The United States from 1914 to 1945
Woodrow Wilson’s 14
points
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at. . .
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas . . .
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the
establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the
nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its
maintenance. . . .
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will
be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. . . .
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all
colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that
in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the
populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable
claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a
settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will
secure the best and freest cooperation of the other
nations of the world in obtaining for her an
unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the
independent determination of her own political
development . . .
VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be
evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit
the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all
other free nations.
VIII. All French territory should be freed and the
invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to
France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of AlsaceLorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world
for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that
peace may once more be made secure in the interest
of all.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be
effected along clearly recognizable lines of
nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place
among the nations we wish to see safeguarded
and assured, should be accorded the freest
opportunity to autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be
evacuated; occupied territories restored;
XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman
Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty,
but the other nationalities which are now under
Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted
security of life and an absolutely unmolested
opportunity of autonomous development . . .
XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected
...
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Article 14 of Woodrow Wilson’s
Fourteen points
XIV. A general association of nations must
be formed under specific covenants for the
purpose of affording mutual guarantees of
political independence and territorial
integrity to great and small states alike. . . .
(Article Ten of the League: Members of
League’s Executive Council could declare
sanctions against an aggressor nation in a
war).
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Henry Cabot
Lodge and
Woodrow
Wilson
Ho Chi Minh
Jan
Smuts
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Keynes’ three criticisms of
the Treaty of Versailles
• Transported too many
raw materials from
Germany to France
• Stripped Germany of its
overseas investments,
merchant marine system,
and right to levy tariffs
• Burdened Germany with
33 billion dollars in
reparations (U.S. GDP in 1919
= 70 billion)
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Herbert Hoover:
forgotten progressive
The United States from 1914 to 1945
John Hay’s Open Door Notes
(1899)
• Each great power must
maintain free access
ports
• Only the Chinese
government can collect
trade taxes
• No great power with a
sphere in China should
be exempted from
paying border taxes
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The German inflation of the 1920s
Germany prints money to pay off
France
1 USD = 100,000 German Marks
The United States from 1914 to 1945
the international debt mess of the 1920s . . . .
France and England insist on
collecting from Germany because
they owe debts to the United States
Germany
owes huge
reparations
to England
and France
What if there was
a stock market
crash in the
United States???
The U.S. won’t ease up
on France and England’s
war debts . . .
. . . but encourages
investors to lend money
to Germany
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The Seattle General Strike of 1919
“Labor will not only SHUT DOWN the
industries, but Labor will REOPEN,
under
the management of the appropriate
trades,
such activities as are needed to preserve
public health and public peace. If the
strike
continues, Labor may feel led to avoid
public suffering by reopening more and
more activities.
UNDER ITS OWN MANAGEMENT.
And that is why we say that we are
starting
on a road that leads – NO ONE
KNOWS WHERE!”
Anna Louise Strong, 1919
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The Palmer Raids, 1919-1920
A. Mitchell Palmer;
ransacked IWW
headquarters
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Warren G. Harding, 1920
“America’s present need is
not heroics, but healing;
not nostrums, but normalcy;
not revolution, but restoration;
not agitation, but adjustment;
not surgery, but serenity;
not the dramatic, but the dispassionate;
not experiment, but equipoise;
not submergence in internationality,
but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”
The United States from 1914 to 1945
harding era laws for women
• Sheppard Towner Act: Federal money for
nurses, pre-natal care and child care.
 American
Medical Association called it
“bolshevistic.”
 Roman Catholic church called it government
intrusion into the family
• Cable Act
 Women
don’t have to forfeit their citizenship
if they marry a non-citizen.
The United States from 1914 to 1945
equal rights amendments
• 1920s:
 “Men
and women shall have equal rights
throughout the United States and every place
subject to its jurisdiction.”
• 1970s:
 “Equality
of rights under the law shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by
any state on account of sex.”
• 14th amendment, equal protection under
the laws . . .
