BP1-Changing political environment. Flashcards
(117 cards)
1
Q
Which president took the USA into WW1?
A
Woodrow Wilson
2
Q
How did americans feel about ww1 after it ended?
A
Americans felt like their involvement in the war had been a mistake
3
Q
What was President Wilson criticised for?
A
Involving the USA in international affairs
4
Q
What did president Harding promise?
A
-A return to normalcy
-isolationism
5
Q
What did Harding define normalcy as?
A
A stable, steady way of life.
6
Q
What happened between the end of ww1 and 1921?
A
A short, sharp economic depression.
7
Q
What did harding believe in?
A
Less government in business and less business in government- laissez-faire.
8
Q
Define isolationism and some things involved with it.
A
The USA should be supportive of other nations but not become entangled within them.
-Not joining the league of nations.
-Not setting up colonies
-Cutting back on immigration
-introduction of trade tariffs favouring US business.
-Neutrality acts to restrict the help to other countries if they went to war.
9
Q
Define laissez-faire.
A
French for ‘leave well alone’ which meant minimal government interference.
Not the job of the government to control the economy or to manage social problems but rather keep its own spending under control.
10
Q
Who was president after Harding?
A
Coolidge
11
Q
What was coolidge’s presidential approach?
A
Combined dignity and morality with laissez-faire. Let congress go its own way.
12
Q
What occured during coolidge’s presidency?
A
The USA entered a period of prosperity and recovery so people felt republicanism was working.
13
Q
When was the first red scare?
A
1919-1920
14
Q
Background to the first red scare.
A
1905 to 1917 Russia experienced revolutions and the monarchy was replaced by a communist government.
Revolutions sent shockwaves around the world and made capitalist countries such as the USA very disturbed especially when workers went on strike in large numbers.
15
Q
How many strikes were there in 1919?
A
more than 3,600.
16
Q
First red scare.
A
People began to accuse each other of communism.
Some businesses sacked employees they suspected of left-wing views.
People began to suspect their neighbours and they worried about being suspected themselves so did not feel free to express their opinions.
Considerable violence in some parts if the country especially from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan which targeted all ‘Un-American’ groups.
17
Q
Herbert hoovers approach to the presidency.
A
Adapted laissez-faire and believed everyone should take responsibility for themselves. He developed a theory of rugged individualism.
18
Q
Outline rugged individualism.
A
people who could look after themselves would make their way in the world and prosper.
The poor and homeless were weakened by government support because it ‘sapped their self-reliance’.
The government should not interfere to help those with jobs and homes.
The government should not regulate working hours, pay or working conditions.
The USA should isolate itself from other countries.
The USA should restrict immigration. When they needed workers, immigrants had been encouraged however after the war when unemployment rose, immigration was limited.
19
Q
When was the Wall street crash?
A
October 1929.
20
Q
What caused the wall street crash?
A
Out of control share trading and the underlying problems of the economic boom.
21
Q
Affects of the wall street crash.
A
The great depression.
Unemployment soared, and people lost their homes, banks and businesses failed.
22
Q
What were peoples initial attitudes to the great depression?
A
There had been smaller depressions before, people felt that the USA would jusy recover and hoover agreed with this.
23
Q
Who was president at the time of the wall street crash?
A
Herbert hoover.
24
Q
What was the federal farm board?
A
Hoover persuaded Congress to set up the Federal Farm Board to help farmers who found it hard to sell goods abroad because of isolationist tariffs.
He came to realise Laissez-faire was not working however he believed the answer was private charities to help on a local and personal level and he felt this was the most the government should offer.
25
What was the presidents emergency committee?
A temporary organisation to find work projects for the unemployed and to persuade businesses to create more jobs on a local, voluntary basis.
It was overwhelmed.
Encouraged businessmen to invest in the economy by setting up similar organisations.
Realised that federal intervention was needed.
-He moved from encouraging private help to giving federal help to the states by advising them on projects and then giving them money to fund some of the help.
This fell short of what was needed, and he reluctantly asked congress to pass laws giving direct help.
26
Why was hoover blamed for the depression?
He had an initial laissez-faire approach to the presidency and so refrained from passing legislation. The legislation that he did manage to pass created debt.
27
What were hoovervilles?
Shanty towns for homeless people named after president hoover.
28
Statistic of herbert hoovers debt.
