Hist 211 primary sources

I have a Rendezvous with Death

Alan Seeger Seeger describes modern warfare as a very brutal, uncomfortable, and almost stagnant aspect of battle during WWI. He explains the horrific conditions associated with residing in a trench- soldiers are constantly cold, in need of a shower, and uncomfortable with the restrictions of a tiny, narrow space. There is nothing glamorous about trench warfare; Seeger explains that the soldier's only role is to "dig himself a hole in the ground and keep hidden in it as tightly as possible." He highlights the animalistic nature of trench life by directly stating that soldiers must burrow into the ground like an animal. Seeger also seems to uncover a perspective that highlights a soldier's longing to escape the trench and fully immerse themselves in battle, where they can actually see their opponents. He mentions how trench life contains all the dangerous aspects of war such as gunfire, but makes a point to say that it lacks its "enthusiasms or splendid elán.'' Through this, he makes it clear that trench warfare was even more brutal than the traditional face-to-face battle. Instead of being confined in a freezing, filthy hole in the ground, not being able to see the enemy, he would rather face the brutality of guns just for the sake of being able to move his body freely again; he wants to escape the misery of trench life and immerse himself into energetic, active battle.

The old nations of the earth creep on at a snail's pace; the Republic thunders past with the rush of the express. The United States, the growth of a single century, has already reached the foremost rank among nations, and is destined soon to out-distance all others in the race. In population, in wealth, in annual savings, and in public credit; in freedom from debt, in agriculture, and in manufactures, America already leads the civilized world. ... Into the distant future of this giant nation we need not seek to peer; but if we cast a glance forward, as we have done backward, for only fifty years, and assume that in that short interval no serious change will occur, the astounding fact startles us that in 1935, fifty years from now, when many in manhood will still be living, one hundred and eighty millions of English-speaking republicans will exist under one flag and possess more than two hundred and fifty thousand millions of dollars, or fifty thousand millions sterling of national wealth. Eighty years ago the whole of America and Europe did not contain so many people; and, if Europe and America continue their normal growth, it will be little more than another eighty years ere the mighty Republic may boast as many loyal citizens as all the rulers of Europe combined, for before the year 1980 Europe and America will each have a population of about six hundred millions. The causes which have led to the rapid growth and aggrandizement of this latest addition to the family of nations constitute one of the most interesting problems in the social history of mankind. What has brought about such stupendous results — so unparalleled a development of a nation within so ethnic character of the people, the topographical and climatic conditions under which they developed, and the influence of political institutions founded upon the equality of the citizen. Certain writers in the past have maintained that the ethnic type of a people has less influence upon its growth as a nation than the conditions of life under which it is developing. The modern ethnologist knows better. We have only to imagine what America would be today if she had fallen, in the beginning, into the hands of any other people than the colonizing British, to see how vitally important is this question of race. ... The second, and perhaps equally important factor in the problem of the rapid advancement of this branch of the British race, is the superiority of the conditions under which it has developed. The home which has fallen to its lot, a domain more magnificent than has cradled any other race in the history of the world ... The unity of the American people is further powerfully promoted by the foundation upon which the political structure rests, the equality of the citizen. There is not one shred of privilege to be met with anywhere in all the laws. One man's right is every man's right. The flag is the guarantor and symbol of equality. The people are not emasculated by being made to feel that their own country decrees their inferiority, and holds them unworthy of privileges accorded to others. No ranks, no titles, no hereditary dignities, and therefore no classes. Suffrage is universal, and votes are of equal weight. Representatives are paid, and political life and usefulness thereby thrown open to all. Thus there is brought about a community of interests and aims which a Briton, accustomed to monarchial and aristocratic institutions, dividing the people into classes with separate interests, aims, thoughts, and feelings, can only with difficulty understand. The free common school system of the land is probably, after all, the greatest single power in the unifying process which is producing the new American race. Through the crucible of a good common English education, furnished free by the State, pass the various racial elements — children of Irishmen, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and Swedes, side by side with the native American, all to be fused into one, in language, in thought, in feeling, and in patriotism. The Irish boy loses his brogue, and the German child learns English. The sympathies suited to the feudal systems of Europe, which they inherit from their fathers, pass off as dross, leaving behind the pure gold of the only noble political creed: "All men are created free and equal." Taught now to live and work for the common weal, and not for the maintenance of a royal family or an overbearing aristocracy, not for the continuance of a social system which ranks them beneath an arrogant class of drones, children of Russian and German serfs, of Irish evicted tenants, Scotch crofters, and other victims of feudal tyranny, are translated into republican Americans, and are made in one love for a country which provides equal rights and privileges for all her children. There is no class so intensely patriotic, so wildly devoted to the Republic as the naturalized citizen and his child, for little does the native-born citizen know of the value of rights which have never been denied. Only the man born abroad, like myself, under institutions which insult him at his birth, can know the full meaning of Republicanism. ... It is these causes which render possible the growth of a great homogeneous nation, alike in race, language, literature, interest, patriotism — an empire of such overwhelming power and proportions as to require neither army nor navy to ensure its safety, and a people so educated and advanced as to value the victories of peace.

Andrew Carnegie article "The Triumph of America" (1885) Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie celebrated and explored American economic progress in this 1885 article, later reprinted in his 1886 book, Triumphant Democracy. Andrew Carnegie views and describes America as the top ranking nation in the world. In the beginning of the excerpt, we see how he places America on a pedestal when he says, "the old nations of the earth creep on at a snail's pace; the Republic thunders past with the rush of the express. The United States, the growth of a single century, has already reached the foremost rank among nations, and is destined soon to out-distance all others in the race. In population, in wealth, in annual savings, and in public credit; in freedom from debt, in agriculture, and in manufactures, America already leads the civilized world." In my opinion, the way he describes America is very much idealized. We are burdened by debt in America, and we are far from financial perfection.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heading the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbour, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are" — cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded. Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws [sic] of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities. To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits of the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race: "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded [sic] your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress. ... The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized [sic]. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house. ... W.E.B. DuBois, a leading black intellectual and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), agitated against discrimination and authored several noteworthy pieces on the black experience in the United States. The following, from his seminal, The Souls of Black Folk, argues against Booker T. Washington's calls for compromise. Easily the most striking thing in history of the American Negro since 1876 is the ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington. ... Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make his programme unique. This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr. Washington's programme naturally takes an economic cast, becoming a gospel of Work and Money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life. Moreover, this is an age when the more advanced races are coming in closer contact with the less developed races, and the race-feeling is therefore intensified; and Mr. Washington's programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races. Again, in our own land, the reaction from the sentiment of war time has given impetus to race-prejudice against Negroes, and Mr. Washington withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men and American citizens. In other periods of intensified prejudice all the Negro's tendency to self-assertion has been called forth; at this period a policy of submission is advocated. In the history of nearly all other races and peoples the doctrine preached at such crises has been that manly self-respect is worth more than lands and houses, and that a people who voluntarily surrender such respect, or cease striving for it, are not worth civilizing. In answer to this, it has been claimed that the Negro can survive only through submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things, — First, political power, Second, insistence on civil rights, Third, higher education of Negro youth,- and concentrate all of their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South. This policy has been courageously and insistently advocated for over fifteen years, and has been triumphant for perhaps ten years. As a result of this tender of the palm-beach, what has been the return? In these years there have occurred: The disfranchisement of the Negro The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro. These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington's teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped their speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: Is it possible, and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct answer to these questions, it is an emphatic No.

