Chapter 20 Democracy and Empire

Toward National Governing Class

The Growth of Government

Federal Revenues sky-rocketed from $257 million in 1878 to $567 in 1900. The administrative bureaucracy grew dramatically from about 50,000 employees to 1871 to 100,000 only a decade later. The modern apparatus of departments, bureaus grew. United States Department of the Interior created in 1840 grew into the largest and most important federal office other than the Post Office.

Regulatory agencies sprung up: foremost among them was the Interstate Commerce commission (ICC). The ICC was created in1887 to bring order to the growing patchwork of stat laws concerning railroads. The five member commission appointed by the president approved freight and passenger rates set by the railroads. The ICC did remained weak in the period. Its re-setting policies usually voided by the Supreme court. But ICC commissioners could take public testimony on possible violations examine company records and oversee enforcement of the law.

The Machinery of Politics

By the 1870’s partisan politics had become a full time occupation with local officials went for elections every two years.

The McKinley Tariff of 1890 increased the tax rate on imported goods including sugar from Hawaii. This made planters to push even more strongly for annexation of the United states.

Tammany Hall in New York City was a place of corruption 1) the building of Tammany Hall 2) appointment of political position. Corruption of the New York was seen throughout America.

Tammany Hall today in New York.

Tammany HallNew York: William Tweed

Headed by William Tweed

Michael “Hinky Dink” of Chicago, specialized in giving municipal jobs to local voters and holiday food baskets to their families. Hundreds of smaller political rules gave “boodle”; Corruption and bribe money

Spoils System and Civil Service Reform

As early as 1865 republican representative Thomas A Jenckes of Rhode Island proposed a bill for civil service reform but the majority in Congress fearing that such a measure would hamper candidates in their relentless pursuit of votes.

Credit Mobilier a company founded by elite Union Pacific Railroad company members. Fraud and corruption was used by syphoning money from Union Pacific to Credit Mobilier

Political Vices of the Times

headed by political bosseswho tied together a network of wards and precinct captains each of whom looked after certain local constituents in return for votes

a corruption of greed and self-interestwhich occupied leaders of politics

The Grange

The Grange

Grangers fought for farmers freedom and rights.

The Interstate Commerce Commission was the first federal agency to ensure that the rates railroads charged farmers and merchants to transport their goods were reasonable and did not offer more favorable treatment to some shippers over others. The ICC was involved with Sherman an Anti trust Act which banned combinations and practices that restrained free trade. The language was so vague that the act prove impossible to enforce

Munn v Illinois upheld the constitutionality of an Illinois law that established a state board elected to eliminate price fixing and coupons for special customers. This also gave rights for poor to use grain elevator. This bill was repealed with Wabash vs. Illinois.

Wabash v. Illinois reverse Munn, Ruled only the federal government not the states could regulate railroads engaged in interstate commerce . This decision created extreme centralization with Interstate Commerce Commission

Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that held that "liberty of contract" was implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case involved a New York law that limited the number of hours that a baker could work each day to ten, and limited the number of hours that a baker could work each week to 60. By a 5–4 vote, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the law was necessary to protect the health of bakers, deciding it was a labor law attempting to regulate the terms of employment, and calling it an "unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract."Lochner is one of the most controversial decisions in the Supreme Court's history, giving its name to what is known as the Lochner era. In the Lochner era, the Supreme Court issued several controversial decisions invalidating federal and state statutes that sought to regulate working conditions during the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. 60hrs a week 10hr day

The Farmer’s Alliance

Texas Populist orator Cyclone Davis traveled the Great Plains with his Thomas Jefferson writings and quoted the evils of the banks and large corporations

Workers Search for Power

Workers Search for Power

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6tRp-zRUJs

In New York City popular economist and land reformer henry George with support of the city’s Central Labor council of the Knights of Labor and the Irish put George into the presidential tick with the United Labor Party with his single tax principle.