In the last year of his presidency, the government received $2,000 million and spent $5,000 million.
29
Reconstruction finance corporatiom- hoover.
Set up with $330 million to lend to states for relief projects.
30
Comittee for unemployment relief- herbert hoover.
To co-ordinate and advise on state efforts for the unemployed.
31
What was the bonus army?
the US government gave those who fought in the war a bonus payment calculated on their years of service. They paid veterans who were owed just $50 at once and the rest of the money went into a fund to pay out in 1945.
32
Problems for hoover relating to bonus army.
As the depression hit, many veterans asked for their money early but the government refused. Many veterans who wanted their bonuses were unemployed, some homeless.
June 1932 they marched to Washington to make their demands clear. Estimates of the numbers were between 150,000- 200,000. They camped on various sites around the city including in sight of The White House. There were fears of riots.
The police tried to break up the camps with little success and some violence was used.
28th July, troops sent in with tear gas, bayonets, cavalry and even tanks and machine guns.
The camps dispersed and a report was produced later to weaken the blame on the government that the rioters were communist.
Hoover lost a significant amount of popularity due to how they were treated.
33
Why after the depression did people move away from republicanism?
They failed to cure the depression so people wanted a change.
34
Who won against hoover in 1932?
FDR.
35
What did FDR promise that appealed to people.
A new deal that would save the country from the depression. He insisted that the government was responsible for the welfare of the people and needed to help people get back on their feet.
He stressed the importance of rapid national action by congress.
36
What was the NRA?
National recovery administration- set up enforced codes of practice for businesses including work hours and a minimum wage. Businesses could opt in or out.
37
NRA symbol.
Blue eagle displayed in shop windows.
38
What was the AAA?
Agricultural adjustment agency.
Regulated major crops such as wheat, cotton and milk. It brought up surplus crops and subsidised farmers to grow less of crops that were being overproduced.
39
What was the CCC?
Civilian Conservation Corps.
Gave young men useful work which increased employment and simply gave people something to do. Four million jobs made over winter of 1933-34.
40
What was the PWA?
Public Works Administration.
Financed federal state and local projects and created employment. $7 billion spent employing skilled men to build dams, bridges, sewage systems an houses. PWA built 70 percent of Americas schools and 35 of its hospitals.
41
What was the TVA?
Tennessee Valley Authority
Set to develop the Tennessee valley which was poverty stricken with soil erosion and flooding. Built 33 dams to control the river and a new 650 mile water way linking major river systems. Power stations were built to provide cheap electricity and the PWA became the biggest producer of energy.
42
Personality of roosevelt.
Confident, persuasive and charming. Great communicator and understood how to manipulate congress- passed a large amount of legislation in first hundred days.
43
What did FDR do when congress was not helpful?
Used executive orders (designed for emergencies) to pass laws through.
44
Republicans view of FDR.
They disliked his enlargement of powers and he was compared to Mussolini, stalin, hitler etc
45
What were roosevelts fireside chats?
Series of radio broadcasts in which he explained policies to people as if he was chatting to them in their front rooms. He received sacks full of letters from ordinary people.
He understood the media an he held off the record press meetings twice a week. Everyone felt very involved.
46
How was it clear that FDR was a popular president?
Only president to be elected four times.
47
Why did Truman struggle when he inherited the presidency from roosevelt?
He was expected to include the media in everything.
Government seen as responsible for welfare.
48
What was cash and carry? and what were its benefits?
Without taking the USA into war he geared the USA up for war production to supply the allies on a ‘cash and carry basis’.
War production boosted industry and farming which led to a rise in employment.
Farmers grew more and factories produced increasing amounts of weapons and ammunition.
49
What was the lend lease?
By June 1940, Europe had been overrun and Britain was fighting alone depending on supplies from the USA.
Churchill told Roosevelt that Britain could no longer pay for its war goods.
He knew Congress would be unlikely to approve Britain receiving supplies on credit due to the Neutrality acts so he set up a ‘lend-lease’ scheme.
This theoretically lent Britain supplies but they were to be returned after the war.
Congress accepted and it was passed in March 1941.
50
Statistic of the lend-lease scheme success.
The scheme by the end of the war increased in value to around $51 billion.
51
What was the destroyers for bases scheme?
Allowed Roosevelt to give Britain’s 50 naval destroyers in return for the use of bases in British-held countries.