Booker T. Washington & W.E.B. DuBois on Black Progress (1895, 1903) Booker T. Washington places emphasis on Black Americans accomplishing educational and economic prosperity through hard work. He believes that doing so can conquer white supremacy by gaining the respect of whites. W.E.B. DuBois, on the other hand, highlights the importance of social change through political action. He claims that Washington's idealism denies blacks of political power, civil rights, and higher education of Negro youth, and that it "[concentrate] . . . .on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South." I think DuBois' ideas about establishing civil rights is the most important and effective way to approach overcoming white supremacy. Material success and education is always a bonus, but that is just a surface level part of life; it doesn't define a person, and shouldn't be used to gain status or overcome discrimination. The root of the issue of white supremacy is the lack of basic human rights and equality. I think the movement to create social change regarding the gap between black and white American's is the most important step to overcome white supremacy. Booker T. Washington, born enslaved in Virginia in 1856, founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881 and became a leading advocate of African American progress. Introduced as "a representative of Negro enterprise and Negro civilization," Washington delivered the following remarks, sometimes called the "Atlanta Compromise" speech, at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. W.E.B. DuBois, a leading black intellectual and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), agitated against discrimination and authored several noteworthy pieces on the black experience in the United States. The following, from his seminal, The Souls of Black Folk, argues against Booker T. Washington's calls for compromise.

THE Steel-Engraving Lady sat by the open casement, upon which rested one slender arm. Her drapery sleeve fell back, revealing the alabaster whiteness of her hand and wrist. Her glossy, abundant hair was smoothly drawn over her ears, and one rose nestled in the coil of her dark locks. Her eyes were dreamy, and her embroidery frame lay idly upon the little stand beside her. An air of quiet repose pervaded the apartment, which, in its decorations, bespoke the lady's industry. Under a glass, upon a gleaming mirror, floated some waxen pond lilies, modeled by her slim fingers. A large elaborate sampler told of her early efforts with her needle, and gorgeous mottoes on the walls suggested the pleasing combination of household ornamentation with Scriptural advice. Suddenly a heavy step was heard upon the stair. A slight blush mantled the Steel-Engraving Lady's cheek. View This Story as a PDF See this story as it appeared in the pages of The Atlantic magazine. Open " Can that be Reginald ? " she murmured. The door flew open, and on the threshold stood the Gibson Girl. " Excuse me for dropping in upon you," she said, with a slight nod, tossing a golf club down upon the sofa near by. " You see I've been appointed to write a paper on Extinct Types, and I am anxious to scrape acquaintance with you." The Steel-Engraving Lady bowed a trifle stiffly. " Won't you be seated?" she said, with dignity. The Gibson Girl dropped into a low chair, and crossed one knee over the other ; then she proceeded to inspect the room, whistling meanwhile a snatch from the last comic opera. She wore a short skirt and heavy square-toed shoes, a mannish collar, cravat, and vest, and a broadbrimmed felt hat tipped jauntily upon one side. She stared quite fixedly at the fair occupant of the apartment, who could with difficulty conceal her annoyance. " Dear me! you 're just as slender and ethereal as any of your pictures," she remarked speculatively. " You need fresh air and exercise ; and see the color of my hands and face beside your own." The Steel-Engraving Lady glanced at her vis-à-vis, and shrugged her shoulders. " I like a healthy coat of tan upon a woman," the Gibson Girl announced, in a loud voice. " I never wear a hat throughout the hottest summer weather. The day is past when one deplores a sunburned nose and a few freckles." RECOMMENDED READING Three Theories for Why You Have No Time DEREK THOMPSON Workism Is Making Americans Miserable DEREK THOMPSON Stop Fetishizing Old Homes M. NOLAN GRAY " And is a browned and sunburned neck admired in the ballroom ? " the other queried. " Perhaps your artists of to-day prefer studies in black and white entirely, and scoff at coloring such as that ivory exhibits ? " She pointed to a dainty miniature upon the mantel. "No wonder you can't walk in those slim, tiny slippers! " the Gibson Girl exclaimed. " And can you walk in those heavy men's shoes ? " the Steel-Engraving Lady questioned. " Methinks my slippers would carry me with greater ease. Are they your own, or have you possibly put on your brother's shoes for an experiment ? If they were only hidden beneath an ample length of skirt, they might seem less obtrusive. And is it true you walk the streets in such an abridged petticoat? You surely cannot realize it actually displays six inches of your stockings. I blush to think of any lady upon the street in such a guise." " Blushing is out of style." The Gibson Girl laughed heartily. " Nor would it show through such a coat of sunburn," the other suggested archly. " It very likely seems odd to you," the visitor continued, " who are so far behind the times ; but we are so imbued with modern thought that we have done away with all the oversensitiveness and overwhelming modesty in which you are enveloped. We have progressed in every way. When a man approaches, we do not tremble and droop our eyelids, or gaze adoringly while he lays down the law. We meet him on a ground of perfect fellowship, and converse freely on every topic." The Steel-Engraving Lady caught her breath. " And does he like this method ? " she queried. Explore the July 1901 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. View More " Whether he Likes it or not makes little difference ; he is no longer the one whose pleasure is to be consulted. The question now is, not ' What does man like ? ' but ' What does woman prefer ? ' That is the keynote of modern thought. You see, I've had a liberal education. I can do everything my brothers do ; and do it rather better, I fancy. I am an athlete and a college graduate, with a wide, universal outlook. My point of view is free from narrow influences, and quite outside of the home boundaries." " So I should have imagined by your dress and manner," the Steel-Engraving Lady said, under her breath. " I am prepared to enter a profession," the visitor announced. " I believe thoroughly in every woman's having a distinct vocation." The Steel-Engraving Lady gasped. " Does n't a woman's home furnish her ample employment and occupation ? " " Undoubtedly it keeps her busy," the other said ; " but what is she accomplishing, shut in, walled up from the world's work and interests ? In my profession I shall be brought in contact with universal problems." " A public character ! Perhaps you 're going on the stage ? " " Oh no. I 'm to become a lawyer." " Perhaps your home is not a happy one ? " the Steel-Engraving Lady said, with much perplexity. " Indeed it is, but I have little time to stay there." " Have you no parents ? " " Parents ? Why, to be sure; but when a woman is capable of a career, she can't sit down at home just to amuse her parents. Each woman owes a duty to herself, to make the most of her Heavengiven talents. Why, I've a theory for the entire reorganization of our faulty public school system." " And does it touch upon the influence at home, which is felt in the nursery as well as in the drawing-room ? " " It is outside of all minor considerations," the Gibson Girl went on. " I think we women should do our utmost to purify the world of politics. Could I be content to sit down at home, and be a toy and a mere ornament," — here she glanced scornfully at her companion, — " when the great public needs my individual aid ? " " And can no woman serve the public at home ? " the other said gently. Her voice was very sweet and low. " I have been educated to think that our best service was " — " To stand and wait," the Gibson Girl broke in. " Ah, but we all know better nowadays. You see the motto ' Heaven helps her who helps herself ' suits the ' new woman.' We 're not a shy, retiring, uncomplaining generation. We 're up to date and up to snuff, and every one of us is self-supporting." " Dear me ! " the Steel-Engraving Lady sighed. " I never realized I had aught to complain of ; and why should woman not be ornamental as well as useful ? Beauty of person and manner and spirit is surely worthy of our attainment." " It was all well enough in your day, but this is a utilitarian age. We cannot sit down to be admired ; we must be ' up and doing; ' we must leave ' footprints on the sands of time.' " The Steel-Engraving Lady glanced speculatively at her companion's shoes. " Ah, but such great big footprints ! " she gasped ; " they make me shudder. And do your brothers approve of having you so clever that you compete with them in everything, and are there business places enough for you and them ? " " We don't require their approval. Man has been catered to for ages past, while woman was a patient, subservient slave. To-day she assumes her rightful place, and man accepts the lot assigned him. And as for business chances, if there is but one place, and I am smarter than my brother, why, it is fair that I should take it, and let him go without. But tell me," the Gibson Girl said condescendingly, " what did your so-called education consist of ? " " The theory of my education is utterly opposed to yours, I fear," the other answered. " Mine was designed to fit me for my home ; yours is calculated to unfit you for yours. You are equipped for contact with the outside world, for competition with your brothers in business ; my training merely taught me to make my brother's home a place which he should find a source of pleasure and inspiration. I was taught grace of motion, drilled in a school of manners, made to enter a room properly, and told how to sit gracefully, to modulate my voice, to preside at the table with fitting dignity. In place of your higher education, I had my music and languages and my embroidery frame. I was persuaded there was no worthier ambition than to bring life and joy and beauty into a household, no duty higher than that I owed my parents. Your public aspirations, your independent views, your discontent, are something I cannot understand." The Steel-Engraving Lady rose from her chair with grace and dignity; she crossed the room, and paused a moment on the threshold, where she bowed with the air of a princess who would dismiss her courtiers ; then she was gone. " She surely is an extinct type ! " the Gibson Girl exclaimed. " I realize now what higher education has done toward freeing woman from chains of prejudice. I must be off. I 'm due at the golf links at three-fifteen." When the sun set, the Steel-Engraving Lady might have been seen again seated beside the open casement. Her taper fingers lightly touched the strings of her guitar as she hummed a low lullaby. Once more she heard a step upon the stair, and once again the color mantled her damask cheek, and as she breathed the word " Reginald " a tall and ardent figure came swiftly toward her. He dropped upon one knee, as if to pay due homage to his fair one, and, raising her white hand to his lips, whispered, " My queen, my lady love." And at this moment the Gibson Girl was seated upon a fence, swinging her heavy boots, while an athletic youth beside her busied himself with filling a corn-cob pipe. " I say, Joe," he said, with friendly accent, " just you hop down and stand in front of me to keep the wind off, while I light this pipe." And the sun dropped behind the woods, and the pink afterglow illumined the same old world that it had beautified for countless ages. Its pink light fell upon the Steel-Engraving Lady as she played gently on her guitar and sang a quaint old ballad, while her fond lover held to his lips the rose that had been twined in her dark locks. The sunset's glow lighted the Gibson Girl upon her homeward path as she strode on beside the athletic youth, carrying her golf clubs, while he puffed his corn-cob pipe. They stopped at a turn in the road, and he touched his cap, remarking : " I guess I 'll leave you here, as I am late to dinner. I 'll try to be out at the links to-morrow ; but if I don't show up, you 'll know I've had a chance to join that hunting trip. Ta-ta! " And the night breeze sprang up, and murmured : " Hail the new woman, — behold she comes apace ! WOMAN, ONCE MAN'S SUPERIOR, NOW HIS EQUAL ! "

