Projects Administration to paint murals for government buildings. This one was inspired by the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, one of the many New Deal projects that expanded the nation’s infrastructure and provided employment to victims of the Depression. F O C U S The Columbia River winds its way on a 1,200-mile course from Canada through Washington and Oregon to the Pacific Ocean. Because of its steep descent from uplands to sea level, it pro- duces an immense amount of energy. Residents of the economically Q U E S T I O N S underdeveloped Pacific Northwest had long dreamed of tapping this unused energy for electricity and irrigation. But not until the 1930s did s the federal government launch the program of dam construction that initiatives of the New Deal transformed the region. The project created thousands of jobs for the in the Hundred Days? unemployed, and the network of dams produced abundant cheap power. When the Grand Coulee Dam went into operation in 1941, it was s the largest man-made structure in world history. It eventually pro- proponents of economic duced more than 40 percent of the nation’s hydroelectric power. The justice in the 1930s, and project also had less appealing consequences. From time immemorial, what measures did they the Columbia River had been filled with salmon. But the Grand Coulee advocate? Dam made no provision for the passage of fish, and the salmon all but vanished. This caused little concern during the Depression but became s a source of controversy later in the century as Americans became more tiatives of the Second New concerned about preserving the natural environment. Deal? The Columbia River project reflected broader changes in American life and thought during the New Deal of the 1930s. Franklin D. Roo- s sevelt believed regional economic development like that in the Northwest recast the meaning of would promote economic growth, ease the domestic and working lives of American freedom? ordinary Americans, and keep control of key natural resources in public rather than private hands. The Roosevelt administration spent far more s money on building roads, dams, airports, bridges, and housing than on efits apply to women and any other activity. minorities? Roosevelt also oversaw the transformation of the Democratic Party into a coalition of farmers, industrial workers, the reform-minded urban s middle class, liberal intellectuals, northern African-Americans, and, influence American cul- somewhat incongruously, the white supremacist South, united by the ture in the 1930s? belief that the federal government must provide Americans with protec- tion against the dislocations caused by modern capitalism. “Liberalism,” traditionally understood as limited government and free market econom- ics, took on its modern meaning. Thanks to the New Deal, it now referred to active efforts by the national government to uplift less fortunate mem- bers of society. Freedom, too, underwent a transformation during the 1930s. The New Deal elevated a public guarantee of economic security to the fore- front of American discussions of freedom. Regional economic plan- ning reflected this understanding of freedom. So did other New Deal 640 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days? measures, including the Social Security Act, which offered aid to the unemployed and aged, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which estab- lished a national minimum wage. Yet although the New Deal significantly expanded the meaning of freedom, it did not erase freedom’s boundaries. Its benefits flowed to industrial workers but not tenant farmers, to men far more fully than women, and to white Americans more than blacks, who, in the South, still were deprived of the basic rights of citizenship. T H E F I R S T N E W D E A L F D R a n d t h e E l e c t i o n o f 1 9 3 2 FDR, as he liked to be called, was born in 1882, a fifth cousin of Theodore Franklin Delano Roosevelt Roosevelt. After serving as undersecretary of the navy during World War I, he ran for vice president on the ill-fated Democratic ticket of 1920 headed by James M. Cox. In 1921, he contracted polio and lost the use of his legs, a fact carefully concealed from the public in that pre-television era. Very few Americans realized that the president who projected an image of vigorous leadership during the 1930s and World War II was T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L confined to a wheelchair. E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 3 2 In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president in 1932, Roos- 8 3 4 5 evelt promised a “new deal” for the Ameri- 4 4 5 11 can people. But his campaign offered only 4 4 12 47 17 3 19 4 vague hints of what this might entail. He 11 36 8 3 7 16 advocated a balanced federal budget and 4 26 29 14 3 22 6 8 11 8 criticized his opponent, President Hoover, 9 15 11 11 13 for excessive government spending. The 3 3 11 9 8 biggest difference between the parties dur- 9 11 12 ing the campaign was the Democrats’ call 23 10 7 for the repeal of Prohibition, although Roo- sevelt certainly suggested a greater aware- ness of the plight of ordinary Americans. Electoral Vote Popular Vote Battered by the economic crisis, Americans Party Candidate (Share) (Share) in 1932 were desperate for new leadership, Democrat Roosevelt 472 (88.9%) 22,821,857 (57.7%) Republican Hoover 59 (11.1%) 15,761,841 (39.8%) and Roosevelt won a resounding victory. T H E F I R S T N E W D E A L 641 He received 57 percent of the popular vote, and Democrats swept to a com- manding majority in Congress. T h e C o m i n g o f t h e N e w D e a l Roosevelt conceived of the New Deal as an alternative to socialism on the left, Nazism on the right, and the inaction of upholders of unregulated capitalism. He hoped to reconcile democracy, individual liberty, and economic recovery and development. He did not, however, enter office with a blueprint for dealing with the Depression. At first, he relied heav- FDR’s advisers ily for advice on a group of intellectuals and social workers who took up key positions in his administration. They included Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, a veteran of Hull House and the New York Consumers’ League; Harry Hopkins, who had headed emergency relief efforts dur- ing Roosevelt’s term as governor of New York; Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, a veteran of Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive campaign of 1912; and Louis Brandeis, who had advised Woodrow Wilson during the 1912 campaign and now offered political advice to FDR while serving on the Supreme Court. Brandeis believed that large corporations not only wielded exces- sive power but had contributed to the Depression by keeping prices Presidents Herbert Hoover and artificially high and failing to increase workers’ purchasing power. They Franklin D. Roosevelt on their way to the latter’s inauguration on March 4, should be broken up, he insisted, not regulated. But the “brains trust”— 1933. The two men strongly disliked a group of academics that included a number of Columbia University one another. They barely spoke professors—saw bigness as inevitable in a modern economy. Large firms during the ride and never saw each needed to be managed and directed by the government, not dismantled. other again after that day. Their view prevailed during what came to be called the First New Deal. T h e B a n k i n g C r i s i s “This nation asks for action and action now,” Roosevelt announced on taking office on March 4, 1933. The new pres- ident confronted a banking system on the verge of collapse. As bank funds invested in the stock market lost their value and panicked depositors withdrew their savings, bank after bank had closed its doors. By March 1933, banking had been suspended in a majority of the states—that is, people could not gain access to money in their bank accounts. Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday,” temporarily halting all bank operations, and called Congress into special session. 642 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days? A “run” on a bank: crowds of people wait outside a New York City bank, hoping to withdraw their money. On March 9, it rushed to pass the Emergency Banking Act, which pro- vided funds to shore up threatened institutions. Further measures soon followed that transformed the American financial system. The Glass-Steagall Act barred commercial banks from The Glass-Steagall Act becoming involved in the buying and selling of stocks. Until its repeal in the 1990s, the law prevented many of the irresponsible practices that had con- tributed to the stock market crash. The same law established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a government system that insured the accounts of individual depositors. Together, these measures rescued the financial system and greatly increased the government’s power over it. T h e N R A The Emergency Banking Act was the first of an unprecedented flurry of A flurry of legislation legislation during the first three months of Roosevelt’s administration, a period known as the Hundred Days. Seizing on the sense of crisis and the momentum of his electoral victory, Roosevelt won rapid passage of laws he hoped would promote economic recovery. He persuaded Congress to cre- ate a host of new agencies, whose initials soon became part of the language of politics—NRA, AAA, CCC. The centerpiece of Roosevelt’s plan for combating the Depression, the National Industrial Recovery Act, was to a large extent modeled on the government–business partnership established by the War Industries Board of World War I. The act established the National Recovery Administration T H E F I R S T N E W D E A L 643 (NRA), which would work with groups of business leaders to establish industry codes that set standards for output, prices, and working conditions. In effect, FDR had repudiated the older idea of liberty based on the idea that the best way to encourage economic activity and ensure a fair distribution of wealth was to allow market competition to operate, unre- strained by the government. And to win support from labor, section 7a of the new law recognized the workers’ right to organize unions—a departure from the “open shop” policies of the 1920s and a step toward government Industrial freedom support for what workers called “industrial freedom.” Headed by Hugh S. Johnson, a retired general and businessman, the NRA quickly established codes that set standards for production, prices, and wages in the textile, steel, mining, and auto industries. But the NRA became mired in controversy. Large companies dominated the code- NRA codes writing process. They used the NRA to drive up prices, limit production, lay off workers, and divide markets among themselves at the expense of smaller competitors. The NRA produced neither economic recovery nor peace between employers and workers. It did, however, combat the pervasive sense that the government was doing nothing to deal with the economic crisis. G o v e r n m e n t J o b s The Hundred Days also brought the government into providing relief to those in need. Roosevelt and most of his advisers shared the wide- spread fear that direct government payments to the unemployed would A Civilian Conservation Corps undermine individual self-reliance. But with nearly a quarter of the workforce in Yosemite National Park, 1935. workforce unemployed, spending on relief was unavoidable. In May 1933, Congress created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, to make grants to local agencies that aided those impover- ished by the Depression. FDR, however, much preferred to create temporary jobs, thereby combating unemployment while improving the nation’s infrastructure of roads, bridges, public buildings, and parks. In March 1933, Congress established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which set unemployed young men to work on projects like forest preservation, flood control, and the improvement of national parks and wildlife preserves. By the time 644 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days? the program ended in 1942, more than 3 million persons had passed through CCC camps, where they received government wages of $30 per month. P u b l i c - W o r k s P r o j e c t s One section of the National Industrial Recovery Act created the Public Works Administration (PWA), with an appropriation of $3.3 billion. Directed by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, it built roads, schools, hospitals, and other public facilities, including New York City’s Triborough A map published by the Public Bridge and the Overseas Highway between Miami and Key West, Florida. Works Administration in 1935 depicts In November, yet another agency, the Civil Works Administration (CWA), some of the numerous infrastructure projects funded by the New Deal. was launched. By January 1934, it employed more than 4 million persons Among the most famous public- in the construction of highways, tunnels, courthouses, and airports. But as works projects are the Triborough the cost spiraled upward and complaints multiplied that the New Deal was Bridge in New York City, the Key West creating a class of Americans permanently dependent on government jobs, Highway in Florida, and the Grand Roosevelt ordered the CWA dissolved. Coulee Dam in Washington. Overall, the New Deal spent $250 billion The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), another product of the (in today’s money) to construct, Hundred Days, built a series of dams to prevent floods and deforestation among other things, 40,000 public along the Tennessee River and to provide cheap electric power for homes buildings, 72,000 schools, 80,000 and factories in a seven-state region where many families still lived in bridges, and 8,000 parks. T H E F I R S T N E W D E A L 645 T H E T E N N E S S E E V A L L E Y A U T H O R I T Y Holston River KENTUCKY Ohio River K E N T U C K Y Powell River Clinch Paducah WOLF CREEK MISSOURI T River en SOUTH ne DALE HOLLOW HOLSTON sse C e um Rive r BOONE R b iver erland NORRIS iv WATAUGA e CENTER HILL r CHEROKEE Nashville Oak Ridge ississippi R T E N N E S S E E Knoxville DOUGLAS M FORT LOUDOUN N O RT H WATTS BAR FONTANA Asheville C A RO L I NA PICKWICK CHICKAMAUGA Memphis LANDING HIWASSEE French Broad HALES BAR WILSON River WHEELER Corinth Huntsville Chattanooga S O U T H Muscle Shoals C A RO L I NA GUNTERSVILLE Tupelo Tennessee River Little Tennessee River G E O R G I A M I S S I S S I P P I A L A BA M A Atlanta Birmingham 0 50 100 Miles Principal TVA dams 0 50 100 Kilometers Area served by TVA electric power A map showing the reach of the Tennessee Valley Authority, covering isolated log cabins. The TVA put the federal government, for the first time, all or parts of seven southeastern in the business of selling electricity in competition with private companies. states. Numerous reservoirs and power plants dot the landscape. T h e N e w D e a l a n d A g r i c u l t u r e Another policy initiative of the Hundred Days addressed the disastrous plight of American farmers. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) authorized the federal government to try to raise farm prices by setting Efforts to raise farm prices production quotas for major crops and paying farmers to plant less. Many crops already in the field were destroyed. In 1933, the government ordered more than 6 million pigs slaughtered as part of the policy, a step critics found strange at a time of widespread hunger. The AAA succeeded in significantly raising farm prices and incomes. But not all farmers benefited. Benefits flowed to property-owning farm- ers, ignoring the large number who worked on land owned by others. The AAA policy of paying landowning farmers not to grow crops encouraged 646 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal What were the major policy initiatives of the New Deal in the Hundred Days? the eviction of thousands of poor tenants and sharecroppers. Many joined the rural exodus to cities or to the farms of the West Coast. The onset in 1930 of a period of unusu- ally dry weather in the nation’s heartland worsened the Depression’s impact on rural America. By mid-decade, the region suffered from the century’s most severe drought. Mechanized agriculture in this semi-arid region had pulverized the topsoil and killed native grasses that prevented erosion. Winds now blew much of the soil A giant dust storm engulfs a town in away, creating the Dust Bowl, as the affected areas of Oklahoma, Texas, western Kansas on April 14, 1935, Kansas, and Colorado were called. The drought and dust storms displaced known as Black Sunday in the more than 1 million farmers. American West. T h e N e w D e a l a n d H o u s i n g The Depression devastated the American housing industry. The construc- As it did in other sectors of the tion of new residences all but ceased, and banks and savings and loan economy, the Great Depression led associations that had financed home ownership collapsed or, to remain to a collapse in the construction afloat, foreclosed on many homes (a quarter of a million in 1932 industry. alone). Millions of Americans lived in overcrowded, unhealthy urban slums or in ramshackle rural dwellings. Private enter- FIGURE 21.1 The prise alone, it seemed clear, was unlikely to solve the nation’s Build ing Boom and Its housing crisis. Collapse, 1919–1939 Roosevelt spoke of “the security of the home” as a fundamen- tal right. In 1933 and 1934, his administration moved energeti- cally to protect home owners from foreclosure and to stimulate 250 Value of new new construction. The Home Owners Loan Corporation and building permits (1930 = 100) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured millions of 200 long-term mortgages issued by private banks. At the same 150 time, the federal government itself built thousands of units of low-rent housing. Thanks to the FHA and, later, the Veterans’ Index of value 100 Administration, home ownership came within the reach of tens of millions of families. It became cheaper for most Americans to 50 buy single-family homes than to rent apartments. Other important measures of Roosevelt’s first two years in 0 office included the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to 1919 1921 1923 1925 1927 1929 1931 1933 1935 1937 1939 Year the Constitution, which repealed Prohibition; the establishment T H E F I R S T N E W D E A L 647 of the Federal Communications Commission to oversee the nation’s broadcast airwaves and telephone communications; and the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock and bond markets. Taken together, the First New Deal was a series of experiments, some of which succeeded and some of which did not. They transformed the role of the federal government, constructed numerous public facilities, and provided relief to millions of needy persons. But they did not end the Depression. Some 10 million Americans—more than 20 percent of the workforce—remained unemployed when 1934 came to an end. T h e C o u r t a n d t h e N e w D e a l The Illegal Act, a cartoon critical In 1935, the Supreme Court, still controlled by conservative Republican of the Supreme Court’s decision judges who held to the nineteenth-century understanding of freedom as declaring the NRA unconstitutional. liberty of contract, began to invalidate key New Deal laws. First came FDR tells a drowning Uncle Sam, the NRA, declared unconstitutional in May in a case brought by the “I’m sorry, but the Supreme Court Schechter Poultry Company of Brooklyn, which had been charged with says I must chuck you back in.” violating the code adopted by the chicken industry. In a unanimous decision, the Court declared the NRA unlawful because in its codes and other regulations it delegated legislative powers to the president and attempted to regulate local businesses that did not engage in interstate commerce. In January 1936, the AAA fell in United States v. Butler, which declared it an unconstitutional exercise of congressional power over local economic activities. Having failed to end the Depression or win judicial approval, the First End of the First New Deal New Deal ground to a halt. Meanwhile, pressures were mounting outside Washington that propelled the administration toward more radical depar- tures in policy. T H E G R A S S R O O T S R E V O L T L a b o r ’ s G r e a t U p h e a v a l The most striking development of the mid-1930s was the mobilization of millions of workers in mass-production industries that had successfully Industrial labor resisted unionization. “Labor’s great upheaval,” as this era of unprec- edented militancy was called, came as a great surprise. Unlike in the past, however, the federal government now seemed to be on the side of labor. American-born children of the new immigrants now dominated the indus- 648 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal Who were the main proponents of economic justice, and what measures did they advocate? trial labor force, and organizers no longer had to distribute materials in numerous languages as the IWW had done. And a cadre of militant labor leaders, many of them socialists and communists, had survived the repres- sion of the 1920s. They provided leadership to the labor upsurge. American factories at the outset of the New Deal were miniature Conditions in American dictatorships in which unions were rare, workers could be beaten by factories supervisors and fired at will, and management determined the length of the workday and speed of the assembly line. Workers’ demands during the 1930s went beyond better wages. They included an end to employers’ arbitrary power in the workplace, and basic civil liberties for workers, including the right to picket, distribute literature, and meet to discuss their grievances. All these goals required union recognition. Roosevelt’s inauguration unleashed a flood of poignant letters to the federal government describing what a Louisiana sugar laborer called the “terrible and inhuman condition” of many workers. Labor organizers spread the message that the “political liberty for which our forefathers fought” had been “made meaningless by economic inequality” and “indus- trial despotism.” Labor’s great upheaval exploded in 1934, a year that witnessed no fewer than 2,000 strikes. Many produced violent confrontations A year of strikes between workers and the local police. San Francisco experienced the country’s first general strike since 1919. It began with a walkout of dock- workers led by the fiery communist Harry Bridges. Workers demanded recognition of the International Longshoremen’s Association and an end to the hated “shape up” system in which they had to gather en masse each day to wait for work assignments. The year 1934 also witnessed a strike of 400,000 textile workers in states from New England to the Deep South, demanding recognition of the United Textile Workers. Many of these walkouts won at least some of the workers’ demands. But the textile strike failed. T h e R i s e o f t h e C I O The labor upheaval posed a challenge to the American Federation of Labor’s traditional policy of organizing workers by craft rather than seek- ing to mobilize all the workers in a given industry, such as steel manu- facturing. In 1934, thirty AFL leaders called for the creation of unions of industrial workers. When the AFL convention of 1935 refused, the head of the United Mine Workers, John L. Lewis, led a walkout that produced a John L. Lewis new labor organization, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). It aimed, said Lewis, at nothing less than to secure “economic freedom and industrial democracy” for American workers—a fair share in the wealth T H E G R A S S R O O T S R E V O L T 649 produced by their labor, and a voice in determining the conditions under which they worked. In December 1936, unions, most notably the United Auto Workers The UAW’s sit-down strike (UAW), a fledgling CIO union, unveiled the sit-down, a strikingly effec- tive tactic that the IWW had pioneered three decades earlier. Rather than walking out of the Fisher Body Plant in Cleveland, thus enabling manage- ment to bring in strikebreakers, workers halted production but remained inside. Sit-downs soon spread to General Motors plants in Flint, Michigan, the nerve center of automobile production. Demonstrating a remarkable spirit of unity, the strikers cleaned the plant, oiled the idle machinery, and settled disputes among themselves. Workers’ wives shuttled food into the plant. On February 11, General Motors agreed to negotiate with the UAW. By the end of 1937, the UAW claimed 400,000 members. The victory in the auto industry reverberated throughout industrial America. Steelworkers had suffered memorable defeats in the struggle for unionization, notably at Homestead in 1892 and in the Great Steel Strike of 1919. But in March 1937, fearing a sit-down campaign and aware that it could no longer count on the aid of state and federal authorities, U.S. Steel, the country’s single most important business firm, agreed to recognize the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (forerunner of the United Steelworkers of America). Smaller steel firms, however, refused to follow suit. Growth in union membership Union membership nonetheless reached 9 million by 1940, more than double the number in 1930. Workers gained new grievance procedures and seniority systems governing hiring, firing, and promotions. The CIO unions helped to stabilize a chaotic employment situation and offered members a sense of dignity and freedom. Sit-down strike at a General Motors L a b o r a n d P o l i t i c s factory in Flint, Michigan, 1937. Throughout the industrial heartland, the labor upsurge altered the balance of economic power and propelled to the forefront of politics labor’s goal of a fairer, freer, more equal America. The CIO put forward an ambitious program for federal action to shield Americans from economic and social insecurity, including public hous- ing, universal health care, and unemployment and old age insurance. Building on the idea, so prominent in the 1920s, that the key to prosperity lay in an American standard of living based on mass consumption, CIO leaders explained the Depression as the result of an imbalance 650 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal Who were the main proponents of economic justice, and what measures did they advocate? of wealth and income. The pathbreaking 1937 agreement between the UAW and General Motors spoke of a “rate of pay commensurate with an American standard of living.” By mid-decade, many New Dealers accepted the “underconsumptionist” explanation of the Depression, which saw lack of sufficient consumer demand as its underlying cause. V o i c e s o f P r o t e s t Other popular movements of the mid-1930s also placed the question of economic justice on the political agenda. In California, the novelist Upton Sinclair won the Democratic nomination for governor in 1934 as the head of the End Poverty in California movement. Sinclair called for the state to use idle factories and land in cooperative ventures that would provide jobs for the unemployed. He lost the election after being subjected to one of the first modern “negative” media campaigns. Sinclair’s opponents circulated false Pennsylvania Steelworkers outside the Local Headquarters of the Steel newsreels showing armies of unemployed men marching to California to Workers Organizing Committee, a support his candidacy and a fake endorsement from the Communist Party. 1938 photograph by Arnold Rothstein. The rise to national prominence of Huey Long offered another sign of popular dissatisfaction with the slow pace of economic recovery. Driven by intense ambition and the desire to help uplift Louisiana’s “common people,” Long won election as governor in 1928 and in 1930 took a seat in the U.S. Senate. From Washington, he dominated every branch of state government. He used his dictatorial power to build roads, schools, and Huey Long, the “Kingfish” of Louisiana politics, in full rhetorical hospitals and to increase the tax burden on Louisiana’s oil companies. flight. This photo was probably In 1934, Long launched the Share Our Wealth movement, with the taken in 1934, when Long was in slogan “Every Man a King.” He called for the confiscation of most of the the Senate but still running the state wealth of the richest Americans in order to finance an immediate grant of government. $5,000 and a guaranteed job and annual income for all citizens. He was on the verge of announcing a run for president when the son of a defeated political rival assassinated him in 1935. Dr. Francis Townsend, a California physician, meanwhile won wide support for a plan by which the government would make a monthly payment of $200 to older Americans, with the requirement that they spend it imme- diately. This, he argued, would boost the economy. Along with the rise of the CIO, these signs of popular discontent helped spark the Second New Deal. R e l i g i o n o n t h e R a d i o Religious leaders of various denominations took advantage of the mass media to spread their beliefs. Ironically, many fundamentalists used the most modern techniques of communication, including the radio and T H E G R A S S R O O T S R E V O L T 651 popular entertainment, to promote their anti-modernist message. They found in the radio a way to bypass established churches and their lead- ers. Aimee Semple McPherson, a Los Angeles revivalist, had her own radio station, which broadcast sermons from the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel she had founded. By the 1940s, national religious broadcast networks emerged, with a reliable and dedicated listening audience. Also in the mid-1930s, the “radio priest,” Father Charles E. Coughlin, attracted millions of listeners with weekly broadcasts attacking Wall Street bankers and greedy capitalists, and calling for government own- ership of key industries as a way of combating the Depression. Initially a strong supporter of FDR, Coughlin became increasingly critical of the president for what he considered the failure of the New Deal to promote social justice. His crusade would later shift to anti-Semitism and support The cover of a songbook to for European fascism. accompany a radio broadcast from the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle. A radio tower dominates the image. T H E S E C O N D N E W D E A L Buoyed by Democratic gains in the midterm elections of 1934, Roosevelt in 1935 launched the Second New Deal. The First had focused on economic Economic security recovery. The emphasis of the Second was economic security—a guarantee that Americans would be protected against unemployment and poverty. The idea that lack of consumer demand caused the Depression had been popularized by Huey Long, Francis Townsend, and the CIO. By 1935, more and more New Dealers had concluded that the government should no longer try to plan business recovery but should try to redistribute the national income so as to sustain mass purchasing power in the con- sumer economy. A series of measures in 1935 attacked head-on the prob- lem of weak demand and economic inequality. Congress levied a highly publicized tax on large fortunes and corporate profits—a direct response to the popularity of Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth campaign. It created the The Rural Electrification Rural Electrification Agency (REA) to bring electric power to homes that Agency lacked it—80 percent of farms were still without electricity in 1934—in part to enable more Americans to purchase household appliances. By 1950, 90 percent of the nation’s farms had been wired for electric- ity, and almost all now possessed radios, electric stoves, refrigerators, and mechanical equipment to milk cows. In addition, the federal government under the Second New Deal tried to promote soil conservation and fam- ily farming. This effort resulted from the belief that the country would 652 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal What were the major initiatives of the Second New Deal? never achieve prosperity so long as farmers’ standard of living lagged well behind that of city dwellers, and that rural poverty resulted mainly from the poor use of natural resources. Thus, farmers received federal assistance in reducing soil loss in their fields. These measures (like those of the AAA) mainly benefited landowners, not sharecroppers, tenants, or migrant workers. In the long run, the Second New Deal failed to arrest the trend toward larger farms and fewer farmers. T h e W P A a n d t h e W a g n e r A c t In 1934, Roosevelt had severely curtailed federal employment for those in need. Now, he approved the establishment of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which hired some 3 million Americans, in virtually every walk of life, each year until it ended in 1943. It constructed thousands A poster by the artist Vera Bock for of public buildings and bridges, more than 500,000 miles of roads, and 600 the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration depicts airports. It built stadiums, swimming pools, and sewage treatment plants. farmers and laborers joining hands to Unlike previous work relief programs, the WPA employed many out-of- produce prosperity. work white-collar workers and professionals, even doctors and dentists. Perhaps the most famous WPA projects were in the arts. The WPA set hundreds of artists to work decorating public buildings with murals. It hired writers to produce local histories and guidebooks to the forty-eight states and to record the recollections of ordinary Americans, including hundreds of former slaves. Thanks to the WPA, audiences across the An art exhibit in a New York City alley in 1938. The Works Progress Administration tried to broaden the audience for art by displaying it in unusual venues. T H E S E C O N D N E W D E A L 653 country enjoyed their first glimpse of live musical and theatrical perfor- mances and their first opportunity to view exhibitions of American art. The Wagner Act Another major initiative of the Second New Deal, the Wagner Act, brought democracy into the American workplace by empowering the National Labor Relations Board to supervise elections in which employees voted on union representation. It also outlawed “unfair labor practices,” including the firing and blacklisting of union organizers. T h e A m e r i c a n W e l f a r e S t a t e : S o c i a l S e c u r i t y The centerpiece of the Second New Deal was the Social Security Act of 1935. It embodied Roosevelt’s conviction that the national government had a responsibility to ensure the material well-being of ordinary Americans. It created a system of unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and aid to the disabled, the elderly poor, and families with dependent children. Progressive legacy None of these were original ideas. The Progressive platform of 1912 had called for old age pensions. Assistance to poor families with dependent children descended from the mothers’ pensions promoted by maternalist reformers. Many European countries had already adopted national unem- ployment insurance plans. What was new, however, was that in the name of economic security, the American government would now supervise not simply temporary relief but a permanent system of social insurance. The Social Security Act launched the American version of the welfare state—a term that originated in Britain during World War II to refer to a sys- A 1935 poster promoting the new tem of income assistance, health coverage, and social services for all citizens. Social Security system. Compared with similar programs in Europe, the American welfare state has always been far more decentralized, involved lower levels of public spend- ing, and covered fewer citizens. The original Social Security bill, for example, envisioned a national system of health insurance. But Congress dropped this after ferocious opposition from the American Medical Association, which feared government regulation of doctors’ activities and incomes. And the fact that domestic and agricultural workers were not covered by unemploy- ment and old age benefits meant that Social Security at first excluded large numbers of Americans, especially unmarried women and non-whites. Nonetheless, Social Security represented a dramatic departure from the traditional functions of government. The Second New Deal trans- formed the relationship between the federal government and American citizens. Before the 1930s, national political debate often revolved around the question of whether the federal government should intervene in the economy. After the New Deal, debate rested on how it should intervene. In addition, the government assumed a responsibility, which it has never 654 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal How did the New Deal recast the meaning of American freedom? wholly relinquished, for guaranteeing Americans a living wage and pro- tecting them against economic and personal misfortune. A R E C K O N I N G W I T H L I B E R T Y The Depression made inevitable, in the words of one writer, a “reckoning with liberty.” For too many Americans, Roosevelt proclaimed, “life was no longer free, liberty no longer real, men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.” Along with being a superb politician, Roosevelt was a master of politi- cal communication. At a time when his political opponents controlled most newspapers, he harnessed radio’s power to bring his message directly into American homes. By the mid-1930s, more than two-thirds of American families owned radios. They listened avidly to Roosevelt’s radio addresses, known as “fireside chats.” FDR’s “fireside chats” Roosevelt adeptly appealed to traditional values in support of new policies. He gave the term “liberalism” its modern meaning. As we have seen, in the nineteenth century, liberalism had been a shorthand for limited government and free-market economics. Roosevelt consciously chose to employ it to describe a large, active, socially conscious state. He reclaimed the word “freedom” from conservatives and made it a rallying cry for the New Deal. In his second fireside chat, Roosevelt juxtaposed his FDR delivering one of his “fireside own definition of liberty as “greater security for the average man” to the chats” in 1938. Roosevelt was the older notion of liberty of contract, which served the interests of “the privi- first president to make effective use leged few.” Henceforth, he would consistently link freedom with economic of the radio to promote his policies. security and identify entrenched economic inequality as its greatest enemy. “The liberty of a democracy,” he declared in 1938, was not safe if citizens could not “sustain an acceptable standard of living.” Even as Roosevelt invoked the word to uphold the New Deal, “liberty”—in the sense of freedom from powerful government—became the fighting slogan of his opponents. When conservative businessmen and politicians in 1934 formed an organization to mobilize opposition to Roosevelt’s policies, they called it the American Liberty League. T h e E l e c t i o n o f 1 9 3 6 By 1936, with working-class voters providing massive majorities for the Democratic Party and businesses large and small bitterly estranged from the New Deal, politics reflected class divisions more completely than at any A R E C K O N I N G W I T H L I B E R T Y 655 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m F r a n k l i n D . R o o s e v e l t , “ F i r e s i d e C h a t ” ( 1 9 3 4 ) President Roosevelt pioneered the use of the new mass medium of radio to speak directly to Americans in their homes. He used his “fireside chats” to mobilize support for New Deal programs, link them with American traditions, and outline his definition of freedom. To those who say that our expenditures for public works and other means for recovery are a waste that we cannot afford, I answer that no country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order. Some people try to tell me that we must make up our minds that in the future we shall permanently have millions of unemployed just as other countries have had them for over a decade. What may be necessary for those countries is not my responsibility to determine. But as for this country, I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as a necessary condition of our future a permanent army of unemployed. . . . In our efforts for recovery we have avoided, on the one hand, the theory that business should and must be taken over into an all-embracing Government. We have avoided, on the other hand, the equally untenable theory that it is an interference with liberty to offer reasonable help when private enterprise is in need of help. The course we have followed fits the American practice of Government, a practice of taking action step by step, of regulating only to meet concrete needs, a practice of courageous recognition of change. I believe with Abraham Lincoln, that “the legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.” I am not for a return to that definition of liberty under which for many years a free people were being gradually regimented into the service of the privileged few. I prefer and I am sure you prefer that broader definition of liberty under which we are moving forward to greater freedom, to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America. F r o m J o h n S t e i n b e c k , T h e H a r v e s t G y p s i e s : O n t h e R o a d t o t h e G r a p e s o f W r a t h ( 1 9 3 8 ) John Steinbeck’s popular novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and the film version that followed shortly thereafter, focused national attention on the plight of homeless migrants displaced from their farms as a result of the Great Depression. Before that book appeared, Steinbeck had published a series of newspaper articles based on eyewitness accounts of the migrants, which became the basis for his novel. In California, we find a curious attitude toward a group that makes our agriculture successful. The migrants are needed, and they are hated. . . . The migrants are hated for the following reasons, that they are ignorant and dirty people, that they are carriers of disease, that they increase the necessity for police and the tax bill for schooling in a community, and that if they are allowed to organize they can, simply by refusing to work, wipe out the season’s crops. . . . Let us see what kind of people they are, where they come from, and the routes of their wanderings. In the past they have been of several races, encouraged to come and often imported as cheap labor. Chinese in the early period, then Filipinos, Japanese and Mexicans. These were foreigners, and as such they were ostracized and segregated and herded about. . . . But in recent years the foreign migrants have begun to organize, and at this danger they have been deported in great numbers, for there was a new reservoir from which a great quantity of cheap labor could be obtained. The drought in the middle west has driven the agricultural populations of Oklahoma, Nebraska and parts of Kansas and Texas westward. . . . Thousands of them are crossing the borders in ancient rattling automobiles, destitute and hungry and homeless, ready to accept any pay so that they may eat and feed their children. . . . The earlier foreign migrants have invariably been drawn from a peon class. This is not the case with the new migrants. They are small farmers who have lost their farms, or farm hands who have lived with the family in the old American way. . . . They have come from the little farm districts where Q U E S T I O N S democracy was not only possible but inevitable, where popular government, whether practiced 1. What does Roosevelt mean by the dif- in the Grange, in church organization or in local ference between the definition of liberty government, was the responsibility of every that has existed in the past and his own man. And they have come into the country “broader definition of liberty”? where, because of the movement necessary to 2. According to Steinbeck, how do make a living, they are not allowed any vote Depression-era migrant workers differ whatever, but are rather considered a properly unprivileged class. . . . from those in earlier periods? As one little boy in a squatter’s camp said, 3. Do the migrant workers described by “When they need us they call us migrants, and Steinbeck enjoy liberty as Roosevelt when we’ve picked their crop, we’re bums and understands it? we got to get out.” other time in American history. Conceptions of freedom divided sharply as well. A fight for the possession of “the ideal of freedom,” reported the New York Times, emerged as the central issue of the presidential campaign of 1936. In his speech accepting renomination, Roosevelt launched a blistering attack against “economic royalists” who, he charged, sought to establish a new tyranny over the “average man.” Economic rights, he went on, were the precondition of liberty—poor men “are not free men.” Throughout the cam- Economic freedom paign, FDR would insist that the threat posed to economic freedom by the “new despotism” of large corporations was the main issue of the election. As Roosevelt’s opponent, Republicans chose Kansas governor Alfred Landon, a former Theodore Roosevelt Progressive. Landon denounced Social Security and other measures as threats to individual liberty. Opposition to the New Deal planted the seeds for the later flowering of an antigovernment conservatism bent on upholding the free market and dismantling the welfare state. But in 1936 Roosevelt won a landslide reelec- The New Deal coalition tion, with more than 60 percent of the popular vote. His success stemmed from strong backing from organized labor and his ability to unite southern white and northern black voters, Protestant farmers and urban Catholic and Jewish ethnics, industrial workers and middle-class home owners. These groups made up the so-called New Deal coalition, which would dominate American politics for nearly half a century. T h e C o u r t F i g h t Fall In! , a cartoon commenting on Roosevelt’s proposal to “pack” the Roosevelt’s second inaugural address was the first to be delivered on Supreme Court, from the Richmond January 20. In order to shorten a newly elected president’s wait before Times-Dispatch, January 8, 1937. taking office, the recently ratified Twentieth Amendment had moved inauguration day from March 4. The Depression, he admitted, had not been conquered: “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill- nourished.” Emboldened by his electoral triumph, Roosevelt now made what many considered a serious political miscalculation. On the pretext that several members of the Supreme Court were too old to perform their functions, he proposed that the president be allowed to appoint a new jus- tice for each one who remained on the Court past age seventy (an age that six of the nine had already passed). FDR’s aim, of course, was to change the balance of power on a Court that, he feared, might well invalidate Social Security, the Wagner Act, and other measures of the Second New Deal. Congress rejected the plan. But Roosevelt accomplished his underly- ing purpose. Coming soon after Roosevelt’s landslide victory of 1936, the threat of “court packing” inspired an astonishing about-face by key jus- 658 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal How did the New Deal recast the meaning of American freedom? tices. Beginning in March 1937, the Court suddenly revealed a new willing- ness to support economic regulation by both the federal government and The about-face for the Court the states. It turned aside challenges to Social Security and the Wagner Act. In subsequent cases, the Court affirmed federal power to regulate wages, hours, child labor, agricultural production, and numerous other aspects of economic life. The Court’s new attitude marked a permanent change in judicial policy. Having declared dozens of economic laws unconstitutional in the decades leading up to 1937, the justices have rarely done so since. T h e E n d o f t h e S e c o n d N e w D e a l Even as the Court made its peace with Roosevelt’s policies, the momentum of the Second New Deal slowed. The landmark United States Housing Act did pass in 1937, initiating the first major national effort to build homes for the poorest Americans. But the Fair Labor Standards bill failed to reach the floor for over a year. When it finally passed in 1938, it banned goods produced by child labor from interstate commerce, set forty cents as the hourly minimum wage, and required overtime pay for hours of work exceeding forty per week. This last major piece of New Deal legislation established the practice of federal regulation of wages and working condi- The New Deal did not really solve the tions, another radical departure from pre-Depression policies. problem of unemployment, which fell The year 1937 also witnessed a sharp downturn of the economy. With below 10 percent only in 1941, as economic conditions improving in 1936, Roosevelt had reduced federal the United States prepared to enter World War II. funding for farm subsidies and WPA work relief. The result was disastrous. Unemployment, still 14 percent at the beginning of 1937, rose to nearly 20 percent by year’s end. FIGURE 21.2 Unemploy- In 1936, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and ment, 1925–1945 Money, John Maynard Keynes had challenged economists’ tra- ditional belief in the sanctity of balanced budgets. Large-scale government spending, he insisted, was necessary to sustain 30 purchasing power and stimulate economic activity during down- turns. Such spending should be enacted even at the cost of a 25 budget deficit (a situation in which the government spends more ce unemployed 20 money than it takes in). By 1938, Roosevelt was ready to follow 15 this prescription, which would later be known as Keynesian eco- 10 nomics. In April, he asked Congress for billions more for work relief and farm aid. The events of 1937–1938 marked a major shift 5 in New Deal philosophy. Public spending would now be the gov- centage of civilian labor for 0 1925 1927 1930 1933 1936 1939 1942 1945 ernment’s major tool for combating unemployment and stimulat- Per Year ing economic growth. The Second New Deal had come to an end. A R E C K O N I N G W I T H L I B E R T Y 659 T H E L I M I T S O F C H A N G E Roosevelt conceived of the Second New Deal, and especially Social Security, as expanding the meaning of freedom by extending assistance to broad groups of needy Americans—the unemployed, elderly, and dependent—as a right of citizenship, not charity or special privilege. But political realities, especially the power of inherited ideas about gender and black disenfranchisement in the South, powerfully affected the drafting of legislation. Different groups of Americans experienced the New Deal in radically different ways. T h e N e w D e a l a n d A m e r i c a n W o m e n The New Deal brought more women into government than ever before in American history. A number of talented women, including Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, advised the president and shaped public policy. Eleanor Roosevelt Most prominent of all was Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s distant cousin, whom he had married in 1905. She transformed the role of First Lady, turning a position with no formal responsibilities into a base for political action. She traveled widely, spoke out on public issues, wrote a regular newspaper column, and worked to enlarge the scope of the New Deal in areas like civil rights, labor legislation, and work relief. But even as the New Deal increased women’s visibility in national poli- Eleanor Roosevelt transformed the tics, organized feminism, already in disarray during the 1920s, disappeared role of First Lady by taking an active and visible part in public life. Here as a political force. Indeed, the Depression inspired widespread demands she visits a West Virginia coal mine for women to remove themselves from the labor market to make room in 1933. for unemployed men. Because the Depression hit industrial employment harder than low-wage clerical and service jobs where women predominated, the proportion of the workforce made up of women rose. The government tried to reverse this trend. The Economy Act of 1933 prohibited both members of a married couple from holding federal jobs. Until its repeal in 1937, it led to the dismissal of numer- ous female civil service employees whose husbands worked for the government. Employers from banks to public school systems barred married women from jobs. Most New Deal programs did not exclude women from benefits (although the CCC restricted its camps to men). But the ideal of the male-headed household pow- erfully shaped social policy. Since paying taxes on one’s 660 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal How did New Deal benefits apply to women and minorities? wages made one eligible for the most generous Social Security programs— Women and Social Security old age pensions and unemployment insurance—they left most women uncovered, because they did not work outside the home. The program excluded the 3 million mostly female domestic workers altogether. T h e S o u t h e r n V e t o Roosevelt made the federal government the symbolic representative of all the people, including racial and ethnic groups generally ignored by The Solid South and the previous administrations. Yet the power of the Solid South helped to mold New Deal the New Deal welfare state into an entitlement of white Americans. After the South’s blacks lost the right to vote around the turn of the century, Democrats enjoyed a political monopoly in the region. Democratic mem- bers of Congress were elected again and again. Committee chairmanships in Congress rest on seniority—how many years a member has served in office. Thus, beginning in 1933, when Democrats took control of Congress, southerners took the key leadership positions. At their insistence, the Social Security law excluded agricultural and domestic workers, the larg- est categories of black employment. Black organizations like the Urban League and the NAACP lobbied Blacks and Social Security strenuously for a system that enabled agricultural and domestic workers to receive unemployment and old age benefits and that established national relief standards. The Social Security Act, however, complained the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper, reflected the power of “reactionary elements in the South who cannot bear the thought of Negroes getting pensions and compensations” and who feared that the inclusion of black workers would disrupt the region’s low-wage, racially divided labor system. T h e S t i g m a o f W e l f a r e Because of the “southern veto,” the majority of black workers found themselves confined to the least generous and most vulnerable wing of the new welfare state. The public assistance programs established by Public assistance Social Security, notably aid to dependent children and to the poor elderly, were open to all Americans who could demonstrate financial need. But they set benefits at extremely low levels and authorized the states to determine eligibility standards, including “moral” behavior as defined by local authorities. As a result, public assistance programs allowed for widespread discrimination in the distribution of benefits. Recipients came to bear the humiliating stigma of dependency on government handouts, which would soon come to be known as “welfare.” T H E L I M I T S O F C H A N G E 661 The situation seemed certain to stigmatize blacks as recipients of unearned government assistance, and welfare as a program for minorities, thus dooming it forever to inadequate “standards of aid.” Over time, this is precisely what happened, until the federal government abolished its responsibility for welfare in 1996, during the presidency of Bill Clinton. T h e I n d i a n N e w D e a l Overall, the Depression and New Deal had a contradictory impact on America’s racial minorities. Under Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Changes in Indian policy Collier, the administration launched an Indian New Deal. Collier ended the policy of forced assimilation and allowed Indians unprecedented cultural autonomy. He replaced boarding schools meant to eradicate the tribal heritage of Indian children with schools on reservations, and dra- matically increased spending on Indian health. He secured passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, ending the policy, dating back to the Dawes Act of 1887, of dividing Indian lands into small plots for individual families and selling off the rest. Federal authorities once again recognized Indians’ right to govern their own affairs. The New Deal marked the most radical shift in Indian policy in the nation’s history. But living conditions on the desperately poor reserva- tions did not significantly improve. T h e N e w D e a l a n d M e x i c a n - A m e r i c a n s For Mexican-Americans, the Depression was a wrenching experience. With demand for their labor plummeting, more than 400,000 (one-fifth of the population of Mexican origin) returned to Mexico, some voluntarily, Repatriation of Mexican- others at the strong urging of local authorities in the Southwest. A major- Americans ity of those “encouraged” to leave the country were recent immigrants, but they included perhaps 200,000 Mexican-American children who had been born in the United States and were therefore citizens. Those who remained mostly worked in grim conditions in California’s vegetable and fruit fields, whose corporate farms benefited enormously from New Deal dam construction that provided them with cheap electricity and water for irrigation. The Wagner and Social Security acts did not apply to agricul- tural laborers. Mexican-American leaders struggled to develop a consistent strat- egy for their people. They sought greater rights by claiming to be white Americans—in order not to suffer the same discrimination as African- Americans—but also sought the backing of the Mexican government and 662 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal How did New Deal benefits apply to women and minorities? promoted a mystical sense of pride and identification with Mexican heri- tage later given the name la raza. L a s t H i r e d , F i r s t F i r e d As the “last hired and first fired,” African-Americans were hit hardest by the Depression. Even those who retained their jobs now faced competition from unemployed whites who had previously considered positions like waiter and porter beneath them. With an unemployment rate double that of Unemployment for blacks whites, blacks benefited disproportionately from direct government relief and, especially in northern cities, jobs on New Deal public-works projects. Half of the families in Harlem received public assistance during the 1930s. Demonstrations in Harlem demanded jobs in the neighborhood’s white- owned stores, with the slogan “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work.” Although Roosevelt seems to have had little personal interest in race relations or civil rights, he appointed Mary McLeod Bethune, a prominent black educator, as a special adviser on minority affairs and a number of other blacks to important federal positions. Key members of his adminis- tration, including his wife, Eleanor, and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, a former president of the Chicago chapter of the NAACP, directed national attention to the injustices of segregation, disenfranchisement, and lynching. In 1939, Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters Future congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (at center with billboard) taking part in a “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” demonstration in Harlem during the Depression. The campaign targeted stores that served black customers but refused to hire black employees. T H E L I M I T S O F C H A N G E 663 of the American Revolution when the organization refused to allow the A map of Philadelphia prepared black singer Marian Anderson to present a concert at Constitution Hall in by the Home Owners’ Loan Washington. The president’s wife arranged for Anderson to sing on the Corporation illustrates how federal steps of the Lincoln Memorial and for the concert to be broadcast nation- agencies engaged in “redlining” of ally on the radio. neighborhoods containing blue- collar and black residents. The The decade witnessed a historic shift in black voting patterns. In the colors correspond to the agency’s North and West, where they enjoyed the right to vote, blacks in 1934 and perception of an area’s real-estate 1936 abandoned their allegiance to the party of Lincoln and emancipa- prospects. Wealthy neighborhoods, tion in favor of Democrats and the New Deal. But despite a massive lob- colored green and given the best bying campaign, southern congressmen prevented passage of a federal credit ratings, were expected to be racially and ethnically homogenous. antilynching law. FDR offered little support. Because of the exclusion of White-collar districts, in blue, were agricultural and domestic workers, Social Security’s old age pensions and second best. Red districts, the worst, unemployment benefits and the minimum wages established by the Fair had an “undesirable population.” Labor Standards Act left uncovered 60 percent of all employed blacks and The Corporation prepared maps like 85 percent of black women. this for many cities and shared them with private lenders and the Federal Housing Administration, resulting F e d e r a l D i s c r i m i n a t i o n in massive disinvestment in “red” neighborhoods, whose residents Federal housing policy, which powerfully reinforced residential segre- found it almost impossible to obtain gation, revealed the limits of New Deal freedom. As in the case of Social housing loans. Security, local officials put national housing policy into practice in a way that reinforced existing racial bound- aries. Nearly all municipalities, North as well as South, insisted that housing built or financially aided by the federal government be racially segregated. The Federal Housing Administration, moreover, had no hesitation about insuring mortgages that contained clauses bar- ring future sales to non-white buyers, and it refused to channel money into integrated neighborhoods. Along with discriminatory practices by private banks and real estate companies, federal policy became a major factor in further entrenching housing segregation in the United States. Federal employment practices also discriminated on the basis of race. As late as 1940, of the 150,000 blacks holding federal jobs, only 2 percent occupied positions other than clerk or custodian. In the South, many New Deal construction projects refused to hire blacks at all. The New Deal began the process of mod- ernizing southern agriculture, but tenants, black and white, footed much of the bill. Tens of thousands of 664 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal How did New Deal benefits apply to women and minorities? sharecroppers, as noted earlier, were driven off the land as a result of the AAA policy of raising crop prices by paying landowners to reduce cotton acreage. Not until the Great Society of the 1960s would those left out of Social Security and other New Deal programs—racial minorities, many women, migrants and other less privileged workers—win inclusion in the American welfare state. A N E W C O N C E P T I O N O F A M E R I C A But if the New Deal failed to dismantle the barriers that barred non- whites from full participation in American life, the 1930s witnessed the absorption of other groups into the social mainstream. With Catholics and Jews occupying prominent posts in the Roosevelt administration and new immigrant voters forming an important part of its electoral support, the New Deal made ethnic pluralism a living reality in American politics. Ethnic pluralism Thanks to the virtual cutoff of southern and eastern European immigration in 1924; the increasing penetration of movies, chain stores, and mass advertising into ethnic communities; and the common experi- ence of economic crisis, the 1930s witnessed an acceleration of cultural assimilation. For the children of the new immigrants, labor and political activism became agents of a new kind of Americanization. “Unionism is Americanism” became a CIO rallying cry. T h e H e y d a y o f A m e r i c a n C o m m u n i s m In the mid-1930s, for the first time in American history, the left—an The left umbrella term for socialists, communists, labor radicals, and many New Deal liberals—enjoyed a shaping influence on the nation’s politics and culture. The CIO and Communist Party became focal points for a broad social and intellectual impulse that helped to redraw the boundaries of American freedom. An obscure, faction-ridden organization when the Depression began, the Communist Party experienced remarkable growth during the 1930s. The party’s membership never exceeded 100,000, but several times that number passed through its ranks. It was not so much the party’s ideology as its vitality—its involvement in a mind-boggling array of activities, including demonstrations by the unemployed, struggles for industrial unionism, and a renewed movement for black civil rights—that for a time made it the center of gravity for a A N E W C O N C E P T I O N O F A M E R I C A 665 broad democratic upsurge. At the height of the Popular Front—a period during the mid-1930s when the Communist Party sought to ally itself with socialists and New Dealers in movements for social change, urging reform of the capitalist system rather than revolution—Communists gained an Respectability for Communists unprecedented respectability. R e d e f i n i n g t h e P e o p l e In theater, film, and dance, the Popular Front vision of American society sank deep roots and survived much longer than the political moment from which it sprang. In this broad left-wing culture, social and economic radicalism, not support for the status quo, defined true Americanism. Ethnic and racial diver- sity was the glory of American society, and the “American way of life” meant unionism and social citizenship, not the unbridled pursuit of wealth. During the 1930s, artists and writers who strove to create socially meaningful works eagerly took up the task of depicting the daily lives of ordinary farmers and city dwellers. Art about the people—such as Dorothea Lange’s photographs of migrant workers and sharecroppers— and art created by the people—such as black spirituals—came to be seen as expressions of genuine Americanism. Films celebrated populist figures History of Southern Illinois, a mural who challenged and defeated corrupt businessmen and politicians, as in sponsored by the Illinois Federal Art Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Earl Project, illustrates the widespread Robinson’s song “Ballad for Americans,” a typical expression of Popular fascination during the 1930s with American traditions and the lives of Front culture that celebrated the religious, racial, and ethnic diversity of ordinary Americans. On the left, a American society, became a national hit and was performed in 1940 at the man strums a guitar, while workers Republican national convention. labor on the waterfront. 666 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal How did the Popular Front influence American culture in the 1930s? C h a l l e n g i n g t h e C o l o r L i n e It was fitting that “Ballad for Americans” reached the top of the charts in a version performed by the magnifi- cent black singer Paul Robeson. Popular Front culture moved well beyond New Deal liberalism in condemning racism as incompatible with true Americanism. In the 1930s, groups like the American Jewish Committee and the National Conference of Christians and Jews actively promoted ethnic and religious tolerance, defining plural- ism as “the American way.” But whether in Harlem or East Los Angeles, the Communist Party was the era’s only predominantly white organization to make fighting racism a top priority. Communist influence spread even to the South. The Communist-dominated International Labor Defense mobilized popular support for black A Dorothea Lange photograph of a defendants victimized by a racist criminal justice sys- sharecropper and his family outside tem. It helped to make the Scottsboro case an international cause célèbre. their modest home. The case revolved around nine young black men arrested for the rape of two white women in Alabama in 1931. Despite the weakness of the evidence against the “Scottsboro boys” and the fact that one of the two accusers recanted, Alabama authorities three times put them on trial and three times won convictions. Landmark Supreme Court decisions overturned the first two verdicts and established legal principles that greatly expanded the definition of civil liberties—that defendants have a constitutional right to effective legal representation and that states cannot systematically exclude The “Scottsboro boys,” flanked by blacks from juries. But the Court allowed the third set of convictions to two prison guards, with their lawyer, stand, which led to prison sentences for five of the defendants. Samuel Liebowitz. The CIO brought large numbers of black industrial workers into the labor movement for the first time and ran extensive educational campaigns to persuade white workers to recognize the interests they shared with their black counterparts. Black workers, many of them traditionally hostile to unions because of their long experience of exclusion, responded with enthusiasm to CIO organizing efforts. L a b o r a n d C i v i l L i b e r t i e s Another central element of Popular Front public culture was its mobi- lization for civil liberties, especially the right of labor to organize. The struggle to launch industrial unions encountered sweeping local A N E W C O N C E P T I O N O F A M E R I C A 667 restrictions on freedom of speech as well as repression by private and public police forces. Labor militancy Labor militancy helped to produce an important shift in the under- standing of civil liberties. Previously conceived of as individual rights that must be protected against infringement by the government, the concept now expanded to include violations of free speech and assembly by pow- erful private groups. As a result, just as the federal government emerged as a guarantor of economic security, it also became a protector of freedom of expression. By the eve of World War II, civil liberties had assumed a central place in the New Deal understanding of freedom. In 1939, Attorney General Frank Murphy established a Civil Liberties Unit in the Department of Justice. Meanwhile, the same Supreme Court that in 1937 relinquished its role as a judge of economic legislation moved to expand its authority over Free expression civil liberties. The justices insisted that constitutional guarantees of free thought and expression were essential to “nearly every other form of free- dom” and therefore deserved special protection by the courts. Since 1937, the large majority of state and national laws overturned by the courts have been those that infringe on civil liberties, not the property rights of business. The new appreciation of free expression was hardly universal. In 1938, the House of Representatives established an Un-American Activi ties Committee to investigate disloyalty. Its expansive definition of “un- American” included communists, labor radicals, and the left of the Democratic Party, and its hearings led to the dismissal of dozens of federal employees on charges of subversion. Two years later, Congress enacted the Smith Act, which made it a federal crime to “teach, advocate, or encourage” the overthrow of the government. T h e E n d o f t h e N e w D e a l By then the New Deal, as an era of far-reaching social reform, had already begun to recede. One reason was that more and more southern Democrats were finding themselves at odds with Roosevelt’s policies. In 1938, the administration released a “Report on Economic Conditions in the South,” along with a letter by the president referring to the region as “the nation’s No. 1 economic problem.” The document revealed that the South lagged far behind other parts of the country in industrialization and invest- ment in education and public health. Also in 1938, a new generation Southern leaders and the of home-grown radicals—southern New Dealers, black activists, labor New Deal leaders, communists, even a few elected officials—founded the Southern 668 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal How did the Popular Front influence American culture in the 1930s? Conference for Human Welfare to work for unionization, unemployment relief, and racial justice. Southern business and political leaders feared that continuing federal intervention in their region would encourage unionization and upset race relations. Roosevelt concluded that the enactment of future New Deal measures required a liberalization of the southern Democratic Party. In 1938, he tried to persuade the region’s voters to replace conservative con- gressmen with ones who would support his policies. The South’s small electorate dealt him a stinging rebuke. A period of political stalemate followed the congressional election of 1938. For many years, a conservative coalition of southern Democrats and northern Republicans dominated Congress. Further reform initia- tives became almost impossible, and Congress moved to abolish existing ones. It repealed an earlier tax on corporate profits and rejected a proposed program of national medical insurance. The administration, moreover, increasingly focused its attention on the storm gathering in Europe. Even before December 1941, when the United States entered World War II, “Dr. Win the War,” as Roosevelt put it, had replaced “Dr. New Deal.” “Dr. Win the War” T h e N e w D e a l i n A m e r i c a n H i s t o r y Given the scope of the economic calamity it tried to counter, the New Deal seems in many ways limited. Compared with later European welfare states, Social Security remained restricted in scope and modest in cost. The New Deal failed to address the problem of racial inequality, which in some ways it actually worsened. Yet even as the New Deal receded, its substantial accomplishments Failures and accomplishments remained. It greatly expanded the federal government’s role in the of the New Deal American economy and made it an independent force in relations between industry and labor. The government influenced what farmers could and could not plant, required employers to deal with unions, insured bank deposits, regulated the stock market, loaned money to home owners, and provided payments to a majority of the elderly and unemployed. It trans- formed the physical environment through hydroelectric dams, reforesta- tion projects, rural electrification, and the construction of innumerable public facilities. It restored faith in democracy and made the government an institution directly experienced in Americans’ daily lives and directly concerned with their welfare. It redrew the map of American politics. It helped to inspire, and was powerfully influenced by, a popular upsurge that recast the idea of freedom to include a public guarantee of economic A N E W C O N C E P T I O N O F A M E R I C A 669 security for ordinary citizens and that identified economic inequality as the greatest threat to American freedom. Legacy of the New Deal The New Deal certainly improved economic conditions in the United States. But it did not generate sustained prosperity. More than 15 percent of the workforce remained unemployed in 1940. Only the mobilization of the nation’s resources to fight World War II would finally end the Great Depression. 670 C h a p t e r 2 1  The New Deal C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. Discuss how regional development such as the Tennessee “bank holiday” (p. 642) Valley Authority and the Columbia River project reflected Emergency Banking Act (p. 643) broader changes in American life during the New Deal. Hundred Days (p. 643) National Recovery Administration (p. 643) 2. What actions did President Roosevelt and Congress take Civilian Conservation Corp. (p. 644) to help the banking system recover as well as to reform Public Works Administration (p. 645) how it operated in the long run? Dust Bowl (p. 647) Federal Housing Administration 3. How did the actions of the AAA benefit many farmers, (p. 647) injure others, and provoke attacks by conservatives? Congress of Industrial Organizations (p. 649) 4. Explain what labor did in the 1930s to secure “economic sit-down strike (p. 650) freedom and industrial democracy” for American workers. Share Our Wealth movement (p. 651) Works Progress Administration 5. How did the emphasis of the Second New Deal differ (p. 653) from that of the First New Deal? Social Security Act (p. 654) welfare state (p. 654) 6. How did the entrenched power of southern white conser- court-packing plan (p. 658) vatives limit African-Americans’ ability to enjoy the full minimum wage (p. 659) benefits of the New Deal and eliminate racial violence Indian New Deal (p. 662) and discrimination? Why did African-Americans still Popular Front (p. 666) “Scottsboro boys” (p. 667) support the Democratic Party? House Un-American Activities Committee (p. 668) 7. Analyze the effects of the Indian Reorganization Act of Smith Act (p. 668) 1934 on Native Americans. 8. Explain how New Deal programs contributed to the stigma of blacks as welfare dependent. wwnorton.com 9. How did the New Deal build on traditional ideas about /studyspace the importance of homeownership to Americans, and VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE how did it change Americans’ ability to own their own RESOURCES AND MORE homes? s s 10. What were the major characteristics of liberalism by s 1939? s s C h a p t e r R e v i e w a n d O n l i n e R e s o u r c e s 671 1931 Japan invades Manchuria C H A P T E R 2 2 1933 U.S. recognizes Soviet Union 1935– Congress passes 1939 Neutrality Acts 1937 Sino-Japanese War begins 1938 Munich agreement F I G H T I N G F O R T H E 1939 Germany invades Poland 1940 Draft established 1941 Four Freedoms speech F O U R F R E E D O M S : Henry Luce’s The American Century Executive Order 8802 Lend-Lease Act W O R L D W A R I I Pearl Harbor attacked 1942 Executive Order 9066 Battle of Midway Island  Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) formed 1943 Zoot suit riots 1 9 4 1 – 1 9 4 5 Detroit race riot Congress lifts Chinese Exclusion Act 1944 Smith v. Allwright D-Day GI Bill of Rights Bretton Woods conference Korematsu v. United States Battle of the Bulge 1945 Yalta conference Roosevelt dies; Harry Truman becomes president V-E Day (May) Atomic bombs dropped on Japan V-J Day (August) The immensely popular Office of War Information poster reproducing Norman Rockwell’s paintings of the Four Freedoms, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s shorthand for American purposes in World War II. By far the most popular works of art produced during World War II were paintings of the Four Freedoms by the magazine F O C U S illustrator Norman Rockwell. In his State of the Union Address, delivered before Congress on January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt spoke Q U E S T I O N S eloquently of a future world order founded on the “essential human freedoms”: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The Four Freedoms became Roosevelt’s favorite s statement of Allied aims. They embodied, Roosevelt declared in a 1942 can participation in World radio address, the “rights of men of every creed and every race, wherever War II? they live,” and made clear “the crucial difference between ourselves and the enemies we face today.” s Rockwell’s paintings succeeded in linking the Four Freedoms with States mobilize economic the defense of traditional American values. Drawing on the lives of his resources and promote Vermont neighbors, Rockwell translated the Four Freedoms into images popular support for the of real people situated in small-town America. Each of the paintings war effort? focuses on an instantly recognizable situation. An ordinary citizen rises to speak at a town meeting; members of different religious groups are s seen at prayer; a family enjoys a Thanksgiving dinner; a mother and postwar role began to father stand over their sleeping children. emerge during the war? Even as Rockwell invoked images of small-town life to rally Americans to the war effort, however, the country experienced changes s as deep as at any time in its history. As during World War I, but on a minorities face threats far larger scale, wartime mobilization expanded the size and scope of to their freedom at home government and energized the economy. The gross national product and abroad during World more than doubled and unemployment disappeared as war production War II? finally conquered the Depression. The demand for labor drew millions of women into the workforce and sent a tide of migrants from rural America s to the industrial cities of the North and West, permanently altering the begin to shape the postwar nation’s social geography. world? World War II gave the country a new and lasting international role and greatly strengthened the idea that American security was global in scope and could be protected only by the worldwide triumph of core American values. Government military spending sparked the economic development of the South and West, laying the foundation for the rise of the modern Sunbelt. The war created a close link between big business and a militarized federal government—a “military-industrial complex,” as President Dwight D. Eisenhower would later call it—that long survived the end of fighting. F I G H T I N G F O R T H E F O U R F R E E D O M S : W O R L D W A R I I 673 World War II also redrew the boundaries of American nationality. In contrast to World War I, the government recognized the “new immigrants” of the early twentieth century and their children as loyal Americans. Black Americans’ second-class status assumed, for the first time since Reconstruction, a prominent place on the nation’s political agenda. But toleration had its limits. With the United States at war with Japan, the federal government removed more than 100,000 Japanese- Americans, the majority of them American citizens, from their homes and confined them to internment camps. As a means of generating support for the struggle, the Four Freedoms provided a crucial language of na tional unity. But this unity obscured underlying divi sions concerning freedom. Although some Americans looked forward to a worldwide New Deal, others en visioned “free enterprise” replacing government inter vention in the economy. The movement of women into the labor force challenged traditional gender One of the patriotic war posters relations, but most men and not a few women longed for the restoration of issued by the Office of War Information during World War II, family life with a male breadwinner and a wife responsible for the home. linking modern-day soldiers with patriots of the American Revolution as fighters for freedom, a major theme of government efforts to mobilize support for the war. F I G H T I N G W O R L D W A R I I G o o d N e i g h b o r s During the 1930s, with Americans preoccupied by the economic cri- sis, international relations played only a minor role in public affairs. From the outset of his administration, nonetheless, FDR embarked on a number of departures in foreign policy. In 1933, hoping to stimulate American trade, he exchanged ambassadors with the Soviet Union, whose government his Republican predecessors had stubbornly refused to recognize. Roosevelt also formalized a policy initiated by Herbert Hoover by which the United States repudiated the right to intervene militarily in Latin America the internal affairs of Latin American countries. This Good Neighbor Policy, as it was called, offered a belated recognition of the sovereignty of America’s neighbors. But the United States lent its support to dictators like Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, Rafael Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic, and Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch,” FDR said of Somoza. 674 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II What steps led to American participation in World War II? T h e R o a d t o W a r Ominous developments in Asia and Europe quickly overshadowed events Aggression in Europe in Latin America. By the mid-1930s, it seemed clear that the rule of law and Asia was disintegrating in international relations and that war was on the hori- zon. In 1931, seeking to expand its military and economic power in Asia, Japan invaded Manchuria, a province of northern China. Six years later, its troops moved farther into China. When the Japanese overran the city of Nanjing, they massacred an estimated 300,000 Chinese prisoners of war and civilians. An aggressive power threatened Europe as well. After brutally con- solidating his rule in Germany, Adolf Hitler embarked on a campaign Adolf Hitler to control the entire continent. In 1936, he sent troops to occupy the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone between France and Germany established after World War I. The failure of Britain, France, and the United States to oppose this action convinced Hitler that the democracies could not muster the will to halt his aggressive plans. The Italian leader Benito Mussolini, the founder of fascism, a movement similar to Hitler’s Nazism, invaded and conquered Ethiopia. As part of a campaign to unite all Europeans of In a 1940 cartoon, war clouds engulf German origin in a single empire, Hitler in 1938 annexed Austria and the Europe, while Uncle Sam observes Sudetenland, an ethnically German part of Czechoslovakia. Shortly there- that the Atlantic Ocean no longer after, he gobbled up all of that country. seems to shield the United States from involvement. As the 1930s progressed, Roosevelt became more and more alarmed at Hitler’s aggression as well as his accelerating cam- paign against Germany’s Jews, whom the Nazis stripped of citizenship and prop- erty and began to deport to concentration camps. But Roosevelt had little choice but to follow the policy of “appeasement” adopted by Britain and France, which hoped that agreeing to Hitler’s demands would pre- vent war. I s o l a t i o n i s m To most Americans, the threat arising from Japanese and German aggression seemed very distant. Moreover, Hitler had more than a few admirers in the United States. F I G H T I N G W O R L D W A R I I 675 Obsessed with the threat of communism, some Americans approved his expansion of German power as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. Businessmen did not wish to give up profitable overseas markets. Henry Ford did business with Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s. Trade with Japan also continued, including shipments of American trucks and air- craft and considerable amounts of oil. Many Americans remained convinced that involvement in World War I had been a mistake. Ethnic allegiances reinforced Americans’ tra- ditional reluctance to enter foreign conflicts. Many Americans of German and Italian descent celebrated the expansion of national power in their countries of origin, even as they disdained their dictatorial governments. Irish-Americans remained strongly anti-British. Isolationism—the 1930s version of Americans’ long-standing desire to avoid foreign entanglements—dominated Congress. Beginning The Neutrality Acts in 1935, lawmakers passed a series of neutrality acts that banned travel on belligerents’ ships and the sale of arms to countries at war. These policies, Congress hoped, would allow the United States to avoid the conflicts over freedom of the seas that had contributed to involvement in World War I. W a r i n E u r o p e In the Munich agreement of 1938, Britain and France had caved in to Hitler’s aggression. In 1939, the Soviet Union proposed an international A newsreel theater in New York’s agreement to oppose further German demands for territory. Britain and Times Square announces Hitler’s France, who distrusted Stalin and saw Germany as a bulwark against the blitzkrieg in Europe in the spring spread of communist influence in Europe, refused. Stalin then astonished of 1940. the world by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler, his former sworn enemy. On September 1, immediately after the signing of the Nazi–Soviet pact, Germany invaded Poland. This time, Britain and France, which had pledged to protect Poland against aggression, declared war. But Germany appeared unstoppable. Within a year, the Nazi blitzkrieg (light- ning war) had overrun Poland and much of Scandinavia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. On June 14, 1940, German troops occupied Paris. Hitler now dominated nearly all of Europe, as well as North Africa. In September 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan created a military alliance known as the Axis. For one critical year, Britain stood virtually alone in fighting Ger- many. In the Battle of Britain of 1940–1941, the German air force launched devastating attacks on London and other cities. The Royal Air Force even- tually turned back the air assault. 676 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II What steps led to American participation in World War II? T o w a r d I n t e r v e n t i o n Roosevelt viewed Hitler as a mad gangster whose victories posed a direct threat to the United States. But most Americans remained desperate to stay out of the conflict. After a tumultuous debate, Congress in 1940 agreed to allow the sale of arms to Britain on a “cash and carry” basis—that “Cash and carry” is, they had to be paid for in cash and transported in British ships. It also approved plans for military rearmament. But with a presidential election looming, Roosevelt was reluctant to go further. Opponents of involvement in Europe organized the America First Committee, with hundreds of thou- sands of members and a leadership that included well-known figures like Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, and Charles A. Lindbergh. In 1940, breaking with a tradition that dated back to George Washington, Roosevelt announced his candidacy for a third term as A third term president. The international situation was too dangerous and domestic recovery too fragile, he insisted, for him to leave office. Republicans chose as his opponent a political amateur, Wall Street businessman and lawyer Wendell Willkie. Willkie, who endorsed New Deal social legislation, captured more votes than Roosevelt’s previous opponents. But FDR still emerged with a decisive victory. Soon after his victory, in a fireside chat in December 1940, Roosevelt announced that the United States would become the “arsenal of democracy,” providing Britain and China with military supplies in their fight against Germany and Japan. During 1941, the United States became more and more closely allied with those fighting Germany and Japan. At Roosevelt’s urging, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which authorized military aid so long as countries promised somehow to return it all after the war. Under the law’s provisions, the United States funneled billions of dollars worth of arms to Financial support Britain and China, as well as the Soviet Union, after Hitler renounced his nonaggression pact and invaded that country in June 1941. FDR also froze Japanese assets in the United States, halting virtually all trade between the countries, including the sale of oil vital to Japan. P e a r l H a r b o r Until November 1941, the administration’s attention focused on Europe. But at the end of that month, intercepted Japanese messages revealed that an assault in the Pacific was imminent. No one, however, knew where it would come. On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes, launched from aircraft carriers, bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the first attack Pearl Harbor attack by a foreign power on American soil since the War of 1812. Pearl Harbor F I G H T I N G W O R L D W A R I I 677 was a complete and devastating surprise. In a few hours, more than 2,000 American servicemen were killed, and 187 aircraft and 18 naval vessels, including 8 battle- ships, had been destroyed or damaged. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, who saw the president after the attack, remarked that he seemed calm—“his ter- rible moral problem had been resolved.” Terming December 7 “a date which will live in infamy,” Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. The combined vote in Congress was 477 in favor and 1 against—pacifist Jeanette Rankin of Montana, who had also voted against American entry into World War I. Members of the U.S. Marine Corps, The next day, Germany declared war on the United States. America had Navy, and Coast Guard taking part finally joined the largest war in human history. in an amphibious assault during the “island hopping” campaign in the Pacific theater of World War II. T h e W a r i n t h e P a c i f i c World War II has been called a “gross national product war,” meaning that its outcome turned on which coalition of combatants could outproduce the other. In retrospect, it appears inevitable that the entry of the United States, with its superior industrial might, would ensure the defeat of the Axis powers. But the first few months of American involvement witnessed an unbroken string of military disasters. Japan in early 1942 conquered Burma (Myanmar) and Siam (Thailand). Japan also took control of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), whose extensive oil fields could replace supplies from the United States. And it occupied Guam, the Philippines, and other Pacific islands. At Bataan, in the Philippines, the Japanese forced 78,000 American and Filipino troops to lay down their arms—the largest surrender in American military history. Thousands perished on the ensu- ing “death march” to a prisoner-of-war camp. At the same time, German submarines sank hundreds of Allied merchant and naval vessels during the Battle of the Atlantic. Soon, however, the tide of battle began to turn. In May 1942, in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the American navy turned back a Japanese fleet intent on attacking Australia. The following month, it inflicted devastat- Battle of Midway Island ing losses on the Japanese navy in the Battle of Midway Island. These victories allowed American forces to launch the bloody campaigns that 678 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II What steps led to American participation in World War II? W O R L D W A R I I I N T H E P A C I F I C , 1 9 4 1 – 1 9 4 5 SOVIET UNION S a k h a l i n t i a n I sl ands (U.S.) At t u Al e u t i a n I sl ands (U.S.) u I s l a n d K i s ka MANCHURIA MONGOLIA Ku r i l I s l a n d s Vladivostock Peking P Pa c i f i c O c e a n KOREA CHINA JAPAN Toky T o oky Nanking Shanghai Hiroshima Shanghai Midway August 6, 1945 Midw Chungking August 6, 1945 June 3–6, 1942 Nagasaki August 9, 1945 A Canton C H a wa i i a n BURMA Fo r m o s a I s l a n d s ( U. S . ) BURMA Hong Kong M a r i a n a Pearl Harbor Kong P I s l a n d s December 7, 1941 Dec Rangoon PHILIPPINES THAILAND FRENCH Manila Leyte Gulf Bangkok Bangk INDOCHINA M a r s h a l l October 23–26, 1944 Guam July 21, 1944 I s l a n d s July 21, 1944 Saigon MALAY MALA A Ca ro l i n e YA I s l a n d s Singapore Sumatr Singapor Sumatr B o r n e o G i l b e r t S o l o m ao n I n s l a n d s a N e w I s l a n d s J a va G u i n e a Guadalcanal DUTCH EAST INDIES Guadalc DUTCH EAST INDIES August 1942–F A ebruary 1943 ugust 1942–F Port P Moresb Mor y esb I n d i a n Coral Sea C O c e a n May 7–8, Major battle 1942 Atomic bomb 0 750 1,500 miles Coral Extent of Japanese control 0 750 1,500 kilometers AUSTRALIA Sea Allied forces Although the Japanese navy never fully recovered from its defeats one by one drove the Japanese from fortified islands like Guadalcanal and at the Coral Sea and Midway in the Solomons in the western Pacific and brought American troops ever 1942, it took three more years for closer to Japan. American forces to near the Japanese homeland. T h e W a r i n E u r o p e By the spring of 1943, the Allies also gained the upper hand in the Atlantic, as British and American destroyers and planes devastated the German submarine fleet. In July 1943, American and British forces invaded Sicily, beginning the liberation of Italy. A popular uprising in Rome overthrew the Mussolini government, whereupon Germany occupied most of the country. Fighting there raged throughout 1944. F I G H T I N G W O R L D W A R I I 679 Ben Hurwitz, a soldier from New York City who fought in North Africa and Italy during World War II, made numerous sketches of his experiences. Here American troops pass a wrecked German tank in southern Italy in June 1944. The major involvement of American troops in Europe did not begin until June 6, 1944. On that date, known as D-Day, nearly 200,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers under the command of General German prisoners of war guarded by an American soldier shortly after Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in Normandy in northwestern France. D-Day in June 1944. By this time, the More than a million troops followed them ashore in the next few weeks, Germans were drafting very young in the most massive sea–land operation in history. After fierce fighting, men into their armies. German armies retreated eastward. By August, Paris had been liberated. The crucial fighting in Europe, however, took place on the eastern front, the scene of an epic struggle between Germany and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million German soldiers took part in the 1941 invasion. After sweeping through western Russia, German armies in August 1942 launched a siege of Stalingrad, a city located deep inside Russia on the Volga River. This proved to be a cata- strophic mistake. Bolstered by an influx of military supplies from the United States, the Russians surrounded the German troops and forced them to surrender in January 1943. Stalingrad marked the turning point of the European war. 680 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II What steps led to American participation in World War II? W O R L D W A R I I I N E U R O P E , 1 9 4 2 – 1 9 4 5 London D-DAY Major battles GREAT BRITAIN Calais Allied offensives Allied countries Neutral countries Assembly Axis countries Area Extent of Axis control English Channel Cherbourg Le Havre Vichy France (controlled by Axis) Rouen Caen SWEDEN FINLAND 1944 FRANCE NORWAY Leningrad ESTONIA 1944 Moscow LATVIA 1944 IRELAND DENMARK SOVIET UNION LITHUANIA GREAT NETHERLANDS EAST BRITAIN PRUSSIA London Kursk 1945 Berlin 1945 July 1943 Warsaw Stalingrad 1943 19 BELGIUM GERMANY 44 August 1942– D-Day February 1943 June 1944 Battle of the Bulge POLAND 1944 December 1944 194 Paris 5 1943 1945 LUXEMBOURG FRANCE CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1944 AUSTRIA SWITZERLAND HUNGARY 1 Vichy 944 19 ROMANIA 1945 194 4 4 4 PORTUGAL YUGOSLAVIA SPAIN ITALY BULGARIA Rome 1 ALBANIA 943 (It.) TURKEY 1942 GREECE 1944 SPANISH Algiers MOROCCO Oran Casablanca 1942 194 SYRIA 3 (Fr.) IRAQ MOROCCO Kasserine Pass M LEBANON February 1943 edit (Br.) erra (Fr.) ALGERIA TUNISIA nean Sea PALESTINE El Alamein 1943 (Br.) October– November 1942 1 TRANSJORDAN 942 (Br.) FRENCH NORTH AFRICA SAUDI (Vichy France) ARABIA LIBYA (Italy) 0 250 500 miles EGYPT 0 250 500 kilometers Most of the land fighting in Europe during World War II took place on the eastern front between the German and Soviet armies. F I G H T I N G W O R L D W A R I I 681 Of 13.6 million German casualties in World War II, 10 million came on the Russian front. They were only part of the war’s vast toll in human lives. Millions of Poles and at least 20 million Russians, probably many more, perished—not only soldiers but civilian victims of starvation, disease, and massacres by German soldiers. After his armies had penetrated eastern Hitler’s “final solution” Europe in 1941, moreover, Hitler embarked on the “final solution”—the mass extermination of “undesirable” peoples—Slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, and, above all, Jews. By 1945, 6 million Jewish men, women, and children had died in Nazi death camps. What came to be called the Holocaust was the horrifying culmination of the Nazi belief that Germans constituted a “master race” destined to rule the world. T H E H O M E F R O N T M o b i l i z i n g f o r W a r At home, World War II transformed the role of the national government. FDR created federal agencies like the War Production Board, the War Man- A list of jobs available in Detroit power Commission, and the Office of Price Administration to regulate the in July 1941 illustrates how war- allocation of labor, control the shipping industry, establish manufacturing related production ended the Great Depression even before the United quotas, and fix wages, prices, and rents. The number of federal workers States entered the conflict. rose from 1 million to 4 million, helping to push the unemployment rate down from 14 percent in 1940 to 2 percent three years later. The government built housing for war workers and forced civilian industries to retool for war production. Michigan’s auto factories now turned out trucks, tanks, and jeeps for the army. The gross national product rose from $91 billion to $214 bil- lion during the war, and the federal gov- ernment’s expenditures amounted to twice the combined total of the previous 150 years. The government marketed billions of dollars worth of war bonds, increased taxes, and began the practice of with- holding income tax directly from weekly paychecks. 682 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did the United States mobilize economic resources and promote popular support for the war effort? B u s i n e s s a n d t h e W a r Americans marveled at the achievements of wartime manufacturing. Thousands of aircraft, 100,000 armored vehicles, and 2.5 million trucks rolled off American assembly lines, and entirely new products like synthetic rubber replaced natural resources now controlled by Japan. Government-sponsored scientific research perfected inventions like radar, jet engines, and early computers that helped to win the war and would have a large impact on postwar life. These accomplishments not Wartime technology only made it possible to win a two-front war but also helped to restore the reputation of business and businessmen, which had reached a low point during the Depression. Federal funds reinvigorated established manufacturing areas and created entirely new industrial centers. World War II saw the West Coast emerge as a focus of military-industrial production. The govern- War production in the West ment invested billions of dollars in the shipyards of Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco and in the steel plants and aircraft factories of southern California. By the war’s end, California had received one-tenth of all fed- eral spending. Nearly 2 million Americans moved to California for jobs in defense-related industries, and millions more passed through for military training and embarkation to the Pacific war. M-5 tanks on the assembly line at a Detroit Cadillac plant, in a 1942 photograph. During the war, General Motors and other automakers produced vehicles for the armed forces rather than cars for consumers. T H E H O M E F R O N T 683 In the South, the combination of rural out-migra- TABLE 22.1 Labor Union tion and government investment in military-related Membership factories and shipyards hastened a shift from agricul- tural to industrial employment. The South remained very poor when the war ended. Much of its rural YEAR NUMBER OF MEMBERS population still lived in small wooden shacks with no indoor plumbing. 1933 2,857,000 1934 3,728,000 L a b o r i n W a r t i m e 1935 3,753,000 1936 4,107,000 During the war, labor entered a three-sided arrange- 1937 5,780,000 ment with government and business that allowed 1938 8,265,000 union membership to soar to unprecedented levels. 1939 8,980,000 In order to secure industrial peace and stabilize war 1940 8,944,000 production, the federal government forced reluc- 1941 10,489,000 tant employers to recognize unions. In 1944, when 1942 10,762,000 Montgomery Ward, the large mail-order company, 1943 13,642,000 defied a pro-union order, the army seized its head- 1944 14,621,000 quarters and physically evicted its president. For 1945 14,796,000 their part, union leaders agreed not to strike. By 1945, union membership stood at nearly 15 million, one-third of the non-farm labor force and the highest proportion in American history. But if labor became a partner in government, it was very much a junior part- ner. Congress continued to be dominated by a conservative alliance of Republicans and southern Democrats. Despite the “no-strike” pledge, 1943 and 1944 witnessed numerous brief walkouts in which workers protested the increasing speed of assembly-line production and the disparity between wages frozen by government order and expanding corporate profits. F i g h t i n g f o r t h e F o u r F r e e d o m s Previous conflicts, including the Mexican War and World War I, had deeply divided American society. In contrast, World War II came to The Good War be remembered as the Good War, a time of national unity in pursuit of indisputably noble goals. But all wars require the mobilization of patriotic public opinion. By 1940, “To sell goods, we must sell words” had become a motto of advertisers. Foremost among the words that helped to “sell” World War II was “freedom.” Talk of freedom pervaded wartime America. In 1941, the administra- tion celebrated with considerable fanfare the 150th anniversary of the Bill 684 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did the United States mobilize economic resources and promote popular support for the war effort? of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution). FDR described their protections against tyrannical government as defining characteristics of American life, central to the rights of “free men and free women.” The “most ambiguous” of the Four Freedoms, Fortune magazine remarked, was freedom from want. Yet this “great inspiring phrase,” as a Pennsylvania steelworker put it in a letter to the president, seemed to strike the deepest chord in a nation just emerging from the Depression. Roosevelt initially meant it to refer to the elimination of barriers to interna- tional trade. But he quickly came to link freedom from want to an economic goal more relevant to the average citizen—protecting the future “standard of living of the American worker and farmer” by guaranteeing that the Depression would not resume after the war. This, he declared, would bring “real freedom for the common man.” T h e F i f t h F r e e d o m Under the watchful eye of the War Advertising Council, private compa- In this recruitment poster for the Boy Scouts, a svelte Miss Liberty nies joined in the campaign to promote wartime patriotism, while position- prominently displays the Bill of ing themselves and their brand names for the postwar world. Alongside Rights, widely celebrated during advertisements urging Americans to purchase war bonds, guard against World War II as the centerpiece of revealing military secrets, and grow “victory gardens” to allow food to American freedom. be sent to the army, the war witnessed a burst of messages marketing In this advertisement by the Liberty Motors and Engineering Corporation, published in the February 1944 issue of Fortune, Uncle Sam offers the Fifth Freedom—“free enterprise”—to war-devastated Europe. To spread its message, the company offered free enlargements of its ad. T H E H O M E F R O N T 685 advertisers’ definition of freedom. Without directly criticizing Roosevelt, they repeat- edly suggested that he had overlooked a fifth freedom. The National Association of Manufacturers and individual companies bombarded Americans with press releases, radio programs, and advertisements attrib- uting the amazing feats of wartime produc- tion to “free enterprise.” With the memory of the Depression still very much alive, businessmen pre- dicted a postwar world filled with con- sumer goods, with “freedom of choice” among abundant possibilities assured if only private enterprise were liberated from government controls. A female lathe operator in a Texas plant that produced transport planes. W o m e n a t W a r During the war, the nation engaged in an unprecedented mobilization of “womanpower” to fill industrial jobs vacated by men. Hollywood films glorified the independent woman, and private advertising celebrated the achievements of Rosie the Riveter, the female industrial laborer depicted as muscular and self-reliant in Norman Rockwell’s famous magazine Unlike the lathe operator in the above illustration, the woman operating cover. With 15 million men in the armed forces, women in 1944 made up industrial machinery on the cover of more than one-third of the civilian labor force, and 350,000 served in the September 1942 issue of McCall’s auxiliary military units. magazine remains glamorous, with Even though most women workers still labored in clerical and service makeup in place and hair unruffled. jobs, new opportunities suddenly opened in industrial, professional, and government positions previously restricted to men. On the West Coast, one-third of the workers in aircraft manufacturing and shipbuilding were women. For the first time in history, married women in their thirties out- numbered the young and single among female workers. Women forced unions like the United Auto Workers to confront issues like equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, and child-care facilities for working mothers. Having enjoyed what one wartime worker called “a taste of freedom”— doing “men’s” jobs for men’s wages and, sometimes, engaging in sexual activity while unmarried—many women hoped to remain in the labor force once peace returned. “We as a nation,” proclaimed one magazine article, “must change our basic attitude toward the work of women.” But change proved difficult. 686 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did the United States mobilize economic resources and promote popular support for the war effort? The government, employers, and unions depicted work as a temporary necessity, not an expansion of women’s freedom. When the war ended, most female war workers, especially those in better-paying industrial employment, did indeed lose their jobs. Despite the upsurge in the number of working women, the advertis- ers’ “world of tomorrow” rested on a vision of family-centered prosperity. Advertisements portrayed working women dreaming of their boy- friends in the army and emphasized that with the proper makeup, women could labor in a factory and remain attractive to men. Men in the army seem to have assumed that they would return home to resume traditional family life. V I S I O N S O F P O S T W A R F R E E D O M Despite the new independence enjoyed by millions of women, propaganda posters during World T o w a r d a n A m e r i c a n C e n t u r y War II emphasized the male- dominated family as an essential The prospect of an affluent future provided a point of unity between New element of American freedom. Dealers and conservatives, business and labor. And the promise of pros- perity to some extent united two of the most celebrated blueprints for the postwar world. One was The American Century, the publisher Henry Luce’s 1941 effort to mobilize the American people both for the coming war and Luce’s The American Century for an era of postwar world leadership. Americans, Luce’s book insisted, must embrace the role history had thrust on them as the “dominant power in the world.” After the war, American power and American values would underpin a previously unimaginable prosperity—“the abundant life,” Luce called it—produced by “free economic enterprise.” Luce’s essay anticipated important aspects of the postwar world. But its bombastic rhetoric and a title easily interpreted as a call for an American imperialism aroused immediate opposition among liberals and the left. Henry Wallace offered their response in “The Price of Free World Henry Wallace Victory,” an address delivered in May 1942 to the Free World Association. Wallace, secretary of agriculture during the 1930s, had replaced Vice President John Nance Garner as Roosevelt’s running mate in 1940. In contrast to Luce’s American Century, a world of business dominance no less than of American power, Wallace predicted that the war would usher in a “century of the common man.” Governments acting to “humanize” capitalism and redistribute economic resources would eliminate hunger, illiteracy, and poverty. V I S I O N S O F P O S T W A R F R E E D O M 687 Luce and Wallace had one thing in common—a new conception of America’s role in the world, tied to continued international involvement, the promise of economic abundance, and the idea that the American expe- rience should serve as a model for all other nations. “ T h e W a y o f L i f e o f F r e e M e n ” Even as Congress moved to dismantle parts of the New Deal, liberal Democrats and their left-wing allies unveiled plans for a postwar eco- nomic policy that would allow all Americans to enjoy freedom from want. In 1942 and 1943, the reports of the National Resources Planning NRPB Board (NRPB) offered a blueprint for a peacetime economy based on full employment, an expanded welfare state, and a widely shared American standard of living. The board called for a “new bill of rights” that would include all Americans in an expanded Social Security system and guar- antee access to education, health care, adequate housing, and jobs for able-bodied adults. The NRPB’s plan for a “full-employment economy” with a “fair distribution of income,” said The Nation, embodied “the way of life of free men.” Mindful that public-opinion polls showed a large majority of Americans favoring a guarantee of employment for those who could not An Economic Bill of Rights find work, the president in 1944 called for an “Economic Bill of Rights.” The original Bill of Rights restricted the power of government in the name of liberty. FDR proposed to expand its power in order to secure full employment, an adequate income, medical care, education, and a decent home for all Americans. Already ill and preoccupied with the war, Roosevelt spoke only occasionally of the Economic Bill of Rights during the 1944 presiden- tial campaign. The replacement of Vice President Henry Wallace by Harry S. Truman, then a little-known senator from Missouri, suggested that the president did not intend to do battle with Congress over social policy. Congress did not enact the Economic Bill of Rights. But in 1944, it extended to the millions of returning veterans an array of benefits, including unemployment pay, scholarships for further education, low- cost mortgage loans, pensions, and job training. The Servicemen’s GI Bill Readjustment Act, or GI Bill of Rights, was one of the farthest-reaching pieces of social legislation in American history. Aimed at reward- ing members of the armed forces for their service and preventing the widespread unemployment and economic disruption that had followed World War I, it profoundly shaped postwar society. By 1946, more than 1 million veterans were attending college under its provisions, making 688 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II What visions of America’s postwar role began to emerge during the war? up half of total college enrollment. Almost 4 million would receive home mortgages, spurring the postwar suburban housing boom. T h e R o a d t o S e r f d o m The Road to Serfdom (1944), a surprise best-seller by Friedrich A. Hayek, a previously obscure Austrian-born economist, claimed that even the best-intentioned government efforts to direct the economy posed a threat to individual liberty. Coming at a time when the miracles of war produc- tion had reinvigorated belief in the virtues of capitalism, and with the confrontation with Nazism highlighting the danger of merging economic Friedrich A. Hayek and and political power, Hayek offered a new intellectual justification for oppo- laissez-faire economics nents of active government. In a complex economy, he insisted, no single person or group of experts could possibly possess enough knowledge to direct economic activity intelligently. A free market, he wrote, mobilizes the fragmented and partial knowledge scattered throughout society far more effectively than a planned economy. By equating fascism, socialism, and the New Deal and by identifying economic planning with a loss of freedom, he helped lay the foundation for the rise of modern conservatism and a revival of laissez-faire economic thought. As the war drew to a close, the stage was set for a renewed battle over the government’s proper role in society and the economy, and the social conditions of American freedom. In this patriotic war poster the words of Abraham Lincoln are linked to the struggle against Nazi tyranny. T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A The unprecedented attention to freedom as the defining characteristic of American life had implications that went far beyond wartime mobilization. The struggle against Nazi tyranny and its theory of a master race discred- ited ethnic and racial inequality. A pluralist vision of American society now became part of official rhetoric. What set the United States apart from its wartime foes, the government insisted, was not only dedication to the ideals of the Four Freedoms but also the principle that Americans of all races, reli- gions, and national origins could enjoy those freedoms equally. Racism was the enemy’s philosophy; Americanism rested on toleration of diversity and equality for all. By the end of the war, the new immigrant groups had been fully accepted as loyal ethnic Americans, rather than members of distinct and inferior “races.” And the contradiction between the principle of equal freedom and the actual status of blacks had come to the forefront of national life. T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A 689 P a t r i o t i c A s s i m i l a t i o n Among other things, World War II created a vast melting pot, especially for European immigrants and their children. Millions of Americans moved out of urban ethnic neighborhoods and isolated rural enclaves into the army and industrial plants, where they came into contact with people of very different backgrounds. What one historian has called their “patriotic assimilation” differed sharply from the forced Americanization of World War I. Horrified by the uses to which the Nazis put the idea of inborn racial difference, biological and social scientists abandoned belief in a link among race, culture, and intelligence, an idea only recently central to their dis- ciplines. Ruth Benedict’s Races and Racism (1942) described racism as “a Arthur Poinier’s cartoon for the travesty of scientific knowledge.” By the war’s end, racism and nativism Detroit Free Press, June 19, 1941, had been stripped of intellectual respectability, at least outside the South, illustrates how, during World and were viewed as psychological disorders. War II, white ethnics (of British, Intolerance, of course, hardly disappeared from American life. Many German, Irish, French, Polish, Italian business and government circles still excluded Jews. Along with the fact and Scandinavian descent) were that early reports of the Holocaust were too terrible to be believed, anti- incorporated within the boundaries of American freedom. Semitism contributed to the government’s unwillingness to allow more than a handful of European Jews (21,000 during the course of the war) to find refuge in the United States. Roosevelt himself learned during the war The persistence of prejudice of the extent of Hitler’s “final solution” to the Jewish presence in Europe. But he failed to authorize air strikes that might have destroyed German death camps. T h e B r a c e r o P r o g r a m The war had a far more ambiguous meaning for non-white groups than for whites. On the eve of Pearl Harbor, racial barriers remained deeply entrenched in American life. Southern blacks were still trapped in a rigid system of segregation. Asians could not emigrate to the United States or become naturalized citizens. Most American Indians still lived on reserva- tions in dismal poverty. The war set in motion changes that would reverberate in the postwar years. Under the bracero program agreed to by the Mexican and American governments in 1942 (the name derives from brazo, the Spanish word for Mexican contract workers arm), tens of thousands of contract laborers crossed into the United States to take up jobs as domestic and agricultural workers. Initially designed as a temporary response to the wartime labor shortage, the program lasted until 1964. During that period, more than 4.5 million Mexicans entered the 690 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did American minorities face threats to their freedom at home and abroad? United States under labor contracts (while a slightly larger number were arrested for illegal entry by the Border Patrol). Although the bracero program reinforced the status of immigrants from Mexico as an unskilled labor force, wartime employment opened New opportunities for new opportunities for second-generation Mexican-Americans. Hundreds Mexican-Americans of thousands of men and women emerged from ethnic neighborhoods, or barrios, to work in defense industries and serve in the army (where, unlike blacks, they fought alongside whites). Contact with other groups led many to learn English and sparked a rise in interethnic marriages. The “zoot suit” riots of 1943, in which club-wielding sailors and police- men attacked Mexican-American youths wearing flamboyant clothing on the streets of Los Angeles, illustrated the limits of wartime tolerance. But the contrast between the war’s rhetoric of freedom and pluralism and the reality of continued discrimination inspired a heightened consciousness of civil rights. For example, Mexican-Americans brought complaints of discrimination before the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to fight the practice in the Southwest of confining them to the lowest-paid work or paying them lower wages than white workers doing the same jobs. “Our Latin American boys,” complained one activist, “are not segregated at the front line. . . . They are dying that democracy may live.” Perhaps half a million Mexican-American men and women served in the armed forces. I n d i a n s d u r i n g t h e W a r The war also brought many American Indians closer to the mainstream of American life. Some 25,000 served in the army (including the famous Navajo “code-talkers,” who transmitted messages in their complex native The Navajo “code-talkers” language, which the Japanese could not decipher). Insisting that the United States lacked the authority to draft Indian men into the army, the Iroquois issued their own declaration of war against the Axis powers. Tens of thousands of Indians left reservations for jobs in war industries. Exposed for the first time to urban life and industrial society, many chose not to return to the reservations after the war ended. (Indeed, the reserva- tions did not share in wartime prosperity.) Some Indian veterans took advantage of the GI Bill to attend college after the war, an opportunity that had been available to very few Indians previously. A s i a n - A m e r i c a n s i n W a r t i m e Asian-Americans’ war experience was paradoxical. More than 50,000—the children of immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, and the T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A 691 Philippines—fought in the army, mostly in all-Asian units. With China an ally in the Pacific war, Congress in 1943 ended decades of complete exclusion by establishing a nationality quota for Chinese immigrants. The annual limit of 105 hardly suggested a desire for a large-scale influx. But the image of the Chinese as gallant fighters defending their country against Japanese aggression called into question long-standing racial stereotypes. The experience of Japanese-Americans was far different. Both sides saw the Pacific war as a race war. Japanese propaganda depicted Americans as a self-indulgent people contaminated by ethnic and racial diversity as opposed to the racially “pure” Japanese. In the United States, long-standing prejudices and the shocking attack on Pearl Harbor com- bined to produce an unprecedented hatred of Japan. Government pro- Wartime propaganda in the United States sought to inspire hatred paganda and war films portrayed the Japanese foe as rats, dogs, gorillas, against the Pacific foe. This poster, and snakes—bestial and subhuman. They blamed Japanese aggression on issued by the U.S. Army, recalls a violent racial or national character, not, as in the case of Germany and the Bataan death march in the Italy, on tyrannical rulers. Philippines. About 70 percent of Japanese-Americans in the continental United States lived in California, where they dominated vegetable farming in the Los Angeles area. One-third were first-generation immigrants, or issei, but a substantial majority were nisei—American-born, and therefore citizens. Many of the latter spoke only English, had never been to Japan, and had tried to assimilate despite prevailing prejudice. The government bent over backward to include German-Americans and Italian-Americans in the war effort. It ordered the arrest of only a handful of the more than 800,000 German and Italian nationals in the United States when the war began. But it viewed every person of Japanese ethnicity as a potential spy. J a p a n e s e - A m e r i c a n I n t e r n m e n t Inspired by exaggerated fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast and pressured by whites who saw an opportunity to gain possession of Japanese-American property, the military persuaded FDR to issue Executive Order 9066. Promulgated in February 1942, this ordered the relocation of all persons of Japanese descent from the West Coast. That spring and summer, authorities removed more than 110,000 men, women, and children—nearly two-thirds of them American citizens—to Internment camps camps far from their homes. The order did not apply to persons of Japanese descent living in Hawaii, where they made up nearly 40 percent of the population. Despite Hawaii’s vulnerability, its economy could not function without Japanese-American labor. 692 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did American minorities face threats to their freedom at home and abroad? J A P A N E S E - A M E R I C A N I N T E R N M E N T , 1 9 4 2 – 1 9 4 5 Seattle WASHINGTON NORTH Portland MINNESOTA MONTANA DAKOTA Heart Mountain OREGON 10,767 WISCONSIN Cody IDAHO SOUTH Klamath Falls DAKOTA MICHIGAN Tule Lake M Twin Falls Minidoka 18,789 WYOMING I 9,397 LIT IOWA AR NEBRASKA OHIO Y INDIANA UTAH Sacramento NEVADA ILLINOIS Nephi San Francisco A Topaz R CALIFORNIA E 8,310 A COLORADO Manzanar KANSAS MISSOURI KENTUCKY Fresno 10,046 Lone Pine Lamar Amache 7,318 Bakersfield TENNESSEE Poston OKLAHOMA Los Angeles 17,814 ARKANSAS Pine Bluff ARIZONA NEW Rohwer Jerome San Diego Gila Bend MEXICO 8,475 8,497 Gila River ALABAMA Pa c i f i c 13,348 MISSISSIPPI O c e a n TEXAS LOUISIANA Internment camps Figures show highest number Gulf of Mexico interned at each camp. MEXICO Demarcates area from which 0 200 400 miles Japanese-Americans were excluded 0 200 400 kilometers More than 100,000 Japanese- The internees were subjected to a quasi-military discipline in the Americans—the majority American camps. Living in former horse stables, makeshift shacks, or barracks citizens—were forcibly moved from behind barbed-wire fences, they were awakened for roll call at 6:45 each their homes to internment camps morning and ate their meals (which rarely involved the Japanese cook- during World War II. ing to which they were accustomed) in giant mess halls. Nonetheless, the internees did their best to create an atmosphere of home, decorating their accommodations with pictures, flowers, and curtains, planting veg- etable gardens, and setting up activities like sports clubs and art classes for themselves. Internment revealed how easily war can undermine basic freedoms. There were no court hearings, no due process, and no writs of habeas cor- pus. One searches the wartime record in vain for public protests among non-Japanese against the gravest violation of civil liberties since the end of slavery. T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A 693 The courts refused to intervene. In 1944, in Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court denied the appeal of Fred Korematsu, a Japanese- American citizen who had been arrested for refusing to present himself for internment. Speaking for a 6-3 majority, Justice Hugo Black, usually an avid defender of civil liberties, upheld the legality of the internment policy, insisting that an order applying only to persons of Japanese descent was not based on race. The Court has never overturned the Korematsu decision. As Justice Robert H. Jackson warned in his dissent, it “lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim” of national security. The government established a loyalty oath program, expecting Japanese-Americans to swear allegiance to the government that had Fumiko Hayashida holds her thirteen- imprisoned them and to enlist in the army. Some young men refused, month-old daughter, while waiting and about 200 were sent to prison for resisting the draft. But 20,000 for relocation to an internment camp. Japanese-Americans joined the armed forces from the camps, along with Both wear baggage tags, as if they another 13,000 from Hawaii. A long campaign for acknowledgment of the were pieces of luggage. This photo, taken by a journalist for the Seattle injustice done to Japanese-Americans followed the end of the war. In 1988, Post-Intelligencer, came to symbolize Congress apologized for internment and provided $20,000 in compensa- the entire internment experience. tion to each surviving victim. Ms. Hayashida celebrated her 100th birthday in 2011. B l a c k s a n d t h e W a r Although the treatment of Japanese-Americans revealed the stubborn hold of racism in American life, the wartime message of freedom portended a major transformation in the status of blacks. Nazi Germany cited American Segregation during wartime practices as proof of its own race policies. Washington remained a rigidly segregated city, and the Red Cross refused to mix blood from blacks and whites in its blood banks (thereby, critics charged, in effect accepting Nazi race theories). Charles Drew, the black scientist who pioneered the tech- niques of storing and shipping blood plasma—a development of immense importance to the treatment of wounded soldiers—protested bitterly against this policy, pointing out that it had no scientific basis. The war spurred a movement of black population from the rural Second Great Migration South to the cities of the North and West that dwarfed the Great Migration of World War I and the 1920s. About 700,000 black migrants poured out of the South on what they called “liberty trains,” seeking jobs in the indus- trial heartland. They encountered sometimes violent hostility, nowhere more so than in Detroit, where angry white residents forced authorities to evict black tenants from a new housing project. In 1943, a fight at a Detroit city park spiraled into a race riot that left thirty-four persons dead, and a 694 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did American minorities face threats to their freedom at home and abroad? “hate strike” of 20,000 workers protested the upgrading of black employ- ees in a plant manufacturing aircraft engines. B l a c k s a n d M i l i t a r y S e r v i c e When World War II began, the air force and marines had no black mem- bers. The army restricted the number of black enlistees and contained only five black officers, three of them chaplains. The navy accepted blacks only as waiters and cooks. During the war, more than 1 million blacks served in the armed forces. They did so in segregated units, largely confined to construction, trans- port, and other noncombat tasks. Black soldiers sometimes had to give up their seats on railroad cars to accommodate Nazi prisoners of war. When southern black veterans returned home and sought benefits through the GI Bill, they encountered even more evidence of racial dis- Another This Is America propaganda crimination. On the surface, the GI Bill contained no racial differentiation poster emphasizes the American in offering benefits like health care, college tuition assistance, job training, dream of equal opportunity for all. and loans to start a business or purchase a farm. But local authorities who All the children in the classroom, administered its provisions allowed southern black veterans to use its however, are white. education benefits only at segregated colleges, limited their job training to unskilled work and low-wage service jobs, and limited loans for farm purchase to white veterans. B i r t h o f t h e C i v i l R i g h t s M o v e m e n t The war years witnessed the birth of the modern civil rights movement. Angered by the almost complete exclusion of African-Americans from jobs in the rapidly expanding war industries (of 100,000 aircraft work- ers in 1940, fewer than 300 were blacks), the black labor leader A. Philip Randolph’s March on Randolph in July 1941 called for a March on Washington. His demands Washington included access to defense employment, an end to segregation, and a national antilynching law. The prospect of thousands of angry blacks descending on Washington, remarked one official, “scared the government half to death.” To persuade Randolph to call off the march, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in defense jobs and established a Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to monitor compliance. The FEPC first federal agency since Reconstruction to campaign for equal opportu- nity for black Americans, the FEPC played an important role in obtaining jobs for black workers in industrial plants and shipyards. By 1944, more T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A 695 than 1 million blacks, 300,000 of them women, held manufacturing jobs. (“My sister always said that Hitler was the one that got us out of the white folks’ kitchen,” recalled one black woman.) T h e D o u b l e - V During the war, NAACP membership grew from 50,000 to nearly CORE 500,000. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), founded by an inter- racial group of pacifists in 1942, held sit-ins in northern cities to integrate restaurants and theaters. In February of that year, the Pittsburgh Courier coined the phrase that came to symbolize black attitudes during the war— the “double-V.” Victory over Germany and Japan, it insisted, must be accompanied by victory over segregation at home. Whereas the Roosevelt administration and the white press saw the war as an expression of American ideals, black newspapers pointed to the gap between those ide- als and reality. Surveying wartime public opinion, a political scientist concluded that “symbols of national solidarity” had very different meanings to white and black Americans. To blacks, freedom from fear meant, among other things, an end to lynching, and freedom from want included doing away with “discrimination in getting jobs.” If, in whites’ eyes, freedom was a “posses- sion to be defended,” he observed, to blacks and other racial minorities it remained a “goal to be achieved.” This is the Enemy, a 1942 poster by Victor Ancona and Karl Koehler, T h e W a r a n d R a c e suggests a connection between Nazism abroad and lynching at home. During the war, a broad political coalition centered on the left but reaching well beyond it called for an end to racial inequality in America. The NAACP and American Jewish Congress cooperated closely in advocating laws to ban discrimination in employment and housing. Despite considerable resistance from rank-and-file white workers, CIO unions, especially those with strong left-liberal and communist influence, made significant efforts to organize black workers and win them access to skilled positions. The new black militancy alarmed southern politicians. The “war emergency,” insisted Governor Frank Dixon of Alabama, “should not be used as a pretext to bring about the abolition of the color line.” Even as the war gave birth to the modern civil rights movement, it also planted the seeds for the South’s “massive resistance” to desegregation during the 1950s. Although progress was slow, it was measurable. The National War Labor Board banned racial wage differentials. In Smith v. Allwright (1944), 696 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did American minorities face threats to their freedom at home and abroad? Paul Robeson, the black actor, singer, and battler for civil rights, leading Oakland dockworkers in singing the national anthem in 1942. World War II gave a significant boost to the vision, shared by Robeson and others on the left, of an America based on genuine equality. the Supreme Court outlawed all-white primaries, one of the mechanisms Progress on race by which southern states deprived blacks of political rights. In the same year, the navy began assigning small numbers of black sailors to previ- ously all-white ships. In the final months of the war, it ended segregation altogether, and the army established a few combat units that included black and white soldiers. A n A m e r i c a n D i l e m m a No event reflected the new concern with the status of black Americans more than the publication in 1944 of An American Dilemma, a sprawling account of the country’s racial past, present, and future written by the Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal. The book offered an uncom- promising portrait of how deeply racism was entrenched in law, politics, economics, and social behavior. But Myrdal combined this sobering analysis with admiration for what he called the American Creed—belief in The American Creed equality, justice, equal opportunity, and freedom. He concluded that “there is bound to be a redefinition of the Negro’s status as a result of this War.” Myrdal’s notion of a conflict between American values and American racial policies was hardly new—Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois had said much the same thing. But in the context of a worldwide struggle against Nazism and rising black demands for equality at home, his book struck a chord. It identified a serious national problem and seemed to offer T H E A M E R I C A N D I L E M M A 697 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m H e n r y R . L u c e , T h e A m e r i c a n C e n t u r y ( 1 9 4 1 ) Even before the United States entered World War II, some Americans were thinking of a postwar world in which the United States would exert its influence throughout the globe. One influential call for Americans to accept the burden of world leadership was a short book by Henry R. Luce, the publisher of Life and Time magazines. In the field of national policy, the fundamental trouble with America has been, and is, that whereas their nation became in the 20th Century the most powerful and the most vital nation in the world, nevertheless Americans were unable to accommodate themselves spiritually and practically to that fact. Hence they have failed to play their part as a world power—a failure which has had disastrous consequences for themselves and for all mankind. And the cure is this: to accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world and in consequence to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit. . . . Our world of 2,000,000,000 human beings is for the first time in history one world, fundamentally indivisible. . . . Our world, again for the first time in human history, is capable of producing all the material needs of the entire human family. . . . The world of the 20th Century, if it is to come to life in any nobility of health and vigor, must be to a significant degree an American Century. . . . In postulating the indivisibility of the contemporary world, one does not necessarily imagine that anything like a world state—a parliament of men—must be brought about in this century. Nor need we assume that war can be abolished. . . . Large sections of the human family may be effectively organized into opposition to one another. Tyrannies may require a large amount of living space. But Freedom requires and will require far greater living space than Tyranny. . . . Justice will come near to losing all meaning in the minds of men unless Justice can have approximately the same fundamental meanings in many lands and among many peoples. . . . As to the . . . promise of adequate production for all mankind, the “more abundant life,” be it noted that this is characteristically an American promise. . . . What we must insist on is that the abundant life is predicated on Freedom. . . . Without Freedom, there will be no abundant life. With Freedom, there can be. And finally there is the belief—shared let us remember by most men living—that the 20th Century must be to a significant degree an American Century. . . . As America enters dynamically upon the world scene, we need most of all to seek and to bring forth a vision of America as a world power and to bring forth a vision . . . which will guide us to the authentic creation of the 20th Century—our Century. F r o m C h a r l e s H . W e s l e y , “ T h e N e g r o H a s a l w a y s W a n t e d t h e F o u r F r e e d o m s , ” i n W h a t t h e N e g r o W a n t s ( 1 9 4 4 ) In 1944, the University of North Carolina Press published What the Negro Wants, a book of essays by fourteen prominent black leaders. Virtually every contributor called for the right to vote in the South, the dismantling of segregation, and access to the “American standard of living.” Several essays also linked the black struggle for racial justice with movements against European imperialism in Africa and Asia. When he read the manuscript, W. T. Couch, the director of the press, was stunned. “If this is what the Negro wants,” he told the book’s editor, “nothing could be clearer than what he needs, and needs most urgently, is to revise his wants.” In this excerpt, the historian Charles H. Wesley explains that blacks are denied each of the Four Freedoms and also illustrates how the war strengthened black internationalism. [Negroes] have wanted what other citizens of the United States have wanted. They have wanted freedom and opportunity. They have wanted the pursuit of the life vouchsafed to all citizens of the United States by our own liberty documents. They have wanted freedom of speech, [but] they were supposed to be silently acquiescent in all aspects of their life. . . . They have wanted freedom of religion, for they had been compelled to “steal away to Jesus” . . . in order to worship God as they desired. . . . They have wanted freedom from want. . . . However, the Negro has remained a marginal worker and the competition with white workers has left him in want in many localities of an economically sufficient nation. They have wanted freedom from fear. They have been cowed, browbeaten or beaten, as they have marched through the years of American life. . . . The Negro wants democracy to begin at home. . . . The future of our democratic life is insecure so long as the hatred, disdain and disparagement of Americans of African ancestry exist. . . . The Negro wants not only to win the war but also to win the peace. . . . He wants the Q U E S T I O N S peace to be free of race and color restrictions, of imperialism and exploitation, and inclusive of the 1. What values does Luce wish America participation of minorities all over the world in to spread to the rest of the world? their own governments. When it is said that we are fighting for freedom, the Negro asks, “Whose 2. Why does Wesley believe that black freedom?” Is it the freedom of a peace to exploit, Americans are denied the Four suppress, exclude, debase and restrict colored Freedoms? peoples in India, China, Africa, Malaya in the usual ways? . . . Will Great Britain and the United 3. Do Luce and Wesley envision different States specifically omit from the Four Freedoms roles for the United States in the post- their minorities and subject peoples? The Negro war world? does not want such a peace. an almost painless path to peaceful change, in which the federal govern- ment would take the lead in outlawing discrimination. B l a c k I n t e r n a t i o n a l i s m In the nineteenth century, black radicals like David Walker and Martin Delany had sought to link the fate of African-Americans with that of Black international peoples of African descent in other parts of the world, especially the consciousness Caribbean and Africa. In the first decades of the twentieth century, this kind of international consciousness was reinvigorated. In a sense, the global imposition of white supremacy brought forth a feeling of racial solidarity across national and geographic lines. At the home of George Padmore, a West Indian labor organizer and editor living in London, black American leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson came into contact with future leaders of African independence movements such as Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), and Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria). Through these gatherings, Du Bois, Robeson, and others developed A global cause an outlook that linked the plight of black Americans with that of people of color worldwide. Freeing Africa from colonial rule, they came to believe, would encourage greater equality at home. World War II stimulated among African-Americans an even greater awareness of the links between racism in the United States and colonialism abroad. T H E E N D O F T H E W A R As 1945 opened, Allied victory was assured. In December 1944, in a des- perate gamble, Hitler launched a surprise counterattack in France that pushed Allied forces back fifty miles, creating a large bulge in their lines. The largest single battle ever fought by the U.S. Army, the Battle of the Bulge produced more than 70,000 American casualties. But by early 1945 the assault had failed. In March, American troops crossed the Rhine River and entered the industrial heartland of Germany. Hitler took his own life, and shortly V-E Day afterward Soviet forces occupied Berlin. On May 8, known as V-E Day (for victory in Europe), came the formal end to the war against Germany. In the Pacific, American forces moved ever closer to Japan. 700 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did the end of the war begin to shape the postwar world? “ T h e M o s t T e r r i b l e W e a p o n ” Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York, to win an unprecedented fourth term in 1944. But FDR did not live to see the Allied victory. He succumbed to a stroke on April 12, 1945. To his successor, Harry S. Truman, fell one of the Truman and the atomic bomb most momentous decisions ever confronted by an American president— whether to use the atomic bomb against Japan. Truman did not know about the bomb until after he became president. Then, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson informed him that the United States had secretly devel- oped “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history.” The bomb was a practical realization of the theory of relativity, a rethinking of the laws of physics developed early in the twentieth century by the German scientist Albert Einstein. Energy and matter, Einstein Albert Einstein showed, were two forms of the same phenomenon. By using certain forms of uranium, or the man-made element plutonium, scientists could create an atomic reaction that transformed part of the mass into energy. This energy could be harnessed to provide a form of controlled power—or it could be unleashed in a tremendous explosion. In 1940, FDR authorized what came to be known as the Manhattan Project, a top-secret program in which American scientists developed an atomic bomb during World War II. The weapon was tested successfully in New Mexico in July 1945. T h e D a w n o f t h e A t o m i c A g e On August 6, 1945, an American plane dropped an atomic bomb that detonated over Hiroshima, Japan—a target chosen because almost alone Hiroshima and Nagasaki among major Japanese cities, it had not yet suffered damage. In an instant, nearly every building in the city was destroyed. Of the city’s population of 280,000 civilians and 40,000 soldiers, approximately 70,000 died immediately. Because atomic bombs release deadly radiation, the death toll kept rising in the months that followed. By the end of the year, it reached at least 140,000. On August 9, the United States exploded a sec- ond bomb over Nagasaki, killing 70,000 persons. On the same day, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria. Within a week, Japan surrendered. Because of the enormous cost in civilian lives—more than twice America’s military fatalities in the entire Pacific war—the use of the bomb remains controversial. An American invasion of Japan, some advisers T H E E N D O F T H E W A R 701 warned Truman, might cost as many as 250,000 American lives. No such invasion was planned to begin, however, until 1946, and consider- able evidence had accumulated that Japan was nearing surrender. Japan’s economy had been crippled and its fleet destroyed, and it would now have to fight the Soviet Union as well as the United States. Some of the scientists who had worked on the bomb urged Truman to demonstrate its power to international observers. But Truman did not hesitate. The bomb was a weapon, and weapons are created to be used. T h e N a t u r e o f t h e W a r The dropping of the atomic bombs was the logical culmination of the way World War II had been fought. All wars inflict suffering on non- combatants. But never before had civilian populations been so ruthlessly targeted. Of the estimated 50 million persons who perished during World War II (including 400,000 American soldiers), perhaps 20 million were civilians. Germany had killed millions of members of “inferior races.” The The war and civilian Allies carried out deadly air assaults on civilian populations. Early in 1945, populations the firebombing of Dresden killed some 100,000 people, mostly women, children, and elderly men. On March 9, nearly the same number died in an inferno caused by the bombing of Tokyo. After the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, the federal government restricted the circulation of images of destruction. But soon after the end of the war, it dispatched photographers to compile a Strategic Bombing Survey to assess the bomb’s impact. This photograph, which long remained classified, shows the remains of an elementary school. 702 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did the end of the war begin to shape the postwar world? Four years of war propaganda had dehumanized the Japanese in American eyes, and few persons criticized Truman’s decision in 1945. But pub- lic doubts began to surface, especially after John Hersey published Hiroshima Hersey’s Hiroshima (1946), a graphic account of the horrors suffered by the civilian population. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who thought the use of the bomb unneces- sary, later wrote, “I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.” P l a n n i n g t h e P o s t w a r W o r l d Even as the war raged, a series of meetings between Allied leaders formu- lated plans for the postwar world. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Soviet chief Josef Stalin met at Tehran, Iran, in 1943, and at Yalta, in the southern Soviet Union, early in 1945, to hammer out agreements. The final “Big Three” con- The “Big Three” conferences ference took place at Potsdam, near Berlin, in July 1945. It involved Stalin, Truman, and Churchill (replaced midway in the talks by Clement Attlee, who became prime minister when his Labour Party swept the British elec- tions). At Potsdam, the Allied leaders established a military administration for Germany and agreed to place top Nazi leaders on trial for war crimes. Relations among the three Allies were often uneasy, as each maneu- vered to maximize its postwar power. Neither Britain nor the United States trusted Stalin. But since Stalin’s troops had won the war on the eastern front, it was difficult to resist his demand that eastern Europe become a Soviet sphere of influence (a region whose governments can be counted on to do a great power’s bidding). The Big Three—Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill—at their first meeting, Y a l t a a n d B r e t t o n W o o d s in Tehran, Iran, in 1943, where they discussed the opening of a second At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill entered only a mild protest against front against Germany in western Soviet plans to retain control of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Europe. Lithuania) and a large part of eastern Poland, in effect restoring Russia’s pre– World War I western borders. Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan later in 1945 and to allow “free and unfettered elections” in Poland, but he was intent on establishing communism in eastern Europe. Yalta saw the high-water mark of wartime American–Soviet cooperation. But it planted seeds of conflict, since the participants soon disagreed over the fate of eastern Europe. T H E E N D O F T H E W A R 703 Tension also existed between Britain and the United States. Churchill rejected American pressure to place India and other British colonies on the road to independence. He concluded private deals with Stalin to divide southern and eastern Europe into British and Soviet spheres of influence. Britain also resisted, unsuccessfully, American efforts to reshape Shaping the postwar and dominate the postwar economic order. A meeting of representatives economic order of forty-five nations at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944 replaced the British pound with the dollar as the main currency for interna- tional transactions. The conference also created two American-dominated financial institutions. The World Bank would provide money to developing countries and to help rebuild Europe. The International Monetary Fund would work to prevent governments from devaluing their currencies to gain an advantage in international trade, as many had done during the Depression. Both of these institutions, American leaders believed, would encourage free trade and the growth of the world economy, an emphasis that remains central to American foreign policy to this day. T h e U n i t e d N a t i o n s Early in the war, the Allies also agreed to establish a successor to the League of Nations. In a 1944 conference at Dumbarton Oaks, near Washington, D.C., they developed the structure of the United Nations (UN). There would be a General Assembly—essentially a forum Structure of the UN for discussion where each member enjoyed an equal voice—and a Security Council responsible for maintaining world peace. Along with six rotating members, the Council would have five permanent ones—Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—each with the power to veto resolutions. In June 1945, representatives of fifty-one countries met in San Francisco to adopt the UN Charter, which outlawed force or the threat of force as a means of settling international disputes. In July, the U.S. Senate endorsed the charter. In contrast to the bitter dispute over member- ship in the League of Nations after World War I, only two members of the U.S. Senate voted against joining the UN. P e a c e , b u t N o t H a r m o n y World power redistributed World War II produced a radical redistribution of world power. Japan and Germany, the two dominant military powers in their regions before the war, were utterly defeated. Britain and France, though victorious, were substantially weakened. Only the United States and the Soviet Union were able to project significant influence beyond their national borders. 704 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II How did the end of the war begin to shape the postwar world? This 1943 cartoon from the Chicago Defender, a black newspaper, questions whether non-white peoples will be accorded the right to choose their own government, as promised in the Atlantic Charter agreed to two years earlier by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Churchill insisted the principle only applied to Europeans. Overall, however, the United States was clearly the dominant world power. But peace did not usher in an era of international harmony. The Soviet The dominant world power occupation of eastern Europe created a division soon to be solidified in the Cold War. The dropping of the atomic bombs left a worldwide legacy of fear. The Four Freedoms speech had been intended primarily to highlight the differences between Anglo-American ideals and Nazism. Nonetheless, it had unanticipated consequences. As one of Roosevelt’s speechwriters remarked, “when you state a moral principle, you are stuck with it, no mat- ter how many fingers you have kept crossed at the moment.” The language with which World War II was fought helped to lay the foundation for Human rights postwar ideals of human rights that extend to all mankind. During the war, Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian nationalist leader, wrote to Roosevelt that the idea “that the Allies are fighting to make the world safe for freedom of the individual and for democracy seems hollow, so long as India, and for that matter, Africa, are exploited by Great Britain, Unresolved disputes and America has the Negro problem in her own home.” Allied victory saved mankind from a living nightmare—a worldwide system of dictato- rial rule and slave labor in which peoples deemed inferior suffered the fate of European Jews and of the victims of Japanese outrages in Asia. But disputes over the freedom of colonial peoples overseas and non-whites in the United States foretold more wars and social upheavals to come. T H E E N D O F T H E W A R 705 C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. Why did most Americans support isolationism in the Four Freedoms (p. 673) Good Neighbor Policy (p. 674) 1930s? isolationism (p. 676) 2. What factors after 1939 led to U.S. involvement in Lend-Lease Act (p. 677) D-Day (p. 680) World War II? Holocaust (p. 682) Rosie the Riveter (p. 686) 3. How did government, business, and labor work together GI Bill of Rights (p. 688) to promote wartime production? How did the war affect “patriotic assimilation” (p. 690) each group? bracero program (p. 690) “zoot suit” riots (p. 691) 4. How did different groups understand or experience the Executive Order 9066 (p. 692) Four Freedoms differently? Second Great Migration (p. 694) Executive Order 8802 (p. 695) 5. Explain how conservatives in Congress and business “double-V” (p. 696) used the war effort to attack the goals and legacy of the Manhattan Project (p. 701) New Deal. Bretton Woods Conference (p. 704) United Nations (p. 704) 6. How did the war alter the lives of women on the home front, and what did different groups think would happen after the war? 7. How did a war fought to bring “essential human freedoms” to the world fail to protect the home front liberties of blacks, Indians, Japanese-Americans, and Mexican-Americans? 8. Explain how World War II promoted an awareness of wwnorton.com the links between racism in the United States and colo- /studyspace nialism around the world. VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE 9. What was the impact of the GI Bill of Rights on RESOURCES AND MORE American society, including minorities? s s 10. Describe how the decisions made at the Bretton Woods s conference in 1944 created the framework for postwar s U.S. economic and foreign policy. s 706 C h a p t e r 2 2  Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II C H A P T E R 2 3 1947 Truman Doctrine Federal Employee Loyalty program Jackie Robinson integrates major league baseball Marshall Plan Taft-Hartley Act T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S Freedom Train exhibition House Un-American Activi- ties Committee investigates A N D T H E C O L D W A R Hollywood 1948 UN adopts Universal Dec- laration of Human Rights Truman desegregates military 1948– Berlin blockade and airlift  1949 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization established 1 9 4 5 – 1 9 5 3 Soviet Union tests atomic bomb People’s Republic of China established 1950 McCarthy’s Wheeling, WV, speech NSC-68 issued McCarran Internal Security Act 1950– Korean War 1953 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed for spying 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings 1955 Warsaw Pact organized The Cold War led to widespread fears of a communist takeover in the United States (a task far beyond the capacity of the minuscule American Communist Party). This image is the cover of a comic book warning of the danger that communists might overthrow the government and detailing the horrors of life in a communist America. It was published in 1947 by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society of St. Paul, Minnesota, a religious organization. Church groups distributed some 4 million copies. F O C U S On September 16, 1947, the 160th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, the Freedom Train opened to the public in Philadelphia. A traveling exhibition of 133 historical documents, the train, bedecked in red, white, and blue, soon embarked on a sixteen- Q U E S T I O N S month tour that took it to more than 300 American cities. Never before or since have so many cherished pieces of Americana—among them s the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the and ideological conflicts Gettysburg Address—been assembled in one place. prompted the Cold War? The idea for the Freedom Train originated in 1946 with the Department of Justice. President Harry S. Truman endorsed it as a s way of contrasting American freedom with “the destruction of liberty reshape ideas of American by the Hitler tyranny.” Since direct government funding raised fears of freedom? propaganda, however, the administration turned the project over to a nonprofit group, the American Heritage Foundation. s By any measure, the Freedom Train was an enormous success. initiatives of Truman’s Behind the scenes, however, the Freedom Train demonstrated that the domestic policies? meaning of freedom remained as controversial as ever. The liberal staff members at the National Archives who proposed s the initial list of documents had included the Wagner Act of 1935, which anticommunism of the Cold guaranteed workers the right to form unions, as well as President Roosevelt’s War have on American Four Freedoms speech of 1941, with its promise to fight “freedom from politics and culture? want.” The more conservative American Heritage Foundation removed these documents. They also deleted from the original list the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which had established the principle of equal civil and political rights regardless of race after the Civil War. In the end, nothing on the train referred to organized labor or any twentieth-century social legislation. The only documents relating to African-Americans were the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, and a 1776 letter by South Carolina patriot Henry Laurens criticizing slavery. On the eve of the train’s unveiling, the poet Langston Hughes wondered whether there would be “Jim Crow on the Freedom Train.” “When it stops in Mississippi,” Hughes asked, “will it be made plain/Everybody’s got a right to board the Freedom Train?” In fact, with the Truman administration about to make civil rights a major priority, the train’s organizers announced that they would not permit segregated viewing. In an unprecedented move, the American Heritage Foundation canceled visits to Memphis, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama, when local authorities insisted on separating visitors by race. The Freedom Train visited forty-seven other southern cities without incident. Even as the Freedom Train reflected a new sense of national unease about expressions of racial inequality, its journey also revealed the growing 708 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War? impact of the Cold War. In the spring of 1947, a few months before the train was dedicated, President Truman committed the United States to the worldwide containment of Soviet power and inaugurated a program to root out “disloyal” persons from government employment. The Federal Bureau of Investigation began compiling reports on those who found the train objectionable. The Freedom Train revealed how the Cold War helped to reshape freedom’s meaning, identifying it ever more closely with anticommunism, “free enterprise,” and the defense of the social and economic status quo. O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R T h e T w o P o w e r s The cover of a comic book The United States emerged from World War II as by far the world’s promoting the Freedom Train in greatest power. The United States accounted for half the world’s man- 1948. The image links the train to Paul Revere’s ride and, more ufacturing capacity. It alone possessed the atomic bomb. American broadly, the Revolutionary era. leaders believed that the nation’s security depended on the security of Europe and Asia, and that American prosperity required global eco- nomic reconstruction. The only power that in any way could rival the United States was the Soviet Union, whose armies now occupied most of eastern Europe, includ- Soviet power ing the eastern part of Germany. Its crucial role in defeating Hitler and its claim that communism had wrested a vast backward nation into moder- nity gave the Soviet Union considerable prestige in Europe and among colonial peoples struggling for independence. Having lost more than 20 million dead and suffered immense devastation during the war, how- ever, Stalin’s government was in no position to embark on new military adventures. But the Soviet government remained determined to establish a sphere of influence in eastern Europe, through which Germany had twice invaded Russia in the past thirty years. T h e R o o t s o f C o n t a i n m e n t In retrospect, it seems all but inevitable that the two major powers to emerge from the war would come into conflict. Born of a common foe rather than common long-term interests, values, or history, the wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union began to unravel almost from the day that peace was declared. O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R 709 The Cold War in the The first confrontation of the Cold War took place in the Middle East. Middle East At the end of World War II, Soviet troops had occupied parts of northern Iran, hoping to pressure that country to grant it access to its rich oil fields. Under British and American pressure, however, Stalin quickly withdrew Soviet forces. At the same time, however, the Soviets installed procommu- nist governments in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, a step they claimed was no different from American domination of Latin America or Britain’s determination to maintain its own empire. Early in 1946, in his famous Long Telegram from Moscow, American George Kennan diplomat George Kennan advised the Truman administration that the Soviets could not be dealt with as a normal government. Communist ide- ology drove them to try to expand their power throughout the world, he claimed, and only the United States had the ability to stop them. His tele- gram laid the foundation for what became known as the policy of “contain- ment,” according to which the United States committed itself to preventing any further expansion of Soviet power. Shortly afterward, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, Britain’s for- mer wartime prime minister Winston Churchill declared that an “iron curtain” had descended across Europe, partitioning the free West from the communist East. But not until March 1947, in a speech announcing what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, did the president officially embrace the Cold War as the foundation of American foreign policy and describe it as a worldwide struggle over the future of freedom. President Harry S Truman delivering his Truman Doctrine speech before T h e T r u m a n D o c t r i n e Congress on March 12, 1947. Harry S Truman never expected to become pres- ident. When he assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, Truman found himself forced to decide foreign policy debates in which he had previously played virtually no role. Convinced that Stalin could not be trusted and that the United States had a responsibility to provide leadership to a world that he tended to view in stark, black-and-white terms, Truman soon determined to put the policy of contain- ment into effect. The immediate occasion for this epochal decision came early in 1947 when Britain informed the United States that because its economy had been shattered by the war, it had 710 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War? no choice but to end military and financial aid to two crucial governments— Greece, a monarchy threatened by a communist-led rebellion, and Turkey, Aid to Greece and Turkey from which the Soviets were demanding joint control of the straits linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Britain asked the United States to fill the vacuum. The Soviet Union had little to do with the internal problems of Greece and Turkey, where opposition to corrupt, undemocratic regimes was largely homegrown. But the two countries occupied strategically impor- tant sites at the gateway to southeastern Europe and the oil-rich Middle East. Truman had been told by Senate leader Arthur Vandenberg that the only way a reluctant public and Congress would support aid to these governments was for the president to “scare hell” out of the American people. Truman rolled out the heaviest weapon in his rhetorical arsenal— the defense of freedom. As the leader of the “free world,” the United States Freedom and containment must now shoulder the responsibility of supporting “freedom-loving peoples” wherever communism threatened them. Twenty-four times in the eighteen-minute speech, Truman used the words “free” or “freedom.” Truman succeeded in persuading both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to support his policy, beginning a long period of bipartisan sup- port for the containment of communism. As Truman’s speech to Congress suggested, the Cold War was, in part, an ideological conflict. Both sides claimed to be promoting freedom and social justice while defending their own security, and each offered its social system as a model the rest of the world should follow. Consequences of the Truman Truman’s rhetoric suggested that the United States had assumed a Doctrine permanent global responsibility. The speech set a precedent for American assistance to anticommunist regimes throughout the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union. There soon followed the creation of new national security bodies immune from democratic oversight, such as the Atomic Energy Commission, National Security Council, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the last established in 1947 to gather intelli- gence and conduct secret military operations abroad. T h e M a r s h a l l P l a n The threat of American military action overseas formed only one pillar of containment. Secretary of State George C. Marshall spelled out the other in a speech at Harvard University in June 1947. Marshall pledged the United States to contribute billions of dollars to finance the economic recovery of Postwar foreign aid to Europe Europe. Two years after the end of the war, much of the continent still lay O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R 711 in ruins with widespread food shortages and rampant inflation. The economic chaos had strengthened the communist parties of France and Italy. American policymakers feared that these coun- tries might fall into the Soviet orbit. The Marshall Plan offered a posi- tive vision to go along with contain- ment. Avoiding Truman’s language of a world divided between free and unfree blocs, Marshall insisted, “Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.” The Marshall Plan proved to be one of the most successful foreign aid programs in history. By 1950, western Bales of American cotton in a warehouse at the French port of Le European production exceeded prewar levels and the region was poised Havre, 1949. Part of the Marshall Plan to follow the United States down the road to a mass-consumption society. aid program, the shipment helped to Because the Soviet Union refused to participate, fearing American control revive the French cotton industry. over the economies of eastern Europe, the Marshall Plan further solidified the division of the continent. At the same time, the United States worked out with twenty-three other Western nations the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which proposed to stimulate freer trade among the participants, creating an enormous market for American goods and investment. T h e R e c o n s t r u c t i o n o f J a p a n Under the guidance of General Douglas MacArthur, the “supreme com- A democratic constitution mander” in Japan until 1948, that country adopted a new, democratic con- stitution. Thanks to American insistence, and against the wishes of most Japanese leaders, the new constitution gave women the right to vote for the first time in Japan’s history. Furthermore, Article 9 of the new constitution stated that Japan would renounce forever the policy of war and armed aggression, and would maintain only a modest self-defense force. The United States also oversaw the economic reconstruction of Japan. Initially, the United States proposed to dissolve Japan’s giant industrial cor- porations, which had contributed so much to the nation’s war effort. But this Japan’s recovery plan was abandoned in 1948 in favor of an effort to rebuild Japan’s industrial 712 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War? base as a bastion of anticommunist strength in Asia. By the 1950s, thanks to American economic assistance, the adoption of new technologies, and low spending on the military, Japan’s economic recovery was in full swing. T h e B e r l i n B l o c k a d e a n d N A T O Meanwhile, the Cold War intensified and, despite the Marshall Plan, increasingly took a militaristic turn. At the end of World War II, each of the four victorious powers assumed control of a section of occupied Occupation of Germany Germany, and of Berlin, located deep in the Soviet zone. In June 1948, the United States, Britain, and France introduced a separate currency in their zones, a prelude to the creation of a new West German government that would be aligned with them in the Cold War. In response, the Soviets cut off road and rail traffic from the American, British, and French zones of occupied Germany to Berlin. An eleven-month airlift followed, with Western planes supplying fuel The Berlin airlift and food to their zones of the city. When Stalin lifted the blockade in May 1949, the Truman administration had won a major victory. Soon, two new nations emerged, East and West Germany, each allied with a side in the Cold War. Berlin itself remained divided. Not until 1991 would Germany be reunified. Also in 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, ending the American monopoly of that weapon. In the same year, the United States, Canada, and ten western European nations established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), pledging mutual defense against any future Soviet attack. Soon, West Germany became a crucial part of NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty was the first long-term military alliance between the United States and Europe since the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with France during the American Revolution. The Soviets formalized their own eastern European alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. T h e G r o w i n g C o m m u n i s t C h a l l e n g e In 1949, communists led by Mao Zedong emerged victorious in the long Chinese civil war—a serious setback for the policy of containment. Assailed by Republicans for having “lost” China (which, of course, the “Losing” China United States never “had” in the first place), the Truman administra- tion refused to recognize the new government—the People’s Republic of China—and blocked it from occupying China’s seat at the United Nations. Until the 1970s, the United States insisted that the ousted regime, which O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R 713 C O L D W A R E U R O P E , 1 9 5 6 ICELAND Berlin Wal, 1 West 96 Berlin 1 East FINLAND Berlin SWEDEN NORWAY Occupation Zones American French North British Soviet IRELAND Sea DENMARK GREAT Baltic Sea BRITAIN SOVIET UNION London NETHERLANDS Berlin Atlantic EAST POLAND Bonn Warsaw Ocean BELGIUM GERMANY WEST Paris Prague LUXEMBOURGGERMANY CZECHOSLOVAKIA FRANCE AUSTRIA Budapest SWITZERLAND HUNGARY ROMANIA Bucharest YUGOSLAVIA PORTUGAL SPAIN ITALY Black Sea Sofia Lisbon Corsica Tirane BULGARIA ALBANIA Ankara Sardinia GREECE TURKEY Athens Sicily SYRIA MOROCCO IRAQ M CYPRUS LEBANON TUNISIA Crete editerranean Se (Great Britain) a ISRAEL JORDAN ALGERIA (France) SAUDI ARABIA NATO countries LIBYA EGYPT Red Sea Warsaw Pact countries 0 250 500 miles 0 250 500 kilometers The division of Europe between communist and noncommunist nations, solidified by the early 1950s, would last for nearly forty years. 714 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War? had been forced into exile on the island of Taiwan, remained the legitimate government of China. In the wake of Soviet-American confrontations in Europe, the com- munist victory in China, and Soviet success in developing an atomic bomb, the National Security Council approved a call for a permanent military build-up to enable the United States to pursue a global crusade against A global crusade against communism communism. Known as NSC-68, this 1950 manifesto described the Cold War as an epic struggle between “the idea of freedom” and the “idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy of the Kremlin.” T h e K o r e a n W a r Initially, American postwar policy focused on Europe. But it was in Asia that the Cold War suddenly turned hot. Occupied by Japan during World War II, Korea had been divided in 1945 into Soviet and American zones. These zones soon evolved into two governments: communist North Korea A divided Korea and anticommunist South Korea, undemocratic but aligned with the United States. In June 1950, the North Korean army invaded the south, hoping to reunify the country under communist control. North Korean soldiers soon occupied most of the peninsula. The Truman administration persuaded the United Nations Security Council to authorize the use of force to repel the invasion. (The Soviets, who could have vetoed the resolu- tion, were boycotting Security Council meetings to protest the refusal to seat communist China.) American troops did the bulk of the fighting on this first battlefield of the Cold War. In September 1950, General Douglas MacArthur launched McArthur in Korea a daring counterattack at Inchon, behind North Korean lines. MacArthur’s army soon occupied most of North Korea. Truman now hoped to unite Korea under a pro-American government. But in October 1950, when UN forces neared the Chinese border, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops intervened, driving them back in bloody fighting. MacArthur demanded the right to push north again and possibly even invade China The Chinese in Korea and use nuclear weapons against it. But Truman, fearing an all-out war on the Asian mainland, refused. MacArthur did not fully accept the principle of civilian control of the military. When he went public with criticism of the president, Truman removed him from command. The war then settled into a stalemate around the thirty-eighth parallel, the original boundary between the two Koreas. Not until 1953 was an armistice agreed to, essen- tially restoring the prewar status quo. There has never been a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War. O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R 715 T H E K O R E A N W A R , 1 9 5 0 – 1 9 5 3 U.S.S.R. North Korean offensive, June–September 1950 UN offensive, September–November 1950 Communist Chinese counteroffensive, November 1950–January 1951 Farthest UN advance CHINA Chongjin November 1950 NORTH KOREA Hungnam S e a o f Ja p a n Wonsan Pyongyang Armistice Line June 27, 1953 Chorwon Kumhwa Kaesong 38th Parallel Panmunjom Chunchon Seoul Inchon Wonju Inchon Landing Osan September 15, 1950 Ye l l o w Taejon S e a SOUTH Farthest North Korean advance KOREA September 1950 Pusan orea Strait JAPAN K 0 50 100 miles 0 50 100 kilometers As this map indicates, when General Douglas MacArthur launched his surprise landing at Inchon, North Korean forces controlled nearly the entire Korean peninsula. 716 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What series of events and ideological conflicts prompted the Cold War? More than 33,000 Americans died in Korea. The Asian death toll reached an estimated 1 million Korean soldiers and 2 million civilians, along with hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops. Korea made it clear that the Cold War, which began in Europe, had become a global conflict. C o l d W a r C r i t i c s In the Soviet Union, Stalin had consolidated a brutal dictatorship that jailed or mur- dered millions of Soviet citizens. With its one-party rule, stringent state control of the A photograph of a street battle in arts and intellectual life, and government-controlled economy, the Soviet Seoul, South Korea, during the Korean War illustrates the ferocity of Union presented a stark opposite of democracy and “free enterprise.” As a the fighting. number of contemporary critics, few of them sympathetic to Soviet com- munism, pointed out, however, casting the Cold War in terms of a world- wide battle between freedom and slavery had unfortunate consequences. In a penetrating critique of Truman’s policies, Walter Lippmann, one Walter Lippmann of the nation’s most prominent journalists, objected to turning foreign policy into an “ideological crusade.” To view every challenge to the status quo as part of a contest with the Soviet Union, Lippmann correctly predicted, would require the United States to recruit and subsidize an “array of satellites, clients, dependents and puppets.” It would have to intervene continuously in the affairs of nations whose political problems did not arise from Moscow and could not be easily understood in terms of the battle between freedom and slavery. World War II, he went on, had shaken the foundations of European empires. In the tide of revolutionary nationalism now sweeping the world, communists were certain to play an important role. I m p e r i a l i s m a n d D e c o l o n i z a t i o n World War II had increased American awareness of the problem of imperi- alism. Many movements for colonial independence borrowed the language of the American Declaration of Independence in demanding the right to self-government. Liberal Democrats and black leaders urged the Truman administration to take the lead in promoting worldwide decolonization, The Free World insisting that a Free World worthy of the name should not include colonies O R I G I N S O F T H E C O L D W A R 717 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m W i l l H e r b e r g , P r o t e s t a n t , C a t h o l i c , J e w ( 1 9 5 5 ) The Jewish philosopher Will Herberg was one of the more influential writers of the 1950s. In this excerpt, he analyzes the concept of the American way of life, a key slogan of the Cold War. What is this American Way of Life that we have said constitutes the “common religion” of American society? . . . The American Way of Life is the symbol by which Americans define themselves and establish their unity. . . . On its political side it means the Constitution; on its economic side, “free enterprise”; on its social side, an equalitarianism which is not only compatible with but indeed actually implies vigorous economic competition and high mobility. . . . The American Way of Life is humanitarian, “forward looking,” optimistic. Americans are easily the most generous and philanthropic people in the world, in terms of their ready and unstinting response to suffering anywhere on the globe. The American believes in progress, in self-improvement, and quite fanatically in education. But above all, the American is idealistic. . . . And because they are so idealistic, Americans tend to be moralistic: they are inclined to see all issues as plain and simple, black and white, issues of morality. Every struggle in which they are seriously engaged becomes a “crusade.” To Mr. Eisenhower, who in many ways exemplifies American religion in a particularly representative way, the second world war was a “crusade” (as was the first to Woodrow Wilson); . . . and so is his administration—a “battle for the republic” against “godless Communism” abroad and against “corruption and materialism” at home. . . . It is the secret of what outsiders must take to be the incredible self-righteousness of the American people, who tend to see the world divided into an innocent, virtuous America confronted with a corrupt, devious, and guileful Europe and Asia. 718 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War F r o m H e n r y S t e e l e C o m m a g e r , “ W h o I s L o y a l t o A m e r i c a ? ” H a r p e r ’ s ( S e p t e m b e r 1 9 4 7 ) In a sharply worded essay written in 1947, the prominent historian Henry Steele Commager commented on how the anticommunist crusade was stifling the expression of dissent and promoting an idea of patriotism that equated loyalty to the nation with the uncritical acceptance of American society and institutions. Increasingly, Congress is concerned with the eradication of disloyalty and the defense of Americanism, and scarcely a day passes . . . that the outlines of the new loyalty and the new Americanism are not etched more sharply in public policy. . . . In the making is a revival of the red hysteria of the early 1920s, one of the shabbiest chapters in the history of American democracy, and more than a revival, for the new crusade is designed not merely to frustrate Communism but to formulate a positive definition of Americanism, and a positive concept of loyalty. What is this new loyalty? It is, above all, conformity. It is the uncritical and unquestioning acceptance of America as it is—the political institutions, the social relationships, the economic practices. It rejects inquiry into the race question or socialized medicine, or public housing, or into the wisdom or validity of our foreign policy. It regards as particularly heinous any challenge to what is called “the system of private enterprise,” identifying that system with Americanism. It abandons . . . the once popular concept of progress, and regards America as a finished product, perfect and complete. It is, it must be added, easily satisfied. For it wants not intellectual conviction nor spiritual conquest, but mere outward conformity. In matters of loyalty, it takes the word for the deed, the gesture for the principle. It is content with the flag salute. . . . It is satisfied with membership in respectable organizations and, as it assumes that every Q U E S T I O N S member of a liberal organization is a Communist, 1. What does Herberg think are the concludes that every member of a conservative one is a true American. It has not yet learned that strengths and weaknesses of the not everyone who saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into American outlook? the kingdom of Heaven. It is designed neither to 2. Why does Commager feel that the new discover real disloyalty nor to foster true loyalty. patriotism makes “a mockery” of the The concept of loyalty as conformity is a false Bill of Rights? one. It is narrow and restrictive, denies freedom of thought and of conscience. . . . What do men know 3. How does Herberg’s analysis help to of loyalty who make a mockery of the Declaration explain the violations of civil liberties of Independence and the Bill of Rights? deplored by Commager? V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 719 and empires. But as the Cold War developed, the United States backed away from pressuring its European allies to grant self-government to colo- nies like French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and British possessions like the Gold Coast and Nigeria in Africa and Malaya in Asia. No matter how repressive to its own people, if a nation joined the worldwide anticommunist alliance led by the United States, it was counted as a member of the Free World. The Republic of South Africa, for example, was considered a part of the Free World even though its white minority had deprived the black population of nearly all their rights. T H E C O L D W A R A N D T H E I D E A O F F R E E D O M Among other things, the Cold War was an ideological struggle, a battle, in a popular phrase of the 1950s, for the “hearts and minds” of people throughout the world. During the 1950s, freedom became an inescapable theme of academic research, popular journalism, mass culture, and official pronouncements. One of the more unusual Cold War battlefields involved American history and culture. National security agencies encouraged Hollywood The Cold War in the movies to produce anticommunist movies, such as The Red Menace (1949) and I Married a Communist (1950), and urged that film scripts be changed to remove references to less-than-praiseworthy aspects of American history, such as Indian removal and racial discrimination. To counteract the widespread European view of the United States as a cultural backwater, the CIA secretly funded an array of overseas publica- tions, conferences, publishing houses, concerts, and art exhibits. And to try to improve the international image of American race relations, the gov- ernment sent jazz musicians and other black performers abroad, especially to Africa and Asia. F r e e d o m a n d T o t a l i t a r i a n i s m Along with freedom, the Cold War’s other great mobilizing concept was “totalitarianism.” The term originated in Europe between the world wars to describe fascist Italy and Nazi Germany—aggressive, ideologically 720 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War How did the Cold War reshape ideas of American freedom? driven states that sought to subdue all of civil society, including churches, unions, and other voluntary associations, to their control. By the 1950s, the term had become shorthand for describing those on the Soviet side in the Cold War. As the eventual collapse of communist governments in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union would demonstrate, the idea of totalitarian- ism greatly exaggerated the totality of government control of private life and thought in these countries. Just as the conflict over slavery redefined American freedom in the nineteenth century and the confrontation with the Nazis shaped under- standings of freedom during World War II, the Cold War reshaped them once again. Whatever Moscow stood for was by definition the opposite of freedom, including anything to which the word “socialized” could be attached. In the largest public relations campaign in American history, the American Medical Association raised the specter of “socialized medicine” to defeat Truman’s proposal for national health insurance. T h e R i s e o f H u m a n R i g h t s The Cold War also affected the emerging concept of human rights. The idea that there are rights that are applicable to all of humanity originated during the eighteenth century in the Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions. The atrocities committed during World War II, as well as the global language of the Four Freedoms, forcefully raised the issue of human rights in the postwar world. After the war, the victorious Allies put numerous German officials on trial before special courts at A poster for The Red Menace, one of numerous anticommunist films Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. For the first time, individuals produced by Hollywood during the were held directly accountable to the international community for viola- 1950s. tions of human rights. The trials resulted in prison terms for many Nazi officials and the execution of ten leaders. In 1948, the UN General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Roosevelt. It identified a broad range of rights to be enjoyed by people everywhere, including freedom of speech, religious toleration, and pro- tection against arbitrary government, as well as social and economic entitlements like the right to an adequate standard of living and access to housing, education, and medical care. The document had no enforcement mechanism. Some considered it an exercise in empty rhetoric. But the core principle—that a nation’s treatment of its own citizens should be subject to outside evaluation—slowly became part of the language in which free- dom was discussed. T H E C O L D W A R A N D T H E I D E A O F F R E E D O M 721 A m b i g u i t i e s o f H u m a n R i g h t s One reason for the lack of an enforcement mechanism in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was that both the United States and the Soviet Union refused to accept outside interference in their internal affairs or restraints on their ability to conduct foreign policy as they desired. In 1947, the NAACP did file a petition with the United Nations asking it to Human rights in world investigate racism in the United States as a violation of human rights. But affairs the UN decided that it lacked jurisdiction. Nonetheless, since the end of World War II, the enjoyment of human rights has increasingly taken its place in definitions of freedom across the globe, especially, perhaps, where such rights are flagrantly violated. After the Cold War ended, the idea of human rights would play an increasingly prominent role in world affairs. But during the 1950s, Cold War imperatives shaped the concept. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could resist emphasizing certain provisions of the Universal Declaration while ignoring others. The Soviets claimed to provide all citi- zens with social and economic rights, but violated democratic rights and civil liberties. Many Americans condemned these nonpolitical rights as a path to socialism. T H E T R U M A N P R E S I D E N C Y T h e F a i r D e a l With the end of World War II, President Truman’s first domestic task Economic transition was to preside over the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy. More than 12 million men remained in uniform in August 1945. They wanted nothing more than to return home to their families. Some return- ing soldiers found the adjustment to civilian life difficult. The divorce rate in 1945 rose to double its prewar level. Others took advantage of the GI Bill of Rights (discussed in the previous chapter) to obtain home mortgages, set up small businesses, and embark on college educations. The major- ity of returning soldiers entered the labor force—one reason why more than 2 million women workers lost their jobs. The government abolished wartime agencies that regulated industrial production and labor relations, and it dismantled wartime price controls, leading to a sharp rise in prices. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, President Truman, backed by party liberals and organized labor, moved to revive the stalled 722 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What were the major initiatives of Truman’s domestic policies? momentum of the New Deal. Truman’s pro- gram, which he announced in September 1945 and would later call the Fair Deal, focused on improving the social safety net and raising the standard of living of ordinary Americans. He called on Congress to increase the mini- mum wage, enact a program of national health insurance, and expand public housing, Social Security, and aid to education. T h e P o s t w a r S t r i k e W a v e In 1946, a new wave of labor militancy swept the country. The AFL and CIO launched Operation A few of the numerous World War II Dixie, a campaign to bring unionization to the South and, by so doing, shat- veterans who attended college after ter the hold of anti-labor conservatives on the region’s politics. More than the war, thanks to the GI Bill. 200 labor organizers entered the region, seeking support especially in the southern textile industry, the steel industry in the Birmingham region, and agriculture. As inflation soared following the removal of price controls, the resulting drop in workers’ real income sparked the largest strike wave in American history. Nearly 5 million workers—including those in the steel, auto, coal, and other key industries—walked off their jobs, demanding wage increases. The strike of 750,000 steelworkers represented the larg- est single walkout in American history to that date. T h e R e p u b l i c a n R e s u r g e n c e In the congressional elections of 1946, large numbers of middle-class voters, alarmed by the labor turmoil, voted Republican. For the first time since the 1920s, Republicans swept to control of both houses of Congress. Meanwhile, in the face of vigorous opposition from southern employ- ers and public officials and the reluctance of many white workers to join interracial labor unions, Operation Dixie had failed to unionize the South or dent the political control of conservative Democrats in the region. The election of 1946 ensured that a conservative coalition of Republicans and A conservative coalition southern Democrats would continue to dominate Congress. Congress turned aside Truman’s Fair Deal program. It enacted tax cuts for wealthy Americans and, over the president’s veto, in 1947 passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which sought to reverse some of the gains made by orga- nized labor in the past decade. The measure authorized the president to sus- pend strikes by ordering an eighty-day “cooling-off period,” and it banned T H E T R U M A N P R E S I D E N C Y 723 sympathy strikes and secondary boycotts (labor actions directed not at an employer but at those who did business with him). It outlawed the closed shop, which required a worker to be a union member when taking up a job, and authorized states to pass “right-to-work” laws, prohibiting other forms of compulsory union membership. It also forced union officials to swear that they were not communists. Over time, as population and capital investment shifted to states with “right-to-work” laws like Texas, Florida, Decline of organized labor and North Carolina, Taft-Hartley contributed to the decline of organized labor’s share of the nation’s workforce. P o s t w a r C i v i l R i g h t s During his first term, Truman reached out in unprecedented ways to the nation’s black community. In the years immediately following World The status of black Americans War II, the status of black Americans enjoyed a prominence in national affairs unmatched since Reconstruction. Between 1945 and 1951, eleven states from New York to New Mexico established fair employment practices commissions, and numerous cit- ies passed laws against discrimination in access to jobs and public accom- modations. A broad civil rights coalition involving labor, religious groups, and black organizations supported these measures. By 1952, 20 percent An NAACP youth march against of black southerners were registered to vote, nearly a seven-fold increase racial segregation in Houston, Texas, since 1940. (Most of the gains took place in the Upper South—in Alabama in 1947 illustrates the civil rights and Mississippi, the heartland of white supremacy, the numbers barely upsurge of the years immediately following the end of World War II. budged.) Also in 1952, for the first time since record keeping began seventy years earlier, no lynchings took place in the United States. In another indication that race rela- tions were in flux, the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 challenged the long-standing exclu- sion of black players from major league baseball by adding Jackie Robinson to their team. Robinson, who possessed both remarkable athletic ability and a passion for equality, had been tried and acquit- ted for insubordination in 1944 when he refused to move to the back of a bus at Fort Hood, Texas, while serving in the army. But he promised Dodger owner Branch Rickey that he would not retaliate when subjected to racist taunts by opposing fans and play- 724 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What were the major initiatives of Truman’s domestic policies? ers. His dignity in the face of constant verbal abuse won Robinson nationwide respect, and his baseball prowess earned him the Rookie of the Year award. His success opened the door to the integration of baseball and led to the demise of the Negro Leagues, to which black players had previously been confined. T o S e c u r e T h e s e R i g h t s In October 1947, a Commission on Civil Rights appointed by the president issued To Secure These Rights, one of the most devastating indictments ever published of racial inequality in America. It called on the federal government to assume the responsibility for abolishing segregation and Jackie Robinson sliding into third ensuring equal treatment in housing, employ- base, 1949. ment, education, and the criminal justice system. In February 1948, Truman presented an ambitious civil rights program to Congress, calling for a permanent federal civil rights commission, national laws against lynching and the poll tax, and action to ensure equal access to jobs and education. Congress, as Truman anticipated, approved none of his proposals. But in July 1948, just as the presidential campaign was getting Desegregating the armed under way, Truman issued an executive order desegregating the armed forces forces. The armed services became the first large institution in American life to promote racial integration actively and to attempt to root out long- standing racist practices. The Korean War would be the first American con- flict fought by an integrated army since the War of Independence. The Democratic platform of 1948 was the most progressive in the party’s history. Led by Hubert Humphrey, the young mayor of Minne- apolis, party liberals overcame southern resistance and added a strong civil rights plank to the platform. T h e D i x i e c r a t a n d W a l l a c e R e v o l t s “I say the time has come,” Humphrey told the Democratic national con- vention, “to walk out of the shadow of states’ rights and into the sunlight of human rights.” Whereupon numerous southern delegates—dubbed Dixiecrats by the press—walked out of the gathering. They soon formed the States’ Rights Democratic Party and nominated for president Governor T H E T R U M A N P R E S I D E N C Y 725 Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. His platform called for the “complete segregation of the races” and his cam- paign drew most of its support from those alarmed by Truman’s civil rights initiatives. Also in 1948, a group of left- wing critics of Truman’s foreign policy formed the Progressive Party and nominated former vice presi- dent Henry A. Wallace for president. Wallace advocated an expansion of social welfare programs at home and denounced racial segregation even more vigorously than Truman. When he campaigned in the South, angry white crowds attacked him. But his Blacks, led by A. Philip Randolph real difference with the president con- (left), picketing at the 1948 cerned the Cold War. Wallace called for international control of nuclear Democratic national convention. The weapons and a renewed effort to develop a relationship with the Soviet delegates’ adoption of a strong civil Union based on economic co-operation rather than military confrontation. rights plank led representatives of The influence of the now much-reduced Communist Party in Wallace’s cam- several southern states to withdraw and nominate their own candidate for paign led to an exodus of New Deal liberals and severe attacks on his candi- president, Strom Thurmond. dacy. A vote for Wallace, Truman declared, was in effect a vote for Stalin. Wallace threatened to draw votes from Truman on the left, and Thurmond to undermine the president’s support in the South, where whites had voted solidly for the Democrats throughout the twentieth century. But Truman’s main opponent, fortunately for the president, was the colorless Republican Thomas A. Dewey. Certain of victory and an ineffective speaker and campaigner, Dewey seemed unwilling to commit himself on controversial issues. Truman, by contrast, ran an aggressive campaign. He crisscrossed the country by train, delivering fiery attacks on the Republican-controlled “do-nothing Congress.” Virtually every public-opinion poll and newspaper report predicted Truman’s victory a Dewey victory. Truman’s success—by 303 to 189 electoral votes— represented one of the greatest upsets in American political history. For the first time since 1868, blacks (in the North, where they enjoyed the right to vote) played a decisive role in the outcome. Thurmond carried four Deep South states, demonstrating that the race issue, couched in terms of individ- ual freedom, had the potential to lead traditionally Democratic white voters to desert their party. In retrospect, the States’ Rights campaign offered a 726 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What were the major initiatives of Truman’s domestic policies? preview of the political transformation that by the end T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L of the twentieth century would leave every southern E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 4 8 state in the Republican column. As for Wallace, he suffered the humiliation of polling fewer popular 8 votes than Thurmond. 4 3 4 5 4 6 4 11 4 12 47 16 3 19 4 35 3 6 10 8 25 16 4 13 28 3 25 6 8 15 11 8 T H E A N T I C O M M U N I S T 8 11 1 14 4 11 4 10 9 8 9 11 12 C R U S A D E 23 10 8 For nearly half a century, the Cold War profoundly Electoral Vote Popular Vote affected American life. There would be no return to “nor- Party Candidate (Share) (Share) Democrat Truman 303 (57%) 24,105,695 (49.7%) malcy” as after World War I. The military-industrial Republican Dewey 189 (36%) 21,969,170 (45.3%) establishment created during World War II would States ’ Rights Thurmond 39 (7%) 1,169,021 (2.4%) Progressive Wallace 1,157,172 (2.4%) become permanent, not temporary. National security Other candidates (Socialist, Prohibition, 272,713 Socialist Labor, Socialist Workers) became the stated reason for a host of government projects, including aid to higher education and the building of a new national highway system (justified by the need to speed the evacuation of major cities in the event of nuclear war). The Cold War encouraged a culture of secrecy and dishonesty. American nuclear tests, conducted on Pacific islands and in Nevada, exposed thousands of civilians to radiation that caused cancer and birth defects. A postcard promoting tourism to Las Vegas highlights as one attraction the city’s proximity to a nuclear test site. Witnessing nearby atomic explosions became a popular pastime in the city. The government failed to issue warnings of the dangers of nuclear fallout and only years later did it admit that many onlookers had contracted diseases from radiation. T H E A N T I C O M M U N I S T C R U S A D E 727 Economic growth Cold War military spending helped to fuel economic growth and support scientific research that not only perfected weaponry but also led to improved aircraft, computers, medicines, and other products with a large impact on civilian life. The Cold War reshaped immigration policy, with refugees from communism being allowed to enter the United States regardless of national-origin quotas. The international embarrassment caused by American racial policies contributed to the dismantling of segregation. And like other wars, the Cold War encouraged the drawing of a sharp line between patriotic Americans and those accused of being disloyal. At precisely the moment when the United States celebrated freedom as the foundation of American life, the right to dissent came under attack. L o y a l t y a n d D i s l o y a l t y Dividing the world between liberty and slavery automatically made those who could be linked to communism enemies of freedom. Although the assault on civil liberties came to be known as McCarthyism, it began before Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin burst onto the national scene in 1950. In 1947, less than two weeks after announcing the Truman Doctrine, the president established a loyalty review system in which government employees were required to demonstrate their patriotism without being allowed to confront accusers or, in some cases, knowing the charges against them. Along with persons suspected of disloyalty, the new Gays and the loyalty review national security system also targeted homosexuals who worked for the system government. They were deemed particularly susceptible to blackmail by Soviet agents as well as supposedly lacking the manly qualities needed to maintain the country’s resolve in the fight against communism. Ironically, the government conducted an anti-gay campaign at the very time that gay men enjoyed a powerful presence in realms of culture and commercial life being promoted as expressions of American freedom—modern art and ballet, fashion, and advertising. The loyalty program failed to uncover any cases of espionage. But the federal government dismissed several hundred persons from their jobs. The HUAC hearings on Also in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Hollywood launched a series of hearings about communist influence in Hollywood. Calling well-known screenwriters, directors, and actors to appear before the committee ensured it a wave of national publicity, which its members relished. Celebrities like producer Walt Disney and actors Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan testified that the movie industry harbored numer- ous communists. But ten “unfriendly witnesses” refused to answer the 728 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What effects did the anticommunism of the Cold War have on American politics and culture? committee’s questions about their political beliefs or to “name names” (identify indi- vidual communists) on the grounds that the hearings violated the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and politi- cal association. The committee charged the Hollywood Ten, who included the promi- nent screenwriters Ring Lardner Jr. and Dalton Trumbo, with contempt of Congress, and they served jail terms of six months to a year. Hollywood studios blacklisted them (denied them employment), along with more than 200 others who were accused of communist sympathies or who refused to name names. Movie stars, led by actors Humphrey T h e S p y T r i a l s Bogart and Lauren Bacall, on their way to attend the 1947 hearings of A series of highly publicized legal cases followed, which fueled the grow- the House Un-American Activities ing anticommunist hysteria. Whittaker Chambers, an editor at Time Committee, in a demonstration of magazine, testified before HUAC that during the 1930s, Alger Hiss, a support for those called to testify high-ranking State Department official, had given him secret government about alleged communist influence in documents to pass to agents of the Soviet Union. Hiss vehemently denied Hollywood. the charge, but a jury convicted him of perjury and he served five years in prison. A young congressman from California and a member of HUAC, Richard Nixon achieved national prominence because of his dogged pur- suit of Hiss. The most sensational trial involved Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg working-class Jewish communist couple from New York City (quite dif- ferent from Hiss, a member of the eastern Protestant “establishment”). In 1951, a jury convicted the Rosenbergs of conspiracy to pass secrets con- cerning the atomic bomb to Soviet agents during World War II (when the Soviets were American allies). Their chief accuser was David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, who had worked at the Los Alamos nuclear research center. The case against Julius Rosenberg rested on highly secret documents that could not be revealed in court. (When they were released many years later, the scientific information they contained seemed too crude to justify the government’s charge that Julius had passed along the “secret of the atomic bomb,” although he may have helped the Soviets speed up their atomic program.) The government had almost no evidence against Ethel T H E A N T I C O M M U N I S T C R U S A D E 729 Rosenberg, and Greenglass later admitted that he had lied in some of his testimony about her. Indeed, prosecutors seem to have indicted her in the hope of pressuring Julius to confess and implicate others. But in the atmo- Anticommunist hysteria sphere of hysteria, their conviction was certain. Even though they had been convicted of conspiracy, a far weaker charge than spying or treason, Judge Irving Kaufman called their crime “worse than murder.” They had helped, he declared, to “cause” the Korean War. Despite an international outcry, their death sentences were carried out in 1953. M c C a r t h y a n d M c C a r t h y i s m In this atmosphere, a little-known senator from Wisconsin suddenly emerged as the chief national pursuer of subversives and gave a new Joseph McCarthy name to the anticommunist crusade. Joseph R. McCarthy had won elec- tion to the Senate in 1946, partly on the basis of a fictional war record (he falsely claimed to have flown combat missions in the Pacific). In a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, in February 1950, McCarthy announced that he had a list of 205 communists working for the State Department. The charge was preposterous, the numbers constantly changed, and McCarthy never identified a single person guilty of genuine disloyalty. But with a genius for self-promotion, McCarthy used the Senate subcommittee he Senator Joseph R. McCarthy at the chaired to hold hearings and level wild charges against numerous indi- Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. viduals as well as the Defense Department, the Voice of America, and other McCarthy points to a map detailing government agencies. charges about the alleged extent of the communist menace, while the McCarthy’s downfall came in 1954, when a Senate committee army’s lawyer, Joseph Welch, listens investigated his charges that the army had harbored and “coddled” com- in disgust. munists. The nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings revealed McCarthy as a bully who brow- beat witnesses and made sweeping accusations with no basis in fact. The dramatic high point came when McCarthy attacked the loyalty of a young lawyer in the firm of Joseph Welch, the army’s chief lawyer. “Let us not assassinate this lad fur- ther,” Welch pleaded. “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir?” After the hearings ended, the Republican-controlled 730 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What effects did the anticommunism of the Cold War have on American politics and culture? Senate voted to “condemn” McCarthy for his behavior. But the word “McCarthyism” had entered the political vocabulary, a shorthand for char- acter assassination, guilt by asso ciation, and abuse of power in the name of anticommunism. A n A t m o s p h e r e o f F e a r States created their own committees, modeled on HUAC, that investigated suspected communists and other dissenters. States and localities required loyalty oaths of teachers, pharmacists, and members of other professions, and they banned communists from fishing, holding a driver’s license, and, in Indiana, working as professional wrestlers. Throughout the country in the late 1940s and 1950s, those who failed to testify about their past and present political beliefs and to inform on possible communists frequently “Fire!” The cartoonist Herbert Block, lost their jobs. known as “Herblock,” offered this Local anticommunist groups forced public libraries to remove from comment in 1949 on the danger to their shelves “un-American” books like the tales of Robin Hood, who took American freedom posed by the from the rich to give to the poor. Universities refused to allow left-wing anticommunist crusade. speakers to appear on campus and fired teachers who refused to sign loy- alty oaths or to testify against others. T h e U s e s o f A n t i c o m m u n i s m There undoubtedly were Soviet spies in the United States. Yet the tiny U.S. Communist Party hardly posed a threat to American security. And the vast majority of those jailed or deprived of their livelihoods during the McCarthy era were guilty of nothing more than holding unpopular beliefs and engaging in lawful political activities. Anticommunism had many faces and purposes. A popular mass move- ment, it grew especially strong among ethnic groups like Polish-Americans, Anticommunist groups with roots in eastern European countries now dominated by the Soviet and goals Union, and among American Catholics in general, who resented and feared communists’ hostility to religion. Government agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used anticommunism to expand their power. Under director J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI developed files on thousands of American citizens, including political dissenters, homosexuals, and others, most of whom had no connection to communism. For business, anticom- munism became part of a campaign to identify labor unions and government intervention in the economy with socialism. White supremacists employed anticommunism as a weapon against black civil rights. Upholders of sexual T H E A N T I C O M M U N I S T C R U S A D E 731 morality and traditional gender roles raised the cry of subversion against feminism and homosexuality, both supposedly responsible for eroding the country’s fighting spirit. (Those barred from government service now included homosexuals and members of nudist colonies.) A n t i c o m m u n i s t P o l i t i c s At its height, from the late 1940s to around 1960, the anticommunist cru- sade powerfully structured American politics and culture. After launch- ing the government’s loyalty program in 1947, Truman had become increasingly alarmed at the excesses of the anticommunist crusade. He vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Bill of 1950, which required “sub- versive” groups to register with the government, allowed the denial of passports to their members, and authorized their deportation or detention on presidential order. But Congress quickly gave the measure the two- thirds majority necessary for it to become law. The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, the first major piece of immigra- tion legislation since 1924, also passed over the president’s veto. Truman had called for replacing the quotas based on national origins with a more flexible system taking into account family reunion, labor needs, and politi- Immigration quotas retained cal asylum. But the McCarran-Walter Act kept the quotas in place. It also authorized the deportation of immigrants identified as communists, even if they had become citizens. But the renewed fear of aliens sparked by the anticommunist crusade went far beyond communists. In 1954, the federal government launched Operation Wetback, which employed the military to invade Mexican-American neighborhoods and round up and deport illegal aliens. Within a year, some 1 million Mexicans had been deported. Truman did secure passage of a 1950 law that added previously excluded self-employed and domestic workers to Social Security. Other- The privatization of social wise, however, the idea of expanding the New Deal welfare state faded. benefits In its place, private welfare arrangements proliferated. The labor con- tracts of unionized workers established health insurance plans, automatic cost-of-living wage increases, paid vacations, and pension plans that supplemented Social Security. Western European governments provided these benefits to all citizens. In the United States, union members in major industries enjoyed them, but not the nonunionized majority of the population, a situation that created increasing inequality among laboring Americans. Organized labor emerged as a major supporter of the foreign policy of the Cold War. Internal battles over the role of communists and their allies 732 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War What effects did the anticommunism of the Cold War have on American politics and culture? led to the purging of some of the most militant union leaders, often the ones most committed to advancing equal rights to women and racial minori- ties in the workplace. This left organized labor less able to respond to the economy’s shift to an emphasis on service rather than manufacturing, and to the rise of the civil rights movement. C o l d W a r C i v i l R i g h t s The civil rights movement also underwent a transformation. Although a few prominent black leaders, notably the singer and actor Paul Robeson Black organizations and the Cold War and the veteran crusader for equality W. E. B. Du Bois, became outspoken critics of the Cold War, most felt they had no choice but to go along. The NAACP purged communists from local branches. When the government deprived Robeson of his passport and indicted Du Bois for failing to reg- ister as an agent of the Soviet Union, few prominent Americans, white or black, protested. (The charge against Du Bois was so absurd that even at the height of McCarthyism, the judge dismissed it.) Black organizations embraced the language of the Cold War and used it for their own purposes. They insisted that by damaging the American image abroad, racial inequality played into the Russians’ hands. Thus, they helped to cement Cold War ideology as the foundation of the political culture, while complicating the idea of American freedom. President Truman, as noted above, had called for greater attention to civil rights in part to improve the American image abroad. All in all, how- ever, the height of the Cold War was an unfavorable time to raise questions about the imperfections of American society. In 1947, two months after the Truman Doctrine speech, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson delivered a major address defending the president’s pledge to aid “free peoples” seeking to preserve their “democratic institutions.” Acheson chose as his audience the Delta Council, an organization of Mississippi planters, bank- ers, and merchants. He seemed unaware that to make the case for the Cold War, he had ventured into what one historian has called the “American Siberia,” a place of grinding poverty whose black population (70 percent of the total) enjoyed neither genuine freedom nor democracy. Most of the Delta’s citizens were denied the very liberties supposedly endangered by communism. By 1948, the Truman administration’s civil rights flurry had sub- The waning civil rights impulse sided. State and local laws banning discrimination in employment and housing remained largely unenforced. In 1952, the Democrats showed how quickly the issue had faded by nominating for president Adlai T H E A N T I C O M M U N I S T C R U S A D E 733 Stevenson of Illinois, a candidate with little interest in civil rights, with southern segregationist John Sparkman as his running mate. Time would reveal that the waning of the civil rights impulse was only temporary. Yet it came at a crucial moment—the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the United States experienced the greatest economic boom Rising affluence in its history. The rise of an “affluent society” transformed American life, opening new opportunities for tens of millions of white Americans in rap- idly expanding suburbs. But it left blacks trapped in the declining rural areas of the South and urban ghettos of the North. The contrast between new opportunities and widespread prosperity for whites and continued discrimination for blacks would soon inspire a civil rights revolution and, with it, yet another redefinition of American freedom. 734 C h a p t e r 2 3 ★ The United States and the Cold War C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. What major ideological conflicts, security interests, and Long Telegram (p. 710) “containment” (p. 710) events brought about the Cold War? “iron curtain” speech (p. 710) Truman Doctrine (p. 710) 2. President Truman referred to the Truman Doctrine and National Security Council the Marshall Plan as “two halves of the same walnut.” (p. 711) Explain the similarities and differences between these Marshall Plan (p. 712) two aspects of containment. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (p. 712) 3. How did the tendency of both the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (p. 713) Soviet Union to see all international events through the NSC-68 (p. 715) lens of the Cold War lessen each country’s ability to decolonization (p. 717) understand what was happening in various countries “totalitarianism” (p. 720) around the world? Fair Deal (p. 723) Taft-Hartley Act (p. 723) 4. Why did the United States not support movements for Dixiecrats (p. 725) colonial independence around the world? loyalty review system (p. 728) Hollywood Ten (p. 729) 5. How did the government attempt to shape public opinion Army-McCarthy hearings (p. 730) during the Cold War? McCarran-Walter Act (p. 732) 6. Explain the differences between the United States’ and the Soviet Union’s application of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 7. How did the anticommunist crusade affect organized labor in the postwar period? wwnorton.com 8. What accounts for the Republican resurgence in these /studyspace years? VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE 9. What were the major components of Truman’s Fair RESOURCES AND MORE Deal? Which ones were implemented, and which ones s were not? s s 10. How did the Cold War affect civil liberties in the United s States? s C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S 735 1946 Mendez v. Westminster C H A P T E R 2 4 1947 Levittown development starts 1950 David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd 1952 United States detonates first hydrogen bomb 1953 Soviet Union detonates A N A F F L U E N T hydrogen bomb CIA-led coups in Iran and Guatemala 1954 Brown v. Board of S O C I E T Y Education CIA-led Guatemalan coup Geneva Accords for Vietnam 1955 AFL and CIO merge  Allen Ginsberg’s Howl 1 9 5 3 – 1 9 6 0 1955– Montgomery bus boycott 1956 1956 “Southern Manifesto” Federal-Aid Highway Act Suez crisis 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine Southern Christian Leader- ship Conference organized Integration of Little Rock’s Central High School Sputnik launched 1958 National Defense Education Act 1959 Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debate” 1960 John F. Kennedy elected president A portrait of affluence: In this photograph by Alex Henderson, Steve Czekalinski, an employee of the DuPont Corporation, poses with his family and the food they consumed in a single year, 1951. The family spent $1,300 (around $11,000 in today’s money) on food, including 699 bottles of milk, 578 pounds of meat, and 131 dozen eggs. Nowhere else in the world in 1951 was food so available and inexpensive. In 1958, during a “thaw” in the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to exchange national exhibitions in order to F O C U S allow citizens of each “superpower” to become acquainted with life in the other. The Soviet Exhibition, unveiled in New York City in June 1959, Q U E S T I O N S featured factory machinery, scientific advances, and other illustrations of how communism had modernized a backward country. The following month, the American National Exhibition opened in Moscow. A showcase s of consumer goods and leisure equipment, complete with stereo sets, acteristics of the affluent a movie theater, home appliances, and twenty-two different cars, the society of the 1950s? exhibit, Newsweek observed, hoped to demonstrate the superiority of “modern capitalism with its ideology of political and economic freedom.” s Yet the exhibit’s real message was not freedom but consumption—or, to period of consensus in be more precise, the equating of the two. Vice President Richard Nixon both domestic policies and opened the exhibit with an address entitled “What Freedom Means to foreign affairs? Us.” He spoke of the “extraordinarily high standard of living” in the United States, with its 56 million cars and 50 million television sets. s The Moscow exhibition became the site of a classic Cold War thrusts of the civil rights confrontation over the meaning of freedom—the “kitchen debate” between movement in this period? Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Nixon and Khrushchev engaged in unscripted debate, first in the kitchen of a model suburban s ranch house, then in a futuristic “miracle kitchen” complete with a of the presidential election mobile robot that swept the floors. Supposedly the home of an average of 1960? steelworker, the ranch house represented, Nixon declared, the mass enjoyment of American freedom within a suburban setting—freedom Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev during the “kitchen debate,” a discussion, among other things, of the meaning of freedom, which took place in 1959 at the American National Exposition in Moscow. Khru shchev makes a point while a woman demonstrates a washing machine. A N A F F L U E N T S O C I E T Y 737 of choice among products, colors, styles, and prices. It also implied a particular role for women. Throughout his exchanges with Khrushchev, Nixon used the words “women” and “housewives” interchangeably. His stance reflected the triumph during the 1950s of a conception of freedom centered on economic abundance and consumer choice within the context of traditional family life—a vision that seemed to offer far more opportunities for the “pursuit of happiness” to men than women. T H E G O L D E N A G E The end of World War II was followed by what one scholar has called the “golden age” of capitalism, a period of economic expansion, stable prices, low unemployment, and rising standards of living that continued Economic growth until 1973. Between 1946 and 1960, the American gross national product more than doubled. Much of the benefit flowed to ordinary citizens in ris- ing wages. In every measurable way—diet, housing, income, education, recreation—most Americans lived better than their parents and grand- parents had. The official poverty rate, 30 percent of all families in 1950, had declined to 22 percent a decade later (still, to be sure, representing more than one in five Americans). Numerous innovations came into widespread use in these years, transforming Americans’ daily lives. They included television, home air-conditioning, automatic dishwashers, inexpensive long-distance tele phone calls, FIGURE 24.1 Real Gross Domestic and jet air travel. Product per Capita, 1790–2000 A C h a n g i n g E c o n o m y 30 Like other wars, the Cold War fueled U.S. industrial production and promoted a redistribution of the nation’s population 20 and economic resources. The West, espe- cially the Seattle area, southern California, and the Rocky Mountain states, benefited 10 Thousand 1996 dollars enormously from government contracts for aircraft, guided missiles, and radar 0 systems. The South became the home of 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 numerous military bases and government- Year funded shipyards. 738 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society What were the main characteristics of the affluent society of the 1950s? In retrospect, the 1950s appear as the last decade of the industrial age Industrial strength in the United States. Since then, the American economy has shifted rapidly toward services, education, information, finance, and entertainment, while employment in manufacturing has declined. Unions’ very success in rais- ing wages inspired employers to mechanize more and more elements of manufacturing in order to reduce labor costs. In 1956, for the first time in American history, white-collar workers outnumbered blue-collar factory and manual laborers. The decade witnessed an acceleration of the transformation of south- ern life that had begun during World War II. New tractors and harvesting machinery and a continuing shift from cotton production to less labor- intensive soybean and poultry raising reduced the need for farm work- Regional changes ers. More than 3 million black and white hired hands and sharecroppers migrated out of the region. The large corporate farms of California, worked by Latino and Filipino migrant laborers, poured forth an endless supply of fruits and vegetables for the domestic and world markets. Items like oranges and orange juice, once luxuries, became an essential part of the American diet. A S u b u r b a n N a t i o n The main engines of economic growth during the 1950s, however, were residential construction and spending on consumer goods. The postwar baby boom (discussed later) and the shift of population from cities to suburbs created an enormous demand for housing, television sets, home Consumer demand appliances, and cars. During the 1950s, the number of houses in the United States doubled, nearly all of them built in the suburbs that sprang up across the landscape. William and Alfred Levitt, who shortly after the war built the first Levittown on 1,200 acres of potato fields on Long Island near New York City, became the most famous suburban developers. Levittown’s more than 10,000 houses were assembled quickly from prefabricated parts and priced well within the reach of most Americans. Levittown was soon home to 40,000 people. At the same time, suburbs required a new form of shopping center—the mall—to which people drove in their cars. The automobile, the pivot on which suburban life turned, transformed Suburbs and the automobile the nation’s daily life, just as the interstate highway system (discussed later) transformed Americans’ travel habits, making possible long-distance vacationing by car and commuting to work from ever-increasing distances. The result was an altered American landscape, leading to the construction T H E G O L D E N A G E 739 T H E I N T E R S T A T E H I G H W A Y S Y S T E M Seattle WA 90 Portland 82 15 MT ME 29 ND Butte 95 5 94 MN OR 90 Billings 89 93 84 ID 90 94 VT 75 NH 15 Minneapolis WI 81 87 SD 91 Boston 86 WY MA 90 Sioux 35 43 MI Falls 69 90 88 NY 84 25 96 CT 80 Detroit 84 RI 80 94 PA 29 IA Chicago 80 78 New York Cheyenne NE 80 88 Salt Lake City Omaha NV IL IN 69 75 71 77 NJ San Francisco 15 76 95 76 80 74 57 35 Columbus Washington, DC DE 70 Indianapolis MO OH 79 81 UT CO Cincinnati MD 5 70 Kansas City 70 Louisville 64 WV 64 St. Louis CA 15 KS VA 35 55 KY75 44 24 81 77 95 40 AZ Los Angeles Nashville NC Charlotte Oklahoma City AR TN 40 40 10 17 75 Albuquerque 40 65 San Diego 85 26 Little Rock NM OK 8 25 44 27 Atlanta SC 30 20 Birmingham Tucson Charleston 10 Fort Worth 16 19 MS AL GA El Paso 20 Dallas 20 Montgomery Savannah 65 95 TX 49 55 59 10 35 45 Mobile 10 Jacksonville LA AK Houston 10 New Orleans 75 San Antonio no interstate 4 highways 37 Tampa 95 FL H1 H2 HI Honolulu Miami H3 0 500 miles 0 150 miles 0 250 500 miles 0 500 kilometers 0 150 kilometers 0 250 500 kilometers Begun in 1956 and completed in 1993, the interstate highway system of motels, drive-in movie theaters, and roadside eating establishments. dramatically altered the American landscape and Americans’ daily lives. The first McDonald’s fast food restaurant opened in Illinois in 1954. It made possible more rapid travel Within ten years, having been franchised by the California business- by car and stimulated the growth of man Ray Kroc, approximately 700 McDonald’s stands had been built, suburbs along its many routes. which had sold over 400 million hamburgers. The car symbolized the identification of freedom with individual mobility and private choice. Americans could imagine themselves as modern versions of western pioneers, able to leave behind urban crowds and workplace pressures for the “open road.” T h e G r o w t h o f t h e W e s t Indeed, it was California that became the most prominent symbol of the postwar suburban boom. Between World War II and 1975, more than 30 million Americans moved west of the Mississippi River. In 1963, Cal- ifornia surpassed New York to become the nation’s most populous state. 740 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society What were the main characteristics of the affluent society of the 1950s? “Centerless” western cities like Houston, Phoenix, and Los Angeles dif- fered greatly from traditional urban cen- ters in the East. Rather than consisting of downtown business districts linked to residential neighborhoods by public transportation, western cities were decen- tralized clusters of single-family homes and businesses united by a web of high- way. Life centered around the car; people drove to and from work and did their shopping at malls reachable only by driv- ing. In other sections of the country as well, shopping shifted to suburban cen- Ernst Haas’s 1969 photograph of ters, and old downtown business districts stagnated. The spread of Albuquerque, New Mexico, could suburban homes created millions of new lawns. Today, more land is have been taken in any one of scores of American communities. As cities cultivated in grass than any agricultural crop in the United States. spread out, “strips,” consisting of motels, gas stations, and nationally franchised businesses, became T h e T V W o r l d common. Meanwhile, older downtown business sections stagnated. Thanks to television, images of middle-class life and advertisements for consumer goods blanketed the country. By the end of the 1950s, nearly nine of ten American families owned a TV set. Television replaced news- papers as the most common source of information about public events, and TV watching became the nation’s leading leisure activity. Television changed Americans’ eating habits (the frozen TV dinner, heated and eaten while diners watched a program, went on sale in 1954), and it pro- vided Americans of all regions and backgrounds with a common cultural experience. With a few exceptions, like the Army-McCarthy hearings mentioned in the previous chapter, TV avoided controversy and projected a bland image of middle-class life. The dominant programs were quiz shows, westerns, and comedies set in suburban homes, like Leave It to Beaver and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Television also became the most effective FIGURE 24.2 advertising medium ever invented. Average Daily Television Viewing W o m e n a t W o r k a n d a t H o m e The emergence of suburbia placed pressure on the family—and especially on women—to live up to freedom’s promise. After a sharp postwar drop in 1950 1960 1970 4 hrs. 36 mins. 5 hrs. 6 mins. 5 hrs. 54 mins. female employment, the number of women at work soon began to rise. By T H E G O L D E N A G E 741 1955, it exceeded the level during World War II. But the nature and aims of FIGURE 24.3 women’s work had changed. The modern woman worked part-time to help support the family’s middle-class lifestyle, not to help pull it out of pov- The Baby Boom erty or to pursue personal fulfillment or an independent career. Working and Its Decline women in 1960 earned, on average, only 60 percent of the income of men. 27 Despite the increasing numbers of wage-earning women, the subur- 26 ban family’s breadwinner was assumed to be male, while the wife remained 25 at home. Films, TV shows, and advertisements portrayed marriage as the 24 most important goal of American women. And during the 1950s, men 23 and women married younger (at an average age of twenty-two for men and 22 twenty for women), divorced less frequently than in the past, and had more 21 children (3.2 per family). A “baby boom” that lasted into the mid-1960s 20 followed the end of the war. At a time of low immigration, the American Number of births (per thousand) 19 Birthrate, 1940–1970* population rose by nearly 30 million (almost 20 percent) during the 1950s. 18 Like other forms of dissent, feminism seemed to have disappeared 17 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 from American life or was widely dismissed as evidence of mental disor- Year *Based on estimated total live births per 1,000 population. der. Prominent psychologists insisted that the unhappiness of individual women or even the desire to work for wages stemmed from a failure to accept the “maternal instinct.” A S e g r e g a t e d L a n d s c a p e For millions of city dwellers, the suburban utopia fulfilled the dream, postponed by depression and war, of home ownership and middle-class incomes. The move to the suburbs also promoted Americanization, cut- ting residents off from urban ethnic communities and bringing them fully into the world of mass consumption. But if the suburbs offered a new site for the enjoyment of American freedom, they retained at least one familiar characteristic—rigid racial boundaries. Suburbia has never been as uniform as either its celebrants or its critics claimed. There are upper-class suburbs, working-class suburbs, industrial suburbs, and “suburban” neighborhoods within city limits. But Racial uniformity suburbia’s racial uniformity was all too real. As late as the 1990s, nearly 90 percent of suburban whites lived in communities with non-white populations of less than 1 percent—the legacy of decisions by government, real-estate developers, banks, and residents. During the postwar suburban boom, federal agencies continued to insure mortgages that barred resale of houses to non-whites, thereby financing housing segregation. Even after the Supreme Court in 1948 declared such provisions legally unenforceable, banks and private devel- opers barred non-whites from the suburbs. The government refused to 742 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society What were the main characteristics of the affluent society of the 1950s? subsidize their mortgages, except in segregated enclaves. The vast new communities built by William Levitt refused to allow blacks, including army veterans, to rent or purchase homes. A lawsuit forced Levitt to begin selling to non-whites in the 1960s, but by 1990, his Long Island commu- nity, with a population of 53,000, included only 127 black residents. At the same time, under programs of “urban renewal,” cities de - mol ished poor neighborhoods in city centers that occupied potentially valuable real estate. In their place, developers constructed retail centers and all-white middle-income housing complexes, and states built urban public universities like Wayne State in Detroit and the University of Illinois at Chicago. White residents displaced by urban renewal often moved to the suburbs. Non-whites, unable to do so, found housing in run- down city neighborhoods. Students at an East Harlem elementary school in 1947. Most have recently T h e D i v i d e d S o c i e t y migrated from Puerto Rico to the mainland with their families, although Suburbanization hardened the racial lines of division in American life. some are probably children of the area’s Between 1950 and 1970, about 7 million white Americans left cities for the older Italian-American community. suburbs. Meanwhile, nearly 3 million blacks moved from the South to the North, greatly increasing the size of existing urban ghettos and creating entirely new ones. And half a million Puerto Ricans, mostly small coffee Advertisers during the 1950s sought and tobacco farmers and agricultural laborers forced off the land when to convey the idea that women American sugar companies expanded their landholdings on the island, would enjoy their roles as suburban moved to the mainland. homemakers, as in this ad for a The process of racial exclusion became self-reinforcing. Non-whites vacuum cleaner, which equates remained concentrated in manual and unskilled jobs, the result of employ- housework with a game of golf. ment discrimination and their virtual exclusion from educational opportunities at public and private uni- versities, including those outside the South. As the white population and industrial jobs fled the old city centers for the suburbs, poorer blacks and Latinos remained trapped in urban ghettos, seen by many whites as places of crime, poverty, and welfare. R e l i g i o n a n d A n t i c o m m u n i s m Both Protestant and Roman Catholic religious leaders played crucial roles in the spread of anticommunism and Cold War culture. Official American values cel- ebrated the nation’s religiosity as opposed to “god- less” communism. During the 1950s, a majority of T H E G O L D E N A G E 743 Americans—the highest percentage in the nation’s history—were affiliated with a church or synagogue. In 1954, to “strengthen our national resistance to communism,” Congress added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1957, “In God We Trust” was included on paper money. Big- budget Hollywood films like The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur celebrated early Judaism and Christianity. Leading clerics like Bishop Fulton J. Sheen of the Catholic church and Protestant evangelist Billy Graham used radio and television to spread to millions a religious message heav- ily imbued with anticommunism. Communism, Graham declared, was not only an economic and political outlook but a religion—one “inspired, directed and motivated by the Devil himself.” S e l l i n g F r e e E n t e r p r i s e The economic content of Cold War freedom increasingly came to focus on An image from a booklet issued by the American Economic consumer capitalism, or, as it was now universally known, “free enter- Foundation illustrates the linkage prise.” More than political democracy or freedom of speech, which many of anticommunism and religious allies of the United States outside western Europe lacked, an economic faith during the Cold War. The system resting on private ownership united the nations of the Free World. hairy hand in the bottom half of the Free enterprise seemed an odd way of describing an economy in which drawing represents the communist threat, which endangers religious a few large corporations dominated key sectors. Until well into the twentieth freedom in the United States. Most century, most ordinary Americans had been deeply suspicious of big busi- of the booklet, however, dealt with ness, associating it with images of robber barons who manipulated politics, the superiority of free enterprise to suppressed economic competition, and treated their workers unfairly. communism. In 1953, 4.5 million Americans—only slightly more than in 1928— owned shares of stock. By the mid-1960s, the number had grown to 25 million. In the face of widespread abundance, who could deny that the capitalist marketplace embodied individual freedom or that poverty would soon be a thing of the past? “It was American Freedom,” proclaimed Life magazine, “by which and through which this amazing achievement of wealth and power was fashioned.” T h e L i b e r t a r i a n C o n s e r v a t i v e s a n d t h e N e w C o n s e r v a t i v e s During the 1950s, a group of thinkers began the task of reviving conser- vatism and reclaiming the idea of freedom from liberals. Although largely ignored outside their own immediate circle, they developed ideas that would define conservative thought for the next half-century. One was Opposition to strong opposition to a strong national government, an outlook that had been national government given new political life in conservatives’ bitter reaction against the New 744 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society How were the 1950s a period of consensus in both domestic policies and foreign affairs? Deal. To these “libertarian” conservatives, freedom meant individual autonomy, limited government, and unregulated capitalism. These ideas had great appeal to conservative entrepreneurs, especially in the rapidly growing South and West, who desired to pursue their economic fortunes free of government regulation, high taxes, and labor unions. A second strand of thought became increasingly prominent in the 1950s. Convinced that the Free World needed to arm itself morally and intellectually, not just militarily, for the battle against communism, “new conservatives” insisted that toleration of difference—a central belief of modern liberalism—offered no substitute for the search for absolute truth. The West, they warned, was suffering from moral decay, and they called for a return to a civilization based on values grounded in the Christian tradition and in timeless notions of good and evil. The “new conservatives” understood freedom as first and foremost a moral condition. It required a Freedom and morality decision by independent men and women to lead virtuous lives or govern- mental action to force them to do so. Here lay the origins of a division in conservative ranks that would per- sist into the twenty-first century. Unrestrained individual choice and moral virtue are radically different starting points from which to discuss freedom. Was the purpose of conservatism, one writer wondered, to create the “free man” or the “good man”? Libertarian conservatives spoke the language of progress and personal autonomy; the “new conservatives” emphasized tradition, community, and moral commitment. The former believed that too many barriers existed to the pursuit of individual liberty. The latter condemned an excess of individualism and a breakdown of common values. Fortunately for conservatives, political unity often depends less on intel- lectual coherence than on the existence of a common foe. And two powerful enemies became focal points for the conservative revival—the Soviet Union abroad and the federal government at home. Republican control of the presi- dency did not lessen conservatives’ hostility to the federal government, partly because they did not consider President Eisenhower one of their own. T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A I k e a n d N i x o n Dwight D. Eisenhower, or “Ike,” as he was affectionately called, emerged Dwight D. Eisenhower from World War II as the military leader with the greatest political appeal, partly because his public image of fatherly warmth set him apart T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A 745 from other successful generals like the arrogant Douglas MacArthur. Eisenhower became convinced that Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, a leading contender for the Republican nomination, would lead the United States back toward isolationism. Eisenhower entered the contest and won the Republican nomination. Richard Nixon For his running mate, Eisenhower chose Richard Nixon of California, a World War II veteran who had made a name for himself with his vig- orous anticommunism. Nixon won election to the U.S. Senate in 1950 in a campaign in which he suggested that the Democratic candidate, Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, had communist sympathies. These tactics gave Nixon a lifelong reputation for opportunism and dis- honesty. But Nixon was also a shrewd politician who pioneered efforts to transform the Republican Party’s image from defender of business to The Republican message champion of the “forgotten man”—the hardworking citizen burdened by heavy taxation and unresponsive government bureaucracies. In using populist language to promote free market economics, Nixon helped to lay the foundation for the triumph of conservatism a generation later. T h e 1 9 5 2 C a m p a i g n Television was beginning to transform politics by allowing candidates to bring carefully crafted images directly into Americans’ living rooms. The Dwight D. Eisenhower’s popularity 1952 campaign became the first to make extensive use of TV ads. Parties, was evident at this appearance in one observer complained, were “selling the president like toothpaste.” Baltimore during the 1952 presidential campaign. More important to the election’s out- come, however, was Eisenhower’s popularity (invoked in the Republican campaign slogan “I Like Ike”) and the public’s weariness with the Korean War. Ike’s pledge to “go to Korea” in search of peace signaled his intention to bring the conflict to an end. He won a resounding victory over the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson. Four years later, Eisenhower again defeated Stevenson by an even wider margin. His popularity, however, did not extend to his party. Republicans won a razor-thin majority in Congress in 1952, but Democrats regained control in 1954 and retained it for the rest of the decade. In 1956, Eisenhower became the first president to be elected without his party controlling either house of Congress. 746 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society How were the 1950s a period of consensus in both domestic policies and foreign affairs? During the 1950s, voters at home and T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N abroad seemed to find reassurance in select- O F 1 9 5 2 ing familiar, elderly leaders to govern them. At age sixty-two, Eisenhower was one of the oldest men ever elected president. But 9 4 4 3 4 5 he seemed positively youthful compared 6 11 4 with Winston Churchill, who returned to 4 12 45 16 3 20 4 office as prime minister of Great Britain 32 3 6 10 8 16 at age seventy-seven; Charles De Gaulle, 27 13 25 3 32 4 6 8 8 13 12 9 who assumed the presidency of France at 10 11 14 sixty-eight; and Konrad Adenauer, who 4 4 8 8 8 served as chancellor of West Germany 8 11 12 24 from age seventy-three until well into 10 10 his eighties. In retrospect, Eisenhower’s presidency seems almost unevent- ful, at least in domestic affairs—an Electoral Vote Popular Vote interlude between the bitter party battles of Party Candidate (Share) (Share) Republican Eisenhower 442 (83%) 33,778,963 (55.1%) the Truman administration and the social Democrat Stevenson 89 (17%) 27,314,992 (44.4%) upheavals of the 1960s. M o d e r n R e p u b l i c a n i s m With a Republican serving as president for the first time in twenty years, the tone in Washington changed. Wealthy businessmen dominated Eisenhower’s cabinet. Defense Secretary Charles Wilson, the former presi- dent of General Motors, made the widely publicized statement: “What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.” A cham- pion of the business community and a fiscal conservative, Ike worked to scale back government spending, including the military budget. But although right-wing Republicans saw his victory as an invitation to roll back the New Deal, Eisenhower realized that such a course would be disas- trous. “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unem- ployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs,” he declared, “you would not hear of that party again in our political history.” Eisenhower called his domestic agenda Modern Republicanism. It aimed to sever his party’s identification in the minds of many Americans with the Great Depression. The core New Deal programs not only remained Accepting the New Deal in place but expanded. Eisenhower presided over the largest public-works enterprise in American history, the building of the 41,000-mile interstate highway system. As noted in the previous chapter, Cold War arguments— especially T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A 747 the need to provide rapid exit routes from cities in the event of nuclear war—justified this multibillion-dollar project. But automobile manufac- turers, oil companies, suburban builders, and construction unions had very practical reasons for supporting highway construction regardless of any Soviet threat. When the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite, in 1957, the administration responded with the National Defense Education Act, which for the first time offered direct federal fund- ing to higher education. All in all, rather than dismantling the New Deal, Eisenhower’s modern Republicanism consolidated and legitimized it. By accepting its basic premises, he ensured that its continuation no longer depended on Democratic control of the presidency. T h e S o c i a l C o n t r a c t The 1950s also witnessed an easing of the labor conflict of the two previ- ous decades. The passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 (discussed in the previous chapter) had reduced labor militancy. In 1955, the AFL and CIO merged to form a single organization representing 35 percent of all Labor and management nonagricultural workers. In leading industries, labor and management cooperation hammered out what has been called a new “social contract.” Unions signed long-term agreements that left decisions regarding capital investment, plant location, and output in management’s hands. Employers stopped trying to eliminate existing unions and granted wage increases and fringe benefits such as private pension plans, health insurance, and automatic cost-of-living adjustments to pay. Unionized workers shared fully in 1950s prosperity. Although the social contract did not apply to the majority of workers, who did not belong to unions, it did bring benefits to those who labored in nonunion Nonunion workers jobs. For example, trade unions in the 1950s and 1960s were able to use their political power to win a steady increase in the minimum wage, which was earned mostly by nonunion workers at the bottom of the employment pyramid. But the majority of workers did not enjoy anything close to the wages, benefits, and job security of unionized workers in such industries as automobiles and steel. By the end of the 1950s, the social contract was weakening. In 1959, the steel industry sought to tighten work rules and limit wage increases in an attempt to boost profits battered by a recession that hit two years earlier. The plan sparked a strike of 500,000 steelworkers, which successfully beat back the proposed changes. 748 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society How were the 1950s a period of consensus in both domestic policies and foreign affairs? M a s s i v e R e t a l i a t i o n Soon after he entered office, Eisenhower approved an armistice that ended fighting in Korea. But this failed to ease international tensions. Ike took office at a time when the Cold War had entered an extremely dangerous phase. In 1952, the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb—a The hydrogen bomb weapon far more powerful than those that had devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The following year, the Soviets matched this achievement. Both sides feverishly developed long-range bombers capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction around the world. A professional soldier, Ike hated war, which he viewed as a tragic waste. “Every gun that is made,” he said in 1953, “every warship launched . . . signi- fies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed.” But his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, was a grim Cold Warrior. In 1954, Dulles announced an John Foster Dulles updated version of the doctrine of containment. “Massive retaliation,” as it was called, declared that any Soviet attack on an American ally would be countered by a nuclear assault on the Soviet Union itself. Massive retaliation ran the risk that any small conflict, or even a miscal- culation, could escalate into a war that would destroy both the United States A man helps his daughter into a and the Soviet Union. The reality that all-out war would result in “mutual backyard bomb shelter in Garden City, Long Island, New York, in a assured destruction” (or MAD, in military shorthand) did succeed in making photograph from 1955. Manufacturers both great powers cautious in their direct dealings with one another. But it of such shelters assured purchasers also inspired widespread fear of impending nuclear war. Government pro- that occupants could survive for five grams encouraging Americans to build bomb shelters in their backyards and days after a nuclear attack. school drills that trained children to hide under their desks in the event of an atomic attack aimed to convince Americans that nuclear war was survivable. I k e a n d t h e R u s s i a n s The end of the Korean War and the death of Stalin, both of which oc curred in 1953, convinced Eisenhower that rather than being blind zealots, the Soviets were reasonable and could be dealt with in conventional diplomatic terms. In 1955, Ike met in Geneva, Switzerland, with Nikita Khrushchev, the new Soviet leader, at the first “summit” conference since Potsdam a decade earlier. The following year, Khrushchev delivered a speech to the Communist Party Congress in Moscow that detailed Stalin’s crimes, including purges of political opponents numbering in the millions. Khrushchev’s call in the same 1956 speech for “peaceful coexistence” with the United States raised the possibility of an easing of the Cold War. The “thaw” was abruptly shaken that fall, however, when Soviet troops T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A 749 put down an anticommunist uprising in Hungary. Eisenhower refused to U.S.