Reconstruction Johnson's "Carrying Out Lincoln's Plan" April 15, 1865 - March 4, 1869 President Abraham Lincoln and the Radicals in the Republican Party had clashed bitterly about reconstruction policies long before the assassination thrust Vice President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, into the fray. "Mr. Johnson, I thank God that you are here", said Radical Republican Sen. Ben Wade. "Lincoln had too much of the milk of human kindness to deal with these damn rebels. Now they will be dealt with according to their deserts." Believing he was basically carrying on Lincoln's plans for reconstruction, Johnson, by a May 29, 1865, presidential proclamation, granted amnesty and pardon to all persons who directly or indirectly participated in the "rebellion", with a wide range of exceptions. Excepted persons included people with taxable property worth more than $20,000, civil and diplomatic officials, officers above the rank of colonel, anyone who left the U.S. military to fight for the Confederacy, anyone educated in the U.S. military academies, anyone who left homes in the North to go South, and many others. However, Johnson proclaimed, these excepted persons could apply to him personally and "such clemency will be liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of the United States". A loyalty oath that "henceforth" all such persons would support the Constitution and abide by the laws was required of all. Property rights, with certain exclusions- notably slaves- were restored and a policy of re-establishing state governments and adopting new state constitutions that incorporated the 13th amendment was set forth. The Radicals were furious. Surely there were Southerners who must hang. What about freed slaves? They should be enfranchised, and the property of the whites should be divided amongst them. Would these states be represented in Congress by the same people that had led them in rebellion? Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens asked his colleagues if there was "no way to arrest the insane course of the President." Fascinating Fact: Knowing that Southerners would be looking to him for guidance in regard to the amnesty proclamation, Robert E. Lee decided to set the right example and applied to Johnson for a pardon. He was never pardoned during his lifetime. -he 14th amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868 during the Reconstruction era. It, along with the 13th and 15th amendments are collectively known as the Reconstruction amendments. However, of those three, the 14th is the most complicated and the one that has had the more unforeseen effects. Its broad goal was to ensure that the Civil Rights Act passed in 1866 would remain valid ensuring that "all persons born in the United States...excluding Indians not taxed...." were citizens and were to be given "full and equal benefit of all laws." (Quotes from the Civil Rights Act of 1866) However, it went beyond the provisions of the Civil Rights Act in many ways. Key Clauses of the 14th Amendment Four principles were asserted in the text of the 14th amendment. They were: State and federal ciizenship for all persons regardless of race both born or naturalized in the United States was reaffirmed. No state would be allowed to abridge the "privileges and immunities" of citizens. No person was allowed to be deprived of life, liberty,or property without "due process of law." No person could be denied "equal protection of the laws." Over time, numerous lawsuits have arisen that have referenced the 14th amendment. The fact that the amendment uses the word state in the Privileges and Immunities clause along with interpretation of the Due Process Clause has meant that state as well as federal power is subject to the Bill of Rights. Further, the courts have interpretated the word "person" to include corporations. Therefore, they too are protected by "due process" along with being granted "equal protection."
While there were other clauses in the amendment, none were as signficant as these. -Since the Civil War, much of the concern over civil rights in the United States has focused on efforts to extend these rights fully to African Americans. The first legislative attempts to assure African Americans an equal political and legal status were the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1870, 1871, and 1875. Those acts bestowed upon African Americans such freedoms as the right to sue and be sued, to give evidence, and to hold real and personal property. The 1866 act was of dubious constitutionality and was reenacted in 1870 only after the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. The fourth Civil Rights Act attempted to guarantee to the African Americans those social rights that were still withheld. It penalized innkeepers, proprietors of public establishments, and owners of public conveyances for discriminating against African Americans in accommodations, but was invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1883 on the ground that these were not properly civil rights and hence not a field for federal legislation. After the Civil Rights Act of 1875 there was no more federal legislation in this field until the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, although several states passed their own civil-rights laws. The 20th-century struggle to expand civil rights for African Americans involved the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Urban League, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and others. The civil-rights movement, led especially by Martin Luther King, Jr., in the late 1950s and 60s, and the executive leadership provided by President Lyndon B. Johnson, encouraged the passage of the most comprehensive civil-rights legislation to date, the Civil Rights Act of 1964; it prohibited discrimination for reason of color, race, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation covered by interstate commerce, i.e., restaurants, hotels, motels, and theaters. Besides dealing with the desegregation of public schools, the act, in Title VII, forbade discrimination in employment. Title VII also prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex. In 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed, which placed federal observers at polls to ensure equal voting rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 dealt with housing and real estate discrimination. In addition to congressional action on civil rights, there was action by other branches of the government. The most notable of these were the Supreme Court decisions in 1954 and 1955 declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional and the court's rulings in 1955 banning segregation in publicly financed parks, playgrounds, and golf courses. In the 1960s women began to organize around the issue of their civil rights (see feminism). The federal Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, and by the early 1970s over 40 states had passed equal pay laws. In 1972 the Senate passed an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) intended to prohibit all discrimination based on sex, but after failing to win ratification in a sufficient number of states, the ERA was abandoned. Since the 1970s a number of gay-rights groups have worked, mainly on the local and state levels, for legislation that prevents discrimination in housing and employment (see gay-rights movement). In a further extension of civil-rights protection, the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) barred discrimination against disabled persons in employment and provided for improved access to public facilities.
The Compromise of 1877 was one of a series of compromises reached to hold the United States together peacefully. What made the Compromise of 1877 unique was that it took place after the Civil War, and was thus an attempt to prevent a second outbreak of violence. The other compromises, the Missouri Compromise (1820), the Compromise of 1850, and the KansasNebraska Act (1854), were all intended to avoid Civil War. The Compromise of 1877 was also unusual as it was not reached openly after debate in the US Congress. It was primarily worked out behind the scenes and with virtually no written record. The timing of the agreement was prompted by the disputed presidential election of 1876. The Democrats in
Congress held a meeting in early 1877 and agreed not to interfere with a plan that would have Congress decided the outcome of the election. Part of the agreement was that Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, would bring an end to Reconstruction throughout the south if he took office. The Compromise of 1877 actually went beyond the settlement of the disputed election. It also was intended to provide financial subsidies to the South, although that did not come to pass. Historians have noted that the Compromise of 1877 marked a turn in policy away from concern for freed slaves in the South, and ultimately helped usher in the era of Jim Crow. Freedmen's Bureau, in U.S. history, a federal agency, formed to aid and protect the newly freed blacks in the South after the Civil War. Established by an act of Mar. 3, 1865, under the name "bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands," it was to function for one year after the close of the war. A bill extending its life indefinitely and greatly increasing its powers was vetoed (Feb. 19, 1866) by President Andrew Johnson, who viewed the legislation as an unwarranted (and unconstitutional) continuation of war powers in peacetime. The veto marked the beginning of the President's long and unsuccessful fight with the radical Republican Congress over Reconstruction. In slightly different form, the bill was passed over Johnson's veto on July 16, 1866. Organized under the War Dept., with Gen. Oliver O. Howard as its commissioner, and thus backed by military force, the bureau was one of the most powerful instruments of Reconstruction. Howard divided the ex-slave states, including the border slave states that had remained in the Union, into 10 districts, each headed by an assistant commissioner. The bureau's work consisted chiefly of five kinds of activity--relief work for both blacks and whites in war-stricken areas, regulation of black labor under the new conditions, administration of justice in cases concerning the blacks, management of abandoned and confiscated property, and support of education for blacks. In its relief and educational activities the bureau compiled an excellent record, which, however, was too often marred by unprincipled agents, both military and civilian, in the local offices. Its efforts toward establishing the freed blacks as landowners were nil. To a great degree the bureau operated as a political machine, organizing the black vote for the Republican party; its political activities made it thoroughly hated in the South. When, under the congressional plan of Reconstruction, new state governments based on black suffrage were organized in the South (with many agents holding various offices), the work of the Freedmen's Bureau was discontinued (July 1, 1869). Its educational activities, however, were carried on for another three years. 186577, in U.S. history, the period of readjustment following the Civil War. At the end of the Civil War, the defeated South was a ruined land. The physical destruction wrought by the invading Union forces was enormous, and the old social and economic order founded on slavery had collapsed completely, with nothing to replace it. The 11 Confederate states somehow had to be restored to their positions in the Union and provided with loyal governments, and the role of the emancipated slaves in Southern society had to be defined. The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on February 3, 1870 during Reconstruction. Along with the 13th amendment and the 14th amendment, it is one of the three Reconstruction amendments. Text of the 15th Amendment Section 1. The right of 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.
Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. calawags and Carpetbaggers were derogatory terms used in the aftermath of the American Civil War that ended in 1865. Scalawags originally a term describing worthless livestock referred to a group of white Republican Southerners who sympathized with the federal Reconstruction effort. Some of the scalawags were entirely above board, having opposed the Confederacy in earlier times and later wanted a new South to emerge from the rubble. Others cooperated with or served in the Republican governments in order to avail themselves of money making opportunities. Carpetbaggers, also a term of derision, were white business people from the North who moved to the South during Reconstruction, 18671877. Many Carpetbaggers were former abolitionists who wished to continue the struggle for equality, while others Carpetbaggers saw the reconstruction of the South as a political or economic opportunity. The name referred to the cloth bags many of them used for transporting their possessions, but today is applied to any recently arrived opportunist. In sum, Carpetbaggers were seen as insidious northern newcomer outsiders with questionable objectives meddling in local politics, buying up plantations at fire sale prices, taking advantage of poor southerners and pushing their alien northern ways on southern politics. The term carpetbagger is not to be confused with the term 'copperhead,' which is a term given to person from the North who sympathizes with the Southern right to Secession, selfdetermination and independence. The term carpetbaggers was also used to describe the white northern Republican politicians who came South, arriving with their travel carpetbags. Southerners considered them ready to loot and plunder the defeated South. According to myth, unscrupulous carpetbaggers from the North and unprincipled scalawags from the South manipulated the freedmen to gain control of the state governments. Backed by the presence of federal troops, they embarked on an orgy of corruption, humiliating and impoverishing the helpless South and unsettling relations between blacks and whites. At last, the nation grew weary of the corruption and the cost of maintaining troops in the South. The army was withdrawn and the responsible white citizenry regained control of their governments. According to a stereotype popularized after Reconstruction, the carpetbaggers were dishonest fortune seekers whose possession could be put in a satchel. "They are fellows who crawled down South on the track of our armies...stealing and plundering," said editor Horace Greeley. Contrary to legend, most carpetbaggers were not impoverished opportunists seeking easy money in the South. Rather they were former soldiers who migrated to the South to seek a livelihood. They generated hostility because they supported the Republican Party and defended the civil and political rights of freedmen. fter the Civil War, white Southerners moved quickly to eliminate black people's newfound freedom. They wanted to return blacks, in effect, to their prewar status as slaves. In order to do this "legally," they passed new laws that appeared, on the surface, to be neutral and fair to all races. In actuality however, these laws were actually designed specifically to repress black people.
At first these laws were called Black Codes, but because of their deceptive nature, they eventually came to be known as the laws of Jim Crow. Jim Crow was the name of character in a minstrel show. Minstrel shows were
popular during that time, and they featured white actors in "black face," or black make-up. Because of this, the name Jim Crow represented the fact that Black Codes were based on racial disguise.
South Carolina began to establish Black Codes immediately. The Constitution of 1865, passed only a few months after the Civil War ended, failed to grant African-Americans the right to vote. It also retained racial qualifications for the legislature. Consequently, black people had no power to combat the unfair laws. Some of the Black Codes that were passed around this time stated: "No person of color shall migrate into and reside in this state, unless, within twenty days after his arrival within the same, he shall enter into a bond with two freeholders as sureties" "Servants shall not be absent from the premises without the permission of the master" Servants must assist their masters "in the defense of his own person, family, premises, or property" No person of color could become an artisan, mechanic, or shopkeeper unless he obtained a license from the judge of the district court a license that could cost $100 or mor
The original Ku Klux Klan was organized by ex-Confederate elements to oppose the Reconstruction policies of the radical Republican Congress and to maintain "white supremacy." After the Civil War, when local government in the South was weak or nonexistent and there were fears of black outrages and even of an insurrection, informal vigilante organizations or armed patrols were formed in almost all communities. These were linked together in societies, such as the Men of Justice, the Pale Faces, the Constitutional Union Guards, the White Brotherhood, and the Order of the White Rose. The Ku Klux Klan was the best known of these, and in time it absorbed many of the smaller organizations. It was organized at Pulaski, Tenn., in May, 1866. Its strange disguises, its silent parades, its midnight rides, its mysterious language and commands, were found to be most effective in playing upon fears and superstitions. The riders muffled their horses' feet and covered the horses with white robes. They themselves, dressed in flowing white sheets, their faces covered with white masks, and with skulls at their saddle horns, posed as spirits of the Confederate dead returned from the battlefields. Although the Klan was often able to achieve its aims by terror alone, whippings and lynchings were also used, not only against blacks but also against the socalled carpetbaggers and scalawags. A general organization of the local Klans was effected in Apr., 1867, at Nashville, Tenn. Gen. N. B. Forrest, the famous Confederate cavalry leader, was made Grand Wizard of the Empire and was assisted by ten Genii. Each state constituted a Realm under a Grand Dragon with eight Hydras as a staff; several counties formed a Dominion controlled by a Grand Titan and six Furies; a county was a Province ruled by a Grand Giant and four Night Hawks; the local Den was governed by a Grand Cyclops with two Night Hawks as aides. The individual members were called Ghouls. Control over local Dens was not as complete as this organization would seem to indicate, and reckless and even lawless local leaders sometimes committed acts that the leaders could not countenance. General Forrest, in Jan., 1869, seemingly under some apprehension as to the use of its power, ordered the disbandment of the Klan and resigned as Grand Wizard. Local organizations continued, some of them for many years. The Klan was particularly effective in systematically keeping black men away from the polls, so that the exConfederates gained political control in many states. Congress in 1870 and 1871 passed legislation to combat the Klan (see force bill). The Klan was especially strong in the mountain and Piedmont areas. In the Lower South the Knights of the White Camelia were dominant. That order, founded (1867) in Louisiana, is reputed to have had even more members than the Ku Klux Klan, but its membership was more conservative and its actions less spectacular. It had a similar divisional organization, with headquarters in New Orleans.