Caroline Ticknor, "The Steel-Engraving Ladyand the Gibson Girl" illustrates the Steel-Engraving lady as slim, modest, put-together, dreamy, quiet, graceful, feminine woman. The Gibson girl, on the other hand, is depicted as almost the opposite-a less-modest (according to her short skirt), less-feminine, more rugged, athletic, independent, intelligent woman. These two women, displaying opposite manners and qualities, provide competing ideas about what comprises the "ideal woman". The last few sentences of this article seem to highlight Ticknors attitude— "Hail the new woman, — behold she comes apace ! WOMAN, ONCE MAN'S SUPERIOR, NOW HIS EQUAL ! ". Ticknors choice in capitalizing this final sentence parallels the instance where the Gibson Girl claims the Steel-Engraving lady to be an extinct type, and that higher education frees the woman from the chains of prejudice. I think that Ticknor uses the Gibson Girl as an exemplification of what a woman could and should be; she should be unbound from the stereotypes regarding women being dainty, modest, quiet, and servant-like. Especially when looking at this final exclamation of her article, it seems that Ticknor is making a bold statement for readers of the Atlantic who most likely do not yet hold these same ideals about women being a man's equal

Who is the real patriot, or rather what is the kind of patriotism that we represent? The kind of patriotism we represent is the kind of patriotism which loves America with open eyes. Our relation towards America is the same as the relation of a man who loves a woman, who is enchanted by her beauty and yet who cannot be blind to her defects. And so I wish to state here, in my own behalf and in behalf of hundreds of thousands whom you decry and state to be antipatriotic, that we love America, we love her beauty, we love her riches, we love her mountains and her forests, and above all we love the people who have produced her wealth and riches, who have created all her beauty, we love the dreamers and the philosophers and the thinkers who are giving America liberty. But that must not make us blind to the social faults of America. That cannot make us deaf to the discords of America. That cannot compel us to be inarticulate to the terrible wrongs committed in the name of patriotism and in the name of the country. We simply insist, regardless of all protests to the contrary, that this war is not a war for democracy. If it were a war for the purpose of making democracy safe for the world, we would say that democracy must first be safe for America before it can be safe for the world.

