UNITED STATES HISTORY:
From 1775 to 2000
A Manual for Students in HSTAA 101
Professor Quintard Taylor
Department of History
University of Washington
Fall 2004
Not to know what happened before one was born is to always remain a child.
--Cicero
We are raising a generation of young people who are historically illiterate to a
large degree. Everything we have--our institutions, our material
advantages, our laws, our freedom, not to say our poetry...music
and...architecture--all comes to us from people who went before us. And
to not know anything about them, to be indifferent to them, which is even
worse than being ignorant...is...really...mass ingratitude.
--David McCullough
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 8
COURSE SYLLABUS .................................................................................................... 9
Reading Assignments ....................................................................................................... 10
Required Short Papers ...................................................................................................... 11
Optional Research Paper ................................................................................................... 12
Optional Book Review Assignment ................................................................................... 13
CHAPTER ONE: ESTABLISHING THESE UNITED STATES ............................. 14
Terms for Week 1 ............................................................................................................... 14
THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT, 1620 .............................................................................. 15
GROWTH OF A COLONY: MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY ....................................... 15
GOVERNMENT: THE PRIVILEGES OF KINGS ............................................................. 16
JOHN LOCKE: "CIVIL SOCIETY" CHALLENGES MONARCHY .................................... 17
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT: TWO VIEWS ....................................................... 17
VOTING REGULATIONS IN COLONIAL AMERICA ..................................................... 18
RUM AND DEMOCRACY ................................................................................................. 19
CONNECTICUT'S "BLUE LAWS".................................................................................... 20
DINNER IN COLONIAL AMERICA ................................................................................. 21
PATRICK HENRY: "GIVE ME LIBERTY" ....................................................................... 22
BOSTONIANS CALL FOR INDEPENDENCE ................................................................. 23
THE "BATTLE" OF CONCORD ....................................................................................... 23
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: A LOYALIST VIEW .................................................. 25
ABIGAIL TO JOHN ADAMS: REMEMBER THE LADIES ............................................. 26
CAPTAIN PIPE ADDRESSES THE BRITISH.................................................................. 27
LORD DUNMORE'S PROCLAMATION .......................................................................... 28
COLONEL TYE: BLACK LOYALIST LEADER ................................................................ 29
JAMES OTIS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON ON SLAVERY ............................................. 31
YELLOW FEVER IN PHILADELPHIA ............................................................................. 31
DEATH OF A FOUNDING FATHER ............................................................................... 32
CHAPTER TWO: DEMOCRACY EXPANDED, DEMOCRACY TESTED ..........
Terms for Week 2 .............................................................................................................
THE MONROE DOCTRINE.............................................................................................
THE EXTENSION OF VOTING RIGHTS ........................................................................
PRESIDENTIAL VOTING, 1824-1844 ............................................................................
THE LOG CABIN CANDIDATE .......................................................................................
MANIFEST DESTINY: TWO VIEWS ..............................................................................
THE INDIAN REMOVAL ACT.........................................................................................
INDIAN REMOVAL: AN INDIAN VIEW ........................................................................
THE TRAIL OF TEARS: ONE STATE'S APOLOGY ........................................................
WESTWARD MIGRATION: SETTLEMENT ON THE FRONTIER ................................
THE ATTRACTIONS OF FRONTIER ILLINOIS.............................................................
PUBLIC LANDS: TERMS OF SALE, 1785-1820 ..............................................................
WESTERN MIGRATION TO 1840 ..................................................................................
33
33
34
35
35
36
37
38
38
39
40
40
42
42
A FRONTIER FARM ........................................................................................................ 43
THE FOURTH OF JULY ON THE OVERLAND TRAIL.................................................. 44
IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1820-1860 ............................................... 44
EAST FROM CHINA: THE ORIGINS OF CHINESE AMERICA .................................... 45
PORTLAND'S CHINATOWN ........................................................................................... 46
REV. CHARLES FINNEY ON THE OBLIGATION OF THE CHURCH .......................... 47
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, "CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE" ................................................. 48
HORACE MANN ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS ....................................................................... 49
ANTI-CATHOLICISM IN AMERICA ............................................................................... 49
THE LOWELL GIRLS ...................................................................................................... 50
FACTORY REGULATIONS IN LOWELL ......................................................................... 51
AMERICAN URBANIZATION TO 1860 .......................................................................... 52
THE GRIMKE SISTERS ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN ............................................... 53
THE SENECA FALLS CONVENTION ............................................................................. 53
CHAPTER THREE: AMERICAN SLAVERY ........................................................... 54
Terms for Week 3 ............................................................................................................. 54
SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH, 1860 .................................................................................... 55
TWO VIEWS OF SLAVERY ............................................................................................. 56
A NORTHERNER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SLAVERY ................................................... 57
SLAVERY AND SOCIAL CONTROL ................................................................................ 58
SLAVERY'S IMPACT ON RACE AND GENDER ROLES ................................................ 59
A TEXAS SLAVE'S LETTER TO HER HUSBAND, 1862 ................................................ 60
SLAVE AND FREE BLACKS IN INDIAN TERRITORY .................................................. 60
RUNAWAY SLAVES IN MEXICO .................................................................................... 61
THE MORMONS AND BLACK SLAVERY ...................................................................... 64
THE DEBATE OVER CALIFORNIA ................................................................................ 65
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850: TWO VIEWS .................................................................. 65
ABOLITIONISTS-GARRISON AND DOUGLASS ........................................................... 66
A FUGITIVE SLAVE RESPONDS TO HIS OWNER ....................................................... 67
OREGON TERRITORY BANS AFRICAN AMERICANS ................................................. 68
BRIDGET "BIDDY" MASON IN SLAVERY AND FREEDOM ........................................ 69
BLEEDING KANSAS--ONE SOUTHERNER'S VIEW...................................................... 71
THE DRED SCOTT DECISION ....................................................................................... 72
JOHN BROWN'S LAST SPEECH, November 2, 1859 ..................................................... 73
LINCOLN'S POLITICS ..................................................................................................... 74
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM, 1860 .............................................................. 74
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 .................................................................... 76
CHAPTER FOUR: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION .......................
Terms for Week 4 .............................................................................................................
AMERICA'S BLOODIEST WAR.......................................................................................
SECESSION--ONE PLANTER'S VIEW ...........................................................................
THE SECESSION CRISIS, 1860-1861 .............................................................................
A SOUTHERN WOMAN DEFENDS SECESSION ..........................................................
RESOURCES OF THE UNION AND THE CONFEDERACY, 1861 .................................
76
76
78
78
79
80
81
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION ...................................................................... 81
THE NEW YORK DRAFT RIOT, AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT .................................... 82
RELUCTANT LIBERATORS: NORTHERN TROOPS IN THE SOUTH ......................... 83
HARD TIMES IN THE CONFEDERACY ......................................................................... 85
A SOLDIER WITH SHERMAN'S ARMY ......................................................................... 86
A CONFEDERATE SUPPORTER DESCRIBES THE FALL OF RICHMOND ................ 87
THE FALL OF RICHMOND: A BLACK SOLDIER'S PERSPECTIVE ............................. 88
FELIX HAYWOOD REMEMBERS THE DAY OF JUBLIO ............................................. 89
JUNETEENTH: BIRTH OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN HOLIDAY ............................... 90
THE POST WAR SOUTH-A DEFEATED PLANTER LOOKS BACK ............................... 91
"SEND ME SOME OF THE CHILDREN'S HAIR"........................................................... 92
"IMPUDENT" FREEDWOMEN....................................................................................... 93
PRESIDENT JOHNSON MEETS BLACK LEADERS ...................................................... 93
RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENTS, 1866-1870 ......................................................... 94
RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENTS: OREGON'S RESPONSE ................................... 95
BLACK VOTING RIGHTS: OTHER VIEWS FROM THE FAR WEST ............................ 97
HELENA CITIZENS CELEBRATE THEIR NEW RIGHTS ............................................. 98
THE BLACK CODES ........................................................................................................ 99
THADDEUS STEVENS DEMANDS BLACK SUFFRAGE .............................................. 100
READMISSION OF EX-CONFEDERATE STATES ......................................................... 101
SOUTH CAROLINA UNDER BLACK GOVERNMENT .................................................. 101
A DEBATE OVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS............................................................................ 102
BEN TILLMAN JUSTIFIES RECONSTRUCTION VIOLENCE ..................................... 105
CHAPTER FIVE: INDUSTRIALIZING AMERICA ............................................... 106
Terms for Week 5 ............................................................................................................ 106
RAILROADS AND WESTERN LANDS: San Luis Obispo .............................................. 107
ROCKEFELLER JUSTIFIES RAILROAD REBATES ..................................................... 108
ROCKEFELLER BREAKS A COMPETITOR .................................................................. 109
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER ON TRADE UNIONS .................................................. 109
THE ROAD TO BUSINESS SUCCESS ............................................................................. 110
CARNEGIE AND MORGAN: A CONVERSATION ABOUT STEEL ................................ 111
CHANGING WORLD INDUSTRIAL BALANCE, 1860-1980 ......................................... 112
THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT, 1890 ..................................................................... 113
NUMBER OF TRUSTS FORMED, 1891-1903 ................................................................. 114
MAJOR INDUSTRIAL TRUSTS, 1904 ............................................................................ 114
J. P. MORGAN DENIES A MONEY TRUST .................................................................... 114
THE TRUSTS: A CRITICAL VIEW .................................................................................. 115
WORK AND POVERTY .................................................................................................... 116
HENRY WARD BEECHER: THE WORKER'S STANDARD OF LIVING ....................... 117
DOMESTIC SERVICE--ONE WOMAN'S ACCOUNT...................................................... 118
WOMEN'S WORK AND WORKING WOMEN, 1900 ..................................................... 119
CHILD LABOR IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICA ............................................................ 120
AMERICAN URBANIZATION, 1860-1900 ..................................................................... 121
A LETTER FROM ELLIS ISLAND ................................................................................... 121
FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION OF THE U. S., 1870-1900 ......................................... 122
FOREIGN-BORN IN THE TWENTY LARGEST CITIES, 1900 ..................................... 123
TWO VIEWS OF URBAN AMERICA .............................................................................. 123
TENEMENT LIFE IN NEW YORK CITY, 1890 .............................................................. 124
FREDERICK DOUGLAS DESCRIBES THE "COMPOSITE NATION" ...........................125
OATH OF THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION ......................................... 126
A DISCONTENTED WIFE ............................................................................................... 127
CHAPTER SIX: INDUSTRIALIZATION'S CRITICS ........................................... 128
Terms for Week 6 ............................................................................................................ 128
A FARMER'S GRIEVANCE ............................................................................................. 129
THE POPULIST PARTY PLATFORM ............................................................................. 130
MARY ELLEN LEASE RALLIES KANSAS ...................................................................... 131
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN'S CROSS OF GOLD SPEECH ....................................... 132
WHAT FARM PROBLEM?...............................................................................................133
THOMAS WATSON AND BLACK VOTERS ....................................................................133
HENRY CLEWS OPPOSES THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR.................................... 134
TERENCE V. POWDERLY AND THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR ........................................135
SAMUEL GOMPERS DESCRIBES TRADE UNIONS .....................................................135
THE "REAL" JUNGLE .................................................................................................... 136
BOSSES AND POLITICAL MACHINES .......................................................................... 137
BOSS RULE IN PHILADELPHIA ................................................................................... 138
BOSS PLUNKITT DEFENDS HONEST GRAFT............................................................. 139
MAJOR PROGRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENTS, 1900-1920 ............................................... 140
LOUIS BRANDEIS INDICTS INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATES ................................ 141
MAJOR U.S. CORPORATIONS, 1917, 2002 .................................................................... 141
WARTIME HYSTERIA.................................................................................................... 142
THE FIRST RED SCARE................................................................................................. 143
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL ........ 144
Terms for Week 7 ............................................................................................................ 144
ADVERTISING AND CONSUMER SOCIETY .................................................................145
THE STOCK MARKET CRASH........................................................................................ 147
RUMBLES OF REVOLUTION ........................................................................................ 148
THE UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS .................................................................................... 149
COLLEGE STUDENTS AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION ............................................ 150
THE NEW DEAL: THE FIRST HUNDRED DAYS .......................................................... 151
MAJOR NEW DEAL AGENCIES .....................................................................................153
HUEY LONG: AMERICAN DICTATOR ..........................................................................154
CALIFORNIA DREAMING IN THE DEPRESSION........................................................ 157
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS ................................. 158
THE NEW DEAL: OPPOSING VIEWS ........................................................................... 158
EIGHT DEAD AT REPUBLIC STEEL ..............................................................................159
ORGANIZING A FILIPINO UNION ............................................................................... 160
HITLER'S VIEWS: TERROR, AND THE MASTER RACE ............................................ 162
HITLER AND THE JEWS ............................................................................................... 163
GERMANY UNDER THE NAZIS .................................................................................... 164
JAPANESE FASCISM: ONE INSIDER'S VIEW ..............................................................165
"THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE": AN AMERICAN SUPPORTS ISOLATION ............... 166
ROOSEVELT ON THE THREAT OF WAR ......................................................................167
MARTIAN INVASION, 1938........................................................................................... 168
CHAPTER EIGHT: WORLD WAR TWO AND THE COLD WAR ..................... 170
Terms for Week 8 ............................................................................................................ 170
THE INTERNMENT OF THE JAPANESE ...................................................................... 172
MONICA SONE DESCRIBES THE EVACUATION ......................................................... 173
CAMP HARMONY, WASHINGTON ............................................................................... 174
THE ZOOT SUIT RIOT .................................................................................................... 175
NISEI SOLDIERS IN EUROPE........................................................................................ 176
ONE SOLDIER'S STORY: WALTER HIGGANS IN EUROPE ........................................ 177
BLACKS, WHITES, ASIANS IN WORLD WAR II HAWAII ...........................................178
WORLD WAR II: SEATTLE'S ECONOMY TRANSFORMED ........................................ 180
BOEING AND THE LIBERATION OF INEZ SAUER ..................................................... 181
WEST COAST SHIPYARDS ............................................................................................ 183
LYN CHILDS CONFRONTS A RACIST ACT .................................................................. 183
STALIN CALLS FOR A SECOND FRONT ...................................................................... 184
SOVIET-AMERICAN TENSION IN WORLD WAR II ................................................... 185
THE WORLD THE SECOND WORLD WAR CREATED ............................................... 186
HIROSHIMA: DAY ONE OF THE NUCLEAR AGE ........................................................187
HANFORD AND THE BOMB ......................................................................................... 188
SOVIET-AMERICAN RELATIONS: A DISSENTING VIEW ......................................... 189
THE RED SCARE: THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION LOYALTY OATH .................. 189
McCARTHYISM .............................................................................................................. 190
A SENATOR SPEAKS UP (1950) ..................................................................................... 191
RED SCARE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON .............................................. 192
LEVITTOWN: UP FROM THE POTATO FIELDS.......................................................... 193
TEENAGE OPINIONS IN THE 1950s .............................................................................195
JOHN F. KENNEDY AND THE COLD WAR ..................................................................195
INCIDENT IN THE GULF OF TONKIN ......................................................................... 196
VIETNAM--A SOLDIER'S VIEW .................................................................................... 198
VIETNAM-A PROTESTER'S VIEW ................................................................................ 199
TOTALITARIANISM: IDEALISM, DISILLUSIONMENT, COMPROMISE .................. 199
LETTER FROM YUGOSLAVIA.......................................................................................200
BILLY JOEL'S "LENINGRAD" ....................................................................................... 202
TERROR AND THE COLD WAR .................................................................................... 203
CHINA, 1989: TIANANMEN SQUARE IN PERSPECTIVE ........................................... 205
THE END OF THE COLD WAR ...................................................................................... 206
CHAPTER NINE: THE RISE AND FALL OF LIBERALISM .............................. 207
Terms for Week 9 ............................................................................................................ 207
SEGREGATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 1950 ............................................................... 209
BROWN V. TOPEKA BOARD OF EDUCATION ............................................................ 210
PRESIDENT EISENHOWER SENDS TROOPS TO LITTLE ROCK, 1957 ..................... 210
LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL ......................................................................... 211
LETTERS FROM MISSISSIPPI ...................................................................................... 212
MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI............................................................................................. 214
BERKELEY: THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT ............................................................215
PRESIDENT JOHNSON PROPOSES THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT ............................... 217
MARTIN LUTHER KING AND THE FBI ....................................................................... 218
STOKLEY CARMICHAEL ON BLACK LIBERATION .................................................... 219
THE UW BLACK STUDENT UNION ............................................................................. 220
"TIO TACO IS DEAD" ..................................................................................................... 221
THE WHITE BACKLASH, 1967 ...................................................................................... 222
NOW'S CALL FOR ACTION ........................................................................................... 223
THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT AND ROE V. WADE ......................................... 224
THE IMMIGRATION ACT OF 1965 ............................................................................... 225
IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1940-1979 ............................................... 226
NATIONAL BACKGROUNDS OF IMMIGRANTS, 1820-1979 ...................................... 227
ASIAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ACTIVISM SINCE 1965 ............................................. 228
DREAMS OF PROSPERITY: NEWPORT AND LATINO IMMIGRATION ................... 229
CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD GOVERNMENT .................................................. 230
WATERGATE .................................................................................................................. 231
GAY RIGHTS: FROM STONEWALL TO SAN FRANCISCO .......................................... 234
OPEC, THE WEST, AND THE POLITICS OF OIL ......................................................... 235
HOSTAGE CRISIS IN IRAN ........................................................................................... 237
"GREED IS GOOD": THE 1980s ..................................................................................... 238
THE COMPUTER AGE ARRIVES .................................................................................. 238
THE INTERNET.............................................................................................................. 240
THE E-MAIL "REVOLUTION" BEGINS ........................................................................ 241
AMERICAN AND JAPANESE AUTOS IN THE 1990s ................................................... 242
TERRORISM IN THE 1990s ........................................................................................... 244
SEX, LIES, AND IMPEACHMENT ................................................................................. 245
AMERICAN URBANIZATION, 1980-2000 ................................................................... 246
9/11 .................................................................................................................................. 247
APPENDIX .................................................................................................................... 249
POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 1790-2000 ................................................. 249
GROWTH OF THE FEDERAL UNION, 1788-2000 ...................................................... 249
INTRODUCTION
I have assembled in this booklet instructional aids which will help enhance your
understanding of the lectures and readings for this course, United States History,
1775-2000, or which explain and clarify the organization and requirements of the
course. These aids include vignettes which are usually statements by important
historical figures or commentary by observers of critical events and episodes in the
history of African American people in the United States, statistical tables and information sheets.
Also included are lists of weekly terms introduced and emphasized during the
lectures or discussed in the assigned readings. These terms reflect some critical event or
development for a particular period of United States History or refer to a concept which
will help you better understand the historical process. Since I will randomly choose
some of the terms for your midterm and final exams you should learn the definition and
historical significance of each of them. Those terms not specifically discussed in class
will be explained in your textbooks or the manual so it is particularly important that you
do all of the assigned reading. All of the instructional materials are arranged in the
approximate order in which they will be discussed during the quarter.
One final note: you should view the materials in this manual not simply as
additional information you will have to learn for the exams but as data that will help you
better comprehend and assimilate the varied issues addressed in the lectures and
textbook reading assignments. If you have any questions about any of the information
presented in this manual please contact me during my office hours which are listed on
your course syllabus.
My office is Smith 316-A and my office phone number is (206) 543-5698. My
email address is qtaylor@u.washington.edu. My office hours for Winter 2003 are
10:30-11:30 MTuWTh.
The teaching assistants for this class are Mr. Brian Barnes
bribarne@u.washington.edu, Mr. Fred Brown fbrown@u.washington.edu, and Mr.
Joseph Wycoff jwycoff@u.washington.edu. They will provide you with their office hours
and office phone numbers.
COURSE SYLLABUS
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Department of History
Fall, 2004
Instructor: Prof. Quintard Taylor
Office: Smith 316-A
Phone: (206) 543-5698
Office Hours: MTuWTh, 10:30-11:30
Email: qtaylor@u.washington.edu
UNITED STATES HISTORY
HSTAA 101
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
The history of United States has been a paradox of triumph and tragedy as Americans
over three centuries have continuously confronted each other over the meaning of
democracy, opportunity, justice and equality. Due to its ten week duration, this course
cannot possibly present a detailed examination of the American historical experience.
It will, however, identify and examine critical periods such as the revolutionary era,
the 1830s, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the era of industrialization, World War II
and the 1960s, when those themes have been challenged and tested. The challenges
continue through this day. However we can take full advantage of our current
vantage point to examine how this nation's past has prepared all of us in varied ways
for our contemporary world. Is the battle for democracy, justice and equality over?
Using a variety of historians and history sources, we shall try to answer that question
during this quarter.
______________________________________________________
Required Textbook:
John M. Murrin, Paul E. Johnson, James M. McPherson, Gary Gerstle, Emily S.
Rosenberg and Norman Rosenberg, Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the
American People (Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2004)
Quintard Taylor, UNITED STATES HISTORY from 1775 to 2000: A Manual for
Students in HSTAA 101 This manual is online at
http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/
Teaching Assistants:
Brian Barnes
Fred Brown
Joseph Wycoff
bribarne@u.washington.edu
fbrown@u.washington.edu
jwycoff@u.washington.edu
Supplemental Readings:
I have placed on reserve in Odegaard Undergraduate Library additional readings
which will help explain the history of the United States. As the need arises I may add
other articles to the reserve room holdings. All readings other than those from
purchased texts are on reserve.
Examinations/Grading:
Your course grade is based on three exercises: a midterm exam (30%), a final
examination (40%) and three short papers of 4-5 pages (10% each) describing and
assessing a crucial period in United States history. These papers will be due by Friday at
noon of the 3rd, 6th, and 9th weeks of the term. You also have the option of writing a 10
page research paper in lieu of the three short papers. However you must notify your
Teaching Assistant of your intentions by the end of the second week of the term.
Research on Pacific Northwest history topics is especially encouraged. The optional
paper must be supported by research in primary sources. The completed research paper
should be handed in by Wednesday of final exam week. The schedule for the short
papers appears in the weekly assignment section below. The midterm is scheduled for
the end of the fifth week.
Some students will be unable to take the midterm exam with the rest of the class.
In that case I ask them to take a makeup exam scheduled for 5:00-6:00 p.m. on the last
Friday of instruction during the quarter. The room will be announced later. Since the
makeup exam will be penalized 10 points on a 100 point exercise, all students should
make every effort to take the exam at its scheduled time.
Those students who perform poorly on the midterm exam (69 or below) have the
option of writing a book review to offset that grade. Should you choose to write the
review, it can be handed in no later than the Friday of the eighth week of the term.
Please read the page titled Optional Book Review Assignment in the manual before
initiating your review.
My grading procedures are simple. Since each exam is worth up to 100 points I
will average your numerical score. I will also assign a numerical score for your research
paper, "C"=75, "C+"=78, etc. Your numerical scores will then be averaged to determine
your course grade. Thus if your overall average is 76 your course grade will be the
numerical equivalent of a "C" in the UW grading system.
I do not issue "incompletes" to students who by the end of the quarter have not
taken an exam, handed in an assigned paper or otherwise met the course requirements.
If you have not completed all of the course requirements by the end of exam week, and
you have not, by that point, explained why, your grade will be lowered accordingly.
Reading Assignments
Week 1: Establishing these United States
Murrin, Chapters 5-6
Taylor, Chapter 1
Week 2: Democracy Expanded, Democracy Tested
Murrin, Chapter 11
Taylor, Chapter 2
Week 3: American Slavery
Murrin, Chapters 13-14
Taylor, Chapter 3
First Short Paper Due
Week 4: The Civil War and Reconstruction
Murrin, Chapters 15-17
Taylor, Chapter 4
Week 5: Industrializing America
Murrin, 19-20
Taylor, Chapter 5
MIDTERM EXAM
Week 6: Industrialization's Critics
Murrin, Chapter 21
Taylor, Chapter 6
Second Short Paper Due
Week 7: The Great Depression and the New Deal
Murrin, Chapter 25
Taylor, Chapter 7
Week 8: World War II and the Cold War World
Murrin, Chapters 26-27
Taylor, Chapter 8
Week 9: The Rise and Fall of Liberalism, 1960-1990
Murrin, Chapters 28, 31
Taylor, Chapter 9
Third Short Paper Due
Week 10: The United States into the 21st Century
No reading assignment, prepare for the final exam.
Final Examination is scheduled for 8:30-10:20 a.m. Wednesday, December
15
Required Short Papers
United States History, 1775-2000
As indicated above each student in HISTAA 101 will write three short papers
describing and assessing episodes or events in United States history that reflected one of
the themes of the course, democracy, opportunity, justice and equality. For example a
brief paper on 19th Century Irish immigration or 20th Century Filipino immigration to
the United States could analyze the theme of opportunity. Here your paper should not
simply "celebrate" the concept but should critically analyze both its meaning for the
newcomers and whether the historical experiences of the immigrants in the U.S. actually
illustrated the opportunity sought. Similarly one could take the examples of the 19th
Century debates over women's suffrage or business monopoly or the 20th Century
conflict over affirmative action or federal subsidies to agriculture (or business) to
explore themes of justice or equality. A paper on Reconstruction or the New Deal could
explore the meaning of democracy in America.
The arguments you advance in your short papers must be supported by evidence
from the textbook, manual and other scholarly sources in United States history. When
you use this evidence be sure to cite it in footnotes or endnotes. Your papers will be due
by Friday at noon of the 3rd, 6th, and 9th weeks of the term.
Optional Research Paper
United States History, 1775-2000
Your research paper should explore in depth some important issue or topic in
American History between 1775 and 2000. Avoid describing some individual or episode.
Instead, pose a question and, given the resources at your disposal, answer that question.
Thus you should not simply write a paper on Abraham Lincoln's Presidency as much as
you should focus on a particular historical problem related to the individual and the era.
For example, could Lincoln have prevented Southern secession? How did Lincoln's
racial beliefs affect his emancipation policy?
Your paper should be no more than ten typewritten pages including bibliography
and it should conform to Turabian's, A Manual for Writers (latest edition). You should
include at least ten sources in your bibliography and each source should have a
corresponding footnote or endnote in the text.
Please give me a one page outline which includes your major research question
and a selected bibliography showing the books and articles you have already consulted
by the seventh Friday of the Quarter. The completed paper should be handed in by the
last regularly scheduled class meeting of the Quarter. I will not accept research papers
presented to me after that date.
Suggested Topic Areas
Loyalists and the American Revolution
Antebellum Industrialization: Pittsburgh and Lo
The Jeffersonian Ideal
Henry Grady and the New South
The Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965
Populism and Progressivism Compared
Women in the American Revolution
Andrew Carnegie and the Gospel of Wealth
The Abortion Debate
The Rise and Decline of Organized Labor in Ame
The Cuban Missile Crisis
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the 19th Century Fem
19th and 20th Century Immigration
Compared
The CIA and U.S. Foreign Policy since 1950
John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates
Compared
The Reagan Revolution and Modern Conservatis
The West and the Civil War
The End of the Cold War
Hollywood and History
in Washington
The Women’s Suffrage Campaign
Boeing Aircraft Company and the Cold War
Revolution
Women and the American
Optional Book Review Assignment
United States History, 1775-2000
As I indicated on the first day of class, you have the option of writing a book review to
offset a low midterm exam grade. As with most standard book "reviews," you will
describe the book's major thesis or argument. But I also request that you follow these
guidelines in your assignment. Remember, collectively they are as important to your
overall review grade as the report on the contents of the work.
1. Assess whether you were convinced by the author's argument.
2. Discuss the most important new information you learned about American history
from the book.
3. Describe how the book reinforced or challenged ideas about American history that
you have learned from the assigned readings, my lectures, and the discussions.
4. State whether you would recommend the book to others, and include specific
reasons for your decision.
Your review should be approximately five typewritten pages, 1,500 words for
those of you who use computers. I recommend that you devote the first three pages to a
review of the book itself and the remaining two pages to respond to the four guidelines.
Please number your pages. I will not accept untyped book reviews submitted as
an email attachment or faxed document.
The first page of each review should have information on the book which appears
as follows:
Quintard Taylor, The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle's Central
District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1994)
You may choose almost any book on United States history except the ones that
are primarily textbooks. Also not eligible are regularly assigned textbooks for any other
history courses you are currently taking.
You should present your choice either via email or on a sheet of paper to one of
the Teaching Assistants by the eighth Friday of the term: Friday, November 18. The
completed book review should be handed in by Friday, December 9. Unless prior
permission has been granted, no book review will be accepted after the due date.
CHAPTER ONE: ESTABLISHING THESE UNITED STATES
Terms for Week 1
creed of political equality
patriarchy
Bacon's Rebellion
deference
John Locke
"tyranny of the majority"
"blue laws"
Bill of Rights
Boston Massacre
Loyalists
Shay’s Rebellion
Colonel Tye
Abigail Adams
Captain Pipe
Stamp Act Crisis
The Philadelphia Convention
Common Sense
Lord Dunmore's Proclamation
THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT, 1620
The Mayflower Compact was the first instrument of government drawn up in the
English Colonies and as such reflected the tentative origins of the campaign for
self-government that culminated in the American Revolution 156 years later.
In the name of God, Amen.
We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign
Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King,
Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of
the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first
colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in
the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a
civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the
Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and
equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be
though most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we
promise all due Submission and Obedience."
Source: Richard Current, American History: A Survey, (New York: Knopf, 1961), p. 17.
GROWTH OF A COLONY: MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
The following account describes the rapid development of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony in the 17th Century.
Founded in 1630 by Puritans from England, Massachusetts Bay grew rapidly, aided
in its first decade by 15,000 to 20,000 immigrants from England, and after that by natural
increase. By 1700, Massachusetts Bay's population had risen to almost 56,000 and by
1750, to approximately 188,000, making it one of Great Britain's most populous North
American possessions.
This rapid population growth forced the government of Massachusetts Bay (called
the General Court, which included the governor, the deputy governor, the executive
council of assistants, and the representatives, all elected annually by the freemen to
organize new towns. Within the first year of settlement, the six original towns of
Massachusetts Bay were laid out-Dorchester, Roxbury, Watertown, Newtown (now
Cambridge), Charlestown, and Boston, all on the Charles River. By the time Middlesex
County (west of Boston) was organized in 1643, there were eight towns in that county
alone, and by 1700, there were twenty-two.
The organization of towns was an important way for Puritan leaders to keep control
of the rapidly growing population. Unlike settlers in the middle and southern colonies,
colonists in Massachusetts Bay could not simply travel to an uninhabited area, select a
parcel of land, and receive individual title to the land from the colonial governor. Instead,
a group of men who wanted to establish a town had to apply to the General Court for a
land grant for the entire town. Leaders of the prospective new town were then selected,
and the single church was organized. Having received the grant from the General Court,
the new town's leaders apportioned the available land among the male heads of
households who were church members, holding in common some land for grazing and
other uses (hence the "town common"). In this way, the Puritan leadership retained
control of the fast-growing population, ensured Puritan economic and religious domination, and guaranteed that large numbers of dissenters--men and women who might
divert the colony from its "holy mission" in the wilderness-would not be attracted to Massachusetts Bay.
Source: William Bruce Wheeler and Susan D. Becker, eds. Discovering the American
Past: A Look as the Evidence, vol. 1 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999),
p. 51-52.
GOVERNMENT: THE PRIVILEGES OF KINGS
In the following account originally published in 1616, King James I, of England describes
how royal power is divinely conveyed.
The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth: for kings are not only
God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are
called gods.
Kings are justly called gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of
Divine power upon earth: for if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how
they agree in the person of a king. God hath power to create, or destroy, make, or unmake
at His pleasure, to give life, or send death, to judge all, and to be judged nor accountable to
none: to raise low things, and to make high things low at His pleasure, and to God are both
soul and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects:
they have power of raising, and casting down: of life, and of death: judges over all their
subjects, and in all causes, and yet accountable to none but God only. They have power to
exalt low things, and abase high things, and make of their subjects like men at the chess; a
pawn to take a bishop or a knight, and to cry up, or down any of their subjects, as they do
their money. And to the king is due both the affection of the soul and the service of the
body of his subjects...
I conclude then this point touching the power of kings, with this axiom of divinity,
that as to dispute what God may do, is blasphemy...so is it sedition in subjects, to dispute
what a king may do in the height of his power; but just kings will ever be willing to declare
what they will do, if they will not incur the curse of God. I will not be content that my
power be disputed upon: but I shall ever be willing to make the reason appear of all my
doings, and rule my actions according to my laws.
Source: James I, Works (London, 1616), 529—531, reprinted in Richard W. Leopold,
Arthur S. Link and Stanley Corbin, eds., Problems in American History
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1966)
JOHN LOCKE: "CIVIL SOCIETY" CHALLENGES MONARCHY
Ironically most of the ideas which Americans eventually used to challenge the power of
the British King over them, derived from English political philosopher John Locke (16321704). In 1689 Locke wrote "The Second Treatise on Civil Government" which describes
the then radical concept of the right of individuals to govern themselves.
Man being born...with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of
all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man or number of
men in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property—that is, his
life, liberty, and estate—against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge and
punish the breaches of that law in others... Those who are united into one body, and have a
common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another...
Wherever, therefore, any number of men so unite into one society, as to quit every
one his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there, and there
only, is a political, or civil society. And this is done wherever any number of men, in the
state of nature, enter into society to make one people, one body politic under one supreme
government, or else when any one joins himself to, and incorporates with, any government
already made. For hereby he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative
thereof, to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require, to the
execution whereof his own assistance...is due.
Men being...by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this
estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent, which is
done by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community, for their
comfortable, safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of
their properties and a greater security against any that are not of it...
Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a community must be
understood to give up all the power necessary to the ends for which they unite into society,
to the majority of the community... And this is done by...agreeing to unite into one political society...between the individuals that enter into or make up a commonwealth. And
thus that which...actually constitutes any political society is nothing but the consent of any
number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And
this...[gives] beginning to any lawful government in the world.
Source: John Locke, The Second Treatise of Civil Government reprinted in David E Shi
and Holly A Mayer, eds., For the Record: A Documentary History of America
(Mew York, 1999), pp. 106-107.
ESTABLISHING FREEDOM OF RELIGION, 1649
The first act establishing freedom of religion was passed by the overwhelmingly Catholic
Maryland Colonial Legislature at the request of Lord Baltimore. By today’s standards
the measure was limited. It simply said that anyone believing in Christianity would not
be molested by the colonial government or individuals in the practice of his or her faith.
It did not extend that protection to non-Christians. However taken against the backdrop
of state sanctioned or favored religion in most nations and in the rest of the colonies, the
very declaration that anyone was free to worship in the Christian faith, regardless of
denomination, was considered a major statement of religious tolerance and the first step
toward the religious freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitituion. Part of the statute
appears below:
And whereas the inforceing of the conscience in matters of Religion hath frequently
fallen out to be of dangerous Consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been
practiced, And for the more quiet and peaceable government of this Province, and the
better to preserve mutuall Love and amity amongst the inhabitants thereof, Be it
Therefore…Ordeyned and enacted…that noe person or persons whatsoever in this
Province…professing to belieive in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth bee any waies
troubled in the free exercise thereof…or in any way compelled to the beliefe or exercise of
any other religion against his or her consent…
Source: Website, “From Revolution to Reconstruction, Documents: The Maryland
Toleration Act, 1649.”
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT: TWO VIEWS
British and American political thinkers harbored vastly differing views on
representative government. Those differences are outlined in the two passages below.
The first is from Thomas Whately, The Regulations Lately Made published in 1765 and
the second is from the Providence Gazette, May 11, 1765)
The British View: The Fact is, that the Inhabitants of the Colonies are represented
in Parliament: they do not indeed choose the Members of that Assembly; neither are Nine
Tenths of the People of Britain Electors; for the Right of Election is annexed to certain
Species of Property, to peculiar Franchises, and to Inhabitancy in some particular Places;
but these Descriptions comprehend only a very small Part of the Land, the Property, and
the People of this Island...
The Colonies are in exactly the same Situation: All British Subjects are really in the
same; none are actually, all are virtually represented in Parliament; for every Member of
Parliament sits in the House, not as Representative of his own Constituents, but as one of
that august Assembly by which all the Commons of Great Britain are represented. Their
Rights and their Interests, however his own Borough may be affected by general
Dispositions, ought to be the great Objects of his Attention, and the only Rules for his
Conduct; and to sacrifice these to a partial Advantage in favour of the Place where he was
chosen, would be a Departure from his Duty; if it were otherwise, Old Sarum would enjoy
Privileges essential to Liberty, which are denied to Birmingham and to Manchester; but as
it is, they and the Colonies and all British Subjects whatever, have an equal Share in the
general Representation of the Commons of Great Britain, and are bound by the Consent of
the Majority of that House, whether their own particular Representatives consented to or
opposed the Measures there taken, or whether they had or had not particular
Representatives there.
The American View: To infer, my lord, that the British members [of Parliament]
actually represent the colonies, who are not permitted to do the least act towards their
appointment, because Britain is unequally represented, although every man in the
kingdom, who hath certain legal qualifications can vote for some one to represent him, is
such a piece of sophistry that I had half a mind to pass by the cobweb without blowing it to
pieces. Is there no difference between a country's having a privilege to choose 558
members to represent them in parliament, though in unequal proportions to the several
districts, which cannot be avoided, and not having liberty to choose any? To turn the
tables,--if the Americans only had leave to send members to parliament, could such
sophistry ever persuade the people of Britain that they were represented and had a share
in the national councils?... Suppose none of the 558 members were chosen by the people,
but enjoyed the right of sitting in parliament by hereditary descent; could the common
people be said to share in the national councils? If we are not their constituents, they are
not our representatives... It is really a piece of mockery to tell us that a country, detached
from Britain, by an ocean of immense breadth, and which is so extensive and populous,
should be represented by the British members, or that we can have any interest in the
house of commons.
Source: John M. Blum, The National Experience: A History of the United States (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), pp. 90-91.
VOTING REGULATIONS IN COLONIAL AMERICA
The following vignettes describe the voting laws of Connecticut and South Carolina.
Connecticut: That all such inhabitants in this Colony as have accomplished the
age of twenty-one years, and have the possession of freehold estate to the value of forty
shillings per annum, or forty pounds personal estate in the general list of estates in that
year wherein they desire to be admitted freemen; and also are persons of a quiet and
peaceable behavior, and civil conversation, may if they desire it, on their procuring the
selectmen of the town wherein such persons inhabit, or the major part of them, to certify
that the said persons are qualified as above said, be admitted and made free of this
corporation, in case they take the oath provided by law for freemen: which oath any one
assistant or justice of the peace is hereby empowered to administer in said freemen’s
meeting.
And all such persons admitted and sworn, as aforesaid, shall be freemen of this
corporation; and their names shall be enrolled in the roll of freemen in the Town-Clerk’s
office of that town wherein they are admitted, as aforesaid...
And that if any freeman of this corporation shall walk scandalously, or commit any
scandalous offence, it shall be in the power of the Superior Court in this Colony, on
complaint thereof to them made, to disfranchise such freeman; who shall stand disfranchised till by his good behavior the said Superior Court shall see cause to restore him to his
franchisement or freedom again: which the said Court is empowered [sic] to do.
South Carolina: Be it enacted by his Excellency John Lord Carteret, Palatine, and
the rest of the true and absolute Lords and Proprietors of this Province, by and with the
advice and consent of the rest of the members of the General Assembly, now met at
Charlestown for the south and west part of this Province, and by the authority of the same,
that every white man (and no other) professing the Christian religion, who has attained to
the age of one and twenty years, and hath been a resident and an inhabitant of the parish
for which he votes for a representative for the space of six months before the date of the
writs for the election that he offers to give in his vote at, and hath a freehold of at least fifty
acres of land, or shall be Able to pay taxes to the support of this government, for the sum
of fifty pounds currant money, shall be deemed a person qualified to vote for, and may be
capable of electing a representative or representatives to serve as a member or members of
the Commons House of Assembly for the parish or precinct wherein he actually is a
resident.
Source: Acts and Laws of His Majesty's English Colony of Connecticut in New England
(New Haven, 1769), 80-81; Thomas Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South
Carolina. (Columbia, 1838), III, 2-3., reprinted in Richard W. Leopold, Arthur S.
Link, and Stanley Corbin, eds. Problems in American History (Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: 1966), p. 33-34.
RUM AND DEMOCRACY
Influencing voters through various "enticements" is a practice older than the nation as
we see in this vignette which describes George Washington's liberal distribution of rum
to influence the voters of Frederick County, Virginia Colony in 1758. Although in this
instance Washington encouraged the rum to be distributed to those inclined to vote
against him as well.
Candidates frequently arranged for treats to be given in their names by someone
else. Lieutenant Charles Smith managed this business for George Washington during a
campaign in Frederick County in 1758. Two days after the election, which Washington
had not been able to attend, Smith sent him receipts for itemized accounts that he had
paid to five persons who had supplied refreshments for the voters...
On election day the flow of liquor reached high tide. Douglas S. Freeman calculated
that during a July election day in Frederick County in the year 1758, George Washington’s
agent supplied 160 gallons to 391 voters and unnumbered hangers-on. This amounted to
more than a quart and a half a voter. An itemized list of the refreshments included 28
gallons of rum, gallons of rum punch, 34 gallons of wine, 46 gallons of beer, and 2 gallons
of cider royal...
To avoid the reality as well as the appearance of corruption, the candidates usually
made a point of having it understood that the refreshments were equally free to men of
every political opinion. If a candidate’s campaign was under investigation, it was much in
his favor if he could show that among his guests were some who had clearly said that they
did not intend to vote for him. Washington reflected an acceptable attitude when he wrote
while arranging for the payment of large bills for liquor consumed during a Frederick
County election: I hope no Exception were taken to any that voted against me but that all
were alike treated and all had enough; it is what I much desired.
Source: Richard W. Leopold, Arthur S. Link and Stanley Corbin, eds., Problems in
American History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1966), p. 48.
CONNECTICUT'S "BLUE LAWS"
By any 21st Century measure, colonial laws, enacted even in a limited democratic
setting, were strict and severe so as to prevent any resistance to authority. Here are
some laws from the Connecticut colony enacted in 1672 to insure proper respect for God,
family and the Christian commonwealth.
1. If any man or woman, after legal conviction, shall have or worship any other God but the
Lord God, he shall be put to death.
2. If any person within this colony shall blaspheme the name of God, the Father, Son, or
Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous, or highhanded blasphemy, or shall curse
in the like manner, he shall be put to death.
3. If any man or woman be a witch, that is, has or consults with a familiar spirit, they shall
be put to death.
4. If any person shall commit any willful murder, committed upon malice, hatred, or
cruelty, not in a man's just and necessary defense, nor by casualty [accident] against his
will, he shall be put to death.
10. If any man steals a man or mankind and sell him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall
be put to death.
11. If any person rise up by false witness wittingly and of purpose to take away any man's
life, he or she shall be put to death.
14. If any child or children above sixteen years old and of sufficient understanding, shall
curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or they shall be put to death, unless it can
be sufficiently testified that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent in the
education of such children, or so provoked them by extreme and cruel correction that they
have been forced thereunto to preserve themselves from death or maiming.
15. If any man have a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient understanding and years,
viz. sixteen years of age, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his
mother and that when they have chastened him, he will not harken unto them; then may
his father or mother, being his natural parents, lay hold on him and bring him to the
magistrates assembled in court, and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and
rebellious, and will not obey their voice and chastisement...such a son shall be put to
death.
Source: George Brinley, ed, The Laws of Connecticut (Hartford, 1865), pp. 9-10,
reprinted in David E. Shi and Holly A Mayer, eds., For the Record: A
Documentary History of America (New York, 1999), pp. 106-107.
DINNER IN COLONIAL AMERICA
Alexander Hamilton, an Annapolis physician, described two meals he had on a 1744
journey from Maryland to New York. The first is a dinner with a ferryboat and his
family on the Susquehanna River. The second is of a "Dutch" family in New York. The
descriptions provide a glimpse into the home life of many colonial families.
They ate a homely dish of fish without any kind of sauce. They desired me to eat,
but I told them I had no stomach. They had no cloth upon the table, and their mess was in
a dirty, deep, wooden dish which they evacuated with their hands, cramming down skins,
scales, land all. They used neither knife, fork, spoon, plate, or napkin because, I suppose,
they had none to use. I looked upon this as a picture of that primitive simplicity practiced
by our forefathers...before the mechanic arts had supplied them with instruments for the
luxury and elegance of life, I drank some of their cider, which was very good.
One day att two o'clock, [I] dined att one Corson's, an inn across the Narrows from
New York's Long Island. The landlady spoke both Dutch and English. I dined upon what
I never had eat in my life before-a dish of fryed clams, of which shell fish there is
abundance in these parts. The family said grace; then we began to...stuff down the fryed
clams with rye-bread and butter. They took such a deal of chawing that we were long at
dinner, and the dish began to cool before we had eat enough. The landlady called for the
bed pan. I could not guess what she intended to do with it unless it was to warm her bed
to go to sleep after dinner, but I found that it was used by way of a chaffing dish to warm
our dish of clams. I stared att the novelty for some time, and reaching over for a mug of
beer that stood on the opposite side of the table, my bag sleeve catched hold of the handle
of the bed pan and unfortunately overset the clams, at which the landlady...muttered a
scrape of Dutch of which I understood not a word except "mynheer," but I suppose she
swore, for she uttered her speech with an emphasis.
Source Gentleman's Progress: The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton, 1744
reprinted in Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States,
vol. 1 (New York, 2003), p. 136.
PATRICK HENRY: "GIVE ME LIBERTY"
Perhaps the most famous speech to emerge from the Revolutionary War Era is Patrick
Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" oration before 122 delegates of the
Virginia House of Burgesses who met illegally in St. John's Church in Richmond [The
House of Burgesses had earlier been Virginia's Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore] on
March 23, 1775. Henry called for armed resistance to the British. Note the numerous
references to the potential political enslavement of the colonists by the British Empire.
Mr. President:
No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the
very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see
the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought
disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very
opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is
no time for ceremony. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this
country. For my own part I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or
slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the
debate...
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by
the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for
the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to
solace themselves and the House?
Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now
coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have
prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the
tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our
remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have
been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the
throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.
If we wish to be free...we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to
arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak—unable to cope with so formidable an
adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year?
Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in
every house...?
Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of
nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of
liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which
our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There
is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up to fight
our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the
active, the brave... There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are
forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—
and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!
Gentlemen may cry, ‘Peace! Peace!”—but there is no peace. The war is actually
begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle...? Is
life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me
liberty, or give me death!
Source: William Safire, Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (New York,
1997), p. 89-91.
BOSTONIANS CALL FOR INDEPENDENCE
On May 23, 1776, the people of Boston called on their representatives to make
preparations for independence. In this statement they describe why a political
reconciliation with Great Britain was now impossible. Such statements at the local
level paved the way for the Declaration of Independence.
...We have seen the humble petitions of these Colonies to the King of Great
Britain repeatedly rejected with disdain. For the prayer of peace, he has tendered the
sword; for liberty, chains; and for safety, death. He has licensed the instruments of his
hostile oppressions to rob us of our property, to burn our houses, and to spill our blood.
He has invited every barbarous nation whom he could hope to influence, to assist him
in prosecuting these inhuman purposes. The Prince, therefore, in support of whose
Crown and dignity, not many years since, we would most cheerfully have extended life
and fortune, we are now constrained to consider as the worst of tyrants. Loyalty to him
is now treason to our country. We have seen his venal Parliament so basely prostituted
to his designs, that they have never hesitated to enforce his arbitrary requisitions with
the most sanguinary laws.
We have seen the people of Great Britain so lost to every sense of virtue and
honour, as to pass over the most pathetic and earnest appeals to their justice with an
unfeeling indifference. The hopes we placed on their exertions have long since failed. In
short, we are convinced that it is the fixed and settled determination of the King,
Ministry, and Parliament of that Island, to conquer and subjugate the Colonies, and that
the people there have no disposition to oppose them.
A reconciliation with them appears to us to be as dangerous as it is absurd. A
spirit of resentment once raised, it is not easy to appease. The recollection of past
injuries will perpetually keep alive the flame of jealousy, which will stimulate to new
impositions on the one side, and consequent resistance on the other; and the whole
body-politick will be constantly subject to civil commotions. We therefore think it
absolutely impracticable for these Colonies to be ever again subject to or dependant
upon Great Britain, without endangering the very existence of the state. ...
Source: Stanley I. Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History Vol.I, (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 1979), p. 110.
THE "BATTLE" OF CONCORD
The account below describes the first confrontation of American militia and British
soldiers at Concord, Massachusetts Colony from the perspective of Charles Hudson, a
patriot supporter.
April 19, 1776
Between the hours of twelve and one, on the morning of the nineteenth of April,
we received intelligence by express, from the Honorable Joseph Warren, Esq., at Boston,
"that a large body of the king's troops (supposed to be a brigade of about 12 or 1500)
were embarked in boats from Boston, and gone over to ]and on Lechmere's Point (so
called) in Cambridge; and that it was shrewdly suspected that they were ordered to seize
and destroy the stores belonging to the colony, then deposited at Concord..."
Upon this intelligence, as also upon information of the conduct of the officers as
above-mentioned, the militia of this town were alarmed and ordered to meet on the
usual place of parade; not with any design of commencing hostilities upon the king's
troops, but to consult what might be done for our own and the people's safety; and also
to be ready for whatever service providence might call us out to, upon this alarming
occasion, in case overt acts of violence or open hostilities should be committed by this
mercenary band of armed and blood-thirsty oppressors...
Accordingly, about half an hour after four o'clock, alarm guns were fired, and the
drums beat to arms, and the militia were collecting together. Some, to the number of
about 50 or 60, or possibly more, were on the parade, others were coming towards it. In
the mean time, the troops having thus stolen a march upon us and, to prevent any
intelligence of their approach, having seized and held prisoners several persons whom
they met unarmed upon die road, seemed to come determined for murder and
bloodshed-and that whether provoked to it or not! When within about half a quarter of a
mile of the meetinghouse, they halted, and the command was given to prime and load,
which being done, they marched on till they came up to the east end of said
meeting-house, in sight of our militia (collecting as aforesaid) who were about 12 or 13
rods distant.
Immediately upon their appearing so suddenly and so nigh, Capt. Parker, who
commanded the militia company, ordered the men to disperse and take care of
themselves, and not to fire, Upon this, our men dispersed-but many of them not so
speedily as they might have done, not having the most distant idea of such brutal
barbarity and more than savage cruelty from the troops of a British king, as they
immediately experienced! For, no sooner did they come in sight of our company, but one
of them, supposed to be an officer of rank, was heard to say to the troops, "Damn them!
We will have them!" Upon which the troops shouted aloud, huzza'd, and rushed
furiously towards our men.
About the same time, three officers (supposed to be Col. Smith, Major Pitcairn
and another officer) advanced on horse back to the front of the body, and coming within
5 or 6 rods of the militia, one of them cried out, "Ye villains, ye Rebels, disperse! Damn
you, disperse!"--or words to this effect. One of them (whether the same or not is not
easily determined) said, "Lay down your arms! Damn you, why don't you lay down your
arms?" The second of these officers, about this time, fired a pistol towards the militia as
they were dispersing. The foremost, who was within a few yards of our men, brandishing
his sword and then pointing towards them, with a loud voice said to the troops, "Fire! By
God, fire!"--which was instantly followed by a discharge of arms from the said troops,
succeeded by a very heavy and close fire upon our party, dispersing, so long as any of
them were within reach. Eight were left dead upon the ground! Ten were wounded. The
rest of the company, through divine goodness, were (to a miracle) preserved unhurt in
this murderous action!
Source: Charles Hudson, History of The Town of Lexington.... (Boston, 1913), 1:
526-530, reprinted Stanley I. Kutler, ed. Looking for America: The People’s
History, vol. 1 (New York, 1979), p. 97-99.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: A LOYALIST VIEW
Loyalists deplored the American Revolution partly because they believed the political
differences with Britain, though significant, did not warrant an independence
movement, and partly because they feared the American political Revolution might
evolve into a social revolution. In the following letter, Samuel Curwen, a New York
loyalist describes his bitterness at being forced to leave North America and take refuge
in England.
To Dr. Charles Russell, Antigua
London, June 10, 1776
Dear Sir:
I congratulate you on your retreat from the land of oppression and tyranny... I
sincerely wish well to my native country, and am of opinion that the happiness of it
depends on restraining the violences and outrages of profligate and unprincipled men,
who run riot against all the laws of justice, truth and religion...
It is surprising what little seeming effect the loss of American orders has on the
manufactories; they have been in full employ ever since the dispute arose; stocks are not
one jot lessened, the people in general little moved by it; business and amusements so
totally engross all ranks and orders here that Administration finds no difficulty on the
score to pursue their plans. The general disapprobation of that folly of independence
which America now evidently aims at makes it a difficult part for her friends to act.
Six vessels laden with refugees are arrived from Halifax, amongst whom are R.
Lechmere, I. Vassal, Col. Oliver, Treasurer Gray, etc. Those who bring property here
may do well enough, but for those who expect reimbursement for losses, or supply for
present support, will find to their cost the hand of charity very cold; the latter may be
kept from starving, and beyond that their hopes are vain. "Blessed is he (saith Pope)
that expecteth nothing, for he shall never be disappointed"; nor a more interesting truth
was ever uttered.
I find my finances so visibly lessening that I wish I could remove from this
expensive country (being heartily tired of it) and, old as I am, would gladly enter into a
business connection anywhere consistently with decency and integrity, which I would
fain preserve. The use of the property I left behind me I fear I shall never be the better
for; little did I expect from affluence to be reduced to such rigid economy as prudence
now exacts. To beg is a meanness I wish never to be reduced to, and to starve is stupid;
one comfort, as I am fast declining into the vale of life: my miseries cannot probably be
of long continuance.
With great esteem; etc.
S. Curwen
Source: Stanley I. Kutler, Looking For America: The People's History Vol.I, (New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1979), pp. 115-116.
ABIGAIL TO JOHN ADAMS: REMEMBER THE LADIES
This remarkable exchange of letters between one of the most famous Revolutionary
Era couples, Abigail and to John Adams, illustrates that the calls for political freedom
from Great Britain prompted some women to consider the constraints on their
freedom imposed by their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons.
Abigail to John Adams
Braintree, March 31 1776
I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new
Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would
Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.
Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men
would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we
are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in
which we have no voice, or Representation.
That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to
admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of
Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the
power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity.
Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your
Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in
imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
John to Abigail Adams:
Ap. 14. 1776
As to Declarations of Independency, be patient. Read our Privateering Laws, and our
Commercial Laws. What signifies a Word.
As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that
our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and
Apprentices were disobedient—that schools and Colleges were grown turbulent—that
Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But your
Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerful than all
the rest were grown discontented. —This is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so
saucy, I wont blot it out.
Depend upon it, We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems. Altho they
are in full Force, you know they are little more than Theory. We dare not exert our Power
in its full Latitude. We are obliged to go fair, and softly, and in Practice you know We are
the subjects. We have only the Name of Masters, and rather than give up this, which
would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat, I hope General Washington,
and all our brave Heroes would fight. I am sure every good Politician would plot, as long
as he would against Despotism, Empire, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, or
Ochlocracy,—A fine Story indeed. I begin to think the Ministry as deep as they are wicked.
After stirring up Tories, Landjobbers, Trimmers, Bigots, Canadians, Indians, Negroes,
Hanoverians, Hessians, Russians, Irish Roman Catholicks, Scotch Renegades, at last they
have stimulated the to demand new Privileges and threaten to rebell.
Abigail to John:
Braintree, May 7 1776
I can not say that I think you very generous to the Ladies, for whilst you are
proclaiming peace and good will to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon
retaining an absolute power over Wives. But you must remember that Arbitrary power
is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken—and
notwithstanding all your wise Laws and Maxims we have it in our power not only to free
our selves but to subdue our Masters, and without violence throw both your natural and
legal authority at our feet— "Charm by accepting, by submitting sway Yet have our
Humour most when we obey."
Source: Abigail and John Adams, letters 1776, in L. H. Butterfield et al., eds., The Book
of Abigail and John (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 120-22,
127 reprinted in Mary Beth Norton, Major Problems in American Women’s
History (Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1989), p. 83-84.
CAPTAIN PIPE ADDRESSES THE BRITISH
This vignette includes part of a 1781 speech made by Captain Pipe, a leader of the
Delaware Indians, when he responded to British calls to attack frontier settlers who
supported the American Revolution. Although the Delaware refused to be brought into
the war, Revolutionary soldiers attacked and killed over 200 members of the tribe
during the infamous Harrisburg Massacre in 1782.
"Father!" he began; and he paused, turned round to the audience with a most
sarcastic look, and then proceeded in a lower tone, as addressing them,--"I have said
father, though indeed I do not know why I should call him so...I have considered the
English only as brothers. But as this name is imposed upon us, I shall make use of it and
say-"Father"--fixing his eyes again on the Commandant--"Some time ago you put a
war-hatchet into my hands, saying, 'take this weapon and try it on the heads of my
enemies, the Long-Knives [Revolutionaries], and let me know afterwards if it was sharp
and good.'
Father--At the time when you gave me this weapon, I had neither cause nor wish
to go to war against a foe who had done me no injury. But...in obedience to you I
received the hatchet. I knew that if I did not obey you, you would withhold from me the
necessaries of life, which I could procure nowhere but here.
Father--You may perhaps think me a fool, for risking my life at your bidding--and
that in a cause in which I have no prospect of gaining any thing. For it is your cause, and
not mine--you have raised a quarrel among yourselves--and you ought to fight it out--It
is your concern to fight the Long-Knives--You should not compel your children, the
Indians, to expose themselves to danger for your sake.
Father--Many lives have already been lost on your account--The tribes have
suffered, and been weakened--Children have lost parents and brothers--Wives have lost
husbands--It is not known how many more may perish before your war will be at an
end.
Father...although you now pretend to keep up a perpetual enmity to the LongKnives, you may, before long, conclude a peace with them.
Father--You say you love your children, the Indians--This you have often told
them; and indeed it is your interest to say so to them, that you may have them at your
service. But, Father. Who of us can believe that you can love a people of a different
colour from your own, better than those who have a white skin, like yourselves.
Father--Pay attention to what I am going to say. While you, Father, are setting
me on your enemy, much in the same manner as a hunter sets his dog on the game;
while I am in the act of rushing on that enemy of yours, with the bloody destructive
weapon you gave me, I may, perchance, happen to look back to the place from whence
you started me, and what shall I see? Perhaps I may see my father shaking hands with
the Long-Knives; yes with the very people he now calls his enemies. I may then see him
laugh at my folly for having obeyed his orders; and yet I am now risking my life at his
command! Father, keep what I have said in remembrance...
You, Father, have the means of preserving that which would perish with us from
want. The warrior is poor, and his cabin is always empty; but your house, Father, is
always full.
Source: Wayne Moquin, ed., Great Documents in American Indian History (New York,
1973) pp. 127-128.
LORD DUNMORE'S PROCLAMATION
In November, 1775, after it became apparent that a reconciliation between the British
and the rebellious colonists was impossible, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of
Virginia, issued the following proclamation promising freedom to all slaves and
servants who supported the Crown.
A PROCLAMATION
As I have ever entertained hopes that an accommodation might have taken place
between Great Britain and this Colony, without being compelled by my duty to this
most disagreeable, but now absolutely necessary step, rendered so by a body of armed
men, unlawfully assembled, firing on His Majesty's Tenders; and the formation of an
Army, and that Army now on the march to attack His Majesty's Troops, and destroy the
well-disposed subjects of this Colony: To defeat such treasonable purposes, and that all
such traitors and their abettors may be brought to justice, and that the peace and good
order of this Colony may be again restored, which the ordinary course of the civil law is
unable to effect, I have thought fit to issue this my Proclamation, hereby declaring, that
until the aforesaid good purposes can be obtained, I do, in virtue of the power and
authority to me given by His Majesty, determine to execute martial law, and clause the
same to be executed throughout this Colony. And to the end that peace and good order
may the sooner be restored, I do require every person capable of bearing arms to resort
to His Majesty's standard, or be looked upon as traitors to His Majesty's crown and
Government, and thereby become liable to the penalty the law inflicts upon such
offenses--such as forfeiture of life, confiscation of lands, &c., &c; and I do hereby further
declare all indented [sic] servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free,
that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty's Troops, as son as may
be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper sense of their duty to His
Majesty's crown and dignity. I do further order and require all His Majesty's liege
subjects to retain their quit-rents, or any other taxes due, or that may become due, in
their own custody, will such time as peace may be again restored to this, at present, most
unhappy Country, or demanded of them for their former salutary purposes, by officers
properly authorized to receive the same.
Given under my hand, on board the Ship William, off Norfolk, the 7th day of
November, in the sixteenth year of His Majesty's reign.
DUNMORE
GOD Save the King
Source: Peter Force, ed., American Archives, A Documentary History of the American
Colonies, 94th ser., 6 vols.; Washington, 1837-1853), ser. 4, III, p. 1385.
COLONEL TYE: BLACK LOYALIST LEADER
Both the Loyalists and Patriot forces in New Jersey created guerrilla bands which
included African Americans. The most famous of these bands was led by a Monmouth
County slave known as Titus but who became "Colonel Tye" during the revolutionary
struggle. The vignette below relates his activities.
The British concentrated their military efforts on small but effective raids into
New Jersey from Staten Island...at the beginning of 1778. British strongholds protected
raiders and offered safe refuse to escaping blacks... Fought near Freehold on June 28,
1778, the Battle of Monmouth proved indecisive militarily but pivotal for New Jersey's
black Loyalists in that it marked the first known appearance of an African American who
would become one of the war's most feared Loyalists, white or black--Colonel Tye,
formerly known in Monmouth County as John Corlies's slave Titus. Colonel Tye
comported himself gallantly in his first know military venture, capturing Elisha
Shepard, a captain in the Monmouth militia, and removing him to imprisonment at the
Sugar House in New York City. Tye's title is noteworthy. Although the British army did
not formally commission black officers, it often granted such titles out of respect,
particularly in Jamaica and other West Indian islands. The transformation of the
servant Titus into the warrior Tye was evidently overseen by soldiers who had served in
the Caribbean.
On July 15, 1779, accompanied by...Tory John Moody, Colonel Tye and "about
fifty negroes and refugees landed at Shrewsbury and plundered the inhabitants of nearly
80 heard of cattle, about 20 horses and a quantity of wearing apparel and household
furniture. They also took off William Brindley and Elisha Cook, two of the inhabitants.
This action established a pattern that was to be repeated over the next year.
Combining banditry, reprisal, and commissioned assistance to the British Army, these
raids served the aims of local black rebellion quite intentionally, often being aimed
directly at former masters and their friends. In Monmouth County, where slavery was a
family affair and owners were not distant patricians, enmities between slaves and
masters could understandably become prolonged and intense... The effects of Tye's
incursions upon the general population of Monmouth County were exacerbated by
reports...that black were planning massacres of whites in Elizabethtown and in Somerset
County.
In a typical raid Tye and his men, at times aided by white refugees known as
"cow-boys," would surprise Patriots in their homes, kidnap soldiers and officers, and
carry off sliver, clothing and badly needed cattle for British troops in Staten Island and
New York City. For these accomplishments Tye and his men were paid handsomely,
sometimes receiving five gold guineas. Tye's familiarity with Monmouth's swamps,
rivers and inlets allowed him to move undetected until it was too late. After a raid, Tye
and his interracial band, known to Patriots as a "motley crew," would disappear again
into nearby swamps.
In a raid on March 30, 1780, Tye and his men captured a Captain Warner, who
purchased his freed for "two half joes." Less lucky were Captain James Green and
Ensign John Morris, whom Tye took to... New York City. In the same raid Tye and his
men looted and burned the home of John Russell, a fierce Patriot associated with raids
on Staten Island, before killing him and wounding his young son.
During the second week of June 1780, Colonel Tye...and his men murdered
Private Joseph Murray of the Monmouth militia at his home in Colt's Neck. Murray, a
foe detested by local Tories, had been personally responsible for several of their
summary executions. Three days later Tye led a large band of self-emancipated blacks
and refugee whites in a daring attack on the home of Barnes Smock, a leader of the
Monmouth militia, while the main body of British troops was attacking Washington's
forces. Using a six-pound cannon to warn residents of the raid, Smock summoned a
number of men around his house to fight Tye. After a stiff battle Tye and his men
captured Smock and twelve other Patriots... Tye himself spiked Smock's cannon--a
symbolically disheartening action for the Patriots--before spiriting the prisoners back to
[New York]
Tye's June incursions inspired great fear among New Jerseyans. In the space of
one week he and his men carried off much of the officer corps of the Monmouth militia,
destroyed their cannon, and flaunted their ability to strike at will against a weakened
Patriot population. If before Tye had been seen in Monmouth County as a bandit in the
service of the British, he now had to be reckoned an important military force. Local
Patriots wrote anguished letters to Governor William Livingston, begging for help
against the ravages of Colonel Tye and his raiders. In response the governor invoked
martial law in the county. But a law is only as effective as its enforcement, and there
were few able-bodied men to police... While the New Jersey Patriots were distracted by
Tye and his men, other blacks were quick to take advantage. The New Jersey Journal
noted that "twenty-nine Negroes of both sexes deserted from Bergen County in early
June 1780."
There were more raids to come. On June 22, 1780, "Tye with thirty blacks, thirtysix Queen's Rangers and thirty refugees landed at Conascung, New Jersey" The
invaders...captured James Mott, second major in the Monmouth militia's second
regiment [and] Captain James Johnson of the Hunterdon militia as well as several
privates... It was a stunning blow to the Patriots. In a singe day Tye had captured eight
militiamen, plundered their homes and taken his captives to New York, moving in and
out of Monmouth County with impunity despite martial law and the presence of several
militias--all without any reported casualties....
On September 1, 1780, Tye attempted to capture Captain Josiah Huddy, famed
for his leadership in raids on British positions in Staten Island...and despised by
Loyalists for his quick executions of captured Tories... During the battle Colonel Tye
received a bullet in the wrist... Within days lockjaw set in, and lacking proper medical
attention, Tye died.
Source: Graham Russell Hodges, Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North: African
Americans in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1665-1865 (Madison, Wi.:
Madison House Publishers, 1997), 96-104.
JAMES OTIS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON ON SLAVERY
Colonial era Americans were much more troubled by slavery than would be most of
their 19th Century descendants. James Otis, a Boston attorney and later patriot leader
in 1761 wrote an anti-British pamphlet which condemned slavery and warned his
fellow colonists against denying liberty to anyone. Fifteen years later Thomas
Jefferson, himself a slaveowner torn over the issue of slavery in a political revolution
dedicated to liberty, wrote a paragraph into one of the early drafts of the Declaration
of Independence denouncing King George III for promoting slavery. The paragraph is
reprinted below:
____________________________________________________________
______________
Otis: The Colonist are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white
or black. No better reasons can be given, for enslaving those of any colour, than such as
baron Montesquieu has humorously given, as the foundation of that cruel slavery
exercised over the poor Ethiopians; which threatens one day to reduce both Europe and
America to the ignorance and barbarity of the darkest ages.
Does it follow that it is right to enslave a man because he is black? Will short
curled hair, like wool, instead of Christian hair, as it is called by those whose hearts are
as hard as the millstone, help the argument? Can any logical inference in favor of
slavery, be drawn from a flat nose, a long or short face? Nothing better can be said in
favour of a trade, that is the most shocking violation of the law of nature, has a direct
tendency to diminish the idea of the inestimable value of liberty, and makes every dealer
in it a tyrant, from the director of an Africa company to the petty chapman in needles
and pins on the unhappy coast. It is a clear truth, that those who every day barter away
other men’s liberty, will soon care little for their own.
Jefferson: He [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who
never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere,
or to incur miserable death in their transport thither. This piratical warfare, the
opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain.
Determined to keep open a market were MEN should be bought and sold, he has
prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain
this execrable commerce; and that this assemblage of horror might want no face of
distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to
purchase that liberty of which HE deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom
He also obtruded them; plus paying off former crimes committed against the liberty of
one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Sources: James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (London,
1776), pp. 43-44; Lerone Bennett, Ebony Pictorial History of Black America,
Vol. I, (Nashville, 1971), p. 71.
YELLOW FEVER IN PHILADELPHIA
In the following account Philadelphia resident James Hardie describes the yellow fever
epidemic that struck the city in 1794.
This disorder made its first appearance toward the latter end of July, in a lodging
house in North Water Street, and for a few weeks seemed entirely confined to that vicinity.
Hence it was generally supposed to have been imported and not generated in the city. This
was the opinion of Doctors Currie, Cathrall and many others. It was however combated by
Dr. Benjamin Rush, who asserts that the contagion was generated from the stench of a
cargo of damaged coffee...
But from whatever fountain we trace this poisoned stream, it has destroyed the
lives of many thousands-and many of those of the most distinguished worth... During the
month of August the funerals amounted to upwards of three hundred. The disease had
then reached the central streets of the city and began to spread on all sides with the
greatest rapidity. In September its malignance increased amazingly. Fear pervaded the
stoutest heart, flight became general, and terror was depicted on every countenance. In
this month 1,400 more were added to the list of mortality. The contagion was still
progressive and towards the end of the month 90 & 100 died daily. Until the middle of
October the mighty destroyer went on with increasing havoc. From the 1st to the 17th
upwards of 1,400 fell victims to the tremendous malady. From the 17th to the 30th the
mortality gradually decreased. In the whole month, however, the dead amounted to
upwards of 2,000-a dreadful number, if we consider that at this time near one half of the
inhabitants had fled. Before the disorder became so terrible, the appearance of
Philadelphia must to a stranger have seemed very extraordinary. The garlic, which chewed
as a preventative[,] could be smelled at several yards distance, whilst other[s] hoped to
avoid infection by a recourse to smelling bottles, handkerchiefs dipped in vinegar,
camphor bags, &c....
During this melancholy period the city lost ten of her most valuable physicians, and
most of the others were sick at different times. The number of deaths in all amounted to
4041.
Source: James Hardie, The Philadelphia Directory and Register (Philadelphia, 1794.)
reprinted in William Bruce Wheeler and Susan D. Becker, eds. Discovering the
American Past: A Look as the Evidence, vol. 1 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1999), pp. 111-112.
DEATH OF A FOUNDING FATHER
The vignette below describes the death of former President George Washington in
December, 1799.
"On, Thursday. Decr. 12th, [1799] the General [George Washington] rode out to
his farms... Soon after he went out, the weather became very bad... A heavy fall of snow
took place on Friday, which prevented the General from riding out as usual. He had
taken cold (undoubtedly from being so much exposed the day before) and complained of
having a sore throat.
About two or three o'clk Saturday Morning he awoke Mrs. Washington & told her
he was very unwell, and had [fever]. She observed that he could scarcely speak... As
soon as the day appeared...he desired that Mr Rawlins, one of the overseers who was
used to bleeding the people, might be sent for to bleed him before the doctors could
arrive... I found him breathing with difficulty-and hardly able to utter a word intelligibly.
A mixture of Molasses, Vinegar & butter was prepared, to try its effect in the throat; but
he could not swallow a drop. Mr. Rawlins came in soon after sunrise and prepared to
bleed him. The General, observing that Rawlins appeared to be agitated, said, as well
as he could speak, 'don't be afraid,' and after the incision was made, he observed 'the
orifice is not large enough.
Mrs. W being...uneasy lest too much blood should be taken, it was stop'd after
about half a pint was taken from him. Finding that no relief was obtain'd, I proposed
bathing the throat externally with Salvalaltita... A piece of flannel was then put round
his neck. His feet were also soaked in warm water. This, however, gave no relief."
In the meantime, several doctors arrived. They put a blister of cantharides on the
throat &,took more blood...and had some Vinegar & hot water put into a Teapot, for the
General to draw in steam from the nozel. They also gave him sage tea and Vinegar to be
mixed for a Gargle, but when the, general 'held back his head to let it run down [his
throat], it put him into great distress and almost produced suffocation. In the
afternoon, he was bled again, and the blood ran slowly...and did not produce any
symptoms of fainting. They also administered calomil & tarter but without any effect.
Around 6 p.m., the general told his physicians, "I feel myself going... let me go off
quietly; I cannot last long." Two hours later, the doctors applied blisters to his legs, but
went out without a ray of hope. About 10, with great difficulty, Washington said, "I am
just going. Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the Vault in less
than two days after I am dead." I bowed assent. A little while later, he expired without a
struggle or a Sigh!
Source: Tobias Lear's journal entry on the death of George Washington at Mount
Vernon, December 15, 1799 reprinted in Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A
History of the United States, vol. 1 (New York, 2003), p. 278.
CHAPTER TWO: DEMOCRACY EXPANDED, DEMOCRACY TESTED
Terms for Week 2
prohibition
Democratic racism
Indian Removal
Manifest Destiny
Monroe Doctrine
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Magdalen Society
Female Moral Reform Society
Anti-Catholicism
Boston Associates
Lowell, Massachusetts, 1823
Lowell Girls
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Sarah and Angelina Grimke
Women's Rights Convention
Rev. Charles Finney
Horace Mann
Democratic Party
Portland’s Chinatown
Whig Party
Andrew Jackson
The Spoils System
universal suffrage
THE MONROE DOCTRINE
The Monroe Doctrine, proposed in the President's annual message to Congress on
December 2, 1823, was the first major assertion of American foreign policy. Part of
the document is presented below:
In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have
never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our
rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for
our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more
immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and
impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in
this respect from that of America... We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable
relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should
consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this
hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.
With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not
interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their
independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great
consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition
for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by
any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly
disposition toward the United States.
Source: President James Monroe's Message to Congress, December 2, 1823.
THE EXTENSION OF VOTING RIGHTS
The passages below reflect the transformation of the American political system as a
consequence of the expansion of voting rights. In the first vignette James Kent, a
conservative delegate to the 1821 New York state constitutional convention which
extended voting rights to all white males, argues in vain for preserving property
requirements. The chart shows the dramatic increase in the number and percentages
of Americans voting in presidential elections between 1824 and 1844.
By the report before us, we propose to annihilate, at one stroke, all those property
distinctions and to bow before the idol of universal suffrage. That extreme democratic
principle, when applied to the legislative and executive departments of the government,
has been regarded with terror, by the wise men of every age, because in every European
republic, ancient and modern, in which it has been tried, it has terminated disastrously,
and been productive of corruption, injustice, violence, and tyranny...
The apprehended danger from the experiment of universal suffrage applied to the
whole legislative department, is no dream of the imagination. It is too mighty an
excitement for the moral constitution of men to endure. The tendency of universal
suffrage is to jeopardize the rights of property and the principles of liberty. There is a
constant tendency...in the poor to covet a share in the plunder of the rich; in the debtor
to relax or avoid the obligation of contracts; in the majority to tyrannize over the
minority, and trample down their rights; in the indolent and profligate to cast the whole
burdens of society upon the industrious and the virtuous; and there is a tendency in
ambitious and wicked men to inflame those combustible materials.
PRESIDENTIAL VOTING, 1824-1844
PERCENTAGE
OF ELIGIBLE
VOTERS WHO
DEMOCRATIC
WHIG
1824
1828
1832
1836
1840
1844
TOTAL VOTERS
356,038
1,155,350
1,250,799
1,505,278
2,402,405
2,700,861
CAST BALLOTS
27
58
55
58
80
79
VOTE
*
56.0
56.9
50.9
46.9
50.7
*There were no political parties in 1824. Two groups, led respectively by Andrew
Jackson and by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay emerged shortly after. The Jackson
partisans become the Democrats. The anti-Jackson factions became the Whig party in
1834.
Source: Richard Current, American History: A Survey, (New York: Knopf, 1961), p.
256; Stephan Thernstrom, A History of the American People, Vol. I, (New York,
1989), p. 327.
THE LOG CABIN CANDIDATE
The 1840 presidential contest between General William Henry Harrison, the Whig
candidate, and President Martin Van Buren, the Democratic standard bearer,
heralded a new era in American politics with emphasis on symbols rather than
substance, political slogans, image manipulation, and "negative campaign" ads. The
following vignette describes the campaign.
