Chapter 29
Adamson Act This law established an eight-hour day for all employees on trains involved in interstate commerce, with extra pay for overtime. It was the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies, and was upheld by the Supreme Court in Wilson v. New (1917).
Allies
Central
Powers
Clayton Anti-
Trust Act
Great Britain, Russia, and France, later joined by Italy, Japan, and the United States, formed this alliance against the Central Powers in World War I.
Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by Turkey and Bulgaria, made up this alliance against the Allies in World War I.
Law extending the anti-trust protections of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and exempting labor unions and agricultural organizations from antimonopoly constraints. The act conferred long-overdue benefits on labor.
Federal
Reserve Act
Federal Trade
Commission
Act holding companies
Jones Act
An act establishing twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks and a Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the president, to regulate banking and create stability on a national scale in the volatile banking sector. The law carried the nation through the financial crises of the First World
War of 1914
–1918.
A banner accomplishment of Woodrow Wilson’s administration, this law empowered a standing, presidentially appointed commission to investigate illegal business practices in interstate commerce like unlawful competition, false advertising, and mislabeling of goods.
A company that owns part or all of the other companies’ stock in order to extend monopoly control.
Often, a holding company does not produce goods or services of its own but only exists to control other companies. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 sought to clamp down on these companies when they obstructed competition.
Law according territorial status to the Philippines and promising independence as soon as a “stable government” could be established. The United States did not grant the Philippines independence until July 4, 1946.
Lusitania British passenger liner torpedoed and sank by Germany on May 7, 1915. It ended the lives of 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and pushed the United States closer to war.
New Freedom Platform of reforms advocated by Woodrow Wilson in his first presidential campaign, including stronger antitrust legislation to protect small business enterprises from monopolies, banking reform, and tariff reductions. Wilson’s strategy involved taking action to increase opportunities for capitalist competition rather than increasing government regulation of large trusts.
New
Nationalism
State-interventionist reform program devised by journalist Herbert Croly and advocated by
Theodore Roosevelt during his Bull Moose presidential campaign. Roosevelt did not object to continued consolidation of trusts and labor unions. Rather, he sought to create stronger regulatory agencies to insure that they operated to serve the public interest, not just private gain.
Tampico
Incident
U-boats
An arrest of American sailors by the Mexican government that spurred Woodrow Wilson to dispatch the American navy to seize the port of Veracruz in April 1914. Although war was avoided, tensions grew between the United States and Mexico.
German submarines, named for the German Unterseeboot, or “undersea boat,” proved deadly for
Allied ships in the war zone. U-boat attacks played an important role in drawing the United States into the war.
Underwood
Tariff
This tariff provided for a substantial reduction of rates and enacted an unprecedented, graduated federal income tax. By 1917, revenue from the income tax surpassed receipts from the tariff, a gap that has since been vastly widened.
Workingmen’s
Compensation
Act
Passed under Woodrow Wilson, this law granted assistance to federal civil-service employees during periods of disability. It was a precursor to labor-friendly legislation passed during the New
Deal.