Emma Goldman on Patriotism (July 9, 1917) The Anarchist Emma Goldman was tried for conspiring to violate the Selective Service Act. The following is an excerpt from her speech to the court, in which she explains her views on patriotism. In describing true American patriotism, Emma Goldman compares it to the idea of a man loving his spouse; patriots are enchanted by America's beauty but are not blind to its imperfections. She approaches this definition of patriotism as the "kind of patriotism that we represent." I don't think that Goldman believes in "true patriotism" based on the fact that she describes it this way; it's as if true patriotism does not exist because it is based on superficial ideas regarding the scenic beauty of America, and a lack of acknowledgement for the social issues in America. Goldman did not shy away from acknowledging that the country is plagued by many faults. I think she was unwilling to support America's entry into WWI because her political views do not align with what America deems it to be- democratic. She sees this democracy as an unsafe government system for America, so why would she be in support of a war that is meant to "make democracy safe for the world"?

FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS: In this place, hallowed and made glorious by a statue of the best man, truest patriot, and wisest statesman of his time and country; I have been invited - I might say ordered - by the Lincoln Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, to say a few words to you in appropriate celebration of this annual national memorial day... We tender you on this memorial day the homage of the loyal nation, and the heartfelt gratitude of emancipated millions. If the great work you undertook to accomplish is still incomplete; if a lawless and revolutionary spirit is still aboard in the country; if the principles for which you bravely fought are in any way compromised or threatened; if the Constitution and the laws are in any measure dishonored and disregarded; if duly elected State Governments are in any way overthrown by violence; if the elective franchise has been overborne by intimidation and fraud; if the Southern States, under the idea of local self-government, are endeavoring to paralyze the arm and shrivel the body of the National Government so that it cannot protect the humblest citizen in his rights, the fault is not yours. You, at least, were faithful and did your whole duty. Fellow-citizens, I am not here to fan the flame of sectional animosity, to revive old issues, or to stir up strife between the races; but no candid man, looking at the political situation of the hour, can fail to see that we are still afflicted by the painful sequences both of slavery and of the late rebellion. In the spirit of the noble man whose image now looks down upon us we should have "charity toward all, and malice toward none." In the language of our greatest soldier, twice honored with the Presidency of the nation. "Let us have peace." Yes, let us have peace, but let us have liberty, law, and justice first. Let us have the Constitution, with it thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments, fairly interpreted, faithfully executed, and cheerfully obeyed in the fullness of their spirit and the completeness of their letter.... My own feeling toward the old master class of the South is well known. Though I have worn the yoke of bondage, and have no love for what are called the good old times of slavery, there is in my heart no taint of malice toward the ex-slaveholders. Many of them were not sinners above all others, but were in some sense the slaves of the slave system, for slavery was a power in the State greater than the State itself. With the aid of a few brilliant orators and plotting conspirators, it sundered the bonds of the Union and inaugurated war.... Nevertheless, we must not be asked to say that the South was right in the rebellion, or to say the North was wrong. We must not be asked to put no difference between those who fought for the Union and those who fought against it, or between loyalty and treason... But the sectional character of this war was merely accidental and its least significant feature. It was a war of ideas, a battle of principles and ideas which united one section and divided the other; a war between the old and new, slavery and freedom, barbarism and civilization; between a government based upon the broadest and grandest declaration of human rights the world ever heard or read, and another pretended government, based upon an open, bold and shocking denial of all rights, except the right of the strongest. Good, wise, and generous men at the North, is power and out of power, for whose good intentions and patriotism we must all have the highest respect, doubt the wisdom of observing this memorial day, and would have us forget and forgive, strew flowers alike and lovingly, on rebel and on loyal graves. This sentiment is noble and generous, worthy of all honor as such; but it is only a sentiment after all, and must submit to its own rational limitations. There was a right side and a wrong side in the late war, which no sentiment ought to cause us to forget, and while today we should have malice toward none, and charity toward all, it is no part of our duty to confound right with wrong, or loyalty with treason. If the observance of this memorial days has any apology, office, or significance, it is derived from the moral character of this war, from the far-reaching, unchangeable and eternal principles in dispute, and for which our sons and brothers encountered hardship, danger, and death.... ... though freedom of speech and of the ballot have for the present fallen before the shot-guns of the South, and, the party of slavery is now in the ascendant, we need bate no jot of heart or hope. The American people will, in any great emergency, be true to themselves. The heart of the nation is still sound and strong, and as in the past, so in the future, patriotic millions, with able captains to lead them, will stand as a wall of fire around the Republic, and in the end see Liberty, Equality, and Justice triumphant. Frederick Douglass, "Speech delivered in Madison Square, New York, Decoration Day." 1878. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. [The document is mistakenly titled in the Library of Congress. This speech was actually given in Union Square, not Madison Square. The error is retained here for citation purposes.]

Frederick Douglass on Remembering the Civil War, 1878 Frederick Douglass sees the Civil War as incomplete based on several inferences that can be drawn from his speech in Union Square. He disclaims that he is not trying to reignite old issues or stir up animosities, but he makes a point to say that no one can fail to see that people are still burdened by the "painful sequences of both slavery and late rebellion." He sees the Civil War as unfinished based on the way it was a war of ideas; as Douglass explains, it was "a battle of principles and ideas which united one section and divided the other; a war between the old and new, slavery and freedom, barbarism and civilization; between a government based upon the broadest and grandest declaration of human rights the world ever heard or read, and another pretended government, based upon an open, bold and shocking denial of all rights, except the right of the strongest." Through this excerpt, Douglass highlights the extreme difference between the two sides of this war, and how one denied basic human rights while the other fought for it. He later says, "the American people will, in any great emergency, be true to themselves," which may coincide with this idea of how slavery and rebellion haunts the US and its newly freed citizens.

In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 appear these significant words: "Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports." This brief official statement marks the closing of a great historic movement. Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development. Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is, the fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people—to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life. Said Calhoun in 1817, "We are great, and rapidly—I was about to say fearfully—growing!" So saying, he touched the distinguishing feature of American life. All peoples show development; the germ theory of politics has been sufficiently emphasized. In the case of most nations, however, the development has occurred in a limited area; and if the nation has expanded, it has met other growing peoples whom it has conquered. But in the case of the United States we have a different phenomenon. Limiting our attention to the Atlantic coast, we have the familiar phenomenon of the evolution of institutions in a limited area, such as the rise of representative government; the differentiation of simple colonial governments into complex organs; the progress from primitive industrial society, without division of labor, up to manufacturing civilization. But we have in addition to this a recurrence of the process of evolution in each western area reached in the process of expansion. Thus American development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new development for that area. American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great West. ... In this advance, the frontier is the outer edge of the wave—the meeting point between savagery and civilization. Much has been written about the frontier from the point of view of border warfare and the chase, but as a field for the serious study of the economist and the historian it has been neglected. ... From the conditions of frontier life came intellectual traits of profound importance. The works of travelers along each frontier from colonial days onward describe certain common traits, and these traits have, while softening down, still persisted as survivals in the place of their origin, even when a higher social organization succeeded. The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom—these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier. Since the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and the people of the United States have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even been forced upon them. He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its dominant fact, and, unless this training has no effect upon a people, the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise. But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves. For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant. There is not tabula rasa. The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier. What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history

Frederick Jackson Turner's address to the American Historical Association on "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (1893) Turner views the closing of the frontier as a disaster for American democracy because now that it is completely settled, there is no more room for national development and expansion. He explains: "since the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and the people of the United States have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only been open but has even been forced upon them. He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased." In other words, Turner thinks there is no more opportunity for expansion within America, which is detrimental to the individualism that is so important for a democratic nation. Turner says that "never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves".