The Whigs cloaked their champion in familiar heroic garb as an Indian fighter
and victorious general in the War of 1812... But almost immediately they grafted a new
and very different kind of symbol onto the campaign, the Log Cabin. On December 11,
1839, a newspaper correspondent printed his own facetious answer to a...question about
how to "get rid of Harrison." The reporter (himself a Democrat) printed this answer,
"Give him a barrel of hard cider, and settle a pension of two thousand a year on him,
and....he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin."
This was the opening the Whigs had been waiting for. The Democrats had won
elections by presenting themselves as the party of...the common man, while condemning
the Whigs as aristocrats and friends of wealth and privilege. Now the Whigs could turn
the tables. In early January 1840, the New York Daily Whig replied that only "pampered
office-holders" who "sneer at the idea of making a poor man president" would consider
"log cabin candidate" a term with which to "reproach" General Harrison. Within a week,
other Whig papers joined in. The editor of the Whig paper in Galena, Illinois, told his
readers that "Gen. Harrison is sneered at by the Eastern office-holders' pimps, as the
'Log cabin' candidate." But those who live in log cabins "have a way of taking care of
themselves when insulted, which has sometimes surprised folks."
On January 20, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, rally took the next step in the
transformation of the Whig campaign. The Whig managers openly presented Harrison
to the rally as "The Log-Cabin Candidate." They prepared a huge transparency of what
VOTE
*
44.0
43.5
49.1
53.1
49.3
was purportedly [Harrison's] log cabin (his original "cabin" had long since been
expanded into an impressive sixteen room house) and placed it next to a barrel of cider
and a woodpile. Borrowing from Davy Crockett, [the Whig Congressman from
Tennessee] they pinned a coonskin cap on the wall.
Recasting Harrison as a homespun farmer...also meant recasting Van Buren as
the...opposite. The Whigs ridiculed the president as a foppish, effeminate dandy, given
to extravagant, aristocratic tastes. Davy Crockett portrayed Van Buren as so "laced up in
corsets, such as women wear... [that] it would be difficult to say from his personal
appearance whether he was a man or woman, but for his large red and gray whiskers."
Pennsylvania Congressman Charles Ogle described the Van Buren White House "as
splendid as that of the Caesars, and as richly adorned as the proudest Asiatic mansion."
"The landscaping...was designed to resemble an Amazon's bosom, with a miniature knoll
on its apex, to denote the nipple." Ogle ridiculed the four mirrors Van Buren purchased
for the White House as a cost of $2,400. "What would frugal and honest Hoosiers think
of a democratic peacock, in full court costume, strutting by the hour before goldenframed mirrors, nine feet high and four feet wide?
Source: R. Jackson Wilson, The Pursuit of Liberty, (Belmont, California, 1990), pp.
342-345.
MANIFEST DESTINY: TWO VIEWS
During the 1830s and 1840s, a period of rapid territorial expansion, American
nationalists spoke of the nation's divinely inspired mission to control most of the North
American continent. Not surprisingly many Americans such as those writing in the
Democratic Review, July 1845, embraced the concept with religious zeal. William
Ellery Channing, in an 1837 letter to Henry Clay, however expressed the doubts of
many Americans about the inevitability of American expansion.
Democratic Review: Texas has been absorbed into the Union in the inevitable
fulfillment of the general law which is rolling our population westward... It was
disintegrated from Mexico in the natural course of events, by a process perfectly
legitimate on its own part, blameless on our... [Its] incorporation into the Union was
not only inevitable, but the most natural, right and proper thing in the world...
California will, probably, next fall away from... Mexico... Imbecile and distracted,
Mexico never can exert any real governmental authority over such a country. The
Anglo-Saxon foot is already on its borders. Already the advance guard of the irresistible
army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it, armed with the
plough and the rifle and marking its trail with schools and colleges, courts and
representative halls, mills and meeting houses. A population will soon be in actual
occupation of California, over which it will be idle for Mexico to dream of dominion...
All this without agency of our government, without responsibility of our people-in the
natural flow of events, the spontaneous working of principles, and the adaptation of the
tendencies and wants of the human race to the elemental circumstances in the midst of
which they find themselves placed.
Channing: Did this country know itself, or were it disposed to profit by
self-knowledge, it would feel the necessity of laying an immediate curb on its passion for
extended territory... We are a restless people, prone to encroachment, impatient of the
ordinary laws of progress... We boast of our rapid growth, forgetting that, throughout
nature, noble growths are slow...
It is full time that we should lay on ourselves serious, resolute restraint.
Possessed of a domain, vast enough for the growth of ages, it is time for us to stop in the
career of acquisition and conquest. Already endangered by our greatness, we cannot
advance without imminent peril to our institutions, union, prosperity, virtue, and
peace...
It is sometimes said, that nations are swayed by laws, as unfailing as those which
govern matter; that they have their destinies; that their character and position carry
them forward irresistibly to their goal;... that...the Indians have melted before the white
man, and the mixed, disgraced race of Mexico must melt before the Anglo-Saxon. Away
with this vile sophistry! There is no necessity to crime. There is no fate to justify
rapacious nations, any more than to justify gamblers and robbers, in plunder. We boast
of the progress of society, and this progress consists in the substitution of reason and
moral principle for the sway of brute force... We talk of accomplishing our destiny. So
did the late conqueror of Europe [Napoleon]; and destiny consigned him to a lonely rock
in the ocean, the prey of an ambition which destroyed no peace but his own.
Source: John M. Blum, The National Experience, (New York, 1985), p. 255.
THE INDIAN REMOVAL ACT
The passage below is from the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which authorized President
Andrew Jackson to move Indians residing east of the Mississippi to lands in the West.
The Indian Removal Act set the stage for the Trail of Tears.
An Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of
the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi. Be it
enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in
Congress assembled. That it shall and may be lawful for the President of the United
States to cause so much of any territory belonging to the United States, west of the river
Mississippi, not included in any state or organized territory, and to which the Indian
title has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, to be divided unto a suitable
number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose
to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remover there; and to cause each of
said districts to be so described by natural or artificial marks, as to be easily
distinguished for every other...
And be it further enacted, That in the making of any such exchange or exchanges,
it shall and may be lawful for the President solemnly to assure the tribe or nation with
which the exchange is made, that the United States will forever secure and guaranty to
them, and their heirs or successors, the country so exchanged with them; and if they
prefer it, that the United States will cause a patent or grant to be made and executed to
them for the same: Provided always, That such lands shall revert to the United States, if
the Indians become extinct, or abandon the same.
And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for the President to
cause such tribe or nation to be protected, at their new resident, against all interruption
or disturbance from any other tribe or nation of Indians, or from any other person or
persons whatever...
Source: Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, eds., The Cherokee Removal: A Brief
History with Documents (Boston, 1995), pp. 116-17.
INDIAN REMOVAL: AN INDIAN VIEW
In the brief passage below Speckled Snake, a Cherokee, describes his response to the
proposal to remove his people to Indian Territory.
Brothers! We have heard the talk of our great father; it is very kind. He says he
loves his red children.
Brothers! When the white man first came to these shores, the Muscogees gave
him land, and kindled him a fire to make him comfortable; and when the pale faces of
the south made war on him, their young men drew the tomahawk, and protected his
head from the scalping knife. But when the white man had warmed himself before the
Indian's fire, and filled himself with the Indian's hominy, he became very large; he
stopped not for the mountain tops, and his feet covered the plains and the valleys. His
hands grasped the eastern and the western sea. Then he became our great father. He
loved his red children; but said, "You must move a little farther, lest I should, by
accident, tread on you." With one foot he pushed the red man over the Oconee, and with
the other he trampled down the graves of his fathers.
But our great father still loved his red children, and he soon made them another
talk. He said much; but it all meant nothing, but "move a little farther; you are too near
me." I have heard a great many talks from our great father, and they all begun and
ended the same.
Brothers! When he made us a talk on a former occasion, he said, "Get a little
farther; go beyond the Oconee and the Okmulgee; there is a pleasant country." He also
said, "It shall be yours forever." Now he says, "The land you live on is not yours; go
beyond the Mississippi; there is game; there you may remain while the grass grows or
the water runs." Brothers! Will not our great father come there also? He loves his red
children, and his tongue is not forked.
Source: Wayne Moquin, ed., Great Documents in American Indian History, (New
York, 1973), pp. 149-150.
THE TRAIL OF TEARS: ONE STATE'S APOLOGY
The following vignette appeared as part of a 1992 Oregonian article on the apology of
the state of Georgia for its role in Indian Removal 160 years earlier.
More than 160 years after Georgia officials ignored a direct order from the U.S.
Supreme Court to stop actions leading up to the infamous Trail of Tears, the state is
admitting it made a mistake. Officials on Wednesday will formally pardon tow
missionaries jailed when the fought the state's seizure of Cherokee Indian land. "This is
one of many injustices done, but it's something that we could do something about," said
Marsha Bailey, spokeswoman for the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. "It was a
miscarriage of justice." The pardon says it "acts to remove a stain on the history of
criminal justice in Georgia" land acknowledges the state usurped Cherokee sovereignty
and ignored the Supreme Court.
A legislator and Cherokee descendant called the pardon a sign that Georgia finally
realizes the scope of its mistreatment of the Cherokee. "If we ever had political
prisoners in this state or this nation, these two were the best examples," said state Rep.
Bill Dover, chief executive of the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee. "It's been a sore
place in the side of the Indian people for all these generations that these two wonderful
Christian gentlemen were sent to prison because they believe in God and they believed
in the Cherokee Nation," Dover said.
Samuel Austin Worcester and Elihu Butler were sentenced to four years in jail in
1831 for residing in the Cherokee Nation without a license. A law was enacted to try to
stop the two from protesting the state's seizure of Cherokee land in northwest Georgia.
Until 1828, the Cherokee Nation was considered a sovereign foreign country, with its
land off limits to settlers. But in 1829, gold was discovered in Dahlonega and Georgia
seized much of the land and abolished Cherokee sovereignty. Worcester and Butler, who
lived at the Cherokee capital of New Echota, attracted national attention to the
American Indians' cause. To muzzle them, the state required all white men living on
Cherokee land to obtain a state license. Worcester and Butler refused and were
convicted of "high misdemeanor." The missionaries appealed to the U.S. Supreme
Court. In 1832, Chief Justice John Marshall declared Georgia had no constitutional
right to extend any state laws over the Cherokee, including seizing their land, and must
release the missionaries. But Georgia ignored the ruling. The missionaries spend 16
months doing hard labor as part of a chain gang, Dover said.
They were released in time to join the Trail of Tears, when Georgia forced up to
17,000 Cherokees to move west. Thousands died of cold and starvation during the
march, but the missionaries made it to Oklahoma and continued their work among
Cherokee there.
The state repealed its Cherokee laws in 1979, but until now never formally
admitted the actions were wrong, said Dover.
Source: The Portland Oregonian, November 23, 1992.
WESTWARD MIGRATION: SETTLEMENT ON THE FRONTIER
The passages below, a poem extolling the attractions of frontier Illinois in the 1820s,
and a frontier farmer's description of community life at the edge of settlement in 1836,
explain the both the lure of the frontier and the impact of the migratory tendencies of
Americans on attitudes toward the land and patterns of social organization.
THE ATTRACTIONS OF FRONTIER ILLINOIS
Come all you good farmers that on your plow depend,
Come listen to a story, come listen to a friend:
Oh, leave your fields of childhood, you enterprising boys:
Come travel west and settle on the plains of Illinois.
Illinois, it is as fine country as ever has been seen,
If old Adam had traveled over that, perhaps he would say the same,
"All in the garden of Eden, when I was but a boy,
There was nothing I could compare with the plains of Illinois."
Perhaps you have a few acres that near your friends' adjoin,
Your family is growing large, for them you must provide,
Come, leave your friends of childhood, you enterprising boys,
Come travel west and settle on the plains of Illinois.
I have spoken of the moveable part of the community, and unfortunately for the
western country, it constitutes too great a proportion of the whole community. Next to
hunting, Indian wars, and the wonderful exuberance of Kentucky, the favorite topic is
new countries. They talk of them. They are attached to the associations connected with
such conversations. They have a fatal effect upon their exertions. They have not motive,
in consonance with these feelings, to build "for posterity and the immortal gods." They
only make such improvements as they can leave without reluctance and without loss.
I have every w
die. Scarcely has a family fixed itself, and enclosed a plantation with the universal
fence--split rails--reared a suitable number of log buildings, in short achieved the first
rough improvements, that appertain to the most absolute necessity than the assembled
family about the winter fire begin to talk about the prevailing events,--some country that
has become the rage, as a point of immigration. They offer their farm for sale, and move
away.
Source: Stephan Thernstrom, A History of the American People, Vol. I, (New York,
1989), pp. 300, 309.
PUBLIC LANDS: TERMS OF SALE, 1785-1820
The various public land laws encouraged settlement of the American frontier and
provided the major source of revenue to the United States treasury prior to the Civil
War. Listed below are the most important land laws enacted between 1785 and 1820
which promoted westward expansion.
Ordinance of 1785. Allowed a minimum purchase of 640 acres and set a
minimum price of $ 1 an acre. Made no provision for credit.
Act of 1796. Raised the minimum price to $2 an acre but allowed a year's credit
on half of the amount due.
Act of 1800. Reduced the minimum purchase from 640 to 320 acres and
extended credit to four years, with a down payment of one fourth of the whole amount
and three later installments.
Act of 1804 Further reduced the minimum purchase to 160 acres. (Now a man
with as little as $80 on hand could obtain a farm from the government, although he
would still owe $240 to be paid within four years.)
Act of 1820. Reduced the minimum purchase still further, to 80 acres, and the
minimum price to $1.25 an acre, but abolished the credit system.
*Note: Most public lands were sold at auctions and much of it sold for more than the
minimum price.
WESTERN MIGRATION TO 1840
The following table shows the growth of the population of the states between the
Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. The date of admission to the Union
is listed next to the state.
1810
Ohio (1803)
Louisiana (1812)
Indiana (1816)
Mississippi (1817)
Illinois (1818)
Alabama (1819)
Missouri (1821)
Arkansas (1836)
Michigan (1837)
230,760
76,556
24,520
40,352
12,282
*
20,845
1,062
4,762
1840
1,519,467
352,411
685,866
375,651
476,183
590,756
383,702
97,574
212,267
*Part of Mississippi
Sources: Richard Current, American History: A Survey,(New York: Knopf, 1961), p.
219; John M. Blum, The National Experience: A History of the United States,
(New York, Harcourt Brace, 1989), p. 189.
A FRONTIER FARM
This brief description of a frontier farm in southwest Ohio in 1830 by British writer
Frances Trollope provides a glimpse into early 19th Century agricultural life and
illustrates the independence and self-sufficiency that necessarily comes with settlement
in isolated settings.
“We visited the farm which interested us particularly from its wild and lonely
situation, and from the entire dependence of the inhabitants upon their own resources.
It was a partial clearing in the very heart of the forest. The house was built on the side of
a hill, so steep that a high ladder was necessary to enter the front door, while the back
one opened against the hill side: at the foot of this sudden eminence ran a clear stream,
whose bed had been deepened into a little reservoir, just opposite the house. A noble
field of Indian corn stretched away into the forest on one side, and a few half-cleared
acres, with a shed or two upon them, occupied the other, giving accommodation to cows,
horses, pigs, and chickens innumerable. Immediately before the house was a small
potato-garden, with a few peach and apple trees. The house was built of logs, and
consisted of two rooms, besides a little shanty or lean-to, that was used as a kitchen.
Both rooms were comfortably furnished with good beds, drawers, etc. The farmer's wife,
and a young woman who looked like her sister, were spinning, and three little children
were playing about. The woman told me that they spun and wove all the cotton and
woolen garments of the family, and knit all the stockings; her husband, though not a
shoemaker by trade, made all the shoes. She manufactured all the soap and candies they
used, and prepared her sugar from the sugar-trees on their farm. All she wanted with
money, she said, was to buy coffee, tea, and whiskey, and she could 'get enough any day
by sending a batch of butter and chicken to market.' They used no wheat, nor sold any
of their corn, which, though it appeared a very large quantity, was not more than they
required to make their bread and cakes of various kinds, and to feed all their live stock
during the winter. She did not look in health, and said they had all had ague [fever] in
'the fall'; but she seemed contented and proud of her independence; though it was in
somewhat mournful accent that she said: 'Tis strange to us to see company. set a
hundred times, I expect the sun may rise and before I shall see another human that does
not belong to the family.’
Source: Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans reprinted in Pauline
Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States, vol. 1. ( New York,
2003), p. 377.
THE FOURTH OF JULY ON THE OVERLAND TRAIL
The Fourth of July in 19th Century America was a time of widespread celebration.
Even as wagon trains traveled west on Overland Trail to Oregon and California,
travelers took time off to celebrate. The following vignette comes from the diary of
William Swain, a 27-year-old farmer from western New York who, like thousands of
others in 1849, was headed to the California gold fields to strike it rich.
July 4. [At sunrise a salute of thirteen guns was fired.] We lay in bed late this
morning and after a late breakfast set about getting fuel for cooking our celebration
dinner.
Our celebration of the day was very good, much better than I anticipated. We had
previously invited Mr. Sexton of the Plymouth company...to deliver an address, and we
had appointed Mr. Pratt to read the Declaration of Independence. We had one of the
tents pitched at a short distance from the camp, in which was placed a table with seats
for the officers of the day and the orators. The table was spread with a blanket.
At twelve o'clock we formed a procession and walked to the stand to the tune of
'The Star Spangled Banner.' The President of the day called the meeting to order. We
listened to a prayer by Rev. Mr. Hobart, then remarks and the reading of the Declaration
of Independence by Mr. Pratt, and then the address by Mr. Sexton. We then listened to
'Hail Columbia.' This celebration was very pleasing, especially the address, which was
well delivered and good enough for any assembly at home.
We then marched to the 'hall,' which was formed by running the wagons in two
rows close enough together for the wagon covers to reach from one to the other, thus
forming a fine hall roofed by the covers and a comfortable place for the dinner table,
which was set down the center.
Dinner consisted of ham, beans, boiled and baked, biscuits, john cake, apple pie,
sweet cake, rice pudding, pickles, vinegar, pepper sauce and mustard coffee, sugar, and
milk. All enjoyed it well.
After dinner the toasting commenced. The boys had raked and scraped together
all the brandy they' could, and they toasted, hurrayed, and drank till reason was out and
brandy was in. I stayed till the five regular toasts were drunk; and then, being disgusted
with their conduct, I went to our tent in which I enjoyed myself better than those who
were drinking, carousing, and hallooing all around the camp.
Source: J. S. Holliday, The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience
(New York, 1981), pp. 167-168.
IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1820-1860
Country of Origin
Ireland
German States
Great Britain
(excluding Ireland)
British Canada
China
1821-1830
1831-1840
1841-1850
1851-1860
51,000
6,800
25,000
207,000
152,000
76,000
781,000
433,000
267,000
914,000
952,000
424,000
2,300
2
14,000
8
42,000
35
59,000
41,000
Total Number of Immigrants
1820-1824 ................................................. 38,689
1825-1829 ...................................................89,813
1830-1834................................................ 230,442
1835-1839 ................................................ 307,939
1840-1844 ............................................... 400,031
1845-1849 ..............................................1,027,306
1850-1854 ............................................... 1,917,527
1855-1859 ................................................ 897,027
Total ..................................................... 4,908,774
Percentage of Immigrants By Country of Origin
Ireland ........................................................ 38.9%
Germany ..................................................... 30.4%
Great Britain................................................ 15.6%
France, Switzerland & Low Countries .......... 5.5%
Canada ...........................................................2.3%
Other ............................................................. 7.3%
Sources: Lewis Todd and Merle Curti, Rise of the American Nation, (New York, 1982),
p. 286; John M. Blum, The National Experience, (New York, 1985), p. 313.
EAST FROM CHINA: THE ORIGINS OF CHINESE AMERICA
In the passage below historian Shih-shan Henry Tsai describes the push factors that
prompted Chinese emigration to the United States beginning in the 1840s.
Almost all of the Chinese who emigrated to the United States in the nineteenth
century were natives of Kwangtung, a southern Chinese province of about eighty
thousand square miles, approximately the area of the state of Oregon. In this hilly
province only 16% of the land was cultivated as late as 1955, and, in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, much of this cultivated land was used to grow such commercial
crops as fruit, sugarcane, indigo, and tobacco instead of rice, the staple food of the
Chinese. Consequently, the common folk suffered from the ever-rising price of rice.
This situation was further aggravated by the increase in population throughout
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.... In 1787 the population of Kwangtung
numbered 16 million; by 1850 it had increased to 28 million. But during the 1850s and
1860s Kwangtung was devastated by the Taipings and the Triad-led rebels. Fighting
also broke out between Punti (Cantonese speaking) and Hakka (Guest Settlers) people
in the region southwest of the Pearl River Delta. These conflicts resulted in political
disorder, social chaos, and economic dislocations. The Hsin-ning hsien-chih (Gazetteer
of the Hsin-ning district) graphically described the situation. "The fields in the four
directions were choked with weeds. Small families found it difficult to make a living and
often drowned their girl babies because of the impossibility of looking after them."
Emigration was very much in evidence.
The largest portion of the Chinese in America come from Kwangtung's most
populous prefecture, Kwangchou, which contains the city of Canton, and from the
colony of Macao. The Cantonese were more venturesome than most Chinese because of
their early contact with foreigners, and because British Hong Kong served as a
steppingstone for their adventures. Emigrant ships that carried Chinese to California
seldom sailed directly from any other port in China. More than nine-tenths of the
Chinese emigrants embarked from San Francisco at Hong Kong. The emigrants traveled
in junks, lorchas, or rafts over the waterways of the Pearl River Delta from their native
villages to Hong Kong. The officials at Canton normally did not interfere with their
countrymen going to Hong Kong, nor did the British authorities try to detain them.
Chinese emigrants obtained the money to pay their passage in various ways.
Some had saved money, others sold their property, including land or hogs, to secure
passage. Some borrowed money from friends and relatives. Some pledged their families
as security for the loan. They came at their own option, and when the arrived in
California they were free to go where they pleased and to engage in any occupation they
liked.
Source: Shih-shan Henry Tsai, China and the Overseas Chinese in the United States,
1868-1911 (Fayetteville, 1983), pp. 14, 16.
PORTLAND'S CHINATOWN
The following is Nelson Chia-chi Ho's description of Portland's Chinese community in
the late 19th Century.
The Chinese have been in Portland almost since its beginning and have grown up
with the city. Direct trade between Portland and China began in 1851, when the brig
Emma Preston became the first vessel from Oregon to sail to Canton, China... In the
spring of 1857 [additional] Chinese arrived on the steamer Columbia. They became
cooks in restaurants, or private homes, obtained employment in laundries or worked as
gardeners and servants for wealthy Portland residents...
By the mid-1870s, the Chinese had become the largest ethnic group in Portland....
In 1890, with a population of 5,184 in a city of 46,385, Portland's Chinatown was a wellestablished part of the city. In the late 1880s Chinatown stretched along S.W. Second
Avenue from Pine Street to Taylor Street and into some adjacent areas. The center of
the community was at the intersection of Second Avenue and Alder Street. The
buildings people occupied were mainly of solid brick, built by whites initially, but on
long leases to the Chinese at enormous rates. The bottom story of each building usually
served as a business of some sort. Store windows displayed a variety of foods, including
dried shark's fins, aged eggs, geese and ducks (live or preserved in oil), fruits and
confections. The drug stores carried an assortment of products; dried reptiles,
preserved snakes, elk horn, ginseng, peppermint, licorice, and a large inventory of
medicinal herbs. Others conducted business on the sidewalks with vegetables stalls,
fruit stands, and chicken coops. Laundry vendors with poles and baskets squeezed
through the maze of activities. Here pipes were smoked and the mother tongue was
spoken.
The upper floors frequently had wrought-iron balconies with moon-like windows.
These were the crowded living quarters where some 20 persons could sleep in a 12-by20 foot room in bunks stacked from floor to ceiling...
The Chinese did not erect temples in Portland's Chinatown, but had a common
meeting place known as the Chinese Joss House, which was in the upper floor of a
building on Second Avenue. Many whites...resented the presence of the Chinese....on
one occasion a [Chinese man] was once used to demonstrate the power of electricity.
This drew a large crowd, which greatly enjoyed the sight of a Chinese being electrically
shocked...
Before 1906, in the absence of consular representatives, the residents of
Portland's Chinatown enjoyed a measure of civil autonomy. The merchant class soon
became the ruling elite. Because commercial success was so closely tied to social
acceptance in America, this elite enjoyed good relations with public officials. The
president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association was popularly deemed as
the "Mayor of Chinatown," and was the semi-official representative of the Chinese
government. Finally, on October 2, 1906, in recognition of Portland's large Chinese
population and the importance of this city's trade with China, Moy Back Hin, a Chinese
millionaire in Portland, was name the consul for...Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and
Montana, with headquarters in Portland. The consul was the fourth to be appointed to
represent the Chinese government in the United States. The other three were in San
Francisco, Boston, and New York.
Source: Nelson Chia-chi Ho, Portland's Chinatown: The History of An Urban Ethnic
District, (Portland, 1981), pp. 9-17.
REV. CHARLES FINNEY ON THE OBLIGATION OF THE CHURCH
Rev. Charles Finney, a New York City Presbyterian minister who moved in the 1830s
and later was President of Oberlin College from 1851 to 1866, was one of the nation's
leading revivalists. He was also an advocate of reform and encouraged the Church to
lead that effort. In this 1835 lecture he explains the relationship between revivalism
and reform.
There should be great and deep repentings on the part of ministers. We, my
brethren, must humble ourselves before God. It will not do for us to suppose that it is
enough to call on the people to repent. We must repent, we must take the lead in
repentance, and then call on the church to follow.
The church must take right ground in regard to politics. Do not suppose, now,
that I am going to preach a political sermon, or that I wish to have you join and get up a
Christian party in politics....But the time has come that Christians must vote for honest
men, and take consistent ground in politics, or the Lord will curse them.
...And if [every man] will give his vote only for honest men, the country will be
obliged to have upright rulers. All parties will be compelled to put up honest men as
candidates...As on the subjects of slavery and temperance, so on this subject, the church
must act right, or the country will be ruined...
The church must take the right ground on the subject of slavery... Christians can
no more take neutral ground on this subject...than they can take neutral ground on the
subject of sanctification of the Sabbath. It is a great national sin...
There are those in the churches who are standing aloof from the subject of moral
reform, and who are as much afraid to have anything said in the pulpit against lewdness,
as if a thousand devils had got up into the pulpit. On this subject, the church need not
expect to be permitted to take neutral ground. In the providence of God, it is up for
discussion. The evils have been exhibited; the call has been made for reform And what
is to reform mankind but the truth? And who shall present the truth if not the church
and the ministry? Away with the idea, that Christians can remain neutral, and yet enjoy
the approbation and blessing of God.
Source: Richard N. Current and John A. Garraty, ed., Words that Made American
History, Vol. I, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1965), pp. 386-387, 392.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, "CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE"
Henry David Thoreau wrote "Civil Disobedience" after spending a night in a
Massachusetts jail for refusing to pay his taxes in protest of the Mexican War and
slavery. He calls on others to resist governmental policies which they feel are unjust.
Here are excerpts from his influential essay.
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least," and I
should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally
amounts to this, which also I believe: "That government is best which governs not at
all:" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they
will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually,
and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been
brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail,
may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only
an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode
which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and
perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the
work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for
in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.
This American government--what is it but a tradition, though a recent one,
endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of
its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can
bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, if ever they
should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split. But it is not
the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or
other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on
themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow yet this
government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got
out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not
educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been
accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not
sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient by which men would fain
succeed in letting one another alone...
But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves nogovernment men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.
Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and
that will be one step toward obtaining it....
Source: Roger Babusci and others, Literature: The American Experience, (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: 1989), p. 290.
HORACE MANN ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education for 12 years
beginning in 1837, was the nation's leading proponent of taxpayer-supported public
schools. In his 1849 report of the Board of Education to the state legislature, he
describes why public education should be supported.
As the child is father to the man, so may the training of the schoolroom expand
into the institutions and fortunes of the State...
According to the European theory, men are divided into classes,—some to toil and
earn, others to seize and enjoy. According to the Massachusetts theory, all are to have
an equal chance for earning, and equal security in the enjoyment of what they earn. The
latter tends to equality of condition; the former to the grossest inequalities.
Now, surely, nothing but Universal Education can counterwork this tendency to
the domination of capital and the servility of labor. If one class possesses all the wealth
and the education, while the residue of society is ignorant and poor, it matters not by
what name the relation between them may be called; the latter, in fact and in truth, will
be the servile dependents and subjects of the former. But if education be equably
diffused, it will draw property after it, by the strongest of all attractions; for such a thing
never did happen, and never can happen, as that an intelligent and practical body of
men should be permanently poor...
Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer
of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery... It gives each man
the independence and the means, by which he can resist the selfishness of other men. It
does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility towards the rich; it prevents being
poor...
But the beneficent power of education would not be exhausted, even though it
should peaceably abolish all the miseries that spring from the coexistence, side by side,
of enormous wealth and squalid want. It has a higher function. Beyond the power of
diffusing old wealth, it has the prerogative of creating new. It is a thousand times more
lucrative than fraud; and adds a thousand fold more to a nation's resources than the
most successful conquests. Knaves and robbers can obtain only what was before
possessed by others. But education creates or develops new treasures...never before
possessed or dreamed of by any one...
For the creation of wealth, then, for the existence of a wealthy people, and a
wealthy nation, intelligence is the grand condition. The number of improvers will
increase, as the intellectual constituency, if I may so call it, increases. Let this
development precede, and contributions, numberless, and of inestimable value, will be
sure to follow.
Source: Massachusetts Board of Education, Twelfth Annual Report. (Boston, 1849),
42-43, 55, 57, 59-60, 67-68, reprinted in Richard W. Leopold, Arthur S. Link and
Stanley Corbin, eds., Problems in American History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
1966), p. 307-308.
ANTI-CATHOLICISM IN AMERICA
Rev. William G. Brownlow, a leader of the American (Know-Nothing) Party advanced
his fears of Roman Catholicism in an 1856 election pamphlet, Americanism Contrasted
with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy
Popery is a system of mere human policy; altogether of Foreign origin; Foreign in
its support; importing Foreign vassals and paupers by multiplied thousands; and
sending into every State and Territory in this Union, a most baneful Foreign and
anti-Republican influence. Its... Pope, his Bishops and Priests, are politicians...
Associated with them for the purpose...of securing the Catholic vote, are the worst class
of American politicians, designing demagogues, selfish office-seekers, and bad men...
These politicians know that Popery, as a system is in the hands of a Foreign despotism...
But corrupt and ambitious politicians in this country, are willing to act the part of
traitors to our laws and Constitution, for the sake of profitable offices; and they are
willing to sacrifice the Protestant Religion, on the ancient and profligate altar of Rome, if
they may but rise to distinction on its ruins!...
Every Roman Catholic in the known world is under the absolute control of the
Catholic Priesthood... And it is this faculty of concentration, this political influence, this
power of the Priesthood to control the Catholic community, and cause a vast multitude
of ignorant foreigners to vote as a unit, and thus control the will of the American people,
that had engendered this opposition to the Catholic Church. It is this aggressive policy
and corrupting tendency of the Romish Church; this organized and concentrated
political power of a distinct class of men; foreign by birth; inferior in intelligence and
virtue to the American people... which have called forth the opposition... to the Catholic
Church.
Source: John M. Blum, The National Experience, (New York, 1985), p. 313.
THE LOWELL GIRLS
Lowell, Massachusetts, was the first planned industrial city in the United States and
was the center of the Textile industry. The first mill employees were primarily girls
from the surrounding communities. Here is a letter from "Susan" published in 1844 in
the Lowell Offering which describes one woman's experiences in the mills.
I went into the mill to work a few days after I wrote you. It looked very pleasant
at first, the rooms were so light, spacious, and clear, their girls so pretty and neatly
dressed, and the machines so brightly polished or nicely painted. The plants in the
windows, or on the overseer's bench....gave a pleasant aspect to things....
Well, I went into the mill, and was put to learn with a very patient girl--a clever
old maid. I should be willing to be one myself if I could be as good as she is.... They set
me to threading shuttles, and tying weaver's knots, and such things, and now I have
improved so that I can take care of one loom. I could take care of two if I only had eyes
in the back part of my head, but I have not got used to "looking two ways of a Sunday"
yet.
At first the hours seemed very long, but I was so interested in learning that I
endured it very well; and when I went out at night, the sound of the mill was in my ears,
as of crickets, frogs, all mingled together in strange discord. After that it seemed as
though cotton-wool was in my ears, but now I do not mind at all. You know that people
learn to sleep with the thunder of Niagara in their ears, and a cotton mill is no worse,
though you wonder that we do not have to hold our breath in such noise.
It makes my feet ache and swell to stand so much, but I suppose I shall get
accustomed to that too. The girls generally wear old shoes about their work, and you
know nothing is easier; but they almost all say that when they have worked here a year
or two they have to procure shores a size or tow larger than befog the came. The right
hand, which is the one used in stopping and starting the loom, becomes larger than the
left; but in other respects the factory is not detrimental to a young girl's appearance....
Though the number of men is small in proportion there are many marriages here, and a
great deal of courting. I will tell you of this last sometime.
We go in at five o'clock; at seven we come out to breakfast; at half- past seven we
return to our work, and stay until half-past twelve. At one, or quarter-past one four
months in the year, we return to our work, and stay until seven at night. Then the
evening is all our own, which is more than some laboring girls can say, who think
nothing is more tedious than a factory life.
You ask if the girls are contented here: I ask you, if you know of any one who is
perfectly contented.... The girls here are not contented; and there is no disadvantage in
their situation which they do not perceive as quickly, and lament as loudly, as the
sternest opponents of the factory system do. They would scorn to say they were
contented, if asked the question; for it would compromise their Yankee spirit...and love
of "freedom and equality." Yet, withal, they are cheerful. I never saw a happier set of
beings.... If you see one of them with a very long face...it is because she has heard bad
news from home, or because her beau has vexed her.
Source: Stanley I. Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 260-262.
FACTORY REGULATIONS IN LOWELL
Listed below are some of the regulation observed by employees of the Hamilton
Manufacturing Company, Lowell, Massachusetts.
The overseers are to be always in their rooms at the starting of the mill, and not
absent unnecessarily during working hours. They are to see that all those employed in
their rooms, are in their places in due season, and keep a correct account of their time
and work. They may grant leave of absence to those employed under them, when they
have spare hands to supply their places, and not otherwise, except in cases of absolute
necessity.
All persons in the employ of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, are to
observe the regulations of the room where they are employed. They are not to be absent
from their work without the consent of the overseer, except in cases of sickness, and
then they have to send him word of the cause of their absence.
They are to board in one of the houses of the company and give information at the
counting room, where they board, when they begin, or, whenever the change their
boarding place; and are to observe the regulations of their boarding house.
Those intending to leave the employment of the company, are to give at least two
weeks' notice thereof to their overseer.
All persons entering into the employment of the company, are considered
engaged for twelve months, and those who leave sooner, or do not comply with all these
regulations, will not be entitled to a regular discharge.
The company will not employ any one who is habitually absent from public
worship on the Sabbath, or known to be guilty of immorality.
A physician will attend once in every month at the counting-room, to vaccinate all
who may need it, free of expense.
Any one who shall take from the mills or yard, any yarn, cloth or other article
belonging to the company, will be considered guilty of stealing and be liable to
prosecution.
Payment will be made monthly, including board and wages. The accounts will be
made up to the last Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the course of the
following week.
These regulations are considered part of the contract, with which all persons
entering into the employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company engage to
comply.
Source: Stanley I. Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 265-266.
AMERICAN URBANIZATION TO 1860
20 Largest Cities: 1840
20 Largest Cities: 1860
1. New York, NY
2. Philadelphia, PA
3. Baltimore, MD
4. New Orleans, LA
5. Boston, MA
6. Cincinnati, OH
7. Brooklyn, NY
8. Albany, NY
9. Charleston, S.C.
10. Washington, D.C.
81,130
11. Providence, RI
71,940
12. Louisville, KY
68,033
13. Pittsburgh, PA
62,367
14. Lowell, MA
61,122
15. Rochester, NY
56,802
16. Richmond, VA
50,666
17. Troy, NY
49,221
18. Buffalo, NY
312,700
813,000
220,400
565,529
102,300
266,660
102,190
212,418
93,380
177,840
46,338
168,675
36,230
161,044
33,721
160,773
29,261
109,260
23,364
1. New York, NY
10. Buffalo, NY
23,171
11. Newark, NJ
21,210
12. Louisville, KY
21,115
13. Albany, NY
20,796
14. Washington, D.C.
20,191
15. San Francisco, CA
20,153
16. Providence, RI
19,334
17. Pittsburgh, PA
18,213
18. Rochester, NY
2. Philadelphia, PA
3. Brooklyn, NY
4. Baltimore, MD
5. Boston, MA
6. New Orleans, LA
7. Cincinnati, OH
8. St. Louis, MO
9. Chicago, IL
48,204
19. Newark, NJ
45,619
20. Portland, ME
45,246
17,290
19. Detroit, MI
15,218
20. Milwaukee, WI
Cities not on the 1840 list are highlighted.
THE GRIMKE SISTERS ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN
Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two prominent Pennsylvania abolitionists, began in the
1830s to compare the political disabilities of the slaves with the discrimination directed
against women. In the two passages below each sisters discuss the problem of
discrimination and what activists must do.
Sarah Grimke: In contemplating the great moral reformations of the day, and the
part which they [women] are bound to take in them, instead of puzzling themselves with
the harassing, because unnecessary inquiry, how far they may go without overstepping
the bounds of propriety, which separate male and female duties, they will only inquire,
"Lord what wilt thou have me do?" They will be enabled to see the simple truth, that
God has made no distinction between men and women as moral beings.... To me it is
perfectly clear that whatsoever it is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a
woman to do.
It is said, woman has a mighty weapon in secret prayer; she has, I acknowledge,
in common with man: but the woman who prays in sincerity for the regeneration of this
guilty world, will accompany her prayers by her labors. A friend of mine remarked: "I
was sitting in my chamber, weeping over the miseries of the slave, and putting up my
prayers for his deliverance from bondage, when in the midst of my meditations it
occurred to me that my tears, unaided by effort, could never melt the chain of the slave.
I must be up and doing." She is now an active abolitionist--her prayers and her works go
hand in hand.
Angelina Grimke: We cannot push Abolitionism forward with all our might until
we take up the stumbling block out of the road.... You may depend upon it, tho' to meet
this question may appear to be turning out of our road, that it is not. IT IS NOT: we
must meet it and meet it now.... Why, my dear brothers can you not see the deep laid
scheme of the clergy against us lecturers? ...If we surrender the right to speak in public
this year, we must surrender the right to petition next year, and the right to write the
year after, and so on. What then can woman do for the slave, when she herself is under
the feet of man and shamed into silence?
Source: Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the
United States, (New York, 1970), p. 48.
THE SENECA FALLS CONVENTION
Reprinted below is the Declaration of Principles which emerged from the first
Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the
family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that
they have hitherto occupied...
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights: that
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the
part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute
tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable rights to the elective
franchise.
He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no
voice...
He has made her, if married, in the eyes of the law civilly dead.
He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns...
He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employment, and from those she is
permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.
He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he
considers most honorable to himself...
He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education-all colleges
being closed against her...
He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world different code of
morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from
society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man...
He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her
own power, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and
abject life.
In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of
misconception, misrepresentation and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality
within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition
the State and national legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press on
our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions
embracing every part of the country.
Sources: Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the
United States, (New York, 1970), p. 75; John M. Blum, The National Experience,
(New York, 1985), 260.
CHAPTER THREE: AMERICAN SLAVERY
Terms for Week 3
Eli Whitney
Haitian Revolution
Toussaint L’Overture
abolitionists
Texas and Slavery
John C. Fremont
William Lloyd Garrison
Frederick Douglass
Seminole Indian Wars
Nat Turner
The Republican Party
William Walker and Filibustering
The American (Know-Nothing) Party
Gag Bill of 1837
Compromise of 1850
John C. Calhoun
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Bridget “Biddy” Mason
personal liberty laws
Stephen A. Douglas
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
"Bleeding Kansas"
Dred Scott Decision, 1857
John Brown
SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH, 1860
Whites and Blacks in the Total Southern Population
State
South Carolina
Mississippi
Louisiana
Alabama
Florida
Georgia
Virginia
Texas
North Carolina
Arkansas
Tennessee
Maryland
Kentucky
Delaware
Missouri
Total Pop.
703,708
791,278
708,002
964,201
140,424
1,057,286
1,596,318
604,215
992,622
435,450
1,109,801
687,049
1,155,684
112,216
1,182,012
% White
42
45
50
55
55
56
56
64
70
74
74
75
80
81
90
% Black Slave
57
55
47
44
44
44
39
33
30
26
25
13
20
2
10
% Free Blacks
1
*
3
1
1
*
5
3
*
*
1
12
*
17
*
____________________________________________________________
_________
UNITED STATES
31,443,321
86
13
1
Composition of Southern White Society: Nonslaveholders 78.1%
Slaveholders 21.9%
* Free Blacks comprised less than 1% of the state's total population.
Source: Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, Population by Age, Sex, Race and
Agriculture of the United States.
TWO VIEWS OF SLAVERY
George Fitzhugh, a 19th century defender of slavery argued that it was a positive good
and in fact advocated the enslavement of white workers in the North to improve their
condition. Theodore Weld, however, was an uncompromising abolitionist who wanted
to end slavery because it brutalized slaves and made their owners callous to human
suffering. Their views are described below.
Fitzhugh: The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the
freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet
have all the comforts and necessaries [sic] of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty,
because they are oppressed neither by care nor labor. The women do little hard work,
and are protected from the despotism of their husbands by their masters. The negro
men and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more than nine hours a
day....Besides, they have their Sabbaths and holidays. White men, with so much of
license and liberty, would die of ennui; but negroes luxuriate in corporeal and mental
repose. With their faces upturned to the sum, they can sleep at any hour; and quiet
sleep is the greatest of human enjoyments....The free laborer must work or starve. He is
more of a slave than the negro, because he works longer and harder for less allowance
than the slave, and has no holiday, because the cares of life with him begin when its
labors end. He has no liberty, and not a single right.
Weld: The slaves in the United States are treated with barbarous
inhumanity...they are overworked, underfed, wretchedly clad and lodged, and have
insufficient sleep...they are often made to wear round their necks iron collars armed
with prongs, to drag heavy chains and weights at their feed while working in the
field...they are often kept confined in the stocks day and night for weeks together, made
to wear gags in their mouths for hours or days, have some of their front teeth torn out or
broken off, that they may be easily detected when they run away...they are frequently
flogged with terrible severity, have red pepper rubbed into their lacerated flesh, and hot
brine, spirits of turpentine, etc., poured over the gashes to increase the torture...they are
often stripped naked, their backs and limbs cut with knives, bruised and mangled by
scores and hundreds of blows with the paddle, and terribly torn by the claws of cats,
drawn over them by their tormentors.
Source: George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All, (New York, 1857); Theodore Dwight Weld,
Slavery As It Is, (Boston, 1839).
A NORTHERNER'S ATTITUDE TOWARD SLAVERY
While Abolitionist usually captured the public's attention with their denunciations of
slavery, the vast majority of Northerners were ambivalent toward the institution.
Ebenezer Kellogg, a 28 year-old professor of languages at Williams College in
Massachusetts, visited Charleston, South Carolina in 1817 and provided these
impressions.
The character and situation of the black population of this country is one of the
most interesting subjects of observation to strangers who visit it. Their number is such
as might entitle them to be regarded as the first portion of the population, and the
whites only as a kind of agents for them, performing a very important part in the interior
economy of this mixed society, but a part subservient rather than superior to the
blacks... [But] the negroes are servants and others masters. I saw only house servants,
and those employed in the labours of the town, of the field servants I can say little. Of
house servants every family, however small must have at least three, a cook, a chamber
maid, and a waiting servant. Every small child must have a nurse till it is several years
old. In larger and wealthier families there must be a coachman, a laundress, seamstress,
besides assistants in these departments... You will readily believe that where so many
are employed their labour cannot be very severe; and this is commonly true. The
domestics of a New Englandman, do twice or thrice the work of the same number here.
...As to clothing, that does not in this climate very much affect their comfort.
They are usually decent for labouring people... Yet they sometimes suffer from cold.
They seem more sensible to cold than we are... Little attention is however paid to their
comfort in this particular. I have seen the servants in a cold evening seated on mats in
the hall before the door of the sitting room. They are obliged to spend hours there or in
the back part of the room itself, where it would be unpardonable for them to sit down.
Of their treatment as respect discipline, I saw little. I often heard them scolded
without reason. They were frequently blamed when the justification was obvious to
every bystander. The worst form in which they are wronged...is when they are talked
about in their own presence... It has the effect to harden them to the value of a good
name, and to blight the first risings of anything like affection or respect. When they are
blamed, however unjustly they never answer, never attempt to justify themselves, even
when a single word would completely do. I have never seen them whipped though I have
heard their cries while under the lash. They must, many of them be whipped if they are
to be servants.
A great number from the black population belong to several churches here. The
Episcopal churches are said to contain a great number of colored people... The blacks
pay nothing toward the support of the churches. They sit on benches or stand along the
aisles, or have part of the gallery. These unhappy people are brought to a land that while
it enslaves their bodies...saves their souls [sic] from the slavery of sin, and opens to them
the glorious door of hope, which is the highest blessing of the happiest portion of the
world.
Source: Stanley I. Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 327-329.
SLAVERY AND SOCIAL CONTROL
The slave system included a variety of restrictions and punishments designed to
maintain social control over the black population. In this account Moses Grandy, a
fugitive slave, described some of the measures.
...We had to work, even in long summer days, till twelve o'clock, before we tasted
a morsel, men, women, and children all being served alike. At noon the cart appeared
with our breakfast... There was bread, of which a piece was cut for each person, there
was small hominy boiled...and two herrings for each of the men and women, and one for
each of the children. Our drink was the water in the ditches... The salt fish made us
always thirsty. However thirsty a slave may be, he is not allowed to leave his
employment for a moment to get water; he can only have it when the hands have
reached the ditch, at the end of the rows. The overseer stood with his watch in his hand
to give us just an hour; when he said, 'Rise,' we had to rise and go to work again.... One
black man in kept on purpose to whip the others in the field; and if he does not flog with
sufficient severity, he is flogged himself.
The treatment of slaves is mildest near the border, where the free and slave states join;
it becomes more severe, the farther we go from the free states. It is more severe in the
west and south than where I lived... On the frontier between the slave and free States
there is a guard; no colored person can go over a ferry without a pass. By these
regulations, and the...patrols, escape is made next to impossible.
Formerly slaves were allowed to have religious meetings...but after the [Nat Turner]
insurrection...they were forbidden to meet even for worship. Often they are flogged if
they are found singing or praying at home. They may go to the places of worship used by
the whites; but they like their own meetings better... A number of slaves went into a
wood to hold meetings; when they were found out, they were flogged... Three were shot,
two of whom were killed.
...There are men who make a trade of whipping negroes; they ride about inquiring
for jobs of persons who keep no overseer; if there is a negro to be whipped, whether
man or woman, this man is employed when he calls, and does it immediately; his fee is
half a dollar. Widows and other females, having negroes, get them whipped this way.
Many mistresses will insist on the slave who has been flogged begging pardon for her
fault on her knees, and thanking her for the correction...
The severe punishments...for trifling offenses, or none at all...and the agonizing
feelings they endure at being separated from the dearest connections, drive many of
them to desperation... They hide themselves in the woods, where they remain for
months, and, in some cases for years. When caught, they are flogged...their backs
pickled, [vinegar applied to the back] and the flogging repeated. After months of this
torture, the back is allowed to heal, and the slave is sold away.
Source: Moses Grandy, Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, (Boston, 1844), pp.
16-17, 34-41.
SLAVERY'S IMPACT ON RACE AND GENDER ROLES
Black feminist theorist Michelle Wallace suggests in the passage below the various
ways in which slavery's racial and gender roles impacted on the attitudes toward
black people and particularly on the dynamics of interaction between black women
and men.
As the function of the Southern white woman changed, the life of the black
woman continued just as if the country were in its first stages of growth. She labored in
the fields beside he husband, developed muscles in her arms, bore the lash and the
wrath of her master. Her labor and trials became inextricably associated with her skin
color, even though not so long before the colonial woman had not been much better
off....
Gradually a network of lies developed to justify the continuance of the
master/slave relationship, the selling of children away from their mothers, the
separation of wives and husband, the breeding of slaves like animals. After the
constitutional ban on slave importation, which took effect in 1808, the market required
that a brutal emphasis be placed upon the stud capabilities of the black man and upon
the black woman's fertility. The theory of the inferiority of blacks began to be elaborated
upon and take hold. It was at this point that the black woman gained her reputation for
invulnerability. She was the key to the labor supply. No one wished to admit that she
felt as any woman would about the loss of her children, or that she had any particularly
deep attachment to her husband, since he might also have to be sold. Her first duty had
to be to the master of the house.
She was believed to be not only emotionally callous but physically invulnerablestronger than white women and the physical equal of any man of her race. She was
stronger than white women in order to justify her performing a kind of labor most white
women were now presumed to be incapable of. She had to be considered at least the
physical equal of the black man so that he would not feel justified in attempting to
protect her.
She was labeled sexually promiscuous because it was imperative that her womb
supply the labor force. The father might be her master, a neighboring white man, the
overseer, a slave assigned to her by her master; her marriage was not recognized by law.
Every tenet of the mythology about her was used to reinforce the notion of the
spinelessness and unreliability of the black man, as well as the notion of the frivolity and
vulnerability of white women. The business of sexual and racial definition, hideously
intertwined, had become a matter of balancing extremes. That white was powerful
meant that black had to be powerless. That white men were omnipotent meant that
white women had to be impotent. But slavery produced further complications: black
women had to be strong in ways that white women were not allowed to be, black men
had to be weak in ways that white men were not allowed to be.
Source: Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of Superwoman, (New York,
1979) pp. 137-138.
A TEXAS SLAVE'S LETTER TO HER HUSBAND, 1862
Because most slaves could not read and write only rarely do we have the opportunity
to read the thoughts expressed by someone in bondage. Fanny Perry, a Harrison
County, Texas slave woman has provided one such opportunity with the letter she
wrote to her husband, Norfleet Perry, the personal servant of Theophilus Perry, who at
the time was serving with the 28th Texas Cavalry in Arkansas. Here is Fanny's letter
of December 28, 1862. We do not know if she and Norfleet were ever reunited during
or after the Civil War.
Spring Hill, Dec. 28th 1862
My Dear Husband,
I would be mighty glad to see you and I wish you would write back here and let
me know how you are getting on. I am doing tolerable well and have enjoyed very good
health since you left. I haven't forgot you nor I never will forget you as long as the world
stands, even if you forget me. My love is just as great as it was the first night I married
you, and I hope it will be so with you. My heart and love is pinned to your breast, and I
hope yours is to mine. If I never see you again, I hope to meet you in Heaven. There is
not time night or day but what I am studying about you. I haven't had a letter from you
in some time. I am very anxious to hear from you. I heard once that you were sick but I
heard afterwards that you had got well. I hope your health will be good hereafter.
Master gave us three days Christmas. I wish you could have been here to enjoy it with
me for I did not enjoy myself much because you were not here. I went up to Miss Ock's
to a candy stew last Friday night, I wish you could have been here to have gone with me.
I know I would have enjoyed myself so much better. Mother, Father, Grandmama,
Brothers & Sisters say Howdy and they hope you will do well. Be sure to answer this
soon for I am always glad to hear from you. I hope it will not be long before you can
come home.
Your Loving Wife
Fanny
Source: Randolph B. Campbell and Donald K. Pickens, "'My Dear Husband,' A Texas
Slave's Love Letter, 1862," Journal of Negro History 65:4(Fall 1980):361-364.
SLAVE AND FREE BLACKS IN INDIAN TERRITORY
The Five Civilized Tribes, the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokees Creeks and Seminoles all
developed black slavery in their native homes stretching from North Carolina to
Mississippi. Upon their removal to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in the 1830s, they
brought slaves with them. In the account below Daniel and Mary Ann Littlefield
describe the status and treatment of African Americans, slave and free, among the Five
Tribes.
The greatest population, by far, was among the Seminoles. Between 1838 and
1843, nearly 500 blacks, both slave and free, removed with them. Many were freed by
voluntary acts of their Seminole masters. Some...were free by virtue of their assistance
to the United States as informers, guides, and scouts. The Seminoles had no laws
restricting free blacks, who, like the Seminole slaves, were allowed to own property and
carry weapons. Because they spoke English as well as the Indians' native tongue, several
of the free blacks served as interpreters.
A number of free blacks also lived among the Creeks. Decades before their
removal to the West, the Creeks had written laws which provided for the manumission
of slavery by individual owners. A census of 1832 showed 21,762 Creeks and 502 slaves
with only a few Creeks owning more than ten slaves. Among the Creeks were several
free blacks who were heads of households. The free blacks were removed with the
Creeks, and by the time the Civil War began some of them owned businesses such as
boarding houses and stores...
There were fewer free blacks among the Cherokees despite large numbers of
slaves among them. In 1835, on the eve of removal, there were 16,543 Cherokees and
1,592 slaves. By 1859 the number of slaves in the Cherokee Nation had reached 4,000.
Slavery among the Cherokees was little different from that in the white South and the
status of slaves and free blacks declined as laws became more severe... All persons of
"negro or mulatto parentage" were excluded from holding office. The Cherokee Council
[governing legislature] prohibited the teaching of slaves and free blacks not of Cherokee
blood to read and write...and in the aftermath of a slave revolt in 1842, [it] ordered all
free blacks, not freed by Cherokee citizens, to leave the nation by January 1, 1843.
Fewer slaves lived in the Choctaw Nation. An 1831 census listed 17,963 Choctaws
and 512 slaves [and] eleven free blacks. In 1838 the Choctaws forbade cohabitation with
a slave, the teaching of a slave to read or write without the owner's consent and the
council's emancipating slaves without the owner's consent. Other laws prohibited
intermarriage and persons of African descent from holding office.
The Chickasaws did not hold large numbers of slaves before removal. But at that
time many Chickasaws sold their homes in invested in slaves whom they moved to the
West [and] opened large plantations [using] their blacks in agricultural labor.... The
Chickasaws....regarded their slaves in the same manner as white owners. In the late
1850s the Chickasaws forbade their council from emancipating slaves without the
owner's consent... County judges were authorized to order [free] blacks out of their
respective counties. Those who refused to go were to be sold...as slaves...
Source: Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., and Mary Ann Littlefield, "The Beams Family: Free
Blacks in Indian Territory," Journal of Negro History, 61:1 (January 1976), pp.
17-21.
RUNAWAY SLAVES IN MEXICO
Hundreds of black Texas slaves made their way to freedom in Mexico in the years
before the Civil War. Here is a brief glimpse of the lives of fugitive slaves in Mexico
written by Fredrick Law Olmstead following his famous journey across Texas in the
mid-1850s.
Very few persons were moving in the streets, or engaged in any kind of labor... As
we turned a corner near the bank, we came suddenly upon two negroes, as they were
crossing the street. One of them was startled, and looking ashamed and confounded,
turned hesitantly back and walked away from us; whereas some Mexican children
laughed, and the other negro, looking at us, grinned impudently--expressing plainly
enough--"I am not afraid of you." He touched his hat, however, when I nodded to him,
and then, putting his hands in his pockets, as if he hadn't meant to, stepped up on one of
the sand-bank caverns, whistling. Thither, wishing to have some conversation with him,
I followed. He very civilly informed me, in answer to inquiries, that he was born in
Virginia, and had been brought South by a trader and sold to a gentleman who had
brought him to Texas, from whom he had run away four or five years ago. He would
like...to see old Virginia again, that he would--if he could be free. He was a mechanic,
and could earn a dollar very easily, by his trade, every day. He could speak Spanish
fluently, and had traveled extensively in Mexico, sometimes on his own business, and
sometimes as a servant or muleteer. Once he had been beyond Durango, or nearly to the
Pacific; and, northward, to Chihuahua, and he professed to be competent, as a guide, to
any part of Northern Mexico. He had joined the Catholic Church, he said, and he was
very well satisfied with the country.
Runaways were constantly arriving here; two had got over, as I had previously
been informed, the night before. He could not guess how many came in a year, but he
could count forty, that he had known of, in the last three months. At other points,
further down the river, a great many more came than here. He supposed a good many
got lost and starved to death, or were killed on the way, between the settlements and the
river. Most of them brought with them money, which they had earned and hoarded for
the purpose, or some small articles which they had stolen from their masters. They had
never been used to taking care of themselves, and when they first got here they were so
excited with being free, and with being made so much of by these Mexican women, that
they spent all they brought very soon; generally they gave it all away to the women, and
in a short time they had nothing to live upon, and, not knowing the language of the
country, they wouldn't find any work to do, and often they were very poor and
miserable. But, after they had learned the language, which did not generally take them
long, if they chose to be industrious, they could live very comfortably. Wages were low,
but they had all they earned for their own, and a man's living did not cost him much
here. Colored men, who were industrious and saving, always did well... The Mexican
Government was very just to them, they could always have their rights as fully protected
as if they were Mexican-born. He mentioned to me several negroes whom he had seen,
in different parts of the country, who had acquired wealth, and positions of honor.
Some of them had connected themselves, by marriage, with rich old Spanish families,
who thought as much of themselves as the best white people in Virginia. In fact, a
colored man, if he could behave himself decently, had rather an advantage over a white
American, he thought. The people generally liked them better. These Texas folks were
too rough to suit them.
I believe these statements to have been pretty nearly true; he had no object, that I
could discover, to exaggerate the facts either way, and showed no feeling except a little
resentment towards the women, who probably wheedled him out of his earnings. They
were confirmed, also, in all essential particulars, by every foreigner I saw, who had lived
or traveled in this part of Mexico, as well as by Mexicans themselves, with whom I was
able to converse on the subject. It is repeated as a standing joke--I suppose I have heard
it fifty times in the Texas taverns, and always to the great amusement of the company-that a nigger in Mexico is just as good as a white man, and if you don't treat him civilly
he will have you hauled up and fined by an alcalde. The poor yellow-faced, priest-ridden
heathen, actually hold, in earnest, the ideas on this subject put forth in that good old
joke of our fathers--the Declaration of American Independence.
The runaways are generally reported to be very poor and miserable, which, it is
natural to suppose, they must be. Yet there is something a little strange about this. It is
those that remain near the frontier that suffer most; they who have got far into the
interior are said to be almost invariably doing passably well. A gang of runaways, who
are not generally able to speak Spanish, have settled together within a few days' walk of
Eagle Pass, and I have heard them spoken of as being in a more destitute and wretched
condition than any others. Let any one of them present himself at Eagle Pass, and he
would be greedily snatched up by the first American that he would meet, and restored, at
once, to his old comfortable, careless life. The escape from the wretchedness of freedom
is certainly much easier to the negro in Mexico than has been his previous flight from
slavery, yet I did not hear of a single case of his availing himself of this advantage. If it
ever occur, it must be as one to a thousand of those going the other way.
Dr. Stillman (Letters to the Crayon, 1856) notices having seen at Fort Inge a
powerful and manly-looking mulatto, in the hands of a returning party of last year's
filibustering expedition, who had been three times brought from beyond the Rio Grande.
Once, when seized, his cries awoke his Mexican neighbors, and the captor had to run for
it. Once, after having been captured, and when the claim to him had been sold for fifty
dollars, he escaped with a horse and a six-shooter. Once, again, he escaped from the
field where his temporary holder had set him at work on the Leona. In revenge for this
carelessness, a suit was then pending for these temporary services.
The impulse must be a strong one, the tyranny extremely cruel, the irksomeness
of slavery keenly irritating, or the longing for liberty much greater than is usually
attributed to the African race, which induces a slave to attempt an escape to Mexico.
The masters take care, when negroes are brought into Western Texas, that they are
informed (certainly never with any reservation, and sometimes, as I have had personal
evidence, with amusing extravagance) of the dangers and difficulties to be encountered
by a runaway.
There is a permanent reward offered by the state for their recovery, and a
considerable number of men make a business of hunting them. Most of the frontier
rangers are ready at any time to make a couple of hundred dollars, by taking them up, if
they come in their way. If so taken, they are severely punished, though if they return
voluntarily they are commonly pardoned. If they escape immediate capture by dogs or
men, there is then the great dry desert country to be crossed, with the danger of falling
in with savages, or of being attacked by panthers or wolves, or of being bitten or stung
by the numerous reptiles that abound in it; of drowning miserably at the last of the
fords; in winter, of freezing in a norther, and, at all seasons, of famishing in the
wilderness from the want of means to procure food.
Bravo negro! Say I. He faces all that is terrible to man for the chance of liberty,
from hunger and thirst to every nasty form of four-footed and two-footed devil. I fear I
should myself suffer the last servile indignities before setting foot in such a net of
concentrated torture. I pity the man whose sympathies would not warm to a dog under
these odds. How can they be held back from the slave who is driven to assert his claim
to manhood?...
Source: Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey Through Texas--Or, a Saddle-Trip on the
Southwestern Frontier, (New York, Mason Brothers, 1859), pp. 323-327.
THE MORMONS AND BLACK SLAVERY
By 1852 Utah had become the only territory to legalize both black and Indian slavery.
Lester Bush, Jr., a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
described the evolution of Mormon doctrines on blacks and slavery against the
background of the antebellum slavery controversy. Part of his account is reprinted
below.
There once was a time, albeit brief, when a "Negro problem" did not exist for the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During those early months in New York
and Ohio...the Gospel was for "all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples...." A Negro,
"Black Pete," was among the first converts in Ohio... W.W. Phelps opened a mission to
Missouri in July, 1831, and preached to...Negroes among his first audience. The
following year another black, Elijah Abel, was baptized in Maryland. [Abel was later
named a priest in the church and lived for a time in Prophet Joseph Smith's home.]
This initial period was brought to an end by the influx of Mormons into the
Missouri mission in late 1831 and early 1832... In less than a year a rumor was afoot that
[the Mormons] were "tampering" with the slaves. In the summer of 1833, W.W. Phelps
published an article... Missourians interpreted as an invitation "to free negroes from
other states to become 'Mormon' and settle among us." The local citizenry immediately
drafted a list of accusations against the Saints, prominently featuring the anti-slavery
issue.... In response Phelps issued an "Extra" explaining that he had been
'misunderstood'....and declared [no blacks] "will be admitted into the Church." The
Mormons, in spite of their repeated denials, continued to be charged with anti-slavery
activity in Missouri. In response, the next issue of the Messenger and Advocate, [the
Church newspaper] was devoted to a rebuttal of abolitionism... However, far from
professing divine insight the authors [including Joseph Smith] made it expressly clear
that these were their personal views.
The Mormon exodus to the Salt Lake Valley did not free the Saints from the
slavery controversy, for much of the national debate was focused on the West.... The
constitution of Deseret was intentionally without reference to slavery and Brigham
Young declared "as a people we are adverse to slavery but we do not wish to meddle in
the subject." Though no law authorized...slavery in Utah, there were slaves in the
territory. They were fully at liberty to leave their masters if they chose. Slaveowning
converts were instructed to bring their slaves west if the slaves were willing to come, but
were otherwise advised to "sell them" or let them go free. The first group of Mormons to
enter the Salt Lake valley were accompanied by three Negro "servants." By 1850 nearly
100 blacks had arrived, approximately two-thirds of whom were slaves.
The "laissez-faire" approach to slavery came to an end in 1852. In his request for
legislation on slavery Governor Brigham Young...declared "while servitude may and
should exist...and [there are] those who are naturally designed to occupy the position of
'servant of servants'...we should not...make them beasts of the field, regarding not the
humanity with attaches to the colored race...nor elevate them...to an equality with those
whom Nature and Nature's God has indicated to be their masters."
Source: Lester E. Bush, Jr., "Mormonism's Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,"
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 8:(1973), pp. 11-25.
THE DEBATE OVER CALIFORNIA
In 1850 the debate over the admission of California as a free state nearly prompted a
civil war. The Compromise of 1850 was worked out to mollify both pro- and
anti-slavery interests. However New York Senator William H. Seward, who four
years later became one of the founders of the Republican Party, spoke against the
Compromise. Part of his address is reprinted below.
Four years ago, California, a Mexican province, scarcely inhabited and quite
unexplored, was unknown even to our usually immoderate desires... To-day, California
is a state, more populous than the least and richer than several of the greatest of our
thirty states. This same California, thus rich and populous, is here asking admission
into the Union, and finds us debating the dissolution of the Union itself. Let California
come in...California, the youthful queen of the Pacific, in her robes of freedom,
gorgeously inlaid with gold--is doubly welcome...
But it is insisted that the admission of California shall be attended by a
compromise of questions which have arisen out of slavery!
I am opposed to any such compromise, in any and all the forms in which it has
been proposed.
What am I to receive in this compromise? Freedom in California. It is well; it is
worth the sacrifice. But what am I to give as an equivalent? A recognition of the claim
to perpetuate slavery in the District of Columbia; forbearance toward more stringent
laws concerning the arrest of persons suspected of being slaves found in the free states;
forbearance from the proviso of freedom in the charters of new territories....California
brings gold and commerce as well as freedom. I am, then to surrender some portion of
human freedom in the District of Columbia, and in New Mexico, for the mixed
consideration of liberty, gold, and power, on the Pacific coast.
California ought to come in...whether slavery stand or fall in the District of
Columbia...in New Mexico...and even whether slavery stand or fall in the slave states.
What is proposed is a political equilibrium. Every political equilibrium requires a
physical equilibrium to rest upon... To constitute a physical equilibrium between the
slave states and the free states, requires, first, an equality of territory... And this is
already lost.
We hear nothing but slavery, and well can talk of nothing but slavery. And now
our difficulties, embarrassments, and dangers, arise....from want of moral courage to
meet this question of emancipation as we ought. I feel assured that slavery must give
way...to the salutary instruction of economy, and to the ripening influences of humanity;
that emancipation is inevitable, and is near...but I will adopt none but lawful,
constitutional, and peaceful means, to secure even that end...
Let, then, those who distrust the Union make compromises to save it. I shall not
impeach their wisdom, as I certainly cannot their patriotism; but, indulging no such
apprehensions myself, I shall vote for the admission of California directly, without
conditions, with qualifications, and without compromise...
Source: Richard N. Current and John A. Garraty, ed., Words that Made American
History, Vol.I, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1965), pp. 446-459.
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850: TWO VIEWS
The controversy over the admission of California to the Union in 1850 almost
prompted the secession of several slaveholding states. In the passages below South
Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun and Massachusetts Congressman Horace Mann
offer opposing views on the issue of California and slavery in speeches before
Congress.
Calhoun: The Union cannot... be saved by eulogies on the Union, however
splendid or numerous. The cry of "Union, Union, the glorious Union!" can no more
prevent disunion than the cry of "Health, health, glorious health!" on the part of the
physician, can save a patient lying dangerously ill...
How can the Union be saved? There is but one way by which it can with any
certainty; and that is, by a full and final settlement, on the principle of justice of all the
questions at issue between the two sections...
But can this be done? Yes, easily; not by the weaker party, for it can of itself do
nothing--not even protect itself--but by the stronger. The North has only to will it to
accomplish it--to do justice by conceding to the South an equal right in the acquired
territory, and to do her duty by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive slaves to be
faithfully fulfilled--to cease the agitation of the slave question, and to provide for the
insertion of a provision in the Constitution, by an amendment, which will restore to the
South, in substance, the power she possessed of protecting herself before the
equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of this Government...
If you who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle them on the
broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree to
separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so; and
we shall know what to do, when you reduce the question to submission or resistance.
Mann: Gentlemen of the South not only argue the question of right and of honor;
they go further, and they tell us what they will proceed to do if we do not yield to their
demands. A large majority of the Southern legislators have solemnly "resolved" that if
Congress prohibits slavery in the new territories, they will resist the law "at any and at
every hazard..."
And do the gentlemen who make these threats soberly consider how deeply they
are pledging themselves and their constituents by them? Threats of dissolution, if
executed, become rebellion and treason.... Such forcible opposition to the government
would be treason. Its agents and abettors would be traitors. Wherever this rebellion
rears it crest, martial law will be proclaimed; and those found with hostile arms in their
hands must prepare for the felon's doom...
I have only to add that such is my solemn and abiding conviction of the character
of slavery that under a full sense of my responsibility to my country and my God, I
deliberately say, better disunion--better a civil or a servile war--better anything that God
in His Providence shall send, than an extension of the bounds of slavery.
Source: John M. Blum, The National Experience: A History of the United States (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), pp. 268-269.
ABOLITIONISTS-GARRISON AND DOUGLASS
William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass were leaders of the abolitionist
movement. In the passages below Garrison and Douglass outline their views. The
Garrison passage is from the first editorial of his anti- slavery newspaper, The
Liberator, founded in 1831. The Douglass passage is from speech he gave in Boston in
1857.
Garrison: I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is
there not a cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as
justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think or speak, or write with moderation. No!
No! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately
rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her
babe from the fire into which it has fallen;--but urge me not to use moderation in the
cause like the present. I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will
not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD.
Douglass: The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all
concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle... If there
is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet
deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want
the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both
moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly
submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will
be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or
blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those
whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and
held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and
make no resistance, either moral or physical.
Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all
they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must
pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs
be, by our lives and the lives of others.
Sources: Richard Current, American History: A Survey, (New York: Knopf, 1961),
p.314; Lerone Bennett, Ebony Pictorial History of Black America, I, (Nashville:
Southwestern Company, 1971), p. 221-222.
A FUGITIVE SLAVE RESPONDS TO HIS OWNER
The Fugitive Slave Act proved unenforceable in the North because abolitionists refused
to assist local authorities in capturing runaway slaves. In 1860 J.W. Lougen, a
fugitive slave living in Syracuse, N.Y., responded to his owner, Mrs. Sarah Logue, of
Tennessee, who had requested he return to her plantation or face the possibility of
slave catchers. Lougen's reply reflects his sense of personal security in Syracuse.
Mrs. Sarah Logue:
Yours of the 20th of February is duly received, and I thank you for it. You sold my
brother and sister, Abe and Ann, and twelve acres of land, you say, because I ran away.
Now you have the meanness to ask me to return and be your chattel, or in lieu thereof,
send you $1,000 to redeem the land but not to redeem my poor brother and sister! If I
were to send you money, it would be to get my brother and sister, and not that you
should get land. You say you are a cripple...to stir my pity, for you knew I was
susceptible in that direction. I do pity you from the bottom of my heart. Nevertheless, I
am indignant beyond the power of words to express, that you should be so cruel as to
tear the hearts I love so much all in pieces; that you should be willing to crucify us all,
out of compassion for your poor foot or leg. Wretched woman! I value my freedom, to
say nothing of my mother, brothers and sisters more than your whole body; more,
indeed, than my own life, more than all of the lives of all the slaveholders and tyrants
under heaven.
You say you have offers to buy me, and that you shall sell me if I do not send you
$1,000, and in the same breath and almost in the same sentence, you say, "You know we
raised you as we did our own children." Woman, did you raise your own children for
the market? Did you raise them for the whipping-post? Did you raise them to be driven
off, bound to a coffle in chains? Where are my poor bleeding brothers and sisters? Can
you tell? Who was it that sent them off into sugar and cotton fields, to be kicked and
cuffed, and whipped, and to groan and die... Do you say you did not do it? Then I reply,
your husband did, and you approved the deed--and the very letter you sent me shows
that your heart approves it all. Shame on you!
You say I am a thief, because I took the old mare along with me. Have you got to
learn that I had a better right to the old mare than Mannasseth Logue had to me? Is it a
greater sin for me to steal a horse, than it was for him to rob my mother's cradle and
steal me? If he and you infer that I forfeit all my rights to you, shall not I infer that you
forfeit all your rights to me? Have you got to learn that human rights are mutual and
reciprocal, and if you take my liberty and life, you forfeit your own liberty and life?
Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every
other man?
If you or any other speculator on my body and rights, wish to know how I regard
my rights, they need but come here, and lay their hands on me to enslave me. Did you
think to terrify me by presenting the alternative to give my money to you, or give my
body to slavery? Then let me say to you, that I meet the proposition with unutterable
scorn and contempt. I stand among a free people, who, I thank God, sympathize with
my rights and the rights of mankind...
Source: Stanley I. Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 342-343.
OREGON TERRITORY BANS AFRICAN AMERICANS
The Territorial Legislature in 1854 reenacted an earlier statute which banned the entry
of African Americans into Oregon. The new measure is reprinted below.
A BILL TO PREVENT NEGROES AND MULATTOES FROM COMING TO, OR
RESIDING IN OREGON
Sect. 1 Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Oregon that it shall
not be lawful for any negro or mulatto to enter into, or reside within the limits of this
Territory. Providing that nothing in this act shall ....apply to any negro or mulatto now
resident in this Territory, nor shall it apply to the offspring of any such as are residents....
Sect. 2 That Masters and owners of vessels having negroes or mulattoes in their employ
on board of vessel may bring them into Oregon Provided that in so doing such master, or
owner, shall be responsible for the conduct of such negro or mulatto....and shall be liable
to any person aggrieved by such negro or mulatto.
Sect. 3 No negro or mulatto shall be permitted to leave the port where the vessel upon
which they are or may be employed shall be lying without the written permission of such
master or owner....
Sect. 4 That it shall be the duty of masters and owners of vessels having brought
negroes or mulattoes into Oregon as aforesaid to cause such negro or mulatto to leave
this territory with such vessel upon which the shall have been brought into the Territory,
or from some other vessel within forty days.
Sect. 5 If any master or owners of a vessel having brought negroes or mulattoes as
provided for in the second section of this act into this Territory, shall fail to remove and
take the same with them when leaving the Territory.... shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor....and on conviction, shall be fined and imprisoned at the discretion of the
court; Provided that the fine in no case shall be less than five hundred dollars.
Sect. 6 If any negro or mulatto shall be found in this Territory, except as hereinbefore
provided and except such as may now be permanent residents, it shall be the duty of any
Judge or Justice of the Peace to....to issue a warrant for the apprehension of such negro
or mulatto, directed to any sheriff or constable....to arrest....such negro or mulatto....
Sect. 7 If any negro or mulatto shall be found a second time unlawfully remaining in this
Territory he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall....upon conviction be
fined and imprisoned at the discretion of the court.
Sect. 8 The Governor of this Territory shall cause this act to be published in some one or
more of the California newspapers and such other newspapers as he may think
necessary in order to carry out the spirit of the same.
Sect. 9 This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage.
Source: Archives of the Oregon Historical Society
BRIDGET "BIDDY" MASON IN SLAVERY AND FREEDOM
Bridget "Biddy" Mason, born a slave in Georgia, became one of the first settlers of Los
Angeles when the city had fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. Today a memorial to her 19th
urban homestead sits across the street from the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in
downtown Los Angeles. Here is a partial account of the freedom Mason found in the
Far West.
Nothing is left of the original homestead of Biddy Mason, the first black woman
to own property in Los Angeles. In its place, at 331 South Spring Street, is the new
Broadway-Spring Center, primarily a parking structure. But this is no ordinary parking
garage. Ten stories tall, the Broadway-Spring Center is a rather graceful pink-and-green
building with a Tony Sheets bas-relief on the front facade. The ground floor will be
divided into shops with access to the small, tranquil park that has been named after
Mason and which provides a green, well-planted walkway between Broadway and Spring
Street. Two public art pieces─one by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, the other by Betye
Saar─have recently been installed here, and, as part of the same project, a fine art book
has been printed by artist Susan E. King, all to honor Mason and the site where her
home once stood.
More than a mile away, close to the USC campus, an old church that Mason
founded still exists. The First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, one
hundred and eighteen years old, is a testament to the complexity of Mason's life, work,
and impact on the city. Many black leaders in the community worship there. The
dynamic Reverend Cecil L. "Chip" Murray offers up sermons with titles such as "You
Can't Beat the House," while a conga drum, an electric guitar, and clapping hands set a
background beat for gospel-rocking songs that bring people to their feet and infuse the
room with sudden, irresistible energy, the energy of hope and belief and love.