52
Why did the USA enter ww2?
after the Japanese (allies of Germany) bombed the US fleet at Pearl Harbour
53
Impact of ww2 on the economy.
Men joined the armed services and so unemployment dropped rapidly. Women took on the work of men.
Within a year of the outbreak of war, the USA had produced $47 billion worth of war goods.
The war was good for the economy but the human cost was high.
Of over the 16 million who went to fight, 400,000 died and nearly 600,000 were wounded or captured.
54
When was the second red scare?
1947-54.
55
Context of second red scare.
The USSR joined the USA and its allies towards the end of the war having orgnainly fought with Germany. Once the war ended, many Eastern Europena countries occupied by the USSR during the war emerged with Soviet governments which increased fears of communist takeovers.
The USSR was spying on the USA and was keen to get hold of atomic weapon secrets.
56
When did china become communist?
1949.
57
Why was Truman accused of letting china become communist.
MMembers of the ‘China lobby’ accused Truman as he did not give enough support to the Chinese leader Chaing Kai-shek against communism. Although Truman had been told not to give support as the chinese government was corrupt.
58
When was HUAC set up?
1938.
59
What was HUAC?
House of Un-American activities.
60
What did the HUAC investigate?
Any 'un-american' activities but mainly communism.
61
Impact of FBI and HUAC on communism?
Suspicion would cause people to lose their jobs.
People were blacklisted to not be employed again.
62
What were loyalty boards.
21st March 1947- Truman used an executive order to investigate the loyalty of all government employees.
63
Mcarthys role in the red scare.
Feb 1950- made an anticommunism speech to a republican women’s group and announced that he had the names of 205 known communists working in the State Department. When reporters asked to see this list (which he did not have) he pretended to have left it on an aeroplane.
He changed the number of 57 the next day and the day after it was 81. Despite this, he had lots of support.
64
Why was the tydings comittee set up?
To investigate senator mcarthys accusations.
65
What did the tydings comittee find about mcarthy?
Tydings committee issued a report saying McCarhys accusations were a muddle of half-truths and lies.
66
When did Mcarthy lose support?
He turned to investigating the army which was televised and his treatment of the interviewees lost him support.
67
Under which president did liberalism take off?
Kennedy
68
What was liberalism?
Forward thinking, flexible, concerned about the welfare of people and willing to try to be less suspicious abroad.
Both Republicans and Democrats.
Usually middle class, educated or even wealthy.
They supported equality, civil rights and social welfare and believed the government could improve things.
They produced the idea of positive discrimination.
69
What is positive discrimination?
Defined the five mimorites as:
-American Indians.
-Asians
-Black people
-Hispanic people
-Women.
Preferential treatment in employment, education, social welfare or other areas of life for minority groups that have suffered discrimination in order to redress inequality.
Support for liberal measures, including civil rights, equal opportunities and legalising abortion all increased in the 1960s.
70
What was counter-culture?
Groups of people trying to change the face of politics from within and remake society all together by rejecting generational norms.
71
Two examples of counter culture.
Hippies
Radical student groups
72
What was the most well known hippie gathering of the 1960s?
The Woodstock festival.
73
How many tickets were sold to the woodstock festival? How many went?
Just under 200,000.
Between 400,000 and 500,000.
74
Characteristics of hippies.
Wanted to loosen the tight family system and live in communal societies,
Believed in peace and a simple way of life.
Some smoked dope and took other drugs.
Sexual freedom.
-Most well known hippie gathering of the 1960s was the Woodstock Festival (15-18 August 1969). Just under 200,000 tickets were sold .
-Between 400,000 and 500,000 people went. Music was loud, drugs used freely, sexual freedom etc.
75
What did radical student groups want?
To change society to produce a more equal world.
76
Example of radical student groups
Students for a democratic society. Opposed all forms of bigotry. They protested often violently against war in vietnam.
Free speech movement in california.
77
What was the conservative reaction to counter-culture?
Older Americans were bewildered by counter-culture.
It challenged family values and rejected the consumer culture they embraced, it rejected the values of hard work and patriotism.
People who had not had the chance to go to university saw the students as ungrateful.
Made people feel the liberal government was working as students had to resort to violence.
78
What was the 'new right' and which president campaigned for it?
The restoration of law and traditional values. Nixon.