"There was a South of slavery and secession — that South is dead. There is a South of union and freedom — that South, thank God, is living, breathing, growing every hour." These words, delivered from the immortal lips of Benjamin H. Hill, at Tammany Hall, in 1866, true then and truer now, I shall make my text to-night. ... The old South rested everything on slavery and agriculture, unconscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth. The new South presents a perfect democracy, the oligarchs leading in the popular movement; a social system compact and closely knitted, less splendid on the surface, but stronger at the core; a hundred farms for every plantation, fifty homes for every palace; and a diversified industry that meets the complex needs of this complex age. The new South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness of growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanded horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because, through the inscrutable wisdom of God, her honest purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten. This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The South has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that the late struggle between the States was war and not rebellion, revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as honest as yours. I should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the South and to my own convictions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hill — a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men — that of a brave and simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England, from Plymouth Rock all the way, would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier's death. To the foot of that shaft I shall send my children's children to reverence him who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memory which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for which he gave his life was adjudged by a higher and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held the balance of battle in His Almighty hand, and that human slavery was swept forever from American soil — that the American Union was saved from the wreck of war. This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecrated ground. Every foot of soil about the city in which I live is sacred as a battle ground of the Republic. Every hill that invests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers who died for your victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blood of those who died hopeless, but undaunted, in defeat — sacred soil to all of us, rich with memories that make us purer and stronger and better, silent but stanch witnesses in its red desolation of the matchless valor of American hearts and the deathless glory of American arms, speaking an eloquent witness in its white peace and prosperity to the indissoluble union of American States and the imperishable brotherhood of the American people.

Henry Grady on the New South (1886) speech to the New England Society in New York City. Personally, I do not find Grady's argument convincing. It sounds to me a bit arrogant and almost delusional. Grady claims that the old south of slavery and succession no longer exists, and that the new South has "perfect democracy". History does not get erased, and it should not be ignored. Furthermore, especially during the industrial revolution, it takes time for things to change and to get better, but it seems as if Grady has established this idea that the South is now perfectly harmonious in regard to its politics, agriculture, social construct, and industrialization. He never specifically mentions the problems and trials of the past, yet he jumps to the idea that the south has nothing to apologize for. This makes him seem ignorant to the history of the South, specifically regarding white supremacy and discrimination against African Americans; his wording suggests that he supports white supremacy, and therefore, I do not find his argument convincing. Wells-Barnett complicates this narrative by giving real evidence for false accusation of blacks committing crime, which was 14 years after Grady gave this speech. Wells-Barnett contrasts from Grady's words by addressing the issues that are still present in regard to the unjust, cruel treatment of African Americans in this "New South", while Grady deems the New South to be perfect.

There are three ... great racial instincts, vital elements in both the historic and the present attempts to build an America which shall fulfill the aspirations and justify the heroism of the men who made the nation. These are the instincts of loyalty to the white race, to the traditions of America, and to the spirit of Protestantism, which has been an essential part of Americanism ever since the days of Roanoke and Plymouth Rock. They are condensed into the Klan slogan: "Native, white, Protestant supremacy." First in the Klansman's mind is patriotism-America for Americans. He believes religiously that a betrayal of Americanism or the American race is treason to the most sacred trusts, a trust from his fathers and a trust from God. He believes too that Americanism can only be achieved if the pioneer stock is kept pure. There is more than race pride in this. Mongrelization has been proven bad. It is only between closely related stocks of the same race that interbreeding has improved men; the kind of interbreeding that went on in the early days of America between English, Dutch, German, Huguenot, Irish, and Scotch. Racial integrity is a very definite thing to a Klansman. It means even more than good citizenship, for a man may be in all ways a good citizen and yet a poor American, unless he has racial understanding of Americanism, and instinctive loyalty to it. It is in no way a reflection on any man to say that he is un-American; it is merely a statement that he is not one of us. It is often not even wise to try and make an American of the best of aliens. What he is may be spoiled without his becoming American. The races and stocks of men are as distinct as breeds of animals, and every boy knows that if one tries to train a bulldog to herd sheep, he has in the end neither a good bulldog nor a good collie. Americanism, to the Klansman, is a thing of the spirit, a purpose and a point of view, that can only come through instinctive racial understanding. It has, to be sure, certain defined principles, but he does not believe that many aliens understand those principles, even when they use our words in talking about them. . . .In short, the Klansman believes in the greatest possible diversity and individualism within the limits of the American spirit. But he believes also that few aliens can understand that spirit, that fewer try to, and that there must be resistance, intolerance even, toward anything that threatens it, or the fundamental national unity based upon it. The second word in the Klansman's trilogy is "white." The white race must be supreme, not only in America but in the world. This is equally undebatable, except on the ground that the races might live together, each with full regard for the rights and interests of others, and that those rights and interests would never conflict. Such an idea, of course, is absurd; the colored races today, such as Japan, are clamoring not for equality but for their supremacy. Th whole history of the world, on it s broader lines, has been one of race conflicts, wars, subjugation or extinction. This is not pretty and certainly disagrees with the maudlin theories of cosmopolitanism, but it is truth. The world has been so made that each race must fight for its life, must conquer, accept slavery or die. The Klansman believes that the whites will not become slaves, and he does not intend to die before his time. . . . The third of the Klan principles is that Protestantism must be supreme; that Rome shall not rule America. The Klansman believes this is not merely because he is a Protestant, nor even because the Colonies that are now our nation were settled for the purpose of wresting America from the control of Rome and establishing a land free of conscience. He believes it also because Protestantism is an essential part of Americanism; without it America could never have been created and without it she cannot go forward. Roman rule would kill it. Protestantism contains more than just religion. It is the expression in religion of the same spirit of independence, self-reliance, and freedom which are the highest achievements of the Nordic race. . . . Let it be clear what is meant by "supremacy." It is nothing more than power of control, under just laws. It is not imperialism, far less is it autocracy or even aristocracy of a race or stock of men. What it does mean is that we insist on our inherited right to insure our own safety, individually and as a race, to secure the future of our children, to maintain and develop our racial heritage in our own, white, Protestant, American way, without interference. . . . There are, however, certain general principles and purposes which are always kept in view. Enough has been said about pioneer Americanism. Another constant aim is better citizenship. The Klan holds that no man can either be a good Klansman or a good American without being a good citizen. A large part of our work is to preach this, and no man can be a Klansman long without feeling it. Another constant objective is good government, locally and nationally. The Klansman is pledged to support law and order and it is also a part of his duty to see that both law and office are as god as possible. We believe that every man and woman should keep well informed on all public matters and take active and direct part in all public affairs. . . .The Klan however never attempts to dictate the votes of its members, but does furnish information about men and measures.