There's a very large mural at the front of the church, lit with a golden light that
also bathes the pulpit. A history is pictured there: pyramids, Africa, slavery, migration,
rows of crops and workers. Presiding over everything is the great motherly figure of
Biddy Mason─Grandma Mason. She's tending a flock of sheep, and she appears
dignified and strong.
Biddy Mason bought her land and built her house in 1866 in a town then so raw
and new that the streets were troughs of mud or dust. Gas lamps were individually lit,
one by one, every night, by a rider on horseback, illuminating a scant few blocks of
humble houses in the bottom of a dark, sloping basin, now the valley of a billion lights.
Mason was born in 1818 in the state of Georgia and sold into slavery at eighteen.
She walked across America in 1848 with the family who owned her and her sister─a
Mississippi family who'd converted to Mormonism and were trekking west in caravans
of wagons. They were a homeless people slouching toward Zion, traveling with their
slaves and stock and children in oxcarts loaded with everything they owned. Biddy thus
became a western pioneer, a black slave caught up in a white religious pilgrimage. She
had three children at the time, including the baby she carried in her arms.
They walked from Mississippi to Paducah, Kentucky, to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and
Lincoln, Nebraska, and points less charted to the west, seven continuous months of
walking, until eventually Biddy's party passed the valley of the Great Salt Lake in
Utah─where others settled permanently─and went on to San Bernardino, arriving in
1851.
But this Mormon family, named Smith, who owned Biddy and her sister and their
children, didn't realize that California was a free slave state: If you brought your slaves
here, and they wanted to leave you, they could. That's exactly what Biddy wanted, but
Smith was hoping to depart for Texas, taking his slaves along before anyone could stop
him.
Biddy, however, had made friends with free blacks here, including Elizabeth
Flake Rowan, Charles Owens, and his father, Robert Owens, who ran a flourishing stable
on San Pedro Street. Owens got up a posse of vaqueros to rescue Biddy and her kin,
swooping down on the Mormon camp in the Santa Monica mountains in the middle of
the night. Biddy sued for freedom in court, won her papers in 1856, and moved her
family in with the Owens. She was, at this time, thirty-eight years old.
Mason possessed great skills in medicine and became a midwife. Like many AfroAmerican women, she knew the lore of remedies and rituals. (For childbirth, keep the
patient walking as "long as she can drag"; for a new baby, "string small pieces of poke
root around a baby's neck to ease teething"; to celebrate a birth, "make a blue flame in
the hearthfire by throwing a handful of salt"...)
Ten years after winning her freedom she had saved enough money to buy the
Spring Street lot; she eventually built her own house there─the house in which the First
African Methodist Church was born. In time she bought more land.
Her grandsons were prosperous, in part because she gave them land to start a
stable, and later she erected a two-story building. She became known for her good
works. Before her death in 1891, she also became rich enough to know the joys of
opening her hand and giving her wealth away.
Source: Judith Freeman, "Commemorating An L.A. Pioneer," Los Angeles Magazine,
April, 1990, pp. 58-60.
BLEEDING KANSAS--ONE SOUTHERNER'S VIEW
Axalla John Hoole, a South Carolinian, was one of thousands of Americans who
participated in the settlement of Kansas Territory in the 1850s. Hoole, like most
Southerners, came to Kansas partly to insure its admission as a slave state while
Northern settlers had the opposite intent. These excerpts from his letters home
describe "Bleeding Kansas."
Lecompton, K.T., Sept. 12, 1856
My Dear Mother
I must write you a few lines to let you know how I am getting along, though I have
but little hopes of your getting this letter for some time past have been miscarried or
stopped on the way--but I will make the venture.
You perceive from the heading of this that I am now in Lecompton, almost all of
the Proslavery party between this place and Lawrence are here. We brought our families
here, as we though that we would be better able to defend ourselves when altogether
than if we were scattered over the country. [Anti-slavery leader James] Lane came
against us last Friday..... We had about 400 men with two cannon--we marched out to
meet him, though we were under the impression at the time that we had 1,000 men. We
came in gunshot of each other, but the regular soldiers came and interfered, but not
before our party had shot some dozen guns, by which it is reported that five of the
Abolitionists were killed or wounded. We had strict orders from our commanding
officer (Gen'l Marshall) not to fire until they made the attack, but some of our boys
would not be restrained. I was a rifleman and one of the skirmishers, but did all that I
could to restrain our men though I itched all over to shoot, myself. I drew a bead a
dozen times on a big Yankee about 150 yards from me, but did not fire, as I knew if I did,
the boys all around me would do the same, and we had orders not to fire until the word
was given....I firmly believe that we would have whipped them, though we would have
lost a good many men. I did not see a pale face in our whole army, every man seemed
keen to fight. I for one, did not feel as nervous as I am when I go to shoot a beef or a
turkey.
Your Affectionate Son
Douglas, K.T., July the 5th., 1857
Dear Sister:
I fear, Sister, that coming here will do no good at last, as I begin to think that this
will be made a Free State at last. 'Tis true we have elected Proslavery men to draft a
state constitution, but I feel pretty certain, if it is put to the vote of the people, it will be
rejected, as I feel pretty confident they have a majority here at this time. The South has
ceased all efforts, while the North is redoubling her exertions. We nominated a
candidate for Congress last Friday--Ex-Gov. Ransom of Michigan. I must confess I have
not much faith in him, tho he professes to hate the Abolitionists bitterly, and I have
heard him say that Negroes were a great deal better off with Masters. Still, I fear him,
but it was the best we could do. If we had nominated a Southern man, he would have
been beaten, and I doubt whether we can even elect a Northerner who favors our side...
Source: Stanley I Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 393-394.
THE DRED SCOTT DECISION
In 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that a black slave was
undeniably property and because no citizen could be deprived of his property without
due process of law as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, Congress could not outlaw
slavery in any territory under its jurisdiction. The decision understandably sent shock
waves through the black community and, moreover, angered anti-slavery advocates
throughout the country. Part of that controversial decision is printed below.
The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this
country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and
brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become
entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied [sic] by that
instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the
United States...
In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the
language used in the Declaration of Independence, show that neither ...slaves, nor their
descendants, whether they had become free or not, were acknowledged as a part of the
people...
They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior
order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political
relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to
respect.
...The general words [of the Declaration of Independence] would seem to
embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this
day would be so understood. But is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race
were not intended to be included and formed no part of the people who framed and
adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace
them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of
Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles
they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently
appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.
...They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it
would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the
civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had
been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to
slavery... The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and
laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property,
and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need
protection.
It is the judgment of this court...that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of
Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution...and that the
Circuit Court of the United States had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no
judgment in it...
Source: Leslie H. Fishel and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro American: A Documentary
History, (Glenview, Ill., 1967), pp. 205-207.
JOHN BROWN'S LAST SPEECH, November 2, 1859
John Brown, the New York abolitionist who moved to Kansas in the 1850s and
participated in the territory's civil war, was arrested in 1859, tried and convicted of
attempting to seize the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry to gather arms to support a
large scale slave uprising in the South. Brown offered no defense at his trial other than
his desire to end slavery.
I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say.
In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted,--the
design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of
that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without
the snapping of a gun either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them
in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all
I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to
excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection.
I have another objection: and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a
penalty. Had I interfered...in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the
so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends,--either father, mother, brother, sister,
wife, or children, or any of that class,--and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this
interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have
deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment...
This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book
kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches
me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to
them. It teaches me, further, to 'remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.'
I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that
God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered...in behalf of His
despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should
forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further
with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose
rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments,--I submit; so let it be
done!
Source: Leslie H. Fishel and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro American: A Documentary
History, (Glenview, Ill., 1967), p. 207.
LINCOLN'S POLITICS
Abraham Lincoln writing to his friend, Joshua Speed, in 1852 offered the following
explanation of his political views. Lincoln's ambivalence about his political affiliation
reflected the increasing political confusion brought on by the slavery question. Within
two years Lincoln and thousands of other Americans would create the Republican
Party to articulate their views and advocate the changes they felt were vital to the
nation's interests.
You enquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I am a whig, but
others say there are no whigs and that I am an abolitionist... I am not a Know-nothing.
That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of
negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people?
Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we
began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men
are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read
"all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners and Catholics." When it
comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense
of living liberty--to Russia, for instance, were despotism can be taken pure, and without
the base alloy of hyprocracy [sic]."
Source: William E. Gienapp, This Fiery Trial: The Speeches and Writings of Abraham
Lincoln, (New York, 2002), p. 37.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM, 1860
Here is part of the platform of the Republican Party when it nominated Abraham
Lincoln for President. Much of that platform was unacceptable to the South and
Lincoln's election precipitated the secession of a number of Southern States which later
formed the Confederacy.
Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the
United States, in Convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our
constituents and our country, unite in the following declarations:
1. That the history of the nation, during the last four years, has fully established the
propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the Republican party,
and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and
now, more than ever before, demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph.
2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of
Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..." is essential to the preservation of
our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the Rights of the States,
and the Union of the States, must and shall be preserved.
3. That to the Union of the States this nation owes its unprecedented increase in
population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of
wealth, its happiness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all
schemes for Disunion, come from whatever source they may...
4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right
of each State in order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own
judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and
endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by
armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among
the gravest of crimes.
5. That the present Democratic Administration has far exceeded our worst
apprehensions, in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of sectional interest, as
especially evinced in its desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton
constitution upon the protesting people of Kansas; in construing the personal relation
between master and servant to involve an unqualified property in persons; in its
attempted enforcement, everywhere, on land and sea, through the intervention of
Congress and of the Federal Courts of the extreme pretensions of a purely local interest;
and in its general and unvarying abuse of the power intrusted to it by a confiding
people...
7. That the new dogma that the Constitution, of its own force, carries Slavery into any
or all of the Territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy...is
revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country.
8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is freedom; That
as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory,
ordained that "no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law," it becomes our duty...to maintain this provision of the Constitution
against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial
legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the
United States.
9. That we brand the recent re-opening of the African slave-trade, under the cover of
our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity
and a burning shame to our country and age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt
and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of the execrable traffic.
11. That Kansas should, of right, be immediately admitted as a State under the
Constitution recently formed and adopted by her people, and accepted by the House of
Representatives.
12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government by
duties upon imports, sound policy requires such as adjustment of these imposts as to
encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country...
13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the Public Lands held by
actual settlers, and against any view of the Homestead policy which regards the settlers
as paupers or supplicants for public bounty; and we demand the passage by Congress of
the complete and satisfactory Homestead measure which has already passed the house.
14. That the Republican Party is opposed to any change in our Naturalization
Laws...and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of
citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.
16. That a Railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively demanded by the interests of
the whole country; that the Federal Government ought to render immediate and
efficient aid in its construction; and that, as preliminary thereto, a daily Overland Mail
should be promptly established...
Source: Richard N. Current and John A. Garraty, ed., Words that Made American
History, Vol. I, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1965), pp. 522-525.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860
Popular
Electoral
%
Party
Vote
Vote
Vote
Abraham Lincoln
Stephen A. Douglas
Republican
Northern Democrats
1,865,593
1,382,713
180
12
40%
30%
John Breckenridge
John Bell
Southern Democrats
Constitutional Union
848,356
592,906
72
39
18%
12%
Pop.
Candidate
CHAPTER FOUR: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION
Terms for Week 4
Fort Sumter
Jefferson Davis
New York City Draft Riot, 1863
Robert E. Lee
Ulysses S. Grant
Emancipation Proclamation, 1862
Battle of Vicksburg
Battle of Gettysburg
Sherman's March to the Sea
Stand Watie
Appomattox Court House
Congressional Reconstruction
Radical Republicans
Radical Republican leaders:
Senator Charles Sumner-Massachusetts
Congressman Thaddeus Stevens-Pennsylvania
Andrew Johnson
Reconstruction Amendments
Thirteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment
Fifteenth Amendment
Freedmen's Bureau
Black Codes
Mississippi Vagrancy Act, 1866
Ku Klux Klan
Sunday School League
Mississippi Plan
Compromise of 1877
"Birth of A Nation"
grandfather clause
sharecropping
Ben Tillman
AMERICA'S BLOODIEST WAR
The Civil War was second only to World War II as the bloodiest military contest in
which Americans have been engaged. Nearly 365,000 men, women and children were
killed between 1861 and 1865 compared to the 405,000 American deaths in World War
II. However because the population of the U.S. in 1860 was 31 million and in 1940 it
was 132 million, the Civil War's impact on the nation was far greater. The vignettes
below describe the carnage that became so typical of Civil War battles. The first is a
description of the 1862 Battle of Antietam by future Supreme Court Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes and the second is Walt Whitman's description of the Battle of Chancellorsville (Va.) in 1863.
Holmes: On coming near the brow of the hill, we met a party carrying picks and
spades. "How many?" "Only one." The dead were nearly all buried, then, in this region
of the field of strife. We stopped the wagon, and, getting out, began to look around us.
Hard by was a large pile of muskets, scores, if not hundreds, which had been picked up,
and were guarded for the Government. A long ridge of fresh gravel rose before us. A
board stuck up in front of it bore this inscription, the first part of which was, I believe,
not correct: "The Rebel General Anderson and 80 Rebels are buried in this hole."
Other smaller ridges were marked with the number of dead lying under them. The
whole ground was strewn with fragments of clothing, haversacks, canteens, cap boxes,
bullets, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions of bread and meat. I saw two solders' caps
that looked as though their owners had been shot through the head. In several places I
noticed dark red patches where a pool of blood had curdled and caked, as some poor
fellow poured his life out on the sod.
Whitman: The night was very pleasant, at times the moon shining out full and
clear, all Nature so calm in itself, the early summer grass so rich, and the foliage of the
trees--yet there the battle raging, and many good fellows lying helpless, and every
minute amid the rattle of muskets and cannon the red life-blood oozing out from heads
or trunks or limbs upon that green and dew-cool grass. Patches of the woods take fire,
and several of the wounded, unable to move, are consumed--quite large spaces are swept
over, burning the dead also. Then the camps of the wounded. There they lie, from 200
to 300 poor fellows--the groans and screams, the odor of blood, mixed with the fresh
scent of the night, the grass, the trees--that slaughter-house! One man is shot by a shell,
both in the arm and leg--both are amputated--there lie the rejected members. Some
have their legs blown off--some bullets through the breast--some indescribably horrid
wounds in the face or head, all mutilated, sickening, torn, gouged out--some mere boys.
Source: Stephan Thernstrom, A History of the American People, Vol. I, (New York,
1989), pp. 389, 395.
SECESSION--ONE PLANTER'S VIEW
Lincoln's election in 1860 moved the nation toward division. In the following letter
from Edward Barnell Heyward, a South Carolina planter to his friend, James A. Lord
in Connecticut, Southern fears of a Republican administration are explained. This
letter was written one month before South Carolina seceded from the Union.
November 20, 1860
My Dear Jim:
...it might interest you to hear how I am living and what my occupations may be,
and also to hear from a State which just now by her political position is somewhat the
object of attraction in this country. In January next we shall take leave of the Union and
shall construct with our Sister Cotton States a government for ourselves. Whether the
other Slave States will join seem very uncertain at least for the present. The condition of
affairs at the North since the election of an Abolitionist for President makes it necessary
for us to get away as quickly as possible. We have on hand about three million Bales of
Cotton and plenty to eat & clothe ourselves with, and what is most important our
working population have masters to take care of them and will not feel any pressure
such as will soon come upon the operatives in the manufacturing States at the North. Of
course we shall declare free trade with the whole world and having no manufactures to
protect we shall bring about such a competition with the manufactures of this Country
and those of Europe that the profits in such business at the North will be seriously
reduced. In the Country here the planters are all quiet and our crops going to market as
usual. If there is no money in the banks we can go without it till England and France
and perhaps the North send the gold for the cotton which they must have or go all to
ruin. I have about 130 Bales of Cotton on my plantation to sell, and about 3000 bshls of
corn and one hundred Hogs now fattening for the negroes to eat and their winter clothes
I will get in a few days. I have plenty of Beef & mutton to feed my family upon and I
think I and all around me could stand hard times better than some of the rich
abolitionists of your part of the World. If you were a rich man Jim I should advise you
to quit the North &and come here and live in quiet, but you have nothing to loose by the
Revolution that I suppose must ensue upon the present overthrow of our beautiful
government. The Northern men must rouse themselves and shake off the Tyrants who
now rule over them, or they will soon be numbered among the Nations which have over
them, or them will soon be numbered among the Nations which have been! You live
among a manufacturing people and you know better than I what the conditions of things
would be in case the operatives were all dismissed, or put on starvation prices for the
next year. If times get very hot you had better come on here, & try farming where there
is a distinction between a white man and a black one, which is not found in Connecticut.
Do write me as before, care of Messrs. Wm. C. Bee and Co., Charleston, S.C. soon
and tell me what is going on at home and about at the North. When next I write I shall
belong to another government for which I shall be thankful...
Yours most Affectionately, E.B. Heyward
Source: Stanley I Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), p. 399.
THE SECESSION CRISIS, 1860-1861
Seceding State
South Carolina
Mississippi
Florida
Alabama
Georgia
Louisiana
Texas
Confederate Government Organized in
Montgomery, Alabama
Confederate Bombardment of Federal
Garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina
Virginia
Arkansas
North Carolina
Tennessee
Date of Secession
December 20, 1860
January 9, 1861
January 10, 1861
January 11, 1861
January 19, 1861
January 26, 1861
February 1, 1861
February 4, 1861
April 12, 1861
April 17, 1861
May 6, 1861
May 20, 1861
June 8, 1861
A SOUTHERN WOMAN DEFENDS SECESSION
Susanna Sparks Keitt, a South Carolinian whose husband had participated in the state
convention which voted to secede, wrote her Philadelphia friend, Mrs. Frederick
Brown, on March 4, 1861, explaining why the Southern states left the Union.
My Dear Friend
You must believe me when I say we did not break up the Union you so much love
nor bring about the crisis you so much deplore. 'Tis true we have refused to accept
Lincoln for a president. What of that? Did you think the people of the South, the Lords
Proprietors of the Land, would let this low fellow rule for them? No! His vulgar
facetiousness may suit the race of clock makers and wooden nutmeg vendors--even Wall
Street brokers may accept him, since they do not protest--but never will he receive the
homage of southern gentlemen. See the disgusting spectacle now presented to the world
by the Federal government. The President Elect of the American people, on his
triumphal march to the Capitol, exhibits himself at railway depots, bandies jokes with
the populaces, kissed bold women from promiscuous crowds, jests with [prize]
fighters.... Oh, shame, shame. Should we submit to such degradation?
Who are these Black Republicans? A motley throng of...infidels, free lovers,
interspersed by Bloomer women, fugitive slaves, and amalgamists. What are...the
doctrines they teach? Equity and justice? Peace and Good Will toward men? No, but
the Jesuitical dogma of the expediency of crime when a doubtful good may come. Such
crimes as murder, arson, perjury, and theft find ready absolution if the record be
accompanied by a stolen slave, and have the red seal of southern blood...
With a rancor and hatred worthy of a foreign foe, the Republicans prepare for a
war of extermination. Yes, extermination, for they know as well as we do that thus only
can they conquer us. See their bloody programme. The dykes [sic] of the Mississippi
must be cut, and the minds of our happy slaves poisoned of thought of murder and
conflagration. How can you counsel submission to such a people? We loved the Union;
but our lives, homes, and kindred are dear to us and cannot be sacrificed to a
Memory....Yes, war let it be if war they desire. And the Stars and Stripes will shame
their ancient glories when the "Southern Cross" takes the field. And if the fate of
Carthagenia be ours, we women, like those of old, will cut our hair for bowstrings to
plague the enemy as long as possible.
You still hope for reunion. A vain hope unless our conditions be accepted. Here
they are: Hang all your...Garrisons, Greeleys, and Ward Beechers, incarcerate your
Garret Smiths, unite your Sumners and Sewards to ebony spouses and send them as
resident ministers...to Timbuctoo and Ashantee [African kingdoms]. Purge the halls of
Congress and the White House...of their presence, and attach the death penalty to all
future agitation of the slavery question. When these things are done, then, and not till
then, will we consider the question of reunion.
Our relations have been so pleasant it would pain me to see them altered, but I
must candidly say that I can make no distinction between at-cost-of war Union Lovers
and ultra Black Republicans. The matter of our continued friendship must now be
decided by you.
Source: Stanley I. Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 403-406.
RESOURCES OF THE UNION AND THE CONFEDERACY, 1861
Number of States
Population
Real and Personal Property
Banking Capital
Capital Investment
Manufacturing Establishments
Value of Production (annual)
Industrial Workers
Railroad Mileage
Union
Confederacy
24
23,000,000
$ 11,000,000,000
$ 330,000,000
$ 850,000,000
110,000
$ 1,500,000,000
1,300,000
22,000
11
8,700,000*
$ 5,370,000,000
$ 27,00,000
$ 95,000,000
18,000
$ 155,000,000
110,000
9,000
* 40% were slaves, 3,500,000
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on September
22, 1862, had a profound effect on the Union, the Confederacy, and of course, black
Americans. Part of the document appears below.
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Whereas, the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty two, a proclamation was signed by the President of
the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of
a state, the persons whereof shall then whereof shall then be in rebellion against the
United States, shall be then, henceforward, and forever free; and the Executive
Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will
recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to
suppress such person, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual
freedom...
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare
that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and
hence-forward shall be free, and that the executive government of the United States,
including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all
violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that in all cases
when allowed they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition,
will be received into the armed services of the United States to garrison forts, position,
stations, and other places and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the
Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment and mankind
and the gracious favor of Almighty God...
Source: John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr. From Slavery to Freedom: A
History of Negro Americans, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), pp. 532-533.
THE NEW YORK DRAFT RIOT, AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
In July, 1863 a predominately Irish mob rioted against the newly enacted federal draft
and vented their fury particularly on New York City blacks. Dr. John Torrey in the
following account describes the riot.
New York, July 13th, 1863
New York, July 13th, 1863
Dear Doctor-We have had great riots in New York to-day & they are still in progress. They
were reported to us at the Assay office about noon, but I thought they were
exaggerated... In 49 st. they [the rioters] were numerous, & made, as I was passing near
the College, an attack upon one of a row of new houses in our street. The rioters were
induced to go away by one or two Catholic priests, who made pacific speeches to them. I
found Jane & Maggie [his black servants] a little alarmed, but not frightened. The mob
had been in the College Grounds, & came to our house--wishing to know if a republican
lived there, & what the College building was used for. They were going to burn Pres.
King's house, as he was rich, & a decided republican. They barely desisted when
addressed by the Catholic priest. The furious bareheaded & coatless men assembled
under our windows & shouted aloud for Jeff Davis!
...Toward the evening the mob, furious as demons, went yelling over to the
Colored-Orphan Asylum in 5th Avenue a little below where we live--& rolling a barrel of
kerosine in lit, the whole structure was soon in a blaze, & is now a smoking ruin. What
has become of the 300 poor innocent orphans I could not learn. They must have had
some warning of what the rioters intended; & I trust the children were removed in time
to escape a cruel death. Before this fire was extinguished, or rather burned out, for the
wicked wretches who caused it would not permit the engines to be used, the northern
sky was brilliantly illuminated, probably by the burning of the Aged Colored-woman's
Home in 65th St.--or the Harlem R. Road Bridge--both of which places were threatened
by the rioters...
A friend who rode with me had seen a poor Negro hung an hour or two before.
The man had, in a frenzy, shoot an Irish fireman, and they immediately strung up the
unhappy African... The worst mobs are on the 1st & 2nd and 7th Avenues.. Many have
been killed. They are very hostile to the Negroes, & and scarcely one of them is to be
seen. A person who called at our house this afternoon saw three of them hanging
together...
Thieves are going about in gangs, calling at houses, & demanding money-threatening the torch if denied... A friend (Mr. Gibbons) who visits us almost every
week, & is known to be an abolitionist, had his house smashed up yesterday...
Ever yours,
John Torrey
Source: John Bracey and others, The Afro-Americans: Selected Documents, (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, 1972), pp. 230-233.
RELUCTANT LIBERATORS: NORTHERN TROOPS IN THE SOUTH
As the preceding vignettes on the New York Draft Riot indicates, not all Northerners
embraced the idea that they were fighting to liberate the slaves. The following account
by historian Leon Litwack describes the attitudes of some Northern soldiers toward the
blacks they encountered in the South.
The typical Yankee was at best a reluctant liberator, and the attitudes and behavior he
evinced did not always encourage the slaves to think of themselves as free men and
women. Although Union propagandists and abolitionists might exult in how a war for
the Union had been transformed into a crusade for freedom, many northern soldiers
donned the crusader's armor with strong misgivings or outright disgust. "I don't think
enough of the Nigger to go and fight for them," an Ohio private wrote. "I would rather
fight them." Few Northerners, after all, had chosen to wage this kind of war. "Our
government has broken faith with us," a Union deserter told his captors. "We enlisted to
fight for the Union, and not to liberate the G-d d-d niggers." Rather than view
emancipation as a way to end the war, some Yankee soldiers thought it would only
prolong the conflict. Now that the very survival of the southern labor system was at
stake, not to mention the proper subordination of black people, the prospect of a
negotiated peace seemed even more remote, and southern whites could be expected to
fight with even greater intensity and conviction.
That most Union soldiers should have failed to share the abolitionist commitment is
hardly surprising. What mattered was how they manifested their feelings when they
came into direct contact with the slaves. The evidence suggests one of the more tragic
chapters in the history of this generally brutalizing and demoralizing war. The normal
frustrations of military life and the usually sordid record of invading armies, when
combined with long-held and deeply felt attitudes toward black people, were more than
sufficient to turn some Union soldiers into the very "debils" the slaves had been warned
by their masters to expect. Not only did the invaders tend to view the Negro as a
primary cause of the war but even more importantly as an inferior being with few if any
legitimate human emotions-at least none that had to be considered with any degree of
sensitivity. Here, then, was a logical and convenient object on which disgruntled and
war-weary Yankees could vent their frustrations and hatreds. "As I was going along this
afternoon," a young Massachusetts officer wrote from New Orleans, "a little black baby
that could just walk got under my feet and it look so much like a big worm that I wanted
to step on it and crush it, the nasty, greasy little vermin was the best that could be said of
it." And if anything, additional exposure to blacks appeared to strengthen rather than
allay racial antipathies. "My repugnance to them increases with the acquaintance," a
New England officer remarked. "Republican as I am, keep me clear of the darkey in any
relation."
To debauch black women, some Yankees apparently concluded, was to partake of a
widely practiced and well-accepted southern pastime. The evidence was to be seen
everywhere. Besides, Yankees tended to share the popular racist notion of black women
as naturally promiscuous and dissolute. "Singular, but true," a Massachusetts soldier
and amateur phrenologist observed, "the heads of the women indicate great animal
passions." Although some Union officers made no secret of their slave concubines,
sharing their quarters with them, a black soldier noted that they usually mingled with
"deluded freedwomen" only under the cover of darkness, while they openly consorted
with white women during the day. The frequency with which common soldiers mixed
with black women prompted some regimental commanders to order the ejection of such
women from the camp because their presence had become "demoralizing." "I won't be
unfaithful to you with a Negro wench," a Pennsylvania soldier assured his wife, "though
it is the case with many soldiers. Yes, men who have wives at home get entangled with
these black things." Marriages between Yankees and blacks were rare, but when they
did occur southern whites made the most of them.
Two of the Brownfields' former negroes have married Yankees--one,
a light colored mustee, and property left her by some white men whose
mistress she had been-she says she passed herself off for a Spaniard and
Mercier Green violated the sanctity of Grace Church by performing the
ceremony--the other, a man, went north and married a Jewess--the idea is
too revolting.
Not surprisingly, Union soldiers often shared the outrage of local whites at such
liaisons. In November 1865, a black newspaper in Charleston reported that an Illinois
soldier had been tarred and feathered by his own comrades for having married a black
woman. "He was probably a Southern man by birth and education," the newspaper said
of the victim, "and Hoosiers and Suckers don't take readily to Southern habits."
Whatever the reputation of black women for promiscuity, sexual submissions
frequently had to be obtained by force. "While on picket guard I witnessed misdeeds
that made me ashamed of America," a soldier wrote from South Carolina; he had
recently observed a group of his comrades rape a nine-year-old black girl. Not only did
some Union soldiers sexually assault any woman they found in a slave cabin but they
had no compunctions about committing the act in the presence of her family. "The
father and grandfather dared offer no resistance," two witnesses reported from Virginia.
In some such instances, the husband or children of the intended victim had to be
forcibly restrained from coming to her assistance. Beyond the exploitation of sexual
assault, black women could be subjected to further brutality and sadism, as was most
graphically illustrated in an incident involving some Connecticut soldiers stationed in
Virginia. After seizing two "niger wenches," they "turned them upon their heads, & put
tobacco, chips, stocks, lighted cigars & and sand into their behinds." Without
explanation, some Union soldiers in Hanover County Virginia, stopped five young black
women and cut their arms, legs, and backs with razors. "Dis was new to us," one of the
victims recalled, "cause Mr. Tinsley [her master] didn' ever beat or hurt us." Most
Union soldiers would have found these practices reprehensible. But they occurred with
sufficient frequency to induce a northern journalist in South Carolina to write that
Union troops had engaged in "some of the vilest and meanest exhibitions of human
depravity" he had ever witnessed. If such incidents were rare, moreover, the racial
ideology that encouraged them had widespread acceptance, even among those who
deplored the excesses.
Source: Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery, (New
York, 1979) pp. 127-128, 129-130.
HARD TIMES IN THE CONFEDERACY
J.B. Jones, a clerk in the Confederate War Department, kept a diary which in 1863
details the privations of the people of Richmond during the Civil War. Her entry
describes the rampant inflation which affected most Confederate cities by 1863. The
second account, an Georgia girl's entry in her journal following Sherman's March to
the Sea, reflects the intense hatred the war generated between Southerners and
Northerners.
February 11th.--Some idea may be formed of the scarcity of food in this city from
the fact that, while my youngest daughter was in the kitchen today, a young rat came out
of its hole and seemed to beg for something to eat; she held out some bread, which it ate
from her hand, and seemed grateful. Several others soon appeared and were as tame as
kittens. Perhaps we shall have to eat them!
February 18--One or two of the regiments of General Lee's army were in the city
last night. The men were pale and haggard. They have but a quarter of a pound of meat
per day. But meat has been ordered from Atlanta. I hope it is abundant there.
All the necessaries of life in the city are still going up higher in price. Butter,
three dollars per pound; beef, one dollar; bacon, a dollar and a quarter; sausage meat,
one dollar; and even liver is selling at fifty cents per pound.
If all the words of hatred in every language under heaven were lumped together
into one huge epithet of detestation, they could not tell how I hate Yankees...
Now that they have invaded our country and killed so many of our men and
desecrated so many homes, I can't believe that when Christ said, 'Love your enemies,' He
meant Yankees.
Of course I don't want their souls to be lost, for that would be wicked, but as they
are not being punished in this world, I don't see how else they are going to get their
deserts.
Source: Richard Current, American History: A Survey, (New York: Knopf, 1961), pp.
397, 399.
A SOLDIER WITH SHERMAN'S ARMY
General William T. Sherman's famous March Through Georgia introduced the
Confederacy to the concept of "total war." His military objective was not to destroy an
opposing army as much as the South's morale and resolve to continue the war. Here is
a part of a letter from W.F. Saylor, a Union soldier from Wisconsin, describing the
March.
In the field near Savannah Geo.
Dec. 18th, 1864
My Dear Father:
At 10 a.m. Monday the 14th [Nov.] we started on the march towards Atlanta,
having previously set fire to our comfortable winter quarters. The main road was
blocked up with teams so we were obliged to go round by an old ford road making us 5
miles extra travel... The whole army intended for this Campaign was now in and around
the City and ready to start the next morning. It comprised 73,000 Infantry, 5500
cavelry [sic], and 70 pieces of Artillery, making nearly 80,000 men under the command
of Major. Gen. W.T. Sherman.
Tuesday morning Nov. 15th. The Army moved out on four different roads. The
right wing towards Macon, the left wing towards Augusta. A small force was left behind
to burn the city [Atlanta] after the troops got out. And they did their work well, burning
everything but a few private dwellings and the Churches. The proud city of Atlanta is
now a heap of Ashes, without inhabitants or public communication.
Nov. 22 Left Camp at 10 a.m. The Weather is now cold and cloudy, with a few
flakes of snow. We travel fast and get to Camp in Milledgeville the Capitol of Geo. at 5
p.m. having traveled 10 miles... This is a very pretty place and contains some beautiful
buildings. The Legislature had been in session but on hearing of our approach they
adjourned and fled in confusion... We burned the State Prison and arsenal and other
public buildings and pillaged an plundered the town generally. It was an awful looking
place when we got through.
Nov 28...found Ex-Gov. Johnston's house about 5 to 7 miles from the road we
were on. The Ex Gov of course had gone, but had left some of his old darkies. The
foragers got lots of stuff to eat here but not finding the usual amount of finery in the
house they suspected that it was hid some where. The Officer in charge persuaded an
aged darkey by threatening to hang him (rather persuasive argument) to tell him where
the stuff was. The Ex Gov took up a bed of cabbages in his garden then dug holes and
deposited his goods in boxes and barrels in said holes, and then set the cabbages out
nicely again. But it wouldn't work. The boys unearthed the stuff.
Dec. 10th...You can form no idea of the amount of property destroyed by us on
this raid. All the Roads in the state are torn up and the whole tract of country over
which we passed is little better than wilderness. I can't...think of what the people that
are left there are to live on. We have all their Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep, Hogs, Sweet
Potatoes and Molasses and nearly everything else. We burnt all the Cotton we men
which was millions of pounds... A tornado 60 miles in width from Chattanooga to this
place 290 miles could not have done half the damage we did.
Source: Stanley I Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 430-432.
A CONFEDERATE SUPPORTER DESCRIBES THE FALL OF RICHMOND
In April 1865 units of the Union Army entered Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the
Confederacy and thus signaled the collapse of the rebellion. Mrs. Burton Harrison, in
this account from a letter to her relatives, describes the episode.
Grace Street, Richmond, April 4, 1865
My Precious Mother and Brother:
I write you this jointly, because I can have no idea where Clarence is. Can't you
imagine with what a heavy heart I begin it? The last two days have added long years to
my life I have cried until no more tears will come, and my heart throbs to bursting night
and day...All through the evening the air was full of farewells as if to the dead. Hardly
anybody went to bed. We walked through the streets like lost spirits till nearly
daybreak...With the din of the enemy's wagon trains, bands, trampling horses....and
cannon ever in my ears, I can hardly write coherently.
...Looking down from the upper end of [Capitol Square] we saw a huge wall of fire
blocking out the horizon. In a few hours no trace was left of Main, Cary, and Canal
Streets...except tottering walls and smoldering ruins. The War Department was sending
up jets of flame. Along the middle of the streets smoldered a long pile...of papers torn
from the different departments' archives of our beloved Government, from which
soldiers in blue were picking out letters and documents that caught their fancy...General
Lee's house had a [Union] guard camped in the front yard.
We went on to the head-quarters of the Yankee General in charge of Richmond,
that day of doom, and I must say were treated with perfect courtesy and consideration.
We saw many people we knew on the same errand as ourselves. We heard stately
Mrs.______ and the_____'s were there to ask for food, as their families were starving.
Thank God, we have not fallen to that! Certainly, her face looked like a tragic mask
carved out of stone.
A courteous young lieutenant was sent to pilot us out of the confusion... Already
the town wore the aspect of one in the Middle Ages smitten by pestilence. The streets
filled with smoke and flying fire were empty of the respectable class of inhabitants, the
doors and shutters of every house tight closed...
The ending of the first day of occupation was truly horrible. Some negroes of the
lowest grade, their heads turned by the prospect of wealth and equality, together with a
mob of miserable poor whites, drank themselves mad with liquor scooped from the
gutters. Reinforced, it was said, by convicts escaped from the penitentiary, they tore
through the streets, carrying loot from the burnt district. For some days after, the
kitchen and cabins of the better class of darkies displayed handsome oil paintings and
mirrors, rare books and barrels of sugar and whiskey... Thanks to our trim Yankee
guard in the basement, we felt safe enough, but the experience was not pleasant.
Through all of this strain of anguish ran like a gleam of gold the mad vain hope
that Lee would yet make a stand somewhere--that Lee's dear soldiers would give us back
our liberty.
Source: Stanley I Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 438-441.
THE FALL OF RICHMOND: A BLACK SOLDIER'S PERSPECTIVE
J. J. Hill, orderly for Col. W. B. Wooster, commander of the 29th Connecticut Colored
Infantry Regiment, describes the capture of the Confederate capital in April 1865, and
the brief visit there by President Abraham Lincoln in his book A Sketch of the 29th
Regiment of Connecticut Colored Troops. Part of the description is reprinted below.
All was quiet here until the 1st of April, when all was in readiness, and the order
was given to strike tents and move on to Richmond. During Sunday night the brigade
was out in line of battle, and at three o'clock in the morning the rebels blew up three gun
boats and commenced vacating their works in our front. At 5 A.M the troops
commenced to advance on the rebel works--the 29th taking the advance, the 9th
U.S.C.[olored] troops next. Soon refugees from the rebels came in by hundreds. Col.
W. B. Wooster passed them about, and made them go before the regiment and dig up
the torpedoes that were left in the ground to prevent the progress of the Union Army.
They were very numerous, but to the surprise of officers and men, none of the army
were injured by them.
On our march to Richmond, we captured 500 pieces of artillery, some of the
largest kind, 6,000 small arms, and the prisoners I was not able to number. The road
was strewed with all kinds of obstacles, and men were lying all along the distance of
seven miles. The main body of the army went up the New Market road. The 29th
skirmished all the way, and arrived in the city at 7 A.M., and were the first infantry that
entered the city; they went at double quick most of the way. When Col. Wooster came to
Main St. he pointed his sword at the capitol, and said "Double quick, march," and the
company charged through the main street to the capitol and halted in the square until
the rest of the regiment came up.
Very soon after the arrival of the white troops the colored troops were moved on
the outskirts of the city, and as fast as the white troops came in the colored troops were
ordered out, until we occupied the advance. The white troops remained in the city as
guards. We remained on the outpost.
[On April] 3d President Lincoln visited the city. No triumphal march of a
conqueror could have equalled in moral sublimity the humble manner in which he
entered Richmond. I was standing on the bank of the James river viewing the scene of
desolation when a boat, pulled by twelve sailors, came up the stream. It contained
President Lincoln and his son... In some way the colored people on the bank of the river
ascertained that the tall man wearing the black hat was President Lincoln. There was a
sudden shout and clapping of hands. I was very much amused at the plight of one
officer who had in charge fifty colored men to put to work on the ruined buildings; he
found himself alone, for they left work and crowded to see the President. As he
approached I said to a woman, "Madam, there is the man that made you free." She ex-
claimed, "Is that President Lincoln?" My reply was in the affirmative.
She gazed at him with clasped hands and said, "Glory to God. Give Him praise
for his goodness," and she shouted till her voice failed her.
Source: J. J. Hill, A Sketch of the 29th Regiment of Connecticut Colored Troops,
(Baltimore, 1867), pp. 25-27.
FELIX HAYWOOD REMEMBERS THE DAY OF JUBLIO
Felix Haywood, born a slave in Raleigh, North Carolina, gained his freedom in San
Antonio, Texas, in the summer of 1865 when word finally reached Texas. In this
interview Haywood recalls the day of emancipation.
Soldiers, all of a sudden, was everywhere--coming in bunches, crossing and
walking and riding. Everyone was a-singing. We was all walking on golden clouds.
Hallelujah!
Union forever
Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Although I may be poor,
I'll never be a slave-Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
Everybody went wild. We felt like heroes, and nobody had made us that way but
ourselves. We was free. Just like that, we was free. It didn't seem to make the whites
mad, either. They went right on giving us food just the same. Nobody took our homes
away, but right off colored folks started on the move. They seemed to want to get closer
to freedom, so they'd know what it was--like it was a place or a city. Me and my father
stuck, close as a lean tick to a sick kitten. The Gudlows started us out on a ranch. My
father, he'd round up cattle--unbranded cattle--for the whites. They was cattle that they
belonged to, all right; they had gone to find water 'long the San Antonio River and the
Guadalupe. Then the whites gave me and my father some cattle for our own. My father
had his own brand - 7 B)--and we had a herd to start out with of seventy.
We knowed freedom was on us, but we didn't know what was to come with it. We
thought we was going to get rich like the white folks. We thought we was going to be
richer than the white folks, 'cause we was stronger and knowed how to work, and the
whites didn't, and they didn't have us to work for them any more. But it didn't turn out
that way. We soon found out that freedom could make folks proud, but it didn't make
'em rich.
Did you ever stop to think that thinking don't do any good when you do it too
late? Well, that's how it was with us. If every mother's son of a black had thrown 'way
his hoe and took up a gun to fight for his own freedom along with the Yankees, the war'd
been over before it began. But we didn't do it. We couldn't help stick to our masters.
We couldn't no more shot 'em than we could fly. My father and me used to talk 'bout it.
We decided we was too soft and freedom wasn't going to be much to our good even if we
had a education.
Source: Robert D. Marcus and David Burner, America Firsthand: From
Reconstruction to the Present (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989), p. 11.
JUNETEENTH: BIRTH OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN HOLIDAY
In a brief article for the Eugene Register Guard I described the origins of the
Juneteenth holiday. Part of that article is reprinted below.
Freedom came in many guises to the four million African Americans who had
been enslaved at the beginning of the Civil War. Some fortunate black women and men
were emancipated as early as 1861 onward when Union forces captured outlying areas of
the Confederacy such as the Sea Islands of South Carolina, the Tidewater area of
Virginia (Hampton and Norfolk) or New Orleans all before January 1863. Other black
slaves emancipated themselves by exploiting the disruption of war to run away to
freedom, which in some instances was as close as the nearest Union Army camp.
President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation liberated all blacks residing in
territory captured from the Confederates after January 1, 1863. These slaves did not
have to run for their freedom, they merely had to wait for Federal troops to arrive.
Emancipation for the majority of African Americans, however, came only in 1865
when Confederate commander Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Federal forces....at
Appomattox Court House in Virginia. With that surrender the....rebellion was over.
News of Lee's surrender spread quickly through the former slave states east of the
Mississippi River. Texas, however was another matter. Isolated from both Union and
Confederate forces, Texas during the Civil War, had become a place of refuge for
slaveholders seeking to insure that their "property" would not hear of freedom. Through
April, May, and part of June, 1865, they did not. Finally on June 19, 1865, freedom
officially arrived when Federal troops landed at Galveston, Texas. Word of
emancipation gradually spread over the state despite the efforts of some slaveholders to
maintain slavery.
But African Americans would not be denied the liberty that had eluded them so
long. When the news came entire plantations were deserted. Many blacks brought from
Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri during the War, returned home while Texas
freedpersons headed for Galveston, Houston and other cities where Federal troops were
stationed. Although news of emancipation came at different times during that Texas
summer of 1865, local blacks gradually settled on June 19 (Juneteenth) as their day of
celebration. Beginning in 1866 they held parades, picnics, barbecues, and gave speeches
in remembrance of their liberation. By 1900 the festivities had grown to include
baseball games, horse races, railroad excursions, and formal balls. By that time
Juneteenth had officially become Texas Emancipation Day and was sponsored by black
churches and civic organizations. Indeed, Juneteenth had become so respectable that
white politicians including various Texas governors addressed the largest gatherings
(which sometimes included upwards of 5,000 people) in Houston and Dallas.
Juneteenth had surpassed the Fourth of July as the biggest holiday of the year for Texas
African Americans.
With the migration of African Americans from Texas to the West Coast
particularly during World War II, Juneteenth simultaneously declined in Texas and
grew in the emerging black communities of Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Seattle, and
San Diego. And some communities east of Texas such as Washington, D.C., and
Birmingham, Alabama, began celebrations as well. But by the 1970s many blacks,
including those in Texas, had forgotten the holiday's origins and its significance in
African American history....
Source: Quintard Taylor, "The Juneteenth Celebration, 1865-1992," Eugene RegisterGuard, June 8, 1992, pp. 1D, 4D.
THE POST WAR SOUTH-A DEFEATED PLANTER LOOKS BACK
Previously Edward Barnell Heyward, the South Carolina planter wrote his Northern
friend, James A. Lord explaining why the South would declare its independence and
offering reasons for its success if the Northern states attempted to block the secession.
In 1866 Heyward again wrote his friend but now historical events mandated a far
different letter.
22 Jan y 1866
My dear Jim
Your letter of date July 1865, has just reached me and you will be relieved by my
answer, to find, that I am still alive, and extremely glad to hear from you.
I have...thought that you had been among those who had joined the Army, and
had given your life, for the cause, in which your nation seems to much pride itself, at this
time; but I do not suppose so by your letter.
I am quite well, & have my family around me. During the war, I found time to get
married again, and now have a most lovely woman, & baby eighteen months old at my
elbow. My daughter died during the war, and my Son is now a tall fellow who would
astonish you by his size.
Our losses have been frightful, and we have, now, scarcely a support. My Father
had five plantations on the coast, and all the buildings were burnt, and the negroes, now
left to themselves, are roaming in a starving condition. Our farm near Charleston was
abandoned to the negroes, leaving provisions, mules & stock. All is now lost, and the
negroes, left to themselves, have made nothing, and seek a little food, about the city.
Our Residence in the city, was sacked, and all the valuable furniture stolen and the
houses well riddled by shell & shot. Our handsome Residence in the country was burnt.
The Enemy passed over all our property on the coast in the march from Savannah to
Charleston, the whole country, down there, is now a howling wilderness... We live
twenty miles from Columbia [the state capital]. Some of my relatives were there, during
the occupation by Sherman, and suffered the terrible anxieties & losses of that dreadful
event.
I served in the Army, my brother died in the Army, and every family has lost
members. No one can know how reduced we are, particularly the refined & educated.
My Father and I, owned near seven hundred negroes and they are all now
wandering about like lost sheep, with no one to care for them... They very naturally,
poor things, think that freedom means doing nothing, and this they are determined to
do. They look to the government, to take care of them, and it will be many years, before
this once productive country will be able to support itself. The former kind treatment of
the slaves, and their docile and generous temper, makes them now disposed to be quiet
& obedient: but the determination of your Northern people to give them a place in the
councils of the Country and make they the equal of the white man, will at last, bear its
fruit, and we may then expect, them, to rise against the whites, and in the end, be
exterminated themselves.
As soon as able, I shall quit the Country, and leave others to stand the storm... I
feel now I have no country, I obey like a subject, but I cannot love such a government.
Perhaps the next letter, you get from me, will be from England.
Source: Stanley I Kutler, Looking for America: The People's History, Vol. I, (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1979), pp. 463-465.
"SEND ME SOME OF THE CHILDREN'S HAIR"
Sometime before the Civil War Laura Spicer and her children were sold from their
husband and father. They wanted to reunite after emancipation but her husband had
remarried. The husband, who remains anonymous except to Laura, wrote a letter
describing the pain of their separation and yet wishing Laura would find another
husband to care for the family. The letter is reprinted below.
I would much rather you would get married to some good man, for every time I
gits a letter from you it tears me all to pieces. The reason why I have not written you
before, in a long time, is because your letters disturbed me so very much. You know I
love my children. I treats them good as a Father can treat his children; and I do a good
deal of it for you. I am sorry to hear that Lewellyn, my poor little son, have had such bad
health. I would come and see you but I know you could not bear it. I want to see and I
don't want to see you. I love you just as well as I did the last day I saw you, and it will
not do for you and I to meet. I am married, and my wife have two children, and if you
and I meets it would make a very dissatisfied family.
Send me some of the children's hair in a separate paper with their names on the
paper. Will you please git married, as long as I am married. My dear, you know the
Lord knows both of our hearts. You know it never was our wishes to be separated from
each other, and it never was our fault. Oh, I can see you so plain, at any-time, I had
rather anything to had happened to me most than ever to have been parted from you
and the children. As I am, I do not know which I love best, you or Anna. If I was to die,
today or tomorrow, I do not think I would die satisfied till you tell me you will try and
marry some good, smart man that will take care of you and the children; and do it
because you love me; and not because I think more of the wife I have got then I do of
you.
The woman is not born that feels as near to me as you do. You feel this day like
myself. Tell them they must remember they have a good father and one that cares for
them and one that thinks about them every day-My very heart did ache when reading
your very kind and interesting letter. Laura I do not think I have change any at all since
I saw you last.-I think of you and my children every day of my life.
Laura I do love you the same. My love to you never have failed. Laura, truly, I have
got another wife, and I am very sorry, that I am. You feels and seems to me as much like
my dear loving wife, as you ever did Laura. You know my treatment to a wife and you
know how I am about my children. You know I am one man that do love my children....
Source: Herbert Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925 (New
York, 1926) pp. 6-7.
"IMPUDENT" FREEDWOMEN
In the account below historian Jacqueline Jones describes the attitudes of both
Northerners and Southerners to what they described as the particular insolence of
black women.
Defenders of the notion of early Victorian (white) womanhood could not help but
be struck by black women who openly challenged conventional standards of female
submissiveness. Freedwomen were described as "growling," "impertinent," "impudent,"
"vulgar" persons who "spoke up bold as brass" and. with their "loud and boisterous
talking," demanded fair treatment for "we people [left] way back." In the process of
ridiculing these women, northerners often indirectly revealed their ambivalent attitudes
toward black men. Apparently an aggressive woman existed outside the realm of
"natural," male-female relationships; her own truculence must be counterbalanced by
the weakness of her husband, brother, or father. But ironically in such cases, male
relatives were often perceived to be much more "reasonable" (that is, prone to accept the
white man's point of view) than their vehement womenfolk.
For example, John De Forest [Freedman's Bureau officer] later recounted the
respective reactions of an elderly couple who had used up in supplies any profit they
might have earned from a full year's labor. The man remained "puzzled, incredulous,
stubborn," and insisted there must be some mistake. His wife was not about to accept
the situation so politely: "trembling with indignant suspicion [she] looked on grimly or
broke out in fits of passion... 'Don' you give down to it, Peter,' she exhorted. 'It ain't no
how ris'ible that we should 'a' worked all the year and git nothing' to go upon.'" De
Forest, who elsewhere complained of black "female loaferism" prevalent in the area,
showed a curious lack of sympathy for this hardworking woman. In other cases, Yankee
planters, professed abolitionists, responded to the demands put forth by delegations of
female field hands with contempt for their brashness.
Source: Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and
the Family from Slavery to the Present, (New York, 1985), pp. 70-71.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON MEETS BLACK LEADERS
On February 7, 1866, Frederick Douglass, George Downing and other black leaders
met with President Andrew Johnson at the White House. This, the first meeting
between an American president and black political spokesmen, showed the wide
disparity between the President's views on voting rights for the ex-slaves and those of
the assembled black activists. Part of the exchange is reprinted below.
Mr. Fred. Douglass advanced and addressed the President, saying:
Mr. President, we are not here to enlighten you, sir, as to your
duties as the Chief Magistrate of this Republic, but to show our respect, and to present
in brief the claims of our race to your favorable consideration. In the order of Divine
Providence you are placed in a position where you have the power to save or destroy us,
to bless or blast us--I mean our whole race. Your noble and humane predecessor placed
in our hands the sword to assist in saving the nation, and we do hope that you, his able
successor, will favorably regard the placing in our hands the ballot with which to save
ourselves.
We shall submit no argument on that point. The fact that we are the subjects of
Government, and subject to taxation, subject to volunteer in the service of the country,
subject to being drafted, subject to bear the burdens of the State, makes it not improper
that should ask to share in the privileges of this condition.
I have no speech to make on this occasion. I simply submit these observations as
a limited expression of the views and feelings of the delegation with which I have come.
Response of the President:
In reply to some of your inquiries, not to make a speech about this thing, for it is
always best to talk plainly and distinctly about such matters, I will say that if I have not
given evidence in my course that I am a friend of humanity, and to that portion of it
which constitutes the colored population, I can give no evidence here... All that I
possessed, life, liberty, and property, have been put up in connection with that question,
when I had every inducement held out to take the other course... If I know myself, and
the feelings of my own heart, they have been for the colored man...
I am free to say to you that I do not like to be arraigned by someone who can get
up handsomely-rounded periods and deal in rhetoric, and talk about abstract ideas of
liberty, who never perilled life, liberty, or property. This kind of theoretical, hollow,
unpractical friendship amounts to but very little. While I say that I am a friend of the
colored man, I do not want to adopt a policy [of voting rights for negroes] that I believe
will end in a contest between the races, which if persisted in will result in the
extermination of one or the other. God forbid that I should be engaged in such a work!
Source: Leslie H. Fishel and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro American: A Documentary
History, (Glenview, Ill., 1967), p. 135.
RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENTS, 1866-1870
ARTICLE 13 - Slavery Abolished
1) Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.
2) Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment was proposed to the State Legislatures by the 37th Congress on
February 1, 1865, and was ratified December 18, 1865. It was rejected by Delaware and
Kentucky; was conditionally ratified by Alabama and Mississippi; and Texas took no
action.
ARTICLE 14 - Citizenship Rights Not To Be Abridged
1) All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities
of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.
This amendment was proposed to the State Legislatures by the 39th Congress on June
16, 1866, and was ratified July 23, 1868. The amendment was supported by 23
Northern states. It was rejected by Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and 10
ex-Confederate states. California took no action. It was later ratified by the 10
ex-Confederate states.
ARTICLE 15 - Equal Voting Rights
1) The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.
2) The Congress shall have power to enforce the provisions of this Article by
appropriate legislation.
This amendment was proposed to the State Legislatures by the 40th Congress on
February 27, 1869, and was ratified on March 30, 1870. It was supported by 30 states; it
was rejected by California, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Oregon. It was not acted
on by Tennessee. New York rescinded its ratification on January 5, 1870. New Jersey
rejected the amendment in 1870, but ratified it in 1871.
RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENTS: OREGON'S RESPONSE
In the following vignette historian Elizabeth McLagan describes the Oregon
legislature's response to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S.
Constitution.
During the Civil War the [Oregon] legislature passed the last anti-black state
laws, with the exception of the ban on intermarriage passed in 1866. Between 1866 and
1872, the legislature was required to consider ratification of the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments, which gave citizenship to black people and the right to vote to
black men. It was clear, however, that these amendments were unpopular with most
Oregonians.... The Oregon Statesman, in an editorial published [in 1865], predicted
that giving the vote to blacks would have a revolutionary influence on society.... Full
suffrage would result in a "war of the races," the editorial concluded.
If we make the African a citizen, we cannot deny the same right to
the Indian or the Mongolian (the Chinese, Japanese and other Asians).
Then how long would we have peace and prosperity when four races
separate, distinct and antagonistic should be at the polls and contend for
the control of government?
The 1866 legislature, still controlled by the [Republicans] but with a strong
minority of Democrats, considered and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, although
the vote was close... The Democrats made two attempts to withdraw ratification
but...these attempts failed.
This legislature also passed another law prohibiting intermarriage. It was
directed not only against white/black marriages, but against anyone with "one-fourth or
more Negro, Chinese or [Hawaiian] blood, or any person having more than one half
Indian blood. It passed with little debate the combined vote was 47 in favor, 8 opposed
and 3 absent. The penalty for disobeying the law was a prison sentence of not less than
three months, or up to one year in jail. Any person authorized to conduct marriages who
broke the law by marrying two people illegally was subject to the same penalty, with an
additional $1,000 fine. This law was not repealed until 1951.
The legislator's reluctance to endorse the Fourteenth Amendment was the subject
of debate in the local press as well. In 1867, the Eugene Weekly Democratic Review
printed a vicious attack on black people.
...gaping, bullet pated, thick lipped, wooly headed, animal-jawed
crowd of niggers, the dregs of broken up plantations, idle and vicious
blacks, released from wholesome restraints of task masters and overseers...
Greasy, dirty, lousy, they drowsily look down upon the assembled wisdom
of a dissevered Union. Sleepily listen to legislators who have given them
their freedom and now propose to invest them with the highest privileges
of American citizenship.
Because of its rabid pro-South rhetoric, this paper had been suppressed during
the Civil War.
In 1868, another attempt was made to repeal ratification of the Fourteenth
Amendment, declared to be ratified nationally only six weeks previously. This time the
repeal passed in both chambers by a combined vote of 39 to 27. This session also
recalled Oregon Senators George H. Williams and Henry W. Corbett, criticized for their
support of Reconstruction. Williams was also active in the campaign to impeach
President Andrew Johnson, who had become the hero of the Democratic Party for his
opposition to Reconstruction. The legislature was not deluded into thinking that its
actions would make any difference; the Oregonian predicted that if copies of the
resolutions ever reached Congress they would probably be used to light someone's
cigar...
The Fifteenth Amendment was proposed, ratified and declared in force by
Congress between Oregon's 1868 and 1870 legislative sessions.... The legislative session
of 1870...declared the Fifteenth Amendment was "an infringement on popular rights and
a direct falsification of the pledges made to the state of Oregon by the federal
government." The Fifteenth Amendment was finally ratified by the centennial
legislature of 1959.
Although Oregon refused to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, a state Supreme
Court decision rendered in 1870 affirmed the right of black men to vote. The case
involved the election of a county commissioner in Wasco County, and C.H. Yates and
W.S. Ford, two black men who had voted... That same year the Oregonian, which five
years earlier had opposed the Fifteen Amendment, ran an editorial which admitted:
There are but a few colored men in Oregon, and their political
influence cannot be great. But these here are, as a rule, quiet, industrious
and intelligent citizens. We cannot doubt they will exercise intelligently
the franchise with which they are newly invested.
Resistance to accepting the black vote...was overcome not by a change in attitude,
but because Oregonians realized that federal civil rights legislation had to be
acknowledged, if not endorsed. By 1870, change was inevitable, so Oregonians
acquiesced. Blacks were granted civil rights under the terms imposed by the federal
government, without the endorsement of the state legislature. Oregon's black
population was small and posed little threat to the established order. The period of
enacting racist legislation had ended, but it would be many years before the legislature
would begin to take an interest in passing laws that would allow black people to enjoy
equal rights as citizens of the state.
____________________
Source: Elizabeth McLagan, A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 17881940 (Portland, 1980), pp. 68-74.
BLACK VOTING RIGHTS: OTHER VIEWS FROM THE FAR WEST
In an 1870 editorial the Olympia (Washington Territory) Commercial Age
outlined its position on black voting by publishing a long letter on the subject from one
of its local readers. The paper's position is reprinted below. The second vignette from
the English-language Honolulu Friend indicates that the debate over black voting
rights extended beyond the boundaries of the United States when in 1865 the
newspaper urged that suffrage be granted to the newly freed slaves.
Olympia: Although the Fifteenth Amendment does not particularly affect us in
this Territory, as the colored folks have been voters among us for sometime already, yet
it will be a matter of much importance in both Oregon and California. The following
from an exchange contains much truth and will prove of interest to many of our readers:
"The number of colored men whose right to vote will be established by the Fifteenth
Amendment is estimated at 850,000. Of these 790,000 are in the South, 41,000 in the
states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana; 7,500 in New
England, and 8,500 in the remaining Western States. These statistics we find in the
[Baltimore] Sun, and assume that they are approximately accurate.
These 850,000 black men may perhaps hold the balance of power between the
two political parties in the next presidential election and for a long time to come. If the
Democratic party persists in its long-time inveterate hostility to the negro, some of the
closely-divided states will in all probability be insured to the Republicans by the negro
vote. Among these states we may mention Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Ohio. But will the Democratic party be so stupid as to
drive these new voters en masse into the Republican fold? We doubt it. On the
contrary, we expect to see that party making special efforts to win these voters--enough
of them, at least, to divide their strength. But, if the Republicans are true to themselves
and their principles, they will have a decided advantage over their opponents in this
struggle--at least, so far as the more intelligent of the negroes are concerned.
The negroes know, of course, that they owe their enfranchisement to the
Republican party, while they have every reason for regarding the other party with
aversion and distrust. But they cannot all be expected to take the highest view of their
obligations as citizens; and many of them, will, no doubt, be ready to fall into the snares
which unscrupulous Democrats will be sure to lay in their path. The Republicans,
moreover, are by no means all saints, nor all entirely exempt from the spirit of estate.
Mean men in this party, as in the other, will, no doubt, continue to behave shabbily
toward the new-made voters, thus helping the Democrats to "divide that they may
conquer." It will be a happy day for the country when the people shall no more care to
inquire whether a voter or a candidate for office is white or black than whether he is tall
or short."
Honolulu: In glancing over the files of the American papers, the most
prominent question of discussion appears to be the status of the negro. Shall he, or shall
he not be admitted to all the civil and political rights of the white inhabitants? This is
the question. Of course there is a great difference of opinion upon the subject. Such
men as Chief Justice Chase, Senator Sumner, and a host of leading men of the
Republican party, take the ground that the negro should now be permitted to vote and
enjoy all the privileges of the white population.
In our opinion these men occupy the only consistent and correct ground. The
negro has nobly fought for the country, and now not to allow him all the rights and
privileges enjoyed by his fellow soldiers would be wrong. A loyal negro, true to his
country and the flag, is surely as good a citizen as a rebel, although he [the rebel] may
have recently take the oath of allegiance. We hope Americans will start aright this time.
Give the colored man a fair start, and let him try for himself. We believe most fully in
the doctrine that all men should enjoy equal civil and political rights. The tendency is
towards that point in all lands. Revolutions go not backward.
Sources: The (Olympia, Washington Territory) Commercial Age, March 26, 1870; The
Honolulu Friend, reprinted in the San Francisco Elevator, October 13, 1865, p. 1.
HELENA CITIZENS CELEBRATE THEIR NEW RIGHTS
Helena, Montana's African Americans, like their counterparts throughout the United
States acclaimed the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the
Constitution. In 1870 they wrote the local newspaper, the Helena Daily Herald,
announcing their celebration. The vignette suggests that Reconstruction mean a new
birth of freedom for African American outside the South as well as in the
Reconstruction states.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
We, the colored citizens of Helena, feeling desirous of showing our high
appreciation of those God-like gifts granted to us by and through the passage of the 15th
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and knowing, as we do, that those
rights which have been withheld from us, are now submerged and numbered with the
things of the past, now thank God, is written and heralded to the wide world that we are
free men and citizens of the United States--shorn of all those stigmatizing qualifications
which have made us beasts. To-day, thank God, and the Congress of the United States,
that we, the colored people of the United States, possess all those rights which God, in
His infinite wisdom, conveyed and gave unto us.
Now, we, the citizens of Helena, in the Territory of Montana, in mass assembled,
on the 14th of April, A.D. 1870, do, by these presents, declare our intentions of
celebrating the ratification of the 15th Amendment, on this 15th day of April, by the
firing of thirty-two guns, from the hill and to the south of the city.
Signed,
BENJAMIN STONE, President
J.R.
JOHNSON, Secretary
Source: Helena Daily Herald, April 15, 1870.
THE BLACK CODES
Immediately after the Civil War ex-slaveholders generated a series of laws to regulate
the behavior of the newly freed slaves. While these codes recognized the end of slavery,
most of these laws nevertheless created repressive conditions that were strikingly
similar to slavery. Reprinted below are some of the 1866 black codes for a Louisiana
parish.
Sec. 1: Be it ordained by the police jury of the parish of St. Landry, That no negro
shall be allowed to pass within the limits of said parish without special permit in writing
from his employer. Whoever shall violate this provision shall pay a fine of two dollars
and fifty cents, or in default thereof shall be forced to work four days on the public road,
or suffer corporal punishment as provided hereinafter.
Sec. 2: Every negro who shall be found absent from the residence of his employer
after ten o'clock at night, without a written permit from his employer, shall pay a fine...
Sec. 3: No negro shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within said parish.
Any negro violating this provision shall be immediately ejected and compelled to find an
employer...
Sec. 4: Every negro is required to be in the regular service of some white person,
or former owner, who shall be held responsible for the conduct of said negro.
Sec. 5: No public meetings or congregations of negroes shall be allowed within
said parish after sunset, but such public meetings and congregations may be held
between the hours of sunrise and sunset, by special permission in writing of the captain
of patrol, within whose beat such meetings shall take place. This prohibition, however,
is not to prevent negroes from attending the usual church services, conducted by white
ministers and priests...
Sec. 6: No negro shall be permitted to preach, exhort, or otherwise declaim to
congregations of colored people, without a special permission in writing from the
president of the police jury...
Sec. 7: No negro who is not in the military service shall be allowed to carry
firearms, or any kind of weapons, within the parish without special written permission
of his employers, approved and indorsed by the nearest and most convenient chief of
patrol.
Sec. 8: No negro shall sell, barter, or exchange any articles of merchandise or
traffic within said parish without the special written permission of his employer,
specifying the article of sale, barter or traffic.
Sec. 9: Any negro found drunk, within the said parish shall pay a fine of five
dollars, or in default thereof work five days on the public road, or suffer corporal
punishment as hereinafter provided.
Source: Howard H. Quint, Milton Cantor and Dean Albertson, Main Problems in
American History, (Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1987) p. 9-10.
THADDEUS STEVENS DEMANDS BLACK SUFFRAGE
Pennsylvania Representative Thaddeus Stevens was one of the leaders of the Radical
Republicans in the Post Civil War Congress. In 1867 Stevens makes an impassioned
plea for black suffrage before the House of Representatives.
There are several good reasons for the passage of this bill [for reconstructing the
South]. In the first place, it is just. I am now confining my argument to Negro suffrage
in the rebel states. Have not loyal blacks quite as good a right to choose rulers and make
laws as rebel whites?
In the second place, it is a necessity in order to protect the loyal white men in the
seceded states. The white Union men are in a great minority in each of those states.
With them the blacks would act in a body; and it is believed that in each of said states,
except one, the two united would form a majority, control the states and protect
themselves. Now they are the victims of daily murder. They must suffer constant
persecution, or be exiled...
Another good reason is, it would insure the ascendancy of the Union
[Republican] Party. "Do you avow the party purpose?" exclaims some horror-stricken
demagogue. I do. For I believe, on my conscience, that on the continued ascendancy of
that party depends the safety of this great nation. If impartial suffrage is excluded in the
rebel states, then every one of them is sure to send a solid rebel representative
delegation to Congress, and cast a solid rebel electoral vote. They, with their kindred
Copperheads of the North, would always elect the President and control Congress.
Whole Slavery sat upon her defiant throne, and insulted and intimidated the trembling
North... Now, you must divide them between loyalists, without regard to color, and
disloyalists, or you will be the perpetual vassals of the free-trade, irritated, revengeful
South.
For these, among other reasons, I am for Negro suffrage in every rebel state. If it
be just, it should not be denied; if it be necessary, it should be adopted; if it be a
punishment to traitors, they deserve it.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey & David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II,
Lexington, Mass: D. C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 457-458.
READMISSION OF EX-CONFEDERATE STATES
Date
Conservative
State
Military Dist.
Reestablished
Tennessee
1869
Arkansas
10, 1869
Florida
1877
Louisiana
1877
North Carolina
1870
South Carolina
28, 1876
Alabama
16, 1874
Virginia
1869
Mississippi
1876
Texas
1873
Georgia
1871
Date of Readmission
Government
*
July 24, 1866
October 4,
4
June 22, 1868
November
3
June 25, 1868
January 2,
5
June 25, 1868
January 2,
2
June 25, 1868
November 3,
2
June 25, 1868
November
3
July 14, 1868
November
1
January 26, 1870
October 5,
4
February 23, 1870
January 4,
5
March 30, 1870
January 14,
3
July 15, 1870
November 1,
*Tennessee was readmitted to the Union before the other Ex-Confederate States were
divided into military districts.
FIRST RECONSTRUCTION LEGISLATURES
Black % of
State Pop. (1870)
South Carolina
Mississippi
Louisiana
Florida
Alabama
Georgia
Virginia
North Carolina
Texas
Black
Legislators
59
56
51
49
48
46
42
37
31
White
Legislators
84
40
49
19
26
32
27
19
11
Black % of
Legislators
73
75
88
57
58
214
154
135
156
53
34
36
25
30
13
15
12
6
Tennessee
Arkansas
26
25
1
0
94
87
SOUTH CAROLINA UNDER BLACK GOVERNMENT
James S. Pike, a Maine Republican and former abolitionist, toured South Carolina in
1873 and wrote a highly critical account of Reconstruction in that state. Here is part
of his description of the state legislature.
Yesterday, about 4 p.m., the assembled wisdom of the State....issued forth from
the State House. About three-quarters of the crowd belonged to the African race. They
were of every hue, from the light octoroon to the deep black. They were such a body of
men as might pour our of a market house at random in any Southern state...
"My God, look at this!" was the unbidden ejaculation of a low-country planter,
clad in homespun, as he leaned over the rail inside the House, gazing excitedly upon the
body in session. "This is the first time I have been here. I thought I knew what we were
doing when we consented to emancipation. I knew the negro...but I never though it
would come to this. Let me go."
In the place of this old aristocratic society stands the rude form of the most
ignorant democracy that mankind ever saw, invested with the functions of government...
It is barbarism overwhelming civilization by physical force. It is the slave rioting in the
halls of his master, and putting that master under his feet.
...The body is almost literally a Black Parliament, and it is the only one on the face
of the earth which is representative of a white constituency and the professed exponent
of an advanced type of modern civilization...The Speaker is black, the Clerk is black...the
chairman of the Ways and Means is black, and the chaplain is coal-black.
One of the things that first strike a casual observer in this negro assembly is the
fluency of debate...When an appropriation bill is up to raise money to catch and punish
the Ku-klux, they know exactly what it means. So, too, with educational measures. The
free school comes right home to them... Sambo can talk on these topics and their endless
ramifications, day in and day out.
The negro is imitative in the extreme. He can copy like a parrot or a monkey...
He believes he can do any thing, and never loses a chance to try... He is more vivacious
than the white, and, being more volatile and good-natured, he is correspondingly more
irrepressible... He answers completely to the description of a stupid speaker in
Parliament, given by Lord Derby on one occasion. It was said of him that he did not
know what he was going to say when he got up; he did not know what he was saying
while he was speaking, and he did not know what he had said when he sat down.
Will South Carolina be Africanized? That depends. The pickaninnies die off from
want of care. Some blacks are coming in from North Carolina and Virginia, but others
are going off farther South. The white young men who were growing into manhood did
not seem inclined to leave their homes and migrate to foreign parts... The old
slave-holders still hold their lands. The negroes were poor and unable to buy, even if the
land-owners would sell. The whites seem likely to hold their own while the blacks fall
off.
1
0
Source: Richard N. Current and John A. Garraty, ed., Words that Made American
History Since The Civil War, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1965), pp. 57-61.
A DEBATE OVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Until the 1960s most historians of Reconstruction assumed that black politicians made
virtually no contribution to the post Civil War debates surrounding land redistribution
and the public school system. The historical record clearly shows otherwise. In the
following account from the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South
Carolina in 1868, we see the spirited discussion among black politicians over
compulsory education. Here is part of the debate.
MR. R. C. DE LARGE: I am not well acquainted with all the clauses in the constitution
of Massachusetts, and speak only from my historic knowledge of that people. This
section proposes to open these schools to all persons, irrespective of color, to open every
seminary of learning to all. Heartily do I endorse the object, but the manner in which it
is to be enforced meets my most earnest disapproval. I do not propose to enact in this
report a section that may be used by our enemies to appeal to the worst passions of a
class of people in this State. The schools may be opened to all, under proper provisions
in the Constitution, but to declare that parents "shall" send their children to them
whether they are willing or not is, in my judgment, going to a step beyond the bounds of
prudence. Is there any logic or reason in inserting in the Constitution a provision which
cannot be enforced? What do we intend to give the legislature power to do? In one
breath you propose to protect minor children, and in the next to punish their parents by
fine and imprisonment if they do not send their children to school. For these reasons I
am opposed to the section, and urge that the word "compulsory" shall be stricken out.
MR. A. J. RANSIER: I am sorry to differ with my colleague from Charleston on this
question. I contend that in proportion to the education of the people so is their progress
in civilization. Believing this, I believe that the Committee have properly provided for
the compulsory education of all the children in this State between the ages named in the
section.
I recognize the importance of this measure. there is a seeming objection to the word
"compulsory," but I do not think it of grave importance. My friend does not like it,
because he says it is contrary to the spirit of republicanism. To be free, however, is not
to enjoy unlimited license, or my friend himself might desire to enslave again his fellow
men.
Now I propose to support this section fully, and believe that the more it is considered
in all its bearings upon the welfare of our people, the greater will be the desire that every
parent shall, by some means, be compelled to educate his children and fit them for the
responsibilities of life. As to the particular mode of enforcing attendance at school, we
leave that an open question. At present we are only asserting the general principle, and
the Legislature will provide for its application.
Upon the success of republicanism depends the progress which our people are
destined to make. If parents are disposed to clog this progress by neglecting the
education of their children, for one, I will not aid and abet them. Hence, this, in my
opinion, is an exceedingly wise provision, and I am content to trust to the Legislature to
carry out the measures to which it necessarily leads.
Vice and degradation go hand in hand with ignorance. Civilization and
enlightenment follow fast upon the footsteps of the schoolmaster; and if education must
be enforced to secure these grand results, I say let the compulsory process go on.
MR. R. C. DE LARGE: Can the gentleman demonstrate how the Legislature is to enforce
the education of children without punishment of their parents by fine or imprisonment.
MR. A. J. RANSIER: When that question arises in the Legislature, I hope we shall
answer that question. If there is any one thing to which we may attribute the sufferings
endured by this people, it is the gross ignorance of the masses. While we propose to
avoid all difficulties which may be fraught with evil to the community, we shall,
nevertheless, insist upon our right to provide for the exercise of the great moral agencies
which education always brings to bear upon public opinion. had there been such a
provision as this in the Constitution of South Carolina heretofore, there is no doubt that
many of the evils which at present exist would have been avoided, and the people would
have been advanced to a higher stage of civilization and morals, and we would not have
been called upon to mourn the loss of the flower of the youth of our country. In
conclusion, I favor this section as it stands. I do not think it will militate against the
cause of republicanism, but, on the contrary, be of benefit both to it and to the people
whom we represent. Feeling that everything depends on the education of the rising
generation, I shall give this measure my vote, and use all my exertions to secure its
adoption into this Constitution.
MR. B. F. RANDOLPH: In favoring, as I do, compulsory attendance at school, I cannot
for the life of me see in what manner republicanism is at stake. It seems to have been
the fashion on this floor to question a man's republicanism because he chooses to differ
with others on general principles. Now this is a question which does not concern
republicanism at all. It is simply a matter of justice which is due to a people, and it
might be just as consistently urged that it is contrary to republican principles to organize
the militia, as to urge that this provision is anti-republican because it compels parents to
see to the education of their children.
MR. B. O. DUNCAN: Does the gentleman propose to educate children at the point of
the bayonet, through the militia?
MR. B. F. RANDOLPH: If necessary, we may call out the militia to enforce the law.
Now, the gentlemen on the other side have given no reasons why the word "compulsory"
should be stricken out.
MR. R. C. DE LARGE: Can you name any State where the provisions exists in its
Constitution?
MR. B. F. RANDOLPH: It exists in Massachusetts.
MR. R. C. DE LARGE: That is not so.
MR. F. L. CARDOZO: This system has been tested in Germany, and I defy the
gentlemen from Charleston to deny the fact. It has also been tested in several States of
the Union, and I defy the gentleman to show that is has not been a success. It becomes
the duty of the opposition if they want this section stricken from the report, to show that
where it has been applied it has failed to produce the result desired.
MR. J. J. WRIGHT: Will you inform us what State in the Union compels parents to
send their children to school?
MR. B. F. RANDOLPH: The State of New Hampshire is one. It may be asked what is
the object of law? It is not only for the purpose of restraining men from doing wrong,
but for the protection of all citizens of a State, and the promotion of the general welfare.