Tammany Hall threw thousands of Henry George’s votes into the Hudson, Yet, George finished a respectful second for mayor of New York

Milwaukee’s Peoples party elected the mayor a state senator, six assembly men and one member of Congress

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6tRp-zRUJs

Women Build an Alliance

Francis Willard the leader of the WCTU stated women must abandon the idea that weakness and dependence were their nature and join assertively in movements to change society. Willard stated it has been too long for women to stay away from societies problems.

Feminism of equal rights was a women’s movement which claimed the ballot as part of a larger transformation of women’s status. The movement continued to argue for women’s equality in employment, education and politics. But with increasing frequency the native born middle class women who dominated the suffrage movement claimed the vote as educated members of a superior race.

Elitism was used with the NAWSA. Carrie Catt suggested extending the vote to native born white women would help to counteract the growing power of the ignorant foreign vote.

Populist Party

The Financial Crisis of 1890s

Financial Collapse and Depression

1893 Depression causes:1)USA market for imported goods including manufactured in the United States sharply contracted2)Financial panic in England spread across the Atlantic3)Tight credit4)Falling agricultural prices5)Weakening banking systems6)Over expansion (railroads and land speculation)

Strikes: Coueur Dalene, Homestead and Pullman

Wage cuts in the silver and lead mines of northern Idaho led to one of he most bitter conflicts in a decade. To put a brake on organized labor, mine owners formed a protective association in March 1892. the mining companies announced a wage cut throughout the Coeur d’Allee district.

Silver miners blew up a mine. The United States sent in 1500 troops break the strike and allowed scab labor. Miners union did survive.

Homestead, Pennsylvania members of the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Workers the most powerful union of the AFL were well paid and proud of their skills. Carnegie and his chairman Henry C Frick decided not only to lower wages but also to break the union. In 1892 when Amalgamates Contract.

When Homestead’s city government and mayor and police chief who were union members decided not to protect Homestead, Frick brought in 8000 National Guard Members and Pinkerton Police. Frick reduced the worker force by 25% lengthen the the workday and cut wages 25%. Within a decade every major steel company operated with union interference

Pullman Strikehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgX0PW0ij_w

Richard C Olney a former railroad lawyer used his current office as attorney general claiming the American Railway union was disrupting mail shipments (actually Debs had banned such interference ) to issue a bland injunction against the strike. On July 4, President Cleveland sent army unites to Chicago over the pro labor Illinois governor John Peter Algerald objections.

Social Gospel

At the forefront of this moment was the Young Women’s Christian Association which by 1900 had more than 600 local chapter. The “Y” sponsored a range of services for need Christian women, ranging from homes for the elderly and for unmarried mothers to elaborate programs for vocational instruction and physical fitness..

The First Y was built in Detroit and was called the University Club

Politics of Reform Politics of Order

The Free Silver Issue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yejtZgzB5Ik

The thesis achieved considerable popular interest and elaboration by many scholars in history, economics and other fields,[6] but is not universally accepted.[7][8][9] Certainly the 1901 musical version of "Oz", written by Baum, was for an adult audience and had numerous explicit references to contemporary politics,[2] though in these references Baum seems just to have been "playing for laughs."[10] The 1902 stage adaptation mentioned, by name, President Theodore Roosevelt and other political celebrities.[11] For example, the Tin Woodman wonders what he would do if he ran out of oil. "You wouldn't be as badly off as John D. Rockefeller," the Scarecrow responds, "He'd lose six thousand dollars a minute if that happened."[2]

Littlefield's knowledge of the 1890s was thin, and he made numerous errors, but since his article was published, scholars in history,[7] political science[1] and economics[12] have asserted that the images and characters used by Baum closely resemble political images that were well known in the 1890s. Quentin Taylor, for example, claimed that many of the events and characters of the book resemble the actual political personalities, events and ideas of the 1890s.[11] Dorothy—naïve, young and simple—represents the American people. She is Everyman, led astray and seeking the way back home.[11] Moreover, following the road of gold leads eventually only to the Emerald City, which may symbolize the fraudulent world of greenback paper money that only pretends to have value.[11] It is ruled by a scheming politician (the Wizard) who uses publicity devices and tricks to fool the people (and even the Good Witches) into believing he is benevolent, wise and powerful when really he is selfish and cruel. He sends Dorothy into severe danger hoping she will rid him of his enemy the Wicked Witch of the West. He is powerless and, as he admits to Dorothy, "I'm a very bad Wizard."[13]