Hiram Evans on the "The Klan's Fight for Americanism" (1926) The "Second" Ku Klux Klan rose to prominence in the 1920s and, at its peak, claimed millions of Americans as members. Klansmen wrapped themselves in the flag and the cross and proclaimed themselves the moral guardians of America. The organization appealed to many "respectable," middle-class Americans. Here, Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans, a dentist from Dallas, Texas, outlines the Second Klan's potent mix of Americanism, Protestantism, and white supremacy. I think the parameters of American citizenship continue to cause heated debates in the US because at its core, the issues that underlie the idea of "being American" have to do with race, racism, ethnicity, and other identities, rather than legality and migration. It is clear in Evans' excerpt that his definitions of patriotism and citizenship relate to the notion of being white/white supremacy. He even states that "mongrelization has been proven bad." To Evans and members of the klan, their view of American citizenship is limited to those only of the white race. When I think of "Americans", I think of those who are citizens of America whether that be through birth in America or those that have legally claimed American nationality- together creating a diverse group of citizens representing many racial and ethnic origins.

Our country's national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. It represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is an "unwritten law" that justifies them in putting human beings to death without complaint under oath, without trial by jury, without opportunity to make defense, and without right of appeal. ... ... During the last ten years a new statute has been added to the "unwritten law." This statute proclaims that for certain crimes or alleged crimes no negro shall be allowed a trial; that no white woman shall be compelled to charge an assault under oath or to submit any such charge to the investigation of a court of law. The result is that many men have been put to death whose innocence was afterward established; and to-day, under this reign of the "unwritten law," no colored man, no matter what his reputation, is safe from lynching if a white woman, no matter what her standing or motive, cares to charge him with insult or assault. It is considered a sufficient excuse and reasonable justification to put a prisoner to death under this "unwritten law" for the frequently repeated charge that these lynching horrors are necessary to prevent crimes against women. The sentiment of the country has been appealed to, in describing the isolated condition of white families in thickly populated negro districts; and the charge is made that these homes are in as great danger as if they were surrounded by wild beasts. And the world has accepted this theory without let or hindrance. ... No matter that our laws presume every man innocent until he is proved guilty; no matter that it leaves a certain class of individuals completely at the mercy of another class; ... no matter that mobs make a farce of the law and a mockery of justice; no matter that hundreds of boys are being hardened in crime and schooled in vice by the repetition of such scenes before their eyes-if a white woman declares herself insulted or assaulted, some life must pay the penalty, with all the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and all the barbarism of the Middle Ages. The world looks on and says it is well. Not only are two hundred men and women put to death annually, on the average, in this country by mobs, but these lives are taken with the greatest publicity. In many instances the leading citizens aid and abet by their presence when they do not participate, and the leading journals inflame the public mind to the lynching point with scare-head articles and offers of rewards. Whenever a burning is advertised to take place, the railroads run excursions, photographs are taken, and the same jubilee is indulged in that characterized the public hangings of one hundred years ago. There is, however, this difference: in those old days the multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd. If the leaders of the mob are so minded, coal-oil is poured over the body and the victim is then roasted to death. This has been done in Texarkana and Paris, Tex., in Bardswell, Ky., and in Newman, Ga. In Paris the officers of the law delivered the prisoner to the mob. The mayor gave the school children a holiday and the railroads ran excursion trains so that the people might see a human being burned to death. In Texarkana, the year before, men and boys amused themselves by cutting off strips of flesh and thrusting knives into their helpless victim. At Newman, Ga., of the present year, the mob tried every conceivable torture to compel the victim to cry out and confess, before they set fire to the ******s that burned him. But their trouble was all in vain-he never uttered a cry, and they could not make him confess. This condition of affairs were brutal enough and horrible enough if it were true that lynchings occurred only because of the commission of crimes against women-as is constantly declared by ministers, editors, lawyers, teachers, statesmen, and even by women themselves. ... [T]hey publish at every possible opportunity this excuse for lynching, hoping thereby not only to palliate their own crime but at the same time to prove the negro a moral monster and unworthy of the respect and sympathy of the civilized world. But this alleged reason adds to the deliberate injustice of the mob's work. Instead of lynchings being caused by assaults upon women, the statistics show that not one-third of the victims of lynchings are even charged with such crimes. ... Quite a number of the one-third alleged cases of assault that have been personally investigated by the writer have shown that there was no foundation in fact for the charges; yet the claim is not made that there were no real culprits among them. The negro has been too long associated with the white man not to have copied his vices as well as his virtues. But the negro resents and utterly repudiates the effort to blacken his good name by asserting that assaults upon women are peculiar to his race. The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes. Very scant notice is taken of the matter when this is the condition of affairs. What becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party. ...

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, "Lynch Law in America" (1900) Ida B. Wells-Barnett exposed that false accusations of black men committing crimes such as sexual assault against women were a culprit of lynching. In reading this excerpt, Wells-Barnett seems to place emphasis on how white people, including "ministers, editors, teachers, statesmen, and women" are the ones responsible for these false accusations, as they follow an "unwritten law" that justifies the killings of innocent blacks without a fair trial by jury, complaint under oath, right of appeal, or a chance to defend oneself. The absence of basic human rights such as the right to have a fair trial is one of the main reasons why black lynchings were so torrential. However, the real problem lies within the white upper class who are responsible for this treatment of blacks under this "unwritten law" that unjustly authorizes them to punish innocent people. It all stems from inequality between the black and white population, and the overarching white supremacy present in America during this time.

