Unit 7 Princeton Review Flashcards
(31 cards)
WAR I (1900–1920)
The Populist movement dissipated, but not before raising the possibility of reform through government.
The Populists’ successes in both local and national elections encouraged others to seek change through political action.
Building on Populism’s achievements and adopting some of its goals (e.g., direct election of senators, opposition to monopolies), the Progressives came to dominate the first two decades of 20th-century American politics.
While the Populists were mainly aggrieved farmers who advocated radical reforms, the Progressives were urban, middle-class reformers who wanted to increase the role of government in reform while maintaining a capitalist economy.
Progressives more successful than Populiasts
One of the reasons Populism failed is that its constituents were mostly poor farmers whose daily struggle to make a living made political activity difficult.
The Progressives achieved greater success in part because theirs was an urban, middle-class movement. Its proponents started with more economic and political clout than the Populists.
Furthermore, Progressives could devote more time to the causes they championed.
Also, because many Progressives were northern and middle class, the Progressive movement did not intensify regional and class differences, as the Populist movement had.
Roots of Progressivism and Accomplishments
The roots of Progressivism lay in the growing number of associations and organizations at the turn of the century.
The National Woman Suffrage Association, the American Bar Association, and the National Municipal League are some of the many groups that rallied citizens around a cause or profession.
Most of these groups’ members were educated and middle class; the blatant corruption they saw in business and politics offended their senses of decency, as did the terrible plight of the urban poor.
Progressivism got a further boost from a group of journalists who wrote exposés of corporate greed and misconduct.
These writers, dubbed muckrakers by Theodore Roosevelt, revealed widespread corruption in urban management (Lincoln Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities), oil companies (Ida Tarbell’s History of Standard Oil), and the meatpacking industry (Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle).
Their books and news articles raised the moral stakes for Progressives.
Over the course of two decades, Progressives achieved great successes on both the local and national levels.
They campaigned to change public attitudes toward education and government regulation in much the same way reformers of the previous century had campaigned for public enlightenment on the plight of orphans, prostitutes, and the mentally infirm.
New Groups to Fight Discrimination
New groups arose to lead the fight against discrimination but met with mixed success.
W. E. B. Du Bois headed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the quest for racial justice, an uphill battle so strenuous that, after a lifelong struggle, Du Bois abandoned the United States and moved to Africa.
Meanwhile, women’s groups continued to campaign for suffrage.
The adamant, conservative opposition they faced gave birth to the feminist movement.
One early advocate, Margaret Sanger, faced wide opposition for promoting the use of contraceptives (illegal in most places).
The movement’s greatest success was in winning women the right to vote, granted by the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
Progressive State Leaders/Victories
Working-class Progressives also won a number of victories on the state level, including limitations on the length of the work day, minimum-wage requirements, child labor laws, and urban housing codes.
Many states adopted progressive income taxes (taxes that charge higher percentages for people with higher incomes), which served partially to redistribute the nation’s wealth.
Robert La Follete
President Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
The Progressive Era is a turning point in American history because it marks the ever-increasing involvement of the federal government in our daily lives.
It’s no coincidence that Prohibition took effect during this era.
Robert La Follete
Under his leadership, Wisconsin implemented plans for direct primary elections, progressive taxation, and rail regulation.
Many states extended greater power to voters by adopting the ballot initiative, through which the voters could propose new laws; the referendum, which allowed the public to vote on new laws; and the recall election, which gave voters the power to remove officials from office before their terms expired.
President Theodore Roosevelt
The most prominent Progressive leader was President Theodore Roosevelt.
In the 1900 election, Republican Party leaders chose Roosevelt to be McKinley’s running mate because they feared McKinley might become too powerful.
McKinley was a conservative president, and Roosevelt was expected to emulate his policies, though rumors had begun to circulate that Roosevelt harbored progressive sympathies.
When McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Roosevelt succeeded him.
Roosevelt showed his more liberal tendencies early on.
Roosevelt Regulating Business
went beyond regulating corporations
Roosevelt Regulating Business
In 1902, he directed the Justice Department to investigate a major railroad company, and then broke it up following the Sherman Antitrust Act.
That same year, he worked to negotiate a labor conflict between coal mine owners and coal workers, giving large concessions to the workers.
After he convincingly won the 1904 election on the strength of his handling of Latin American affairs, Roosevelt began boldly enacting a progressive agenda.