The Redeemers were a political coalition in the South during the Reconstruction era, who sought to overthrow the Radical Republican coalition of Freedmen, carpetbaggers and Scalawags. They were the southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats, the conservative, pro-business wing of the Democratic Party. Redeemers held power not by ballot-box fraud and the support of a few Northern capitalists, but by representing the interests of rural areas and the majority of Southerners. Redeemers cut real estate taxes, established state commissions of agriculture, subsidized state fairs, sponsored experimental farms, employed chemists to inspect fertilizers and to conduct soil surveys, established regulations for railroads, and supported lower tariffs. Aligning themselves with farmers on economic issues and combining low taxes with real, if limited, improvements in social services, the Redeemers exerted a powerful hold on the electorate.[1] Ideas and Movements, ca 1840s Manifest Destiny was a phrase which invoked the idea of divine sanction for the territorial expansion of the United States. It first appeared in print in 1845, in the July-August issue of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. The anonymous author, thought to be its editor John L. O'Sullivan, proclaimed "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions." The specific context of the article was the annexation of Texas, which had taken place not long before. Other applications of the notion of manifest destiny were soon found. It was used to promote the annexations of Mexican territory acquired in the Mexican-American War, of territory in Oregon gained through negotiations with the British, and the seizure (not carried out) of Cuba from the Spanish during the 1850's. Various arguments against western expansion were put forward, particularly by those on the Eastern seaboard who feared a dilution of their influence on national affairs. It was suggested that a democratic government should not try to extend itself over such a vast territory. James K. Polk responded to this in his inaugural address in 1844: In the earlier stages of our national existence the opinion prevailed with some that our system of confederated States could not operate successfully over an extended territory, and serious objections have at different times been made to the enlargement of our boundaries. These objections were earnestly urged when we acquired Louisiana. Experience has shown that they were not well founded. The title of numerous Indian tribes to vast tracts of country has been extinguished; new States have been admitted into the Union; new Territories have been created and our jurisdiction and laws extended over them. As our population has expanded, the Union has been cemented and strengthened. As our boundaries have been enlarged and our agricultural population has been spread over a large surface, our federative system has acquired additional strength and security. It may well be doubted whether it would not be in greater danger of overthrow if our present population were confined to the comparatively narrow limits of the original thirteen States than it is now that they are sparsely settled over a more expanded territory. It is confidently believed that our system may be safely extended to the utmost bounds of our territorial limits, and that as it shall be extended the bonds of our Union, so far from being weakened, will become stronger. The philosophical support for manifest destiny was based on the idea that America was destined to expand democratic institutions in North America, which gave the nation a superior moral right to govern areas where other interests would not respect this goal. This was particularly clear with respect to Texas, and the alternative of a Mexican dictatorship, but it was also applied in the Oregon territory. Britain itself might be democratic, but that was not its purpose in Oregon. The ill-fated Ostend Manifesto of 1854, which advocating Cuba from Spain either by cash purchase or force, was quickly abandoned. It demonstrated that while Manifest Destiny was a powerful force in American thinking when oriented west, it did not yet extend beyond the shores and definitely if it involved a future slave territory. Manifest destiny was a popular and easily understood phrase, which was adopted by successive political parties. Originally the position of the Democratic Party, it was absorbed into the platforms of the Whig and later Republican parties. Even the Alaska Purchase of 1867 and acquisitions outside the continent, such as Guam and Hawaii, were promoted as examples of manifest destiny in action. Gradually, the phrase became seen as a cover for imperialism and political support has died out.
The Dawes General Allotment (Severalty) Act, February 8, 1887, converted all Indian tribal lands to individual ownership in an attempt to facilitate the assimilation of Indians into the white culture. Pressure for a reform in Indian policy was triggered by Helen Hunt Jackson's book, A Century of Dishonor (1881), which chronicled the unjust treatment American Indians had received at the hands of the federal government. Indian Rights associations sprang up across the country, and consensus grew that Indians must be helped to become full members of American society. The reformers saw the traditional patterns of Indian culture as the principal obstacle to meaningful citizenship; their first task, they believed, was to end the nomadism and isolation of reservation life. The new law was thus tailored to attack a central institution of Indian culture, common ownership of tribal lands. Under the Dawes Act, Indian tribes lost legal standing, and tribal lands were divided among the individual members. In exchange for renouncing their tribal holdings, Indians would become American citizens and would receive individual land grants160 acres to family heads, 80 acres to single adults. Even these grants were qualified, however; full ownership would come only after the expiration of a twentyfiveyear federal trust. (In 1906, the Burke Act waived the remaining trust for all Indians judged competent to handle their property independently.) The Dawes Act significantly undermined Indian tribal life, but did little to further their acceptance into the broader society. In addition, the law severely reduced Indian holdings; after all individual allocations had been made, the extensive lands remaining were declared surplus and opened for sale to nonIndians. In 1887, the tribes had owned about 138 million acres; by 1900 the total acreage in Indian hands had fallen to 78 million. This policy was not reversed until 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act asserted the importance of perpetuating Indian cultural institutions and permitted surplus lands to be returned to tribal ownership.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/dawesact#ixzz1nbg71jZ5 n the morning of December 29, 1890, the Sioux chief Big Foot and some 350 of his followers camped on the O banks of Wounded Knee creek. Surrounding their camp was a force of U.S. troops charged with the responsibility of arresting Big Foot and disarming his warriors. The scene was tense. Trouble had been brewing for months. The hope of the Ghost Dance The once proud Sioux found their freeroaming life destroyed, the buffalo gone, themselves confined to reservations dependent on Indian Agents for their existence. In a desperate attempt to return to the days of their glory, many sought salvation in a new mysticism preached by a Paiute shaman called Wovoka. Emissaries from
the Sioux in South Dakota traveled to Nevada to hear his words. Wovoka called himself the Messiah and prophesied that the dead would soon join the living in a world in which the Indians could live in the old way surrounded by plentiful game. A tidal wave of new soil would cover the earth, bury the whites, and restore the
prairie. To hasten the event, the Indians were to dance the Ghost Dance. Many dancers wore brightly colored shirts emblazoned with images of eagles and buffaloes. These "Ghost Shirts" they believed would protect them from the bluecoats' bullets. During the fall of 1890, the Ghost Dance spread through the Sioux villages of the Dakota reservations, revitalizing the Indians and bringing fear to the whites. A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in Washington, "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy....We need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should be done now." The order went out to arrest Chief Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation. Sitting Bull was killed in the attempt on December 15. Chief Big Foot was next on the list. When he heard of Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot led his people south to seek protection at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The army intercepted the band on December 28 and brought them to the edge of the Wounded Knee to camp. The next morning the chief, racked with pneumonia and dying, sat among his warriors and powwowed with the army officers. Suddenly the sound of a shot pierced the early morning gloom. Within seconds the charged atmosphere erupted as Indian braves scurried to retrieve their discarded rifles and troopers fired volley after volley into the Sioux camp. From the heights above, the army's Hotchkiss guns
raked the Indian teepees with grapeshot. Clouds of gun smoke filled the air as men, women and children scrambled for their lives. Many ran for a ravine next to the camp only to be cut down in a withering cross fire. When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped, approximately 300 Sioux were dead, Big Foot among them. Twentyfive soldiers lost their lives. As the remaining troopers began the grim task of removing the dead, a blizzard swept in from the North. A few days later they returned to complete the job. Scattered fighting continued, but the massacre at Wounded Knee effectively squelched the Ghost Dance movement and ended the Indian Wars.