Blackstone lays it down as one of the objects, the furthering, as far as it can consistently
be done of the general welfare of the people. It is one of the objects of law, as far as
practicable, not to restrain wrong by punishing man for violating the right, but also one
of its grand objects to build up civilization, and this is the grand object of this provision
in the report of the Committee on Education. It proposes to further civilization and I
look upon it as one of the most important results which will follow the defeat of the rebel
armies, the establishment among the people who have long been deprived of the
privilege of education, a law which will compel parents to send their children to school.
Source: Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina (Charleston,
1868), pp. 686-94, 705-08. Reprinted in Thomas R. Frazier, Afro-American
History: Primary Sources.(Chicago, 1988)pp. 138-142.
BEN TILLMAN JUSTIFIES RECONSTRUCTION VIOLENCE
South Carolina Senator Benjamin R. Tillman participated in anti-black violence in the
1870s. Years later, in a 1907 speech on the floor of Senate, he explained why the
violence was necessary.
It was in 1876, thirty years ago, and the people of South Carolina had been living
under Negro rule for eight years. There was a condition bordering upon anarchy.
Misrule, robbery, and murder were holding high carnival...Life ceased to be worth
having on the terms under which we were living, and in desperation we determined to
take the government away from the Negroes.
We reorganized the Democratic Party [of South Carolina] with one plank, and
only one plank, namely, that "this is a white man's country, and white men must govern
it." Under that banner we went to battle.
We had 8,000 Negro militia organized by carpetbaggers... They used to drum up
and down the roads with their fifes and their gleaming bayonets, equipped with new
Springfield rifles and dressed in the regulation uniform. It was lawful, I suppose, but
these Negro soldiers--or this Negro militia, for they were never soldiers--growing more
and more bold, let drop talk among themselves where the white children might hear...
This is what they said: "The President [Grant] is our friend. The North is with us. We
intend to kill all the white men, take the land, marry the white women, and then these
white children will wait on us."
Clashes came. The Negro militia grew unbearable and more and more insolent. I
am not speaking of what I have read; I am speaking of what I know, of what I saw.
There were two militia companies in my township and a regiment in my county. We had
clashes with these Negro militiamen. The Hamburg riot was one clash, in which seven
Negroes and one white man were killed. A month later we had the Ellerton riot, in
which no one ever knew how many Negroes were killed, but there were [at least] forty or
fifty or a hundred. It was a fight between barbarism and civilization, between the
African and the Caucasian, for mastery.
It was then that "we shot them"; it was then that "we killed them"; it was then
that "we stuffed ballot boxes." After the [federal] troops came and told us, "You must
stop this rioting," we had decided to take the government away from men so debased as
were the Negro...
[President] Grant sent troops to maintain the carpetbag government in power
and to protect the Negroes in the right to vote. He merely obeyed the law... Then it was
that "we stuffed ballot boxes," because desperate diseases require desperate remedies,
and having resolved to take the state away, we hesitated at nothing...
I want to say now that we have not shot any Negroes in South Carolina on
account of politics since 1876. We have not found it necessary. Eighteen hundred and
seventy-six happened to be the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence, and the action of the white men of South Carolina in taking the state
away from the Negroes we regard as a second declaration of independence by the
Caucasian from African barbarism.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey & David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II,
Lexington, Mass: D. C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 462-463.
CHAPTER FIVE: INDUSTRIALIZING AMERICA
Terms for Week 5
standard time zones
“robber barons”
political machines
John D. Rockefeller
railroad rebates
Standard Oil Trust
J. P. Morgan
"Taylorism"
National Women’s Party
Interstate Commerce Commission
Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 1890
Ellis Island
pogrom
Tammany Hall
Women's Christian Temperance Union
Social Darwinism
Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth
Carlisle Indian School
Dawes Act
American Protective Association
Chinese Exclusion Act, 1883
RAILROADS AND WESTERN LANDS: San Luis Obispo
The federal government and various states granted Railroad Corporations thousands
of acres of prime public lands to encourage them to extend rail lines into the West.
These donations often made railroads, after the federal government, the largest
landholders in most western states. Yet some railroads demanded additional
concessions from cities, counties, and private citizens before they would construct lines
into cities and towns. Local farmers and ranchers, eager to get produce or livestock to
market, and town boosters, anxious to see a rail line stimulate population growth and
commercial development, often willingly gave valuable lands to the railroads. The
1889 resolution reprinted below, describes how San Luis Obispo citizens purchased
land at the request of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
WHEREAS, The Southern Pacific Railroad Company has proposed to citizens of
the city of San Luis Obispo and vicinity, that if said citizens will purchase and donate to
said railroad company, the right of way for its railroad from the west side of the Cuesta
mountains in San Luis Obispo county, California, to and through said city, and also such
lands within the corporate limits of said city as may be necessary for the machine shops,
depot grounds, and side tracks of said railroad, the said railroad company will without
delay, build and construct its railroad from Santa Margarita in said county to said city of
San Luis Obispo; and
WHEREAS, the early construction of said railroad of said city will be of great
benefit to us and each of us; and
WHEREAS, R.E. Jack, H.E. McBride, J.H. Maddux, L.M. Kaiser, Levi Rackliffe,
L.M. Warden and E.P. Unangst, have been duly appointed a committee, and are duly
authorized to act for said citizens. They are hereby made our agents to make said
purchases and to donate said lands to said railroad company when purchased.
Source: San Luis Obispo Tribune and Daily Republic, May 1, 1889.
ROCKEFELLER JUSTIFIES RAILROAD REBATES
John D. Rockefeller in his 1909 autobiography, Random Reminiscences of Men and
Events, details his reasons for promoting railroad rebates to the Standard Oil
Company.
Of all the subjects which seem to have attracted the attention of the public to the
affairs of the Standard Oil Company, the matter of rebate from railroads has perhaps
been uppermost. The Standard Oil Company of Ohio, of which I was president, did
receive rebates from the railroads prior to 1880, but received no advantages for which it
did not give full compensation.
The reason for rebates was that such was the railroads' method of business. A
public rate was made and collected by the railroad companies, but, so far as my
knowledge extends, was seldom retained in full; a portion of it was repaid to the
shippers as a rebate.
By this method of real rate of freight which any shipper paid was not known by
his competitors nor by other railroad companies, the amount being a mater of bargain
with the carrying company. Each shipper made the best bargain that he could, but
whether he was doing better than his competitor was only a matter of conjecture. Much
depended upon whether the shipper had the advantage of competition of carriers.
The Standard Oil Company of Ohio, being situated at Cleveland, had the
advantage of different carrying lines, as well as of water transportation in the summer.
Taking advantage of those facilities, it made the best bargains possible for its freights.
Other companies sought to do the same.
The Standard gave advantages to the railroads for the purpose of reducing the
cost of transportation of freight. It offered freights in large quantity, carloads and
trainloads. It furnished loading facilities and discharging facilities at great cost. It
provided regular traffic, so that a railroad could conduct its transportation to the best
advantage and use its equipment to the full extent of its hauling capacity without waiting
for the refiner's convenience. It exempted railroads from liability for fire and carried its
own insurance. It provided at its own expense terminal facilities which permitted
economies in handling. For these services it obtained contracts for special allowances
on freights...
The profits of the Standard Oil Company did not come from advantages given by
railroads. The railroads, rather, were the ones who profited by the traffic of the
Standard Oil Company, and whatever advantage it received in its constant efforts to
reduce rates of freight was only one of the many elements of lessening cost to the
consumer which enabled us to increase our volume of business the world over because
we could reduce the selling price.
I well remember a bright man from Boston who had much to say about rebates
and drawbacks. He was an old and experienced merchant, and looked after his affairs
with a cautious and watchful eye. He feared that some of his competitors were doing
better than he in bargaining for rates, and he delivered himself of this conviction:
"I am opposed on principle to the whole system of rebates and drawbacks-unless
I am in it."
Source: John D. Rockefeller, Random Reminiscences of Men and Events, (New York:
Doubleday, 1909) pp. 107-109.
ROCKEFELLER BREAKS A COMPETITOR
George Rice, a Pennsylvania oil refiner, was a victim of John D. Rockefeller's
consolidation efforts. In testimony before the United States Industrial Commission in
1899, he describes how the Standard Oil Trust bankrupted his refining company.
I am a citizen of the United States, born in the state of Vermont. Producer of
petroleum for more than thirty years, and a refiner of same for twenty years. But my
refinery has been shut down during the past three years, owing to the powerful and allprevailing machinations of the Standard Oil Trust, in criminal collusion and conspiracy
with the railroads to destroy my business of twenty years of patient industry, toil, and
money in building up, wholly by and through unlawful freight discriminations.
I have been driven from pillar to post, from one railway line to another, for twenty
years, in the absolutely vain endeavor to get equal and just freight rates with the
Standard Oil Trust, so as to be able to run my refinery at anything approaching a profit,
but which I have been utterly unable to do. I have had to consequently shut down, with
my business absolutely ruined and my refinery idle.
This has been a very sad, bitter, and ruinous experience for me to endure, but I have
endeavored to the best of my circumstances and ability to combat it the utmost I could
for many a long waiting year, expecting relief through the honest and proper execution
of our laws, which have [has] as yet, however, never come. But I am still living in hopes,
though I may die in despair...
Outside of rebates or freight discriminations, I had no show with the Standard Oil
Trust, because of their unlawfully acquired monopoly, by which they could temporarily
cut only my customers' prices, and below cost, leaving the balance of the town,
nine-tenths, uncut. This they can easily do without any appreciable harm to their
general trade, and thus effectually wipe out all competition, as fully set forth. Standard
Oil prices generally were so high that I could sell my goods 2 to 3 cents a gallon below
their prices and make a nice profit, but these savage attacks and [price] cuts upon my
customers' goods...plainly showed...their power for evil, and the uselessness to contend
against such odds....
Source: Report of the U.S. Industrial Commission, I (1899), 687, 704.
WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER ON TRADE UNIONS
In 1878, William Graham Sumner, professor of political and social science at Yale
College, testified before a congressional committee investigating the conditions of
employment at various industrial plants around the country. Sumner, an outspoken
opponent of labor unions used this forum to criticize attempts by government to
regulate industrial working conditions. His argument reflects the basic beliefs of the
Social Darwinists.
Question: What is the effect of machinery on those laborers whom for the time
being it turns out of employment?
Sumner: For the time being they suffer, of course, a loss of income and a loss of
comfort...
Question: Is there any way to help it?
Sumner: Not at all. There is no way on earth to help it. The only way is to meet it
bravely, go ahead, make the best of circumstances; and if you cannot go on in the way
you were going, try another way, and still another until you work yourself out as an
individual...
Question: Do you admit that there is what you call distress among the laboring
classes of this country?
Sumner: No sir: I do not admit any such thing. I cannot get evidence of it... I do
not know of anything that the government can do that is at all specific to assist labor--to
assist non-capitalists. The only things that the government can do are generally things
such as are in the province of a government.
The general things that a government can do to assist the non-capitalist in the
accumulation of capital (for that is what he wants) are two things. The first thing is to
give him the greatest possible liberty in the directing of his own energies for his own
development, and the second is to give him the greatest possible security in the
possession and use of the products of his own industry. I do not see any more than that
a government can do....
Society does not owe any man a living. In all cases that I have ever known of
young men who claimed that society owed them a living, it has turned out that society
paid--in the State prison. I do not see any other result...
The fact that a man is here is no demand upon other people that they shall keep
him alive and sustain him. He has got to fight the battle with nature as every other man
has; and if he fights it with the same energy and enterprise and skill and industry as any
other man, I cannot imagine his failing--that is, misfortune apart...
Source: Howard H. Quint, Milton Cantor and Dean Albertson, Main Problems in
American History, (Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1987) p. 50.
THE ROAD TO BUSINESS SUCCESS
Andrew Carnegie's life was the epitome of upward mobility. He arrived in the United
States, an impoverished immigrant and later became one of the nation's leading
industrialists. Carnegie was also an articulate spokesman of the new cult of success
and promoted it through his most famous book, The Gospel of Wealth, published in
1901. In the passages below he describes the price of economic progress. He also
discusses the need to redistribute the accumulated incomes of the wealthy.
Today the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at prices which even the
preceding generation would have deemed incredible. In the commercial world similar
causes have produced similar results and the race is benefited thereby. The poor enjoy
what the rich could not before afford. What were the luxuries have become the
necessaries [sic] of life...
The price we pay for this salutary change is, no doubt, great. We assemble
thousands of operatives in the factory, and in the mine, of whom the employer can know
little or nothing... All intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid castes are formed
and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust. Each caste is without sympathy
with the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of
competition the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among
with the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the
employer and the employed...
The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for
cheap comforts and luxuries, is also great; but the advantages of this law are also greater
still than its cost--for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development...
But, whether the law be benign or not...it is here; we cannot evade it...and while the law
may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race because it insures the
survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome...great inequality of
environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of
a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial but
essential to the future progress of the race... Objections to the foundations upon which
society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these
than it has been with any other which has been tried...
Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from
affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it
is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the
State. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and
very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well hesitate...for great
sums bequeathed often work more for the injury than the good of the recipients... The
growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering
indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of
Pennsylvania now takes--subject to some exceptions--one tenth of the property left by
its citizens... Of all forms of taxation this seems the wisest... By taxing estates heavily at
death the State marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire’s unworthy life...
Source: Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth, (New York, 1901) pp. 3-5, 9, 11.
CARNEGIE AND MORGAN: A CONVERSATION ABOUT STEEL
In 1900 J.P. Morgan bought out Carnegie Steel and created U.S. Steel, the largest
corporation in America at the time. Capitalized at $1.4 billion (America's first billion
dollar corporation) a figure three times larger than the annual budget of the United
States. Here is part of the conversation between the two men which finalized the deal.
It was a cold winter's night in December 1900, seventy-five of the richest, most
influential American businessmen gathered at the New York University Club. They met
for a testimonial dinner in honor of Charles Schwab, president of Carnegie Steel
Company. Seated to the honoree's right was J.P. Morgan, the powerful investment
banker and consolidator of industry. Charles Schwab...in his speech rhapsodized over
low prices and stability for steel. This future was to be ushered in by a scientifically
integrated firm which would supplant numerous companies--many of which produced
more stock certificates than steel.
Morgan did not miss the point. For several years he and others had been busily
creating trusts [which] they hoped to unite or eliminate competition in order to raise
prices. Andrew Carnegie's company was the largest supplier of raw steel to such
companies, and he hated trusts... Morgan and his cohorts soon realized that depending
on Carnegie for raw steel would doom their consolidation schemes... They were going to
produce their own steel or but it from others--and put Carnegie out of business.
Rather than surrender, Carnegie telegraphed instructions to his company's
officers: "Crisis has arrived, only one policy open; start at once hoop, wire, nail
mills....Have no fear as to result, victory certain..." Carnegie know he could produce
superior products at cheaper prices... The overcapitalized, antiquated, and scattered
plants of his competitors would have been no match for Carnegie's new ones. Panicked
promoters scurried to J.P. Morgan in the weeks before the testimonial dinner. Few
doubted Federal Steel president Elbert Gary's assertion that Carnegie could "have driven
entirely out of business every steel company in the United States." Carnegie, however,
wanted to retire, and Schwab's speech was aimed at producing a bargain, not a war.
After the dinner Morgan fired dozens of questions at Schwab. Later they held an allnight session at Morgan's house. In the early hours of the next day Morgan finally said,
"Well, if Andy wants to sell, I'll buy. Go find his price."
Schwab approached Carnegie on the golf course, where he might be more inclined
to cooperate. Carnegie listened and asked Schwab to return the next day for an answer.
At that time Carnegie handed him a slip of paper with his asking price of $480 million
written in pencil. When Schwab gave Morgan the offer, he glanced at it and replied, I
accept the price." A few days later Morgan stopped by Carnegie's office, shook hands on
the deal and stated, "Mr. Carnegie, I want to congratulate you on being the richest man
in the world."
Source: James K. Martin, America and its People, Vol. 2, (Glenview, Illinois, 1989),
512.
CHANGING WORLD INDUSTRIAL BALANCE, 1860-1980
Leading Industrial Nations
1860
1900
Great Britain
France
United States
Germany
1980
United States
Germany
Great Britain
France
20
United States
Soviet Union
Japan
West Germany
United
Japan
Germa
Great B
Nations in 2000 with the Largest GDP (in Trillions of Dollars)
United States
Japan
Germany
Great Britain
8.4 Trillion
4.1 Trillion
2.1 Trillion
Mexico
1.4 Trillion
France
Italy
China
429 Billion
Brazil
1.3 Trillion
1.1 Trillion
1.0 Trillion
Spain
India
743 Billion
Manufacturing in the United States, 1860-1900
Date
Number of Factories
Number of Employees
1860
1870
140,433
252,140
1,311,246
2,053,996
Capitalization
$ 1,009,855,715
1,694,567,015
Value
$ 1,885
3,385
1880
253,852
1890
1900
2,732,595
5,369,579,191
4,251,535
5,306,143
13,000,149,159
355,405
512,191
2,790,272,606
6,525,050,759
9,813,834,390
Gross National Product and Total Per Capita Income
1870-1901
Date
Gross National Product
1873
1876
1881
1886
1891
1893
1896
1901
$ 9,100,000,000
11,200,000,000
16,100,000,000
20,700,000,000
24,000,000,000
27,300,000,000
29,600,000,000
37,100,000,000
Per Capita Income
$ 223
254
327
374
388
424
434
496
Steel Production in the United States, 1870-1905
Average Production (in Tons) Per Establishment
1870
1880
1890
1900
1905
5,000
9,000
23,000
43,000
59,000
THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT, 1890
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, reprinted below, was intended to halt the proliferation of
business trusts. Its language on this question was clear but it was not enforced by
American presidents until Theodore Roosevelt used the measure to breakup the
Northern Securities Trust.
Sec. 1 Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in
restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is
hereby declared to be illegal. Every person who shall make any such contract or engage
in any such combination or conspiracy, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and,
on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or
by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said punishments, in the discretion
9,372
of the court.
Sec. 2 Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or
conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or
commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding five
thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or by both said
punishments, in the discretion of the court.
NUMBER OF TRUSTS FORMED, 1891-1903
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
Date
Leading Company*
4
8
9
3
8
1896
1897
1898
1899
10
7
12
88
1900
1901
1902
1903
33
71
88
25
MAJOR INDUSTRIAL TRUSTS, 1904
% of
Formed
Plants
Capitalization
Standard Oil Trust
American Sugar Refining
Amalgamated Copper Trust
American Smelting Trust
Consolidated Tobacco
United States Steel
1882
1891
1899
1899
1901
1901
400
55
11
121
150
785
97,500,000
145,000,000
175,000,000
201,550,000
502,915,000
1,370,000,000
*Dominant Corporation in the Trust
J. P. MORGAN DENIES A MONEY TRUST
In testimony before a Congressional Committee in 1913, J. Pierpont Morgan denied
claims that he and other bank directors attempted to control major American
corporations.
...There have been spread before your Committee elaborate tables of so-called
interlocking directorates, from which exceedingly mistaken inferences have been
publicly drawn. In these tables it is shown that 180 bankers and bank directors serve
upon the boards of corporations having resources aggregating $25,000,000,000, and it
is implied that this vast aggregate of the country's wealth is at the disposal of these 180
men.
But such an implication rests solely upon the untenable theory that these men,
Industry
97%
100
100
98
100
76
living in different parts of the country, in many cases personally unacquainted with each
other, and in most cases associated only in occasional transactions, vote always for the
same policies and control with united purpose the directorates of the 132 corporations
on which they serve.
The testimony failed to establish any concerted policy or harmony of action
binding these 180 men together, and, as matter of fact, no such policy exist. The
absurdity of the assumption of such control becomes more apparent when one considers
that, on the average, these directors represent only one quarter of the memberships of
their boards. It is preposterous to suppose that every "interlocking" director has full
control in every organization with which he is connected, and that the majority of
directors who are not "interlocking" are mere figureheads, subject to the will of a small
minority of their boards.
Such growth in the size of banks in New York and Chicago has frequently been
erroneously designated before your Committee as "concentration," whereas we have
hitherto pointed out [that] the growth of banking resources in New York City has been
less rapid than that of the rest of the country. But increase of capital, and merger of two
or more banks into one institution (with the same as the aggregate of the banks merging
into it), has been frequent, especially since January 1, 1908.
These mergers, however, are a development due simply to the demand for larger
banking facilities to care for the growth of the country's business. As our cities double
and treble in size and importance, as railroads extend and industrial plants expand, not
only is it natural, but it is necessary, that our banking institutions should grow in order
to care for the increased demands put upon them. Perhaps it is not known as well as it
should be that in New York City the largest banks are far inferior in size to banks in the
commercial capitals of other and much smaller countries...
Yet, before your Committee, this natural and eminently desirable relationship
was made to appear almost sinister, and no testimony whatever was adduced to show
the actual working of such relationships.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II,
(Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 636-637.
THE TRUSTS: A CRITICAL VIEW
Hazen Pingree, the reform mayor of Detroit, delivered an address at the Chicago
Conference on Trusts, 1900, which was highly critical of the business consolidation
movement. His argument is summarized below.
Everybody has been asking whether more money can be made by trusts than by
small corporations and individuals-whether cost of production will be increased or
decreased-whether investors will be benefited or injured- whether the financial system
of the country will be endangered-whether we can better compete for the world's trade
with large combinations or trusts...
I believe that all these things are minor considerations. I think that it is of far
greater importance to inquire whether the control of the world's trade, or any of the
other commercial advantages claimed for the trust, are worth the price we pay for them.
The strength of our republic has always been in what is called our middle class.
This is made up of manufacturers, jobbers, middle men, retail and wholesale merchants,
commercial travelers and business men generally. It would be little short of calamity to
encourage any industrial development that would affect unfavorably this important
class of our citizen.
Close to them as a strong element of our people are the skilled mechanics and
artisans. They are the sinew and strength of the nation. While the business of the
country has been conducted by persons and firms, the skilled employee has held close
and sympathetic relations with his employer. He has been something more than a mere
machine. He has felt the stimulus and ambition which goes with equality of
opportunity.
How does the trust affect them? It is admitted by the apologist for the trust that
it makes it impossible for the individual or firm to do business on a small scale. It tends
to concentrate the ownership and management of all lines of business activity into the
hands of a very few. No one denies this. This being so, it follows that the independent,
individual business man, must enter the employment of the trust. Self- preservation
compels it. His trusted foremen and his employees must follow him. Their personal
identity is lost. They become cogs and little wheels in a great complicated machine.
There is no real advance for them. They may perhaps become larger cogs or larger
wheels, but they can never look forward to a life of business freedom.
The trust is therefore the forerunner, or rather the creator of industrial slavery.
The master is the trust manager or director. It is his duty to serve the soulless
and nameless being called the stockholder. To the latter the dividend is more important
than the happiness or prosperity of any one. The slave is the former merchant and
business man, and the artisan and mechanic, who one cherished the hope that they
might sometime reach the happy position of independent ownership of a business.
I favor complete and prompt annihilation of the trust,-with due regard for
property rights, of course.
Source: Howard Quint, Milton Cantor and Dean Albertson, Main Problems in
American History, (Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1987) p. 159-160.
WORK AND POVERTY
Those who criticized industrialization by linking it to the apparent rise in poverty
faced deeply held views about the responsibility of society to assist the poor. Many of
those ideas were articulated by Francis Wayland, a professor at Yale University who
in 1837 published a widely read book, The Elements of Political Economy in 1837.
Part of his book is excerpted below.
Although God has designed men to labor, yet he has not designed them to labor
without reward... As it is unnatural to labor without receiving benefit from it, men will
not labor continuously nor productively, unless they receive such benefit. And, hence,
the greater this benefit, the more active and spontaneous will be their exertion.
In order that every man may enjoy, in the greatest degree, the advantages of his
labor...that, he be allowed to gain all that he can; and, 2d. That having gained all that he
can, he be allowed to use it as he will...
A man may possess himself, either dishonestly or by begging, of the property for
which he has not labored. The dishonest acquisition of property, as by cheating,
stealing, or robbery, will be prevented by the strict and impartial administration of just
and equitable laws. Hence, we see that the benefit of such laws is two fold. They
encourage industry, first, by securing to the industrious the righteous reward of their
labor; and secondly, by inflicting upon the indolent the just punishment of their
idleness...
...The support of the poor, simply because he is poor; and of provision to supply
his wants, without requiring the previous exertion of his labor...we suppose to be
injurious, for several reasons.
1. They are at variance with the fundamental law of government, that he who is
able to labor, shall enjoy only that for which he has labored...
2. They remove from men the fear of want, one of the most natural and universal
stimulants to labor. Hence, in just so far as this stimulus is removed, there will be in a
given community less labor done; that is, less production created.
3. By teaching a man to depend upon others, rather than upon himself, they
destroy the healthful feeling of independence... It is in evidence…that, after a family has
once applied for assistance...it rarely ceases to apply regularly, and, most frequently, in
progress of time, for a larger and larger measure of assistance.
4. Hence, such a system must tend greatly to increase the number of paupers. It is
a discouragement to industry, and a bounty upon indolence...
5. They are, in principle, destructive to the right of property, because they must
proceed upon the concession that the rich are under obligation to support the poor...
6. Hence, they tend to insubordination. For, if the rich are under obligation to
support the poor, why not to support them better; nay, why not to support them as well
as themselves, hence, the more provision there is of this kind, the greater will be the liability to collision between the two classes.
If this be so, we see, that in order to accomplish the designs of our Creator in this
respect, and thus present the strongest inducement to industry,
1. Property should be universally appropriated, so that nothing is left in common.
2. The right of property should be perfectly protected, both against individual and
social spoliation.
3. There should be no common funds for the support of those who are not willing
to labor.
4. That if a man be reduced, by indolence or prodigality, to such extreme penury
that he is in danger of perishing... that he be furnished with work, and be remunerated
with the proceeds.
5. That those who are enabled only in part to earn their subsistence, be provided
for, to the amount of that deficiency, only. And hence that all our provisions for the
relief of the poor be so devised as not to interfere with this law of our nature.
By so directing our benevolent energies, the poor are better provided for; they are
happier themselves; and a great and constantly increasing burden is removed from the
community.
Source: Francis Wayland, The Elements of Political Economy (New York, 1837), 111,
134—127 reprinted in Richard W. Leopold, Arthur S. Link and Stanley Corbin,
eds. Problems in American History (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966), p. 317-319.
HENRY WARD BEECHER: THE WORKER'S STANDARD OF LIVING
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, minister of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church, and one of the
nation's most prominent religious leaders, discussed his views of the workingmen's
plight during the national railroad strikes of 1877.
...It is true that $1 a day is not enough to support a man and five children, if the
man insists on smoking and drinking beer. Is not a dollar a day enough to buy bread?
Water costs nothing. Men cannot live by bread, it is true; but the man who cannot live
on bread and water is not fit to live.
When a man is educated away from the power of self-denial, he is falsely
educated. A family may live on good bread and water in the morning, water and bread
at midday, and good water and bread at night. Such may be called the bread of
affliction, but it is fit that man should eat the bread of affliction...
The great laws of political economy cannot be set at defiance.
Source: Howard Quint, Milton Cantor and Dean Albertson, Main Problems in
American History, (Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1987) p. 51.
DOMESTIC SERVICE--ONE WOMAN'S ACCOUNT
Although most 19th and early 20th Century women did not work outside the home, the
vast majority who did were domestic servants--maids, laundresses, cooks. In 1901
Inez A Godman, curious about the life and work of servants, left her middle class home
to work as a maid. She was soon employed as a domestic servant for $2.75 a week
doing general housework and cooking. In the passage below she outlines her duties
during her first day as a maid.
I rose at six and served breakfast promptly at seven. By half-past nine the
downstairs work was finished.
"Thursdays you will clean the sitting room," said my lady, "but you must tidy your
own room first. I wish you always to put your own room in order before noon." So I
spent ten minutes in my room and two hours in the sitting room. I could not finish in
less time... Five times during the two hours I was called off by the door bell and twice I
went down to look after my bread.
I finished soon after twelve, and hurried down to prepare luncheon; this I served
at one. I had been on my feet steadily for seven hours and they began to complain. I
was thankful for a chance to sit, and dawdled over my lunch for half an hour. It was
half-past two, everything was in order and I was preparing to go to my room when my
lady appeared saying that the kitchen floor ought to be wiped. She was right. The floor
was covered with oilcloth and it was getting dingy. The kitchen was large, and it took me
half an hour; then I went to my room. I was very tired. In my own housekeeping I had
taken frequent opportunities for short rests, here the strain had been steady. I was too
much heated to dare a bath, but I rocked and rested, did a little mending, and tidied
myself up a bit. It was astonishing how soon four o'clock came. It did not seem possible
that I had been upstairs forty minutes.
There was a roast for dinner and I hastened down to heat the oven. Then came
three hard hours. Dinner was a complex meal, and coming at night when I was tired was
always something of a worry. To have the different courses ready at just the right
moment, to be sure that nothing burned or curdled while I was waiting on the table, to
think quickly and act calmly; all this meant weariness, and by the time the dishes were
washed up my whole being was in a state of rebellion. I had started upstairs with a pail
of hot water for my tired feet when I remembered the ice water [for the mistress]. For a
moment I hesitated. It meant another trip and had not been asked for. Nevertheless I
took it up and my lady smiled again, but not surprisedly this time. I assured you that I
did not dally an hour with my toilet but was in bed and heavily asleep in twenty minutes.
Source: David A. Katzman, Seven Days A Week: Women and Domestic Service in
Industrializing America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 32-33.
WOMEN'S WORK AND WORKING WOMEN, 1900
In the following account Jacob Riis, a pioneer in investigative journalism, describes
working women in New York City in 1900.
Six months have not passed since at a great public meeting in this city, the
Working Women’s Society reported: “It is a known fact that men’s wages cannot fall
below a limit upon which they can exist, but woman’s wages have no limit, since the
paths of shame are always open to her. It is simply impossible for any woman to live
without assistance on the low salary a saleswoman earns, without depriving herself of
real necessities... It is inevitable that they must in many instances resort to evil.” It was
only a few brief weeks before that verdict was uttered, that the community was shocked
by the story of a gentle and refined woman who, left in direst poverty to earn her own
living alone among strangers, threw herself from her attic window, preferring death to
dishonor. I would have done any honest work, even to scrubbing,” she wrote, drenched
and starving, after a vain search for work in a driving storm. She had tramped the streets
for weeks on her weary errand and the only living wages that were offered her were the
wages of sin.
It is estimated that at least one hundred and fifty thousand women and girls earn
their own living in New York; but there is reason to believe that this estimate falls far
short of the truth when sufficient account is taken of the large number who are not
wholly dependent upon their own labor, while contributing by it to the family’s earnings.
These alone constitute a large class of the women wage-earners, and it is characteristic
of the situation that the very fact that some need not starve on their wages condemns the
rest to that fate. The pay they are willing to accept all have to take. What the
“everlasting law of supply and demand,” that serves as such a convenient gag for public
indignation, has to do with it, one learns from observation all along the road of inquiry
into these real woman’s wrongs. To take the case of the saleswomen for illustration: The
investigation of the Working Women’s Society disclosed the fact that wages averaging
from $2 to $4.50 a week were reduced by excessive fines, “the employers placing a value
upon time lost that is not given to services rendered.” A little girl, who received two
dollars a week, made cash-sales amounting to $167 in a single day, while the receipts of
a fifteen-dollar male clerk in the same department footed up only $125; yet for some
trivial mistake the girl was fined sixty cents out of her two dollars. The practice
prevailed in some stores of dividing the fines between the superintendent and the timekeeper at the end of the year. In one instance they amounted to $3,000, and “the
superintendent was heard to charge the time-keeper with not being strict enough in his
duties.” One of the causes for fine in a certain large store was sitting down. The law
requiring seats for saleswomen, generally ignored, was obeyed faithfully in this
establishment. The seats were there, but the girls were fined when found using them.
Source: Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1905) reprinted in Robert D. Marcus
and David Burner, ed. America Firsthand. vol.2 (New York: 1989), p. 151-52.
CHILD LABOR IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICA
The passage below, a description of the workforce in a Massachusetts textile mill, is
part of testimony by Otis Lynch, the mill owner, before a 1896 Congressional
Committee on child labor.
Q.
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
How much help do you employ?
We have, I think, 485 on our pay-roll.
How many of those are men?
I cannot answer that exactly; about one-seventh.
The rest are women and children, I suppose?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. How many of them would you class as women and how many as children?
A. I think about one-third of the remainder would be children and two-thirds women.
That is about the proportion.
Q. What is the average wages that you pay?
A. Eighty-two cents a day for the last six months, or in that neighborhood.
Q. What do the women make a day?
A. About $1
Q. And the men?
A. About $1 a day.
Q. What do the children make on an average?
A. About from 35 to 75 cents a day.
Q. You employ children of ten years and upward?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you employ any below the age of ten?
A. No...
Q. Do you think it well that children between the ages of say ten and fourteen years
should be required to work more than about half the time in a factory?
A. Well, I don't know that I can answer that question satisfactorily. I don't know
whether they should be compelled to work at all in the factory unless the circumstances
made it necessary.
Q. Do the children remain in the mill during the whole eleven hours as the older
operatives do?
A. Yes.
Q. How as to their chance of getting some education in your free schools?
A. Well, in individual cases they sometimes quit the mill and go to school--some of
them do.
Q. For how long periods?
A. Indefinite periods. Some of the parents take their children out when they feel that
they can do without them for a while and send them to school, and afterwards when it
becomes necessary they send them back to the mill again. There is no rule about it.
Q. But most of them remain in the mill one year after another, I suppose.
A. Oh, yes; but they change a good deal out and in.
Source: Robert D. Marcus and David Burner, America Firsthand, Vol. II, (New
York, 1989), pp. 84-86.
AMERICAN URBANIZATION, 1860-1900
20 Largest Cities: 1880
1. New York, N.Y.
20 Largest Cities: 1900
1,164,673
1. New York, N.Y.
3,437,202
2. Philadelphia, PA
874,170
2. Chicago, IL
3. Brooklyn, N.Y.
4. Chicago, IL
599,495
503,185
1,698,575
3. Philadelphia, PA
1,293,697
4. St. Louis, MO
575,238
5. Boston, MA
6. St. Louis, MO
7. Baltimore, MD
8. Cincinnati, OH
9. Pittsburgh, PA
10. San Francisco, CA
11. New Orleans, LA
12. Washington, D.C.
13. Cleveland, OH
14. Buffalo, N.Y.
15. Newark, N.J.
16. Louisville, KY
17. Jersey City, N.J.
18. Detroit, MI
19. Milwaukee, WI
20. Providence, R.I.
362,839
560,892
350,518
508,957
332,313
451,512
255,739
381,768
235,071
352,387
233,959
342,782
216,090
325,902
177,624
287,104
160,146
285,704
155,134
285,315
136,508
278,718
123,758
246,070
120,722
206,433
116,340
204,731
115,587
202,718
104,859
175,597
5. Boston, MA
6. Baltimore, MD
7. Pittsburgh, PA
8. Cleveland, OH
9. Buffalo, N.Y.
10. San Francisco, CA
11. Cincinnati, OH
12. New Orleans, LA
13. Detroit, MI
14. Milwaukee, WI
15. Washington, D.C.
16. Newark, N.J.
17. Jersey City, N.J.
18. Louisville, KY
19. Minneapolis, MN
20. Providence, R.I.
A LETTER FROM ELLIS ISLAND
Today millions of Americans visit Ellis Island to commemorate and celebrate the
arrival of their 19th and early 20th Century ancestors to the United States unaware,
for the most part, of the suffering that many of the newcomers initially encountered
upon arrival. This vignette, written by Russian immigrant and former Petersburg
University student Alexander Rudnev, who was detained at Ellis Island on July 4,
1909, appeared originally in the Jewish Daily Forward.
Dear Editor,
We, the unfortunate who are imprisoned on Ellis Island, beg you to have pity on
us and print our letter in your worthy newspaper, so that our brothers in America may
know how we suffer.
The people here are from various countries, most of them are Russian Jews, many
of who can never return to Russia. These Jews are deserters from the Russian army and
political escapees, whom the Czar would like to have returned to Russia. Many of the
families sold everything they owned to scrape together enough for passage to America.
They haven't a cent but they figured that, with the help of their children, sisters,
brothers and friends, they could find means of livelihood.
You know full well how much the Jewish immigrant suffers till he gets to
America. First he has a hard enough time at the borders, then with the agents. After
this he goes through a lot till they send him, life baggage, on the train to a port. There he
lies around in the immigrant sheds till the ship finally leaves. Then follow the torment
on the ship where every sailor considers a steerage passenger a dog. And when, with
God's help, he has endured all this, and he is at last in America, he is give for 'dissert' an
order that he must show that he possesses twenty-five dollars.
But where can we get it? Who ever heard of such an outrage, treating people so?
If we had known before, we would have provided for it somehow back at home. What
nonsense this is! We must have money on arrival, not a few hours later (when relatives
come) it's too late. For this kind on nonsense they ruin so many people and send them
back to the place they escaped from
It is impossible to describe all that is taking place here, but we want to convey at
least a little of it. We are packed into a room where there is space for two hundred
people, but they have crammed in about a thousand. The don't let us out into the yard
for a little fresh air. We like about on the floor in the spittle and filth. We're wearing the
same shirts for three or four weeks, because we don't have our baggage with us.
Everyone goes around dejected and cries and wails. Women with little babies,
who have come to their husbands, and are being detained. Who can stand this
suffering? Men are separated from their wives and children and only when they take us
out to eat can they see them. When a man wants to ask his wife something, or when a
father wants to see his child, they don't let him. Children get sick, they are taken to a
hospital, and if often happens that they never come back.
Because today is a holiday, the Fourth of July, they didn't send anyone back. But
Tuesday, the fifth, the begin again to lead us to the 'slaughter,' that is, to the boat. And
God know how many Jewish lives this will cost, because more than one mind dwells on
the though of jumping into the water when the take him to the boat.
All our hope is that you, Mr. Editor, will not refuse us, and print our letter which
is signed by many immigrants. The women have not signed, because they don't let us
get to them.
Alexander Rudnev
Source: Robert D. Marcus and David Burner, America Firsthand: From
Reconstruction to the Present Vol. 2 (New York, 1989) pp. 128-129.
FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION OF THE U. S., 1870-1900
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
1870
1880
1890
1900
Germany
1,690,500
1,966,700
2,784,900 2,663,400
Ireland
1,855,800
1,854,600
1,871,500
1,615,500
Eastern Europe
93,900
221,000
635,700
1,473,200
Scandinavia
498,400
723,000
1,257,800
1,419,600
Canada
493,500
717,200
980,900
1,179,900
Great Britain (excluding Ireland) 770,200
917,600
1,251,400
1,167,600
Southern Europe
25,900
58,300
206,600
530,000
Mexico & Latin America
57,900
89,500
107,300
137,500
Other Foreign Born
81,000
132,200
153,300
154,400
___________________________________________________________
Total Foreign Born
5,667,200
6,679,900 9,249,600 10,341,300
Foreign-Born as a
Percentage of the
Total Population
14%
13%
15%
18%
____________________________________________________________
______
FOREIGN-BORN IN THE TWENTY LARGEST CITIES, 1900
City
Population
1. New York, N.Y.
2. Chicago, IL.
3. Philadelphia, PA.
4. St. Louis, MO.
5. Boston, MA.
6. Baltimore, MD.
7. Pittsburgh, PA.
8. Cleveland, OH.
9. Buffalo, N.Y.
10. San Francisco, CA.
11. Cincinnati, OH.
12. New Orleans, LA.
13. Detroit, MI.
14. Milwaukee, WI.
15. Washington, D.C.
16. Newark, N.J.
17. Jersey City, N.J.
3,437,202
1,698,575
1,293,697
575,238
560,892
508,957
451,512
381,768
352,387
342,782
325,902
287,104
285,704
285,315
278,718
246,070
206,433
% ForeignBorn
37%
35
23
19
35
14
26
33
30
34
18
11
35
31
6
29
31
Largest Nationalities
Germans, Irish
Germans, Irish
Irish, Germans
Germans, Irish
Irish, Canadians
Germans, Russians
Germans, Irish
Germans, Irish
Germans, Poles
Germans, Irish
Germans, Irish
Germans, Italians
Germans, Irish
Germans, Poles
Germans, Irish
Germans, Irish
Germans, Irish
18. Louisville, KY.
19. Minneapolis, MN.
20. Providence, R.I.
204,731
202,718
175,597
8
30
32
Germans, Irish
Swedes, Norwegians
Irish, English
TWO VIEWS OF URBAN AMERICA
The two passages below provide a glimpse into urban life in the post Civil War era.
The first is an account of the rapidly growing industrial city of Pittsburgh in January
1868 by James Barton, a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. The second passage is
from a Senate Committee investigation of living conditions on Baxter Street, a slum
area in New York City in 1883.
Barton: There is one evening scene in Pittsburgh which no visitor should miss.
Owing to the abruptness of the hill behind the town, there is a street along the edge of a
bluff, from which you can look directly down upon all that part of the city which lies low,
near the level of the rivers. On the evening of this dark day, we were conducted to the
edge of the abyss, and looked over the iron railing upon the most striking spectacle we
ever beheld. The entire space lying between the hills was filled with blackest smoke,
from out of which the hidden chimneys sent forth tongues of flame, while from the
depths of the abyss came up the noise of hundreds of steam-hammers. There would be
moments when no flames were visible; but soon the wind would force the smoky
curtains aside, and the whole black expanse would be dimly lighted with dull wreaths of
fire. It is an unprofitable business, view- hunting; but if any one would enjoy a spectacle
as striking as Niagara, he may do so by simply walking up a long hill to Cliff Street in
Pittsburgh, and looking over into--hell with the lid taken off.
Committee: In Baxter Street in one room there are eight families, composed altogether of forty-two people, and three-quarters of them are so destitute of clothing that
they cannot go into the street even to beg...
Q. Where is this room; is it above ground or under ground?
A. Well, it is a basement, a half-cellar, and, when the tide comes in the water is
eight inches deep on the floor; they have to put scantlings and slabs across to put their
clothes on. One small stove is all that can be found in that enormous room to warm a
whole crowd of people in the cold weather...
Q. Do you say that there are eight families in one room?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. What is the size of the room?
A. It is a large room--a whole basement. It is, perhaps, longer but not as wide as
this room--it extends back...
Q. Do you know how the people who live here employ themselves?
A. I think they are rag pickers, mainly. I say that the houses for the poor in this
city are too dark, too damp, too much crowded, too poorly ventilated, and have
altogether insufficient water, and hence are too vile to live in. I refer to the tenements
for the masses. Who it is who owns these houses I do not know. I have been told that
some of these tenements--places of the lowest order--are owned by people like the
Astors. How they can ride in their carriages, and dress in silk and velvets, or sleep
peacefully at night while they permit their tenants to have such dwellings, I cannot
understand.
Source: James Barton, "Pittsburgh," The Atlantic Monthly, January 1868; Report of
the Committee of the Senate on the Relations between Labor and Capital, 1885.
TENEMENT LIFE IN NEW YORK CITY, 1890
In the vignette below, author Jacob Riis describes tenement life among the working
poor, mostly immigrant families by illustrating the experience of one working
woman's family.
In a house around the corner that is not a factory-tenement, lives now the cigar
maker I spoke of as suffering from consumption which the doctor said was due to the
tobacco-fumes. Perhaps the lack of healthy exercise had as much to do with it.... Six
children sit at his table. By trade a shoemaker, for thirteen years he helped his wife
make cigars in the manufacturer's tenement. She was a very good hand, and until his
health gave out two years ago they were able to make from $17 to $25 a week, by
lengthening the day at both ends. Now that he can work no more, and the family under
the doctor's orders has moved away from the smell of tobacco, the burden of its support
has fallen upon her alone, for none of the children is old enough to help. She has work
in the shop at eight dollars a week, and this must go round; it is all there is. Happily,
this being a tenement for revenue only, unmixed with cigars, the rent is cheaper: seven
dollars for two bright rooms on the top floor. No housekeeping is attempted. A woman
in Seventy-second Street supplies their meals, which the wife and mother fetches in a
basket, her husband being too weak. Breakfast of coffee and hard-tack, or black bread,
at twenty cents for the whole eight; a good many, the little woman says with a brave,
patient smile, and there is seldom anything to spare, but---. The invalid is listening, and
the sentence remains unfinished. What of dinner? One of the children brings it from the
cook. Oh! it is a good dinner, meat, soup, greens and bread, all for thirty cents. It is the
principal family meal. Does she come home for dinner? No; she cannot leave the shop,
but gets a bite at her bench. The question: A bite of what? seems as merciless as the
surgeon's knife, and she winces under it as one shrinks from physical pain. Bread, then.
But at night they all have supper together--sausage and bread. For ten cents they eat all
they want."
Source: Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New
York reprinted in Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United
States, vol. 2 (New York 2003), p. 613.
FREDERICK DOUGLAS DESCRIBES THE "COMPOSITE NATION"
In an 1869 speech in Boston, Frederick Douglass challenged most social observers and
politicians (including most African Americans) by advocating the acceptance of
Chinese immigration. Part of his argument is presented below.
I have said that the Chinese will come... Do you ask, if I favor such immigration, I
answer I would. Would you have them naturalized, and have them invested with all the
rights of American citizenship? I would. Would you allow them to vote? I would.
Would you allow them to hold office? I would.
But are there not reasons against all this? Is there not such a law or principle as
that of self-preservation? Does not every race owe something to itself..? Should not a
superior race protect itself from contact with inferior ones? Are not the white people the
owners of this continent...? Is it best to take on board more passengers than the ship
will carry?
To all of this and more I have one among many answers, together satisfactory to
me, though I cannot promise that it will be so to you.
I submit that this question of Chinese immigration should be settled upon higher
principles than those of a cold and selfish expediency. There are such things in the
world as human rights. They rest upon no conventional foundation, but are external,
universal, and indestructible. Among these, is the right of...migration; the right which
belongs to no particular race, but belongs alike to all and to all alike. It is the right you
assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by coming here. It is this great right
that I assert for the Chinese and Japanese, and for all other varieties of men equally with
yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of
humanity, and when there is a conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to
go to the side of humanity... I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they
would limit migratory rights, or any other essential human rights to themselves, and
which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion of all other
races of men.
I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin races; but I
want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for
his sake and for ours... If respect is had to majorities, the fact that only one fifth of the
population of the globe is white, the other four fifths are colored, ought to have some
weight and influence in disposing of this and similar questions... If the white race may
exclude all other races from this continent, it may rightfully do the same in respect to all
other lands...and thus have all the world to itself...
The apprehension that we shall be swamped or swallowed up by Mongolian
civilization...does not seem entitled to much respect. Thought they come as the waves
come, we shall be stronger if we receive them as friends and give them a reason for
loving our country and our institutions. They will find here a deeply rooted, indigenous,
growing civilization, augmented by an ever-increasing stream of immigration from
Europe.... They will come as strangers. We are at home. They will come to us, not we to
them. They will come in their weakness, we shall meet them in our strength...and with
all the advantages of organization. Chinese children are in American schools in San
Francisco. None of our children are in Chinese schools, and probably never will be...
Contact with these yellow children...would convince us that the points of human
difference, great as they, upon first sight, seem, are as nothing compared with the points
of human agreement. Such contact would remove mountains of prejudice.
The voice of civilization speaks an unmistakable language against the isolation of
families, nations and races, and pleads for composite nationality as essential to her
triumphs. Those races of men which have... had the least intercourse with other races of
men, are a standing confirmation of the folly of isolation. The very soil of the national
mind becomes in such cases barren, and can only be resuscitated by assistance from
without.
Source: Philip S. Foner and Daniel Rosenberg, eds., Racism, Dissent, and Asian
Americans from 1850 to the Present: A Documentary History (Westport, Conn.,
1993), pp. 223-226.
OATH OF THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
The American Protective Association, a secretive, anti-Catholic organization, emerged
in the 1880s in response to European immigration and the rise of
immigrant-supported big city machines in the East. In the West it was primarily antiAsian. By 1896 it claimed one million members. Reprinted below is the oath of
membership of the A.P.A.
I do most solemnly promise and swear that I will always, to the utmost of my
ability, labor, plead and wage a continuous warfare against ignorance and fanaticism;
that I will use my utmost power to strike the shackles and chains of blind obedience to
the Roman Catholic Church from the hampered and bound consciences of a
priest-ridden and church-oppressed people; that I will never allow anyone, a member of
the Roman Catholic Church, to become a member of this order, I knowing him to be
such; that I will use my influence to promote the interest of all Protestants everywhere
in the world that I may be; that I will not employ a Roman Catholic in any capacity, if I
can procure the services of a Protestant.
I furthermore promise and swear that I will not aid in building or maintaining, by
my resources, any Roman Catholic church or institution of their sect or creed
whatsoever, but will do all in my power to retard and break down the power of the Pope,
in this country or any other; that I will not enter into any controversy with a Roman
Catholic upon the subject of this order, nor will I enter into any agreement with a
Roman Catholic to strike or create a disturbance whereby the Catholic employees may
undermine and substitute their Protestant co-workers; that in all grievances I will seek
only Protestants, and counsel with them to the exclusion of all Roman Catholics, and
will not make known to them anything of any nature matured at such conferences.
I furthermore promise and swear that I will not countenance the nomination, in
any caucus or convention, of a Roman Catholic for any office in the gift of the American
people, and that I will not vote for, or counsel others to vote for, any Roman Catholic,
but will vote only for a Protestant, so far as may lie in my power (should there be two
Roman Catholics in opposite tickets, I will erase the name on the ticket I vote); that I
will at all times endeavor to place the political positions of this government in the hands
of Protestants, to the entire exclusion of the Roman Catholic Church, of the members
thereof, and the mandate of the Pope.
To all of which I do most solemnly promise and swear, so help me God. Amen.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey & David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II,
(Lexington, Mass: D. C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 509-510.
A DISCONTENTED WIFE
Long before "Ann Landers" and "Dear Abby" Abraham Cahan, editor of the Jewish
Daily Forward, a Yiddish-language newspaper for Jewish immigrants in late 19th and
early 20th Century New York, provided advice to his readers in a column titled "A
Bintel Brief" [bundle of letters]. In the following passage we see a letter from a
"Discontented Wife" and Cahan's response.
Dear Editor,
Since I do not want my conscience to bother me, I ask you to decide whether a
married woman has the right to go to school two evenings a week. My husband thinks I
have no right to do this.
I admit that I cannot be satisfied to be just a wife and mother. I am still young
and I want to learn and enjoy life. My children and my house are not neglected, but I go
to evening high school twice a week. My husband is not pleased and when I come home
at night and ring the bell, he lets me stand outside a long time intentionally, and doesn’t
hurry to open the door.
Now he has announced a new decision. Because I send out the laundry to be
done, it seems to him that I have too much time for myself, even enough to go to school.
So from now on he will count out every penny for anything I have to buy for the house,
so I will not be able to send out the laundry any more. And when I have to do the work
myself there won’t be any time left for such “foolishness” as going to school. I told him
that I’m willing to do my own washing but that I would still be able to find time for
study.
When I am alone with my thoughts, I feel I may not be right. Perhaps I should
not go to school. I want to say that my husband is an intelligent man and he wanted to
marry a woman who was educated. The fact that he is intelligent makes me more
annoyed with him. He is in favor of the emancipation of women, yet in real life he acts
contrary to his beliefs.
Awaiting your opinion on this, I remain,
Your reader,
The Discontented Wife
ANSWER:
Since this man is intelligent and an adherent of the women’s emancipation movement, he
is scolded severely in the answer for wanting to keep his wife so enslaved. Also the opinion
is expressed that the wife absolutely has the right to go to school two evenings a week.
Source: Isaac Metzker, A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to
the Jewish Daily Forward (New York, 1971), Reprinted in Robert D. Marcus and
David Burner, ed. America Firsthand Vol. 2 (New York: 1989), p. 130.
CHAPTER SIX: INDUSTRIALIZATION'S CRITICS
Terms for Week 6
Populist Party
William Jennings Bryan
Knights of Labor-Terence Powderly
American Federation of Labor (AFL)--Samuel Gompers
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
eight-hour day
Gentleman's Agreement
Hull House
Muckrakers-Ida Tarbell
Upton Sinclair
Lincoln Steffens
Progressive Reformers:
Jane Addams
Jacob Riis
Progressive Organizations:
Sierra Club
General Federation of Women’s' Clubs
National Civic Federation
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Socialist Party of America
Disfranchisement
The Oregon System: initiative, recall, referendum
The Square Deal
National American Woman Suffrage Association
The Conservation Movement
A. Mitchell Palmer
A FARMER'S GRIEVANCE
Nebraska farmer W. M. Taylor, in a letter dated January 10, 1891, describes the
hardship he and other farmers faced, attributing it mostly to man-made conditions
rather than more typically weather or insects.
This season is without a parallel in this part of the country. The hot winds burned
up the entire crop, leaving thousands of families wholly destitute, many of whom might
have been able to run through this crisis had it not been for the galling yoke put on them
by the money loaners and sharks—not by charging 7 per cent per annum, which is the
lawful rate of interest, or even 10 per cent, but the unlawful and inhuman country
destroying rate of 3 per cent, a month, some going still farther and charging 50 per cent
per annum. We are cursed, many of us financially, beyond redemption, not by the hot
winds so much as by the swindling games of the bankers and money loaners, who have
taken the money and now are after the property, leaving the farmer moneyless and
homeless... I have borrowed for example $1,000. I pay $25 besides to the commission
man. I give my note and second mortgage of 3 per cent of the $1,000, which is $30 more.
Then I pay 7 per cent on the $1,000 to the actual loaner. Then besides all this I pay for
appraising the land, abstract, recording, etc., so when I have secured my loan I am out the
first year $150. Yet I am told by the agent who loans me the money, he can’t stand to loan
at such low rates. This is on the farm, but now comes the chattel loan. I must have $50 to
save myself. I get the money; my note is made payable in thirty or sixty days for $35,
secured by chattel of two horses, harness and wagon, about five times the value of the
note. The time comes to pay, I ask for a few days. No I can’t wait; must have the money. If
I can’t get the money, I have the extreme pleasure of seeing my property taken and sold by
this iron handed money loaner while my family and I suffer.
Source: W. M. Taylor to editor, Farmer's Alliance (Lincoln, Nebraska), January 10, 1891,
Nebraska Historical Society, reprinted in Robert D. Marcus and David Burner,
ed. America Firsthand. vol.2 (New York: 1989), p. 99.
THE POPULIST PARTY PLATFORM
In 1892 the Populist Party mounted its first campaign for the Presidency. Part of the
Party platform adopted at the Omaha Convention in 1892 is reprinted below.
We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two
great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted
upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influence dominating both
these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop with serious effort
to prevent or restrain them...
We believe that the power of government--in other words, of the people--should be
expanded...as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the
teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty
shall eventually cease in the land.
1. We demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections, and pledge ourselves to secure
it to every legal voter...through the adoption by the States of the Australian or secret ballot
system.
2. The revenue derived from a graduated income tax should be applied to the reduction of
the burdens of taxation now levied upon the domestic industries of this country.
3. We pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions to ex-Union soldiers and sailors.
4. We condemn the fallacy of protecting American labor...which opens our ports to the
pauper and criminal classes of the world and crowds our wage- earners; and we denounce
the present ineffective laws against contract labor, and demand the further restriction of
undesirable emigration.
5. We cordially sympathize with the efforts of organized workingmen to shorten the hours
of labor, and demand a rigid enforcement of the existing eight-hour law on Government
work, and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said law.
6. We regard the maintenance of a large standing army of mercenaries, known as the
Pinkerton system, as a menace to our liberties, and we demand its abolition...
7. We commend...the legislative system known as the initiative and referendum.
8. We favor a constitutional provision limiting the office of President and Vice-President
to one term, and providing for the election of Senators of the United States by a direct vote
of the people.
9. We oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation for any purpose.
Source: Richard N. Current and John A. Garraty, ed., Words that Made American
History Since The Civil War, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1965), pp. 223,
226-227.
MARY ELLEN LEASE RALLIES KANSAS
In the early 1890s Mary Ellen Lease became one of the leading Populist Party
spokespersons. This Kansas housewife was best known for her demand that farmers
"raise less corn and more hell" to address their grievances. In this speech in 1890 she
explains the plight of the farmers.
This is a nation of inconsistencies. The Puritans fleeing from oppression became
oppressors. We fought England for our liberty and put chains on four million of blacks.
We wiped out slavery and by our tariff laws and national banks began a system of white
wage slavery worse than the first.
Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the
people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall
Street.
The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.
The West and South are bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East.
Money rules, and our Vice-President is a London banker. Our laws are the output
of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags.
The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us. We were told two years
ago to go to work and raise a big crop, that was all we needed. We went to work and
plowed and planted; the rains fell, the sun shone, nature smiled, and we raised the big
crop that they told us to; and what came of it? Eight-cent corn, ten-cent oats, two-cent
beef, and no price at all for butter and eggs--that's what came of it.
Then the politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when
10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States,
and over 100,000 shop girls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for the bread their
niggardly wages deny them.
Tariff is not the paramount question. The main question is the money question...
Kansas suffers from two great robbers, the Santa Fe Railroad and the loan companies. The
common people are robbed to enrich their masters...
We want money, land, and transportation. We want the abolition of the national
banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the
accursed foreclosure system wiped out. Land equal to a tract thirty miles wide and ninety
miles long has been foreclosed and bought in by loan companies of Kansas in a year.
We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and will
not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us.
The people are at bay; let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II
(Lexington, Massachusetts, 1984), pp. 547-548.
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN'S CROSS OF GOLD SPEECH
William Jennings Bryan, a 36 year old Congressman from Nebraska, electrified the
Democratic Party Convention in Chicago in 1896 with his "Cross of Gold Speech in which
he advanced the position of the Free Silver advocates before the 15,000 people in the
Convention hall. The next day Bryan was nominated for President on the Democratic
Party ticket. Part of his speech is reprinted below.
I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished
gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of abilities. But this is
not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the
armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you
in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty--the cause of humanity....
We [silverites] do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We
are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned,
and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been
disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no
longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!...
Mr. Carlisle [John G. Carlisle of Kentucky, formerly a distinguished member of
Congress, was Cleveland's Secretary of Treasury in 1896] said in 1878 that this was a
struggle between "the idle holders of idle capital" and "the struggling masses, who produce
the wealth and pay the taxes of the country"; and, my friends, the question we are to
decide is: upon which side will the Democratic Party fight--upon the side of "the idle
holders of idle capital" or upon the side of "the struggling masses"? That is the question
which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual
hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic Party, as shown by the platform, are on the
side of the struggling masses who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party.
There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you will
only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on
those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the
masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests
upon them.
You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. We
reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities
and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our
farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.
Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by
the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer
their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the
brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II
(Lexington, Massachusetts, 1984), pp. 563-565.
WHAT FARM PROBLEM?
In the vignette below J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, who served as Secretary of
Agriculture under President Grover Cleveland between 1893 and 1897, challenged
Populist arguments by asserting that there was no farm problem. Here is an excerpt
from his report on farm conditions in 1896.
Out of each thousand farms in the United States only 282 are mortgaged, and
three-fourths of the money represented by the mortgages upon the 282 farms was for the
purchase of those farms or for money borrowed to improve those farms. And the
prevalent idea that the West and the South are more heavily burdened with farm
mortgages than the East and Northeast sections of the United States is entirely
erroneous...
The constant complaint by the alleged friends of farmers, and by some farmers
themselves, is that the Government does nothing for agriculture... Largely these
declarations are without foundation. Their utterance is a belittlement of agriculture and
an indignity to every intelligent and practical farmer of the United States. The free and
independent farmers of this country are not impoverished...they are not wards of the
Government to be treated to annuities, like Indians upon reservations. They are
representatives of the oldest, most honorable, and most essential occupation of the human
race. Upon it all other vocations depend for subsistence and prosperity.
Legislation can neither plow nor plant. The intelligent, practical, and successful
farmer needs no aid form the Government. The ignorant, impractical, and indolent
farmer deserves none. It is not the business of Government to legislate in behalf of any
class of citizens because they are engaged in any specific calling, no matter how essential
the calling may be to the needs and comforts of civilization. Lawmakers cannot erase
natural laws nor restrict or efface the operation of economic laws. It is a beneficent
arrangement of the order of thing and the conditions of human life that legislators are not
permitted to repeal, amend, or revise the laws of production and distribution.
Source: The Report of Secretary of Agriculture, 1896 (Washington, D.C., 1896, pp. xlvxlvi.
THOMAS WATSON AND BLACK VOTERS
Thomas Watson, the Georgia Populist leader, symbolized the transformation of the
Populist Party on the issue of black voting. In the early 1890s when the party first
emerged, Watson and other Populist leaders welcomed black voters as political allies.
By 1900, however, Watson called for black disfranchisement. Reprinted below is his
appeal to black voters in 1892 and an example of his vitriolic anti-black attacks after
1900.
1892: Now the People's Party says to these two men, "You are kept apart that you
may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon
that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you
both. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism
perpetuates a monetary system which beggars you both...
The conclusion, then, seems to me to be this: the crushing burdens which now
oppress both races in the South will cause each to make an effort to cast them off. They
will see a similarity of cause and a similarity of remedy. They will recognize that each
should help the other in the work of repealing bad laws and enacting good ones. They will
become political allies, and neither can injure the other without weakening both. It will be
to the interest of both that each should have justice. And on these broad lines of mutual
interest, mutual forbearance, and mutual support the present will be made the
stepping-stone to future peace and prosperity.
1909: How silly it is to judge the negro race by a few mulattoes like Dr. Booker
Washington or Prof. DuBois. In all the long reach of the ages he [the negro] has not
contributed one ray of light to civilization. Creative intellect was not given to him. No
original idea of his lives in poetry or song, in stone or upon canvas, in written bork or
hieroglyphic. Commerce owes him nothing; the ocean roared at his feet, even as it did at
the feet of our ancestors, but he never dared to build ship and brave the deep, as Celt and
Teuton, Saxon and Angle did.
...Leave the negro to himself, and cycles sweep by, empires rise and fall, races
appear and disappear,--the negro undergoes no chance, making no advance, and dreaming
of none... He remains, century after century, the neighbor of the gorilla and chimpanzee,
making no more effort at civilization than they make...
Sources: John Blum, The National Experience, Part 2 (New York: Harcourt, Brace
Jovanovich, 1985),p. 514; Watson's Jeffersonian Magazine Vol. 3, No. 2
(February, 1909), pp. 93, 102.
HENRY CLEWS OPPOSES THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR
In the vignettes below Henry Clews outlines, in an 1886 article, his opposition to labor
organization in an principle and specifically to the Knights of Labor.
The Knights of Labor have undertaken to test, upon a large scale, the application of
compulsion as a means of enforcing their demands. The point to be determined is whether
capital or labor shall, in future, determine the terms upon which the invested resources of
the nation are to be employed. To the employer; it is a question whether his individual
rights as to the control of his property’ shall be so far overborne as to not only deprive him
of his freedom but also expose him to interferences seriously impairing the value of his
capital. To the employees, it is a question whether, by the force of coercion, they can
wrest, to their own profit, powers and control which, in every civilized community are
secured as the most sacred and inalienable rights of the employer.
The Almighty has made this country for the oppressed of other nations, and
therefore this is the land of refuge for the oppressed, and the hand of the laboring man
should not be raised against it.
The laboring man in this bounteous and hospitable country has no ground for
complaint. His vote is potential and he is elevated thereby to the position of man.
Elsewhere he is a creature of circumstance, which is that of abject depression. Under the
government of this nation, the effort is to elevate the standard of the human race and not
to degrade it. In all other nations it is the reverse. What, therefore, has the laborer to
complain of in America? By inciting strikes and encouraging discontent, he stands in the
way of the elevation of his race and of mankind.
Source: Henry Clews, "The Folly of Organized Labor," North American Review, June
1886, reprinted in Bruno Leone, ed., Opposing Viewpoints in American History
(San Diego, 1996), p. 58.
TERENCE V. POWDERLY AND THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR
Terence V. Powderly, the son of Irish immigrants, became a machinist and later joined
the secret order of the Knights of Labor. He ultimately became Grand Master of the
organization when it reached its maximum strength of 700,000 in the early 1880s. The
Knights welcomed virtually all workers and worked for a variety of reforms such as
regulation of trusts and monopolies, and government ownership of railroads.
Powderly's organization was attacked by conservatives who accused it of advocating
communism. But Powderly was also criticized by trade union advocates within the
Knights of Labor who wanted wage increases and shorter hours and who often went on
strike, despite the organization's prohibition of such action, to gain their objectives.
Powderly explains his views in his autobiography published in 1893.
I have held a most anomalous position before the public for the last twenty years.
All of this time I have opposed strikes and boycotts. I have contended that the wage
question was of secondary consideration; I have contended that the short-hour question
was not the end but merely the means to an end; I have endeavored to direct the eyes of
our members to the principal parts of the preamble of our Order--government ownership
of land, of railroads, or regulation of railroads, telegraphs, and money. But all of this time
I have been fighting for a raise in wages, a reduction in the hours of labor, or some
demand of the trade element in our Order, to the exclusion of the very work that I have
constantly advocated and which the General Assembly of the Order commanded me to
advocate.
Just think of it! Opposing strikes and always striking; battling for short hours for
others, obliged to work long hours myself, lacking time to devote to anything else. Battling
with my pen in the leading journals and magazines of the day for the great things we are
educating the people on, and fighting with might and main for the little things.
Our Order has held me in my present position because of the reputation I have won
in the nation at large by taking high ground on important national questions, yet the trade
element in our Order has always kept me but at the base of the breastworks throwing up
earth which they trample down.
Source: Terence V. Powderly, The Path I Trod, (New York, 1893, reprinted by Columbia
University Press, 1940), p. 401.
SAMUEL GOMPERS DESCRIBES TRADE UNIONS
Samuel Gompers, a London-born New York cigar maker, cofounded the American
Federation of Labor in 1886, served as the AFL's first president almost until his death in
1924. In the vignette below Gompers explains the need for organization among workers.
Unlike the Knights which sought to be one large union, Gompers called for trade or craft
unions of skilled workers.
If you wish to improve a people you must improve their habits and customs. The
reduction of the hours of labor reaches the very root of society. It gives the workingmen
better conditions and better opportunities, and makes of him what has been too long
neglected-a consumer instead of a mere producer... A man who goes to his work before
the dawn of the day requires no clean shirt to go to work in, but is content to go in an old
overall or anything that will cover his members; but a man who goes to work at 8 o'clock
in the morning wants a clean shirt; he is afraid his friend will see him, so he does not want
to be dirty. He also requires a newspaper; while a man who goes to work early in the
morning and stays at it late at night does not need a newspaper, for he has no time to read,
requiring all the time he has to recuperate his strength sufficiently to get ready for his next
day's work...
The general reduction of the hours per day...would create a greater spirit in the
working man; it would make him a better citizen, a better father, a better husband, a
better man in general... The trade unions are not what too many men have been led to
believe they are, importations from Europe... Modern industry evolves these organizations
out of the existing conditions where there are two classes in society, one incessantly
striving to obtain the labor of the other class for a little as possible..; and the members of
the other class being, as individuals, utterly helpless in a contest with their employers,
naturally resort to combinations to improve their conditions which surround them to
organize for self-protection. Hence trade unions... Wherever trades unions have organized
and are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people respected... I believe that
the existence of the trades-union movement, more especially where the unionists are
better organized, has evoked a spirit and a demand for reform, but has held in check the
more radical elements in society...
Source: Howard H. Quint, Milton Cantor and Dean Albertson, Main Problems in
American History, (Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1987) p. 52-53.
THE "REAL" JUNGLE
Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, set in the immigrant neighborhoods of Chicago, was
intended as a call for socialism among the working classes but instead became popular
because of its exposure of the abuses of the meat packing industry. However this report
of a 1906 Congressional Committee on conditions in the industry was as telling as the
novel.
There was never the least attention paid to what was cut up for sausage; there
would come all the way back from Europe old sausage that had been rejected, and that was
mouldy and white--it would be doused with borax and glycerine, and dumped into the
hoppers, and made over again for home consumption.
There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust,
where the workers had trampled and spit uncounted billions of [tuberculosis] germs.
There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs
would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these
storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep
off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would
put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go
into the hoppers together.
Source: Congressional Record, 59th Congress, First Session, p. 7801 (June 4, 1906).
BOSSES AND POLITICAL MACHINES
City
Boss
Political
Party
New York
1790
William Tweed 1865-1871
Democratic Tammany
(Honest)John Kelley 1871-88
Richard Crocker 1888-1894
Charles Murphy 1902-1904
Democratic
Democratic
Democratic
Chicago
Michael Kenna 1900-1910
Democratic Organization, 1900William Thompson 1916-31
Patrick A. Nash 1931-1936
Edward Kelley 1936-1951
Richard J. Daley 1953-1976
Political
Organization
Democratic Cook
Hall,
Co.
Republican
Democratic
Democratic
Democratic
Boston
Martin Lomasney 1880-1890
Democratic Southend
Democratic Club, 1800-1954
James Michael Curley 1890-1920 Democratic
Philadelphia
James McManes 1868-1881
Republican Club,1860-1932
Republican
Philadelphia
New Orleans
Club, 1895-1948
Martin Behrman 1900-1920
Democratic Democratic Choctaw
San Francisco
Abraham Ruef 1892-1910
Union-Labor
Omaha
Club, 1894-1936
Tom Dennison 1901-1929
Democratic Omaha Democratic
Jersey City
Frank J. Hague 1917-1947
Democratic
Memphis
Edward Crump 1911-1948
Democratic Org., 1898-1965
Democratic Shelby
Cincinnati
George B. Cox 1885-1911
Republican
Baltimore
Club, 1888-1934
Harvey Wheeler 1899-1910
Democratic Treaton Democratic
Kansas City
James Pendergast 1881-1892
Democratic Org., 1881-1949
Tom Pendergast 1892-1932
Democratic West
County
End
BOSS RULE IN PHILADELPHIA
In 1904 Lincoln Steffens, a California-born journalist, had emerged as one of the leading
muckrakers in the country with the publication of his book, The Shame of the Cities. In
this passage he explains the operation of the Philadelphia political machine.
Other American cities, no matter how bad their own condition may be, all point
with scorn to Philadelphia as worse--"the worst-governed city in the country." This is not
fair. Philadelphia is, indeed, corrupt; but it is not without significance. Every city and
town in the country can learn something from the typical political experience of this great
representative city. New York is excused for many of its ills because it is the metropolis;
Chicago, because of its forced development; Philadelphia is our third largest city and its
growth has been gradual and natural.
Immigration has been blamed for our municipal conditions. Philadelphia with 47
percent of its population native-born or native-born parents, is the most American of our
greater cities.
It is good, too, and intelligent. I don't know just who to measure the intelligence of
a community, but a Pennsylvania college professor who declared to me his belief in
education for the masses as a way out of political corruption, himself justified the
"rake-off" of preferred contractors on public works on the ground of a "fair business
profit."
Philadelphia is a city that has had its reforms... The present condition of
Philadelphia, therefore, is not that which precedes but that which follows reform... What
has happened in Philadelphia may happen in any American city "after the reform is over."
...The Philadelphia machine isn't the best. It isn't sound, and I doubt if it would
stand in New York or Chicago... The New Yorkers vote for Tammany Hall. The
Philadelphians do not vote; they are disfranchised, and their disfranchisement is one
anchor of the foundation of the Philadelphia organization... The honest citizens of
Philadelphia have no more rights at the polls than the Negroes down South. Nor do they
fight very hard for this basic privilege. You can arouse their Republican ire by talking
about the black Republican votes lost in the Southern states by white Democratic
intimidation, but if you remind the average Philadelphian that he is in the same position,
he will look startled, then say, "That's so, that's literally true, only I never thought of it in
just that way."
The machine controls the whole process of voting, and practices fraud at every
stage. The [tax] assessor's list is the voting list, and the assessor is the machine's man...
The assessor pads the list with the names of dead dogs, children, and non-existent person.
One newspaper printed the picture of a dog, another that of a little four-year-old Negro
boy, down on such a list. A [machine politician] in a speech resenting sneers at his ward as
"low down," reminds his hearers that was the word of Independence Hall, and, naming the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, he closed his highest flight of eloquence with
the statement that "these men, the fathers of American liberty, voted down here once.
"And," he added with a catching grin, "they vote here yet."
Source: Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities, (New York: Macmillan, 1904), pp.
193-194.
BOSS PLUNKITT DEFENDS HONEST GRAFT
In 1905 New York City political boss, George Washington Plunkitt, explained the process
by which he became a multi-millionaire while controlling the Tammany Hall political
machine. In the process Plunkitt explained the distinction between "honest" graft and
"dishonest" graft.
Everybody is talkin' these days about Tammany men growin' rich on graft, but
nobody thinks of drawin' the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There's
all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in
politics. I have myself. I've made a big fortune out of the game, and I'm gettin' richer
every day, but I've not gone in for dishonest graft--blackmailin' gamblers, saloonkeepers,
disorderly people, etc.--and neither has any of the men who have made big fortunes in
politics.
There's an honest graft, and I'm an example of how it works. I might sum up the
whole thing by saying': "I seen my opportunities and I took 'em." Just let me explain by
examples. My party's in power in the city, and it's goin' to undertake a lot of public
improvements. Well, I'm tipped off, say, that they're goin' to lay out a new park at a
certain place.
...I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the
board of this or that makes it plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody
cared particular for before.
Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment
and foresight? Of course it is. Well, that's honest graft.
...I've told you how I got rich by honest graft. Now, let me tell you that most
politicians who are accused of robbin' the city get rich the same way. They didn't steal a
dollar from the city treasury. They just seen their opportunities and took them. That is
why, when a reform administration comes in and spends a half million dollars in tryin' to
find the public robberies they talked about in the campaign, they don't find them.
The books are always all right. The money in the city treasury is all right.
Everything is all right. All they can show is that the Tammany heads of departments
looked after their friends, within the law, and gave them what opportunities they could to
make honest graft. Now, let me tell you that's never goin' to hurt Tammany with the
people. Every good man looks after his friends, and any man who doesn't isn't likely to be
popular...
Tammany was beat in 1901 because the people were deceived into believin' that it
worked dishonest graft. They didn't draw a distinction between dishonest and honest
graft, but they saw that some Tammany men grew rich, and supposed they and been
robbin' the city treasury or levyin' blackmail on disorderly houses, or workin' in with the
gamblers and lawbreakers.
As a matter of policy, if nothing else, why should the Tammany leaders go into such
dirty business when there is so much honest graft lyin' around when they are in power?
Did you ever consider that?
Source: William A. Riordan, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1948), pp. 3-4.
MAJOR PROGRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENTS, 1900-1920
1901 Acting under the Forest Reserve Act, President Theodore Roosevelt withdrew
150,000,000 acres of public timber land for sale in six western states and created
the first National Forests.
1902 Maryland passed the first workmen's compensation law. It made the employer
liable for injuries suffered by employees.
1903 The Elkins Act declared railroad rebates illegal.
Oregon adopted the Initiative, Recall, and Referendum.
Wisconsin adopted the direct primary.
1904 U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Northern Securities Company v. United States that the
Northern Securities Trust is a combination in restraint of trade. President
Theodore Roosevelt initiated the suit, the first under the provisions of the Sherman
Anti-Trust Act.
New York limited child labor and enacted the first statues to limit hours and insure
safe working conditions for women.
1906 The Hepburn Act enlarged the Interstate Commerce Commission and gave it the
power to reduce unreasonable or discriminatory railroad rates.
The Meat Inspection Act passed.
The Pure Food and Drug Act passed, creating the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA).
1910 The Mann-Elkins Act abolished long and short haul railroad rates.
1911
President William Howard Taft brought suit against the Standard Oil Trust and the
American Tobacco Trust. Both were declared illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court.
1913 Sixteenth Amendment authorized a federal income tax.
Seventeenth Amendment allowed the direct election of U.S. Senators by popular
vote.
Federal Reserve Act created the Federal Reserve Banking System.
1914 The Clayton Act established a Federal Trade Commission to prevent unfair methods
of competition including interlocking directorates, price fixing, and pooling
arrangements. It also made corporate officers liable for illegal acts.
1920 Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote.