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The 18th Amendment, 1919
• “After one year from the
ratification of this article
the manufacture, sale, or
transportation of
intoxicating liquors
within, the importation
thereof into, or the
exportation thereof from
the United States and all
territory subject to the
jurisdiction therefore for
beverage purposes is
hereby prohibited.”
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The Prohibition Era
Mabel Walker Willebrandt
Bill McCoy
Wayne Wheeler
Tex Guinan
The United States from 1914 to 1945
the harding scandals, 1921-1924
“the government that governs least, chooses the least to
govern”
• Charles Forbes of the Veteran
Administration
• Jess Smith and Harry
Daughtry
• The Teapot Dome Scandal
• the fall of Albert Fall
• Harding dies in San Francisco
at the Palace Hotel on Market
and 3rd Street
• His wife raises suspicions by
refusing to permit an autopsy
Albert Fall;
Harry
Daughtry
The United States from 1914 to 1945
The United States from 1914 to 1945
American terrorists:
the return of the ku klux klan in the
1920s
• you pay a “klecktoken”
• to your “kleagle”
• diversify your hate to include not just Black-Americans
but Mexicans, Jews, Catholics, Japanese-Americans,
French Canadians, whoever . . .
• go to “klaverns” (huge communal outings)
• myth: the klan only operated in the deep south
• big in new jersey, detroit, pittsburgh, chicago, oklahoma,
michigan, and oregon
The United States from 1914 to 1945
klan strategy: intimidate
through terror
• lynch blacks /
mexican-americans
for getting too
prominent
economically or
politically (and say
it was because they
made a move on a
white woman)
• murder or assault
whites for
establishing
political or
economic alliances
with blacks
• 2,500 public floggings in one year
in Oklahoma (where a klansman
was governor)
The United States from 1914 to 1945
the klansman’s anti-immigrant
creed . . .
“I believe in the limitation of
foreign immigration. I am a
native-born American citizen
and I believe my rights in this
country are superior to
foreigners.”
The United States from 1914 to 1945
height of the klan
• 5 million members by 1923
• July 4th, 1923: 100,000 Klan members pack a park in
Kokomo, Indiana
• November, 1923: 75,000 Klan members show up for “Ku
Klux Klan Day” in Texas
• 1920: Oklahoma has a Klan governor
• 1922: Texas has a Klan senator
• 1924: generally estimated that half the Democratic
National Convention delegates secretly belong to the
Klan
The United States from 1914 to 1945
decline (but not fall) of the klan
• corruption and sex
scandals discredit the
klan
• anti-immigration laws
make the klan seem less
necessary
• disillusionment over
• multiracial coalitions in
prohibition makes klan
the north literally drive
stance against alcohol less
the klan out of town
popular
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Eugenics
• Control
reproduction to
encourage
breeding of the
“fit” and
discourage
breeding of the
“unfit”
The United States from 1914 to 1945
1921 immigration quota
• Quota on all nationalities coming into the United
States, on a yearly basis
• 3 percent of the current total of said nationality
presently in the U.S.
• with a total ceiling of 357,803 immigrants a year
• no more than 20 percent of the quota can come
into the United States in a month
The United States from 1914 to 1945
1924 National Origins Act
• tougher quota on all nationalities immigrating to
the United States
• each nationality limited annually to 2 percent of
its total presence in the United States . . .
• . . . based on the 1890 census
• What does this mean?
• (hint: relatively few Eastern Europeans or
Italians in the United States in 1890)
The United States from 1914 to 1945
Ozawa vs. United
States, 1922
• U.S. rejects naturalization
(citizenship) for Japanese
immigrants
• Argues that they could
never assimilate with
white people, not being
“caucasian.”
Bhagat Singh
Tindh vs. United
States, 1923
• U.S. rejects Indian request
for citizenship (even
though race classification
books the court used
define them as
“caucasian”).
• Argues that whiteness
should be based on a
“common understanding
of the white man.”