Historian Quentin Taylor sees additional metaphors, including:The Scarecrow as a representation of American farmers and their troubles in the late 19th century.The Tin Man representing the American steel industry's failures to combat increased international competition at the timeThe Cowardly Lion as a metaphor for the American military's performance in the Spanish-American War.

Taylor also claimed a sort of iconography for the cyclone: it was used in the 1890s as a metaphor for a political revolution that would transform the drab country into a land of color and unlimited prosperity. It was also used by editorial cartoonists of the 1890s to represent political upheaval.[11]

Other putative allegorical devices of the book include the Wicked Witch of the West as a figure for the actual American West; if this is true, then the monkeys could represent another western danger: Native Americans. One suggested interpretation is that the Winged Monkeys in the West could be a symbol for Native Americans. The King of the Winged Monkeys tells Dorothy, "Once we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. […] This was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land."[10]

In fact, Baum proposed in two editorials he wrote in December 1890 for his newspaper, the Saturday Pioneer, the total genocidal slaughter of all remaining indigenous peoples. "The Whites," Baum wrote, "by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation?"[14]

Other writers have used the same evidence to lead to precisely opposite allegorical interpretations.[7]

Apart from intentional symbolism, scholars have speculated on the sources of Baum's ideas and imagery. The "man behind the curtain" could be a reference to automated store window displays of the sort famous at Christmas season in big city department stores; many people watching the fancy clockwork motions of animals and mannequins thought there must be an operator behind the curtain pulling the levers to make them move (Baum was the editor of the trade magazine read by window dressers

Populisms Last Campaign

In 1892, Donnelly wrote the preamble of the People's Party's Omaha Platform for the presidential campaign of that year. He was nominated for Vice President of the United States in 1900 by the People's Party. Also known as the Populist Party, the People's Party was a development of the national Farmers' Alliance, and had a platform that demanded abandonment of the gold standard (and later for free silver), abolition of national banks, a graduated income tax, direct election of senators, civil service reform, and an eight-hour day. That year, Donnelly also campaigned for governor of Minnesota, but was defeated. Despite Donnelly's leadership role in the People's Party which protested the railroad companies corrupting government and advocated government regulation of the railroads he received $10,000 from the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad Company.

Populism and The People’s Party

In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895),[1] was a United States Supreme Court decision handed down concerning Eugene V. Debs and labor unions. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, had been involved in the Pullman Strike earlier in 1894 and challenged the federal injunction ordering the strikers back to work where they would face being fired. The injunction had been issued because of the violent nature of the strike. However, Debs refused to end the strike and was subsequently cited for contempt of court; he appealed the decision to the courts.

The main question being debated was whether the federal government had a right to issue the injunction, which dealt with both interstate and intrastate commerce and shipping on rail cars. With an opinion written by Justice David Josiah Brewer, the court ruled in a unanimous decision in favor of the U.S. government. Joined by Chief Justice Melville Fuller and Associate Justices Stephen Johnson Field, John Marshall Harlan, Horace Gray, Henry Billings Brown, George Shiras, Jr., Howell Edmunds Jackson, and Edward Douglass White, the court ruled that the government had a right to regulate interstate commerce and ensure the operations of the Postal Service, along with a responsibility to "ensure the general welfare of the public." The decision somewhat slowed the theretofore building momentum of labor unions, which had been making gains in government in respect to legislation, Supreme Court decisions, etc. Debs would go on to lose another Supreme Court case in Debs v. United States.