–Soviet relations extend aid to the Hungarian rebels, an indication that he believed it impos- sible to “roll back” Soviet domination of eastern Europe. In 1958, the two superpowers agreed to a voluntary halt to the testing of nuclear weapons. The pause lasted until 1961. It had been demanded by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, which publicized the danger to public health posed by radioactive fallout from nuclear tests. But the spirit of cooperation ended abruptly in 1960, when the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane over their territory. Eisenhower first denied that the plane had been involved in espionage and refused to apologize even after the Russians produced the captured pilot. The inci- dent torpedoed another planned summit meeting. T h e E m e r g e n c e o f t h e T h i r d W o r l d Even as Europe, where the Cold War began, settled into what appeared to be a permanent division between a communist East and a capitalist West, an intense rivalry, which sometimes took a military form, persisted in what came to be called the Third World. The term was invented to describe Non-aligned developing developing countries aligned with neither of the two Cold War powers and countries desirous of finding their own model of development between Soviet cen- tralized economic planning and free market capitalism. But none of these countries could avoid being strongly affected by the political, military, and economic contest of the Cold War. The post–World War II era witnessed the crumbling of European Decolonization begins empires. Decolonization began when India and Pakistan (the latter carved out of India to give Muslims their own nation) achieved inde- pendence in 1947. Ten years later, Britain’s Gold Coast colony in West Africa emerged as the independent nation of Ghana. Other new nations— including Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania—soon followed. The Soviet Union strongly supported the dissolution of Europe’s overseas empires, and communists participated in movements for colonial independence. Most of the new Third World nations resisted alignment with either major power bloc, hoping to remain neutral in the Cold War. By the end of the 1950s, much of the focus of the Cold War shifted to the Containment Third World. The policy of containment easily slid over into opposition to any government, whether communist or not, that seemed to threaten American strategic or economic interests. Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in Guatemala and Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran were elected, homegrown nationalists, not agents of Moscow. But they were de termined to reduce foreign corporations’ 750 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society How were the 1950s a period of consensus in both domestic policies and foreign affairs? control over their countries’ economies. Arbenz embarked on a sweeping land- reform policy that threatened the dom- ination of Guatemala’s economy by the American-owned United Fruit Company. Mossadegh nationalized the Anglo- Iranian Oil Company, whose refinery in Iran was Britain’s largest remaining over- seas asset. In 1953 and 1954, the Central Intelligence Agency organized the ouster of both governments—a clear violation of the UN Charter, which barred a member state from taking military action against another except in self-defense. In 1956, Israel, France, and Britain— without prior consultation with the The military junta installed in United States—invaded Egypt after the country’s nationalist leader, Gamal Guatemala by the CIA in 1954 enters Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal, jointly owned by Britain and Guatemala City in a Jeep driven by France. A furious Eisenhower forced them to abandon the invasion. After CIA agent Carlos Castillo Armas. the Suez fiasco, the United States moved to replace Britain as the dominant Although hailed by the Eisenhower administration as a triumph for Western power in the Middle East. freedom, the new government suppressed democracy in Guatemala O r i g i n s o f t h e V i e t n a m W a r and embarked on a murderous campaign to stamp out opposition. In Vietnam, the expulsion of the Japanese in 1945 led not to indepen- dence but to a French military effort to preserve France’s Asian empire against Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist forces. Anticommunism led the United States into deeper and deeper involvement. Following a policy initiated by Truman, the Eisenhower administration funneled billions of dollars The U.S. and French forces in aid to bolster French efforts. By the early 1950s, the United States was paying four-fifths of the cost of the war. Wary of becoming bogged down in another land war in Asia immediately after Korea, however, Ike declined to send in American troops when France requested them to avert defeat in 1954, leaving France no alternative but to agree to Vietnamese independence. A peace conference in Geneva divided Vietnam temporarily into Geneva agreements northern and southern districts, with elections scheduled for 1956 to unify the country. But the staunchly anticommunist southern leader Ngo Dinh Diem, urged on by the United States, refused to hold elections, which would almost certainly have resulted in a victory for Ho Chi Minh’s com- munists. American aid poured into South Vietnam in order to bolster the T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A 751 Diem regime. By the time Eisenhower left office, Diem nevertheless faced a full-scale guerrilla revolt by the communist-led National Liberation Front. U.S. interventions Little by little, the United States was becoming accustomed to interven- tion, both open and secret, in far-flung corners of the world. Despite the Cold War rhetoric of freedom, American leaders seemed more comfortable dealing with reliable military regimes than democratic governments. A series of military governments succeeded Arbenz in Guatemala. The shah of Iran replaced Mossadegh and remained in office until 1979 as one of the world’s most tyrannical rulers, until his overthrow in a revolution led by the fiercely anti-American radical Islamist Ayatollah Khomeini. In Vietnam, the American decision to prop up Diem’s regime laid the groundwork for what would soon become the most disastrous military involvement in American history. M a s s S o c i e t y a n d I t s C r i t i c s The fatherly Eisenhower seemed the perfect leader for the placid soci- ety of the 1950s. Consensus was the dominant ideal in an era in which Commuters returning from work McCarthyism had defined criticism of the social and economic order as in downtown Chicago, leaving the disloyalty and most Americans located the enjoyment of freedom in private railroad station at suburban Park pleasures rather than the public sphere. Even Life magazine commented Forest, Illinois, in 1953. Social critics that American freedom might be in greater danger from “disuse” than from of the 1950s claimed that Americans had become “organization men,” too communist subversion. conformist to lead independent lives. Dissenting voices could be heard. The sociologist C. Wright Mills challenged the self-satisfied vision of democratic pluralism that domi- nated mainstream social science in the 1950s. Mills wrote of a “power elite”—an interlocking directorate of corporate leaders, politicians, and military men whose domination of government and society had made political democracy obsolete. Freedom, Mills insisted, rested on the abil- ity “to formulate the available choices,” and this most Americans were effectively denied. Other writers worried that modern mass society inevitably produced loneliness and anxiety, causing mankind to yearn for stability and author- ity, not freedom. In The Lonely Crowd (1950), the decade’s most influential work of social analysis, the sociologist David Riesman described Americans as “other-directed” conformists who lacked the inner resources to lead truly independent lives. Other social critics charged that corporate bureau- cracies had transformed employees into “organization men” incapable of independent thought. 752 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society How were the 1950s a period of consensus in both domestic policies and foreign affairs? Rebels without a cause. Teenage members of a youth gang, photographed at Coney Island, Brooklyn, in the late 1950s. William Whyte’s The Organization Man (1956) and Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders (1957), which criticized the monotony of modern work, the emptiness of suburban life, and the pervasive influence of advertising, created the vocabulary for an assault on the nation’s social values that lay just over the horizon. R e b e l s w i t h o u t a C a u s e The social critics did not offer a political alternative or have any real impact on the parties or government. Nor did other stirrings of dissent. Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips appealed to teenagers but alarmed many adults With teenagers a growing part of the population thanks to the baby during the 1950s. boom, the rise of a popular culture geared to the emerging youth market suggested that significant generational tensions lay beneath the bland surface of 1950s life. The 1955 films Blackboard Jungle and Rebel without a Cause (the latter starring James Dean as an aimlessly rebellious youth) highlighted the alienation of at least some young people from the world of adult respectability. These works helped to spur a mid-1950s panic about juvenile delinquency. Cultural life during the 1950s seemed far more daring than politics. Teenagers wore leather jackets and danced to rock-and-roll music that brought the hard-driving rhythms and sexually provocative movements of black musicians and dancers to enthusiastic young white audiences. They made Elvis Presley, a rock-and-roll singer with an openly sexual performance style, an immensely popular entertainment celebrity. T H E E I S E N H O W E R E R A 753 A Beat coffeehouse in San Francisco, photographed in 1958, where poets, artists, and others who rejected 1950s mainstream culture gathered. In New York City and San Francisco, as well as college towns like Madison, Wisconsin, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Beats, a small group of poets and writers, railed against mainstream culture. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” Allen Ginsberg wrote the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl (1955), a brilliant protest against materialism and conformism written while the author was under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. Ginsberg became nationally known when San Francisco police in 1956 confiscated his book and arrested book- store owners for selling an obscene work. (A judge later overturned the ban on the grounds that Howl possessed redeeming social value.) Rejecting the work ethic, the “desperate materialism” of the suburban middle class, and the militarization of American life by the Cold War, the Beats cel- ebrated impulsive action, immediate pleasure (often enhanced by drugs), and sexual experimentation. Despite Cold War slogans, they insisted, personal and political repression, not freedom, were the hallmarks of American society. T H E F R E E D O M M O V E M E N T Not until the 1960s would young white rebels find their cause, as the seeds of dissent planted by the social critics and Beats flowered in an outpouring of political activism, new attitudes toward sexuality, and a full-fledged 754 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period? generational rebellion. A more immediate challenge to the complacency of the 1950s arose from the twentieth century’s greatest citizens’ movement— the black struggle for equality. O r i g i n s o f t h e M o v e m e n t Today, with the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday and the struggles of Montgomery, Little Rock, Birmingham, and Selma celebrated as heroic episodes in the history of freedom, it is easy to forget that at the time, the civil rights revolution came as a great surprise. Few predicted the emergence of the southern mass movement for civil rights. With blacks’ traditional allies on the left decimated by McCarthyism, most union leaders unwilling to challenge racial inequalities within their own ranks, and the NAACP concentrating on court battles, new constitu- encies and new tactics were sorely needed. The movement found in the southern black church the organizing power for a militant, nonviolent The southern black church assault on segregation. The United States in the 1950s was still a segregated, unequal society. Half of the nation’s black families lived in poverty. In the South, evidence of Jim Crow abounded—in separate public institutions and the signs “white” and “colored” at entrances to buildings, train carriages, drinking fountains, restrooms, and the like. In the North and West, the law did not require seg- regation, but custom barred blacks from many colleges, hotels, and restau- rants, and from most suburban housing. Las Vegas, Nevada, for example, The persistence of Jim Crow was as strictly segregated as any southern city. Hotels and casinos did not admit blacks except in the most menial jobs. Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, and other black entertainers played the hotel-casinos on the “strip” but could not stay as guests where they performed. In 1950, seventeen southern and border states and Washington, D.C., had laws requiring the racial segregation of public schools, and several others permitted local districts to impose it. In northern communities housing patterns and school district lines created de facto segregation— separation in fact if not in law. Few white Americans felt any urgency about confronting racial inequality. T h e L e g a l A s s a u l t o n S e g r e g a t i o n With the Eisenhower administration reluctant to address the issue, it fell to the courts to confront the problem of racial segregation. In the Southwest, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the T H E F R E E D O M M O V E M E N T 755 A segregated school in West Memphis, Arkansas, photographed for Life magazine in 1949. Education in the South was separate but hardly equal. equivalent of the NAACP, challenged restrictive housing, employment discrimination, and the segregation of Latino students. They won an important victory in 1946 in the case of Mendez v. Westminster, when the Desegregation in California California Supreme Court ordered the schools of Orange County desegre- gated. In response, the state legislature repealed all school laws requiring racial segregation. The governor who signed the measure, Earl Warren, had presided over the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as the state’s attorney general. After the war, he became con- vinced that racial inequality had no place in American life. When Chief Justice Fred Vinson died in 1953, Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren to replace him on the U.S. Supreme Court. For years, the NAACP, under the leadership of attorneys Charles Thurgood Marshall and Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, had pressed legal challenges the NAACP to the “separate but equal” doctrine laid down by the Court in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson (see Chapter 17). At first, the NAACP sought to gain admis- sion to white institutions of higher learning for which no black equivalent existed. In 1938, the Supreme Court ordered the University of Missouri Law School to admit Lloyd Gaines, a black student, because the state had no such school for blacks. Missouri responded by setting up a segregated law school, satisfying the courts. But in 1950, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered Heman Sweatt admitted to the University of Texas Law School even though the state had established a “school” for him in a basement containing three classrooms and no library. 756 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period? T h e B r o w n C a s e Marshall now launched a frontal assault on segregation itself. He brought the NAACP’s support to local cases that had arisen when black parents challenged unfair school policies. To do so required remarkable courage. In Clarendon County, South Carolina, Levi Pearson, a black farmer who brought a lawsuit on behalf of his children, saw his house burned to the ground. The Clarendon case attacked not segregation itself but the unequal funding of schools. Black children attended class in buildings with no running water or indoor toilets and were not provided with buses to transport them to classes. Five such cases from four states and the District of Columbia were combined in a single appeal that reached the Supreme Court late in 1952. When cases are united, they are listed alphabetically and the first case gives the entire decision its name. In this instance, the first case arose from a state outside the old Confederacy. Oliver Brown went to court because his daughter, a third grader, was forced to walk across dangerous railroad Linda Brown’s parents sued the school board of Topeka, Kansas, tracks each morning rather than being allowed to attend a nearby school demanding that it admit their restricted to whites. His lawsuit became Brown v. Board of Education of daughter to a school near her Topeka, Kansas. home restricted to whites, rather Thurgood Marshall decided that the time had come to attack the “sep- than requiring her to walk across arate but equal” doctrine itself. Even with the same funding and facilities, dangerous railroad tracks each day, as in this photograph, to he insisted, segregation was inherently unequal because it stigmatized attend a black school. The result one group of citizens as unfit to associate with others. In its legal brief, the was the Supreme Court’s landmark Eisenhower administration did not directly support Marshall’s position, Brown decision outlawing school but it urged the justices to consider “the problem of racial discrimina- segregation. tion . . . in the context of the present world struggle between freedom and tyranny.” Other peoples, it noted, “cannot understand how such a practice can exist in a country which professes to be a staunch supporter of free- dom, justice, and democracy.” The new chief justice, Earl Warren, managed to create unanimity on The Warren Court a divided Court, some of whose members disliked segregation but feared that a decision to outlaw it would spark widespread violence. On May 17, 1954, Warren himself read aloud the decision, only eleven pages long. Segregation in public education, he concluded, violated the equal protec- tion of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. “In the field of education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The decision did not order immediate implementation but instead called for hearings as to how segregated schooling should be dismantled. But Brown marked the emergence of the Warren Court as an active agent T H E F R E E D O M M O V E M E N T 757 of social change. And it inspired a wave of optimism that discrimination would soon disappear. T h e M o n t g o m e r y B u s B o y c o t t Brown did not cause the modern civil rights movement, which, as noted in the previous two chapters, began during World War II and continued in cities like New York after the war. But the decision did ensure that when the move- ment resumed after waning in the early 1950s, it would have the backing of the federal courts. Mass action against Jim Crow soon reappeared. On Decem- ber 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black tailor’s assistant who had just completed her day’s work in a Montgomery, Alabama, department store, refused to sur- render her seat on a city bus to a white rider, as required by local law. Parks’s arrest sparked a yearlong bus boycott, the beginning of the mass phase of The mug shot of Rosa Parks, taken the civil rights movement in the South. In 2000, Time magazine named Rosa in December 1955 at a Montgomery, Parks one of the 100 most significant persons of the twentieth century. Alabama, police station after she was Parks is widely remembered today as a “seamstress with tired feet,” a arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. symbol of ordinary blacks’ determination to resist the daily injustices and indignities of the Jim Crow South. In fact, her life makes clear that the civil rights revolution built on earlier struggles. Parks was a veteran of black poli- Rosa Parks tics. During the 1930s, she took part in meetings protesting the conviction of the Scottsboro Boys. She served for many years as secretary to E. D. Nixon, the local leader of the NAACP. In 1943, she tried to register to vote, only to be turned away because she supposedly failed a literacy test. After two more attempts, Parks succeeded in becoming one of the few blacks in Montgomery able to cast a ballot. When news of Parks’s arrest spread, hundreds of blacks gathered in a local church and vowed to refuse to ride the buses until accorded equal treatment. For 381 days, despite legal harassment and occasional violence, black maids, janitors, teachers, and students walked to their destinations Successful boycott or rode an informal network of taxis. Finally, in November 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segregation in public transportation unconstitu- tional. The boycott ended in triumph. T h e D a y b r e a k o f F r e e d o m The Montgomery bus boycott marked a turning point in postwar American history. It launched the movement for racial justice as a nonviolent crusade based in the black churches of the South. It gained the support of northern liberals and focused unprecedented and unwelcome international atten- tion on the country’s racial policies. And it marked the emergence of the 758 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period? The rise of Martin Luther twenty-six-year-old Martin Luther King Jr., who had recently arrived King Jr. in Montgomery to become pastor of a Baptist church, as the movement’s national symbol. On the night of the first protest meeting, King’s call to action electrified the audience: “We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality.” From the beginning, the language of freedom pervaded the black movement. It resonated in the speeches of civil rights leaders and in the hand-lettered placards of the struggle’s foot soldiers. During the summer of 1964, when civil rights activists established “freedom schools” for black children across Mississippi, lessons began with students being asked to define the word. Some gave specific answers (“going to public libraries”), some more abstract (“standing up for your rights”). Some insisted that freedom meant legal equality, others saw it as liberation from years of deference to and fear of whites. “Freedom of the mind,” wrote one, was the greatest freedom of all. For adults as well, freedom had many meanings. It meant enjoy- The movement and freedom ing the political rights and economic opportunities taken for granted by whites. It required eradicating historic wrongs such as segregation, disenfranchisement, confinement to low-wage jobs, and the ever-present threat of violence. It meant the right to be served at lunch counters and downtown department stores, central locations in the consumer culture, and to be addressed as “Mr.,” “Miss,” and “Mrs.,” rather than “boy” and “auntie.” T h e L e a d e r s h i p o f K i n g In King’s soaring oratory, the protesters’ understandings of freedom fused into a coherent whole. His most celebrated oration, the “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963, began by invoking the unfulfilled promise of emancipation (“one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free”) and closed with a cry borrowed from a black spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” King presented the case for black rights in a vocabulary that merged the black experience with that of the nation. Having studied the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi on peaceful civil disobedi- Peaceful civil disobedience ence, King outlined a philosophy of struggle in which evil must be met with good, hate with Christian love, and violence with peaceful demands for change. T H E F R E E D O M M O V E M E N T 759 Echoing Christian themes de rived from his training in the black church, King’s speeches resonated deeply in both black communities and the broader culture. He repeatedly in voked the Bible to preach justice and forgiveness, even toward those “who desire to deprive you of freedom.” Like Frederick Douglass before him, King appealed to white America by stressing the protesters’ love of country and devotion to national values. If Africa was gaining its freedom, he asked, why must black America lag behind? M a s s i v e R e s i s t a n c e Buoyed by success in Montgomery, King in 1956 took the lead in forming Southern Christian the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a coalition of black min- Leadership Conference isters and civil rights activists, to press for desegregation. But despite the movement’s success in popular mobilization, the fact that Montgomery’s city fathers agreed to the boycott’s demands only after a Supreme Court ruling indicated that without national backing, local action might not be enough to overturn Jim Crow. The white South’s refusal to accept the Brown decision reinforced the conviction that black citizens could not gain their constitutional rights without Washington’s intervention. This was not immediately forthcoming. When the Supreme Court finally issued its implementation ruling in 1955, the justices declared that desegregation should proceed “with all deliberate speed.” This vague formulation unin- tentionally encouraged a campaign of “massive resistance” that paralyzed civil rights progress in much of the South. Opponents of racial integration raised In 1956, 82 of 106 southern congressmen—and every southern senator all sorts of lurid fears about the except Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas and Albert Gore and Estes Kefauver of consequences if blacks and whites attended school together. Tennessee—signed a Southern Manifesto, denouncing the Brown decision as a “clear abuse of judicial power,” and calling for resistance to “forced integration” by “any lawful means.” State after state passed laws to block desegregation. Virginia pioneered the strategy of closing any public schools ordered to desegregate and offering funds to enable white pupils, but not black, to attend private institutions. Prince Edward County, Virginia, shut its schools entirely in 1959; not until 1964 did the Supreme Court order them reopened. E i s e n h o w e r a n d C i v i l R i g h t s The federal government tried to remain aloof from the black struggle. Thanks to the efforts of Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, who hoped to win liberal support for a run for president in 1960, Congress 760 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society What were the major thrusts of the civil rights movement in this period? in 1957 passed the first national civil rights law since Reconstruction. It tar- geted the denial of black voting rights in the South, but with weak enforce- ment provisions it added few voters to the rolls. President Eisenhower failed to provide moral leadership. He called for Americans to abide by the law, but he made it clear that he found the whole civil rights issue distasteful. In 1957, however, after Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas used the National Guard to prevent the court-ordered integration of Little Rock’s Little Rock Central High School, Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to the city. In the face of a howling mob, soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division escorted nine black children into the school. Events in Little Rock showed that in the last instance, the federal government would not allow the flagrant violation of court orders. But because of massive resistance, the pace of the movement slowed in the final years of the 1950s. When Eisenhower left office, fewer than 2 percent of black students attended desegregated schools in the states of the old Confederacy. Ever since the beginning of the Cold War, American leaders had wor- Segregation and America’s ried about the impact of segregation on the country’s international reputa- reputation abroad tion. Foreign nations and colonies paid close attention to the unfolding of the American civil rights movement. The global reaction to the Brown decision was overwhelmingly positive. But the slow pace of change led to criticism that embarrassed American diplomats seeking to win the loyalty Federal troops escort black children to Little Rock Central High School, enforcing a court order for integration in 1957. T H E F R E E D O M M O V E M E N T 761 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m R i c h a r d W r i g h t , “ I C h o o s e E x i l e ” ( 1 9 5 0 ) One of the country’s most prominent black novelists, Richard Wright decided to move to Paris in 1946, hoping to escape the racial inequality that existed in the United States. In this unpublished essay, he explained his decision. Wright died in Paris in 1960. “I am a Negro and I was born in America. . . . But as of this writing, I live in voluntary exile in France. . . . I live in exile because I love freedom, and I’ve found more freedom in one square block of Paris than there is in the entire United States! . . . I need freedom. Some people need more freedom than others, and I’m one of them. . . . The French, amongst whom I’ve lived in exile for six years, do not argue about personal freedom; they just live it. One is not prone to speak about what one already has. It’s in America, where so much freedom is lacking, that one hears loud and passionate argument about it. One feels that one is listening to a starving man tell of his need for bread. . . . At home I had spent half my life advocating the rights of the Negro, and I knew that if my fight was not right, then nothing was right. Yet I always felt a sneaking sense of futility because I knew that there was something basically wrong in a nation that could so cynically violate its own Constitution and democratic pretensions by meting out physical and psychological cruelties upon a defenseless minority. From the distance of a freer culture, my feelings somewhat changed. Anger turned into a sort of amazed pity, for I felt that America’s barbaric treatment of the Negro was not one-half so bad as the destructive war she has waged, in striking at the Negro, against the concept of the free person, against freedom of conscience, against the Rights of Man, and against herself! I was disconcerted when I realized the vast dislocation of human values which the mere presence of the Negro in America had brought about. . . . What a psychological handicap America takes into the struggle against a Communism whose basic slogan is for the liberation of Asia and Africa! 762 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society Focus Question F r o m T h e S o u t h e r n M a n i f e s t o ( 1 9 5 6 ) Drawn up early in 1956 and signed by 101 southern members of the Senate and House of Representatives, the Southern Manifesto repudiated the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and offered support to the campaign of resistance in the South. The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when men substitute naked power for established law. . . . We regard the decisions of the Supreme Court in the school cases as a clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal Judiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation [violation] of the authority of Congress, and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people. The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the submission of the 14th Amendment clearly show that there was no intent that it should affect the system of education maintained by the States. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 the Supreme Court expressly declared that under the 14th Amendment no person was denied any of his rights if the States provided separate but equal facilities. This decision . . . restated time and again, became a part of the life of the people of many of the States and confirmed their habits, traditions, and way of life. It is founded on elemental humanity and commonsense, for parents should not be deprived by Government of the right to direct the lives and education of their own children. Though there has been no constitutional amendment or act of Congress changing this established legal principle almost a century old, the Supreme Court of the United States, with no legal basis for such action, undertook to exercise their naked judicial power and substituted their personal political and social ideas for the established law of the land. This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating Q U E S T I O N S chaos and confusion in the States principally 1. Why does Wright believe that the affected. It is destroying the amicable relations condition of black Americans has between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the produced a “dislocation of values” for good people of both races. It has planted hatred all Americans? and suspicion where there has been heretofore 2. Why does the Southern Manifesto friendship and understanding. claim that the Supreme Court With the gravest concern for the explosive and decision is a threat to constitutional dangerous condition created by this decision and government? inflamed by outside meddlers: . . . we commend the motives of those States which have declared the 3. How do these documents illustrate con- intention to resist forced integration by any lawful trasting understandings of freedom at means. . . . the dawn of the civil rights movement? V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 763 of people in the non-white world. Of course, the Soviet Union played up American race relations as part of the global “battle for hearts and minds of men” that was a key part of the Cold War. T H E E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 6 0 K e n n e d y a n d N i x o n The presidential campaign of 1960 turned out to be one of the closest in American history. Republicans chose Vice President Richard Nixon as their candidate to succeed Eisenhower. Democrats nominated John F. JFK Kennedy, a senator from Massachusetts and a Roman Catholic, whose father, a millionaire Irish-American businessman, had served as ambas- sador to Great Britain during the 1930s. Kennedy’s chief rivals for the nomination were Hubert Humphrey, leader of the party’s liberal wing, and Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, the Senate majority leader, who accepted Kennedy’s offer to run for vice president. Kennedy’s Catholicism The atmosphere of tolerance promoted by World War II had weak- ened traditional anti-Catholicism. But many Protestants remained reluc- tant to vote for a Catholic, fearing that Kennedy would be required to support church doctrine on controversial public issues or, in a more extreme version, take orders from the pope. Kennedy addressed the ques- tion directly. “I do not speak for my church on public matters,” he insisted, The 1960 presidential campaign produced a flood of anti-Catholic propaganda. Kennedy’s victory, the first for an American Catholic, was a major step in the decline of this long- standing prejudice. 764 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society What was the significance of the presidential election of 1960? and “the church does not speak for me.” At T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N age forty-three, Kennedy became the young- O F 1 9 6 0 est major-party nominee for president in the nation’s history. Both Kennedy and Nixon were ardent 9 4 4 3 4 5 Cold Warriors. But Kennedy pointed to 6 11 4 Soviet success in putting Sputnik, the first 4 12 45 16 3 20 4 earth satellite, into orbit and subsequently 10 32 3 6 8 25 16 testing the first intercontinental ballistic 4 27 13 32 3 6 8 8 13 12 9 missile (ICBM) as evidence that the United 10 14 11 States had lost the sense of national purpose 4 7 4 1 8 8 necessary to fight the Cold War. He warned 8 6 5 12 24 that Republicans had allowed a “missile 3 10 3 10 gap” to develop in which the Soviets had achieved technological and military superi- ority over the United States. In fact, as both Electoral Vote Popular Vote Party Candidate (Share) (Share) Kennedy and Nixon well knew, American Democrat Kennedy 303 (56%) 34,227,096 (49.7%) economic and military capacity far exceeded Republican Nixon 219 (41%) 34,107,646 (49.6%) that of the Soviets. But the charge persuaded Independent Byrd 15 (3%) 501,643 (0.7%) many Americans that the time had come for new leadership. The stylishness of Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline, reinforced the impression that Kennedy would conduct a more youthful, vigorous presidency. In the first televised debate between presidential candidates, judg- ing by viewer response, the handsome Kennedy bested Nixon, who was suffering from a cold and appeared tired and nervous. Those who heard A photograph of John F. Kennedy the encounter on the radio thought Nixon had won, but, on TV, image and his wife, Jacqueline, strolling counted for more than substance. In November, Kennedy eked out a nar- along the pier at Hyannisport, Massachusetts, illustrates their row victory, winning the popular vote by only 120,000 out of 69 million youthful appeal. votes cast (and, Republicans charged, benefiting from a fraudulent vote count by the notoriously corrupt Chicago Democratic machine). T h e E n d o f t h e 1 9 5 0 s In January 1961, shortly before leaving office, Eisenhower delivered a tele- vised Farewell Address, modeled to some extent on George Washington’s address of 1796. Knowing that the missile gap was a myth, Ike warned against the drumbeat of calls for a new military buildup. He urged Americans to think about the dangerous power of what he called the “military-industrial complex”—the conjunction of “an immense military establishment” with a “permanent arms industry”—with an T H E E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 6 0 765 influence felt in “every office” in the land. “We must never let the weight of this combination,” he advised his countrymen, “endanger our liber- ties or democratic processes.” Few Americans shared Ike’s concern—far more saw the alliance of the Defense Department and private industry as a source of jobs and national security rather than a threat to democracy. A few years later, however, with the United States locked in an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam, Eisenhower’s warning would come to seem prophetic. By then, other underpinnings of 1950s life were also in disarray. The tens of millions of cars that made suburban life possible were spewing toxic lead, an additive to make gasoline more efficient, into the atmosphere. Penned in to the east by mountains that kept automobile emissions from being dispersed by the wind, Los Angeles had become synonymous with smog, a type of air pollution produced by cars. The chemical insecticides that enabled agricultural conglomerates to pro- duce the country’s remarkable abundance of food were poisoning farm workers, consumers, and the water supply. Housewives were rebelling against a life centered in suburban dream houses. Blacks were increas- ingly impatient with the slow progress of racial change. The United States, in other words, had entered that most turbulent of decades, the 1960s. 766 C h a p t e r 2 4  An Affluent Society C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. Explain the meaning of the “American standard of liv- Levittown (p. 739) ing” during the 1950s. “baby boom” (p. 742) housing segregation (p. 742) 2. Describe how the automobile transformed American “urban renewal” (p. 743) “In God We Trust” (p. 744) communities and culture in the 1950s. Interstate highway system (p. 747) Sputnik (p. 748) 3. Identify the prescribed roles and aspirations for women National Defense Education Act during the social conformity of the 1950s. (p. 748) massive retaliation (p. 749) 4. How did governmental policies, business practices, and Iranian coup (p. 751) individual choices contribute to racially segregated Geneva Accords (p. 752) suburbs? juvenile delinquency (p. 753) rock-and-roll music (p. 753) 5. Explain the ideological rifts among conservatives in the the Beats (p. 754) 1950s. Why did many view President Eisenhower as League of United Latin American Citizens (p. 755) “not one of them”? Brown v. Board of Education (p. 757) 6. What was the new “social contract” between labor and Montgomery bus boycott (p. 758) management, and how did it benefit both sides as well as “Southern Manifesto” (p. 760) the nation as a whole? “missile gap” (p. 765) “military-industrial complex” 7. How did the United States and Soviet Union shift the (p. 765) focus of the Cold War to the Third World? 8. What were the most significant factors that contributed to the growing momentum of the civil rights movement in the 1950s? wwnorton.com /studyspace 9. How did many southern whites, led by their elected VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE officials, resist desegregation and civil rights in the name RESOURCES AND MORE RESOURCES AND MORE of “freedom”? s s s 10. How and why did the federal government’s concern with s s U.S. relations overseas shape its involvement with the s s Brown v. Board of Education case? s Multimedia documents s C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S 767 1960 Greensboro, NC, sit-in C H A P T E R 2 5 Young Americans for Freedom founded 1961 Bay of Pigs Freedom Rides Berlin Wall constructed 1962 Port Huron Statement University of Mississippi desegregated Rachel Carson’s Silent T H E S I X T I E S Spring Cuban missile crisis 1963 Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” March on Washington  Kennedy assassinated 1964 Freedom Summer Civil Rights Act passed 1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 8 Gulf of Tonkin resolution 1965– Great Society 1967 1965 Voting Rights Act Watts riots Hart-Celler Act 1966 National Organization for Women organized 1968 Tet offensive Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated American Indian Movement founded Richard Nixon elected 1969 Police raid on Stonewall Inn Woodstock festival 1973 Roe v. Wade An antiwar demonstrator offers a flower to Military Police stationed outside the Pentagon at a 1967 rally against the Vietnam War. Some 100,000 protesters took part in this demonstration. On the afternoon of February 1, 1960, four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a black F O C U S college in Greensboro, North Carolina, entered the local Wool- worth’s department store. After making a few purchases, they sat down Q U E S T I O N S at the lunch counter, an area reserved for whites. Told that they could not be served, they remained in their seats until the store closed. They returned the next morning and the next. After resisting for five months, s Woolworth’s in July agreed to serve black customers at its lunch counters. events in the civil rights More than any other event, the Greensboro sit-in launched the movement of the early 1960s: a decade of political activism and social change. Similar demon- 1960s? strations soon took place throughout the South as activists demanded the integration not only of lunch counters but of parks, pools, restaurants, s bowling alleys, libraries, and other facilities as well. By the end of 1960, ses and policy initiatives of some 70,000 demonstrators had taken part in sit-ins. Angry whites the Kennedy presidency? often assaulted them. But having been trained in nonviolent resistance, the protesters did not strike back. s Even more than elevating blacks to full citizenship, declared the and strategies of Johnson’s writer James Baldwin, the civil rights movement challenged the United Great Society programs? States to rethink “what it really means by freedom”—including whether freedom applied to all Americans or only to part of the population. With s movement change in the mid-1960s? s transform American poli- tics and culture? s significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s? s a climactic year for the Sixties? Participants in a sit-in in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1960. The protesters, probably students from a local college, brought books and newspapers to emphasize the seriousness of their intentions and their commitment to nonviolence. T H E S I X T I E S 769 their freedom rides, freedom schools, freedom marches, and the insis- tent cry “freedom now,” black Americans and their white allies risked physical and economic retribution to lay claim to freedom. Their courage inspired a host of other challenges to the status quo, including a student movement known as the New Left, the “second wave” of feminism, and activism among other minorities. By the time the decade ended, these movements had challenged the 1950s’ understanding of freedom linked to the Cold War abroad and con- sumer choice at home. They made American society confront the fact that certain groups, including students, women, members of racial minori- ties, and homosexuals, felt themselves excluded from full enjoyment of American freedom. Reflecting back years later on the struggles of the 1960s, one black Civil rights demonstrators in organizer in Memphis remarked, “All I wanted to do was to live in a free Orangeburg, South Carolina, in 1960. country.” Of the movement’s accomplishments, he added, “You had to fight for every inch of it. Nobody gave you anything. Nothing.” T H E C I V I L R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N T h e R i s i n g T i d e o f P r o t e s t With the sit-ins, college students for the first time stepped onto the stage of Ella Baker and SNCC American history as the leading force for social change. In April 1960, Ella Baker, a longtime civil rights organizer, called a meeting of young activists in Raleigh, North Carolina. Out of the gathering came the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), dedicated to replacing the culture of seg- regation with a “beloved community” of racial justice and to empowering ordinary blacks to take control of the decisions that affected their lives. In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides. Integrated groups traveled by bus into the Deep South to test compliance with court orders banning segregation on interstate buses and trains and in terminal facilities. Violent mobs assaulted them. Near Anniston, Alabama, a firebomb was thrown into the vehicle and the pas- sengers beaten as they escaped. In Birmingham, Klansmen attacked riders with bats and chains while police refused to intervene. But the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered buses and terminals desegregated. As protests escalated, so did the resistance of local authorities. In September 1962, a court ordered the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith James Meredith, a black student. The state police stood aside as a mob, 770 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the major events in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s? A police officer takes picket signs from young demonstrators in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, during the civil rights campaign of 1963. One sign illustrates how religious beliefs helped to inspire the protesters. A fireman assaulting young African- encouraged by Governor Ross Barnett, rampaged through the streets of American demonstrators with a high- Oxford, where the university is located. Two bystanders lost their lives in pressure hose during the climactic demonstrations in Birmingham. the riot. President Kennedy was forced to dispatch the army to restore order. Broadcast on television, such pictures proved a serious problem for B i r m i n g h a m the United States in its battle for the “hearts and minds” of people around The high point of protest came in the spring of 1963, when demonstrations the world and forced the Kennedy administration to confront the took place in towns and cities across the South. In one week in June, there contradiction between the rhetoric of were more than 15,000 arrests in 186 cities. The dramatic culmination freedom and the reality of racism. came in Birmingham, Alabama, a citadel of segregation. Even for the Deep South, Birmingham was a violent city—there had been over fifty bombings of black homes and institutions since World War II. With the movement flagging, some of its leaders invited Martin Luther King Jr. to come to Birmingham. While serving a nine- day prison term in April 1963 for violating a ban on demonstrations, King composed one of his most eloquent pleas for racial justice, the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Res ponding to local clergymen who coun- seled patience, King related the litany of abuses faced by black southerners, from T H E C I V I L R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N 771 police brutality to the daily humiliation of having to explain to their children why they could not enter amusement parks or public swimming pools. The “white moderate,” King declared, must put aside fear of disorder and com- mit himself to racial justice. In May, King made the bold decision to send black schoolchildren into the streets of Birmingham. Police chief Eugene “Bull” Connor unleashed Confrontations in Birmingham his forces against the thousands of young marchers. The images, broadcast on television, of children being assaulted with nightsticks, high-pressure fire hoses, and attack dogs produced a wave of revulsion throughout the world. It led President Kennedy, as will be related later, to endorse the movement’s goals. Leading businessmen, fearing that the city was becoming an international symbol of brutality, brokered an end to the demonstrations that desegregated downtown stores and restaurants and promised that black salespeople would be hired. In June 1963, a sniper killed Medgar Evers, field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. In September, a bomb exploded at a black Baptist church in Birmingham, killing four young girls. (Not until the year 2002 was the last of those who committed this act of domestic terrorism tried and convicted.) T h e M a r c h o n W a s h i n g t o n On August 28, 1963, two weeks before the Birmingham church bombing, 250,000 black and white Americans converged on the nation’s capital for the March on Washington, often considered the high point of the nonviolent civil rights movement. Calls for the passage of a civil rights bill pending before Congress took center stage. But the march’s goals also Three participants in the 1963 March included a public-works program to reduce unemployment, an increase on Washington stand in front of the in the minimum wage, and a law barring discrimination in employment. White House with signs invoking These demands, and the marchers’ slogan, “Jobs and Freedom,” revealed freedom and the memory of slavery. how the black movement had, for the moment, forged an alliance with white liberal groups. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered his most famous speech, including the words, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ ” The movement was not without internal tensions. March organizers ordered SNCC leader John Lewis (later a congressman from Georgia) to tone down his speech, the original text of which called on blacks to “free ourselves of the chains of political and economic slavery” and march “through the heart of Dixie the way Sherman did . . . and burn Jim Crow to the ground.” Lewis’s rhetoric forecast the more militant turn many in the movement would soon be taking. 772 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the major events in the civil rights movement of the early 1960s? Civil rights activists also resurrected the Civil War–era vision of national authority as the custodian of American freedom. Despite the fact that the federal government had for many decades promoted segregation, blacks’ historical experience suggested that they had more hope for justice from national power than from local governments or civic institutions— home owners’ associations, businesses, private clubs—still riddled with racism. It remained unclear whether the federal government would take up this responsibility. T H E K E N N E D Y Y E A R S John F. Kennedy served as president for less than three years and, in domestic affairs, had few tangible accomplishments. But his administra- tion is widely viewed today as a moment of youthful glamour, soaring hopes, and dynamic leadership at home and abroad. Kennedy’s inaugural address of January 1961 announced a watershed in American politics: “The torch has been passed,” he declared, “to a new “The torch has been passed” generation of Americans” who would “pay any price, bear any burden,” to “assure the survival and success of liberty.” But although the sit-ins were by now a year old, the speech said nothing about segregation or race. At the outset of his presidency, Kennedy regarded civil rights as a distraction from his main concern—vigorous conduct of the Cold War. K e n n e d y a n d t h e W o r l d Kennedy’s agenda envisioned new initiatives aimed at countering com- munist influence in the world. One of his first acts was to establish the Peace Corps, which sent young Americans abroad to aid in the eco- The Peace Corps nomic and educational progress of developing countries and to improve the image of the United States there. When the Soviets in April 1961 launched a satellite carrying the first man into orbit around the earth, Kennedy announced that the United States would mobilize its resources to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The goal seemed almost impossible when announced, but it was stunningly accomplished in 1969. Like his predecessors, Kennedy viewed the entire world through the Kennedy as Cold Warrior lens of the Cold War. This outlook shaped his dealings with Fidel Castro, who had led a revolution that in 1959 ousted Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Until Castro took power, Cuba was an economic dependency of T H E K E N N E D Y Y E A R S 773 the United States. When his government began nationalizing American landholdings and other investments and signed an agreement to sell sugar to the Soviet Union, the Eisenhower administration suspended trade with the island. The CIA began training anti-Castro exiles for an invasion of Cuba. In April 1961, Kennedy allowed the CIA to launch its invasion at a site known as the Bay of Pigs. But the assault proved to be a total failure and only strengthened Cuba’s ties to the Soviet Union. The Kennedy adminis- tration tried other methods, including assassination attempts, to get rid of Castro’s government. T h e M i s s i l e C r i s i s Meanwhile, relations between the two “superpowers” deteriorated. In August 1961, in order to stem a growing tide of emigrants fleeing from East to West Berlin, the Soviets constructed a wall separating the two parts of A Cold War symbol the city. Until its demolition in 1989, the Berlin Wall would stand as a tan- gible symbol of the Cold War and the division of Europe. The most dangerous crisis of the Kennedy administration, and in many ways of the entire Cold War, came in October 1962, when American spy planes discovered that the Soviet Union was installing missiles in Cuba capable of reaching the United States with nuclear weapons. Rejecting advice from military leaders that he authorize an attack on Cuba, which would almost certainly have triggered a Soviet response in Berlin and perhaps a nuclear war, Kennedy imposed a The Cuba blockade blockade, or “ quarantine,” of the island and demanded the missiles’ removal. After tense behind-the-scenes negotiations, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles; Kennedy pledged that the United States would not invade Cuba and secretly agreed to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey, from which they could reach the Soviet Union. The crisis seems to have lessened Kennedy’s passion for the Cold War. Indeed, he appears to have been shocked by the casual way military leaders spoke of “winning” a nuclear exchange in which tens of millions of Americans and Russians were certain to die. In 1963, he called for greater cooperation with the Soviets. That summer, the two countries agreed to a The 1963 nuclear test-ban treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere and in treaty space. In announcing the agreement, Kennedy paid tribute to the small movement against nuclear weapons that had been urging such a ban for several years. 774 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the major crises and policy initiatives of the Kennedy presidency? James Meredith, the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi, in a classroom where white classmates refused to sit near him. K e n n e d y a n d C i v i l R i g h t s In his first two years in office, Kennedy was preoccupied with foreign policy. But in 1963, the crisis over civil rights eclipsed other concerns. Until then, Kennedy had been reluctant to take a forceful stand on black demands. He used federal force when obstruction of civil rights law became acute, as at the University of Mississippi. But he failed to protect New York City train passengers activists from violence, insisting that law enforcement was a local matter. reading the news of President Events in Birmingham in May 1963 forced Kennedy’s hand. In June, Kennedy’s assassination, he went on national television to call for the passage of a law banning November 22, 1963. discrimination in all places of public accom- modation, a major goal of the civil rights movement. The nation, he asserted, faced a moral crisis: “We preach freedom around the world, . . . but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other, that this is a land of the free except for Negroes?” Kennedy did not live to see his civil rights bill enacted. On November 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas, he was shot and killed. Most likely, the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, a trou- bled former marine. Partly because Oswald was murdered two days later by a local T H E K E N N E D Y Y E A R S 775 nightclub owner while in police custody, speculation about a possible conspiracy continues to this day. In any event, Kennedy’s death brought an abrupt and utterly unexpected end to his presidency. It fell to his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, to secure passage of the civil rights bill and to launch a program of domestic liberalism far more ambitious than any- thing Kennedy had envisioned. L Y N D O N J O H N S O N ’ S P R E S I D E N C Y Unlike John F. Kennedy, raised in a wealthy and powerful family, Lyndon Johnson grew up in one of the poorest parts of the United States, the cen- Texas background tral Texas hill country. Johnson never forgot the poor Mexican and white children he had taught in a Texas school in the early 1930s. Far more inter- ested than Kennedy in domestic reform, he continued to hold the New Deal view that government had an obligation to assist less-fortunate members of society. T h e C i v i l R i g h t s A c t o f 1 9 6 4 Just five days after Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson called on Congress to enact the civil rights bill as the most fitting memorial to his slain predecessor. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment, institutions like hospitals and schools, and privately owned public accommodations such as restaurants, hotels, and theaters. It also banned discrimination on the grounds of sex—a provision Landmark legislation added by opponents of civil rights in an effort to derail the entire bill and embraced by liberal and female members of Congress as a way to broaden its scope. Johnson knew that many whites opposed the new law. After signing it, he turned to an aide and remarked, “I think we delivered the South to the Republican Party.” F r e e d o m S u m m e r The 1964 law did not address a major concern of the civil rights The 1964 voter registration movement—the right to vote in the South. That summer, a coalition of drive civil rights groups launched a voter registration drive in Mississippi. Hundreds of white college students from the North traveled to the state to take part in Freedom Summer. An outpouring of violence greeted the campaign, including thirty-five bombings and numerous beatings of civil rights workers. In June, three young activists—Michael Schwerner and 776 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the purposes and strategies of Johnson’s Great Society programs? Andrew Goodman, white students from the North, and James Chaney, a local black youth, were kidnapped by a group headed by a deputy sheriff and murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Although many black lives Mississippi had been lost in the movement, the deaths of the two white students now focused unprecedented attention on Mississippi and on the apparent inability of the federal government to protect citizens seeking to exercise their constitutional rights. Freedom Summer led directly to one of the most dramatic confronta- tions of the civil rights era—the campaign by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to take the seats of the state’s all-white offi- The MFDP cial party at the 1964 Democratic national convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The civil rights movement in Mississippi had created the MFDP, open to all residents of the state. At televised hearings before the credentials committee, Fannie Lou Hamer of the MFDP held a national Fannie Lou Hamer audience spellbound with her account of growing up in poverty in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta and of the savage beatings she had endured at the hands of police. Party liberals, including Johnson’s running mate, Hubert Humphrey, pressed for a compromise in which two black delegates would be granted seats. But the MFDP rejected the proposal. T h e 1 9 6 4 E l e c t i o n The events at Atlantic City severely weakened black activists’ faith in the responsiveness of the political system and forecast the impending Fannie Lou Hamer testifying at the Democratic national convention of 1964 on behalf of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. L Y N D O N J O H N S O N ’ S P R E S I D E N C Y 777 breakup of the coalition between the civil T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N rights movement and the liberal wing of the O F 1 9 6 4 Democratic Party. For the moment, how- ever, the movement rallied behind Johnson’s campaign for reelection. Johnson’s oppo- 9 4 4 3 4 4 nent, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, 6 10 4 demanded a more aggressive conduct of 4 12 43 14 3 21 4 the Cold War. But Goldwater directed most 9 29 3 5 8 17 of his critique against “internal” dangers 4 26 13 26 3 40 6 7 7 12 12 10 to freedom, especially the New Deal wel- 9 3 13 11 fare state, which he believed stifled indi- 5 4 8 6 8 vidual initiative and independence. He 7 10 12 25 voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 4 10 3 14 His acceptance speech at the Republican national convention contained the explosive statement, “Extremism in the defense of Electoral Vote Popular Vote liberty is no vice.” Party Candidate (Share) (Share) Democrat Johnson 486 (90%) 42,825,463 (61%) Stigmatized by the Democrats as an Republican Goldwater 52 (10%) 27,146,969 (38.4%) extremist who would repeal Social Security and risk nuclear war, Goldwater went down to a disastrous defeat. Johnson received almost 43 million votes to Goldwater’s 27 million. Democrats swept to two-to-one majorities in both houses of Congress. But Goldwater’s message enabled him to carry five Deep South states, and segregationist governor George Wallace of Alabama showed in several Democratic primaries that politicians could strike electoral gold by appealing to white opposition to the civil rights movement. Although few realized it, the 1964 campaign marked a mile- stone in the resurgence of American conservatism. T h e C o n s e r v a t i v e S i x t i e s The 1960s, today recalled as a decade of radicalism, clearly had a con- Young Americans for Freedom servative side as well. With the founding in 1960 of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), conservative students emerged as a force in politics. There were striking parallels between the Sharon Statement, issued by ninety young people who gathered at the estate of conservative intellec- tual William F. Buckley in Sharon, Connecticut, to establish YAF, and the Port Huron Statement of SDS of 1962 (discussed later in this chapter). Both manifestos portrayed youth as the cutting edge of a new radical- ism, and both claimed to offer a route to greater freedom. The Sharon 778 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the purposes and strategies of Johnson’s Great Society programs? A 1967 rally by members of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative group that flourished in the 1960s. Statement summarized beliefs that had circulated among conservatives during the past decade—the free market underpinned “personal freedom,” government must be strictly limited, and “international communism,” the gravest threat to liberty, must be destroyed. Goldwater also brought new constituencies to the conservative Conservative strength cause. His campaign aroused enthusiasm in the rapidly expanding suburbs of southern California and the Southwest. Orange County, California, many of whose residents had recently arrived from the East and Midwest and worked in defense-related industries, became a nation- ally known center of grassroots conservative activism. And by carrying five states of the Deep South, Goldwater showed that the civil rights revolution had redrawn the nation’s political map, opening the door to a “southern strategy” that would eventually lead the entire region into the Republican Party. Well before the rise of Black Power, a reaction against civil rights gains offered conservatives new opportunities and threatened the stability of the Democratic coalition. In 1962, YAF bestowed its Freedom Award on Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, one of the country’s most Strom Thurmond prominent segregationists. During the 1960s, most conservatives aban- doned talk of racial superiority and inferiority. But conservative appeals to law and order, “freedom of association,” and the evils of welfare often had strong racial overtones. Racial divisions would prove to be a political gold mine for conservatives. L Y N D O N J O H N S O N ’ S P R E S I D E N C Y 779 T h e V o t i n g R i g h t s A c t One last legislative triumph, however, lay ahead for the civil rights move- ment. In January 1965, King launched a voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, a city where only 355 of 15,000 black residents had been allowed to register to vote. In March, defying a ban by Governor Wallace, King Selma, Alabama attempted to lead a march from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery. When the marchers reached the bridge leading out of the city, state police assaulted them with cattle prods, whips, and tear gas. Once again, violence against nonviolent demonstrators flashed across television screens throughout the world. Calling Selma a milestone in “man’s unending search for freedom,” Johnson asked Congress to enact LBJ’s support a law securing the right to vote. He closed his speech by quoting the demonstrators’ song, “We Shall Overcome.” Never before had the move- ment received so powerful an endorsement from the federal govern- ment. Congress quickly passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allowed federal officials to register voters. In addition, the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed the poll tax, which had long pre- vented poor blacks (and some whites) from voting in the South. I m m i g r a t i o n R e f o r m By 1965, the civil rights movement had succeeded in eradicating the legal bases of second-class citizenship. The belief that racism should no longer serve as a basis of public policy spilled over into other realms. In 1965, The Hart-Celler Act and its the Hart-Celler Act abandoned the national-origins quota system of consequences immigration, which had excluded Asians and severely restricted south- ern and eastern Europeans. The law established new, racially neutral criteria for immigration, notably family reunification and possession of skills in demand in the United States. On the other hand, because of growing hostility in the Southwest to Mexican immigration, the law established the first limit, 120,000, on newcomers from the Western Hemisphere. The new law had many unexpected results. At the time, immigrants represented only 5 percent of the American population—the lowest pro- portion since the 1830s. No one anticipated that the new quotas not only New wave of immigration would lead to an explosive rise in immigration but also would spark a dramatic shift in which newcomers from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia came to outnumber those from Europe. Taken together, the civil rights revolution and immigration reform marked the triumph of a pluralist conception of Americanism. By 1976, 85 percent of respondents 780 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the purposes and strategies of Johnson’s Great Society programs? to a public-opinion survey agreed with the statement, “The United States American pluralism was meant to be . . . a country made up of many races, religions, and nationalities.” T h e G r e a t S o c i e t y After his landslide victory of 1964, Johnson outlined the most sweeping proposal for governmental action to promote the general welfare since the New Deal. Johnson’s initiatives of 1965–1967, known collectively as the Great Society, provided health services to the poor and elderly in the new Medicaid and Medicare programs and poured federal funds Expanding social programs into education and urban development. New agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Endowments for the Humanities and for the Arts, and a national public broadcasting network, were created. These measures greatly expanded the powers of the federal government, and they completed and extended the social agenda (with the exception of national health insurance) that had been stalled in Congress since 1938. Unlike the New Deal, the Great Society was a response to prosperity, not depression. The mid-1960s were a time of rapid economic expansion, fueled by increased government spending and a tax cut on individuals and businesses initially proposed by Kennedy and enacted in 1964. Johnson and Democratic liberals believed that economic growth made it possible As part of his War on Poverty, to fund ambitious new government programs and to improve the quality President Lyndon Johnson visited of life. Appalachia, one of the poorest places in the United States. T h e W a r o n P o v e r t y The centerpiece of the Great Society, however, was the crusade to eradicate poverty, launched by Johnson early in 1964. Michael Harrington’s 1962 book The Other America revealed that 40 to 50 million Americans lived in poverty. During the 1930s, Democrats had attributed poverty to an imbalance of economic power and flawed economic institutions. In the 1960s, the administration attributed it to an absence of skills and a lack of proper attitudes and work habits. Thus, the War on Poverty did not address the economic changes that were reducing the number of well-paid manufac- turing jobs and leaving poor families in rural areas like Appalachia and decaying urban ghettos with little hope of economic advancement. One of the Great Society’s most popular and successful components, food stamps, offered direct aid to the poor. But, in general, the War on L Y N D O N J O H N S O N ’ S P R E S I D E N C Y 781 Poverty concentrated not on direct economic aid but on equipping the poor Head Start with skills and rebuilding their spirit and motivation. It provided Head Start (an early childhood education program), job training, legal services, and scholarships for poor college students. It also created VISTA, a domes- tic version of the Peace Corps for the inner cities. The War on Poverty required that poor people play a leading part in the design and implemen- tation of local policies, a recipe for continuing conflict with local political leaders accustomed to controlling the flow of federal dollars. F r e e d o m a n d E q u a l i t y Race and poverty Recognizing that black poverty was fundamentally different from white, because its roots lay in “past injustice and present prejudice,” Johnson sought to redefine the relationship between freedom and equality. Economic liberty, he insisted, meant more than equal opportunity: “You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. . . . We seek . . . not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.” Johnson’s Great Society may not have achieved equality “as a fact,” FIGURE 25.1 but it represented the most expansive effort in the nation’s history to Percentage of mobilize the powers of the national government to address the needs of the Population below least-advantaged Americans. Poverty Level, by Coupled with the decade’s high rate of economic growth, the War on Race, 1959–1969* Poverty succeeded in reducing the incidence of poverty from 22 percent to 13 percent of American families during the 1960s. It has fluctuated 60 Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American around the latter figure ever since. By the 1990s, thanks to the civil 50 rights movement and the Great Society, the historic gap between whites 40 and blacks in education, income, and access to skilled employment nar- 30 rowed considerably. But nearly a quarter of all black children still lived Total 20 in poverty. White centage below poverty level 10 Per 0 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 Year *The poverty threshold for a non-farm family of four was $3,743 in 1969 and $2,973 in 1959. T H E C H A N G I N G B L A C K M O V E M E N T During the 1960s, an expanding In the mid-1960s, economic issues rose to the forefront of the civil rights economy and government programs agenda. Violent outbreaks in black ghettos outside the South drew atten- assisting the poor produced a tion to the national scope of racial injustice and to inequalities in jobs, steady decrease in the percentage of Americans living in poverty. education, and housing that the dismantling of legal segregation left intact. 782 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties How did the civil rights movement change in the mid-1960s? A semblance of normal life resumes amid the rubble of the Watts uprising of August 1965. T h e G h e t t o U p r i s i n g s The first riots—really, battles between angry blacks and the predomi- nantly white police (widely seen by many ghetto residents as an occupying army)—erupted in Harlem in 1964. Far larger was the Watts uprising of 1965, which took place in the black ghetto of Los Angeles only days after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. An estimated 50,000 persons took part in this “rebellion,” attacking police and firemen, looting white-owned Watts riots businesses, and burning buildings. It required 15,000 police and National Guardsmen to restore order, by which time thirty-five people lay dead, 900 were injured, and $30 million worth of property had been destroyed. By the summer of 1967, urban uprisings left twenty-three dead in Newark and forty-three in Detroit, where entire blocks went up in flames Detroit and Newark and property damage ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The violence led Johnson to appoint a commission headed by Illinois gover- nor Otto Kerner to study the causes of urban rioting. Released in 1968, the Kerner Report blamed the violence on “segregation and poverty” and offered a powerful indictment of “white racism.” But the report failed to offer any clear proposals for change. With black unemployment twice that of whites and the average black family income little more than half the white norm, the movement looked for ways to “make freedom real” for black Americans. In 1964, King T H E C H A N G I N G B L A C K M O V E M E N T 783 called for a “Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged” to mobilize the nation’s resources to abolish economic deprivation. His proposal was directed against poverty in general, but King also insisted that after “doing some- thing special against the Negro for hundreds of years,” the United States had an obligation to “do something special for him now”—an early call for Affirmative action what would come to be known as “affirmative action.” In 1966, King launched the Chicago Freedom Movement, with demands quite different from its predecessors in the South—an end to discrimination by employers and unions, equal access to mortgages, the integration of public housing, and the construction of low-income hous- ing scattered throughout the region. Confronting the entrenched power of Mayor Richard J. Daley’s political machine and the ferocious opposition of white home owners, the movement failed. M a l c o l m X The civil rights movement’s first phase had produced a clear set of objec- tives, far-reaching accomplishments, and a series of coherent if sometimes competitive organizations. The second witnessed political fragmentation and few significant victories. Even during the heyday of the integration Black control struggle, the fiery orator Malcolm X had insisted that blacks must control the political and economic resources of their communities and rely on their own efforts rather than working with whites. Malcolm Little dropped his “slave surname” in favor of “X,” symbolizing blacks’ separation from their African ancestry. He became a spokesman for the Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims, and a sharp critic of the ideas of integration and nonviolence. On a 1964 trip to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Islam’s spiritual home, Malcolm X witnessed harmony among Muslims of all races. He now began to speak of the possibility of interracial cooperation for radical change in the United States. But when members of the Nation of Islam assassinated Legacy of Malcolm X him in February 1965 after he had formed his own Organization of Afro- American Unity, Malcolm X left neither a consistent ideology nor a coher- ent movement. However, his call for blacks to rely on their own resources struck a chord among the urban poor and younger civil rights activists. T h e R i s e o f B l a c k P o w e r Malcolm X was the intellectual father of “Black Power,” a slogan that came to national attention in 1966 when SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael used it during a civil rights march in Mississippi. 784 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties How did the civil rights movement change in the mid-1960s? A highly imprecise idea, Black Power suggested everything from the election of more black officials (hardly a radical notion) to the belief that black Americans were a colonized people whose freedom could be won only through a revolutionary struggle for self-determination. But however employed, the idea reflected the radicalization of young civil rights activists and sparked an explosion of racial self-assertion, reflected in the slogan “black is beautiful.” The abandonment of the word “Negro” in favor of “Afro-American,” as well as the popularity of African styles of dress and the “natural,” or “Afro,” hairdo among both men and women reflected a new sense of racial pride and a rejection of white norms. Inspired by the idea of black self-determination, SNCC and CORE repudiated their previous interracialism, and new militant groups Female students on the campus of sprang into existence. Most prominent of the new groups, in terms Howard University in Washington, of publicity, if not numbers, was the Black Panther Party. Founded D.C., sport the Afro, a hairstyle in Oakland, California, in 1966, it became notorious for advocating representative of the “black is armed self-defense in response to police brutality. The party’s youth- beautiful” campaign of the 1960s. ful members alarmed whites by wearing military garb, although they also ran health clinics, schools, and children’s breakfast programs. But internal disputes and a campaign against the Black Panthers by police and the FBI, which left several leaders dead in shootouts, destroyed the organization. By 1967, with the escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, the War on Poverty had ground to a halt. By then, with ghetto uprisings punctuating the urban landscape, the antiwar movement assuming mas- Social crisis sive proportions, and millions of young people ostentatiously rejecting mainstream values, American society faced its greatest crisis since the Depression. V I E T N A M A N D T H E N E W L E F T O l d a n d N e w L e f t s To most Americans, the rise of a protest movement among white youth came as a complete surprise. If blacks’ grievances appeared self-evident, those of white college students were difficult to understand. What per- suaded large numbers of children of affluence to reject the values and institutions of their society? In part, the answer lay in a redefinition of the meaning of freedom by what came to be called the New Left. The New Left V I E T N A M A N D T H E N E W L E F T 785 The New Left challenged not only mainstream America but also what it dismissively called the Old Left. Unlike the Communist Party, it did not take the Soviet Union as a model or see the working class as the main agent of social change. Instead of economic equality, the language of New Deal liberals, the New Left spoke of loneliness, isolation, and alienation, of pow- erlessness in the face of bureaucratic institutions and a hunger for authen- ticity that affluence could not provide. By 1968, thanks to the coming of age of the baby-boom generation and the growing number of jobs that required Rising college attendance post–high school skills, more than 7 million students attended college, more than the number of farmers or steelworkers. The New Left’s greatest inspiration was the black freedom movement. More than any other event, the sit-ins catalyzed white student activism. Here was the unlikely combination that created the upheaval known as The Sixties—the convergence of society’s most excluded members demanding full access to all its benefits, with the children of the middle class rejecting the social mainstream. T h e F a d i n g C o n s e n s u s Members of Students for a The years 1962 and 1963 witnessed the appearance of several pathbreak- Democratic Society (SDS) at a 1963 National Council meeting in Indiana. ing books that challenged one or another aspect of the 1950s consensus. Despite their raised fists, they appear James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time gave angry voice to the black revolution. eminently respectable compared to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring exposed the environmental costs of economic radicals who emerged later in the growth. Michael Harrington’s The Other America revealed the persistence decade. The group is entirely white. of poverty amid plenty. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, criti- cized urban renewal, the removal of the poor from city centers, and the destruction of neighborhoods to build highways. Yet in some ways the most influential critique of all arose in 1962 from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), an offshoot of the socialist League for Industrial Democracy. Meeting at Port Huron, Michigan, some sixty college students adopted a document that captured the mood and summarized the beliefs of this generation of student protesters. The Port Huron Statement offered a new vision of social change. “We seek 786 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties How did the Vietnam War transform American politics and culture? the establishment,” it proclaimed, of “a democracy of individual participation, [in which] the individual shares in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life.” Freedom, for the New Left, meant “participatory democracy.” Although rarely defined with precision, this became a standard by which students judged existing social arrangements— workplaces, schools, government—and found them wanting. In 1964, events at the University of California, Berkeley, revealed the possibil- ity for a mobilization of students in the name of participatory democracy. Berkeley was an immense, impersonal Mario Savio, a leader of the 1964 institution where enrollments in many classes approached 1,000 stu- Free Speech Movement at the dents. The spark that set student protests alight was a new rule prohibiting University of California, Berkeley, political groups from using a central area of the campus to spread their addressing a crowd on campus from the roof of a police car. ideas. Students responded by creating the Free Speech movement. Thousands of Berkeley students became involved in the protests in the months that followed. Their program moved from demanding a repeal of the new rule to a critique of the entire structure of the university and of an education geared toward preparing graduates for corporate jobs. The university gave in on the speech ban early in 1965. A m e r i c a a n d V i e t n a m By 1965 the black movement and the emergence of the New Left had shat- tered the climate of consensus of the 1950s. But what transformed protest into a full-fledged generational rebellion was the war in Vietnam. The war tragically revealed the danger that Walter Lippmann had warned of at the outset of the Cold War—viewing the entire world and every local situation within it through the either-or lens of an anticommunist crusade. Vietnam and anticommunism A Vietnam specialist in the State Department who attended a policy meeting in August 1963 later recalled “the abysmal ignorance around the table of the particular facts of Vietnam. . . . They [believed] that we could manipulate other states and build nations; that we knew all the answers.” As noted in the previous chapter, the Truman and Eisenhower admin- istrations had cast their lot with French colonialism in the region. After the French defeat, they financed the creation of a pro-American South V I E T N A M A N D T H E N E W L E F T 787 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m Y o u n g A m e r i c a n s f o r F r e e d o m , T h e S h a r o n S t a t e m e n t ( S e p t e m b e r 1 9 6 0 ) Although the 1960s is usually thought of as a decade of youthful radicalism, it also witnessed the growth of conservative movements. The Sharon Statement marked the emergence of Young Americans for Freedom as a force for conservatism in American politics. In this time of moral and political crisis, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; That the purposes of government are to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these lawful functions, it accumulates power which tends to diminish order and liberty; . . . That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; . . . That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace. F r o m T o m H a y d e n a n d O t h e r s , T h e P o r t H u r o n S t a t e m e n t ( J u n e 1 9 6 2 ) One of the most influential documents of the 1960s emerged in 1962 from a meeting sponsored by the Students for a Democratic Society in Port Huron, Michigan. Its call for a “democracy of individual participation” inspired many of the social movements of the decade and offered a critique of institutions ranging from the government to universities that failed to live up to this standard. We are the people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit. . . . Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people—these American values we found good principles by which we could live as men. As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss. First, the . . . Southern struggle against racial bigotry compelled most of us from silence to activism. Second, . . . the proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War. . . . The conventional moral terms of the age, the politician moralities—“free world,” “people’s democracies”—reflect realities poorly if at all, and seem to function more as ruling myths than as descriptive principles. But neither has our experience in the universities brought us moral enlightenment. Our professors and administrators sacrifice controversy to public relations; . . . their skills and silence are purchased by investors in the arms race. . . . We regard men as infinitely precious and possessed of unfulfilled capacities for reason, freedom, and love. In affirming these principles we are aware of countering perhaps the dominant conceptions of man in the twentieth century: that he is a thing to be manipulated, and that he is inherently incapable of directing his own affairs. We oppose the depersonalization that reduces human beings to the status of things—if anything, the brutalities of the twentieth century teach that means and ends are intimately related, that vague appeals to “posterity” cannot justify the mutilations of the present. . . . We see little reason why men cannot meet with increasing skill the complexities and responsibilities of their Q U E S T I O N S situation, if society is organized not for minority, but for majority, participation in decision-making. 1. How do the young conservatives who We would replace power rooted in possession, wrote the Sharon Statement under- privilege, or circumstance by power and stand freedom? uniqueness rooted in love, reflectiveness, reason, 2. What do the authors of the Port Huron and creativity. As a social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual Statement appear to mean by partici- participation [so] that the individual [can] patory democracy? share in those social decisions determining the 3. What are the main differences, and quality and direction of his life. . . . A new left are there any similarities, between the must consist of younger people. . . . [It] must outlooks of the young conservatives start controversy throughout the land, if national and the young radicals? policies and national apathy are to be reversed. Vietnamese government. By the 1960s, the United States was committed to Commitment to South Vietnam the survival of this corrupt regime. Fear that the public would not forgive them for “losing” Vietnam made it impossible for presidents Kennedy and Johnson to remove the United States from an increasingly untenable situation. Kennedy’s foreign policy advisers saw Vietnam as a test of whether the United States could, through “counterinsurgency”—intervention to counter internal uprisings in non- communist countries—halt the spread of Third World revolutions. South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem resisted American advice to broaden his government’s base of support. In October 1963, after large Buddhist dem- onstrations against his regime, the United States approved a military coup that led to Diem’s death. When Kennedy was assassinated the following month, there were 17,000 American military advisers in South Vietnam. L y n d o n J o h n s o n ’ s W a r Lyndon B. Johnson came to the presidency with little experience in foreign relations. But he knew that Republicans had used the “loss” of China as a weapon against Truman. In August 1964, North Vietnamese vessels encountered an American ship on a spy mission off its coast. When North Vietnamese patrol boats Secretary of Defense Robert fired on the American vessel, Johnson proclaimed that the United States was McNamara, on the left, and his deputy, Cyrus Vance, at a May 1965 a victim of “aggression.” In response, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin meeting at the White House where the resolution, authorizing the president to take “all necessary measures to repel war in Vietnam was discussed. A bust armed attack” in Vietnam. Only two members—senators Ernest Gruening of President Kennedy stands in the of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon—voted against giving Johnson this background. McNamara later wrote in blank check. (Over forty years later, in December 2005, the National Security his memoirs that his misgivings only grew as the war progressed. Agency finally released hundreds of pages of secret documents that made it clear that no North Vietnamese attack had actu- ally taken place.) Immediately after Johnson’s 1964 election, the National Security Council recommended that the United States begin air strikes against North Vietnam and introduce American ground troops in the south. Johnson put the plan into effect. At almost the same time, he intervened in the Dominican Republic. Here, military leaders in 1963 had overthrown the left-wing but noncommunist Juan Bosch, the country’s first elected president since 1924. 790 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties How did the Vietnam War transform American politics and culture? T H E V I E T N A M W A R , 1 9 6 4 – 1 9 7 5 CHINA NORTH VIETNAM BURMA Dien Bien Phu U.S. air raids (MYANMAR) 1966–1968, 1972 Hanoi Haiphong Gulf of Tonkin LAOS Gulf of Tonkin incident Thanh Hoa August 1964 H a i n a n Vinh Mek Vientiane ong R. Dong Hoi 17th P Demilitarized zone arallel demarcation line Geneva Accords, July 1954 Tet offensive Invasion of Laos Hue January–February 1968 February–March 1971 Da Nang THAILAND My Lai massacre March 1968 Pleiku Qui Nhon rail CAMBODIA inh T hi M SOUTH o C Invasion of Cambodia VIETNAM South China H April–June 1970 Na Trang Sea Phnom Penh Saigon Tet offensive January–February 1968 Gulf of Thailand M e ko n g Surrender of South Vietnam D e l t a April 30, 1975 Major battles or actions U.S. and South Vietnamese offensives 0 100 200 miles North Vietnamese offensives North Vietnamese supply routes 0 100 200 kilometers A war of aerial bombing and small guerrilla skirmishes rather than fixed land battles, Vietnam was the longest war in American history and the only one the United States has lost. V I E T N A M A N D T H E N E W L E F T 791 In April 1965, another group of military men attempted to restore Bosch to power but were defeated by the ruling junta. Fearing the unrest would lead to “another Cuba,” Johnson dispatched 22,000 American troops. The operation’s success seemed to bolster Johnson’s determination in Vietnam. By 1968, the number of American troops in Vietnam exceeded half a million, and the conduct of the war had become more and more brutal. The North Vietnamese mistreated American prisoners of war held in a camp known sardonically by the inmates as the Hanoi Hilton. American planes dropped more tons of bombs on the small countries of North and South Vietnam than both sides had used in all of World War II. They spread chemicals that destroyed forests to deprive the Viet Cong of hiding places and dropped bombs filled with napalm, a gelatinous form of gasoline that burns the skin of anyone exposed to it. An antiwar placard parodies a famous army recruiting poster from World War I. The original read, “I Want You.” T h e A n t i w a r M o v e m e n t As casualties mounted and American bombs poured down on North and South Vietnam, the Cold War foreign policy consensus began to unravel. By 1968, the war had sidetracked much of the Great Society and had torn families, universities, and the Democratic Party apart. Opposition to the Vietnam Opposition to the war became the organizing theme that united people War with all kinds of doubts and discontents. With college students exempted from the draft, the burden of fighting fell on the working class and the poor. In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. condemned the administration’s Vietnam policy as an unconscionable use of violence and for draining resources from needs at home. At this point, King was the most prominent American Two young members of the to speak out against the war. counterculture at their wedding As for SDS, the war seemed the opposite of participatory democ- in New Mexico. racy, since American involvement had come through secret commit- ments and decisions made by political elites, with no real public debate. In April 1965, SDS invited opponents of American policy in Vietnam to assemble in Washington, D.C. The turnout of 25,000 amazed the organizers, offering the first hint that the antiwar movement would soon enjoy a mass constituency. By 1967, young men were burning their draft cards or fleeing to Canada to avoid fighting in what they considered an unjust war. In October of that year, 100,000 antiwar protesters assembled at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Many marched across the Potomac River to the Pentagon, where photographers captured them 792 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties How did the Vietnam War transform American politics and culture? placing flowers in the rifle barrels of soldiers guarding the nerve center of the American military. T h e C o u n t e r c u l t u r e The New Left’s definition of freedom initially centered on participa- tory democracy, a political concept. But as the 1960s progressed, young Americans’ understanding of freedom increasingly expanded to include cultural freedom as well. By the late 1960s, millions of young people openly rejected the values and behavior of their elders. For the first time in American history, the flamboyant rejection of respectable norms in clothing, language, sexual behavior, and drug use, previously confined to artists and bohemians, became the basis of a mass movement. Its rallying cry was “liberation.” “Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,” Bob Dylan’s song “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” bluntly informed main- stream America. To be sure, the counterculture in some ways represented not rebellion but the fulfillment of the consumer marketplace. It extended into every realm of life the definition of freedom as the right to individual choice. Self-indulgence and self-destructive behavior were built into the counterculture. A poster listing some of the P e r s o n a l L i b e r a t i o n a n d t h e F r e e I n d i v i d u a l performers who took part in the Woodstock festival in 1969. A dove of But there was far more to the counterculture than new consumer styles peace sits on the guitar, symbolizing or the famed trio of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. To young dissenters, the overlap between the antiwar personal liberation meant a search for a way of life in which friendship movement and counterculture. and pleasure eclipsed the single-minded pursuit of wealth. It also encour- aged new forms of radical action. “Underground” newspapers pioneered a personal and politically committed style of journalism. The Youth International Party, or “yippies,” introduced humor and theatricality as elements of protest. From the visitor’s gallery of the New York Stock Exchange, yippie founder Abbie Hoffman showered dollar bills onto the floor, bringing trading to a halt as brokers scrambled to retrieve the money. Rock festivals, like Woodstock in upstate New York in 1969, brought Woodstock together hundreds of thousands of young people to celebrate their alterna- tive lifestyle and independence from adult authority. The opening song at Woodstock, performed by Richie Havens, began with eight repetitions of the single word “freedom.” V I E T N A M A N D T H E N E W L E F T 793 A gathering of “Jesus People,” one of the religious groups that sprang up in the 1960s. F a i t h a n d t h e C o u n t e r c u l t u r e Religious conviction, as has been noted, helped to inspire the civil rights movement. A different religious development, the sweeping reforms initiated in Roman Catholic practice (such as the delivery of the Mass in local languages, not Latin) by the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965, led many priests, nuns, and lay Catholics to become involved in social justice movements, producing a growing split in the Church between liberals and conservatives. Many members of the New Left were moti- Among the religious developments of the 1960s was the spread of interest vated by a quest for a new sense of brotherhood and social responsibility, in eastern religions and religious which often sprang from Christian roots. Many young people came to practices. The cover of Yoga Journal believe that a commitment to social change was a fulfillment of Christian illustrates how one practice entered values. the mainstream of American life. The quest for personal authenticity, a feature of the counterculture, led to a flowering of religious and spiritual creativity and experimentation. The Jesus People (called by their detractors Jesus Freaks) saw the hippy lifestyle, with its long hair, unconventional attire, and quest for universal love, as an authentic expression of the outlook of the early church. Jesus People created Christian communes; they also held religiously oriented rock concerts. The Sixties also witnessed a burgeoning interest in east- ern religions. The Beats of the 1950s had been attracted to Buddhism as a religion that rejected violence and materialism, which they saw as key features of American society. Now, Buddhist practices like yoga and medi- tation became popular with members of the counterculture and even in the suburban mainstream as a way of promoting spiritual and physical well-being. Some Americans traveled to Tibet and India to seek spiritual guidance from “gurus” (religious leaders) there. 794 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s? T H E N E W M O V E M E N T S A N D T H E R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N The civil rights revolution, soon followed by the rise of the New Left, inspired other Americans to voice their grievances and claim their rights. By the late 1960s, new social movements dotted the political landscape. The counterculture’s notion of liberation centered on the free indi- vidual. Starting in 1960, the mass marketing of birth-control pills made possible what “free lovers” had long demanded—the separation of sex from procreation. By the late 1960s, sexual freedom had become as much an element of the youth rebellion as long hair and drugs. The sexual revo- lution was central to another mass movement that emerged in the 1960s— “Second wave” feminism the “second wave” of feminism. T h e F e m i n i n e M y s t i q u e During the 1950s, some commentators had worried that the country was wasting its “woman power,” a potential weapon in the Cold War. But the public reawakening of feminist consciousness did not get its start until the publication in 1963 of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Friedan Betty Friedan had written pioneering articles during the 1940s on pay discrimination against women workers and racism in the workplace for the newspaper of the United Electrical Workers’ union. But, like other social critics of the 1950s, she now took as her themes the emptiness of consumer culture and the discontents of the middle class. Her opening chapter, “The Problem That Has No Name,” painted a devastating picture of talented, educated women trapped in a world that viewed marriage and motherhood as their primary goals. Few books have had the impact of The Feminine Mystique. Friedan was deluged by desperate letters from female readers relating how the subur- ban dream had become a nightmare. The law slowly began to address feminist concerns. In 1963, Congress Sex discrimination and the law passed the Equal Pay Act, barring sex discrimination among holders of the same jobs. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as noted earlier, prohibited inequalities based on sex as well as race. Deluged with complaints of discrimination by working women, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission established by the law became a major force in breaking down barriers to female employment. In 1966 the National Organization for Women (NOW) was formed, with Friedan as president. Modeled on T H E N E W M O V E M E N T S A N D T H E R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N 795 civil rights organizations, it demanded equal opportunity in jobs, educa- tion, and political participation and attacked the “false image of women” spread by the mass media. W o m e n ’ s L i b e r a t i o n A different female revolt was brewing within the civil rights and student movements. Young women who had embraced an ideology of social equality and personal freedom and learned methods of political organiz- ing encountered inequality and sexual exploitation in organizations like SNCC and SDS. Many women in the movement found themselves rele- gated to typing, cooking, and cleaning for male coworkers. Raising consciousness By 1967, women throughout the country were establishing “consciousness-raising” groups to discuss the sources of their discontent. The new feminism burst onto the national scene at the Miss America beauty pageant of 1968, when protesters filled a “freedom trash can” with objects of “oppression”—girdles, brassieres, high-heeled shoes, and copies In 1967, in a celebrated incident of Playboy and Cosmopolitan. (Contrary to legend, they did not set the con- arising from the new feminism, a tents on fire, but the media invented a new label for radical women—“bra race official tried to eject Kathrine burners.”) Inside the hall, demonstrators unfurled banners carrying the Switzer from the Boston Marathon, slogans “Freedom for Women” and “Women’s Liberation.” only to be pushed aside by other runners. Considered too fragile for the marathon (whose course covers P e r s o n a l F r e e d o m more than twenty-six miles), women were prohibited from running. The women’s liberation movement inspired a major expansion of the Switzer completed the race, and idea of freedom by insisting that it should be applied to the most inti- today hundreds of thousands of women around the world compete in mate realms of life. They contended that sexual relations, conditions of marathons each year. marriage, and standards of beauty were as much “political” questions as the war, civil rights, and the class tensions that had traditionally inspired the Left to action. The idea that family life is not off limits to considerations of power and justice repudiated the family-oriented public culture of the 1950s, and it permanently changed Americans’ definition of freedom. Radical feminists’ first public campaign demanded the repeal of state laws that underscored women’s lack of self-determination by banning abortions or leaving it up to physicians to decide whether a pregnancy could be terminated. In 1969, a group of feminists disrupted legislative hearings on New York’s law banning abortions, where the experts scheduled to testify consisted of fourteen men and a Roman Catholic nun. 796 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s? By this time, feminist ideas had entered the mainstream. In 1962, a poll showed that two-thirds of American women did not feel themselves to be victims of discrimination. By 1974, two-thirds did. G a y L i b e r a t i o n In a decade full of surprises, perhaps the greatest of all was the emergence of the movement for gay liberation. Gay men and lesbians had long been stigmatized as sinful or mentally disordered. Most states made homosexual acts illegal, and police regularly harassed the gay subcultures Part of the Gay Liberation Day that existed in major cities like San Francisco and New York. Although demonstration in New York City in homosexuals had achieved considerable success in the arts and fashion, June 1970. most kept their sexual orientation secret, or “in the closet.” If one moment marked the advent of “gay liberation,” it was a 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, a gath- Stonewall ering place for homosexuals. Rather than bowing to police harassment, as in the past, gays fought back. Five days of rioting followed, and a militant movement was born. Gay men and lesbians stepped out of the “closet” to insist that sexual orientation is a matter of rights, power, and identity. Prejudice against homosexuals persisted. But within a few years, “gay pride” marches were being held in numerous cities. L a t i n o A c t i v i s m As in the case of blacks, a movement for legal rights had long flourished among Mexican-Americans. But the mid-1960s saw the flowering of a new militancy challenging the group’s second-class economic status. Like Black Power advocates, the movement emphasized pride in both the Mexican past and the new Chicano culture that had arisen in the United Chicano culture States. Unlike the Black Power movement and SDS, it was closely linked to labor struggles. Beginning in 1965, César Chavez, the son of migrant farm workers and a disciple of King, led a series of nonviolent protests, includ- ing marches, fasts, and a national boycott of California grapes, to pressure growers to agree to labor contracts with the United Farm Workers union (UFW). The UFW was as much a mass movement for civil rights as a cam- UFW paign for economic betterment. The boycott mobilized Latino communities T H E N E W M O V E M E N T S A N D T H E R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N 797 throughout the Southwest and drew national attention to the pitifully low wages and oppressive working conditions of migrant laborers. In 1970, the major growers agreed to contracts with the UFW. R e d P o w e r The 1960s also witnessed an upsurge of Native American militancy. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations had sought to dismantle the res- ervation system and integrate Indians into the American mainstream—a policy known as “termination,” since it meant ending recognition of the remaining elements of Indian sovereignty. Many Indian leaders pro- tested vigorously against this policy, and it was abandoned by President Kennedy. Johnson’s War on Poverty channeled increased federal funds to reservations. But like other minority groups, Indian activists demanded not simply economic aid but self-determination. Founded in 1968, the American Indian movement staged protests demanding greater tribal self-government and the restoration of eco- nomic resources guaranteed in treaties. In 1969, a group calling itself “Indians of All Nations” occupied (or from their point of view, re-occupied) Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, claiming that it had been illegally seized from its original inhabitants. In the years that followed, many Indian tribes would win greater control over education and economic develop- ment on the reservations. Indian activists would bring land claims suits, demanding and receiving monetary settlements for past dispossession. In The occupation of Alcatraz Island an atmosphere of rising Native American pride, the number of Americans in San Francisco Bay in 1969 by “Indians of All Tribes” symbolized the identifying themselves as Indians doubled between 1970 and 1990. emergence of a new militancy among Native Americans. S i l e n t S p r i n g Another movement, environmentalism, called into question different pillars of American life—the equation of progress with endless increases in consumption and the faith that science, technology, and economic growth would advance social welfare. In keeping with the spirit of the Sixties, the new environmentalism reflected the very affluence celebrated by proponents of the American Way. As the “quality of life”—including phys- ical fitness, health, and opportunities to enjoy leisure activities—occupied a greater role in the lives of middle-class Americans, the environmental consequences of economic growth received increased attention. The publication in 1962 of Silent Spring by the marine biologist Rachel Carson brought home to millions of readers the effects of DDT, an insecti- 798 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s? cide widely used by home owners and farmers against mosquitoes, gypsy moths, and other insects. In chilling detail, Carson related how DDT killed birds and animals and caused sickness among humans. Carson’s work launched the modern environmental movement. The Sierra Club, founded in the 1890s to preserve forests, saw its membership more than triple, and other groups sprang into existence to alert the coun- try to the dangers of water contamination, air pollution, lead in paint, and the extinction of animal species. Nearly every state quickly banned the use of DDT. Despite vigorous opposition from business groups that considered its proposals a violation of property rights, environmentalism attracted Environmental legislation the broadest bipartisan support of any of the new social movements. Under Republican president Richard Nixon, Congress during the late 1960s and early 1970s passed a series of measures to protect the environ- ment, including the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and the Endangered Species Act. On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, some 20 million people, most of them under the age of thirty, participated in rallies, concerts, and teach-ins. Closely related to environmentalism was the consumer movement, spearheaded by the lawyer Ralph Nader. His book Unsafe at Any Speed (1965) exposed how auto manufacturers produced highly dangerous vehicles. General Motors, whose Chevrolet Corvair Nader singled out for its tendency to roll over in certain driving situations, hired private inves- Karl Hubenthal’s December 8, tigators to discredit him. 1976, cartoon for the Los Angeles Nader’s campaigns laid the groundwork for the numerous new con- Herald-Examiner celebrates the sumer protection laws and regulations of the 1970s. Unlike 1960s move- rights revolution as an expansion of American liberty. ments that emphasized personal liberation, environmentalism and the consumer movement called for limiting some kinds of freedom—especially the right to use private property in any way the owner desired—in the name of a greater common good. T h e R i g h t s R e v o l u t i o n It is one of the more striking ironies of the 1960s that although the “rights revolution” began in the streets, it achieved constitutional legitimacy through the Supreme Court, historically the most conservative branch of government. Under the guidance of Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court vastly expanded the rights enjoyed by all Americans and placed them beyond the reach of legislative and local majorities. T H E N E W M O V E M E N T S A N D T H E R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N 799 The Court moved to rein in the anticommunist crusade. The jus- tices overturned convictions of individuals for advocating the over- throw of the government, failing to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and refusing to disclose their politi- cal beliefs to state officials. By the time Warren retired in 1969, the Court had reaffirmed the right of even the most unpopular viewpoints to First Amendment protection. New York Times v. Sullivan The landmark ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) overturned a libel judgment by an Alabama jury against the nation’s leading news- paper for carrying an advertisement critical of how local officials treated civil rights demonstrators. Before the 1960s, few Supreme Court cases had dealt with newspaper publishing. Sullivan created the modern constitu- tional law of freedom of the press. The Court in the 1960s continued the push toward racial equality, Loving v. Virginia overturning numerous local Jim Crow laws. In Loving v. Virginia (1967), it declared unconstitutional the laws still on the books in sixteen states that prohibited interracial marriage. This aptly named case arose from the interracial marriage of Richard and Mildred Loving. Barred by Virginia law from marrying, they did so in Washington, D.C., and later returned to their home state. Two weeks after their arrival, the local sheriff entered their home in the middle of the night, roused the couple from bed, and arrested them. The Court simultaneously pushed forward the process of imposing on the states the obligation to respect the liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights. Among the most important of these decisions was the 5-4 ruling Miranda v. Arizona in Miranda v. Arizona (1966). This held that an individual in police custody must be informed of the rights to remain silent and to confer with a lawyer before answering questions and must be told that any statements might be used in court. The decision made “Miranda warnings” standard police practice. The Court also assumed the power to oversee the fairness of demo- cratic procedures at the state and local levels. Baker v. Carr (1962) estab- lished the principle that districts electing members of state legislatures “One man, one vote” must be equal in population. This “one-man, one-vote” principle over- turned apportionment systems in numerous states that had allowed indi- viduals in sparsely inhabited rural areas to enjoy the same representation as residents of populous city districts. The justices also moved to reinforce the “wall of separation” between church and state. In Engle v. Vitole, they decreed that prayers and Bible readings in public schools violated the First Amendment. 800 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties What were the sources and significance of the rights revolution of the late 1960s? Richard and Mildred Loving with their children in a 1965 photograph by Grey Villet. Their desire to live in Virginia as husband and wife led to a Supreme Court decision declaring unconstitutional state laws that barred interracial marriages. These rulings proved to be the most unpopular of all the Warren Court’s decisions. T h e R i g h t t o P r i v a c y The Warren Court not only expanded existing liberties but also out- lined entirely new rights in response to the rapidly changing contours The cartoonist Herblock’s comment of American society. Most dramatic was its assertion of a constitutional on critics of the Supreme Court’s right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which overturned a state decision barring prayer in public law prohibiting the use of contraceptives. Justice William O. Douglas, schools. who wrote the decision, had once declared, “The right to be let alone is the beginning of all freedom.” Griswold linked privacy to the sanctity of marriage. But the Court soon transformed it into a right of individuals. It extended access to birth con- trol to unmarried adults and ultimately to minors—an admission by the Court that law could not reverse the sexual revolution. These decisions led directly to the most controversial decision that built on the rulings of the Warren Court (even though it occurred in 1973, four years after Warren’s retirement). This was Roe v. Wade, which created a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Roe provoked vigorous opposition that has contin- ued to this day. The rights revolution completed the transformation of American freedom from a set of entitlements enjoyed mainly by white men into an open-ended claim to equality, recognition, and self-determination. T H E N E W M O V E M E N T S A N D T H E R I G H T S R E V O L U T I O N 801 1 9 6 8 A Y e a r o f T u r m o i l The Sixties reached their climax in 1968, a year when momentous events succeeded each other so rapidly that the foundations of society seemed to be dissolving. Late January 1968 saw the Tet offensive, in which Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops launched well-organized uprisings in cities throughout South Vietnam, completely surprising American military leaders. The intensity of the fighting, brought into America’s homes on television, shattered public confidence in the Johnson admin- istration, which had repeatedly proclaimed victory to be “just around Eugene McCarthy’s challenge the corner.” Eugene McCarthy, an antiwar senator from Minnesota, announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination. In March, aided by a small army of student volunteers, McCarthy received more than 40 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary. In March, Johnson stunned the nation by announcing that he had decided not to seek reelection. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assas- Meanwhile, Martin Luther King Jr. was organizing a Poor People’s sination March, hoping to bring thousands of demonstrators to Washington to demand increased anti-poverty efforts. On April 4, having traveled to Memphis to support a strike of the city’s grossly underpaid black garbage collectors, King was killed by a white assassin. The greatest outbreak of urban violence in the nation’s history followed in black neighborhoods Striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. As their signs suggest, they demanded respect as well as higher wages. Having traveled to Memphis to support the strikers, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. 802 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties In what ways was 1968 a climactic year for the Sixties? across the country. Washington, D.C., had to be occupied by soldiers before order was restored. Robert F. Kennedy’s In June, a young Palestinian nationalist assassinated Robert F. assassination Kennedy, who was seeking the Democratic nomination as an opponent of the war. In August, tens of thousands of antiwar activists descended The 1968 Democratic national on Chicago for protests at the Democratic national convention, where the convention delegates nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey as their presiden- tial candidate. The city’s police, never known for restraint, assaulted the marchers with nightsticks, producing hundreds of injuries outside the convention hall and pandemonium inside it. T h e G l o b a l 1 9 6 8 Like 1848 and 1919, 1968 was a year of worldwide upheaval. In many countries, young radicals challenged existing power structures, often bor- rowing language and strategies from the decade’s social movements in the United States and adapting them to their own circumstances. Massive antiwar demonstrations took place in London, Rome, Paris, Munich, and Tokyo, leading to clashes with police and scores of injuries. A mural in Belfast, Northern Ireland, depicts the black American In Paris, a nationwide student uprising began in May 1968 that echoed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, American demands for educational reform and personal liberation. illustrating how the movement for Unlike in the United States, millions of French workers soon joined the Catholic civil rights associated itself protest, adding their own demands for higher wages and greater democ- with the struggle for racial justice in racy in the workplace. The result was a general strike that paralyzed the the United States. The text points out country. In communist Czechoslovakia, leaders bent on reform came that Douglass lectured in Ireland in the 1840s on abolitionism, women’s to power by promising to institute “socialism with a human face,” only rights, and Irish independence. to be ousted by a Soviet invasion. Soldiers fired on students demonstrating for greater democracy on the eve of the opening of the Olympic Games in Mexico City, leading to more than 500 deaths. In Northern Ireland, which remained part of Great Britain after the rest of Ireland achieved independence, the police attacked a peaceful march of Catholics demanding an end to religious discrimination who were inspired by the American civil rights movement. This event marked the beginning of the Troubles, a period of both peaceful protest and violent conflict in the region that did not end until the turn of the twenty-first century. 1 9 6 8 803 N i x o n ’ s C o m e b a c k In the United States, instead of radical change, the year’s events opened the door for a conservative reaction. Turmoil in the streets produced a demand for public order. Black militancy produced white “backlash.” The 1968 presidential election In August, Richard Nixon capped a remarkable political comeback by winning the Republican nomination. He called for a renewed commit- ment to “law and order.” With 43 percent of the vote, Nixon had only a razor-thin margin over his Democratic rival. But George Wallace, running as an independent and appealing to resentments against blacks’ gains, Great Society programs, and the Warren Court, received an additional 13 percent. Taken together, the Nixon and Wallace totals indicated that four years after Johnson’s landslide election ushered in the Great Society, liberalism was on the defensive. T h e L e g a c y o f t h e S i x t i e s The 1960s transformed American life in ways unimaginable when the decade began. It produced new rights and new understandings of freedom. It made possible the entrance of numerous members of racial minorities into the mainstream of American life, while leaving unsolved the problem of urban poverty. It set in motion a transformation of the status of women. As the country became more conservative, the Sixties would be blamed for every imaginable social ill, from crime and drug abuse to a decline of respect for authority. Yet during the 1960s, the United States had become a more open, more tolerant—in a word, a freer—country. 804 C h a p t e r 2 5 ★ The Sixties C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S Student Non-Violent Coordinating 1. How did the idea of a “zone of privacy” build on or Committee (p. 770) change earlier notions of rights and freedom? Freedom Rides (p. 770) March on Washington (p. 772) 2. In what ways were President Kennedy’s foreign policy Bay of Pigs (p. 774) decisions shaped by Cold War ideology? Berlin Wall (p. 774) Cuban missile crisis (p. 774) 3. How did immigration policies change in these years, Civil Rights Act of 1964 (p. 776) and what were the consequences for the makeup of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (p. 780) population in the United States? Hart-Celler Act (p. 780) Great Society (p. 781) 4. Explain why many blacks, especially in the North, did War on Poverty (p. 781) “Black Power” (p. 784) not believe that civil rights legislation went far enough Port Huron Statement (p. 786) in promoting black freedom. Gulf of Tonkin resolution (p. 790) counterculture (p. 793) 5. What were the effects of President Johnson’s Great The Feminine Mystique (p. 795) Society and War on Poverty programs? National Organization for Women (p. 795) 6. In what ways was the New Left not as new as it claimed? American Indian movement (p. 798) 7. How did the goals and actions of the United States in Silent Spring (p. 798) Vietnam cause controversy at home and abroad? 8. Discuss the impact of the civil rights movement on at least two other movements for social change in the 1960s. 9. Identify the origins, goals, and composition of the femi- nist, or women’s liberation, movement. wwnorton.com /studyspace 10. Describe how the social movements of the 1960s in the VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE United States became part of global movements for RESOURCES AND MORE change by 1968. How did those connections affect the s United States’ position in the world? s s 11. How did the counterculture expand the meaning of s freedom in these years? s C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S 805 1968 My Lai massacre C H A P T E R 2 6 1970 United States invades Cambodia 1971 Pentagon Papers published United States goes off the gold standard 1972 Nixon travels to the People’s Republic of China Congress passes the Equal T H E T R I U M P H O F Rights Amendment for ratification SALT is signed C O N S E R V A T I S M Congress approves Title IX 1973 War Powers Act CIA-aided Chilean coup Paris Peace Accords  end U.S. involvement in Vietnam War 1 9 6 9 – 1 9 8 8 1974 Nixon resigns in Watergate scandal 1975 Collapse of South Vietnamese government 1976 Jimmy Carter elected 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke Camp David Accords signed between Israel and Egypt 1979 Three Mile Island accident Sagebrush Rebellion Fifty-three Americans taken hostage in Iran 1980 Ronald Reagan elected 1981 Air traffic controllers strike 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative 1985– Iran-Contra affair 1987 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick Ronald Reagan addressing the Republican national convention of 1980, which nominated him for president. His election that fall brought modern conservatism to the White House and launched the Reagan Revolution. What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and economic issues? Beginning with the dramatic 1960 contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the journalist Theodore White published best-selling accounts of four successive races for F O C U S the presidency. Covering the 1964 election, White attended civil rights Q U E S T I O N S demonstrations and rallies for Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee. White noticed something that struck him as odd: “The dominant word of these two groups, which loathe each other, is ‘freedom.’ ” s White had observed firsthand the struggle over the meaning of policies of the Nixon freedom set in motion by the 1960s, as well as the revival of conservatism administration on social in the midst of an era known for radicalism. and economic issues? The second half of the 1960s and the 1970s would witness pivotal developments that reshaped American politics—the breakup of the s political coalition forged by Franklin D. Roosevelt; an economic crisis Watergate scandal affect that traditional liberal remedies seemed unable to solve; a shift of popular trust in the population and economic resources to conservative strongholds in the government? Sunbelt of the South and West; the growth of an activist, conservative Christianity increasingly aligned with the Republican Party; and a series s of setbacks for the United States overseas. Together, they led to growing opportunities of most popularity for conservatives’ ideas, including their understanding of Americans diminish in freedom. the 1970s? s rise of conservatism in the 1970s? P R E S I D E N T N I X O N s dency affect Americans From the vantage point of the early twenty-first century, it is difficult to both at home and abroad? recall how marginal conservatism seemed at the end of World War II. Associated in many minds with conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, and preference for social hierarchy over democracy and equality, conservatism seemed a relic of a discredited past. Nonetheless, as noted in the previous two chapters, the 1950s and 1960s witnessed a conservative rebirth. And in 1968, a “backlash” among formerly Democratic voters against both black assertiveness and antiwar demonstrations helped to propel Richard Nixon into the White House. But conservatives found Nixon no more to their liking than his predecessors. In office, he expanded the welfare state and moved to improve American relations with the Soviet Union and China. During his presidency, the social changes set in motion by the 1960s—seen by conservatives as forces of moral decay—continued apace. P R E S I D E N T N I X O N 807 N i x o n ’ s D o m e s t i c P o l i c i e s Having won the presidency by a very narrow margin, Nixon moved toward the political center on many issues. A shrewd politician, he worked to solidify his support among Republicans while reaching out to disaf- fected elements of the Democratic coalition. Mostly interested in foreign policy, he had no desire to battle Congress, still under Democratic control, on domestic issues. Just as Eisenhower had helped to institutionalize the New Deal, Nixon accepted and even expanded many elements of the Great Society. Nixon’s New Federalism Conservatives applauded Nixon’s New Federalism, which offered federal “block grants” to the states to spend as they saw fit, rather than for specific purposes dictated by Washington. On the other hand, the Nixon administration created a host of new federal agencies. The Environmental Environmental Protection Protection Agency oversaw programs to combat water and air pollution, Agency cleaned up hazardous wastes, and required “environmental impact” state- ments from any project that received federal funding. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sent inspectors into the nation’s work- places. The National Transportation Safety Board instructed automobile makers on how to make their cars safer. Nixon also signed measures that expanded the food stamp program and made Social Security benefits adjust automatically to the rising cost of living. His environmental initiatives included the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act, which set air quality standards for carbon monox- Richard Nixon (on the right) and ide and other chemicals released by cars and factories. former Alabama governor George Wallace at an “Honor America” celebration in February 1974. Nixon’s N i x o n a n d W e l f a r e “southern strategy” sought to woo Wallace’s supporters into the Perhaps Nixon’s most startling initiative was his proposal for a Family Republican Party. Assistance Plan, or “negative income tax,” that would replace Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) by having the federal government guarantee a minimum income for all Americans. Originally a New Deal program that mainly served the white poor, welfare had come to be associated with blacks, who by 1970 accounted for nearly half the recipients. The AFDC rolls expanded rapidly during the 1960s. This arose from an increase in births to unmarried women, which produced a sharp rise in the number of poor female-headed households, and from an aggressive campaign by welfare rights groups to encourage people to apply for benefits. Conservative politicians now attacked recipients of welfare as people who preferred to live at 808 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and economic issues? the expense of honest taxpayers rather than by working. A striking example of Nixon’s willingness to break the political mold, his plan to replace welfare with a guaranteed annual income failed to win approval by Congress. N i x o n a n d R a c e Nixon’s racial policies offer a similarly mixed picture. To consolidate support in the white South, he nominated to the Supreme Court Clement Haynsworth and G. Harold Carswell, conservative southern jurists with records of support for segregation. Both were rejected by the Senate. On Rise in southern school the other hand, in Nixon’s first three years in office, the proportion of integration southern black students attending integrated schools rose from 32 percent to 77 percent. For a time, the Nixon administration also pursued “affirmative action” programs to upgrade minority employment. The Philadelphia Plan required that construction contractors on federal projects hire spe- cific numbers of minority workers. Secretary of Labor George Shultz, who initiated the idea, sincerely hoped to open more jobs for black workers. Nixon seems to have viewed the plan mainly as a way of fighting inflation by weakening the power of the building trades unions. Their control over the labor market, he believed, pushed wages to unreasonably high levels, raising the cost of construction. Trade unions of skilled workers like plumbers and electrical work- ers, which had virtually no black members, strongly opposed the Philadelphia Plan. After a widely publicized incident in May 1970, when a group of construction workers assaulted antiwar demonstrators in New York City, Nixon suddenly decided that he might be able to woo blue-collar workers in preparation for his 1972 reelection campaign. He soon abandoned the Philadelphia Plan in favor of an ineffective one that stressed voluntary local efforts toward minority hiring instead of federal requirements. T h e B u r g e r C o u r t When Earl Warren retired as chief justice in 1969, Nixon appointed Warren Burger, a federal court-of-appeals judge, to succeed him. Warren Burger In 1971, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, which arose from North Carolina, the justices unanimously approved a lower court’s plan that required the extensive transportation of students to achieve school integration. The decision led to hundreds of cases in The busing issue P R E S I D E N T N I X O N 809 which judges throughout the country ordered the use of busing as a tool to achieve integration. With many white parents determined to keep their children in neighborhood schools and others willing to move to the suburbs or enroll them in private academies to avoid integration, busing became a lightning rod for protests. One of the most bitter fights took place in Boston in the mid-1970s. Residents of the tightly knit Irish-American community of South Boston demonstrated vociferously and sometimes violently against a busing plan decreed by a local judge. The Supreme Court soon abandoned the idea of overturning local control of schools or moving students great distances to achieve integra- Milliken v. Bradley tion. In Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the justices overturned a lower court order that required Detroit’s predominantly white suburbs to enter into a regional desegregation plan with the city’s heavily minority school system. By absolving suburban districts of responsibility for assisting in integrating urban schools, the decision guaranteed that housing segrega- tion would be mirrored in public education. Indeed, by the 1990s, public schools in the North were considerably more segregated than those in the South. Many whites came to view affirmative action programs as a form of “reverse discrimination.” Even as affirmative action programs quickly spread from blacks to encompass women, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and Native Americans, conservatives demanded that the Supreme Court invalidate all such policies. FIGURE 26.1 The justices proved increasingly hostile to governmental affirmative Median Age at action policies. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the First Marriage, Court overturned an admissions program of the University of California 1947–1981 at Davis, a public university, which set aside 16 of 100 places in the enter- ing medical school class for minority students. Justice Lewis F. Powell, a 24.0 Nixon appointee who cast the deciding vote in the 5-4 decision, rejected the Male 23.5 idea of fixed affirmative action quotas. He added, however, that race could be used as one factor among many in admissions decisions, so affirmative 23.0 action continued at most colleges and universities. 22.5 22.0 Age Female T h e C o n t i n u i n g S e x u a l R e v o l u t i o n 21.5 21.0 To the alarm of conservatives, during the 1970s the sexual revolution 20.5 passed from the counterculture into the social mainstream. The number of divorces soared, reaching more than 1 million in 1975, double the 20.0 1947 1951 1957 1961 1967 1971 1977 1981 number ten years earlier. The age at which both men and women mar- Year ried rose dramatically. As a result of women’s changing aspirations 810 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism What were the major policies of the Nixon administration on social and economic issues? and the availability of birth control and legal abortions, the American birthrate declined dramatically. By 1976, the average woman was bear- ing 1.7 children during her lifetime, less than half the figure of 1957 and below the level at which a population reproduces itself. A 1971 survey of the last five graduating classes at Bryn Mawr, an elite women’s col- lege, reported the birth of more than seventy children. A similar survey covering the classes of 1971 through 1975 found that only three had been born. During the Nixon years, women made inroads into areas from which they had long been excluded. In 1972, Congress approved Title IX, which banned gender discrimination in higher education. The giant corporation American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) entered into a landmark agreement in which it paid millions of dollars to workers who had suf- fered gender discrimination and to upgrade employment opportunities for women. The number of women at work continued its upward climb. Working women were motivated by varied aims. Some sought careers in Daryl Koehn of Kansas celebrates in professions and skilled jobs previously open only to men. Others, spurred 1977 on learning that she has been by the need to bolster family income as the economy faltered, flooded into chosen as one of the first group of the traditional, low-wage, “pink-collar” sector, working as cashiers, secre- women allowed to study at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. taries, and telephone operators. Since their establishment in 1903, the In addition, the gay and lesbian movement, born at the end of the scholarships had been limited to men. 1960s, expanded greatly during the 1970s and became a major concern of the right. In 1969, there had been about fifty local gay rights groups in the United States; ten years later, their numbers reached into the thousands. They began to elect local officials, persuaded many states to decriminalize homosexual relations, and succeeded in convincing cities with large gay populations to pass antidiscrimination laws. They actively encouraged gay men and lesbians to “come out of the closet”—that is, to reveal their sexual orientation. N i x o n a n d D é t e n t e Just as domestic policies and social trends under Nixon disappointed conservatives, they viewed his foreign policy as dangerously “soft” on communism. To be sure, Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser and secretary of state, continued their predecessors’ policy of attempting to undermine Third World governments deemed dangerous to American strategic or economic interests. Nixon funneled arms to dictatorial pro-American regimes in Iran, the Philippines, and South Africa. After Chile in 1970 elected socialist Salvador Allende as P R E S I D E N T N I X O N 811 president, the CIA worked with his domestic opponents to destabilize The Allende affair the regime. On September 11, 1973, Allende was overthrown and killed in a military coup, which installed a bloody dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. Thousands of Allende backers, including a few Americans then in Chile, were tortured and murdered, and many others fled the country. The Nixon administration continued to back Pinochet despite his brutal policies. Democracy did not return to Chile until the end of the 1980s. Nixon and Kissinger’s In his relations with the major communist powers, however, Nixon “realist” foreign policy fundamentally altered Cold War policies. In the language of foreign rela- tions, he and Kissinger were “realists.” They had more interest in power than ideology and preferred international stability to relentless conflict. Nixon also hoped that if relations with the Soviet Union improved, the Russians would influence North Vietnam to agree to an end to the Vietnam War on terms acceptable to the United States. Nixon realized that far from being part of a unified communist bloc, Nixon in China China had its own interests, different from those of the Soviet Union, and was destined to play a major role on the world stage. The policy of refus- ing to recognize China’s communist government had reached a dead end. In 1971, Kissinger flew secretly to China, paving the way for Nixon’s own astonishing public visit of February 1972. The trip led to the Beijing gov- ernment’s taking up China’s seat at the United Nations, previously occu- pied by the exiled regime on Taiwan. Three months after his trip to Beijing, Nixon became the first Richard Nixon at a banquet American president to visit the Soviet Union, where he engaged in intense celebrating his visit to China in negotiations with his Soviet counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev. Out of this February 1972. To his right is Premier summit meeting came agreements for increased trade and two land- Chou En-lai. mark arms-control treaties. SALT (named for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks under way since 1969) froze each coun- try’s arsenal of intercontinental missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The Anti–Ballistic Missile Treaty banned the development of systems designed to inter- cept incoming missiles, so that neither side would be tempted to attack the other with- out fearing devastating retaliation. Nixon and Brezhnev proclaimed a new era of “peaceful coexistence,” in which “détente” (cooperation) would replace the hostility of the Cold War. 812 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism How did Vietnam and the Watergate scandal affect popular trust in the government? V I E T N A M A N D W A T E R G A T E N i x o n a n d V i e t n a m Despite Nixon’s foreign policy triumphs, one issue would not go away— Vietnam. On taking office, he announced a new policy, Vietnamization. Under this plan, American troops would gradually be withdrawn while South Vietnamese soldiers, backed by continued American bombing, did more and more of the fighting. But Vietnamization neither limited the war nor ended the antiwar movement. Hoping to cut North Vietnamese sup- ply lines, Nixon in 1970 ordered American troops into neutral Cambodia. The invasion of Cambodia The invasion did not achieve its military goals, but it destabilized the and its consequences Cambodian government and set in motion a chain of events that eventually brought to power the Khmer Rouge. Before being ousted by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979, this local communist movement attempted to force vir- tually all Cambodians into rural communes and committed widespread massacres in that unfortunate country. As the war escalated, protests again spread on college campuses. In Violence on campus the wake of the killing of four antiwar protesters at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard and two by police at Jackson State University in Mississippi, the student movement reached its high-water mark. In the spring of 1970, more than 350 colleges and universities experienced Tear gas envelops the campus strikes, and troops occupied 21 campuses. The protests at Kent State, a as members of the Ohio National public university with a largely working-class student body, and Jackson Guard prepare to fire on student State, a black institution, demonstrated how antiwar sentiment had spread demonstrators at Kent State far beyond elite campuses. University. Shortly after this photo The same social changes sweeping was taken, four students lay dead. the home front were evident among troops in Vietnam. Soldiers experimented with drugs, openly wore peace and Black-Power symbols, refused orders, and even assaulted unpopular officers. In 1971, thousands des- erted the army, while at home Vietnam veterans held antiwar demonstrations. The decline of discipline within the army con- vinced increasing numbers of high-ranking officers that the United States must extricate itself from Vietnam. Public support for the war was rap- idly waning. In 1969, the New York Times published details of the My Lai massacre V I E T N A M A N D W A T E R G A T E 813 of 1968, in which a company of American troops had killed some 350 South Vietnamese civilians. After a military investigation, one soldier, Lieutenant William Calley, was found guilty of directing the atrocity. (The courts released him from prison in 1974.) In 1971, the Times began publishing the The Pentagon Papers Pentagon Papers, a classified report prepared by the Defense Department that traced American involvement in Vietnam back to World War II and revealed how successive presidents had misled the American people about it. In a landmark freedom-of-the-press decision, the Supreme Court rejected Nixon’s request for an injunction to halt publication. In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Act. The most vigorous assertion of congressional control over foreign policy in the nation’s history, it required the president to seek congressional approval for the commitment of American troops overseas. T h e E n d o f t h e V i e t n a m W a r Early in 1973, Nixon achieved what had eluded his predecessors—a negoti- The Paris peace agreement ated settlement in Vietnam. The Paris peace agreement, the result of five years of talks, made possible the final withdrawal of American troops. The compromise left in place the government of South Vietnam, but it also left North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers in control of parts of the South. The U.S. military draft came to an end. Henceforth, volunteers Buttons and flags for sale at a rally in the early 1970s illustrate the linkage would make up the armed forces. But in the spring of 1975, the North of support for the Vietnam War and Vietnamese launched a final military offensive. The government of South strong feelings of patriotism, building Vietnam collapsed. The United States did not intervene except to evacuate blocks of the new conservatism. the American embassy, and Vietnam was reunified under communist rule. The only war the United States has ever lost, Vietnam was a military, political, and social disaster. By the time it ended, 58,000 Americans had been killed, along with 3 million to 4 million Vietnamese. Vietnam undermined Americans’ confidence in their own insti- tutions and challenged long-standing beliefs about the country and its purposes. Two decades after the war ended, former secretary of defense Robert McNamara published a memoir in which he admitted that the policy he had helped to shape had been “terribly wrong.” Ignorance of the his- tory and culture of Vietnam and a misguided belief that every communist movement in the world was a puppet of Moscow, he wrote, had led the country into a war that he now profoundly regretted. The political establishment had supported the war for most of its duration. For far too long, they had accepted its basic 814 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism How did Vietnam and the Watergate scandal affect popular trust in the government? premise—that the United States had the right to decide the fate of a far- away people about whom it knew almost nothing. W a t e r g a t e By the time the war ended, Richard Nixon was no longer president. His domestic policies and foreign policy successes had contributed greatly to his reelection in 1972. He won a landslide victory over liberal Democrat Nixon’s reelection George McGovern, receiving 60 percent of the popular vote. Nixon made deep inroads into former Democratic strongholds in the South and among working-class white northerners. He carried every state but Massachusetts. But his triumph soon turned into disaster. Nixon was obsessed with secrecy. He viewed every critic as a threat to national security and developed an “enemies list” that included reporters, politicians, and celebrities unfriendly to the administration. In June 1972, five former employees of Nixon’s reelection committee took part in a break- in at Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in The break-in Washington, D.C. A security guard called police, who arrested the intruders. No one knows precisely what the Watergate burglars were looking for (perhaps they intended to install listening devices), and the botched rob- bery played little role in the 1972 presidential campaign. But in 1973, Judge John J. Sirica, before whom the burglars were tried, determined to find out who had sponsored the break-in. A pair of Washington Post journalists began publishing investigative stories that made it clear that persons close to the president had ordered the burglary and then tried to “cover up” White House involvement. Congressional hearings followed that revealed a wider The Watergate hearings pattern of wiretapping, break-ins, and attempts to sabotage political oppo- sition. When it became known that Nixon had made tape recordings of con- versations in his office, Archibald Cox, a special prosecutor the president had reluctantly appointed to investigate the Watergate affair, demanded the tapes. In October 1973, Nixon proposed to allow Senator John C. Stennis of Mississippi to review the tapes, rather than releasing them. When Cox refused to agree, Nixon fired him, whereupon Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy resigned in protest. These events, known as the Saturday Night Massacre, further undermined Nixon’s standing. The Supreme Court unanimously ordered Nixon to provide the tapes—a deci- sion that reaffirmed the principle that the president is not above the law. N i x o n ’ s F a l l Week after week, revelations about the scandal unfolded. By mid-1974, it had become clear that whether or not Nixon knew in advance of the V I E T N A M A N D W A T E R G A T E 815 Watergate break-in, he had become involved immediately afterward in authorizing payments to the burglars to remain silent or commit perjury, and he had ordered the FBI to halt its investigation of the crime. In August Nixon’s resignation 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend that Nixon be impeached for conspiracy to obstruct justice. His political support having evaporated, Nixon became the only president in history to resign. Nixon’s presidency remains a classic example of the abuse of political power. In 1973, his vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, resigned after revela- tions that he had accepted bribes from construction firms while serving as governor of Maryland. Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, and The aftermath of Watergate White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were convicted of obstruction of justice in the Watergate affair and went to jail. As for the president, he insisted that he had done nothing wrong. His departure from office was followed by Senate hearings headed by Frank Church of Idaho that laid bare a history of abusive actions involving every administration since the beginning of the Cold War. In violation of the law, the FBI had spied on millions of Americans and had tried to dis- rupt the civil rights movement. The CIA had conducted secret operations to overthrow foreign governments and had tried to assassinate foreign leaders. Abuses of power, in other words, went far beyond the misdeeds of a single president. The Church Committee revelations led Congress to enact new restric- tions on the power of the FBI and CIA to spy on American citizens or conduct operations abroad without the knowledge of lawmakers. Congress Freedom of Information Act also strengthened the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), initially enacted in 1966. Since 1974, the FOIA has allowed scholars, journalists, and ordinary citizens to gain access to millions of pages of records of federal agencies. Liberals, who had despised Nixon throughout his career, celebrated his downfall. Nixon’s fall and the revelations of years of governmental misconduct helped to convince many Americans that conservatives were correct when they argued that to protect liberty it was necessary to limit Washington’s power over Americans’ lives. T H E E N D O F T H E G O L D E N A G E T h e D e c l i n e o f M a n u f a c t u r i n g During the 1970s, the long period of postwar economic expansion and consumer prosperity came to an end, succeeded by slow growth and high inflation. For the only time in the twentieth century, other than the 1930s, 816 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s? TABLE 26.1 The Misery Index, 1970–1980 RATE OF RATE OF MISERY YEAR INFLATION (%) UNEMPLOYMENT (%) INDEX (%) 1970 5.9 4.9 10.8 1971 4.3 5.9 10.2 1972 3.3 5.6 8.9 1973 6.2 4.9 11.1 1974 11.0 5.6 16.6 1975 9.1 8.5 17.6 1976 5.8 7.7 13.5 1977 6.5 7.1 13.6 1978 7.7 6.1 13.8 1979 11.3 5.8 17.1 1980 13.5 7.1 20.6 the average American ended the 1970s poorer than when the decade began. There were many reasons for the end of capitalism’s “golden age.” With American prosperity seemingly unassailable and the military- industrial complex thriving, successive administrations had devoted Economic weakness little attention to the less positive economic consequences of the Cold War. To strengthen its anticommunist allies, the United States promoted the industrial reconstruction of Japan and Germany and the emergence of new centers of manufacturing in places like South Korea and Taiwan. It encouraged American companies to invest in overseas plants. The strong dollar, linked to gold by the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, made it harder to sell American goods overseas (discussed in Chapter 22). In 1971, for the first time in the twentieth century, the United States experienced a merchandise trade deficit—that is, it imported more goods Trade defecit than it exported. By 1980, nearly three-quarters of goods produced in the United States were competing with foreign-made products, and the num- ber of manufacturing workers, 38 percent of the American workforce in 1960, had fallen to 28 percent. In 1971, Nixon announced the most radical change in economic policy since the Great Depression. He took the United States off the gold standard, ending the Bretton Woods agreement that fixed the value of the dollar and other currencies in terms of gold. Henceforth, the world’s currencies would Currency values and trade “float” in relation to one another, their worth determined not by treaty but by T H E E N D O F T H E G O L D E N A G E 817 international currency markets. Nixon hoped that lowering the dollar’s value in terms of the German mark and Japanese yen would promote exports by making American goods cheaper overseas and reduce imports, because foreign products would be more expensive in the United States. But the end of fixed currency rates injected a new element of instability into the world economy. Nixon also ordered wages and prices frozen for ninety days. S t a g f l a t i o n Nixon’s policies temporarily curtailed inflation and reduced imports. But in 1973, a brief war broke out between Israel and its neighbors Egypt and Syria. Middle Eastern Arab states retaliated against Western support of Israel by quadrupling the price of oil and suspending the export of oil to the United States for several months. Long lines of cars appeared at American gas stations, which either ran out of fuel or limited how much a customer could buy. A second Drivers lining up to purchase gas “oil shock” occurred in 1979 as a result of the revolution that overthrew the during the oil crisis of 1973–1974. shah of Iran, discussed later. Rising oil prices rippled through the world economy, contributing to the combination of stagnant economic growth and high inflation known as “stagflation.” Between 1973 and 1981, the rate of inflation in developed countries was 10 percent per year and the rate of economic growth only The World Trade Center under 2.4 percent, a sharp deterioration from the economic conditions of the construction in New York City in the 1960s. The so-called misery index—the sum of the unemployment and 1970s. inflation rates—stood at 10.8 when the decade began. By 1980, it had almost doubled. As oil prices rose, many Americans shifted from large, domestically produced cars, known for high gasoline consumption, to smaller, more fuel-efficient imports. By the end of the decade, Japan had become the world’s leading automobile producer, and imports accounted for nearly 25 percent of car sales in the United States. T h e B e l e a g u e r e d S o c i a l C o m p a c t The economic crisis contributed to a breakdown of the postwar social compact. Faced with declining profits and rising overseas competition, corporations stepped up the trend, already under way before 1970, toward eliminating well-paid manufacturing jobs through automation 818 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s? and shifting production to low-wage areas of the United States and over- seas. By 1980, Detroit and Chicago had lost more than half the manufactur- FIGURE 26.2 ing jobs in existence three decades earlier. Real Average The accelerating flow of jobs, investment, and population to the non- Weekly Wages, union, low-wage states of the Sunbelt increased the political influence of 1955–1990 this conservative region. In some manufacturing centers, political and economic leaders wel- 320 comed the opportunity to remake their cities as finance, information, and entertainment hubs. In New York, the construction of the World Trade 300 Center, completed in 1977, symbolized this shift in the economy. Until destroyed by terrorists twenty-four years later, the 110-story “twin towers” 280 stood as a symbol of New York’s grandeur. But to make way for the World Trade Center, the city displaced hundreds of small electronics, printing, 1982 dollars and other firms, causing the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs. 260 Always a junior partner in the Democratic coalition, the labor move- ment found itself forced onto the defensive. It has remained there ever since. 240 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 The weakening of unions and the continuation of the economy’s long- Year term shift from manufacturing to service employment had an adverse impact on ordinary Americans. Between 1953 and 1973, median family Because of economic dislocations income had doubled. But beginning in 1973, real wages essentially did not and deindustrialization, Americans’ rise for twenty years. real wages (wages adjusted to take account of inflation) peaked in the early 1970s and then began a sharp, F o r d a s P r e s i d e n t prolonged decline. Economic problems dogged the presidencies of Nixon’s successors. Gerald Ford, who had been appointed to replace Vice President Agnew, suc- ceeded to the White House when Nixon resigned. Ford named Nelson President Gerald Ford tried to enlist Rockefeller of New York as his own vice president. Thus, for the only time Americans in his “Whip Inflation Now” in American history, both offices were occupied by persons for whom no program. It did not succeed. one had actually voted. Among his first acts as president, Ford pardoned Nixon, shielding him from prosecution for obstruction of justice. Ford claimed that he wanted the country to put the Watergate scandal behind it. But the pardon proved to be widely unpopular. In domestic policy, Ford’s presidency lacked significant accom- plishment. To combat inflation, Ford urged Americans to shop wisely, reduce expenditures, and wear WIN buttons (for “Whip Inflation Now”). Although inflation fell, joblessness continued to rise. During the steep recession of 1974–1975 unemployment exceeded 9 percent, the highest level since the Depression. In the international arena, 1975 witnessed the major achievement of Ford’s presidency. In a continuation of Nixon’s policy of détente, the United States and Soviet Union signed an agreement at Helsinki, Finland, T H E E N D O F T H E G O L D E N A G E 819 that recognized the permanence of Europe’s post–World War II boundar- The Helsinki Accords ies (including the division of Germany). In addition, both superpowers agreed to respect the basic liberties of their citizens. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his Soviet counterpart, Andrey Gromyko, assumed that this latter pledge would have little practical effect. But over time, the Helsinki Accords inspired movements for greater freedom within the com- munist countries of eastern Europe. T h e C a r t e r A d m i n i s t r a t i o n In the presidential election of 1976, Jimmy Carter, a former governor of Georgia, narrowly defeated Ford. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy Jimmy Carter’s background who later became a peanut farmer, Carter was virtually unknown outside his state when he launched his campaign for the Democratic nomina- tion. But realizing that Watergate and Vietnam had produced a crisis in confidence in the federal government, he turned his obscurity into an advantage. Carter ran for president as an “outsider,” making a virtue of the fact that he had never held federal office. A devout “born-again” Baptist, he spoke openly of his religious convictions. His promise, “I’ll never lie to you,” resonated with an electorate tired of official dishonesty. Carter had much in common with Progressives of the early twentieth century. His passions were making government more efficient, protecting the environment, and raising the moral tone of politics. Unlike the Progressives, however, he embraced the aspirations of black Americans. As president, Carter appointed an unprecedented number of blacks to important positions, including Andrew Young, a former lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr., as ambassador to the United Nations. C a r t e r a n d t h e E c o n o m i c C r i s i s The Democratic party found itself ill-equipped to deal with the economic crisis. The social upheavals of the 1960s had led to the emergence of poli- The New Democrats ticians known collectively as the New Democrats. Representing affluent urban and suburban districts, they viewed issues like race relations, gender equality, the environment, and improving the political process as more cen- tral than traditional economic matters. Although his party controlled both houses, Carter often found himself at odds with Congress. He viewed infla- tion, not unemployment, as the country’s main economic problem, and to combat it he promoted cuts in spending on domestic programs. In the hope that increased competition would reduce prices, his administration dereg- ulated the trucking and airline industries. In 1980, with Carter’s approval, Congress repealed usury laws—laws that limit how much interest lenders 820 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism In what ways did the opportunities of most Americans diminish in the 1970s? can charge—allowing credit card companies to push their interest rates up to twenty percent or even higher. Carter also believed that expanded use of nuclear energy could help reduce dependence on imported oil. For years, proponents of nuclear power had hailed it as an inexpensive way of meeting the country’s energy needs. By the time Carter took office, more than 200 nuclear plants were operating or on order. But in 1979 the industry suffered a near-fatal blow when an accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania released a large amount of radioactive steam into the atmosphere. The Three Mile Island mishap reinforced fears about the environmental hazards associated with nuclear energy and put a halt to the The deregulation of the airline industry’s expansion. industry brought lower fares but also Since the New Deal, Democrats had presented themselves as the party a drastic decline in service. Before of affluence and economic growth. But Carter seemed to be presiding over a deregulation, with prices fixed, period of national decline. It did not help his popularity when, in a speech airlines sought to attract customers by providing good service. Today, in 1979, he spoke of a national “crisis of confidence” and seemed to blame it fares may be lower, but passengers on the American people themselves and their “mistaken idea of freedom” are jammed in like sardines and have as “self-indulgence and consumption.” to pay for checked baggage, onboard meals, and other amenities. T h e E m e r g e n c e o f H u m a n R i g h t s P o l i t i c s Under Carter, a commitment to promoting human rights became a cen- terpiece of American foreign policy for the first time. He was influenced by the proliferation of information about global denials of human rights spread by nongovernmental agencies like Amnesty International and Carter’s human rights foreign the International League for Human Rights. Their reports marked a sig- policy nificant break with dominant ideas about international affairs since World War II, which had viewed the basic division in the world as between com- munist and noncommunist countries. Such reports, along with congres- sional hearings, exposed misdeeds not only by communist countries but also by American allies, especially the death squads of Latin American dictatorships. In 1978, Carter cut off aid to the brutal military dictatorship governing Argentina, which in the name of anticommunism had launched a “dirty war” against its own citizens, kidnapping off the streets and secretly mur- dering an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 persons. Carter’s action was a dra- matic gesture, as Argentina was one of the most important powers in Latin Argentina America, and previous American administrations had turned a blind eye to human rights abuses by Cold War allies. By the end of his presidency, the phrase “human rights” had acquired political potency. T H E E N D O F T H E G O L D E N A G E 821 Carter believed that in the post- Vietnam era, American foreign policy should de-emphasize Cold War thinking. Combating poverty in the Third World, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, and promoting human rights should take priority over what he called “the inordi- nate fear of communism that once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear.” In one of his first acts as presi- dent, he offered an unconditional pardon to Vietnam-era draft resisters. Carter’s emphasis on pursuing peace- ful solutions to international problems and President Jimmy Carter ( center), Egyptian president Anwar Sadat ( left), his willingness to think outside the Cold War framework yielded impor- and Israeli prime minister Menachem tant results. In 1979, he brought the leaders of Egypt and Israel to the Begin ( right) celebrating the signing of presidential retreat at Camp David and brokered a historic peace agree- the 1979 peace treaty between Israel ment between the two countries. He improved American relations with and Egypt. Latin America by agreeing to a treaty, ratified by the Senate in 1978, that provided for the transfer of the Panama Canal to local control by the year 2000. Carter attempted to curb the murderous violence of death squads allied to the right-wing government of El Salvador, and in 1980 he sus- pended military aid after the murder of four American nuns by members of the country’s army. Both conservative Cold Warriors and foreign policy “realists” severely criticized Carter’s emphasis on human rights. He himself found it impos- sible to translate rhetoric into action. He criticized American arms sales to Carter’s effectiveness the rest of the world. But with thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in corporate profits at stake, he did nothing to curtail them. The United States continued its support of allies with records of serious human rights viola- tions such as the governments of Guatemala, the Philippines, South Korea, and Iran. Indeed, the American connection with the shah of Iran, whose secret police regularly jailed and tortured political opponents, proved to be Carter’s undoing. T h e I r a n C r i s i s a n d A f g h a n i s t a n Occupying a strategic location on the southern border of the Soviet Union, Iran was a major supplier of oil and an importer of American military equipment. At the end of 1977, Carter traveled there to help celebrate the shah’s rule, causing the internal opposition to become more and more anti-American. Early in 1979, a popular revolution inspired by the exiled 822 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism What were the roots of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s? Muslim cleric Ayatollah Khomeini over- threw the shah and declared Iran an Islamic republic. When Carter in November 1979 allowed the deposed shah to seek medical treatment in the United States, Khomeini’s followers invaded the American embassy in Tehran and seized sixty-six hostages. They did not regain their freedom until January 1981, on the day Carter’s term as president ended. Events in Iran made Carter seem helpless and inept and led to a rapid fall in his popularity. Another crisis that began in 1979 American hostages being paraded undermined American relations with Moscow. At the end of that year, by their Iranian captors on the the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan to support first day of the occupation of the a friendly government threatened by an Islamic rebellion. In the long American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Television gave extensive coverage run, Afghanistan became the Soviet Vietnam, an unwinnable conflict to the plight of the hostages, leading whose mounting casualties seriously weakened the government at home. many Americans to view the Carter Initially, however, it seemed another example of declining American administration as weak and inept. power. Declaring the invasion the greatest crisis since World War II (a con- siderable exaggeration), the president announced the Carter Doctrine, declaring that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to protect its interests in the Persian Gulf. He organized a Western boycott of the 1980 Olympics, which took place in Moscow, and dramatically increased American military spending. In a reversion to the Cold War principle that any opponent of the Soviet Union deserved American support, the United States funneled aid to fundamentalist Muslims in Actions in Afghanistan Afghanistan who fought a decade-long guerrilla war against the Soviets. The alliance had unforeseen consequences. A faction of Islamic fundamen- talists known as the Taliban eventually came to power in Afghanistan. Tragically, they would prove as hostile to the United States as to Moscow. T H E R I S I N G T I D E O F C O N S E R V A T I S M The combination of domestic and international dislocations during the 1970s created a widespread sense of anxiety among Americans and offered conservatives new political opportunities. Economic problems Issues for conservatives heightened the appeal of lower taxes, reduced government regulation, and T H E R I S I N G T I D E O F C O N S E R V A T I S M 823 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m R e d s t o c k i n g s M a n i f e s t o ( 1 9 6 9 ) Redstockings was one of the radical feminist movements that arose in the late 1960s. Based in New York, it issued this manifesto. In language typical of the era, it illustrates how at its most radical edge feminism had evolved from demands for equal treatment for women to a total critique of male power and a call for women’s “liberation.” After centuries of individual and preliminary political struggle, women are uniting to achieve their final liberation from male supremacy. Redstockings is dedicated to building this unity and winning our freedom. Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor. We are considered inferior beings, whose only purpose is to enhance men’s lives. Our humanity is denied. Our prescribed behavior is enforced by the threat of physical violence. Because we have lived so intimately with our oppressors, in isolation from each other, we have been kept from seeing our personal suffering as a political condition. . . . We identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination. . . . Men have controlled all political, economic, and cultural institutions and backed up this control with physical force. . . . Our chief task at present is to develop female class consciousness through sharing experience and publicly exposing the sexist foundation of all our institutions. Consciousness-raising is not “therapy,” which implies the existence of individual solutions and falsely assumes that the male-female relationship is purely personal, but the only method by which we can ensure that our program for liberation is based on the concrete realities of our lives. . . . The first requirement for raising class consciousness is honesty, in private and in public, with ourselves and other women. We identify with all women. We define our best interest as that of the poorest, most brutally exploited women. . . . We call on all our sisters to unite with us in struggle. We call on all men to give up their male privileges and support women’s liberation in the interest of our humanity and their own. July 7, 1969, New York City 824 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism F r o m J e r r y F a l w e l l , L i s t e n , A m e r i c a ! ( 1 9 8 0 ) The Reverend Jerry Falwell, a Virginia minister who in 1979 founded the self-proclaimed Moral Majority, was one of the leading conservative activists of the 1970s and 1980s. In language reminiscent of Puritan jeremiads about the decline of moral values, Falwell helped mobilize evangelical Christians to ally with the Republican Party. We must reverse the trend America finds herself in today. Young people between the ages of twenty-five and forty have been born and reared in a different world than Americans of years past. The television set has been their primary baby-sitter. From the television set they have learned situation ethics and immorality—they have learned a loss of respect for human life. They have learned to disrespect the family as God has established it. They have been educated in a public-school system that is permeated with secular humanism. They have been taught that the Bible is just another book of literature. They have been taught that there are no absolutes in our world today. They have been introduced to the drug culture. They have been reared by the family and the public school in a society that is greatly void of discipline and character-building. . . . Every American who looks at the facts must share a deep concern and burden for our country. . . . If Americans will face the truth, our nation can be turned around and can be saved from the evils and the destruction that have fallen upon every other nation that has turned its back on God. . . . I personally feel that the home and the family are still held in reverence by the vast majority of the American public. I believe there is still a vast number of Americans who love their country, are patriotic, and are willing to sacrifice for her. . . . I believe that Americans want to see this country come back to basics, back to values, back to biblical morality, back to sensibility, and back to patriotism. . . . It is now time to take a stand on certain moral issues, and we can only stand if we have leaders. We must stand against the Equal Rights Amendment, the feminist revolution, and the homosexual revolution. . . . The hope of reversing the trends of decay in our republic now lies with the Christian Q U E S T I O N S public in America. We cannot expect help from the liberals. They certainly are not going to call 1. How do the authors of the Redstockings our nation back to righteousness and neither are Manifesto seem to define women’s the pornographers, the smut peddlers, and those freedom? who are corrupting our youth. Moral Americans must be willing to put their reputations, their 2. What does Falwell see as the main fortunes, and their very lives on the line for this threats to moral values? great nation of ours. Would that we had the courage of our forefathers who knew the great 3. How do the two documents differ in responsibility that freedom carries with it. their views about the role of women in American society? V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 825 cuts in social spending to spur business investment. Fears about a decline of American power in the world led to calls for a renewal of the Cold War. The civil rights and sexual revolutions produced resentments that undermined the Democratic coalition. Rising urban crime rates reinforced demands for law and order and attacks on courts considered too lenient toward criminals. These issues brought new converts to the conservative cause. As the 1970s went on, conservatives abandoned overt opposition to the black struggle for racial justice. The fiery rhetoric and direct confron- tation tactics of Bull Connor, George Wallace, and other proponents of Conservatives and freedom massive resistance were succeeded by appeals to freedom of association, local control, and resistance to the power of the federal government. This language of individual freedom resonated throughout the country, appeal- ing especially to the growing, predominantly white, suburban population that was fleeing the cities and their urban problems. The suburbs would become one of the bastions of modern conservatism. One set of recruits was the “neoconservatives,” a group of intellectu- als who charged that the 1960s had produced a decline in moral standards and respect for authority. Once supporters of liberalism, they had come to believe that even well-intentioned government social programs did more harm than good. Neoconservatives repudiated the attempts by Nixon, Ford, and Carter to reorient foreign policy away from the Cold War. Conservative “think tanks” created during the 1970s, like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, refined and spread these ideas. T h e R e l i g i o u s R i g h t The rise of religious fundamentalism during the 1970s expanded conser- vatism’s popular base. Even as membership in mainstream denomina- Evangelical religion tions like Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism declined, evangelical Protestantism flourished. Some observers spoke of a Third Great Awaken- ing (like those of the 1740s and early nineteenth century). The election of Carter, the first “born-again” Christian to become president, highlighted the growing influence of evangelical religion. But unlike Carter, most fun- damentalists who entered politics did so as conservatives. Evangelical Christians had become more and more alienated from a culture that seemed to them to trivialize religion and promote immo- rality. Although it spoke of restoring traditional values, the Religious Right proved remarkably adept at using modern technology, including Conservatism and the mass mailings and televised religious programming, to raise funds for its evangelicals crusade and spread its message. In 1979, Jerry Falwell, a Virginia minister, 826 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism What were the roots of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s? founded the self-styled Moral Majority, devoted to waging a “war against sin” and electing “pro-life, pro-family, pro-America” candidates to office. Christian conservatives seemed most agitated by the ongoing sexual revolution, which they saw as undermining the traditional family and promoting immorality. As a result of the 1960s, they believed, American freedom was out of control. T h e B a t t l e o v e r t h e E q u a l R i g h t s A m e n d m e n t During the 1970s, “family values” moved to the center of conserva- tive politics, nowhere more so than in the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Originally proposed during the 1920s by Alice Paul and the Women’s Party, the ERA had been revived by second-wave femi- The ERA nists. In the wake of the rights revolution, the amendment’s affirmation that “equality of rights under the law” could not be abridged “on account of sex” hardly seemed controversial. In 1972, with little opposition, Congress approved the ERA and sent it to the states for ratification. Designed to eliminate obstacles to the full participation of women in public life, it aroused unexpected protest from those who claimed it would discredit the role of wife and homemaker. The ERA debate reflected a division among women as much as a Women divided battle of the sexes. To its supporters, the amendment offered a guarantee of women’s freedom in the public sphere. To its foes, freedom for women still resided in the divinely appointed roles of wife and mother. They claimed that the ERA would let men “off the hook” by denying their responsibility Doug Marlette’s cartoon comments on the continuing gap in pay between men and women, the kind of inequality that inspired support for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. T H E R I S I N G T I D E O F C O N S E R V A T I S M 827 to provide for their wives and children. Polls consistently showed that a majority of Americans, male and female, favored the ERA. But thanks to the mobilization of conservative women, the amendment failed to achieve ratification by the required thirty-eight states. T h e A b o r t i o n C o n t r o v e r s y An even more bitter battle emerged in the 1970s over abortion rights, another example, to conservatives, of how liberals in office promoted sex- ual immorality at the expense of moral values. The movement to reverse the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision began among Roman Catholics, whose church condemned abortion under any circumstances. But it soon enlisted evangelical Protestants and social conservatives more generally. Life, the movement insisted, begins at conception, and abortion is nothing less than murder. Between this position and the feminist insistence that a woman’s right to control her body includes the right to a safe, legal abortion, com- Women demonstrating in support for promise was impossible. abortion rights. The abortion issue drew a bitter, sometimes violent line through American politics. It affected battles over nominees to judicial positions and led to demonstrations at family-planning and abortion clinics. The anti-abortion movement won its first victory in 1976 when Congress, over President Ford’s veto, ended federal funding for abortions for poor women through the Medicaid program. By the 1990s, a few fringe anti-abortion activists were placing bombs at medical clinics and murdering doctors who terminated pregnancies. A 1979 anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C., on the sixth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, which barred states from limiting a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. 828 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism What were the roots of the rise of conservatism in the 1970s? T h e T a x R e v o l t With liberals unable to devise an effective policy to counteract deindus- trialization and declining real wages, economic anxieties also created a growing constituency for conservative economics. Unlike during the Great Conservative economics Depression, economic distress inspired a critique of government rather than of business. New environmental regulations led to calls for less government intervention in the economy. These were most strident in the West, where measures to protect the environment threatened irrigation projects and private access to public lands. But everywhere, the economy’s descent from affluence to “stagflation” increased the appeal of the conservative argument that government regulation raised business costs and eliminated jobs. Economic decline also broadened the constituency receptive to demands for lower taxes. To conservatives, tax reductions served the dual purposes of enhancing business profits and reducing the resources available to government, thus making new social programs financially impossible. In 1978, conservatives sponsored and California voters approved Proposition 13, a ban on further increases in property taxes. The vote California’s Proposition 13 demonstrated that the level of taxation could be a powerful political issue. Proposition 13 proved to be a windfall for businesses and home owners while reducing funds available for schools, libraries, and other public ser- vices. Many voters, however, proved willing to accept this result of lower taxes. As anti-tax sentiment flourished throughout the country, many states followed California’s lead. T h e E l e c t i o n o f 1 9 8 0 By 1980, Carter’s approval rating had fallen to 21 percent—lower than Nixon’s at the time of his resignation. Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign for Reagan’s appeal the presidency brought together the many strands of 1970s conservatism. He pledged to end stagflation and restore the country’s dominant role in the world and its confidence in itself. “Let’s make America great again,” he proclaimed. “The era of self-doubt is over.” Reagan also appealed skillfully to “white backlash.” He kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964, with a speech emphasizing his belief in states’ rights. Many white southerners understood this doctrine as including opposition to federal intervention on behalf of civil rights. During the campaign, Reagan repeatedly condemned welfare “cheats,” school bus- ing, and affirmative action. The Republican platform reversed the party’s long-standing support for the Equal Rights Amendment and condemned T H E R I S I N G T I D E O F C O N S E R V A T I S M 829 moral permissiveness. Although not per- T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L sonally religious and the first divorced man E L E C T I O N O F 1 9 8 0 to run for president, Reagan won the sup- port of the Religious Right and conservative 9 upholders of “family values.” 4 3 3 4 4 Riding a wave of dissatisfaction with the 6 10 4 4 11 41 14 country’s condition, Reagan swept into the 3 21 4 5 8 27 8 White House. Because moderate Republican 3 4 17 26 13 25 3 45 7 6 John Anderson, running for president as an 7 12 12 10 9 3 independent, received about 7 percent of the 10 13 6 4 8 6 8 popular vote, Reagan won only a bare major- 7 9 12 ity, although he commanded a substan- 26 4 10 tial margin in the electoral college. Carter 3 17 received 41 percent, a humiliating defeat for a sitting president. Electoral Vote Popular Vote The election of 1980 launched the Party Candidate (Share) (Share) Reagan Revolution, which completed the Republican Reagan 489 (91%) 43,901,812 (51%) Democrat Carter 49 (9%) 35,483,820 (41%) transformation of freedom from the rally- Independent Anderson 5,720,437 (7%) ing cry of the left to a possession of the right. Other candidates 1,155,593 (1%) T H E R E A G A N R E V O L U T I O N Ronald Reagan followed a most unusual path to the presidency. Originally a New Deal Democrat and head of the Screen Actors Guild (he was the only Before entering politics, Ronald Reagan was a prominent actor union leader ever to reach the White House), he emerged in the 1950s as a and a spokesperson for General spokesman for the General Electric Corporation, preaching the virtues of Electric. In this 1958 photograph, he unregulated capitalism. His nominating speech for Barry Goldwater at the demonstrates the use of a GE oven. 1964 Republican convention brought Reagan to national attention. Two years later, California voters elected Reagan as governor, establishing him as the conservatives’ best hope of capturing the presidency. His victory in 1980 brought to power a diverse coalition of old and new conservatives: Sunbelt suburbanites and urban working-class ethnics, antigovernment crusaders and advocates of a more aggressive foreign policy, libertarians who believed in freeing the individual from restraint, and the Christian Right, which sought to restore what they considered traditional moral values to American life. R e a g a n a n d A m e r i c a n F r e e d o m Reagan’s opponents often underestimated him. By the time he left office at the age of seventy-seven, he had become the oldest man ever to serve as 830 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism How did the Reagan presidency affect Americans both at home and abroad? president. Unlike most modern presidents, he was content to outline broad policy themes and leave their implementation to others. Reagan, however, was hardly a political novice. An excellent pub- lic speaker, his optimism and affability appealed to large numbers of Americans. Reagan made conservatism seem progressive, rather than an attempt to turn back the tide of progress. Reagan repeatedly invoked the idea that America has a divinely appointed mission as a “beacon of liberty and freedom.” Freedom, indeed, became the watchword of the Reagan Revolution. In his public appearances and state papers, Reagan used the word more often than any president before him. Reagan reshaped the nation’s agenda and political language more effectively than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. On issues rang- ing from taxes to government spending, national security, crime, welfare, and “traditional values,” he put Democrats on the defensive. But he also A delegate to the Republican national proved to be a pragmatist, recognizing when to compromise so as not to convention of 1980 wears a hat festooned with the flags of the United fragment his diverse coalition of supporters. States and Texas and a button with a picture of her hero, Ronald Reagan. R e a g a n o m i c s In 1981, Reagan persuaded Congress to reduce the top tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent and to index tax brackets to take inflation into account. Five years later, the Tax Reform Act reduced the rate on the Tax reform wealthiest Americans to 28 percent. These measures marked a sharp retreat from the principle of progressivity (the idea that the wealthy should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than other citizens), one of the ways twentieth-century societies tried to address the unequal distri- bution of wealth. Reagan also appointed conservative heads of regulatory agencies, who cut back on environmental protection and workplace safety rules, about which business had complained for years. Since the New Deal, liberals had tried to promote economic growth by using the power of the government to bolster ordinary Americans’ purchas- ing power. Reagan’s economic program, known as “supply-side economics” by proponents and “trickle-down economics” by critics, relied on high interest rates to curb inflation and lower tax rates, especially for businesses and high-income Americans, to stimulate private investment. The policy Supply-side economics assumed that cutting taxes would inspire Americans at all income levels to work harder, because they would keep more of the money they earned. R e a g a n a n d L a b o r Reagan inaugurated an era of hostility between the federal government and organized labor. In August 1981, when 13,000 members of PATCO, T H E R E A G A N R E V O L U T I O N 831 the union of air traffic controllers, began a strike in violation of federal The air traffic controllers’ law, Reagan fired them all. He used the military to oversee the nation’s strike air traffic system until new controllers could be trained. Reagan’s action inspired many private employers to launch anti-union offensives. The hiring of workers to replace permanently those who had gone on strike, a rare occurrence before 1980, became widespread. Manufacturing employment, where union membership was concentrated, meanwhile continued its long-term decline. By the mid-1990s, the steel industry employed only 170,000 persons—down from 600,000 in 1973. “Reaganomics,” as critics dubbed the administration’s policies, ini- tially produced the most severe recession since the 1930s. A long period of economic expansion, however, followed the downturn of 1981–1982. As companies “downsized” their workforces, shifted production overseas, and took advantage of new technologies such as satellite communications, they became more profitable. At the same time, the rate of inflation, 13.5 percent The wealthiest American families at the beginning of 1981, declined to 3.5 percent in 1988, partly because a benefited the most from economic period of expanded oil production that drove down prices succeeded the expansion during the 1980s, whereas the poorest 40 percent of the shortages of the 1970s. population saw their real incomes decline. (Real income indicates income adjusted to take account of T h e P r o b l e m o f I n e q u a l i t y inflation.) Together, Reagan’s policies, rising stock prices, and deindustrialization resulted in a considerable rise in economic inequality. By the mid-1990s, FIGURE 26.3 the richest 1 percent of Americans owned 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, Changes in twice their share twenty years earlier. Most spent their income not on pro- Families’ Real ductive investments and charity as supply-side economists had promised, but on luxury goods, real-estate speculation, and corporate buyouts that Income, 1980–1990 often led to plant closings as operations were consolidated. The income 20 of middle-class families, especially those with a wife who did not work 15.6% outside the home, stagnated while that of the poorest one-fifth of the popu- 15 lation declined. 9.3% 10 eal income During the 1970s, Jim Crow had finally ended in many workplaces 5.2% and unions. But just as decades of painful efforts to obtain better jobs 5 bore fruit, hundreds of thousands of black workers lost their jobs when – 9.8% – 0.5% 0 factories closed their doors. In South Gate, a working-class suburb of centage change in r Los Angeles, for example, the giant Firestone tire factory shut down in – 5 Per 1980, only a few years after black and Latino workers had made their –10 first breakthroughs in employment. When the national unemployment Poorest Next to Middle Next to Wealthiest Americans poorest wealthiest Americans rate reached 8.9 percent at the end of 1981, the figure for blacks exceeded Income level 20 percent. 832 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism How did the Reagan presidency affect Americans both at home and abroad? This photograph of the remains of the Bethlehem Steel plant in Lackawana, New York, which closed in 1982, depicts the aftermath of deindustrialization. Today, the site is a wind farm, with eight windmills helping to provide electricity for the city. T h e S e c o n d G i l d e d A g e In retrospect, the 1980s, like the 1890s, would be widely remembered as a decade of misplaced values. Buying out companies generated more profits than running them; making deals, not making products, became the way to get rich. The merger of Nabisco and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1988 produced close to $1 billion in fees for lawyers, economic advisers, and stockbrokers. “Greed is healthy,” declared Wall Street financier Ivan Boesky (who ended up in prison for insider stock trading). “Yuppie”—the young urban professional who earned a high income working in a bank or stock-brokerage firm and spent lavishly on designer clothing and other A homeless Los Angeles family, forced to live in their car, photographed in trappings of the good life—became a household word. 1983. Taxpayers footed the bill for some of the consequences. The deregula- tion of savings and loan associations—banks that had generally confined themselves to financing home mortgages—allowed those institutions to invest in unsound real-estate ventures and corporate mergers. Losses piled up, and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, which insured depositors’ accounts, faced bankruptcy. After Reagan left office, the federal government bailed out the savings and loan institutions at a cost to taxpayers estimated at $250 billion. Supply-side advocates insisted that lowering taxes would enlarge gov- ernment revenue by stimulating economic activity. But spurred by large increases in funds for the military, federal spending far outstripped income, T H E R E A G A N R E V O L U T I O N 833 producing large budget deficits, despite assurances by supply-siders that this would not happen. During Reagan’s presidency, the national debt tripled to $2.7 trillion. Nonetheless, Reagan remained immensely popular. He won a triumphant reelection in 1984. His opponent, Walter Mondale (best remembered for choosing Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate, the first woman candidate on a major-party presi- dential ticket), carried only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. First lady Nancy Reagan promoting her “Just Say No” campaign against the use of drugs, in a photo from C o n s e r v a t i v e s a n d R e a g a n 1986. Although he implemented their economic policies, Reagan in some ways disappointed ardent conservatives. The administration left intact core ele- ments of the welfare state, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which many conservatives wished to curtail significantly or repeal. The Reagan era did little to advance the social agenda of the Christian Right. Reagan’s social policies Abortion remained legal, women continued to enter the labor force in unprecedented numbers, and Reagan even appointed the first female member of the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor. In 1986, in Bowers v. Hardwick, in a rare victory for cultural conservatives, the Supreme Court Hollywood joined enthusiastically in did uphold the constitutionality of state laws outlawing homosexual acts. the revived Cold War. The 1984 film (In 2003, the justices would reverse the Bowers decision, declaring uncon- Red Dawn depicted a Soviet invasion stitutional laws that criminalized homosexuality.) of the United States. R e a g a n a n d t h e C o l d W a r In foreign policy, Reagan resumed vigorous denunciation of the Soviet Union—calling it an “evil empire”—and sponsored the largest military buildup in American history, includ- ing new long-range bombers and missiles. In 1983, he proposed an entirely new strategy, the Strategic Defense Initiative, which would develop a space-based system to intercept and destroy enemy missiles. The idea was not remotely feasible technologically, and, if 834 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism How did the Reagan presidency affect Americans both at home and abroad? T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S I N T H E C A R I B B E A N A N D C E N T R A L A M E R I C A , 1 9 5 4 – 2 0 0 4 U.S. military bases UNITED STATES Overt military actions Ca p e Ca n a v e ra l U.S. naval blockade United States and U.S. possessions Gulf of Sites of U.S. military intervention Mexico Possessions of European countries Miami Nassau Ke y We s t B a h a m a s ( B r . ) A t l a n t i c U.S. naval blockade during mis O c e a n Havana sile crisis, 1962 CUBA CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion Revolution, 1964 U.S. fails, 1961 interventions DOMINICAN MEXICO 1961, 1962 Guantánamo Bay PUERTO HAITI REPUBLIC RICO (U.S.) U.S. Virgin Islands Batista dictatorship overthrown B r i t i s h V i rg i n I s l a n d s San Juan Fidel Castro assumes power, 1959 Belize City Santo Kingston Port- Ramey Roosevelt Domingo au-Prince AFB Roads AFB BELIZE JAMAICA 1962 L e e w a r d U.S. intervention, GUATEMALA 1994, 2004 U.S. Marine landing, I s l a n d s 1965 HONDURAS Guatemala W i n d w a r d BARBADOS San Salvador Tegucigalpa Caribbean Sea I s l a n d s U.S. intervention, EL 1981–1987 U.S. intervention, 1983 SALVADOR NICARAGUA Managua G r e n a d a U.S. intervention, 1954 U.S. intervention, 1981 TRINIDAD Canal Zone COSTA RICA Caracas & TOBAGO San Jose riots, 1964 Panama City Pa c i f i c PANAMA O c e a n VENEZUELA Rodman NS 0 250 500 miles Albrook AFB COLOMBIA GUYANA 0 250 500 kilometers U.S. intervention, 1989 BRAZIL As in the first part of the twentieth deployed, it would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. But it century, the United States intervened appealed to Reagan’s desire to reassert America’s worldwide power. frequently in Caribbean and Central Reagan came into office determined to overturn the “Vietnam American countries during and immediately after the Cold War. syndrome”—as widespread public reluctance to commit American forces overseas was called. He sent American troops to the Caribbean island of Grenada to oust a pro-Cuban government. In 1982, Reagan dispatched marines as a peacekeeping force to Lebanon, where a civil war raged Troops overseas between the Christian government, supported by Israeli forces, and Muslim insurgents. But he quickly withdrew them after a bomb exploded at their barracks, killing 241 Americans. The public, Reagan realized, would support minor operations like Grenada but remained unwilling to sustain heavy casualties abroad. T H E R E A G A N R E V O L U T I O N 835 Abandoning the Carter administration’s emphasis on human rights, Reagan embraced the idea, advanced in 1979 by neoconservative writer Jeane Kirkpatrick, that the United States should oppose “totalitarian” com- munists but assist “authoritarian” noncommunist regimes. The United Nations and the United States stepped up its alliances with Third World anticommunist dictatorships like the governments of Chile and South Africa. The administration poured in funds to combat insurgencies against Latin America the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala, whose armies and associ- ated death squads committed flagrant abuses against their own citizens. When El Salvador’s army massacred hundreds of civilians in the town of El Mozote in 1981, the State Department denied that the event, widely reported in the press, had taken place. T h e I r a n - C o n t r a A f f a i r American involvement in Central America produced the greatest scandal of Reagan’s presidency, the Iran-Contra affair. In 1984, Congress banned military aid to the Contras (derived from the Spanish word for “against”) fighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which had ousted the President Reagan visited Moscow in 1988, cementing his close American-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. In 1985, Reagan relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail secretly authorized the sale of arms to Iran—now involved in a war with Gorbachev. They were photographed its neighbor, Iraq—in order to secure the release of a number of American in Red Square. hostages held by Islamic groups in the Middle East. CIA director William Casey and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council set up a system that diverted some of the proceeds to buy military supplies for the Contras in defiance of the congressional ban. The scheme continued for nearly two years. In 1987, after a Middle Eastern newspaper leaked the story, Congress held televised hearings that revealed a pattern of official duplicity and violation of the law reminiscent of the Nixon era. Eleven members of the administration eventually were convicted of perjury or destroying docu- ments, or pleaded guilty before being tried. Reagan denied knowledge of the illegal proceedings, but the Iran-Contra affair undermined confidence that he controlled his own administration. R e a g a n a n d G o r b a c h e v In his second term, to the surprise of both his foes and his support- ers, Reagan softened his anticommunist rhetoric and established good relations with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev had come to power in 1985, bent on reforming the Soviet Union’s repressive politi- 836 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism How did the Reagan presidency affect Americans both at home and abroad? cal system and reinvigorating its economy. Gorbachev inaugurated policies known as glasnost (political openness) and perestroika (economic reform). Gorbachev realized that significant change would be impossible without reducing his country’s military budget. Reagan was ready to negotiate. A series of talks between 1985 and 1987 yielded more progress on arms control than in the entire postwar period to that point, including an agreement to eliminate intermediate- and short-range nuclear mis- siles in Europe. In 1988, Gorbachev began pulling Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. Having entered office as an ardent Cold Warrior, Reagan left with hostilities between the superpowers much diminished. He even Diminished hostilities repudiated his earlier comment that the Soviet Union was an “evil empire,” saying that it referred to “another era.” R e a g a n ’ s L e g a c y Reagan’s presidency revealed the contradictions at the heart of modern conservatism. In some ways, the Reagan Revolution undermined the very values and institutions conservatives held dear. Intended to discourage reliance on government handouts by rewarding honest work and business initiative, Reagan’s policies inspired a speculative frenzy that enriched architects of corporate takeovers and investors in the stock market while leaving in their wake plant closings, job losses, and devastated communi- ties. Nothing proved more threatening to local traditions or family stability than deindustrialization, insecurity about employment, and the relentless downward pressure on wages. Nonetheless, few figures have so successfully changed the landscape Reagan’s impact and language of politics. Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush, defeated Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, in the 1988 election partly because Dukakis could not respond effectively to the charge that he was a “liberal”—now a term of political abuse. Conservative assumptions about the virtues of the free market and the evils of “big government” dominated the mass media and political debates. During the 1990s, these and other conservative ideas would be embraced almost as fully by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, as by Reagan and the Republicans. T h e E l e c t i o n o f 1 9 8 8 The 1988 election seemed to show politics sinking to new lows. Television advertisements and media exposés now dominated political campaigns. The race for the Democratic nomination had hardly begun before the T H E R E A G A N R E V O L U T I O N 837 front-runner, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, withdrew after a newspa- per reported that he had spent the night at his Washington town house with a woman other than his wife. Democrats ridiculed the Republican vice presidential nominee, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, for factual and A dismal campaign linguistic mistakes. Republicans spread unfounded rumors that Michael Dukakis’s wife had burned an American flag during the 1960s. The low point of the campaign came in a Republican television ad depicting the threatening image of Willie Horton, a black murderer and rapist who had been furloughed from prison during Dukakis’s term as governor of Massachusetts. Rarely in the modern era had a major party appealed so blatantly to racial fears. Bush achieved a substantial majority, winning 54 percent of the popu- lar vote. Democratic success in retaining control of Congress suggested that an electoral base existed for a comeback. But this would only occur if the party fashioned a new appeal to replace traditional liberalism, which had been eclipsed by the triumph of conservatism. 838 C h a p t e r 2 6  The Triumph of Conservatism C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. Why were social issues associated with the sexual affirmative action (p. 809) busing (p. 810) revolution so contested by all sides? “reverse discrimination” (p. 810) Title IX (p. 811) 2. What were continuing challenges to the cohesiveness of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks the Democratic (New Deal) coalition? What were the (p. 812) consequences of those divisions? détente (p. 812) My Lai massacre (p. 813) 3. What were the main features of Nixon’s policy of War Powers Act (p. 814) “realism” in dealing with China and the Soviet Union? Watergate (p. 815) stagflation (p. 818) 4. Describe the basic events and the larger significance of misery index (p. 818) the Watergate scandal. Sunbelt (p. 819) Nixon pardon (p. 819) 5. What were the major causes for the decline of the U.S. Helsinki Accords (p. 820) economy during the 1970s? deregulation (p. 820) Camp David Accords (p. 822) 6. What were the causes and consequences of the public’s “neoconservatives” (p. 826) disillusionment with the federal government in the Reagan Revolution (p. 830) Reaganomics (p. 832) 1970s and 1980s? “Vietnam syndrome” (p. 834) Iran-Contra affair (p. 836) 7. Identify the groups and their agendas that combined to create the new conservative base in the 1970s and 1980s. 8. What impact did Ronald Reagan have on the American political scene? 9. Why was there growth in economic inequality in the 1980s? wwnorton.com /studyspace 10. How did various groups see the relationship between women’s rights and freedom differently? VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE RESOURCES AND MORE s s s s s C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S 839 1989 Communism falls in eastern C H A P T E R 2 7 Europe U.S.-led Panamanian coup 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act Germany reunifies 1991 Gulf War Dissolution of the Soviet G L O B A L I Z A T I O N A N D Union 1992 Los Angeles riots Casey v. Planned Parent- I T S D I S C O N T E N T S hood of Pennsylvania William Jefferson Clinton elected president 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement approved  1994 Republicans win in Congress; Contract with America 1 9 8 9 – 2 0 0 0 Rwandan genocide 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombed 1996 Clinton eliminates Aid to Families with Dependent Children Defense of Marriage Act 1998– Clinton impeachment 1999 proceedings Kosovo War 1999 Protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization Steagall Act repealed 2000 Bush v. Gore The Goddess of Democracy and Freedom, a statue reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, was displayed by pro- democracy advocates during the 1989 demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. After allowing it to continue for two months, the Chinese government sent troops to crush the peaceful occupation of the square. In December 1999, delegates from around the world gathered in Seattle for a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a F O C U S 135-nation group created five years earlier to reduce barriers to international commerce and settle trade disputes. To the astonishment Q U E S T I O N S of residents of the city, more than 30,000 persons gathered to protest the meeting. Their marches and rallies brought together factory workers, who claimed that global free trade encouraged corporations to shift s production to low-wage centers overseas, and “tree-huggers,” as some ton transform America’s reporters called environmentalists, who complained about the impact on world role? the earth’s ecology of unregulated economic development. Once a center of labor radicalism, the Seattle area in 1999 was s best known as the home of Microsoft, developer of the Windows economic resurgence of the operating system used in most of the world’s computers. The company’s 1990s? worldwide reach symbolized “globalization,” the process by which people, investment, goods, information, and culture increasingly flowed s across national boundaries. Globalization has been called “the concept of emerged in the 1990s? the 1990s.” Globalization, of course, was hardly a new phenomenon. The s internationalization of commerce and culture and the reshuffling of the cal partisanship affect the world’s peoples had been going on since the explorations of the fifteenth election of 2000? century. But the scale and scope of late-twentieth-century globalization was unprecedented. Thanks to satellites and the Internet, information s and popular culture flowed instantaneously to every corner of the world. ideas of American freedom at the end of the twentieth century? Protesters dressed as sea turtles, an endangered species, at the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, December 1999. G L O B A L I Z A T I O N A N D I T S D I S C O N T E N T S 841 Manufacturers and financial institutions scoured the world for profitable investment opportunities. Perhaps most important, the collapse of communism between 1989 and 1991 opened almost the entire world to the spread of market capital- ism and to the idea that government should interfere as little as possible with economic activity. American politicians and social commentators increasingly criticized the regulation of wages and working conditions, assistance to the less fortunate, and environmental protections as burdens on international competitiveness. During the 1990s, presidents George H. W. Bush, a Republican, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat, both Global markets and freedom spoke of an American mission to create a single global free market as the path to rising living standards, the spread of democracy, and greater worldwide freedom. The media called the loose coalition of groups who organized the Seattle protests and others like it the “antiglobalization” movement. In fact, they challenged not globalization itself but its social consequences. Globalization, the demonstrators claimed, accelerated the worldwide creation of wealth but widened gaps between rich and poor countries and between haves and have-nots within societies. Decisions affecting the day-to-day lives of millions of people were made by institutions—the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and multinational corporations—that operated without any democratic input. Demonstrators demanded not an end to global trade and capital flows but the establishment of international standards for wages, labor conditions, and the environment, and greater investment in health and education in poor countries. The Battle of Seattle placed on the national and international agendas a question that promises to be among the most pressing concerns of the twenty-first century—the relationship between globalization, economic justice, and freedom. T H E P O S T–C O L D W A R W O R L D T h e C r i s i s o f C o m m u n i s m The year 1989 was one of the most momentous of the twentieth century. Tiananmen Square In April, tens of thousands of student demonstrators occupied Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, demanding greater democracy in China. The students erected a figure reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, calling 842 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents How did Bush and Clinton transform America’s world role? it “The Goddess of Democracy and Freedom.” In June, Chinese troops crushed the protest, killing an unknown number of people, possibly thousands. In the fall of 1989, pro-democracy demonstrations spread across eastern Europe. Gorbachev made it clear that unlike in the past, the Soviet Union would not intervene. The climactic event took place on November 9 when crowds breached the Berlin Wall, which since 1961 had stood as the The fall of the Berlin Wall Cold War’s most prominent symbol. One by one, the region’s communist governments agreed to give up power. In 1990, a reunified German nation absorbed East Germany. The remarkably swift and almost entirely peace- ful collapse of communism in eastern Europe became known as the “velvet revolution.” Meanwhile, the Soviet Union itself slipped deeper and deeper into The breakup of the Soviet crisis. One after another, the republics of the Soviet Union declared them- Union selves sovereign states. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist; in its place were fifteen new independent nations. The sudden and unexpected collapse of communism marked the end of the Cold War and a stunning victory for the United States and its allies. For the first time since 1917, there existed a truly worldwide capitalist system. Even China, though remaining under Communist Party rule, had already embarked on market reforms and rushed to attract foreign invest- ment. Other events suggested that the 1990s would also be a “decade of Decade of democracy democracy.” In 1990, South Africa released Nelson Mandela, head of the African National Congress, from prison. Four years later, as a result of the Demonstrators dancing atop the Berlin Wall on November 10, 1989. The next day, crowds began dismantling it, in the most dramatic moment of the collapse of communist rule in eastern Europe. T H E P O S T – C O L D W A R W O R L D 843 E A S T E R N E U R O P E A F T E R T H E C O L D W A R Oslo NORWAY FINLAND 0 250 500 miles Helsinki Stockholm 0 250 500 kilometers North Sea SWEDEN Tallinn ESTONIA DENMARK Copenhagen RUSSIA Riga LATVIA Baltic Sea LITHUANIA RUS. Vilnius Moscow Berlin Minsk GERMANY Warsaw BELARUS Prague POLAND CZECH REPUBLIC Kiev KAZAKHSTAN Vienna SLOVAKIA Bratislava AUSTRIA UKRAINE Budapest Aral Ljubljana SLOVENIA HUNGARY Sea Zagreb MOLDOVAÇhisinau ˘ CROATIA ITALY BOSNIA & ROMANIA Belgrade HERZEGOVINA Sarajevo Rome Bucharest SERBIA UZBEKISTAN Podgorica MONTENEGRO C Sofia BULGARIA Skopje a Black Sea s Tiranë MACEDONIA p GEORGIA ia Tbilisi ALBANIA n S Baku e TURKMENISTAN GREECE ARMENIA AZERBAIJAN a Ashgabat Ankara Yerevan TURKEY Athens The end of the Cold War and breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia redrew the map of first democratic elections in the country’s history, Mandela became presi- eastern Europe (compare this map dent, ending the system of state-sponsored racial inequality, known as with the map of Cold War Europe in “apartheid,” and white minority government. Throughout Latin America Chapter 23). Two additional nations and Africa, civilian governments replaced military rule. that emerged from the Soviet Union lie to the east and are not indicated here: Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. A N e w W o r l d O r d e r ? The sudden shift from a bipolar world to one of unquestioned American predominance promised to redefine the country’s global role. President George H. W. Bush spoke of the coming of a “new world order.” But no one knew what its characteristics would be. Bush’s first major foreign policy action was a throwback to the days Intervention in Panama of American interventionism in the Western Hemisphere. At the end of 1989, he dispatched troops to Panama to overthrow the government of General Manuel Antonio Noriega, a former ally of the United States who had become involved in the international drug trade. 844 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents How did Bush and Clinton transform America’s world role? T h e G u l f W a r A far more serious crisis arose in 1990 when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait, an oil-rich sheikdom on the Persian Gulf. Fearing that Iraqi dictator Iraq crisis Saddam Hussein might next attack Saudi Arabia, a longtime ally that sup- plied more oil to the United States than any other country, Bush rushed troops to defend the kingdom and warned Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait or face war. In February 1991, the United States launched Operation Desert Storm, Operation Desert Storm which quickly drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait. The United Nations ordered Iraq to disarm and imposed economic sanctions that produced widespread civilian suffering for the rest of the decade. But Hussein remained in place. So did a large American military establishment in Saudi Arabia, to the outrage of Islamic fundamentalists who deemed its presence an affront to their faith. In the war’s immediate aftermath, Bush’s public approval rating rose to an unprecedented 89 percent. V i s i o n s o f A m e r i c a ’ s R o l e In a speech to Congress, President Bush identified the Gulf War as the first step in the struggle to create a world rooted in democracy and global free trade. But it remained unclear how this broad vision would be translated President Bush, with Defense into policy. Soon after the end of the war, General Colin Powell, chairman Secretary Dick Cheney (left) and of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Dick Cheney, the secretary of defense, out- General Colin Powell (right), chair of lined different visions of the future. Powell predicted that the post–Cold the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a meeting in January 1991, shortly before the War world would be a dangerous environment with conflicts popping beginning of the Gulf War. Cheney up in unexpected places. To avoid being drawn into an unending role as and Powell would play major roles global policeman, he insisted, the United States should not commit its in the administration of Bush’s son, troops abroad without clear objectives and a timetable for withdrawal. President George W. Bush. Cheney argued that with the demise of the Soviet Union, the United States possessed the power to reshape the world and prevent hostile states from achieving regional power. For the rest of the 1990s, it was not certain which definition of the American role in the post–Cold War world would predominate. T h e E l e c t i o n o f C l i n t o n Had a presidential election been held early in 1991, Bush would undoubtedly have been victorious. But later that year, the economy T H E P O S T – C O L D W A R W O R L D 845 slipped into recession. Despite victory in the Cold War and the Gulf, public-opinion polls showed that more and more Americans believed the country was on the wrong track. No one seized more effectively on Bill Clinton’s appeal this widespread sense of unease than Bill Clinton, a former governor of Arkansas. In 1992, Clinton won the Democratic nomination by combining social liberalism (he supported abortion rights, gay rights, and affirmative action for racial minorities) with elements of conservatism (he pledged to reduce government bureaucracy and, borrowing a page from Republicans, promised to “end welfare as we know it”). A charismatic campaigner, Clinton conveyed sincere concern for vot- ers’ economic anxieties. Bush, by contrast, seemed out of touch with the day-to-day lives of ordinary Americans. On the wall of Democratic head- quarters, Clinton’s campaign director posted the slogan, “It’s the Economy, Stupid”—a reminder that the economic downturn was the Democrats’ Bush’s weaknesses strongest card. Bush was further weakened when conservative leader Pat Buchanan delivered a fiery televised speech at the Republican national convention that declared cultural war against gays, feminists, and sup- porters of abortion rights. This rhetoric seemed to confirm the Democratic portrait of Republicans as intolerant and divisive. A third candidate, the eccentric Texas billionaire Ross Perot, also entered the fray. He attacked Bush and Clinton as lacking the economic know-how to deal with the recession and the ever-increasing national debt. That millions of Americans considered Perot a credible candidate—at one point, polls showed him leading both Clinton and Bush—testified to widespread dissatisfaction with the major parties. Perot’s support faded, but he still received 19 percent of the popular vote, the best result for a third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Clinton won by a substantial margin, a humiliating outcome for Bush, given his earlier popularity. C l i n t o n i n O f f i c e Clinton’s domestic policy In his first two years in office, Clinton turned away from some of the social and economic policies of the Reagan and Bush years. He appointed several blacks and women to his cabinet, including Janet Reno, the first female attorney general, and named two supporters of abortion rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, to the Supreme Court. He modified the military’s strict ban on gay soldiers, instituting a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy by which officers would not seek out gays for dismissal from the armed forces. His first budget raised taxes on the wealthy and significantly 846 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents How did Bush and Clinton transform America’s world role? expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)—a cash payment for low- income workers begun during the Ford administration. The most effective Earned Income Tax antipoverty policy since the Great Society, the EITC raised more than Credit 4 million Americans, half of them children, above the poverty line during Clinton’s presidency. Clinton shared his predecessor’s passion for free trade. Despite strong opposition from unions and environmentalists, he obtained congressional approval in 1993 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a treaty negotiated by Bush that created a free-trade zone consisting of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The major policy initiative of Clinton’s first term was a plan devised by a panel headed by his wife, Hillary, to address the rising cost of health care and the increasing number of Americans who lacked health insur- ance. In Canada and western Europe, governments provided universal medical coverage. The United States had the world’s most advanced medical technology but a woefully incomplete system of health insurance. Tens of millions of Americans lacked any coverage at all. Beginning in the 1980s, moreover, businesses shifted their employees from individual doc- tors to health maintenance organizations (HMOs), which reduced costs by limiting physicians’ fees and, critics charged, denying patients needed medical procedures. Announced with great fanfare by Hillary Rodham Clinton at congres- Edward Sorel’s illustration for the sional hearings in 1993, Clinton’s plan would have provided universal cover of the New Yorker depicts Bill coverage through large groupings of organizations like the HMOs. Doctors Clinton at his 1993 inauguration, and health insurance and drug companies attacked it vehemently, fear- flanked by some of his presidential ing government regulations that would limit reimbursement for medical predecessors. procedures, insurance rates, and the cost of drugs. Too complex to be easily understood by most voters, and vulnerable to criticism for further expand- ing the unpopular federal bureaucracy, the plan died in 1994. T h e “ F r e e d o m R e v o l u t i o n ” With the economy recovering slowly from the recession and Clinton’s first two years in office seemingly lacking in significant accomplishments, voters in 1994 turned against the administration. For the first time since Newt Gingrich and the the 1950s, Republicans won control of both houses of Congress. They pro- Contract with America claimed their triumph the “Freedom Revolution.” Newt Gingrich, a con- servative congressman from Georgia who became the new Speaker of the House, masterminded their campaign. Gingrich had devised a platform called the “Contract with America,” which promised to curtail the scope T H E P O S T – C O L D W A R W O R L D 847 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M F r o m B i l l C l i n t o n , S p e e c h o n S i g n i n g o f N A F T A ( 1 9 9 3 ) The North American Free Trade Agreement was signed by President Bill Clinton early in his first term. It created a free-trade zone (an area where goods can travel freely without import duties) composed of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Clinton asked Americans to accept economic globalization as an inevitable form of progress and the path to future prosperity. “There will be no job loss,” he promised. Things did not entirely work out that way. As President, it is my duty to speak frankly to the American people about the world in which we now live. Fifty years ago, at the end of World War II, an unchallenged America was protected by the oceans and by our technological superiority and, very frankly, by the economic devastation of the people who could otherwise have been our competitors. We chose then to try to help rebuild our former enemies and to create a world of free trade supported by institutions which would facilitate it. . . . As a result, jobs were created, and opportunity thrived all across the world. . . . For the last 20 years, in all the wealthy countries of the world—because of changes in the global environment, because of the growth of technology, because of increasing competition—the middle class that was created and enlarged by the wise policies of expanding trade at the end of World War II has been under severe stress. Most Americans are working harder for less. They are vulnerable to the fear tactics and the averseness to change that are behind much of the opposition to NAFTA. But I want to say to my fellow Americans: When you live in a time of change, the only way to recover your security and to broaden your horizons is to adapt to the change—to embrace, to move forward. . . . The only way we can recover the fortunes of the middle class in this country so that people who work harder and smarter can, at least, prosper more, the only way we can pass on the American dream of the last 40 years to our children and their children for the next 40, is to adapt to the changes which are occurring. In a fundamental sense, this debate about NAFTA is a debate about whether we will embrace these changes and create the jobs of tomorrow or try to resist these changes, hoping we can preserve the economic structures of yesterday. . . . I believe that NAFTA will create 1 million jobs in the first 5 years of its impact. . . . NAFTA will generate these jobs by fostering an export boom to Mexico by tearing down tariff walls. . . . There will be no job loss. 848 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents F r o m G l o b a l E x c h a n g e , S e a t t l e , D e c l a r a t i o n f o r G l o b a l D e m o c r a c y ( D e c e m b e r 1 9 9 9 ) The demonstrations that disrupted the December 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organiza- tion in Seattle brought to public attention a widespread dissatisfaction with the effects of eco- nomic globalization. In this declaration, organizers of the protest offered their critique. As citizens of global society, recognizing that the World Trade Organization is unjustly dominated by corporate interests and run for the enrichment of the few at the expense of all others, we demand: Representatives from all sectors of society must be included in all levels of trade policy formulations. All global citizens must be democratically represented in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of all global social and economic policies. Global trade and investment must not be ends in themselves, but rather the instruments for achieving equitable and sustainable development including protection for workers and the environment. Global trade agreements must not undermine the ability of each nation-state or local community to meet its citizens’ social, environmental, cultural or economic needs. The World Trade Organization must be replaced by a democratic and transparent body accountable to citizens—not to corporations. No globalization without representation! Q U E S T I O N S 1. Why does Clinton feel that free trade is necessary to American prosperity? 2. Why do the Seattle protesters feel that the World Trade Organization is a threat to democracy? 3. How do these documents reflect contradictory arguments about the impact of globalization in the United States? V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 849 Congressman Newt Gingrich of Georgia announcing the “Contract with America” on the steps of the Capitol in Washington. The Republican program for the congressional elections of 1994, the contract helped to produce a Republican sweep that resulted in Gingrich’s selection as Speaker of the House. of government, cut back on taxes and economic and environmental regula- tions, overhaul the welfare system, and end affirmative action. Republicans moved swiftly to implement its provisions. The House approved deep cuts in social, educational, and environmental programs, Government shutdown including the popular Medicare system. With the president and Congress unable to reach agreement on a budget, the government in December 1995 shut down all nonessential operations, including Washington, D.C., muse- ums and national parks. Most Americans blamed Congress for the impasse, however, and Gingrich’s popularity plummeted. C l i n t o n ’ s P o l i t i c a l S t r a t e g y Like Truman after the Republican sweep of 1946, Clinton rebuilt his popularity by campaigning against a radical Congress. He opposed the most extreme parts of his opponents’ program, while adopting others. In his state of the union address of January 1996, he announced that “the era of big government is over,” in effect turning his back on the tradition of Democratic Party liberalism and embracing the antigovernment outlook associated with Republicans. Ending AFDC Also in 1996, ignoring the protests of most Democrats, Clinton signed into law a Republican bill that abolished the program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), commonly known as “welfare.” Grants of money to the states, with strict limits on how long recipients could 850 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents How did Bush and Clinton transform America’s world role? receive payments, replaced it. At the time of its abolition, AFDC assisted 14 million individuals, 9 million of them children. Thanks to stringent new eligibility requirements imposed by the states and the economic boom of the late 1990s, welfare rolls plummeted. But the number of children living in poverty remained essentially unchanged. Clinton’s strategy enabled him to neutralize Republican claims that Democrats were the party of high taxes and lavish spending on persons who preferred dependency to honest labor. Clinton’s passion for free trade alienated many working-class Democrats but convinced middle-class vot- ers that the party was not beholden to the unions. The presidential election Clinton easily defeated Republican Bob Dole in the presidential of 1996 contest of 1996, becoming the first Democrat elected to two terms since FDR. Clinton had accomplished for Reaganism what Eisenhower had done for the New Deal and Nixon for the Great Society—consolidating a basic shift in American politics by accepting many of the premises of his opponents. C l i n t o n a n d W o r l d A f f a i r s Like Jimmy Carter before him, Clinton took steps to encourage the settle- ment of long-standing international conflicts and tried to elevate support for human rights to a central place in international relations. He met only mixed success. Like Carter, Clinton found it difficult to balance concern for human rights with strategic and economic interests and to formulate clear guide- lines for humanitarian interventions overseas. For example, the United States did nothing in 1994 when tribal massacres racked Rwanda, in Massacres in Rwanda central Africa. More than 800,000 people were slaughtered, and 2 million refugees fled the country. The most complex foreign policy crisis of the Clinton years arose from the disintegration of Yugoslavia, a multi-ethnic state in southeastern Europe that had been carved from the old Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I. As in the rest of eastern Europe, the communist government that had ruled Yugoslavia since the 1940s collapsed in 1989. Within a few years, the country’s six provinces dissolved into five new states. Ethnic conflict plagued several of these new nations. “Ethnic cleansing”—a ter- rible new term meaning the forcible expulsion from an area of a particular The Balkan crisis ethnic group—now entered the international vocabulary. With the Cold War over, protection of human rights in the Balkans gave NATO a new purpose. In 1998, Yugoslavian troops and T H E P O S T – C O L D W A R W O R L D 851 local Serbs conducted ethnic cleansing against the Albanian population of Kosovo, a province of Serbia. More than 800,000 Albanians fled the region. To halt the bloodshed, NATO launched a two-month war in 1999 against Yugoslavia that led to the deployment of American and UN forces in Kosovo. H u m a n R i g h t s During Clinton’s presidency, human rights played an increasingly impor- tant role in international affairs. Hundreds of nongovernmental agencies throughout the world defined themselves as protectors of human rights. During the 1990s, the agenda of international human rights organizations expanded to include access to health care, women’s rights, and the rights New institutions of indigenous peoples like the Aborigines of Australia and the descendants of the original inhabitants of the Americas. The United States dispatched the military to distant parts of the world to assist in international missions to protect civilians. New institutions emerged that sought to punish violations of human rights. The Rwandan genocide produced a UN-sponsored war crimes court that sentenced the country’s former prime minister to life in prison. An international tribunal put Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosěvicˇ on trial for sponsoring the massacre of civilians. It remained to be seen whether these initiatives would grow into an effective international sys- tem of protecting human rights across national boundaries. Serbian refugees fleeing a Croat offensive during the 1990s. By the fall of 1995, the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia and accompanying “ethnic cleansing” had displaced over 3 million people. 852 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What forces drove the economic resurgence of the 1990s? A N E W E C O N O M Y ? Clinton’s popularity rested in part on the American economy’s remarkable performance in the mid- and late 1990s. After recovery from the recession of 1990–1991, economic expansion continued for the rest of the decade. By 2000, unemployment stood below 4 percent, a figure not seen since the 1960s. Because Reagan and Bush had left behind massive budget deficits, Clinton worked hard to balance the federal budget—a goal traditionally associated with fiscal conservatives. Because economic growth produced Economic growth rising tax revenues, Clinton during his second term not only balanced the budget but actually produced budget surpluses. T h e C o m p u t e r R e v o l u t i o n Many commentators spoke of the 1990s as the dawn of a “new economy,” in which computers and the Internet would produce vast new efficien- cies and the production and sale of information would occupy the central Origins of computers place once held by the manufacture of goods. Computers had first been developed during and after World War II to solve scientific problems and do calculations involving enormous amounts of data. The early ones were extremely large, expensive, and, by modern standards, slow. Research for the space program of the 1960s spurred the development of the microchip, Two architects of the computer on which circuits could be imprinted. revolution, Steve Jobs (on the left), Microchips made possible the development of entirely new con- the head of Apple Computer, and sumer products. Video cassette recorders, handheld video games, cel- Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, lular phones, and digital cameras were mass produced at affordable which makes the operating system prices during the 1990s, mostly in Asia and Latin America rather used in most of the world’s computers. than the United States. But it was the com- puter that transformed American life. As computers became smaller, faster, and less Computers in American life expensive, they found a place in businesses of every kind. They also changed private life. By the year 2000, nearly half of all American households owned a personal computer, used for entertainment, shop- ping, and sending and receiving electronic mail. Centers of computer technology, such as Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, the Seattle and Austin metropolitan areas, and lower Manhattan, boomed during the 1990s. A N E W E C O N O M Y ? 853 The Internet, first developed as a high-speed military communica- tions network, was simplified and opened to commercial and individual The Internet use through personal computers. The Internet expanded the flow of information and communications more radically than any invention since the printing press. The fact that anyone with a computer could post his or her ideas for worldwide circulation led “netizens” (“citizens” of the Internet) to hail the advent of a new, democratic public sphere in cyberspace. T h e S t o c k M a r k e t B o o m a n d B u s t Economic growth and talk of a new economy sparked a frenzied boom in the stock market that was reminiscent of the 1920s. Investors, large and small, poured funds into stocks, spurred by the rise of discount and online firms that advertised aggressively and charged lower fees than traditional bro- kers. By 2000, a majority of American households owned stocks outright or through investment in mutual funds and pension and retirement accounts. Investors were especially attracted to the new “dot coms”—companies that conducted business via the Internet and seemed to symbolize the Technicians at the offices of FHP promise of the new economy. The NASDAQ, a stock exchange dominated Wireless in Belmont, California, one by new technology companies, rose more than 500 percent from 1998 of numerous technology companies to 1999. Many of these “high-tech” companies never turned a profit. But launched with great fanfare in the late economic journalists and stockbrokers explained that the new economy 1990s. Unlike many, FHP survived. had so revolutionized business that traditional methods of assessing a In 2002, Fortune magazine listed it as one of the country’s “cool company’s value no longer applied. companies.” It is now called Tropos Inevitably, the bubble burst. On April 14, 2000, stocks suffered Networks. their largest one-day point drop in history. For the first time since the Depression, stock prices declined for three successive years (2000– 2002), wiping out billions of dollars in Americans’ net worth and pension funds. The value of NASDAQ stocks fell by nearly 80 percent between 2000 and 2002. Not until 2006 would the gen- eral stock index again reach the level of early 2000. The NASDAQ still remains far below its record high. By 2001, the American economy had fallen into a recession. Talk of a new economy, it appeared, had been premature. 854 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What forces drove the economic resurgence of the 1990s? T h e E n r o n S y n d r o m e Only after the market dropped did it become apparent that the stock boom of the 1990s had been fueled in part by fraud. During the late 1990s, account- Corporate fraud ing firms like Arthur Andersen, giant banks like JPMorgan, Chase, and Citigroup, and corporate lawyers pocketed extravagant fees for devising complex schemes to help push up companies’ stock prices by hiding their true financial condition. Enron, a Houston-based energy company that epit- omized the new economy—it bought and sold electricity rather than actually producing it—reported as profits billions of dollars in operating losses. In the early twenty-first century, the bill came due for many corporate criminals. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, chief officers of Enron, were convicted by a Texas jury of multiple counts of fraud. Even reputable firms like JPMorgan, Chase, and Citigroup agreed to pay billions of dollars to compensate investors on whom they had pushed worthless stocks. F r u i t s o f D e r e g u l a t i o n At the height of the 1990s boom, with globalization in full swing, stocks rising, and the economy expanding, the economic model of free trade and deregulation appeared unassailable. But the retreat from government economic regulation, a policy embraced by both the Republican Congress and President Clinton, left no one to represent the public interest. The Cartoonist David Jacobson’s sectors of the economy most affected by the scandals—energy, telecom- comment on the Enron scandal. munications, and stock trading—had all been subjects of deregulation. Many stock frauds stemmed from the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act, a New Deal measure that had separated com- mercial banks, which accept deposits and make loans, from investment banks, which invest in stocks and real estate and take larger risks. Banks took their new freedom as an invitation to engage in all sorts of misdeeds, knowing that they had become so big that if disaster struck, the federal government would have no choice but to rescue them. They poured money into risky mortgages. When the housing bubble collapsed in A N E W E C O N O M Y ? 855 2007–2008, the banks suffered losses that threatened to bring down the entire financial system. The George FIGURE 27.1 W. Bush and Obama administrations felt they had no U.S. Income Inequality, choice but to expend hundreds of billions of dollars 1913–2003 of taxpayer money to save the banks from their own misconduct. .525 .500 R i s i n g I n e q u a l i t y .475 .450 The boom that began in 1995 benefited nearly all Americans. For the first time since the early 1970s, .425 average real wages and family incomes began to grow .400 significantly. Economic expansion at a time of low Index of economic inequality Higher = more unequal .375 unemployment brought rapid increases in wages for 1913 1933 1953 1973 1993 2003 families at all income levels. Yet, despite these gains, Year average wages for nonsupervisory workers, adjusted for inflation, remained below the level of the 1970s. The “Gini index” measures economic Overall, in the last two decades of the twentieth century, inequality; the higher the number, the the poor and the middle class became worse off while the rich became sig- more unequally income is distributed. nificantly richer. As the graph shows, inequality The wealth of the richest Americans exploded during the 1990s. Sales of peaked just before the Great Depression, fell dramatically during luxury goods like yachts and mansions boomed. Bill Gates, head of Microsoft the New Deal, World War II, and the and the country’s richest person, owned as much wealth as the bottom postwar economic boom, and then 40 percent of the American population put together. began a steady upward climb in the Companies continued to shift manufacturing jobs overseas. Thanks early 1970s. to NAFTA, which eliminated barriers to imports from Mexico, a thriving industrial zone emerged just across the southern border of the United States, where American manufacturers built plants to take advantage of cheap labor and weak environmental and safety regulations. Despite low unemployment, companies’ threats to shut down and move exerted downward pressure on American wages. Business, moreover, increas- ingly relied on financial operations for profits rather than making things. The financial sector of the economy accounted for around 10 percent of total profits in 1950; by 2000 the figure was up to 40 percent. Companies like Ford and General Electric made more money from interest on loans to customers and other financial operations than selling their products. Outsourcing jobs The outsourcing of jobs soon moved from manufacturing to other areas, including accounting, legal services, banking, and other skilled positions where companies could employ workers overseas for a fraction of their cost in the United States. All this lowered prices for consumers but 856 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What forces drove the economic resurgence of the 1990s? also threw millions of American workers into competition with those around the globe, producing a relentless downward pressure on American wages. In 2000, the United States no longer led the world in the hourly wages of manufacturing workers, lagging behind several countries in Europe. In 1970, General Motors had been the country’s largest corporate employer. In the early twenty-first century, it had been replaced by Wal-Mart, a giant discount retail chain that paid most of its 1.6 million workers slightly more than the minimum wage. Wal-Mart aggressively opposed efforts at collective bargaining. Not a single one of its employees belonged to a union. Thanks to NAFTA, which enabled American companies to expand their busi- ness in Mexico, by 2010 Walmart was also the largest employer in Mexico. Overall, between 1990 and 2008, companies that did business in global markets contributed almost nothing to job growth in the United States. Those that did hire new workers tended to be those not facing global competition, such as health care, government agencies, retailers, Barbie’s Liberty, a satirical work by and hotels and restaurants. the artist Hans Haacke, recasts the Barbie doll, one of America’s most At the end of the twentieth century, the United States, more than ever successful toys, in the image of the before, was a suburban nation. Two-thirds of new jobs were created in the Statue of Liberty to comment on suburbs. Suburbs were no longer places from which people commuted to the loss of manufacturing jobs to jobs in central cities—their office parks, industrial plants, and huge shop- low-wage areas overseas. ping malls employed many local residents. Nor were suburbs as racially segregated as in the past. In 2000, one-quarter of the suburban population was black, and Hispanics represented a majority of the population in the suburbs of Los Angeles and Miami. C U L T U R E W A R S The end of the Cold War ushered in hopes for a new era of global harmony. Instead, what one observer called a “rebellion of particularisms”—renewed A “rebellion of particularisms” emphasis on group identity and insistent demands for group recognition and power—racked the international arena during the 1990s. The declin- ing power of nation-states arising from globalization seemed to unleash long-simmering ethnic and religious antagonisms. Partly in reaction to the global spread of a secular culture based on consumption and mass entertainment, intense religious movements attracted increasing numbers of followers—Hindu nationalism in India, orthodox Judaism in Israel, Islamic fundamentalism in much of the Muslim world, and evangelical Christianity in the United States. Like other nations, although in a far less C U L T U R E W A R S 857 extreme way and with little accompanying violence, the United States experienced divisions arising from the intensification of ethnic and racial identities and religious fundamentalism. T h e N e w e s t I m m i g r a n t s Because of shifts in immigration, cultural and racial diversity became increasingly visible in the United States. Until the immigration law of 1965, the vast majority of twentieth-century newcomers had hailed from Europe. Between 1965 and 2010, nearly 38 million immigrants entered the United States, substantially more than the 27 million during the peak period of immigration between 1880 and 1924. About 50 percent came from Latin Recent immigrants reciting the Pledge America and the Caribbean, 35 percent from Asia, and smaller numbers of Allegiance during a naturalization from the Middle East and Africa. Only 10 percent arrived from Europe, ceremony. mostly from the war-torn Balkans and the former Soviet Union. The immigrant influx changed the country’s religious and racial map. Shifts in immigration By 2010, more than 4 million Muslims resided in the United States, and the combined population of Buddhists and Hindus exceeded 1 million. Unlike in the past, rather than being concentrated in one or two parts of city centers, immigrants quickly moved into outlying neighborhoods and older suburbs. By the turn of the century, more than half of all Latinos lived in suburbs. Orange County, California, which had been a stronghold of suburban conservatism between 1960 and 1990, elected a Latina Democrat to Congress in the late 1990s. Immigrants brought cultural and racial diver- sity to once-homogeneous communities in the American heartland. Post-1965 immigration formed part of the worldwide uprooting of labor arising from globalization. In 2000, the global immigrant population was estimated at 100 million. Those who migrated to the United States TABLE 27.1 Immigration to the United States, 1960–2010 WESTERN DECADE TOTAL EUROPE ASIA HEMISPHERE OTHER AREAS 1961–1970 3,321,584 1,123,492 427,642 1,716,374 54,076 1971–1980 4,493,302 800,368 1,588,178 1,982,735 122,021 1981–1990 7,336,940 761,550 2,738,157 3,615,225 222,008 1991–2000 9,042,999 1,359,737 2,795,672 4,486,806 400,784 2001–2010 14,974,975 1,165,176 4,088,455 8,582,601 1,138,743 858 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s? included poor, illiterate refugees from places of economic and political crisis—Central Americans escaping the region’s civil wars and poverty, Haitians and Cambodians fleeing repressive governments. But many immigrants were well-educated professionals from countries like India Increasing diversity and South Korea, where the availability of skilled jobs had not kept pace with the spread of higher education. In the year 2000, more than 40 per- cent of all immigrants to the United States had a college education. For the first time in American history, women made up the major- ity of newcomers, reflecting the decline of manufacturing jobs that had previously absorbed immigrant men, as well as the spread of employment opportunities in traditionally female fields like care of children and the elderly and retail sales. Thanks to cheap global communications and jet travel, modern-day immigrants retained strong ties with their countries of origin, frequently phoning and visiting home. T h e N e w D i v e r s i t y Latinos formed the largest single immigrant group. This term was invented Latino immigrants in the United States and included people of quite different origins— Mexicans, Central and South Americans, and migrants from Spanish- speaking Caribbean island nations such as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Latina nannies pushing baby and Puerto Rico (although the last group, of course, were American carriages in Beverly Hills, California, citizens, not immigrants). With 95 million people, Mexico in 2000 had in the 1990s. For the first time in American history, female immigrants become the world’s largest Spanish-speaking nation. Its poverty, high outnumbered male immigrants. birthrate, and proximity to the United States made it a source of massive legal and illegal immigration. In 2000, Mexican-Americans made up a majority of the Hispanic popula- tion of the United States and nearly half the residents of Los Angeles. Numbering around 50 million in 2010, Latinos had become the largest minority group in the United States. Between 1990 and 2010, 30 million Hispanics were added to the American population, representing half the nation’s total growth. Latinos were highly visible in entertainment, sports, and politics. Indeed, the Hispanic presence transformed American life. José was now the most common name for baby boys in C U L T U R E W A R S 859 Texas and the third most popular in California. Smith remained the most FIGURE 27.2 common American surname, but Garcia, Rodriguez, Gonzales, and other Birthplace of Hispanic names were all in the top fifty. Immigrants, Latino communities remained far poorer than the rest of the country. 1990–2000 The influx of legal and illegal immigrants swelled the ranks of low-wage urban workers and agricultural laborers. Latinos lagged far behind other Americans in education. In 2010, their poverty rate stood at nearly double the Other Europe 9.3% 11.4% national figure of 15 percent. Living and working conditions among predomi- nantly Latino farm workers in the West fell back to levels as dire as when César Chavez established the United Farm Workers union in the 1960s. Asia 25.4% Asian-Americans also became increasingly visible in the 1990s. There Latin America had long been a small population of Asian ancestry in California and New 53.9% York City, but only after 1965 did immigration from Asia assume large proportions. Asian-Americans were a highly diverse population, includ- ing well-educated Koreans, Indians, and Japanese, as well as poor refugees from Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. Growing up in tight-knit communi- ties that placed great emphasis on education, young Asian-Americans During the 1990s, immigration from Latin America and Asia eclipsed poured into American colleges and universities. Once subjected to harsh immigration from Europe, traditionally discrimination, Asian-Americans now achieved remarkable success. the main source of newcomers to the White Americans hailed them as a “model minority.” By 2007, the median United States. family income of Asian-Americans, $66,000, surpassed that of whites. But more than any other group, Asian-Americans clustered at opposite ends of the income spectrum. The United States, of course, had long been a multiracial society. But for centuries race relations had been shaped by the black-white divide Young Korean girls rehearsing a dance at the Veterans’ Administration Medical Center in Columbia, South Carolina, an illustration of the growing diversity of American society. 