He was the first to successfully use the Sherman Antitrust Act against monopolies, and he did so repeatedly during his term, earning the nickname “the Trustbuster.”
As president, Roosevelt went beyond regulation corporations.
Inspired by Upton Sinclair’s groundbreaking book The Jungle, which described the dangerous conditions in America’s meatpacking factories, Roosevelt encouraged Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act, which created federal standards for meatpacking factories.
Congress also passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required all processed food and drugs to include ingredient labels.
Roosevelt’s desire to conserve natural resources led him to preserve millions of acres of forested land and to encourage Congress to create the National Park Service and the National Forest Service.
Presidents Taft and Wilson continued to promote Progressive ideals.
William Howard Taft
who won the election of 1908, spearheaded the drive for two constitutional amendments, one that instituted a national income tax (the Sixteenth Amendment) and another that allowed for the direct election of senators (the Seventeenth Amendment).
He pursued monopolies even more aggressively than Roosevelt.
On the foreign policy front, Taft is best known for “dollar diplomacy,” the attempt to secure favorable relationships with Latin
American and East Asian countries by providing monetary loans.
Roosevelt wanted Taft to succeed him in the presidency, but when Taft took actions that Roosevelt opposed, Roosevelt challenged him for the 1912 Republican primary.
Party bosses supported Taft’s more conservative policies, leading Roosevelt to run for the presidency on the Progressive ticket. Roosevelt and Taft split the Republican vote.
Woodrow Wilson
a Democrat who had to distinguish himself from Teddy Roosevelt, who ran for reelection (after Taft’s one term) on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912.
While Roosevelt’s policies are often referred to as New Nationalism, Wilson referred to his ideas and policies as New Freedom.
Thomas Jefferson had suggested limiting the power of the federal government in order to protect individual liberty, but Wilson now argued that the federal government had to assume greater control over business to protect man’s freedom.
For Roosevelt, there were “good trusts and bad trusts.”
For Wilson, trusts were monopolies, which violated freedom for workers and consumers.
Wilson was committed to restoring competition through greater government regulation of the economy and lowering the tariff.
Wilson created the Federal Trade Commission, lobbied for and enforced the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, and helped create the Federal Reserve System, which gave the government greater control over the nation’s finances.
End of Progressivism
Progressivism lasted until the end of World War I, at which point the nation, weary from war and from the devastating Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918, stepped back from its moral crusade.
The war had torn apart the Progressive coalition; pacifist Progressives opposed the war while others supported it.
A Red Scare, heightened by the Russian Revolution, further split the Progressive coalition by dividing the leftists from the moderates.
Moreover, the Progressive movement had achieved many of its goals, and as it did, it lost the support of those interest groups whose ends had been met.
Some say that the Progressive movement was brought to an end, at least in part, by its own success.
Roosevelt’s imperialism
Roosevelt differed from his predecessor on domestic policy, but he concurred with his foreign policy. Roosevelt was, if anything, an even more devout imperialist than McKinley had been.
Platt Amendment
In 1903, the Roosevelt administration strong- armed Cuba into accepting the Platt Amendment, which essentially committed Cuba to American control.
Under Platt’s stipulations, Cuba could not make a treaty with another nation without U.S. approval, and the United States had the right to intervene in Cuba’s affairs if domestic order dissolved.
A number of invasions and occupations by the Marine Corps resulted.
For 10 of the years between 1906 and 1922, the American military occupied Cuba, arousing anti-American sentiments on the island.
Roosevelt’s actions were equally interventionist throughout Central America.
During his administration, the country set its sights on building a canal through the Central American isthmus; a canal would greatly shorten the sea trip from the East Coast to California.
Congress approved a plan for a canal through Panama, at the time a province of Colombia.
Because Colombia asked for more than the government was willing to spend, the United States encouraged Panamanian rebels to revolt and then supported the revolution.
Not surprisingly, the new Panamanian government gave the United States a much better deal.
Because American commercial interests were so closely tied to the canal’s successful operation, the United States military became a fixed presence throughout the region.
During the next 20 years, troops intervened repeatedly, claiming that Latin American domestic instability constituted a threat to American security.
This assertion came to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine and is often referred to as the Big Stick Policy.
Kept following Monroe Doctrine, tested by European tension
American foreign policy continued to adhere to the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted America’s right to assume the role of an international police force and intervene anywhere in the Western Hemisphere where it felt its national security was at stake.
It also stated that the United States wanted no part of Europe’s internal disputes.