The Social Gospel

The Republican Triumph

Republican Triumph

Nativism and Jim Crow

Nativism and Jim Crow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij6DWZ-W-KA

As the South’s prison population rose the renting out of convicts became a profitable business. Every southern state placed at least a portion of its convict the majority of them blacks imprisoned for minor offenses in the hands of private businessmen. Railroad mines and lumber companies competed for this new form of cheap involuntary labor. Conditions in these camp was barbaric disease was common death rate high.

One sociologist who studied the turn of the century South reported that in places of business blacks had to stand back and wait until whites had between served. They could not raise their voices or in other ways act assertively in the presence of whites and they had to give way on the streets. In shops whites but not blacks were allowed to try on clothing.

In every year between 1883 to 1905 more than 50 black people were lynched in the south. They were murdered in the South. Lynching continued well into the twentieth century.

Sam Hose being burned alive

In Louisiana the number of blacks registered to vote from 130,000 in 1894 to 1,342 a decade later. But 80,000 white voters also lost the right. Disenfranchisement led to the rise of a generation of southern Demagogues.

Sam Hose (c. 1875 – April 23, 1899) was an African American worker who was tortured and executed by a lynch mob in Coweta County, Georgia.Sam Hose, a.k.a. Sam Holt, was born Tom Wilkes in south Georgia near Marshallville (Macon County) around 1875. He grew up on a Macon County farm owned by the Jones family. His mother was a long-time employee of the family.Wilkes moved to Coweta County, where he assumed the alias Sam Hose. On April 12, 1899, Wilkes/Hose was accused of murdering his employer, Alfred Cranford, after a heated argument. The argument was the result of Hose requesting time off to visit his mother who was ill. Alfred Cranford threatened to kill Hose and pointed a gun at him. Hose was working at the time with an ax in his hands. Due to the threat, he defended himself and threw the ax, killing Cranford.[1] Wilkes fled the scene and the search for him began shortly thereafter. Over the next few days, stories suggesting that Wilkes sexually assaulted Cranford's wife and assaulted his infant child caused a furor. On April 23, 1899, Wilkes/Hose was apprehended in Marshallville and returned by train to Coweta County.A mob removed him from the train at gunpoint in Newnan, Georgia. Former Governor William Yates Atkinson and Judge Alvan Freeman pleaded with the crowd to release Wilkes/Hose to the custody of the authorities. Ignoring their pleas, the crowd marched northward toward the Cranford home. The lynch mob grew, reaching an estimated 2000 individuals. Once news of the capture reached Atlanta, large crowds boarded trains to Newnan. Mistakenly believing that these trains were loaded with troops, the mob stopped just north of Newnan. Newspapers reported that Wilkes'/Hose's ears, fingers and genitals were severed. The skin from his face was removed and his body was doused with kerosene. He was tied to a tree and burned alive. Some members of the mob cut off pieces of his dead body as souvenirs. According to Philip Dray's At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, the noted civil rights leader and scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, who lived in Atlanta at the time, was on his way to a scheduled meeting with Atlanta Constitution editor Joel Chandler Harris to discuss the lynching, when he was informed that Hose's knuckles were for sale in a grocery store on the road on which he was walking. He sadly turned around and did not meet with Harris after learning this.The actions of the lynch mob were condemned throughout most of the United States and Europe. A group of prominent citizens in Chicago, led by journalist and activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, hired detective Louis P. Le Vin to investigate the Wilkes/Hose

Lynching in 1915 in Marietta, Georgia

BETWEEN 1850 and 1870 NEARLY ALL CHINESE IMMIGRANTS HAD BEEN UNATTACHED MEN BROUGHT IN BY LABOR CONTRACTORS TO WORK WESTERN GOLD FIELDS AND RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION AND FACTORIES IN THE EARLY 1870 CONGRES EXCLUED CHINESE WOMEN FROM ENTERING THE COUNTRY HORACE PAGE AND JAMES G BLAINE WERE IN FAVOR OF THIS.