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865. To my old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee. Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance. I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again. As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire. In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits. Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me. From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson

Jourdon Anderson Writes His Former Enslaver, 1865 - The overall tone of Anderson's letter is the first indication of the shifting social status of the newly freed. He is able to express his thoughts and feelings with confidence and a sense of jurisdiction, standing up for himself and calling out the faults of his former enslaver in ways that he may have been afraid to during his period of enslavement for fear of backlash or aggression from the Colonel. In addition, Anderson writes of himself, his wife and his children attending church and Sunday school, being properly educated and being "treated kindly," all general rights which were often denied to the enslaved. Again with conviction, Anderson writes that he and his family deserve the wages which were not given for the work they did for their former master over the years. - Within Anderson's letter, several indications relating to employment and education suggest that the social status of the formerly enslaved changed drastically after the Civil War. Anderson informs his old master that he is doing "tolerably well" and gets paid 25 dollars per month. He explains that he has a comfortable home for Mandy, and he shares that his daughters are also going to school. Many enslaved people in the antebellum South did not have access to education before being freed, nor did they get paid for their labors. With Anderson making it known to his former enslaver that he is now earning money, and that his daughters are receiving an education, this gives insight into how quickly the social status of formerly enslaved people changed after the Civil War. - Anderson is insistent upon the safety of his two young girls in this letter. Consistent and horrifying sexual abuse was a common reality for enslaved women and young girls. As Anderson writes, he would rather "starve and die" than subject his daughters to the "violence and wickedness of their young masters. It is clear that when he speaks of two girls named Matilda and Catherine, he is referring to previous abuse that they had to suffer through in the past, and does not want his now maturing daughters to suffer the same tragedy

"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain"

Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" Langston Hughes laments how people of color continue to create "white" forms of art, because this causes a lack of racial individuality. Hughes sees the desire of African Americans' to create "white" art as an indication that they want to be white. He is saddened by the thought of a Negro poet wanting to look away from his African American heritage, and instead "absorb white culture". It seems as if Hughes views this desire to be a "white poet" as a negligence of colored peoples' African American individuality and culture. He thinks that the repulsion black artists feel to create work that reflects their true selves and history is their way of trying to be "as American as possible", and suppresses the greatness of being African American. As an African American leader of the Harlem Renaissance, it is understandable that Hughes would be saddened by people of the black community not sharing their rich culture and identity through their art. Hughes goes into great depth about how African Americans have a subconscious idea of "white is best" always in their minds. His lament highlights the importance of understanding that this mindset is destructive for people of color to have. Being both black and American in a country where a dominant white population is hostile to their existence, African Americans' perspectives of themselves and their worth is diminished; Hughes says, "I was sorry the young man said ["I would like to be white"], for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself. Essentially, African Americans are fearful of being their true selves in the presence of white people, and this is a huge issue. The hostility that African Americans face in America creates false, subconscious feelings inside them about not being as successful or important as white people. This is what ultimately leads people of color to desire being white, and neglecting their heritage and culture.

I heard about the American foreign devils, that they were false, having made a treaty by which it was agreed that they could freely come to China, and the Chinese as freely go to their country. After this treaty was made China opened its doors to them and then they broke the treaty that they had asked for by shutting the Chinese out of their country. ...When I first opened a laundry it was in company with a partner, who had been in the business for some years. ... We had to put up with many insults and some frauds, as men would come in and claim parcels that did not belong to them, saying they had lost their tickets, and would fight if they did not get what they asked for. Sometimes we were taken before Magistrates and fined for losing shirts that we had never seen. On the other hand, we were making money, and even after sending home $3 a week I was able to save about $15. When the railroad construction gang moved on we went with them. The men were rough and prejudiced against us, but not more so than in the big Eastern cities. It is only lately in New York that the Chinese have been able to discontinue putting wire screens in front of their windows, and at the present time the street boys are still breaking the windows of Chinese laundries all over the city, while the police seem to think it a joke. ...During his holidays the Chinaman gets a good deal of fun out of life. There's a good deal of gambling and some opium smoking, but not so much as Americans imagine. Only a few of New York's Chinamen smoke opium. The habit is very general among rich men and officials in China, but not so much among poor men. I don't think it does as much harm as the liquor that the Americans drink. There's nothing so bad as a drunken man. Opium doesn't make people crazy. ... Some fault is found with us for sticking to our old customs here, especially in the matter of clothes, but the reason is that we find American clothes much inferior, so far as comfort and warmth go. The Chinaman's coat for the winter is very durable, very light and very warm. It is easy and not in the way. If he wants to work he slips out of it in a moment and can put it on again as quickly. Our shoes and hats also are better, we think, for our purposes, than the American clothes. Most of us have tried the American clothes, and they make us feel as if we were in the stocks. . . . Americans are not all bad, nor are they wicked wizards. Still, they have their faults, and their treatment of us is outrageous. The reason why so many Chinese go into the laundry business in this country is because it requires little capital and is one of the few opportunities that are open. Men of other nationalities who are jealous of the Chinese, because he is a more faithful worker than one of their people, have raised such a great outcry about Chinese cheap labor that they have shut him out of working on farms or in factories or building railroads or making streets or digging sewers. He cannot practice any trade, and his opportunities to do business are limited to his own countrymen. So he opens a laundry when he quits domestic service. The treatment of the Chinese in this country is all wrong and mean. It is persisted in merely because China is not a fighting nation. The Americans would not dare to treat Germans, English, Italians or even Japanese as they treat the Chinese, because if they did there would be a war. There is no reason for the prejudice against the Chinese. The cheap labor cry was always a falsehood. Their labor was never cheap, and is not cheap now. It has always commanded the highest market price. But the trouble is that the Chinese are such excellent and faithful workers that bosses will have no others when they can get them. ...It was the jealousy of laboring men of other nationalities — especially the Irish—that raised all the outcry against the Chinese. No one would hire an Irishman, German, Englishman or Italian when he could get a Chinese, because our countrymen are so much more honest, industrious, steady, sober and painstaking. Chinese were persecuted, not for their vices, but for their virtues. There never was any honesty in the pretended fear of leprosy or in the cheap labor scare, and the persecution continues still, because Americans make a mere practice of loving justice. They are all for money making, and they want to be on the strongest side always. They treat you as a friend while you are prosperous, but if you have a misfortune they don't know you. There is nothing substantial in their friendship. ...More than half the Chinese in this country would become citizens if allowed to do so, and would be patriotic Americans. But how can they make this country their home as matters now are! They are not allowed to bring wives here from China, and if they marry American women there is a great outcry. All Congressmen acknowledge the injustice of the treatment of my people, yet they continue it. They have no backbone. Under the circumstances, how can I call this my home, and how can any one blame me if I take my money and go back to my village in China?