arket Square riot, outbreak of violence in Chicago on May 4, 1886. Demands for an eight-hour working day became increasingly widespread among American laborers in the 1880s. A demonstration, largely staged by a small group of anarchists, caused a crowd of some 1,500 people to gather at Haymarket Square. When policemen attempted to disperse the meeting, a bomb exploded and the police opened fire on the crowd. Seven policemen and four other persons were killed, and more than 100 persons were wounded. Public indignation rose rapidly, and punishment was demanded. Eight anarchist leaders were tried, but no evidence was produced that they had made or thrown the bomb. They were, however, convicted of inciting violence, although no evidence was presented that they knew the bomber, who was never discovered. Four were hanged, one committed suicide, and the remaining three--after having served in prison for seven years--were pardoned (1893) by John P. Altgeld, governor of Illinois, on the ground that the trial had been patently unjust. The incident was frequently used by the adversaries of organized labor to discredit the waning Knights of Labor movement. See studies by H. David (1936), P. Avrich (1984), and J. Green (2006).
Read more: Haymarket Square riot -- Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0823059.html#ixzz1nbgczDPb
A brief summary of Andrew Carnegie's historic essay, The Gospel of Wealth: The Problem of the Administration of Wealth. In 1889, steel mogul Andrew Carnegie published a short essay entitled Wealth, in which he discusses how the wealthy should use their personal fortunes. This essay was republished in the UK under the title The Gospel of Wealth. Carnegie went on to write a series of additional essays, which were collected and published in book form in 1900. Subtitled as The Problem of the Administration of Wealth, his original essay forms the first part of the twelve-chapter book. The Problem of the Administration of Wealth begins with an analysis of the economic state of the world. Advances in industry had raised the standard of living for the poorest people to a level unknown to kings of earlier ages. But these advances brought another change: a heretofore unseen level of disparity between the rich and the poor. Carnegie then offers a muddled defense of Capitalism before appealing to pragmatism: Capitalism is the order of the day and one must accept it. This brings him to his main point: since Capitalism results in a few people amassing huge personal fortunes, what is the proper moral use for those fortunes? It being humanly impossible to spend that much money on oneself, Carnegie identifies three possible courses of action: Leave the fortune to heirs Bequeath the fortune to charity Give the fortune to charity during one's lifetime The first he finds untenable because a man's heirs are rarely able to put it to good use. Spoiled heirs squander and lose the money; it benefits no one. Bequeathing one's fortune to charity is little better than leaving it to one's heirs, because there is no way to ensure the money is well spent. A charitable institution is not likely to be a better steward of money than an heir. Nor does bequeathing a fortune to charity deserve any respect, because a man who waits until his death to give to charity is a man who presumably would rather have taken it all with him. The only proper use of a personal fortune, says Carnegie, is to use it for the public good during one's lifetime. That is the only way to ensure that it is used properly, not wasted. A philanthropist should not spend the money in ways that encourage dependence and actually work to harm the
recipients of charity, but rather use it only to fund enterprises that are genuinely helpful to the public. You may also be interested in:
Sherman Antitrust Act, 1890, first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts; it was named for Senator John Sherman. Prior to its enactment, various states had passed similar laws, but they were limited to intrastate businesses. Finally opposition to the concentration of economic power in large corporations and in combinations of business concerns led Congress to pass the Sherman Act. The act, based on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, declared illegal every contract, combination (in the form of trust or otherwise), or conspiracy in restraint of interstate and foreign trade. A fine of $5,000 and imprisonment for one year were set as the maximum penalties for violating the act. The Sherman Act authorized the federal government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them, but Supreme Court rulings prevented federal authorities from using the act for some years. As a result of President Theodore Roosevelt's "trust-busting" campaigns, the Sherman Act began to be invoked with some success, and in 1904 the Supreme Court upheld the government in its suit for dissolution of the Northern Securities Company. The act was further employed by President Taft in 1911 against the Standard Oil trust and the American Tobacco Company. In the Wilson administration the Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) was enacted to supplement the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was set up (1914). Antitrust action sharply declined in the 1920s, but under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt new acts supplementary to the Sherman Antitrust Act were passed (e.g., the Robinson-Patman Act), and antitrust action was vigorously resumed. As a result of a suit filed in 1974 under the Sherman Antitrust Act, the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) monopoly was broken up in 1982. The Hart-Scoss-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act (1976) made it easier for regulators to investigate mergers for antitrust violations, but few mergers were blocked during the merger boom of the 1980s, when the FTC and Justice Dept. adopted a looser interpretation of antitrust legislation. By the 1990s, still a time of large corporate mergers, the FTC became more litigious in antitrust actions, and the Justice Dept. aggressively pursued the Microsoft Corp. (see Gates, Bill). Antitrust legislation is primarily regulated by the Antitrust Division of the Dept. of Justice and the FTC. U.S. corporations with international operations also face antitrust scrutiny from European Union regulators.
Read more: Sherman Antitrust Act -- Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0844878.html#ixzz1nbhkPvtc
Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), former independent agency of the U.S. government, established in 1887; it was charged with regulating the economics and services of specified carriers engaged in transportation between states. Surface transportation under the ICC's jurisdiction included railroads, trucking companies, bus lines, freight forwarders, water carriers, oil pipelines, transportation brokers, and express agencies. The ICC, the first regulatory commission in U.S. history, was established as a result of mounting public indignation in the 1880s against railroad malpractices and abuses (see Granger movement), but until President Theodore Roosevelt, the ICC's effectiveness was limited by the failure of Congress to give it enforcement power, by the Supreme Court's interpretation of its powers, and by the vague language of its enabling act.
Beginning with the Hepburn Act (1906), the ICC's jurisdiction was gradually extended beyond railroads to all common carriers except airplanes by 1940. Its enforcement powers to set rates were also progressively extended, through statute and broadened Supreme Court interpretations of the commerce clause of the Constitution, as were its investigative powers for determining fair rates of return on which to base rates. In addition, the ICC was given the task of consolidating railroad systems and managing labor disputes in interstate transport. In the 1950s and 60s the ICC enforced U.S. Supreme Court rulings that required the desegregation of passenger terminal facilities. The ICC's safety functions were transferred to the Dept. of Transportation when that department was created in 1966; the ICC retained its rate-making and regulatory functions. However, in consonance with the deregulatory movement, the ICC's powers over rates and routes in rails and trucking were curtailed in 1980 by the Staggers Rail Act and Motor Carriers Act. Most ICC control over interstate trucking was abandoned in 1994, and the agency was terminated at the end of 1995. Many of its functions remaining were transferred to the new National Surface Transportation Board.