In 1884, Mamie, then eight years old, was denied admission to the Spring Valley School, because of her Chinese ancestry. Her parents sued the San Francisco Board of Education. They argued that the school board's decision was a violation of the California Political Code, which stated:

"Every school, unless otherwise provided by law, must be open for the admission of all children between six and twenty-one years of age residing in the district; and the board of trustees, or city board of education, have power to admit adults and children not residing in the district, whenever good reasons exist therefor. Trustees shall have the power to exclude children of filthy or vicious habits, or children suffering from contagious or infectious diseases."

On January 9, 1885, Superior Court Justice McGuire handed down the decision in favor of the Tapes. On appeal, the California Supreme Court upheld the decision.

He wrote that "To deny a child, born of Chinese parents in this state, entrance to the public schools would be a violation of the law of the state and the Constitution of the United States."

Results[edit]

After the decision, the San Francisco school board lobbied for a separate school system for Chinese and other "Mongolian" children. A bill passed through the California state legislature giving the board the authority to establish the Oriental Public School in San Francisco.

In the 1880s, Chinese immigrants to California faced many legal and economic hurdles, including discriminatory provisions in the California Constitution. As a result, they were excluded, either by law or by bias, from many professions. Many turned to the laundry business and in San Francisco about 89% of the laundry workers were of Chinese descent. They often worked long hours because that was the only job they could find.

In 1880, the elected officials of city of San Francisco thought they had a clever way to deal with the Chinese in the city. They passed an ordinance that persons could not operate a laundry in a wooden building without a permit from the Board of Supervisors. The ordinance conferred upon the Board of Supervisors the discretion to grant or withhold the permits. At the time, about 95% of the city's 320 laundries were operated in wooden buildings. Approximately two-thirds of those laundries were owned by Chinese persons. Although most of the city's wooden building laundry owners applied for a permit, none were granted to any Chinese owner, while virtually all non-Chinese applicants were granted a permit.[2][citation needed]

Yick Wo ( 益和 , Pinyin: Yì Hé, Americanization: Lee Yick), who had lived in California and had operated a laundry in the same wooden building for many years and held a valid license to operate his laundry issued by the Board of Fire-Wardens, continued to operate his laundry and was convicted and fined $10.00 for violating the ordinance. He sued for a writ of habeas corpus after he was imprisoned in default for having refused to pay the fine.

The California Statute at Issue[edit]

The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Matthews, found that the administration of the statute in question was discriminatory and that there was therefore no need to even consider whether the ordinance itself was lawful. Even though the Chinese laundry owners were usually not American citizens, the court ruled they were still entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Matthews also noted that the court had previously ruled that it was acceptable to hold administrators of the law liable when they abused their authority. He denounced the law as a blatant attempt to exclude Chinese from the laundry trade in San Francisco, and the court struck down the law, ordering dismissal of all charges against other laundry owners who had been jailed.

Legacy[edit]

Yick Wo had little application shortly after the decision. In fact, it was not long after that the Court developed the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), in practice allowing discriminatory treatment of African Americans. Yick Wo was never applied at the time to Jim Crow laws which, although also racially neutral, were in practice discriminatory against blacks. However, by the 1950s, the Warren Court used the principle established in Yick Wo to strike down several attempts by states and municipalities in the Deep South to limit the political rights of blacks. Yick Wo has been cited in well over 150 Supreme Court cases since it was decided.

Significance: Upholding the constitutionality of the Geary Act of 1892, the controversial Fong Yue Ting decision recognized that the U.S. Congress had almost unlimited discretion to establish all aspects of the nation’s immigration policy, including the rules and procedures for alien registration and deportation.

Because Fong Yue Ting was an immigrant laborer born in China to Chinese parents, he was ineligible for U.S. naturalization. He wanted to continue living in the United States but did have the certificate of residence that was required by the Geary Act. Following his arrest by a federal marshal, a district judge of New York ordered his immediate deportation without a hearing of any kind. Fong appealed the action, claiming that he had applied for a certificate but could not supply the “credible white witness” required by the Geary Act. Because he had only Chinese acquaintances, he argued that the law’s requirement was unfair, but a federal court of appeals quickly rejected his argument. Eventually, his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

By a 6-3 vote, a divided Supreme Court upheld the rulings of the two lower courts. Writing on behalf of the majority, Justice Horace Gray cited a large number of court precedents and authoritative books on international law. He declared that the power of “every sovereign nation” to deport noncitizens was “as absolute and unqualified as the right to prohibit and prevent their entrance into the country.” There was no reason, therefore, why Congress might not add requirements for immigrants already residing in the country. Although the three dissenting justices did not deny congressional authority to enact new requirements, they insisted that the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment mandated that any person residing in the country be given an opportunity to challenge a deportation order in a judicial hearing.