LOUIS BRANDEIS INDICTS INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATES
Louis D. Brandeis, who in 1914 was an attorney for the Pujo Committee which
investigated the "money trust" and who would later become a U.S. Supreme Court
Justice, describes the interlocking banking directorates which controlled the largest
American corporations.
The practice of interlocking directorates is the root of many evils. It offends laws
human and divine. Applied to rival corporations, it tends to the suppression of
competition and to violation of the Sherman [anti-trust] laws. Applied to corporations
which deal with each other, it tends to disloyalty and to violation of the fundamental law
that no man can serve two masters. In either event it tends to inefficiency; for it removes
incentive and destroys soundness of judgment. It is undemocratic, for rejects the
platform: "A fair field and no favors," substituting the pull of privilege for the push of
manhood. It is the most potent instrument bankers over railroads, public-service and
industrial corporations, over banks, life- insurance and trust companies, and long step will
have been taken toward attainment of the New Freedom.
A single example will illustrate the vicious circle of control-the endless
chain-through which our financial oligarchy now operates:
J. P. Morgan (or a partner), a director of the New York, New Haven & Hartford
Railroad, causes that company to sell to J. P. Morgan & Co. an issue of bonds. J. P.
Morgan & Co. borrow the money with which to pay for the bonds from the Guaranty Trust
Company, of which Mr. Morgan (or a partner) is director. J.P. Morgan & Co. sell the
bonds to the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, of which Mr. Morgan (or a partner) is
director. The New Haven spends the proceeds of the bonds in purchasing steel rails from
the United States Steel Corporation, of which Mr. Morgan (or a partner) is a director. The
United States Steel Corporation spends the proceeds of the rails in purchasing electrical
supplies from the General Electric Company, of which Mr. Morgan (or a partner) is a
director. The General Electric sells supplies to the Western Union Telegraph Company, a
subsidiary of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company; and in both Mr. Morgan
(or a partner) is a director.
Source: Louis D. Brandeis, Other People's Money, (New York: Harper and Row, 1914),
pp. 51-53.
MAJOR U.S. CORPORATIONS, 1917, 2002
1917
Assets in
Rank
Millions of Dollars Rank
1. U.S. Steel
2,449
1. General Electric
2. Standard Oil of N.J.
574
2. Microsoft
3. Bethlehem Steel
382
3. ExxonMobil
4. Armour and Company
314
4. Wal-Mart
5. Swift and Company
306
5. Citigroup
6. Midvale Steel
270
6. Pfizer
7. International Harvester
265
7. Intel
8. E.I. du Pont
263
8. Johnson and Johnson
9. U.S. Rubber
258
9. American Int. Group
10. Phelps Dodge
232
10. IBM
11. General Electric
232
11. Coca-Cola
12. Anaconda Copper
226
12. Merck
13. Am. Smelting
222
13. Phillip Morris
14. Standard Oil of N.Y.
204
14. Proctor & Gamble
15. Singer Manufacturing
193
15. Royal Dutch Petroleum
16. Ford Motor
170
16. Home Depot
17. Westinghouse Electric
165
17. Bank of America
18. American Tobacco
162
18. Cisco
19. Jones & Laughlin Steel
160
19. Verizon Communications
20. Union Carbide
156
20. Berkshire Hathaway
2002
Assets in
Millions of Do
326,500
301,000
286,300
256,500
233,800
233,300
201,800
194,300
182,100
151,500
137,400
128,600
116,900
115,200
114,400
113,700
111,800
109,100
108,600
108,000
WARTIME HYSTERIA
It has been suggested that World War I destroyed the Progressive Movement by
diverting the nation's attention from political and economic reform to winning the
conflict with Germany. Certainly the intense anti-German wartime propaganda
convinced many Americans that the Kaiser was to be feared far more than the trusts.
The passage below is an example of that propaganda.
Let us set down sternly that we are at war with the Germans, not the Junkers
[German aristocrats], not autocracy, not Prussianism, not the Kaiser...The German people
is what we war with. The German people is committing the unspeakable horrors which set
the whole world aghast. The German people is not and has not been conducting war. It is
and has been conducting murder. Hold fast to that. The Supreme Court of New York
declared the sinking of the Lusitania an act of piracy. Piracy is not war. All decencies,
honors, humanities, international agreements, and laws have been smashed by them day
and night from the first rape of Belgium to now. The new atrocity which appeared this
week was spraying prisoners with burning oil. This is Germany's most recent jest. It
makes them laugh so!
They have violated every treaty with the United States; they have lied from start to
finish and to everybody. A treaty was a scrap of paper....
Germany has ravished the women of Belgium, Serbia, Romania, Poland, Armenia.
Germany murdered the passengers of the Lusitania and struck a medal to celebrate that
German triumph, dating it two days before the horrible occurrence. Germany has ruined
cathedrals and cities in sheer wanton fury, in such fashion as has not been done in all the
wars wages in Europe since the days of the building of the cathedrals. Germany has
poisoned wells, crucified inhabitants and soldiers, burned people in the houses, and this
by system. Germany has denatured men and boys, has wantonly defaced the living and
the dying and the dead. An eye-witness tells of seeing women dead at a table with their
tongues nailed to the table and left to die.
Germany has disclosed neither decency nor honor from the day it started war, nor
has a single voice in Germany to date been lifted up against the orgies of ruthlessness
which turn the soul sick and which constitute the chief barbarity of history. Germany
remains unblushing and unconscious of its indecency. Germany's egotism still struts like
a Kaiser. And to climax its horrid crimes, Germany has inflicted compulsory polygamy on
the virgins of its own land.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II, Boston,
Mass.: D. C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 663-665.
THE FIRST RED SCARE, 1919-1920
The following vignette describes the role of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in
orchestrating the first Red Scare in 1919 and 1920.
...The spotlight suddenly shifted to Attorney-General A. Mitchell Palmer. A Quaker
with a long record of support for progressive legislation, Palmer had been [President
Woodrow] Wilson's floor manager in 1912. Regarded by many as the father of women's
suffrage and the child labor law a strong advocate of the League of Nations, Palmer was
the prototype of the Wilsonian liberal. The Democratic party's contact man with labor in
the 1916 campaign, Palmer was appointed Attorney-General partly because of his
popularity with labor and the foreign-born. Yet no sooner had he been sworn into office in
March, 1919, he started a campaign against enemy aliens. After the June 2 [Wall Street]
bombings he hired William J. Flynn, reputedly an expert on anarchism, and asked for and
received a $500,000 increase in his budget in order to combat radicalism. In August he
set up an antiradical division in the Department of Justice under J. Edgar Hoover.
On November 7 the first of the Palmer raids began, with the arrest of 250 members
of the Union of Russian Workers in a dozen cities; many were roughly handled,
particularly in New York City, where they were beaten by the police. Most of the prisoners
were released with "blackened eyes and lacerated scalps," the New York Times reported.
Only 39 men were recommended for deportation. On December 21, 1919, 249 aliens, most
of whom had no criminal record and had committed no criminal offense, were deported to
Russia on an army transport, the "Buford." Although the country was worried about a
Bolshevik conspiracy, few of the people deported were Communists; most of them were
anarchists, including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman...who had no intention of
ever using violence.
Palmer turned next to the Communists. Working with an agent in the Labor
Department, which had authority over deportations, Palmer in the last week of 1919
secured warrants for the arrest of more than 3,000 aliens who were members either of the
Communist party or the Communist Labor party. On a single night in January, 1920,
more than 4,000 alleged Communists were arrested in a dramatic coast-to-coast raid in 33
cities. If the persons arrested were citizens they were turned over to state authorities for
prosecution under antisyndicalist laws; if they were aliens, they were held for deportation.
Palmer invaded private homes, union headquarters, and meeting halls. People
were held incommunicado, denied counsel, and subjected to kangaroo trials. In one city,
prisoners were handcuffed, chained together, and marched through the streets. In New
England, hundreds of people were arrested who had no connection with radicalism of any
kind. In Detroit, 300 people were arrested on false charges, held for a week in jail, forced
to sleep on the bare floor of a corridor, and denied food for 24 hours, only to be found
innocent of any involvement in a revolutionary movement. Not for at least half a century,
perhaps at no time in our history, had there been such a wholesale violation of civil
liberties. The raids yielded almost nothing in the way of arms and small results in the way
of dangerous revolutionaries. Although a few individuals (the steel baron Charles M.
Schwab was one) protested against the raids, Palmer emerged from the episode a national
hero.
The Red Scare ended almost as quickly as it began. The beginning of the end came
in New York State. Directed by the irresponsible Lusk Committee, the antiradical
campaign in New York reached its climax when the state legislature expelled five Socialist
members of the Assembly, although the Socialist party was a legally recognized party and
the members were innocent of any offense. Throughout the country, newspapers and
public figures, including the Chicago Tribune and Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio,
denounced the action of the legislature. Most effective was Charles Evans Hughes, who
not only reproached the legislature but offered the Socialists legal counsel. Although
members of the legislature condemned Hughes as "disloyal" and "pro-German," the
campaign against the radicals was dealt a heavy blow. Not only had a firm stand been
taken on democratic principle, but the idea that the New York legislature felt threatened
by five Socialists made the Red Scare appear more than a little ridiculous.
Early in 1920 an insurrection against Palmer in the Labor Department, led by
Secretary of Labor Wilson and Assistant Secretary Louis Post, turned deportation
proceedings in a saner direction. Aided by court decisions which held that men could not
be deported on evidence illegally obtained, Post insisted on giving aliens proper counsel
and the right to fair hearings. Convinced that Palmer had been violating civil liberties,
Post cancelled action. against dozens of aliens and by spring released nearly half of the
men arrested in Palmer's January raids. Palmer demanded that Post be fired for his
"tender solicitude for social revolution," but when Post was hauled before a congressional
committee, he made such an excellent presentation of his case that his critics were forced
to back down. In the end, although 5,000 arrest warrants had been sworn out in late 1919,
only a few more than 600 aliens were actually deported.
Finally, Palmer, seeking the 1920 presidential nomination, let his attempts to
capitalize on the Red Scare get out of hand. In April he issued a series of warnings of a
revolutionary plot which would be launched on May 1, 1920, as a step toward
overthrowing the U.S. government. Buildings were placed under guard, public leaders
were given police protection, state militias were called to the colors, and in New York City
the entire police force of 11,000 men was put on 24-hour duty. May Day passed without a
single outbreak of any kind. Not a shot was fired. Not a bomb exploded. As a result, the
country, vexed at Palmer, concluded he had cried wolf once too often. Congress now
turned to an investigation not of the radicals but of Palmer.
Source: William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-32 (Chicago, 1973), 7780.
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL
Terms for Week 7
Stock Market Crash, 1929
"bank holiday"
relief
anti-chain store movement
"pump priming"
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)
Wagner Act, 1935
Glass-Steagall Act, 1933
Social Security Act, 1935
Eleanor Roosevelt
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)
Dr. Francis Townsend-Old Age Pension Union
Senator Huey P. Long-Share Our Wealth Society
welfare state
Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union (CWFLU)
Republic Steel, 1937
Gone With the Wind
War of the Worlds
Mein Kampf
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
ADVERTISING AND CONSUMER SOCIETY
In the following vignette Earnest Elmo Calkins, author of the 1928 bestseller, Business,
the Civilizer, describes how in two generations (1880-1920) manufactured goods and
labor-saving devices revolutionized and modernized American households. He credits
business and particularly advertising for this revolution. Calkins's passage aptly
describes what historians call the rise of consumer society which emerged in the 1920s
just before the Great Depression.
When I was a boy, about fifty years ago more or less, mother used to buy a bar of
Castile soap half a yard long and four inches square and saw it up into cakes an inch thick.
The cake was hard as Stonehenge, the corners sharper than a serpent’s tooth. It took
weeks of use to wear it down so that it comfortably fitted the hand.
Today we have a cake of toilet soap—a great many of them, in fact— just the right
shape to fit the hand, just as pure as Castile, scented if we like, tinted to match the
bathroom decorations if we prefer, reasonable in price; and when we want another cake
we go to the nearest grocery or drug store, and there it is.
And not only toilet soap. We have seen the evolution of shaving creams, safety
razors, and tooth pastes, as well as soap powders, laundry chips, washing machines,
vegetable shortenings, self-rising flours, electric irons, vacuum cleaners, hot-water taps,
aluminum cooking utensils, refrigerators, kitchen cabinets—everything, in short, that constitutes the difference between our mothers’ kitchens and our wives’.
The amount of sheer drudgery that has been taken out of housekeeping in fifty
years can be realized only by comparison, by drawing the illuminating parallel. An iron,
soft-coal cook-stove; a reservoir at the back the only source of hot-water supply; the greenpainted iron pump in the wooden corner sink for cold drinking water from the pump outside; saleratus instead of baking powder; hog lard instead of vegetable shortening; butter
and milk hung down the well by a string to keep them cold; heavy iron pots and skillets to
be lifted, to say nothing of the coalhod; dishes washed by hand; no device to alleviate the
frightful labor—no rubber scrapers, scouring mops, metal-ring dishrags, no wire brushes,
or drying racks, or cleansing powders; baked beans an eighteen-hour job; oatmeal an
overnight operation; sugar, salt, dried fruit, pickles, crackers, rice, coffee, pepper, spices,
lard, bought in bulk, scooped out of open boxes or barrels...exposed until sold, dumped on
a sheet of paper laid on the scales. Molasses and vinegar drawn from the wood, and
between whiles the gallon measures standing around, proving the adage that molasses
attracts more flies than vinegar. Food was unclean, there was no sponsor for its quality,
and it came to the kitchen almost in a state of nature. The housemother became a
miniature manufacturing plant before the food was ready for the family to eat. And the
preparation of meals was but a small portion of the housewife’s burden. There was
cleaning with no other implements but a rag, a broom, and a turkey wing. Clothes were
washed with a rub-rub-rub that wore the zinc from the washboard.
Put such a kitchen beside the one pictured in most advertisements selling kitchen
equipment, or those complete ones shown in the housekeeping departments of the
women’s magazines, “How to Furnish the Ideal Kitchen.” Better still, take a modern
housewife, not the delicatessen and can-opener type, but a real housekeeper, who keeps
her house and takes pride in it,—there are such even to-day,—and put her in an oldfashioned kitchen like that described above. She could not do in a week what my mother
did every day of her toil-bound life. To keep house with what was available half a century
ago was an art handed down from generation to generation, which happily has been lost,
except among the newly arrived foreign-born.
Source: Ernest Elmo Calkins, Business the Civilizer (Boston, 1928), reprinted in Robert
D. Marcus and David Burner, ed. America Firsthand. vol. 2 (New York: 1989), pp.
223-224.
THE STOCK MARKET CRASH
The following vignette provides a description of the Stock Market Crash in October,
1929.
In 1928 no one dreamed we were on the verge of a catastrophic depression. It had
been a glorious year. Stocks had made a gain of $11,385,993,733. The New York Times
wrote in its New Year's editorial of January I, 1929: "But it will go hard to get people to
think of 1928 as merely a 'dead past' which we must make haste to bury. It has been
twelve months of unprecedented advance, of wonderful prosperity--in this country at
least... If there is any way of judging the future by the past, this new year may well be one
of felicitation and hopefulness."
The note of hope was sounded everywhere in that New Year edition of the Times.
Big businessmen made their usual yearly forecasts, all of them rosy, with only here and
there a note of skepticism. There were a few stories and comments of an uneasy nature,
but only a few. For example, one article told of the disappointing year which England had
just gone through. There was a story that the state guarantee of bank deposits in Nebraska
was inadequate to meet the pressure of mounting bank failures. But the stock market was
up. Most people thought it was up permanently. And anyway sensible conservative
people did not believe in guaranteeing bank deposits. It was an assault on free enterprise.
It was a penalty put on good bankers for the benefit of poor ones.
There were many reasons for optimism so far as the real wealth of the country was
concerned. In the beginning of 1929 national income was still going up in terms of the
production of physical goods. It was the end of a ten-year period which had shown the
greatest increase in national income this country had ever known. Between 1910 and 1919
the increase in the national income in terms of physical goods was about 10 per cent.
During the period from 1920 to 1929 the increase was 93 per cent. We had practically
doubled our national production of goods and services. Since in the long run real wealth
consists only in ability to produce goods and services, we appeared to the casual observer
on New Year's Day of 1929 to be richer by many times than ever before in our history. And
the curve of increased production was going up at a more rapid pace than ever before.
We had become more efficient industrially than any other country in the world.
Output per man-hour in manufacturing industries had doubled in the twenty years
between 1909 and 1929. In coal mining and railroads the increase in output per man-hour
had not been so great but it was nevertheless large. As a result, on New Year's Day of 1929
both weekly cash wages and real wages were at the highest point in our economic history.
Real wages had more than doubled since 1914.
Mr. Hoover, who was then President, was an engineer with an engineering mind.
He shared with everyone else, including our best economists, a lack of vision with respect
to the defects in our social organization. But he saw better than most old-fashioned
businessmen and bankers the technical possibilities of an industrial revolution in methods
of production which had begun in the nineteenth century and was moving toward fruition
in the twentieth. During the 1928 election campaign, he had informed the American
people that they could expect two chickens in every pot and two cars in every garage as
part of the normal standard of living for every family.
Wall Street was fully in accord with such sentiments. During May and June, 1928,
stocks wavered, but as Election Day approached, the market advanced. And when Hoover
rolled in by twenty-one million votes to Al Smith's fifteen million, the Dow-Jones
industrials soared to 300. The "New Era" had arrived. A new school of economists argued
that when you buy common stocks, you buy the future, not the present. Imaginative
projections of earnings, five and ten years ahead, flourished. Radio Corporation of
America (RCA) went up to 500, was split five for one. Names like Auburn, Grigsby-
Grunow, Koister Radio--names you no longer hear of--flashed across the ticker tape. Blue
chips, like U. S. Steel, American Telephone, and Eastman Kodak, reached all-time highs.
Inauguration Day, March 4, 1929, found Wall Street even more ebullient. The Dow
Jones industrials were up another 20 points. When stocks faltered in April, Wall Street
seers regarded it as a "buying opportunity." And so it proved for a few months. By August
the Dow Jones industrials hit 380. But somehow, somewhere, the old zip was lacking.
Pools worked valiantly, but stocks thrashed about getting nowhere. The first week in
September stocks climbed to 381.
The break came early in September. There was a mid-month recovery, but it was
the last gasp. Liquidation increased. Brokers' clerks worked long hours sending out
margin calls. Came Thursday, October 24. Panic. U. S. Steel, which had been as high as
261, opened at 205, crashed through 200, and soon was down to 93. General Electric,
which only a few weeks before sold above 400, opened at 315, dropped to 283. About
noon, Charles E. Mitchell, head of the National City Bank, slipped into the offices of J. P.
Morgan and Company. So did Albert H. Wiggin, head of the Chase National, William
Potter, head of the Guaranty Trust, and Seward Prosser, head of the Bankers Trust. They,
with Thomas Lamont, of Morgan, and George F. Baker, of the First National Bank, formed
a consortium to shore up the market.
Toward 2:00 P.M., Richard Whitney, known as the Morgan broker, bid 205 for
Steel. The market rallied. There was in that rally no hint that Whitney, then vicepresident of the Exchange and subsequently its president, would ultimately go to Sing Sing
[Prison] for speculations as head of the firm of Richard Whitney and Company--a
depression casualty.
Came Black Tuesday, October 28. Buy and sell orders piled into the Stock
Exchange faster than human beings could handle them. The ticker ticked long after
trading closed. A record 16,410,000 shares changed hands. The climax came November
13, 1929. The Dow-Jones average dropped to 198.7. And how the high and mighty had
fallen! American Can was down from 181 to 86; American Telegraph and Telephone
(AT&T) from 304 to 97; General Motors from 72 to 36; New York Central from 256 to 160;
United States Steel from 261 to 150. The Big Bull Market was dead. And Coolidge-Hoover
Prosperity was dead with it.
Source: Thurman Arnold, "The Crash—and What it Meant (1929)" reprinted in Isabel
Leighton, ed., The Aspirin Age, 1919-1941 (New York, 1949), p. 215-217.
RUMBLES OF REVOLUTION
Oscar Ameringer, an Oklahoma City newspaper editor, describes to a Congressional
committee the anger of farmers and ranchers over their economic plight in 1932.
Some time ago a cowman came into my office in Oklahoma City. He was one of
these double-fisted gentlemen, with the gallon hat and all. He said, "You do not know me
from Adam's ox. I came to this country without a cent, but, knowing my onions, and by
tending strictly to business, I finally accumulated two sections of land and a fine herd of
white-faced Hereford cattle. I was independent."
I remarked that anybody could do that if he worked hard and did not gamble and
used good management.
He said, "After the war, cattle began to drop, and I was feeding them corn, and by
the time I got them to Chicago the price of cattle, considering the price of corn I had fed
them, was not enough to even pay my expenses. I could not pay anything."
Continuing, he said, "I mortgaged my two sections of land, and to-day I am cleaned
out; by God, I am not going to stand for it."
I asked him what he was going to do about it, and he said, "We have got to have a
revolution here like they had in Russia and clean them up."
I finally asked him, "Who is going to make the revolution?"
He said, "I just want to tell you I am going to be one of them, and I am going to do
my share in it."
I asked what his share was and he said, "I will capture a certain fort. I know I can
get in with twenty of my boys," meaning his cowboys, "because I know the inside and
outside of it, and I [will] capture that with my men."
I rejoined, "Then what?"
He said, "We will have 400 machine guns, so many batteries of artillery, tractors,
and munitions and rifles, and everything else needed to supply a pretty good army."
Then I asked, "What then?"
He said, "If there are enough fellows with guts in this country to do like us, we will
march eastward and we will cut East off. We will cut the East off from the West. We have
got the granaries; we have the hogs, the cattle, the corn; the East has nothing but
mortgages on our places. We will show them what we can do."
That man may be very foolish, and I think he is, but he is in dead earnest; he is
hard-shelled Baptist and a hard-shelled Democrat, not a Socialist or a Communist, but just
a plain American cattleman whose ancestors went from Carolina to Tennessee, then to
Arkansas, and then to Oklahoma. I have heard much of this talk from serious-minded
prosperous men of other days.
I do not say we are going to have a revolution on hand within the next year of two,
perhaps never. I hope we may not have such; but the danger is here. I have met these
people virtually every day all over the country. They say the only thing you do in
Washington is to take money from the pockets of the poor and put it into the pockets of
the rich. They say that this Government is a conspiracy against the common people to
enrich the already rich. I hear such remarks every day.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey and David Kennedy, ed., The American Spirit, Vol. II,
(Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 739-740.
THE UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS
Each of the two statements below reflect the gravity of the unemployment situation in
1932. The first is from Fortune Magazine and the second is an excerpt from Franklin
Roosevelt's campaign speech at Boston. The Fortune Magazine article is perhaps most
striking because it recognizes the grave threat to the social order if the millions of jobless
become angry and violent.
Unemployment has steadily increased in the U.S. since the beginning of the
depression... The number of persons totally unemployed is not at least 10,000,000... The
number...next winter will...be 11,000,000...one man of every four employable workers...
This percentage is higher than the percentage of unemployed British workers…and
higher than the French, the Italians, and the Canadian percentages, but lower than the
German...
Eleven million unemployed means 27,500,000 whose regular source of livelihood
has been cut off... Taking account of the number of workers on part time, the total of those
without adequate income becomes 34,000,000 or better than a quarter of the entire
population... It is conservative to estimate that the problem of next winter's relief is a
problem of caring for approximately 25,000,000 souls...
And it is not necessary to appeal...to class fear in order to point out that there is a
limit beyond which hunger and misery become violent.
From Fortune Magazine, September 1932
We have two problems: first, to meet the immediate distress; second, to build up
on a basis of permanent employment.
As to "immediate relief," the first principle is that this nation, this national
Government, if you like, owes a positive duty that no citizen shall be permitted to starve...
In addition to providing emergency relief, the Federal Government should and
must provide temporary work whenever that is possible. You and I know that in the
national forests, on flood prevention, and on the development of waterway projects that
have already been authorized and planned but not yet executed, tens of thousands, and
even hundreds of thousands of our unemployed citizens can be given at least temporary
employment...
Third, the Federal Government should expedite the actual construction of public
works already authorized...
Finally, in that larger field that looks ahead, we call for a coordinated system of
employment exchanges, the advance planning of public works, and unemployment
reserves.
From Franklin D. Roosevelt, Campaign Address in Boston, October 1932
Source: John M. Blum, The National Experience: A History of the United States (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), pp. 614-615.
COLLEGE STUDENTS AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION
While few could argue that college and university students were among those who
suffered most during the Great Depression, the economic crisis reached into their lives as
well. This account from a 1933 article, illustrates the creative ways they responded to
economic adversity.
College students have probably developed more ingenious ways of betting the
depression than any other group in America. Using their wits to earn money or cooking
their own meals and living in shacks to save it, Joe College and Betty Co-ed are getting
educated in spite of technological unemployment, bank moratoria, impoverishment of
agriculture and a general scarcity of cash. For instance:
Two male students at Ohio State University have started a "dog laundry." They call
for Fido, Bruno or Towser, take him to their "plant" and return him all nicely bathed,
combed and manicured...
A student at Western Reserve University, Cleveland, has been able to hold a
comparatively lucrative position right through the depression because he is accustomed to
hold-ups. The large gasoline station at which he is a night attendant has been robbed
three times by gunmen.
A couple of husky freshmen at West Virginia University who probably didn't know
the difference between a casserole and a wash tub when they left home, have been going to
school on less than $1.60 a week apiece by renting a back bedroom with a small stove in it
and cooking cheap but nourishing foods.
Eight boys at the University of Washington are getting their meals at very small cost
by cooking them in a basement and "taking in" several other students as boarders...
The University of Pennsylvania took action at the start of the present school year to
turn over as many campus jobs as possible to students. As a result, collegians are now
acting as night watchmen, janitors, secretaries, mail carriers, switchboard operators,
locker room attendants, technicians and clerks.
Officials of Carthage College, in Illinois, let a miner pay his daughter's tuition in
coal this past winter. At Notre Dame 300 students are earning their board by waiting on
tables in the dormitory dining halls. They are so numerous that they serve a meal to their
2,000 fellow students in 20 minutes.
When the economic depression is finally over and commendations for valor are
being passed around, some sort of special recognition should be given to the student who,
with only enough money to last until June if he spent but 35 cents a day for food, quit a
$100 a month job because it was keeping him from his studies.
Source: Gilbert Love's "College Students Are Beating the Depression," School and Society
XXXVII (June 10, 1933), reprinted in David A. Shannon, ed., The Great
Depression (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: 1960), pp. 104-105.
THE NEW DEAL: THE FIRST HUNDRED DAYS
In the account below historian Arthur Schlesinger describes both the transition of the
presidency from Herbert Hoover to Franklin Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, and FDR's
legislative agenda which was implement immediately after he took office.
The White House, midnight, Friday, March 3, 1933. Across the country banks had
shuttered their windows and closed their doors. The machinery of American capitalism
had broken down; the great depression had reached its symbolic climax. “We are at the
end of our string,” the retiring President, weary and red-eyed, said to his friends as the
striking clock announced the day of his retirement. “There is nothing more we can do.”
Saturday dawned gray and bleak. Winter clouds hung over the Capitol, where a
huge crowd, quiet, somber, drawn almost by curiosity rather than by hope, gathered to
watch the new President. The colorless light of the granite skies merged with the
emotionless faces of the people who stood in huddled groups, sat on benches, climbed on
trees and rooftops in front of the Capitol. “What are those things that look like little
cages?” asked someone in the waiting crowd. “Machine guns,” replied a woman with a
giggle.
On the drive to the Capitol the President-to-be was sociable and talkative. Herbert
Hoover, his face heavy and sullen, could not conceal his bitterness. They separated inside
the Capitol. The new President, waiting nervously in the Military Affairs Committee
Room, started down the corridor toward the Senate ten minutes before noon. He was
stopped; it was too early. "All right," he laughed, "we'll go back an wait some more."
The bugle blew at noon. Franklin Roosevelt, leaning on the arm of his son James,
walked down a special maroon-carpeted ramp to the plat~ form. Charles Evans Hughes,
erect in the chilly gusts of wind, administered the oath on a Dutch Bible which had been in
the Roosevelt family for three hundred years.
Then the new President turned to the crowd, and microphones carried his words to
millions across the land. “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is
fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to
convert retreat into advance.” The crowd stirred as if with hope. “In every dark hour of our
national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and
support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”
The firm, resonant tone itself brought a measure of confidence. “This nation asks
for action, and action now. . . . We must act and act quickly. . . It may be that an
unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure
from that normal balance of public procedure.
“We do not distrust the future of essential democracy,” he said in summation. “The
people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate
that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under
leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes.” Herbert Hoover
stared glumly at the ground.
There was a diffused roar of applause, quickly dying away. The crowd began to
break up, curiously excited as it had not been an hour earlier. Some saw dismal portents in
the eloquent but ambiguous phrases. "The thing that emerges most clearly," wrote
Edmund Wilson, down from New York to report the occasion for the New Republic, "is the
warning of a dictatorship. But the people as a whole welcomed the promise of action—
action to exorcise the dark spell that lay over the nation's economy, to break through the
magic circle which be-numbed the powers of government."
"This NATION asks for action and action now... We must act, and act quickly." That
night the new cabinet was sworn in quietly at the White House. The next day the
President convened a special session for March 9 and, late in the evening, proclaimed a
four-day bank holiday.
Yet, for all the audacity of his long-range plans, the President's intentions toward
the banks were strictly conservative. His advisers were intent on restoring business
confidence. Roosevelt himself had been impressed by the deathbed repentances. When
Senator LaFollette gave him a plan of drastic reform, Roosevelt declared it wasn't
necessary at all: "I've just had every assurance of co-operation from the bankers."
The problem, as he saw it, was to reopen the banks as quickly as possible. The
Republican holdovers at the Treasury stood by. Leading bankers, frightened and panicky,
converged on Washington. Phones rang incessantly with calls from distant cities. Four
days of tense, weary, and endless conferences began. In the prevailing near-hysteria, only
the President, who seemed to be exhilarated by crisis, and Secretary of the Treasury
Woodin, who moved through turbulence in his own serene way, strumming his guitar in
moments of perplexity, remained calm. As day was breaking on Thursday, March 8,
Woodin left the White House with the emergency banking bill. "Yes, it's finished," he told
newspapermen. "Both bills are finished. You know my name is Bill, and I'm finished too."
Congress met. The House passed the bill in thirty-eight minutes; most of the
Representatives had only the sketchiest idea what it was all about. The Senate took three
hours. In the evening the President signed the act in the Oval Room. The tired men at the
Treasury took showers, shaved, and turned to the frantic twenty-four-hour task of
deciding what banks should reopen.
Later that same evening Roosevelt handed party leaders his economy bill, aimed at
reducing government expenses and cutting veterans’ compensation. On March 12 he
called for the legalization of beer. With Republican support and progressive opposition,
Congress passed the economy bill on March 15, 3.2 beer on March 16. By now the banks
were reopening; a surge of deposits showed that the people were regaining their faith in
the banking system. On March 15 the Stock Exchange resumed.
Source: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The First Hundred Days of the New Deal (1933)
reprinted in Isabel Leighton, ed., The Aspirin Age, 1919-1941 (New York, 1949),
p. 275-277, 284-285.
MAJOR NEW DEAL AGENCIES
1933 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)--Insures deposits in the nation's
banks.
Farm Credit Administration--Provides long and short term credit for farmers.
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)--Assists farmers with commodity
price supports and regulates farm production.
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)--Provides work for unemployed youth in
National Parks and National Forests.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)--Responsible for providing electricity to the
Tennessee Valley.
Home Owner's Loan Corporation (HOLC)--Grants low-interest loans to home
owners in financial difficulty.
1934 Federal Communications Commission (FCC)--Regulates radio, television,
telephone and other communications systems.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)--Regulates stock market practices.
Federal Housing Administration (FHA)--Insures private lending agencies against
loss on home mortgage and home improvement loans.
1935 Social Security Board (SSB)--Oversees the Social Security system.
Works Progress Administration (WPA)--Provides work for needy persons on
public works projects.
National Youth Administration (NYA)--Provides job training for unemployed
youth and part-time work for needy students.
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)--Settles disputes between unions and
management.
1937 Farm Security Administration (FSA)--Helps farmers purchase equipment.
1938 Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC)--Provides insurance protection
against unavoidable loss of crops.
1940 Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB)--Regulates private and commercial aircraft.
HUEY LONG: AMERICAN DICTATOR
President Franklin Roosevelt had challengers on the left and right. One of those on the
left was Huey Long, the popular governor (and simultaneously U.S. Senator) of
Louisiana who proposed a plan to "Share the Wealth" of the United States by
excessively taxing the fortunes of American millionaires. That the scheme was
impractical did little to diminish its popularity among many people impoverished by
the Great Depression. Reprinted below is an account of this "American dictator."
For newspapermen, those were...memorable days. You stood beside his hotel
dining table, as he slopped up great tablespoonfuls of cereal with a sidewinding sweep or
tore broiled chicken to pieces with his fingers, and you jotted down the incessant
harangues against the lying newspapers, the city machine, and the battered enemy
politicians, while the bodyguards glowered protectively near by. You didn’t like him, if
only because the slugging of newspapermen didn’t seem justifiable even for vote getting,
and especially when the strong-arming became personal. You were chased by
militiamen across the parade grounds of Jackson Barracks in New Orleans and held a
prisoner after you had sneaked in to discover whether the Governor was calling out the
troops on the eve of the Senatorial election—in which the Governor was a candidate.
In a corridor of the garish Roosevelt Hotel, managed by a...former shoe clerk who
was now his paymaster and treasurer, you watched a fellow reporter being hustled out of
the Governor’s suite. ...The reporter had struck the Governor in retaliation for being
cursed, and the Governor had struck back, but only after his bodyguards had pinioned
his attacker.
You interviewed him after he had precipitated a silly international incident by
receiving a German admiral in disheveled green pajamas, and you laughed in spite of
yourself at his shrewdly appealing account of his gaucherie. You heard a pale-faced
man, thrust before a microphone, identify himself as Sam Irby, who had been kidnapped
by state police on the eve of an election because he had threatened to tell what he knew
about his daughter and the Governor, who employed her as his secretary. And after Irby
had told who he was, in front of the microphone in the hotel headquarters, you marveled
at his exoneration of the Governor, and speculated upon the reasons therefore.
Afterwards, in the corridor, a fellow reporter was to have a gun thrust into his
stomach as he sought to enter the elevator on which the mysterious Mr. Irby was being
whisked away. And then you testified in United States District Court that a telegram,
also absolving the Governor and purportedly coming from the mother of another
kidnapping victim—the secretary’s ex-husband—was signed with the name she had
borne before her second marriage. Counterfeit...was this telegram which you had seen
and read on a speaker’s stand in New Orleans on one of the last heated nights before
election. And so, endlessly, through brawling campaigns, brawling legislative sessions,
brawls Such goings-on made of Louisiana a reportorial heaven.
Louisiana’s frightened, vengeful Governor surrounded himself with a half-dozen
gun-ready, slugging bodyguards. He established a weekly newspaper, the Louisiana
Progress, staffed it principally with skillful, conscienceless young newspapermen, and
sicked it on his enemies. State employees found it good insurance to subscribe to the
Progress, the number of subscriptions depending upon the size of their salaries, but
with a minimum of ten to be sold, eaten, or used as wallpaper. No opponent big enough
to be worthy of notice escaped its libeling. The voters of the nation’s most illiterate state
could understand its cartoon obscenities even when they couldn’t spell out the text.
The public-works program went into high gear. The depression was rocking
Louisiana. Public works meant needed jobs. And the administration could count on at
least five votes for each employee; the votes of the aunts and uncles and cousins and
wives and children of job holders who made it clear to their relatives that their fifteen to
thirty dollars a week was secure only so long as they could prove their loyalty with
political performance.
The first program was followed by a second and more ambitious one: a sixtyeight-million-dollar highway construction project, a five-million-dollar skyscraper
capitol, and another twenty million dollars in assorted projects, all to be financed by an
additional three-cent hike in the gasoline tax. With a year and a half yet to serve as
Governor, and with the opposition organizing against the program, Huey decided to run
for the United States Senate with the state program as his platform. Huey won hands
down; and when his...Lieutenant Governor claimed the Governorship because of Long’s
election to the Senate, Huey called out the state police and the National Guard, read the
Lieutenant Governor out of office, and put in the president pro tempore of the Senate as
acting Governor.
In 1934 Long formalized the program which he hoped would eventually win him
the Presidency. The hazy concept of a national redistribution of wealth, presented
fifteen years before by the obscure state Senator from Winn Parish, took definable shape
in a national “Share Our Wealth” organization. No dues were necessary... No matter
that the Share Our Wealth program was demonstrably impracticable as presented. It
was believable: a limitation of fortunes to $5,000,000; an annual income minimum of
$2,000 to $2,500 and a maximum of $1,800,000; a homestead grant of $6,000 for
every family; free education from kindergarten through college; bonuses for veterans;
old-age pensions, radios, automobiles, an abundance of cheap food through
governmental purchase and storage of surpluses. The Share Our Wealth members had
their own catchy song, "Every Man a King," their own newspaper, the mudslinging
Louisiana Progress, expanded now to the American Progress.
As the Share Our Wealth chorus swelled, Huey, like a wise military tactician, took
care to protect his rear. In a spectacular, degenerative series of special sessions in 1934
and 1935, his legislature reduced Louisianans almost literally to the status of Indian
wards. Together with this final elimination of...democratic self-government—to the
unconcern of a majority of the unconsulted electorate—came new benefits: homestead
tax exemption, theoretically up to two thousand dollars; abolition of the one-dollar poll
tax; a debt moratorium act; and new taxes—an income tax, a public utilities receipts tax,
an attempted “two cents a lie” tax on the advertising receipts of the larger newspapers,
which the United States Supreme Court pronounced unconstitutional.
Perhaps it seems inconceivable that any legislature, no matter how great the
material rewards for its complaisant majority, could have so completely surrendered a
people’s political powers and economic and personal safety to one man. But Louisiana’s
legislature did. Administration-designated election supervisors were given the sole right
of selecting voting commissioners, sole custody over the ballot boxes themselves, and
the privilege of designating as many “special deputies” as might be necessary to guard
the polls... The Governor could—and did—expand the state police force into a swarm of
private agents, some uniformed and some not, their number and the identity of the
uninformed alike a secret. The State Attorney General was empowered to supersede any
district attorney in any trial. The State Tax Commission was given the right to change
any city or county tax assessment, so that a misbehaving corporation or individual might
know just who held the economic stranglehold. An ironically designated civil service
board was created, with appointive control over all fire and police chiefs, and a school
budget committee with the right to review the appointments of every school teacher and
school employee. The Governor was even enabled to replace the entire city
administration of Alexandria...[where] Huey had once been rotten-egged. There were
other repressive measures, many others. But these are sufficient to indicate what had
happened to self-government in Louisiana.
It is perhaps a corollary that in the last year of his life Long became obsessed with
a fear of assassination. He increased his armed bodyguard, and took other unusual
precautions to insure his personal safety. In July, 1935, he charged on the floor of the
Senate that enemies had planned his death with “one man, one gun, and one bullet” as
the medium, and with the promise of a Presidential pardon as the slayer’s reward. This
plot, he said, was hatched in a New Orleans hotel at a gathering of his enemies. A
dictograph, concealed in the meeting room, had recorded the murderous conversation. I
was at that meeting. It was a caucus of die-hard oppositionists...trying to decide what to
do for the next state campaign. The "plotting" was limited to such hopefully expressed
comments as "Good God, I wish somebody would kill the son of a bitch."
And somebody did... On the night of September 8, a slender, bespectacled man in
a white suit stepped from behind a marble pillar in the capitol as Long, accompanied by
his closest aides and bodyguard, hurried to the Governor’s office. Dr. Carl Austin Weiss,
the man in the white suit, drew a small pistol and fired once. Seconds later, the assassin
lay dead, his body and head riddled by sixty-one shots. Huey Long staggered away with
one bullet wound, perhaps a second, in his stomach. Thirty hours later he died.
Source: Hodding Carter, Huey Long: American Dictator (1935) reprinted in Isabel
Leighton, ed., The Aspirin Age, 1919-1941 (New York, 1949), p. 339-40, 351-52,
353-56.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING IN THE DEPRESSION
University of Washington historian James Gregory, in his book, American Exodus,
describes the so-called "Dust Bowl" migration which brought 250,000 Oklahomans,
Texans, Arkansans and Missourians along Route 66 to California between 1935 and
1940, and which was immortalized by the film, "The Grapes of Wrath." In the
following vignette Gregory shares the personal account of two of those migrants,
Lonnie Nelson and Flossie Haggard, mother of country music singer Merle Haggard.
Nelson: I've live in Oklahoma since I was eight years old, stayed on the farm till I
was sixteen. I went to railroadin' when I was 22. Come out durin' the big strike. I really
believe in the Union. I got married in 1922, 12th of July--six o'clock in the evening.
Then me and the bride went back to the farm, and stayed on the farm till '24. From that
I taken up ginnin' and concrete work 'cause the drought hit and wasn't makin' nothing'...
I went back to the railroads in '26, with a different outfit and worked there till
'32... The second day of January '32 I got...laid off fer good... The only think to do was to
go back to the farm and stayed there one year. About this time, in '33, my wife was
operated on fer thyroid goiter. Then I worked on C.W.A. for one year buildin' and such
like as that.
In '34 I got a job with the Government killin' cattle. It lasted seven week and I
killed form 26 to 135 head a day... After that was over I picked up odd jobs till January of
'35 and went back to farmin'. The drought struck again in '35, and high waters come on
in the late fall. In other words, what the drought didn't git the high waters did. I was
overflowed five times in two months. A farmer can't stand the like of that. So there was
nothin' to do but throw up my tail and go back on relief. We all got hit and hit hard.
That was from '36 to '39, by gosh... So the 15th of January, 1940 we loaded up and come
out here, leavin a snow storm to our back, sunny California to our belly and here we are.
The good Lord is just lettin' me sit around the see what the hell will happen next.
Haggard: In July, 1935, we loaded some necessary supplies onto a two wheel
trailer and our 1926 model Chevrolet which Jim had overhauled. We headed for
California on Route 66, as many friends and relatives had already done. We had our
groceries with us--home sugar-cured bacon in a lard can, potatoes, canned vegetables,
and fruit. We camped at night and I cooked in a dutch oven. The only place we didn't
sleep out was in Albuquerque where we took a cabin and where I can remember bathing.
[Things went well until the reached the desert and their car broke down]
We were out of water, and just when I thought we weren't going to make it, I saw
this boy coming down the highway on a bicycle. He was going all the way from Kentucky
to Fresno. He shared a quart of water with us and helped us fix the car. Everybody'd
been treating us like trash, and I told this boy, "I'm glad to see there's still some decent
folks left in this world.
Source: James Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture
in California (New York, 1989), pp. 31, 34.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS
The worst of the crisis of the Great Depression had passed by the end of Roosevelt's
first term. His second term was then devoted to developing permanent reforms that
would prevent future depressions. In this excerpt from his Second Inaugural Address
on January 20, 1937, Roosevelt discusses the remaining challenges facing the nation.
I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural
resources... I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic
methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of
human comforts heretofore unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far
above the level of mere subsistence.
But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of
its citizens--a substantial part of its whole population--who at this very moment are
denied the greater part of what the lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.
I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of
family disaster hangs over them day by day.
I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions
labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.
I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot
and the lot of their children.
I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by
their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
Source: Richard Current, American History: A Survey, (New York: Knopf, 1961), p.
747.
THE NEW DEAL: OPPOSING VIEWS
The New Deal program of Franklin Roosevelt dramatically increased government
involvement in a wide range of economic and social activity. That heightened
involvement prompted a debate, which continues to this day, concerning the aims of
the New Deal and its impact on the citizens and institutions of the United States. I
have reprinted below two views of the New Deal.
Organized enterprise is obtaining an increasingly large proportion not only of
national income, but of all savings and of all wealth... Within the corporate structure
itself the concentration is progressing...
This amazing concentration of the corporate ownership of wealth has been
accompanied by a similar concentration of dividend distribution. The great and
powerful business organizations which dominate the economic scene are owned by a
numerically insignificant proportion of the total population... Less than 1% of all
American corporate stockholders are the beneficiaries of one-half of all the dividends
paid in this country...
As the concentration proceeds, the flow turns away from organized business to
government... The inevitable and inescapable result of continued concentration in big
business is the final triumph of big government...
If we are agreed...that we want to preserve free enterprise...it must be perfectly
clear that any remedy that does not stop the steady progress of concentration will be
utterly futile and will end only in an all-powerful government...
The only remedy to save a democratic economy is to be found in making the
economy democratic.
From the Final Report... of the Temporary National Economic Committee, 1941.
The New Deal is nothing more or less than an effort sponsored by inexperienced
sentimentalists and demagogues to take away from the thrifty what the thrifty or their
ancestors have accumulated, or may accumulate, and to give it to others who have not
earned it...and who never would have earned it and never will earn it, and thus indirectly
to destroy the incentive for all future accumulation. Such a purpose is in defiance of
everything that history teaches and of the tenets upon which our civilization has been
founded.
Nothing could threaten the race as seriously as this [the New Deal]. It is begging
the unfit to be more unfit. Even such a measure as old-age insurance...removes one of
the points of pressure which has kept many persons up to the strife and struggle of life.
Quoted in George Wolfskill, The Revolt of the Conservatives, 1962.
Source: John M. Blum, The National Experience: A History of the United States (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), p. 629, 633.
EIGHT DEAD AT REPUBLIC STEEL
The following vignette describes the violent confrontation between Chicago police and
striking steelworkers at Republic Steel in 1937.
Republic Steel stood abrupt out of the flat prairie. Snakelike, the line of pickets
crossed the meadowland, singing at first: Solidarity forever! The union makes us strong,
but then the song died, as the sun-drenched plain turned ominous, as five hundred bluecoated policemen took up stations between the strikers and the plant. The strikers'
march slowed, but they came on. The police ranks closed and tightened. It brought to
mind how other Americans had faced the uniformed force of so-called law and order so
long ago on Lexington Green in 1775; but whereas then the redcoat leader had said,
"Disperse, you rebel bastards!" to armed minutemen, now it was to unarmed men and
women and children that a police captain said, "You dirty sons of bitches, this is as far as
you go!"
Once there was an illusion somewhere that the police were gentle souls who
helped lost children, but a striker put it afterwards: "A cop is a cop, that's all. He's got
no soul and no heart for a guy who works for a living. They learned us good.
About two hundred and fifty yards from the plant, the police closed in on the
strikers. Billies and clubs were out already, prodding, striking, nightsticks edging into
women's breasts and groins. But the cops were also somewhat afraid, and they began to
jerk guns out of holsters.
"Stand fast! Stand fast!" the line leaders cried. "We got our rights! We got our
legal rights to picket!"
The cops said, "You got no rights. You red bastards, you got no rights."
Even if a modern man's a steelworker, with muscles as close to iron bands as
human flesh gets, a pistol equalizes him with a fat-bellied weakling... Grenades began to
sail now; tear gas settled like an ugly cloud. Children suddenly cried with panic, and the
whole picket line gave back, men stumbling, cursing, gasping for breath. Here and there
a cop tore out his pistol and began to fire; it was pop, pop, pop at first, like toy favors at
some horrible party, and then, as the strikers broke under the gunfire and began to run,
the contagion of killing ran like fire through the police.
They began to shoot in volleys at these unarmed men and women and children
who could not strike back or fight back. The cops squealed with excitement. They ran
after fleeing pickets, pressed revolvers to their backs, shot them down, and then
continued to shoot as the victims lay on their faces, retching blood. When a woman
tripped and fell, four cops gathered above her, smashing her flesh and bones and face.
And so it went, on and on, until seven were dead and more than a hundred
wounded.
Source: Howard Fast, "An Occurrence At Republic Steel (1937)" reprinted in Isabel
Leighton, ed., The Aspirin Age, 1919-1941 (New York, 1949), pp. 386-387.
ORGANIZING A FILIPINO UNION
In contrast to other Asian Americans who looked to entrepreneurship for economic
development, many Filipino Americans believed that working-class organizations such
as unions would provide economic security. One of the most effective of these unions
was the Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union (CWFLU), Local 18257, a
predominately Filipino Union organized in Seattle in 1933. A brief account of the union
appears below.
Not until the winter of 1932 did efforts at unionization among Filipino salmoncannery hands in the Pacific Northwest begin. Pence Torres recalled that only "a few
people (met) to plan something to improve ourselves." They congregated in secret for fear
of reprisals by contractors and canners. Torres explained that they could not "possibly get
many people at one time...We have to do it between school days." Planning around school
schedules indicated the central role played by students in the effort. More than Filipinos,
students felt the constraints on their expectations for social mobility during the
depression, which explains their interest in changing the labor recruitment and
management practices in the industry. Nonetheless, this early cabal barely included a
dozen members.
The small group of planners concluded that "the only solution to the problem is to
be organized," and in June 1933 they held a special public meeting of the Filipino
Laborers' Association to discuss affiliation with the American federation of Labor (AFL).
The "big crowd" of seven Filipino union officers and nineteen others listed to C.W. Doyle
of Seattle's Central Labor Council, carefully discussed the issue, and voted in favor of
affiliation. On June 19, 1933, the Filipinos entered the AFL as the Cannery Workers and
Farm Laborers Union (CWFLU), Local 18257. Although the reasons for AFL endorsement
of the local are unclear, CAWIU successes in organizing California field laborers may have
jolted the AFL into action to head off what it perceived as a communist-led insurgency.
The newly affiliated local stressed goals that revealed the barriers to be overcome if
the workers were to improve their condition. The union pledged to foster the attainment
of higher skills and efficiency among its members. Although unions invariably used such
language, Filipinos did need to cultivate their canning expertise in order to make possible
their movement into the specialized tasks monopolized by Chinese and Japanese. The
local also proposed shorter working hours, which would either bring greater overtime pay
in rush periods or force the hiring of larger crews and thus provide more jobs for
unemployed Filipinos.
To achieve its goals, the local also had to unite a divided Filipino community. This
proved no easy task. In Seattle, for example, most Filipino immigrants were Ilocanos, but
the community also had Tagalogs, Pangasinans, and Visayans--each group with its own
dialect--as well as other ethnic associations. In 1923 Tagalogs in Seattle had founded a
branch of the Caballeros Dimas Alang (its title originating from revolutionary Jose Rizal's
pen name). In that political, nationalistic, and self-help organization, members conducted
rituals and secret meetings in Tagalog to the exclusion of other groups. Not every Filipino
association was based on ethnicity, however. In the late 1920s, students at the University
of Washington had formed a Filipino Club that fostered their academic pursuits, helped
with their social lives, and provided economic assistance. Contractors helped raised
money to run the club, and they used that connection as an avenue to a labor supply.
Small-group activity was symptomatic of the factions among Filipino immigrants. The
manner in which Filipinos entered and worked in the industry further heightened their
reliance on such groups.
Before the depression, the use of family, friendship, and ethnic networks to gain
employment had its advantages for Filipinos, who faced a Chinese and Japanese oligarchy
over labor recruitment and management in the industry. That strategy also helped at the
plants where Filipinos worked in the small groups characteristic of their immigration.
Sylvestre A. Tangalan explained that at the cannery where he worked: "We were happy,
mostly Bauanganians," fellow villagers from La Union. Segregation at the cannery
reinforced, rather than destroyed, Filipino ethnic and immigrant ties...
To compete with the contractors and aspirant agents even more successfully, the
CWFLU adopted a series of social welfare programs for members. It gave $50 to a
Filipino-owned cafe in exchange for the restaurateur's providing meals to "indigent active
members." The local also loaned money to members. In 1935, for example, it approved a
$50 loan to a Filipino who a year earlier had supported the local's efforts in a farm
workers' strike near Seattle. Such actions helped members avoid indebtedness to
contractors and encouraged nonunion Filipinos to think seriously about joining.
Allocation of the local's financial resources, for any purpose other than supporting cannery
organization, however, led to charges of favoritism and misuse of union funds. In spite of
the charges, the local's efforts to provide meals and money for some of its members reveal
that some money was returned to the rank and file.
As the union's membership grew to several hundred in the first few years, it created
its own job ladder, separate from that of the existing hierarchy of cannery tasks. At first,
titles were awarded as recognition of service to the union and carried status only.
Financial stability soon allowed the local to pay its officers for their contributions. The
salaries for 1935 reveal the significance of income from a union position relative to the
average cannery worker's $25-$50 a month during the canning season. The CWFLU
monthly salary scale for officers was: president, $80; vice-president, $40; secretary, $60;
treasurer, $40; trustees, $40; guard, $20; guide, $20. Their salaries also touched off
resentment, especially when they voted raises for themselves.
The local also became politically active in an attempt to achieve recognition as the
voice of the Filipino community. Its appearance at the NRA code hearings marked it as an
early advocate for the Filipino community. Elsewhere, the local's records indicate no
activity concerning the Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), which proposed eventual
independence for the Philippines but also convinced stringent immigration restrictions.
The CWFLU did get involved in at least two other legislative actions at he state level. In
1935 the local sent a three-person delegation to Olympia to fight against
antimiscegenation bills in the Washington state legislature. Also, in 1937, the local
protested a Washington state bill that would prevent Filipino immigrants from owning or
leasing lands because of their newly acquired "alien" status under the Tydings-McDuffie
Act. Such highly visible political lobbying enhanced the local's status in the Filipino
community. Among contractors, only Pio De Cano took up broader community concerns,
challenging in state courts the application of anti-alien land laws to Filipino immigrants
between 1937 and 1941.
The local also cultivated community support through its public relations efforts. It
gave to the Philippine American Chronicle a 4 percent interest loan as well as gifts of cash.
In return, the CWFLU asked for a regular labor column in the paper. Thereafter, the
Chronicle became for all practical purposes the local’s official organ. This was no great
concession for the paper because two officials of the local, Virgil Dunyungan and Cornelio
Mislang, were the publishers. While the local's involvement with the Chronicle gave it a
wider voice within the community, it also fostered deeper divisions because the other
major newspaper, the Philippine Advocate, lined up against the local and the Chronicle
and was backed by Ayamo's Filipino Protective Labor Association...
Source: Chris Friday, Organizing Asian American Labor--The Pacific Coast CannedSalmon Industry, 1870-1942, (Philadelphia 1994), pp. 136-137, 144-145.
HITLER'S VIEWS: TERROR, AND THE MASTER RACE
Hitler in Mein Kampf, lays forth his ideas on terror and about a `Master Race.' Those
ideas would take tragic form for Germans, for Europeans, for the rest of the world
nearly twenty years later.
I achieved an...understanding of the importance of physical terror toward the
individual and the masses. Here, too, the psychological effect can be calculated with
precision. Terror at the place of employment, in the factory, in the meeting hall, and on
the occasion of mass demonstrations will always be successful unless opposed by equal
terror.
The impression made by such a success on the minds of the great masses of
supporters as well as opponents can only be measured by those who know the soul of a
people, not from books, but from life. For while in the ranks of their supporters the
victory achieved seems a triumph of the justice of their own cause, the defeated adversary
in most cases despairs of the success of any further resistance.
The more familiar I became, principally with the methods of physical terror, the
more indulgent I grew toward all the hundreds of thousands who succumbed to it.
Human culture and civilization on this continent are inseparably bound up with the
presence of the Aryan. If he dies out or declines, the dark veils of an age without culture
will again descend on this globe.
The undermining of the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer
seems in the eyes of a folkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares to
lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent
creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.
We all sense that in the distant future humanity must be faced by problems which
only a highest race, become master people and supported by the means and possibilities of
an entire globe, will be equipped to overcome.
Source: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, (Boston, 1971), pp. 44, 383-384.
HITLER AND THE JEWS
Adolf Hitler's racial attitudes reflected longstanding European prejudices but they also
helped determine the specially horrendous character of the Nazi state. In Mein Kampf he
describes his evolving anti-Semitism.
Today it is difficult, if not impossible, for me to say when the word `Jew' first gave
me ground for special thoughts... Not until my fourteenth year did I begin to come across
the word `Jew,' with any frequency, partly in connection with political discussions...
There were few Jews in Linz. In the course of the centuries their outward appearance had
become Europeanized and had taken on a human look; in fact, I even took them for
Germans.
Then I came to Vienna... Once, as I was strolling through the Inner City, I suddenly
encountered an apparition in a black caftan and black hair locks. Is this a Jew?, was my
first thought... Is this a German?
Wherever I went, I began to see Jews, and the more I saw, the more sharply they
became distinguished in my eyes from the rest of humanity. Particularly the Inner City
and the districts north of the Danube Canal swarmed with a people which even outwardly
had lost all resemblance to Germans.
In a short time I was made more thoughtful than ever by my slowly rising insight
into the type of activity carried on by the Jews in certain fields. Was there any form of filth
or profligacy, particularly in cultural life, without at least one Jew involved in it?
The fact that nine tenths of all literary filth, artistic trash, and theatrical idiocy can
be set to the account of a people, constituting hardly one hundredth of all the country's
inhabitants, could simply not be talked away; it was the plain truth.
When I recognized the Jew as the leader of the Social Democracy, the scales
dropped from my eyes. A long soul struggle had reached its conclusion... I gradually
became aware that the Social Democratic press was directed predominately by Jews; yet I
did not attribute any special significance to this circumstance, since conditions were
exactly the same in the other papers. Yet one fact seem conspicuous: there was not one
paper with Jews working on it which could have been regarded as truly national, according
to my education and way of thinking. From the publisher down, they were all Jews.
I took all the Social Democratic pamphlets I could lay hands on and sought the
names of their authors: Jews. I noted the names of the leaders; by far the greatest part
were likewise members of the `chosen people,' whether they were representatives in the
Reichsrat or trade-union secretaries, the heads of organizations or street agitators....One
thing had grown clear to me: the party with whose petty representatives I had been
carrying on the most violent struggle for months was, as to leadership, almost exclusively
in the hands of a foreign people; for, to my deep and joyful satisfaction, I had at last come
to the conclusion that the Jew was no German.
Source: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, (Boston, 1971), pp. 51-61.
GERMANY UNDER THE NAZIS
William L. Shirer, an American correspondent assigned to cover Germany and central
Europe for CBS News during the 1930s, has provided a revealing glimpse of life in
Germany under the Nazi Party. Here are excerpts of his Berlin Diary.
Paris, June 30, 1934
Berlin was cut off for several hours today, but late this afternoon telephone
communication was reestablished. And what a story! Hitler and Goring have purged the
S.A., shooting many of its leaders. Rohm, arrested by Hitler himself, was allowed to
commit suicide in a Munich jail... The French are pleased. They think this is the beginning
of the end for the Nazis.
Paris, August 3
Hitler did what no one expected. He made himself both President and
Chancellor.... Hitler had the army swear an oath of unconditional obedience to him
personally.
Nuremburg, September 4
Like a Roman emperor Hitler rode into this medieval town at sundown today past
solid phalanxes of wildly cheering Nazis... Tens of thousands of Swastika flags blot out the
Gothic beauties of the place... The streets are a sea of brown and black uniforms.
Nuremburg, September 5
I'm beginning to comprehend some of the reasons for Hitler's astounding success.
Borrowing a chapter from the Roman church, he is restoring pageantry and color to the
drab lives of 20th Century Germans. This morning's opening meeting in the Luitpold Hall
was more than a gorgeous show; it also had something of the mysticism of an Easter Mass
in a great Gothic cathedral. Even Hitler's arrival was made dramatic. The band stopped
playing. There was a hush over the 30,000 people packed in the hall. Hitler appeared in
the back of the auditorium and followed by his aides, he strode slowly down the long
center aisle while thirty thousand hands were raised in salute.
Nuremburg, September 6
Hitler sprang his Arbeitsdienst, his Labor Service Corps, on the public for the first
time today and it turned out to be a highly trained, semi-military group of fanatical Nazi
youths. Standing there in the early morning sunlight, fifty thousand of them, with the first
thousand bared above the waist, suddenly made the German spectators go mad with joy
when without warning, they broke into perfect goose-step. The boys formed an immense
chanting chorus─and with one voice intoned─"We want one Leader! Nothing for us!
Everything for Germany! Heil Hitler!
Bad Saarow, April 21, 1935
The hotel mainly filled with Jews and we are a little surprised to see so many of
them still prospering and apparently unafraid. I think they are unduly optimistic.
Berlin, April 20, 1937
Hitler's birthday. He gets more and more like a Caesar. Today a public holiday
with sickening adulation from all the party hacks, delegations from all over the Reich
bearing gifts, and a great military parade. The Army revealed a little of what it has: heavy
artillery, tanks, and magnificently trained men. Hitler stood on the reviewing stand as
happy as a child with tin soldiers, saluting every tank and gun. The military attaches of
France, Britain, and Russia, I hear, were impressed. So were ours.
Berlin, June 15
Five more Protestant pastors arrested yesterday. Hardly keep up with the church
war any more since they arrested my informant, a young pastor; have no wish to endanger
the life of another one.
Berlin, September 27
The strain on the life of the [German] people and on the economic structure of the
state is tremendous. Both may well crack. But the youth, led by the S.S., is fanatic. So are
the middle class "old fighters" who brawled in the streets for Hitler in the early days and
now have been awarded with good jobs, authority, power, money. The bankers and
industrialists, not so enthusiastic now as when I arrived in Germany, go along. They must,
It is either that or the concentration camp.
I leave Germany in this autumn of 1937 with the words of a Nazi marching song in
my ears:
Today we own Germany
Tomorrow the whole world
Vienna, March 22, 1938
On the streets today gangs of Jews, with jeering storm troopers standing over them
and taunting crowds around them, on their hands and knees scrubbing the Schuschnigg
[former Austrian Prime Minister] signs offs the sidewalks. Many Jews killing themselves.
Jewish men and women made to clean latrines. Hundreds of them just picked at random
off the streets to clean the toilets of the Nazi boys. The wife of a diplomat, a Jewess, told
me today she dared not leave her home for fear of being picked up and put to "scrubbing
things."
Rome, May 3
The town full of [detectives]─fifty thousand of them, they say, German and Italian,
to protect the two great men [Hitler and Mussolini]. All the foreign Jews here have been
jailed or banished for the duration of the visit. The Italians hardly hide their hostility to
the Germans. They watch them walk by, and then spit contemptuously.
__________________
Source: William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary, (New York, 1941), pp. 11-192.
JAPANESE FASCISM: ONE INSIDER'S VIEW
Saburo Ienaga, a political dissident in Japan during the 1930s and 1940s, provided this
description of Japanese fascism just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which
brought the United States into World War II.
Japanese fascism differed from its German and Italian counterparts. They were
broad movements from below. Charismatic leaders established dictatorial systems based
on mass organizations, the Nazi party and Fascist party. In Japan fascism was imposed
from above by the military and the bureaucrats, aided by their junior partners, the civilian
rightists (whose money came from secret army funds and similar covert sources). A "new
political structure movement" was planned and the Imperial Rule Assistance Association
(IRAA) was established in October 1940. It was not comparable to the mass parties of
Germany or Italy and was not very effective in organizing or mobilizing the populace. The
IRAA used local organizations such as the hamlet and village associations, neighborhood
associations, civil defense associations, and the reservist associations to constantly
interfere in the people's lives through ration distribution, air raid drills, official sendoffs
for draftees, and memorial services for war dead. These organizations got into the act by
forcing women to stop wearing long-sleeved kimonos and getting permanent waves, and
insisted that citizens put on the prescribed air raid "uniforms" of puttees and khaki caps
for men and monpe (women's work pants gathered at the ankle) for women.
The Nazis destroyed the Weimar Republic and established a dictatorship. No such
clear break with the past occurred in Japan. The Meiji Constitution was never revised or
suspended. The Diet was rendered impotent but it continued to exist. About the only
major legal shift was the 1938 enactment of the National Mobilization Law. Although
probably unconstitutional, its sweeping provisions broadened the state's administrative
authority, imposed new duties on the citizenry, and curtailed civil rights.
In January 1934 Army Minister Araki Sadao presented a study to Premier Saito
which shows the hawks' attitude toward civil liberties. Among Araki's recommendations
and proposals were the following about "controls on journalism and publication": "Direct
publishing activities so that they contribute to state prosperity, social order, the smooth
functioning of national life and to wholesome public entertainment; "Ban views which
would impair fundamental national policies"; "Tighten controls over rumors, gossip,
speech, and publications that would harm the state." On the "Purification of thoughts,"
Araki recommended: "Tighten controls over subversive organizations. The most severe
methods should be carried out by legal groups which disseminate anti-imperialist ideas...
Strengthen public unity for national mobilization by making participation in the
Reservists' Association and youth training mandatory and encouraging organizations such
as the...Boy Scouts, Patriotic Women's Association, National Defense Women's
Association, Red Cross Society..."
Source: Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War: World War II and the Japanese, 1931-1945,
(New York, 1978), pp. 97, 112-113.
"THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE": AN AMERICAN SUPPORTS ISOLATION
In 1940 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of the aviator Charles Lindbergh, wrote a book
titled, The Wave of the Future which called for continued American isolationism as
World War II spread across Europe. But she also reflected the views of millions of
Americans when she expressed her admiration for the major European dictatorships.
Lindbergh urged her countrymen to understand rather than oppose the dictatorships
because they were, in her words, "the wave of the future." Part of her comments are
reprinted below:
What was pushing behind Communism? What behind Fascism in Italy? What
behind Naziism? Is it nothing but a "return to barbarism," to be crushed at all costs by a
"crusade"? Or is some new, and perhaps even ultimately good, conception of humanity
trying to come to birth, often through evil and horrible forms and abortive attempts?... I
cannot see this war, then, simply and purely as a struggle between the "Forces of Good"
and the "Forces of Evil." If I could simplify it into a phrase at all, it would seem truer to
say that the "Forces of the Past" are fighting against the "Forces of the Future..."
Somehow the leaders in Germany, Italy and Russia have discovered how to use new
social and economic forces... They have felt the wave of the future and they have leapt
upon it. The evils we deplore in these systems are not in themselves the future; they are
scum on the wave of the future... There is no fighting the wave of the future, any more
than as a child you could fight against the gigantic roller that loomed up ahead of you.
Source: John M. Blum, The National Experience: A History of the United States, (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989) p. 656.
ROOSEVELT ON THE THREAT OF WAR
In 1940, after World War II had already broken out in Europe, President Franklin
Roosevelt began to psychologically prepare the United States for what he and a number
of Americans thought would be the inevitable clash with the Axis powers. Here is part of
his radio address on December 29, 1940.
My Friends:
This is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk on national security... There is danger
ahead-danger against which we must prepare. But we well know that we cannot escape
danger, or the fear of danger, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads.
Some nations of Europe were bound by solemn non-intervention pacts with
Germany. Other nations were assured by Germany that they need never fear invasion...
As an exiled leader of one these nations said to me the other day-"The notice was given to
my Government two hours after German troops had poured into my country in a hundred
places."
There are those who say that the Axis powers would never have any desire to attack
the Western Hemisphere. The plain facts are that the Nazis have proclaimed, time and
again, that all other races are their inferiors and therefore subject to their orders. And
most important of all, the vast resources and wealth of this American Hemisphere
constitute the most tempting loot in all the round world.
The American appeasers ignore the warning to be found in the fate of Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and France. They
tell you that the Axis powers are going to win anyway; that all this bloodshed in the world
could be saved; that the United States might just as well throw its influence into the scale
of a dictated peace, and get the best out of it that we can.
They call it a "negotiated peace." Nonsense! Is it a negotiated peace if a gang of
outlaws surrounds your community and on threat of extermination makes you pay tribute
to save your own skins?
With all their vaunted efficiency, with all their parade of pious purpose in this war,
there are still in their background the concentration camp and the servants of God in
chains.
The history of recent years proves that shootings and chains and concentration
camps are not simply the transient tools but the very altars of modern dictatorships. They
may talk of a "new order" in the world, but what they have in mind is only a revival of the
oldest and the worst tyranny. In that there is no liberty, no religion, no hope.
The proposed "new order" is the very opposite of a United States of Europe of a
United States of Asia. It is not a Government based upon the consent of the governed. It
is not a union of ordinary, self-respecting men and women to protect themselves and their
freedom and their dignity from oppression. It is an unholy alliance of power and greed to
dominate and enslave the human race.
We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious
as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with same resolution, the same sense of
urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.
Source: Howard Quint, Milton Cantor and Dean Albertson, Main Problems in American
History, (Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1987) p. 262-266.
MARTIAN INVASION, 1938
On October 2, 1938, Orson Wells, operating from a CBS studio called the Mercury
Theater of the Air, broadcast a simulated invasion of the earth by Martians based on the
H.G. Wells science fiction novel, War of the Worlds. The broadcast was so realistic that
millions of listeners believed it was an actual event. In the vignette, Charles Jackson, an
executive with CBS Radio, describes the radio broadcast and its impact. Historians have
suggested that the panic over the broadcast reflected actual fears of an impending
Second World War.
At Moments of crisis or disaster people are fond of telling where they were at the
time, how they happened to hear the news, or what they were doing when they heard it, as
if their personal reaction were more important than the event itself. Thus, on Monday
morning, October 3, 1938, while everybody in the radio business collected in excited knots
to discuss the panic the country had been thrown into on the previous evening by the
medium they worked in, my own story went something like this:
My wife and I had returned from dinner in Greenwich Village. I went into the
bedroom, lay down on my bed, and dialed WABC to see how the Orson Welles show was
going. As usual, Orson was presenting a dramatization of a book. The opening
announcement said: The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present
Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater of the Air in The War of the Worlds, by H. G.
Wells. But strangely, no dramatic program seemed to ensue. A prosaic weather report
was given instead. Then an announcer remarked that the program would be continued
from a New York hotel, with dance tunes. For a few moments, one heard the music of a
swing band. Then came a sudden break-in with a "flash" which declared dramatically that
a professor had just noted from his observatory a series of gas explosions on the planet
Mars. The clever Welles—not H. G. (indeed, the dramatization had little connection with
H. G.'s original at any point)—was up to one of his tricks.
Simulated news bulletins followed in rapid succession, interspersed with "remotes":
on-the-spot broadcasts of actual "scenes."
These reported brilliantly, with the
extraordinary technique which radio had long since perfected for news events, the landing
of a meteor near Princeton, New Jersey, killing fifteen hundred persons—and then the
discovery that it was no meteor at all but a metal cylinder containing Martian creatures
armed with death rays, come to open hostilities against the inhabitants of the earth.
I could not but admire Orson for the marvelous reality he was able to bring to such
a fantastic story, but after a few moments, it seemed to me, he succeeded too well; the very
grotesqueness of the broadcast soon caused me to lose interest—it outraged all my sense of
belief, and by eight-fifteen or so, I switched off the dial and took a nap.
Arriving at the office the next morning, I was dumfounded—and somewhat
ashamed for my fellow Americans—to discover that a national panic had been generated
by the broadcast. Sunday night's wave of mass hysteria took strange forms. Throughout
New York City, families fled their apartments in panic, some to near-by parks, many to
seek verification of the horrendous report, hundreds of others, in a state of terror, to find
out how they could follow the broadcast’s advice and flee from the city.
In Newark, New Jersey, in a single block, more than twenty families rushed out of
their homes with wet handkerchiefs and towels over their heads and faces, to flee from
what they believed to be a gas raid.
In San Francisco, the general impression of listeners was that an overwhelming
force had invaded the United States from the sky; New York was in the process of being
destroyed, and the frightful Martians were even now moving westward. "My God," roared
one man into a phone, "where can I volunteer my services? We've got to stop this awful
thing!"
In Caldwell, New Jersey, a terror-stricken parishioner rushed into the First Baptist
Church during the evening service and shouted that a meteor had fallen, showering death
and destruction, and that North Jersey was threatened with annihilation. The Reverend
Thomas attempted to quiet his congregation by leading them in prayer for deliverance
from the catastrophe.
A man in Pittsburgh returned home in the midst of the broadcast and found his
wife in the bathroom, a bottle of poison in her hand, screaming, "I'd rather die this way
than like that!" Another man, in Mt. Vernon, New York, called police to tell them that his
brother, a hopeless invalid, had been listening to the broadcast and when he heard the
report, he got into an automobile and "disappeared."
In Harlem, extreme panic was created. Thirty men and women rushed into the
West 123rd Street Police Station and twelve into the West 135th Street Station saying they
had their household goods packed and were ready to quit Harlem if the police would tell
them where to go to be evacuated. One man insisted he had heard "the President's voice"
over the radio, advising all citizens to leave the city. One could hardly blame him, for at a
dramatic point in the broadcast the President's voice was exactly imitated by a Mercury
Theater actor telling the listeners to do just that.
Nor was credulity confined to the susceptible citizenry alone. Men of science were
not immune. Dr. Arthur F. Buddington, chairman of the department of geology, and Dr.
Harry Hess, professor of geology, Princeton University, received the first alarming reports
in a form indicating that a meteor had fallen near Dutch Neck, some five miles away. They
armed themselves with "the necessary equipment" and set out to find the specimen. What
they found was a group of excited natives, searching, like themselves, for the meteor.
Later, a detailed study of the entire panic and its effects was made by the Princeton
Radio Project, operating on a grant of the Rockefeller Foundation to Princeton University.
Some of the comments recorded by interviewers for the Project were as follows:
A New Jersey housewife: "I knew it was something terrible and I was frightened.
But I didn't know just what it was. I couldn't make myself believe it was the end of the
world. I've always heard that when the world would come to an end, it would come so fast
nobody would know--so why should God get in touch with this announcer? When they
told us what road to take and getup over the hills and the children began to cry, the family
decided to go out. We took blankets and my granddaughter wanted to take the cat and the
canary. We were outside the garage when the neighbor’s boy came back and told us it was
only a play."
A high-school girl in Pennsylvania: "...I was really hysterical. My two girl friends
and I were crying and holding each other and everything seemed so unimportant in the
face of death. We felt it was terrible we should die so young..."
A Negro housewife in Newark: "We listened, getting more and more excited. We all
felt the world was coming to an end. Then we heard, "Get gas masks!" That was the part
that got me. I thought I was going crazy. It's a wonder my heart didn't fail me because I'm
nervous anyway. I felt if the gas was on, I wanted to be together with my husband and
nephew so we could all die together. So I ran out of the house. I guess I didn’t know what
I was doing. I stood on the corner waiting for a bus and I thought every car that came
along was a bus and I ran out to get it. I kept saying over and over again to everybody I
met: "New Jersey is destroyed by the Germans--it's on the radio! I was all excited and I
knew that Hitler didn't appreciate President Roosevelt's telegram a couple of weeks ago.
While the United States thought everything was settled, they came down unexpected. The
Germans are so smart they were in something like a balloon, and when the balloon
landed--that's when they announced the explosion--the Germans landed."
A man in a Midwest town: "That Halloween show had our family on its knees before
the program was half over. God knows but we prayed to him last Sunday. It was a lesson
in more than one thing to us. My mother went out and looked for Mars. Dad was hard to
convince, and skeptical, but even he got to believing it. Brother Joe, as usual, got more
excited than anyone. Brother George wasn't home. Aunt Grace, a good Catholic, began to
pray with Uncle Henry. Lillie got sick to her stomach. I don't know what I did exactly, but
I know I prayed harder and more earnest than ever before. Just as soon as we were
convinced that this thing was real, how petty all things on earth seemed, and how soon we
put our trust in God!"
Source: Charles Jackson, "The Night the Martians Came (1938)" printed in Isabel
Leighton, ed., The Aspirin Age, 1919-1941 (New York, 1949), p. 431-436.
CHAPTER EIGHT: WORLD WAR TWO AND THE COLD WAR
Terms for Week 8
The Axis Powers
Executive Order 9066
Camp Harmony, Washington
Navajo "code talkers"
Rosie the Riveter
Zoot Suit Riot
Hanford, Washington
War Manpower Commission
Inez Sauer
Hiroshima
Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL)
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
Josef Stalin
House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC)
Albert F. Canwell
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Truman Doctrine
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Warsaw Pact
"containment"
proxy wars
Korean War, 1950-1953
Strom Thurmond\The Dixicrats
The Baby Boom
Levittown
G.I. Bill
Cuban Missile Crisis
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Ethiopian-Somali War, 1977-1978
Angolan Civil War, 1975-1976
Hungarian Revolution, 1956
Berlin Wall, 1961-1989
Tiananmen Square
Boris Yeltsin
THE INTERNMENT OF THE JAPANESE
President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 is reprinted below.