79
Why was the United nations formed?
At the end of WW2 and the states agreed to solve any disputes peacefully. The UN also had the power to call an army to intervene if members did go to war.
80
Context of the cold war.
The Second World War led to more US involvement abroad, unlike the isolationism after the first world war.
The USA and the USSR had fought together during WW2 but always had clear ideological differences.
Truman was very anti-communist whereas Stalin was very anti-capitalist. This soon started the cold war.
The USA and USSR were always the two main powers.
Truman told Congress that the USA represented one way of life and the USSR another and they were in competition.
81
What was the Truman doctrine?
President Trumans policy of containment against communism.
82
What was the Federal Defence Administration.
Set up to organise evacuation and give out pamphlets with advice such as wearing wide-brimmed hats to protect from the blinding light of nuclear explosion.
83
What was the arms race between the USA and the USSR?
June 1947-1948 the US’ holdings of atomic bombs rose from 13 to 50.
The USSR also began to make atomic weapons and this started an arms race costing both countries huge amounts of money.
This resulted in stockpiling enough nuclear weapons to cause massive devastation if they were ever launched.
The existence of the arms race created a democratic/republican divide.
84
When was the cold war?
1947-1989
85
Give some impacts of the cold war on the presidency.
The power of the president to go to war or make treaties without Congress increased.
After the war, the National Security Act reorganised the US military forces under a new Defence Department based at the Pentagon. The size of the armed forces was greatly enlarged after 1950.
The National Security Act also created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Council.
The existence of nuclear weapons meant a nuclear war could start at any point.
After the war, without consulting Congress, Truman made treaties to place permanent US bases in other countries. He also ordered the Berlin airlift and went to war with Korea without congress’s consent.
86
When was the korean war?
1950-1953
87
Context of the Korean war.
June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea with the help of supplies and advisors from the USSR.
Truman was concerned to fight a ‘limited war’. He wanted to keep the North Koreans in North Korea rather than stating a full-scale war.
The War was taking place in the context of the Second Red Scare and he wanted to stop hysteria.
The UN troops fighting with the South Koreans were from 16 countries but most were American and it was led by America.
88
Who was in charge of the Korean war from the USA?
General McArthur.
he wanted a very different war to Truman. He advocated the nuclear bombing of North Korea and even China. He disobeyed orders in ways that could have led to all-out war. E.g he bombed over the River Yalu and then took troops to the river despite orders to halt.
89
What was the impact of the media on the korean war.
The media began by promising Truman support as they expected the kind of information that they had had under Roosevelt in WW2 but Truman made the mistake of holding back with the media because he didn’t want to inflame anti-communist feeling.
The media were desperate for news and so took their information from other sources, became more critical and indulged in speculation. E.g that the president was considering using the atomic bomb which was not true.
In August 1950, Truman began television briefings and then he arranged for 200 reporters to go to Korea.
He found it hard to regain media support.
90
What was the political impact of the korean war?
Truman sacked General McArthur in April 1951.
He came under pressure from both Republicans and Democrats to scale up the war in Korea and to be harsher on communism.
When the issues with the USSR needed peaceful resolution to avoid a world war, the opponents said that this didn’t sound like the Truman Doctrine.
The behaviour of the various parts of the government over the Korean War contributed to the beginnings of disillusionment with the presidency and government in general.
91
When was the Vietnam war?
1954-75.
92
Context of Vietnam war.
Began when the French were driven out of Vietnam by communist Vietnemese rebels. The elected leader Ngo Dinh Diem was corrupt and his government was seen as bad as a communist one. This caused friction between the North and South.
The USA spent the 1950s giving South Vietnamese troops training, advice and supplies.
The first troops were sent in by Kennedy in 1961 and from then on the war escalated.
93
Negatives of the korean war.
The USA was fighting a guerrilla war and could not distinguish between its allies and enemies.
It was the first war that the USA had lost.
The Vietnam war created similar defence budget concerns as the Korean war. Spending was said to have contributed to the rising inflation. It also created a significant loss of credibility for the government as they introduced unpopular policies.
94
How were people drafted into the vietnam war?
A lottery was held to select men ages 18-26 to fight in Vietnam. These men were sent ‘draft cards’. Some of the men were too young to drink or vote but expected to go to war. The draw had radio, film and television coverage.