Read more: Interstate Commerce Commission -- Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0825369.html#ixzz1nbi1xdCZ
Plessy v. Ferguson, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896. The court upheld an 1890 Louisiana statute mandating racially segregated but equal railroad carriages, ruling that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution dealt with political and not social equality. The case arose from resentment among black and Creole residents of New Orleans and was supported by the railroad companies, who felt it unnecessary to pay the cost of separate cars. Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote the majority opinion, stating that "separate but equal" laws did not imply the inferiority of one race to another. Justice John Harlan (18331911) dissented, arguing that the U.S. Constitution was color-blind. The decision provided constitutional sanction for the adoption throughout the South of a comprehensive series of Jim Crow laws, which were maintained until overruled in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. It had particular relevance to education, with Justice Brown drawing parallels between race segregation on trains and in educational facilities. Read more: Plessy v. Ferguson -- Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0839368.html#ixzz1nbiIggCs In the 19th century, more and more people began crowding into America's cities, including thousands of newly arrived immigrants seeking a better life than the one they had left behind. In New York City--where the population doubled every decade from 1800 to 1880--buildings that had once been single-family dwellings were increasingly divided into multiple living spaces to accommodate this growing population. Known as tenements, these narrow, low-rise apartment buildings-many of them concentrated in the city's Lower East Side neighborhood--were all too often cramped, poorly lit and lacked indoor plumbing and proper ventilation. By 1900, some 2.3 million people (a full two-thirds of New York City's population) were living in tenement housing. Many of the millions of immigrants who arrived into the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did so with the intention of returning to their villages in the Old World. Known as "birds of passage," many of these eastern and southern European migrants were peasants who had lost their property as a result of the commercialization of agriculture. They came to America to earn enough money to allow them to return home and purchase a piece of land. As one Slavic steelworker put it: "A good job, save money, work all time, go home, sleep, no spend." Many of these immigrants came to America alone, expecting to rejoin their families in Europe within a few years. From 1907 to 1911, of every hundred Italians who arrived in the United States, 73 returned to the Old Country. For Southern and Eastern Europe as a whole, approximately 44 of every 100 who arrived returned back home. Some immigrants, however, did not come as "sojourners." In particular, Jewish immigrants from Russia, fleeing
religious persecution, came in family groups and intended to stay in the United States from the beginning Definition: The Knights of Labor was the first major American labor union. It was first formed in 1869 as a secret society of garment cutters in Philadelphia. The organization, under its full name, Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, grew throughout the 1870s, and by the mid1880s it had a membership of more than 700,000. The union organized strikes, and was able to secure negotiated settlements from hundreds of employers across the United States.
American Federation of Labor
Trade Unions in the United States remained weak throughout the 19th century. Only 2 per cent of the total labour force and less than 10 per cent of all industrial workers, were members of unions. In 1881 the Federation of Trades and Labor Unions was founded. Five years later the organization changed its name to the American Federation of Labor. Based on the Trade Union Congress in Britain, the AFL's first president was Samuel Gompers. He held conservative political views and believed that trade unionists should accept the economic system. The decision of attorney-general, Richard Olney, to use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, against the trade unionists involved in the Pullman Strike in 1894, made some workers to question the AFL's moderate approach. One of those imprisoned as a result of Olney's action, Eugene Debs, president of the American Railway Union, was converted to socialism and believed that capitalism should be replaced by a new cooperative system. In 1905 representatives of 43 groups, who opposed the policies of American Federation of Labor, formed the radical labour organization, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).In 1921 John L. Lewis, leader of the United Mine Workers of America, failed in his attempt to challenge Samuel Gompers for the presidency of the American Federation of Labor. Gompers finally left in 1924 and was replaced by William Green. In 1935 John L. Lewis joined with the heads of seven other unions to form the Congress for Industrial Organization (CIO). Lewis became president of this new organization and over the next few years attempted to organize workers in the new mass production industries. This strategy was successful and by 1937 the CIO had more members than the American Federation of Labor. William Green remained president of the AFL until 1952 when he was replaced by George Meany. In 1955 the CIO merged with the American Federation of Labour. Walter Reuther, the president of the CIO became vice-president of the AFL-CIO. Meany became president of this new organization that now had a membership of 15,000,000. Walter Reuther found George Meany conservative and dictatorial and in 1968 led the out of the AFLCIO federation. The following year he joined with the Teamsters Union to form Alliance for Labor Action. opulism is an American movement that started in 1891 with the founding of the Populist Party, which worked to improve conditions for farmers and laborers. The Populist Party supported its own third-party candidate, James B. Weaver (18331912), in the 1892 presidential election. Although
he lost, the Populists remained a strong force. In the following election of 1896 they backed Democratic Party candidate William Jennings Bryan (18601925), who proclaimed himself sympathetic to the causes of the Farmer's Alliance, the National Grange (a reform-minded agricultural organization), as well as the nation's working class. Soon after Bryan lost to William McKinley (18431901) the Populist Party began to fall apart, disappearing altogether by 1908. Nevertheless, many of the party's initiatives and ideals remained strong themes in the nation's political life. During the next two decades many Populist Party goals were enacted into laws. Among them were the free coinage (making coins) of silver and government issue of more paper money ("greenbacks") to loosen the money supply and adoption of a graduated income tax (taxation based on each person's income). Other Populist reforms were an amendment allowing for the popular election of U.S. senators, antitrust laws (to combat business monopolies in which one company has exclusive control over a good or service), and implementation of the eight-hour work day. To this day many political candidates appeal to voters by referring to themselves as Populists, implying that they favor the rights and values of the common people.