WHEREAS the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection
against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense
premises, and national defense utilities...: NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority
vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and
Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders
whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander
deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of
such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any
or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter,
remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the
appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is
hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded there from,
such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the
judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other
arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of
military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and
restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8,
1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under
the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas. I hereby further
authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such
other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce
compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area hereinabove authorized
to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with
authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.
I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent
establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said
Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of
medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other
supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services. This order shall not be construed as
modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order
No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the
duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the
investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney
General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8,
1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such
duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas hereunder.
Source: Roger Daniels and Harry Kitano, American Racism: Exploration of the Nature
of Prejudice (Englewood Cliffs, 1970), pp. 135-136.
MONICA SONE DESCRIBES THE EVACUATION
Monica Sone in her autobiography, Nisei Daughter, describes the evacuation of her
family from Seattle in the Spring of 1942.
On the 21st of April...[General] DeWitt gave us the shattering news. "All Seattle
Japanese will be moved to Puyallup by May 1. Everyone must be registered Saturday and
Sunday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. They will leave next week in three groups, on Tuesday,
Thursday, and Friday...
Our last Sunday, Father and Henry [Sone's brother] moved all our furniture and
household goods down to the hotel and stored them in one room... Monday evening we
received friends in our empty house where our voices echoed loudly and footsteps
clattered woodenly on the bare floor....That night we rolled ourselves into army
blankets...and slept on the bare floor. The next morning Henry rudely shouted us back
into consciousness. "Six-thirty! Everybody wake up, today's the day!"
I screamed, "Must you sound so cheerful about it?"
"What do you expect me to do, bawl?"
On this sour note we got up...jammed our blankets into the long narrow seabag, and
carefully tied the white pasteboard tag, 10710, on our coat lapels...
We climbed into the truck... As we coasted down Beacon Hill bridge for the last
time, we fell silent... We drove through bustling Chinatown, and...around the corner of
Eight and Lane. This area was ordinarily lonely and deserted but now it was filling up with
silent, labeled Japanese, standing self-consciously among their...suitcases....
Finally at ten o'clock, a vanguard of Greyhound busses...parked themselves neatly
along the curb. The crowd stirred and murmured. The bus doors opened and from each, a
soldier with rife in hand stepped out and stood stiffly at attention by the door. The
murmuring died. It was the first time I had seen a rifle at such close range and I felt
uncomfortable. This rifle was presumably to quell riots, but contrarily, I felt riotous
emotion mounting in my breast.
Jim Shigeno, one of the leaders of the Japanese-American Citizens' League, stepped
briskly up front and started reading off family numbers to fill the first bus. Our number
came up and we pushed our way out of the crowd. Jim said, "Step right in."
We bumped into each other with nervous haste. I glanced nervously at the soldier
and his rifle, and I was startled to see that he was but a young man, pink-cheeked, his clear
gray eyes staring impassively ahead... I suddenly turned maternal and hovered over
Mother and Father to see that they were comfortably settled. They were silent.
Newspaper photographers with flash-bulb cameras pushed busily through the
crowd. One of them rushed up to our bus, and asked a young couple and their little boy to
step out and stand by the door for a shot. They were reluctant, but the photographers
were persistent and at length they got out of the bus and posed, grinning widely to cover
their embarrassment. We saw the picture in the newspaper shortly after and the caption
underneath it read, "Japs good-natured about evacuation."
Source: Monica Sone, Nisei Daughter, (Seattle, 1953), pp. 165-171.
CAMP HARMONY, WASHINGTON
In the following passage Seattle resident Ben Yorita, one of 110,000 persons of Japanese
ancestry interned during World War II, describes his experience in the Summer of 1942
in "Camp Harmony," a temporary holding area on the Puyallup fairgrounds, before
being transferred to the Minidoka Internment Camp in Idaho.
Students weren’t as aware of national politics then as they are now, and JapaneseAmericans were actually apolitical then. Our parents couldn’t vote, so we simply weren’t
interested in politics because there was nothing we could do about it if we were.
There were two reasons we were living in the ghettos: Birds of a feather flock
together, and we had all the traditional aspects of Japanese life—Japanese restaurants,
baths, and so forth; and discrimination forced us together. The dominant society
prevented us from going elsewhere.
Right after Pearl Harbor we had no idea what was going to happen, but toward the
end of December we started hearing rumors and talk of the evacuation started. We could
tell from what we read in the newspapers and the propaganda they were printing—guys
like Henry McLemore, who said he hated all Japs and that we should be rounded up, gave
us the idea of how strong feelings were against us. So we were expecting something and
the evacuation was no great surprise.
I can’t really say what my parents thought about everything because we didn’t
communicate that well. I never asked them what they thought. We communicated on
other things, but not political matters.
Once the evacuation was decided, we were told we had about a month to get rid of
our property or do whatever we wanted to with it. That was a rough time for my brother,
who was running a printshop my parents owned. We were still in debt on it and we didn’t
know what to do with all the equipment. The machines were old but still workable, and
we had English type and Japanese type. Japanese characters had to be set by hand and
were very hard to replace. Finally, the whole works was sold, and since nobody would buy
the Japanese type, we had to sell it as junk lead at 500 a pound. We sold the equipment
through newspaper classified ads: "Evacuating: Household goods for sale." Secondhand
dealers and everybody else came in and bought our refrigerator, the piano, and I had a
whole bunch of books I sold for $5, which was one of my personal losses. We had to sell
our car, and the whole thing was very sad. By the way, it was the first time we had ever
had a refrigerator and it had to be sold after only a few months.
We could take only what we could carry, and most of us were carrying two suitcases
or duffel bags. The rest of our stuff that we couldn’t sell was stored in the Buddhist church
my mother belonged to. When we came back, thieves had broken in and stolen almost
everything of value from the church.
I had a savings account that was left intact, but people who had their money in the
Japanese bank in Seattle had their assets frozen from Pearl Harbor until the late 1960s,
when the funds were finally released. They received no interest.
They took all of us down to the Puyallup fairgrounds, Camp Harmony, and
everything had been thrown together in haste. They had converted some of the display
and exhibit areas into rooms and had put up some barracks on the parking lot. The walls
in the barracks were about eight feet high with open space above and with big knotholes in
the boards of the partitions. Our family was large, so we had two rooms.
They had also built barbed-wire fences around the camp with a tower on each
corner with military personnel and machine guns, rifles, and searchlights. It was terrifying
because we didn’t know what was going to happen to us. We didn’t know where we were
going and we were just doing what we were told. No questions asked. If you get an order,
you go ahead and do it.
There was no fraternization, no contact with the military or any Caucasian except
when we were processed into the camp. But the treatment in Camp Harmony was fairly
loose in the sense that we were free to roam around in the camp. But it was like buffalo in
cages or behind barbed wire.
There was no privacy whatsoever in the latrines and showers, and it was
humiliating for the women because they were much more modest then than today. It
wasn’t so bad for the men because they were accustomed to open latrines and showers.
We had no duties in the sense that we were required to work, but you can’t expect a camp
to manage itself. They had jobs open in the kitchen and stock room, and eventually they
opened a school where I helped teach a little. I wasn’t a qualified teacher, and I got about
$13 a month. We weren’t given an allowance while we were in Camp Harmony waiting for
the camp at Minidoka to be finished, so it was pretty tight for some families.
From Camp Harmony on, the family structure was broken down. Children ran
everywhere they wanted to in the camp, and parents lost their authority. We could eat in
any mess hall we wanted, and kids began ignoring their parents and wandering wherever
they pleased.
Eventually they boarded us on army trucks and took us to trains to be transported
to the camps inland. We had been in Camp Harmony from May until September.
Source: Archie Satterfield, ed. The Home Front: An Oral History Of the War Years in
America: 1941-45 (Chicago, 1981) pp. 330-338.
THE ZOOT SUIT RIOT
The worst example of anti-Chicano violence in the 20th Century history of the United
States is described below by historians, Julian Samora and Patricia Vandel Simon.
In the early 1940s many Mexican American teenagers wore "drapes." This popular
style of clothing resembled the zoot suits worn in Harlem. It was designed to be
comfortable to dance in, and was sometimes used as a signal that the wearer belonged to a
club or gang. Most Anglos called the outfit a zoot suit and assumed that only hoodlums
wore them.
In 1942, in the name of national security, all the Japanese Americans on the west
coast had been taken from their homes and interred in camps. With this group of
scapegoats safely out of the way, Los Angeles newspapers began to blame crime in the city
on the Mexican Americans. They began to give prominence to incidents involving
Mexican Americans, or as they called them, "zoot suiters."
On the evening of June 3, 1943, eleven sailors on shore leave walked into one of Los
Angeles's worst Mexican American slums and became involved in a fight with persons
unknown, but who were thought to be Mexican Americans. This incident stirred up the
anger of the citizenry, as well as that of the many members of the armed forces who were
stationed in Los Angeles.
The next evening two hundred sailors hired a fleet of taxicabs and drove through
the heart of the city to the Mexican American communities on the east side. Every time
they saw a Mexican American boy in a zoot suit they would stop and beat him up. The city
police did nothing to stop them.
The following two nights the sailors were joined by other servicemen as the
wandered freely through the city harassing Mexican Americans. Los Angeles police
arrested several severely beaten Mexican American boys on charges of rioting, even
though no resistance had been offered by the Mexican Americans. The newspapers
featured headlines such as "44 Zooters Jailed in Attacks on Sailors."
On June seventh, thousands of civilians joined in the riot. Filipinos and Negroes as
well as Mexican Americans were attacked. At midnight military authorities decided the
local police could not handle the situation and declared downtown Los Angeles off limits
to military personnel. The rioting spread to the suburbs for two more days before it finally
subsided.
The Los Angeles zoot suit riots touched off similar disturbances across the country
in the summer of 1943; in San Diego; Beaumont, Texas; Detroit; Evansville, Indiana;
Philadelphia and Harlem.
Source: Julian Samora and Patricia Vandel Simon, A History of the Mexican American
People, (Notre Dame, Ind., 1977), p. 157.
NISEI SOLDIERS IN EUROPE
Despite the internment of the vast majority of Japanese during World War II, a
Japanese-American Army unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, fought in against
the Germans in the Italian theater and became one of the most decorated American units
during the war. A brief account of their heroism is detailed below by one of their officers,
Lt. Daniel Inouye who later became the U.S. Senator from Hawaii.
Few men fought in all of the 442nd's campaign and battles. Our casualty rate was
so high that eventually it took 12,000 men to fill the original 4,500 places in the regiment.
But fewer men still missed a battle as long as they could stand up and hold an M1. The
outfit has the lowest AWOL rate in the European theater of operations and the only men I
ever heard about going over the hill had very special reasons....
When we reached Leghorn [the site of a battle with German troops] we were
trucked north to an area in the sector of the 92nd Division, to which the 442nd was now
attached. The 92nd was one of only two outfits in the army made up of Negro troops. The
had fought hard and lost many men and the Germans seemed to take a fiendish delight in
bombarding them with propaganda leaflets--a white man making love to a Negro girl, and
the inevitable caption: "Is this your wife?" And the taunting questions: "What are you
fighting for? To go back to slavery to your white masters?"
Our side didn't help much. The division officers' clubs were segregated--this in the
heart of a war zone--as was every other recreational facility. One of the first things our
regimental C.O. did was send word through the 442nd that we were to steer clear of both
the white and colored clubs. Since there was no way we could change a rotten situation, he
wanted us to be as free of it as we could, and we kept very much to ourselves.
The mission of the 92nd was to breach the western anchor of the Gothic Line, a
system of rock and concrete fortifications high in the mountains of northern Italy.
Elaborate bunkers and fortified machine gun nests made it seem impenetrable. When the
commanding general...asked whether the 442nd could take Mt. Folgorito [part of the
Gothic Line] in a week's time...our C.O. replied drily, "I think you can count on it."
We jumped off at midnight of April 5, two battalions moving through an
unreconnoitered gorge and scaling the cliffs on the enemy's right... Later we learned that
some of the men had slipped and bounced as much as 100 feet down the steep slopes--one
fell to his death--but not one of them cried out and the soundless advance went on. We
took the Germans by complete surprise...
We moved up that slope and almost at once three machine guns opened up on us....
I looked down to where my right hand was clutching my stomach. Blood oozed between
my fingers... We were pinned down and now the moment was critical... I lobbed two
grenades... And as I drew my arm back...I saw a German soldier...aiming a rifle grenade at
my face from a range of ten yards. As I cocked my arm to throw, he fired and his rifle
grenade smashed into my right elbow and exploded and all but tore my arm off.... I turned
to throw as the German was reloading his rifle. But this time I beat him. My grenade blew
up in his face and I stumbled to my feet, firing my tommy gun left-handed, the useless
right arm slapping red and wet against my side...
Source: Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Journey to Washington, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,
1967), pp. 141-142, 150-152.
ONE SOLDIER'S STORY: WALTER HIGGANS IN EUROPE
The vignette below is an account of Walter Higgans, a Navajo soldier in the U.S. Army
who was captured by the Germans in World War II only to escape to the Soviet Union.
The Germans were tryin' to come down this mountain road and we were supposed
to try to stop them. We went into this heavy thick forest area where everything was so
thick that you couldn't see far at all. But the Germans kept sending out patrols, and there
was firing back and forth, in patches like. Then everything cut loose. While those patrols
were keeping us busy, their tanks had moved up practically right on top of us and they
were so close you could hear the recoil from their guns when they fired. So we started to
fall back slowly and we had been doin' this for about three hours, and all of a sudden the
platoon on our left ran through us and they were yellin' that the tanks had moved in and
were coming this way fast. They had only .30 caliber machine guns, and you can't fight
tanks with that. They left all their stuff behind. We went down into this big arroyo where
they had been.
About that time, I was a squad leader, a buck sergeant. I talked to the platoon
leader and he talked to a lieutenant and the captain of the company, and they said to go get
all the equipment that was left back up there, but nobody would go because the tanks were
too close. So the captain talked to the battalion commander, and he said to go back up and
hold the line. By that time three of us, and one of these was a cousin of mine from Blue
Notch, we had already gone up there and brought back most of the rifles and grenades that
they had left there. Then the telephone line got knocked out with all the firing. So two of
us were sent up in the direction of the tanks to fix the telephone wire. There was lots of
cover--something like ferns growin' about shoulder high--and this other guy got separated
from me. All at once there were two Germans standin' right behind me and I was
captured...
We escaped because they were going to move us into Berlin, and we didn't want to
be caught in the middle of the fighting. We got through the Russian lines and into Poland
to Danzig, because we had heard that it was an open city. But that place was torn to
pieces, so then we headed down to Warsaw and then from there to Lodz. And from Lodz
we went across to Kiev. All this time we were waking, and while this was going on I got
arrested about twelve times, because I was walking with these white boys and the Russians
wanted to know who I was. They didn't even know that I was an American and that I was
born over here. They'd throw me in jail and put me through interrogation by somebody
who could speak English. I kept tellin' them that I was an Indian, but they would just
laugh and say that there were no Indians over here and I had to convince them. They
finally turned me loose one place and then I'd get arrested at the next town. After the
twelfth time, I asked them to give me a pass. The Germans had taken all our identification
from us. When I was in jail, the others were good enough to wait for me. There were
twelve of them, and I was the odd one, the thirteenth.
We finally walked down to Odessa and, boy, I never seen such an awful lookin'
bunch of people in my life. We had been tradin' our clothes for food, but we were still half
starved and almost naked on top of that. This was toward the end of March 1945, when we
got down there...
Source: Jack O. Waddell and O. Michael Watson, eds., The American Indian in Urban
Society, (Boston 1971), pp. 373-375.
BLACKS, WHITES, ASIANS IN WORLD WAR II HAWAII
The following vignette, taken from a 1993 article authored by Beth Bailey and David
Farber, describes the complex racial order that African Americans found themselves in
when they served as soldiers, sailors and war workers in Hawaii. Their experience
profoundly reshaped thinking about race among whites, blacks and Asians on both the
islands and the mainland.
Well over a million service personnel and civilian employees of the military...were
brought to Hawaii by reason of war. Among those men and women were approximately
30,000 people of African descent--soldiers, sailors, war workers. They came to a place
that, before World War II, had no "Negro Problem," in part because few people on the
islands recognized that "Negroes" lived in Hawaii. In 1940, according to one estimate by
the territorial government, approximately 200 "Negroes of American birth" lived on the
islands... Most people on Hawaii did not bring the racist ways of the mainland into there
daily lives. They did stereotype one another: many Americans of Japanese ancestry looked
down on the Chinese, and often upon the haoles [whites]. The Chinese looked down on
the Filipinos. Round and round it went. Each ethnic group had its suspicions of the
others and definite hierarchies existed. But such prejudices were not the white heat of the
mainland's rigid caste society. The lines were less absolute... It helped that no one group
held a majority... Hawaii was much more progressive on the issue of race than the rest of
the U.S.
The men and women who came to Hawaii from the mainland were uniformly
shocked by what they found. On the streets of Honolulu or in small towns on the Big
Island, "white" ness was not the natural condition. All newcomers were surprised, but
reactions varied. Some praised what they saw...others were mightily upset by it; still
others just confused...
Writing home in private letters to family and friends, wives and sweethearts, black
men who had come to Hawaii as servicemen or war workers discussed the possibilities of
Hawaii's wartime racial liminality. A shipyard worker wrote: "I thank God often for letting
me experience the occasion to spend a part of my life in a part of the world were one can be
respected and live as a free man should." Another young man tried to explain to his
girlfriend: "Honey, its just as much difference between over here and down there as it is
between night and day." He concluded: Hawaii "will make anybody change their minds
about living down there." "Down there" was the Jim Crow South, the place about which a
third man wrote, "I shall never go back."
White men and women from the mainland also saw the possible implications of
Hawaii's racial landscape: "They have come as near to solving the race problem as any
place in the world," wrote a nurse. "I'm a little mystified by it as yet but it doesn't bother
anyone who had lived here awhile." A teacher found it world shaking: "I have gained here
at least the impulse to fight racial bigotry and boogeyism. My soul has been stretched here
and my notion of civilization and Americanism broadened."
Not everyone was so inspired. One hardened soul, in Hawaii with her husband and
children, wrote the folks: "Down here they have let down the standards, there does not
seem to be any race hatred, there is not even any race distinction... I don't want to expose
our children too long to these conditions." A white man wrote back home: "Imagine that
the South will have some trouble ahead when these black bastards return. Over here
they're on the equal with everyone... They're in paradise and no fooling." Others made it
clear they did not believe the trouble would keep: "Boy the niggers are sure in their glory
over here...they almost expect white people to step off the streets and let them walk by...
They are going to overstep their bounds a little too far one of these days and those boys
from the South are going to have a little necktie party."
If Hawaii was "paradise"...there was a snake in this paradise, too. "As you know,"
one man wrote back to the mainland, "most sailors are from Texas and the South. They
are most[ly] Navy men here, and they have surely poisoned everyone against the
Negro...with tales of Negroes carrying dreadful diseases, being thieves, murderers and
downright no good."
*
*
*
In letters back home, black servicemen fumed about the spread of racial hatred.
"They preach to the natives a nasty, poisonous doctrine that we must fight like hell to
overcome.
They tell the native that we are ignorant dumb, evil, rapers, and
troublemakers. They have the native women to a point they are afraid to even speak to our
Negro boys."
The responses of the local people to the black malihini (newcomers) were complex
and somewhat unpredictable. Although some sociologists at the time speculated that the
local population would not accept negroes...in fact local men often lent their support to
blacks against whites...
This is not to say that the propaganda of African American inferiority had no
effect... Local women wrote frequently of their fears. "I am very scared of these Negro
soldiers here in Honolulu. They make my skin shrivel and myself afraid to go near them,"
wrote a Chinese girl. A young Japanese woman wrote in almost identical terms: "They are
so big and dark... Seeing them around while I'm alone gives me the 'goose-flesh.'" Another
Japanese woman was a little more reflective about her feelings. After sharing a perfectly
uneventful bus ride with four black soldiers she wrote a friend: "Gee, I was very
frightened... Funny isn't it how I am about them. One would be that way after hearing lots
of nasty things about them."
Some local women recognized the unfairness of local fears. One young woman of
Japanese ancestry, writing in a private letter, criticized her peers: "They are going to have
a dance for colored boys...only 18 girls are willing to go--such cooperation. Imagine us
here talking about color equality and when it come to those thing not enough cooperation.
I sure would like to have gone to it...but you know Mother."
Source: Beth Bailey and David Farber, "The 'Double-V' Campaign in World War II
Hawaii: African Americans, Racial Ideology, and Federal Power," Journal of
Social History 26:4 (Summer 1993:818-821, 825-827.
WORLD WAR II: SEATTLE'S ECONOMY TRANSFORMED
In the following vignette I describe how Seattle emerged as a major site of war
production, a process which transformed both the city and the region.
The Second World War generated profound changes in economic and social
conditions in the Pacific Northwest, prompting historian Carlos Schwantes to describe the
years 1941-45 as the beginning of the modern era for the region. The Puget Sound area
soon became a major center for ship and aircraft construction, which in turn stimulated
other sectors of the economy. The region's shipbuilding industry was revived in 1941 after
its virtual collapse following World War I, as eighty-eight shipyards, twenty-nine in Seattle
alone, furnished vessels for the Navy, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine. Seattle's aircraft industry also came of age during World War II although the process of growth and
transformation had begun long before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Boeing
Airplane Company in September 1939 employed 4,000 workers making military planes
for the Army Air Corps and some commercial aircraft such as the Clipper airships which
crossed the Pacific. After fighting broke out in Europe, the British Royal Air Force purchased the company's B-17 Flying Fortress bombers for use against Nazi Germany. As
orders came in, Boeing's work force grew accordingly to nearly 10,000 by June 1941,
20,000 in September, and 30,000 when the United States officially entered the war on
December 8, 1941. In 1943, Boeing began production of the Super Fortress a larger,
longer-range B-29 bomber from its facility in Renton, a Seattle suburb. Boeing workers
soon produced one B-29 bomber every five days and one B-17 every twenty-four hours. By
1944, at the peak of wartime production, Boeing employed nearly 50,000 workers in the
Seattle area and amassed total sales of more than $600 million annually, sharply
contrasting with the $70 million value of all Seattle manufacturing in 1939.
Although no other Seattle firm could rival Boeing in employment or production,
other companies also experienced spectacular growth during World War II. Pacific Car
and Foundry Company in Renton, which manufactured logging trucks before 1941, now
produced Sherman tanks and employed nearly 4,000 workers in 1944. Shipyards in the
Puget Sound area including the Navy's facility at Bremerton and twenty-nine yards in
Seattle, employed 150,000 workers by 1944. Seattle's wartime contracts totaling 5.6
billion dollars, ranked it among the nation's top three cities (after Detroit and Los Angeles)
in per capita war orders.
Source: Quintard Taylor, The Forging of A Black Community: Seattle's Central District
from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era (Seattle, 1994), pp. 160-161.
BOEING AND THE LIBERATION OF INEZ SAUER
In this account Inez Sauer, Chief Clerk in the Tool Room at Boeing in World War II,
describes how here work experience changed her life.
I was thirty-one when the war started and I have never worked in my life before. I
had a six-year-old daughter and two boys, twelve and thirteen. We were living in Norwalk,
Ohio, in a large home in which we could fit about 200 people playing bridge, and once in a
while we filled it.
I remember my husband saying to me, "You've lived through a depression and you
weren't even aware it was here." It was true. I knew that people were without work and
having a hard time, but it never seemed to affect us or our friends. They were all of the
same ilk--all college people and all golfing and bridge-playing companions. I suppose
you'd call it a life of ease. We always kept a live-in maid, and we never had to go without
anything.
Before the war my life was bridge and golf and clubs and children... When the war
broke out, my husband's rubber-matting business in Ohio had to close due to the war
restrictions on rubber. We also lost our live-in maid, and I could see there was no way I
could possibly live the way I was accustomed to doing. So I took my children home to my
parents in Seattle.
The Seattle papers were full of ads for women workers needed to help the war
effort. "Do your part, free a man for service." Being a D.A.R. [Daughters of the American
Revolution], I really wanted to help the war effort. I could have worked for the Red Cross
and rolled bandages, but I wanted to do something that I thought was really vital.
Building bombers was, so I answered an ad for Boeing.
My mother was horrified. She said no one in our family had ever worked in a
factory. "You don't know what kind of people you're going to be associated with." My
father was horrified too... My husband thought it was utterly ridiculous. I had never
worked. I didn't know how to handle money, as he put it. I was nineteen when I was
married. My husband was ten years older, and he always made me feel like a child, so he
didn't think I would last very long at the job, but he was wrong.
They started me as a clerk in this huge tool room. I had never handled a tool in my
life outside of a hammer. Some man come in and asked for a bastard file. I said to him, "If
you don't control your language, you won't get any service here." I went to my supervisor
and said, "You'll have to correct this man. I won't tolerate that kind of language." He
laughed and said, "Don't you know what a bastard file is? It's the name of a very coarse
file." He went over and took one out and showed me...
The first year, I worked seven days a week. We didn't have any time off. They did
allow us Christmas off, but Thanksgiving we had to work. That was a hard thing to do.
The children didn't understand. My mother and father didn't understand, but I worked. I
think that put a little iron in my spine too. I did something that was against my grain, but
I did it and I'm glad...
Because I was working late one night I had a chance to see President Roosevelt.
They said he was coming on the swing shift, after four o'clock, so I waited to see him. They
cleared out the aisle of the main plant, and he went through in a big, open limousine. He
smiled and he had his long cigarette holder, and he was very, very pleasant. "Hello there,
how are you? Keep up the war effort. Oh, you women are doing a wonderful job." We
were all thrilled to think the President could take time out of the war effort to visit us
factory workers. It gave us a lift, and I think we worked harder.
Boeing was a real education for me. It taught me a different way of life. I had never
been around uneducated people before, people that worked with their hands. I was
prudish and had never been with people that used coarse language... I didn't know there
was such a thing as the typical male ego. My contact with my first supervisor was one of
animosity, in which he stated, "The happiest duty of my life will be when I say goodbye to
each of you to the door." I didn't understand that kind of resentment, but it was prevalent
throughout the plant...
The job really broadened me.... I had no contact with Negroes except as maids or
gardeners. My mother was a Virginian, and we were bought up to think that colored
people were not of the same economic or social level. I learned differently at Boeing... I
fact, I found that some of the black people I got to know there were very superior--and
certainly equal to me--equal to anyone I ever knew.
Before I worked at Boeing I also had no exposure to unions. After I was there for a
while, I joined the machinists union. We had a contract dispute, and we had a one-day
walkout to show Boeing our strength. We went on this march through the financial
district in downtown Seattle.
My mother happened to be down there seeing the president of the Seattle First
National Bank at the time... So my mother...walked outside to see what was happening.
And we came down the middle of the street--there were probably five thousand of us. I
saw my mother...and I waved and said, "Hello, mother." That night when I got home, I
thought she was never going to honor my name again. She said, "To think my daughter
was marching in that labor demonstration. How could you do that to the family?" But I
could see that it was a new world.
My mother warned me, "You will never want to go back to being a housewife." At
the time I didn't think it would change a thing. But she was right... I had always been in a
shell; I had always been protected. But at Boeing I found a freedom and an independence
that I had never known. After the war, I could never go back to playing bridge again, being
a club woman and listening to a lot of inanities when I knew there were things you could
use your mind for. The war changed my life completely. I guess you could say, at thirtyone I finally grew up.
Source: David E. Shi and Holly Mayer, eds., For the Record: A Documentary History of
America (New York, 1999), pp. 254-257
WEST COAST SHIPYARDS
World War II generated the growth of major shipyards from Seattle to San Diego which
employed thousands of workers. Three shipyards built by industrialist Henry Kaiser in
the Portland-Vancouver area employed over 100,000. The vignette below describes the
Kaiser shipyard in Richmond, California.
All shipyard workers had to adjust to the regimen of prefabricated shipbuilding.
Using techniques developed in building Boulder Dam, west coast shipbuilders assembled
whole sections of a ship's structure, boilers, double bottoms, deckhouses, preassembled
elsewhere and lifted into place by huge cranes. This technique allowed these yards to
assemble vessels in record time. The Robert E. Peary was built in four days [at the Kaiser
Shipyard in Richmond] in November 1942. Since workers performed specific, repetitive
tasks, training went rapidly. But these workers faced a bureaucratized environment. For
the first time in their lives they used security badges, got company-sponsored health care,
reported to timekeepers, and receive their paychecks (with income tax withheld) from pay
windows. The Richmond yards were laid out in a grid system of numbered and lettered
streets. One worker described the 900 acres of shipyards: "It was such a huge place...
People from all walks of life, all coming and going and working, and the noise. The whole
atmosphere was overwhelming to me."
West Coast shipyards pioneered new production techniques and labormanagement relations but they also embraced old stereotypes. The Chinese performed
detail-oriented electrical work considered suitable for their skills. White women held
welding jobs, considered the easiest position on the yards, while black women were
relegated to scaling (cleaning), sweeping and painting ship hulls. Portland shipyard
worker Beatrice Marshall described her job as a painter's helper: "We had to crawl on our
hands and knees and carry our light on an extension cord...because it was pitch dark.
We...scraped the rust off the bottom of the boat where they had to paint... We had to wear
masks, there [was] so much rust in there...you could hardly breathe."
Source: Quintard Taylor, In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the
American West, 1528-1990, (New York, 1998) p. 257.
LYN CHILDS CONFRONTS A RACIST ACT
In the following vignette, black San Francisco shipyard worker Lyn Childs, describes
how she came to the defense of a Filipino employee on the ship she was repairing. Her
account also discusses the reaction from her supervisor.
I was working down in the hold of the ship and there were about six Filipino
men...and this big white guy went over and started to kick this poor Filipino and none of
the Black men that was working down there in the hold with him said one word to this
guy. And I sat there and was getting madder and madder by the minute. I sprang to my
feet, turned on my torch, and I had a flame about six to seven feet out in front of me, and I
walked up to him and I said (you want me to say the real language?) I said to him,
"You so-in-so. If you go lift one more foot, I'll cut your guts out." That was my
exact words. I was so mad with him.
Then he started to tell me that he had been trained in boot camp that any national
group who was darkskinned was beneath all White People. So he started to cry. I felt
sorry for him, because he was crying, really crying. He was frightened, and I was
frightened. I didn't know what I was doing, so in the end I turned my torch off and I sat
down on the steps with him.
About that time the intercom on board the ship started to announce,
"Lyn Childs, report to Colonel Hickman immediately."
So I said, "I guess this is it." So I went up to Colonel Hickman's office, and behind
me came all these men, and there lined up behind me, and I said,
"Where are you guys going?"
They said, "We're going with you."
When we got to the office [Colonel Hickman] said, "I just wanted to see Lyn Childs,"
and they said, "You'll see all of us, because we were all down there. We all did not have the
guts enough to do what she did, [but] we're with her."
Colonel Hickman said, "Come into this office."
He had one of the guards take me into the office real fast and closed the door real
fast and kept them out, and he said,
"What kind of communist activity are you carrying on down there?"
I said, "A communist! What is that?"
He said, "You know what I am talking about. You're a communist."
I said, "A communist! Forget you! The kind of treatment that man was putting on
the Filipinos, and to come to their rescue. Then I am the biggest communist you ever seen
in your life. That is great. I am a communist."
He said, "Don't say that so loud."
I said, "Well, you asked me was I a communist. You're saying I am. I'm saying I'm
a...
"Shh! Shh! Shh! Hush! Don't say that so loud." Then he said, "I think you ought to
get back to work."
"Well, you called me Why did you call me?"
"Never mind what I called you for," he said, "Go back to work."
Source: Paul R. Spickard, "Work and Hope: African American Women in Southern
California During World War II," Journal of the West 32:3 (July 1993):74-75.
STALIN CALLS FOR A SECOND FRONT
The origins of the Cold War can be found in the tension between the United States and
Britain and the Soviet Union while allies in World War II. From June, 1941, to June,
1944, Soviet Armies absorbed the brunt of the Axis onslaught with relatively little
assistance from Britain and the United States. By the summer of 1943 Soviet dictator,
Josef Stalin, sent a secret note to Winston Churchill demanding a second front after
learning of Churchill's remark that the British and Americans were not yet prepared for
an invasion of Europe.
...When you write that "it would be no help to Russia if we threw away a hundred
thousand men in a disastrous cross-Channel attack," all I can do is remind you of the
following:
First, your own Aide-Memoire of June 1942, in which you declared that
preparations were under way for an invasion, not by a hundred thousand, but by an
Anglo-American force exceeding one million men at the very start of the operation.
Second, your February [1943] message which mentioned extensive measures
preparatory to the invasion of Western Europe in August or September 1943, which,
apparently, envisaged an operation, not by a hundred thousand men, but by an adequate
force.
So when you now declare: "I cannot see how a great British defeat and slaughter
would aid the Soviet armies," is it not cleat that a statement of this kind in relation to the
Soviet Union is utterly groundless and directly contradicts your previous and responsible
decisions....about extensive and vigorous measures by the British and Americans to
organise the invasion this year, measures on which the complete success of the operation
should hinge?
I shall not enlarge on the fact that this responsible decision, revoking your previous
decisions on the invasion of Western Europe, was reached by you and the President
[Roosevelt] without Soviet participation and without inviting its representatives to the
Washington conference, although you cannot but be aware that the Soviet Union's role in
the war against Germany and its interest in the problems of the second front are great
enough.
There is no need to say that the Soviet Government cannot become reconciled to
this disregard of vital Soviet interests in the war against the common enemy.
You say that you "quite understand" my disappointment. I must tell you that the
point here is not just the disappointment of the Soviet Government, but the preservation if
its confidence in its Allies, a confidence which is being subjected to severe stress. One
should not forget that it is a question of saving million of lives in the occupied areas of
Western Europe and Russia, and of reducing the enormous sacrifices of the Soviet armies,
compared with which the sacrifices of the Anglo-American armies are insignificant.
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., Correspondence Between the
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. and the Presidents of the
U.S.A. and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain during the Great Patriotic War of
1941-1945, Vol. II, (Moscow: 1957), pp. 75-76.
SOVIET-AMERICAN TENSION IN WORLD WAR II
General John R. Deane, the chief U.S. military liaison officer in Moscow during World
War II, found the Soviets reluctant allies who wanted American military hardware but
who feared American personnel would spy on Soviet defenses and promote dissent
among Soviet citizens. Here he provides an account of Soviet suspicion of American
efforts at cooperation.
Whatever the reasons, the fact that Russia desired, insofar as possible to play a lone
hand was proved by undeniable evidence. In her darkest days she refused to allow a group
of Allied bombers to base in the Caucasus in order to assist her at Stalingrad. Our
well-meant voluntary efforts to support her advance in the Balkans with our Air Force
operating from Italy brought forth protests rather than gratitude. No single American was
allowed to enter the Soviet Union without pressure from the Ambassador or me, and then
a visa was granted only after an exhaustive study of the background of the individual
involved. Under these circumstances it was clear that nothing much could come of a
partnership in which one of the principals was not only reluctant, but proficient in
sabotaging its effectiveness...
When General Eisenhower visited Moscow after the war, he held a press conference
at which he stated that after January 1945 he was kept fully informed at all times of the
essentials of the Red Army's plans, particularly the timing of their offensives, their
objectives, and the direction of their main efforts. This was true, but his possession of
such information was a far cry from the co-operative action that might normally be
expected between allies. All the information Eisenhower had concerning the Red Army's
plans was the result of our initiative in seeking to obtain it, and then it was only obtained
after continuous pressure at the highest levels.
Not once during the war did Stalin or his subordinates seek a meeting with British
or American authorities in order to present proposals for improving our co-operative
effort. It was either the President or the Prime Minister [Churchill] who proposed
[conferences at] Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam. No single event of the war irritated me
more than seeing the President of the United States lifted from wheel chair to automobile,
to ship to shore and to aircraft, in order to go halfway around the world as the only
possible means of meeting J.V. Stalin.
There were innumerable little ways in which our joint war effort could have been
made more effective. We might have learned something of immeasurable value in
defeating the German submarines had we been allowed to see Gdynia [naval base] as soon
as it was taken; we might have brought Germany to her knees quicker had we been
allowed to establish radar triangulation stations in Russia as navigational aids to our
bomber formations in eastern Germany. We might have defeated Germany more quickly
had we shared our operational experience by having observers on each other's fronts. We
might have, we might have-on and on. No! In Soviet Russia each such venture would
have meant a closer association with capitalistic foreigners. Well, perhaps we were among
friends, but it was difficult to believe it.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey & David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II, (Lexington,
Mass: D.C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 795-796.
THE WORLD THE SECOND WORLD WAR CREATED
In a special report on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of World War II U.S. News
and World Report, describes the manner in which the Second World War shaped the
post-War world.
It was the work of a moment for a handful of German soldiers to snap the frail
barrier at the frontier with Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, but the convulsions of that moment
are still reverberating. Six years of global conflict was only the beginning. Only now, in
the fifth decade since, do we seem to be emerging from the postwar era and entering a new
one....
The post-war era saw the decline and collapse of the traditional colonial empires.
What followed was a competition between Communism and capitalism, and between
Soviets and Americans, to fill the vacuum the old European powers had left. The Third
World became the principal theater for U.S.-Soviet competition. The cost of competing for
influence in so many unstable, poverty-stricken and often insignificant nations frequently
went far beyond the point of diminishing returns, especially for the Soviets, who could illafford the cost.
The post war period ushered in a type of international conflict not seen since the
Crusades. The cold war was not just a battle for survival between two states; it was a
conflict of ideologies that recognized no borders and achieved the zealousness of religious
wars. It openly and deliberately tested the potential and performance of opposing
economic and political systems, both of which proclaimed their universality. In the past,
any conflict of such intensity would assuredly have ended in a world war. But because
nuclear weapons promised Armageddon, the cold war remained a conflict of wills rather
than of weapons--not the hot wars of tanks and artillery, but the cold wars of politics,
propaganda, subversion and espionage.
Today, as Soviet aggressiveness abroad appears to be declining, smaller states see a
diminishing logic in their own participation in the cold war. America's allies now see little
danger from the Soviet Union and are uninterested in the global vision of the United
States. On the Soviet side, the captive nations and regimes of Eastern Europe are groping
for ways to escape Soviet domination....A new era is opening with the prospect of a
counterrevolution as momentous at the end of the 20th century as the Russian Revolution
was at the beginning.
Source: "The World War Created," U.S. News and World Report, Sept. 4, 1989, pp. 6872.
HIROSHIMA: DAY ONE OF THE NUCLEAR AGE
The following accounts describe the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima August 6, 1945.
The first is a discussion of the "hypocenter" of the blast by Peter Wyden and the second is
a description of the city by Iwao Nakamura a 5th grader at a local school, during the
first hour after the explosion.
Wyden: The hypocenter was in the courtyard of the Shima Hospital. It was ground
zero, the hub of the nuclear death wheel, the point on the ground directly underneath the
explosion. The Shima hospital and all its patients were vaporized, but its owner, the
fatalistic Dr. Shima, kept pedaling unscathed on his bicycle. He was between house calls
in the suburbs. Eighty-eight percent of the people within a radius of 1,500 feet died
instantly or later on that day. Most others within the circle perished in the following
weeks or months. All who where in Hiroshima on August 6 would come to know precisely
how far fate had placed them from the hypocenter at 8:15. And everyone would learn at
least one new English word: hypocenter, the place from which all life and death was
measured....In less than half a second, heat rays with temperatures of more than 3000
degrees Celsius caused primary burn injuries within two miles of the hypocenter. About
130,000 of Hiroshima's 350,000 people would die.
Nakamura: We were…surrounded by a sea of fire. The streets were blocked with
the fire and smoke of the ruined houses....There was no one in sight, and only once in a
while we heard a moaning voice like that of a wild beast coming out of nowhere. I had the
feeling that all the human beings on the face of the earth had been killed off, and only the
five of use were left behind in an uncanny world of the dead....As we passed the Nakajima
School and came to Sumiyoshi Bridge, I saw several people plunging their heads into a
half-broken water tank and drinking the water. I was very thirsty too, and I was so happy
to see some people again that without thinking I left my parents' side and went toward
them. When I was close enough to see inside the tank I said, "Oh!" out loud and
instinctively drew back. What I had seen in the tank were the faces of monsters reflected
from the water dyed red with blood. They had clung to the side of the tank and plunged
their heads in to drink and there in that position they had died. From their burned and
tattered middy blouses I could tell that they were high school girls, but there was not a hair
left on their heads; the broken skin of their burned faces was stained bright with blood. I
could hardly believe that these were human faces....As we....crossed Sumiyoshi Bridge, for
the first time we met some living people of this world. No, rather than humans of this
world it might be more correct to say we met humans of that other world, of Hell. They
were all stark naked, their skin was rust-colored with burns and blood, their whole bodies
were swollen like balloons....Among them we saw old people begging for water; youngsters
crying for help; delirious students calling the names of their fathers and mothers....Yet we
who were not even sure of our own lives could do nothing for them.
Sources: Peter Wyden, Day One: Before Hiroshima and After, New York, 1984, pp. 253255; Arata Osada, Children of the A-Bomb: The Testament of the Boys and Girls
of Hiroshima, New York, 1959, pp. 165-166.
HANFORD AND THE BOMB
On Monday, August 6, 1945, the Seattle Times announced to the world that the first
atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima with the following headline: ATOMIC
BOMB, EQUIVALENT OF 20,000 TONS, TNT, HITS JAPAN. Under that banner
headline appeared another, "Hanford--War's Greatest Mystery--Cleared; 17,000
Workers Making Fantastic Explosive." The vignette below includes the first paragraphs
following the second headline.
The secrecy of the Hanford Engineer Works--one of the America's best-kept secrets
of the Second World War--was swept aside today as a new atomic bomb of catastrophic
destructive force was dropped on the Japanese homeland and President Truman
announced that the materials for it were produced in the 400,00-acre Hanford Project in
South Central Washington. President Truman's announcement cleared the way for
revelation of how at feverish speed the huge sprawling project of towering smokestacks
was built on what had been farm and sagebrush-covered lands extending into three
Washington counties, Benton, Yakima and Grant, and how a new model government city
was constructed at Richland, a few miles north of Pasco.
Necessarily on a project of such magnitude...thousands of workers and others knew
of the development but only a few high-ranking military officers and scientists knew the
exact nature...of the project--the adaptation of the basic force of the universe in a terrific
weapon of war.
To impress the necessity of the secrecy which surrounded the project, officials have
from time to time let drop quiet remarks which gave a hint of what they were working on,
saying: "It will shorten the war and bring victory to the Allies." And after Germany was
beaten the remark was: "It will finish off Japan."
But today, as American airmen rocked a portion of Japan with the tremendous
explosive, officials at the project headquarters, Richland, Benton County, made known
how workers who did not know what the were making, produced the ingredients for the
explosive by operating complicated machinery from behind thick concrete safety walls.
Situated about 30 miles north of Richland, the production area is divided into three
principal subareas to insure that individual workers learn as little as possible about the
overall project. Separate passes are required to move from one area to another. There is a
series of plants [sic], each behind high wire fences and each removed several miles from its
nearest neighbor.
One of the areas contains raw materials; the second, three huge chemical plants,
and the third area contains three large plants where the explosive material is produced.
The project employs 17,000 persons at present, officials said, and one of the big
problems was to design manufacturing processes which would permit the fantastically
powerful explosives to be made safely.
Postwar use of the huge Hanford project has been the source of much optimistic
speculation. It is looked upon generally as a potential industrial center, producing
fertilizer and synthetics such as nylon and plastics. But the government has been silent on
its future, indicating that it will be put in a reserve status, guarded, and kept available for
future emergencies...
Source: Seattle Times, August 6, 1945, pp. 1, 2.
SOVIET-AMERICAN RELATIONS: A DISSENTING VIEW
As the Cold War rapidly developed Henry A. Wallace, a former Secretary of Agriculture
and Vice-President of the United States, became a rare political voice who urged the
United States to refrain from confrontations with the Soviet Union and to reduce the
tension between these former allies who were now fast becoming implacable enemies. In
the speech below he explains why the United States should seek accommodation with the
Soviets.
We are reckoning with a force which cannot be handled successfully be a `Get
tough with Russia' policy.
`Getting tough' never bought anything real and
lasting--whether for schoolyard bullies or businessmen or world powers. The tougher we
get, the tougher the Russians will get... I believe that we can get cooperation once Russia
understands that our primary objective is neither saving the British Empire nor
purchasing oil in the Near East with the lives of American soldiers...
On our part, we should recognize that we have no more business in the political
affairs of Eastern Europe than Russia has in the political affairs of Latin America, Western
Europe and the United States. We may not like what Russia does in Eastern Europe. Her
type of land reform, industrial expropriation, and suppression of basic liberties offends the
great majority of the people of the United States. But whether we like it or not the
Russians will try to socialize their sphere of influence just as we try to democratize our
sphere of influence...
We cannot permit the door to be closed against our trade in Eastern Europe any
more than we can in China. But at the same time we have to recognize that the Balkans
are closer to Russia than to us--and that Russia cannot permit either England or the
United States to dominate the politics of that area... Under friendly peaceful competition
the Russian world and the American world will gradually become more alike. The
Russians will be forced to grant more and more of the personal freedoms; and we shall
become more and more absorbed with the problems of social-economic justice.
Source: Henry A. Wallace, Speech at Madison Square Garden, September 12, 1946.
THE RED SCARE: THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION LOYALTY OATH
In 1948 the Truman Administration prompted by rising concern over Communist
infiltration into the federal government and by Republican attacks on its foreign policy
as passive in the face of Soviet expansionism, generated a loyalty oath to test American
patriotism and to ferret out potentially "disloyal" citizens. The test, eventually used both
inside the federal government and by state governmental agencies and by private
organizations, asked the following questions among others:
"Have you ever read Karl Marx?"
"What do you think of Henry Wallace's third-party effort?"
"Have you ever had Negroes in your home?"
"There is a suspicion in the record that you are in sympathy with the
underprivileged. Is this true?"
"Did you ever write a letter to the Red Cross about segregation of
blood?"
"Have you ever read Thomas Paine? Upton Sinclair?"
"When you were in ________'s home, did ________'s wife dress conventionally
when she received her guests?"
Source: Howard H. Quint, Milton Cantor and Dean Albertson, Main Problems in
American History, (Chicago: The Dorsey Press, 1987) p. 278.
McCARTHYISM
Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy burst into national prominence in 1950 following a
speech he delivered to a Republican women's club in Wheeling, West Virginia, when he
declared the United States was losing the Cold War because the Truman administration
was filled with Communists. McCarthy claimed to have the names of 205 Communists
in the government but never produced the list. Nonetheless his sensational charges gave
a new name to hysteria and political scapegoating--"McCarthyism." Part of the
Senator's speech appears below.
Today we are engaged in a final all-out battle between communistic atheism and
Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and
ladies and gentleman, the chips are down--they are truly down... Five years after a world
war has been won, men's hearts should anticipate a long peace, and men's minds should
be free from the heavy weight that comes with war. But this is not such a period--for this
is not a period of peace. This is a time of the "cold war." This is a time when all the world
is split into two vast, increasingly hostile camps..
At war's end we were physically the strongest nation on earth... Our could have bee
the honor of being a beacon in the desert of destruction, a shining living proof that
civilization was not yet ready to destroy itself. Unfortunately, we have failed miserably
and tragically to arise to the opportunity.
The reason we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only
powerful potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the
traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this nation. It has not been
the less fortunate or members of minority groups who have been selling this Nation out,
but rather those that have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had
to offer--the finest homes, the finest college education, and the finest jobs in Government
we can give.
This is glaringly true in the State Department. There the bright young men who are
born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been the worst... In my
opinion the State Department, which is one of the most important government
departments, is thoroughly infested with Communists.
I have in my hand 205 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card
carrying members of or certainly loyal to the Communist party, but who nevertheless are
still helping to shape our foreign policy.
One thing to remember in discussing the Communists in our Government is that we
are dealing with spies who got 30 pieces of silver to steal the blueprints of a new weapon.
We are dealing with a far more sinister type of activity because it permits the enemy to
guide and shape our policy.
Source: Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 2nd sess., 12 February 1950, pp. 1954-7
A SENATOR SPEAKS UP (1950)
Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith was in 1950 one of the few public officials willing
to openly criticize Senator McCarthy. In a speech before the U.S. Senate she outlines her
objections to his tactics.
I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its Members to do some
real soul searching, and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are
performing our duty to the people of America, and the manner in which we are using or
abusing our individual powers and privileges.
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character
assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of
the basic principles of AmericanismThe right to criticize.
The right to hold unpopular beliefs.
The right to protest.
The right of independent thought.
The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his
reputation or his right to a livelihood, nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation
or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs.
Who of us does not? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise
thought control would have set in.
The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest
they be politically smeared as Communists or Fascists by their opponents. The American
people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people
whitewashed....
Today our country is being psychologically divided by the confusion and the
suspicions that are bred in the United States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of
"knowing nothing, suspect everything" attitudes....
As a United States Senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has been
made a publicly platform for irresponsible sensationalism. I am not proud of the reckless
abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this [Republican] side of the
aisle. I am not proud of the obviously staged, undignified countercharges which have been
attempted in retaliation from the other [Democratic] side of the aisle.
I do not like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for
selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity. I am not
proud of the way we smear outsiders from the floor of the Senate and hide behind the
cloak of congressional immunity, and still place ourselves beyond criticism on the floor of
the Senate.
As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a
Democratic Communist. I condemn a Democratic Fascist just as much as I condemn a
Republican Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As
a American, I want to see our Nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we
fought the enemy instead of ourselves.
Source: Congressional Record, 81st Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 7894-95 (June 1, 1950)
RED SCARE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
In 1948, two years before "McCarthyism" became a household word nationally, a special
state legislative committee led by Spokane Republican Albert F. Canwell, held week-long
hearings on campus to investigate whether there were "no less than 150 Communists or
Communist sympathizers on the faculty" as charged by state senator Thomas Bienz.
Numerous faculty and administrators were called to testify. However six faculty who
refused to cooperate with the committee, Joseph Butterworth (English), Ralph Gundlach
(Psychology), Herbert Phillips (Philosophy) Harold Eby (English), Garland O. Ethel
(English) and Melville Jacobs (Anthropology) were assumed to be members of the
Communist Party and consequently fired by the university in 1949. In the passage
below local historian Jane Sanders describes the political climate in the state that led to
the Canwell Hearings.
In the State of Washington, the 1946 elections featured a campaign by Republicans
against “Communist-controlled Democrats.” The focus of this effort was a clique of
Democratic legislators who had espoused “United Front” politics during the 1930s, and
were members of the Washington Commonwealth Federation. The WCF was an alliance of
unemployed and/or disaffected liberals, laborers, and farmers which supported candidates
favorable to an expansion of the New Deal locally and nationally... A special subject of
Republican attack was Hugh DeLacy, a one-time University of Washington English
instructor...and leader of the WCF, who had won election to Congress [from Seattle] in
1944. In his campaign for reelection, wide publicity was given to the fact that DeLacy had
been cited twice by the House Un-American Activities Committee for membership in
Communist “front” organizations. In his stead, Washingtonians elected a former state
commander of the American Legion; they also chose a Republican senator and a
Republican-controlled legislature.
After the elections, conservative Democratic leaders resolved to rid themselves of
the alleged Communists in their ranks. The 1947 legislature had not yet convened when a
coalition of Democrats and Republicans held a caucus to discuss the possibility of a
legislative investigation into Communist infiltration of the Democratic party and state
institutions. With regard to one of those institutions, the University of Washington, the
caucus report stated: “It is common knowledge in many quarters that the Communists
have infiltrated the University of Washington campus and that their supporters have
found important places on the faculty...the Communists are trying everything in the book
to reach American youth through the schools.”
In succeeding days, the Post-Intelligencer reported the demands of leading
Democrats for a purge of their party. Among these were University of Washington regents
State Senator Joseph Drumheller and Teamster Union leader Dave Beck. Drumheller, a
member of a pioneer Washington family and grandson of University of Washington
President Leonard J. Powell (1882-87), was the head of a Spokane chemical firm. Beck
had been active in Seattle labor politics since 1918; in the course of his battles with more
radical labor groups, such as Harry Bridges’ CIO-backed Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union, he brought his own type of peace to the city’s unions and gained the respect
of businessmen, politicians, and the Hearst-owned Post-Intelligencer. Beck had helped
elect Democratic Governor Mon C. Wallgren in 1944; Wallgren, in turn, appointed Beck to
the Board of Regents in l946.
Aside from conforming to the national pattern, and in some ways anticipating it,
[the Red Scare] in Washington State resembled a family feud. The political and economic
fortunes of the state were historically tied to the basic industries of forestry, shipping,
farming, and fishing. Within those industries there had always been pockets of right and
left radicals who asserted themselves in times of stress. Attempts by workers to organize
often involved violence... Populism at the turn of the century, the activities of the
Industrial Workers of the World, the Seattle General Strike of 1919, the Red Scare and
union battles of the 1920s and 1930s, and the disorders of the Depression left scars on the
memories of Washingtonians. Despite the fact that state government was generally in the
hands of conservatives, the state was considered progressive in labor and welfare
legislation. Some thought matters had gone too far. “There are forty-seven states and the
Soviet of Washington,” a remark widely attributed to Postmaster General James Farley,
both embarrassed and delighted the citizenry.
In the eyes of some Washingtonians, the University of Washington had contributed
to the state’s reputation for radicalism. Over the years its faculty members were involved
in controversial movements. J. Allen Smith’s crusade for public ownership of utilities
caused powerful men to call for his dismissal. [Just before] he died in 1924, Smith was still
urging his students to disdain the excesses of the government exemplified by Attorney
General Palmer’s campaign against "Bolsheviks," and by the enforcement of prohibition.
In the 1930s faculty members continued to outrage citizens. They sought solutions to the
problems of the Depression and the dangers of Fascism through organizations such as the
Communist party, Bellamy Clubs, the Technocrats, the Washington Commonwealth
Federation, and the American Federation of Teachers.
Of course, political activism among professors was not unique to the University of
Washington, nor was the reservoir of suspicion of professors peculiar to Washingtonians.
But as the university poised for an era of unprecedented growth and national recognition,
the threatening gestures of the 1947 legislature revived questions that had lain dormant
since the 1930s. Colleagues wondered again whether activist faculty members were
endangering the willingness of the public to support university programs.
Source: Jane Sanders, Cold War On Campus: Academic Freedom at the University of
Washington, 1946-64. (Seattle, 1979), pp. 15-16, 17-18.
LEVITTOWN: UP FROM THE POTATO FIELDS
Today the vast majority of Americans live in suburbs rather than central cities or rural
areas. The following vignette, excerpted from a 1950 Time Magazine article, describes
one of the first of these post-war communities, Levittown a New York City suburb on
Long Island which was created by homebuilders William Levitt who is often credited
with being the founder of modern suburbia.
On 1,200 flat acres of potato farmland near Hicksville, Long Island, an army of
trucks sped over new-laid roads. Every 100 feet, the trucks stopped and dumped identical
bundles of lumber, pipes, bricks, shingles, and copper tubing--nearly as neatly packaged as
loaves from a bakery. Near the bundles, giant machines with an endless chain of buckets
ate into the earth, taking just 13 minutes to dig a narrow, four-foot trench around a 25-32
ft. rectangle. Then came more trucks, loaded with cement, and laid a four-inch foundation
for a house in the rectangle.
After the machines came the men. On nearby slabs already dry, they worked in
crews of two and three, laying bricks, raising studs, nailing lath, painting, sheathing,
shingling. Each crew did its special job, then hurried on to the next site. Under the skilled
combination of men & machines, new houses rose faster than Jack ever built them; a new
one was finished every 15 minutes.
Three years ago, little potatoes had sprouted from these fields. Now there were
10,600 houses inhabited by more than 40,000 people, a community almost as big as 96year-old Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Plainfield, N.J., or Chelsea, Mass. Its name: Levittown.
Levittown is known largely for one reason: it epitomizes the revolution which has
brought mass production to the housing industry. Its creator, Long Island's Levitt & Sons,
Inc., has become the biggest builder of houses in the U.S...
The houses in Levittown, which sell for a uniform price of $7,990, [ed. These houses
now sell for $500,000 to $700,000] cannot be mistaken for castles. Each has a sharpangled roof and a picture window, radiant heating in the floor, 12 by 16 foot living room,
bath, kitchen, two bedrooms on the first floor, and an "expansion attic" which can be
converted into two more bedrooms and bath. The kitchen has a refrigerator, stove and
Bendix washer; the living room a fireplace and a built-in Admiral television set...
By insuring loans up to 95% of the value of a house, the Federal Housing
Administration made it easy for a builder to borrow the money with which to build lowcost homes. The Government made it just as easy for the buyer by liberally insuring his
mortgage... Government-guaranteed mortgages were so liberalized that in many cases
buying a house is now as easy as renting it. The new terms: 5% down (nothing down for
veterans) and 30 years to pay. Thus an ex-G.I. could buy a Levitt house with no down
payment and installments of $56 a month. The countless new housing projects made
possible by this financial easy street are changing the way of life of millions of U.S. citizens,
who are realizing for the first time the great American dream of owning their own home.
No longer must young married couples plan to start living in an apartment, saving for the
distant day when they can buy a house. Now they can do it more easily than they can buy a
$2,000 car on the installment plan...
Like its counterparts across the land, Levittown is an entirely new kind of
community... It has no movies, no nightclubs and only three bars (all in the community
shopping centers).
And Levittown has very few old people. Fe of its more than 40,000 residents are
past 35; of some 8,000 children, scarcely 900 are more than seven years old. In front of
almost every house along Levittown's 100 miles of winding streets sits a tricycle or a baby
carriage. In Levittown, all activity stops from 12 to 2 in the afternoon; that is nap time.
Laid one Levittowner last week, "Everyone is so young that sometimes it's hard to
remember how to get along with old people."
Though most of the incomes are about the same (average: about $3,800),
Levittowners come from all classes, all walks of life. Eighty percent of the men commute
to their jobs in Manhattan, many sharing their transportation costs through car pools.
Their jobs, as in any other big community, range from baking to banking, from teaching to
preaching. Levittown has also developed its own unique way of keeping up with the
Joneses. Some Levittowners buy a new house every year, as soon as the new model is on
the market...
Source: "Up from the Potato Fields," Time Magazine (3 July 1950):67-69, 72, reprinted
in David E. Shi and Holly A. Mayer, For the Record: A Documentary History of
the United States (New York, 1999), p. 288.
TEENAGE OPINIONS IN THE 1950s
The McCarthy period had a profound influence on the opinions and ideas of an entire
generation of Americans. A national survey of teenagers in 1958 revealed scant
tolerance for diversity or dissenting opinion.
"Only forty-five percent of the nation's young adults believe that newspapers
should be allowed to print anything they want except military secrets...
"Twenty-six percent believe that the police should be allowed to search a person or
his home without a warrant...
"Twenty-five percent agree that some groups should not be allowed to hold public
meetings.
"Seventeen percent say that it may be right for police to jail people without naming
the charges against them.
"Thirty-three percent say that people who refuse to testify against themselves be
made to talk or should be severely punished. An additional 20 per cent are uncertain
about the point...
"Fourteen percent think there is something evil about scientists...
"Thirty percent declare that one can't raise a normal family and become a scientist.
"Thirty-five percent believe that it's necessary to be a genius to become a good
scientist and forty-five per cent think their own school backgrounds are too poor to permit
them to choose science as a career.
"Thirty-seven per cent feel that the greatest threat to democracy in the United
States comes from foreign ideas and foreign groups."
Source: Richard Current, American History: A Survey, (New York: Knopf, 1961), p. 854.
JOHN F. KENNEDY AND THE COLD WAR
President John F. Kennedy in a 1963 speech given five months before his assassination,
describes his attitude and approach toward the Soviet Union. Here Kennedy suggests a
type of accommodation between the superpowers, a recognition of their economic and
political differences tempered by the realization that despite those differences the two
nations, and indeed the rest of the nations, must a small planet.
What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by
American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am
talking about genuine peace... Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world
law or world disarmament--and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union
adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I
also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude--as individuals and as a Nation--for
our attitude is as essential as theirs... World peace, like community peace, does not require
that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual
tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches
us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However
fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring
surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors....
It is sad to read these Soviet statements--to realize the extent of the gulf between us.
But it is also a warning--a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as
the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see
conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more
than an exchange of threats. No government or social system is so evil that its people
must be considered as lacking in virtue... We are both caught up in a vicious and
dangerous cycle in which suspicion on one side breeds suspicion on the other, and new
weapons beget counterweapons... If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can
help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common
link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our
children's future. And we are all mortal.
Source: John F. Kennedy, Speech at American University, Washington D.C., June 10,
1963.
INCIDENT IN THE GULF OF TONKIN
In August, 1964, following a purported attack on U.S. military forces off the coast of
Southeast Asia, President Lyndon Johnson sought and received overwhelming
Congressional authorization to send combat troops to defend South Vietnam. This
"escalation" initiated the longest war in the history of the United States. What follows
are both the President's message to Congress concerning the incident and its response,
the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
President Johnson's Message to Congress August 5, 1964
Last night I announced to the American people that the North Vietnamese regime
had conducted...deliberate attacks against U.S. naval vessels operating in international
waters, and I had therefore directed air action against gunboats and supporting facilities
used in these hostile operations. This air action has now been carried out with substantial
damage to the boats and facilities. Two U.S. aircraft were lost in the action.
After consultation with the leaders of both parties in the Congress, I further
announced a decision to ask the Congress for a resolution expressing the unity and
determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in
southeast Asia.
These latest actions of the North Vietnamese regime has given a new and grave turn
to the already serious situation in southeast Asia. Our commitments in that area are well
known to the Congress. They were first made in 1954 by President Eisenhower. They were
further defined in the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty approved by the Senate in
February 1955.
This treaty with its accompanying protocol obligates the United States and other
members to... meet Communist aggression against any of the parties or protocol states.
Our policy in southeast Asia has been consistent and unchanged since 1954. I
summarized it on June 2 in four simple propositions:
America keeps her word. Here as elsewhere, we must and shall honor our
commitments.
The issue is the future of southeast Asia as a whole. A threat to any nation in that
region is a threat to all, and a threat to us.
Our purpose is peace. We have no military, political, or territorial ambitions in the
area.
This is not just a jungle war, but a struggle for freedom on every front of human
activity.
Our military and economic assistance to South Vietnam and Laos in particular has
the purpose of helping these countries to repel aggression and strengthen their
independence... In recent months, the actions of the North Vietnamese regime have
become steadily more threatening... As President of the United States I have concluded
that I should now ask the Congress, on its part, to join in affirming the national
determination that all such attacks will be met, and that the United States will continue in
its basic policy of assisting the free nations of the area to defend their freedom.
As I have repeatedly made clear, the United States intends no rashness, and seeks
no wider war. We must make it clear to all that the United States is united in its
determination to bring about the end of Communist subversion and aggression in the
area. We seek the full and effective restoration of the international agreements signed in
Geneva in 1954, with respect to South Vietnam and Laos...
----------------------------------------------2. Joint Resolution of Congress H.J. RES 1145 August 7, 1964
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled,
That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as
Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the
forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.
Section 2. The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the
maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. Consonant with the
Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nations and in accordance
with its obligations under the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States
is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including
the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia
Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.
Section 3. This resolution shall expire when the President shall determine that the peace
and security of the area is reasonably assured by international conditions created by action
of the United Nations or otherwise, except that it may be terminated earlier by concurrent
resolution of the Congress.
Source: Department of State Bulletin, August 24, 1964 © 1996 The Avalon Project.
The Avalon Project : The Tonkin Gulf Incident; 1964 was last modified on:
12/13/2002 14:40:05. www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/tonkin-g.htm.
VIETNAM--A SOLDIER'S VIEW
The number of American servicemen and women stationed in South Vietnam peaked
at 538,000 by the end of 1968. Virtually all of them were aware of the growing
unpopularity of the war in the United States and were both angered and bewildered at
the lack of support. One Oregon serviceman wrote a letter home in 1966 expressing his
dismay at the anti-war protest. Part of the letter is reprinted below.
How are the people taking to the war in Portland? I've read too much ...about the
way some of those cowardly students are acting on campuses. They sure don't show me
much as far as being American citizens. They have the idea that they are our future
leaders. Well, I won't follow nobody if he isn't going to help fight for my freedom.
A few weeks ago, I had the chance to talk with some Marines who had come to
Okinawa for four (lousy) days of leave. They were more than happy because they had
been fighting for six months with no let-up. We sat in a restaurant all the time, and I
wish I could have taped it on my recorder. What they had to say would have had an
impact on the people back home. One showed me where he had been shot. I asked if it
hurt, and he didn't feel it. Not until after he got the that shot him. He was more angry
than hurt. They told me of some of their patrols and how they would be talking to a
buddy one minute and watch him die the next. Or wake up in the morning and see a
friend hung from a tree by hooks in his armpits with parts of his body cut and shoved
into his mouth. From what they said, the Vietcong aren't the only ruthless ones. We
have to be, too. Have to. You'd be surprised to know that a guy you went to school with
is right now shooting a nine year-old girl and her mother. He did it because if they got
the chance they would kill him. Or throwing a Vietcong out of a helicopter because he
wouldn't talk.
One guy (who had broke down and cried) said that his one desire is to get enough
leave to go home and kick three of those demonstrators in a well-suited place and bring
him back. I tell you, it's horrible to read a paper and see your own people aren't backing
you up.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey and David Kennedy, ed., The American Spirit, Vol. II,
(Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 890-891.
VIETNAM-A PROTESTER'S VIEW
In 1966, David Harris, a former Boy-of-the-Year from Fresno, California, and student
body president at Stanford University, chose to protest the war in Vietnam by resisting
the draft. Harris was arrested and spent two years in a federal penitentiary for his
actions. In his 1982 autobiography, Dreams Die Hard, he explains his decision.
The more we learned about the war, the worse it seemed. Late in July, I attended
a lecture by a Canadian journalist who had just returned from North Vietnam. Dennis
[Sweeney] and the Channing Street Group were at the lecture as well.
With what amounted to only a fledgling air defense system, explained the
journalist, North Vietnam had no hope of turning the American Air Force back.
Theoretically, strategic air power destroys the enemy's industrial, logistic, and
transportation systems, but North Vietnam possessed little centralized industry and
only a rudimentary transportation system. Consequently, the target increasingly
became the population itself. The American strategy's starting point was a calculation
by Defense Department planners that it took only two Vietnamese to deal with one of
their dead countrymen, but one wounded required five. Mass woundings, it was
assumed, would tie the enemy's hands, and the American arsenal had developed
wounding devices in great variety... The CBU was a small explosive package stuffed with
hundreds of one-inch steel darts, each shaped with fins, designed to "peel off" the outer
flesh, make "enlarged wounds," and "shred body organs" before "lodging in the blood
vessels." The BLU 52 was 270 pounds of "riot control" chemical that induced vomiting,
nausea, and muscle spasms, occasionally fatal to old people and children. The M-36 was
an 800-pound casing containing 182 separate "incendiary bomblets," the most
horrendous of which were manufactured from phosphorus, commonly lodging in the
flesh and continuing to burn for as long as fifteen days, causing its victims' wounds to
glow with an eerie green light.
Without looking at Dennis, I spoke up.
"You know," I said, "those bastards have got to be stopped."
Three weeks later I sat at my typewriter and wrote local Draft Board 71 in Fresno,
California, a letter "To whom it may concern." I enclosed a Selective Service
classification card indicating that the bearer, David Victor Harris, possessed a student
deferment. The letter informed my draft board that I could no longer in good
conscience carry the enclosed document or accept the deferment it signified. It was a
privilege I found unwarranted for any student. It also signified tacit assent on my part
for both the task the Selective Service System was performing and the power it had
assumed over my life. Being even implicitly a party to the destruction of Indochina was
not part of my plans. If they ordered me for induction, I warned them, I would refuse to
comply.
I was prepared to abandon what seemed a promising future and pit myself against
the war one on one, believing I would redeem my country and realize myself in the
process. It seemed that to do anything else would have dishonored both.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit (Lexington,
Mass: D.C. Heath and Company, 1984), pp. 894-896.
TOTALITARIANISM: IDEALISM, DISILLUSIONMENT, COMPROMISE
By the 1970s some Soviet youth, like their Western counterparts, were increasingly
rebellious against the political system. In this account written in 1979, a visiting
American university student describes "Volodya," who although disenchanted with the
Soviet political system eventually succumbed to it.
As a teenager, Volodya was an idealistic Komsomol member who worked in a
construction brigade. "I helped to build the Moscow State [University] tower where you
live....To me, it was like building a shrine─every stone laid with sweat and strong
beliefs." After that, he attended a forestry institute, and was finally assigned to patrol a
game preserve several hundred miles north of Moscow. This solitary job was a turning
point in Volodya's life. "Until then I was a child─loyal to the State, unquestioning. But
up there, I spent my days walking or skiing alone through the woods. I slept alone in a
hut. My job was just silliness─it didn't exist....I wasn't building Communism as I had
been taught to believe. What I was doing wasn't any use, and nobody cared whether I
lived or died in that forest. So I began to read, which turned me into a rebel."
For Volodya, rebellion meant abandoning his job, moving illegally back to
Moscow, and buying a motorcycle... Volodya, with his cycle and his leather jacket and
his anti-establishment stance, seems to have been a bit like a Soviet James Dean. He
went to dances and created a scandal by dancing the boogie-voogie...he lived like an
outlaw in friends' apartments, spending entire days immersed in Russian literature.
This changed him, he says, from a simple discontented worker to an intelligent, or
proletarian intellectual, a thinker schooled in Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and the bitter
political satire of Saltykov-Shchedrin. His anger became more specific, directed at the
government, which he saw as corrupt, as having failed to set a moral and spiritual
example for its citizens. Eventually he went back to work, this time in a forest outside of
Moscow, but his awakening had been permanent. A few years later he formed a circle of
young men like himself, who pledged themselves to revolution. "We planned to take on
the State with arms... I was slowly providing us with rifles stolen from my forestry job."
The group met for a year, until they were all suddenly arrested. "One of us, damn
him, was a planted informer... They locked us up in Lubyanka [a Moscow prison and the
KGB headquarters] for a week, beat us up and interrogated us. They wanted me to
denounce my comrades and recant my own beliefs." One day he was brought before a
high KGB official, who unexpectedly granted him his freedom. "They struck a bargain
with me. I was to give up my former friends and my politics and they would let me
alone. `Lead a simple life,' they told me, `and if you ever touch politics again, we'll
throw you so far into the camps you'll never see the light of day.' And I agreed. They
had beaten me on the head in prison, and that did something to me. I didn't even care
any more. They let me out, and just as I had promised, I got rid of my old friends and
my big ideas. I met Anna [his wife] and settled down. When you get older, you want
different things; you realize you have to survive. I hardly even read any more. Books are
dangerous─they disturb you."
Source: Andrea Lee, Russian Journal, (New York, 1981), pp. 60-61.
LETTER FROM YUGOSLAVIA
The Cold War had prompted such fear and suspicion between the peoples on either side
of the Iron Curtain that we often forgot that all of us shared common aspirations,
hopes, and concerns for a better world. In 1986 the letter reprinted below was sent to
one of my Cal Poly students from her friend in Yugoslavia. She granted me permission
to share it with you. Ironically, her country, Yugoslavia, no longer exists.
Dear ________:
Thank you for your letter. Have you visited your sister yet? Have you seen New
York, how do you find it?
I understand that you don't have much free time. I'm in the same situation.
Before two months I started instructing math a 13 year girl. I was very lucky to get that
job because there were many students who wanted to do it but not so many people who
had troubles in a school and were willing to pay instruction.
I passed two exams in the beginning of March. After that I went to France to ski
for one week. The trip was organized by Skiing Club. Conditions for downhill skiing
were very good, the weather was sunny almost all the time. The week was over too soon!
Now I'm back in [her hometown] and all work and worries are coming to me again.
Last week our Labrador Retriever has brought back 8 young dogs. We hoped that
the last one of them will be gold-yellow as their mother, but they are all completely
black! Now they are one week old and still cannot hear and see anything. They are only
sleeping and drinking milk.
I don't think that communism helped Yugoslavia to become a stronger nation.
But the fact is, that communists organized one of the strongest guerilla against German
nazism in Europe. When the 2nd World War started Yugoslavia was a poor monarchy
with a small group of rich and crowds of poor people. When Hitler attacked Yugoslavia,
the king with family and government escaped to England and left their nation alone,
without army, without help in occupied Yugoslavia. Then illegal communist party
organized a strong guerilla movement against Germans. A lot of civilists helped guerilla
called partisans. That was the reason why they were so successful. Partisans became
very popular among Yugoslav people and after the 2nd World War the partisans
(communists) won elections and Tito became president. The Soviet Union had a big
influence on Yugoslav communists. They made a state very similar to Soviet Union. But
Tito soon recognized that Stalin wanted to create our political, economical and social
circumstances. Tito refused Stalin in 1948 and started independent, nonaligned polity.
Many things have changed after 1948. The country became more democratic, the
government is less totalitarian, workers have more chances to take part in managing
factories. If Yugoslav communists were not successful in 2nd WW, if they didn't make
Yugoslavia free of Germans, the Soviet Union would do it and after war the least eastern
parts of Yugoslavia would be in a pact with Soviet Union. Now Yugoslavia is
independent and nonaligned country and we must admit that communists have made it.
Well, I think that Yugoslav foreign polity is good, but our economy! We have
about 80% inflation (it will increase this year), Yugoslavia has many debts in west
countries, many unemployed young people etc., etc. One of the reasons is that
communist government does not have an opposition. Opposite organizations are
forbidden and this is very bad, because government can make mistakes and here is no
organization or party to change them on their position, we can only be critical, but it
does not help much. Things are changing, it's true, but very slow.
I don't think that communism had much influence in our family life. I lived one
month with a British family in Great Britain and I was for a month in Soviet Union
before 2 years. So when I compare our life with life of families in the two countries I'd
say, that our life is more similar to British one.
Let it be enough about polity, I really didn't mean to bore you too much. But let
me ask you one question: What do you (and other Americans) think about war between
USA and Libya? I think this war is too dangerous to continue. USA and UN have to find
a better solution, a better way to suppress international terrorism. Violence always
causes new terrorism.
Bye for now my friend, take care of yourself and please, keep in touch.
Your Friend,
Katrina
BILLY JOEL'S "LENINGRAD"
The Cold War has hovered over the lives of three generations of the world's people
since 1945. In the lyrics of his 1987 song "Leningrad," Billy Joel captures the essence of
the Cold War dilemma. Part of the song is reprinted below.
Victor was born the Spring of '44
and never saw his father anymore.
A child of sacrifice, a child of war.
A child who never had a father
after Leningrad.
Went off to school, to learn to serve
the state.
Followed the rules and drank his
vodka straight.
A Russian life was very sad,
and such was life in Leningrad.
I was born in '49
A Cold War kid in the coffee time.
Stop them at the 38th parallel,
blast those yellow Reds to hell.
The Cold War kids were hard to kill,
under their desks in an air raid drill.
Haven't they heard we won the war
What do they keep on fighting for?
Children lived in Lenintown,
hid in the shelters underground,
'till the Soviets turned their ships around,
and tore all the Cuban missiles down.
And in that bright October sun,
we knew our childhood days were done.
And now I watched my friends go off to war.
What do we keep on fighting for?
Source: Billy Joel, "Leningrad" Copyright (1987) by Columbia Records, New York,
N.Y. Reprinted with permission.
TERROR AND THE COLD WAR
In July 1979, Washington Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson addressed a Conference on
International Terrorism in Jerusalem, Israel. Although his speech cast the Soviet
Union as the major sponsor of terrorism at the time, his words resonate even in this
post-Cold War era when superpower rivalry is history but international terrorism is
not.