860 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s? and the experience of slavery and segregation. The growing visibility of FIGURE 27.3 Latinos and Asians suggested that a two-race system no longer adequately described American life. Interracial marriage, at one time banned in The Projected forty-two states, became more common and acceptable. Among Asian- Non-white Americans at the turn of the century, half of all marriages involved a non- Majority: Racial Asian partner. The figure for Latinos was 30 percent. and Ethnic One thing seemed clear at the dawn of the twenty-first century: Breakdown diversity was here to stay. In 2000, whites made up around 70 percent of the population, blacks and Hispanics around 13 percent each, and Asians 6 percent. Because the birthrate of racial minorities is higher than that of whites, the Census Bureau projected that by 2050, only 50 percent 46% of the American population would be white, a little less than 25 percent 66% would be Hispanic, and blacks and Asians would account for around 13 percent each. 30% A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n s i n t h e 1 9 9 0 s 15% Compared with the situation in 1900 or 1950, the most dramatic change in 13% American life at the turn of the century was the absence of legal segrega- 13% 8% tion and the presence of blacks in areas of American life from which they 4% 3% 5% had once been almost entirely excluded. Thanks to the decline in overt 2008 2050 Non-Hispanic Black discrimination and the effectiveness of many affirmative action programs, white Asian blacks now worked in unprecedented numbers alongside whites in corpo- Hispanic Other rate board rooms, offices, and factories. One major change in black life was the growing visibility of Africans among the nation’s immigrants. Between 1970 and 2000, twice as many Africans immigrated to the United States as had entered during the entire African immigration period of the Atlantic slave trade. For the first time, all the elements of the African diaspora—natives of Africa, Caribbean, Central and South Americans of African descent, Europeans with African roots—could be found in the United States alongside the descendants of American slaves. More than half the African newcomers had college educations, the highest percentage for any immigrant group. Indeed, some African countries complained of a “brain drain” as physicians, teachers, and other highly skilled persons sought opportunities in the United States that did not exist in their own underdeveloped countries. Most African-Americans, nonetheless, remained in a more precarious situation than whites or many recent immigrants. In 2007 their median family income of $34,000 and poverty rate of 25 percent put them behind whites, Asians, and Latinos. Half of all black children lived in poverty, C U L T U R E W A R S 861 two-thirds were born out of wedlock, and TABLE 27.2 Home Ownership Rates in every index of social well-being from by Group, 1970–2000 health to quality of housing, blacks contin- ued to lag. Housing segregation remained 1970 1980 1990 2000 pervasive. Despite the nation’s growing racial diversity, school segregation—now result- Whites 65.0% 67.8% 68.2% 73.8% ing from housing patterns and the divide Blacks 41.6 44.4 43.4 47.2 between urban and suburban school Latinos 43.7 43.4 42.4 46.3 districts rather than laws requiring racial All families 62.9 64.4 64.2 67.4 separation—was on the rise. Most city pub- lic school systems consisted overwhelm- ingly of minority students, large numbers of whom failed to receive an adequate education. By 2000, the nation’s black and Latino students were more isolated from white pupils than in 1970. Since school funding rested on property taxes, poor communities continued to have less to spend on education than wealthy ones. T h e S p r e a d o f I m p r i s o n m e n t During the 1960s, the nation’s prison population had declined. But in the 1970s, with urban crime rates rising, politicians of both parties sought to convey the image of being “tough on crime.” They insisted that the judicial system should focus on locking up criminals for long periods rather than rehabilitating them. They treated drug addiction as a violation of the law The prison population rather than as a disease. As a result, the number of Americans in prison rose dramatically, most of them incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. During the 1990s, thanks to the waning of the crack epidemic and more effective urban police tactics, crime rates dropped dramatically across the country. But this did nothing to stem the increase of the prison population. In 2008, it reached 2.3 million. Ten times the figure of 1970, this number represented one-quarter of the entire world’s inmates and far exceeded the number in any other country. Several million more Americans were on parole, probation, or under some other kind of crimi- nal supervision. Racial minorities and Members of racial minorities experienced most strongly the paradox incarceration of growing islands of unfreedom in a nation that prided itself on liberty. In 1950, whites accounted for 70 percent of the nation’s prison population and non-whites 30 percent. By 2010, these figures had been reversed. One reason was that severe penalties faced those convicted of using or selling 862 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s? A private, for-profit, maximum- security prison under construction in 1999 in California City, in the Mohave Desert, illustrates the expansion of the “prison-industrial complex.” crack, a particularly potent form of cocaine concentrated among the urban poor, whereas the use of powder cocaine, the drug of choice in suburban America, led to far lighter sentences. The percentage of the black population in prison stood five times higher than the proportion of white Americans. More than one-quarter of all black men could expect to serve time in prison at some time during their lives. Partly because so many young men were in prison, blacks had The AIDS quilt, each square of which a significantly lower rate of marriage than other Americans. represents a person who died of The continuing frustration of urban blacks exploded in 1992 when an AIDS, on display in Washington, D.C. all-white suburban jury found four Los Angeles police officers not guilty The quilt was exhibited throughout the country, heightening public in the beating of black motorist Rodney King, even though an onlooker had awareness of the AIDS epidemic. captured their assault on videotape. The deadliest urban uprising since the New York draft riots of 1863 followed. Some fifty-two people died, and property damage approached $1 billion. Many Latino youths, who shared blacks’ resentment over mistreatment by the police, joined in the violence. The uprising suggested that despite the civil rights revolution, the nation had failed to address the plight of the urban poor. T h e C o n t i n u i n g R i g h t s R e v o l u t i o n Reflecting the continued power of the rights revolution, the 1990s also wit- nessed the emergence of new movements for public recognition. In 1990, newly organized disabled Americans won passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This far-reaching measure prohibited discrimination in hiring and promotion against persons with disabilities and required that entrances to public buildings be redesigned so as to ensure access for the disabled. C U L T U R E W A R S 863 Some movements that were descended from the late 1960s achieved their greatest visibility in the 1990s. Prominent among these was the campaign for gay rights, which turned its attention to combating acquired AIDS immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a fatal disease spread by sexual con- tact, drug use, and transfusions of contaminated blood. AIDS first emerged in the early 1980s. It quickly became epidemic among homosexual men. The gay movement mobilized to promote “safe sex” and press the federal government to devote greater resources to fighting the disease. By 2000, even though more than 400,000 Americans had died of AIDS, its spread among gays had been sharply curtailed. Gay groups also played an increasing role in politics. In cities with large gay populations, such as New York and San Francisco, politi- This “public sculpture” by the Native cians vied to attract their votes. Overall, the growth of public tolerance of American artist Lewis DeSoto links homosexuality was among the most striking changes in American social his own surname with more than four attitudes in the last two decades of the century. centuries of American history. The wall label invokes the depredations N a t i v e A m e r i c a n s of the sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto. Another social movement spawned by the 1960s that continued to flour- The car reminds the viewer that the Chrysler Corporation chose the ish was the American Indian Movement. The Indian population reached name DeSoto for a now-defunct over 5 million (including people choosing more than one race) in the 2010 automobile. On the rear of the car Census—a sign not only of population growth but also of a renewed sense is an insignia based on traditional of pride that led many Indians for the first time to identify themselves as Indian basket designs, encircled by such to census enumerators. the Latin word for smallpox, which The legal position of Indians as American citizens who enjoy the conquistadores transmitted to the Indian population. a kind of quasi-sovereignty still survives in some cases. Notable examples are the lucrative Indian casinos now operating in states that otherwise prohibit gambling. Indian casinos take in around $15 billion each year, making some tribes very rich. One such group is the Pequot tribe of Connecticut. In 1637, as the result of a brief, bloody war, Puritan New Englanders exterminated or sold into slavery most of the tribe’s members. The treaty that restored peace decreed that the tribe’s name should be wiped from the historical record. Today, the few hundred members of the Pequot tribe operate Foxwoods, reputedly the world’s largest casino. 864 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s? Although some tribes have reinvested casino profits in improved housing and health care and college scholarships for Native American students, most Indian casinos are marginal operations whose low-wage jobs as cashiers, waitresses, and the like have done little to relieve Indian poverty. Native Americans continue to occupy the lowest rung on the economic ladder. M u l t i c u l t u r a l i s m Public opinion polls revealed a remarkable growth of tolerance. The num- Increasing tolerance ber of respondents who accepted interracial dating without objection rose from 45 percent in 1987 to 78 percent in 2003. Those who believed gays should automatically be fired from teaching jobs fell from 50 to 35 percent over the same period. In addition, popular television shows portrayed gay characters in a sympathetic light. Among some Americans, the heightened visibility of immigrants, At the beginning of the twenty-first racial minorities, and inheritors of the sexual revolution inspired not century, less than one-quarter of celebration of pluralism but alarm over perceived cultural fragmentation. American households consisted of a Increased cultural diversity and changes in educational policy inspired “traditional” family—a married couple harsh debates over whether immigrant children should be required to learn living with their children. English and whether further immigration should be discouraged. These issues entered politics most dramatically in California, whose voters in 1994 FIGURE 27.4 approved Proposition 187, which denied illegal immigrants and their chil- dren access to welfare, education, and most health services. A federal judge Changes in soon barred implementation of the measure on the grounds that control over Family Structure, immigration policy rests with the federal government. By 2000, twenty- 1970–2010* three states had passed laws establishing English as their official language. But efforts to appeal to prejudice for political gain often backfired. In California, Republicans’ anti-immigrant campaigns inspired minorities 20.2% 40.3% to mobilize politically and offended many white Americans. In 2000, 30.9% 26.3% 23.5% Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush emphasized that his 28.2% brand of conservatism was multicultural, not exclusionary. 29.8% 29.9% 28.2% Immigration occupied only one front in what came to be called the 30.3% 12.2% Culture Wars—battles over moral values that raged throughout the 1990s. 8.3% 9.3% 5.0% 7.5% 13.2% The Christian Coalition, founded by evangelical minister Pat Robertson, 5.6% 5.4% 6.5% 7.1% 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 launched crusades against gay rights, abortion, secularism in public schools, Married couples with children and government aid to the arts. Married couples without children Other families with children It sometimes appeared during the 1990s that the country was refight- Other families without children ing old battles between traditional religion and modern secular culture. *Not shown are single people living alone and nonrelated people living together. “Children” In an echo of the 1920s, a number of localities required the teaching of are a family’s own children under age eighteen living at home. creationism, a religious alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Many C U L T U R E W A R S 865 conservatives railed against the erosion of the nuclear family, the chang- ing racial landscape produced by immigration, and what they considered a general decline of traditional values. “ F a m i l y V a l u e s ” i n R e t r e a t The censuses of 2000 and 2010 showed “family values” increasingly in Rise in divorce disarray. Half of all marriages ended in divorce (70 percent on the West Coast). In 2010, over 40 percent of births were to unmarried women, not only sexually active teenagers but growing numbers of professional women in the thirties and forties as well. For the first time, less than half of all households consisted of married couples, and only one-fifth were “traditional” families—a wife, husband, and their children. Two-thirds By 2000, women made up nearly half of married women worked outside the home. The pay gap between men of the American workforce. Unlike in and women, although narrowing, persisted. In 2010, the weekly earn- the nineteenth century, a majority of ings of women with full-time jobs stood at 82 percent of those of men—up women working outside the home from 63 percent in 1980. In only two occupational categories did women were married. earn more than men: postal service clerks and special education teachers. FIGURE 27.5 Although dominated by conservatives, the Supreme Court, in Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania (1992), reaffirmed a Women in the woman’s right to obtain an abortion. The decision allowed states Paid Workforce, to enact mandatory waiting periods and anti-abortion counsel- 1940–2000 ing, but it overturned a requirement that the husband be given 160 notification before the procedure was undertaken. “At the heart of 150 liberty,” said the Court, “is the right to . . . make the most intimate 140 and personal choices” without outside interference. 130 In the early twenty-first century, women received more than 120 60 percent of all college degrees (as opposed to 35 percent in 1960) 110 100 and over 40 percent of advanced law, medical, and business 90 degrees (up from around 5 percent forty years earlier). 80 All workers ce (in millions) 70 47% 47% orkfor 60 T h e A n t i g o v e r n m e n t E x t r e m e W 50 44% 43% 40 At the radical fringe of conservatism, the belief that the federal 30 38% 32% All women government posed a threat to American freedom led to the cre- 20 29% ation of private militias who armed themselves to fend off oppres- 10 Single women 0 sive authority. Groups like Aryan Nation, Posse Comitatus, and 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 other self-proclaimed “Christian patriots” spread a mixture of Year racist, anti-Semitic, and antigovernment ideas. 866 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What cultural conflicts emerged in the 1990s? Rescue workers sifting the wreckage of a federal office building in Oklahoma City after it was heavily damaged by a bomb in 1995, the worst act of terrorism in the United States during the twentieth century. Although such organizations had been growing for years, they burst into the national spotlight in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh, a member of the militant antigovernment movement, exploded a bomb at a federal office The Oklahoma City bombing building in Oklahoma City. The blast killed 168 persons, including numer- ous children at a day-care center. McVeigh was captured, convicted, and executed. The bombing alerted the nation to the danger of violent antigov- ernment right-wing groups. I M P E A C H M E N T A N D T H E E L E C T I O N O F 2 0 0 0 The unusually intense partisanship of the 1990s seemed ironic, given Clinton’s move toward the political center. Republicans’ intense dislike of Clinton could be explained only by the fact that he seemed to symbol- ize everything conservatives hated about the 1960s. As a college student, the president had smoked marijuana and participated in antiwar dem- onstrations. He had married a feminist, made a point of leading a multi- cultural administration, and supported gay rights. Clinton’s popularity Clinton and the Right puzzled and frustrated conservatives, reinforcing their conviction that something was deeply amiss in American life. From the very outset of I M P E A C H M E N T A N D T H E E L E C T I O N O F 2 0 0 0 867 his administration, Clinton’s political opponents and a scandal-hungry media stood ready to pounce. Clinton himself provided the ammunition. T h e I m p e a c h m e n t o f C l i n t o n From the day Clinton took office, charges of misconduct bedeviled him. In 1993, an investigation began of an Arkansas real-estate deal known as Whitewater, from which he and his wife had profited. The following year, an Arkansas woman, Paula Jones, filed a civil suit charging that Clinton had sexually harassed her while he served as governor of that state. In 1998, it became known that Clinton had carried on an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. Kenneth Starr, the special counsel who had been appointed to investigate Whitewater, shifted his focus to Lewinsky. He issued a lengthy report containing details of Clinton’s sexual acts with the young woman. In December 1998, the Republican-controlled Herbert Block’s 1998 cartoon House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton for perjury and comments humorously on Clinton’s obstruction of justice. He became the second president to be tried before talent for political survival. the Senate. Early in 1999, the vote took place. Neither charge mustered a simple majority, much less than the two-thirds required to remove Clinton from office. Polls suggested that the obsession of Kenneth Starr and members of Congress T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N with Clinton’s sexual acts appalled O F 2 0 0 0 Americans far more than the president’s irresponsible behavior. Clinton’s continu- 11 ing popularity throughout the impeach- 3 3 3 4 4 ment controversy demonstrated how pro- 7 10 4 3 11 33 12 foundly traditional attitudes toward sexual 3 18 4 7 23 morality had changed. 4 5 8 5 22 12 21 15 3 54 8 5 6 11 13 10 8 2 11 14 T h e D i s p u t e d E l e c t i o n 8 5 8 6 8 7 9 13 Had Clinton been eligible to run for reelec- 32 9 4 tion in 2000, he would probably have won. 3 25 But after the death of FDR, the Constitu- tion had been amended to limit presidents to two terms in office. Democrats nomi- Electoral Vote Popular Vote Party Candidate (Share) (Share) nated Vice President Al Gore to succeed Republican Bush 271 (50.5%) 50,456,002 (47.9%) Clinton (pairing him with Senator Joseph Democrat Gore 266 (49.5%) 50,999,897 (48.4%) Lieberman of Connecticut, the first Jewish 868 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents How did a divisive political partisanship affect the election of 2000? vice presidential nominee). Republicans chose George W. Bush, the gov- ernor of Texas and son of Clinton’s predecessor, as their candidate, with former secretary of defense Dick Cheney as his running mate. The election proved to be one of the closest in the nation’s history. The outcome remained uncertain until a month after the ballots had been cast. Gore won the popular vote by a tiny margin—540,000 votes of 100 mil- The election of 2000 lion cast, or one-half of 1 percent. Victory in the electoral college hinged on which candidate had carried Florida. There, amid widespread confusion at the polls and claims of irregularities in counting the ballots, Bush claimed a margin of a few hundred votes. In the days after the election, Democrats demanded a hand recount of the Florida ballots for which machines could not determine a voter’s intent. It fell to Supreme Court justices to decide the outcome. On December 12, 2000, by a 5-4 vote, the Court ordered a halt to the recounting of Florida ballots, allowing the state’s governor Jeb Bush (George W. Bush’s brother) to certify that the Republican candidate had carried the state and had therefore won the presidency. The decision in Bush v. Gore was one of the oddest in Supreme Court Bush v. Gore history. Many observers did not expect the justices to consider the mat- ter at all, since it did not seem to raise a federal constitutional question. They justified their decision by insisting that the “equal protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required that all ballots within a state be counted in accordance with a single standard, something impossible given the wide variety of machines and paper ballots used in Florida. Perhaps A member of a Florida election board recognizing that this new constitutional principle threatened to throw into trying to determine a voter’s intent question results throughout the country—since many states had voting during the recount of presidential systems as complex as Florida’s—the Court added that it applied only in ballots in November 2000. The U.S. this single case. Supreme Court eventually ordered the recount halted. The most remarkable thing about the election of 2000 was not so much its controversial ending as the even division of the country it revealed. Bush and Gore each received essentially half of the popular vote. The final count in the electoral college stood at 271–266, the narrowest margin since 1876. The Senate ended up divided 50–50 between the two parties. A C h a l l e n g e d D e m o c r a c y Coming at the end of the “decade of democracy,” the 2000 election revealed troubling features of the American political system. The electoral college, devised by the founders to enable the country’s prominent men rather than ordinary voters to choose the president, gave the White House to a candidate I M P E A C H M E N T A N D T H E E L E C T I O N O F 2 0 0 0 869 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, more than 7 million American families lived in gated communities, where the wealthy, and some members of the middle class as well, walled themselves off from the rest of society. This one is in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. who did not receive the most votes, an odd result in a political democracy. A country that prided itself on modern technology had a voting system in which citizens’ choices could not be reliably determined. Counting both con- gressional and presidential races, the campaign cost more than $1.5 billion, mostly raised from wealthy individuals and corporate donors. This amount reinforced the widespread belief that money dominated the political system. Evidence abounded of a broad disengagement from public life. As governments at all levels competed to turn their activities over to private contractors, and millions of Americans walled themselves off from their fellow citizens by taking up residence in socially homogeneous gated A shrinking public sphere communities, the very idea of a shared public sphere seemed to dissolve. Nearly half the eligible voters did not bother to go to the polls. In state and local elections, turnouts typically ranged between only 20 and 30 percent. More people watched the televised Nixon-Kennedy debates of 1960 than the Bush-Gore debates of 2000, even though the population had risen by 100 million. Major issues like health care, race relations, and economic inequality went virtually unmentioned during the campaign. F R E E D O M A N D T H E N E W C E N T U R Y The century that ended with the 2000 election witnessed vast human progress and unimaginable human tragedy. It saw the decolonization of Asia and Africa, the emergence of women into full citizenship in most parts 870 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents What were the prevailing ideas of American freedom at the end of the twentieth century? of the world, and amazing advances in science, medicine, and technology. Thanks to the spread of new products, available at ever-cheaper prices, it brought more improvement in the daily conditions of life to more human beings than any other century in history. But the twentieth century also wit- nessed the death of uncounted millions in wars and genocides and the wide- spread degradation of the natural environment, the underside of progress. E x c e p t i o n a l A m e r i c a In the United States, people lived longer and healthier lives in 2000 America from 1900 to 2000 compared with previous generations, and they enjoyed a level of material comfort unimagined a century before. In 1900, the typical American had no indoor plumbing, no telephone or car, and had not graduated from high school. As late as 1940, one-third of American households did not have running water. In 2000, health conditions had improved so much that the average life expectancy for men had risen to seventy-four and for women to seventy-nine (from forty-six and forty-eight in 1900). On the other hand, poverty, income inequality, and infant mortality in the United States considerably exceeded that of other economically advanced countries, and fewer than 10 percent of workers in private firms belonged to unions, a figure not seen since the nineteenth century. Many of the changes affecting American life have taken place in all economically advanced societies. In other ways, however, the United States at the dawn of the twenty-first century differed sharply from other developed countries. Prevailing ideas of freedom in the United States seemed more attuned to individual advancement than to broad social Individual freedom welfare. The United States was a far more religious country. Sixty percent of Americans agreed with the statement, “religion plays a very important part in my life,” whereas the comparable figure was 32 percent in Britain, 26 percent in Italy, and only 11 percent in France. Other forms of American exceptionalism had a darker side. Among advanced countries, the United States has by far the highest rate of murder using guns. In 1998, there were 11,789 murders with guns in the United Global comparisons States as opposed to 373 in Germany, 151 in Canada, 54 in Great Britain, and 19 in Japan. The United States continued to lag behind other countries in providing social rights to its citizens. In Europe, workers are guaranteed by law a paid vacation each year and a number of paid sick days. American employers are not required to offer either to their workers. Only four coun- tries in the world have no national provision for paid maternity leave after a woman gives birth to a child: Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and the United States. F R E E D O M A N D T H E N E W C E N T U R Y 871 It was an irony of late-twentieth-century life that Americans enjoyed more personal freedom than ever before but less of what earlier genera- tions called “industrial freedom.” The sustained recovery from the reces- sion of the early 1990s did not entirely relieve a widespread sense of economic insecurity. Globalization—which treated workers at home and abroad as interchangeable factors of production, capable of being uprooted or dismissed without warning—seemed to render individual and even national sovereignty all but meaningless. Because economic liberty has long been associated with economic security, and rights have historically been linked to democratic participation and membership in a nation-state, these processes had ominous implications for traditional understand- ings of freedom. It remained to be seen whether a conception of freedom grounded in access to the consumer marketplace and the glorification of individual self-fulfillment unrestrained by government, social citizenship, or a common public culture could provide an adequate way to comprehend The approach of a new millennium the world of the twenty-first century. inspired writers, artists, and politicians to reflect on the history and symbolism of freedom. In a work entitled Chillin’ With Liberty, the artist Renée Cox poses herself atop the Statue of Liberty, audaciously staking her own claim to American freedom. 872 C h a p t e r 2 7  Globalization and Its Discontents C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S 1. Why was the year 1989 one of the most momentous in globalization (p. 841) Gulf War (p. 845) the twentieth century? the Perot candidacy (p. 846) “don’t ask, don’t tell” (p. 846) 2. Describe the different visions of the U.S. role in the post– North American Free Trade Cold War world as identified by President George H. W. Agreement (p. 847) Bush and President Clinton. Contract with America (p. 847) welfare reform (p. 850) 3. Explain Clinton’s political strategy of combining social Balkan crisis (p. 851) liberalism with conservative economic ideas. “ethnic cleansing” (p. 851) Rwandan genocide (p. 852) 4. Identify the factors that, in the midst of 1990s prosperity, “tough on crime” (p. 862) increased the levels of inequality in the United States. Americans with Disabilities Act (p. 863) 5. What are the similarities and differences between multiculturalism (p. 865) Culture Wars (p. 865) immigration patterns of the 1990s and earlier? “family values” (p. 866) 6. What main issues gave rise to the Culture Wars of the Clinton impeachment (p. 868) American exceptionalism 1990s? (p. 871) 7. Assess the role of the Supreme Court in the presidential election of 2000. 8. What is globalization, and how did it affect the United States in the 1990s? 9. What is meant by American exceptionalism? In what ways is the United States different from the rest of the wwnorton.com world, and how is it similar? /studyspace VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE RESOURCES AND MORE s s s s s C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S 873 2001 9/11 attacks C H A P T E R 2 8 United States launches air strikes in Afghanistan United States enters war in Afghanistan USA PATRIOT Act 2002 Bush identifies “axis of evil” A N E W C E N T U R Y A N D Department of Homeland Security established 2003 Iraq War begins N E W C R I S E S Supreme Court upholds affirmative action Lawrence v. Texas 2005 Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast 2006 Saddam Hussein executed  2007 Great Recession begins 2008 Federal bailout of banks and companies Barack Obama elected 2009 Sonia Sotomayor named to Supreme Court 2010 Federal stimulus package Tea Party movement develops Republicans make major gains in Congressional elections Affordable Care Act Gulf oil spill 2011 Arab Spring Osama bin Laden killed Occupy Wall Street movement U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq 2012 Obama reelected Barack Obama and his family greet enthusiastic supporters at an outdoor celebration in Chicago on the night of his election as president on November 4, 2008. N o member of the present generation will ever forget when he or she first learned of the events of September 11, 2001. That beautiful late-summer morning began with the sun rising F O C U S over the East Coast of the United States in a crystal-clear sky. But Q U E S T I O N S September 11 soon became one of the most tragic dates in American history. Around 8 A.M., hijackers seized control of four jet airliners filled with s passengers. They crashed two into the World Trade Center in New York policy elements of the war City, igniting infernos that soon caused these buildings, which dominated on terror in the wake of the lower Manhattan skyline, to collapse. A third plane hit a wing of the September 11, 2001? Pentagon, the country’s military headquarters, in Washington, D.C. On the fourth aircraft, passengers who had learned of these events via their s cell phones overpowered the hijackers. The plane crashed in a field near unfold in the wake of 9/11? Pittsburgh, killing all aboard. Counting the nineteen hijackers, the more than 200 passengers, pilots, and flight attendants, and the victims on the s ground, around 3,000 people died on September 11. The victims included affect the economy and nearly 400 police and firefighters who had rushed to the World Trade American liberties? Center in a rescue effort. The administration of George W. Bush quickly blamed Al Qaeda, s port for President Bush’s a shadowy terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden, for the policies during his second attacks. A wealthy Islamic fundamentalist from Saudi Arabia, bin term? Laden had joined the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghani- stan in the 1980s. He had developed a relationship with the Central s Intelligence Agency and received American funds to help build his voters hope for when they mountain bases. But after the Gulf War of 1991, his anger increas- elected Barack Obama? ingly turned against the United States. Bin Laden was especially outraged by the presence of American military bases in Saudi Arabia and by American support for Israel in its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. Terrorists associated with Al Qaeda exploded a truck bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993, killing six persons, and set off blasts in 1998 at two American embassies in Africa, killing over 200 persons. Nonetheless, the attack of September 11 came as a complete surprise. With the end of the Cold War in 1991, most Americans felt more secure, especially within their own borders, than they had for decades. September 11 enveloped the country in a cloud of fear. In the months that followed, as the government periodically issued “alerts” concerning possible new attacks, national security remained at the forefront of Americans’ consciousness, and fear of terrorism powerfully affected their daily lives. A N E W C E N T U R Y A N D N E W C R I S E S 875 In the immediate aftermath the Bush administration announced a “war on terrorism.” Over the next two years, the United States embarked on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the second with very limited international support. It created a new Department of Homeland Security to coordinate efforts to improve security at home, and it imposed severe limits on the civil liberties of those suspected of a connection with terrorism and, more generally, on immigrants from the Middle East. The attacks and events that followed also lent new urgency to questions that had recurred many times in American history: Should the United States act in the world as a republic or an empire? What is the proper balance between liberty and security? Who deserves the full enjoyment of American freedom? None had an easy answer. T H E W A R O N T E R R O R I S M B u s h b e f o r e S e p t e m b e r 1 1 The twin towers of the World Trade Center after being struck by hijacked From the outset, Bush pursued a strongly conservative agenda. In 2001, airplanes on September 11, 2001. Shortly after this photograph was he persuaded Congress to enact the largest tax cut in American history. taken, the towers collapsed. With the economy slowing, he promoted the plan as a way of stimulating re newed growth. In keeping with the “supply-side” economic outlook embraced twenty years earlier by Ronald Reagan, most of the tax cuts were directed toward the wealthiest Americans, on the assumption that they would invest the money they saved in taxes in economically productive activities. In foreign policy, Bush emphasized American freedom of action, unre- strained by international treaties and institutions. To great controversy, the Bush administration announced that it would not abide by the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which sought to combat global warming—a slow rise in the earth’s temperature that scientists warned could have disastrous effects Global warming on the world’s climate. Global warming is caused when gases released by burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil remain in the upper atmosphere, trapping heat reflected from the earth. Most scientists consider global warming a serious situation. Climate change threatens to disrupt long- established patterns of agriculture, and the melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps because of rising temperatures may raise ocean levels and flood coastal cities. By the time Bush took office, some 180 nations, including the United States, had agreed to accept the goals set in the Kyoto Protocol for reducing the output of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels. Because the United States 876 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What were the major policy elements of the war on terror in the wake of September 11, 2001? burns far more fossil fuel than any other nation, Bush’s repudiation of the treaty, on the grounds that it would weaken the American economy, infuriated much of the world, as well as environmentalists at home. “ T h e y H a t e F r e e d o m ” September 11 transformed the international situation, the domestic political environ- ment, and the Bush presidency. An out- pouring of popular patriotism followed the attacks, all the more impressive because it was spontaneous, not orchestrated by the government or private organiza- A bystander gazes at some of tions. Throughout the country, people demonstrated their sense of resolve the missing-persons posters with and their sympathy for the victims by displaying the American flag. photographs of those who died on The Bush administration benefited from this patriotism and identifica- September 11. tion with government. The president’s popularity soared. Bush seized the opportunity to give his administration a new direction and purpose. Like presidents before him, he made freedom the rallying cry for a nation at war. On September 20, 2001, Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and a national television audience. His speech echoed the words of FDR, Truman, and Reagan: “Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom . . . now depends on us.” The country’s antagonists, Bush went on, “hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to assemble and disagree with each other.” In later speeches, he repeated this theme. Why did terrorists attack the United States, the president repeatedly asked. His answer: “Because we love free- dom, that’s why. And they hate freedom.” T h e B u s h D o c t r i n e Bush’s speech announced a new foreign policy principle, which quickly became known as the Bush Doctrine. The United States would launch a war on terrorism. Unlike previous wars, this one had a vaguely defined A war on terrorism enemy—terrorist groups around the world that might threaten the United States or its allies—and no predictable timetable for victory. The new war would recognize no middle ground: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Bush demanded that Afghanistan, ruled by a group of Islamic fundamentalists called the Taliban, surrender Osama bin Laden, who had established a base in the country. When the Taliban refused, the T H E W A R O N T E R R O R I S M 877 United States on October 7, 2001, launched air strikes against its strongholds. By the end of the year, the Taliban had been driven from power. A new govern- ment, friendly to and dependent on the United States, took its place. It repealed Taliban laws denying women the right to attend school and banning movies, music, and other expressions of Western culture but found it difficult to establish full con- trol over the country. By early 2007, the Taliban had reasserted their power in some parts of Afghanistan. No end was in sight to the deployment of American troops there. Supporters of the Bush administration who turned out in Washington, D.C., late in 2001 to confront demonstra tors T h e “ A x i s o f E v i l ” opposed to the war in Afghanistan. In his State of the Union address of January 2002, the president accused Iraq, Iran, and North Korea of harboring terrorists and developing “weap- ons of mass destruction”—nuclear, chemical, and biological—that posed a potential threat to the United States. He called the three countries an “axis of evil,” even though no evidence connected them with the attacks of September 11 and they had never cooperated with one another. Steve Benson’s 2003 cartoon, which alters a renowned World War II photograph of soldiers raising an American flag, illustrates widespread A N A M E R I C A N E M P I R E ? skepticism about American motivations in the Iraq War. The “axis of evil” speech sent shock waves around the world. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, a wave of sympathy for the United States had swept across the globe. Most of the world supported the war in Afghanistan as a legitimate response to the terrorist attacks. By late 2002, however, many persons overseas feared that the United States was claiming the right to act as a world policeman in violation of inter- national law. Critics, including leaders of close American allies, wondered whether dividing the world into friends and enemies of freedom ran the danger of repeating some of the mistakes of the Cold War. Charges quickly arose that the United States was bent on establishing itself as a new global empire. Indeed, September 11 and its aftermath highlighted not only the vulnerability of the United States but also its overwhelming strength. In 878 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises How did the war in Iraq unfold in the wake of 9/11? every index of power—military, economic, cultural—the United States far outpaced the rest of the world. It was not surprising that in such circumstances many American policymakers felt that the country had a responsibility to impose order in a dangerous world, even if this meant establishing its own rules of international conduct. The need to “shoul- der the burdens of empire” emerged as a common theme in discussions among foreign policy analysts and political commentators. C o n f r o n t i n g I r a q These tensions became starkly evident in the Bush administration’s next initiative. The Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein had survived its Saddam Hussein defeat in the Gulf War of 1991. Hussein’s opponents charged that he had flouted United Nations resolutions barring his regime from developing new weapons. From the outset of the Bush administration, a group of conservative policymakers including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz were determined to oust Hussein from power. They insisted that the oppressed Iraqi people would welcome an American army as liberators and quickly establish a democratic government, allowing for the early departure of American soldiers. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who believed the con- quest and stabilization of Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and should not be undertaken without the support of America’s allies, found himself marginalized in the administration. Even though Hussein was not an Islamic fundamentalist and no known evidence linked him to the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Bush administration in 2002 announced a goal of “regime change” in Iraq. Regime change in Iraq Hussein, administration spokesmen insisted, must be ousted from power because he had developed an arsenal of chemical and bacterial “weapons of mass destruction” and was seeking to acquire nuclear arms. American newspaper and television journalists repeated these claims with almost no independent investigation. Early in 2003, despite his original misgiv- ings, Secretary of State Powell delivered a speech before the UN outlining the administration’s case. He claimed that Hussein possessed a mobile chemical weapons laboratory, had hidden weapons of mass destruction in his many palaces, and was seeking to acquire uranium in Africa to build nuclear weapons. (Every one of these assertions later turned out to be false.) Shortly after Powell’s address, the president announced his intention to go to war with or without the approval of the United Nations. Congress passed a resolution authorizing the president to use force if he deemed it necessary. A N A M E R I C A N E M P I R E ? 879 T h e I r a q W a r The decision to go to war split the Western alliance and inspired a massive antiwar movement throughout the world. In February 2003, between 10 million and 15 million people across the globe demonstrated against the impending war. Foreign policy “realists,” including members of pre- vious Republican administrations like Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser under the first President Bush, warned that the administration’s preoccupa- tion with Iraq deflected attention from its real foe, Al Qaeda, which remained capable of launching terrorist attacks. They insisted that the United States could not unilaterally transform the Middle East into a bastion of democracy, as the administration claimed was its long- term aim. Both traditional foes of the United States like Russia and China and traditional allies like Germany and France refused to support a “preemptive” strike against Iraq. Unable to obtain approval from the United Nations for attacking Iraq, the United States went to war anyway in March 2003, with Great Britain as its sole significant ally. President Bush called the war “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Within a month, American Part of the massive crowd that gathered in New York City on Feb- troops occupied Baghdad. After hiding out for several months, Hussein ruary 15, 2003, a day of worldwide was captured by American forces and subsequently put on trial before demonstrations against the impend- an Iraqi court. Late in 2006, he was found guilty of ordering the kill- ing war against Iraq. ing of many Iraqis during his reign, and was sentenced to death and executed. Soon after the fall of Baghdad, a triumphant President Bush appeared on the deck of an aircraft carrier beneath a banner read- ing “Mission Accomplished.” But after the fall of Hussein, everything seemed to go wrong. Rather than parades welcoming American libera- tors, looting and chaos followed the fall of the Iraqi regime. An insur- gency quickly developed that targeted American soldiers and Iraqis cooperating with them. Sectarian violence soon swept throughout Iraq, with militias of Shiite and Sunni Muslims fighting each other. (Under Hussein, Sunnis, a minority of Iraq’s population, had dominated the government and army; now, the Shiite majority sought to exercise power and exact revenge.) 880 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises How did the war in Iraq unfold in the wake of 9/11? With no end in sight to the conflict, comparisons with the American experi- ence in Vietnam became commonplace. In both wars, American policy was made by officials who had little or no knowledge of the countries to which they were send- ing troops and distrusted State Department experts on these regions, who tended to be skeptical about the possibility of achiev- ing quick military and long-term political success. T h e W o r l d a n d t h e W a r President Bush standing on the The war marked a departure in American foreign policy. The United deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham States had frequently intervened unilaterally in the affairs of Latin Lincoln on May 10, 2003, announcing American countries. But outside the Western Hemisphere it had previ- the end of combat operations in ously been reluctant to use force except as part of an international coali- Iraq. A banner proclaims, “Mission tion. Never before had it occupied a nation in the center of the world’s Accomplished.” Unfortunately, the most volatile region. war was not in fact over. Rarely in its history had the United States found itself so isolated from world public opinion. Initially, the war in Iraq proved to be popular in the United States. Unlike earlier wars, this one brought no calls for public sacrifice from the administration. There were no tax increases and In 2008, a church in Miami displayed no reintroduction of the draft to augment the hard-pressed all-volunteer nearly 4,500 small American flags in honor of each of the American army. Many Americans believed the administration’s claims that Saddam soldiers who to that date had died in Hussein had something to do with September 11 and had stockpiled weap- Afghanistan and Iraq. ons of mass destruction. The realization that in fact Hussein had no such weapons discredited the administration’s rationale for the war. By early 2007, polls showed that a large majority of Americans consid- ered the invasion of Iraq a mistake and the war a lost cause. Much of the outside world now viewed the United States as a superpower unwill- ing to abide by the rules of international law. The fact that Iraq possessed the world’s second-largest reserves of oil reinforced suspicions that American motives had less to do with freedom than self-interest. A N A M E R I C A N E M P I R E ? 881 U . S . P R E S E N C E I N T H E M I D D L E E A S T , 1 9 4 7 – 2 0 1 2 Kiev UKRAINE MOLDOVA KAZAKHSTAN Çhisinau ˘ ROMANIA Bucharest RUSSIA Aral C Bishkek Sea Sofia asp Black Se KYRGYZSTAN BULGARIA a ia Tashkent n S UZBEKISTAN Istanbul GEORGIA ea CHINA Tbilisi GREECE Ankara ARMENIA Baku TAJIKISTAN Dushanbe Yerevan AZERBAIJAN TURKMENISTAN Athens TURKEY Ashgabat Kabul Islamabad CYPRUS Tehran Nicosia AFGHANISTAN Mediterranean SYRIA Beirut -War against Taliban Sea LEBANON Damascus and Terrorists, 2001– Baghdad ISRAEL IRAN Tel Aviv Amman Kandahar IRAQ -American embassy -Gulf War, 1990 occupied, 1979–1981 JORDAN -Iraq War, 2003–2012 Cairo Basra -Recognition, 1948 KUWAIT Kuwait PAKISTAN INDIA -Camp David accords, 1978 -Wye Memorandum, concerning peace with the Palestinians, 1998 EGYPT Manama Karachi -Suez crisis, 1956 BAHRAIN -Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, 1974–1975 Doha -Camp David accords, 1978 QATAR Abu Dhabi Riyadh Masqat UNITED SAUDI ARABIA ARAB EMIRATES Red Sea OMAN SUDAN Khartoum ERITREA YEMEN Sanaa Ara b i a n S e a Asmara DJIBOUTI Djibouti Oil fields ETHIOPIA 0 250 500 miles Air bases SOMALIA 0 250 500 kilometers Naval bases Addis Ababa Since World War II, the United States has become more and more deeply involved in the affairs of the Middle East, whose countries are together the world’s largest exporters of oil. 882 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises How did the war on terror affect the economy and American liberties? T H E A F T E R M A T H O F S E P T E M B E R 1 1 A T H O M E S e c u r i t y a n d L i b e r t y Like earlier wars, the war on terrorism raised anew the problem of bal- ancing security and liberty. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Congress rushed to pass the USA PATRIOT Act, a mammoth bill (it ran to more than 300 pages) that few members of the House or Senate had actually read. It conferred unprecedented powers on law enforcement agencies charged with preventing the new, vaguely defined crime of “domestic terrorism,” including the authority to wiretap, spy on citizens, “Domestic terrorism” open letters, read e-mail, and obtain personal records from third parties like universities and libraries without the knowledge of a suspect. At least 5,000 foreigners with Middle Eastern connections were rounded up and more than 1,200 arrested. Many with no link to terrorism were held for months, without either a formal charge or a public notice of their fate. The administration also set up a detention camp at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for persons captured in Afghanistan or oth- erwise accused of terrorism. More than 700 persons, nationals of many Before the Cuban Revolution of 1959, foreign countries, were detained there. Guantánamo Bay was mostly known as an American naval base where the In November 2001, the Bush administration issued an executive families of servicemen enjoyed a slice order authorizing the holding of secret military tribunals for noncitizens of suburban life, as in this photograph deemed to have assisted terrorism. In such trials, traditional constitutional from the 1950s. Today, Guantánamo protections, such as the right of the accused to choose a lawyer and see all is famous as the site of the world’s the evidence, would not apply. most notorious prison. T h e P o w e r o f t h e P r e s i d e n t In the new atmosphere of heightened security, numerous court orders and regu- lations of the 1970s, inspired by abuses of the CIA, FBI, and local police forces, were rescinded, allowing these agencies to resume surveillance of Americans without evidence that a crime had been committed. Some of these measures were authorized by Congress, but the president implemented many of them unilaterally, claiming the authority to ignore laws that restricted his power as commander-in-chief in wartime. T H E A F T E R M A T H O F S E P T E M B E R 1 1 A T H O M E 883 Two centuries earlier, in the 1790s, James Madison had predicted that no nation could preserve its freedom “in the midst of continual warfare.” Madison’s remarkable warning about how presidents might seize the power afforded them in war to limit freedom has been borne out at many points in American history—from Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus to Wilson’s suppression of free speech and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese-Americans. The administration of George W. Bush was no exception. The debate over liberty and security seemed certain to last as long as the war on terrorism itself. T h e T o r t u r e C o n t r o v e r s y Officials of the Bush administration also insisted in the aftermath of September 11 that the United States need not be bound by international law in pursuing the war on terrorism. They were especially eager to sidestep The U.S. and international the Geneva Conventions and the International Convention Against Torture, law which regulate the treatment of prisoners of war and prohibit torture and other forms of physical and mental coercion. In January 2002, the Justice Department produced a memorandum stating that these rules did not apply to captured members of Al Qaeda as they were “unlawful combatants,” not members of regularly constituted armies. The Defense Department approved methods of interrogation that most observers considered torture. In this atmosphere and lacking clear rules of behavior, some mili- Based on an infamous photograph tary personnel—in Afghanistan, at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and at circulated around the world of an Iraqi Guantánamo—beat prisoners who were being held for interrogation, sub- prisoner abused while in American jected them to electric shocks and simulated drowning (so-called water- custody, this 2004 cartoon suggests how such mistreatment damaged the boarding), let them be attacked by dogs, and forced them to strip naked image of the United States. and lie atop other prisoners. Some prisoners in U.S. cus tody died from their maltreat- ment. Photographs of the abuse of prisoners eventually became public. Their publication around the world in newspapers, on televi- sion, and on the Internet undermined the reputation of the United States as a country that adheres to standards of civilized behav- ior and the rule of law. Late in 2008 and early the following year, previously secret government docu- ments were released demonstrating that torture was the result not of missteps by a few “bad apples,” as the administration had 884 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term? claimed, but decisions at the highest levels of government. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and other officials had authorized the torture of persons captured in the war on ter- rorism, over the objections of many in the military. T h e E c o n o m y u n d e r B u s h Continuing chaos in Iraq began to undermine support for Bush’s foreign policy. But the main threat to the president’s reelection appeared to be the condition of the American economy. During 2001, the economy slipped into a recession—that is, it contracted rather than grew. Growth resumed Recession at the end of the year, but, with businesses reluctant to make new invest- ments after the overexpansion of the 1990s, it failed to generate new jobs. Talk of “economic pain” reappeared in public discussions. Ninety percent of the jobs lost during the recession of 2001–2002 were in manufacturing. Despite the renewed spirit of patriotism, deindus- trialization continued. Textile firms closed southern plants and shifted production to cheap-labor factories in China and India. Maytag, a manu- facturer of washing machines, refrigerators, and other home appliances, announced plans to close its factory in Galesburg, Illinois, where wages averaged fifteen dollars per hour, to open a new one in Mexico, where workers earned less than one-seventh that amount. The Bush administration responded to economic difficulties by sup- porting the Federal Reserve Board’s policy of reducing interest rates and by proposing another round of tax cuts. In 2003, the president signed Tax cuts into law a $320 billion tax reduction, one of the largest in American his- tory. In accordance with supply-side theory, the cuts were again geared to reducing the tax burden on wealthy individuals and corporations. Left to future generations were the questions of how to deal with a rapidly mounting federal deficit (which exceeded $400 billion, a record, in 2004) and how to pay for the obligations of the federal government and the needs of American society. T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E T h e 2 0 0 4 E l e c t i o n With Bush’s popularity sliding because of the war in Iraq and a wide- spread sense that many Americans were not benefiting from economic growth, Democrats in 2004 sensed a golden opportunity to retake the T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E 885 White House. They nominated as their candidate John Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts and the first Catholic to run for president since John F. Kennedy in 1960. A decorated combat veteran in Vietnam, Kerry had joined the antiwar movement after leaving the army. Kerry proved a surprisingly ineffective candidate. An aloof man who lacked the common touch, he failed to generate the same degree of enthu- siasm among his supporters as Bush did among his. The Bush campaign consistently and successfully appealed to fear, with continuous reminders of September 11 and warnings of future attacks. Bush won a narrow victory, with a margin of 2 percent of the popu- lar vote and thirty-four electoral votes. The results revealed a remark- able electoral stability. Both sides had spent tens of millions of dollars in advertising and had mobilized new voters—nearly 20 million since 2000. But in the end, only three states voted differently from four years earlier— New Hampshire, which Kerry carried, and Iowa and New Mexico, which swung to Bush. B u s h ’ s S e c o n d T e r m In his second inaugural address, in January 2005, Bush outlined a A more conciliatory foreign new American goal—“ending tyranny in the world.” Striking a more policy conciliatory tone than during his first administration, he promised that the United States would not try to impose “our style of government” on others and that it would in the future seek the advice of allies. He said nothing specific about Iraq but tried to shore up falling support for the war by invoking the ideal of freedom: “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” In his first inaugural, in January 2001, Bush had used the words “freedom,” “free,” or “liberty” seven times. In his second, they appeared forty-nine times. But the ongoing chaos in Iraq, coupled with a spate of corruption scandals sur- Domestic scandals rounding Republicans in Congress and the White House, eroded Bush’s standing. H u r r i c a n e K a t r i n a A further blow to the Bush administration’s came in August 2005, when Disasters, natural and Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore near New Orleans. Sit uated below man-made sea level between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchar train and protected by levees, New Orleans has always been vulnerable to flooding. For years, scientists had predicted a catastrophe if a hurricane hit the city. When the storm hit on August 29 the levees broke. Nearly the entire city, 886 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term? with a population of half a million, was inundated. Nearby areas of the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast were also hard hit. The natural disaster quickly became a man-made one, with ineptitude evident from local government to the White House. The mayor of New Orleans had been slow to order an evacuation, fearing it would dam- age the city’s tourist trade. In November 2002, the new Department of Homeland Security had been created, absorbing many existing intelli- gence agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for disaster planning and relief within the United States. FEMA was headed by Michael Brown, who lacked experi- ence in disaster management and had apparently been appointed because he was a college friend of his predecessor in the office. Although warned of impending disaster by the National Weather Service, FEMA had made FEMA’s ineptitude almost no preparations. If the Bush administration had prided itself on anything, it was competence in dealing with disaster. Katrina shattered that image. For days, vast numbers of people, most of them poor African- Americans, remained abandoned amid the floodwaters. Bodies floated in the streets, and people died in city hospitals and nursing homes. By the time aid began to arrive, damage stood at $80 billion, the death toll was around 1,500, and two-thirds of the city’s population had been displaced. The televised images of misery in the streets of New Orleans shocked the Residents of New Orleans, stranded world and shamed the country. on a rooftop days after flood waters engulfed the city, frantically attempt Hurricane Katrina also shone a bright light on the heroic side of to attract the attention of rescue American life. Where government failed, individual citizens stepped into helicopters. the breach. People with boats rescued countless survivors from rooftops and attics, private donations flowed in to aid the victims, and neighboring states like Texas opened their doors to thousands of refugees. T h e I m m i g r a t i o n D e b a t e In the spring of 2006, an issue as old as the American nation suddenly burst again onto the center stage of politics—immigration. Alongside legal immigrants, millions of undocumented newcomers had made their way to the United States, mostly from Mexico. Economists disagree about their impact. It seems clear that the presence of large numbers of uneducated, low-skilled workers pushes down wages at the bottom of the economic ladder, especially affecting African-Americans. On the other hand, immi- grants both legal and illegal receive regular paychecks, spend money, and pay taxes. They fill jobs for which American workers seem to be unavail- able because the wages are so low. It is estimated that more than one-fifth T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E 887 of construction workers, domestic workers, and agricultural workers are in the United States illegally. In 2006, with many Americans convinced that the United States had lost control of its borders and that immigration was in part responsible for the stagnation of real wages, the House of Representatives approved a bill making it a felony to be in the country illegally and a crime to offer aid to illegal immigrants. The response was utterly unexpected: a series of massive Demonstrations for immigrant demonstrations in the spring of 2006 by immigrants—legal and illegal— rights and their supporters, demanding the right to remain in the country as citi- zens. In cities from New York to Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Dallas, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets. An Iraq War veteran who marched with his parents, who had come to the country illegally, said, “I’ve fought for freedom overseas. Now I’m fighting for freedom here.” At the same time, church groups used to sheltering and feeding the des- titute denounced the proposed bill as akin to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 for making it a crime to help a suffering human being and vowed to resist it. On the other hand, many conservatives condemned the marches as “omi- Policy stalemate nous” and their display of the flags of the marchers’ homelands as “repellent.” All Congress could agree on was a measure to build a 700-mile wall along part of the U.S.-Mexico border. The immigration issue was at a stalemate. I s l a m , A m e r i c a , a n d t h e “ C l a s h o f C i v i l i z a t i o n s ” The events of September 11, 2001, placed new pressures on religious liberty. Even before the terrorist attacks, the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington had published a widely noted book, The Clash of Civilizations In April 2006, millions of people demonstrated for immigrant rights. This photograph shows part of the immense crowd in Chicago, bearing the flags of many nations. 888 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term? and the Remaking of the World Order (1996), which argued that with the Cold War over, a new global conflict impended between Western and Islamic “civilizations.” The idea of such a clash reduces politics and culture to a single characteristic—in this case, religion—that remains forever static, divorced from historical development. “Islam,” for example, consists of well over a billion people, in very different countries ranging from South Asia to the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Nonetheless, in the after- math of 9/11, Huntington’s formula that pitted a freedom-loving United States against militant, authoritarian Muslims became popular as a way of making sense of the terrorist attacks. What did this mean for the nearly 5 million Americans who practiced the Muslim religion? President Bush insisted that the war on terror was Islam and terrorism not a war against Islam. But many Americans found it difficult to separate the two, even though most American Muslims were as appalled by the terrorist attacks as their fellow countrymen. Some critics claimed that Islam was fundamentally incompatible with American life—a position reminiscent of prejudice in the nineteenth century against Catholics and Mormons. In a number of states, politicians appealed for votes by oppos- ing the construction of new mosques and raising the nonexistent threat that courts would impose “sharia law”—the religious rules laid down in the Koran—on all Americans. T h e C o n s t i t u t i o n a n d L i b e r t y Two significant Supreme Court decisions in June 2003 revealed how the largely conservative justices had come to accept that the social revolution that began during the 1960s could not be undone. In two cases arising from challenges to the admissions policies of the Revisiting the Bakke case University of Michigan, the Supreme Court issued its most important rul- ings on affirmative action since the Bakke case twenty-five years earlier. A 5-4 majority upheld the right of colleges and universities to take race into account in admissions decisions. Writing for the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor argued that such institutions have a legitimate interest in creating a “diverse” student body to enhance education. In the second decision, in Lawrence v. Texas, a 6-3 majority declared unconstitutional a Texas law making homosexual acts a crime. Written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the majority opinion overturned the Court’s 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick, which had upheld a similar Freedom and “intimate Georgia law. Today, Kennedy insisted, the idea of liberty includes conduct” not only “freedom of thought, belief, [and] expression” but “intimate T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E 889 conduct” as well. The decision was a triumph for the feminist and gay movements, which had long campaigned to extend the idea of freedom into the most personal realms of life. Kennedy reaffirmed the liberal view of the Constitution as a living document whose protections expand as society changes. “Times can blind us to certain truths,” he wrote, “and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.” T h e C o u r t a n d t h e P r e s i d e n t Nor did the Supreme Court prove receptive to President Bush’s claim of authority to disregard laws and treaties and to suspend constitutional pro- tections of individual liberties. In a series of decisions, the Court reaffirmed the rule of law both for American citizens and for foreigners held prisoner by the United States. It ruled that an American citizen who had moved to The right to a hearing Saudi Arabia and been captured in Afghanistan had a right to a judicial hearing. The justices offered a stinging rebuke to the key presumptions of the Bush administration—that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to prisoners captured in the war on terrorism, that the president can unilater- ally set up secret military tribunals in which defendants have very few if any rights, and that the Constitution does not apply at Guantánamo. In June 2008, the Supreme Court rebuffed the Bush administration’s strategy of denying detainees at Guantánamo Bay the normal protections guaranteed by the Constitution. Written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush affirmed the detainees’ right to challenge Rights of detainees their detention in U.S. courts. “The laws and Constitution are designed,” Kennedy wrote, “to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.” Security, he added, consists not simply in military might, but “in fidelity to freedom’s first principles,” including freedom from arbitrary arrest and the right of a person to go to court to challenge his or her imprisonment. T h e M i d t e r m E l e c t i o n s o f 2 0 0 6 With President Bush’s popularity having plummeted because of the war in Iraq and the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Congress beset by scandal after scandal, and public-opinion polls revealing that a majority of Americans believed the country to be “on the wrong track,” Democrats expected to Democratic majorities in reap major gains in the congressional elections of 2006. They were not Congress disappointed. In a sweeping repudiation of the administration, voters 890 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term? gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress for the first time since the Re publican sweep of 1994. In January 2007, Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California became the first female Speaker of the House in American history. As the end of his second term approached, Bush’s popularity sank to historic lows. In January 2009, as Bush’s presidency came to an end, only George W. Bush’s legacy 22 percent of Americans approved of his performance in office—the lowest figure since such polls began in the mid-twentieth century. Indeed, it was difficult to think of many substantive achievements during Bush’s eight years in office. His foreign policy alienated most of the world, leaving the United States militarily weakened and diplomatically isolated. Because of the tax cuts for the wealthy that he pushed through Congress during his first term, as well as the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the large budget surplus he had inherited was transformed into an immense deficit. T h e H o u s i n g B u b b l e At one point in his administration, Bush might have pointed to the eco- nomic recovery that began in 2001 as a major success. But late in 2007, the economy entered a recession. And in 2008, the American banking The economy in crisis system suddenly found itself on the brink of collapse, threatening to drag the national and world economies into a repeat of the Great Depression. The roots of the crisis of 2008 lay in a combination of public and pri- vate policies that favored economic speculation, free-wheeling spending, and get-rich-quick schemes over more traditional avenues to economic growth and personal advancement. For years, the Federal Reserve Bank kept interest rates at unprecedented low levels, first to help the economy recover from the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000 and then to enable more Americans to borrow money to purchase homes. Housing prices rose rapidly. Consumer indebtedness also rose dramatically as people who owned houses took out second mortgages or simply spent to the limits on their credit cards. In mid-2008, when the median fam- ily income was around $50,000, the average American family owed an $84,000 home mortgage, $14,000 in auto and student loans, $8,500 to credit card companies, and $10,000 in home equity loans. All this borrowing fueled increased spending. An immense influx of The rise in consumer debt cheap goods from China accelerated the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States but also enabled Americans to keep buying, even though for most, household income stagnated during the Bush years. Indeed, China helped to finance the American spending spree by buying up hundreds of billions of dollars worth of federal bonds—in effect loaning T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E 891 An Arizona house left unfinished when money to the United States so that it could purchase Chinese-made goods. the housing bubble collapsed. When Banks and other lending institutions issued more and more “subprime” prices were at their peak, housing mortgages—risky loans to people who lacked the income to meet their developers rushed to build new monthly payments. residences; many were abandoned when prices plunged. Wall Street bankers developed complex new ways of repackaging and selling these mortgages to investors. Insurance companies, including the world’s largest, American International Group (AIG), insured these new financial products against future default. Credit-rating agencies gave these securities their highest ratings, even though they were based on loans that Selling debt clearly would never be repaid. Believing that the market must be left to regulate itself, the Federal Reserve Bank and other regulatory agencies did nothing to slow the speculative frenzy. Banks and investment firms reported billions of dollars in profits and rewarded their executives with unheard-of bonuses. T h e G r e a t R e c e s s i o n In 2006 and 2007, overbuilding had reached the point where home prices began to fall. More and more home owners found themselves owing more money than their homes were worth. As mortgage rates reset, increasing numbers of borrowers defaulted—that is, they could no longer meet their Causes of the depression monthly mortgage payments. Banks suddenly found themselves with bil- lions of dollars of worthless investments on their books. In 2008, the situ- ation became a full-fledged crisis, as banks stopped making loans, business dried up, and the stock market collapsed. Once above 14,000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged to around 8,000—the worst percent- age decline since 1931. Some $7 trillion in shareholder wealth was wiped 892 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term? out. Lehman Brothers, a venerable investment house, recorded a $2.3 billion loss and went out of existence in FIGURE 28.1 history’s biggest bankruptcy. Leading banks seemed Portrait of a Recession to be on the verge of failure. With the value of their homes and stock market Retail Sales Industrial Production Change from previous year Change from previous year accounts in free fall, Americans cut back on spend- +10% +10% ing, leading to business failures and a rapid rise in unemployment. By the end of 2008, 2.5 million jobs –20 –20 had been lost—the most in any year since the end of 2004 2012 2004 2012 World War II. Unemployment was concentrated in Unemployment manufacturing and construction, sectors dominated Consumer Confidence Percent unemployed Seasonally adjusted Conference board survey by men. As a result, by mid-2009, for the first time 12% 120 in American history, more women than men in the United States held paying jobs. 4 20 Even worse than the economic meltdown was the 2004 2012 2004 2012 meltdown of confidence as millions of Americans lost Housing Starts New Home Sales their jobs and/or their homes and saw their retirement Annual rate, in millions Annual rate, in millions Seasonally adjusted Seasonally adjusted savings and pensions, if invested in the stock market, 3.0 2.0 disappear. In April 2009, the recession that began in December 2007 became the longest since the Great 0.0 0.0 Depression. 2004 2012 2004 2012 These graphs offer a vivid visual “ A C o n s p i r a c y a g a i n s t t h e P u b l i c ” illustration of the steep decline in the American economy in 2008 and In The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith wrote: “People of the same the first part of 2009, and the slow trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the recovery to 2012. conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public.” This certainly seemed an apt description of the behavior of leading bankers and invest- ment houses whose greed helped bring down the American economy. Fueled by revelations of corporate misdeeds, the reputation of stockbro- kers and bankers fell to lows last seen during the Great Depression. One poll showed that of various social groups, bankers ranked third from the bottom in public esteem—just above prostitutes and convicted felons. Resentment was fueled by the fact that Wall Street had long since abandoned the idea Resentment towards Wall Street that pay should be linked to results. By the end of 2008, the worst year for the stock market since the Depression, Wall Street firms had fired 240,000 employees. But they also paid out $20 billion in bonuses to top executives. In 2010, Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street banking and investment firm, paid a fine of half a billion dollars to settle charges that it had know- ingly marketed to clients mortgage-based securities it knew were bound to fail and then in effect bet on their failure. (This was like a real-estate T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E 893 agency selling an unsuspecting customer a house with faulty wiring and then taking out insurance so that the agency would be paid when the house burned down.) But no changes followed in management, and the fine represented only two weeks’ profit for the mighty firm. It was also revealed that Bernard Madoff, a Wall Street investor who claimed to have made enormous profits for his cli- ents, had in fact run a Ponzi scheme in which investors who wanted to retrieve their money were paid with funds from new participants. Madoff sent fictitious monthly This cartoon suggests that the near- financial statements to his clients, but he never actually made stock pur- collapse of the financial system in 2008 indicates the need for “a little chases for them. When the scheme collapsed, Madoff’s investors suffered more regulation.” losses amounting to around $50 billion. The crisis exposed the dark side of market fundamentalism—the ethos of deregulation that had dominated world affairs for the preceding thirty years. Every president from Ronald Reagan onward had lectured the rest of the world on the need to adopt the American model of unregulated economic competition and berated countries like Japan and Germany for assisting failing businesses. Now, the American model lay in ruins and a new role for government in regulating economic activity seemed inevitable. B u s h a n d t h e C r i s i s In the fall of 2008, with the presidential election campaign in full swing, the Bush administration seemed unable to come up with a response to the crisis. In keeping with the free market ethos, it allowed Lehman Brothers to fail. But this immediately created a domino effect, with the stock prices of other banks and investment houses collapsing, and the administration The bailout quickly reversed course. It persuaded a reluctant Congress to appropri- ate $700 billion dollars to bail out other floundering firms. Insurance companies like AIG, banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, and giant financial companies like the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (popularly known as Freddie Mac) and the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), which insured most mortgages in the country, “Too big to fail” were deemed “too big to fail”—that is, they were so interconnected with other institutions that their collapse would drive the economy into a full- fledged depression. Through the federal bailout, taxpayers in effect took 894 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What events eroded support for President Bush’s policies during his second term? temporary ownership of these companies, absorbing the massive losses created by the companies’ previous malfeasance. Few of the rescued firms used the public funds to assist home own- ers threatened with foreclosure; indeed, because they pocketed lucrative fees from those who could not pay their mortgages, they had no incentive to help them keep their homes or sell them. Giant banks and investment houses that received public money redirected some of it to enormous bonuses to top employees. But despite the bailout, the health of the banking system remained fragile. Firms still had balance sheets weighed down with “toxic assets”—billions and billions of dollars in worthless loans. The crisis also revealed the limits of the American social “safety net” The limits of the American compared with those of other industrialized countries. In western Europe, social safety net workers who lose their jobs typically receive many months of unemploy- ment insurance amounting to a significant percentage of their lost wages. In the United States, only one-third of out-of-work persons even qualify for unemployment insurance, and it runs out after a few months. The abolition of “welfare” (the national obligation to assist the neediest Americans) during the Clinton administration left the American safety net a patchwork of a few national programs such as food stamps, supplemented by locally admin- istered aid. The poor were dependent on aid from the states, which found their budgets collapsing as revenues from property and sales taxes dried up. T H E R I S E O F O B A M A With the economy in crisis and President Bush’s popularity at low ebb, the time was ripe for a Democratic victory in the election of 2008. To the surprise of nearly all political pundits, the long series of winter and spring caucuses and primary elections resulted in the nomination not of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the initial favorite, but of Barack Obama, a relatively little-known forty-seven-year-old senator from Illinois when the campaign began. Obama was the first black candidate to win the nomination of a major party. His triumph was a tribute both to his own exceptional skills as a speaker and campaigner and to how American politics had changed. Obama’s life story exemplified the enormous changes American soci- Obama’s background ety had undergone since 1960. Without the civil rights movement, his elec- tion would have been inconceivable. He was the product of an interracial marriage, which ended in divorce when he was two years old, between a Kenyan immigrant and a white American woman. When Obama was born in 1961, his parents’ marriage was still illegal in many states. He attended T H E R I S E O F O B A M A 895 Columbia College and Harvard Law School, and worked in Chicago as a community organizer before going into politics. Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004 and first gained national attention with an elo- quent speech at the Democratic national convention that year. Clinton sought the Democratic nomina- tion by emphasizing her political experience, both as First Lady and as a senator from New York. Obama realized that in 2008 people were hungry for change, not experi- ence. Indeed, although Clinton’s nomina- tion would also have been pathbreaking—no woman has ever been the presidential candidate of a major party—Obama A cartoon in the Boston Globe suggests the progress that has been succeeded in making her seem a representative of the status quo. His early made since Rosa Parks refused to opposition to the Iraq War, for which Clinton had voted in the Senate, won give up her seat on a bus to a white the support of the party’s large antiwar element; his race galvanized the passenger. support of black voters; and his youth and promise of change appealed to the young. Obama recognized how the Internet had changed politics. He estab- lished an e-mail list containing the names of millions of voters with whom he could communicate instantaneously, and his campaign used Web-based networks to raise enormous sums of money in small donations. With its widespread use of modern technology and massive mobilization of new voters, Obama’s was the first political campaign of the twenty-first century. T h e 2 0 0 8 C a m p a i g n John McCain Having won the nomination, Obama faced Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, in the general election. At age seventy-two, McCain was the oldest man ever to run for president, and he seemed even more a representative of the old politics than Clinton. He surprised virtually everyone by choosing as his running mate Sarah Palin, the little-known governor of Alaska, in part as an attempt to woo Democratic women disappointed at their party’s rejection of Hillary Clinton. Palin proved extremely popular with the Republican Party’s conservative base. But her performances in speeches and interviews soon made it clear that she lacked familiarity with many of the domestic and foreign issues a new administra- tion would confront. But the main obstacles for the McCain campaign were President Bush’s low popularity and the financial crisis that reached bottom in September 896 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What kinds of change did voters hope for when they elected Barack Obama? and October. Obama’s promise of change seemed more appealing than ever. On election day, he swept to victory with 53 percent of the popular vote and a large majority in the electoral college. His election redrew the nation’s politi- cal map. Obama carried not only Democratic strongholds in New England, Obama’s victory the mid-Atlantic states, the industrial Midwest, and the West Coast, but also states that had been reliably Republican for years. He cracked the solid South, winning Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. He did extremely well in suburbs throughout the country. He even carried Indiana, where Bush had garnered 60 percent of the vote in 2004 but which now was hard hit by unemployment. He did exceptionally well among young voters. Obama carried every age group except persons over 65. Thus, he was elected even though he received only 43 percent of the nation’s white vote. T h e A g e o f O b a m a ? Obama’s victory seemed to mark the end of a political era that began with Richard Nixon and his “southern strategy.” Instead of using control of the South as the base to build a national majority, Republicans now ran the danger of becoming a regional and marginalized southern party. In the wake of the Iraq War, the economic meltdown, and the enthusiasm aroused by Obama’s candidacy, Republican appeals to patriotism, low taxes, and resentment against the social changes sparked by the 1960s seemed oddly out of date. Democrats not only regained the presidency but ended up with 60 of the 100 seats in the Senate and a large majority On inauguration day, January 20, in the House. The groups carried by Obama—young voters, Hispanics, 2009, a photograph of the outgoing suburbanites—represented the growing parts of the population, auguring president, George W. Bush, is well for future Democratic success. replaced by one of Barack Obama The election of the nation’s first African-American president rep- at the headquarters of the U.S. naval resented a historic watershed. Only time would tell whether Obama’s station at Guantánamo, Cuba. election announced the end of the Age of Reagan—the era of economic deregulation, the demonization of the federal government, and an aggressive foreign policy abroad— and the beginning of something fundamen- tally different. O b a m a ’ s F i r s t I n a u g u r a t i o n Few presidents have come into office fac- ing as serious a set of problems as did Barack Obama. The economy was in crisis and the country involved in two wars. But T H E R I S E O F O B A M A 897 V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M From T h e N a t i o n a l S e c u r i t y S t r a t e g y o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s ( S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 2 ) The National Security Strategy, issued in 2002 by the Bush administration, outlined a new foreign and military policy for the United States in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It announced the doctrine of preemptive war—that the United States retained the right to use its military power against countries that might pose a threat in the future. The document began with a statement of the administration’s definition of freedom and its commitment to spreading freedom to the entire world. The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. . . . These values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society. . . . Today, the international community has the best chance since the rise of the nation-state in the seventeenth century to build a world where great powers compete in peace instead of continually prepare for war. . . . The United States will use this moment of opportunity to extend the benefits of freedom across the globe. We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world. . . . In building a balance of power that favors freedom, the United States is guided by the conviction that all nations have important responsibilities. Nations that enjoy freedom must actively fight terror. Nations that depend on international stability must help prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. . . . Throughout history, freedom has been threatened by war and terror; it has been challenged by the clashing wills of powerful states and the evil designs of tyrants; and it has been tested by widespread poverty and disease. Today, humanity holds in its hands the opportunity to further freedom’s triumph over all these foes. The United States welcomes our opportunity to lead in this great mission. 898 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises From P r e s i d e n t B a r a c k O b a m a , S p e e c h o n t h e M i d d l e E a s t ( 2 0 1 1 ) In the wake of the Arab Spring of 2011, the United States found itself caught between its traditional alliances with dictatorial regimes throughout the Middle East and the principles of democracy and human rights. In May 2011, President Obama announced what he called “a new chapter in American diplomacy” and sought to link the spring uprisings with the tradition of protest in the United States. For six months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. Square by square, town by town, country by country, the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. . . . The story of this revolution . . . should not have come as a surprise. The nations of the Middle East and North Africa won their independence long ago, but . . . in too many countries, power has been concentrated in the hands of a few. . . . But the events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and strategies of diversion will not work anymore. Satellite television and the Internet provide a window into the wider world. . . . Cell phones and social networks allow young people to connect and organize like never before. And so a new generation has emerged. And their voices tell us that change cannot be denied. . . . The United States supports a set of universal rights. And these rights include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders. . . . History shows that countries are more prosperous and more peaceful when women are empowered. And that’s why we will continue to insist that universal rights apply to women as well as men. . . . Q U E S T I O N S For the American people, the scenes of upheaval 1. How does the National Security in the region may be unsettling, but the forces Strategy define the global mission of driving it are not unfamiliar. Our own nation was the United States? founded through a rebellion against an empire. Our people fought a painful Civil War that extended 2. How does President Obama hope to freedom and dignity to those who were enslaved. change American diplomacy in the And I would not be standing here today unless past Middle East? generations turned to the moral force of nonviolence as a way to perfect our union—organizing, marching, 3. What are the areas of agreement and protesting peacefully together to make real those disagreement between these two state- words that declared our nation: “We hold these ments about the role of the United truths to be self-evident, that all men are created States in the world? equal.” V O I C E S O F F R E E D O M 899 Americans, including many who had not voted for him, viewed Obama’s election as a cause for optimism. On January 20, 2009, a day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and more than forty-five years after King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Obama was inaugurated as president. More than 1 million people traveled to Washington to view the historic event. In his Obama’s first inaugural inaugural address Obama offered a stark rebuke to eight years of Bush address policies and, more broadly, to the premises that had shaped government policy since the election of Reagan. He promised a foreign policy based on diplomacy rather than unilateral force, pledged to protect the environ- ment, spoke of the need to combat income inequality and lack of access to health care, and blamed a culture of “greed and irresponsibility” for help- ing to bring on the economic crisis. He promised to renew respect for the Constitution. Instead of freedom, he spoke of community and responsibil- ity. His address harked back to the revolutionary-era ideal of putting the common good before individual self-interest. O b a m a i n O f f i c e In many ways, Obama’s first policy initiatives lived up to the prom- In the spring of 2009, Republicans ise of change. In his first three months, he barred the use of torture, and independents opposed to launched a diplomatic initiative to repair relations with the Muslim President Obama’s “stimulus” plan held “tea parties” around the country, world, reversed the previous administration’s executive orders limiting seeking to invoke the tradition of the women’s reproductive rights, and abandoned Bush’s rhetoric about a Boston Tea Party and its opposition God-given American mission to spread freedom throughout the world. to taxation. In this demonstration in When Supreme Court justice David Souter announced his retirement, Austin, Texas, some participants wore Obama named Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman in hats reminiscent of the revolutionary the Court’s history, to replace him. In 2010, Obama appointed a second era. One participant carries a sign urging the state to secede from the woman, Elena Kagan, to the Court. Union. Obama’s first budget recalled the New Deal and Great Society. Breaking with the Reagan-era motto, “Government is the problem, not the solu- tion,” it anticipated active government support for health-care reform, clean energy, and public education, paid for in part by allowing Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy to expire in 2010. He pushed through Congress a “stimulus” package amounting to nearly $800 billion in new govern- ment spending—for construction projects, the extension of unemployment benefits, and aid to the states to enable them to balance their bud- gets. The largest single spending appropriation in American history, the bill was meant to pump 900 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What kinds of change did voters hope for when they elected Barack Obama? money into the economy in order to save and create jobs and to ignite a resumption of economic activity. For most of Obama’s first year in office, congressional debate revolved around a plan to restructure the nation’s health care system so as to pro- vide insurance coverage to the millions of Americans who lacked it, and to end abusive practices by insurance companies, such as their refusal to cover patients with existing illnesses. After months of increasingly bitter debate, in March 2010, Congress passed a sweeping health-care bill that required all Americans to purchase health insurance and most businesses to provide it to their employees. It also offered subsidies to persons of modest incomes so they could afford insurance and required insurance companies to accept all applicants. The legislation aroused strong partisan opposition. Claiming that it amounted to a “government takeover” of the health-care industry, every Republican in Congress voted against the bill. The design for the Freedom Tower Another far-reaching piece of legislation followed in July 2010. This at the World Trade Center One. The building illustrates the juxtaposition was a law to overhaul regulation of the financial industry so as to prevent of optimism and fear a decade a repetition of the abuses that had led to the economic crash. It subjected after the terrorist attacks of 2001. to public oversight the huge market in derivatives—exotic financial instru- The soaring tower underscores ments that were basically bets that some element of the economy would Americans’ capacity for recovery and fail; limited banks’ speculative investments; and established a consumer regeneration. But at the insistence of the New York City police, the protection agency to stop predatory lending and fees by banks, credit base consists of reinforced concrete, cards, and mortgage companies. The law marked an end to several decades giving the building, at ground level, when banks had been given a free hand to engage in any practice, honest or the appearance of a fortress. The dishonest, they deemed profitable. two rectangles, planned as reflecting Obama had come into office promising an era of cooperation between pools, mark the “footprints” of the the parties. But with Republicans overwhelmingly opposing every one of original twin towers. his policy initiatives, the atmosphere in Washington became more and more partisan. One of his key proposals, a plan to combat global warm- ing by limiting factory emissions, had to be abandoned because it could not muster the 60 votes needed to end debate in the Senate. Immigration reform remained stalled, as the recession inflamed hostility to illegal immi- grants and to any proposal that offered them a path to legalized status. Taken together, the measures of Obama’s first year and a half in office saw the most dramatic domestic reform legislation since the Great Society of the 1960s. “Change”—the slogan of his election campaign—was significant but did not go far enough for many of his supporters. The health care bill failed to include a “public option,” in which the govern- ment itself would offer medical insurance to those who desired it (much like Medicare for elderly Americans). Obama chose his economic advisers from Wall Street and continued the Bush administration policy of pouring taxpayer money into the banks. Little was done to help home owners fac- ing foreclosure. T H E R I S E O F O B A M A 901 O B A M A ’ S F I R S T T E R M T h e C o n t i n u i n g E c o n o m i c C r i s i s During 2008 and 2009 the economy lost 8 million jobs. Although the reces- sion officially ended in mid-2009, economic growth was so anemic that unemployment remained stubbornly high throughout Obama’s first term in A weak recovery office. The poverty rate in 2011 exceeded 15 percent, its highest level in twenty years. With housing prices still falling, Americans found their net worth reduced by trillions of dollars from the height of the housing bubble. Thus, they cut back on borrowing and spending, adding to the economy’s malaise. The deep recession and feeble recovery exacerbated structural trends long under way. Manufacturing employment, which once offered a route into the middle class for those (mostly men) with limited education, remained several million jobs lower than in 2000. Job growth was con- centrated at either the high or low ends of the pay scale. Indeed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2012 projected that over the next decade, the largest areas of job growth would be in office work, sales, food preparation and service, child care, home health aides, and janitors—every one of which paid less than the median annual wage. All this exacerbated the tendency toward economic inequality. African-Americans and Ironically, under the nation’s first black president, African-Americans the recession suffered most severely from the recession. A far higher proportion of blacks’ family wealth was in their homes compared with whites, so the collapse of the housing bubble devastated their economic status. In 2011, the median family wealth of white families was $92,000, that of blacks only $4,900. O b a m a a n d t h e W o r l d The most dramatic achievement of Obama’s presidency in foreign affairs was fulfilment of his campaign promise to end American involvement in the Iraq War. At the end of 2011, the last American soldiers came home. Nearly 5,000 Americans and, according to the estimates of U.S. and Iraqi analysts, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them civilians, had died End of Iraq War during this eight-year conflict. The war had cost the United States nearly $2 trillion, an almost unimaginable sum. Whether it would produce a stable, democratic Iraq remained to be seen. At the same time, Obama continued many of the policies of his predecessor. He dramatically increased the American troop presence in Afghanistan, while pledging to withdraw American forces by the end of 902 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What kinds of change did voters hope for when they elected Barack Obama? 2014. By 2012, polls showed that a large majority of Americans felt the war was a mistake and wanted it to end. Like many of his predecessors, Obama found that criticizing presi- dential power from outside is one thing, dismantling it another. As noted above, in his first weeks in office he banned the use of torture. But he reversed his previous promise to abolish the military tribunals Bush had Fighting terrorism established and to close the military prison at Guantánamo, Cuba. And in 2011 he signed a four-year extension of key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act originally passed under Bush. In May 2011, to wide acclaim in the United States, Obama authorized an armed raid into Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, who had been hiding there for years. More controversially, Obama claimed the right to order the assas- sination of American citizens in foreign countries if evidence indicated their connection with terrorism. And in 2011, when he sent the air force to participate in a NATO campaign that assisted rebels who overthrew Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Obama did not seek congressional approval of the action. All told, Obama’s conduct of foreign affairs proved to be considerably more bellicose than either his supporters or opponents had expected. Events overseas presented new challenges and opportunities for the Obama administration. To the surprise of almost everyone, beginning in 2011 popular revolts swept the Middle East. Uprisings brought millions of people into the streets, toppling long-serving dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Freedom emerged as the rallying cry of those challenging auto- cratic governments. “I’m in Tahrir Square,” one demonstrator yelled into Millions of Egyptians took part in his cell phone while standing at the epicenter of the Egyptian revolution. the popular uprising of 2011 that “In freedom, in freedom, in freedom.” Once again, the tension between overthrew the long-serving dictator Hosni Mubarak. the ideals of freedom and democracy and American strategic interests posed a diffi- cult challenge for policymakers. After some hesitation, the United States sided with those seeking the ouster of Egyptian dicta- tor Hosni Moubarak, a staunch American ally. It then stood on the sidelines through- out 2011 and 2012 as Egypt lurched from popular uprising to military rule to elec- toral victory by the Muslim Brotherhood, a previously illegal Islamic group, to a military coup in 2013, with the final out- come of the revolution always in doubt. In Bahrain, however, an oil-rich principality O B A M A ’ S F I R S T T E R M 903 in the Persian Gulf and home base of the American Fifth Fleet, the Obama administration looked the other way when the autocratic government sup- pressed popular discontent with force. T h e R e p u b l i c a n R e v i v a l In nearly all midterm elections in American history the party in power has lost seats in Congress. But Democrats faced more serious difficulties than usual in the midterm elections of 2010. Grassroots Republicans were energized by hostility to Obama’s sweeping legislative enactments. The Tea Party, named for the Boston tea party of the 1770s and inspired by Grassroots support its opposition to taxation by a far-away government, mobilized grassroots opposition to the administration. For a time, some activists denied that Obama was legally president at all, claiming that he had been born in Africa, not in the United States. (In fact, he was born in Hawaii.) With their opponents energized and their own supporters demoral- ized by the slow pace of economic recovery, Democrats suffered a severe reversal. Republicans swept to control of the House of Representatives and substantially reduced the Democratic majority in the Senate. The result produced two years of political gridlock. But if Tea Party–inspired conservative Republicans could not get their way in Washington, their gains at the state level in 2010 unleashed a rash of new legislation. Several states moved to curtail abortion rights. In the name of combating a supposed epidemic of voting fraud, several required voters to present a state-issued photo identification card such as a driver’s license, an obstacle for poor Americans who did not own such a document, and restricted the ability of groups like the League of Women Voters to register new members of the electorate. Taken together, these measures represented the strongest effort to limit the right to vote since the early twentieth century. The immigration issue New conservative legislatures also took aim at undocumented immi- grants. Alabama, which has no land border with a foreign country and a small population of immigrants, enacted the harshest measure, making it a crime for illegal immigrants to apply for a job and for anyone to transport them, even to a church or hospital. During the contest for the Republican presidential nomination in early 2012, candidates vied with each other to demonstrate their determination to drive illegal immigrants from the country. Oddly, all this took place at a time when illegal immi- gration from Mexico, the largest source of undocumented workers, had ceased almost completely because of stricter controls at the border and the drying up of available jobs because of the recession. These measures 904 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What kinds of change did voters hope for when they elected Barack Obama? associated the Republican Party with intense nativism in the minds of many Hispanic voters. In 2008, Obama had received around 70 percent of the Hispanic vote, and in 2012 he seemed likely to come close to that figure again. T h e O c c u p y M o v e m e n t While most grassroots activism in 2011 and 2012 came from the right, these years also witnessed the emergence of a movement that targeted the depredations of Wall Street banks. On September 17, 2011, a few dozen young protesters unrolled sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park, in the heart of New York City’s financial district. They vowed to remain—to Occupy Wall Street as they put it—as a protest against growing economic inequal- An Occupy Wall Street demonstrator ity, declining opportunity, and the banks’ malfeasance. expresses her concern about rising Over the next few weeks, hundreds of people camped out in the park, economic inequality. and thousands took part in rallies organized by the Occupy movement. Similar encampments sprang up in cities across the country. Using social media and the Internet, the Occupy movement spread its message far and wide. In the spring of 2012, public authorities began to evict the protest- ers. But its language, especially the charge that “the one percent” (the very “The one percent” richest Americans) dominated political and economic life, had entered the political vocabulary. T h e 2 0 1 2 C a m p a i g n Despite the continuing economic crisis, sociocultural issues played a major role in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, as can- didates vied to win the support of the evangelical Christians who formed a major part of the party’s base. The front-runner was Mitt Romney, the Mitt Romney former governor of Massachusetts. Romney had made a fortune direct- ing Bain Capital, a firm that specialized in buying up other companies and then reselling them at a profit after restructuring them, which often involved firing large numbers of employees. But the party’s powerful conservative wing disliked Romney because of his moderate record (as governor he had instituted a state health care plan remarkably similar to Obama’s 2010 legislation) and a distrust of his Mormon faith among many evangelical Christians. Eventually, using his personal fortune to outspend his rivals by an enormous amount, Romney emerged as the Republican candidate, the first Mormon to win a major party’s nomination—a significant moment in the history of religious toleration in the United States. He chose as his running O B A M A ’ S F I R S T T E R M 905 mate Congressman Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, a favorite of the Tea Party and a Roman Catholic. For the first time in its history, the Republican Party’s ticket did not contain a traditional Protestant. President Obama began the 2012 campaign with numerous liabili- ties. The enthusiasm that greeted his election had long since faded as the worst economic slump since the Great Depression dragged on, and voters became fed up with both president and Congress because of the intensity of partisanship and legislative gridlock. The war in Afghanistan was increas- ingly unpopular and his signature health care law under ferocious assault by Republicans (although to the surprise of many observers, the Supreme Court in June 2012 held most of the law’s provisions constitutional, with the conser- vative chief justice, John G. Roberts Jr., writing the opinion). Obama’s reelection Nonetheless, after a heated campaign, Obama emerged victorious, winning 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206, and 51 percent of the popu- lar vote to his opponent’s 47 percent. At the same time, while Democrats gained a few seats in the House and Senate, the balance of power in Washington remained unchanged with a Democratic president and Senate and a Republican House. This set the stage for continued partisan infighting and political gridlock during Obama’s second term. Obama’s victory stemmed from many causes, including an extremely efficient get-out-the-vote organization on election day and Romney’s weaknesses as a campaigner. Romney T H E P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N never managed to shed the image of a O F 2 0 1 2 millionaire who used loopholes to avoid paying taxes (his federal tax rate of 14 per- cent was lower than that of most working- 12 3 3 4 4 class Americans). Many people believed 3 7 10 he held ordinary people in contempt, par- 4 3 10 29 11 3 16 4 ticularly after he was videotaped making 20 6 5 6 7 14 an off-the-cuff remark that 47 percent of 6 20 11 18 3 55 9 5 13 10 the people would not vote for him because 6 10 8 3 11 R 15 they were “victims” dependent on govern- 11 5 7 6 9 ment payments like Medicare and Social 6 9 16 38 Security. But more important, as in 2008, 8 4 the result reflected the new diversity of 3 29 the American population in the twenty- first century. Romney won 60 percent of Electoral Vote Popular Vote the white vote, which in previous elec- Party Candidate (Share) (Share) tions would have guaranteed victory. But Democrat Obama 332 (61.7%) 65,899,660 (51%) Republican Romney 206 (38.3%) 60,932,152 (47%) Obama carried over 90 percent of the black vote and over 70 percent of Asians 906 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises What kinds of change did voters hope for when they elected Barack Obama? and Hispanics. In 1990, only 2 percent of the electorate was Hispanic. In 2012 that figure had risen to 10 percent, which gave Obama a margin of over 5 million votes. With the minority population on the increase, these A rising Hispanic population figures heralded future difficulties for the Republican Party unless it modified its strong anti-immigration rhetoric. The 2012 election reflected the new diversity in other ways as well. Hawaii elected Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu to serve in Congress, and the first Buddhist, Mazie K. Hirono, to the Senate. And for the first time, popular referendums in Maine and Maryland registered approval of gay marriage, bringing to nine the number of states where such marriages were now lawful. But perhaps the most striking feature of the 2012 election was the unprecedented amount of money spent on the campaign. In 2010, Campaign funding in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court had overturned federal restrictions on political con- tributions by corporations. At the same time, political action committees were allowed to spend as much money as they wished supporting or denigrating candidates for office so long as they did not coordinate their activities with the candidates’ campaigns. Meanwhile, the Romney and Obama campaigns themselves raised and spent hundreds of millions of dol- lars from individual donors. All this resulted in an election that cost, tak- ing presidential and congressional races combined, some 6 billion dollars. L E A R N I N G F R O M H I S T O R Y “The owl of Minerva takes flight at dusk.” Minerva was the Roman god- Seeking the lessons of history: a dess of wisdom, and this saying suggests that the meaning of events young visitor at the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. only becomes clear once they are over. It is still far too soon to assess the full impact of September 11 on American life and the long-term consequences of the changes at home and abroad it inspired. As of early 2013 the world seemed far more unstable than anyone could have pre- dicted when the Cold War ended nearly twenty years earlier. An end to the war on terror seemed as remote as ever. The future of Iraq and Afghanistan remained uncer- tain. No settlement of the long-standing conflict between Israel and its Arab neigh- bors seemed in sight. Iran, its power in the region enhanced by the American removal L E A R N I N G F R O M H I S T O R Y 907 of its chief rival, Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, appeared to be bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, which the United States vowed to prevent, raising the prospect of future conflict. Other regions of the world also presented daunting problems for American policymakers, most notably China’s rapidly growing economic power, which challenged American predominance. No one could predict how any of these crises, or others yet unimag- ined, would be resolved. An evolving concept of What is clear is that September 11 and its aftermath drew new attention freedom to essential elements of the history of American freedom. As in the past, freedom is central to Americans’ sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation. Americans continue to debate contemporary issues in a politi- cal landscape shaped by ideas of freedom. Indeed, freedom remains, as it has always been, an evolving concept, its definition open to disagreement, its boundaries never fixed or final. Freedom is neither self-enforcing nor self-correcting. It cannot be taken for granted, and its preservation requires eternal vigilance, especially in times of crisis. More than half a century ago, the African-American poet Langston Hughes urged Americans both to celebrate the freedoms they enjoy and to remember that freedom has always been incomplete: There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I know You would know why. 908 C h a p t e r 2 8 ★ A New Century and New Crises C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S K E Y T E R M S Kyoto Protocol (p. 876) 1. How did the foreign policy initiatives of the George W. Bush Doctrine (p. 877) Bush administration depart from the policies of other war in Afghanistan (p. 878) presidents since World War II? “war on terror” (p. 878) “axis of evil” (p. 878) 2. How did the September 11 attacks transform Americans’ Iraq War (p. 880) understanding of their security? How did the response USA PATRIOT Act (p. 883) compare to that after Pearl Harbor? Guantánamo Bay detention camp (p. 883) 3. What are the similarities of and differences between Hurricane Katrina (p. 886) America’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq since Lawrence v. Texas (p. 889) housing bubble (p. 891) 2001? Great Recession (p. 892) federal bailout (p. 894) 4. In what ways did Americans—leaders and citizens— Hillary Rodham Clinton (p. 895) draw lessons from Vietnam when considering U.S. Sonia Sotomayor (p. 900) involvement in Iraq? “stimulus” package (p. 900) Tea Party (p. 904) 5. What does the war on terrorism suggest about the Occupy Wall Street (p. 905) tension between freedom and security as priorities political action committees of the United States? (p. 907) 6. What were the goals and impact of the Bush administration’s economic policies? 7. How did Supreme Court decisions since 2001 indicate that the rights revolution was here to stay? wwnorton.com 8. What were the political and social effects of Hurricane /studyspace Katrina? Which were lasting? VISIT STUDYSPACE FOR THESE 9. In what ways did the Obama administration diverge RESOURCES AND MORE from the policies of other recent administrations? s In what ways was it similar? s s 10. How did the 2012 election reveal changes in American s political and social practices? How did it represent s continuities? C H A P T E R R E V I E W A N D O N L I N E R E S O U R C E S 909  A P P E N D I X  D O C U M E N T S The Declaration of Independence (1776) A- 2 The Constitution of the United States (1787) A-5 From George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796) A-17 The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848) A- 22 From Frederick Douglass’s “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?” Speech (1852) A- 25 The Gettysburg Address (1863) A- 29 Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (1865) A- 30 The Populist Platform of 1892 A- 31 Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address (1933) A- 34 From The Program for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963) A-37 Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address (1981) A-38 Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address (2009) A-42 T A B L E S A N D F I G U R E S Presidential Elections A- 46 Admission of States A- 54 Population of the United States A- 55 Historical Statistics of the United States: Labor Force—Selected Characteristics Expressed as a Percentage of the Labor Force, 1800–2010 A-56 Immigration, by Origin A- 56 Unemployment Rate, 1890–2013 A- 57 Voter Participation in Presidential Elections 1824–2012 A-57 Union Membership as a Percentage of Nonagricultural Employment, 1880–2012 A-57 Birthrate, 1820–2011 A-57 S U G G E S T E D R E A D I N G S ... A - 5 9 G L O S S A R Y ... A - 6 9 C R E D I T S ... A - 9 7 I N D E X ... A - 9 9 A p p e n d i x A - 1 T H E D E C L A R A T I O N O F I N D E P E N D E N C E ( 1 7 7 6 ) When in the course of human events, it becomes neces- States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid sary for one people to dissolve the political bands which world. have connected them with another, and to assume He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal wholesome and necessary for the public good. station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended mankind requires that they should declare the causes in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; which impel them to the separation. and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all attend to them. men are created equal, that they are endowed by their He has refused to pass other Laws for the accom- Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among modation of large districts of people, unless those these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. people would relinquish the right of Representation That to secure these rights, Governments are insti- in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and tuted among Men, deriving their just powers from the formidable to tyrants only. consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of He has called together legislative bodies at places Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the deposi- the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to tory of their public Records, for the sole purpose of institute new Government, laying its foundation on fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. such principles and organizing its powers in such He has dissolved Representative Houses repeat- form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their edly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate on the rights of the people. that Governments long established should not be He has refused for a long time, after such dis- changed for light and transient causes; and accord- solutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the ingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, returned to the People at large for their exercise; the than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to State remaining in the mean time exposed to all dangers which they are accustomed. But when a long train of invasion from without, and convulsions within. of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the He has endeavoured to prevent the population of same Object evinces a design to reduce them under these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to throw off such Government, and to provide new to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the Guards for their future security.—Such has been the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, the necessity which constrains them to alter their by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judi- former Systems of Government. The history of the ciary powers. present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and pay- the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these ment of their salaries. A - 2 A p p e n d i x He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their and eat out their substance. Country, to become the executioners of their friends He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst He has affected to render the Military indepen- us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants dent of and superior to the Civil Power. of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose He has combined with others to subject us to known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruc- a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unac- tion of all ages, sexes, and conditions. knowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their In every stage of these Oppressions We have Acts of pretended Legislation: Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: For quartering large bodies of armed troops Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by among us: repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Pun- marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is ishment for any Murders which they should commit unfit to be the ruler of a free people. on the Inhabitants of these States: Nor have We been wanting in attention to our Brit- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the ish brethren. We have warned them from time to time world: of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwar- For imposing taxes on us without our Consent: rantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them For depriving us of many cases, of the benefits of of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement Trial by jury: here. We have appealed to their native justice and For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties pretended offences: of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, For abolishing the free System of English Laws which, would inevitably interrupt our connections in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an and correspondence. They too must have been deaf Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, so as to render it at once an example and fit instru- therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces ment for introducing the same absolute rule into these our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Colonies: mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our WE, THEREFORE, the Representatives of the most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Con- Forms of our Governments: gress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge For suspending our own Legislatures, and declar- of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, ing themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of in all cases whatsoever. these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That He has abdicated Government here, by declaring these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be us out of his Protection and waging War against us. FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. that all political connection between them and the State He is at this time transporting large armies of of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, and that as Free and Independent States, they have full desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circum- Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, stances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of Things which Independent States may of right do. And a civilized nation. for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance T h e D e c l a r a t i o n o f I n d e p e n d e n c e ( 1 7 7 6 ) A - 3 on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually The foregoing Declaration was, by order of pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Congress, engrossed, and signed by the following sacred Honor. members: John Hancock NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW YORK DELAWARE NORTH CAROLINA Josiah Bartlett William Floyd Caesar Rodney William Hooper William Whipple Philip Livingston George Read Joseph Hewes Matthew Thornton Francis Lewis Thomas M’Kean John Penn Lewis Morris MASSACHUSETTS BAY MARYLAND SOUTH CAROLINA Samuel Adams NEW JERSEY Samuel Chase Edward Rutledge John Adams Richard Stockton William Paca Thomas Heyward, Jr. Robert Treat Paine John Witherspoon Thomas Stone Thomas Lynch, Jr. Elbridge Gerry Francis Hopkinson Charles Carroll, of Arthur Middleton John Hart Carrollton RHODE ISLAND Abraham Clark GEORGIA Stephen Hopkins VIRGINIA Button Gwinnett William Ellery PENNSYLVANIA George Wythe Lyman Hall Robert Morris Richard Henry Lee George Walton CONNECTICUT Benjamin Rush Thomas Jefferson Roger Sherman Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Harrison Samuel Huntington John Morton Thomas Nelson, Jr. William Williams George Clymer Francis Lightfoot Lee Oliver Wolcott James Smith Carter Braxton George Taylor James Wilson George Ross Resolved, That copies of the Declaration be sent to the officers of the continental troops; that it be proclaimed several assemblies, conventions, and committees, or in each of the United States, at the head of the army. councils of safety, and to the several commanding A - 4 A p p e n d i x T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N O F T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S ( 1 7 8 7 ) We the People of the United States, in order to form a dence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty Carolina five, and Georgia three. to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish When vacancies happen in the Representation this Constitution for the United States of America. from any state, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. A R T I C L E . I . The House of Representatives shall chuse their Section. 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall Power of Impeachment. consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. Section. 3. The Senate of the United States shall be Section. 2. The House of Representatives shall be com- composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by posed of Members chosen every second Year by the the legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator People of the several States, and the Electors in each shall have one Vote. State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors Immediately after they shall be assembled in of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature. Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided No Person shall be a Representative who shall not as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third in which he shall be chosen. Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one Representatives and direct Taxes shall be appor- third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacan- tioned among the several States which may be included cies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the within this Union, according to their respective Num- Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive bers, which shall be determined by adding to the thereof may make temporary Appointments until the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians such Vacancies. not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have Enumeration shall be made within three Years after attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number be chosen. of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty The Vice President of the United States shall be Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Rep- President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless resentative; and until such enumeration shall be made, they be equally divided. the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode- Island and Provi- also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the T h e C o n s t i t u t i o n o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s ( 1 7 8 7 ) A - 5 Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of Neither House, during the Session of Congress, President of the United States. shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all more than three days, not to any other Place than that Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they in which the two Houses shall be sitting. shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall Section. 6. The Senators and Representatives shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascer- Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. tained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, extend further than to removal from Office, and dis- Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from qualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party respective Houses, and in going to and returning from convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, accord- they shall not be questioned in any other Place. ing to Law. No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any Section. 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding civil Office under the Authority of the United States, Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be which shall have been created, or the Emoluments prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but whereof shall have been encreased during such time; the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter and no Person holding any Office under the United such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing States, shall be a Member of either House during his Senators. Continuance in Office. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in Section. 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may Day. propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Section. 