American commitment to that aspect of the Monroe Doctrine would soon be tested, as Europe started down the path leading to World War I.
Complicating matters was the fact that the United States and England were quickly forming a close alliance.
To America’s benefit, England had not opposed its many forays into Central American politics, although it could have.
The British were not merely being friendly; they were trying to line up the United States as a potential ally in their ongoing rivalry with Germany, the other great European power of the era.
US attempts to stay out of WWI
Woodrow Wilson won the election of 1912, a three-way race in which the third-party candidate, Theodore Roosevelt, outpolled Taft, the Republican incumbent.
Wilson entered office with less than a commanding mandate—only 40 percent of the electorate voted for him. However, with regard to the simmering European conflict, he and the electorate were of the same mind: the United States should stay out of it.
When war broke out in Europe in August 1914, Wilson immediately declared the U.S. policy of neutrality.
Neutrality called for America to treat all the belligerents fairly and without favoritism.
It was Wilson’s hope that the United States would help settle the conflict and emerge as the world’s arbiter
Problems from neutrality
However, the neutrality policy posed several immediate problems, owing to America’s close relationship with England and relatively distant relationship with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
A number of Wilson’s advisors openly favored the Allies (led by the British).
The situation quickly grew more complicated.
England’s Blockade, Germany’s Submarines
England’s strategic location and superior navy allowed it to impose an effective blockade on shipments headed for Germany, particularly those coming from the United States.
Protests proved futile; the British government impounded and confiscated American ships.
They then paid for the cargo, reducing the pressure that American merchants would otherwise have put on the U.S. government to take action against the blockade.
Germany attempted to counter the blockade with submarines, or U-boats.
According to contemporaneous international law, an attacker had to warn civilian ships before attacking.
Submarines could not do this because doing so would eliminate their main advantage.
Furthermore, when the Germans attacked civilian ships, it was usually because those ships were carrying military supplies.
The Germans announced that they would attack any such ship, but that did not satisfy Wilson, who believed that the Germans should adhere to the strict letter of international law.
Then Lusitania
Sinking of the Lusitania
Thus, when the German submarines sank the passenger ship Lusitania in 1915 (killing 1,198 passengers, including 128 Americans), the action provoked the condemnation of both the government and much of the public.
That the Lusitania was carrying tons of ammunition to the British was a fact that received much less public attention than did the loss of 1,198 innocent lives.
The sinking of the Lusitania, and the bad publicity it generated, led the Germans to cease submarine warfare for a while.
Britain made steady gains, however, and as the U- boats were Germany’s most effective weapon, the Germans resumed their use.
Neutrality Slipping
In 1916, while Wilson was campaigning for reelection on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” Germany sank another passenger liner, the Arabic.
In response, Wilson, while still maintaining neutrality, asked Congress to put the military into a state of preparedness for war, just in case. While most Americans wanted to stay out of the war, popular support for entry was beginning to grow.
End of Neutrality
Zimmermann Telegram
Published in newspapers around the country, the telegram convinced many Americans that Germany was trying to take over the world.
Although the public was by no means universally behind the idea of war, the balance had shifted enough so that within a month, America would declare war on Germany.
Gov control of industry during WWI
As is often the case during wartime, the government’s power expanded greatly during the three years America was involved in World War I.
The government took control of the telephone, telegraph, and rail industries, and a massive bureaucracy arose to handle these new responsibilities.
The War Industry Board (WIB), created to coordinate all facets of industrial and agricultural production, sought to guarantee that not only the United States but also the rest of the Allies would be well supplied. (European production had been drastically cut by the war.)
The WIB had mixed success; like most large bureaucracies, it was slow and inefficient.
The government also curtailed individual civil liberties during the war.
In response to the still-sizable opposition to U.S. involvement, Congress passed the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918.
The Espionage Act prohibited anyone from using the U.S. mail system to interfere with the war effort or with the draft that had been instituted under the Selective Service Act of 1917 upon America’s entry into the war.
The Sedition Act made it illegal to try to prevent the sale of war bonds or to speak disparagingly of the government, the flag, the military, or the Constitution.
Like the Alien and Sedition Acts in the late 1790s, both laws violated the spirit of the First Amendment but were worded vaguely, giving the courts great leeway in their interpretation.
In 1919, the Supreme Court upheld the Espionage Act in three separate cases, the most notable being Schenck v. United States.
These laws soon became useful tools for the suppression of anyone who voiced unpopular ideas.