I believe that international terrorism is a modern form of warfare against liberal
democracies. I believe that the ultimate but seldom stated goal of these terrorists is to
destroy the very fabric of democracy. I believe that it is both wrong and foolhardy for
any democratic state to consider international terrorism to be "someone else's" problem.
If you believe as I do, then you must join me in wondering why the community of
liberal democracies had not bended together more effectively to opposed those
international murderers and to loudly and vigorously expose those states which
cynically provide terrorists with comfort and support...
I am not talking about individual acts of madmen. I'm talking about highly
organized groups with international connections and support who systematically rely on
major acts of violence as a political instrument...
International terrorism is a special problem for democracies... A democratic
government...rests on the consent of the governed. It is responsible for assuring the
democratic freedoms of speech, assembly, travel, press and privacy. These conditions,
obviously facilitate terrorist operations directed against a particular government...
Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. What is new is the international nature of
terrorism. Today's terrorists have modern technology to help them, permitting rapid
international communications, travel, and the transfer of monies; they can work with
others of like mind across the international borders of the world's free nations. Modern
terrorism is a form of "warfare by remote control," waged against free nations or against
nondemocratic but moderate states which...sympathize with freedom...
What can be done?
First, and foremost, liberal democracies must acknowledge that international
terrorism is a "collective problem." Everything else follow from this. When one free
nation is under attack, the rest must understand that democracy itself is under attack,
and behave accordingly. We must be allied in our defense against terrorists...
Secondly...the idea that one person's "terrorist" is another's "freedom fighter"
cannot be sanctioned. Freedom fighters or revolutionaries don't blow up buses
containing noncombatants; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters don't set out to
capture and slaughter schoolchildren; terrorist murderers do. Freedom fighters don't
assassinate innocent businessmen or hijack and hold hostage innocent men, women and
children; terrorists do. It is a disgrace that democracies would allow the treasured word
"freedom" to be associated with the acts of the terrorists.
We can do more. For instance, is it moral to trade openly and freely with states
who use the profits from such trade to finance the murder of innocents? Why should
those who conduct remote control warfare against us rest easy that we will contribute to
financing our own destruction?
[Finally] within each of our own countries, we must organize to combat terrorism
in ways consistent with our democratic principles and with the strong support of our
citizens... In my country, we are making some progress in organizing federal, state, and
local agencies to deal more realistically with terrorists threats...
Source: William Safire: Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (New York,
1992) pp. 582-585.
THE SUPERPOWERS COMPARED, 1989
The Soviet Union
The United States
Political Leader:
Mikhail Gorbachev
General Secretary,
Communist Party
George H. W. Bush
President
Population
Land Area in sq. mi.
Density per sq. mi.
Gross National Product
Per Capita Income
277,930,000
8.6 million
31.2
$1.8 trillion
$ 4,550
238,848,000
3.5 million
65.9
$3.6 trillion
$ 12,700
Railroad Mileage
Road Mileage
Passenger Cars
141,800
1.3 million
17 million
286,000
6.2 million
170 million
Doctors
Infant Mortality per
1,000 live births
Life Expectancy at birth
Males
Females
Births per 1,000 inhabitants
Deaths per 1,000 inhabitants
896,000
361,000
26
11
62
73
20
11
72
76
16
9
Largest Cities:
million
Moscow 8.8 million
New York 7.1
Leningrad 4.7 million
Los Angeles 3.1
million
Kiev 2.4 million
Chicago 2.9 million
Work Force:
Industrial Workers
Agricultural Workers
Average Monthly Industrial Wage
45%
20%
$ 320
32%
3%
$ 1,486
Entertainment:
Annual Movie Attendance
Annual Movies seen per capita
Movie Theaters
1980 Film Production
TV Sets
Radio Sets
Daily Newspapers
1980 Books Published
1980 Periodicals
4.1 billion
15.7
144,000
184
85 million
164 million
639
80,000 titles
4,700
1.0 billion
4.7
13,331
248
134 million
484 million
1,800
85,000 titles
59,000
Museums
Public Libraries
Literacy Rate
Nobel laureates
1,465
1.6 million
99.8%
14
4,609
387,000
99.5%
175
Men & Women in the Military
Nuclear Missiles: Land Based
Sea Based
Bombers
3.6 million
1,398
982
1,170
3.2 million
1,026
592
5,070
CHINA, 1989: TIANANMEN SQUARE IN PERSPECTIVE
Chalmers Johnson, Professor of Pacific International Relations at the University of
California, San Diego, provides his assessment of events leading to the student
uprising in China in 1989 and the possible future consequences.
The year 1989 not only marks the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution; in
future centuries it may be celebrated as a new watershed in revolutionary behavior. A
general crisis of communism engulfed the Marxist-Leninist states. The problem of
attempting to reform failed economic systems overtaxed the gerontocratic remnants of
politburos in most communist systems and left them with the options of either
repression or a sharing of power.
...During 1989, de facto insurrections occurred in every communist capital except
those ruled by family dynasties...
Communism, of course, aims not at economic efficiency but at social justice. But
in the modern world, particularly after the advent of the information-based,
electronics-driven industrial structure, state-owned and -controlled enterprises cannot
operate efficiently enough to finance a modern welfare system. For communism to try
distributing benefits equitably, there must be some benefits. By the late 1970s it had
become apparent to virtually all Chinese that Mao's 27 years in power had produced
nothing more than that: 27 years of personal dictatorship. The system had run out of
benefits.
Dictatorship was the second problem. The communist revolutions of the 20th
Century differed from the English revolution of the 17th Century or the French
Revolution of the 18th Century in that they did not culminate in "Thermidor." By
Thermidor, students of revolution mean that stage in the process of revolution when the
masses assert themselves and send the revolutionary vanguards back to their customary
occupations as clerks, lawyers and functionaries. Thermidor means that the peoples
whose victimization justified the revolution finally decide to take their winnings and call
it quits─consolidating the new order and preserving gains.
Where Thermidor did not occur─largely because the masses are too
unsophisticated to understand what their vanguards are up to─we see a typical pattern.
The vanguards first attempt to force their ideology on the masses─the Reign of Terror in
the French Revolution, Stalin's purges, China's Great Leap Forward. Then the vanguard
dictatorship becomes solidified and makes its rule routine. This latter phase, the sleepy
but policed indolence of the Leonid I. Brezhnev years, is typified by massive cynicism
and corruption─the world of dachas in Russia, the East German communist elites
guarded paradise at Wandlitz, the beach resorts and party stores of China's party
plutocracy.
Deng tried to restart China's economy without disturbing the dictatorship's
entrenched vanguards. Although the terms had not yet been invented, Deng sought
perestroika without glasnost. This was not a particularly unusual project. There are
innumerable historical examples of similarly placed monopolists without political
reform, including those of the late Manchu China, czarist Russia and Meiji Japan. It
does not work.
Reform of a Soviet-type economy, much like the attempt to achieve an outward
orientation among less developed countries, is not a unilinear process. There are
different ways to do it, each with different trade-offs. Economic reform certainly must
be accompanied by political reform, but that is an inadequate way to put it. What is
needed is a set, or critical mass, of reforms together with a clear understanding of what
markets do and cannot do for economic systems....Nothing is easy about this process,
but as the economic dynamism of the non-communist Pacific reveals, there are many
possible forms of political economy other than Marxism-Leninism or Adam Smith's
bedrock capitalism.
Deng attempted economic reform without political change. But neither he nor his
hand-picked managers of reform, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, ever touched the
privileges of the old communist vanguards...Instead of studying such nearby functioning
states as South Korea and Taiwan, China seemed to have taken Ferdinand E. Marcos'
Philippines as its model....According to the Chinese government's own statistics, 70% of
all reported economic crimes during 1987-88 were committed by officials, including
members of the People's Liberation Army. Corruption extended all the way to the top
political leadership, known as the 14 Big Families. These are the families of Deng,
President Yang Shangkun, Premier Li Peng, the deposed party leader Zhao, plus heirs
and descendants of the old vanguards. Many of the students who gathered in
Tiananmen Square came from families of lesser officials or professionals on fixed
incomes. Inflation affected them personally and focused their attention on families not
troubled by inflation because those families were on the take. Calls for democracy were
not so much for institutions of the West as they were for Thermidor─to get the
entrenched old vanguards off the backs of the people and to hold public officials
accountable.
The 14 Big Families reacted precisely as Marx, Engels, and Lenin had predicted
such a ruling class would act under similar circumstances: in their own interest.
Instead of compromising with the students...Deng and company used the army...
In the worldwide 1989 crisis of communism, China behaved worse than any other
communist nation and with less excuse...The reply of the students of Tiananmen was
apt: "Only power grows from the barrel of a gun; our cause is democracy." The next
time the students' cause will not be democracy but anti-communism.
Source: Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1989.
THE END OF THE COLD WAR
The passage below by historian Pauline Meier describes the collapse of the Soviet
Union and of four decades of superpower rivalry and potential nuclear war.
When he entered the White House in 1989, George Bush was suspicious of the
genuineness of Mikhail Gorbachev's commitment to perestroika and glasnost. But
Bush's caution was overwhelmed by volcanic demands for freedom that redrew the
political map of Central Europe with stunning speed. During the first year of his
presidency, Hungary cast off most of its Communist leadership, and so did Poland,
where, with the help of the administration, free elections were arranged, and Solidarity,
the union movement that had initiated the drive for liberalization, won control of the
National Assembly. In May, Estonia and Lithuania declared themselves independent of
the Soviet Union, and in August Latvia broke free. Upheaval followed in East Germany,
where in early November, with Gorbachev having declared a hands-off policy, thousands
forced the regime to open the gates to the West and started tearing down the hated wall
dividing Berlin. That winter, the Communist governments in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and
Romania were overthrown, and a pro-democracy playwright became president of
Czechoslovakia.
...In East and West Germany, sentiment for reunification was mounting rapidly.
Gorbachev, anxious about Russian security in the face of a united Germany and under
pressure from hard-liners at home, resisted the union. But Bush opted for it, fearing
otherwise an unpredictable instability in East Germany. In May 1990, during a summit
in Washington, he granted Gorbachev a trade package to help shore him up against the
hard-liners, and Gorbachev, in exchange, agreed to German reunification by 1994. In
July 1991, at a summit in Moscow, Bush and Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty (START 1), an agreement to cut strategic nuclear weaponry ultimately
by 30-40 percent.
The following month, however, Russian hard-liners attempted a coup against
Gorbachev and his reforms. In defiance, hundreds of thousands of people protectively
cordoned off the parliament, and Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian republic,
rallied the crowd, courageously mounting a tank to denounce the plotters. Although the
coup failed and Gorbachev retained power, he was increasingly overshadowed by Yeltsin
and, in the end, overwhelmed by the liberalizing forces he had unleashed. In December
1991, the Soviet Union came to an end, replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent
States comprising the eleven former Soviet republics. Gorbachev resigned, and Yeltsin
reigned over Russia. In January 1993, Bush and Yeltsin signed START II, which called
for a two-thirds reduction in long-range nuclear weapons within ten years and complete
elimination of land-based missiles. The Cold War was now indisputably over.
Source: Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States, vol. 2 (New
York, 2003), p. 1044-1045.
CHAPTER NINE: THE RISE AND FALL OF LIBERALISM
Readings for Chapter 9
Terms for Week 9
THE BABY BOOM GENERATION: ONE SEATTLEITE'S RECOLLECTION
RONALD REAGAN TO RICHARD NIXON, 1960
LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL
LETTERS FROM MISSISSIPPI
MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI
BERKELEY: THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT
PRESIDENT JOHNSON PROPOSES THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
MARTIN LUTHER KING AND THE FBI
THE END OF NON-VIOLENCE: THE WATTS RIOT
STOKLEY CARMICHAEL ON BLACK LIBERATION
THE UW BLACK STUDENT UNION
A "FISH-IN" ON THE NISQUALLY
"TIO TACO IS DEAD"
THE BROWN BERETS AND CHICANO LIBERATION
THE WHITE BACKLASH, 1967
PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY: THE PORT HURON STATEMENT
YOUNG AMERICANS FOR FREEDOM
SEATTLE'S FIRST ANTI-WAR PROTEST
BETTY FREIDAN ON "THE PROBLEM THAT HAS NO NAME"
NOW'S CALL FOR ACTION
THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT AND ROE V. WADE
THE IMMIGRATION ACT OF 1965
IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1940-1979
NATIONAL BACKGROUNDS OF IMMIGRANTS, 1820-1979
ASIAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ACTIVISM SINCE 1965
DREAMS OF PROSPERITY: NEWPORT AND LATINO IMMIGRATION
CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD GOVERNMENT
WATERGATE
GAY RIGHTS: FROM STONEWALL TO SAN FRANCISCO
OPEC, THE WEST, AND THE POLITICS OF OIL
HOSTAGE CRISIS IN IRAN
THE CHALLENGE TO FEMINISM: PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY AND JERRY
FALWELL
"GREED IS GOOD": THE 1980s
THE COMPUTER AGE ARRIVES
THE INTERNET
THE E-MAIL "REVOLUTION" BEGINS
AMERICAN AND JAPANESE AUTOS IN THE 1990s
MAJOR U.S. EMPLOYERS, 1994-2004
TERRORISM IN THE 1990s
SEX, LIES, AND IMPEACHMENT
AMERICAN URBANIZATION, 1980-2000
TWENTY TOP METROPOLITAN AREAS, 2000
9/11
Terms for Week 9
Wing Luke
Barry Goldwater
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Martin Luther King
1964 Civil Rights Act
George Wallace
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
Free Speech Movement
Immigration Act of 1965
The Counterculture
The Great Society
Betty Freidan, The Feminine Mystique
National Organization for Women (NOW)
Phyllis Schlafly
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
Roe v. Wade, 1972
Stonewall Riot
Watergate
Iranian Hostage Crisis
Saturday Night Massacre
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
Jerry Falwell/Moral Majority
"Reaganomics"
The AIDS Crisis
Desert Storm
Newt Gingrich/Contract With America
Monica Lewinsky
The World Trade Organization (WTO)
THE BABY BOOM GENERATION: ONE SEATTLEITE'S RECOLLECTION
In the following vignette local historian and political activist Walt Crowley describes
the baby boom generation.
I first saw Seattle from the windows of the Great Northern's Empire Builder early one
November morning in 1961. Three days out from Chicago, the train delivered my
mother and me to King Street Station, where my father waited to take us to our new
home. My eyes filled with tears, but not of joy.
A long, twisting route had brought me to that moment. I was born fourteen years
earlier in a middle class suburb of Detroit. No one knew it then, least of all me, but I
was one drop in a swelling wave of more than 3.8 million births in 1947. That year was
the leading edge of the "baby boom." This was not some postwar spurt of pent up
passion but the first of a series of demographic tsunamis which would not crest until
1957 or abate until 1964, when annual births finally dropped below 4 million. In all, 75
million Americans were born between 1946 and 1964. Nearly 50 million of us hit our
teens and early twenties between 1960 and 1972 and were old enough to participate as
leaders or followers in shaping the Sixties.
Huge as the baby boom was in absolute numbers, it loomed even larger in relative
terms. The boom followed upon the fertility bust of the Depression and war years and
thus overwhelmed the generation of its parents, teachers, professors, and other social
guardians... [Nobody] was prepared for my generation, and society never got ahead of
the wave.
But the magnitude of the baby boom cannot alone explain the unprecedented
character of its impact on politics, popular culture, art and social values. This golden
cohort was not merely the largest in history, it was also the richest, healthiest, and best
educated, and it was born and reared in the world's most powerful nation flush with
confidence, idealism, and not a little arrogance. The adolescence of the baby boom also
coincided with a profound transformation of economic organization from capital
industry to mass consumerism, dramatic technological innovation, and also great
dread. We were shaped by both unprecedented affluence and anxiety, the first children
raised with televised mass marketing and the prospect of nuclear mass destruction.
The boom did not erupt from the large families typically raised by farmers and the
urban poor to provide a domestic work force and hedge against infant mortality. Most
children of the boom were raised with one or two siblings in "nuclear" families. I,
however, was raised an only child; my experience and understanding of the Sixties are
condition by this basic natal fact, and diverge early from the lives of others raised in
large families. Beyond this, my upbringing was not exactly average, which deserves a
little explanation. My father was a scientist, inventor, and militant atheist. My mother
was a feisty British war bride raised in the working class row houses of Hartlepool,
Sheffield, and Hull. Both were independent, energetic, and confident citizens eager to
build a new world up from the ruins of World War II. Neither of my parents was active
politically, but our house resounded with discussions of current events and solutions to
the world's problems. The coffee table was piled high with magazines--news, science
and science fiction--which provided my first reading.
My parents instilled in me a fierce individualism, a passion for justice, a faith in
rationalism, and a historical optimism which refuses to surrender to objective reality... I
grew up a "liberal" without ever having to ask why, for a thinking, caring person could
be nothing else.
Conservatives like to argue that we were shaped by a "liberal media." They have a
point, but the wrong one. There is no doubt that television shaped the political
consciousness of my generation. The content of news broadcasts--footage from far off
wars in Korea and the Middle East, the Army-McCarthy hearings, scenes of federal
troops guarding Negro children during the integration of Little Rock's Central High
School, and interviews with Allen Ginsberg and other beatniks--each in its own way
undermined faith in the established order and created an appetite for something new
and better. If breakfast cereals could improve themselves every other week, why
couldn't the world?
* * *
If the clay of my personality was still damp at age fourteen, the same could be said of
Seattle when I arrived virtually on the city's 110th birthday. I like to think that we grew
up together; certainly we both changed during the next ten years. I was singularly
underwhelmed by the city. Having lived much of my life close to three of the nation's
largest cities, I found Seattle puny, provincial, and puritanical. I would learn only much
later about the richness of its past and the titanic struggles for wealth, labor and reform
which shaped the city's destiny. Stories of old strikes and scandals had no place in the
classroom, least of all at Jane Addams Junior High School. Neither, from what I could
tell, did education.
I had left Ridgefield [Connecticut] High School, consistently rated one of the nation's
best, to enter what was regarded as one of the worst in an undistinguished system. It
wasn't really a school at all but an asylum for victims of juvenile dementia and hormonal
hysteria. On my first day, I walked into the lunch room to discover a full-scale food fight
in progress... Shocked, I marched directly into the administration office to alert officials
to this obvious collapse in social discipline. The vice principal listened to my appeal for
action and then replied, "You're going to be a little troublemaker, aren't you?"
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had just visited Seattle, and troublemakers were
much in the news at that time... In October 1961, the new Seattle branch of CORE
[Congress of Racial Equality] led a "selective buying" campaign to compel the major
downtown department stores to hire more black clerks. The campaign...was later
expanded to include "shop-ins" at area grocery stores, in which protesters would fill and
then abandon their shopping carts. Similar tactics clogged up Nordstrom's during
"shoe-ins." Seattle yielded CORE its first employment gains for blacks and adoption of
corporate "equal opportunity" policies by Nordstrom and other major retailers...
Another measure of social progress came in March 1962 when Wing Luke was elected
to the Seattle City Council. He was the first non-white ever elected in the city, and his
seat on the Council was the highest elective office yet attained by a Chinese American
anywhere in the continental U.S. Luke was no mere token; he became a voice for the
"other Seattle" and championed causes such as open housing and minority
employment...
Source: Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle,
1995) pp. 3-5, 11-13.
RONALD REAGAN TO RICHARD NIXON, 1960
Shortly after the Democratic Party held its Convention in Los Angeles in 1960 where it
nominated Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy for President, Ronald Reagan sent
the following letter to Vice President Richard Nixon offering his services in the
upcoming presidential campaign. The letter outlines Reagan's belief that the United
States is, at heart, a conservative nation and that the GOP should rally many of those
non-voting conservatives to political action.
July 15, 1960
Dear Mr. Vice Pres.
I know this is presumptuous of me but I'm passing on some thoughts after
viewing the Convention here in L.A.
Somehow the idea persists that someone should put an end to the traditional
demonstrations which follow each nomination. True they once had their place when
their only purpose was to influence the delegates within the convention hall. Now
however TV has opened a window onto convention deliberations and the
"demonstration" is revealed as a synthetic time waster which only serves to belittle us in
what should be one of our finer moments. One has a feeling that general gratitude would
be the reward for any one who would once and for all declare the "demonstration"
abandoned.
Starting with the opening speech and continuing through all the speeches until
Kennedy's acceptance speech I thought the Democrats could pick up some campaign
money by selling the collection of addresses as, "talks suitable for any patriotic occasion
with platitudes and generalities guaranteed."
I do not include Kennedy's acceptance speech because beneath the generalities I heard a
frightening call to arms. Unfortunately he is a powerful speaker with an appeal to the
emotions. He leaves little doubt that his idea of the "challenging new world" is one in
which the Federal Govt. will grow bigger & do more and of course spend more. I know
there must be some short sighted people in the Republican Party who will advise that
the Republicans should try to "out liberal" him. In my opinion this would be fatal.
You were kind enough to write me to comment on the "talk" I had given and which you
had read. That is why I'm presuming on your busy day with these thoughts. I have been
speaking on the subject in more than thirty eight states to audiences of Democrats &
Republicans. Invariably the reaction is a standing ovation--not for me but for the views
expressed. I am convinced that America is economically conservative and for that reason
I think some one should force the Democrats to publish the "retail price" for this great
new wave of "public service" they promise. I don't pose as an infallible pundit but I have
a strong feeling that the twenty million non voters in this country just might be
conservatives who have cynically concluded the two parties offer no choice between
them where fiscal stability is concerned. No Republican no matter how liberal is going to
woo a Democratic vote but a Republican bucking the give away trend might re-create
some voters who have been staying at home.
One last thought,-- shouldn't some one tag Mr. Kennedy's bold new imaginative
program with it's proper age? Under the tousled boyish hair cut it is still old Karl Marx-first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a Govt. being Big
Brother to us all. Hitler called his "State Socialism" and way before him it was
"benevolent monarchy."
I apologize for taking so much of your time but I have such a yearning to hear some one
come before us and talk specifics instead of generalities. I'm sure the American people
do not want the govt. paid services at "any price" and if we collectively can afford "free
this & that" they'd like to know it before they buy and not after it is entrenched behind
another immovable govt. bureau.
You will be very much in my prayers in the days ahead.
Sincerely,
Ronnie Reagan
Source: Reproduced from the holdings of the National Archives, Pacific Region,
Laguna Niguel Office, Laguna Nigel, California.
LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL
By 1963 Martin Luther King had emerged as the most important civil rights leader of
the era. However as the campaign to desegregate public accommodations in
Birmingham proved far more difficult than King or his followers had anticipated,
some white Birmingham clergy openly criticized his efforts as harmful to the
harmonious relationship between the races and questioned his commitment to
Christianity. In his letter written while he was under arrest for violating
Birmingham's segregationist ordinances, King answers the ministers.
I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham since you have been
influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." Several months ago
the [SCLC] affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a non-violent
direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when
the hour came we lived up to our promise... But more basically, I am in Birmingham
because injustice is here... I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about
what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere...
Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea.
Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere
within its bounds.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement
fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the
demonstrations... It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in
Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left
the Negro community with no alternative.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by
the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a
direct-action campaign that was "well-timed" in the view of those who have not suffered
from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "wait!" This
"wait" has almost always meant "Never."
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God- given
rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet like speed toward gaining
political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup
of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt segregation
to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers
and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen
curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters...when you have to concoct an
answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored
people so mean?..." When your first name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and
your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected
title "Mrs."--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
Source: Leslie H. Fishel and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro American: A Documentary
History, (Glenview, Ill., 1967), p. 523.
LETTERS FROM MISSISSIPPI
The following letters written between June and August, 1964, provide a brief glimpse
of the impressions and emotions of the largely white college students who worked in
Mississippi during that "Freedom Summer."
June 15
Us white kids here are in a position we've never been in before. The direction of
the whole program is under Negro leadership--almost entirely. And a large part of that
leadership is young people from the South--Negroes who've had experience just because
they're Negroes and because they've been active in the movement. And here "we" are,
for the most part never experiencing any injustice other than "No, I won't let you see
your exam paper..."
Monday night, June 15
I turned down a chance to work in the southwest part of the state, the most
dangerous area. I talked to a staff member covering that area for about fifteen minutes
and he told me about the five Negroes who have been taken into the woods and shot in
the last three months... I told him that I couldn't go in there because I was just too
scared. I felt so bad I was about ready to forget about going to Mississippi at all. But I
still wanted to go; I just didn't feel like giving up my life. After thinking about this
seeming contradiction, I decided that I have not discovered just how dedicated I am to
the civil rights cause and that is the purpose of the trip....
Dear Mom and Dad,
A lot of the meetings have been run by a Negro Mennonite minister from Georgia,
a member of the National Council of Churches. (The NCC is paying for this orientation,
and has some excellent staff people here.) His name is Vincent Harding, plump,
bespectacled, and brilliant moderator in discussions because he reacts so honestly and
humorously to every question. Yesterday he gave a long talk about people using each
other and where to watch out for this within the movement itself (Negro man accuses
white girl of being a racist if she won't go to bed with him, or vice versa; or white girl
looking for "my summer Negro"; or Negroes in the community using volunteers as the
only available victims of their suppressed hostility to whites in general, etc., etc). These
are examples of the kind of honesty that characterizes the whole training session. His
main point was that people within the movement must not use each other because it is
that very exploitation of someone else, which turns him from a human being into an
object, that the movement is fighting
against.
Love, Susan
June 27
Dear Mom and Dad,
This letter is hard to write because I would like so much to communicate how I
feel and I don't know if I can. It is very hard to answer to your attitude that if I loved
you I wouldn't do this--hard, because the thought is cruel. I can only hope you have the
sensitivity to understand that I can both love you very much and desire to go to
Mississippi. I have no way of demonstrating my love. It is simply a fact and that is all I
can say....
I hope you will accept my decision even if you do not agree with me. There comes
a time when you have to do things which your parents do not agree with.... Convictions
are worthless in themselves. In fact, if they don't become actions, they are worse than
worthless--they become a force of evil in themselves. You can't run away from a
broadened awareness....If you try, it follows you in your conscience, or you become a
self-deceiving person who has numbed some of his humanness. It think you have to live
to the fullest extent to which you have gained an awareness or you are less than the
human being you are capable of being... This doesn't apply just to civil rights or social
consciousness but to all the experiences of life...
Love, Bonnie
July 30
Yesterday, July 29, two of us (both white) went to speak in two Sociology classes [at a
local white university]. We spoke about our project in Holly Springs and then answered
questions. While some questions were relevant, many were of the nature of: a "Would
you marry a Negro?" "Is your organization Communist?" and "Why are Negroes so
immoral?" Both Alvin and I felt that it was fairly successful. We were able to answer
most of the questions in sociological terms. The second class which we attended was an
advanced class in Urban Sociology. Their questions were for the most part more
sophisticated. Both classes treated us respectfully and were very attentive to what we
had to say... Later, I realized what had been bothering me about those people at [the
university]. It was that they were patting themselves on the back for recognizing and
admitting that conditions in Mississippi were bad....
I am beginning to understand why people who work in the Movement come to not
really care too much about the kind of thoughts of some "liberal" southern and, for that
matter, northern whites. I try to fight the bitterness...
Gulfport, August 12
Dear Mother and Father:
I have learned more about politics here from running my own precinct meetings
than I could have from any Government professor...For the first time in my life, I am
seeing what it is like to be poor, oppressed, and hated. And what I see here does not
apply only to Gulfport or to Mississippi or even to the South....The people we're killing
in Viet Nam are the same people whom we've been killing for years in Mississippi. True,
we didn't tie the knot in Mississippi and we didn't pull the trigger in Viet Nam--that is,
we personally--but we've been standing behind the knot-tiers and the trigger-pullers too
long. This summer is only the briefest beginning of this experience, both for myself and
for the Negroes of Mississippi.
Your daughter, Ellen
Source: Elizabeth Sutherland, ed., Letters From Mississippi, (New York, 1965), pp. 314, 22-23, 45-72, 145-147, 229-230.
MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI
During the 1964 Freedom Summer hundreds of black and white civil rights workers
from throughout the United States assisted black Mississippians to register to vote and
to challenge the racially discriminatory laws of the state. Three of those workers,
Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, were killed near
Philadelphia. The passage below from William Bradford Huie's Three Lives for
Mississippi, describes their deaths.
The murder was done in the "cut" on Rock Cut Road, less than a mile from
Highway 19, about four miles from where the three were taken from the station wagon.
It was before midnight, and the moon was still high. Three cars were in the cut. I was
told that the three victims said nothing, but that they were jeered by the murderers.
Several of the murderers chanted in unison, as though they had practiced it:
"Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust, If you'd stayed where you belonged, You wouldn't
be here with us."
Another said: "So you wanted to come to Mississippi? Well, now we're gonna let
you stay here. We're not even gonna run you out. We're gonna let you stay here with
us."
When Schwerner was pulled from the car and stood up to be shot, I was told that
the man with the pistol asked him: "You still think a nigger's as good as I am?" No time
was allowed for a reply. He was shot straight through the heart and fell to the ground.
Goodman was next, with nothing said. Apparently he stood as still as Schwerner
did, facing his executioner, for the shot that killed him was the same precise shot. I was
told that another man fired the shot, using the same pistol, but my opinion remains that
one man fired both shots.
Chaney was last, and the only difference was that he struggled while the others
had not. He didn't stand still; he tried to pull and duck away from his executioner. So
he wasn't shot with the same precision, and he was shot three times instead of once.
The three bodies were tossed into the station wagon and driven along dirt roads to
a farm about six miles southwest of Philadelphia. All three bodies were buried in
darkness with a bulldozer. They were also uncovered, forty-four days later, with a
bulldozer. After the burial the station wagon was driven to a point fifteen miles
northeast of Philadelphia, to the edge of the Bogue Chitto swamp. There it was doused
with diesel fuel and burned. Afterwards the murderers began drinking though none
could be called drunk. They were met by an official of the state of Mississippi.
"Well, boys," he said, "you've done a good job. You've struck a blow for the White
Man. Mississippi can be proud of you... Go home now and forget it. But before you go,
I'm looking each one of you in the eye and telling you this: the first man who talks is
dead! If anybody who knows anything about this ever opens his mouth to any outsider
about it, then the rest of us are going to kill him just as dead as we killed those three
sonsofbitches tonight. "Does everybody understand what I'm saying? The man who
talks is dead... dead...dead!"
Source: William Bradford Huie, 3 Lives for Mississippi, (New York, 1968) pp. 118-121.
BERKELEY: THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT
In the following vignette University of Washington historian William Rorabaugh
describes the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley that began in September 1964. Note
the movement's links to civil rights activism then taking place in the South.
In the early 1960s Berkeley student activists were particularly drawn to the civil
rights cause because of the changing racial composition of the city of Berkeley. Due to
black migration from the South, by 1960 the city was one-fifth black. Berkeley's blacks
lived in a corner of the city remote from the University. One seldom saw a black on
campus, black shoppers were not welcome in downtown Berkeley, and both school
segregation and discrimination in employment and housing were common. In 1963
Berkeley voters rejected an open housing ordinance, 22,750 to 20,456, and in October
1964 the school board was nearly recalled over desegregation. These votes indicated the
city's bitter divisions. The split was ironic, because liberals had long considered
Berkeley to be advanced, and they pointed with pride to the black assemblyman elected
from a mostly white district as early as 1948. In truth, white Berkeley was
schizophrenic--many older residents were native Southerners. Berkeley student activists
formed the Berkeley Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to protest job discrimination.
Throughout 1964 CORE and its allies sponsored demonstrations at Lucky's stores in
Berkeley, at the Sheraton-Palace Hotel and along auto row in San Francisco, and at the
Oakland Tribune, organ of William F. Knowland, a former U.S. senator. In the summer
of 1964, when the Republican national convention met in San Francisco, activists
organized anti-Goldwater pickets on the Cal campus. To some people, it appeared that a
handful of agitators systematically used the campus as a staging ground for making
trouble.
In keeping with the...rules banning political activity on campus, activists
for-several years had solicited donations and sign-ups for protests from card tables set
up on the city sidewalk at the edge of campus at Bancroft and Telegraph... Whether
pressured from outside or not, Alex C. Sherriffs, Vice-Chancellor for Student
Affairs...became upset by the activists' presence. Sherriffs, whose office was in Sproul
Hall, perhaps worried less about political activity itself than about its visibility and the
effect that it had upon visitors to campus. In 1964 one of the first sights a visitor saw, at
the corner of Bancroft and Telegraph, was a student, possibly blue-jeaned, bearded, and
sandaled, manning a card table, jingling a can, and asking for a donation to support civil
rights. To Sherriffs, this scene was appalling because it created an image of the
University as a haven for eccentrics and malcontents. The vice-chancellor saw himself
as a moral guardian bound to protect the purity of the campus and its clean cut
fraternity and sorority kids from unkempt beatniks and wild-eyed radicals...
When the University opened that September, activists looked forward to
recruitment and fund-raising. Over the summer...sixty students had worked for civil
rights in Mississippi, and they returned to campus with renewed dedication and
determination. These activists, including Mario Savio and Art Goldberg, were
dumbfounded in mid-September when the University suddenly issued new rules that
banned tables...where they had been placed in growing numbers for two or three years.
When the activists sought an explanation for the change, they could get no answers...
The activists were better prepared for war than [University President Clark] Kerr.
First, they knew what they wanted. Although their specific demands changed over time,
they -demanded an end to the regulation of political activity on campus. This was called
free speech... The activists identified the issue as a traditional American right in order to
appeal to large numbers of students, who in other circumstances might have sided with
Kerr. Second, some of the activist leaders were battle-tested veterans of the civil rights
movement. "A student who has been chased by the KKK in Mississippi," observed one
student,' "is not easily scared by academic bureaucrats..." They knew when to advance,
when to retreat, how to use crowds, how to use the media, how to intimidate, and how to
negotiate. The activists understood their ultimate weapon, the sit-in, and were prepared
to use it. Although the leaders were not close to one another, they spoke a common
language gained through a common experience. Kerr, on the other hand, was as
unready to do battle as a southern sheriff facing a civil rights march for the first time.
Again and again, Kerr showed that he understood nothing about his opponents' tactics.
Finally, activist leaders knew how to maintain discipline over their troops. Mass
psychology, song, theater, and other techniques long favored among revivalists and
street politicians accompanied innovative mass meetings at which people freely spoke
and at which collective decisions were made by, a kind of consensus that came to be
called participatory democracy. Through these techniques and by focusing on the
simplicity of the demand for free speech, activists created...an army. In contrast, Kerr
badgered his beleaguered bureaucracy until it could barely function.
Throughout September 1964 skirmishes continued as defiant activists set up
tables and were cited by irritated deans. The angry students escalated the conflict by
moving their tables to Sproul Plaza. This protest led to a mill-in inside Sproul Hall and
the summary "indefinite suspension' of eight students [including] Mario Savio [and] Art
Goldberg... Finally, on October 1, University police went to the plaza to arrest a former
student, Jack Weinberg; who was manning a CORE table. The police drove a car onto
the plaza to take Weinberg to be booked, and as Weinberg got into the car, someone
shouted, "Sit down." Suddenly, several hundred students surrounded the car. The
police did not know what to do, because they had never encountered such massive
defiance. Kerr's bureaucracy became paralyzed. This event launched the Free Speech
Movement. Participants later recalled the spontaneity of the "sit-down," the thrill of
power over the police, and the feeling that something important was happening. For
thirty-two hours Weinberg sat in the back of the police car. Although students came and
went, there were always at least several hundred surrounding the car. Among those who
observed the sit-down was Jerry Brown; the governor's son, then living in Berkeley, who
was hostile to the protest. During the night students who disapproved of the
sit-down--many from nearby fraternities--molested the protesters by tossing lighted
cigarettes and garbage into the crowd. The activists responded by singing civil rights
songs. During the sit-down the demonstrators used the roof of the police car (with
police permission) as a podium to speak to the crowd. People aired all sorts of views,
and the discussion moved from the rules banning political activity to analyses of the
University's governance. Students expressed their powerlessness, which contrasted with
the power that they held over the immobilized police car. So many people stood on the
car's roof that it sagged; the FSM later took up a collection and paid the $455.01
damage. Several times a twenty-one year old junior, Mario Savio, removed his shoes to
climb atop the car, and when he spoke, his words seemed especially to energize the
crowd. He became a celebrity and was identified by the crowd as the leader of the
activists. From then on Savio battled Kerr. It was not a fair match....
Source: William J. Rorabaugh, Berkeley at War, The 1960s (New York, 1989), p. 18-19,
20-21.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON PROPOSES THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
On March 7, 1965, Martin Luther King led demonstrations at Selma, Alabama, to
secure voting rights for black Americans. One week later President Lyndon Johnson
spoke before a joint session of Congress to urge passage of voting rights legislation
that would guarantee that right. Johnson for the first time placed the full support of
the Presidency behind Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. Here is part of his
address to Congress:
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:
I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. I urge every
member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section
of this country, to join me in that cause.
Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to
the right to vote. This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections....which
have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote. We cannot refuse to protect the right
of every American to vote in every election that he may desire to participate in. We have
already waited one hundred years and more, and the time for waiting is gone....
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma
is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America.
It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of
American life.
Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is
all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
And we shall overcome.
As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial
feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our
society.
But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed.
And he is not fully free tonight.
The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force
can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it
does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American.
For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone
uneducated, how many white families have lived in stark poverty, how many white lives
have been scarred by fear, because we have wasted our energy and our substance to
maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?
So I say to all of you here, and to all in the Nation tonight, that those who appeal
to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.
This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to
all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the
enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not
our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall
overcome...
Source: Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, (Lexington,
Mass., 1984), pp. 872-873.
MARTIN LUTHER KING AND THE FBI
In 1964 Martin Luther King, shortly after his notification that he was the Nobel Peace
Prize recipient, got an anonymous letter suggesting he was a fraud and that he commit
suicide. It was later determined that the letter originated with the FBI which was
trying to discredit King and retard the Civil Rights Movement. The letter is reprinted
below.
In view of your low grade... I will not dignify your name with either a Mr. or a
Reverend or a Dr. And, your last name calls to mind only the type of King such as King
Henry the VIII...
King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great
liability to all of us Negroes. White people in this country have enough frauds of their
own but I am sure they don't have one at this time anywhere near your equal. You are
no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one
at that. You could not believe in God... Clearly you don't believe in any personal moral
principles.
King, like all frauds your end is approaching. You could have been our greatest
leader. You, even at an early age have turned out to be not a leader but a dissolute,
abnormal moral imbecile. We will now have to depend on our older leaders like
Wilkins, a man of character and thank God we have others like him. But you are done.
Your "honorary" degrees, your Nobel Prize (what a grim farce) and other awards will not
save you. King, I repeat you are done.
No person can overcome facts, not even a fraud like yourself... I repeat--no
person can argue successfully against facts... Satan could not do more. What incredible
evilness... King you are done. The American public, the church organizations that have
been helping--Protestant, Catholic and Jews will know you for what you are--an evil,
abnormal beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done.
King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just
34 days in which to do it (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has
definite practical significant [sic]). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You
better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.
Source: David J. Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York, 1981), pp.
125-126.
THE END OF NON-VIOLENCE: THE WATTS RIOT
The four days of rioting that swept the Watts section of Los Angeles in August, 1965
proved a turning point in the Civil Rights struggle. The nation's attention, which had
previously been focused on the rural South now shifted to the ghettos of the North and
West as African Americans demonstrated their anger with the prevailing political and
economic status quo. The passage below describes the death of Charles Patrick Fizer,
one of the 34 people killed during the riot.
Charles Patrick Fizer, born in Shreveport Louisiana, sang because he loved to-and for money. People paid to hear Charles Fizer sing. For a brief time, he made it big.
Most of the Fizer family migrated to California during World War II to take jobs in the
buzzing Los Angeles area aircraft plants and shipyards. In 1944, when he was only
three, Charles Fizer was taken there by his grandparents. He lived with them for a time.
Then, when he was seven, he moved to Watts with his mother.
The Fizer family was a religious one. Charles attended the Sweet Home Baptist
Church and became an enthusiastic choir member. He had a good voice. By the time he
was fifteen, he was singing in night clubs....He became part of a successful group of
entertainers. He broke in singing second lead with the Olympics, as the group was
known....Came the Olympics' recording of "Hully Gully," and Charles Fizer was
something to be reckoned with as an entertainer. The record sold nearly a million
copies. The Olympics won television guest shots. Charles came up with a snaky dance
to fit the "Hully Gully" music. Other hit songs followed, and it seemed nothing could
stop Charles Fizer from reaching the top. [But] Charles became restless. With his fellow
performers, he became impatient. His testy attitude and souring views cost him his job
with the singing group. He and another entertainer formed a night club duo, but it
flopped. The summer of the Los Angeles Riot, he hit bottom. He served six months at
hard labor on a county prison farm after being arrested with illegal barbiturates.
He was released Thursday, August 12. The riot already was in progress. Even as
the violence spread in Los Angeles, Charles Fizer wakened early Friday, went jobhunting and found work as a busboy....But there would be no work Saturday─the
restaurant manager decided to close until peace was restored in the city... But that night
Charles Fizer drove through Watts after the curfew hour. In the center of the fireblackened community, he stopped short of a National Guard roadblock at 102nd and
Beach Streets. Inexplicably, he backed the Buick away from the barricade. Suddenly, he
turned on the car's headlights and shifted into forward gear. What compelled him to jam
the accelerator to the floor only he could say─and soon he was past explaining. Too
many white faces challenging him? Perhaps. A white man giving him an order?
Perhaps. In any event, he pointed the car straight for the roadblock. Guardsmen cried to
him to halt and fired warning shots into the air. Then came the roar of M-1 carbines.
The Buick spun crazily and rammed a curb. Charles Fizer never realized his resolve to
make a new life. Inside the car he lay dead, a bullet in his left temple. The time was 9:15
P.M.
Source: Jerry Cohen and William S. Murphy, Burn, Baby, Burn: The Los Angeles
Race Riot August, 1965, (New York, 1966), pp. 211-213.
STOKLEY CARMICHAEL ON BLACK LIBERATION
In the Spring of 1966 Stokely Carmichael became chairman of the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee and soon afterwards advanced the concept of Black Power.
In a article published later that year he discussed its ramifications for America.
The history of every institution of this society indicates that a major concern...has
been the maintaining of the Negro community in its condition of dependence and
oppression. This has not been on the level of individual acts of discrimination between
individual whites against individual Negroes, but as total acts by the White community
against the Negro community.
Let me give you an example of the difference between individual racism and
institutionalized racism... When unidentified white terrorists bomb a Negro Church and
kill five children, that act is widely deplored by most segments of the society. But when
in that same city, Birmingham, Alabama, not five but 500 Negro babies die each year
because of lack of proper food, shelter and medical facilities...that is a function of
institutionalized racism.
We must organize black community power to end these abuses, and to give the
Negro community a chance to have its needs expressed. A leadership which is truly
"responsible"--not to the white press and power structure, but to the community--must
be developed. Such leadership will recognize that its power lies in the unified and
collective strength of that community.
The single aspect of the black power program that has encountered most criticism
is this concept of independent organization. This is presented as third-partyism which
has never worked, or a withdrawal into black nationalism and isolationism. If such a
program is developed it will not have the effect of isolating the Negro community but the
reverse. When the Negro community is able to control local office, and negotiate with
other groups from a position of organized strength, the possibility of meaningful
political alliances on specific issues will be increased. That is a rule of politics and there
is no reason why it should not operate here. The only difference is that we will have the
power to define the terms of these alliances.
The next question usually is, "So--can it work, can the ghettoes in fact be
organized?" The answer is that this organization must be successful, because there are
no viable alternatives--not the War on Poverty, which was at its inception limited to
dealing with effects rather than causes, and has become simply another source of
machine patronage. And "Integration" is meaningful only to a small chosen class within
the community.
[The] "inner city" in most major urban areas is [sic] already predominately Negro,
and with the white rush to suburbia, Negroes will in the next three decades control the
heart of our great cities. These areas can become either concentration camps with a
bitter and volatile population whose only power is the power to destroy, or organized
and powerful communities able to make constructive contributions to the total society.
Without the power to control their lives and their communities, without effective
political institutions through which to relate to the total society, these communities will
exist in a constant state of insurrection. This is a choice that the country will have to
make.
Source: Thomas R. Frazier, Afro-American History: Primary Sources, (Chicago,
1988), pp. 414, 419-420.
THE UW BLACK STUDENT UNION
By 1968 Black Student Unions had emerged on virtually every major university
campus in the United States including the University of Washington. The vignettes
below provide rare glimpses into the campus mood which generated the UW BSU. The
first vignette describes black student athletes and the second is an interview with UW
BSU leaders.
In March [1968] the U. of W. Athletic Department was jolted by charges of racism
and discrimination made by some 13 black athletes. Among the 13 was basketball player
Dave Carr, who later spoke...about the feelings of Negroes on the campus. "Except for
some talk of 'niggers,' racism is not so noticeable these days," says Carr. "White
students just look at us like, 'What are you doing on our campus.' Or sometimes we're
considered exceptional Negroes. Hell, I'm not exceptional, I'm just lucky. So many of
us now are hungry to compete and able to compete if we get the chance.
"There are other aspects," he continued, "like not being able to find a place to live
in the U. District. But you know the single thing that bothers me most? Nobody will
ever talk to me about anything except basketball. 'You keepin' in shape? You goin' to
play pro ball?' I'm supposed to be the dumb black athlete who can't do anything else. I
like basketball, but I also am taking a degree in business, and ultimately I intend to go
into personnel work. But no one's interested in that."
*
*
*
Hidden away in a far corner in the basement of the UW HUB is Room 92. Though
nothing on the door proclaims it, Room 92 houses the UW Black Students' Union
(BSU). Little more than a cubbyhole, the room is jammed with furnishings, and on one
recent afternoon, a half-dozen BSU members. Among those present are E.J. Brisker,
BSU vice-president; Jesse Crowder, the BSU's sole Mexican American; Richard Brown,
one of the four young men who had been charged with firebombing; and Larry Gossett,
one of those involved in the Franklin High sit-in. The conversation is a mixed bag of
self-kidding, Whitey put-ons and serious discussion; Brown and Gossett do most of the
talking.
"The Black Student Union is for anything that advances the cause of black
people," says Gossett. "For example, we're in full support of the Olympic Games
boycott. This country has been using its black athletes far too long, showing them off in
foreign lands to convince the people that racism doesn't exist in America--when we
know it does." Adds Brown, "Yeah, a black athlete is Mister when he's overseas, but he's
nothing when he gets home--can't find housing, can't get a job."
Gossett wears black-frame glasses and a big Afro; he gestures as he speaks, and he
has a habit of gnawing his lower lip. "In general," he explains, "the Black Students'
Union is a political organization set up to serve the wants and needs of black students on
white campuses. The educational system is geared for white, middle-class kids, so it's
never served black students. We're educated to fit into some non-existent slot in white
society, rather than to be responsible to the needs of our brothers in the ghetto. To
combat this, one thing we want to do is establish courses in Afro-American culture and
history." On Richard Brown's lapel is a button which displays a leaping black panther.
"No black person will be free," he says, ending the conversation, "until all blacks are
free."
Source: Ed Leimbacher, "Voices from the Ghetto," Seattle Magazine, 5:51 (June 1968)
pp. 41-44.
A "FISH-IN" ON THE NISQUALLY
In mid-October 1965 a group of Washington State Indians staged one of their first
"fish-ins" to protest state conservation prohibitions against traditional fishing. In
jeopardy were rights which Northwest tribes like the Nisqually, Puyallup and others
enjoyed since the days of their treaties signed in 1855, to fish and net salmon on the
Nisqually and other rivers. According to the protesters, the white man's dams,
pollution and commercial fishing were depleting the salmon, not their smaller
operations. During the controversy there were a number of "battles" around Puget
Sound and on the Columbia River, between state officials and Indians who refused to
stop fishing. Janet McCloud, a Tulalip mother of eight was one of the protestors
arrested and held in jail. Her daughter, Laura McCloud, recounts her story at the
trial.
On October 13, 1965, we held a "fish-in" on the Nisqually River to try and bring a focus
on our fishing fight with the State of Washington. The "fish-in" started at 4:00 p.m. and
was over at 4:30. It ended with six Indians in jail and dazed Indian kids wondering
"what happened?" My parents, Don & Janet McCloud; Al and Maiselle Bridges; Suzan
Satiacum and Don George Jr. were arrested that day. They were released after posting
bail a few hours later. The charges against these six Indians was "obstructing the duty of
a police officer." Now, all we could do was wait till the trials started. There was a
seventh Indian who was later arrested for the same charge, Nugent Kautz. And he had
not been a Frank's Landing on that day.
The trial was to begin on January 15, 1969, at 9:30. We went into the courthouse that
Wednesday certain that we would not receive justice as was proved to us in other trials.
As we walked into the hallways there were many game wardens standing there, some
dressed in their uniforms and some in plain clothes, but we recognized all of them.
Many of us were dressed in our traditional way with headbands, leggings and
necklaces. As we walked the length of the corridor to the courtroom, the game wardens
were looking us up and down, laughing at us. I said to my cousin, "Don't pay any
attention to them, they don't know any better."...
The first witness for the State was a field marshal for the game department-Zimmerman. He stated that he was directing the game wardens at the Landing on Oct.
13. Hw was in charge of the reinforcements from all over the State that come down on
us like a sea of green. At the time of the fish-in I thought that there were about a
hundred game wardens...
The next morning the State started off with their last witness, State Fisheries
Biologist, Lasseter. He talked about how we Indians are the ones who depleted the fish
in the Puyallup River and if we weren't controlled we would do the same to the Nisqually
River. The Puyallup River is filled with pollution more than it is with water. And why
would we want to wipe out our livelihood? Our attorney made Lasseter state that could
have been the pollution not the Indians who depleted the fish in the Puyallup River.
Now it was our turn! The first witness for our defense was Bob Johnson. At the time
of the fish-in he was the editor of the Auburn Citizen newspaper. He told of the tactics
the game wardens use on us. Mr. Johnson also had evidence with him, pictures of game
wardens, showing billie clubs and seven-celled flashlights. The Prosecuting attorney got
real shook up about these. It seemed like he was saying "I object" every few minutes...
The next defense witness was Janet McCloud, Tulalip Indian. She told...why the
Indians had the fish-in demonstration on that day and what the mood the Indians had
before the fish-in... We were not expecting any violence because all my brothers and
sisters were there and the youngest was 4 at that time... She told how she felt when she
realized that the game wardens were going to ram our boat...and [how] these mean
meant business with their...flashlights, billie clubs and brass knuckles. My two little
brothers were in the boat when it was rammed, the youngest was 7 and could not swim.
Besides, once you get tangled in nylon mesh it is very easy to drown. While she was
telling this story, we could tell she was trying very hard to keep from crying but...she
started to...
With all this testimony and evidence, it was plain to see that the game wardens had
lied. We only hoped that the jury would believe our side of the fish-in story. We also
learned the names of the game wardens whose pictures we had, especially the one who
had been beating on Alison and Valerie Bridges...
After the two lawyers gave their summations the jury went into session. This was at
ten o'clock at night. They were out until midnight. The foreman came in first and said, "
The rest are afraid to come in." I thought, here comes another guilty [verdict]. When
the foreman handed the judge the decision the room became very silent. Then the judge
read, "The jury finds the defendant Nugent Kautz 'not guilty.'" He read the rest of the
names with the same verdict. I didn't believe it. I turned to my cousin and said, "Did I
hear right?" She nodded her head, yes. Everyone was happy, except the State. The
game wardens were very hostile after this...
So the war goes on--which goes to prove that the history books are wrong when they
talk about "the last Indian wars." They have never stopped!
Source: Peter Nabokov, ed., Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White
Relations from Prophecy to the Present, 1492-1992 (New York, 1991), pp. 362-366.
"TIO TACO IS DEAD"
This title of a 1970 Newsweek article signaled for many in the United States an
introduction to the Chicano Movement. Excerpts of the article appear below.
It is impossible to ignore the handwriting on the wall--the enormous, angular
jottings that spillover imaginary margins. Across the peeling faces of neo-Victorian
buildings, on littered sidewalks, anywhere where there is a decent-size blank space
young chicanos scrawl their names, their slogans, their dreams.... On the ash-gray bricks
of one nameless liquor store deep in the heart of the East Los Angeles barrio, someone
has written a footnote to American history. "Tio Taco is dead," it says, "Con safos."
Tio Taco--or Uncle Taco, the stereotype Mexican-American, sapped of energy and
ambition, sulking in the shadow of an Anglo culture--is dead. From the ghettos of Los
Angles, through the wastelands of New Mexico and Colorado, into the fertile reaches of
the Rio Grande valley in Texas, a new Mexican-American militancy is emerging. Brown
has become aggressively beautiful...
Their are 5.6 million Mexican-Americans in the United States, divided roughly
into two subgroups. The first is made up of descendants of settlers who arrived in the
Southwest before the Mayflower... The forefather of these Spanish Americans, as they
prefer to be called, founded California and gave Los Angeles its name... Today, they live
in rural communities scattered across New Mexico and Colorado... The second, and
larger, subgroup is made up of more recent immigrants from Mexico and their
descendants. Substantial migration to the U.S. began with the Mexican Revolution and
went on through the 1960s with Texas serving as the way station to the great urban
ghettos of San Antonio, Los Angeles, Denver, and points farther north...
Through the Southwest today, were 90% of the Mexican-Americans live, a third of
them are below the official poverty line--that is, they make do on less than $3,000 a
year. In some sections of Texas, poverty-stricken Mexican-Americans live in
unbelievably primitive conditions. Countrywide, the unemployment rate among
chicanos is twice as high as the unemployment rate among Anglos. And the vast
majority of Mexican-Americans who are employed work at unskilled....jobs. MexicanAmericans average four years less schooling than Anglos and two years less than
Negroes.
Statistics tell only part of the story. On top of the poverty, Mexican-Americans
have long been subjected to violence by the authorities. For years, law-enforcement
agencies in the Southwest acted as it was open season on muchachos. "There's a lot to
the saying that all Texas Rangers have Mexican blood," one witness told the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights. "They have it on their boots." Just as often the Anglo
attitude has been more subtle--and more crippling. Guidance counselors regularly steer
students into "realistic" vocational programs, advice that just about locks young
chicanos into the poverty cycle. Overall the insensitivity of Anglos--whether in
government, in education or simply on a person-to-person basis--has amounted to
psychological oppression of incalculable dimension. "Why do they persecute us"? asks
Bob Castro, a chicano activist in Los Angeles. "Why do they beat us and throw us into
prison? Why do they insult our language, culture and history? Why do they call us
names? Why do they hate us.?"
Source: Newsweek, June 29, 1970, pp. 27-30.
THE BROWN BERETS AND CHICANO LIBERATION
In the following account historian Rodolfo Acuna describes the Brown Berets who
emerged in the East Los Angeles barrio in the late 1960s.
Most Chicano organizations have had defensive postures and have reacted to crisis
situations. These organizations, for the most part, have worked within the system and
have been reform oriented. The Brown Berets is an exception; it is one of the few Chicano
organizations advocating physical measures to defend the Chicano community's rights.
The Brown Berets.... has aroused a fear in Anglo-Americans that a Chicano group would
counter U.S. oppression with its own violence. Whether or not the threat was real is not at
issue. More important is that law enforcement authorities believed that the Brown Berets
were capable of violence or arousing this kind of action in other groups. In effect, it is an
affirmation of the police's increasing awareness of the resentment toward police brutality
and the realization that the theme of liberation is becoming more popular among
Chicanos. The Brown Berets, in effect, panicked police officials and exposed their basic
undemocratic attitudes toward Mexicans or groups attempting to achieve liberation. This
is especially true in Los Angeles, where the Berets were founded. The police and sheriff's
departments there abandoned reason in harassing, intimidating, and persecuting the
Brown Berets in a way that no other Chicano organization has experienced in recent
times. Police and sheriff's deputies raided the Berets, infiltrated them, libeled and
slandered them, and even encouraged counter groups to attack the members. The
objective was to destroy the Berets and to invalidate the membership in the eyes of both
the Anglo and the Chicano communities.
The Brown Berets were formed in 1967 in East Los Angeles. At first they were known
as Young Citizens for Community Action (YCCA). The group was sponsored by an
interfaith church organization, and its founding leader was David Sánchez, a teenager
from a lower-class family. Four other Chicanos joined Sánchez as charter members. In
time, the group's defensive posture crystallized, with the organization evolving from a
community service club into a quasi "alert patrol." Later in the year, the YCCA opened a
coffee shop called La Piranya to raise operating expenses. Events meanwhile forced the
organization to become more militant; this is reflected in the change in the group's name
to the Young Chicanos for Community Action. The members began to wear brown berets,
and they took on a paramilitary stance. The YCCA became popularly known as the Brown
Berets. This militant profile attracted a large number of young Chicanos and had
considerable impact on the student organizations of the time. Simultaneously, the Los
Angeles Sheriff's Department began a vicious "bust the Berets" operation. They raided
them, picked up members, and spread rumors that they were Communists.
Beret chapters spread throughout the Southwest and Midwest. In Los Angeles,
sheriff's deputies harassed the Brown Berets and so disorganized them that they were
forced to shut down their coffee shop in March 1968. That same month, the Berets were
escalated into the national limelight by the East Los Angeles school walkouts. There is
little evidence that the organization itself took a leadership role in planning the walkouts,
but as one observer stated: "When the crap came down, the Berets were there, offering to
serve and taking the brunt of the police brutality. They were the shock troops." During the
walkout, the police and sheriffs departments attempted to make the Brown Berets the
scapegoats, branding them as outside agitators, while playing down the legitimate
grievances of the Chicano students. A grand jury later indicted 13 Chicanos on conspiracy
charges stemming from the walkout; seven were Brown Berets. This case was appealed
and later declared unconstitutional, but only after three years of legal harassment. As the
police and sheriff's repression increased, the popularity of the group spread. Ironically, the
only offensive action during this time was on the part of law enforcement agencies.
Meanwhile, obvious parallels between the Brown Berets and the Black Panthers
emerged. Both organizations were paramilitary, and they had a similar organizational
structure, e.g., the prime minister, the ministers of defense, education, etc. There were
also very real differences: the Black Panthers evolved from a Poverty Agency, whereas the
Berets were much younger and their base was the barrio. In addition, the Black Panthers
attracted many middle-class Black intellectuals as well as white radicals (nonmembers);
whereas the leadership of the Berets was primarily comprised of high school dropouts who
were highly suspicious of educated Chicanos and who almost totally rejected Anglos.
Moreover, the Panthers have received considerable financial support from the
Anglo-American liberal community; the Berets operated with no budget. The lack of
funds prevented the Berets from building a Panther-like network among its own chapters,
and they were not able to attract high-powered legal assistance to advertise the police
harassment of the group, or to obtain editorial help in producing sophisticated literature.
The Berets inspired a revolutionary fervor in many youth, especially those in their early
teens, who not only wanted to defend themselves, but wanted to stand up and fight. The
Battle of Algiers, a film depicting the Algerian struggle against the French, became a
model. These youth were attracted by the physical nature of the Beret-defined form of
confrontation. Moreover, the Berets... attracted the street batos (guys) who directly felt
the oppression of the police and the street. At the same time, the batos were alienated
from the mainstream of the Chicano community, which did not understand their hybrid
culture or, many times, their frustrations. Unable to articulate their feelings or their
grievances, the uniform and the paramilitary nature of the group gave members and
nonmembers the feeling that they could strike back in the manner that they felt and
understood best--physically.
The ability to serve and to protect the Chicano barrio by any means necessary provided
a link with the Chicano community. The Berets evolved into a radical group. Imbued with
the politics of liberation, they dealt with the immediate needs of the barrio--food, housing,
unemployment, education, etc.. Their philosophy has been molded by the conflict and the
street.... A basic weakness in the Brown Berets is that it does not have the strong family
structure that has heretofore marked survival and success for most Chicano
organizations. It has not been accepted as the "Army of the Brown People." ....Its attempt
to operate a free clinic in East Los Angeles, for example, has been frustrated by outside
interference such as police harassment and Red-baiting. Nonetheless, despite the failures,
the Brown Berets are important, because they are one of the few Chicano groups that have
not attempted to work entirely within the civil rights framework of the present reform
movement. They are the bridge between the groups of the past and those of liberation,
which shall become more offensive.
Source: Rodolfo Acuna, Occupied America: The Chicano's Struggle Toward Liberation
(New York, 1972), pp. 231-233.
THE WHITE BACKLASH, 1967
Robert Coles, a psychiatrist and noted author on racial attitudes, wrote an article
titled "The White Northerner: Pride and Prejudice," which attempted to explain the
"backlash," the growing white resentment of black civil rights gains in the 1960s. In
the part of the article reprinted below Coles allows a Boston housewife to explain her
fears following the integration of the nearby public school in 1967.
Why do they do it? [Call for integrated schools] I don't understand them at all.
They have their own people, just as we do, but suddenly they're not happy together.
They want to go here and there, and send their children everywhere. All you hear these
days is news about them. You'd think Negroes were the only people in America that
have a tough time. What about the rest of us? Who comes here asking us how we get
by, or how we feel about what we had to go through?
They may be poorer than a lot of white people, but no by very much. Anyway,
what they don't get in money they more than gain in popularity these days. The papers
have suddenly decided that the Negro is teacher's pet. Whatever he does good is
wonderful, and we should clap. But if he does anything bad, it's our fault. I can't read
the papers anymore when they talk about the race thing. I'm sick of their editorials. All
of a sudden they start giving us a lecture every day on how bad we are. They never used
to care about anything, the Negro or anything else. Now they're so worried.
And the same goes with the Church. I'm as devout a Catholic as you'll find
around. My brother is a priest, and I do more than go to Church once a week. But I just
can't take what some of our priests are saying these days. They're talking as if we did
something wrong for being white. I don't understand it all. Priests never used to talk
about the Negro when I was a child. Now they talk to my kids about them all the time. I
thought the Church is supposed to stand for religion, and eternal things.
I went to school here in Boston, and nobody was talking about Negroes and
busing us around. The Negroes were in Roxbury and we were here. Everybody can't
live with you, can they? Everybody likes his own. But now even the school people tell us
we have to have our kids with this kind and that kind of person, or else they will be hurt,
or something. Now how am I supposed to believe everything all these people say? They
weren't talking that way a few years ago. The governor wasn't either. Nor the mayor.
The same with those people out in the suburbs. Suddenly they're interested in the
Negro. They worked and worked to get away from him, of course, and get away from us,
too. That's why they moved so far, instead of staying here, where they can do
something, if they meant so well. But no. They moved and now they're all ready to
come back--but only to drive a few Negro kids out for a Sunday picnic. Who has to live
with all this, and pay for it in taxes and everything? Whose kids are pushed around?
And who gets called `prejudiced' and all the other sneery words? I've had enough of it.
It's hypocrisy, right down the line. And we're the ones who get it; the final buck gets
passed to us.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey & David M. Kennedy, The American Spirit, Vol. II,
(Lexington, Mass, 1984), pp. 997, 999.
PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY: THE PORT HURON STATEMENT
In 1962 the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) issued the Port Huron Statement
which outlined their vision of a just society. Part of the statement appears below:
In a participatory democracy, the political life would be based on several root
principles: That decision-making of basic social consequence be carried on by public
groupings; that politics be seen positively as the art of collectively creating an acceptable
pattern of social relations; that politics has the function of bringing people out of
isolation and into community, this being a necessary, but not sufficient, way of finding
meaning in personal life; that the political order should serve to clarify problems in a
way instrumental to their solution; it should provide outlets for the expression of
personal grievance and aspiration; opposing views should be organized so as to
illuminate choices and facilitate the attainment of goals; channels should be commonly
available to relate men to knowledge and to power so that private problems from bad
recreation facilities to personal alienation are formulated as general issues.
The economic sphere would have as its basis the principles: That work should involve
incentives worthier than money or survival. It should be educative, not stultifying;
creative, not mechanical; self-direct, not manipulated; encouraging independence, a
respect for others, a sense of dignity and a willingness to accept social responsibility,
since it is this experience that has crucial influence on habits, perceptions and individual
ethics;
That the economic experience is so personally decisive that the individual must share
in its full determination;
That the economy itself is of such social importance that its major resources and
means of production should be open to democratic participation and subject to
democratic social regulation...
Source: Jack Newfield, A Prophetic Minority (New York, 1966), pp. 125-126.
YOUNG AMERICANS FOR FREEDOM
In 1960 ninety college students from 24 states, representing 44 colleges and
universities met at the estate of William F. Buckley, Jr., in Sharon, Connecticut to form
the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). Their founding statement appears below.
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 these freedoms through the
preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration
of justice;
That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates
power which tends to diminish order and liberty;
That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for
empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the
concentration and abuse of power;
That the genius of the Constitution--the division of powers--is summed up in the
clause which reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not
specifically delegated to the Federal Government;
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 when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to
reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to
bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second,
and the moral autonomy of both;
That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is
secure; that history show periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free
citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies;
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; and
That American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion; does it serve the just
interests of the United States?
Source: Gregory L. Schneider, ed., Conservatism in America Since 1930 (New York,
2003), pp. 229-230
SEATTLE'S FIRST ANTI-WAR PROTEST
In the passage below, Walt Crowley recalls the first protest march in Seattle against
the War in Vietnam. The march took place on October 16, 1965, and involved 350
demonstrators who gathered in front of the Federal Court House and proceeded to the
Westlake Mall. In contrast marches the day before in Oakland and New York City
involved 10,000 protestors in each city.
On October 16, Seattle experience its first antiwar march led by the UW SDS and
"Seattle Committee to End the War in Vietnam" (SCEWV). I was among the nervous
350 or so who gathered in front of the Federal Court House that morning. We marched
down two lanes of Fourth Avenue, herded by motorcycle police and taunted as
Communists and traitors by passing motorists, to a noon rally beneath the old Monorail
station at Westlake Mall. Our every move was photographed by men with crew cuts who
aimed cameras at us from doorways and rooftops.
An ugly crowd surrounded us at Westlake, and they tried to drown out our speakers
by singing the Mickey Mouse Club anthem. When UW Professor Paul Brass began his
remarks, a man rushed up and doused him with red paint. He later identified himself to
the press as, paradoxically, "Joe Freedom." He turned out to be one of Brass's students.
There were a few scuffles when the rally broke up, but all of us got home with our skin, if
not our nerves, intact.
The press coverage was nasty and the public response was hostile. Both the P-I and
the Times editorialized that students were allowing themselves to be duped and
exploited by Communists. The Seattle Jaycees urged everyone to turn their lights on
during the day to endorse the war and 10,000 pro-war anti-protestors marched in New
York City.
Americans were also dying: 240 fell in a single week in November [1965], more than
had died in the previous year. [Defense Secretary Robert] McNamara boasted, if that is
the right word, that "we have stopped losing the war," but Senator Edward Kennedy,
passing through Seattle warned, "We are deluding ourselves to think there is going to be
a quick solution in Vietnam."
On December 20, B-52s began bombing North Vietnam's primary seaport at
Haiphong. Three days later, President Johnson halted all bombing in the north as a
"gesture of peace." On Christmas Day Tom Hayden and Quaker activist Staughton Lynd
arrived in Hanoi on the first of many such pilgrimages.
The year ended with 184,000 U.S. troops deployed in Vietnam, and a combat death
toll of 1,350 accumulated since the U.S. started counting in 1961. Most had fallen in the
past six months. Everyone knew much worse was to come. The national mood was
summed up by the surprise hit song of 1965, written by P. F. Sloan and intoned in
urgent, rasping tones by Barry McGuire: "And tell me over and over again, my friend,
you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction."
Source: Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle,
1995), pp. 45-46.
BETTY FREIDAN ON "THE PROBLEM THAT HAS NO NAME"
The following are excerpts from Betty Freidan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique.
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women.
It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the
middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with
it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate
peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay
besides her husband at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-"Is this all?"
For over fifteen years there was no word of this yearning in the millions of words
written about women, for women, in all the columns, books and articles by experts
telling women their role was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers...Experts told
them how to catch a man and keep him, how to breastfeed children and handle their
toilet training, how to cope with sibling rivalry and adolescent rebellion; how to buy a
dishwasher, bake break, cook gourmet snails, and build a swimming pool with their own
hands; how to dress, look, and act more feminine and make marriage more exciting...
They were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be
poets or physicists or presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want
careers, higher education, political rights--the independence and opportunities that old
fashioned feminists fought for... A thousand expert voices applauded their femininity,
their adjustment, their new maturity. All they had to do was devote their lives from
earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children.
The suburban housewife--she was the dream image of the young American woman
and the envy, it was said, of women all over the world. The American housewife--freed
by science and labor-saving appliances from drudgery, the dangers of childbirth and the
illnesses of her grandmother. She was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only
about heir husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine fulfillment.
As a housewife and mother, she was respected as a full and equal partner to man in his
world. She was free to choose automobiles, clothes, appliances, supermarkets; she had
everything that women ever dreamed of...
If a woman had a problem in the 1950s and 1960s she knew that something must be
wrong with her marriage or herself. Other women were satisfied with their lives, she
thought. What kind of woman was she if she did not feel this mysterious fulfillment
waxing the kitchen floor. She was so ashamed to admit her dissatisfaction that she
never know how many other women shared it. If she tried to tell her husband, he didn't
understand what she was talking about. She did not really understand it herself...
"There's nothing wrong really," they kept telling themselves. "There isn't any problem..."
Gradually I came to realize that the problem that has no name was shared by
countless women in America. As a magazine writer I often interviewed women about
problems with their children, or their marriages, or their houses, or their communities...
Sometimes I sensed the problem not as a reporter, but as a suburban housewife, for
during this time I was also bringing up my own three children in Rockland County, New
York. I heard echoes of the problem in college dormitories and semi-private maternity
wards, at PTA meetings and luncheons of the League of Women Voters...in station
wagons waiting for trains... The groping words I heard from other women, on quiet
afternoons when children were at school or on quiet evenings when husbands worked
late, I think I understood first as a woman long before I understood their larger social
and psychological implications.
Just what was this problem with no name? What were the words women used when
they tried to express it? Sometimes a woman would say "I feel empty
somehow...incomplete." Or she would say, "I feel as if I don't exist." Sometimes she
blotted out the feeling with a tranquilizer. Sometimes she thought the problem was with
her husband, or her children, or that what she really needed was to redecorate her
house, or move to a better neighborhood, or have an affair, or another baby... Most
[women] adjusted to their role and suffered or ignored the problem that has no name. It
can be less painful for a woman, not to hear their strange, dissatisfied voice stirring
within her.
It is no longer possible to ignore that voice, to dismiss the desperation of so many
American women. This is not what being a woman means no matter what the experts
say... I do not accept the answer that there is no problem because American women
have luxuries that women in other times and lands never dreamed of; part of the strange
newness of this problem is that it cannot be understood in terms of the age-old material
problems of man: poverty, sickness, hunger, cold. The women who suffer this problem
has a hunger that food cannot fulfill. It persists in women whose husbands are
struggling interns and law clerks, or prosperous doctors and lawyers; in wives of
workers and executives who make $5,000 a year or $50,000...
It is no longer possible to blame the problem on loss of femininity; to say that
education and independence and equality with men have made American women
unfeminine...the problem cannot be understood in the generally accepted terms by
which scientists have studies women, doctors have treated them, counselors have
advised them, and writers have written about them. Women who suffer this problem, in
whom the voice is stirring, have lived their whole lives in the pursuit of feminine
fulfillment. They are not career women (although career women may have other
problems); they are women whose greatest ambition has been marriage and children.
For the oldest of these women, these daughters of the American middle class, no other
dream was possible. The ones in their forties and fifties who once had other dreams
gave them up and threw themselves joyously into life as housewives. For the youngest,
the new wives and mothers, this was the only dream. They are the ones who quit high
school and college to marry, or marked time in some job in which they had no real
interest until they married. These women are very "feminine" in the usual sense, and yet
they still suffer the problem.
If I am right, the problem that has no name stirring in the minds of so many American
women today...is far more important than anyone recognizes. It is the key to...problems
which have been torturing women and their husbands and children, and puzzling their
doctors and educators for years. It may well be the key to our future as a nation and a
culture. We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: "I want something
more than my husband and my children and my home."
Source: The Feminine Mystique (New York, 1963), pp. 11-16, 21-22, 27
NOW'S CALL FOR ACTION
The National Organization of Women was organized in 1966 to campaign for women's
rights. Here are excerpts from the founding statement of the organization.
WE, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves as the National
Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new movement toward
true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the
sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and
beyond our national borders.
The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in
the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and
responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men...
There is no civil rights movement to speak for women, as there has been for
Negroes and other victims of discrimination. The National Organization for Women
must therefore begin to speak...
WE BELIEVE that the power of American law, and the protection guaranteed by
the U.S. Constitution to the civil rights of all individuals, must be effectively applied and
enforced to isolate and remove patterns of sex discrimination, to ensure equality of
opportunity in employment and education, and equality of civil and political rights and
responsibilities on behalf of women, as well as for Negroes and other deprived groups...
WE DO NOT ACCEPT the token appointment of a few women to high-level
positions in government and industry as a substitute for a serious continuing effort to
recruit and advance women according to their individual abilities.
WE BELIEVE that this nation has a capacity at least as great as other nations, to
innovate new social institutions which will enable women to enjoy true equality of
opportunity and responsibility in society, without conflict with their responsibilities as
mothers and homemakers.
WE BELIEVE that it is as essential for every girl to be educated to her full
potential of human ability as it is for every boy--with the knowledge that such education
is the key to effective participation in today's economy...
WE REJECT the current assumption that a man must carry the sole burden of
supporting himself, his wife, and family, and that a woman is automatically entitled to
lifelong support by a man upon her marriage, or that marriage, home and family are
primarily woman's world and responsibility--hers, to dominate, his to support.
WE BELIEVE that women must now exercise their political rights and
responsibilities as American citizens. They must refuse to be segregated on the basis of
sex into separate-and-not-equal ladies' auxiliaries in the political parties....
IN THE INTERESTS OF THE HUMAN DIGNITY OF WOMEN, we will protest
and endeavor to change the false image of women now prevalent in the mass media, and
in the texts, ceremonies, laws, and practices of our major social institutions.
WE BELIEVE THAT women will do most to create a new image of women by
acting now, and by speaking out in behalf of their own equality, freedom, and human
dignity.
Source: Mary Beth Norton, Major Problems in American Women's History Lexington,
Mass: D.C. Heath and Company, 1989), pp. 397-400.
THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT AND ROE V. WADE
Two measures in the 1970s, the Equal Rights Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court
Decision on abortion in Roe v. Wade, have come to symbolize the complex issues raised
by the feminist movement and reflect the deep divisions among women and men as to
the implications of sexual equality. The ERA is reprinted below as well as excerpts
from the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
The Equal Rights Amendment, 1972
Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the
provisions of this article.
Section 3: This Amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
* * *
Roe v. Wade: We forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and
emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even
among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject
inspires. One's philosophy...religious training...attitude toward life and family and their
values, and the moral standards one establishes... are all likely to influence and to color
one's thinking and conclusions about abortion.
In addition, population growth, pollution, poverty, and racial overtones tend to
complicate and not to simplify the problem.
It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws
in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage... They derive from
statutory changes effected, for the most part, in the latter half of the 19th Century...
The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of
decisions, however, the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a
guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution... This
right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of
personal liberty and restrictions upon state action...or in the Ninth Amendment's
reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision
whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the
language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment... The Constitution does not
define "person" in so many words... But in nearly all of the instances the use of the word
is such that it has application only postnatally. None indicates, with any assurance, that
it has any possible prenatal application...
Source: Mary Beth Norton, Main Problems in American Women's History (Lexington,
Mass: D.C. Heath, 1989), pp. 422, 425-427.
THE IMMIGRATION ACT OF 1965
In the passage below historians Roger Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorgmehr describe the
impact of the 1965 Immigration Act on the United States with particular reference to
Los Angeles, the destination for the largest number of newcomers.