It became symbolic for young men with draft cards to burn their cars during anti-war protests.
Draft-dodging (not reporting for service) became more and more popular as the opposition to the war grew.
95
What were the VVAW?
Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
96
Protests against vietnam war- example.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War- six veterans marched together in a peace demonstration in New York City in 1967. Had membership of over 30,000. They campaigned to show the horrors of war and the ill-treatment of veterans once they returned.
No-one understood PTSD so people were told to just get on with their lives.
97
Role of the media in the vietnam war.
Media coverage of the war was intensive.
As the war went on, the reporters reported increasingly shocking stories e.g the massacre of an entire village of civilians at Mai Lai, spraying the toxic defoliant Agent Orange on villages etc.
The media was shocked with the ethos prevailing om Vietnam. It was not a war to be fought honourably.
February 1968 Walter Cronkite broadcasted criticism, of the way the war was being run despite him being a highly influential and respected television reporter who was not meant to show bias.
98
Political impact of vietnam war.
The War drove presidents into unpopular domestic policies.
presidents were seen as driving policy in the war so responsible. E.g protests. In 1968 were often accompanied by chants such as ‘Hey! Hey! LBJ How many kids did you kill today?’. This placed a clear responsibility onto the president.
It became increasingly difficult to leave the war without putting many South Vietnamese I danger.
The final withdrawal did not reflect good on the government.
People were relieved that the USA was out of the war but humiliated to have fought a ‘dirty’ war and lost it.
People were more critical of the government.
99
Why did the media lead to the decline in government confidence?
People had wider access to media than in the earlier years.
under Roosevelt, the media saw their job as explaining policies.
From 1953 to when the Korean War began and Truman mishandled the media- criticism grew.
The media took to Kennedy and his government but from 1968, the media began to see their job as uncovering government deception.
Media stories focused more on showing that the government were not telling the people as much as they knew.
100
How did scandal lead to the decline in government confidence?
The Watergate scandal (1972-74) showed the White House and President Nixon were guilty not only of burglary but also of surveillance of political opponents.
Nixon arranged for the White House to be bugged so that conversations could be recorded and then he set up an undercover group to discover the source of the leaks that had plagued the White House.
-The Washington post discovered that $25,000 from the presidents re-election campaign was in one of the burglars bank accounts.
In June 1972, four men were arrested for breaking into the Democrat headquarters in the Watergate building. One of them was on Nixon’s staff. The White House kept denying involvement. Nixon was re-elected.
January 1973- Burglars convicted and questioned. They named people close to Nixon as involved. Three of the men resigned and one was sacked as Nixon wanted to remove anyone to keep himself out of trouble. When Nixon handed over the tapes they were clearly edited and he resigned.
Tapes of Nixon in the White House showed him in a terrible light; he swore, was suspicious of everyone and made it clear that he was perfectly happy to lie to the American people.
101
Explain how mishandling of events lead to the decline in government confidence.
Government could not avoid responsibility for the conduct of the war in vietnam.
102
Why did social factors lead to a decline in government confidence?
Violent police reactions had happened in the South.
There were riots in cities following Martin Luther King’s death.
Some places such as Chicago became notorious for police violence against demonstrators. E.g in 1970 the National Guard killed four students.
103
Why did the presidents lead to a decline in government confidence?
All presidents in office 1968-80 contributed to the decline of confidence.
Johnson put US troops into Vietnam without Congress’s approval. He communicated poorly with the press and public.
Nixon was involved in scandal and his communication style was forced.
Gerald Ford was not forgiven when he became predient after Nixon and did not take him to trial instead.
Carter was very politicially inexperienced but he was a very moral man.
104
When was woodrow wilson president?
1913-1921
105
When was Warren G. Harding president?
1921-1923
106
When was Calvin Coolidge president?
1923-1929
107
When was herbert hoover president?
1929-1933
108
When was FDR president?
1933-1945
109
When was Harry Truman president?
1945-1953
110
When was Dwight Eisenhower president?
1953-1961
111
When was JFK president?
1961-1963
112
When was Lyndon B. Johnson president?
1963-1969
113
When was Nixon president?
1969-1974.
114
When was Ford president?
1974-1977
115
When was carter president?
1977-1981.
116
When was Reagan president?
1981-1989
117
What did the New Deal do that had not been done before?
Set up a welfare system.