armers' Alliance was an umbrella term for several grassroots farmers organizations active between 1877 and 1892, most prominently in the South and the Plains states. These groups sought to ameliorate debt, poverty, and low crop prices by educating and mobilizing rural men and women, engaging in cooperative economic organizing, and asserting their power in electoral politics. Formation of the Alliances The Alliance hadits roots in the severe depression of the 1870s. The socalled Southern Alliance was founded in 1877 in Lampasas County, Texas, as the Knights of Reliance. The socalled Northern Alliance hadits roots in New York in the same year; founder Milton George, an editor of farm publications, moved the group to Chicago in 1880. Both began quite small but over the 1880s absorbed other local groups such as the Louisiana Farmers' Union and the Agricultural Wheel in Arkansas. The continuing decline of world cotton prices and severe drought on the Plains prompted thousands to join, and by the late 1880s Alliance influence was widespread across the South and Plains. In some states, especially Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, similar concerns were represented through the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association. In 1886 black farmers created a Colored Farmers' National Alliance that cooperated with, but remained separate from, the whiterun groups. By 1890 Alliance organizers reached the Pacific Coast, winning particular success in California. Loosely sympathetic agrarian groups, such as the Mexican American Gorras Blancas (White Caps) in New Mexico, arose simultaneously in other states. Some groups undertook vigilante protests, destroying, for example, the barbedwire fences of large landholders that prevented small farmers from letting their hogs and cattle range free. was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.[1][2] The story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled, and was outspoken in her opposition to war. A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Wobblies, she campaigned for women's suffrage, workers' rights, and socialism, as well as many other leftist causes. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971.[3] On September 18, 1895, AfricanAmerican spokesman and leader Booker T. Washington spoke before a predominantly white audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. His "Atlanta Compromise" address, as it came to be called, was one of the most important and influential speeches in American history. Although the organizers of the exposition worried that "public sentiment was not prepared for
such an advanced step," they decided that inviting a black speaker would impress Northern visitors with the evidence of racial progress in the South. Washington soothed his listeners' concerns about "uppity" blacks by claiming that his race would content itself with living "by the productions of our hands." settlement house, neighborhood welfare institution generally in an urban slum area, where trained workers endeavor to improve social conditions, particularly by providing community services and promoting neighborly cooperation. The idea was developed in mid-19th-century England when such social thinkers as Thomas Hill Green, John Ruskin, and Arnold Toynbee (185283) urged university students to settle in poor neighborhoods, where they could study and work to better local conditions. The pioneer establishment was Toynbee Hall, founded in 1884 in London under the leadership of Samuel Augustus Barnett. Before long, similar houses were founded in many cities of Great Britain, the United States, and continental Europe. Some of the more famous settlement houses in the United States have been Hull House and Chicago Commons, Chicago; South End House, Boston; and the University Settlement, Henry Street Settlement, and Greenwich House, New York City. Settlements serve as community, education, and recreation centers, particularly in densely populated immigrant neighborhoods. Sometimes known as social settlements, they are also called neighborhood houses, neighborhood centers, or community centers. The settlement house differs from other social welfare agencies; the latter provide specific services, while the former is aimed at improving neighborhood life as a whole. Its role has gradually altered as some of its varied functions have been assumed by state and municipal authorities and by other organizations. Kindergartens, formerly an important adjunct of the settlement house, are now operated by the public schools; municipal health departments have taken over its clinical services; and labor unions now sponsor educational and recreational activities for workers. The early leaders of settlement houses in the United States met from time to time and in 1911 founded the National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers; Jane Addams served as the first president. In 1926 the International Federation of Settlements and Neighbourhood Centres was established to coordinate community work on an international level. A war between Spain and the United States in 1898, as a result of which Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippine Islands, and Guam to the United States and abandoned all claim to Cuba, which became independent in 1902.
Platt Amendment Click here for more free books! (1901) Rider appended to a U.S. Army appropriations bill stipulating conditions for withdrawing of U.S. troops remaining in Cuba after the SpanishAmerican War. The amendment, which was added to the Cuban constitution of 1901, affected Cuba's rights to negotiate treaties and permitted the U.S. to maintain its naval base at Guantnamo Bay and to intervene in Cuban affairs "for the preservation of Cuban independence." In 1934 Pres. Franklin Roosevelt supported abrogation of the amendment's provisions except for U.S. rights to the naval base. See also Good Neighbor Policy. Bust out your magnifying glass. We're taking an upclose look at 19th Amendment of the US Constitution. Passed by Congress: 4 June 1919 Ratified: 18 August 1920 The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. United States nurse who campaigned for birth control and planned parenthood; she challenged Gregory Pincus to develop a birth control pill (1883-1966) Society of American Indians (SAI), the first modern lobby of American Indians, was founded on Columbus Day in 1911 by prominent professional American Indians under the direction of the sociologist Fayette Avery McKenzie, who frequently invited Indian guests to his classes at Ohio State University. The society offered individual, not tribal, membership to American Indians and associate memberships to nonIndians. American Indian members of the SAI were their generation's best and brightest, reflecting assimilation in both their personal and professional lives. Among the SAI's leaders were the Reverend Sherman Coolidge (Arapaho), an Episcopal priest; Arthur C. Parker (Seneca), an anthropologist ; Charles Eastman (Santee Sioux) and Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai Apache), both physicians; Laura Kellogg (Oneida), an educator; Thomas Sloan (Omaha), an attorney; and Gertrude Bonnin (Yankton Sioux), an author. One of the goals of the SAI was to educate the American public about the abilities and aspirations of American Indians. To achieve that goal it began publishing the Quarterly Journal of the American Indian (19131915), which was renamed American Indian Magazine (1916 1920). Conflicting ideologies caused a schism among the society's Indian leaders by 1920. Issues contributing to the dissent were peyote usage on Indian reservations and federal administrative policies. With the exception of 1917, the SAI held a wellpublicized convention every Indian summer from 1911 to 1923. On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead in Sarajevo, by Gavrilo Princip, one of a group of six Bosnian Serb assassins coordinated by Danilo Ili. The political objective of the assassination was to break off Austria-Hungary's south-Slav provinces so they could be combined into a Greater Serbia or a Yugoslavia. The assassins' motives were consistent with the movement that later became known as Young Bosnia. Serbian military officers stood behind the attack. At the top of these Serbian military conspirators was Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence Dragutin Dimitrijevi, his right hand man Major Vojislav Tankosi, and Masterspy Rade Malobabi. Major Tankosi armed (with bombs and pistols) and trained the assassins, and the assassins were given access to the same clandestine tunnel of safe-houses and agents that Rade Malobabi used for the infiltration of weapons and operatives into AustriaHungary. The assassins, the key members of the clandestine tunnel, and the key Serbian military conspirators who were still alive were arrested, tried, convicted and punished. Those who were arrested in Bosnia were tried in Sarajevo in October 1914. The other conspirators were arrested and tried before a Serbian kangaroo court on the French-controlled Salonika Front in 19161917 on unrelated false charges; Serbia executed three of the top military conspirators. Much of what is known about the assassinations comes from these two trials and related records. Assignment of responsibility for the bombing and murders of 28 June is highly controversial because the attack led to the outbreak of World War I one month later. Unrestricted submarine warfare occurs when submarines attack merchant ships without warning rather than
following prize regulations. First used during World War I , this type of warfare was highly controversial and deemed a breach of the rules of war. Resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany in early 1917 was a key reason the United States entered the conflict. Used again in World War II , it was generally accepted by all combatants though technically banned by the 1930 London Naval Treaty. A coded message written by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman and sent to Mexican president Venustiano Carranza on January 16, 1917 during World War I . It proposed a GermanMexican alliance and suggested Mexico reclaim its former territory by starting a war with the United States, thereby distracting the United States from the overseas war. It was published by President Woodrow Wilson on March 1, 1917, and the U.S. entered the war five weeks later.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/zimmermantelegram#ixzz1nbpaIfUq