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elec- Representatives and the Senate shall, before it become a tions, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, Law, be presented to the President of the United States; and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Atten- have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large dance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Penalties as each House may provide. such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall Each House may determine the Rules of its Pro- agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the ceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behav- Objections, to the other House, by which it shall like- iour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a wise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of Member. that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceed- the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas ings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after Present, be entered on the Journal. it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be A - 6 A p p e n d i x a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the To raise and support Armies, but no Appropria- Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in tion of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term which Case it shall not be a Law. than two Years; Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the To provide and maintain a Navy; Concurrence of the Senate and House of Represen- To make Rules for the Government and Regula- tatives may be necessary (except on a question of tion of the land and naval Forces; Adjournment) shall be presented to the President To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute of the United States; and before the Same shall take the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved repel Invasions; by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplin- and House of Representatives, according to the Rules ing, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill. may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; the Debts and provide for the common Defence and To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases what- general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, soever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the United States; Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Govern- To borrow Money on the credit of the United ment of the United States, and to exercise like Author- States; ity over all Places purchased by the Consent of the To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock- Yards, To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and other needful Buildings;— And and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies To make all Laws which shall be necessary and throughout the United States; proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Pow- To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and ers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and the Government of the United States, or in any Depart- Measures; ment or Officer thereof. To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; Section. 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons To establish Post Offices and Post Roads; as any of the States now existing shall think proper to To promote the Progress of Science and useful admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writ- Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not ings and Discoveries; exceeding ten dollars for each Person. To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall Court; not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or To define and punish Piracies and Felonies com- Invasion the public Safety may require it. mitted on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be of Nations; passed. To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration Land and Water; herein before directed to be taken. T h e C o n s t i t u t i o n o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s ( 1 7 8 7 ) A - 7 No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported together with the Vice President, chosen for the same from any State. Term, be elected, as follows: No Preference shall be given by any Regulation Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Repre- one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in sentatives to which the State may be entitled in the another. Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and States, shall be appointed an Elector. a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and The Electors shall meet in their respective States, Expenditures of all public Money shall be published and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at from time to time. least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or to the Seat of the Government of the United States, Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or directed to the President of the Senate. The President foreign State. of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and Section. 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alli- the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the ance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment appointed; and if there be more than one who have such of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by any Title of Nobility. Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a No State shall, without the Consent of the Con- Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said gress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in except what may be absolutely necessary for executing chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, its inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties the Representation from each State having one Vote; A and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Controul of the Congress. Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War Vice President. But if there should remain two or more in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage by Ballot the Vice President. in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent The Congress may determine the Time of chusing Danger as will not admit of delay. the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the A R T I C L E . I I . United States. Section. 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a President of the United States of America. He shall Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption hold his Office during the term of four Years, and, of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of A - 8 A p p e n d i x President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that provided for, and which shall be established by Law; Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the the United States. President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads In Case of the Removal of the President from of Departments. Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to The President shall have Power to fill up all discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, at the End of their next Session. Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then Section. 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, Information of the State of the Union, and recommend until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge elected. necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary The President shall, at stated Times, receive for Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect encreased or diminished during the Period for which to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive within that Period any other Emolument from the Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take United States, or any of them. Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Before he enters on the Execution of his Office, he Commission all the Officers of the United States. shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute Section. 4. The President, Vice President and all civil the Office of President of the United States, and will to Officers of the United States, shall be removed from the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Trea- Constitution of the United States.” son, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Section. 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief A R T I C L E . I I I . of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of Section. 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall the Militia of the several States, when called into the be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior actual Service of the United States; he may require Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Services, a Compensation, which shall not be dimin- Offences against the United States, except in Cases of ished during their Continuance in Office. Impeachment. He shall have Power, by and with the Advice Section. 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, pro- in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, vided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United Jurisdiction;—the Controversies to which the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between T h e C o n s t i t u t i o n o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s ( 1 7 8 7 ) A - 9 two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of executive Authority of the State from which he fled, another State;—between Citizens of different States;— be delivered up, to be removed to the State having between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands Jurisdiction of the Crime. under Grants of different States, and between a State, No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, Subjects. in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Service or Labour may be due. Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, Section. 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeach- any State be formed by the Junction of two or more ment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in States, or Parts of States, without the consent of the the State where the said Crimes shall have been com- Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the mitted; but when not committed within any State, the Congress. Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and may by Law have directed. make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United Section. 3. Treason against the United States, shall States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so consist only in levying War against them, or in adher- construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United ing to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. States, or of any particular States. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or Section. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every on Confession in open Court. State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, The Congress shall have Power to declare the and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against during the Life of the Person attainted. domestic Violence. A R T I C L E . I V . A R T I C L E . V . Section. 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceed- shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments ings of every other State. And the Congress may by to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, the Effect thereof. in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Pur- poses, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by Section. 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one States. or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by A Person charged in any State with Treason, the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first A - 10 A p p e n d i x and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first the United States and of the several States, shall be Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Consti- deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. tution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the A R T I C L E . V I . United States. All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as A R T I C L E . V I I . valid against the United States under this Constitution, The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall as under the Confederation. be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution This Constitution, and the Laws of the United between the States so ratifying the Same. States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws States of America the Twelfth. In witness thereof We of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. have hereunto subscribed our Names, The Senators and Representatives before men- tioned, and the Members of the several State Legisla- Go. WASHINGTON— Presdt. tures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of and deputy from Virginia NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW JERSEY DELAWARE NORTH CAROLINA John Langdon Wil: Livingston Geo: Read Wm Blount Nicholas Gilman David A. Brearley Gunning Bedford jun Richd Dobbs Spaight Wm Paterson John Dickinson Hu Williamson MASSACHUSETTS Jona: Dayton Richard Bassett Nathaniel Gorham Jaco: Broom SOUTH CAROLINA Rufus King PENNSYLVANIA J. Rutledge B Franklin MARYLAND Charles Cotesworth CONNECTICUT Thomas Mifflin James McHenry Pinckney Wm Saml Johnson Robt Morris Dan of St Thos Jenifer Charles Pinckney Roger Sherman Geo. Clymer Danl Carroll Pierce Butler Thos FitzSimons NEW YORK Jared Ingersoll VIRGINIA GEORGIA Alexander Hamilton James Wilson John Blair— William Few Gouv Morris James Madison Jr. Abr Baldwin T h e C o n s t i t u t i o n o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s ( 1 7 8 7 ) A - 11 A M E N D M E N T S T O T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Con- without due process of law; nor shall private property stitution of the United States of America, proposed by be taken for public use, without just compensation. Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the sev- eral States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original A M E N D M E N T V I . Constitution. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall A M E N D M E N T I . have been committed, which district shall have been Congress shall make no law respecting an establish- previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. A M E N D M E N T I I . A M E N D M E N T V I I . A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the secu- In Suits at common law, where the value in contro- rity of a free State, the right of the people to keep and versy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by bear Arms, shall not be infringed. jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re- examined in any Court of the A M E N D M E N T I I I . United States, than according to the rules of the com- No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any mon law. house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. A M E N D M E N T V I I I . Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive A M E N D M E N T I V . fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments The right of the people to be secure in their per- inflicted. sons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreason- able searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and A M E N D M E N T I X . no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly shall not be construed to deny or disparage others describing the place to be searched, and the persons or retained by the people. things to be seized. A M E N D M E N T X . A M E N D M E N T V . The powers not delegated to the United States by the No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in A M E N D M E N T X I . actual service in time of War or public danger; nor The Judicial power of the United States shall not be shall any person be subject for the same offence to construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, com- be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be menced or prosecuted against one of the United States compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, of any Foreign State. [January 8, 1798] A - 12 A p p e n d i x A M E N D M E N T X I I . A M E N D M E N T X I I I . The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, vote by ballot for President and Vice- President, one except as a punishment for crime whereof the party of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within same state with themselves; they shall name in their the United States, or any place subject to their ballots the person voted for as President, and in dis- jurisdiction. tinct ballots the person voted for as Vice- President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice article by appropriate legislation. [December 18, 1865] President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed A M E N D M E N T X I V . to the seat of the government of the United States, Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United directed to the President of the Senate;—The President States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citi- of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and zens of the United States and of the State wherein they House of Representatives, open all the certificates and reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which the votes shall then be counted;—The person having shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any President, if such number be a majority of the whole person of life, liberty, or property, without due process number of Electors appointed; and if no person have of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction such majority, then from the persons having the high- the equal protection of the laws. est numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. the several States according to their respective num- But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken bers, counting the whole number of persons in each by states, the representation from each state having State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of to vote at any election for the choice of electors for a member or members from two- thirds of the states, President and Vice President of the United States, Rep- and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a resentatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature choose a President whenever the right of choice shall thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March State, being twenty- one years of age, and citizens of next following, then the Vice- President shall act as the United States, or in any way abridged, except for President, as in the case of the death or other constitu- participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of tional disability of the President.—The person having representation therein shall be reduced in the propor- the greatest number of votes as Vice- President, shall be tion which the number of such male citizens shall bear the Vice- President, if such number be a majority of the to the whole number of male citizens twenty- one years whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person of age in such State. have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice- President; Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representa- a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two- thirds tive in Congress, or elector of President and Vice of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But the United States, or under any State, who, having no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or President shall be eligible to that of Vice- President of as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any the United States. [September 25, 1804] State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer T h e C o n s t i t u t i o n o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s ( 1 7 8 7 ) A - 13 of any State, to support the Constitution of the United When vacancies happen in the representation of States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacan- thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two- thirds of cies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may each House, remove such disability. empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United election as the legislature may direct. States, authorized by law, including debts incurred This amendment shall not be so construed as to for payment of pensions and bounties for services in affect the election or term of any senator chosen before suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be it becomes valid as part of the Constitution. [May 31, questioned. But neither the United States nor any State 1913] shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United A M E N D M E N T X V I I I . States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any After one year from the ratification of this article, the slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating be held illegal and void. liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all ter- Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by ritory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. purposes is hereby prohibited. [July 28, 1868] The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate A M E N D M E N T X V . legislation. Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to This article shall be inoperative unless it shall vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution States or by any State on account of race, color, or by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in previous condition of servitude— the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission thereof to the States by Congress. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this [January 29, 1919] article by appropriate legislation. [March 30, 1870] A M E N D M E N T X I X . A M E N D M E N T X V I . The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes not be denied or abridged by the United States or by on incomes, from whatever source derived, without any State on account of sex. apportionment among the several States, and without The Congress shall have power by appropriate regard to any census or enumeration. [February 25, legislation to enforce the provisions of this article. 1913] [August 26, 1920] A M E N D M E N T X V I I . A M E N D M E N T X X . The Senate of the United States shall be composed of Section 1. The terms of the President and Vice- President two senators from each State, elected by the people shall end at noon on the twentieth day of January, and thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on vote. The electors in each State shall have the quali- the third day of January, of the years in which such fications requisite for electors of the most numerous terms would have ended if this article had not been rati- branch of the State legislatures. fied; and the terms of their successors shall then begin. A - 14 A p p e n d i x Section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in viola- every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the tion of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. third day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day. Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitu- Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the tion by convention in the several States, as provided in term of the President, the President- elect shall have the Constitution, within seven years from the date of died, the Vice- President- elect shall become President. the submission thereof to the States by the Congress. If a President shall not have been chosen before the [December 5, 1933] time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President- elect shall have failed to qualify, then A M E N D M E N T X X I I . the Vice- President- elect shall act as President until Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the a President shall have qualified; and the Congress President more than twice, and no person who has may by law provide for the case wherein neither a held the office of President, or acted as President, for President- elect nor a Vice- President- elect shall have more than two years of a term to which some other per- qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or son was elected President shall be elected to the office the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, of the President more than once. But this Article shall and such person shall act accordingly until a President not apply to any person holding the office of President or Vice- President shall have qualified. when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the Section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the office of President, or acting as President, during the case of the death of any of the persons from whom term within which this Article becomes operative from the House of Representatives may choose a President holding the office of President or acting as President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon during the remainder of such term. them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice- President Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution them. by the legislatures of three- fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to Section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th the States by the Congress. [February 27, 1951] day of October following the ratification of this article. A M E N D M E N T X X I I I . Section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall Section 1. The District constituting the seat of govern- have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitu- ment of the United States shall appoint in such manner tion by the legislatures of three- fourths of the several as the Congress may direct: States within seven years from the date of its submis- A number of electors of President and Vice- sion. [February 6, 1933] President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District A M E N D M E N T X X I . would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the more than the least populous State; they shall be in Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of Section 2. The transportation or importation into any President and Vice- President, to be electors appointed State, Territory or possession of the United States for by a State; and they shall meet in the District and T h e C o n s t i t u t i o n o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s ( 1 7 8 7 ) A - 15 perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article resentatives their written declaration that the Presi- of amendment. dent is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting this article by appropriate legislation. [March 29, President. 1961] Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of A M E N D M E N T X X I V . the House of Representatives his written declaration Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers vote in any primary or other election for President or and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a Vice President, for electors for President or Vice Presi- majority of either the principal officers of the executive dent, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, departments or of such other body as Congress may by shall not be denied or abridged by the United States law provide, transmit within four days to the President or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House other tax. of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, article by appropriate legislation. [January 23, 1964] assembling within forty- eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty- one A M E N D M E N T X X V . days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from if Congress is not in session, within twenty- one days office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President after Congress is required to assemble, determines by shall become President. two- thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall President who shall take office upon confirmation by a resume the powers and duties of his office. [February 10, majority vote of both Houses of Congress. 1967] Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the A M E N D M E N T X X V I . President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who the House of Representatives his written declaration are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties denied or abridged by the United States or by any State of his office, and until he transmits to them a written on account of age. declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this President. article by appropriate legislation. [June 30, 1971] Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a major- A M E N D M E N T X X V I I . ity of either the principal officers of the executive No law, varying the compensation for the services departments or of such other body as Congress may of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect, by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore until an election of Representatives shall have inter- of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Rep- vened. [May 8, 1992] A - 16 A p p e n d i x F R O M G E O R G E W A S H I N G T O N ’ S F A R E W E L L A D D R E S S ( 1 7 9 6 ) Friends and Citizens: affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, The period for a new election of a citizen to administer which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly main- the executive government of the United States being tained; that its administration in every department not far distant, and the time actually arrived when may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, your thoughts must be employed in designating the the happiness of the people of these States, under the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the I should now apprise you of the resolution I have applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation formed, to decline being considered among the number which is yet a stranger to it. of those out of whom a choice is to be made. Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and    the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to In looking forward to the moment which is in- your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your tended to terminate the career of my public life, my frequent review, some sentiments which are the result feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowl- of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, edgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my and which appear to me all- important to the perma- beloved country for the many honors it has conferred nency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in which it has supported me; and for the opportunities them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable at- who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his tachment, by services faithful and persevering, though counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former resulted to our country from these services, let it always and not dissimilar occasion. be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every example in our annals, that under circumstances in ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is which the passions, agitated in every direction, were necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubi- The unity of government which constitutes you ous, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situ- one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it ations in which not unfrequently want of success has is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of the support of your tranquility at home, your peace your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it foresee that, from different causes and from different with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceas- quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices ing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress F r o m G e o r g e W a s h i n g t o n ’ s F a r e w e l l A d d r e s s ( 1 7 9 6 ) A - 17 against which the batteries of internal and external contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase enemies will be most constantly and actively (though the general mass of the national navigation, it looks often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infi- forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to nite moment that you should properly estimate the which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like immense value of your national union to your collec- intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the tive and individual happiness; that you should cherish progressive improvement of interior communications a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; by land and water, will more and more find a valuable accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; or manufactures at home. The West derives from the watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; dis- East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, countenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispens- frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to able outlets for its own productions to the weight, alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or influence, and the future maritime strength of the to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble various parts. community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure For this you have every inducement of sympathy by which the West can hold this essential advantage, and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common whether derived from its own separate strength, or country, that country has a right to concentrate your from an apostate and unnatural connection with any affections. The name of American, which belongs to foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious. you in your national capacity, must always exalt the While, then, every part of our country thus feels just pride of patriotism more than any appellation an immediate and particular interest in union, all the derived from local discriminations. With slight shades parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of difference, you have the same religion, manners, of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, habits, and political principles. You have in a common proportionably greater security from external danger, cause fought and triumphed together; the independence a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and derive from union an exemption from those broils successes. and wars between themselves, which so frequently But these considerations, however powerfully afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly same governments, which their own rival ships alone outweighed by those which apply more immediately to would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite your interest. Here every portion of our country finds foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would the most commanding motives for carefully guarding stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will and preserving the union of the whole. avoid the necessity of those overgrown military estab- The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with lishments which, under any form of government, are the South, protected by the equal laws of a common inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as government, finds in the productions of the latter particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense great additional resources of maritime and commer- it is that your union ought to be considered as a main cial enterprise and precious materials of manufactur- prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought ing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, to endear to you the preservation of the other. benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agricul- These considerations speak a persuasive language ture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds the continuance of the Union as a primary object of its particular navigation invigorated; and, while it patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common A - 18 A p p e n d i x government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experi- I have already intimated to you the danger of ence solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a parties in the State, with particular reference to the case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, you in the most solemn manner against the baneful will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well effects of the spirit of party generally. worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our our nature, having its root in the strongest passions country, while experience shall not have demonstrated of the human mind. It exists under different shapes its impracticability, there will always be reason to dis- in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or trust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in endeavor to weaken its bands. its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one faction over    another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a a government for the whole is indispensable. No alli- frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more ance, however strict, between the parts can be an formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience miseries which result gradually incline the minds of the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in men to seek security and repose in the absolute power all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than the adoption of a constitution of government better his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes calculated than your former for an intimate union, of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. and for the efficacious management of your common Without looking forward to an extremity of this concerns. This government, the offspring of our own kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the investigation and mature deliberation, completely free spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, unit- duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. ing security with energy, and containing within itself It serves always to distract the public councils and a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the com- to your confidence and your support. Respect for its munity with ill- founded jealousies and false alarms, authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in kindles the animosity of one part against another, its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamen- foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the tal maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a systems is the right of the people to make and to alter facilitated access to the government itself through the their constitutions of government. But the Constitution channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and will of one country are subjected to the policy and will authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obliga- of another. tory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right There is an opinion that parties in free countries of the people to establish government presupposes are useful checks upon the administration of the gov- the duty of every individual to obey the established ernment and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. government. This within certain limits is probably true; and in gov- ernments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look    with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of F r o m G e o r g e W a s h i n g t o n ’ s F a r e w e l l A d d r e s s ( 1 7 9 6 ) A - 19 party. But in those of the popular character, in govern- a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great ments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too From their natural tendency, it is certain there will novel example of a people always guided by an exalted always be enough of that spirit for every salutary pur- justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the pose. And there being constant danger of excess, the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate would richly repay any temporary advantages which and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of lest, instead of warming, it should consume. a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is rec- It is important, likewise, that the habits of ommended by every sentiment which ennobles human thinking in a free country should inspire caution in nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? those entrusted with its administration, to confine In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more themselves within their respective constitutional essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one against particular nations, and passionate attachments department to encroach upon another. The spirit of for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all them, just and amicable feelings towards all should the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards the form of government, a real despotism. A just esti- another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in mate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, nation against another disposes each more readily to by dividing and distributing it into different depositar- offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of ies, and constituting each the guardian of the public umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, by experiments ancient and modern; some of them frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve contests. The nation, prompted by ill- will and resent- them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in ment, sometimes impels to war the government, con- the opinion of the people, the distribution or modifica- trary to the best calculations of policy. The government tion of the constitutional powers be in any particular sometimes participates in the national propensity, and wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way adopts through passion what reason would reject; which the Constitution designates. But let there be no at other times it makes the animosity of the nation change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of The precedent must always greatly overbalance in nations, has been the victim. permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.       The great rule of conduct for us in regard to for- eign nations is in extending our commercial relations, Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; to have with them as little political connection as pos- cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and sible. So far as we have already formed engagements, morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which A - 20 A p p e n d i x to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. even our commercial policy should hold an equal and Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and colli- things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the sions of her friendships or enmities. streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establish- Our detached and distant situation invites and ing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, one people under an efficient government, the period and to enable the government to support them) con- is not far off when we may defy material injury from ventional rules of intercourse, the best that present external annoyance; when we may take such an atti- circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but tude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time temporary, and liable to be from time to time aban- resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when bel- doned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall ligerent nations, under the impossibility of making dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving nation to look for disinterested favors from another; us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as that it must pay with a portion of its independence for our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. whatever it may accept under that character; that, by Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situa- such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of tion? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in more. the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?    It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less appli- himself and his progenitors for several generations, cable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise fellow- citizens, the benign influence of good laws to extend them. under a free government, the ever- favorite object of my Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we cares, labors, and dangers. may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordi- nary emergencies. Geo. Washington F r o m G e o r g e W a s h i n g t o n ’ s F a r e w e l l A d d r e s s ( 1 7 9 6 ) A - 21 T H E S E N E C A F A L L S D E C L A R A T I O N O F S E N T I M E N T S A N D R E S O L U T I O N S ( 1 8 4 8 ) 1 . D E C L A R A T I O N O F S E N T I M E N T S tions on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny When, in the course of human events, it becomes nec- over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a essary for one portion of the family of man to assume candid world. among the people of the earth a position different from He has never permitted her to exercise her inalien- that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to able right to the elective franchise. which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind formation of which she had no voice. requires that they should declare the causes that impel He has withheld from her rights which are given them to such a course. to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives We hold these truths to be self- evident: that all men and foreigners. and women are created equal; that they are endowed Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without rep- among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- resentation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed piness; that to secure these rights governments are her on all sides. instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent He has made her, if married, in the eye of the of the governed. Whenever any form of government law, civilly dead. He has taken from her all right in becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of property, even to the wages she earns. those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, insist upon the institution of a new government, laying as she can commit many crimes with impunity, pro- its foundation on such principles, and organizing its vided they be done in the presence of her husband. powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all will dictate that governments long established should intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him not be changed for light and transient causes; and power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind chastisement. are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to shall be the proper causes, and in case of separation, to which they are accustomed. But when a long train whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women— same object, evinces a design to reduce them under the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his government, and to provide new guards for their hands. future security. Such has been the patient sufferance After depriving her of all rights as a married of the women under this government, and such is now woman, if single, and the owner of property, he has the necessity which constrains them to demand the taxed her to support a government which recognizes equal station to which they are entitled. The history of her only when her property can be made profitable mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa- to it. A - 22 A p p e n d i x He has monopolized nearly all the profitable 2 . R E S O L U T I O N S employments, and from those she is permitted to fol- low, she receives but a scanty remuneration. He closes WHEREAS, The great precept of nature is conceded to against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction be, that “man shall pursue his own true and substantial which he considers most honorable to himself. As happiness.” Blackstone in his Commentaries remarks, a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not that this law of Nature being coeval with mankind, known. and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, thorough education, all colleges being closed against in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of her. any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are He allows her in Church, as well as State, but a valid, derive all their force, and all their validity, and subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority all their authority, mediately and immediately, from for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some this original; therefore, exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any of the Church. way, with the true and substantial happiness of He has created a false public sentiment by giving woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature to the world a different code of morals for men and and of no validity, for this is “superior in obligation to women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude any other.” women from society, are not only tolerated, but deemed Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman of little account in man. from occupying such a station in society as her con- He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah him- science shall dictate, or which place her in a position self, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to of nature, and therefore of no force or authority. her God. Resolved, That woman is man’s equal—was He has endeavored, in every way that he could, intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen of the race demands that she should be recognized as her self- respect and to make her willing to lead a such. dependent and abject life. Resolved, That the women of this country ought to Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they one- half the people of this country, their social and reli- live, that they may no longer publish their degradation gious degradation—in view of the unjust laws above by declaring themselves satisfied with their present mentioned, and because women do feel themselves position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of have all the rights they want. their most sacred rights, we insist that they have Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming immediate admission to all the rights and privileges for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to which belong to them as citizens of the United States. woman moral superiority, it is pre- eminently his duty In entering upon the great work before us, we to encourage her to speak and teach, as she has an anticipate no small amount of misconception, mis- opportunity, in all religious assemblies. representation, and ridicule; but we shall use every Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, deli- instrumentality within our power to effect our object. cacy, and refinement of behavior that is required of We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the woman in the social state, should also be required of State and National legislatures, and endeavor to enlist man, and the same transgressions should be visited the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this with equal severity on both man and woman. Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and embracing every part of the country. impropriety, which is so often brought against woman T h e S e n e c e F a l l s D e c l a r a t i o n o f S e n t i m e n t s a n d R e s o l i t i o n s ( 1 8 4 8 ) A - 23 when she addresses a public audience, comes with demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally a very ill- grace from those who encourage, by their with man, to promote every righteous cause by every attendance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert. righteous means; and especially in regard to the great Or in feats of the circus. subjects of morals and religion, it is self- evidently Resolved, That woman has too long rested satis- her right to participate with her brother in teaching fied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs them, both in private and in public, by writing and and a perverted application of the Scriptures have by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be marked out for her, and that it is time she should move used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has being a self- evident truth growing out of the divinely assigned her. implanted principles of human nature, any custom or Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the country to secure to themselves their sacred right to hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self- the elective franchise. evident falsehood, and at war with mankind. Resolved, That the equality of human rights Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both race in capabilities and responsibilities. men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the of the pulpit, and for the securing to women an equal Creator with the same capabilities, and the same con- participation with men in the various trades, profes- sciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is sions, and commerce. A - 24 A p p e n d i x F R O M F R E D E R I C K D O U G L A S S ’ S “ W H A T , T O T H E S L A V E , I S T H E F O U R T H O F J U L Y ? ” S P E E C H ( 1 8 5 2 )    wrath and fury, and bear away on their angry waves the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the They, however, gradually flow back to the same old Fourth of July. It is the birthday of your National channel and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while Independence, and of your political freedom. This, the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up and to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated leave nothing behind but the withered branch and the people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss- sweeping wind, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers, so with signs and to the wonders associated with that act and nations. that day. This celebration also marks the beginning Fellow citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at of another year of your national life; and reminds you length on the associations that cluster about this day. that the Republic of America is now seventy- six years The simple story of it is, that seventy- six years ago old. I am glad, fellow citizens, that your nation is so the people of this country were British subjects. The young. Seventy- six years, though a good old age for a style and title of your “sovereign people” (in which man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three you now glory) was not then born. You were under score years and ten is the allotted time for individual the British Crown. Your fathers esteemed the En glish men; but nations number their years by thousands. government as the home government, and England According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the as the fatherland. This home government, you know, beginning of your national career, still lingering in although a considerable distance from your home, the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, upon its colonial children such restraints, burdens under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. and limitations as, in its mature judgment, it deemed The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, wise, right and proper. portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and    that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? by the home government, your fathers, like men of Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sad- honesty and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. der and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might They petitioned and remonstrated, they did so in a be shrouded in gloom and the hope of its prophets go decorous, respectful and loyal manner. Their conduct out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not America is young. Great streams are not easily turned answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with from channels worn deep in the course of ages. They sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and persevered. They were not the men to look back. inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in    F r o m F r e d e r i c k D o u g l a s s ’ s S p e e c h ( 1 8 5 2 ) A - 25 Citizens, your fathers . . . succeeded; and today But such is not the state of the case. I say it with you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! this anniversary. The Fourth of July is the first great Your high independence only reveals the immeasur- fact in your nation’s history—the very ringbolt in the able distance between us. The blessings in which chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Inde- by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and pendence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation’s healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles con- This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, tained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand I must mourn. by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.       Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, [The fathers of this republic] were peace men, but heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those from agitating against oppression. They showed for- bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right bearance, but that they knew its limits. They believed hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave in order, but not in the order of tyranny. With them, to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the justice, liberty and humanity were “final,” not slavery popular theme would be treason most scandalous and and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of shocking and would make me a reproach before God such men. They were great in their day and genera- and the world. My subject, then, fellow citizens, is tion. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular contrast it with these degenerate times. characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making    his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to those I represent, to do with your national indepen- the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation dence? Are the great principles of political freedom seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds of Independence, extended to us? and am I, there- herself to be false to the future. fore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar and to confess the benefits and express    devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. It is not astonishing that,    while we are plowing, planting and reaping, using all A - 26 A p p e n d i x kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, construct- bast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy—a thin ing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants practices more shocking and bloody than are the people and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, of the United States at this very hour. ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; Go where you may, search where you will, roam that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old common to other men, digging gold in California, World, travel through South America, search out every capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and planning, living in families as husbands, wives and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. the Christian’s God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to    prove that we are men! Would you have me argue that man is entitled to Americans! your republican politics, not less than liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrong- You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civi- fulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? lization and your pure Christianity, while the whole Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumenta- political power of the nation (as embodied in the two tion, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving great political parties) is solemnly pledged to sup- a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard port and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions to be understood? How should I look today, in the of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a dis- the crowned- headed tyrants of Russia and Austria course, to show that men have a natural right to free- and pride yourselves on your democratic institutions, dom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. ridiculous and to offer an insult to your understanding. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with does not know that slavery is wrong for him. ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but    the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of your universal education; yet you maintain a system as July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to of a nation—a system begun in avarice, supported in which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebra- pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over tion is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs your national greatness swelling vanity; your sounds the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate of tyrants brass- fronted impudence; your shouts of her cause against the oppressor;* but, in regard to liberty and equality hollow mockery; your prayers and the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your would enforce the strictest silence and would hail him religious parade and solemnity, are to Him mere bom- as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those F r o m F r e d e r i c k D o u g l a s s ’ s S p e e c h ( 1 8 5 2 ) A - 27 wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on Fellow citizens, I will not enlarge further on your fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland, national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for this country brands your republicanism as a sham, the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christian- the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, ity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it cor- in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can rupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to of religion; it makes your name a hissing and a byword throw off a three- penny tax on tea, and yet wring the to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your last hard- earned farthing from the grasp of the black government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and laborers of your country. You profess to believe “that endangers your union. It fetters your progress; it is the of one blood God made all nations of men to dwell on enemy of improvement; the deadly foe of education; the face of all the earth”† and hath commanded all men, it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it everywhere, to love one another; yet you notoriously shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; hate (and glory in your hatred) all men whose skins and yet you cling to it as if it were the sheet anchor of are not colored like your own. You declare before the all your hopes. world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you “hold these truths to be self- evident, that all men are    created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; and that among these are, life, liberty and Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the pursuit of happiness”; and yet, you hold securely, in a the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to are forces in operation which must inevitably work the oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country. downfall of slavery. *The fledgling Hungarian republic was invaded by Austria and Russia in 1849. †Acts 17:26. A - 28 A p p e n d i x T H E G E T T Y S B U R G A D D R E S S ( 1 8 6 3 ) Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought what we say here, but it can never forget what they did forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men to the unfinished work which they who fought here are created equal. have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing be here dedicated to the great task remaining before whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and us—that from these honored dead we take increased so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that portion of that field, as a final resting place for those these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. that government of the people, by the people, for the But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we people, shall not perish from the earth. can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or Abraham Lincoln detract. The world will little note, nor long remember November 19, 1863 T h e G e t t y s b u r g A d d r e s s A - 29 A B R A H A M L I N C O L N ’ S S E C O N D I N A U G U R A L A D D R E S S ( 1 8 6 5 ) Fellow Countrymen: anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease At this second appearing to take the oath of the presi- with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. dential office, there is less occasion for an extended Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fun- address than there was at the first. Then a statement, damental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare during which public declarations have been constantly to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread called forth on every point and phase of the great from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could the energies of the nation, little that is new could be not be answered; that of neither has been answered presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as the world because of offences! for it must needs be that to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is prediction in regard to it is ventured. one of those offences which, in the providence of God, On the occasion corresponding to this four years must needs come, but which, having continued through ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impend- His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He ing civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the While the inaugural address was being delivered from woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union with- discern therein any departure from those divine attri- out war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to butes which the believers in a living God always ascribe destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union, to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray—that and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties depre- this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. cated war; but one of them would make war rather than Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth let the nation survive; and the other would accept war piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years rather than let it perish. And the war came. of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop One eighth of the whole population were colored of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years localized in the southern part of it. These slaves consti- ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord tuted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that are true and righteous altogether.” this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To With malice toward none; with charity for all; with strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the even by war; while the government claimed no right to nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither peace, among ourselves and with all nations. A - 30 A p p e n d i x T H E P O P U L I S T P L A T F O R M O F 1 8 9 2 Assembled upon the 116th anniversary of the Declara- accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has been tion of Independence, the People’s Party of America, demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by in their first national convention, invoking upon their decreasing the value of all forms of property as well as action the blessing of Almighty God, puts forth in the human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely name and on behalf of the people of this country, the abridged to fatten usurers, bankrupt enterprise, and following preamble and declaration of principles: enslave industry. A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents, and it is rapidly P R E A M B L E taking possession of the world. If not met and over- thrown at once it forebodes terrible social convulsions, The conditions which surround us best justify our the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of co- operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought an absolute despotism. to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Cor- We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a ruption dominates the ballot- box, the Legislatures, the century the struggles of the two great political parties Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have The people are demoralized; most of the States have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling that the controlling influences dominating both these places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the reform. They have agreed together to ignore in the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The coming campaign every issue but one. They propose urban workmen are denied the right to organize for to drown the outcries of a plundered people with self- protection, imported pauperized labor beats down the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they watered stock, the demonetization of silver, and the are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of. They The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to propose to sacrifice our homes, lives, and children on build up the fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the the altar of mammon; to destroy the multitude in order history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in to secure corruption funds from the millionaires. turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From Assembled on the anniversary of the birthday of the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we the nation, and filled with the spirit of the grand gen- breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires. eral and chief who established our independence, we The national power to create money is appro- seek to restore the government of the Republic to the priated to enrich bondholders; a vast public debt, hands of “the plain people,” with which class it origi- payable in legal tender currency, has been funded nated. We assert our purpose to be identical with the into gold- bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to purposes of the National Constitution, “to form a more the burdens of the people. Silver, which has been perfect union and establish justice, insure domestic T h e P o p u l i s t P l a t f o r m o f 1 8 9 2 A - 31 tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote P L A T F O R M the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.” We declare that this We declare, therefore— Republic can only endure as a free government while First.—That the union of the labor forces of the built upon the love of the whole people for each other United States this day consummated shall be perma- and for the nation; that it cannot be pinned together nent and perpetual; may its spirit enter into all hearts by bayonets; that the civil war is over, and that every for the salvation of the Republic and the uplifting of passion and resentment which grew out of it must die mankind! with it; and that we must be in fact, as we are in name, Second.—Wealth belongs to him who creates one united brotherhood of free men. it, and every dollar taken from industry without an Our country finds itself confronted by conditions equivalent is robbery. “If any will not work, neither for which there is no precedent in the history of the shall he eat.” The interests of rural and civic labor are world; our annual agricultural productions amount the same; their enemies are identical. to billions of dollars in value, which must, within a Third.—We believe that the time has come when few weeks or months, be exchanged for billions of the railroad corporations will either own the people or dollars of commodities consumed in their production; the people must own the railroads; and, should the gov- the existing currency supply is wholly inadequate to ernment enter upon the work of owning and managing make this exchange; the results are falling prices, the all railroads, we should favor an amendment to the formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment Constitution by which all persons engaged in the gov- of the producing class. We pledge ourselves, if given ernment service shall be placed under a civil- service power, we will labor to correct these evils by wise regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent and reasonable legislation, in accordance with the the increase of the power of the national administration terms of our platform. We believe that the power of by the use of such additional government employees. government—in other words, of the people—should FINANCE.—We demand a national currency, be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as safe, sound, and flexible, issued by the general gov- rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent ernment only, a full legal tender for all debts, public people and the teaching of experience shall justify, to and private, and that without the use of banking the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall corporations, a just, equitable, and efficient means of eventually cease in the land. distribution direct to the people, at a tax not to exceed While our sympathies as a party of reform are two per cent per annum, to be provided as set forth naturally upon the side of every proposition which will in the sub- treasury plan of the Farmers’ Alliance, or tend to make men intelligent, virtuous, and temperate, a better system; also by payments in discharge of its we nevertheless regard these questions—important as obligations for public improvements. they are—as secondary to the great issues now pressing 1. We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver for solution, and upon which not only our individual and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1. prosperity but the very existence of free institutions 2. We demand that the amount of circulating depend; and we ask all men to first help us to deter- medium be speedily increased to not less than $50 per mine whether we are to have a republic to adminis- capita. ter before we differ as to the conditions upon which it is 3. We demand a graduated income tax. to be administered, believing that the forces of reform 4. We believe that the money of the country should this day organized will never cease to move forward be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, until every wrong is remedied, and equal rights and and hence we demand that all State and national rev- equal privileges securely established for all the men enues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the and women of this country. government, economically and honestly administered. A - 32 A p p e n d i x 5. We demand that postal savings banks be estab- 3. Resolved, That we pledge our support to fair and lished by the government for the safe deposit of the liberal pensions to ex- Union soldiers and sailors. earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange. 4. Resolved, That we condemn the fallacy of pro- TRANSPORTATION.—Transportation being a tecting American labor under the present system, means of exchange and a public necessity, the govern- which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal ment should own and operate the railroads in the classes of the world, and crowds out our wage- earners; interest of the people. The telegraph and telephone, and we denounce the present ineffective laws against like the post- office system, being a necessity for the contract labor, and demand the further restriction of transmission of news, should be owned and operated undesirable emigration. by the government in the interest of the people. 5. Resolved, that we cordially sympathize with the LAND.—The land, including all the natural efforts of organized workingmen to shorten the hours sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people, and of labor, and demand a rigid enforcement of the exist- should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, ing eight- hour law on Government work, and ask that and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All a penalty clause be added to the said law. land now held by railroads and other corporations in 6. Resolved, That we regard the maintenance of excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned a large standing army of mercenaries, known as the by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and Pinkerton system, as a menace to our liberties, and held for actual settlers only. we demand its abolition; and we condemn the recent invasion of the Territory of Wyoming by the hired E X P R E S S I O N O F S E N T I M E N T S assassins of plutocracy, assisted by federal officers. 7. Resolved, That we commend to the favorable Your committee on Platform and Resolutions beg leave con sideration of the people and the reform press unanimously to report the following: the legislative system known as the initiative and Whereas, Other questions have been presented referendum. for our consideration, we hereby submit the following, 8. Resolved, That we favor a constitutional provi- not as a part of the Platform of the People’s Party, sion limiting the office of President and Vice- President but as resolutions expressive of the sentiment of this to one term, and providing for the election of Senators Convention: of the United States by a direct vote of the people. 1. Resolved, That we demand a free ballot and a fair 9. Resolved, That we oppose any subsidy or national count in all elections, and pledge ourselves to secure aid to any private corporation for any purpose. it to every legal voter without federal intervention, 10. Resolved, That this convention sympathizes through the adoption by the States of the unperverted with the Knights of Labor and their righteous contest Australian or secret ballot system. with the tyrannical combine of clothing manufacturers 2. Resolved, That the revenue derived from a grad- of Rochester, and declare it to be the duty of all who uated income tax should be applied to the reduction of hate tyranny and oppression to refuse to purchase the the burden of taxation now levied upon the domestic goods made by the said manufacturers, or to patronize industries of this country. any merchants who sell such goods. T h e P o p u l i s t P l a t f o r m o f 1 8 9 2 A - 33 F R A N K L I N D . R O O S E V E L T ’ S F I R S T I N A U G U R A L A D D R E S S ( 1 9 3 3 ) I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because on my induction into the Presidency I will address the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have them with a candor and a decision which the present failed, through their own stubbornness and their own situation of our Nation impels. This is preeminently incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdi- the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly cated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected conditions in our country today. This great Nation will by the hearts and minds of men. endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. True they have tried, but their efforts have been So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unrea- failure of credit they have proposed only the lending soning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark to induce our people to follow their false leadership, hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully vigor has met with that understanding and support of for restored confidence. They know only the rules of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I a generation of self- seekers. They have no vision, and am convinced that you will again give that support to when there is no vision the people perish. leadership in these critical days. The money changers have fled from their high seats In such a spirit on my part and on yours we in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore face our common difficulties. They concern, thank that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the God, only material things. Values have shrunken to restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay values more noble than mere monetary profit. has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious Happiness lies not in the mere possession of curtailment of income; the means of exchange are money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of markets for their produce; the savings of many years in evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all thousands of families are gone. they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not More important, a host of unemployed citizens face to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and the grim problem of existence, and an equally great to our fellow men. number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as deny the dark realities of the moment. the standard of success goes hand in hand with the Yet our distress comes from no failure of sub- abandonment of the false belief that public office and stance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Com- high political position are to be valued only by the stan- pared with the perils which our forefathers conquered dards of pride of place and personal profit; and there because they believed and were not afraid, we have must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, A - 34 A p p e n d i x on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful Through this program of action we address our- protection, on unselfish performance; without them it selves to putting our own national house in order cannot live. and making income balance outgo. Our international Restoration calls, however, not for changes in eth- trade relations, though vastly important, are in point ics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now. of time and necessity secondary to the establishment Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct effort to restore world trade by international economic recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the on that accomplishment. same time, through this employment, accomplishing The basic thought that guides these specific means greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It use of our natural resources. is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize interdependence of the various elements in all parts the overbalance of population in our industrial centers of the United States—a recognition of the old and and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribu- permanently important manifestation of the American tion, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural recovery will endure. products and with this the power to purchase the In the field of world policy I would dedicate output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity local governments act forthwith on the demand that of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors. their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by If I read the temper of our people correctly, we the unifying of relief activities which today are often now realize as we have never realized before our inter- scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped dependence on each other; that we cannot merely take by national planning for and supervision of all forms of but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, transportation and of communications and other utili- we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to ties which have a definitely public character. There are sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never without such discipline no progress is made, no lead- be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and ership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and act quickly. willing to submit our lives and property to such dis- Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of cipline, because it makes possible a leadership which work we require two safeguards against a return of the aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a of all banking and credits and investments; there must sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked be an end to speculation with other people’s money, only in time of armed strife. and there must be provision for an adequate but sound With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitat- currency. ingly the leadership of this great army of our people There are the lines of attack. I shall presently dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common urge upon a new Congress, in special session, detailed problems. measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the Action in this image and to this end is feasible immediate assistance of the several States. under the form of government which we have inherited F r a n k l i n D . R o o s e v e l t ’ s F i r s t I n a u g u r a l A d d r e s s ( 1 9 3 3 ) A - 35 from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask practical that it is possible always to meet extraordi- the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet nary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against without loss of essential form. That is why our con- the emergency, as great as the power that would be given stitutional system has proved itself the most superbly to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe. enduring political mechanism the modern world has For the trust reposed in me I will return the produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of no less. world relations. We face the arduous days that lie before us in the It is to be hoped that the normal balance of execu- warm courage of national unity; with the clear con- tive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate sciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim action may call for temporary departure from that at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national normal balance of public procedure. life. I am prepared under my constitutional duty We do not distrust the future of essential democ- to recommend the measures that a stricken nation racy. The people of the United States have not failed. in the midst of a stricken world may require. These In their need they have registered a mandate that they measures, or such other measures as the Congress want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall discipline and direction under leadership. They have seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the speedy adoption. spirit of the gift I take it. But in the event that the Congress shall fail to In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the take one of these two courses, and in the event that the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the us. May He guide me in the days to come. A - 36 A p p e n d i x F R O M T H E P R O G R A M F O R T H E M A R C H O N W A S H I N G T O N F O R J O B S A N D F R E E D O M ( 1 9 6 3 ) W H A T W E D E M A N D * 7. A massive federal program to train and place 1. Comprehensive and effective civil rights legisla- all unemployed workers—Negro and white—on mean- tion from the present Congress—without compromise or ingful and dignified jobs at decent wages. filibuster—to guarantee all Americans 8. A national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living. (Government access to all public accommodations surveys show that anything less than $2.00 an hour decent housing fails to do this.) adequate and integrated education 9. A broadened Fair Labor Standards Act to include the right to vote all areas of employment which are presently excluded. 2. Withholding of Federal funds from all pro- 10. A federal Fair Employment Practices Act barring grams in which discrimination exists. discrimination by federal, state, and municipal gov- 3. Desegregation of all school districts in 1963. ernments, and by employers, contractors, employment 4. Enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment— agencies, and trade unions. reducing Congressional representation of states where citizens are disfranchised. 5. A new Executive Order banning discrimination * Support of the March does not necessarily indicate endorse- in all housing supported by federal funds. ment of every demand listed. Some organizations have not had 6. Authority for the Attorney General to institute an opportunity to take an official position on all of the demands injunctive suits when any constitutional right is violated. advocated here. F r o m T h e P r o g r a m f o r t h e M a r c h o n W a s h i n g t o n f o r J o b s a n d F r e e d o m ( 1 9 6 3 ) A - 37 R O N A L D R E A G A N ’ S F I R S T I N A U G U R A L A D D R E S S ( 1 9 8 1 ) W E S T F R O N T O F T H E U . S . C A P I T O L J A N U A R Y 2 0 , 1 9 8 1 Senator Hatfield, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous Vice President Bush, Vice President Mondale, Senator social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. Baker, Speaker O’Neill, Reverend Moomaw, and my You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live fellow citizens. beyond our means, but for only a limited period of To a few of us here today this is a solemn and time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of a nation, we’re not bound by that same limitation? We our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution there be no misunderstanding: We are going to begin routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, to act, beginning today. The economic ills we suffer and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. have come upon us over several decades. They will In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a go away. They will go away because we as Americans miracle. have the capacity now, as we’ve had in the past, to do Mr. President, I want our fellow citizens to know whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and how much you did to carry on this tradition. By your greatest bastion of freedom. gracious cooperation in the transition process, you In this present crisis, government is not the have shown a watching world that we are a united solution to our problem; government is the problem. people pledged to maintaining a political system which From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that guarantees individual liberty to a greater degree than society has become too complex to be managed by any other, and I thank you and your people for all self-rule, that government by an elite group is supe- your help in maintaining the continuity which is the rior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if bulwark of our republic. The business of our nation no one among us is capable of governing himself, then goes forward. These United States are confronted with who among us has the capacity to govern someone an economic affliction of great proportions. We suffer else? All of us together, in and out of government, from the longest and one of the worst sustained infla- must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must tions in our national history. It distorts our economic be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling higher price. young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens We hear much of special interest groups. Well, to shatter the lives of millions of our people. our concern must be for a special interest group that Idle industries have cast workers into unemploy- has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional ment, human misery, and personal indignity. Those boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses who do work are denied a fair return for their labor by political party lines. It is made up of men and women a tax system which penalizes successful achievement who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and keeps us from maintaining full productivity. But and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with heal us when we’re sick—professionals, industrial- public spending. For decades we have piled deficit ists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s They are, in short, “we the people,” this breed called future for the temporary convenience of the present. Americans. A - 38 A p p e n d i x Well, this administration’s objective will be a intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides excessive growth of government. It is time for us to equal opportunities for all Americans, with no barriers realize that we’re too great a nation to limit ourselves born of bigotry or discrimination. Putting America to small dreams. We’re not, as some would have us back to work means putting all Americans back to believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not work. Ending inflation means freeing all Americans believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we from the terror of runaway living costs. All must share do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do noth- in the productive work of this “new beginning,” and ing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our With the idealism and fair play which are the core of determination, our courage, and our strength. And let our system and our strength, we can have a strong us renew our faith and our hope. and prosperous America, at peace with itself and the We have every right to dream heroic dreams. world. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are no So, as we begin, let us take inventory. We are heroes, they just don’t know where to look. You can a nation that has a government—not the other way see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. around. And this makes us special among the nations Others, a handful in number, produce enough food of the Earth. Our government has no power except that to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse heroes across a counter, and they’re on both sides of the growth of government, which shows signs of hav- that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in ing grown beyond the consent of the governed. themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, It is my intention to curb the size and influence of new wealth and opportunity. They’re individuals and the federal establishment and to demand recognition families whose taxes support the government and of the distinction between the powers granted to the whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, federal government and those reserved to the states art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet, but deep. or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Their values sustain our national life. federal government did not create the states; the states Now, I have used the words “they” and “their” in created the federal government. speaking of these heroes. I could say “you” and “your,” Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s because I’m addressing the heroes of whom I speak— not my intention to do away with government. It is you, the citizens of this blessed land. Your dreams, rather to make it work—work with us, not over us; to your hopes, your goals are going to be the dreams, the stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; God. foster productivity, not stifle it. We shall reflect the compassion that is so much a If we look to the answer as to why for so many part of your makeup. How can we love our country and years we achieved so much, prospered as no other not love our countrymen; and loving them, reach out a people on earth, it was because here in this land we hand when they fall, heal them when they’re sick, and unleashed the energy and individual genius of man provide opportunity to make them self-sufficient so to a greater extent than has ever been done before. they will be equal in fact and not just in theory? Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been Can we solve the problems confronting us? Well, more available and assured here than in any other the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic “yes.” To place on earth. The price for this freedom at times has paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay I’ve just taken with the intention of presiding over the the price. dissolution of the world’s strongest economy. It is no coincidence that our present troubles In the days ahead I will propose removing the parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and roadblocks that have slowed our economy and reduced R o n a l d R e a g a n ’ s F i r s t I n a u g u r a l A d d r e s s ( 1 9 8 1 ) A - 39 productivity. Steps will be taken aimed at restoring and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s the balance between the various levels of government. world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans Progress may be slow, measured in inches and feet, do have. Let that be understood by those who practice not miles, but we will progress. It is time to reawaken terrorism and prey upon their neighbors. I’m told that this industrial giant, to get government back within its tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held means, and to lighten our punitive tax burden. And on this day, and for that I’m deeply grateful. We are a these will be our first priorities, and on these principles nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to there will be no compromise. be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each On the eve of our struggle for independence a man Inaugural Day in future years it should be declared a who might have been one of the greatest among the day of prayer. Founding Fathers, Dr. Joseph Warren, president of the This is the first time in our history that this cer- Massachusetts Congress, said to his fellow Americans, emony has been held, as you’ve been told, on the West “Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of Front of the Capitol. Standing here, one faces a magnif- . . . On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to icent vista, opening up on the city’s special beauty and decide the important questions upon which rests the history. At the end of this open mall are those shrines happiness and the liberty of millions yet unborn. Act to the giants on whose shoulders we stand. worthy of yourselves.” Well, I believe we, the Ameri- Directly in front of me, the monument to a cans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, monumental man, George Washington, father of our ready to do what must be done to ensure happiness country. A man of humility who came to greatness and liberty for ourselves, our children, and our chil- reluctantly. He led Americans out of revolutionary dren’s children. And as we renew ourselves here in our victory into infant nationhood. Off to one side, the own land, we will be seen as having greater strength stately memorial to Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration throughout the world. We will again be the exemplar of Independence flames with his eloquence. And then, of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not beyond the Reflecting Pool, the dignified columns of now have freedom. the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in To those neighbors and allies who share our free- his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life dom, we will strengthen our historic ties and assure of Abraham Lincoln. them of our support and firm commitment. We will Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Poto- match loyalty with loyalty. We will strive for mutually mac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of beneficial relations. We will not use our friendship to Arlington National Cemetery, with its row upon row impose on their sovereignty, for our own sovereignty of simple white markers bearing crosses and Stars of is not for sale. As for the enemies of freedom, those David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that has been paid for our freedom. Each one of those that peace is the highest aspiration of the American markers is a monument to the kind of hero I spoke people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau not surrender for it, now or ever. Wood, the Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and half- Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. way around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice a failure of will. When action is required to preserve paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam. our national security, we will act. We will maintain Under one such marker lies a young man, Martin sufficient strength to prevail if need be, knowing that Treptow, who left his job in a small town barbershop if we do so we have the best chance of never having to in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Divi- use that strength. Above all, we must realize that no sion. There, on the western front, he was killed trying arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so to carry a message between battalions under heavy formidable as the will and moral courage of free men artillery fire. A - 40 A p p e n d i x We’re told that on his body was found a diary. many thousands of others were called upon to make. It On the flyleaf under the heading “My Pledge,” he had does require, however, our best effort and our willing- written these words: “America must win this war. ness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capac- Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I ity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, God’s help we can and will resolve the problems which as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me now confront us. alone.” And after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We The crisis we are facing today does not require are Americans. of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so God bless you, and thank you. R o n a l d R e a g a n ’ s F i r s t I n a u g u r a l A d d r e s s ( 1 9 8 1 ) A - 41 B A R A C K O B A M A ’ S F I R S T I N A U G U R A L A D D R E S S ( 2 0 0 9 ) My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the On this day, we gather because we have chosen task before us, grateful for the trust you’ve bestowed, hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to I thank President Bush for his service to our the petty grievances and false promises, the recrimina- nation—(applause)—as well as the generosity and coop- tions and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have eration he has shown throughout this transition. strangled our politics. We remain a young nation. But Forty-four Americans have now taken the presi- in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside dential oath. The words have been spoken during childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America from generation to generation; the God-given promise has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance of those in high office, but because we, the people, have to pursue their full measure of happiness. (Applause) remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears and In reaffirming the greatness of our nation we true to our founding documents. understand that greatness is never a given. It must be So it has been: so it must be with this generation earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts of Americans. or settling for less. It has not been the path for the That we are in the midst of crisis is now well faint-hearted, for those that prefer leisure over work, understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility things—some celebrated, but more often men and on the part of some, but also our collective failure to women obscure in their labor—who have carried us up make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom. age. Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shut- For us, they packed up their few worldly posses- tered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too sions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. many—and each day brings further evidence that the For us, they toiled in sweatshops, and settled the West, ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and endured the lash of the whip, and plowed the hard earth. threaten our planet. For us, they fought and died in places like Concord and These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data Gettysburg, Normandy and Khe Sahn. and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, Time and again these men and women struggled is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so fear that America’s decline is inevilable, that the next that we might live a better life. They saw America as generation must lower its sights. bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions, greater Today I say to you that the challenges we face are than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. real. They are serious and they are many. They will not This is the journey we continue today. We remain be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our America: They will be met. (Applause) workers are no less productive than when this crisis A - 42 A p p e n d i x began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and and expand freedom is unmatched. But this crisis has services no less needed than they were last week, or last reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market month, or last year. Our capacity remains undimin- can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper ished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow long when it favors only the prosperous. The success interests and putting off unpleasant decisions—that of our economy has always depended not just on the time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the our prosperity, on the ability to extend opportunity to work of remaking America. (Applause) every willing heart—not out of charity, but because it is For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. the surest route to our common good. (Applause) The state of our economy calls for action, bold and As for our common defense, we reject as false swift. And we will act, not only to create new jobs, but the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the Founding Fathers—(Applause)—our Founding Fathers, roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted that feed our commerce and bind us together. We’ll a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of restore science to its rightful place, and wield technol- man—a charter expanded by the blood of generations. ogy’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the them up for expedience sake. (Applause) soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will And so, to all the other peoples and governments transform our schools and colleges and universities to who are watching today, from the grandest capitals meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All to the small village where my father was born, know this we will do. that America is a friend of each nation, and every man, Now, there are some who question the scale of woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dig- our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot nity. And we are ready to lead once more. (Applause) tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism for they have forgotten what this country has already and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but done, what free men and women can achieve when with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. imagination is joined to common purpose, and neces- They understood that our power alone cannot protect sity to courage. What the cynics fail to understand is us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead they that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale knew that our power grows through its prudent use; political arguments that have consumed us for so long our security emanates from the justness of our cause, no longer apply. the force of our example, the tempering qualities of The question we ask today is not whether our humility and restraint. government is too big or too small, but whether it We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these works—whether it helps families find jobs at a decent principles once more we can meet those new threats wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is digni- that demand even greater effort, even greater coopera- fied. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move tion and understanding between nations. We will begin forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard- And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, former foes, we’ll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear and do our business in the light of day, because only threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. then can we restore the vital trust between a people We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will and their government. we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to Nor is the question before us whether the market advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughter- is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth ing innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is B a r a c k O b a m a ’ s F i r s t I n a u g u r a l A d d r e s s ( 2 0 0 9 ) A - 43 stronger and cannot be broken—you cannot outlast us, And yet at this moment, a moment that will define and we will defeat you. (Applause) a generation, it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit For we know that our patchwork heritage is a us all. For as much as government can do, and must strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers. American people upon which this nation relies. It is We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees from every end of this Earth: and because we have break, the selflessness of workers who would rather tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon a parent’s willingness to nurture a child that finally dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common decides our fate. humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must Our challenges may be new. The instruments play its role in ushering in a new era of peace. with which we meet them may be new. But those To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, values upon which our success depends—honesty based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or curiosity, loyalty and patriotism—these things are old. blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your These things are true. They have been the quiet force of people will judge you on what you can build, not what progress throughout our history. you destroy. (Applause) What is demanded, then, is a return to these To those who cling to power through corruption truths. What is required of us now is a new era of and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that responsibility—a recognition on the part of every you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist. and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept, (Applause) but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of alongside you to make your farms flourish and let our character than giving our all to a difficult task. clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed This is the price and the promise of citizenship. hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that This is the source of our confidence—the knowledge enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, why can we consume the world’s resources without regard men and women and children of every race and every to effect. For the world has changed, and we must faith can join in celebration across this magnificent change with it. mall; and why a man whose father less than 60 years As we consider the role that unfolds before us, we ago might not have been served in a local restaurant remember with humble gratitude those brave Ameri- can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. cans who at this very hour patrol far-off deserts and (Applause) distant mountains. They have something to tell us, So let us mark this day with remembrance of who just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of through the ages. America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band We honor them not only because they are the of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores guardians of our liberty, but because they embody of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy the spirit of service—a willingness to find meaning in was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At something greater than themselves. the moment when the outcome of our revolution was A - 44 A p p e n d i x most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it words to be read to the people: be said by our children’s children that when we were “Let it be told to the future world . . . that in the tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the could survive . . . that the city and the country, alarmed horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].” great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future America: In the face of our common dangers, in this generations. winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the United States of America. (Applause) B a r a c k O b a m a ’ s F i r s t I n a u g u r a l A d d r e s s ( 2 0 0 9 ) A - 45 P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N S % of Number Popular Popular Electoral % Voter Year of States Candidates Parties Vote Vote Vote Participation 1789 11 GEORGE WASHINGTON NO PARTY 69 John Adams DESIGNATIONS 34 Other candidates 35 1792 15 GEORGE WASHINGTON NO PARTY 132 John Adams DESIGNATIONS 77 George Clinton 50 Other candidates 5 1796 16 JOHN ADAMS FEDERALIST 71 Thomas Jefferson Republican 68 Thomas Pinckney Federalist 59 Aaron Burr Republican 30 Other candidates 48 1800 16 THOMAS JEFFERSON REPUBLICAN 73 Aaron Burr Republican 73 John Adams Federalist 65 Charles C. Pinckney Federalist 64 John Jay Federalist 1 1804 17 THOMAS JEFFERSON REPUBLICAN 162 Charles C. Pinckney Federalist 14 1808 17 JAMES MADISON REPUBLICAN 122 Charles C. Pinckney Federalist 47 George Clinton Republican 6 1812 18 JAMES MADISON REPUBLICAN 128 DeWitt Clinton Federalist 89 A - 46 A - 46 A p p e n d i x % of Number Popular Popular Electoral % Voter Year of States Candidates Parties Vote Vote Vote Participation 1816 19 JAMES MONROE REPUBLICAN 183 Rufus King Federalist 34 1820 24 JAMES MONROE REPUBLICAN 231 John Quincy Adams Independent 1 1824 24 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS NO PARTY 108,740 31.0 84 26.9 Andrew Jackson DESIGNATIONS 153,544 43.0 99 William H. Crawford 46,618 13.0 41 Henry Clay 47,136 13.0 37 1828 24 ANDREW JACKSON DEMOCRAT 647,286 56.0 178 57.6 John Quincy Adams National Republican 508,064 44.0 83 1832 24 ANDREW JACKSON DEMOCRAT 687,502 54.5 219 55.4 Henry Clay National Republican 530,189 37.5 49 William Wirt Anti- Masonic 101,051 8.0 7 John Floyd Democrat 11 1836 26 MARTIN VAN BUREN DEMOCRAT 765,483 51.0 170 57.8 William H. Harrison Whig 73 Hugh L. White Whig 739,795 49.0 26 Daniel Webster Whig 14 William P. Mangum Whig 11 1840 26 WILLIAM H. HARRISON WHIG 1,274,624 53.0 234 80.2 Martin Van Buren Democrat 1,127,781 47.0 60 P r e s i d e n t i a l E l e c t i o n s A - 47 % of Number Popular Popular Electoral % Voter Year of States Candidates Parties Vote Vote Vote Participation 1844 26 JAMES K. POLK DEMOCRAT 1,338,464 50.0 170 78.9 Henry Clay Whig 1,300,097 48.0 105 James G. Birney Liberty 62,300 2.0 1848 30 ZACHARY TAYLOR WHIG 1,360,967 47.5 163 72.7 Lewis Cass Democrat 1,222,342 42.5 127 Martin Van Buren Free Soil 291,263 10.0 1852 31 FRANKLIN PIERCE DEMOCRAT 1,601,117 51.0 254 69.6 Winfield Scott Whig 1,385,453 44.0 42 John P. Hale Free Soil 155,825 5.0 1856 31 JAMES BUCHANAN DEMOCRAT 1,832,955 45.0 174 78.9 John C. Frémont Republican 1,339,932 33.0 114 Millard Fillmore American 871,731 22.0 8 1860 33 ABRAHAM LINCOLN REPUBLICAN 1,865,593 40.0 180 81.2 Stephen A. Douglas Northern Democrat 1,382,713 29.0 12 John C. Breckinridge Southern Democrat 848,356 18.0 72 John Bell Constitutional Union 592,906 13.0 39 1864 36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN REPUBLICAN 2,206,938 55.0 212 73.8 George B. McClellan Democrat 1,803,787 45.0 21 1868 37 ULYSSES S. GRANT REPUBLICAN 3,013,421 53.0 214 78.1 Horatio Seymour Democrat 2,706,829 47.0 80 A - 48 A - 48 A p p e n d i x % of Number Popular Popular Electoral % Voter Year of States Candidates Parties Vote Vote Vote Participation 1872 37 ULYSSES S. GRANT REPUBLICAN 3,596,745 55.6 286 71.3 Horace Greeley Democrat 2,843,446 43.9 66 1876 38 RUTHERFORD B. HAYES REPUBLICAN 4,036,572 48.0 185 81.8 Samuel J. Tilden Democrat 4,284,020 51.0 184 1880 38 JAMES A. GARFIELD REPUBLICAN 4,453,295 48.4 214 79.4 Winfield S. Hancock Democrat 4,414,082 48.3 155 James B. Weaver Greenback- Labor 308,578 3.5 1884 38 GROVER CLEVELAND DEMOCRAT 4,879,507 48.5 219 77.5 James G. Blaine Republican 4,850,293 48.2 182 Benjamin F. Butler Greenback- Labor 175,370 1.8 John P. St. John Prohibition 150,369 1.5 1888 38 BENJAMIN HARRISON REPUBLICAN 5,447,129 47.9 233 79.3 Grover Cleveland Democrat 5,537,857 48.6 168 Clinton B. Fisk Prohibition 249,506 2.2 Anson J. Streeter Union Labor 146,935 1.3 1892 44 GROVER CLEVELAND DEMOCRAT 5,555,426 46.1 277 74.7 Benjamin Harrison Republican 5,182,690 43.0 145 James B. Weaver People’s 1,029,846 8.5 22 John Bidwell Prohibition 264,133 2.2 1896 45 WILLIAM McKINLEY REPUBLICAN 7,102,246 51.0 271 79.3 William J. Bryan Democrat 6,492,559 47.0 176 P r e s i d e n t i a l E l e c t i o n s A - 49 A - 49 % of Number Popular Popular Electoral % Voter Year of States Candidates Parties Vote Vote Vote Participation 1900 45 WILLIAM McKINLEY REPUBLICAN 7,218,491 52.0 292 73.2 William J. Bryan Democrat; Populist 6,356,734 46.0 155 John C. Wooley Prohibition 208,914 1.5 1904 45 THEODORE ROOSEVELT REPUBLICAN 7,628,461 56.4 336 65.2 Alton B. Parker Democrat 5,084,223 37.6 140 Eugene V. Debs Socialist 402,283 3.0 Silas C. Swallow Prohibition 258,536 1.9 1908 46 WILLIAM H. TAFT REPUBLICAN 7,675,320 52.0 321 65.4 William J. Bryan Democrat 6,412,294 43.4 162 Eugene V. Debs Socialist 420,793 2.8 Eugene W. Chafin Prohibition 253,840 1.7 1912 48 WOODROW WILSON DEMOCRAT 6,296,547 41.9 435 58.8 Theodore Roosevelt Progressive 4,118,571 27.4 88 William H. Taft Republican 3,486,720 23.2 8 Eugene V. Debs Socialist 900,672 6.0 Eugene W. Chafin Prohibition 206,275 1.4 1916 48 WOODROW WILSON DEMOCRAT 9,127,695 49.4 277 61.6 Charles E. Hughes Republican 8,533,507 46.2 254 A. L. Benson Socialist 585,113 3.2 J. Frank Hanly Prohibition 220,506 1.2 1920 48 WARREN G. HARDING REPUBLICAN 16,153,115 60.6 404 49.2 James M. Cox Democrat 9,133,092 34.3 127 Eugene V. Debs Socialist 915,490 3.4 P. P. Christensen Farmer- Labor 265,229 1.0 1924 48 CALVIN COOLIDGE REPUBLICAN 15,719,921 54.0 382 48.9 John W. Davis Democrat 8,386,704 29.0 136 Robert M. La Follette Progressive 4,832,532 16.5 13 A - 50 A - 50 A p p e n d i x % of Number Popular Popular Electoral % Voter Year of States Candidates Parties Vote Vote Vote Participation 1928 48 HERBERT C. HOOVER REPUBLICAN 21,437,277 58.2 444 56.9 Alfred E. Smith Democrat 15,007,698 40.9 87 1932 48 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT DEMOCRAT 22,829,501 57.7 472 56.9 Herbert C. Hoover Republican 15,760,684 39.8 59 Norman Thomas Socialist 884,649 2.2 1936 48 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT DEMOCRAT 27,757,333 60.8 523 61.0 Alfred M. Landon Republican 16,684,231 36.6 8 William Lemke Union 892,267 2.0 1940 48 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT DEMOCRAT 27,313,041 54.9 449 62.5 Wendell L. Willkie Republican 22,348,480 44.9 82 1944 48 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT DEMOCRAT 25,612,610 53.5 432 55.9 Thomas E. Dewey Republican 22,017,617 46.0 99 1948 48 HARRY S. TRUMAN DEMOCRAT 24,179,345 49.7 303 53.0 Thomas E. Dewey Republican 21,991,291 45.3 189 J. Strom Thurmond States’ Rights 1,176,125 2.4 39 Henry A. Wallace Progressive 1,157,326 2.4 1952 48 DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER REPUBLICAN 33,936,234 55.1 442 63.3 Adlai E. Stevenson Democrat 27,314,992 44.4 89 P r e s i d e n t i a l E l e c t i o n s A - 51 % of Number Popular Popular Electoral % Voter Year of States Candidates Parties Vote Vote Vote Participation 1956 48 DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER REPUBLICAN 35,590,472 57.6 457 60.6 Adlai E. Stevenson Democrat 26,022,752 42.1 73 1960 50 JOHN F. KENNEDY DEMOCRAT 34,226,731 49.7 303 62.8 Richard M. Nixon Republican 34,108,157 49.6 219 1964 50 LYNDON B. JOHNSON DEMOCRAT 43,129,566 61.0 486 61.9 Barry M. Goldwater Republican 27,178,188 38.4 52 1968 50 RICHARD M. NIXON REPUBLICAN 31,785,480 43.2 301 60.9 Hubert H. Humphrey Democrat 31,275,166 42.6 191 George C. Wallace American 9,906,473 12.9 46 Independent 1972 50 RICHARD M. NIXON REPUBLICAN 47,169,911 60.7 520 55.2 George S. McGovern Democrat 29,170,383 37.5 17 John G. Schmitz American 1,099,482 1.4 1976 50 JIMMY CARTER DEMOCRAT 40,830,763 50.0 297 53.5 Gerald R. Ford Republican 39,147,793 48.0 240 1980 50 RONALD REAGAN REPUBLICAN 43,904,153 50.9 489 52.6 Jimmy Carter Democrat 35,483,883 41.1 49 John B. Anderson Independent 5,720,060 6.6 Ed Clark Libertarian 921,299 1.1 A - 52 A - 52 A p p e n d i x % of Number Popular Popular Electoral % Voter Year of States Candidates Parties Vote Vote Vote Participation 1984 50 RONALD REAGAN REPUBLICAN 54,455,075 58.8 525 53.1 Walter F. Mondale Democrat 37,577,185 40.5 13 1988 50 GEORGE H. BUSH REPUBLICAN 48,886,097 53.4 426 50.1 Michael Dukakis Democrat 41,809,074 45.6 111 1992 50 BILL CLINTON DEMOCRAT 44,909,326 42.9 370 55.0 George H. Bush Republican 39,103,882 37.4 168 H. Ross Perot Independent 19,741,657 18.9 1996 50 BILL CLINTON DEMOCRAT 47,402,357 49.2 379 49.0 Bob Dole Republican 39,198,755 40.7 159 H. Ross Perot Reform Party 8,085,402 8.4 2000 50 GEORGE W. BUSH REPUBLICAN 50,455,156 47.9 271 50.4 Albert Gore Democrat 50,992,335 48.4 266 Ralph Nader Green Party 2,882,738 2.7 2004 50 GEORGE W. BUSH REPUBLICAN 62,040,610 50.7 286 56.2 John F. Kerry Democrat 59,028,111 48.3 251 2008 50 BARACK H. OBAMA DEMOCRAT 66,882,230 53 365 56.8 John S. McCain Republican 58,343,671 46 173 2012 50 BARACK H. OBAMA DEMOCRAT 62,611,250 51 332 53.6 W. Mitt Romney Republican 59,134,475 48 206 P r e s i d e n t i a l E l e c t i o n s A - 53 A - 53 A D M I S S I O N O F S T A T E S Order of Date of Order of Date of Admission State Admission Admission State Admission 1 Delaware December 7, 1787 26 Michigan January 26, 1837 2 Pennsylvania December 12, 1787 27 Florida March 3, 1845 3 New Jersey December 18, 1787 28 Texas December 29, 1845 4 Georgia January 2, 1788 29 Iowa December 28, 1846 5 Connecticut January 9, 1788 30 Wisconsin May 29, 1848 6 Massachusetts February 7, 1788 31 California September 9, 1850 7 Maryland April 28, 1788 32 Minnesota May 11, 1858 8 South Carolina May 23, 1788 33 Oregon February 14, 1859 9 New Hampshire June 21, 1788 34 Kansas January 29, 1861 10 Virginia June 25, 1788 35 West Virginia June 30, 1863 11 New York July 26, 1788 36 Nevada October 31, 1864 12 North Carolina November 21, 1789 37 Nebraska March 1, 1867 13 Rhode Island May 29, 1790 38 Colorado August 1, 1876 14 Vermont March 4, 1791 39 North Dakota November 2, 1889 15 Kentucky June 1, 1792 40 South Dakota November 2, 1889 16 Tennessee June 1, 1796 41 Montana November 8, 1889 17 Ohio March 1, 1803 42 Washington November 11, 1889 18 Louisiana April 30, 1812 43 Idaho July 3, 1890 19 Indiana December 11, 1816 44 Wyoming July 10, 1890 20 Mississippi December 10, 1817 45 Utah January 4, 1896 21 Illinois December 3, 1818 46 Oklahoma November 16, 1907 22 Alabama December 14, 1819 47 New Mexico January 6, 1912 23 Maine March 15, 1820 48 Arizona February 14, 1912 24 Missouri August 10, 1821 49 Alaska January 3, 1959 25 Arkansas June 15, 1836 50 Hawaii August 21, 1959 A - 54 A p p e n d i x P O P U L A T I O N O F T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S Year Number of States Population % Increase Population per Square Mile 1790 13 3,929,214 4.5 1800 16 5,308,483 35.1 6.1 1810 17 7,239,881 36.4 4.3 1820 23 9,638,453 33.1 5.5 1830 24 12,866,020 33.5 7.4 1840 26 17,069,453 32.7 9.8 1850 31 23,191,876 35.9 7.9 1860 33 31,443,321 35.6 10.6 1870 37 39,818,449 26.6 13.4 1880 38 50,155,783 26.0 16.9 1890 44 62,947,714 25.5 21.1 1900 45 75,994,575 20.7 25.6 1910 46 91,972,266 21.0 31.0 1920 48 105,710,620 14.9 35.6 1930 48 122,775,046 16.1 41.2 1940 48 131,669,275 7.2 44.2 1950 48 150,697,361 14.5 50.7 1960 50 179,323,175 19.0 50.6 1970 50 203,235,298 13.3 57.5 1980 50 226,504,825 11.4 64.0 1985 50 237,839,000 5.0 67.2 1990 50 250,122,000 5.2 70.6 1995 50 263,411,707 5.3 74.4 2000 50 281,421,906 6.8 77.0 2005 50 296,410,404 5.3 81.7 2010 50 308,745,538 4.2 87.4 P o p u l a t i o n o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s A - 55 H I S T O R I C A L S T A T I S T I C S O F T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S L A B O R F O R C E — S E L E C T E D C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S E X P R E S S E D A S A P E R C E N T A G E O F T H E L A B O R F O R C E : 1 8 0 0 – 2 0 0 0 Domestic Clerical, sales, Year Agriculture Manufacturing service and service Professions Slave Nonwhite Foreign-born Female 1800 74.4 — 2.4 — — 30.2 32.6 — 21.4 1860 55.8 13.8 5.4 4.81 3.01 21.7 23.6 24.51 19.6 1910 30.7 20.8 5.5 14.1 4.7 — 13.4 22.0 20.8 1950 12.0 26.4 2.5 27.3 8.9 — 10.0 8.7 27.9 2000 2.4 14.7 0.6 38.02 15.6 — 16.5 10.32 46.6 2010 1.6 10.1 1.6 40.2 22.2 — 18.7 15.8 46.7 1Values for 1870 are presented here because the available data for 1860 exclude slaves. 21990. I M M I G R A T I O N , B Y O R I G I N ( i n t h o u s a n d s ) Period Europe Americas Asia 1820–30 106 12 — 1831–40 496 33 — 1841–50 1,597 62 — 1851–60 2,453 75 42 1861–70 2,065 167 65 1871–80 2,272 404 70 1881–90 4,735 427 70 1891–1900 3,555 39 75 1901–10 8,065 362 324 1911–20 4,322 1,144 247 1921–30 2,463 1,517 112 1931–40 348 160 16 1941–50 621 355 32 1951–60 1,326 997 150 1961–70 1,123 1,716 590 1971–80 800 1,983 1,588 1981–90 762 3,616 2,738 1991–2000 1,100 3,800 2,200 A - 56 A - 56 A p p e n d i x U N E M P L O Y M E N T R A T E , U N I O N M E M B E R S H I P 1 8 9 0 – 2 0 1 3 A S A P E R C E N T A G E O F N O N A G R I C U L T U R A L 24 E M P L O Y M E N T , 1 8 8 0 – 2 0 1 2 20 16 12 ercentageP 8 4 30 0 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2013 20 Year ercentageP 10 01880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2012 V O T E R P A R T I C I P A T I O N I N Year P R E S I D E N T I A L E L E C T I O N S , 1 8 2 4 – 2 0 1 2 140 120 B I R T H R A T E , 1 8 2 0 – 2 0 1 1 100 Million 80 Votes cast 60 60 55 40 52 50 20 44 40 0 40 32 80 Baby boom 30 28 70 Turnout 24 60 19 20 161714.4 50 ercentage 40 10 P Births per thousand Americans 30 0 0 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2011 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2012 Year Year H i s t o r i c a l S t a t i s t i c s o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s A - 57 S U G G E S T E D R E A D I N G C H A P T E R 1 5 : “ W H A T I S F R E E D O M ? ” : R E C O N S T R U C T I O N , 1 8 6 5 – 1 8 7 7 Books Butchart, Ronald E. Schooling the Freed People: Teaching, Learning, and the Struggle for Black Freedom (2010). Relates the efforts of black and white teachers to educate the former slaves and some of the conflicts that arose over the pur- poses of such education. DuBois, Ellen C. Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women’s Movement in America, 1848–1869 (1978). Explores how the split over the exclusion of women from the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments gave rise to a movement for woman suffrage no longer tied to the abolitionist tradition. Foner, Eric. Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983). Includes a comparison of the emancipation experi- ence in different parts of the Western Hemisphere. Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988). A comprehensive account of the Reconstruc- tion era. Hahn, Steven. A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003). A detailed study of black political activism, stressing nationalist consciousness and emigration movements. Hyman, Harold M. A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution (1973). Analyzes how the laws and constitutional amendments of Reconstruction changed the Constitution and the rights of all Americans. Litwack, Leon F. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (1979). A detailed look at the immediate aftermath of the end of slavery and the variety of black and white responses to emancipation. Rable, George C. But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (1984). The only full-scale study of violence in the Reconstruction South. Websites After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Emancipation Carolinas: www.afterslavery.com America’s Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War: www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/index .html Freedmen and Southern Society Project: www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/ The Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial: www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/impeach/impeachmt.htm C H A P T E R 1 6 : A M E R I C A ’ S G I L D E D A G E , 1 8 7 0 – 1 8 9 0 Books Blackhawk, Ned. Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West (2006). A history of the long conflict between Native Americans and the federal government for control of the trans-Mississippi West. Fink, Leon. Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (1983). Examines the rise of the Knights of Labor and their forays into local politics in the mid-1880s. Hamalainen, Pekka. The Comanche Empire (2008). The rise and fall of Comanche domination over much of the south- western United States. Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944). A classic study of a major tendency in American thought during the Gilded Age. S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g A - 59 Jeffrey, Julie R. Frontier Women: “Civilizing” the West? 1840–1880 (rev. ed., 1998). A study, based on letters and diaries, of the experience of women on the western frontier. Morgan, H. Wayne. From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877–1896 (1969). The standard narrative of national politics during these years. Thomas, John L. Alternative Americas: Henry George, Edward Bellamy, Henry Demarest Lloyd and the Adversary Tradition (1983). A thorough exposition of the thought of three critics of Gilded Age society. Trachtenberg, Alan. The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (1982). An influential survey of how economic change affected American life during the Gilded Age. White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2011). A careful study of the building of the transcontinental railroad and how it epitomized the political corruption and financial mismanagement so widespread in the Gilded Age. Websites Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains: www.lib.montana.edu/digital/nadb/ The Dramas of Haymarket: www.chicagohistory.org/dramas/overview/over.htm Western History Genealogy Digital Collections: http://digital.dewerlibrary.org C H A P T E R 1 7 : F R E E D O M ’ S B O U N D A R I E S , A T H O M E A N D A B R O A D , 1 8 9 0 – 1 9 0 0 Books Blight, David. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001). Examines how a memory of the Civil War that downplayed the issue of slavery played a part in sectional reconciliation and the rise of segregation. Hoganson, Kristin L. Consumers’ Imperium: The Global Production of American Domesticity, 1865–1920 (2007). Shows how the consumer desires of middle-class women helped to spur the consolidation of an American empire. LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (1963). A classic examination of the forces that led the United States to acquire an overseas empire. Lake, Marilyn, and Henry Reynolds. Drawing the Global Color Line (2008). Traces the global transmission of ideas about white supremacy in the late nineteenth century. McClain, Charles J. In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America (1994). Explores how Chinese-Americans worked to combat the discrimination to which they were subjected and to assert their rights. Perez, Louis A. The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography (1998). Presents the Cuban side of the Spanish-American War, including a detailed discussion of the Cuban movement for independence and how American intervention affected it. Postel, Charles. The Populist Vision (2007). A history of the Populist movement that stresses how it anticipated many public policies of the twentieth century. Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (1951). A classic treatment of the New South, emphasizing how its rulers failed to meet the needs of most southerners, white as well as black. Websites 1896: The Presidential Campaign: http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/1896home.html The Chinese in California, 1850–1925: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/cubhtml/cichome.html The History of Jim Crow: www.jimcrowhistory.org The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War: www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898 A - 60 S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g C H A P T E R 1 8 : T H E P R O G R E S S I V E E R A , 1 9 0 0 – 1 9 1 6 Books Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (1985). A comprehensive account of American immigration. Cott, Nancy F. The Grounding of Modern Feminism (1987). A careful study of feminist ideas in the Progressive era. Dawley, Alan. Struggles for Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State (1991). Examines the varieties of Progressive reform and various efforts to use the power of government for social betterment. Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R. (1955). A classic account of the ideas of reformers from Populism to the New Deal. Johnston, Robert D. The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland (2003). Analyzes how Progressivism operated in one important city. Lears, Jackson. Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920 (2009). A comprehensive history of the Gilded Age and Progressive eras, stressing the extent of social and cultural change. Recchiuti, John L. Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City (2006). Examines the influ- ence of a group of reform-minded scholars on the politics of the Progressive era. Rodgers, Daniel T. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (1998). A comprehensive study of the flow of Progressive ideas and policies back and forth across the Atlantic. Websites Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1860–1920: http://memory.loc.gov/ ammem/amrvhtml/conshome.html Immigration to the United States, 1789–1930: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ immigration/ Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/ Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull House and Its Neighborhoods: www.uic.edu/ jaddams/hull/urbanexp/index.htm Votes for Women: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawshome.html C H A P T E R 1 9 : S A F E F O R D E M O C R A C Y : T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S A N D W O R L D W A R I , 1 9 1 6 – 1 9 2 0 Books Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Race and Gender in the United States, 1880–1917 (1995). Explores how ideas concerning civilization and gender affected American foreign policy. Capozzola, Christopher. Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (2008). A careful study of public and private efforts to enforce patriotic ideas and actions during World War I. Dawley, Alan. Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution (2003). Presents the war as a fulfillment and betrayal of the Progressive impulse. Greene, Julie. The Canal Builders: Making American Empire at the Panama Canal (2009). Tells the story of the construction of the Panama Canal and the tens of thousands of workers who did the work. Grossman, James R. Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (1989). An in-depth study of the migration of blacks to one American city. Kennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American Society (1980). A comprehensive account of how the war affected domestic life in the United States. Manela, Erez. The Wilsonian Moment (2007). Details how the Wilsonian ideal of self-determination was received around the world, with results Wilson did not anticipate. Preston, William, Jr. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903–1933 (1963). An influential study of the federal government’s efforts to suppress dissenting ideas, especially during and immediately after World War I. S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g A - 61 Websites Alcohol, Temperance, and Prohibition: http://dl.lib.brown.edu/temperance/ First World War.com: www.firstworldwar.com/index.htm Red Scare: http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/redscare/default.htm The Bisbee Deportation of 1917: www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/bisbee/ C H A P T E R 2 0 : F R O M B U S I N E S S C U L T U R E T O G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N : T H E T W E N T I E S , 1 9 2 0 – 1 9 3 2 Books Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: America in the Twenties (1995). A brief survey of the main political and cultural trends of the decade. Garraty, John A. The Great Depression (1986). Places the Depression in a global context and compares various govern- ments’ responses to it. Gerstle, Gary. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (2002). A sweeping survey of how changing ideas of race have affected the concept of American nationality, with a strong account of the debates of the 1920s. Lerner, Michael A. Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City (2007). An account of the success and failure of Prohibi- tion in the nation’s largest city. Lewis, David L. When Harlem Was in Vogue (1981). A lively account of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicism, 1870–1925 (1980). Traces the ups and downs of American fundamentalism, culminating in the Scopes trial. Murphy, Paul L. World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States (1979). An analysis of how the repression of free speech during World War I paved the way for a heightened awareness of the importance of civil liberties. Ngai, Mae. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004). An influential examination of immi- gration policy toward Mexicans and Asians, and the development of the legal category of “illegal alien.” Websites Emergence of Advertising in America: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/ Harlem History: www.columbia.edu/cu/iraas/harlem/index.html Pluralism and Unity: www.expo98.msu.edu/ Prosperity and Thrift: Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/coolhome.html C H A P T E R 2 1 : T H E N E W D E A L , 1 9 3 2 – 1 9 4 0 Books Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression (1982). An account of the political careers of two key figures of the New Deal era and their influence on national events. Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century (1996). A comprehensive account of the rise of cultural activity associated with the political left and the New Deal. Kessler-Harris, Alice. In Pursuit of Equity: Men, Women, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-Century America (2001). Explores how assumptions regarding the proper roles of men and women helped to shape New Deal measures such as Social Security. Leuchtenberg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (1963). Still the standard one-volume account of Roosevelt’s first two terms as president. Maher, Neil. Nature’s New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement (2007). A history of one of the most significant New Deal agencies and how it affected attitudes toward the natural environment. A - 62 S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g Naison, Mark. Communists in Harlem during the Depression (1983). Examines the rise and decline of the Communist Party in a center of black life, and its impact on the movement for racial justice. Phillips, Sarah T. The Land, This Nation: Conservation, Rural America, and the New Deal (2007). Examines New Deal policies regarding agricultural development, rural conservation, and land use, and its attempt to modernize and uplift rural life. Sanchez, George. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (1995). A careful study of Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles, including their participation in the social unrest of the 1930s and the movement for deporting them during that decade. Sitkoff, Harvard. A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue (1978). Discusses the changing approach of the Roosevelt administration toward black Americans. Websites America from the Great Depression to World War II: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html FDR Cartoon Archive: www.nisk.k12.ny.us/fdr/FDRcartoons.html Flint Sit-Down Strike: www.historicalvoices.org/flint/ New Deal Network: http://newdeal.feri.org C H A P T E R 2 2 : F I G H T I N G F O R T H E F O U R F R E E D O M S : W O R L D W A R I I , 1 9 4 1 – 1 9 4 5 Books Anderson, Karen. Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women during World War II (1981). Explores how the experience of World War II opened new opportunities for women and challenged existing gender conventions. Borgwardt, Elizabeth. A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (2005). The emergence during the war of the idea of human rights as an international entitlement. Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (1995). Describes how liberals’ ideas and poli- cies moved away, during the late New Deal and the war, from combating inequalities of economic power. Daniels, Rogers. Prisoners without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (1993). A brief history of the internment of Japanese-Americans during the war. Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (1986). Explores how racial fears and antagonisms motivated both sides in the Pacific theater. Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (1999). A detailed and lively account of American history from the Great Depression through the end of World War II. Von Eschen, Penny. Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937–1957 (1997). Examines how black Americans responded to the rise of movements for colonial independence overseas during and after World War II. Zelizer, Julian E. Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security—From World War II to the War on Terrorism (2009). Traces the origins of the national security state from Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy” speech of 1940 to the present, stressing the tension between the two elements, arsenal and democracy. Websites A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution: http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectunion /experience/index.html A People at War: www.archives.gov/exhibits/a_people_at_war/a_people_at_war. html “A Summons to Comradeship”: World War I and World War II Posters and Postcards: http://digital.lib.umn.edu /warposters/warpost.html Remembering Nagasaki: www.exploratorium.edu/nagasaki/ S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g A - 63 C H A P T E R 2 3 : T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S A N D T H E C O L D W A R , 1 9 4 5 – 1 9 5 3 Books Biondi, Martha. To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City (2003). A comprehensive account of the broad coalition that battled for racial justice in New York City, in areas such as jobs, education, and housing. Canaday, Margot. The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (2009). Details the federal government’s efforts to stigmatize and punish homosexuality. Gaddis, John. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Analysis of Postwar American National Security (1982). An influential analy- sis of the development of the containment policy central to American foreign policy during the Cold War. Glendon, Mary Ann. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2001). Relates the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the response of governments around the world, includ- ing that of the United States. Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (1992). An influ- ential account of the origins of the Cold War. Saunders, Frances S. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (2000). Describes how the CIA and other government agencies secretly funded artists and writers as part of the larger Cold War. Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998). A full account of the anticommunist crusade at home and its impact on American intellectual and social life. Stueck, William. The Korean War: An International History (1995). Studies the Korean War in its full global context. Websites Cold War International History Project: www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm? fuseaction=topics.home&topic_id=1409 The Korean War and Its Origins, 1945–1953: http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/koreanwar /index.php C H A P T E R 2 4 : A N A F F L U E N T S O C I E T Y , 1 9 5 3 – 1 9 6 0 Books Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (1988). A comprehensive account of the civil rights movement from the Brown decision to the early 1960s. Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (2003). Considers how the glorification of consumer freedom shaped American public policy and the physical landscape. Freeman, Joshua B. Working-Class New York: Life and Labor since World War II (2000). An account of the lives of laborers in the nation’s largest city, tracing the rise and decline of the labor movement. Inboden, William. Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960: The Soul of Containment (2008). How religious groups influenced American diplomacy at the height of the Cold War. Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of America (1985). The standard account of the development of American suburbia. May, Elaine T. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1988). Studies the nuclear family as a bastion of American freedom during the Cold War, at least according to official propaganda. Nicolaides, Becky M. My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 (2002). Traces the transformation of Southgate, an industrial neighborhood of Los Angeles, into an all-white suburb, and the political results. Phillips-Fein, Kim. Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (2009). Relates how a group of economic thinkers and businessmen worked to fashion a conservative movement in an attempt to reverse many of the policies of the New Deal. Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War (2005). A wide-ranging analysis of how the Cold War played out in the Third World. A - 64 S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g Websites Brown v. Board of Education: www.lib.umich.edu/brown-versus-board-education/ Herblock’s History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium: www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/ Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb: http://uic.edu/–pbhales/Levittown.html C H A P T E R 2 5 : T H E S I X T I E S , 1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 8 Books Anderson, John A., III. The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (1997). Considers conservative students of the 1960s and how they laid the groundwork for the later growth of their movement. Anderson, Terry H. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee (1995). Offers an account of the numerous social protests that took place during the 1960s. Dierenfield, Bruce. The Battle Over School Prayer: How Engle v. Vitale Changed America (2007). One controversial Supreme Court decision of the 1960s and its long-term consequences. Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (1994). Traces the civil rights movement in one state, looked at from the experience of grassroots activists. Herring, George C. America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (2002 ed.). The fullest study of how the United States became involved in the war in Vietnam, and the course of the conflict. Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (2000). A comprehensive account of the social movements and political debates of the 1960s. Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America (2000). Considers how the “second wave” of feminism transformed the lives of American women and men. Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962–1992 (1993). A brief history of one of the most significant movements to emerge from the 1960s. Websites A Visual Journey: Photographs by Lisa Law, 1965–1971: http://americanhistory.si.edu/lisalaw/ Free Speech Movement Digital Archive: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/FSM/ Freedom Now!: www.stg.brown.edu/projects/FreedomNow/ The Wars for Vietnam, 1945–1975: http://vietnam.vassar.edu/index.html C H A P T E R 2 6 : T H E T R I U M P H O F C O N S E R V A T I S M , 1 9 6 9 – 1 9 8 8 Books Dallek, Matthew. The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan’s First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics (2000). An examination of the causes of Reagan’s election in 1980 and its impact on American politics. Greenberg, David. Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image (2003). Explores how Nixon’s supporters and enemies thought about him during his long political career. Kruse, Kevin. White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (2005). Explores how conservative politics took root in the predominantly white suburbs of Atlanta, with implications for similar communities across the country. Martin, William. With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (1996). Traces the development of religious conservatism and its impact on American society. McGirr, Lisa. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (2001). An influential study of the rise of conserva- tism in Orange County, California, once one of its more powerful centers. Schulman, Bruce J. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (2001). A survey of the numerous political, social, and economic changes that took place during the 1970s. S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g A - 65 Stein, Judith. Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies (2010). A careful analysis of the economic transformations of the 1970s. . Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism (1998). Examines the decline of the American steel industry and how the Cold War and presidential policies from Eisenhower to Carter contrib- uted to it. Wilentz, Sean. The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008 (2008). Explores how Ronald Reagan set the terms of public debate during and after his presidency. Websites China and the United States: From Hostility to Engagement, 1960–1998: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publications /china-us/ National Security Archive: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ C H A P T E R 2 7 : G L O B A L I Z A T I O N A N D I T S D I S C O N T E N T S , 1 9 8 9 – 2 0 0 0 Books Foner, Nancy. From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration (2000). Studies the new immigration of the 1980s and 1990s and considers how it does and does not differ from earlier waves of newcomers. Hodgson, Godfrey. More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century (2004). A survey of recent American history that identifies growing inequality as a major trend of these years. Judis, John B. The Paradox of American Democracy (2000). Discusses how the democratic tradition has been weakened by the growing influence of money and declining voter participation. Levitas, Daniel. The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right (2003). A careful study of right-wing extremism of the 1990s. Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business (2009). How Walmart became the largest employer in the United States and one of the most profitable. Phillips, Kevin. Wealth and Democracy (2002). A critique of the influence of money on American politics. Roberts, Sam. Who We Are Now: The Changing Face of America in the Twenty-First Century (2004). A social portrait of the American people, based on the 2000 Census. Stiglitz, Joseph. Globalization and Its Discontents (2002). A leading economist’s criticism of some of the consequences of economic globalization. Websites Global Exchange: www.globalexchange.org Making the Macintosh: Technology and Culture in Silicon Valley: http://library.stanford.edu/mac/ C H A P T E R 2 8 : S E P T E M B E R 1 1 A N D T H E N E X T A M E R I C A N C E N T U R Y Books Bacevich, Andrew. American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (2003). Examines how the idea of an American empire reemerged after September 11, and some of the results. Brinkley, Douglas. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006). A scathing account of how government at all levels failed the people of New Orleans. Cole, David. Terrorism and the Constitution (rev. ed., 2006). Explores the constitutional issues raised by the war on terrorism. Krugman, Paul, The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 (2009). A leading economist explains the origins of the Great Recession. A - 66 S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g Lansley, Stewart. Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising (2011). A prominent economist explains the reasons for rising economic inequality. Little, Douglas. American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945 (2003). A careful study of American relations with a volatile region since World War II. Packer, George. The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq (2005). An early supporter of the war in Iraq explains what went wrong. Zakaria, Fareed. The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (2003). A foreign policy analyst discusses how the United States should respond to threats to freedom in the world. Websites September 11 Digital Archive: http://911digitalarchive.org The White House: www.whitehouse.gov S u g g e s t e d R e a d i n g A - 67 G L O S S A R Y Abolitionism Social movement of the pre–Civil War American Colonization Society Organized in 1816 to era that advocated the immediate emancipation of the encourage colonization of free blacks to Africa; West slaves and their incorporation into American society as African nation of Liberia founded in 1822 to serve as a equal citizens. homeland for them. “American exceptionalism” The belief that the United Affirmative action Policy efforts to promote greater States has a special mission to serve as a refuge from employment opportunities for minorities. tyranny, a symbol of freedom, and a model for the rest Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933) New Deal legisla- of the world. tion that established the Agricultural Adjustment American Federation of Labor Founded in 1881 as a Administration (AAA) to improve agricultural prices by federation of trade unions composed mostly of skilled, limiting market supplies; declared unconstitutional in white, native-born workers; its long-term president was United States v. Butler (1936). Samuel Gompers. Aid to Families with Dependent Children Federal American System Program of internal improvements program, also known as “welfare,” of financial assistance and protective tariffs promoted by Speaker of the House to needy American families; created in 1935 as part of the Henry Clay in his presidential campaign of 1824; his Social Security Act; abolished in 1996. proposals formed the core of Whig ideology in the 1830s Alamo, Battle of the Siege in the Texas War for Inde- and 1840s. pendence, 1836, in which the San Antonio mission fell to Amistad Ship that transported slaves from one port the Mexicans. in Cuba to another, seized by the slaves in 1839. They Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) Four measures passed made their way northward to the United States, where during the undeclared war with France that limited the the status of the slaves became the subject of a cele- freedoms of speech and press and restricted the liberty of brated court case; eventually most were able to return to noncitizens. Africa. America First Committee Largely midwestern isola- Anarchism Belief that all institutions that exercise tionist organization supported by many prominent citi- power over individuals, especially government, are ille- zens, 1940–1941. gitimate; it flourished among certain native-born indi- vidualists in the nineteenth century and radical American Civil Liberties Union Organization founded immigrants in the early twentieth century. during World War I to protest the suppression of free- dom of expression in wartime; played a major role in Antietam, Battle of One of the bloodiest battles of the court cases that achieved judicial recognition of Ameri- Civil War, fought to a standoff on September 17, 1862, in cans’ civil liberties. western Maryland. G l o s s a r y A - 69 Antifederalists Opponents of the Constitution who Aztec Mesoamerican people who were conquered by saw it as a limitation on individual and states’ rights; the Spanish under Hernán Cortés, 1519–1528. their demands led to the addition of a Bill of Rights to the document. Baby boom Markedly higher birthrate in the years fol- lowing World War II; led to the biggest demographic Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia Site of the surren- “bubble’’ in American history. der of Confederate general Robert E. Lee to Union gen- eral Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, marking the end of Bacon’s Rebellion Unsuccessful 1676 revolt led by the Civil War. planter Nathaniel Bacon against Virginia governor Wil- liam Berkeley’s administration because of governmental Arab Spring Revolutionary demonstrations and pro- corruption and because Berkeley had failed to protect tests that swept the Middle East in 2011. settlers from Indian raids and did not allow them to occupy Indian lands. Army-McCarthy hearings Televised U.S. Senate hear- ings in 1954 on Senator Joseph McCarthy’s charges of Baker v. Carr (1962) U.S. Supreme Court decision that disloyalty in the army; his tactics contributed to his cen- established the principle of “one man, one vote,” that is, sure by the Senate. that legislative districts must be equal in population. Articles of Confederation First frame of government Bakke v. Regents of the University of California (1978) for the United States; in effect from 1781 to 1788, it pro- Case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the vided for a weak central authority and was soon replaced California university system’s use of racial quotas in by the Constitution. admissions but allowed the use of race as one factor in admissions decisions. Atlanta Compromise Speech to the Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895 by educator Booker T. Balance of trade Ratio of imports to exports. Washington, the leading black spokesman of the day; Bank of the United States Proposed by the first secre- black scholar W. E. B. Du Bois gave the speech its derisive tary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, the bank name and criticized Washington for encouraging blacks opened in 1791 and operated until 1811 to issue a uniform to accommodate segregation and disenfranchisement. currency, make business loans, and collect tax monies. Atlantic Charter Issued August 12, 1941, following The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in meetings in Newfoundland between President 1816 but President Andrew Jackson vetoed the recharter Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Win- bill in 1832. ston Churchill, the charter signaled the Allies’ coopera- Barbary pirates Plundering pirates off the Mediterra- tion and stated their war aims. nean coast of Africa; President Thomas Jefferson’s Atlantic slave trade The systematic importation of refusal to pay them tribute to protect American ships African slaves from their native continent across the sparked an undeclared naval war with North African Atlantic Ocean to the New World, largely fuelled by ris- nations, 1801–1805. ing demand for sugar, rice, coffee, and tobacco. Barbed wire First practical fencing material for the Great Plains was invented in 1873 and rapidly spelled the Atomic Energy Commission Created in 1946 to super- end of the open range. vise peacetime uses of atomic energy. Axis powers In World War II, the nations of Germany, Bay of Pigs invasion Hoping to inspire a revolt against Italy, and Japan. Fidel Castro, the CIA sent 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade A - 70 G l o s s a r y their homeland on April 17, 1961, but the mission was a 1900; a coalition of American, European, and Japanese spectacular failure. forces put down the rebellion and reclaimed captured embassies in Peking (Beijing) within the year. The Beats A term coined by Jack Kerouac for a small group of poets and writers who railed against 1950s Bracero program System agreed to by Mexican and mainstream culture. American governments in 1942 under which tens of thousands of Mexicans entered the United States to Bill of Rights First ten amendments to the U.S. Consti- work temporarily in agricultural jobs in the Southwest; tution, adopted in 1791 to guarantee individual rights lasted until 1964 and inhibited labor organization among against infringement by the federal government. farm workers since braceros could be deported at any time. Black Codes (1865–1866) Laws passed in southern states to restrict the rights of former slaves; to nullify the Brains trust Group of advisers—many of them codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and academics—assembled by Franklin D. Roosevelt to rec- the Fourteenth Amendment. ommend New Deal policies during the early months of his presidency. Black Legend Idea that the Spanish New World empire was more oppressive toward the Indians than other Bretton Woods Town in New Hampshire and site of European empires; was used as a justification for Eng- international agreement in 1944 by which the American lish imperial expansion. dollar replaced the British pound as the most important international currency, and the World Bank and Interna- Black Power Post-1966 rallying cry of a more militant tional Monetary Fund were created to promote rebuild- civil rights movement. ing after World War II and to ensure that countries did not devalue their currencies. Bland-Allison Act (1878) Passed over President Ruth- erford B. Hayes’s veto, the inflationary measure autho- Brook Farm Transcendentalist commune in West Rox- rized the purchase each month of 2 to 4 million dollars’ bury, Massachusetts, populated from 1841 to 1847 prin- worth of silver for coinage. cipally by writers (Nathaniel Hawthorne, for one) and other intellectuals. “Bleeding Kansas” Violence between pro- and antislav- ery settlers in the Kansas Territory, 1856. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segrega- Boston Massacre Clash between British soldiers and a tion in public education and declared “separate but Boston mob, March 5, 1770, in which five colonists were equal’’ unconstitutional. killed. Bull Run, Battles of (First and Second Manassas) Boston Tea Party On December 16, 1773, the Sons of First land engagement of the Civil War took place on Liberty, dressed as Indians, dumped hundreds of chests July 21, 1861, at Manassas Junction, Virginia, at which of tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act of 1773, Union troops quickly retreated; one year later, on August under which the British exported to the colonies millions 29–30, Confederates captured the federal supply depot of pounds of cheap—but still taxed—tea, thereby under- and forced Union troops back to Washington. cutting the price of smuggled tea and forcing payment of the tea duty. Bunker Hill, Battle of First major battle of the Revolu- Boxer Rebellion Chinese nationalist protest against tionary War; it actually took place at nearby Breed’s Hill, Western commercial domination and cultural influence, Massachusetts, on June 17, 1775. G l o s s a r y A - 71 “Burned-over district’’ Area of western New York Civil Rights Act of 1866 Along with the Fourteenth strongly influenced by the revivalist fervor of the Second Amendment, guaranteed the rights of citizenship to for- Great Awakening; Disciples of Christ and Mormons are mer slaves. among the many sects that trace their roots to the phenomenon. Civil Rights Act of 1957 First federal civil rights law since Reconstruction; established the Civil Rights Com- Bush Doctrine President George W. Bush’s foreign mission and the Civil Rights Division of the Department policy principle wherein the United States would launch of Justice. a war on terrorism. Civil Rights Act of 1964 Outlawed discrimination in Bush v. Gore (2000) U.S. Supreme Court case that public accommodations and employment. determined the winner of the disputed 2000 presiden- tial election. Civil Service Act of 1883 Established the Civil Service Commission and marked the end of the spoils system. Busing The means of transporting students via buses to achieve school integration in the 1970s. Closed shop Hiring requirement that all workers in a business must be union members. Calvinism Doctrine of predestination expounded by Swiss theologian John Calvin in 1536; influenced the Coercive Acts/Intolerable Acts (1774) Four parlia- Puritan, Presbyterian, German and Dutch Reformed, mentary measures in reaction to the Boston Tea Party and Huguenot churches in the colonies. that forced payment for the tea, disallowed colonial trials of British soldiers, forced their quartering in private Camp David accords Peace agreement between the homes, and reduced the number of elected officials in leaders of Israel and Egypt, brokered by President Jimmy Massachusetts. Carter in 1978. Cold War Term for tensions, 1945–1989, between the Caravel A fifteenth-century European ship capable of Soviet Union and the United States, the two major world long-distance travel. powers after World War II. Carpetbaggers Derisive term for northern emigrants Collective bargaining The process of negotiations who participated in the Republican governments of the between an employer and a group of employees to regu- Reconstruction South. late working conditions. Chancellorsville, Battle of Confederate general Robert E. Columbian exchange The transatlantic flow of goods Lee won his last major victory and General “Stonewall’’ and people that began with Columbus’s voyages in Jackson died in this Civil War battle in northern Virginia 1492. on May 1–4, 1863. Common school Tax-supported state schools of the Checks and balances A systematic balance to prevent early nineteenth century open to all children. any one branch of the national government from domi- nating the other two. Common Sense A pamphlet anonymously written by Thomas Paine in January 1776 that attacked the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) Halted Chinese immi- English principles of hereditary rule and monarchical gration to the United States. government. A - 72 G l o s s a r y Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842) Landmark ruling of the Containment General U.S. strategy in the Cold War that Massachusetts Supreme Court establishing the legality called for containing Soviet expansion; originally devised of labor unions. by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan. Communitarianism Social reform movement of the Continental army Army authorized by the Continental nineteenth century driven by the belief that by establish- Congress in 1775 to fight the British; commanded by ing small communities based on common ownership of General George Washington. property, a less competitive and individualistic society could be developed. Continental Congress Representatives of the colonies met first in Philadelphia in 1774 to formulate actions Compromise of 1850 Complex compromise devised by against British policies; the Second Continental Congress Senator Henry Clay that admitted California as a free (1775–1789) conducted the war and adopted the Declara- state, included a stronger fugitive slave law, and delayed tion of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories. Convict leasing System developed in the post–Civil War South that generated income for the states and satis- Compromise of 1877 Deal made by a Republican and fied planters’ need for cheap labor by renting prisoners Democratic special congressional commission to resolve out; the convicts were often treated poorly. the disputed presidential election of 1876; Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who had lost the popular vote, was Copperheads Republican term for northerners opposed declared the winner in exchange for the withdrawal of to the Civil War; it derived from the name of a poisonous federal troops from involvement in politics in the South, snake. marking the end of Reconstruction. Coral Sea, Battle of the Fought on May 7–8, 1942, near Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) Umbrella the eastern coast of Australia, it was the first U.S. naval organization of semiskilled industrial unions, formed in victory over Japan in World War II. 1935 as the Committee for Industrial Organization and renamed in 1938. Cotton gin Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, the machine separated cotton seed from cotton fiber, speed- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Civil rights orga- ing cotton pro cessing and making profitable the cultiva- nization started in 1942 and best known for its Freedom tion of the more hardy, but difficult to clean, short-staple Rides, bus journeys challenging racial segregation in the cotton; led directly to the dramatic nineteenth-century South in 1961. expansion of slavery in the South. Conspicuous consumption Phrase referring to extrav- Counterculture “Hippie’’ youth culture of the 1960s, agant spending to raise social standing, coined by which rejected the values of the dominant culture in favor Thorstein Veblen in The Theory of the Leisure Class of illicit drugs, communes, free sex, and rock music. (1899). Constitutional Convention Meeting in Philadelphia, Court-packing plan President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s May 25–September 17, 1787, of representatives from failed 1937 attempt to increase the number of U.S. twelve colonies—excepting Rhode Island—to revise the Supreme Court justices from nine to fifteen in order to existing Articles of Confederation; convention soon save his Second New Deal programs from constitutional resolved to produce an entirely new constitution. challenges. G l o s s a r y A - 73 Coverture Principle in English and American law that Deindustrialization Term describing decline of manu- a married woman lost her legal identity, which became facturing in old industrial areas in the late twentieth “covered” by that of her husband, who therefore con- century as companies shifted production to low-wage trolled her person and the family’s economic resources. centers in the South and West or in other countries. Crédit Mobilier scandal Millions of dollars in over- Deism Enlightenment thought applied to religion; charges for building the Union Pacific Railroad were emphasized reason, morality, and natural law. exposed; high officials of the Ulysses S. Grant adminis- tration were implicated but never charged. Democratic Party Established in 1828 and led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the party was Creoles ( Criollos in Spanish) Persons born in the New a major opponent of the Whig Party until the Civil World of European ancestry. War; unlike the Whigs, Democrats believed government should adopt a hands-off approach toward the economy. Cuban missile crisis Caused when the United States discovered Soviet offensive missile sites in Cuba in Democratic-Republican Societies Organizations cre- October 1962; the U.S.-Soviet confrontation was the Cold ated in the mid-1790s by opponents of the policies of the War’s closest brush with nuclear war. Washington administration and supporters of the French Revolution. Cult of domesticity The nineteenth-century ideology of “virtue” and “modesty” as the qualities that were Department of Homeland Security Created to coordi- essential to proper womanhood. nate federal antiterrorist activity following the 2001 ter- rorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Crop-lien system Merchants extended credit to tenants based on their future crops, but high interest rates and the Depression Period in which economic output declines uncertainties of farming often led to inescapable debts. sharply and unemployment rises; it applied especially to the Great Depression of the 1930s. D-Day June 6, 1944, when an Allied amphibious assault landed on the Normandy coast and established a foot- Depression of 1893 Worst depression of the nineteenth hold in Europe, leading to the liberation of France from century, set off by a railroad failure, too much specula- German occupation. tion on Wall Street, and low agricultural prices. Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) U.S. Supreme Disenfranchise To deprive of the right to vote; in the Court upheld the original charter of the college against United States, exclusionary policies were used to deny New Hampshire’s attempt to alter the board of trustees; groups, especially African-Americans and women, their set precedent of support of contracts against state voting rights. interference. Division of Powers The division of political power Dawes Act Law passed in 1887 meant to encourage between the state and federal governments under the adoption of white norms among Indians; broke up tribal U.S. Constitution (also known as federalism). holdings into small farms for Indian families, with the remainder sold to white purchasers. Dixiecrats Deep South delegates who walked out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention in protest of the Declaration of Independence Document adopted on party’s support for civil rights legislation and later July 4, 1776, that made the break with Britain official; formed the States’ Rights Democratic (Dixiecrat) Party, drafted by a committee of the Second Continental Con- which nominated Strom Thurmond of South Carolina gress, including principal writer Thomas Jefferson. for president. A - 74 G l o s s a r y Dollar Diplomacy A foreign policy initiative under circumvented the embargo, and it was repealed two President William Howard Taft that promoted the years later. spread of American influence through loans and eco- nomic investments from American banks. Emergency Banking Relief Act (1933) First New Deal measure that provided for reopening the banks under Dominion of New England Consolidation into a single strict conditions and took the United States off the gold colony of the New England colonies—and later New standard. York and New Jersey—by royal governor Edmund Andros in 1686; dominion reverted to individual colonial Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 Limited U.S. governments three years later. immigration to 3 percent of each foreign-born national- ity in the 1910 census; three years later, Congress Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) U.S. Supreme Court deci- restricted immigration even further. sion in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, on Encomienda System under which officers of the Span- the grounds that such a prohibition would violate the ish conquistadores gained ownership of Indian land. Fifth Amendment rights of slaveholders, and that no black person could be a citizen of the United States. Enlightenment Revolution in thought in the eighteenth century that emphasized reason and science over the Due-process clause Clause in the Fifth and the Four- authority of traditional religion. teenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution guarantee- ing that states could not “deprive any person of life, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Created in liberty, or property, without due process of law.’’ 1970 during the first administration of President Rich- ard M. Nixon to oversee federal pollution control efforts. Dust Bowl Great Plains counties where millions of tons of topsoil were blown away from parched farmland in Equal Rights Amendment Amendment to guarantee the 1930s; massive migration of farm families followed. equal rights for women, introduced in 1923 but not passed by Congress until 1972; it failed to be ratified by Eighteenth Amendment (1919) Prohibition amend- the states. ment that made illegal the manufacture, sale, or trans- portation of alcoholic beverages; repealed in 1933. Era of Good Feelings Contemporary characterization of the administration of popular Republican president Ellis Island Reception center in New York Harbor James Monroe, 1817–1825. through which most European immigrants to America were processed from 1892 to 1954. Erie Canal Most important and profitable of the canals of the 1820s and 1830s; stretched from Buffalo to Albany, Emancipation Proclamation (1863) President Abra- New York, connecting the Great Lakes to the East Coast ham Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation on Sep- and making New York City the nation’s largest port. tember 22, 1862, freeing the slaves in areas under Confederate control as of January 1, 1863, the date of the Espionage and Sedition Acts (1917–1918) Limited final proclamation, which also authorized the enroll- criticism of government leaders and policies by impos- ment of black soldiers into the Union army. ing fines and prison terms on those who opposed Ameri- Embargo Act of 1807 Attempt to exert economic pres- can participation in the First World War. sure by prohibiting all exports from the United States, instead of waging war in reaction to continued British Eugenics “Science” of improving the human race by impressment of American sailors; smugglers easily regulating who can bear children; flourished in early G l o s s a r y A - 75 twentieth century and led to laws for involuntary steril- “Fifty-four forty or fight” Democratic campaign slo- ization of the “feeble-minded.” gan in the presidential election of 1844, urging that the northern border of Oregon be fixed at 54°409 north Fair Deal Domestic reform proposals of the Truman latitude. administration; included civil rights legislation, national health insurance, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, Filibuster In the nineteenth century, invasions of Cen- but only extensions of some New Deal programs were tral American countries launched privately by groups of enacted. Americans seeking to establish personal rule and spread slavery; in the twentieth century, term for the practice of Fair Employment Practices Commission Created in members of the U.S. Senate delivering interminable 1941 by executive order, the FEPC sought to elimi- speeches in order to prevent voting on legislation. nate racial discrimination in jobs; it possessed little Fletcher v. Peck (1810) U.S. Supreme Court decision in power but represented a step toward civil rights for which Chief Justice John Marshall upheld the initial African-Americans. fraudulent sale contracts in the Yazoo Fraud cases; it Family wage Idea that male workers should earn a upheld the principle of sanctity of a contract. wage sufficient to enable them to support their entire Fordism Early twentieth-century term describing the family without their wives having to work outside the economic system pioneered by Ford Motor Company home. based on high wages and mass consumption. Federalism A system of government in which power is Fort McHenry Fort in Baltimore Harbor unsuccess- divided between the central government and the states. fully bombarded by the British in September 1814; Fran- cis Scott Key, a witness to the battle, was moved to write Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) Established the the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner.’’ Federal Trade Commission to enforce existing antitrust laws that prohibited business combinations in restraint Fort Sumter First battle of the Civil War, in which the of trade. federal fort in Charleston (South Carolina) Harbor was captured by the Confederates on April 14, 1861, after two The Federalist Collection of eighty-five essays that days of shelling. appeared in the New York press in 1787–1788 in support of the Constitution; written by Alexander Hamilton, Four Freedoms Freedom of speech, freedom of wor- James Madison, and John Jay and published under the ship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. pseudonym “Publius.’’ Fourteen Points President Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 Federalist Party One of the two first national political plan for peace after World War I; at the Versailles peace parties; led by George Washington, John Adams, and conference, however, he failed to incorporate all of the Alexander Hamilton, it favored a strong central points into the treaty. government. Fourteenth Amendment (1868) Guaranteed rights of Feminism Term that entered the lexicon in the early citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to those of twentieth century to describe the movement for full the Civil Rights Act of 1866. equality for women, in political, social, and personal life. Franchise The right to vote. Fifteenth Amendment Constitutional Amendment ratified in 1870, which prohibited states from discrimi- “Free person of color” Negro or mulatto person not nating in voting privileges on the basis of race. held in slavery; immediately before the Civil War, there A - 76 G l o s s a r y were nearly a half million in the United States, split Geneva Accords (1954) A document that had promised almost evenly between North and South. elections to unify Vietnam and established the 17th Par- allel demarcation line which divided North and South Free Soil Party Formed in 1848 to oppose slavery in Vietnam. the territory acquired in the Mexican War; nomi- nated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848. By 1854 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907) The United States most of the party’s members had joined the Republican would not exclude Japanese immigrants if Japan would Party. voluntarily limit the number of immigrants coming to the United States. Free Speech Movement Founded in 1964 at the Univer- sity of California at Berkeley by student radicals protest- Gettysburg, Battle of Fought in southern Pennsylva- ing restrictions on their right to distribute political nia, July 1–3, 1863; the Confederate defeat and the simul- publications. taneous loss at Vicksburg marked the military turning point of the Civil War. Freedmen’s Bureau Reconstruction agency established in 1865 to protect the legal rights of former slaves and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) U.S. Supreme Court decision to assist with their education, jobs, health care, and reinforcing the “commerce clause’’ (the federal govern- landowning. ment’s right to regulate interstate commerce) of the Con- stitution; Chief Justice John Marshall ruled against the Freedom Rides Bus journeys challenging racial segre- State of New York’s granting of steamboat monopolies. gation in the South in 1961. GI Bill of Rights (1944) The legislation that provided French and Indian War Known in Europe as the Seven money for education and other benefits to military per- Years’ War, the last (1755–1763) of four colonial wars sonnel returning from World War II. fought between England and France for control of North America east of the Mississippi River. Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) U.S. Supreme Court deci- sion guaranteeing legal counsel for indigent felony Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Gave federal government defendants. authority in cases involving runaway slaves; aroused considerable opposition in the North. The Gilded Age Mark Twain and Charles Dudley War- ner’s 1873 novel, the title of which became the popular Fundamentalism Anti-modernist Protestant move- name for the period from the end of the Civil War to the ment started in the early twentieth century that pro- turn of the century. claimed the literal truth of the Bible; the name came from The Fundamentals, published by conservative leaders. Glass-Steagall Act (Banking Act of 1933) Established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and included Gadsden Purchase (1853) Thirty thousand square banking reforms, some designed to control speculation. miles in present-day Arizona and New Mexico bought by Repealed in 1999, opening the door to scandals involving Congress from Mexico primarily for the Southern Pacific banks and stock investment companies. Railroad’s transcontinental route. Gag Rule Rule adopted by House of Representatives in Globalization Term that became prominent in the 1836 prohibiting consideration of abolitionist petitions; 1990s to describe the rapid acceleration of international opposition, led by former president John Quincy Adams, flows of commerce, financial resources, labor, and cul- succeeded in having it repealed in 1844. tural products. G l o s s a r y A - 77 Glorious Revolution A coup in 1688 engineered by a Great Depression Worst economic depression in small group of aristocrats that led to William of Orange American history; it was spurred by the stock market taking the British throne in place of James II. crash of 1929 and lasted until World War II. Great Migration Large-scale migration of southern Gold standard Policy at various points in American blacks during and after World War I to the North, where history by which the value of a dollar is set at a fixed jobs had become available during the labor shortage of price in terms of gold (in the post–World War II era, for the war years. example, $35 per ounce of gold). Great Society Term coined by President Lyndon B. Good Neighbor Policy Proclaimed by President Johnson in his 1965 State of the Union address, in which Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first inaugural address in he proposed legislation to address problems of voting 1933, it sought improved diplomatic relations between rights, poverty, diseases, education, immigration, and the United States and its Latin American neighbors. the environment. Gospel of Wealth The idea proposed by Andrew Carn- Greenback-Labor Party Formed in 1876 in reaction to egie in 1889 that those who are wealthy have an obliga- economic depression, the party favored issuance of tion to use their resources to improve society. unsecured paper money to help farmers repay debts; the movement for free coinage of silver took the place of the Grandfather clause Loophole created by southern dis- greenback movement by the 1880s. franchising legislatures of the 1890s for illiterate white males whose grandfathers had been eligible to vote in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) Supreme Court decision 1867. that, in overturning Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraceptives, established a constitutional right to Granger movement Political movement that grew out privacy. of the Patrons of Husbandry, an educational and social organization for farmers founded in 1867; the Grange Gulf of Tonkin resolution (1964) A resolution passed had its greatest success in the Midwest of the 1870s, by Congress authorizing the president to take “all neces- lobbying for government control of railroad and grain sary measures to repel armed attack” in Vietnam. elevator rates and establishing farmers’ cooperatives. Gulf War Military action in 1991 in which an interna- Great Awakening Fervent religious revival movement tional coalition led by the United States drove Iraq from in the 1720s through the 1740s that was spread through- Kuwait, which it had occupied the previous year. out the colonies by ministers like New England Congre- gationalist Jonathan Edwards and English revivalist Habeas corpus, Writ of An essential component of George Whitefield. English common law and of the U.S. Constitution that guarantees that citizens may not be imprisoned without Great Compromise (Connecticut Compromise) Set- due process of law; literally means, “you may have the tled the differences between the New Jersey and Virginia body”; suspended by President Lincoln during the Civil delegations to the Constitutional Convention by provid- War and limited by President Bush after the attacks of ing for a bicameral legislature, the upper house of September 11, 2001. which would have equal representation for each state and the lower house of which would be apportioned by Hacienda Large-scale farm in the Spanish New World population. empire worked by Indian laborers. A - 78 G l o s s a r y Harlem Renaissance African-American literary and Homestead Strike Violent strike at the Carnegie Steel artistic movement of the 1920s centered in New York Company near Pittsburgh in 1892 that culminated in the City’s Harlem neighborhood; writers Langston Hughes, defeat of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen Workers, the first steelworkers’ union. were among those active in the movement. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Harpers Ferry, Virginia Site of abolitionist John Formed in 1938 to investigate subversives in the govern- Brown’s failed raid on the federal arsenal, October 16–17, ment and holders of radical ideas more generally; best- 1859; Brown became a martyr to his cause after his cap- known investigations were of Hollywood notables and of ture and execution. former State Department official Alger Hiss, who was accused in 1948 of espionage and Communist Party Hart-Celler Act (1965) Eliminated the national origins membership. Abolished in 1975. quota system for immigration established by laws in 1921 and 1924; led to radical change in the origins of immi- Hundred Days Extraordinarily productive first three grants to the United States, with Asians and Latin months of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administra- Americans outnumbering Europeans. tion in which a special session of Congress enacted fif- teen of his New Deal proposals. Hartford Convention Meeting of New England Feder- alists on December 15, 1814, to protest the War of 1812; Impeachment Bringing charges against a public offi- proposed seven constitutional amendments (limiting cial; for example, the House of Representatives can embargoes and changing requirements for officeholding, impeach a president for “treason, bribery, or other high declaration of war, and admission of new states), but the crimes and misdemeanors” by majority vote, and after war ended before Congress could respond. the trial the Senate can remove the president by a vote of two-thirds. Two presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (1930) Raised tariffs to an Clinton, have been impeached and tried before the Sen- unprecedented level and worsened the Great Depression ate; neither was convicted. by raising prices and discouraging foreign trade. Implied powers Federal powers beyond those specifi- Haymarket affair Violence during an anarchist protest cally enumerated in the U.S. Constitution; based on the at Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4, 1886; the “elastic clause” of Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution deaths of eight, including seven policemen, led to the that allows Congress to enact laws that promote the trial of eight anarchist leaders for conspiracy to commit “general welfare.” murder. “In God We Trust” Phrase placed on all new U.S. cur- Hessians German soldiers, most from Hesse-Cassel rency as of 1954. principality (hence, the name), paid to fight for the Brit- ish in the Revolutionary War. Indentured servant Settler who signed on for a tempo- rary period of servitude to a master in exchange for pas- Holding company Investment company that holds con- sage to the New World; Virginia and Pennsylvania were trolling interest in the securities of other companies. largely peopled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- ries by English and German indentured servants. Homestead Act (1862) Authorized Congress to grant 160 acres of public land to a western settler, who had to Indian Removal Act (1830) Signed by President live on the land for five years to establish title. Andrew Jackson, the law permitted the negotiation of G l o s s a r y A - 79 treaties to obtain the Indians’ lands in exchange for their beginning in 1935, lawmakers passed a series of Neutral- relocation to what would become Oklahoma. ity Acts that banned travel on belligerents’ ships and the sale of arms to countries at war. Individualism Term that entered the language in the 1820s to describe the increasing emphasis on the pursuit Jamestown, Virginia Site in 1607 of the first permanent of personal advancement and private fulfillment free of English settlement in the New World. outside interference. Japanese-American internment Policy adopted by the Roosevelt administration in 1942 under which 110,000 Industrial Workers of the World Radical union orga- persons of Japanese descent, most of them American citi- nized in Chicago in 1905 and nicknamed the Wobblies; zens, were removed from the West Coast and forced to its opposition to World War I led to its destruction by the spend most of World War II in internment camps; it was federal government under the Espionage Act. the largest violation of American civil liberties in the twentieth century. Inflation An economic condition in which prices rise continuously. Jay’s Treaty Treaty with Britain negotiated in 1794 by Chief Justice John Jay; Britain agreed to vacate forts in the Insular Cases Series of cases between 1901 and 1904 Northwest Territories, and festering disagreements (bor- in which the Supreme Court ruled that constitutional der with Canada, prewar debts, shipping claims) would protection of individual rights did not fully apply to resi- be settled by commission. dents of “insular” territories acquired by the United States in the Spanish-American War, such as Puerto Rico Jim Crow Minstrel show character whose name became and the Philippines. synonymous with racial segregation. Interstate Commerce Commission Reacting to the U.S. Kansas Exodus A migration in 1879 and 1880 by some Supreme Court’s ruling in Wabash Railroad v. Illinois 40,000–60,000 blacks to Kansas to escape the oppres- (1886), Congress established the ICC to curb abuses in sive environment of the New South. the railroad industry by regulating rates. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) Law sponsored by Illi- Iran-Contra affair Scandal of the second Reagan nois senator Stephen A. Douglas to allow settlers in administration involving sales of arms to Iran in partial newly organized territories north of the Missouri border exchange for release of hostages in Lebanon and use of to decide the slavery issue for themselves; fury over the the arms money to aid the Contras in Nicaragua, which resulting repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 led had been expressly forbidden by Congress. to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Repub- lican Party. Iraq War Military campaign in 2003 in which the United States, unable to gain approval by the United Kellogg-Briand Pact Representatives of sixty-two Nations, unilaterally occupied Iraq and removed dictator nations in 1928 signed the pact (also called the Pact of Saddam Hussein from power. Paris) to outlaw war. Iron Curtain Term coined by Winston Churchill to Keynesianism Economic theory derived from the writ- describe the Cold War divide between western Europe ings of British economist John Maynard Keynes, which and the Soviet Union’s eastern European satellites. rejected the laissez-faire approach in favor of public spending to stimulate economic growth, even at the cost Isolationism The desire to avoid foreign entanglements of federal deficits; dominated economic policies of that dominated the United States Congress in the 1930s; administrations from the 1940s to the mid-1970s. A - 80 G l o s s a r y “King Cotton diplomacy” An attempt during the Civil League of Nations Organization of nations to mediate War by the South to encourage British intervention by disputes and avoid war established after World War I as banning cotton exports. part of the Treaty of Versailles; President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” speech to Congress in 1918 King Philip’s War Began in 1675 with an Indian upris- proposed the formation of the league, which the United ing against white colonists. A multi-year conflict, the end States never joined. result was broadened freedoms for white New Englan- ders and the dispossession of the region’s Indians. Lend-Lease Act (1941) Permitted the United States to lend or lease arms and other supplies to the Allies, signi- fying increasing likelihood of American involvement in Knights of Labor Founded in 1869, the first national World War II. union lasted, under the leadership of Terence V. Pow- derly, only into the 1890s; supplanted by the American Levittown Low-cost, mass-produced developments of Federation of Labor. suburban tract housing built by William Levitt after World War II on Long Island and elsewhere. Know-Nothing (American) Party Nativist, anti- Catholic third party organized in 1854 in reaction to Lexington and Concord, Battle of The first shots fired large-scale German and Irish immigration; the party’s in the Revolutionary War, on April 19, 1775, near Boston; only presidential candidate was Millard Fillmore in 1856. approximately 100 minutemen and 250 British soldiers were killed. Korean War Conflict touched off in 1950 when Com- munist North Korea invaded South Korea; fighting, Leyte Gulf, Battle of Largest sea battle in history, largely by U.S. forces, continued until 1953. fought on October 25, 1944, and won by the United States off the Philippine island of Leyte; Japanese losses were Ku Klux Klan Organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 so great that they could not rebound. to terrorize former slaves who voted and held political offices during Reconstruction; a revived organization in Liberalism Originally, political philosophy that empha- the 1910s and 1920s stressed white, Anglo-Saxon, funda- sized the protection of liberty by limiting the power of mentalist Protestant supremacy; the Klan revived a third government to interfere with the natural rights of citi- time to fight the civil rights movement of the 1950s and zens; in the twentieth century, belief in an activist 1960s in the South. government promoting greater social and economic equality. Kyoto Protocol (1997) An international agreement that sought to combat global warming. To great controversy, Liberty Party Abolitionist political party that nomi- the Bush administration announced in 2001 that it nated James G. Birney for president in 1840 and 1844; would not abide by the Kyoto Protocol. merged with the Free Soil Party in 1848. Laissez-faire Term adopted from French, meaning “let Lincoln-Douglas debates Series of senatorial campaign people do as they choose,” describing opposition to debates in 1858 focusing on the issue of slavery in the government action to regulate economic or personal territories; held in Illinois between Republican Abraham behavior. Lincoln, who made a national reputation for himself, and incumbent Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, who Land Ordinance of 1785 Directed surveying of the managed to hold onto his seat. Northwest Territory into townships of thirty-six sections (square miles) each, the sale of the sixteenth section of Little Bighorn, Battle of Most famous battle of the which was to be used to finance public education. Great Sioux War took place in 1876 in the Montana G l o s s a r y A - 81 Territory; combined Sioux and Cheyenne warriors mas- Oppenheimer led the team of physicists at Los Alamos, sacred a vastly outnumbered U.S. Cavalry commanded New Mexico. by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Manifest Destiny Phrase first used in 1845 to urge Lochner v. New York (1905) Decision by Supreme annexation of Texas; used thereafter to encourage Amer- Court overturning a New York law establishing a limit ican settlement of European colonial and Indian lands in on the number of hours per week bakers could be com- the Great Plains and the West and, more generally, as a pelled to work; “Lochnerism” became a way of describ- justification for American empire. ing the liberty of contract jurisprudence, which opposed all governmental intervention in the economy. Marbury v. Madison (1803) First U.S. Supreme Court decision to declare a federal law—the Judiciary Act of Long Telegram A telegram by American diplomat 1801—unconstitutional. George Kennan in 1946 outlining his views of the Soviet Union that eventually inspired the policy of containment. March on Washington Civil rights demonstration on August 28, 1963, where the Reverend Martin Luther Louisiana Purchase President Thomas Jefferson’s King Jr., gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of 1803 purchase from France of the important port of the Lincoln Memorial. New Orleans and 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains; it more than Marshall Plan U.S. program for the reconstruction of doubled the territory of the United States at a cost of post–World War II Europe through massive aid to for- only $15 million. mer enemy nations as well as allies; proposed by General George C. Marshall in 1947. Loyalists Colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain during the War of Independence. Massive resistance In reaction to the Brown decision of 1954, effort by southern states to defy federally man- Lusitania British passenger liner sunk by a German dated school integration. U-boat, May 7, 1915, creating a diplomatic crisis and public outrage at the loss of 128 Americans (roughly 10 Maya Pre-Columbian society in Mesoamerica before percent of the total aboard); Germany agreed to pay repa- about A.D. 900. rations, and the United States waited two more years to enter World War I. Mayflower Compact Signed in 1620 aboard the May- flower before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the docu- Lyceum movement Founded in 1826, the movement ment committed the group to majority-rule government. promoted adult public education through lectures and performances. McCarran Internal Security Act (1950) Passed over President Harry S. Truman’s veto, the law required reg- Lynching Practice, particularly widespread in the istration of American Communist Party members, South between 1890 and 1940, in which persons (usually denied them passports, and allowed them to be detained black) accused of a crime were murdered by mobs before as suspected subversives. standing trial. Lynchings often took place before large crowds, with law enforcement authorities not McCarthyism Post–World War II Red Scare focused intervening. on the fear of Communists in U.S. government posi- tions; peaked during the Korean War; most closely Manhattan Project Secret American program during associated with Joseph McCarthy, a major instigator of World War II to develop an atomic bomb; J. Robert the hysteria. A - 82 G l o s s a r y McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) U.S. Supreme Court deci- Mill girls Women who worked at textile mills during sion in which Chief Justice John Marshall, holding that the Industrial Revolution who enjoyed new freedoms Maryland could not tax the Second Bank of the United and independence not seen before. States, supported the authority of the federal govern- Minstrel show Blackface vaudeville entertainment ment versus the states. popular in the decades surrounding the Civil War. McNary-Haugen bill Vetoed by President Calvin Miranda v. Arizona (1966) U.S. Supreme Court deci- Coolidge in 1927 and 1928, the bill to aid farmers would sion required police to advise persons in custody of their have artificially raised agricultural prices by selling rights to legal counsel and against self-incrimination. surpluses overseas for low prices and selling the reduced supply in the United States for higher prices. Missouri Compromise Deal proposed by Kentucky senator Henry Clay in 1820 to resolve the slave/free Meat Inspection Act (1906) Passed largely in reaction imbalance in Congress that would result from Missouri’s to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, the law set strict stan- admission as a slave state; Maine’s admission as a free dards of cleanliness in the meat packing industry. state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the south- Medicaid Great Society program established in 1965 ern border of Missouri. that provided free medical care to the poor. Molly Maguires Secret organization of Irish coal min- Medicare Key component of Great Society of Lyndon B. ers that used violence to intimidate mine officials in the Johnson; government program created in 1965 to pay 1870s. medical costs of elderly and disabled Americans. Monitor and Merrimac, Battle of the First engagement Mercantilism Policy of Great Britain and other impe- between ironclad ships; fought at Hampton Roads, Vir- rial powers of regulating the economies of colonies to ginia, on March 9, 1862. benefit the mother country. Monroe Doctrine President James Monroe’s declara- Mestizo Spanish word for person of mixed Native tion to Congress on December 2, 1823, that the American American and European ancestry. continents would be thenceforth closed to European colonization, and that the United States would not inter- Mexican War Controversial war with Mexico for con- fere in European affairs. trol of California and New Mexico, 1846–1848; the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo fixed the border at the Rio Grande Montgomery bus boycott Sparked by Rosa Parks’s and extended the United States to the Pacific coast, arrest on December 1, 1955, for refusing to surrender her annexing more than a half- million square miles of Mexi- seat to a white passenger, a successful year-long boycott can territory. protesting segregation on city buses; led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Midway, Battle of Decisive American victory near Midway Island in the South Pacific on June 4, 1942; the Moral Majority Televangelist Jerry Falwell’s political Japanese navy never recovered its superiority over the lobbying organization, the name of which became syn- U.S. navy. onymous with the Religious Right—conservative evan- gelical Protestants who helped ensure President Ronald Military-industrial complex The concept of “an Reagan’s 1980 victory. immense military establishment” combined with a “per- manent arms industry,” which President Eisenhower Mormons Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, the sect warned against in his 1961 Farewell Address. (officially, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day G l o s s a r y A - 83 Saints) was a product of the intense revivalism of the race; encouraged education in science and modern lan- “burned-over district” of New York; Smith’s successor guages through student loans, university research grants, Brigham Young led 15,000 followers to Utah in 1847 to and aid to public schools. escape persecution. National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) Passed on Muckrakers Writers who exposed corruption and the last of the Hundred Days, it created public-works abuses in politics, business, meatpacking, child labor, jobs through the Federal Emergency Relief Administra- and more, primarily in the first decade of the twentieth tion and established a system of self-regulation for century; their popular books and magazine articles industry through the National Recovery Administra- spurred public interest in reform. tion, which was ruled unconstitutional in 1935. Mugwumps Reform wing of the Republican Party that National Organization for Women Founded in 1966 supported Democrat Grover Cleveland for president in by writer Betty Friedan and other feminists, NOW 1884 over Republican James G. Blaine, whose influence pushed for abortion rights, nondiscrimination in the peddling had been revealed in the Mulligan letters of workplace, and other forms of equality for women. 1876. National Road First federal interstate road, built Multiculturalism Term that became prominent in the between 1811 and 1838 and stretching from Cumberland, 1990s to describe a growing emphasis on group racial Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois. and ethnic identity and demands that jobs, education, and politics reflect the increasingly diverse nature of National Security Act (1947) Authorized the reorgani- American society. zation of government to coordinate military branches and security agencies; created the National Security Munn v. Illinois (1877) U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the upheld a Granger law allowing the state to regulate grain National Military Establishment (later renamed the elevators. Department of Defense). NAFTA Approved in 1993, the North American Free National Youth Administration Created in 1935 as part Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico allowed of the Works Progress Administration, it employed mil- goods to travel across their borders free of tariffs; critics lions of youths who had left school. argued that American workers would lose their jobs to cheaper Mexican labor. Nativism Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling espe- cially prominent in the 1830s through the 1850s; the larg- Nat Turner Rebellion Most important slave uprising in est group was New York’s Order of the Star-Spangled nineteenth-century America, led by a slave preacher Banner, which expanded into the American (Know- who, with his followers, killed about sixty white persons Nothing) Party in 1854. in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. National Association for the Advancement of Col- Naval stores Tar, pitch, and turpentine made from pine ored People (NAACP) Founded in 1910, this civil rights resin and used in shipbuilding; an important industry in organization brought lawsuits against discriminatory the southern colonies, especially North Carolina. practices and published The Crisis, a journal edited by African-American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois. Navigation Acts Passed by the English Parliament to control colonial trade and bolster the mercantile system, National Defense Education Act (1958) Passed in 1650–1775; enforcement of the acts led to growing resent- reaction to America’s perceived inferiority in the space ment by colonists. A - 84 G l o s s a r y Neutrality Acts Series of laws passed between 1935 and New South Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. 1939 to keep the United States from becoming involved in Grady’s 1886 term for the prosperous post–Civil War war by prohibiting American trade and travel to warring South he envisioned: democratic, industrial, urban, and nations. free of nostalgia for the defeated plantation South. New Deal Franklin D. Roosevelt’s campaign promise, in Nineteenth Amendment (1920) Granted women the his speech to the Democratic National Convention of right to vote. 1932, to combat the Great Depression with a “new deal for the American people”; the phrase became a catch- Ninety-Five Theses The list of moral grievances against word for his ambitious plan of economic programs. the Catholic Church by Martin Luther, a German priest, in 1517. New Freedom Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s political slogan in the presidential campaign of 1912; Wilson Nisei Japanese-Americans; literally, “second generation.” wanted to improve the banking system, lower tariffs, and, by breaking up monopolies, give small businesses Normalcy Word coined by future president Warren G. freedom to compete. Harding as part of a 1920 campaign speech—“not nos- trums, but normalcy”—signifying public weariness with New Frontier John F. Kennedy’s program, stymied by a Woodrow Wilson’s internationalism and domestic Republican Congress and his abbreviated term; his suc- reforms. cessor Lyndon B. Johnson had greater success with many of the same concepts. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Alliance founded in 1949 by ten western European nations, the New Harmony Founded in Indiana by British industri- United States, and Canada to deter Soviet expansion in alist Robert Owen in 1825, the short-lived New Harmony Europe. Community of Equality was one of the few nineteenth- century communal experiments not based on religious Northwest Ordinance of 1787 Created the Northwest ideology. Territory (area north of the Ohio River and west of Penn- sylvania), established conditions for self-government New Left Radical youth protest movement of the 1960s, and statehood, included a Bill of Rights, and perma- named by leader Tom Hayden to distinguish it from the nently prohibited slavery. Old (Marxist-Leninist) Left of the 1930s. Nullification Concept of invalidation of a federal law New Nationalism Platform of the Progressive Party within the borders of a state; first expounded in Thomas and slogan of former president Theodore Roosevelt in the Jefferson’s draft of Kentucky resolution against Alien presidential campaign of 1912; stressed government and Sedition Acts (1798); cited by South Carolina in its activism, including regulation of trusts, conservation, Ordinance of Nullification (1832) of the Tariff of Abomi- and recall of state court decisions that had nullified pro- nations, used by southern states to explain their seces- gressive programs. sion from the Union (1861), and cited again by southern states to oppose the Brown v. Board of Education deci- sion (1954). New Orleans, Battle of Last battle of the War of 1812, fought on January 8, 1815, weeks after the peace treaty was signed but prior to the news reaching America; Occupy Wall Street A grassroots movement in 2011 General Andrew Jackson led the victorious American against growing economic inequality, declining opportu- troops. nity, and the depredations of Wall Street banks. G l o s s a r y A - 85 Office of Price Administration Created in 1941 to con- Panic of 1857 Beginning of economic depression lasting trol wartime inflation and price fixing resulting from about two years and brought on by falling grain prices shortages of many consumer goods, the OPA imposed and a weak financial system; the South was largely pro- wage and price freezes and administered a rationing tected by international demand for its cotton. system. Panic of 1873 Onset of severe six-year depression Okies Displaced farm families from the Oklahoma dust marked by bank failures and railroad and insurance bowl who migrated to California during the 1930s in bankruptcies. search of jobs. Peace of Paris Signed on September 3, 1783, the treaty Oneida Community Utopian community founded in ending the Revolutionary War and recognizing Ameri- 1848; the Perfectionist religious group practiced “com- can independence from Britain also established the bor- plex marriage” under leader John Humphrey Noyes. der between Canada and the United States, fixed the western border at the Mississippi River, and ceded Flor- OPEC Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. ida to Spain. Open Door Policy In hopes of protecting the Chinese Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883) Established the market for U.S. exports, Secretary of State John Hay Civil Service Commission and marked the end of the demanded in 1899 that Chinese trade be open to all spoils system. nations. Pentagon Papers Informal name for the Defense Open shop Situation in which union membership Department’s secret history of the Vietnam conflict; is not a condition of employment in a factory or other leaked to the press by former official Daniel Ellsberg and business. published in the New York Times in 1971. Operation Dixie CIO’s largely ineffective post–World Pequot War An armed conflict in 1637 that led to the War II campaign to unionize southern workers. destruction of one of New England’s most powerful Indian groups. Oregon Trail Route of wagon trains bearing settlers from Independence, Missouri, to the Oregon Country in “Perfectionism” The idea that social ills once consid- the 1840s through the 1860s. ered incurable could in fact be eliminated, popularized by the religious revivalism of the nineteenth century. Ostend Manifesto Memorandum written in 1854 from Ostend, Belgium, by the U.S. ministers to England, “Pet banks” Local banks that received deposits while France, and Spain recommending purchase or seizure of the charter of the Bank of the United States was about to Cuba in order to increase the United States’ slaveholding expire in 1836. The choice of these banks was influenced territory. by political and personal connections. Panic of 1819 Financial collapse brought on by sharply Philippine War American military campaign that sup- falling cotton prices, declining demand for American pressed the movement for Philippine independence after exports, and reckless western land speculation. the Spanish-American War; America’s death toll was over 4,000 and the Philippines’ was far higher. Panic of 1837 Beginning of major economic depression lasting about six years; touched off by a British financial Pilgrims Puritan Separatists who broke completely crisis and made worse by falling cotton prices, credit and with the Church of England and sailed to the New World currency problems, and speculation in land, canals, and aboard the Mayflower, founding Plymouth Colony on railroads. Cape Cod in 1620. A - 86 G l o s s a r y Pinckney’s Treaty Treaty with Spain negotiated by ing from political parties to corporations, unions, and Thomas Pinckney in 1795; established United States the military-industrial complex, while offering a new boundaries at the Mississippi River and the thirty-first vision of social change. parallel and allowed open transportation on the Mississippi. Potsdam Conference Last meeting of the major Allied powers, the conference took place outside Berlin from Plantation An early word for a colony, a settlement July 17 to August 2, 1945; United States president “planted” from abroad among an alien population in Harry Truman, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and British Ireland or the New World. Later, a large agricultural prime minister Clement Attlee finalized plans begun enterprise that used unfree labor to produce a crop for at Yalta. the world market. Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction Presi- Planter In the antebellum South, the owner of a large dent Lincoln’s proposal for reconstruction, issued in farm worked by twenty or more slaves. 1863, allowed southern states to rejoin the Union if 10 percent of the 1860 electorate signed loyalty pledges, Platt Amendment (1901) Amendment to Cuban con- accepted emancipation, and had received presidential stitution that reserved the United States’ right to inter- pardons. vene in Cuban affairs and forced newly independent Cuba to host American naval bases on the island. Proclamation of 1763 Royal directive issued after the French and Indian War prohibiting settlement, surveys, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) U.S. Supreme Court decision and land grants west of the Appalachian Mountains; supporting the legality of Jim Crow laws that permitted caused considerable resentment among colonists hoping or required “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and to move west. whites. Progressive Party Created when former president Poll tax Tax that must be paid in order to be eligible to Theodore Roosevelt broke away from the Republican vote; used as an effective means of disenfranchising Party to run for president again in 1912; the party sup- black citizens after Reconstruction, since they often ported progressive reforms similar to the Democrats but could not afford even a modest fee. stopped short of seeking to eliminate trusts. Also the name of party backing Robert La Follette for president Popular Front A period during the mid-1930s when in 1924. the Communist Party sought to ally itself with socialists and New Dealers in movements for social change, urging Progressivism Broad-based reform movement, 1900– reform of the capitalist system rather than revolution. 1917, that sought governmental action in solving prob- lems in many areas of American life, including education, Popular sovereignty Allowed settlers in a disputed public health, the economy, the environment, labor, territory to decide the slavery issue for themselves; pro- transportation, and politics. gram most closely associated with Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. Proposition 13 Measure approved by California voters Populist Party Founded in 1892, it advocated a variety in 1978 prohibiting future increases in property taxes; of reform issues, including free coinage of silver, income marked beginning of “tax revolt” as major political tax, postal savings, regulation of railroads, and direct impulse. election of U.S. senators. Public sphere The world of political organization and Port Huron Statement (1962) A manifesto by Students debate in private associations and publications outside for a Democratic Society that criticized institutions rang- the control of government. G l o s s a r y A - 87 Pueblo Revolt Uprising in 1680 in which Pueblo Indi- Reconstruction Act (1867) Established temporary ans temporarily drove Spanish colonists out of modern- military governments in ten Confederate states— day New Mexico. excepting Tennessee—and required that the states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and permit freedmen to Pullman Strike Strike against the Pullman Palace Car vote. Company in the company town of Pullman, Illinois, on May 11, 1894, by the American Railway Union under Reconstruction Finance Corporation Federal pro- Eugene V. Debs; the strike was crushed by court injunc- gram established in 1932 under President Herbert tions and federal troops two months later. Hoover to loan money to banks and other institutions to help them avert bankruptcy. Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) First law to regulate manufacturing of food and medicines; prohibited dan- Red Scare Fear among many Americans after World gerous additives and inaccurate labeling. War I of Communists in particular and noncitizens in general, a reaction to the Russian Revolution, mail Puritans English religious group that sought to purify bombs, strikes, and riots. the Church of England; founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony under John Winthrop in 1630. Redeemers Conservative white Democrats, many of them planters or businessmen, who reclaimed control of Quakers (Society of Friends) Religious group in Eng- the South following the end of Reconstruction. land and America whose members believed all persons possessed the “inner light” or spirit of God; they were Regulators Groups of backcountry Carolina settlers early proponents of abolition of slavery and equal rights who protested colonial policies. for women. Republican motherhood The ideology that emerged as Radical Republicans Group within the Republican a result of American independence where women played Party in the 1850s and 1860s that advocated strong an indispensible role by training future citizens. resistance to the expansion of slavery, opposition to compromise with the South in the secession crisis of Republican Party Organized in 1854 by antislavery 1860–1861, emancipation and arming of black soldiers Whigs, Democrats, and Free Soilers in response to the during the Civil War, and equal civil and political rights passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act; nominated John C. for blacks during Reconstruction. Frémont for president in 1856 and Abraham Lincoln in 1860; also the name of the party formed by Thomas Railroad Strike of 1877 Interstate strike, crushed by Jefferson and James Madison in the 1790s. federal troops, which resulted in extensive property damage and many deaths. Republicanism Political theory in eighteenth-century En gland and America that celebrated active participation Reaganomics Popular name for President Ronald Rea- in public life by economically independent citizens as gan’s philosophy of “supply side” economics, which central to freedom. combined tax cuts with an unregulated marketplace. Revolution of 1800 First time that an American politi- Reconquista The ‘‘reconquest’’ of Spain from the Moors cal party surrendered power to the opposition party; completed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in Jefferson, a Republican, had defeated incumbent Adams, 1492. a Federalist, for president. A - 88 G l o s s a r y Right-to-work State laws enacted to prevent imposition Scientific management Management campaign to of the closed shop; any worker, whether or not a union improve worker efficiency using measurements like member, could be hired. “time and motion” studies to achieve greater productiv- ity; introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor in 1911. Roe v. Wade (1973) U.S. Supreme Court decision requir- ing states to permit first-trimester abortions. Scopes trial (1925) Trial of John Scopes, Tennessee teacher accused of violating state law prohibiting teach- Roosevelt Corollary (1904) President Theodore Roos- ing of the theory of evolution; it became a nationally evelt announced in what was essentially a corollary to celebrated confrontation between religious fundamen- the Monroe Doctrine that the United States could inter- talism and civil liberties. vene militarily to prevent interference from European powers in the Western Hemisphere. Scottsboro case (1931) In overturning verdicts against nine black youths accused of raping two white women, Rough Riders The first U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, led in the U.S. Supreme Court established precedents in battle in the Spanish- American War by Theodore Roos- Powell v. Alabama (1932), that adequate counsel must evelt; they were victorious in their only battle near San- be appointed in capital cases, and in Norris v. Alabama tiago, Cuba, and Roosevelt used the notoriety to aid his (1935), that African-Americans cannot be excluded from political career. juries. Sacco-Vanzetti case A case held during the 1920s in Second American Revolution The transformation of which two Italian-American anarchists were found American government and society brought about by the guilty and executed for a crime in which there was very Civil War. little evidence linking them to the particular crime. Second Great Awakening Religious revival movement Salem witch trials A crisis of trials and executions in of the early decades of the nineteenth century, in reaction Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 that resulted from anxiety to the growth of secularism and rationalist religion; over witchcraft. began the predominance of the Baptist and Methodist churches. Santa Fe Trail Beginning in the 1820s, a major trade route from St. Louis, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico Second Great Migration The movement of black Territory. migrants from the rural South to the cities of the North and West, which occurred from 1941 through World Saratoga, Battle of Major defeat of British general John War II, that dwarfed the Great Migration of World War I. Burgoyne and more than 5,000 British troops at Sara- toga, New York, on October 17, 1777. Segregation Policy of separating persons on the basis of race in schools, transportation, and other public facili- Scalawags Southern white Republicans—some former ties; de facto segregation refers to social customs that Unionists—who supported Reconstruction governments. accomplish this, de jure segregation to laws requiring it. Schenck v. U.S. (1919) U.S. Supreme Court decision Seneca Falls Convention First women’s rights meeting upholding the wartime Espionage and Sedition Acts; in and the genesis of the women’s suffrage movement; held the opinion he wrote for the case, Justice Oliver Wendell in July 1848 in a church in Seneca Falls, New York, Holmes set the now-familiar “clear and present danger” organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Cof- standard. fin Mott. G l o s s a r y A - 89 “Separate but equal” Principle underlying legal racial Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890) In replacing and segregation, upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and extending the provisions of the Bland-Allison Act of struck down in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). 1878, it increased the amount of silver periodically bought for coinage. Separation of Powers Feature of the U.S. Constitution, Single tax Concept of taxing only landowners as a sometimes called “checks and balances,” in which power remedy for poverty, promulgated by Henry George in is divided between executive, legislative, and judicial Progress and Poverty (1879). branches of the national government so that no one can dominate the other two and endanger citizens’ liberties. Sit-down strikes Tactic adopted by labor unions in the mid- and late 1930s, whereby striking workers refused to Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944) The “GI Bill leave factories, making production impossible; proved of Rights” provided money for education and other ben- highly effective in the organizing drive of the Congress of efits to military personnel returning from World War II. Industrial Organizations. Settlement houses Late-nineteenth-century movement Sit-ins Tactic adopted by young civil rights activists, to offer a broad array of social services in urban immi- beginning in 1960, of demanding service at lunch coun- grant neighborhoods; Chicago’s Hull House was one of ters or public accommodations and refusing to leave if hundreds of settlement houses that operated by the early denied access; marked the beginning of the most militant twentieth century. phase of the civil rights struggle. Seventeenth Amendment (1913) Progressive reform Sixteenth Amendment (1913) Legalized the federal that required U.S. senators to be elected directly by income tax. voters; previously, senators were chosen by state legislatures. Smith v. Allwright (1944) U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed all-white Democratic Party primaries in Shakers Founded by Mother Ann Lee in England, the Texas. United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing “Social contract” In leading industries, labor and man- settled in Watervliet, New York, in 1774 and subse- agement hammered out what has been called a new quently established eighteen additional communes in “social contract.” Unions signed long-term agreements the Northeast, Indiana, and Kentucky. that left decisions regarding capital investment, plant location, and output in management’s hands, and they Sharecropping Type of farm tenancy that developed agreed to try to prevent unauthorized “wildcat” strikes. after the Civil War in which landless workers—often former slaves—farmed land in exchange for farm sup- Social Darwinism Application of Charles Darwin’s plies and a share of the crop. theory of natural selection to society; used the concept of the “survival of the fittest” to justify class distinctions Shays’s Rebellion (1787) Massachusetts farmer Daniel and to explain poverty. Shays and 1,200 compatriots, seeking debt relief through issuance of paper currency and lower taxes, attempted to Social Gospel Preached by liberal Protestant clergymen prevent courts from seizing property from indebted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; farmers. advocated the application of Christian principles to social problems generated by industrialization. Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) First law to restrict monopolistic trusts and business combinations; Social Security Act (1935) Created the Social Security extended by the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. system with provisions for a retirement pension, unem- A - 90 G l o s s a r y ployment insurance, disability insurance, and public Stalwarts Conservative Republican Party faction dur- assistance (welfare). ing the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877–1881; led by Senator Roscoe B. Conkling of New York, Stalwarts Socialist Party Political party demanding public own- opposed civil service reform and favored a third term for ership of major economic enterprises in the United President Ulysses S. Grant. States as well as reforms like recognition of labor unions and women’s suffrage; reached peak of influence in 1912 Stamp Act (1765) Parliament required that revenue when presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs received stamps be affixed to all colonial printed matter, docu- over 900,000 votes. ments, and playing cards; the Stamp Act Congress met to formulate a response, and the act was repealed the fol- lowing year. Sons of Liberty Organizations formed by Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other radicals in response to Standard Oil Company Founded in 1870 by John D. the Stamp Act. Rockefeller in Cleveland, Ohio, it soon grew into the nation’s first industry-dominating trust; the Sherman South Carolina Exposition and Protest Written in 1828 Antitrust Act (1890) was enacted in part to combat by Vice-President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina to abuses by Standard Oil. protest the so-called Tariff of Abominations, which seemed to favor northern industry; introduced the con- Staple crop Important cash crop, for example, cotton or cept of state interposition and became the basis for South tobacco. Carolina’s Nullification Doctrine of 1833. Steamboats Paddlewheelers that could travel both up- Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Pact and down-river in deep or shallow waters; they became among mostly Western nations signed in 1954; designed commercially viable early in the nineteenth century and to deter Communist expansion and cited as a justifica- soon developed into America’s first inland freight and tion for U.S. involvement in Vietnam. passenger service network. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Stono Rebellion A slave uprising in 1739 in South Civil rights organization founded in 1957 by the Rever- Carolina that led to a severe tightening of the slave code end Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights and the temporary imposition of a prohibitive tax on leaders. imported slaves. “Southern Manifesto” (1956) A document that repudi- Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) Defense ated the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Department’s plan during the Reagan administration to Education and supported the campaign against racial build a system to destroy incoming missiles in space. integration in public places. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Spoils system The term—meaning the filling of federal Founded in 1960 to coordinate civil rights sit-ins and government jobs with persons loyal to the party of the other forms of grassroots protest. president—originated in Andrew Jackson’s first term. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Major orga- Sputnik First artificial satellite to orbit the earth; nization of the New Left, founded at the University of launched October 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union. Michigan in 1960 by Tom Hayden and Al Haber. Stagflation A combination of stagnant economic Sugar Act (Revenue Act of 1764) Parliament’s tax on growth and high inflation present during the 1970s. refined sugar and many other colonial products. G l o s s a r y A - 91 Taft-Hartley Act (1947) Passed over President Harry Thirteenth Amendment Constitutional amendment Truman’s veto, the law contained a number of provisions adopted in 1865 that irrevocably abolished slavery to weaken labor unions, including the banning of closed throughout the United States. shops. Three-fifths clause A provision signed into the Con- Tariff Federal tax on imported goods. stitution in 1787 that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted in determining each state’s representa- Tariff of Abominations (Tariff of 1828) Taxed tion in the House of Representatives and its electoral imported goods at a very high rate; aroused strong votes for president. opposition in the South. Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant near Harris- Tariff of 1816 First true protective tariff, intended to burg, Pennsylvania, site of 1979 accident that released protect certain American goods against foreign radioactive steam into the air; public reaction ended the competition. nuclear power industry’s expansion. Tax Reform Act (1986) Lowered federal income tax Title IX Part of the Educational Amendments Act of rates to 1920s levels and eliminated many loopholes. 1972 that banned gender discrimination in higher education. Tea Party A grassroots Republican movement, named for the Boston Tea Party of the 1770s and developed in Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) Passed by Congress in 2009, that opposed the Obama administration’s sweep- reaction to supposedly unprovoked attacks on American ing legislative enactments and advocated for a more warships off the coast of North Vietnam; it gave the stringent immigration policy. president unlimited authority to defend U.S. forces and members of SEATO. Teapot Dome Harding administration scandal in which Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall profited from Totalitarianism The term which described aggressive, secret leasing to private oil companies of government oil ideologically driven states that sought to subdue all of reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, civil society to their control, thus leaving no room for California. individual rights or alternative values. Tennessee Valley Authority Created in 1933 to control Townshend Acts (1767) Parliamentary measures flooding in the Tennessee River valley, provide work for (named for the chancellor of the Exchequer) that taxed the region’s unemployed, and produce inexpensive elec- tea and other commodities, and established a Board of tric power for the region. Customs Commissioners and colonial vice-admiralty courts. Tenure of Office Act (1867) Required the president to obtain Senate approval to remove any official whose Trail of Tears Cherokees’ own term for their forced appointment had also required Senate approval; Presi- removal, 1838–1839, from the Southeast to Indian lands dent Andrew Johnson’s violation of the law by firing (later Oklahoma); of 15,000 forced to march, 4,000 Secretary of War Edwin Stanton led to Johnson’s died on the way. impeachment. Transcendentalism Philosophy of a small group of Tet Offensive Surprise attack by the Viet Cong and mid- nineteenth-century New England writers and North Vietnamese during the Vietnamese New Year of thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David 1968; turned American public opinion strongly against Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller; they stressed personal the war in Vietnam. and intellectual self-reliance. A - 92 G l o s s a r y Transcontinental railroad First line across the conti- Unitarianism Late-eighteenth-century liberal offshoot nent from Omaha, Nebraska, to Sacramento, California, of the New England Congregationalist Church; rejecting established in 1869 with the linkage of the Union Pacific the Trinity, Unitarianism professed the oneness of God and Central Pacific railroads at Promontory, Utah. and the goodness of rational man. Truman Doctrine President Harry S. Truman’s United Farm Workers Union for the predominantly program announced in 1947 of aid to European Mexican-American migrant laborers of the Southwest, countries—particularly Greece and Turkey—threatened organized by César Chavez in 1962. by communism. United Nations Organization of nations to maintain Trust Companies combined to limit competition. world peace, established in 1945 and headquartered in New York. Twenty-first Amendment (1933) Repealed the prohi- bition of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of Universal Negro Improvement Association Black alcoholic beverages, effectively nullifying the Eighteenth nationalist movement active in the United States from Amendment. 1916 to 1923, led by Marcus Garvey. Twenty-second Amendment (1951) Limited presi- USA Patriot Act (2001) A mammoth bill that conferred dents to two full terms of office or two terms plus two unprecedented powers on law-enforcement agencies years of an assumed term; passed in reaction to Presi- charged with preventing domestic terrorism, including dent Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unprecedented four elected the power to wiretap, read private messages, and spy on terms. citizens. Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) Lowered the voting V-E Day May 8, 1945, the day World War II officially age from twenty-one to eighteen. ended in Europe. U.S.S. Maine Battleship that exploded in Havana Har- Versailles Treaty The treaty signed at the Versailles bor on February 15, 1898, resulting in 266 deaths; the peace conference after World War I which established American public, assuming that the Spanish had mined President Woodrow Wilson’s vision of an international the ship, clamored for war, and the Spanish-American regulating body, redrew parts of Europe and the Middle War was declared two months later. East, and assigned economically-crippling war repara- tions to Germany, but failed to incorporate all of Wilson’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 anti- fourteen points. slavery novel popularized the abolitionist position. Vertical integration Company’s avoidance of middle- Underground Railroad Operating in the decades men by producing its own supplies and providing for before the Civil War, the “railroad” was a clandestine distribution of its product. system of routes and safehouses through which slaves were led to freedom in the North. Veto President’s constitutional power to reject legisla- tion passed by Congress; a two-thirds vote in both Understanding clause Added to southern state consti- houses of Congress can override a veto. tutions in the late nineteenth century, it allowed illiterate whites to circumvent literacy tests for voting by demon- Vicksburg, Battle of The fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, strating that they understood a passage in the Constitu- to General Ulysses S. Grant’s army on July 4, 1863, after tion; black citizens would be judged by white registrars two months of siege was a turning point in the war to have failed. because it gave the Union control of the Mississippi River. G l o s s a r y A - 93 Vietnam War Longest war in which the United States facilitated unionization by regulating employment and has been involved; began with giving American financial bargaining practices. assistance to France, who sought to maintain control over Vietnam colony; moved to dispatching advisers to War Industries Board Run by financier Bernard bolster the government of South Vietnam; and finally Baruch, the board planned production and allocation of sent over 500,000 American soldiers by the mid-1960s; war materiel, supervised purchasing, and fixed prices, resulted in massive antiwar movement, eventual Ameri- 1917–1919. can withdrawal, and communist victory in 1975; only War of 1812 Fought with Britain, 1812–1814, over issues war the United States has lost. that included impressment of American sailors, interfer- Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798–1799) ence with shipping, and collusion with Northwest Terri- Passed by the Virginia and the Kentucky legislatures; tory Indians; settled by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814. written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the resolutions War on Poverty Announced by President Lyndon B. advanced the state-compact theory of the Constitution. Johnson in his 1964 State of the Union address; under the Virginia’s resolution called on the federal courts to pro- Economic Opportunity Bill signed later that year, Head tect free speech. Jefferson’s draft for Kentucky stated that Start, VISTA, and the Jobs Corps were created, and pro- a state could nullify federal law, but this was deleted. grams were created for students, farmers, and busi- nesses in efforts to eliminate poverty. Virginia and New Jersey Plans Differing opinions of delegations to the Constitutional Convention: New Jer- War Powers Act Law passed in 1973, reflecting grow- sey wanted one legislative body with equal representa- ing opposition to American involvement in Vietnam tion for each state; Virginia’s plan called for a strong War; required congressional approval before president central government and a two-house legislature appor- sent troops abroad. tioned by population. War Production Board Created in 1942 to coordinate Volstead Act (1919) Enforced the Prohibition amend- industrial efforts in World War II; similar to the War ment, beginning January 1920. Industries Board in World War I. Voting Rights Act of 1965 Passed in the wake of Martin Warren Court The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Luther King Jr.’s, Selma to Montgomery March, it autho- Justice Earl Warren, 1953–1969, decided such landmark rized federal protection of the right to vote and permitted cases as Brown v. Board of Education (school desegrega- federal enforcement of minority voting rights in indi- tion), Baker v. Carr (legislative redistricting), and Gideon v. vidual counties, mostly in the South. Wainwright and Miranda v. Arizona (rights of criminal defendants). Wabash Railroad v. Illinois (1886) Reversing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Munn v. Illinois, the decision Washington Armaments Conference Leaders of nine disallowed state regulation of interstate commerce. world powers met in 1921–1922 to discuss the naval race; resulting treaties limited to a specific ratio the carrier Wade-Davis bill (1864) Radical Republicans’ plan for and battleship tonnage of each nation (Five-Power Naval reconstruction that required loyalty oaths, abolition of Treaty), formally ratified the Open Door to China (Nine- slavery, repudiation of war debts, and denial of political Power Treaty), and agreed to respect each other’s Pacific rights to high-ranking Confederate officials; President territories (Four-Power Treaty). Lincoln refused to sign the bill. Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act of 1935) Watergate Washington office and apartment complex Established the National Labor Relations Board and that lent its name to the 1972–1974 scandal of the Nixon A - 94 G l o s s a r y administration; when his knowledge of the break-in at the XYZ affair French foreign minister Tallyrand’s three Watergate and subsequent coverup was revealed, Nixon anonymous agents demanded payments to stop French resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment. plundering of American ships in 1797; refusal to pay the bribe was followed by two years of undeclared sea war Webster-Hayne debate U.S. Senate debate of January with France (1798–1800). 1830 between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina over nullification and Yalta conference Meeting of Franklin D. Roosevelt, states’ rights. Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin at a Crimean resort to discuss the postwar world on February 4–11, 1945; Welfare state A term that originated in Britain during Joseph Stalin claimed large areas in eastern Europe for World War II to refer to a system of income assistance, Soviet domination. health coverage, and social services for all citizens. Yellow journalism Sensationalism in newspaper Whig Party Founded in 1834 to unite factions opposed publish ing that reached a peak in the circulation war to President Andrew Jackson, the party favored federal between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William responsibility for internal improvements; the party Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal in the 1890s; the ceased to exist by the late 1850s, when party members papers’ accounts of events in Havana Harbor in 1898 led divided over the slavery issue. directly to the Spanish-American War. Whiskey Rebellion Violent protest by western Penn- Yeoman farmers Small landowners (the majority of sylvania farmers against the federal excise tax on whis- white families in the Old South) who farmed their own key, 1794. land and usually did not own slaves. Wilmot Proviso Proposal to prohibit slavery in any Yick Wo v. Hopkins Supreme Court decision in 1886 land acquired in the Mexican War, but southern sena- overturning San Francisco law that, as enforced, dis- tors, led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, defeated criminated against Chinese-owned laundries; estab- the measure in 1846 and 1847. lished principle that equal protection of the law embodied in Fourteenth Amendment applied to all Americans, not Women’s Christian Temperance Union Largest female just former slaves. reform society of the late nineteenth century; it moved from opposing sale of liquor to demanding the right to Yorktown, Battle of Last battle of the Revolutionary vote for women. War; General Lord Charles Cornwallis along with over 7,000 British troops surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, Works Progress Administration (WPA) Part of the on October 17, 1781. Second New Deal, it provided jobs for millions of the unemployed on construction and arts projects. Young Americans for Freedom Organization of con- servative students founded in 1960; played major role in Wounded Knee, Battle of Last incident of the Indian 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater and in Wars took place in 1890 in the Dakota Territory, where rebirth of conservatism in the 1960s. the U.S. Cavalry killed over 200 Sioux men, women, and children. Zimmermann Telegram From the German foreign sec- retary to the German minister in Mexico, February 1917, Writs of assistance One of the colonies’ main com- instructing him to offer to recover Texas, New Mexico, plaints against Britain, the writs allowed unlimited and Arizona for Mexico if it would fight the United States search warrants without cause to look for evidence of to divert attention from Germany in the event that the smuggling. United States joined the war. G l o s s a r y A - 95 C R E D I T S 441 Chicago Historical Society; 443 Library mann/Corbis; 503 Bettmann/Corbis; 506 /Chris Deakes/The Art Archive. Art Resource, of Congress; 444 (top) Library of Congress; Wisconsin Historical Society, WHS-47662; NY; 582 Bettmann/Corbis; 585 (top) Library (bottom) Photographic History Collection, 508 Hawai’i State Archives. Honolulu, of Congress; (bottom) Eileen Tweedy/The Division of Information Technology and Hawai’i. Kahn Collection [37/36]; 509 Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; 586 Library Communications, National Museum of Library of Congress; 511 Kansas State Histori- of Congress; 587 Cover of Union Signal, American History, Smithsonian Institution; cal Society; 514 Picture History; 515 Library Jan 27, 1916, Frances E. Willard Memorial 445 Granger Collection; 447 Smithsonian of Congress; 517 Florida State Archives; 518 Library and Archives; 590 National American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Library of Congress; 519 Library of Congress; Archives; 595 St Louis Post-Dispatch, Resource, NY; 448 Library of Congress; 449 522 (both) Library of Congress; 523 Library of 17 April 1906; 596 Library of Congress; 598 Cook Collection, Valentine Richmond History Congress; 524 Courtesy of the Tennessee (top) Tulsa Historical Society; (bottom) Center; 453 (top) Library of Congress; (bot- State Museum; 526 (top) The Denver Public Library of Congress; 600 Bettmann/Corbis; tom) Kemper Leila Williams Foundation / Library, Western History Collection, X-21518; 601 National Archives; 608 The Metropoli- The Historic New Orleans Collection; 455 (bottom) University of Washington Librar- tan Museum of Art, Gift of AXA Equitable, Library of Congress; 456 Library of Congress; ies, Special Collections, #UW1678; 527 2012 (2012.478a–j) Image © The Metropolitan 457 Ed Sullivan Collection, Special Collec- Library of Congress; 529 Library of Congress; Museum of Art/Art Resource; 609 Library of tions, University of Hartford; 459 Library of 531 Courtesy of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Congress; 610 Library of Congress; 613 Min- Congress; 460 Library of Congress; 462 Museum Archives; 533 Frederic Remington nesota Historical Society; 614 Charles Sheeler Library of Congress; 463 (both) Library of Art Museum; 535 (top) Granger Collection; (1883-1965) River Rouge Plant, 1932, oil on can- Congress; 464 Granger Collection; 466 Clem- (bottom) National Archives; 538 Library of vas, 20x24 1/8 in. (50.8x61.28 cm) Whitney ents Library Collection, University of Michi- Congress; 539 North Wind Picture Archives/ Museum of American Art, New York; Pur- gan; 467 Granger Collection; 469 (both) Alamy; 540 David J. & Janice L. Frent Collec- chase 32.43. Photography copyright © 1996 Library of Congress; 473 Library of Congress; tion/Corbis; 543 © 2013 Delaware Art Whitney Museum; 615 Honolulu Academy of 475 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Museum/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New Arts: Gift of Philip H. Roach, Jr., 2001; 616 Image source: Art Resource, NY; 480 (top York/The Philadelphia Museum of Art; 546 (left) Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, left) Chicago History Museum/Getty Images; Bettmann/Corbis; 549 (top) Library of Con- University of California, San Francisco; (top right) Granger Collection; (bottom) gress; (bottom) Courtesy of author; 550 (right) Procter & Gamble; 617 The Art Granger Collection; 481 Library of Congress; Library of Congress; 551 Image Courtesy of Archive/Culver Pictures. Art Resource, NY; 483 Library of Congress; 484 Museum of the The Advertising Archives; 552 Corbis; 557 618 Granger Collection; 622 (top) San Diego City of New York, The Jacob Riis Collection Brown Brothers; 558 (top) Library of Con- Museum of Art; (bottom) The Denver Public (#108); 485 Private Collection/The Bridge- gress; (bottom) Bettmann/Corbis; 560 Library, Western History Collection, Rh-1158; man Art Library; 486 Solomon Butcher Col- Museum of the City of New York, The Byron 623 Smithsonian Institutions Archives; 624 lection. Nebraska State Historical Society; Collection; 562 University of Illinois at Chi- Washington State Historical Society; 625 Los 487 Granger Collection; 488 Image copyright cago, the University Library, Jane Addams Angeles Public Library Photo Collection; 627 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Memorial Collection; 563 Nebraska State His- Library of Congress; 630 Photographs and Resource, NY; 489 Library of Congress; 490 torical Society; 566 Hulton Archive/Getty Prints Division, Schomburg Center for (top) Private Collection, Photograph by cour- Images; 567 (top) provided courtesy (c) Harp- Research in Black Culture, The New York tesy of David A. Schorsch and Eileen M. Week LLC; (bottom) Purchase, Jim and Carol Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Smiles and The American Folk Art Museum; Kautz, class of 1955, in honor of Richard and Foundations/Art Resource, NY; 631 Collec- (bottom) Photography Collection. Miriam Ronay Menschel/Francis Lehman Loeb Art tion of David J. And Janice L. Frent/Corbis; and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Center, Vassar College; 568 Library of Con- 632 Library of Congress; 633 Courtesy of Photographs, The New York Public Library, gress; 569 Courtesy of Debs Collection, Cun- author; 634 (top) National Archives; (bot- Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; 494 ningham Memorial Library, Indiana State tom) Museum of History & Industry/Corbis; (both) Library of Congress; 495 Library of University; 574 Library of Congress; 578 635 Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New Congress; 497 The Ohio State University Library of Congress: 580 Albin Egger-Lienz, York University, Charles Rivers Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum; Nordfrankreich, 1917/Photo by Ji-Elle. 2012 photograph by Charles Rivers; 636 AP Photo; 498 Museum of the City of New York/The h t t p : / / c r e a t i v e c o m m o n s . o r g / l i c e n s e s 639 Smithsonian American Art Museum/Art Art Archive at Art Resource, NY; 502 Bett- /by-sa/3.0/deed.en; 581 Private Collection Resource; 642 Granger Collection; 643 C r e d i t s A - 97 Bettmann/Corbis; 644 National Archives; Getty Images; 743 (top) Bettmann/Corbis; Library; 808 National Archives; 811 © Co 645 David Rumsey Map Collection; 647 Kan- (bottom) Advertising Archive; 744 Ameri- Rentmeester; 812 Photo by Ollie Atkins/Time sas State Historical Society; 648 Punch Lim- can Economic Foundation, “Man’s Belief in Life Pictures/Getty Images; 813 May 4 Collec- ited; 650 Bettmann/Corbis; 651 (both) God is Personal,” CU Libraries Exhibitions, tion. Kent State University Libraries. Special Library of Congress; 652 Billy Graham Center accessed February 22, 2013, https://exhibi Collections and Archives; 814 David Fenton/ Archives, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL; 653 tions.cul.columbia.edu/items/show/2829; Getty Images; 818 (top) Bob Kreisel/Alamy; (top) Library of Congress; (bottom) National 746 Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential (bottom) AP Photo; 819 Courtesy Gerald R. Archives; 654 Library of Congress; 655 Library; 749 Bettmann/Corbis; 751 AP Photo; Ford Library; 821 Fox Photos/Getty Images; Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; 658 Franklin 752 Dan Weiner/Time Life Pictures/Getty 822 AP Photo; 823 Bettmann/Corbis; 827 © D. 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On Center for Art, Design and tofest; 836 AP Photo; 840 Peter Turnley/ gress; (bottom) Brown Brothers; 672 Library Visual Culture, University of MD Baltimore Corbis; 841 Patrick Hagerty/Corbis Sygma; of Congress; 674 Library of Congress; 675 County website. http://www.umbc.edu 843 AP Photo; 845 AP Photo; 847 Courtesy Washington Star; 676 Andreas Feninger/ /cadvc/foralltheworld/section3/context.php; of Edward Sorel, published as the cover of George Eastman House/Getty Images; 678 761 Bettmann /Corbis; 764 Time & Life Pic- The New Yorker; 850 Erik Freeland/Corbis; National Archives; 680 (top) Used with per- tures /Getty Images; 765 Bettmann/Corbis; 852 Peter Turnely/Corbis; 853 Photo by Joi mission of Joshua Brown; (bottom) 768 National Archives; 769 Image courtesy Ito; http://creativecommons.org/licenses Bettmann/Corbis; 682 AP Photo; 683 Library of the Raleigh City Museum; 770 (c) Cecil /by/2.0/deed.en; 854 © 2004 Bob Sacha; 855 of Congress; 685 (both) Library of Congress; Williams; 771 (top) Ed Jones/The Birming- Reprinted with permission of David Jacob- 686 (top) Library of Congress; (bottom) ham News/Landov; (bottom) Bettmann/ son; 857 Hans Haacke/Artists Rights Society McCall’s Magazine Collection, California Cor bis; 772 © Walter P. 