New Imperialism

The Path to Imperialism

Imperialism of Righteousness

All the World’s a Fair

All the World’s Fair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wzyRepJuvM

A Splendid Little War

Teller Amendment stated that the United States had no intention of annexing or dominating the island. This turned out to be false.

War in Cuba

George W Prioleau a black cavalry man who had fought at San Juan Hill. Is America any better than Spain.

The Platt Amendment was a very strong disappointment by the Cubans. Jose Marti leader of the Cuban rebels stated “ To change masters is not to be free” The memory of the betrayal of 1898 would help to inspire another Cuban revolution half a century later.

War in the Philippines

War in the Philippines

The second war in the Philippines 1899-1900 cost more than 100,000 Filipinos and 4,200 Americans. Emilio Aguinaldo used the same constitution as the United States to start the Philippine Government in 1899 but the United States would not allow this. McKinley decided to retain the possession of the islands. Mark Twain stated, "We did not come into the Philippines not to liberate them but to conquer them.”

The Foraker Act, Pub.L. 56–191, 31 Stat. 77, enacted April 12, 1900, officially known as the Organic Act of 1900, is a United States federal law that established civilian (albeit limited popular) government on the island of Puerto Rico, which had recently become a possession of the United States as a result of the Spanish–American War. Section VII of the Foraker Act also established Puerto Rican citizenship.[1] President William McKinley signed the act on April 12, 1900[2] and it became known as the Foraker Act after its sponsor, Ohio Senator Joseph B. Foraker. Its main author has been identified as Secretary of War Elihu Root.The new government had a governor and an 11-member executive council appointed by the President of the United States, a House of Representatives with 35 elected members, a judicial system with a Supreme Court and a United States District Court, and a non-voting Resident Commissioner in Congress.[3][4] The Executive council was all appointed: five individuals were selected from Puerto Rico residents while the rest were from those in top cabinet positions, including attorney general and chief of police (also appointed by the President). The Insular Supreme Court was also appointed. In addition, all federal laws of the United States were to be in effect on the island. The first civil governor of the island under the Foraker Act was Charles H. Allen, inaugurated on May 1, 1900 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This law was superseded in 1917 by the Jones–Shafroth Act.

Critics of the Empire

Critics of the Empire

James Bryce with Andrew Carnegie. Bryce called the African Americans ”children of nature” and insisted that giving them the right a vote was a terrible mistake which produced corruption. This book justified the white supremacy of the Australian government.

Godkin was an Anti-Imperialist leader who was against the Philippine War

Anti-Imperialism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM5EXL-0fww

Brook Adams was the grandson of John Quincy Adams He predicted that because of its economic power the United States would soon out weight any single empire.

Strangers in a New Land

IMMIGRANTS AND THE CITY

• DOMESIC VIRTUE HAD A MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF ROLES IN SOCIETY

• FOR THE MOST PART, AMERICA VIEWED THESE NEW IMMIGRANTS AS A THREAT TO THE FUTURE OF THEIR SOCIETY

• NEW IMMIGRANTS CLUNG TOGETHER WITH THEIR CUSTOMS, TRADITIONS OF NATIV COUNTRIES

• THERE WERE DIFFERENT ETHNIC BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES PRESENT IN THE CITY: IRISH, POLISH, ITALIAN

Strangers in a New Land

4/5 of NYC and Chicago's population was foreign born ancestry.

Between 1877-1980 more than 6.3 million immigrants came to the United States