trench warfare. Although trenches were used in ancient and medieval warfare, in the American Civil War, and in the Russo-Japanese War (19045), they did not become important until World War I. The introduction of rapidfiring small arms and artillery made the infantry charges of earlier wars virtually impossible, and the war became immobile, with the contenders digging thousands of miles of opposing trenches fronted by barbed wire. To break the stalemate various methods and new weapons were tried; tremendous artillery barrages sought to devastate the enemy and blow a gap in his trenches; trench mortars, hand grenades, poison gas, and tanks were used. It nevertheless remained a war of attrition, with artillery duels and infantry attacks behind creeping artillery barrages. The idea of an uninterrupted line defense held the imagination of the French and German general staffs between the two world wars, and they built lines of field fortifications known as the Maginot Line and the Siegfried Line. The advent of mechanized warfare made it possible to circumvent such defenses, and World War II was a war of movement. However, in the last stages of the Korean war both sides established fortified positions across the Korean peninsula, and a stalemated situation similar to that of World War I came into play. Read more: trench warfare -- Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0849360.html#ixzz1nbplGVnF itish ocean liner sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915. The British Admiralty had warned the Lusitania to avoid the area and to use the evasive tactic of zigzagging, but the crew ignored these recommendations. Though unarmed, the ship was carrying munitions for the Allies, and the Germans had circulated warnings that the ship would be sunk. The loss of life -- 1,198 people drowned, including 128 U.S. citizens -- outraged public opinion. The U.S. protested Germany's action, and Germany limited its submarine campaign against Britain. When Germany renewed unrestricted submarine warfare, the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917. Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/lusitaniaship#ixzz1nbpzPi5J Alice Stokes Paul was a militant U.S. suffrage leader who is best remembered as the author in 1923 of the Equal Rights Amendment. Paul, who for decades played a major role in the National Woman's Party, also successfully lobbied for the inclusion of a ban against Sex Discrimination in title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.A. 2000e et seq.). Paul was born on January 11, 1885, in Moorestown, New Jersey. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 1905 and then went to England to do graduate work. While in England, Paul became involved with the British suffragettes and received three jail sentences for participating in militant actions. She returned to the United States in 1910 and continued her graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned a Ph.D. in social
work in 1912. In 1913 Paul formed the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which later became the National Woman's Party (NWP). She advocated a more militant position to publicize the need for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Paul organized marches, rallies, and protests outside the White House. As in England, she was jailed three times for organizing and participating in suffrage protests. While in jail she waged hunger strikes, resulting in her hospitalization where she was force-fed. "If the women of the world had not been excluded from world affairs things today might have been different."-- Alice Paul With the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1920, which gave women the vote, Paul shifted her focus to the legal inequality of women. In 1923 she wrote the equal rights amendment, which she called the Lucretia Mott amendment, in honor of the nineteenth-century feminist leader. The proposed amendment stated that "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex" and that "the Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." Paul's proposed amendment was introduced to Congress in 1923, but it would not be approved until March 1972. However, the amendment failed to be ratified by the thirtyeight states required under the Constitution. Paul continued to lead the NWP, and in 1938 she organized the World Party for Equal Rights for Women, known as the World Woman's Party. She played a key role in seeing that the preamble to the United Nations Charter included references to sex equality. During the debates over the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Paul and the NWP helped lobby for the inclusion of sex discrimination as illegal conduct. Paul died on July 9, 1977, in Moorestown, New Jersey. The NAACP was formed in 1909 in New York City by a group of black and white citizens fighting for social justice. On February 12, 1909, a "Call" was issued by a collection of 60 signatures for a meeting on the concept of creating an organization that would be an aggressive watchdog of Negro liberties. Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard, William English Walling and led the "Call" to renew the struggle for civil and political liberty. The NAACP is a network of more than 2,200 branches covering all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Japan and Germany. They are divided into seven regions and are managed and governed by a National Board of Directors. The NAACP is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. Currently the total membership exceeds 500,000.
Tulsa's Greenwood district is the site of one of the most devastating race riots in the history of the United States. Before May 31, 1921, Tulsa's black business district known as Greenwood flourished in spite of segregation. It boasted of several restaurants, theaters, clothing shops and hotels. Dubbed the "Black Wall Street," Greenwood was an economic powerhouse. After May 31, 1921, Greenwood would never be the same. The tension mounted between the black and white communities over an incident that allegedly occurred in an elevator at Drexel building in downtown Tulsa involving Sarah Page, a 17-year-old white elevator operator, and Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old black man. There are several versions of what supposedly transpired, but the most common being that Dick Rowland accidentally stepped on Page's foot in the elevator, throwing her off balance. When Rowland reached out to keep her from falling, she screamed. Many Tulsans came to believe through media reports that Rowland attacked Page although no sufficient evidence surfaced to substantiate the claim. The incident was further escalated by a local newspaper headline that encouraged the public to "Nab Negro for
Attacking Girl in Elevator." The strained relationship between the white and black communities, the heightened jealousy of the success of the Black Wall Street area and the elevator encounter led to the Tulsa Race Riot. Armed white men looted, burned and destroyed the black community. When the smoke cleared, mere shells of buildings were all that remained of the business district. The Red Cross estimates that more than 300 people were killed and approximately 1,200 homes were destroyed. The Palmer Raids (19191920) involved mass arrests and deportation of radicals at the height of the postWorld War I era red scare . Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer encouraged the raids in the hope that they would advance his presidential ambitions. Ultimately, the extraconstitutional nature of this action destroyed Palmer's political career. He was viewed not as a savior but rather a threat to the civil rights and liberties of all Americans. J. Edgar Hoover, the chief of the Justice Department's Radical (later General Intelligence) Division who actually organized the raids, went on to a fortyeightyear career as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (originally called the Bureau of Investigation). The other principal, Anthony Caminetti of the Department of Labor's Immigration Bureau, remained an obscure bureaucrat . A wave of strikes, race riots, and anarchist bombings in eight cities provided the context for the Palmer Raids. One of those bombs partly destroyed the attorney general's own home in Washington, D.C. From February 1917 to November 1919, federal agents deported sixty aliens of some 600 arrested as Anarchists. More raids followed over the next two months, the most notable being the 249 persons, including Emma Goldman, deported on December 21 aboard a single "Red Ark," the Buford. The most ambitious raids occurred on January 2, 1920, with lesser efforts continuing over the next few days. In all, Hoover utilized 579 agents from the Bureau of Investigation and vigilantes from the recently disbanded American Protective League to orchestrate massive raids against communists in twentythree states. At least 4,000 and perhaps as many as 6,000 persons from thirtythree cities were arrested. Most were Communist Party members or suspected members. About 300 were members of the Communist Labor Party. Among the abuses documented by the American Civil Liberties Union and such prominent attorneys as Zechariah Chafee Jr., Roscoe Pound, and Felix Frankfurter were abuses of due process, illegal search and seizure, and indiscriminate arrests, use of agents provocateurs, and torture.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/palmerraids#ixzz1nbrBBK5c
The Palmer Raids (19191920) involved mass arrests and deportation of radicals at the height of the postWorld War I era red scare . Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer encouraged the raids in the hope that they would advance his presidential ambitions. Ultimately, the extraconstitutional nature of this action destroyed Palmer's political career. He was viewed not as a savior but rather a threat to the civil rights and liberties of all Americans. J. Edgar Hoover, the chief of the Justice Department's Radical (later General Intelligence) Division who actually organized the raids, went on to a fortyeightyear career as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (originally called the Bureau of Investigation). The other principal, Anthony Caminetti of the Department of Labor's Immigration Bureau, remained an obscure bureaucrat .