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AAA, see Agricultural Adjustment Act Birmingham campaign and, 771–72, 771 wages and, 594, 630, 887 Abilene, Kans., 486 and Black Codes, 455–56, 457 welfare and, 808 abolition movement, 527, 803 black internationalism and, 699, 700 women, 518, 520, 549, 594, 696, 785 Aborigines, 494, 495, 852 Booker T. Washington and, 526–27 women’s movement neglect of, 594 abortion, 811, 828, 866 Carter and, 820 World War I and, 589, 596–97, 596 Clinton and, 846 citizenship and, 462–63, 625 World War II and, 674, 689, 694–700, 697 conservatism and, 827, 828 civil rights and, 667, 695–700, 697, 761, see also civil rights movement; Great feminists and, 796, 828 769–73, 770, 775, 782–85 Migration; slavery; slaves religious right and, 827, 834, 865 in Clinton administration, 846 African National Congress, 843 Supreme Court and, 801 as cowboys, 487 Agnew, Spiro T. (1918–1996), 816, 819 Abraham Lincoln (aircraft carrier), 881 decolonization and, 720 Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), 646, Abrams, Jacob (1886–1953), 621 as Democrats, 640 648, 665 Abu Ghraib (prison), 884, 884 education and, 517, 518, 519 agriculture, 485–86, 487, 497, 545, 548, 571, abuse, domestic, 562, 587 and FDR, 658 662, 664–65, 690 Acheson, Dean (1893–1971), 733 feminists and, 615 African-Americans and, 661 ACLU, see American Civil Liberties Union Freedom Train and, 708 bonanza farms and, 486 acquired immunodeficiency syndrome ghetto uprisings and, 783–84 Democratic Party and, 632 (AIDS), 863, 864 Great Society and, 782 Eisenhower and, 747 Across the Continent (Palmer), 485 Hurricane Katrina and, 887, 887 and foreclosures, 612, 632 activism, in “The Sixties,” 795–804 IQ tests and, 593 Great Depression and, 632, 635 Adams, Henry (b. 1843), 443 juries and, 667 industrial revolution and, 477–78 Adams, John (1735–1826), 570 Knights of Labor and, 502 migrant workers and, 657, 666, 797 Adamson Act (1916), 571 and Ku Klux Klan, see Ku Klux Klan New Deal and, 646–47, 652–53, 653, 655, Addams, Jane (1860–1935), 562–63, 562 labor and, 667, 772 658, 659, 661, 669, 747 Adenauer, Konrad (1876–1967), 747 LBJ and, 776 in 1920s, 612–13, 613 Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, The (TV loss of voting rights of, 520–21, 562, 597, Populists and, 509, 510, 512 show), 741 661, 664, 699, 761, 776, 780 post-World War II, 739 advertising, 550–51, 551, 611, 616, 616, 685–86, March on Washington and, 695, 772–73 in Progressive era, 547 685, 687, 753 New Deal and, 661–62, 663–64 railroads and, 510 consumerism and, 550, 551, 610, 610, 741 Nixon and, 809, 810 Southern expansion of, 517 family life in, 741, 743 northern migration of, 518–19, 596–97, Aguinaldo, Emilio (1869–1964), 535, 535, 537 political, 837–38 597, 627, 630, 694 AIDS, see acquired immunodeficiency television and, 741, 741, 746 Plessy v. Ferguson and, 521 syndrome women and, 616 in politics, 464, 519–20 Aid to Families with Dependent Children AFDC, see Aid to Families with Dependent population of, 627 (AFDC), 808, 850–51 Children prison population of, 862–63 aircraft, see aviation and aircraft affirmative action, 784, 809, 810, 829, 846, Progressivism and, 594–96 Air Force, U.S., 695 850, 861, 889 Reagan and, 832 Alabama, 667, 800 Afghanistan, 823, 837, 875, 877–78, 878, 881, recessions and, 902 black voting in, 724 884, 890, 891, 902, 906, 907 in Reconstruction, 453, 456–58, 459–62, and immigrants, 903 U.S. war on, 875 459, 463–65, 517, 521, 523, 595, Al-Ahram (newspaper), 602 AFL, see American Federation of Labor 674, 724 Alaska, 790 Africa, 575, 604, 699, 700, 705, 720, 750, and segregation, see segregation corporate mining in, 487 844, 858, 870, 879 Selma campaign and, 755, 780 purchase of, 530 immigrants from, 861 sit-ins and, 769, 770 Albania, 852 African-Americans, 506, 517, 527–28, 540, in South, 509, 518, 596–97, 694, 699 Albuquerque, N.Mex., 490, 741 665, 667, 668, 705, 726, 743, 766, in suburbs, 742–43, 857, 862 Alcatraz Island, 798, 798 860–62, 896, 897, 908 Truman and, 724–27 alcohol, banning of, see Prohibition as Afro-Americans, 785 unemployment and, 663, 783 Alcorn, James L. (1816–1894), 465 in arts, 630–31 and voting, 906 Alien Act (1798), 590 I n d e x A - 99 Allende, Salvador (1908–1973), 812 anti-Catholicism, 764–65, 764 Atlantic City, N.J., 777 Allies: Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 627 Atlantic Monthly, 628 in World War I, 580, 582, 583, 599, 604 Anti-Imperialist League, 540 atomic bomb, 701–3, 702, 705, 709, 727, 729, in World War II, 679, 700, 701, 702–5, 721 anti-Semitism, 626, 627, 652, 690, 807, 866 730, 749 Al Qaeda, 875, 880, 884 see also Jews of Soviet Union, 713, 715 Altgeld, John Peter (1847–1902), 505 antiwar movement, Vietnam era, 768, see also hydrogen bomb; nuclear weapons Amalgamated Association, 509 792–93, 793, 802, 803, 813–14, 813, 886 Atomic Energy Commission, 711 America First Committee, 677 apartheid, 844 Attlee, Clement (1883–1967), 703 American Century, The (Luce), 687, 698 Appalachia, 781, 781 Austin, Tex., 853, 900 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Appeal to Reason, 556 Australia, 486, 494, 539, 604 620, 623 appeasement, 675 in World War II, 679 American Creed, 697 Apple Computers, 853 Austria, 601, 675 American Dilemma, An (Myrdal), 697, 700 appliances, household, see consumerism, and Austro-Hungarian Empire, 580, 602, 851 American Economic Foundation, 745 household appliances; specific appliances immigrants from, 524, 547 American Enterprise Institute, 826 Appomattox Courthouse, 454 automobiles, 552, 610–11, 612, 614, 616, 633, American Federation of Labor (AFL), 527–28, Arabs, 603, 604, 818 682, 683, 737, 739–40, 741 552–56, 584, 599, 649, 723, 748 nationalism and, 751 Ford and, 550 American Fifth Fleet, 904 Arab Spring, 903 highways and, 748 American Heritage Foundation, 708 Arbenz Guzmán, Jacobo (1913–1971), 750, 752 Japanese production of, 818 American identity, 591–98 Argentina, 486, 821 in Los Angeles, 613 American Indian Movement, 798, 864 Arizona, 892 pollution and, 766, 808 American Individualism (Hoover), 631 agriculture in, 545 aviation and aircraft, 611, 613, 683, 686, 686, American International Group (AIG), Arkansas, 520, 846 695, 728, 738, 820, 821 892, 894 armed forces, U.S., see military, U.S. Axis of Evil, 878 Americanism, 623, 666, 667, 719, 780, 782 armistice, Korean War, 715 Axis powers, 676, 678, 691 vs. racism, 667, 689 Armstrong, Louis, 755 Azikiwe, Nnamdi (1904–1996), 700 Americanization, 623, 629, 742 Armstrong, Samuel (1839–1893), 527 Catholics and, 627 Army, U.S., 700 baby boom, 739, 742 of immigrants, 591–94, 623, 665, 689–90 desegregation in, 697 Bacall, Lauren (1924–), 729 see also Americanism; assimilation Army-McCarthy hearings, 730–31, 730, 741 Bachelor Girls Social Club, 549 Americanization of the World, The; or, the Trend Arthur Andersen Company, 855 Baghdad, 880 of the Twentieth Century (Stead), 575 artisans, Second New Deal and, 653 Bahrain, 903 American Jewish Committee, 667, 696 arts: Bailey v. Alabama, 596 American Liberty League, 655 African-Americans in, 630–31 Bain Capital, 905 American Medical Association, 654, 721 during Cold War, 720 Baker, Ella (1903–1986), 770 American National Exhibition, 737–38, 737 Second New Deal and, 653–54, 653 Baker v. Carr, 800 American Protective League (APL), 591 Aryan Nation, 866 Baldwin, James (1924–1987), 769, 786 American Railway Union, 514 Aryans, 626 Balkans, 851 American Revolution, 499, 674, 709, 713, as “master race,” 689 “Ballad for Americans,” 666, 667 721, 725 Ashcan School, 543 Ballinger, Richard A. (1858–1922), 568–69 Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 863 Asia, 534, 575, 603, 604, 699, 709, 720, 751, Baltimore, Md., 746 American Telephone and Telegraph 853, 858, 870 Bank of America, 894 (AT&T), 811 pre-World War II, 675 banks, 452, 497, 498, 510, 515, 571, 577, 579, American Tobacco, 568 Asian-Americans, voting by, 906–7 612, 652, 733, 833, 855–56 American Way, 798 Asian immigrants, 547, 594, 690, 780, British, 575 Amnesty International, 821 860–61, 860, 861 failure of, 632, 642 anarchism, 502, 505, 590, 609 affirmative action and, 810 in financial crisis of 2008, 891–92, 893, Ancona, Victor, 696 World War II and, 692–93 894–95, 901 Anderson, John (1922–), 830 assembly lines, 550, 649, 684 and foreclosures, 612, 632, 637, 647 Anderson, Marian (1897–1993), 664 assimilation, 626–27, 665, 689–90 in Great Depression, 632, 635, 637, Andersonville, Ga., Confederate prison at, 456 associational action, 631, 636 642–43, 643, 647, 661 And Not This Man (Nast), 469 asylums, 593 New Deal and, 669 Andrews, Sidney (1837–1880), 446 AT&T (American Telephone and Socialist party and, 569 Angel Island, 547 Telegraph), 811 in Soviet Union, 599 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 751 Atlanta Cotton Exposition, 527, 529 suburbs and, 742 Ann Arbor, Mich., Beats in, 754 Atlantic, Battle of the, 679 2008 financial crisis and, 856 Anniston, Ala., 770 Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, 478 2010 regulation reforms and, 901 Anthony, Susan B. (1820–1906), 462, 462 Atlantic cable, 479 “Banned in Boston,” 620 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), 812, 835 Atlantic Charter, 705 Baptists, 524, 759, 820 A - 100 I n d e x Barbados, 578 black internationalism, 699, 700 Brown, John (1800–1859), 460 Barbie doll, 857 blacklisting: Brown, Matt, 449 Barbie’s Liberty (Haacke), 857 in Hollywood, 729 Brown, Oliver (1918–1961), 757 Bargain of 1877, 472–73 of union organizers, 654 Brown, Olympia, 461 Barnett, Ross (1898–1987), 771 Black Muslims, 784 Brown v. Board of Education, 461, 757–58, 760, Barrow plantation, maps of, 446 Black Panther Party, 785 761, 763 Baruch, Bernard (1870–1965), 584 Black Power, 779, 784–85, 786, 797, 813 Bruce, Blanche K. (1841–1898), 464 Bataan, 678, 692 Black Sea, 711 Bryan, William Jennings (1860–1925), 515, Batista, Fulgencio (1901–1973), 674, 773 Black Sunday, 647 515, 516, 540, 568, 579, 581, 623, 623 Baxter Street Court, 484 Black Tuesday, 632 “cross of gold” speech of, 515, 515 Bay of Pigs invasion, 774 Blaine, James G. (1830–1893), 497, 525, 530 Bryn Mawr, 811 Beats, 754, 754, 794 Blair, Francis P., Jr. (1821–1875), 459 Buchanan, Pat (1938–), 846 Begin, Menachem (1913–1992), 822 blitzkrieg, 676, 676 Buckley, William F. (1925–), 778 Beijing, 812, 840, 842 Block, Herbert (1909–2001), 731, 868 Buck v. Bell, 593 Belfast, 599, 803 Bock, Vera (1905–), 653 Buddhism, Buddhists, 794, 907 Belgium, 580, 676 Boesky, Ivan (1937–), 833 as immigrants, 858 Bellamy, Edward (1850–1898), 502, 503, 503, Bogart, Humphrey (1899–1957), 729 in Vietnam, 790 504, 560 bohemians, 793 buffalo, 490 Bellows, George (1882–1925), 622 bomb shelters, 749, 749 hunting of, 488, 489, 490 Benedict, Ruth (1887–1948), 690 bonanza farms, 486 Buffalo, N.Y., 566 Ben-Hur (movie), 744 bonus marchers, 635 Bulgaria, 710 Benson, Steve, 878 bootleggers, 622 Bulge, Battle of the, 700 Benton, Thomas Hart (1889–1975), 608 Border Patrol, U.S., 625, 625, 691 Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S., 490, 559 Berger, Victor (1860–1929), 601 Bosch, Juan (1909–2001), 790 Bureau of Labor Statistics, 902 Berlin: Bosnia-Herzegovina, 580 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mass., 498–99 airlift, 713 Bosses of the Senate, The, 495 Burger, Warren (1907–1995), 809 blockade, 713 Boston, Mass., integration in, 810 Burger Court, 809–10 occupation of, 713 Boston Globe, 896 Burma, 678 Berlin Wall, 774, 843, 843 Boston Marathon, 796 Bush, George H. W. (1924–), 837, 838, 842, Bernays, Edward (1891–1995), 616 Boston Tea Party, 900, 904 844, 853, 880 Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955), 663 Boumediene v. Bush, 890 in election of 1992, 845–46 Beverly Hills, Calif., 859 Bourke-White, Margaret (1906–1971), 613 Gulf War and, 845, 845 Bible, 515, 621, 623, 628, 760, 800, 825 Bourne, Randolph (1886–1918), 592 NAFTA and, 847 interpretation of, 623, 623 Boutwell, George S. (1818–1905), 540 Bush, George W. (1946–), 845, 865, 876–81, Bible Belt, 504 Bow, Clara (1905–1965), 616 885–86, 889, 895, 896–97, 900, 901 Bierstadt, Albert, 488 Bowers v. Hardwick, 834, 889 civil liberties and, 883–85 Bill of Rights (American), 458, 461, 684–85, boycotts, 758–59, 760, 797 debates with Gore, 870 685, 719, 799, 800 Boy Scouts, 685 economy under, 885, 891–95 “Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged,” 784 bracero program, 690–91 in election of 2000, 868–69 bin Laden, Osama (1957–2011), 875, 877 Bradwell, Myra (1831–1894), 462 foreign policy of, 876, 877–79, 880–81, death of, 903 “brains trust,” 642 885, 890–91, 898 Birmingham, Ala., 708, 755 Brandeis, Louis D. (1856–1941), 552, 565, 569, and Hurricane Katrina, 886, 890 church bombing in, 772 621, 642 Iraq War and, 880, 881, 890–91 civil rights campaign in, 771–72, 771 Brazil, 510 and Supreme Court, 890 Freedom Rides in, 770 Brentwood, Calif., 870 unemployment and, 885 manufacturing in, 517, 723 Bretton Woods, N.H., conference at, 704, 817 Bush, Jeb (1953–), 869 birth control, 558–59, 615, 795, 801, 811 Brewer, David J. (1837–1910), 526 Bush (George W.) administration, 875, Birth of a Nation (Griffith), 595 Breyer, Stephen (1938–), 846 876–81, 878, 881, 883, 884, 885, birthrate: Brezhnev, Leonid (1906–1982), 812 886–87, 890, 891, 894–95, 900, 901 decline in U.S., 635 Bridges, Harry (1901–1990), 649 2008 financial crisis and, 856 infant mortality and, 871 Britain, Battle of, 676 Bush Doctrine, 877–78 in Mexico, 859 British-Americans, 690 Bush v. Gore, 868–69 minority, 861 World War I and, 581 business: Black, Hugo (1886–1971), 694 British Empire, 529, 575, 599, 604, 701, and government, 616–19, 687 black Americans, see African-Americans 710, 720 rise of, 480–82 Blackbirds (Broadway show), 630 British Petroleum, 901 vertically integrated, 481 Blackboard Jungle (movie), 753 Broadway theatre, 630 see also corporations Black Codes, 455–56, 455, 457 Brooklyn, N.Y., 559, 648 busing, desegregation of schools and, Black Hills, 489 Brooklyn Dodgers, 724, 725 810, 829 I n d e x A - 101 Cadillac, 683 Carter, Jimmy (1924– ), 578, 820, 822, 826, Chicago, Ill., 630, 752, 819, 874, 888, 895 California, 486, 487, 487, 547, 561, 564, 625, 829, 851 alleged voter fraud in, 765 625, 632, 662, 683, 738, 860 economic crisis and, 820–21 in Great Depression, 634, 634 agriculture in, 545, 739 in election of 1980, 830 Haymarket affair in, 505 Asian-Americans in, 594, 860 human rights and, 821–22, 836 manufacturing in, 478 boycott of grapes from, 797 Iran hostage crisis and, 822–23 1968 Democratic convention in, 803 gold rush in, 484 Carter administration, 820, 823, 826, 836 population of, 478 immigrants in, 865 Carter Doctrine, 823 race riot in, 598 Indian forced labor in, 484 Caruso, Enrico (1873–1921), 611 World’s Fair in, 480 Japanese-Americans in, 692 Casey, William (1913–1987), 836 Chicago Defender, 705 migration to, 613 Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania, 866 Chicago Freedom Movement, 784 1934 election in, 651 Casino Grounds, 483 Chicago Gospel Tabernacle, 652 1964 election in, 779 casinos, gambling, Native Americans and, Chicago Tribune, 605 Reagan as governor of, 830 864–65 Chicanos, 797 suburbs in, 740–41 Castillo Armas, Carlos (1914–1957), 751 see also Latinos tax law in, 829 Castro, Fidel (1926–), 773–74 child labor, 546, 546, 561, 562, 570, 571, 615, California, University of: Catechetical Guild Education Society of St. 617, 659 at Berkeley, 787, 790 Paul, Minnesota, 707 Chile, 812, 836 at Davis, 810 Catholics, Catholicism, 496, 505, 621, 631–32, China, 534, 675, 713–15, 790, 807, 812, 812, California, woman suffrage in, 513 658, 803, 803, 906 860, 891–92, 908 California City, 863 and abortion, 796, 828 Iraq War and, 880 California Supreme Court, 526 and Americanization, 627 jobs exported to, 885 segregation and, 756 anticommunism of, 731, 743–44, 889 Korean War and, 715–17 California Trail, 488 counterculture and, 794 Lend-Lease and, 677 Call, The, 558 in FDR administration, 665 loss of U.S. jobs to, 885 Calley, William (1943–), 814 JFK as, 764–65, 764, 886 market reforms in, 843 Cambodia, 813, 860 John Kerry as, 886 rise of communists in, 713–15 immigrants from, 859 Ku Klux Klan and, 624 Tiananmen Square protest in, 840, 842–43 Cambridge, Mass., 600 in 1960 campaign, 764–65, 764 in U.N., 704 camera, handheld, 479 prejudice against, 626 Chinese, Chinese immigrants, 453, 484, 486, Camp David, 822 Catt, Carrie Chapman (1859–1947), 528–29 522, 525–26, 526, 539, 540, 547 Canada, 539, 625, 640, 848, 871 cattle drives, 487 in Hawaii, 530 D-Day and, 680 CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), 644–45, in IWW, 556 draft dodgers’ flight to, 792 644, 660 World War II and, 691–92 NAFTA and, 847 censorship, 621 see also Asian immigrants Canadians, Canadian immigrants, 485 anticommunism and, 731 Chou En-lai (1898–1976), 812 Canal Zone, 576–78 Hollywood and, 620 Christ, Jesus, see Jesus capitalism, 642, 687, 689, 744 sex and, 620 Christian Coalition, 865 free market, 750 census, federal, 861, 861, 864 Christianity, 504, 610, 743–44, 745, 759–60, “golden age” of, 738–45 Census Bureau, 478 826–27, 857 industrial, 551 Central America, 835, 836 “Christian patriots” and, 866 international, 842, 843 immigrants from, 859, 861 evangelical, 905 labor vs., 499, 501–5 Theodore Roosevelt’s policies in, 576–79 fundamentalism and, 621–22, 826–27 modern, 737 Central High School, Ark., segregation at, 761 imperialism and, 536 revolution vs. reform of, 666 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 711, 751, modernism in, 621–22 Ronald Reagan and, 830 751, 812, 816, 875, 883 in movies, 744 Socialist Party vs., 569, 666 Bay of Pigs Invasion and, 773 and Republican Party (modern), 807, 825 as “welfare capitalism,” 613 support of arts by, 720 see also specific denominations “captains of industry,” 481–82 Central Powers (World War I), 580 Christian lobby, 504 Caribbean, 532, 577, 700, 781, 835, 835 Cermak, Anton (1873–1933), 634 Christian Right, 830, 834 immigrants from, 858, 859, 861 Chambers, Whittaker (1901–1961), 729 see also religious right U.S. troops in, 576 Chaney, James (1943–1964), 777 Chrysler, 612, 864 see also West Indies Chaplin, Charlie (1889–1977), 611 Church, Frank (1924–1984), 816 Carmichael, Stokely (1941–1998), 784 Charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill church and state, separation of, 623, 800, 801 Carnegie, Andrew (1835–1919), 481, 492, (Remington), 533 Church Committee, 816 509, 509 Chavez, César (1927–1993), 797, 860 Churchill, Winston (1871–1947), 631, 703–4, carpetbaggers, 464–65 Cheney, Dick (1941–), 845, 845, 869, 879 703, 705, 710, 747 Carson, Rachel (1907–1964), 786, 799 Chevrolet Corvair, 799 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Carswell, G. Harold (1920–1992), 809 Cheyennes, 489 see Mormons A - 102 I n d e x CIA, see Central Intelligence Agency backlash against, 779, 829 Beats and, 754 cigarettes, marketing to women of, 616, 616 Birmingham campaign and, 771–72, 771 Berlin blockade in, 713 CIO, see Congress of Industrial Organizations birth of, 695–700, 697 big business and, 744 Citigroup, 855, 894 FBI and, 816 Carter and, 821–22 citizenship, 457–58, 461, 462–63, 538–39, 662 freedom and, 758–59 consumerism and, 737, 738 of African-Americans, 462–63, 625, 641 JFK and, 775–76 cultural, 720 Chinese immigrants and, 526 LBJ and, 776 Eisenhower and, 749–50 Fourteenth Amendment and, 462 March on Washington and, 772–73 end of, 843, 844, 845, 851, 857 Hawaii and, 538 Montgomery bus boycott and, 758–59, 760 freedom and, 717, 720–22, 728, 731, Native Americans and, 491 1964 election and, 777–79 744, 752 Puerto Rico and, 538, 539 radicalization of, 785 highways and, 727, 747–48 second-class, see segregation Selma campaign and, 780 human rights and, 721 voting rights and, 562 in South, 769–73 Iran and, 710 welfare state and, 565 television and, 771, 772, 780 JFK and, 773–74 Citizens United v. Federal Elections women and, 795–97 Khrushchev and, 749 Commission, 907 Civil Service Act (1883), 497 Korean War and, 715–17 City Activities with Dance Hall (Benton), 608 Civil War, U.S., 442, 443, 488, 489, 495, 497, and Middle East oil, 710, 711 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 644, 499, 506, 510, 523–24, 581, 584, 587, “missile gap,” 765 644, 660 708, 899 national exhibitions and, 737–38 Civil Liberties Bureau, see American Civil casualties in, 446 in 1960 election, 765 Liberties Union Civil Works Administration (CWA), 645 organized labor and, 732–33 Civil Rights Act (1875), 441, 470, 521 Clarendon County, S.C., 757 origins of, 709–20 Civil Rights Act (1964), 772, 776, 778, 795 Clark, William (1770–1838), 489 political debate and, 752 civil rights and liberties, 590, 591, 600–601, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the Reagan and, 834–36, 837 619–21, 637, 667–68, 708, 733–34, World Order, The (Huntington), 888–89 in Third World, 750–51 754–64, 883–84 class: Colfax, La., massacre in, 468, 470 Adlai Stevenson and, 733–34 in American Society, 498–99 Colfax, Schuyler (1823–1885), 460 A. Mitchell Palmer and, 600–601 see also middle class Collier, John (1789–1883), 662 anticommunism and, 731 Clayton Act (1914), 571 Colombia, 577 Baldwin on, 769 Clean Air Act (1970), 799, 808 colonialization: Bush administration and, 883–85, 890 Clean Water Act (1972), 799 decolonization and, 720, 750–51 Cold War and, 733–34 Clemenceau, Georges (1841–1929), 601 international, 529 Eleanor Roosevelt and, 660 Cleveland, Grover (1837–1908), 514, 515, 525, Colorado, 647 FDR and, 663–64 531, 636 entrance into Union of, 489 in Great Depression, 637, 665 Clinton, Bill (1946–), 662, 837, 842, 845–52, woman suffrage in, 513, 564 Japanese-American internment and, 847, 848, 855, 867–68, 868, 895 Colorado River, 639 692–93 Balkan crisis and, 851 Colored Rule in a Reconstructed (?) State labor and, 557, 667–68 budget and, 853 (Nast), 469 legislation on, 465 in election of 1992, 845–46 Columbia, S.C., 860 New Deal and, 668 foreign policy of, 851–52 Columbia College, 895 new movements in, 795–804 impeachment of, 868 Columbia River, 639, 640 post-World War II, 724, 724, 726 national health care plan of, 847, 850 Columbia University, 642 revolution in, 799–801 sexual misconduct and, 868 Columbus, N.Mex., 580 Scottsboro case and, 667 Whitewater and, 868 Commager, Henry Steele (1902–1998), 719 September 11 terrorist attacks and, 883–84 Clinton, Hillary Rodham (1947–), 847, 895, 896 Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 662 in Soviet Union, 721, 722 as feminist, 867 Commission on Civil Rights, 725 suspension of, 890 Clinton administration, 845–52, 895 Committee on Public Information (CPI), 585 Truman and, 724–27 women in, 846 communes, 794 Woodrow Wilson and, 590 Close the Gate, 595 communism, 568, 624, 649, 665–66, 668, World War II and, 674, 690–91, 758 Cloud, N. B. (1809–1875), 468 676, 696, 703, 707, 709, 710, 710, 711, see also Bill of Rights (American); civil coal, 518, 723, 876 712, 713–15, 714, 718, 721, 724, 727–34, rights movement; constitutional mining, 518, 660 729, 750, 751, 752, 779, 788, 803, 812, amendments, U.S.; freedom; Coast Guard, U.S., 678 813, 814, 820, 821, 836, 851 McCarthy era; women’s rights Coca-Cola, 611 capitalism vs., 750 Civil Rights Bill (1866), 456–57 “code-talkers,” 691 in China, 713–15 Civil Rights Cases, 521 Cold War, 705, 707–35, 707, 714, 789, 792, collapse of, 842–44, 843 Civil Rights Memorial, 907 795, 812, 816, 817, 822, 823, 834, 835, crusade against, 727–34, 730, 731, 743–44, civil rights movement, 754–64, 761, 782–85, 875, 878, 889, 907 745, 746, 787, 800 826, 895 anticommunism during, 743, 745 flag of, 590 I n d e x A - 103 communism ( continued ) conservatism, 689, 744–45, 778–79, 799, corporations, 527, 560–61, 566, 642, 739, 744, Henry Wallace and, 726 806–39, 806, 814, 858, 865–66, 888, 896 854–55, 885 refugees from, 728 abortion and, 827, 828 absentee, 535 religion v., 743–44, 745, 745 anti-Semitism and, 807 Bush era scandals in, 893–94 rise of, 582 Clinton and, 846 and conformity, 752–53 in Soviet Union, 737 libertarians and, 744–45 economic control of countries by, 750–51 Truman Doctrine and, 711 neoconservatism and, 826 farms owned by, 766 in Vietnam, 787 New Deal and, 687 Federal Trade Commission and, 571 Communist Party, 600, 635, 635, 651, 665–66, Nixon and, 807, 808 free enterprise and, 744 667, 707, 726, 731, 786 radical, 779, 788, 866 multinational, 842 in China, 843 Reagan and, 834 “new despotism” of, 658 Communist Party Congress, 749 Constitution, U.S., 557, 587, 588, 615, 629, in 1920s, 613–14 company unions, 614 708, 763, 801, 868, 889–90, 900 power and, 560–61, 751, 869 computers, 683, 728, 853–54 African-Americans and, 442, 461–62 and profits, 612, 652, 669, 683, 684, see also Internet and territories acquired, 538 818–19, 829, 832, 833 concentration camps, 675, 682, 690 women’s rights and, 461, 462 and public relations, 613 see also Japanese immigrants, Japanese constitutional amendments, U.S.: and rise of West, 488 Americans, World War II First, 620, 729, 800, 801 Social Darwinist view of, 500 internment of Thirteenth, 708 states and, 570 Coney Island, 753 Fourteenth, 457–58, 461, 462, 470, 521, taxes on, 652 Confederate States of America, 488, 505–6 522, 526, 596, 627, 629, 708, 757, Theodore Roosevelt and, 566 Congress, U.S., 496, 531, 642, 654, 688, 710, 763, 869 and white collar jobs, 739 746, 809, 815–16, 828, 883, 890–91 Fifteenth, 460, 460, 462, 520, 596, 615, 708 in World War II, 683 African-Americans in, 519 Sixteenth, 566 see also specific corporations anticommunism and, 732 Seventeenth, 561 corruption, of politics, 494–95 apologizes for Japanese-American Eighteenth, 587 Cosmopolitan, 796 internment, 694 Nineteenth, 587 cost of living wage increases, 732, 748 Civil Rights Act (1964) and, 772 Twentieth, 658 cotton, 449, 453, 510, 511, 517, 664, 712, 739 civil rights and, 760–61 Twenty-first, 647 Cotton Belt, 449 Clinton and, 855 Twenty-fourth, 780 Couch, W. T. (1901–1988), 699 in elections of 1946, 723 Constitution Hall, 664 Coughlin, Charles E. (1891–1979), 652, 677 Equal Pay Act and, 795 consumerism, 548–49, 616–17, 736 counterculture, 768, 792, 793–94, 793, 810 FDR and, 658 advertising and, 550, 551, 610, 610, 741 Buddhism and, 794 federal bailouts and, 894–95 in American National Exhibition, 737–38 Catholicism and, 794 health care bill passed by, 901 economy and, 611–12 and faith, 794, 794 immigration restriction and, 525, 625, and household appliances, 611, 611, 737, gurus and, 794 625, 691 738, 739, 885 and Jesus People, 794, 794 isolationism and, 676 television and, 741 yoga and, 794, 794 and League of Nations, 605 unionization and, 551 “court packing,” 658, 658 and Native American treaty system, 490 wages and, 549, 550 cowboys, 486–87 New Deal and, 642–43, 644, 688 containment, 709–11, 712, 713, 715, 749, Cox, Archibald (1912–2004), 815 presidential veto and, 457, 723, 732 750–51 Cox, James (1870–1957), 641 Reagan’s defiance of, 836 contracts, labor, 500, 501 Coxey, Jacob (1854–1951), 514 Reconstruction policies of, 454 “yellow dog,” 501 Coxey’s Army, 514 “stimulus” package passed by, 900 contracts, “liberty of contract” doctrine crack cocaine, 862, 863 Truman Doctrine and, 711 and, 565 Crazy Horse (1842?–1877), 489 Voting Rights Act passed by, 780 “Contract with America,” 847, 850 creationism, 623, 865 World War II and, 678 Contras, 836 see also fundamentalism see also House of Representatives, U.S.; Coolidge, Calvin (1872–1933), 610, 617, 617, Crédit Mobilier, 495 Senate, U.S. 618, 625, 631 Creel, George (1876–1953), 585 Congressional Medal of Honor, 595 Coolidge administration, 618 crime, 862–63 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Cooper, Gary (1901–1961), 728 Crisis, The, 589, 596 649–50, 651, 665, 667, 696, 723, 748 Cooperative Commonwealth, The (Gronlund), Croatia, 852 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 696, 502–3 Croly, Herbert (1869–1930), 566 770, 785 Cooper Union, 558 crop lien system, 449–52 Connor, Eugene “Bull” (1897–1973), copper, 481, 488 “cross of gold” speech, 515, 515 772, 826 Coral Sea, Battle of, 679, 679 Cruikshank, U.S. v. , 470 conquistadores, 864 CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), 696, Cuba, 530, 531–34, 533, 674, 883 conservationism, 567–68, 568, 799, 827–28 770, 785 Bay of Pigs invasion in, 774 A - 104 I n d e x Guantánamo Bay, 883, 883, 884, 890, 900 Delegation of Advocates of Women’s Suffrage Detroit Free Press, 690 immigrants from, 859 Addressing the House Judiciary Committee, Dewey, George (1837–1917), 532, 535 Missile Crisis in, 774 A, 462 Dewey, John (1859–1952), 560, 584 U.S. intervention in, 578 Delta Council, 733 Dewey, Thomas E. (1902–1917), 701, 726 Cullen, Countee (1903?–1946), 630 demobilization, of U.S. military, 723 Díaz, Porfirio (1830–1915), 579 cultural pluralism, 626, 627 Democratic Party, 496, 513, 515, 516, 569, dictators, dictatorships, 674–75, 676, 773, currency, 497, 515 631–32, 651, 655, 684, 733, 746, 748, 812, 821 Federal Reserve System and, 571 778, 779, 781, 792, 802, 820, 830, FDR and, 674–75 for international trade, 704 831, 837–38, 842, 850, 858, 885–86, U.S. support of, 836 reform, 502 890–91, 896, 897, 904 see also Hitler, Adolf; Mussolini, Benito; Currier, Nathaniel (1813–1888), 457 African-Americans and, 664 Saddam Hussein; Stalin, Joseph; Curtis, Charles (1860–1936), 631 in campaign of 1960, 764, 765 totalitarianism Custer, George A. (1839–1876), 489 civil rights movement and, 777–78 Dictionary of Races of People, 591 Customs Service, 619–20 decolonization and, 717 Dingley Tariff (1897), 516 CWA (Civil Works Administration), 645 economic policies of, 688 disenfranchisement, 521 Czakalinski, Steve, 736 in election of 1900, 540 Disney, Walt (1901–1966), 728 Czechoslovakia, 601, 605, 675, 803 in election of 1920, 641 diversity, 626, 666, 667, 689, 858, 859–61, breakup of, 844 in election of 1924, 618 860, 865, 867 Czolgosz, Leon (1873–1901), 566 in election of 1928, 631–32 see also pluralism in election of 1932, 641–42 divorce, 809, 811, 866 Dakota Territory, 489 in election of 1946, 723 Dixiecrats, 725–26 gold in, 487, 489 in election of 1948, 725–27, 726 Dixie to Broadway (Broadway show), 630 Daley, Richard J. (1902–1976), 784 in election of 1952, 746, 747 Dixon, Frank (1892–1965), 696 Dallas, Tex., 775 in election of 1954, 746 Dodge City, Kans., 486 dams, 662 in election of 1972, 815 Dole, Bob (1923–), 851 Columbia River, 639, 640 in election of 1992, 846 Dollar Diplomacy, 579 Darrow, Clarence (1857–1938), 623, 623 in election of 2000, 868–69 domestic abuse, 562, 587 Darwin, Charles (1809–1882), 499, 623, 865 FDR’s transformation of, 640 Dominican Republic, 578, 674, 790 Darwinism, see evolution Fifteenth amendment and, 460 immigrants from, 859 Daugherty, Harry (1860–1941), 617 Great Society and, 781 Donnelly, Ignatius (1831–1901), 512 Daughters of the American Revolution, 663–64 high tariff opposed by, 496–97 “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, 846 Davis, James J. (1873–1947), 625 HUAC and, 668 “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” Davis, John W. (1873–1955), 618 left wing of, 669 campaign, 663, 663 Davis, Sammy, Jr. (1925–1990), 755 and New Deal coalition, 655, 808, 826 dot coms, 854 Davis Dam, 639 1964 national convention of, 777, 777 double-V, 696 Dawes, Henry L. (1816–1903), 490 Nixon and, 807, 808 Douglas, Helen Gahagan (1900–1980), 745 Dawes Act (1887), 491–92, 494, 662 in Reconstruction, 459, 466–67, 469, Douglas, William O. (1898–1980), 801 D-Day, 680, 680 470–72 Douglass, Frederick (1817–1895), 460, 697, DDT, 799 South and, 520, 661, 669 760, 803 Dean, James (1931–1955), 753 Truman Doctrine and, 711 on abolition, 444 Death and Life of Great American Cities, The welfare and, 850 death of, 527 (Jacobs), 786 see also specific elections and campaigns Dow Jones Industrial Average, 892 Debs, Eugene V. (1855–1926), 514, 569, 569, Dempsey, Jack (1895–1983), 611 draft: 588, 590, 620 Denmark, 575 in Vietnam War, 792, 813, 822 Declaration for Global Democracy, 849 depression, economic, 906 in World War I, 584, 591 Declaration of Independence (1776), 538, 555, agricultural, 613 in World War II, 695 708, 717, 719 of 1873, 470, 480, 481, 482, 486, 500 Dred Scott case, 501 rewritten by Federated Trades of the of 1893, 480, 482, 486, 500, 513, 515, 531 Dreiser, Theodore (1871–1945), 620 Pacific Coast, 502 of 1929, see Great Depression Dresden, 702 decolonization, African-Americans and, 720 deregulation, 820, 821, 829, 833, 850, Drew, Charles, 694 Dedham, Mass., 609 855–56, 897 drugs, 754, 793, 795, 862, 863 Deep South, 518, 649, 726, 770, 771, 778, 779 financial crisis of 2008 and, 894, 894 and “Just Say No” campaign, 834 Defense Department, U.S., 766, 790, 814, Deseret, Mormon empire of, 487 Noriega and, 844 869, 884 de Soto, Hernando (1496–1542), 864 Vietnam War and, 813 McCarthy and, 730 deSoto, Lewis, 864 see also crack cocaine deficit, federal, see national debt détente, 811–12, 819–20 Du Bois, W. E. B. (1868–1963), 589, 595–96, de Gaulle, Charles (1890–1970), 747 Detroit, Mich., 560, 682, 683, 694–95, 819 598, 604, 697, 700, 733 Delany, Martin, 700 breadlines in, 633–35 Dukakis, Michael (1933–), 837, 838 Delany, Martin R. (1812–1885), 460 riot in, 783 Dulles, John Foster (1888–1959), 749 I n d e x A - 105 Dumbarton Oaks, conference at, 704 1952 campaign and, 746–47, 746, 747 Engle v. Vitole, 800 Duncan, Isadora (1877?–1927), 558, 558 Suez fiasco and, 751 English, as official language, 865 DuPont, 736 Eisenhower administration, 745–54, 751, 755, Enlightenment, 721 Dust Bowl, 647, 647 757, 787 Enron, 855, 855 Dutch East Indies, 678, 720 and Cuba, 774 environmentalism, 786, 798–99, 820, 829, see also Indonesia Native Americans and, 798 831, 841, 842, 847, 850, 876 Dylan, Bob (1941–), 793 EITC, see Earned Income Tax Credit see also pollution Electioneering in the South, 463 Environmental Protection Agency, 808 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), 847 elections and campaigns: Episcopalians, 826 Earth Day, 799 of 1868, 459–60, 460, 495, 496 Equal Employment Opportunity East Germany: of 1872, 469 Commission, 781, 795 absorption of, 843 of 1876, 472–73, 472, 496 Equal Pay Act (1963), 795 creation of, 713 of 1888, 496 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 615, 825, East Harlem, 744 of 1892, 496, 512 827–28, 827, 829 East St. Louis, Ill., race riot in, 597, of 1896, 516, 516 ERA, see Equal Rights Amendment 598, 598 of 1900, 540, 540 Erwitt, Elliot (1928–), 743 Economic Bill of Rights, 688 of 1912, 569–70, 569, 571, 642 Espionage Act (1917), 588, 590, 620 economy: of 1916, 582, 582 Estonia, 601, 703 Clinton and, 853 of 1920, 641 Ethiopia, 675 financial crisis of 2008 and, 891–95, 893, of 1924, 618 ethnic cleansing, 851, 852 894, 901, 902 of 1928, 631–32, 631, 632 eugenics, 592 growth in South of, 683 of 1932, 641–42, 641 Europe, European powers, 601–4, 602, 603, growth of, 496, 610–11 of 1934, 651 631, 709, 712, 713, 715 G. W. Bush and, 885, 891–95 of 1936, 655–58 immigration from, 780, 858 housing bubble crisis and, 891–92, 892 of 1940, 677 pre-World War II, 675 indicators of change in, 477 of 1944, 688, 701 see also specific countries rise of corporations in, 480–82 of 1946, 723 evangelical Christians, 905 U.S. and new, 853–57 of 1948, 725–27, 726, 727 Evers, Medgar (1925–1963), 772 see also depression, economic; market of 1952, 746–47, 747 evolution, 499, 623, 865 economy; recessions of 1960, 764–65, 764, 807 Executive Order 8802, 695 Economy Act (1932), 660 of 1964, 777–79, 777, 778, 807 Executive Order 9066, 692 Edison, Thomas A. (1847–1931), 479, 632 of 1968, 804 Exodus, book of, 519 Edisto Island, S.C., 450 of 1972, 815, 816 education: of 1976, 820 factories, 548, 549, 552, 610, 614, 841, 901 civil rights and, 770–71, 775, 782 of 1980, 829–30, 830 automobile, 610 of freed slaves, 444, 444, 446, 447, 448 of 1984, 834 pollution and, 808 higher, 727, 748, 795, 811, 859 of 1988, 837–38 in Soviet Exhibition, 737 Native Americans and, 798 of 1992, 845–46 during World War II, 683 public, 465, 466, 467, 498, 521, 522, 552, of 1996, 851 Fairbanks, Douglas (1883–1939), 590 561, 563, 624, 651, 668, 688–89, 722, of 2000, 868–69, 869, 870 Fair Deal, 722–23 725, 738, 739, 862, 865, 900 of 2004, 885–86 Fair Employment Practices Commission women and, 562–63, 565, 586, 866 of 2006, 890–91 (FEPC), 691, 695 Egypt, 510, 602, 604, 818, 822, 822, 903 of 2008, 874, 895–97 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 641, 664 in Suez fiasco, 751 of 2012, 905–7, 906 Fair Labor Standards Bill, 659 2011 uprising in, 903 Electoral College, 496, 582, 830, 869, 886 Fall, Albert (1861–1944), 617 Ehrlichman, John (1925–1999), 816 Electoral Commission (1877), 472 Fall In! , 658 Eickemeyer, Rudolph (1831–1895), 444 electrical industry, 552 Falwell, Jerry (1933–2007), 825, 826 Eighteenth Amendment, 587 electricity, 479, 640, 669, 855 Family Assistance Plan, 808 Einstein, Albert (1879–1955), 701 Elliott, Robert B. (1842–1884), 441 family life, 796, 830 Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1890–1960), 718, Ellis Island, 547 “family values” and, 865, 866 752, 756, 761, 808, 851 El Mozote, El Salvador, massacre in, 836 and nuclear family, 865 atomic bomb and, 703 El Salvador, 822, 836 Family Record, 443 civil rights and, 755, 760–61 e-mail, 853, 896 Farmers’ Alliance, 510 Cold War and, 749–50 Emancipation Proclamation (1862), 450, 708 farms, see agriculture D-Day and, 680 Emergency Banking Act (1933), 643 fascism, 652, 675, 689, 720 Farewell Address of, 765–66 empire, U.S., 533–35, 534, 536, 538–40 Mussolini as founder of, 675 Little Rock and, 761 Endangered Species Act (1973), 799, 808 “Father Was Killed by a Pinkerton Man” “military-industrial complex” and, 673 End Poverty in California, 651 (song), 509 Modern Republicanism and, 747–48 Enforcement Acts (1870–71), 468, 470 Faubus, Orval (1910–1994), 761 A - 106 I n d e x FBI, see Federal Bureau of Investigation fireside chats, 655, 655, 656 Frank, Leo (1884–1915), 624 FCC, see Federal Communications on radio, 655, 656 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 455, 462, 502 Commission Firestone, 832 Franklin, Benjamin (1706–1790), 588 FDIC, see Federal Deposit Insurance First African Church, The, 445 Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria Corporation First Amendment, 620, 729, 800, 801 (1863–1914), 580 Federal Art Project, 653, 666 Holmes doctrine and, 620 Frazier, Garrison (b. 1797), 442 federal bailout, of banks, 894–95, 901 Fisher, Sidney George, 461 Freedmen’s Bureau, 444, 447–48, 457, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 709, Fisher Body Plant, 650 459, 489 731, 785, 816, 883 Fisk University, 444, 595 Freedmen’s Bureau, The, 448 Federal Communications Commission Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896–1940), 620 Freedmen’s Bureau Bill (1866), 457 (FCC), 648 Five Generations of a Black Family, 444 freedom, 540, 552, 697, 708–9, 721, 762, 800, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation flappers, 610, 616 801, 871, 883, 890, 900, 903, 908 (FDIC), 643 Flint, Michigan, 650, 650 American National Exhibition and, 737 Federal Emergency Management Agency Florida, 632, 724, 897 of assembly, 668 (FEMA), 887 in election of 2000, 869, 869 Bellamy’s view of, 503 Federal Emergency Relief prison labor and, 517 Chief Joseph on, 489 Administration, 644 FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) civil rights movement and, 733, 734, Federal Home Loan Bank System, 637 (1966), 816 754–64, 761 Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation Fong Yue Ting, 526 Cold War and, 715, 717, 720–22, 728, (Freddie Mac), 894 Food Administration, 585, 587 752, 770 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), food stamps, 781, 808 conservatism and, 745 647, 664, 664 Foraker Act (1900), 538 consumerism and, 548–49, 740 Federal National Mortgage Association Ford, Gerald (1913–2006), 819–20, 819, counterculture and, 792, 793–94, 793, 795 (Fannie Mae), 894 826, 828 Debs’s view of, 515 Federal Reserve Bank, 891, 892 Nixon pardoned by, 819 degradation of, 620–21 Federal Reserve Board, 885 Ford, Henry (1863–1947), 550, 610, 613, 614, employer vs. employee, 509 Federal Reserve System, 571 628, 632, 676, 677 of expression, 557, 588, 590, 591, 619–21, Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Ford administration, 847 623, 668, 673, 699, 721, 729, 744, 787, Corporation, 833 Fordism, 550 877, 884, 889 Federal Trade Commission, 571 Ford Motor Company, 550, 610, 612, 856 FDR and, 655, 656 Federated Trades of the Pacific assembly lines and, 550 in Gilded Age, 498–501 Coast, 502 Fordney-McCumber Tariff (1922), 619 in Great Depression, 637 FEMA, see Federal Emergency Management Forest Service, U.S., 568 Great Society and, 782 Agency Forging the Shaft (Weir), 475 immigration and, 548 Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan), 795–96 Fort Hood, 724 Indians and, 489, 490 feminism, 732, 742, 770, 795–97, 796, 797, Fortune, 685 Iraq War and, 881, 886, 898 846, 867, 890 “47 percent” remark by Romney, 906 left wing groups and, 665 African-Americans and, 615 Four Freedoms, 672, 673–74, 684–85, 689, Marshall Plan and, 712 Hillary Clinton and, 867 696, 699, 705, 708, 721 New Deal and, 644, 655 in middle class, 795 Fourteen Points, 582–84, 601, 602, 603 New Left’s definition of, 785 new, 558 Fourteenth Amendment, 457–58, 461, 462, in 1964 election, 807 radical, 796, 824 470, 521, 522, 526, 596, 627, 629, 708, post-World War II, 687–89 reproductive rights and, 796 757, 763, 869 of the press, 588, 621, 800, 814 second-wave, 828 Foxwoods casino, 864 Prohibition and, 622 see also gender relations; women; France, 476, 619, 675, 676, 700, 704, 712, 713, Reagan and, 830–31 women’s rights 747, 751, 871 in Reconstruction, 442, 443–54 FEPC, see Fair Employment Practices communist party in, 712 Red Scare and, 609 Commission declares war on Germany, 676 of religion, 899 Ferraro, Geraldine (1935–), 834 in Great Depression, 633 religious, see religious freedom FHA, see Federal Housing Administration industry in, 478 September 11 terrorist attacks and, 908 Fifteenth Amendment, 460, 460, 462, 520, Iraq War and, 880 Social Darwinists view of, 500 596, 615, 708 male suffrage in, 494 of speech, see freedom, of expression Fifth Freedom, 685–86 1968 strike in, 803 Statue of Liberty and, 476 Filipinos, 535, 678, 739 occupation of Germany of, 713 Thurmond and, 726 see also Philippines Progressivism in, 560 Truman Doctrine and, 711 financial crisis of 2008, 891–95, 893, 894, in Suez fiasco, 751 U.S. foreign policy and, 576 896, 901, 902 in U.N., 704 war on terror and, 876, 877, 898 Finland, 601 in World War I, 580 women and, 549, 554, 615–16, 616, 686, Fire Next Time, The (Baldwin), 786 see also French Empire 687, 795–97 I n d e x A - 107 freedom ( continued ) gay rights, 558, 732, 770, 797, 811, 834, 846, GI Bill of Rights (1944), 688, 691, 695, 722, 723 of workers, 482–83 864, 865, 867 Gilded Age, 475–507, 483, 552, 560 World War I and, 585, 587–90, 591 marriage and, 907 corruption of politics in, 494–95 World War II and, 672, 674, 684–86, 687, military and, 846 courts in, 500–501 690, 705 see also homosexuals, homosexuality economy in, 496–97, 498–99 see also Four Freedoms; religious freedom GE, see General Electric elections in, 496, 496 Freedom Award, 779 gender relations: freedom in, 498–501 freedom from want, 685 World War II and, 674 labor in, 501–6, 502 Freedom in the Modern World, 637 see also women; women’s rights liberty of contract in, 500 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (1966), 816 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade political parties in, 496 Freedom Revolution, 847–50 (GATT), 712 politics in, 494–98 Freedom Rides, 770 General Assembly, U.N., 704, 721 Social Darwinism, 499–500 Freedom Summer, 776–77 General Electric (GE), 611, 830, 830 state governments in, 497–98, 498 Freedom Tower, 901 General Motors, 612, 633, 650, 650, 683, 747, Gilded Age, The (Twain and Warner), 494 Freedom Train, 708–9, 709 799, 857 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (1860–1935), free enterprise, 685, 686, 717, 744 General Slocum, 544 554, 584 free labor, 447 General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Gingrich, Newt (1943–), 847–50, 850 Free Speech Movement, 787, 790 Money (Keynes), 659 Gini index, 856 free trade, 619, 845, 847, 848, 851, 855, 898 Geneva: Ginsberg, Allen (1926–1997), 754 see also NAFTA (North American Free summit conference in, 749 Ginsburg, Ruth Bader (1933–), 846 Trade Agreement) Vietnam peace conference in, 751 Glacier Point, Calif., 568 Free World, 717, 744, 745 Geneva Conventions, 884 Gladden, Washington (1836–1918), 504 U.S. president as leader of, 711 First, 890 Glasgow, 599 Free World Association, 687 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 594 glasnost, 837 French Americans, 690 George, David Lloyd (1863–1945), 601 Glass-Steagall Act (1932), 643, 855 French Empire, 529, 575, 604 George, Henry (1839–1897), 502, 503, globalization, 841–42, 848, 849, 855, 857, Vietnam and, 751 506, 560 858, 872 French Indochina, 720, 787 Georgia, 450, 518, 820, 889 global warming, 876, 901 French Revolution, 721 Ku Klux Klan in, 624 GNP, see gross national product Frick, Henry Clay (1849–1919), 509 German-Americans, 485, 524, 627, 690 Goddess of Democracy and Freedom, 840, 843 Friedan, Betty (1921–2006), 795 Prohibition and, 587 Godkin, E. L. (1831–1902), 469 Fugitive Slave Act (1850), 888 World War I and, 581, 592–93 gold, 817 Fulton, Mo., “iron curtain” speech at, 710 World War II and, 676, 692 in California gold rush, 484 fundamentalism, 621–22, 823, 826, 857 Germany, 601–4, 602, 605, 681, 703, 703, Chinese immigrants and, 525 Islamic, 823, 845, 857, 875, 879, 888–89 720, 817, 820, 871, 894 corporate mining of, 487 religious freedom vs., 623 aggression by, 675, 676 Gold Coast, 720, 750 Saddam Hussein and, 879 as Axis power, 676 Golden Anniversary of the Festival of see also creationism D-Day and, 680, 680 Lights, 632 declaration of war against U.S. of, 678 “golden door,” 624–25 Gabbard, Tulsi (1981–), 907 division of, 710, 713 Goldman, Emma (1869–1940), 558, 559, Gaddafi, Muammar (1942–2011), 903 empire of, 575 591, 600 Gaffney, Mary (b. 1846), 449 in Great Depression, 633 gold rush, California, 484 Gaines, Lloyd (1913?–1939), 756 industry in, 478 gold standard, 497, 515, 516, 817 Galesburg, Ill., Maytag factory in, 885 invasion of Poland by, 676 Gold Standard Act (1900), 516 Gandhi, Mohandas (Mahatma; 1869–1948), invasion of Soviet Union by, 677, 709 Goldwater, Barry (1909–1998), 778–79, 705, 759 Iraq War and, 880 807, 830 Garfield, James A. (1831–1881), 443 occupation of, 713 Gompers, Samuel (1850–1924), 527, 556, 584 assassination of, 497 post-Cold War, 843 Gonzales, Alberto (1955–), 885 Garner, John Nance (1868–1967), 687 Progressivism in, 560 Goodman, Andrew (1949–1964), 777 Garrison, William Lloyd (1805–1879), rise of Hitler in, 675, 676 Good Neighbor Policy, 674 460, 588 Soviet Union invasion of, 700 Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931–), 836–37, 843 Garvey, Marcus (1887–1940), 598 submarine war and, 679 Gore, Albert (1907–1998), 760 Garveyism, 598 in World War I, 580–82 Gore, Albert, Jr. (1948–), 868–69, 870 Garvey movement, 630 in World War II, 675–77, 680, 692, 700, government, U.S.: gas, poison, 580 703 business and, 616–19, 687 Gates, Bill (1955–), 853, 856 see also East Germany; West Germany corruption in, 617 GATT, see General Agreement on Tariffs Gettysburg Address, The, 495, 708 debt of, see national debt and Trade Ghana, 750 employment discrimination, 664 Gay Liberation Day, 797 Ghost Dance, 490 housing discrimination by, 664, 664 A - 108 I n d e x labor and, 513–14 Great Society, 447, 665, 781–82, 792, 804, Harper’s Weekly, 445, 448, 463, 469, 473 regulatory powers of, 567, 617, 642–43, 808, 847, 851, 900, 901 Harrington, Michael (1928–1989), 781, 786 659, 669, 781, 782 see also Johnson, Lyndon Harrison, Benjamin (1833–1901), 530, 531 in Second New Deal, 654–55 Great Steel Strike, 650 Harrison administration, 530 workforce size of, 496 Great War, see World War I Hart, Gary (1936–), 838 see also specific branches Greece, rebellion in, 711 Hart-Celler Act (1965), 780 Grady, Henry (1850–1889), 517 Greeley, Horace (1811–1872), 469 Harvard Law School, 895 Graham, Billy (1918–), 744 Green, James K. (1823–1891), 463 Harvard University, 595 Grand Coulee Dam, 639, 640, 641 Greenglass, David (1922–), 729, 730 Marshall Plan announced at, 711 grandfather clause, voting rights and, 520 Greensboro, N.C., 769 Harvest Gypsies, The: On the Road to the Grapes of Grange, 498 sit-in at, 769 Wrath (Steinbeck), 657 Grant, Ulysses S. (1822–1885), 460, 468, Greenwich Village, N.Y., Stonewall Bar raid Hassam, Childe, 480 469, 495 in, 797 Havana Harbor, 531 in election of 1868, 459–60 Grenada, 835 Havemeyer, Louisine (1855–1929), 564 Indian policy of, 488 gridlock, political, 906 Havens, Richie (1941–), 793 Ku Klux Klan and, 468 Griffith, D. W. (1875–1948), 595 Hawaii, 538, 547, 627 scandals under, 467 Griswold v. Connecticut, 801 acquisition of, 530, 531, 531, 534 Southern violence and, 470 Gromyko, Andrey (1909–1989), 820 Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930), 636 Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck), 657 Gronlund, Laurence (1846–1899), 502–3 Hay, John (1838–1905), 532, 534 Great Awakening, Third, 826 Gropper, William, 639 Hayashida, Fumiko (1901–1977), 694 Great Britain, 619, 654, 675, 676, 699, 711, gross national product (GNP), 673, 678, 682, Hayden, Tom (1939–), 789 747, 764, 803, 871 738, 738 Hayek, Friedrich A. (1899–1992), 689 D-Day and, 680 Gruening, Ernest (1887–1974), 790 Hayes, Rutherford B. (1822–1893), 472–73, declares war on Germany, 676 Guadalcanal, 679 489, 502 in Great Depression, 633 Guam, 534, 538 Haymarket affair, 505–6 immigrants from, 485 in World War II, 678 Haynsworth, Clement (1912–1989), 809 industry in, 478 Guantánamo Bay, 533, 883, 883, 884, 890, Hays code, 620 Iraq War and, 880 900, 903 Head Start, 782 Lend-Lease and, 677 Guatemala, 750, 751, 822, 836 health care, national, 688, 721, 723, 732, occupation of Germany by, 713 “Gulf Between, The” (Siegfried), 628 847, 901 Progressivism in, 560 Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina and, 886–87 attacked, 906 submarine war and, 679 Gulf of Mexico, oil spill in (2010), 901 Supreme Court and, 906 in Suez fiasco, 751 Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 790 Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), suffrage in, 494, 587 Gulf War, 845, 845, 846, 875, 879 847 and Third World, 750 guns, murder rate and, 871 Hearst, William Randolph (1863–1951), in U.N., 704 gurus, 794 531, 533 in World War I, 580–82 Guthrie, Tex., 453 Helsinki Accords, 819–20 see also British Empire Gypsies, Nazi extermination of, 682 Hemingway, Ernest (1899–1961), 620 Great Depression, 631–37, 634, 636, 639, Henderson, Alex, 736 640–41, 642, 647, 651, 652, 657, 683, Haacke, Hans (1936–), 857 Hepburn Act (1906), 567 685, 686, 704, 817, 829, 854, 891, Haas, Ernst (1921–1986), 741 Herberg, Will, 718 893, 906 habeas corpus, 693, 884 Heritage Foundation, 826 Dust Bowl and, 647 Haiti, 579 Hersey, John (1914–1993), 703 economic inequality in, 856 immigrants from, 859 Hewitt, Abram (1822–1903), 506 Eisenhower and, 747 Haldeman, H. R. (1926–1993), 816 Hidden Persuaders, The (Packard), 753 homelessness and, 633–34, 634, 657 Hamer, Fannie Lou (1917–1977), 777, 777 Highland Park, Mich., Ford plant at, 550 housing and, 647–48 Hampton, Wade (1818–1902), 472 highways, 741 minorities and, 661–64 Hampton Institute, 527 building of, 727, 740, 747–48 radio and, 652 Hampton University, 444 Hilton, David, 486 wages in, 633 Hanna, Mark (1837–1904), 516 Hindus, 857, 907 women and, 660 Hanna, Tom, 506 as immigrants, 858 World War II and, 670, 673, 682 Harding, Warren G. (1865–1923), 590, 605–6, Hine, Lewis (1874–1940), 518, 546, 546, 613 see also New Deal 617–18, 618 Hirono, Mazie K. (1947–), 907 Greatest Department Store on Earth, The, 574 death of, 610 Hiroshima: Great Labor Parade of September 1, 502 Harlan, John Marshall (1833–1911), 521 atomic bombing of, 701, 702, 749 Great Migration, 596–97, 597, 627, 630, 694 Harlem, N.Y., 627–31, 663, 663, 667 population of, 701 Great Plains, 484, 485, 487, 489, 545 race riots in, 783 Hiroshima (Hersey), 703 women in, 485 Harlem Renaissance, 630–31 Hispanics, see Latinos Great Railroad Strike of 1877, 501, 501 Harper’s Magazine, 719 Hiss, Alger (1904–1996), 729 I n d e x A - 109 History of Southern Illinois, 666 Judiciary Committee of, 816 Asian, 547, 594, 625, 690, 780, 860–61, Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945), 605, 675–77, 676, Un-American Activities Committee 860, 861 700, 708, 709 (HUAC) of, 668, 728–29, 729, from China, 486, 525–26, 526, 539 “final solution” of, 682, 690 731, 800 to cities, 546–48 and nonaggression pact, 676, 677 World War I and, 582 Cold War and, 728 HMOs, see Health Maintenance housing bubble, 891–92, 892, 902 Congress and, 732 Organizations Houston, Tex., 726, 740 freedom and, 548, 549 Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969), 604, 751 Howard, O. O. (1830–1909), 447, 450, 489 global, 546–48 Hoffman, Abbie (1936–1989), 793 Howard University, 444, 785 “golden door” and, 624–25 Holland, see Netherlands Howl (Ginsberg), 754 illegal, 887, 901 Hollywood, 613, 620 How the Other Half Lives (Riis), 483 from India, 859, 860 blacklisting in, 729 HUAC, see House of Representatives, IQ tests and, 593 communism and, 720, 721, 728–29, 729, 834 Un-American Activities Committee of from Japan, 486 racism and, 720 Hubenthal, Karl (1917–1998), 799 Jews and, 548 rise of, 611 Hudson-Bank Gymnasium, 560 Ku Klux Klan, 623 sexually charged films from, 615 Huerta, Victoriano (1854–1916), 579 from Latin America, 781, 858, 859–60, World War II and, 686 Hughes, Charles Evans (1862–1948), 582, 617 859, 860, 861 see also motion pictures Hughes, Langston (1902–1967), 630, 708, from Mexico, 484, 486, 625, 625, 662–63, Hollywood Ten, 729 908 690–91, 781, 859–60, 887, 904 Holmes, Oliver Wendell (1841–1935), 593, Hull House, 562–63, 562, 642 to New York, 546, 560 620–21 human rights, 836, 851 prejudice and, 609 Holocaust, 682, 690 ambiguities of, 722 Progressivism and, 562 Homeland Security Department, U.S., 876, 887 in Middle East, 899 quotas, 780 homelessness, Great Depression and, rise of, 721, 725 reform of 1965, 780–81 633–34, 634, 657 Humphrey, Hubert (1911–1978), 725, 764, religion and, 621 home ownership, 862, 862, 893 777, 803 Republicans and, 907 middle class and, 658 Hundred Days, 643, 644, 645 Republicans as anti-immigration, 865, 907 post-World War II, 688–89, 722 Hungary, 601, 750 restrictions on, 524–26, 525, 593, 593, Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, 647, 664 Huntington, Samuel P. (1927–2008), 888–89 624–25, 626, 626, 665, 690, 691 Home Protection movement, 528 Hurwitz, Ben, 680 rights, 887–88, 888 Homer, Winslow (1836–1910), 447 hydrogen bomb, 749 from Russia, 581 Homestead, Pa., Carnegie’s factories in, 481, see also atomic bomb; nuclear weapons volume of, 546–48, 547 509, 527, 650 wages and, 548 Homestead Act (1862), 485, 545 ICBMs, see intercontinental ballistic missiles and West, 484, 485 homosexuals, homosexuality, 558, 731–32, “I Choose Exile” (Wright), 762 from Western Hemisphere, 625 770, 797, 811, 825, 834, 865 Ickes, Harold (1874–1952), 642, 645, 663 women and, 549, 859, 859 and AIDS, 864 Idaho, 489, 816 World War I and, 596–97 Nazi extermination of, 682 corporate mining in, 487 World War II and, 673–74 see also gay rights entrance into union of, 489 see also specific nationalities “Honor America,” 808 woman suffrage in, 513, 564 Immigration Act (1924), 625, 625 Hoover, Herbert (1874–1964), 613, 631–32, “If We Must Die” (McKay), 631 Immigration Commission, U.S., 592 631, 641, 642, 648, 674 “I Have a Dream” (King), 759 Immigration Restriction League, 525 background of, 631 Illegal Act, The, 648 impeachment: Depression and, 636–37 Illinois, 740 of Andrew Johnson, 458–60 in election of 1928, 631–32 Illinois, University of, 743 of Clinton, 868 as Secretary of Commerce, 617 Illinois, woman suffrage in, 564 imperialism, 699 Hoover, J. Edgar (1895–1972), 731 Illinois Central Railroad, 514 Christianity and, 536 Hoovervilles, 634, 634 Illinois Federal Art Project, 666 decolonization and, 717–20, 750–51 Hopkins, Harry (1890–1946), 642 Illinois Supreme Court, 500 international, 529 Horne, Lena (1917–2010), 755 I Married a Communist (movie), 720 moral, 579 horses, 488 immigrants, immigration, 476, 478, 484, as “New Imperialism,” 529 Horton, Willie, 838 487, 494, 509–10, 522, 530–31, 538, U.S., 529–41, 540, 687 Hose, Sam (d. 1899), 523 539, 545, 547, 552, 562, 591–94, 657, Inchon, South Korea, 715, 716 House of Representatives, U.S., 456, 470, 665, 689–90, 742, 858–61, 858, 859, income taxes, see taxes, income 496, 515, 763, 847, 850, 883, 891, 860, 865–66, 876, 887–88 Independent Monitor, 468 897, 904 AFL and, 528 India, 510, 599, 604, 704, 705, 750, 794, 857 African-Americans in, 464 from Africa, 861 immigrants from, 547, 859, 860 Clinton’s impeachment and, 868 Americanization and, 591–94, 623, 665, jobs exported to, 885 Johnson’s impeachment and, 458–60 689–90 loss of U.S. jobs to, 885 A - 110 I n d e x Indiana, 787, 897 International Harvester, 481 Italy, 619, 676, 680, 692, 720, 871 anticommunist law in, 731 internationalism, black, 699, 700 as Axis power, 676 Ku Klux Klan, 624 International Labor Defense, 667 communist party in, 712 Indian Affairs Committee, 490 International League for Human Rights, 821 liberation of, 679 “Indian New Deal,” 662 International Longshoremen’s rise of Mussolini in, 675 Indian radicalism, 559 Association, 649 Ives, James (1824–1895), 457 Indian removal, 484 International Monetary Fund, 704, 842 Ivory Soap, 478 see also Native Americans International Telephone and Telegraph, 611 IWW, see Industrial Workers of the World Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 662 Internet, 841, 853, 854, 896, 899, 905 “Indians of All Tribes,” 798, 798 Interrupting the Ceremony, 605 Jackson, Thomas “Stonewall” individualism, 503, 551, 745 Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), 497, (1824–1863), 524 Indonesia, 750 567, 770 Jackson State University, 813 industrial revolution, “second,” 476–83 interstate highway system, 740, 747–48 Jacobs, Jane, 786 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), intervention, era of U.S., 576–80 Jacobson, David, 855 556, 557, 585, 591, 600, 601, 649, 650 Iowa, 631, 886 Jamaica, 578, 627 industry, 689, 691 IQ tests, 593 Japan, 534, 578, 594, 603, 604, 619, 625, 676, African-Americans in, 667, 695, 696 Iran, 710, 750, 752, 811, 818, 822–23, 836, 679, 683, 701–3, 704, 715, 817, 818, in California, 613 878, 907 871, 894 child labor and, 546 American hostages in, 822–23, 823 as Axis power, 676 decline in, 818–19 television and American hostages in, 823 economic reconstruction of, 712–13 Depression and, 661 Iran-Contra affair, 836 expulsion from Vietnam of, 751 Fordism and, 550 Iraq, 604, 836, 878, 879, 884, 885, 908 immigrants from, 486, 547 freedom and, 552 economic sanctions on, 845 invasion of Manchuria by, 675 New Deal and, 669 in Gulf War, 845 trade with, 676, 677 Populists and, 515 militias in, 880 U.S. declaration of war against, 678 post-World War I, 599–600 Iraq War, 876, 878, 880–81, 881, 885, 886, U.S. oil and, 676, 677 post-World War II, 738, 739 890, 891, 896, 897, 902 in World War I, 580 in Progressive era, 546, 547, 559–60 casualties in, 881, 902 in World War II, 675–76, 677–79, 691, rise of, 575 protests against, 880 692, 696, 701–2, 702 scientific management in, 552 Ireland, 604, 605, 803, 803 World War II surrender of, 701 in South, 517, 661, 684 Irish, Irish immigrants, 496, 506, 524, 581, Japanese immigrants, Japanese-Americans, women in, 686–87, 686 690 692–93, 860 World War II and, 682–84, 682, 683, integration and, 810 in Hawaii, 531 686–87 World War II and, 676 World War II internment of, 674, 692–93, see also manufacturing; specific industries Irish Free State, 604 693, 694, 756, 884 infant mortality, 871 “iron curtain,” 710 jazz, 630, 721 inflation, 712, 723, 809, 817, 817, 818, 819, 819, iron industry, 487, 517 Jazz Age, 610 820, 829, 831, 832 Iroquois, in World War II, 691 Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826), 588 Influence of Sea Power Upon History, The Islam: Jesus, 794 (McMahon), 530 Egypt and, 903 Jesus People, 794, 794 influenza, 581, 599 and fundamentalism, 857, 875, 879, Jews, 552, 592, 604, 621, 624, 626, 639, 658, Ingersoll, Robert G. (1833–1899), 497 888–89 690, 705, 729, 857, 868 “In God We Trust”, on paper money, 744 Gulf War and, 845 in FDR administration, 665 innovations, technological, 479 Iran and, 823 in flight from Russia, 548 In re Debs, 514 Middle East, 836 Holocaust and, 682, 690 Insular Cases, 538 Nation of, 784 as immigrants, 548 insurance: radicals and, 752 Ku Klux Klan and, 624 national health, 654, 669, 688, 721, 723, Saudi Arabia and, 784 lynching of, 624 732, 781, 847, 901 Isleta Pueblo, 490 in movies, 744 unemployment, 654, 661, 664, 747, 895 isolationism, 618, 675–76, 746 in Nazi Germany, 675 unions and, 732, 748 Israel, 605, 751, 818, 822, 822, 835, 857, prejudice against, 626, 627 integration, labor and, 502, 518 875, 907 World War I and, 581 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 765 issei, 692 see also anti-Semitism Interior Department, U.S., 639, 645 Is This a Republican Form of Government? Jim Crow, 708, 755, 758, 760, 772, 800, 832 International Business Machines (IBM), 611 (Nast), 473 Jobs, Steve (1955–), 853 International Church of the Foursquare Italians, Italian-Americans, 524, 547, 548, Johnson, Andrew (1808–1875), 450 Gospel, 662 592, 609 background of, 454 International Convention Against in East Harlem, 744 emancipation and, 454 Torture, 884 World War II and, 676, 690, 692 impeachment of, 458–60 I n d e x A - 111 Johnson, Andrew ( continued ) desegregation and, 771 capital vs., 499, 501–5 Reconstruction policies of, 448, 450, inaugural address of, 773 civil liberties and, 557, 667–68 454–57, 457, 458 Native Americans and, 798 contracts, 500, 501, 748 veto power and, 457 space race and, 765 “cross of gold” speech and, 515 Johnson, Hiram (1866–1945), 561 Vietnam and, 787 decline of, 613–14 Johnson, Hugh S. (1871–1938), 644 Kennedy, Robert F. (1925–1968), Fordism and, 550 Johnson, Lyndon (1908–1973), 760, 776–82, assassination of, 803 in Gilded Age, 501–6, 502 781, 802 Kennedy administration, 771, 773–76 globalization and, 858 in campaign of 1960, 764 Kent State University, 813, 813 government and, 513–14 civil rights and, 776, 782, 783 Kenya, 750 New Deal and, 643, 644, 687 Dominican Republic and, 790 Kenyatta, Jomo (1894–1978), 700 and politics, 651 in election of 1964, 778 Kerner, Otto (1908–1976), 783 Populist Party and, 512 Great Society and, 781–82 Kerner Report, 783 prisoners as, 517, 517 Native Americans and, 798 Kerry, John (1943–), 886 and Prohibition, 587 Vietnam and, 787–92 Keynes, John Maynard (1883–1946), 659 racially integrated, 502, 518 Joint Chiefs of Staff, 845, 845 Keynesian economics, 659 radicals, 665, 668 Jones, Mary “Mother” (1830–1930), 557 Khmer Rouge, 813 railroads and, 514 Jones, Paula (1966–), 868 Khomeini, Ayatollah (1900–1989), 752, 823 Reagan and, 831–32 Joseph, Chief (1840–1904), 489 Khrushchev, Nikita (1894–1971), 737–38, 737, reform, 570 Joyce, James (1882–1941), 620, 621 749, 774 rioting and, 505–6 J.P. Morgan Chase, 855 King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968), 513, 755, segregation and, 518, 527 Judaism: 759–60, 783–84, 792, 797, 820, 900 unemployment and, 569, 570, 612, 634, in movies, 744 assassination of, 802, 802 636, 644, 650, 652, 654, 655, 659, 659, see also Jews Birmingham campaign and, 771–72 661, 663, 664, 669, 738, 783, 818, 885, Judge, 515, 525 March on Washington and, 772 893, 896 Jungle, The (Sinclair), 546 Montgomery boycott and, 759–60 women and, 502, 528, 561, 565, 673, 866, juries, African-Americans and, 667 Poor People’s March and, 802 866, 893 Justice Department, U.S., 590, 591, 708, 884 Selma campaign of, 780 and work hours, 498, 500, 548, 561, 565, Civil Liberties Unit, 668 King, Rodney (1965–), 863 585, 649, 659 “Just Say No” campaign, 834 Kipling, Rudyard (1865–1936), 538, 539 working conditions and, 552, 563, 565, juvenile delinquency, 753 Kirkpatrick, Jeane (1926–2006), 836 585, 613–14 Kissinger, Henry (1923–), 811, 812, 820 workmen’s compensation and, 565 Kagan, Elena, 900 kitchen debate, 737–38, 737 and World War II, 682, 682, 684 Kallen, Horace (1882–1974), 637 Kiyoshi, Kobayakawa, 615 see also child labor; unions Kansas, 485, 811 Knights of Labor, 502, 506, 527 Labor Department, U.S., 660, 809 black migration to, 518–19, 519 Koehler, Karl, 696 labor movement, 552 in Dust Bowl, 647, 647 Koehn, Daryl (1955–), 811 decline of, 832 Populist Party in, 511 Koran, 889 rise of AFL in, 527–28 woman suffrage in, 513 Korea, 604, 715–17 World War I and, 581 Kansas City, Mo., 506 immigrants from, 691, 860, 860 see also unions Kansas Pacific Railroad, 486 see also North Korea; South Korea Laboulaye, Édouard de (1811–1883), 476 Katrina, Hurricane, 886–87, 887, 890 Korean War, 715–17, 716, 717, 725, 730, 746, 751 Labour Party (Great Britain), 703 and African-Americans, 887, 887 armistice in, 749 La Follette, Robert M. (1855–1925), 561, death toll from, 887 casualties in, 717 562, 618 Kaufman, Irving (1910–1992), 730 Korematsu, Fred (1919–2005), 694 laissez-faire economics, 689 Kaufmann, Theodore (1814–1896), 464 Korematsu v. United States, 694 Lakin, A. S. (1810–1890), 468 Keating-Owen Act (1916), 571 Kosovo, 852 Land Commission, 465 Kefauver, Estes (1903–1963), 760 Kremlin, 715 Landon, Alfred (1887–1987), 658 Kelley, Florence (1859–1932), 563, 584 Kroc, Ray (1902–1984), 740 Lange, Dorothea (1895–1965), 666, 667 Kennan, George (1904–2005), 710 Ku Klux Klan, 467–68, 468, 506, 595, 624, Lansing, Robert (1864–1928), 603 Kennedy, Anthony (1936–), 889–90 626, 770 Lardner, Ring, Jr. (1915–2000), 729 Kennedy, Jacqueline (1929–1994), 765, 765 reemergence of, 623–24 Las Vegas, Nev.: Kennedy, John F. (1917–1963), 765, 773–76, Kuwait, 845 nuclear tests in, 727 781, 790, 886 Kyoto Protocol (1997), 876–77 segregation in, 755 assassination of, 775–76, 775, 790 Kyrgyzstan, 844 Latin America, 619, 674, 710, 821, 822, 844, in campaign of 1960, 764–65, 764, 807 853, 881 civil rights and, 775–76 labor, 501–6, 506, 648–51, 653, 708, 748 Latinos, 739, 743, 832, 859, 861, 863, 897, 900 Cuban Missile Crisis and, 774 African-Americans and, 667, 772 activism among, 797–98 in debates with Nixon, 765, 870 agricultural, 662, 748 affirmative action and, 810 A - 112 I n d e x immigrant rights movement and, 887–88 light bulb, 480, 632 antilynching legislation and, 664, 695, 725 as immigrants, 781, 858, 859–60, 859, Liliuokalani, queen of Hawaii (1838–1917), 531 of Jews, 624 860, 861 Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865), 454, 460, Lynd, Helen (1896–1982), 616 in suburbs, 857, 858 476, 495, 588, 628, 656, 664, 689, 884 Lynd, Robert (1892–1970), 616 and voting, 905, 906–7 see also Emancipation Proclamation Latvia, 601, 703 Lincoln Memorial, 664, 792 MacArthur, Douglas (1880–1964), 712, 715, Laurens, Henry (1724–1792), 708 King’s speech in front of, 772 716, 746 Lawrence, Mass., strike in, 556 Lindbergh, Charles (1902–1974), 611, 677 McCain, John (1936–), 896 Lawrence v. Texas, 889 Lippmann, Walter (1889–1974), 787 McCall’s, 686 Lay, Kenneth (1942–2006), 855 on Cold War, 717, 720 McCarran Internal Security Act (1950), 732 Laying Tracks at Union Square for a Railroad, 498 Listen America! (Falwell), 825 McCarran Internal Security Bill, 732 Lazarus, Emma (1849–1887), 476 Lithuania, 601, 703 McCarran-Walter Act (1952), 732 League for Industrial Democracy, 786 Little, Malcolm, see Malcolm X McCarthy, Eugene (1916–2005), 802 League of Nations, 583, 601, 603, 605, 605, Little Bighorn, Battle of, 489 McCarthy, Joseph R. (1908–1957), 728, 730–31 619, 704 Little Rock, Ark., integration in, 755, 761, 761 McCarthy era, 590, 728–29, 730–31, 733, 752, Congress and, 605 Living Wage, A (Ryan), 551 755, 800 League of United Latin American Citizens Lloyd, Henry Demarest (1847–1903), 482 McCarthyism, 728–29, 730–31, 733, 752, 755 (LULAC), 755–56 lobbies: McDonald’s, 740 League of Women Voters, 904 business, 617 McGovern, George (1922–), 815 Lease, Mary Elizabeth (1853–1933), 513 special interest, 494–95 McKay, Claude (1890–1948), 627, 630, 631 Leave It to Beaver (TV show), 741 Lochner v. New York, 501, 565 McKinley, William (1843–1901), 516, 516, 531, Lebanon, 604, 835 Locke, Alaine (1885–1954), 597 531, 540 Lee, Robert E. (1807–1870), 524, 524 London, 700 assassination of, 566 Le Havre, 712 London, Meyer (1871–1926), 552 Philippines and, 533, 535, 537, 540 Lehman Brothers, 893, 894 Lonely Crowd, The (Riesman), 752 McKinley Tariff (1890), 516 Lend-Lease Act (1941), 677 Long, Huey (1893–1935), 651, 651, 652 McNamara, Robert (1916–), 790, 814 Lenin, Vladimir I. (1870–1924), 582, 599 Long Island, N.Y., 739, 743 McPherson, Aimee Semple (1890–1944), 652 Leo XIII, Pope (1810–1903), 551 Long Telegram, 710 McReynolds, James C. (1862–1946), 629 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (King), 771 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 502, 503, 503 McVeigh, Timothy (1968–2001), 867 Levitt, Alfred (1912–1966), 739 Los Alamos, N.Mex., 729 MAD (mutual assured destruction), 749 Levitt, William (1907–1994), 739, 743 Los Angeles, Calif., 667, 740, 857, 870 Madero, Francisco (1873–1913), 579 Levittown, N.Y., 739 Mexicans in, 859 Madison, James (1751–1836), 884 Lewelling, Lorenzo, 513 1992 riots in, 863 Madison, Wis., Beats in, 754 Lewinsky, Monica (1973–), 868 pollution in, 766 Madoff, Bernard (1938–), 894 Lewis, John L. (1880–1969), 649, 772 population of, 613 Magazine of Wall Street, The, 633 Lewis, Meriwether (1774–1809), 489 Watts riot in, 783, 783 Mahan, Alfred T. (1840–1914), 530 liberalism, 637, 640, 667, 687, 688, 696, 722, zoot suit riots in, 691 Maine, 531 744, 777, 804, 826, 828, 830, 837, 838 Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 799 Maine, gay marriage and, 907 Clinton and, 846, 850 Lost Cause, 524, 524 Malaya, 720 FDR and, 655 Lost Generation, 620 Malaysia, 750 New Deal and, 726 Louisiana, 651, 651 Malcolm X (1925–1965), 784 New Left and, 786 Gulf Coast of, 886–87 Manchuria, 675, 701 1968 election and, 804 illiteracy in, 517 Mandela, Nelson (1918–), 843–44 Watergate and, 816 Plessy v. Ferguson and, 521 Manhattan Project, 701 Liberal Republican Party, 468–69 voting rights in, 520 Manila Bay, 532, 535 Liberation of Aunt Jemima, The (Saar), 786 Loving, Richard and Mildred, 801 Mann Act (1910), 504 Liberia, 611, 871 Loving v. Virginia, 800 manufacturing, 739, 781, 818–19, 842, 859, 885 libertarianism, 744–45, 830 Loyal Publication Society, 585 decline of, 816–18, 832, 833, 837, 856, 857, Liberty Bell, 586 loyalty, 719 885, 891 Liberty Bonds, 585, 586, 590, 600 oaths, 591, 693, 731 in Mexico, 856 Liberty Enlightening the World, 476 program (review system), 728, 732 unions and, 832 Liberty Island, 476 Luce, Henry (1898–1967), 687–88, 698 see also industry Liberty Motors and Engineering Lucky Strike, 616 Mao Zedong (1893–1976), 713 Corporation, 685 LULAC (League of United Latin American March on Washington, 695, 772–73, 772 liberty of contract, 565, 648, 655 Citizens), 755–56 Marine Corps, U.S., 678 Libya, 903 lumber, 488, 561, 567 market economy: Lieberman, Joseph (1942–), 868 Lusitania, 581, 581 capitalism and, 842 Liebowitz, Sam (1893–1978), 667 lynchings, 522–23, 523, 595, 595, 596, 597, and “captains of industry,” 481–82 Life, 698, 744, 752, 756 598, 624, 663, 696, 696, 724 competition in, 480, 481, 482 I n d e x A - 113 market economy ( continued ) Miami, Fla., 857, 881 Miranda v. Arizona, 800 expansion of, 478 Michigan, 550, 682 misery index, 817, 818 rich and poor in, 482–83 Michigan, University of, affirmative action Miss America pageant, protest at, 796 workers’ freedom and, 482–83 and, 889 missiles, 835, 837 market fundamentalism, 894 microchip, 853 and Cold War “missile gap,” 765 Marlette, Douglas (1949–2007), 827 Microsoft, 841, 853, 856 and Cuba, 774 marriage, 809, 810, 811, 865, 866, 866 Middle Border, 485 Jupiter, 774 gay, 907 middle class, 741, 742, 832, 848, 856, 902 see also nuclear weapons interracial, 801 feminism in, 795 missionaries, 530, 536 see also divorce home ownership and, 658 in Hawaii, 538 Marshall, George C. (1880–1959), 711 materialism of, 754 Mississippi, 733, 784 Marshall, Thurgood (1908–1993), 756–57 reformers, 504 black voting in, 724, 725 Marshall Plan, 711–12, 712, 713 socialism and, 503 “freedom schools” in, 759 Marx, Karl (1818–1883), 503, 581 Middle East, 580, 602, 605, 710, 711, 751, 818, Gulf Coast of, 886–87 Maryland, 816 823, 858, 876, 880, 882, 883 Mississippi, University of, 770–71, 774, 775 gay marriage and, 907 democracy in, 899 Mississippi, voter registration drive in, Massachusetts, 618, 815 and freedom of religion, 899 776–77 Masses, The, 549 human rights in, 899 Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party “massive retaliation,” 749 Islam and, 836 (MFDP), 777, 777 “master race,” 689 Obama speech on, 899 Mississippi River, 886 maternalist reform, 564–65, 654 2011 uprisings in, 899, 903 Missouri, University of, segregation at, 756 May Day, 505 U.S. presence in, 881, 882 Mitchell, John N. (1913–1988), 816 Mayflower Compact (1620), 708 women’s rights in, 899 Mitchell, John P. (1870–1919), 501, 555 Maytag, 885 see also Gulf War; Iraq War; Israel Model T, 550 Meat Inspection Act (1906), 546 Middletown (Lynd and Lynd), 616 modernism, 621–22 Mecca, 784 Midway Island, Battle of, 679, 679 Modern Republicanism, 747–48 Medicaid, 781, 828, 834 migrant farm workers, 657, 664, 666, 739, moga, 615 Medicare, 781, 834, 850, 901, 906 797, 887 Mohave Desert, 863 Mediterranean Sea, 711 military, U.S.: Mondale, Walter (1928–), 834 Mellon, Andrew (1855–1937), 636 desegregation of, 725 monopolies, 482, 495, 505 Melting Pot, The (Zangwill), 592 gays in, 846 Federal Trade Commission and, 571 “melting pot”, U.S. as, 592, 690 and Operation Wetback, 732 “natural,” 560 Memphis, Tenn., 708, 770, 802, 802 post-World War II demobilization of, 723 Theodore Roosevelt and, 566 Reconstruction riot in, 458 prisons, 883, 884, 884, 890, 900 see also trusts, business Memphis Free Press, 523 Reagan and build-up of, 835 Monroe Doctrine, 530, 576, 578 Mendez v. Westminster, 756 segregation in, 596, 695 Montana, entrance into Union of, 489 Meredith, James (1933–), 770, 775 spending on, 747 Montezuma, Carlos, 559 Methodists, 524, 533 tribunals, 890 Montgomery, Ala., 758 African-American, 444 military-industrial complex, 673, 683, 727, bus boycott in, 755, 758–59, 760 Meuse-Argonne campaign, 584 765, 817 Civil Rights Memorial in, 907 Mexicans, Mexican immigrants, 484, 486, military spending, 747 Montgomery Ward, 478, 684 522, 547, 548, 593–94, 625, 625, 776, military tribunals, 903 moon landing, 773 781, 859–60, 887, 904 militias: Moral Majority, 825, 827 activism among, 797 in Iraq, 880 Morgan, J. P. (1837–1913), 480, 546, 566 as cowboys, 486 radical conservative, 866 Mormons, 487–88, 889 New Deal and, 662–63 Milliken v. Bradley, 810 Brigham Young and, 487 Operation Wetback and, 732 Millionaire’s Row, 546 and Deseret empire, 487 and wages, 797, 887 Mills, C. Wright (1916–1962), 752 James Buchanan and, 487 World War II and, 690–91 Mills, Florence (1895–1927), 630 Mitt Romney as, 905 Mexican War, 579–80, 582, 588, 684 Milosevic, Slobodan (1941–2006), 852 Mountain Meadows Massacre and, 487 Mexico, 582, 625, 625, 662, 690–91 minimum wage, 565, 569, 585, 617, 659, 664, polygamy and, 487–88 jobs exported to, 885 723, 748, 772, 857 in Salt Lake City, 487 loss of U.S. jobs to, 885 mining, 487, 548, 570 see also Christianity NAFTA and, 847, 848, 856 coal, 518, 660 Morse, Wayne (1900–1974), 790 Wilson and, 579–80 in national parks, 568 Moscow, 717, 721, 749, 750, 814, 823, 836 Mexico City, Mexico, Olympics at, 803 strikes and, 514–15 Nixon and Khrushchev in, 737–38, 737 Meyer v. Nebraska, 627, 629 United Mine Workers and, 555 Mossadegh, Mohammed (1882–1967), 750, 752 MFDP, see Mississippi Freedom Democratic Minneapolis, Minn., 725 Mother and Daughter Reading, Mt. Meigs, Party Minnesota, 485, 613, 802, 834 Alabama (Eickemeyer), 444 A - 114 I n d e x motion pictures, 480, 549, 575, 610, 611, 613, National Catholic Welfare Council, 627 nativism, 524–25, 625, 632, 690, 905 616, 620, 666 National Committee for a Sane Nuclear NATO, see North Atlantic Treaty family life in, 742 Policy, 750 Organization religion celebrated in, 744 National Conference of Christians and Navajos, “code-talkers” of, 691 in World War I, 586 Jews, 667 Naval Academy, U.S., 820 see also Hollywood National Consumer’s League, 563 Navy, U.S., 678, 904 Mountain Meadows Massacre, 487 national debt, 496, 834, 846, 885 African-Americans in, 697 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (movie), 666 National Defense Education Act, 748 segregation, 596, 695 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (movie), 666 National Endowment for the Arts, 781 Nazi Party, 642, 675, 676, 689, 689, 690, 694, Mubarak, Hosni (1928–), 903, 903 National Endowment for the Humanities, 781 696, 697, 703, 705, 720, 721 Müch, Karl, 593 National Farmer’s Holiday Association, 635 Nebraska, 485, 486, 627, 629 muckrakers, 546 National Guard, 598, 761, 783, 813, 813 entrance into Union of, 489 Muir, John (1838–1914), 567, 568 National Industrial Recovery Act (1935), 643 Negro Leagues, 725 Muller v. Oregon, 565, 617 nationalists, nationalism, 857 neoconservatives, 826 multiculturalism, 865 Arab, 750 Netherlands, 676 see also diversity; pluralism and “New Nationalism,” 569–70, 571 Neutrality Acts, 676 Muncie, Ind., 616 R.F.K. assassination and Palestinian, 803 Nevada, 727 Munich conference, 676 socialism as, 503 Newark, N.J., riot in, 783 Murphy, Frank (1890–1949), 668 World War I and, 581 New Deal, 447, 515, 565, 639–71, 674, 677, music, 666 National Labor Relations Board, 654 687, 688, 689, 726, 747, 786, 821, 855, Muslim Brotherhood, 903 National Liberation Front, 752 856, 900 Muslims, 750, 823, 835, 857, 880, 900, 903 National Organization for Women African-Americans and, 661–62, 663–64 in Afghanistan, 823, 875 (NOW), 795 agriculture and, 646–47, 661, 662, 664 Black, 784 national parks, 567–68, 568 economic inequality in, 856 fundamentalism and, 823, 845 National Police Gazette, 529 Eisenhower and, 747, 748, 808, 851 Gulf War and, 845 National Recovery Administration (NRA), end of, 668–69 as immigrants, 858 643–44, 648, 648 Father Coughlin and, 652 Malcolm X and, 784 National Reform Association, 504 First, 641–48 Shiite, 880 National Resources Planning Board Goldwater and, 778 Sunni, 880 (NRPB), 688 Great Society and, 782 Mussolini, Benito (1883–1945), 675, 679 National Security Agency (NSA), 790 housing and, 647–48 mutual assured destruction (MAD), 749 National Security Council, 711, 715, 790, 836 Johnson and, 776 Myanmar, see Burma National Transportation Safety Board, 808 legacy of, 640–41, 669–70 My Lai massacre, 813–14 National War Labor Board, 696 libertarians and, 744–45 Myrdal, Gunnar, 697 National Weather Service, 887 Mexican immigrants and, 662–63 National Women’s Party, 586, 615 Popular Front and, 666, 667 NAACP, see National Association for the Nation of Islam, 784 Reagan and, 830 Advancement of Colored People Native Americans, 488–91, 540, 864–65, 864 roads in, 644, 645, 645 Nabisco, 833 affirmative action and, 810 Second, 651, 652–55, 658–59 Nader, Ralph (1934–), 799 buffalo and, 483, 488 in South, 661 NAFTA (North American Free Trade as casino operators, 864–65 Supreme Court and, 648, 648, 658 Agreement), 847, 848, 856 citizenship (U.S.) and, 491, 864 Truman and, 723, 732 Nagasaki, atomic bombing of, 701, 749 civil rights movement and, 798, 798 wages and, 651 Nanjing, 675 forced labor of, 484 West and, 647, 662–63 napalm, 792 government treatment of, 489, 490 women and, 660–61 NASDAQ, 854 New Deal and, 662 work projects in, 639, 640, 644, 645, Nasser, Gamal Abdel (1918–1970), 751 population of, 483 645, 669 Nast, Thomas (1840–1902), 469, 473 poverty and, 865 “New Deal coalition,” 658, 808, 826 Nation, The, 469, 688 Progressivism and, 559 New England: National American Woman Suffrage Puritans and, 864 deindustrialization in, 612 Association, 528, 529, 563 removal of, 477, 720 Puritan emigration to, 864 National Archives, 708 slavery and, 864 strikes in, 649 National Association for the Advancement “termination” and, 798 New Federalism, 808 of Colored People (NAACP), 589, 596, treaty system and, 490 New Freedom, 569–70, 571 661, 663, 696, 722, 726, 733, 755, 756, tribalism attacked, 490 New Hampshire, 802, 886 757, 758, 772 in West, 488 New Left, 770, 785–86, 793, 794, 795 National Association of Colored Women, westward expansion of U.S. and, 484, 485 New Mexico, 701, 886 The, 520 World War II and, 690, 691 New Nationalism, 569–70, 571 National Association of Manufacturers, 686 see also Indian removal “New Negro,” 630 I n d e x A - 115 New Negro, The (Locke), 597 in Moscow, 737–38, 737 Obama administration, 900–901, 903 New Orleans, La., 465 New Federalism of, 808 2008 financial crisis and, 856 and Hurricane Katrina, 886–87 in 1952 campaign, 746 Occupational Safety and Health population of, 887 in 1960 campaign, 764–65, 807 Administration, 808 Reconstruction riot in, 458 pardoned by Ford, 819 Occupy (Wall Street) Movement, 905, 905 Newport, R.I., 483 Pentagon Papers and, 814 O’Connor, Sandra Day (1930–), 834, 889 New Republic, 566 resignation of, 816 Office of Price Administration, 682 New Rochelle, N.Y., 743 Supreme Court and, 809–10 Office of War Information (OWI), 672, 674 New School for Social Research, 608, 637 Vietnam War and, 812, 813–15 oil, 481, 482, 570, 610, 611, 613, 651, 678, 818, New South, 517 Watergate scandal and, 815 821, 832, 876 newspapers, see press welfare and, 807 Arab embargo on, 818, 818 Newsweek, 737 Nixon administration, 807–9 Cold War and, 710, 711 New York, 740, 796, 824, 896 Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972), 700 environment and, 901 Al Smith as governor of, 632 Nobel Peace Prize, 577 Gulf War and, 845 New York, N.Y., 543, 552, 564, 616, 643, 645, nonaggression pact, 676 highways and, 748 645, 653, 676, 680, 775, 860, 864, 877, Noriega, Manuel Antonio (1934–), 844 in Iran, 751 880, 901 Normandy, France, 680 Iraq War and, 881 African-Americans in, 627–31 North, Oliver (1943–), 836 Japan and U.S., 676, 677 antiwar demonstration in, 809 North Africa, 676, 680, 899 -producing regions, 882 Beats in, 754 North American Free Trade Agreement and Teapot Dome scandal, 617 draft riots in, 863 (NAFTA), 847, 848, 856 2010 BP oil spill and, 901 garment strike in, 557 North American Review, 492, 537 see also Standard Oil Company Gay Liberation Day in, 797 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Oklahoma, 489, 490, 491 immigration to, 552 713, 852, 903 in Dust Bowl, 647 population of, 546 North Carolina, 724, 810, 897 Indians removed to, 489 September 11 attacks in, 875, 876 North Carolina Agricultural and Technical Oklahoma City, Okla., terrorist attack in, socialism and, 552 State University, 769 600, 867, 867 Statue of Liberty in, 476 North Dakota, 485 Old Faithful geyser, 567 World Trade Center in, 818, 819 corporate mining in, 488 Old Left, 785–86 New York, Theodore Roosevelt as governor entrance into Union of, 489 Olney, Richard (1835–1917), 514 of, 533 Northern Ireland, 605, 803, 803 Olympic Games, 803, 823 New York Consumers’ League, 642 Northern Pacific Railroad, 567 “one percent, the” (wealthiest Americans), New York Court of Appeals, 500 Northern Securities Company, 566 905 New Yorker, 847 North Korea, 715, 717, 878 On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 499 New York Journal, 531, 533 creation of, 715 Open Door policy, 534 New York Stock Exchange, 635, 793 North Vietnam, 790–92, 802, 812, 813, 814 Operation Desert Storm, 845 explosion at, 600 NOW, see National Organization for Women Operation Dixie, 723 New York Times, 658, 813–14 NRA, see National Recovery Administration Operation Iraqi Freedom, 880 New York Times v. Sullivan, 800 NRPB, see National Resources Planning Board see also Iraq War New York Tribune, 469 NSC-68, 715 Operation Wetback, 732 New York World, 531 nuclear energy, 821 Orangeburg, S.C., 770 Next! , 481 nuclear weapons, 749, 822, 837, 878, 879, 908 Orange County, Calif., 756, 779, 858 Nez Percés, 489 cessation of tests of, 750, 774 oranges, 739 Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–1963), 751–52, 790 proposed international control of, 726 Oregon, 489, 623, 629, 640, 790 Nguyen That Thanh (1890–1969), 603, 604 tests of, 727, 727 women’s rights in, 565 see also Ho Chi Minh U.S. arsenal of, 749 Oregon Trail, 488 Niagara Falls, 595 U.S.-Soviet treaty on, 774 Organization Man, The (Whyte), 753 Nicaragua, 579, 619, 675, 836 see also atomic bomb; hydrogen bomb; Organization of Afro-American Unity, 784 Nigeria, 720, 750 missiles Oswald, Lee Harvey (1939–1963), 775 Nineteenth Amendment, 587 Nuremberg, Nazi trials at, 721 Other America, The (Harrington), 781, 786 nisei, 692 Ottoman Empire, in World War I, 580, Nixon, E. D. (1899–1987), 758 Oakland, Calif., 697, 785 602, 603 Nixon, Richard (1913–1994), 729, 799, 807– Obama, Barack (1961–), 897–901, 900, Our Country (Strong), 536 16, 808, 826, 829, 836, 851, 897 901–2, 906 Outdoor Recreation League, 560 African-Americans and, 809 background of, 895–96 outsourcing of jobs, 856 in China, 812, 812 first term of, 902–7 Overseas Highway, 645 in debates with JFK, 765, 870 and Middle East, 899 overtime pay, 659 détente and, 811–12, 819 in 2008 election and campaign, 874, Oxford, Miss., 771 in election of 1968, 804 895–97 Oxford University, 811 A - 116 I n d e x Pacific islands, 727 U.S. acquisition of, 510, 533–35, 575 Populist movement, 510–16, 635 Pacific Northwest, 640 in World War II, 678, 692 agriculture and, 509, 510 Pacific Ocean, 532 see also Filipinos Populist (People’s) Party, 511–15, 511, 512, Packard, Vance (1914–1996), 753 Philippine War, 535, 535, 537, 540, 590 520, 571 PACs (political action committees), 907 Phillips, Wendell (1811–1884), 588 Bryan in, 515 Padmore, George (1903–1959), 700 Phoenix, Ariz., 740 depression of 1893 and, 514 Paine, Thomas (1737–1809), 588 phonograph, 480, 611 election of 1892 and, 512 Pakistan, 750 photography, in Great Depression, election of 1896 and, 516 raid into, 903 666 industrial workers and, 511, 514 Palestine, 604, 803, 875 Pike, James S. (1811–1882), 470 labor and, 512 Palin, Sarah (1964–), 896 Pinchot, Gifford (1865–1946), 568, 569 platform of 1892 of, 512 Palmer, A. Mitchell (1872–1936), 599, Pingree, Hazen (1840–1901), 560 Pullman strike and, 514 600–601 Pinkerton Detective Agency, 509 racial alliances of, 513 Palmer, Francis F. (1812–1876), 485 Pinochet, Augusto (1915–2006), 812 supporters of, 511 Palmer Raids, 600–601 Pittsburgh, Pa.: women in, 513 Pan-African Conference, 604 manufacturing in, 478 Port Huron, Mich., 786, 789 Panama, 577–78, 844 September 11 terrorist attack in, 875 Port Huron Statement, 778, 786, 789 Panama Canal, 575, 576–78, 822 Pittsburgh Courier, 661, 696 Portland, Oreg., 683 construction of, 578 Plains Indians, 488 Posse Comitatus, 866 Pan-American Exposition, 566 planters, plantations, 465, 517 Postal Service, U.S., 619 Papua New Guinea, 871 in California, 486 Potomac River, 792 Paris, 762, 803 in Caribbean, 533, 535 Potsdam conference, 703, 749 German occupation of, 676 emancipated slaves and, 446 poultry, 739 liberation of, 680 in Hawaii, 538 poverty rate, 738, 782, 902 Vietnam peace agreement in, 814 post-Civil War, 446–47, 448, 449 of Native Americans, 865 Park Forest, Ill., 752 sugar, 547 Powderly, Terence V. (1849–1924), 502 Parks, Rosa (1913–2005), 758, 758, 896 Platt, Orville H. (1827–1905), 533 Powell, Adam Clayton (1908–1972), 663 Parsons, Albert (1849–1887), 505–6 Platt Amendment (1901), 533 Powell, Colin (1937–), 845, 845, 879 PATCO, 831 Playboy, 796 Powell, Lewis F. (1907–1998), 810 patriotism, 590–91 Pledge of Allegiance, 531, 721, 744, 858 Poyntz, Juliet Stuart (1886–1937?), 615 Patrons of Husbandry, 498 Plessy v. Ferguson, 521, 756, 763 Presbyterians, 826 see also Grange pluralism, 666, 667, 689, 691, 782 Presidential Reconstruction, 454–55 Patten, Simon (1852–1922), 524 see also diversity presidents, presidency, U.S.: Paul, Alice (1885–1977), 587, 615, 827 Poinier, Arthur, 690 expansion of powers of, 648, 883–84 Peace Corps, 773, 782 poison gas, 580 as “Free World” leader, 711 Pearl Harbor, 530 Poland, 601, 703, 710 veto power of, 457, 723, 732 Japanese attack on, 677–78, 690, 692 German invasion of, 676 see also specific presidents Pearson, Levi, 757 Polish-Americans, 548, 600, 690, 731 Presley, Elvis (1935–1977), 753, 753 Pelosi, Nancy, 891 political action committees (PACs), 907 press, 685, 686, 696, 800, 838 Pennsylvania, 494, 821 pollution, 766, 808 African-American, 661, 696, 705 Pentagon, 768, 792 see also environmentalism in election of 1928, 631 September 11 attack on, 875 Pontchartrain, Lake, 886 in election of 1936, 658 Pentagon Papers, 814 Ponzi schemes, 894 Espionage Act and, 590 “peonage” laws, 596 Poor People’s March, 802 Iraq War and, 879 People’s Party, see Populist Party “popery,” see Catholics, Catholicism Philippine War and, 537 Pequot Indians, 864 Popular Front, 666, 667 during Reconstruction, 469, 470 perestroika, 837 population: Republican (modern), 506 Perkins, Frances (1882–1965), 642, of African-Americans, 627 Underground, 793 660, 678 of buffalo, 488 in World War I, 585 Perot, Ross (1930–), 846 of Chicago, 478 as “yellow press,” 531, 533 Pershing, John J. (1860–1948), 584 of Hiroshima, 701 see also freedom, of the press Persian Gulf, 845 of Los Angeles, 613 “Price of Free World Victory, The” Carter Doctrine and, 823 of Middle Border, 485 (Wallace), 687 Philadelphia, Miss., 777, 829 of Native Americans, see Native Prince Edwards County, Va., desegregation Philadelphia, Pa., 664 Americans, population of in, 760 Freedom Train in, 708 of New Orleans, 887 prisons, 862–63, 863 Philadelphia Plan, 809 of New York City, 546 African-Americans in, 862–63 Philippines, 532, 538, 811, 822 rise of, 545–46 labor from, 517, 517 immigrants from, 486, 531, 692 of United States, 742, 742, 743 population of, 862 I n d e x A - 117 privacy, right to, 620, 627, 801 Puck, 481, 495, 508, 531, 574 in Reconstruction, 466 Procter & Gamble, 616 Puerto Rico, 532, 534, 535, 538, 539 segregation and, 521 profits, see corporations, and profits migration from, 743, 744, 859 Socialist party and, 569 Progress and Poverty (George), 502, 503 U.S. acquisition of, 510, 530, 534, 575 strikes, 501, 501, 514 Progressive era, 543–73, 560 Pulitzer, Joseph (1847–1911), 531 transcontinental, 478 women in, 586–87 Pullman, Ill., strike in, 514, 514, 527 trusts, 480, 567 Progressive Party, 568–70, 618, 654, 726 Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), 546, 567 westward expansion and, 487, 489 social agenda of, 570 Puritans, Puritanism: Raleigh, N.C., 769, 770 Progressivism, 544–45, 637, 820, 831 Indians and, 864 Randolph, A. Philip (1889–1979), 695, 726 ACLU and, 620 slavery and, 864 Rankin, Jeanette (1880–1973), 586, 678 and African-Americans, 594–96 Putting the Screws on Him, 567 Rauschenbusch, Walter (1861–1918), 504 Alfred Landon and, 658 PWA, see Public Works Administration RCA Victor, 611 civil liberties and, 590, 591 Reagan, Nancy (1921–), 834 consumerism and, 548–49 Quaker Oats Company, 478, 786 Reagan, Ronald (1911–2004), 728, 806, 829–38, disintegration of, 617 Quayle, Dan (1947–), 838 830, 831, 846, 853, 876, 877, 897, 900 FDR and, 642 background of, 830 Harding and, 606, 617 Rabelais, François (ca. 1494–1553?), 620 Cold War and, 834–36, 837 Herbert Hoover and, 631 race, racism, 667, 690, 695, 696–97, 700, conservatives and, 834 immigration and, 545, 546–47, 592, 625 720, 722, 728, 771, 772–73, 780, 785, in election of 1980, 829–30 as international movement, 559–60 795, 838, 866 Gorbachev and, 836–37 Native Americans and, 559 Americanism vs., 666, 689, 782 inequality under, 832 politics in, 559–65 Andrew Johnson and, 454 Iran-Contra affair and, 836 presidents in, 566–72 Hollywood and, 720 labor and, 831–32 Prohibition and, 587, 587 and Japanese-Americans, 692 legacy of, 837 race and, 592 law and, 625–26 Reaganomics, 831, 832 socialism and, 552–56 marriage and, 801 Reagan Revolution, 829–38 varieties of, 551–59 Nixon and, 809, 810 real estate: women’s rights in, 558 and post-World War II civil rights, 724 deals, 833 World War I and, 583, 584, 606, 619 Progressivism and, 592 speculation, 832 Prohibition, 504, 529, 587, 587, 610, 611, 622, as “race problem,” 591–92 Rebel without a Cause (movie), 753 622, 626, 632, 641, 647 Reconstruction and, 467, 470 recessions, 854 see also temperance riots and, 526, 598, 695, 783–84, 783, 863 African-Americans and, 902 propaganda: social construction of, 626 of 1974–75, 820 in World War I, 585–86, 585 in South Africa, 720 of 1991, 846 in World War II, 692 by U.S. government, 664 Reaganomics and, 832 Proposition 13, 829 see also segregation of 2001, 885 Proposition 187, 865 Races and Racism (Benedict), 690 of 2007, 891, 892–93, 893, 902 Prospective Scene in the City of Oaks, A, 468 radar, 683, 738 Reconstruction, 441–74, 471, 489 Prostrate State, The (Pike), 470 radiation, 701, 727, 727, 750 African-Americans in, 441, 453, 456–58, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (Herberg), 718 Radical Reconstruction, 454–57 459–62, 459, 517, 518, 519, 520, 521, Protestants, 504–5, 593, 623, 658, 729, Radical Republicans, 456, 456, 458–59 523, 595, 674, 724 764, 828 radio, 610, 611, 652, 686 battle over, 454–55 and Al Smith, 632 FDR’s fireside chats on, 655, 656 black officeholders during, 464 as anticommunists, 743–44 Great Depression and, 652 Chinese laborers during, 453 evangelical, 826, 828 religion and, 651–52 Johnson’s policies in, 448, 454–57, 457, fundamentalist, 621–22 Railroad Administration, 585 458 modernism and, 621–22 railroads, 449, 478, 480, 484, 495, 521, 548, Ku Klux Klan in, 595, 624, 624 moral reform and, 504 550, 552, 561, 569, 570, 571, 618 overthrow of, 466–74, 473 Prohibition and, 504, 587 agriculture and, 486, 510 public schools in, 465, 466, 467 see also Christianity; specific denominations Chinese immigrants and, 525 radical, 454–57 public opinion, opinion polls, 726, 827, 865, Great Depression and, 637 railroads built in, 466 868, 881, 891, 893 labor and, 514 Redeemers and, 517 public relations and, 696 land granted to, 477, 484, 485 segregation in, 522 public relations, 613 lobbyists of, 494–95 violence in, 467–68 and public opinion, 696 network of, 479 white farmers in, 449–52 see also Bernays, Edward Populists and, 510, 512 women’s rights and, 461–62 Public Utilities Act, 561 prison labor and, 517 see also Presidential Reconstruction; Public Works Administration (PWA), protests against, 497 Radical Reconstruction; Second 645–46, 645 rates regulated, 567 Reconstruction A - 118 I n d e x Reconstruction Act (1867), 458, 462 in campaign of 1960, 764, 765 Reconstruction, 458 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 637 Christianity aligned with, 807, 825 zoot suit, 691 Red Cross, 694 Clinton and, 846 River Rouge Plant (Sheeler), 614 Red Dawn (movie), 834 Contract with America, 847, 850 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, 833 Redeemers, 471, 517 Eisenhower and, 746 roads, 644, 645, 645, 651 redlining, 664 in election of 1896, 516, 516 Road to Serfdom, The (Hayek), 689 Red Menace, The (movie), 720, 721 in election of 1900, 540 Roaring Twenties, 610 Red Power, 798 in election of 1916, 582 robber barons, 482, 744 Red Scare, 600–601, 609, 632, 719 in election of 1928, 631–32 Roberts, John G., Jr. (1955–), 906 Red Square, 836 in election of 1946, 723–24 Robertson, Pat (1930–), 865 Redstockings Manifesto, 824 in election of 1952, 746, 747 Robeson, Paul (1898–1976), 667, 697, 700, 733 Reedy, William M., 558 in election of 1968, 804 Robin Hood, 731 reform, 561–63, 570, 668 in election of 1972, 815 Robinson, Bill, 630 in Gilded Age, 497 in election of 1992, 846 Robinson, Earl (1910–1991), 666 maternalist, 564–65, 654 in election of 2000, 869 Robinson, Jackie (1919–1972), 724–25, 725 middle class and, 502–4 and Equal Rights Amendment, 829 rock-and-roll, 753, 795 and Prohibition, 587, 587 high tariff supported by, 496, 497 Rockefeller, John D. (1839–1937), 481–82, segregation and, 595 immigration and, 907 530, 568 sexual freedom and, 615 industrialists and, 502 Rockefeller, Nelson (1908–1979), 819 Reform Act (1884), 494 Johnson’s impeachment and, 458–60 Rockefeller family, 633 Reform Bureau, 504 Ku Klux Klan and, 624 Rockwell, Norman (1894–1978), 672, 673, 686 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Liberal, 468–69 Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak (Bierstadt), 488 810, 889 nativism and, 905 Roe v. Wade, 801, 828, 828 regulatory power, 617 in 1920s, 617 Rogers, Will (1879–1935), 618 rise of U.S. government, 566–67, 642–43, 1964 convention of, 778, 830 Romania, 710 659, 669, 781, 782 1984 convention of, 806, 831 Romney, Mitt (1947–), 905–7, 906 religion, 575, 865, 871 1992 convention of, 846 Bain Capital and, 905 of African-Americans, rise in, 444, 446 press of, 506 conservatives and, 905 communism vs., 743–44, 745, 745 in Reconstruction, 447, 454–60, 463, 465, “47 percent” remark by, 906 counterculture and, 794 467, 468–69, 470, 472–73 Massachusetts health care plan and, 905 fundamentalist, 621–22 South and, 520 Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884–1962), 660, 660, and Prohibition, 587 Soviet Union and, 674 663–64, 721 radio and, 651–52 and Supreme Court, 648 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1882–1945), 518, 642, social reform and, 504–5 Taft and, 568, 569 653, 655, 656, 661, 665, 674–75, 678, see also specific denominations Truman Doctrine and, 711 682, 695, 703, 703, 705, 710, 807, 831, religious freedom, 699 2010 revival of, 904–5 851, 868, 877 Four Freedoms and, 673 YAF and, 779 antilynching law and, 664 Fourteenth Amendment and, 627 see also Radical Republicans; specific background of, 641 fundamentalism vs., 623 elections and campaigns black voters and, 658 September 11 terrorist attacks and, 877 Rerum Novarum, 551 “court packing” by, 658, 658 Universal Declaration of Human Rights reservations, Indian, 489, 490, 491, 559, 662, death of, 701 and, 721 691, 798 Economic Bill of Rights and, 688 see also diversity; pluralism Return from Toil, The (Sloan), 549 First New Deal and, 641–48, 648 religious right, 826–27, 830 Revels, Hiram (1827–1901), 460, 464, 464 Four Freedoms and, 672, 673, 685, 705, 708 see also Christian Right Revere, Paul (1735–1818), 709 freedom and, 655, 656, 673, 708 Remington, Frederic (1861–1909), 533 Rhineland, 675 Hitler and, 675, 677, 690 Reno, Janet (1938–), 846 Rhine River, 700 on housing, 648 Reno, Milo, 635 Rhodes Scholar, 811 Japanese American internment and, “Report on Economic Conditions in the rice, 517 692, 884 South,” 668 Richardson, Elliot (1920–1999), 815 and polio, 641 reproductive rights, 558–59, 796, 801, 900 Richmond Times-Dispatch, 658 Second New Deal and, 652–55 Republican Party (modern), 495–96, 506, Rickey, Branch (1881–1965), 724 on Social Security, 654 513, 515, 516, 617, 666, 677, 684, 715, Riesman, David (1909–2002), 752 and South, 668 726–27, 746, 747–48, 776, 779, 790, Riis, Jacob (1849–1914), 483 and West, 640 808, 837, 838, 842, 850, 855, 886, riots: see also New Deal 890–91, 896, 897, 900, 901 draft, 863 Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919), 506, 546, as anti-immigrant, 865 labor, 505–6 566, 578, 641, 658, 846 black members of, 520 race, 526, 597–98, 598, 695, 783–84, African-Americans and, 594–95 black voters and, 463 783, 863 Asian-Americans and, 594 I n d e x A - 119 Roosevelt, Theodore ( continued ) Savio, Mario (1942–1996), 790 South and, 517–24, 522 as conservationist, 567–68, 568, 569 scabs, 552 in Southwest, 593–94 and corporations, 566 scalawags, 464–65 suburbia and, 742–43, 857 Panama Canal and, 576–78 Scandinavia, 676 unions and, 518 as Progressive candidate, 569–70, 642 Scandinavian immigrants, 485, 524, 690 in U.S. military, 596, 695 as Progressive president, 566–67, 566, Schechter Poultry Company, 648 see also race, racism; South, segregation in 569–70 Schenck, Charles T., 620 Selective Service Act (1917), 584 as Rough Rider, 532–33, 533 Schultz, George (1920–), 809 Selling a Freeman to Pay His Fine at Monticello, U.S. government regulatory power and, 567 Schurz, Carl (1829–1906), 461 Florida, 455 Roosevelt Corollary, 578–79 Schwerner, Michael (1939–1964), 776 Selma, Ala., 755, 780 Rosenberg, Ethel (1915–1953), 729–30 Scopes, John (1900–1970), 623 Senate, U.S., 496, 531, 651, 704, 763, 869, 883, Rosenberg, Julius (1918–1953), 729–30 Scopes Trial, 622–23, 623 886, 895, 896, 897, 900, 904 Rosie the Riveter, 686 Scottsboro, Ala., trial in, 667, 668, 758 African-Americans in, 464 Ross, Thomas J., 451 Scowcroft, Brent (1925–), 880 and Johnson’s impeachment, 458–60 Rothstein, Arnold (ca. 1882–1928), 651 Screen Actors Guild, 830 McCarthy and, 730–31 Rough Riders, 532 Scribner’s Magazine, 501 popular vote and, 561 Royal Air Force, 676 SDS, see Students for a Democratic Society Versailles Treaty debate in, 605, 605 rubber, 528, 610, 611, 683 Sea Islands, South Carolina, 448 World War I and, 582 Ruins of the Pittsburgh Round House, 501 Special Field Order 15 and, 442 Seoul, South Korea, 717 Rumsfeld, Donald, 879, 885 Sears, Roebuck & Co., 478, 480 “separate but equal” principle, 521, 522, Rural Electrification Agency, 652 Seattle, Wash., 634, 683, 849, 853 756–57, 763 Russia, 548, 602 anti-Chinese riot in, 526 September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of, 590, Iraq War and, 880 government contracts and, 738 819, 875, 876, 877, 877, 878, 879, 881, in World War I, 580, 581 Hooverville in, 634 888–89, 898, 901, 907, 908 see also Soviet Union Ku Klux Klan in, 624 Serbia, 580, 852, 852 Russian immigrants, 524, 547, 548 WTO meeting in, 841, 841, 842 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, 688 Russian Revolution, 582, 599, 600 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 694 settlement houses, 562, 562, 570 Russo-Japanese War, 576 “Second Declaration of Independence, A” Seventeenth Amendment, 561 Ruth, Babe (1895–1948), 611 (Steward), 493 Seward, William H. (1801–1872), 530 Rwanda, genocide in, 851 “second industrial revolution,” see industrial sex: Ryan, John A. (1869–1945), 551 revolution, “second” Beats and, 754 Ryan, Paul D. (1970–), 906 Second New Deal, see New Deal, Second censorship and, 619 as Catholic, 906 Second Reconstruction, 529 and public officials, 868 civil rights movement as, 473 women’s rights and, 558, 615, 795, 796 Saar, Betye (1926–), 786 Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), 794 sexual harassment, 868 Sacco, Nicola (1891–1927), 609, 609 Securities and Exchange Commission, 648 sexual politics, 796 Sadat, Anwar (1918–1981), 822 Security Council, U.N., 704, 715 sexual revolution, 795, 801, 809, 810–11, Saddam Hussein (1937–2006), 845, 879, Sedition Act (1798), 590 826, 865 880, 881, 908 Sedition Act (1918), 590 Seymour, Horatio (1810–1886), 459 and weapons of mass destruction, 879, 881 segregation, 465, 521–22, 539, 540, 596, 663, Shackle Broken—by the Genius of Freedom, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 595 664, 690, 695–96, 697, 699, 708, (Elliott), 441 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitations 724–26, 728, 733, 755–56, 756, 763, Shame of the Cities, The (Steffens), 546 Talks), 812 770–72, 775, 783, 810, 861, 862 sharecropping, 449, 451, 452, 466, 510, 665, Salt Lake City, Utah, Mormons in, 487 Birmingham campaign and, 771–72 666, 667, 739 Sandinistas, 619, 836 Booker T. Washington on, 527 Share Our Wealth, 651, 652 Sandino, Augusto César (1895–1934), 619 courts and, 755–56, 760, 761, 763 sharia law, 889 San Francisco, Calif., 561, 683, 797, 853, 864 dismantling of, 757–58, 760, 761, 763, Sharon, Conn., 778 Beats in, 754, 754 782, 810 Sharon Statement, 778–79, 788 immigration to, 547 education and, 527, 810 Sheeler, Charles (1883–1965), 613, 614 strike in, 649 federal government and, 772 Sheen, Fulton J. (1895–1979), 744 U.N. conference in, 704 in federal housing, 664, 664 Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 615 San Francisco Bay, 798, 798 in Greensboro, N.C., 769 Sheridan, Philip H. (1831–1888), 488 Sanger, Margaret (1883–1966), 558–59 JFK and, 773 Sherman, William T. (1820–1891), 442, San Juan Hill, 532 labor and, 518, 527 447–48, 772 Santiago, Cuba, 532 laws, 521–22 Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 497, Sarajevo, Serbia, 580 railroads and, 521 500–501, 566, 568 Saturday Night Massacre, 815 reformers and, 595 see also monopolies; trusts, business Saudi Arabia, 784, 845, 875, 890 “separate but equal” principle and, 521, Shiite Muslims, 880 Savings and Loans Associations, 833 756–57, 763 shipbuilding: A - 120 I n d e x in South, 738 European vs. American view of, 503 voting in, 617, 724, 776–77 in World War II, 686 Friedrich Hayek and, 689 see also Confederate States of America shopping, 741 in Gilded Age, 502, 503 South Africa, 539, 604, 720, 811–12, 836, Siam, see Thailand Henry Wallace and, 726 843–44 Sicily, invasion of, 679 middle class and, 503 South America, immigrants from, 859, 861 Siegfried, André (1875–1959), 628 as nationalism, 503 South Braintree, Mass., Sacco and Vanzetti Sierra Club, 567, 799 woman suffrage and, 563 in, 609 Silent Protest Parade, 598, 598 World War I and, 581 South Carolina, 441, 450, 518 Silent Spring (Carson), 786, 798–99 Socialist Party, 552, 553, 569, 569, 585, 588, 601 Reconstruction in, 465, 470 Silicon Valley, 853 capitalism vs., 569, 666 South Dakota, 485, 490 silver: social realism, 639 corporate mining in, 487 corporate mining of, 487 Social Security, 654, 658, 661, 669, 778, 808, entrance into Union of, 489 as currency, 515 834, 906 Wounded Knee massacre in, 490 Sinclair, Upton (1878–1968), 546, 584, African-Americans and, 661, 664 Southern Christian Leadership 620, 651 creation of, 654 Conference, 760 Singer Sewing Machines, 530 Eisenhower and, 747 Southern Conference for Human Welfare, Singleton, Benjamin “Pap” (1809–1892), FDR on, 654 668–69 519, 519 freedom and, 660 Southern Manifesto, 760, 763 Sioux, 488, 490 NRPB and, 688 Southern Pacific Railroad, 486, 561 Sirica, John J. (1904–1992), 815 taxes support for, 660 South Gate, Calif., 832 sit-ins, 769, 770, 773 Truman and, 723, 732 South Korea, 817, 822 Sitting Bull (ca. 1831–1890), 488, 489, 489 Social Security Act (1935), 641, 654, 661, 662 creation of, 715 Sixteenth Amendment, 566 Social Security Bill, 654 immigrants from, 859 Sixth Avenue and Thirtieth Street (Sloan), 543 Society of American Indians, 559 South Vietnam, 787–92, 802, 813, 814 “Sixties, The,” 786, 798, 802 Solomon Islands, 679 Soviet Exhibition, 737 activism in, 795–804 Somoza, Anastasio (1925–1980), 619, 674, 836 Soviet Union, 599, 634, 674, 676, 682, 702, legacy of, 804 Sons of Italy, 609 703, 709–20, 721, 722, 726, 729, 733, Skilling, Jeffrey, 855 Sorel, Edward (1929–), 847 745–46, 786, 807, 812, 819–20, 823, slacker raids, 591 Sotomayor, Sonia (1954–), 900 836–37, 858 Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), 470 Souls of Black Folks, The (Du Bois), 595 Afghanistan invasion by, 823 Slave Power, 502 Souter, David (1939–), 900 American National Exhibition and, slavery, 523–24, 861 South, 496, 497, 596–97, 612, 673, 770–72, 737–38, 737 arguments in favor of, 499 775, 807, 815, 897 atomic bomb of, 713, 715 Indians and, 864 African-Americans in, 518, 596–97, 615, Berlin occupation by, 713 in West, 484 627, 630–31, 630, 690, 694, 699, 733, breakup of, 843, 844, 845 see also abolition movement 734, 776–77, 782 Cold War and, 717 slaves, emancipated, 443, 444 agriculture in, 739 collapse of communism in, 843, 845 Andrew Johnson and, 454 black migration from, 743 Cuban Missile Crisis and, 774 Second New Deal and, 653 Democratic Party and, 631–32 Czechoslovakia invasion by, 803 suffrage and, 442, 444, 459–60 desegregation in, 697, 757, 758, 760, 761, Eastern Europe occupation by, 703, 705, Slavs, Nazi extermination of, 682 763, 782 709, 712, 713 Sloan, John (1871–1951), 543, 549 in election of 1948, 725–27 Eisenhower and, 749–50 smallpox, 864 in election of 1964, 778 European empires and, 750 Smith, Adam (1723–1790), 893 Freedom Rides in, 770 German invasion of, 677, 680, 681, 709 Smith, Alfred E. (1873–1974), 631–32 fundamentalists in, 623 hydrogen bomb and, 749 Protestants and, 632 industry in, 661, 684, 738 invasion of Germany by, 700 Smith, Henry (d. 1893), 523 Jim Crow and, 755 Korean War and, 715–17 Smith Act (1940), 668 libertarianism in, 745 Lend-Lease and, 677 Smith v. Allwright, 696 New, see New South Manchuria invasion by, 701 SNCC, see Student Non-Violent Coordinating New Deal and, 661 Reagan and, 834 Committee Nixon and, 810 space exploration and, 748, 765, 773 Social Darwinism, 499–500, 504 Operation Dixie in, 723 spying of, 731 Social Gospel, 504–5, 515, 536 People’s Party in, 511 in U.N., 704 socialism, 552–56, 557, 642, 649, 722, 731, poverty in, 668 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 786, 803 segregation in, 509, 517–24, 522, 690, 699, and, 722 capitalism vs., 569, 666 756, 769, 770–72, 775, 810 Vietnam and, 812 in Chicago, 505 sit-ins in, 769 see also Cold War Communist Party and, 666 strikes in, 649 soybean, 739 Espionage Act and, 590 urban areas of, 452 Spain, 531–33, 532, 535, 599 I n d e x A - 121 Spanish-American War, 508, 531–32, 532, Steward, Ira, 493 plantations, see planters, plantations, 533, 534, 534, 538, 538 Stimson, Henry (1867–1950), 701 sugar acquisition of empire and, 510, 575 stimulus package, 900 in Puerto Rico, 743 Battle of San Juan Hill in, 532 stock market, 610, 613, 632–33, 642, 643, 832, suicide rate, Great Depression and, 635 casualties in, 532 854–55, 893–94 Sumner, Charles (1811–1874), 456, 461, 588 causes of, 531–32 Stonewall Bar, police raid on, 797 Sumner, William Graham (1840–1910), 500 effects of, 535 Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT), Sunday, Billy (1862–1935), 621, 622 naval battle at Manila Bay in, 532 812 Sunni Muslims, 880 see also Philippine War Strategic Bombing Survey, 702 Sun Yat-Sen, 560 Sparkman, John (1899–1985), 734 Strategic Defense Initiative, 834 supply and demand, law of, 499 speakeasies, 610, 622, 630 strikes, 498, 499, 502, 505, 556–57, 599–600, supply-side economics, 831, 833, 876, 885 Special Field Order 15, 442 614, 723, 802, 802, 832 Supreme Court, U.S., 461, 462, 470, 472, special interests, 566 of air traffic controllers, 832 500–501, 514, 520, 526, 538, 552, 565, lobbying by, 494, 617 in Arizona, 785 566, 567, 568, 617, 620, 621, 625, 627, Springfield, Mo., 595, 595 in Boston, Mass., 618 629, 815, 889–90 Sputnik, 748, 765 in colleges, 813 abortion and, 801, 828, 828, 866 Square Deal, 566 of cowboys, 487 affirmative action and, 810 stagflation, 818, 829 in Depression, 649, 650 African-American rights and, 596, 697 Stalin, Joseph (1879–1953), 676, 703, 703, in Detroit, Mich., 695 Brown v. Board of Education and, 757–58, 709, 710–11, 713, 717, 726, 749 in France, 803 760, 763 death of, 749 in Homestead, Pa., 509, 527 civil liberties and, 620, 668, 760 and nonaggression pact, 676 in Lawrence, Mass., 556 civil rights and, 799–801, 810 Stalingrad, 680 mining and, 515 Clinton’s appointments to, 846 Standard Oil Company, 480, 481, 482, 530, in New York, N.Y., 557 “court packing” and, 658, 658 566, 568 in 1934, 649 FDR and, 642, 658, 658 Stanford University, 593 Pullman, 514, 527 G. W. Bush and, 890 Stanton, Edwin M. (1814–1869), 442, 459 railroad, 501, 501, 514 health care law and, 906 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (1815–1902), 462, rights and, 571 homosexuals and, 834 462, 588 scabs and, 552 housing segregation and, 742 Starr, Kenneth (1947–), 868 steel, 600, 748 Japanese-American internment and, “Star-Spangled Banner, The” (Key), 531 in World War II, 684 693–94 state-church separation, 623, 800, 801 Strong, Josiah (1847–1916), 536 New Deal and, 648, 648 State Department, U.S., 729, 749, 787, 820, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Obama and, 900 836, 879, 881 Committee (SNCC), 770, 772, 784, Plessy v. Ferguson and, 521, 522, 756, 763 McCarthy and, 730 785, 796 right to privacy and, 801 State of the Union Address (1941), 673 students, as activists, 769, 770, 775 sanctions involuntary sterilization, 593 State of the Union Address (1996), 850 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 778, Scottsboro case and, 667 State of the Union Address (2002), 878 786, 787, 789, 792, 796 “separate but equal” ruling of, 521, 522 states’ rights, 725, 829 Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign and 2000 election, 869, 869 Andrew Johnson’s views of, 455 Missions, 530 see also Burger Court; Warren Court States’ Rights Democratic Party, 725, 726 submarines: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Statue of Liberty, 476, 505, 506, 550, 551, 585, in World War I, 580, 581–82, 581 Education, 809–10 595, 595, 685, 690, 731, 797, 799, 840, in World War II, 679 Swanson, 741 842, 857 “subprime” mortgages, 892 Swaziland, 871 Stead, W. T. (1849–1912), 575 subtreasury plan, 510, 515 sweatshops, 544 steamboats, 480 suburbs, 752, 753, 766, 795, 810, 826, 830, Sweatt, Heman (1912–1982), 756 steel industry, 481, 481, 482, 509, 517, 528, 858, 897 Switzer, Katherine, 796 550, 552, 600, 610, 649–50, 651, 683, African-Americans in, 857, 862 Switzerland, male suffrage in, 494 723, 748, 832 highways and, 740, 748 Syria, 604, 818 Steel Workers Organizing Committee, Latinos in, 857, 858 650, 651 rise of, 739–41, 740, 741 Taft, Robert (1889–1953), 746 Steffens, Lincoln (1866–1936), 546 as segregated, 742–43, 755, 857 Taft, William Howard (1857–1930), 566, Stein, Gertrude (1874–1946), 620 Sudetenland, 675 568–69, 570, 617 Steinbeck, John (1902–1968), 657 Suez Canal, 751 Latin America and, 579 Stennis, John C. (1901–1995), 815 suffrage, see voting rights Taft-Hartley Act (1947), 723, 748 sterilization, involuntary, 593 sugar: Tahrir Square, 903 Stevens, Thaddeus (1792–1868), 456, 456 in Caribbean, 576 Taiwan, 715, 812, 817 Stevenson, Adlai (1900–1965), 733–34, in Cuba, 774 Tajikistan, 844 746, 747 in Hawaii, 530 Taliban, 823, 877–78 A - 122 I n d e x tanks (military), 682, 683 in Oklahoma City, 601, 867, 867 Triborough Bridge, 645, 645 Tanzania, 750 September 11 attacks, 590, 819, 875, 876, trickle-down economics, see supply-side Tape, Joseph and Mary, 526 877, 877, 878, 879, 881, 888–89, 898, economics Tape v. Hurley, 526 901, 907, 908 Trifle Embarrassed, A, 508 tariffs, 477, 496, 497, 515, 516, 530, 568, 571, war on, 876–78, 883–85, 889, 890, 898 Troubles, The, 803 617, 636 Tet offensive, 802 “True Sons of Freedom,” 596 taxes, 570, 618, 651, 723, 823, 831, 833, 846– Texas, 510, 686, 724, 726, 831, 860 Trujillo Molina, Rafael (1891–1961), 674 47, 862, 885, 900, 904 in Dust Bowl, 647 Truman, Harry S. (1884–1972), 688, on corporations, 652 Hurricane Katrina victims and, 887 701–2, 703, 708, 709, 710–11, 710, 721, demands for lowering, 829 Texas, University of, segregation at, 756 850, 877 Gingrich and, 850 textile industry: African-Americans and, 724–27 Great Depression and, 636 plant closings in, 885 anticommunism and, 732, 733 G. W. Bush’s cuts in, 876, 885, 891, 900 strikes in, 614, 649, 723 Berlin airlift and, 713 income, 512, 567, 568, 570, 571, 585, 617, Thailand, 678 in campaign of 1948, 725–26 682, 781 Theory of the Leisure Class, The (Veblen), civil rights and, 724–27 inheritance, 567 482–83 communist China and, 713 New Deal and, 660 Thind, Bhagat Singh (1892–1967), 625 decolonization and, 717 poll, 520, 594, 724, 780 Third Great Awakening, 826 Fair Deal and, 723 property, 560 Third World, 750–51, 790, 811, 822, 836 Korean War and, 715 single, 503 Cold War in, 750–51 presidency of, 722–27 Social Security, 661 Thirteenth Amendment, 708 strikes and, 724 World War I and, 585 This Is the Enemy (Ancona and Koehler), 696 Vietnam and, 751 World War II and, 682 Thoreau, Henry David (1817–1862), 567, 759 Truman administration, 708, 710, 713, 717, Tax Reform Act (1986), 831 Three Mile Island, 821 722–27, 732, 733, 747, 787 Taylor, Frederick W. (1856–1915), 552 Thurmond, Strom (1902–2003), 726–27, Native Americans and, 798 “tea parties,” 900 726, 779 Truman Doctrine, 710–11, 710, 728, 733 Tea Party, 904 Tiananmen Square, protests in, 840, 842–43 Trumbo, Dalton (1905–1976), 729 Paul D. Ryan and, 906 Tiber, 794 Trumbull, Lyman (1813–1896), 457, 468 Teapot Dome scandal, 617 Tilden, Samuel J. (1814–1886), 472 trusts, business, 480, 566–67, 567, 571, 758 technology: Time, 698, 729, 758 and antitrust laws, 571 innovations in, 479 Times Square, 676 see also monopolies; Sherman Antitrust in Middle East, 899 “Times They Are A-Changin’, The” Act (1890) in World War I, 580 (Dylan), 793 Tulsa, Okla., race riot in, 598, 598 teenagers, 753, 753 Tipsy (Kiyoshi), 615 Tunisia, 903 Tehran, 703, 703, 823 Title IX, 811 Turkey, 580, 711, 774 telegraph, transatlantic, 479 tobacco, 449, 517 missiles removed from, 774 telephones, 479, 611 Tobacco Belt, 449 Tuskegee Institute, 527 television, 737, 738, 739, 741, 741, 742, 825, Tokyo, Japan, 702 TVA, see Tennessee Valley Authority 836, 865 “too big to fail” rationale, 894 TV dinner, 741, 741 civil rights movement and, 771, 772, 780 torture, 884–85, 900, 903 Twain, Mark (1835–1910), 494 family life on, 741 water-boarding as, 884 Tweed, “Boss” William M. (1823–1878), 495 Iran hostage crisis and, 823 To Secure These Rights, 725 Tweed Ring, 467, 495 in 1960 campaign, 765 totalitarianism, 720–21, 836 Twentieth Amendment, 658 politics and, 746, 837–38 see also dictators, dictatorships Twenty-first Amendment, 647 religious programing and, 826 Townsend, Francis (1867–1960), Twenty-fourth Amendment, 780 Vietnam War and, 801, 802 651, 652 typewriter, 479 Teller, Henry (1830–1914), 531 trade: Teller Amendment, 531 in World War II, 676, 677, 685 U-2 spy plane, 750 temperance, 528, 529 see also free trade UAW, see United Auto Workers see also Prohibition transcendentalism, 567 UFW, see United Farm Workers Tennessee, 520 “Trans-National America” (Bourne), 592 Ulysses (Joyce), 621 Ku Klux Klan founded in, 467–68 transportation, 560 Uncle Sam, 508, 525, 535, 574, 648, 675, Scopes trial in, 622–23, 623 public, 741 685, 792 Tennessee River, 645 see also railroads Underground newspapers, 793 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 645–46 Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1778), 713 Underwood Tariff (1913), 571 Tenure of Office Act (1867), 458 treaty system, elimination of, 490 unemployment, 569, 570, 612, 659, 661, 673, Terman, Lewis (1877–1956), 593 Triangle Shirtwaist Company, fire at, 682, 738, 772, 817, 818, 819, 820, 832, “termination”, and Native Americans, 798 544, 549 856, 893, 897, 902 terrorism, 875, 903 tribalism, attack on Native American, 490 African-Americans and, 663, 783 I n d e x A - 123 unemployment ( continued ) in Balkans, 852 Paris peace agreement and, 814 Great Depression and, 633–35, 644, Charter of, 751 protests against, 768, 792–93, 793, 807 650, 656 creation of, 704 television and, 801, 802 insurance, 654, 661, 664, 895 Iraq War and, 879, 880 Tet offensive in, 802 in 1990s, 853 see also General Assembly, U.N.; Security troop numbers in, 792 public spending to combat, 659 Council, U.N.. Villa, “Pancho” (1878–1923), 580 Second New Deal and, 652, 655, 658, United States Housing Act, 659 Villet, Grey (1927–2000), 801 669, 670 United States v. Butler, 648 Vinson, Fred (1890–1953), 756 in 2001, 885 United States v. Cruikshank, 470 Virginia, 800, 897 Union League, 463, 464, 585 United States v. E. C. Knight Co. , 500 desegregation in, 760, 761 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, see United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 526 Virgin Islands, 575 Soviet Union United Steelworkers of America, 650 Visit from the Old Mistress, A (Homer), 447 Union Pacific Railroad, 495 United Textile Workers, 649 VISTA, 782 unions, 505–6, 509, 515, 527–28, 556–57, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 721 Voice of America, McCarthy and, 730 599–600, 613–14, 617, 635, 649–51, Universal Negro Improvement Volga River, 680 665, 667, 708, 731, 732–33, 739, 745, Association, 598 voting rights, 561–62, 758 819, 831–32, 871 University of North Carolina Press, 699 African-American loss of, 520–21, 562, African-Americans and, 594, 597, 667, Unsafe at Any Speed (Nader), 799 597, 661, 664, 699, 761, 776, 780 696, 755, 772 urbanization, 545–51 for African-Americans, 459–60, 461–62 blacklisting organizers of, 654 rise of cities, 546 citizenship and, 562 Brandeis and, 552 Urban League, 661 emancipated slaves and, 442, 444, Clinton and, 851 urban renewal, 743 459–60 company unions vs., 614 USA Patriot Act, 883, 903 grandfather clause and, 520 consumerism and, 551 U.S. Steel, 480–81, 566, 633, 650 for Japanese women, 712 in election of 1936, 658 Utah, woman suffrage in, 564 literacy tests and, 520, 562 in Great Depression, 648–51 utilities, 560 registration and black, 520–21, 562 highways and, 748 Voting Rights Act and, 780 Homestead strike and, 509 Valentino, Rudolph (1895–1926), 616 for women, 460, 461–62, 462, 513, 528–29, industrialism and, 481, 482 Vance, Cyrus (1917–2002), 790 545, 561, 563–64, 563, 564, 570, 582, Ku Klux Klan and, 624 Vanderberg, Arthur (1884–1951), 711 586–87, 586, 615, 617 Latinos and, 797–98 Vanzetti, Bartolomeo (1888–1927), 609, 609 Voting Rights Act (1965), 780, 783 membership in, 650, 684, 684 vaudeville, 549 NAFTA and, 847 Veblen, Thorstein (1857–1929), 482 wages, 600 New Deal and, 644, 669 V-E Day, 700 African-Americans and, 594, 630, 887 in 1950s, 748 velvet revolution, 843 agricultural work for, 485 Nixon and, 809 Venezuela, 611 consumerism and, 549, 550, 563 open shop policies and, 644 Vera Cruz, Mexico, 579 cost of living increases in, 732, 748 Operation Dixie and, 723 Verdun, Battle of, 580 cowboys and, 487 Reagan and, 830, 831–32 Vermont, 673 decline in real, 819, 819, 832, 837, 857 scabs and, 552 Versailles Treaty, 601, 602, 604, 605 equal pay for equal work and, 827 segregation and, 518 Senate debate on, 605 Fordism and, 550 supported by left, 665 vertical integration, 481 Great Depression and, 633 Supreme Court and, 501 Veterans’ Administration, 647 hourly, 857 Taft-Hartley Act and, 723–24 Veterans’ Administration Medical Center, 860 immigrants and, 548 Wal-Mart and, 857 veto, presidential, 457, 723, 732 inflation and increasing, 612 War Labor Board and, 585 Viet Cong, 792, 802, 814 international standards for, 842 women and, 686–87 Vietnam, 603, 604, 860, 881 “living wage” and, 570, 585, 655 in World War II, 684 see also North Vietnam; South Vietnam and Mexican immigrants, 797, 887 see also labor; labor movement; specific Vietnamization, 813 migrant farm workers and, 797, 887 unions Vietnam syndrome, 835 minimum, 565, 569, 617, 659, 748, 857 United Auto Workers (UAW), 650, 686 Vietnam War, 586, 766, 785–94, 790, 791, New Deal and, 651 United Electric Worker’s union, 795 814, 820, 886 overtime and, 659 United Farm Workers union (UFW), and antiwar movement, 768, 792–93, 793, and Prohibition, 587 797–98, 860 802, 803, 813–14, 813 rising, 738, 739 United Fruit Company, 751 casualties in, 814 Social Security tax on, 661 United Labor Party, 506 draft resisters of, 792, 822 in South, 612 United Mine Workers of America, 555, 649 My Lai massacre in, 813–14 stagnation of, 888 United Nations, 715, 721, 812, 820, 836, 845, Nixon and, 812, 813–15 strike for higher, 487 852, 879 origins of, 751–52, 787–90 tax brackets and, 832 A - 124 I n d e x women and, 528, 686, 795, 827, 866 “Wealth” (Carnegie), 492 Whitney, Richard (1888–1974), 635 in World War I, 585 Wealth Against Commonwealth (Lloyd), 482 “Who is Loyal to America?” (Commager), 719 in World War II, 682, 684, 686 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 893 Whyte, William (1917–1999), 753 Wagner Act (1935), 654, 658, 662, 708 weapons of mass destruction, 878 Wichita, Kans., 486 Waite, Davis (1825–1901), 514 long-range bombers and, 749 Wilhelm II, emperor of Germany (1859– Walker, David, 700 Saddam Hussein and, 879, 881 1941), 584 Wallace, George (1919–1998), 778, 780, 804, tests of, 727, 727, 774 Willard, Frances (1839–1898), 528 808, 826 Weaver, James B. (1833–1912), 513 Willkie, Wendell (1892–1944), 677 Wallace, Henry (1888–1965), 687–88, 725–27 Webster, Daniel (1782–1852), 588 Wilson, Charles (1890–1961), 747 Wall Street, 613, 618, 652, 677, 892, 894, 901 Weir, Ferguson (1841–1926), 475 Wilson, Edith (1872–1961), 605 in depression, 635 Welch, Joseph (1805–1891), 730, 730 Wilson, Woodrow (1856–1924), 552, 566, Wal-Mart, 857 welfare, 565, 570, 654–55, 658, 661–62, 665, 569–71, 579–80, 582, 599, 601, 602–6, War Advertising Council, 685 669, 726, 732, 778, 779, 834, 846, 618–19, 642, 718, 884 war bonds, 682, 685 850–51, 865, 871, 895 African-Americans and, 595, 596 War Department, U.S., 700 expansion of, 688 civil liberties and, 590 Warehouse Act (1916), 571 Nixon and, 808–9 Debs and, 590 War Industries Board, 584, 643 Reagan and, 829, 831, 834 first term of, 570–71 War Labor Board, 585 stigma of, 661–62 foreign policy of, 576, 579–80 War Manpower Commission, 682 “welfare capitalism,” 613 Fourteen Points and, 582–84 Warner, Charles Dudley (1829–1900), 494 Wells, Ida B. (1862–1931), 523 and League of Nations, 605 War of 1812, 588, 678 “We Shall Overcome,” 780 Mexican policy of, 579–80 War of Independence, see American Wesley, Charles H., 699 New Freedom of, 570 Revolution West, 486–87, 497, 498, 510, 673, 686, 807 stroke of, 605 War on Poverty, 781–82, 781, 785, 798 African-Americans in, 664, 694 at Versailles, 601 War on Terrorism, 876–78, 883–85, 889, cattle drives in, 487 woman suffrage and, 586–87 890, 898 economic development of, 647 World War I and, 581–82, 584 War Powers Act (1973), 814 fundamentalists in, 623 Wilson administration, 585, 587, 590, 591, War Production Board, 682 government contracts and, 738 596, 600 Warren, Earl (1891–1974), 756, 757–58, immigrants and, 484, 485 Wilsonism, 606 799–801, 809 libertarianism in, 745 Winnipeg, 599 Warren Court, 757, 799–801, 804 Native Americans in, 488 Wirz, Henry (1823–1865), 456 Warsaw Pact, 713 New Deal and, 647, 662–63 Wisconsin, 561, 618, 728, 730 washing machines, 611 People’s Party in, 511 Wisconsin, University of, 561 Washington, 640 political corruption in, 494–95 Wisconsin Idea, 561 Washington, Booker T. (1856?–1915), 526–27, slavery in, 484 Wolfowitz, Paul D. (1943–), 879 527, 529, 594, 595 transformation of, 494–95 Woman Rebel, 559 Washington, D.C., 664, 785, 802–3, 828, 834, war production in, 683 women, 544, 866 863, 878, 900 woman suffrage in, 586 advertising and, 616, 687 march on, 772–73, 772 West Germany, 747 African-American, 518, 520, 549, 594, segregation in, 757 creation of, 713 696, 786 September 11 attacks on, 875 West Indies, 627 changing role of, 549–50, 549, 615–16, Vietnam protests in, 792, 793 West Memphis, Ark., 756 686–87, 687 Washington, entrance into union of, 489 West Virginia, 660 and Civil War, 586 Washington, George (1732–1799), 588, Wharton, Edith (1862–1937), 558 in Clinton administration, 846 677, 765 “What Every Girl Should Know,” 558 education and, 562–63, 565, 587, 866 Washington Naval Arms Conference, 619 “What Freedom Means to Us” (Nixon), 737 freedom and, 549–50, 554, 615–16, 616, 686 Washington Post, 815 What the Negro Wants, 699 in Great Plains, 485 Wassaja newspaper, 559 wheat, 485 Great Society and, 665 Watch and Ward Committee, 620 Wheeling, W.Va., McCarthy speech at, 730 as immigrants, 859, 859 water-boarding, 884 Whig Party, 469 in kitchen debate, 738 Watergate scandal, 815, 819 Whiskey Ring, 467 Knights of Labor and, 502 Saturday Night Massacre and, 815 White, John (1585–1593), 590 labor and, 502, 528, 565 Waters, Ethel (1896–1977), 630 White, Theodore (1915–1986), 807 maternalist reform and, 564–65, 654 Watson, Tom (1854–1934), 513 white-collar jobs: minimum wage and, 617 Watterson, Henry, 529 corporations and, 739 politics and, 562–63 Watts, Calif., riot in, 783, 783 minorities and, 743 in Progressive era, 586–87 Wayne State University, 743 “white man’s burden,” 538, 539, 539 right to vote for Japanese, 712 WCTU, see Women’s Christian Temperance Whitewater, 868 rise of feminism and, 528 Union Whitman, Walt (1819–1892), 483 Supreme Court and, 866 I n d e x A - 125 women ( continued ) World War I, 580–91, 580, 602, 619, 620, Pearl Harbor and, 677–78 and traditional homemaker role, 738, 627, 643, 676 and post-war freedom, 687–89 741–42, 743, 766, 827, 865 African-Americans and, 596, 596 propaganda in, 692 and wages, 528, 686, 795, 866 agriculture in, 612 Rosenbergs and, 729 in the work force, 502, 549–50, 549, 550, casualties in, 581, 584 unions in, 684 554, 561, 563, 673, 686–87, 686, causes of, 580 U.S. entry into, 670, 678 741–42, 811, 834, 866, 866, 893 divisiveness of, 684 women and, 674, 686–87 working hours and, 565 effects of, 605–6, 619, 688 see also Four Freedoms and World War II, 673, 674, 686–87 freedom and, 585, 587–90, 591 Wounded Knee Creek, Indian massacre see also gender relations; women’s rights Hoover’s relief program in, 631 at, 490 Women and Economics (Perkins), 554 immigration and, 596, 673–74, 690 Wright, Jonathan (1840–1887), 464 Women’s Christian Temperance Union Jeanette Rankin and, 586, 678 Wright, Richard (1908–1960), 762 (WCTU), 504, 528, 587 Meuse-Argonne campaign in, 584 WTO, see World Trade Organization Home Protection movement of, 528 mobilization in, 673 Wyoming: Women’s Party, 827 patriotism in, 590–91 entrance into union of, 489 women’s rights, 520, 528–29, 561, 615, 624, 712, Progressives and, 583, 584 woman suffrage in, 564 770, 795–97, 796, 797, 824, 870, 900 propaganda in, 585–86, 585 Yellowstone in, 567 and education, 562–63, 565, 587 revolutions and, 599 marriage and, 558 technology in, 580 YAF, see Young Americans for Freedom in Middle East, 899 U.S. view of, 581 Yalta, conference at, 703–4 post-World War II, 742 western front, 583 Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, 777 in Progressive era, 558–59, 563–65 woman suffrage and, 586–87 yellow press, 531, 533 Prohibition and, 587, 587 World War II, 641, 672–706, 745, 853, 878, 882 Yellowstone National Park, 567, 567 Reconstruction and, 460, 461–62 African-Americans and, 674, 689, yippies, 793 sex and, 558, 615 694–700, 697 yoga, counterculture and, 794, 794 and suffrage, 460, 461–62, 462, 513, British welfare state and, 654 Yoga Journal, 794 528–29, 545, 561, 563–64, 563, 564, casualties in, 678, 679, 682, 700, 701, Yosemite National Park, 568, 644 570, 582, 586–87, 586, 615, 617 702, 709 Young, Andrew (1932–), 820 see also abortion; gender relations; women causes of, 675 Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), 778, Woodstock, 793, 793 civil rights and, 674, 758 779, 779, 788 Woolworth’s, sit-in at, 769 economic inequality in, 856 Youth International Party, 793 Workingman’s Conception of Industrial Liberty, effects of, 704–5, 709 Yugoslavia, 601, 605, 851, 852 The ( J.P. Mitchell), 555 end of, 700–705 breakup of, 844 workmen’s compensation, 565 European theater of, 679–82, 681 yuppies, 833 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 639, freedom and, 672, 674, 684–86, 687, 653–54, 653, 659 690, 705 Zangwill, Israel, 592 World Bank, 704, 842 as Good War, 684 Zimmermann, Arthur (1864–1940), 582 World’s Constable, The, 578 Great Depression and, 670, 673 Zimmermann Telegram, 582 World’s Fair, 480 home front during, 682–87 “zoot suit” riots, 691 World Trade Center, 818, 819, 875, 876, 901 industry and, 682–84, 683, 686–87 Zuccotti Park, Occupy Movement World Trade Organization (WTO), 841, 841, Japanese-Americans and, 674, 692–93, in, 905 842, 849 693, 694, 756, 884 Zulu, 484 A - 126 I n d e x Document Outline Give Me Liberty: An American History, Brief Fourth Edition, Volume Two About the Author Contents List of Maps, Tables, and Figures Preface Chapter 15: "What is Freedom?": Reconstruction, 1865-1877 The Meaning of Freedom The Making of Radical Reconstruction Radical Reconstruction in the South The Overthrow of Reconstruction Review Chapter 16: America's Gilded Age The Second Industrial Revolution The Transformation of the West Politics in a Gilded Age Freedom in the GIlded Age Labor and the Republic Review Chapter 17: Freedom's Boundaries, at Home and Abroad, 1890-1900 The Populist Challenge The Segregated South Redrawing the Boundaries Becoming a World Power Review Chapter 18: The Progressive Era, 1900-1916 An Urban Age and a Consumer Society Varieties of Progessivism The Politics of Progressivism The Progressive Presidents Review Chapter 19: Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I, 1916-1920 An Era of Intervention America and the Great War The War at Home Who is an American? 1919 Review Chapter 20: From Business Culture to Great Depression: The Twenties, 1920-1932 The Business of America Business and Government The Birth of Civil Liberties The Culture Wars The Great Depression Review Chapter 21: The New Deal, 1932-1940 The First New Deal The Grassroots Revolt The Second New Deal A Reckoning with Liberty The Limits of Change A New Conception of America Review Chapter 22: Fighting for the Four Freedoms World War II, 1941-1945 Fighting World War II The Home Front Visions of Postwar Freedom The American Dilemma The End of the War Review Chapter 23: The United States and the Cold War, 1945-1953 Origins of the Cold War The Cold War and the Idea of Freedom The Truman Presidency The Anitcommunist Crusade Review Chapter 24: An Affluent Society, 1953-1960 The Golden Age The Eisenhower Era The Freedom Movement The Election of 1960 Review Chapter 25: The Sixties, 1960-1968 The Civil Rights Revolution The Kennedy Years Lyndon Johnson's Presidency Untitled Vietman and the New Left The New Movement and the Rights Revolution 1968 Review Chapter 26: The Triumph of Conservatism President Nixon Vietnam and Watergate The End of the Golden Age The Rising Tide of Conservatism The Reagan Revolution Review Chapter 27: Globalization and Its Discontents, 1989-2000 The Post-Cold War World A New Economy Culture Wars Impeachment and the Election of 2000 Freedom and the New Century Review Chapter 28: A New Century and New Crises The War on Terrorism An American Empire? The Aftermath of September 11 at Home The Winds of Change The Rise of Obama Obama's First Term Learning from History Review Appendix Suggested Readings Glossary Credits Index