Passage of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965 provided the conventional date for the
onset of the new immigration the United States. The 1965 reform transformed the
immigration system with a few bold strokes. First, it abolished the old country-oforigins quotas, which allotted small quotas to southern and eastern Europe and still
smaller--almost prohibitively small--quotas to Asia. Second, it established two principal
criteria for admission to the United States: family ties to citizens or permanent residents
or possession of scarce and needed skills. Third, it increased the total numbers of
immigrants to be admitted to the United States...
The reformers thought that the new act would keep immigration to modest
proportions. But for various reasons the numbers quickly spiraled; 7.3 million new
immigrants arrived into the United States during the 1980s, an influx second only to the
peak of 8.8 million newcomers recorded during the first decade of the 20th Century. To
be sure, at 8%, the immigrants constituted a far more modest share of the nation's
population in 1990 than was true in 1910, when fifteen of every hundred Americans were
foreign-born. Still, the 1990 level represented a substantial increase over the 5% level
recorded when the foreign-born share of the U.S. population hit its historic nadir in
1970.
A second unexpected twist concerned the act's beneficiaries. The 1965 legislation
was principally targeted at eastern and southern Europeans, the groups hardest hit by
the nativist legislation of the 1920s. By the 1960s, however, workers from Italy or
Yugoslavia had fallen out of the orbit of trans-Atlantic migration. Instead, the
newcomers who took advantage of the newly liberalized system came from Asia, Latin
American and the countries of the Caribbean.
What no one expected in 1965 was the burgeoning of Asian immigration... The
1965 reforms created opportunities for immigrants whose skills--as engineers, doctors,
nurses, pharmacists--were in short supply. Along with students already living in the
United States, who enjoyed easy access to American employers, these professionals
made up the first wave of new immigrants, in turn creating the basis for the kinship
migration of less-well educated relatives. The system was sufficiently flexible for longerestablished groups, like the Chinese, to renew migration streams while also allowing
entirely new groups--most notably Koreans and Asian Indians--to put a nucleus in place
and then quickly expand.
Political developments added momentum to the migrant flow across the Pacific...
Unexpected pressures repeatedly forced the United States to expand greatly its
admission of refugees. The collapse of the U.S.-supported regime in South Vietnam,
followed by Communist takeovers in Cambodia and Laos, triggered a sudden, massive
outflow of refugees, many of whom settled on the West Coast... By the 1980s, Asia
emerged as the number two source area of the foreign-born, accounting for 37% of all
newcomers...
Asian immigrants passed through the front door opened by the 1965 reforms...
Mexican and later on Central Americans were more likely to come through the back door
of unauthorized migration. The immediate roots of Mexican unauthorized migration lie
in the Bracero Program begun during the Second Word War to eliminated the shortage
of agricultural workers. Ostensibly, the Bracero Program was destined for a short
existence, and the workers it imported were supposed to head back to Mexico after a
short stint of temporary labor in the U.S. But the influence of agribusiness kept the
Bracero Program alive until 1963, and with time, an increasing number of migrants
dropped out of the bracero stream, heading for better jobs in Los Angeles, San Francisco
and other urban areas. By 1964...networks between the United States and villages
throughout Mexico's central plateau were already in place, providing all the information
and connections needed to keep the migrants coming, whether or not they had legal
documents.
While Mexicans were drawn by the inducements of American employers, the
Salvadorans and Guatemalans who headed for the U.S. border in increasing numbers in
the late 1970s and afterwards were responding to different factors. Like the Vietnamese,
Cambodians, and Laotians, the Central Americans were escaping political unrest, but
unlike their Asian counterparts, the Central Americans had the bad fortune to be fleeing
right-wing regimes propped up with U.S. government support. Hence, these newcomers
mainly moved across the border as unauthorized migrants...
Just how many newcomers have arrived without authorization has long been a
matter of dispute; wildly disparate estimates...ranging from 2 to 12 million are stock-intrade... [The best estimate] suggests about 2 to 4 million residing in the United States as
of 1980, of whom over half had come from Mexico...
Given the many circumstances of migration, it should be no surprise that the
newcomers of the post-1965 years are an extraordinarily diverse lot... The extraordinary
educational differences among various immigrant groups suggest that skill levels have
gone up and down. Highly educated professionals and managers dominate some
streams, most notably those from the Middle East, Africa, South and Southeast Asia;
among many of these groups, median levels of schooling leave America's native white
workers far behind. Manual workers with little schooling predominate among other
groups--Mexicans are the most conspicuous example--and the contribution of lowskilled workers to America's immigrant pool has risen substantially in recent years...
Source: Roger Waldinger and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, Ethnic Los Angeles, (New York,
1996) pp. 9-12.
IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1940-1979
Total Number of Immigrants
1940-1944
203,589
1945-1949
653,019
1950-1954
1,099,035
1955-1959
1,400,233
1960-1964
1,419,013
1965-1969
1,794,736
1970-1974
1,923,413
1975-1979
2,308,912
10,801,950
Percentage of Immigrants By Country of Origin
South and Central America\West
Indies
21.60%
Asia
18.40%
Mexico
12.80%
Canada
10.40%
Germany
9.10%
Great Britain
6.20%
Italy
5.40%
France, Switzerland & Low
Countries
3.40%
Central Europe
2.30%
Other
10.40%
NATIONAL BACKGROUNDS OF IMMIGRANTS, 1820-1979
Germany
6,985,000
Italy
5,300,000
Great Britain
4,912,000
Ireland
4,724,000
Austria-Hungary
4,316,000
Canada
4,119,000
Russia
3,377,000
Mexico
2,176,000
Sweden
1,273,000
Norway
857,000
West Indies
798,000
France
753,000
Greece
660,000
China
560,000
Cuba
541,000
Poland
521,000
Portugal
453,000
Philippines
432,000
Japan
410,000
Turkey
387,000
Denmark
365,000
The Netherlands
360,000
Switzerland
350,000
Spain
261,000
Belgium
204,000
Vietnam
137,000
Source: Lewis Todd and Merle Curti, Rise of the American Nation, (New York, 1982),
pp. 798, 843.
ASIAN AMERICAN POLITICAL ACTIVISM SINCE 1965
In the brief discussion below Sucheng Chan describes the growing importance of
"grassroots" political activism among younger Asian Americans. Her assessment
challenges the widely held belief of political apathy within Asian communities.
Very few Asian Americans participated in the civil rights movement in the early
1960s., but the movement against U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam caught their
attention in the late 1960s. With the help of the television evening news, an increasing
number of Asian American college and high school students realized with a shock that
the "enemy" whom American soldiers were maiming and killing had faces like their
own. A number of the more radical students began to think of the war not only as an
imperialist but also a racist one.
Young Asian Americans, as well as youth of other backgrounds, also drew
inspiration from China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution...in the ten years
between 1966 and 1976. The Cultural Revolution, an officially sanctioned campaign by
young Red Guards against a segment of China's political establishment, fired the
imagination of rebellious students everywhere. Bookstores in the United States that
imported the red plastic-covered booklets containing the sayings of Mao Zedong did a
thriving business. Like the Red Guards in China, many Asian American students, along
with their black, Chicano, and white peers, waved the pocket-sized talismans as they
marched in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, for civil rights, for racial pride,
and for the establishment of ethnic studies courses and programs.
The activists eagerly adopted the Chinese Communists' political work style; they
held long meetings, practiced collective leadership, and engaged in sectarian struggles.
But since there was no "countryside" to go to, where they might learn from "the masses"-as the Red Guards in China were doing--the Asian American activists descended on
their surprised communities. Some members of these communities--especially the
leaders of the traditional organizations--looked askance at the students' unkempt long
hair, Mao jackets, and rude (and terribly un-Asian) manners.
Nonetheless, the activists tried to organize garment and restaurant workers; set
up social service agencies; recruit individuals to leftist organizations, which
mushroomed overnight; and protested against a variety of ills. These included not only
those created by American racism and capitalism but also those spawned by the
increasing presence of Asian "flight capital," which allowed entrepreneurs from Hong
Kong, Taiwan, Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, and various other Asian metropolises to buy
up buildings in the major Chinatowns and Japantowns of America, driving real estate
prices sky high and causing severe hardship on the old residents.
The political activists were of two kinds: radicals who were mostly concerned with
articulating the "correct" leftist political "lines" and reformers who put their energy
primarily into setting up legal aid organizations, health clinics, and bilingual programs
for the elderly and youth. In the long run, the former has had relatively little effect, but
many of the agencies set up by the latter have remained. They continue to render
important assistance to the needy and have been crucial in providing services to nonEnglish-speaking new immigrants.
Within the political arena, the radicals were initially firmly opposed to
"bourgeois" electoral politics, but a number of them later became actively involved in
Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition. Some of the reformers, meanwhile, have run for
office or supported candidates. Ironically, those who paved the way for Asian American
involvement in mainstream politics are now slowly outnumbered by more conservative
individuals who support the domestic and foreign policies and programs of the Reagan
and Bush administrations. The new immigrants who have come in search of a good life
under capitalism, as well as the refugees who risked their lives to escape communism,
are natural allies for the Republican party.
Source: Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Boston, 1991), pp.
174-175.
DREAMS OF PROSPERITY: NEWPORT AND LATINO IMMIGRATION
In a 1992 Register-Guard article, reporter Larry Bacon describes the experiences of
recently arrived Latino immigrants in Newport, Oregon. Here is his account.
NEWPORT--Narciso Tamayo and Jesus Hernandez came to Newport in search of a
better lives for themselves and their families Tamayo, 37, a former shoemaker from the
industrial city of Purisime del Bustos in central Mexico, left his family behind and came
to Newport four years ago when there were few Hispanics in the area Hernandez, 23, a
former fisherman from the seacoast city of Puerto Angel in the south of Mexico, arrived
in March with his wife and two children. At the same time Hernandez arrived, hundreds
of other Hispanics also came looking for jobs in Newport's new whiting processing
industry. The workers brought racial diversity to a community where few people of
color have lived before. But life in the United States is not always easy for the two men,
and their dreams have proved somewhat elusive.
Yet Tamayo has grown comfortable with his new life in Newport. He's learned to
speak English fairly well. He has friends in both the Anglo and Hispanic communities.
He's been able to find enough work at the seafood plants to stay employed almost yearround. He makes from $18,000 to $24,000 a year--much more than he could hope to
make in Mexico--and still spends two months each winter at home with his family.
Even though he hopes to bring his family to this country someday, he has some
reservations. "I am afraid the white people have prejudice about my kids," he says. Most
of the prejudice he's experienced has not been not overt "It's something you can feel
when they see you." He recalls a white co-worker telling him a joke based on the racial
stereotype that Mexicans steal. "It's like he was trying to be nice, but at the same
time--put the knife inside," Tamayo says. Prejudice kept the local Eagles lodge from
accepting him as a member, both he and a lodge official say. Tamayo rejected a friend's
advice to sue the lodge for discrimination, however. "I don't want to make trouble with
anybody," he says. Dick Gearin, president of the Eagles lodge, says Tamayo and three
other Hispanics were "blackballed" by three members who were angry about problems
some other Hispanics had caused at a lodge function. At the time, three negative votes
could bar anyone from membership. Gearin, who helped sponsor Tamayo..., says he and
most other lodge members were so upset by the blackballing that they changed the
rules. Now members are admitted by majority vote. Tamayo and his friends have since
joined the Eagles lodge at nearby Toledo.
Meanwhile, Hernandez and his wife, Saray Gabriel Luna, are less concerned about
prejudice than learning English and making their way in a new country. They say they
have made Anglo friends who have been warm and friendly. The friends, primarily from
their church, have invited them to dinner and given them clothes for their children.
They have had help learning American ways from Luna's older sister, Maria Luisa
Dale, who married an Anglo and moved to Newport eight years ago. The young
newcomers lived with the Dalles for four months until they could rent a one-bedroom
apartment of their own.
Hernandez dreams of making enough in the fish plants to return to Puerto Angel and
buy a small fishing boat for about $3,000. But it is expensive for them to live in
Newport, and they have saved little so far. Their salaries--$5.75 an hour for him and
$5.25 an hour for her part-time work--are eaten up by living expenses, particularly rent.
Their tiny apartment costs $340 a month. Now the whiting season is over, and they
have both been laid off. They are looking for any type of work to tide them over until
whiting season begins again next April...
Source: Eugene Register-Guard, November 8, 1992, p. 1
CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD GOVERNMENT
During the 1930s when the United States was in the throes of the Great Depression
most Americans welcomed and indeed demanded an activist government that would
reinvigorate the economy and protect their rights. Over the years however, attitudes
toward government and what it can and should accomplish have undergone a
dramatic shift. The quotes from four American Presidents reflect that shift.
The liberal party is a party which believes that, as new conditions and problems
arise beyond the power of men and women to meet as individuals, it becomes the duty of
the Government itself to find new remedies with which to meet them. The liberal party
insists that the Government has the definite duty to use all its power and resources to
meet new social problems with new social controls--to insure to the average person the
right to his own economic and political life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 16, 1941
Statements are made labeling the Federal Government an outsider, an intruder,
an adversary... The people of this (TVA) area know that the United States Government is
not a stranger or not an enemy. It is the people of fifty states joining in a national
effort... Only a great national effort by a great people working together can explore the
mysteries of space, harvest the products at the bottom of the ocean, and mobilize the
human, natural, and material resources of our lands.
John F. Kennedy, May 18, 1963
Government cannot solve our problems. It can't set our goals. It cannot define
our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty, or provide a bountiful economy, or
reduce inflation, or save our cities, or cure illiteracy, or provide energy.
Jimmy Carter, January 19, 1978
Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.
Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981
Source: John M. Blum, The National Experience: A History of the United States (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), p. 812.
WATERGATE
The vignette that follows is a brief description of the worst political scandal in the
history of the United States.
The capture of five burglars inside the Democratic National Committee
headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972, had
aroused widespread suspicion about White House involvement. Despite official denials,
two investigative reporters of The Washington Post, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward,
printed stories claiming that the burglars had obtained money from the Committee for the
Re-election of the President (popularly known as CREEP) and that illegal campaign
contributions had been "laundered" in Mexican banks. "What really hurts,” replied
President Nixon in a news conference on August 29, "is if you try to cover it up... I can
state categorically that no one in the White House staff, no one in this administration,
presently employed, was involved in this very bizarre incident.”
Two weeks later, a federal grand jury indicted the five burglars as well as two former
White House aides, Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, on charges of tapping telephones,
electronic surveillance, and theft of documents. "We have absolutely no evidence to
indicate that any others should be charged,” announced a Justice Department official...
The trial of the Watergate burglars opened in January 1973 in the court of Judge
John Sirica... Four of the burglars, all connected to the anti-Castro Cuban community of
Miami and believed to have participated in the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs fiasco, maintained
silence by pleading guilty. Hunt, Liddy, and former CIA operative James McCord were
also convicted. But unlike his codefendants, McCord, determined to protect the CIA, and
in the process, save his own skin, refused to participate further in the Watergate cover-up.
In a letter to Sirica in March 1973, McCord admitted that “political pressure” had led the
defendants to plead guilty, that perjury had been committed, and that the web of
complicity reached high into the administration...
Persuaded that the Nixon White House would never adequately investigate
itself...the Senate established the Ervin committee to probe possible violations of
campaign law. Nixon, fearing exposure of the Watergate cover-up and confident in his
ability to defy congressional power, promptly announced his refusal to cooperate with the
Senate on the grounds of “executive privilege.”
“Executive poppycock,” retorted Ervin. White House personnel were not“nobility
and royalty,”he stated, and would face arrest if they refused to appear before a
congressional committee.
On April 17, 1973, White House press secretary Ron Ziegler announced the
discovery of new evidence that made all previous statements about
Watergate“inoperative.” The President told a stunned television audience that four major
advisers--H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, John Dean, and Attorney General Richard
Kleindienst—had resigned because of the Watergate affair, but that Nixon alone, as chief
executive, was responsible for what he termed “a series of illegal acts and bad judgments
by a number of individuals.”Nixon pledged to "bring the guilty...to justice..."
The President named as attorney general Elliot Richardson,“a man of incomparable
integrity and rigorously high principle,” and agreed to appoint an independent special
prosecutor to deal with the Watergate case. In May, Richardson selected...Archibald Cox.
“I have the greatest confidence in the President,” maintained House Minority Leader
Gerald Ford, “and am absolutely positive he had nothing to do with this mess.”
On Friday, the thirteenth of July...former White House appointments secretary
Alexander Butterfield was describing the administration's office procedures when an
investigator asked about the possibility of recording presidential conversations. “I was
hoping you fellows wouldn't ask me about that,”replied Butterfield. The President ordered
the Secret Service to install voice-activated tape recorders in White House offices to
preserve a historical record. Such tapes...promised to resolve the conflicting testimony
presented to the Ervin committee, would reveal at last who had told the truth and who had
lied.
On July 31, 1973, Representative Robert F. Drinan, a Catholic priest from
Massachusetts, introduced a resolution listing four presidential actions—the bombing of
Cambodia, the taping of conversations, the refusal to spend impounded funds, and the
establishment of a “super secret security force within the White House”—as grounds for
impeachment. Public opinion polls found that large majorities doubted the President’s
honesty and most Americans believed he had an obligation to surrender the White House
tapes... “It may well be,” wrote columnist William Raspberry in The Washington Post,
“that the biggest threat to the presidency today is the President.”
As Nixon struggled to recapture public confidence, his administration received a
severe blow from its sturdiest supporter—Vice President Agnew. On August 6, 1973, the
Justice Department revealed that the second highest executive officer was under investigation for receiving bribes during his tenure as governor of Maryland. “I am innocent of
any wrongdoing,” asserted the Vice President... But with the administration/s credibility
already suspect, Agnew could no longer rally public support... Facing incontrovertible
evidence of bribery, even while serving in Washington, Agnew agreed...to plea-bargain for
a reduced sentence. On October 10, 1973, in exchange for his resignation, Agnew offered a
“nolo contendere” plea.. the full equivalent to a plea of guilty--to a single count of income
tax evasion, amounting to $13,551.47. In leaving government service, the former Vice
President received a three-year suspended sentence, a $10,000 fine, and a letter from
Richard Nixon expressing “a great sense of personal loss.”
The departure of Agnew also served the crucial symbolic role of weakening public
allegiance to the entire administration. “We've demonstrated that we can replace a Vice
President," remarked William Rusher, publisher of the conservative National Review, “so
I expect we could replace a President.” After a decade of assassination—the sudden loss of
the two Kennedys, King, George Wallace—the idea of finding substitute leadership no
longer seemed odd or implausible.
On the day he announced [Gerald] Ford’s nomination [as Vice President], an
appellate court denied the President's “incantation of the doctrine of separation of
powers,” rejected his claim “of special presidential immunities,” and ordered him to
produce the subpoenaed White House tapes for Judge Sirica... Disregarding the court
order, Nixon announced his intention to comply with the spirit of the ruling...by providing
written summaries of the tapes... The Ervin committee...consented to Nixon's
compromise. But prosecutor Cox questioned the reliability of such secondhand evidence
and rejected the proposal. “I think it is my duty as the special prosecutor,” declared Cox in
a televised news conference on Saturday, October 20, 1973, “to bring to the court’s
attention what seems to me to be noncompliance.”
Enraged by his subordinate’s audacity, Nixon immediately ordered Attorney
General Richardson to fire Cox. But Richardson, having assumed office the previous April
on assurances that the President would not interfere with the special prosecutor, refused
the task and instead submitted his resignation. Nixon then ordered deputy Attorney
General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. But he, too, refused and was promptly fired by
the President. Solicitor General Robert Bork then assumed the attorney general's post and
executed the order.
This Saturday Night Massacre, reported immediately by the television networks,
provoked waves of protest that White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig likened to “a
fire storm.” “The office of the President does not carry with it a license to destroy justice in
America,” objected Senator Robert Packwood. More than a quarter of a million telegrams
denouncing the President’s action poured into Washington, and on Sunday huge crowds
surrounded the White House, urging passing motorists to “honk for impeachment.” In the
House of Representatives, eighty-four congressmen sponsored twenty-two different bills
calling for Nixon’s impeachment, and the Democratic leadership instructed the judiciary
committee, headed by Representative Peter Rodino of New Jersey, to begin an impeachment inquiry.
The President's hope to restore public confidence in the new year [1974] abruptly
collapsed when a panel of expert technicians reported or January 15 that a particular
eighteen-and-a-half minute gap in conversation between Nixon and Haldeman had been
deliberately erased... “We know that there is corruption in the... Oval Office,” concluded
political columnist George Will. Listing the names of all the White House aides who had
left the administration because of Watergate--Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Dean,
Strachan, Porter, Caulfield, Ulasewicz, Mitchell, Stans, Hunt, Mardian, Segretti, Liddy
Kaimbach, McCord, Chapin, Gray, and Magruder-—Will asked, “Of all the significant men
who were around the White House when the cover-up began [and], who are still there
providing the continuity in this ongoing cover-up, one name,” he said, “springs to mind.”
In audacious attempt to preserve his administration, Nixon commanded television
airtime on April 29, 1974... Still maintaining that "the President has nothing to hide,"
Nixon released a 1,308-page edited transcription of the subpoenaed tapes, in place of the
actual evidence.
The publication of the transcriptions revealed the most intimate details of White
House conversations and stripped away the remaining shreds of presidential dignity. “We
have seen the private man and we are appalled,” commented the conservative Chicago
Tribune. “He is humorless to the point of being inhumane. He is devious. He is
vacillating. He is profane. He is willing to be led. He displays amazing gaps in his
knowledge...his loyalty is minimal.” “Nobody is a friend of ours. Let’s face it,” said Nixon
on one of the tapes. Congressional leaders, embarrassed and angered by such disclosures,
prepared to take him at his word.
[O]n July 27, the [House Judiciary] committee voted 27—11 to adopt the first article
of impeachment, charging the President with obstruction of justice for blocking a full
investigation of the Watergate affair. On July 29, the committee recommended 28—10 the
second article of impeachment, accusing Nixon of abusing his powers of office to violate
constitutional rights. On July 30, the committee approved 21—17 the third article of
impeachment, citing the chief executive's violations of congressional subpoenas...
Certain that the full House would ratify the recommendations, Nixon prepared to
carry his fight to the Senate... On August 5, in an act of apparent political suicide, the
President released additional transcriptions of conversations which showed unmistakably
that on June 23, 1972, six days after the Watergate burglary, Nixon personally ordered a
halt to a full investigation of the crime. Shocked by this disclosure, Republican loyalists
quickly withdrew their remaining support... On August 7, three of the most powerful
Republicans on Capitol Hill, Senate Minority Leader Scott, House Minority Leader John
Rhodes, and Senator Barry Goldwater, journeyed to the White House to confirm estimates
of minimal support.
Facing certain conviction, the 37th President of the United States addressed the
American people for the 37th time on August 8, 1974. “I have never been a quitter,” he
admitted. "To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my
body." His struggle, he announced, would end the next day at noon. For the first time, an
American president had resigned.
In a somber White House, Nixon bade farewell to the members of his
administration on the morning of August 9. “Always give your best,” advised the outgoing
President. “Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember: others may hate
you. Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”
Source: Peter N. Carroll, It Seemed Like Nothing Happened: The Tragedy and Promise
of America in the 1970s (New York, 1982), p. 140-43, 145, 148-51, 153, 155-58.
GAY RIGHTS: FROM STONEWALL TO SAN FRANCISCO
The vignette below describes the gay-rights movement of the 1970s.
The emergence of a gay life-style triggered a demand for homosexual rights.
Activists dated the beginning of gay militancy to a hot June day in 1969 when New York
City police invaded a homosexual bar, the Stonewall Inn, and angry patrons fought back.
In subsequent years, numerous municipalities enacted ordinances extending equal
protection to homosexuals, and a gay-rights bill lingered in Congress. Gay lobbyists met
with [President] Carter's aide Margaret Constanza to seek the right to serve in the military,
FBI, CIA, and the State Department... Though Carter rejected the pressure, he
acknowledged the legal rights of gays. "I don't feel that society, through its laws, ought to
abuse or harass the homosexual," he stated on Father's Day, 1977.
These assertions of gay rights...prompted a powerful backlash that swept the nation
in 1977. The issue coalesced first in Miami, Florida, soon after the city adopted a law
prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals. "The ordinance condones immorality,
and discriminates against my children's rights to grow up in a healthy, decent
community," charged singer Anita Bryan, who quickly launched a Save Our Children
movement to overthrow this measure...
Fighting back, gay activists defined the issue as a defense of civil rights. "Miami is
our Selma," claimed one gay activist, alluding to the black crusade of the sixties... What if
the people of Selma, Alabama, had been asked to vote on equal rights for blacks in 1964?"
In June 1977, Miami voters spoke--by a two-to-one margin rejecting the
antidiscrimination ordinance. The outcome outraged liberals through the nation.
"Terribly wrong," commented San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, as five thousand of
his city's homosexuals marched in protest. In New York City, angry gays paraded the
streets chanting, "Gay rights now!"
Division within the homosexual communities--distrust between lesbians and gay
men, disagreements between homosexuals who urged anonymity and exhibitionists who
flaunted their preferences--left this group vulnerable to further attack... In the spring of
1978, the spirit of Miami spread to St. Paul, Minnesota, Wichita, Kansas and Eugene,
Oregon [where] popular referenda repealed existing antidiscrimination laws... But in a
hotly contested municipal election in Seattle, voters overwhelmingly rejected an attempt
to repeal a law protecting civil rights regardless of sexual orientation.
San Francisco, with one of the largest homosexual communities in the country,
boasted a gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, first elected in 1977, and a gay rights ordinance
signed by Mayor Moscone in 1978. [Yet even here] a substantial constituency criticized gay
rights and a conservative police department resented the mayor's prohibition of the
harassment of homosexuals. The only supervisor to vote against the antidiscrimination
measure was a former policeman named Dan White who had campaigned against "splinter
groups of radicals, social deviates, incorrigibles." Unable to influence municipal policy,
White overcame his political impotence with the help of a police special .38 and a dozen
hollowed bullets, assassinating Moscone and Milk in their offices in November 1978. "If a
bullet should enter my brain," Milk had prophetically tape-recorded his own eulogy, "let
that bullet destroy every closet door."
Source: Peter N. Carroll, It Seemed Like Nothing Happened: The Tragedy and Promise
of America in the 1970s (New York, 1982), pp. 290-293.
OPEC, THE WEST, AND THE POLITICS OF OIL
During the 1970s the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
dramatically, if temporarily, changed the world balance of power by first embargoing
and then raising the price of oil sold to the West. Those years of change are described in
this excerpt from David Halberstam's book, The Reckoning.
For twenty years the companies were able to stabilize the posted price of oil─in
effect, the price at which they chose to sell (vastly above the cheap price at which they
bought)... From about 1948 to 1971 the price was remarkably even, staying near $2 a
barrel. But beneath the seeming stability there was volatility. For the first time the Arab
nations began to talk of unity... In 1967 the Egyptians and the Syrians attacked Israel in
what became known as the Six-Day War. The speed and completeness with which the
Israelis defeated their Arab opponents only made the Arabs more aware of their weakness
and deepened their rage... The impotence of the Arabs simply created more contempt for
them in the West. But it was this demonstration of their own ineffectuality that prompted
real change, at last compelling the Arab nations to cooperate with one another.
At the same time the buyer's market in oil was beginning to become a seller's
market. The Six-Day War took place twenty-two years after the end of World War II. By
then Western Europe had become a full-fledged member of the oil culture....From 1950 to
1965 the six Common Market countries' reliance on oil as an energy source increased from
10 to 45 percent... Japan's economy, a scaled-down replica of the American model,
became ever more oil-based, and countless smaller countries were also beginning to
demand oil...
The first substantial break came in 1969 in Libya. In September of that year, King
Idris was overthrown by a group of radical officers headed by a young army colonel named
Muammar Qaddafi, bitterly anti-Israel, fiercely anti-Western... Unlike other Arab
countries, where the government dealt with only one main concessionaire, Libya had
opened itself up to a variety of companies, and its fields were allotted among them. Thus
someone like Qaddafi could exert considerable leverage on a single firm he chose to
isolate. Advised by experts that his oil was under priced, he sought an increase; the
companies rejected his request. In May 1970, his patience exhausted, he took on
Occidental Petroleum, an independent and, among the many companies doing business in
Libya, the weakest link...
It was probably the first time one of the oil countries did to a company what the
companies had been doing to them. Occidental quickly offered a modest increase in price,
but it was too late...
At a meeting of OPEC in December 1970, the new Arab confidence was obvious.
Not just the leaders of the radical countries but even supposedly moderate leaders like the
Shah were behaving in a new way..."The oil-producing countries know they are being
cheated," he declared. "Otherwise you would not have the common front... The
all-powerful seven sisters [the international oil companies] have got to open their eyes and
see that they are living in 1971 and not in 1948 or 1949."
The negotiations between the companies and the Iranians became intense. The
Iranians wanted 54 cents more a barrel, and the Americans offered 15 cents. They finally
settled on 30 cents, increasing to 50 by 1975...
In March the companies doing business with Libyans agreed on a posted price of
$3, an increase of 76 cents. Word of that price spread swiftly through the Arab world. The
Shah, hearing the news, was furious; he realized how much more he could have gotten...
In June 1973 there was another OPEC meeting, at which the countries announced
an additional 12 percent increase... Sheik Yamani [the Saudi oil Minister] told reporters
that this was the last time the countries would negotiate with the companies on price;
from now on they would meet, work out the price, and announce it unilaterally to the
companies...
Now two powerful currents came together─a changing market value for oil and an
enraged Arab sensibility over American support of Israel. Four Arab foreign ministers
flew to Washington to warn the Americans of the possibility of a boycott. The most
important of them was Omar Saqquaf, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia. On the day
that Saqquaf hoped to see President Nixon, the President pleaded too busy a schedule, and
that angered the Saudis. A press conference an American reporter suggested to Saqquaf
that the Saudis might have to drink their oil, and Saqquaf retorted, "All right, we will."
On October 21 the boycott, aimed primarily at the Americans, began. The embargo
helped drive the price per barrel skyward, for those allowed to buy. It seemed a
particularly cruel irony that only a few weeks earlier the companies had sneered at
Yamani's request for a $5 price...
On December 16, 1973, the Iranian State Oil Company for the first time conducted
an auction of its oil. The highest bid was $17 a barrel. Shell was said to have bid at $12.
Another auction in Algeria produced bids of $22. It was clear that the posted price and
the market price no longer had anything to do with each other...
The American economy and the American people were completely unprepared for
the change. The squandering of oil was built into the very structure of American life.
Everyone had become dependent upon cheap energy. Almost all American cars, for
example, had automatic transmissions, which used 25 percent more gas than manual
transmissions... Eighty-five percent of the job holders in America drove to work every
day─and as a result, public transportation had atrophied. Suddenly gas was expensive and
scarce. In a short time it went from 36 cents a gallon to 60. People lined up for hours at
every service station. There were fights as drivers tried to jump the line, reports of bribes,
and even one murder committed in a struggle for gas. In the neurosis created by the
boycott there was a new craze called "topping off," which was an attempt to keep one's
tank perpetually filled. At one service station in Pittsburgh a motorist came in and bought
11 cents worth and the attendant spit in his face...
In March 1974, just five months after it began, the boycott was over. The Arabs had
flexed their new muscles, had made both their political and economic points, and were
now being richly rewarded by the high price of oil. The oil began flowing again, though
much more expensively...
Source: David Halberstam, The Reckoning, (New York, 1986), pp. 452-459.
HOSTAGE CRISIS IN IRAN
The following account describes the 444 day Iranian hostage crisis which of 1979-1981.
Like Richard Nixon, President Carter valued Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran,
whom the United States had been supporting since 1953, when the CIA helped pave his
way to power, as an instrument of American interests in the Persian Gulf region. On a
visit to Tehran in 1977, Carter complimented the shah on "the admiration and love which
your people give to you." In fact, the shah had long been violating his subjects' human
rights--his secret police, which had close times to the CIA, had tortured and imprisoned
some 50,000 people and had been spending unprecedented amounts of Iranian wealth on
arms from the United States instead of investing it in economic development. Opposition
to his regime was bitter and widening, especially among the country's religious leaders,
who strongly disliked the Westernizing trends the shah supported.
In January 1979, a revolution led by Shiite fundamentalists forced the shah to flee to
Europe. The new head of Iran was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, seventy-nine years
old...who rapidly turned the government into a theocracy that condemned modernization
and preached hatred of the West.
In early November, Carter admitted the shah to the United States for cancer
treatment, despite warning that the action would jeopardize American diplomats in Iran.
On November 4, 1979, armed students broke into the American embassy compound in
Tehran and held fifty Americans hostage... The crisis increasingly frustrated and angered
Americans as television carried nightly clips from Tehran of anti-American mobs
demonstrating at the embassy and shouting "Death to America." Carter immediately froze
Iranian assets in the United States and prohibited the importation of Iranian oil. A
mission to rescue the hostages in 1980 fell apart when two American aircraft crashed into
each other in the desert. The attempt had been pushed by the White House over the
misgivings of the military... But after being invaded by Iraq in September, the Ayatollah
Khomeini's government decided it did not want to deal with two enemies at once. It
released the hostages on Carter's last day in office, having held them for 444 days.
Source: Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States (New York,
2003) pp. 997-998 ,1101
THE CHALLENGE TO FEMINISM: PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY AND REV. JERRY
FALWELL
In the following vignettes we see the views of Phyllis Schlafly, a lawyer, author and
political activist who emerged in the 1970s as the principal opponent of the Equal
Rights Amendment and Rev. Jerry Falwell, a Baptist Minister from Lynchburg,
Virginia and the founder of the Moral Majority.
Schlafly: The first requirement for the acquisition of power by the Positive Woman is
to understand the differences between men and women. Your outlook on life, your
faith, your behavior, your potential for fulfillment, all are determined by the parameters
of your original premise. The Positive Woman starts with the assumption that the world
is her oyster. She rejoices in the creative capability within her body and the power
potential of her mind and spirit. She understands that men and women are different,
and that those very differences provide the key to her success as a person an fulfillment
as a woman.
The women's liberationist, on the other hand, is imprisoned by her own negative view
of herself and of her place in the world around her. This view of women was most
succinctly expressed in an advertisement designed by...the National Organization for
Women (NOW), and seen in many magazines and newspapers... The advertisement
showed a darling curly headed girl with the caption: "This healthy, normal baby has a
handicap. She was born female."
This is the self-articulated dog-in-the manger, chip-on-the-shoulder, fundamental
dogma of the women's liberation movement. Someone--it is not clear who, perhaps
God, perhaps the "Establishment," perhaps a conspiracy of male chauvinist pigs--dealt
women a foul blow by making them female. It become necessary, therefore, for women
to agitate and demonstrate and hurl demands on society in order to wrest from an
oppressive male-dominated social structure the status that has been wrongfully denied
to women through the centuries... Confrontation replaces cooperation as the watchword
of all relationships. Women and men become adversaries instead of partners...
The second dogma of the women's liberationists is that, of all the injustices
perpetuated upon women through the centuries, the most oppressive is the cruel fact
that women have babies and men do not... Women must be made equal to men in their
ability not to become pregnant and not to be expected to care for babies they may bring
into this world...
The Positive Woman will never travel that dead-end road. It is self-evident...that the
female body with its baby-producing organs was not designed by a conspiracy of men
but by the Divine Architect of the human race. Those who think it is unfair that women
have babies, whereas men cannot, will have to take up their complaint with God because
no other power is capable of changing that fundamental fact...
The new generation can brag all it wants about the new liberation of the new morality,
but it is still the woman who is hurt the most. The new morality isn't just a "fad"--it is a
cheat and a thief. It robs the woman of her virtue, her youth, her beauty, and her love-for nothing, just nothing. It has produced a generation of young women searching for
their identity, bored with sexual freedom, and despondent from the loneliness of living a
life without commitment. They have abandoned the old commandments, but they can't
find any new rules that work...
The differences between men and women are...emotional and psychological. Without
woman's innate maternal instinct, the human race would have died out centuries ago..
Caring for a baby serves the natural maternal need of a woman. Although not nearly so
total as the baby's need, the woman's need is nonetheless real... The overriding
psychological need of a woman is to love something alive. A baby fulfills this need in the
lives of must women. If a baby is not available to fill that need, women search for a
baby-substitute. This is the reason why women have traditionally gone into teaching
and nursing careers. They are doing what come naturally to the female psyche. The
schoolchild or the patient of any age provides an outlet for a woman to express her
natural maternal need...
Finally, women are different from men in dealing with the fundamentals of life itself.
Men are philosophers, women are practical, and 'twas ever thus. Men may philosophize
about how life began and where we are heading; women are concerned about feeding the
kids today. No woman would ever, as Karl Marx did, spend years reading political
philosophy in the British Museum while her child starved to death. Women don't take
naturally to a search for the intangible and abstract. The Positive Woman knows who
she is and where she is going, and she will reach her goal because the longest journey
starts with a very practical first step.
Falwell: I believe that at the foundation of the women's liberation movement there is
a minority core of women who were once bored with life, whose real problems are
spiritual problems. Many women have never accepted their God-given roles. They live
in disobedience to God's laws and have promoted their godless philosophy throughout
our society. God Almighty created men and women biologically different and with
differing needs and roles. He made men and women to complement each other and to
love each other. Not all the women involved in the feminist movement are radicals.
Some are misinformed, and some are lonely women who like being housewives and
helpmates and mothers, but whose husbands spend little time at home and who take no
interest in their wives and children. Sometimes the full load of rearing a family becomes
a great burden to a woman who is not supported by a man. Women who work should be
respected and accorded dignity and equal rewards for equal work. But this is not what
the present feminist movement and the equal rights movement are all about.
The Equal Rights Amendment is a delusion. I believe that women deserve more than
equal rights. And, in families and in nations where the Bible is believed, Christian
women are honored above men. Only in places were the Bible is believed and practiced
do women receive more than equal rights. Men and women have differing strengths.
The Equal Rights Amendment can never do for women what needs to be done for them.
Women need to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and be under His Lordship.
They need a man who knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and they need to be
part of a home where their husband is a godly leader and where there is a Christian
family... ERA defied the mandate that "the husband is the head of the wife, even as
Christ is the head of the church" (Ep. 5:23). In 1 Peter 3:7 we read that husbands are to
give their wives honor as unto the weaker vessel, that they are both heirs together of the
grace of life. Because a woman is weaker does not mean that she is less important.
Source: Mary Beth Norton, Major Problems in American Women's History (Lexington,
Ma., 1989), pp. 429-433. .
"GREED IS GOOD": THE 1980s
Historian Pauline Maier, in this vignette, provides one description of the 1980s.
The Reagan years reminded some observers of the 1920s, not only in the ebullience
of the prosperity but in the unevenness of it, and in the naked materialism of the culture
associated with it. Between 1982 and 1988, the gross domestic product grew at an average
annual rate of about 4 percent, generating more than 630,000 new businesses, 11 million
jobs, and a drop in the unemployment rate from 7.4 percent to 5.5 percent. By 1988,
mortgage rates had plummeted roughly 40 percent, and by 1989 median family income
corrected for inflation had shot up 12.5 percent.
Corporate profits broke records, and so did the stock market--at least until October
19, 1987, when the Dow Jones industrial average (an indicator of stock-market value)
plummeted 508 points, losing almost a quarter of its worth wiping out $750 billion in
paper wealth, and generating fears that the country might be headed for another
Depression. But the jitters were short-lived. By 1989, the Dow Jones had more than
doubled its level in 1982.
The decade produced a new group called "yuppies," a derivative acronym for "young
urban professionals," upwardly mobile men and women with degrees in law or business,
dressed for success and exuding the ambitions of an unrestrained materialism. Americans
of all sorts became absorbed with celebrities-professional athletes, television newscasters,
entertainers, clothing designers, even chefs, most of whom were admired for their
professional skills but also for their opulent incomes. Among the heroes of Wall Street ere
manipulators of junk bonds, loans issued to finance the purchase of corporations for
prices far higher than the corporations were worth. Some of the heroes, who received
several hundred million dollars a year in commissions, were later exposed as crooked and
went to jail.
Tom Wolfe's best-selling novel Bonfire of the Vanities relentlessly explored the
culture of avarice, but reality outdid fiction. Amid the weakened oversight of Reaganite
deregulation, a number of savings-and-loan institutions were looted by white-collar
thieves, some of whom bought yachts and threw lavish entertainments. Ivan Boesky, one
of the financial buccaneers of the decade-he later went to jail for fraudulent manipulations
proclaimed, "Greed is all right...everybody should be a little greedy," a sentiment that
pervaded the popular film Wall Street.
Source: Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States, vol. 2 (New
York, 2003), pp. 1026-1027.
THE COMPUTER AGE ARRIVES
The vignette below describes the emergence of the personal computer and ironically its
debt to the counterculture generation.
One of the most significant technical developments of the 1970s was the personal
computer. Personal computers (PCs) sprang from several sources, notably the military's
patronage of microelectronics and the interests of hobbyists in democratizing the use of
computers. An essential component of the PC was the integrated circuit, which formed all
its electrical parts out of a flat piece of silicon, photo etching the connections between
them. It was devised independently at Texas Instruments and at Fairchild Semiconductor
Laboratories, in Palo Alto, California, which was an incubator for many of the engineers
who would develop the computing industry in what came to be known as Silicon Valley,
the region heavy with computer firms on the peninsula south of San Francisco. Although
integrated circuits were not developed with military patronage, the Defense Department
and NASA provided a sizable fraction of the early market for them. One Minuteman II
missile used 2,000; the Apollo guidance system, 5,000. By the late 1960s, engineers in
Silicon Valley were creating an integrated circuit on a small chip containing the calculating
circuits equivalent to all those in a mainframe computer of the 1950s. In 1973, the Intel
Corporation, founded by several veterans of Fairchild, announced that it had produced
such a chip: the 8080.
The development of the personal computer was encouraged by the abundant
technical resources of Silicon Valley notably the electronics graduates from nearby
Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley and the engineering
innovations from local firms such as Hewlett-Packard--and by the inspiration that
hobbyists drew from time-sharing computers. Built around a central computer that
automatically allocated processing time to different individuals, time-sharing gave users in
their offices access to their personal files and encouraged them to think they could have
interactive access to their own computers at any time for any purpose. Computer
hobbyists, some of them in tune with the countercultural ambience of the San Francisco
Bay Peninsula, called for bringing computing power to the people by, for example,
providing the public with free access to timeshared terminals. One enthusiast recalled the
"strong feeling that we were subversives. We were subverting the way the giant
corporations had run things."
In 1974, a small firm that three hobbyists had founded in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, to sell radio transmitters for model airplanes went beyond the dream of universal
terminal access to put computers themselves into everyone's hands. They started
marketing a personal computer kit called the Altair. Selling for $397, the Altair ran on the
Intel 8080 chip and was an instant hit with hobbyists, even though it had no keyboard or
monitor. It spurred Bill Gates, a twenty-year-old Harvard student, and his high school
friend Paul Allen, twenty-two, to write a software program for it that they licensed to the
Albuquerque firm. Gates dropped out of Harvard to develop the Microsoft Corporation, a
software firm he and Allen founded in 1975 for the Altair venture. In 1976, Steve Wozniak,
twenty-five, and Steve Jobs, twenty, began marketing a comparable personal computer,
the Apple. Both were T-shirts-and-jeans devotees of the hobbyist electronics culture in
Silicon Valley, where they grew up; Jobs, with long hair and sandals, was an acolyte of
vegetarianism, the Beatles, and transcendental meditation. They built the first Apples in
the home garage of Jobs's parents.
Eager to expand the business, Jobs and Wozniak relinquished their T-shirts for
suits, obtained venture capital, and in 1977 brought out the Apple II, which included a
keyboard, a monitor, and a floppy-disk drive for storage. A later version, introduced in 00
operated with a mouse and pull-down menus, both of which had been originally developed
under contracts the Defense Department and NASA. By this time, several other
companies were selling personal compute software for them was initially confined to
educational programs and games such as the wildly popular "Pacman," but in 1979
VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program, came on the market and demonstrated the value of the
PC for business.
Bill Gates had already warned the hobbyists that he would consider free sharing of
the software that Microsoft had produced for the Altair a form of piracy. By the late 1970s,
personal computing was rapidly turning away from its countercultural origins into a
lucrative for-profit enterprise. In 1981, IBM entered the PC market, enlisting Microsoft to
provide the operating software for its machines. In response, Microsoft bought a software
package that had been devised at Seattle Computer Products by Tim Paterson, a recent
college graduate, and provided it to IBM as MS-DOS (short for "Microsoft Disk Operating
System"). Gates sold IBM the right to use the system but maintained Microsoft's
ownership, an arrangement that permitted the company eventually to earn billions of
dollars by selling the right to use the system, which soon became an industry standard, to
other makers of personal computers. The PC caught on so fast that two years later Time
magazine designated the personal computer its "Man of the Year."
Source: Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States, vol. 2 (New
York, 2003), pp. 991-993.
THE INTERNET
Few late 20th Century inventions have so profoundly changed U.S. society as the
Internet. Indeed, you are reading this vignette courtesy of internet technology. A brief
history of the Internet appears below.
Like so many innovations that changed the way people lived, the Internet originated
in the national defense program's patronage of science and technology. It was principally
conceived in the late 1960s by a computer scientist at MIT named J. C. R. Licklider as a
network that would preserve communications in the event of nuclear attack. In the
seventies, scientists and engineers at different institutions developed the essential
hardware and software that would permit different types of computers and networks to
communicate with each other through an intermediate service provider. With the
sponsorship of the Defense Department, a nationwide network rapidly developed among
industrial and university scientists. It was used mainly for e-mail, which was pioneered in
1971 and which an authoritative 1978 report dubbed a "smashing success" that would
"sweep the country."
Between the mid-1980s and early 1990s, partly at the initiative of then-Senator Al
Gore, the Internet was transferred to civilian control and then opened up to commercial
use. In the meantime, scientists in Europe developed a program to retrieve information
from any computer connected to the Internet by latching on to its standard address (called
a "URI," for universal resource locator). They also devised a language ("html," for
hypertext markup language) for presenting text and images, and protocols ("http," for
hypertext transfer protocol) for transferring them from one computer to another.
Programmers at a government computing facility in Illinois, having devised a browser, left
in 1994 to develop a new, commercial version that they called Netscape. Together, these
innovations led to the birth of the World Wide Web. After the mid-1990s, the Web spread
with the freely accessible Internet across the globe. Its diffusion was accompanied by an
avalanche of companies founded to exploit it commercially, most of them with URLs that
ended in the designation ".com" and were known accordingly as "dot com" companies. By
early 1999, about 74 million people, including two out of five adults, were accessing the
Internet.
Source: Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States, vol. 2 (New
York, 2003), p. 1065-1066.
THE E-MAIL "REVOLUTION" BEGINS
The following passage from a 1985 Los Angeles Times article describes the advent of
electronic mail. At the time electronic mail services charged $40 to sign-up or $10 for a
monthly service rate. Ironically Microsoft advertised its Word program for the AppleMcintosh in that section of the paper for $149.95
From offices in San Francisco, the Bechtel Group, Inc. coordinated its Tedi River
gold mining operations around the globe in Papua New Guinea by exchanging information
over a computer message network. In Mexico agricultural scientists are using computer
links to remote experimental crop stations to monitor data of new strains of wheat being
grown there. And in Dearborn, Michigan, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers
coordinates plans for its annual convention and distributes abstracts of technical papers to
engineers across the United States over a computer communications system.
Today, information that might otherwise require costly long distance calls or delay
for postal delivery can be exchanged across town or around the world virtually in an
instant via "electronic mail"-- a computer-to-computer communications system regarded
as the most revolutionary since the telegraph and telephone replaced horseback couriers
more than a century ago.
"Electronic mail will be the 21st Century version of the telex--which it clearly makes
obsolete," said communications consultant Richard Miller, president of International
Telematics in Palo Alto. He predicated dramatic changers in international
communications. "It allows me, for example, to send you a message regardless of where in
the world either one of us is at the time."
Although still a fledgling industry, with revenues last year estimated at $200
million, electronic mail use is growing at an annual rate of nearly 60%--faster than any
other segment of the computer industry, according to analysts.
Last year, for example, Columbus, Ohio-based CompuServe--the nation's largest
electronic mail service--doubled its subscribers to 185,000. And Echo, a Marina del Reybased newcomer, has established 14,000 subscribers in less than a year, adding 3,000 in
the last month alone. Today there are an estimated 1 million electronic "mailboxes" in
use...
"In the next decade electronic communication is going to become as routine as
making phone calls," said Jan Lewis, an analyst for InfoCorp, a Cupertino, Californiabased marketing research firm. She predicted that the average home in the mid-1990s will
be equipped with a telephone with a built-in computer that will permit easy access not
only to electronic mail, but to various databases, the latest stock quotes, weather reports
and computerized directory assistance. "We won't even have to memorize telephone
numbers anymore," Lewis said.
The electronic mail concept is not new. Back in the days when mail was delivered by
horseback, telegraph--the original electronic communications system--revolutionized the
way the world conducted business. News of a gold discovery in the West, for example,
could be relayed in a matter of hours to financial centers in the East. Today, however, the
computer has squeezed the hours down to milliseconds. It is technically possible today to
move the contents of an entire set of encyclopedia from a computer in Chicago to another
terminal in Los Angeles in the time it takes to read this sentence.
The increasing business use of electronic mail will affect consumer use as well.
"People who use it in the office are going to want to use it at home," said Michael J
Cavanagh, executive director of the Electronic Mail Association--a Washington-based
industry group...citing the example of an early electronic mail network set up a few years
ago through the Defense Department--a system designed for the exchange of important
scientific information. "After a time they found that there were also personal messages
being exchanged like plans for Friday night poker games." said Cavanagh.
He conceded, however, that consumer growth will lag behind business use of
electronic mail. "More people need to buy personal computers and telephone modems for
their homes," he said. "Until they do, we'll have the same problem that the telephone had
for the first few decades--that is, even if some the of earliest users had a telephone, the
chances were that very few of their friends did. So, who could they call?" That's the case
now with electronic mail," Cavanagh said. "Its consumer value will increase as the
numbers of subscribes increase."
Source: Los Angeles Times, February 24, 1985, Part VI, p. 1.
AMERICAN AND JAPANESE AUTOS IN THE 1990s
In an article titled "Why Can't America Catch Up," James Risen offers an explanation of
the success of Japanese auto manufacturers vis-à-vis their American counterparts. The
explanation describes the challenge auto manufacturers and indeed all American
industry faces in an increasingly competitive world market.
TOKYO-As the worldwide auto industry enters the 1990s, the Japanese are still holding
the competitive edge over Detroit's auto makers that they first asserted more than a
decade ago. Despite a 10 year, multibillion dollar effort by the American auto industry to
catch up with Japan in terms of reliability and overall quality, the Japanese are still
building better cars.
This winter, Detroit is paying an awful price for its failure to close the quality gap in
the 1980s. A free-fall plunge in car sales has forced General Motors, Ford and Chrysler to
lay off tens of thousands of workers during the last few months. A staggering 42 of 62 Big
Three assembly plants are being shuttered temporarily during January.
The Big Three auto makers have dramatically improved the quality of their cars over
the last 10 years, a trend that has, at the very least, kept America in the ball game and
Detroit has produced its share of winning products... Ford's Taurus helped redefine
automotive styling, while Chrysler's mini-van single-handedly created a whole new
market. But many automobile industry analysts believe the Japanese are in fact widening
their quality lead once more, after several years in which Detroit did narrow the gap.
"The quality gap is still there" warned Chris Cedergren of J. D. Power & Associates.
"The domestics are certainly improving, but the Japanese are too. The domestics are now
only about where the Japanese were in 1983 or 1984."
Today, one of every four cars sold in America comes from the Japanese─more if the
Japanese-built cars hiding behind American nameplates, Ford's Probe and Plymouth's
Geo Storm, for example, are included. The Japanese now sell more cars in America than
does Ford and they are rapidly catching up with industry leader, GM.
Ironically, the Japanese seem to have a better understanding of American
consumers than the American auto companies do. Said Cedergren, "I think the domestics,
after all this time, are still out of touch with what a whole generation of car buyers─and I
mean anyone under 45─wants in a product.
Remarkably, the Japanese have kept their competitive lead during the period in
which they lost their once-formidable labor-cost advantage over Detroit. Thanks to the
rise in the value of the yen relative to the dollar and a worsening labor shortage, assemblyline workers in Japan command higher wages than their counterparts in Detroit; the
average Toyota worker made the equivalent of $49,000 compared to $40,000 at Ford.
The Japanese have adjusted by drastically upgrading the automation of their factories.
Most embarrassing for auto executives in Detroit has been that they have had to
watch as the Japanese have rapidly set up shop in the Midwest with plants that can
approach the best quality levels of Japan─while employing the same kind of American
workers that Big Three management once blamed for the poor workmanship in American
cars. "We screamed at them to come over here and build cars where they sold them, and
now they are doing it─and they are still beating us," one Ford official said with a sigh.
Why are Japanese cars still better?
First, the Japanese can design and develop a new car much faster than American
companies can. It often takes two years longer in Detroit to develop a new model than it
does in Japan─virtually assuring that Japanese cars will always seem newer, fresher and
just plain better.
In addition, the Japanese do a better job of planning ahead for problems, placing a
much greater emphasis on what they call "designing-in" quality. When their engineers
design new models, they spend a great deal of time making sure that the cars will be easy
to build on the assembly line, taking a big load off their workers and their factories.
The Japanese have also developed far more sophisticated relationships with their
parts suppliers, who often perform critical research and development work for the auto
makers. By bringing their parts suppliers into their development process, the Japanese
are consistently able to offer newer and better technology for much less money than
Detroit.
They have also perfected the complex art of building many different models on the
same assembly line─something Detroit has never quite mastered. In Japan, it is quite
common for six different cars to be built on the same line. That allows the Japanese to
offer a wider array of new models without going to the huge expense of building new
plants.
But what may be most important is the Japanese attention to detail, which borders
on the obsessive. That willingness by both managers and line workers to focus on even the
smallest problems until they are solved springs from a genuine sense of team spirit, which
continues to elude Detroit's auto makers even after years of rhetoric about it. The
difference is that Japanese assembly-line workers are made to feel like a team, not through
words but through deeds. The pay gap between executives and the people on the shop
floor is much smaller in Japan than in the U.S. The chief executive of a major Japanese
auto company earns only about 10 times as much as the youngest line worker; top
executives in Detroit, by contrast, usually make at least 50 times as much and sometime as
much as 500 times.
Along with their fixation on detail comes a sense in Japan that quality isn't
stationary. Instead, the function of quality control in Japan is kaizen─the search for
constant improvement. So what is most frightening for Detroit today is that the Japanese
are, more than ever, a moving target.
"We are never satisfied," said Kaname Kasai, general manager of Honda's massive
assembly plant in Sayama, Japan. "We are moving now so that in the next couple of years
we can open the quality gap even wider over America."
Source: James Risen, "Why Can't America Catch Up," Los Angeles Times, January 14,
1990.
MAJOR U.S. EMPLOYERS, 1994-2004
As the table below indicates, the United States is now a post-industrial economy. Ford
and General Motors are the fifth and six largest employers and only eight of the top
twenty-five employers are primarily manufacturers.
Rank Company
Current
(2004)
5 years 10 years
ago
ago
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
1,500,000
418,000
355,000
328,000
327,531
326,000
319,273
305,000
299,000
290,000
265,000
910,000
284,000
330,000
256,000
342,545
594,000
291,067
293,000
156,700
213,000
260,000
528,000
167,000
-174,000
322,213
710,800
256,207
222,000
50,600
200,000
--
258,600
87,000
12,000
249,000
212,000
208,000
324,000 359,000
100,000 75,000
70,000 105,900
203,300
178,800 168,600
203,100
200,000
190,000
188,000
140,000
-197,568
260,000
73,600
--131,600
172,700
47,720
22,000
168,000
129,850 59,040
165,000
158,000
157,000
144,000 173,000
278,525 -231,000 123,000
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Wal-Mart Stores
McDonalds
United Parcel
Target
Ford Motor
General Motors
IBM
General Electric
Home Depot
Kroger
Yum Brands
Tyco
International
Sears Roebuck
Albertsons
Safeway
United
Technologies
Verizon
Aramark
Delphi
HCA
Berkshire
Hathaway
SBC
Communications
Altria Group
Kmart Holding
Boeing
Source: Investor's Business Daily (September 2004).
TERRORISM IN THE 1990s
In the following vignette historian Pauline Meier describes the emerging Al Qaeda
terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden and its relationship to the Taliban, who
controlled Afghanistan through the decade.
The sanctions against Iraq and the civilian suffering they generated, the presence of
American troops on Saudi Arabian soil during and after the Gulf War, and the United
States' support of Israel all angered a number of Muslims in the Middle East. They
infuriated Osama bin Laden, a rich Saudi exile living in Afghanistan. Bin Laden hated the
United States enough to finance a network of terror called Al Qaeda, directed against the
country. In February 1993, four Muslim terrorists connected to bin Laden exploded a car
bomb in the garage under one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City.
Although they failed in their ambition to topple the tower into its twin, they succeeding in
killing 6 and injuring more than 1,000. In 1996, terrorists drove a truck bomb into an
American army barracks in Saudi Arabia itself, killing 19 U.S. military service people. And
in 1998, several other suicide truck bombers blew up the American embassy in Tanzania,
killing 11, and [the one] in Kenya, killing 213 Kenyan citizens and injuring thousands of
civilians.
A few hours after the attacks in 1998, President Clinton declared, "We will use all
the means at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice, no matter what or how long
it takes." In an operation code-named "Infinite Reach," U.S. planes attacked two targets
believed to be associated with bin Laden-the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan,
alleged to be a source of biochemical weapons, and a temporary base camp in Afghanistan,
labeled by Clinton "one of the most active terrorist bases in the world." (The owner of the
plant denied that he had anything to do with bin Laden, and reporters visiting the site saw
no evidence that he did.) During the trial of the organizers of the Africa bombings,
testimony indicated that bin Laden and Al Qaeda had attempted to acquire weapons of
mass destruction about five years earlier.
In 1996, the Taliban, a group of extreme Islamic fundamentalists, gained control of
Afghanistan and extended their protection to bin Laden as a "guest." In October 1999, the
U.N. Security Council, alarmed, resolved to impose limited sanctions against the Taliban
in an effort to force them to turn over bin Laden immediately to a country where he could
be brought to justice. The Taliban refused, and bin Laden and Al Qaeda grew bolder. A
year later, terrorists linked to bin Laden attacked the USS Cole while it was anchored in
the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 of its crew and injuring 47.
Between 1993 and 1999, the FBI's counterterrorism budget more than tripled, to
some $300 million a year. Still, in the wake of so many successful assaults, a number of
analysts believed that the United States was inadequately on guard against the war of
terrorism that was increasingly being waged against it. Some contended that it was only a
matter of time before the terrorists would strike on American shores with far greater
destructive effect than they had achieved in the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center.
Source: Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States, vol. 2 (New
York, 2003), pp. 1062-1063.
SEX, LIES, AND IMPEACHMENT
In the vignette below historian Pauline Meier describes the Monica Lewinsky Scandal
which prompted the second impeachment of a President in the nation's history.
From early 1998, [President Bill] Clinton's ability to advance even a modest
domestic agenda was greatly undermined by the scandals that began washing over him
and led to his impeachment the following year. The scandals came to light as a result of
the work conducted by Kenneth Starr, who in August 1994 had been appointed a special
prosecutor to look into the Whitewater affair. During the next several years, Starr was
authorized to investigate several other allegations of impropriety in the Clinton
administration. Then in January 1998, Starr received evidence from a government
employee named Linda Tripp that Monica Lewinsky, a young government intern, had
been having an affair with the president that included her performing oral sex on him
during visits to the Oval Office.
Meanwhile, in late 1997, the attorneys for Paula Jones, who was still pursuing her
sexual harassment suit against the president, had heard rumors of an affair between
Lewinsky and Clinton. Hoping to demonstrate that Clinton showed a pattern of predatory
sexual behavior, they obtained a ruling from the Supreme Court requiring Clinton to
answer their questions, establishing the precedent that a sitting president could be
compelled to testify in a civil suit concerning actions that took place before his presidency.
On January 17, responding under oath to questions by Jones's lawyers, Clinton denied
having a romantic relationship with Lewinsky.
At Starr's request, Attorney General Janet Reno authorized him to enlarge his
multiple investigations of Clinton into whether the president had lied in his testimony to
Jones's lawyers and had sought to obstruct justice by encouraging Lewinsky to cover up
their affair.
By now, January 1998, word of the information Tripp had given Starr was making
headlines. In a statement on national television at the end of January, Clinton, shaking his
finger, emphatically declared, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." He
refused to discuss the matter further publicly, but he told his family, cabinet, and advisers
that the stories about his relationship with Lewinsky were absolutely untrue. Hillary
Clinton blamed the array of investigations into the couple's activities on a "vast right-wing
conspiracy." Frenzied discussions of the case fined newspapers, television, radio, and the
Internet for months. In 2000, Philip Roth remarked in his novel The Human Stain that in
the summer of 1998 "a president's penis was on everyone's mind," and his alleged Oval
Office peccadilloes "revived America's oldest communal passion...the ecstasy of
sanctimony."
In August, Lewinsky, whom Starr had threatened to prosecute, agreed to testify in
return for a grant of immunity. Besides telling a federal grand jury in graphic detail about
her affair with Clinton, she turned over a blue dress that, according to her, was stained
with the president's semen. Clinton realized that DNA testing of the stain would
demonstrate that the semen was his. In mid-August, in videotaped testimony to Starr and
the federal grand jury, he conceded that his conduct with Lewinsky had been "wrong," but
insisted that he been legally accurate in denying to Jones's lawyers that he had engaged in
a "sexual relationship" with Lewinsky because he took such a relationship to mean
intercourse. He told the American people in a four-minute nationally televised address
that he had "misled" them and done injury to his family. Still, he defiantly insisted that he
had not lied under oath nor asked anyone to lie for him.
On September 9, Starr gave Congress a videotape of Clinton's grand jury testimony
and a 445-page report. The report detailed Clinton's sexual contacts with Lewinsky and
listed eleven possible grounds for impeachment, some of which focused on charges that he
had lied under oath. Congress quickly released both the full report and the videotape to
the public. On October 8, the House voted to launch an impeachment inquiry by a solid
majority of 258 to 176, with 31 Democrats joining most of the Republicans in support.
The public had long thought Clinton was lying about his relationship with Lewinsky,
but it had persistently registered high approval of his performance in office. Now Clinton's
conduct was brushed off by leading Democrats and his supporters among feminists,
blacks, gays, and union officials as sex between two consenting adults, covered up as
anyone might conceal an illicit affair, but by no means worthy of impeachment. "It's hard
to get really excited," a waitress remarked. "What does the Clintons' sex life have to do
with me?" Meanwhile, the public standing of Starr, Linda Tripp, and the Republican
Congress plummeted. In the congressional elections in November, the Democrats gained
five seats in the House while maintaining their number in the Senate and in state contests.
Newt Gingrich, under fire himself for questionable financial dealings, announced that he
would leave Congress. His expected successor in the speakership, Robert Livingston of
Louisiana, also left as news stories began to circulate that he had engaged in adultery.
All the same, on December 19, 1998, the House in a strongly partisan vote resolved
to impeach Clinton on two articles-perjury and obstruction of justice-making him the
second president (after Andrew Johnson) to be so treated. On January 27 1999, the
impeachment trial began in the Senate, with the House leadership presenting the case
against the president: After more than a month of partisan debate, the prosecutor failed to
come near the two-thirds majority (67 votes) necessary for conviction. The Senate voted
55 to 45 against the perjury charge and 50 to 50 on the charge of obstructing justice
(Neither charge gained a single Democratic vote; 10 Republicans opposed the charge of
perjury, 5 the charge of obstructing justice.
Source: Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States, vol. 2 (New
York, 2003), pp. 1073-1074.
AMERICAN URBANIZATION, 1980-2000
20 Largest
Cities
24 Largest
Cities
1980
2000
1 New York, N.Y.
7,071,030 1 New York, N.Y. 8,008,278
2 Chicago, IL
3,005,072 2 Los Angeles, CA 3,694,820
3 Los Angeles, CA
2,966,763 3 Chicago, IL
2,783,724
4 Philadelphia, PA
1,688,210 4 Houston, TX.
5 Houston, TX
1,594,068 5 Philadelphia, PA 1,517,550
6 Detroit, MI
1,203,339 6 Phoenix, AZ
1,321,045
7 Dallas, TX
904,078
7 San Diego, CA
1,223,400
8 San Diego, CA
875,504
8 Dallas, TX
1,188,580
9 Baltimore, MD
786,775
9 San Antonio, TX 1,144,646
10 San Antonio, TX
785,410
10 Detroit, MI
951,270
11 Phoenix, AZ
764,911
11 San Jose, CA
894,943
12 Honolulu, HI
762,874
12 Indianapolis, IN 791,926
700,807
San Francisco,
13 CA
13 Indianapolis, IN
1,953,631
776,733
14 San Francisco, CA 678,974
14 Jacksonville, FL 735,617
15 Memphis, TN
646,356
15 Columbus, OH
711,470
16 Washington, DC
637,651
16 Austin, TX
656,562
17 San Jose, CA
636,550
17 Baltimore, MD
651,154
18 Milwaukee, WI
636,212
18 Memphis, TN
650,100
19 Cleveland, OH
573,822
19 Milwaukee, WI 596,974
20 Columbus, OH
564,871
20 Boston, MA
589,141
21 Washington, DC 572,059
22 Nashville, TN
569,891
23 El Paso, TX
563,662
24 Seattle, WA
563,374
Top Twenty U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 2000
According to the U.S. Census, the total U.S. population in 2000 was 281,421,906. The
total number of people in 2000 living in the twenty largest metropolitan areas
displayed below was 119,838,639. Thus, 42.6% of the nation's people lived in these
major urban areas.
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Total
Metropolitan Areas in
Population in
U.S.
2000
New York – Northern NJ
21,199,865
– Long Island
Los Angeles – Riverside
16,373,645
– Orange County
Chicago – Gary –
9,157,540
Kenosha
Washington D.C. 7,608,070
Baltimore
San Francisco – Oakland
7,039,362
– San Jose
Philadelphia –
Wilmington – Atlantic
6,188,463
City
Boston – Worcester –
5,819,100
Lawrence
Detroit – Ann Arbor –
5,456,428
Flint
Dallas – Fort Worth
5,221,801
Houston – Galveston –
4,669,571
Brazoria
Atlanta
4,112,198
Miami – Fort Lauderdale 3,876,380
Seattle – Tacoma –
3,554,760
Bremerton
Phoenix – Mesa
3,251,876
Minneapolis – St. Paul 2,968,806
Cleveland – Akron
2,945,831
San Diego
2,813,833
St. Louis
2,603,607
Denver – Boulder –
2,581,506
Greeley
Tampa – St. Petersburg 2,395,997
9/11
It is fitting that the final vignette in this manual address the events of September 11,
2001. Here historian Pauline Maier describes the cataclysmic events in New York City
and Northern Virginia and the massive, spontaneous outpouring of support for both the
victims and the nation. The events and our response serve to remind us of our
connection to our collective history and to each other.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, America's world was suddenly and dramatically
transformed. Within the space of an hour and a half that morning, two passenger airlines
took off from Logan in Boston, and two others took off from Newark Airport in New
Jersey and Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. All four, bound for California, were loaded
with fuel. At some point not long after the planes were airborne, each was commandeered
by four or five hijackers armed with box cutters and knives.
At 8:45 A.M. one of the planes from Boston crashed into the north tower of the
110-story World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, tearing a huge hole in the building and
setting it ablaze. Eighteen minutes later, the second plane out of Boston struck the south
tower and exploded. At 9:43, the plane from Dulles crashed into the Pentagon. Shortly
after 10, the south tower of the World Trade Center, its reinforced concrete supports
severely weakened by the intense heat of the jet fuel fire, collapsed, showering a torrent of
debris into the streets below. Just before 10:30, the north tower followed its twin into Vie
dust, releasing a tremendous cloud of debris and smoke and severely damaging a nearby
47-story building--later in the day it, too, fell--and setting others in the area on fire. In
Washington, in the meantime, the portion of the Pentagon that had been hit also
collapsed.
Passengers on the fourth flight, in touch with relatives via cell phones, learned
about the attacks on the Trade Center and the Pentagon; they concluded that their plane
was being flown to a target as well. Some decided to storm the cockpit, with the result that
the Plane crashed in a field southeast of Pittsburgh rather than into a building. (It was, in
fact, headed toward the nation's capital.) All forty-four people aboard were killed.
Within less than an hour of the first crash at the World Trade Center, the Federal
Aviation Administration halted all flights at American airports for the first time in the
nation's history and diverted to Canada all transatlantic aircraft bound for the United
States. President Bush was in Florida, but the White House was evacuated and so were all
other federal office buildings in the capital. Secret Service agents armed with automatic
rifles were deployed opposite the White House in Lafayette Park. In New York, the stock
exchanges and all state government offices were closed.
At a news conference in the mid-afternoon, New York's Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
asked about the number killed, said, "I don't think we want to speculate about that-more
than any of us can bear." That evening, the city reported that hundreds of its police
officers and firefighters on the scene were dead or missing. In the weeks that followed,
estimates of the deaths at the World Trade Center ran as high as 6,000 (they were later
reduced to 3,000). Some 200 people died in the crash at the Pentagon...
The attacks of September 11 prompted an outpouring of patriotism rarely seen since
Pearl Harbor. American flags appeared in shop windows and on homes, buildings, cars
and trucks, overpasses, and bridges. Millions of Americans pinned red, white, and blue
streamers on their jackets. Across the country, people attended services for the victims,
sent money to assist their families, and gave blood for the survivors. Commentators
everywhere extolled the heroism of the firefighters and police who died in the line of duty
at the World Trade Center. Thousands flocked to Ground Zero, now hallowed ground,
solemnly peering at the smoldering ruins and the workmen removing the debris. Many
posted prayers, notices of the missing, and poems on the protective chain-link fences at
the site and on any available wall space (including phone booths) around the city.
September 11 heightened awareness of the fact that the United States, as the world's
sole superpower, was an integral part of what was becoming a global civilization. The day
after the attacks, the French newspaper Le Monde ran the headline "Nous sommes toutes
les Amiricaines" (We are all Americans). The victims at the World Trade Center included
the nationals of more than eighty nations. The multinational and multicultural nature of
American society was revealed by the names of lost spouses, parents, and children,
hundreds of them on posterboards pleading for information about them--people named
Schwartzstein, Henrique and Calderon, Kikuchihara and Tsoy, Cassino, Staub, and Egan,
Williams, Caulfield, and Wiswall.
On a sheet of paper tacked up in New York's Grand Central Station in late October,
an anonymous poet cried out:
Six thousand fallen heroes
The six thousand angels, their trumpets blaring
Are calling us to arms, Waking us up from our selfish slumber
To the truth of our lives, the evil in the world
We must stop, turn, stand up together as one,
Arm in arm, pillars of strength
Many observers declared that September 11 had ushered the United States into a
new era. Perhaps it had... Another poem posted at Grand Central Station told the
perpetrators of September 11 why the nation remained strong and resilient:
Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America
America isn't about a place, America isn't even about a bunch of buildings
America is about an IDEA.
The idea, forged and enlarged through almost four centuries of struggle, had come
to include many elements. The overarching ones—the Fourth of July standards of
freedom, equality, democracy, and opportunity--continued to transcend the nation's
diversity, bind it together, and at once invigorate and temper its response to the shadowy
threats it was now compelled to confront.
Source: Pauline Maier, Inventing America: A History of the United States, vol. 2 (New
York, 2003), pp. 1082-1086.
APPENDIX
POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 1790-2000
Year
Color
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Number of
States
13
16
17
23
24
26
31
33
37
38
44
45
46
48
48
48
48
50
50
50
50
50
Population
Percentage
Increase
Percentage
Urban
Percentage
Persons
of
3,929,214
5,308,483
7,239,881
9,638,452
12,866,020
17,069,453
23,191,876
31,443,321
39,818,449
50,155,783
62,947,714
75,994,575
91,972,266
105,710,620
122,775,046
131,669,275
150,697,361
179,323,175
204,765,770
226,504,825
248,709,878
281,421,906
-35.1
36.4
33.1
33.5
32.7
35.9
35.6
26.6
26.0
25.5
20.7
21.0
14.9
16.1
7.2
14.5
19.0
13.3
11.4
9.8
13.2
5.1
6.1
7.3
7.2
8.8
10.8
15.3
19.8
25.7
28.2
35.1
39.6
45.6
51.2
56.1
56.5
64.0
69.9
73.5
76.3
79.8
80.3
19.3
18.9
19.0
18.4
18.1
16.8
15.7
14.4
13.8
13.5
12.5
12.1
11.1
10.3
10.2
10.2
10.5
11.4
12.4
16.8
20.0
25.0
GROWTH OF THE FEDERAL UNION, 1788-2000
Population
Order of
Time of
Entry
State
Admission
Original States
1.
Delaware
59,000
2.
Pennsylvania
434,000
3.
New Jersey
184,000
Year
Area
Admitted
(Sq. Mi.
1787
2,057
1787
45,333
1787
7,836
at
Capital
Dover
Harrisburg
Trenton
4.
83,000
5.
238,000
6.
379,000
7.
320,000
8.
249,000
9.
142,000
10.
692,000
11.
340,000
12.
394,000
13.
69,000
Georgia
1788
58,876
Connecticut
1788
5,009
Hartford
Massachusetts
1788
8,257
Boston
Maryland
1788
10,577
Annapolis
South Carolina
1788
31,005
Columbia
New Hampshire
1788
9,304
Concord
Virginia
1788
40,817
Richmond
New York
1788
49,576
Albany
North Carolina
1789
52,586
Raleigh
Rhode Island
1790
1,214
1791
67
Washington
1791
9,609
Montpelier
1792
40,359
Frankfort
1796
42,244
Nashville
1803
41,222
Columbus
1812
48,523
Baton Rouge
1816
36,291
Indianapolis
1817
47,716
Jackson
1818
56,400
Springfield
1819
51,609
Montgomery
1820
33,215
Augusta
District of Columbia
8,000
Other 18th Century States
14.
Vermont
154,000
15.
Kentucky
221,000
16.
Tennessee
106,000
Pre-Civil War 19th Century States
17.
Ohio
231,000
18.
Louisiana
153,000
19.
Indiana
147,000
20.
Mississippi
75,000
21.
Illinois
55,000
22.
Alabama
128,000
23.
Maine
Atlanta
Providence
298,000
24.
140,000
25.
98,000
26.
212,000
27.
87,000
28.
213,000
29.
192,000
30.
305,000
31.
93,000
32.
172,000
33.
52,000
Missouri
1821
69,686
Jefferson City
Arkansas
1836
53,104
Little Rock
Michigan
1837
58,216
Lansing
Florida
1845
58,560
Tallahassee
Texas
1845
267,339
Iowa
1846
56,290
Des Moines
Wisconsin
1848
56,154
Madison
California
1850
158,693
Minnesota
1858
84,068
St. Paul
Oregon
1859
96,981
Salem
1861
82,264
Topeka
1863
24,181
Charleston
1864
110,540
Carson City
1867
77,277
Lincoln
1876
104,247
Denver
1889
70,665
Bismarck
1889
77,047
Pierre
1889
147,138
Helena
1889
68,192
Olympia
1890
83,557
Boise
1890
97,914
Cheyenne
States Admitted During the Civil War
34.
Kansas
364,000
35.
West Virginia
442,000
36.
Nevada
42,000
Post-Civil War 19th Century States
37.
Nebraska
123,000
38.
Colorado
194,000
39.
North Dakota
191,000
40.
South Dakota
349,000
41.
Montana
143,000
42.
Washington
357,000
43.
Idaho
89,000
44.
Wyoming
Austin
Sacramento
63,000
45.
277,000
Utah
20th Century States
46.
Oklahoma
1,657,000
47.
New Mexico
360,000
48.
Arizona
334,000
49.
Alaska
229,000
50.
Hawaii
642,000
1896
84,916
Salt Lake City
1907
69,919
Oklahoma
1912
121,666
Santa Fe
1912
113,909
Phoenix
1959
586,412
Juneau
1959
6,450
Honolulu
City