A wave of strikes, race riots, and anarchist bombings in eight cities provided the context for the Palmer Raids. One of those bombs partly destroyed the attorney general's own home in Washington, D.C. From February 1917 to November 1919, federal agents deported sixty aliens of some 600 arrested as Anarchists. More raids followed over the next two months, the most notable being the 249 persons, including Emma Goldman, deported on December 21 aboard a single "Red Ark," the Buford. The most ambitious raids occurred on January 2, 1920, with lesser efforts continuing over the next few days. In all, Hoover utilized 579 agents from the Bureau of Investigation and vigilantes from the recently disbanded American Protective League to orchestrate massive raids against communists in twentythree states. At least 4,000 and perhaps as many as 6,000 persons from thirtythree cities were arrested. Most were Communist Party members or suspected members. About 300 were members of the Communist Labor Party. Among the abuses documented by the American Civil Liberties Union and such prominent attorneys as Zechariah Chafee Jr., Roscoe Pound, and Felix Frankfurter were abuses of due process, illegal search and seizure, and indiscriminate arrests, use of agents provocateurs, and torture.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/palmerraids#ixzz1nbrBBK5c opes trial, Tennessee legal case involving the teaching of evolution in public schools. A statute was passed (Mar., 1925) in Tennessee that prohibited the teaching in public schools of theories contrary to accepted interpretation of the biblical account of human creation. John T. Scopes, a biology teacher, was tried (July, 1925) for teaching Darwinism in a Dayton, Tenn., public school. Clarence Darrow was one of Scopes's attorneys, while William Jennings Bryan aided the state prosecutor. Darrow argued that academic freedom was being violated and claimed that the legislature had indicated a religious preference, violating the separation of church and state. He also maintained that the evolutionary theory was consistent with certain interpretations of the Bible, and in an especially dramatic session he sharply questioned Bryan on the latter's literal interpretation. Scopes was convicted, partly because of the defense, which refused to plead any of the technical defenses available, fearing an acquittal on a technical rather than a constitutional basis. Scopes was, however, later released by the state supreme court on a technicality. Although the outcry over the case tended to discourage enactment of similar legislation in other states, the law was not repealed until 1967. Read more: Scopes trial -- Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0844087.html#ixzz1nbrp0Mvq Once in office, FDR set to work immediately. His "New Deal," it turned out, involved regulation and reform of the banking system, massive government spending to "prime the pump" by restarting the economy and putting people back to work, and the creation of a social services network to support those who had fallen on hard times.Between 8 March and 16 June, in what later became known as the "First Hundred Days," Congress followed Roosevelt's lead by passing an incredible fifteen separate bills which, together, formed the basis of the New Deal. Several of the programs created during those three and a half months are still around in the federal government today. Some of Roosevelt's most notable actions during the Hundred Days were: A national bank holiday: The day after his inauguration, FDR declared a "bank holiday," closing all banks in the country to prevent a collapse of the banking system. With the banks closed, Roosevelt took measures to restore the public's confidence in the financial systems; when the banks reopened a week later, the panic was over.22 Ending the gold standard: To avoid deflation, FDR quickly suspended the gold standard.23 This meant that U.S. dollars no longer had to be backed up by gold reserves, which also meant that the government could print--and spend--more money to "prime the pump" of the economy. Glass-Steagall Act: The Glass-Steagall Act imposed regulations on the banking industry that guided it for over fifty years, until it was repealed in 1999.24 The law separated commercial from investment banking, forced banks to get out of the business of financial investment, banned the use of bank deposits in speculation.25 It also created the FDIC[link to "FDIC" passage below]. The effect of the law was to give greater stability to the banking system.
FDIC: The Federal Deposit Insurance Commission backed all bank deposits up to $2500, meaning that most bank customers no longer had to worry that a bank failure would wipe out their life savings.26 The agency continues to insure American deposits today. Federal Securities Act: This act regulated the stock markets and preceded the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934, which continues to regulate U.S. stock markets to this day. Agricultural Adjustment Act: The AAA provided relief to farmers by paying them to reduce production; this also helped to reduce crop surpluses and increase prices for crops.27 Civilian Conservation Corps: To reduce unemployment, put 250,000 young men to work in rural conservation projects, mostly in national parks and forests.28 Tennessee Valley Authority: The TVA provided electrification and other basic improvements the impoverished interior of the South. National Industrial Recovery Act: One of FDR's more controversial measures, it created new agencies and regulations that tightened the relationship between government and business. It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935. Public Works Administration: Funded the construction of public works projects across the country, including schools, hospitals, airports, dams, and ports, as well as ships for the Navy and airports for the Army Air Corps.29 Federal Emergency Relief Act: Provided direct relief, training and work for unemployed Americans. It was abolished in 1935 and its programs folded into other agencies.30
The Works Progress Administration (renamed during 1939 as the Works Project Administration; WPA) was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects,[1] including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects.[2] It fed children and redistributed food, clothing, and housing. Almost every community in the United States had a park, bridge or school constructed by the agency, which especially benefited rural and Western areas. The budget at the outset of the WPA in 1935 was $1.4 billion a year (about 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP), and in total it spent $13.4 billion.[3] At its peak in 1938 it provided paid jobs for three million unemployed men (and some women), as well as youth in a separate division, the National Youth Administration. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States. Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA provided almost eight million jobs.[4] Full employment, which emerged as a national goal around 1944, was not the WPA goal. It tried to provide one paid job for all families where the breadwinner suffered long-term unemployment.[5] The WPA was a national program that operated its own projects in cooperation with state and local governments, which provided 10%-30% of the costs. WPA sometimes took over state and local relief programs that had originated in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) or Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) programs.[6] Liquidated on June 30, 1943 as a result of low unemployment due to the economic boom of World War II, the WPA had provided millions of Americans with jobs for 8 years.[7] Most people who needed a job were eligible for at least some of its positions.[8] Hourly wages were typically set to the prevailing wages in each area.[9] However workers could not be paid more than 30 hours a week. Before 1940, there was very little training to teach new skills, to meet the objections of the labor unions. Scottsboro Case. In 1931 nine black youths were indicted at Scottsboro, Ala., on charges of having raped two
white women in a freight car passing through Alabama. In a series of trials the youths were found guilty and sentenced to death or to prison terms of 75 to 99 years. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed convictions twice on procedural grounds (that the youths' right to counsel had been infringed and that no blacks had served on the grand or trial jury). At the second trial one of the women recanted her previous testimony. The Alabama trial judge set aside the guilty verdict as contrary to the weight of the evidence and ordered a new trial. In 1937 charges against five were dropped and the state agreed to consider parole for the others. Two were paroled in 1944, one in 1951. When the fourth escaped (1948) to Michigan, the state refused to return him to Alabama. In 1976, Alabama pardoned Clarence Norris, who had broken parole and fled the state in 1946. The belief that the case against the "Scottsboro boys" was unproved and that the verdicts were the result of racism caused 1930s liberals and radicals to come to the defense of the youths. The fact that Communists used the case for propaganda further complicated the affair.