Lee Chew, "The Biography of a Chinaman" (1903) Chew describes how native-born Americans view Chinese immigrants as cheap labor workers. He discusses how Americans treat Chinese immigrants poorly due to the fact that they know China is not a fighting nation; Americans take advantage of their good-hearted, hard working spirit. Furthermore, a cultural assumption about Chinese immigrants is that they are faithful workers. Nevertheless, they are also easily manipulated by being accused of not doing their jobs correctly, and dealing with fraud. All of this created poorer living conditions for Chinese immigrants, as they were being paid very small amounts of money for the work that they did. Marie Ganz and Lee Chew's testimonies are important for highlighting the reality of immigrant life in America. Both of their stories tell readers about the unfair employment opportunities/options that are presented to them, and how immigrants are still dehumanized in a country that places such a strong emphasis on the opportunity for everyone to achieve the "American Dream". Their testimonies highlight the mistreatment they experience, and the poor living conditions that occur as a result. In regard to modern debates over immigration policy, Ganz and Chew can help place native-born Americans in their shoes to approach the discussion/development of immigration policies in a more informed way.

We go around all dressed in rags While the rest of the world goes neat, And we have to be satisfied With half enough to eat. We have to live in lean-tos, Or else we live in a tent, For when we buy our bread and beans There's nothing left for rent. I'd rather not be on the rolls of relief, Or work on the W. P. A., We'd rather work for the farmer If the farmer could raise the pay; Then the farmer could plant more cotton And he'd get more money for spuds, Instead of wearing patches, We'd dress up in new duds. From the east and west and north and south Like a swarm of bees we come; The migratory workers Are worse off than a bum. We go to Mr. Farmer And ask him what he'll pay; He says, "You gypsy workers Can live on a buck a day." I'd rather not be on the rolls of relief, Or work on the W. P. A., We'd rather work for the farmer If the farmer could raise the pay; Then the farmer could plant more cotton And he'd get more money for spuds, Instead of wearing patches, We'd dress up in new duds. We don't ask for luxuries Or even a feather bed. But we're bound to raise the dickens While our families are underfed. Now the winter is on us And the cotton picking is done, What are we going to live on While we're waiting for spuds to come? Now if you will excuse me I'll bring my song to an end. I've got to go and chuck a crack Where the howling wind comes in. The times are going to better And I guess you'd like to know I'll tell you all about it, I've joined the C. I. O.

Lester Hunter, "I'd Rather Not Be on Relief" (1938) Lester Hunter left the Dust Bowl for the fields of California and wrote this poem, later turned into a song by migrant workers in California's Farm Security Administration camps. The "C.I.O." in the final line refers to the Congress of Industrial Unions, a powerful new industrial union founded in 1935. Lester Hunter describes some hardships of migrant life, including famine/hunger and living impoverished. His poem subverts stereotypes about migrant workers being lazy, shiftless, and potentially dangerous by making a statement about how he (and other migrant workers) would rather work for their money instead of being aided by charity. Readers can make this connection when reading the repetitive line "I'd rather not be on the rolls of relief" which parallels the poem's title. Hunter does not want to be on the "rolls of relief", meaning, he doesn't want the support of the government's employment aid. Instead, he would "rather work for the farmer", which shows his grit, diligence, and willingness to work to support his family. The poem presents migrant workers as anything but dangerous, and instead highlights their innocent desire to work in order to create a better life for themselves and their loved ones; Hunter says, "we don't ask for luxuries / or even a feather bed. / but we're bound to raise the dickens / while our families are underfed." His message is simple but powerful in showing how migrant workers are not lazy, dangerous people.

I wish to state to you that I have taken the floor because no other woman has responded, and I feel that it would not be out of place for me to say in my poor way a few words about this movement. We, the women of this country, have no ballot even if we wished to use it, and the only way that we can be represented is to take a man to represent us. You men have made such a mess of it in representing us that we have not much confidence in asking you; and I for one feel very backward in asking the men to represent me. We have no ballot, but we have our labor. I think it is August Bebel, in his Woman in the Past, Present and Future—a book that should be read by every woman that works for wages—Bebel says that men have been slaves throughout all the ages, but that woman's condition has been worse, for she has been the slave of a slave. There was never a greater truth uttered. We are the slaves of the slaves. We are exploited more ruthlessly than men. Wherever wages are to be reduced the capitalist class use women to reduce them ... ... It is a bread and butter question, an economic issue, upon which the fight must be made. Now, what do we mean when we say revolutionary Socialist? We mean that the land shall belong to the landless, the tools to the toiler, and the products to the producers. Now, let us analyze that for just a moment, before you applaud me. First, the land belongs to the landless. Is there a single land owner in this country who owns his land by the constitutional rights given by the constitution of the United States who will allow you to vote it away from him? I am not such a fool as to believe it. We say, "The tools belong to the toiler." They are owned by the capitalist class. Do you believe they will allow you to go into the halls of the legislature and simply say, "Be it enacted that on and after a certain day the capitalist shall no longer own the tools and the factories and the places of industry, the ships that plow the ocean and our lakes?" Do you believe that they will submit? I do not. We say, "The product belongs to the producers." It belongs to the capitalist class as their legal property. Do you think that they will allow you to vote them away from them by passing a law and saying, "Be it enacted that on and after a certain day Mr. Capitalist shall be dispossessed?" You may, but I do not believe it. Hence, when you roll under your tongue the expression that you are revolutionists, remember what that word means. It means a revolution that shall turn all these things over where they belong—to the wealth producers. Now, how shall the wealth-producers come into possession of them? I believe that if every man and every woman who works, or who toils in the mines, the mills, the workshops, the fields, the factories and the farms in our broad America should decide in their minds that they shall have that which of right belongs to them, and that no idler shall live upon their toil, and when your new organization, your economic organization, shall declare as man to man and woman to woman, as brothers and sisters, that you are determined that you will possess these things, then there is no army that is large enough to overcome you, for you yourselves constitute the army. Now, when you have decided that you will take possession of these things, there will not need to be one gun fired or one scaffold erected. You will simply come into your own, by your own independence and your own manhood, and by asserting your own individuality, and not sending any man to any legislature in any State of the American Union to enact a law that you shall have what is your own; yours by nature and by your manhood and by your very presence upon this Earth. Nature has been lavish to her children. She has placed in this Earth all the material of wealth that is necessary to make men and women happy. She has given us brains to go into her storehouse and bring from its recesses all that is necessary. She has given us these two hands and these brains to manufacture them on a parallel with all other civilizations. ... Now, I thank you for the time that I have taken up of yours. I hope that we will meet again some time, you and I, in some hall where we can meet and organize the wage workers of America, the men and women, so that the children may not go into the factories, nor the women into the factories, unless they go under proper conditions. I hope even now to live to see the day when the first dawn of the new era will have arisen, when capitalism will be a thing of the past, and the new industrial republic, the commonwealth of labor, shall be in operation. I thank you. Source:International Workers of the World, Proceedings of The First Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World (New York: New York Labor News Company, 1905), 167-172. Available online via Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=ifRQAQAAMAAJ).

Lucy Parsons Speech on Women and Revolutionary Socialism (1905) Lucy Parsons was born into slavery in Texas, married a white radical, Albert Parsons, and moved to Chicago where they both worked on behalf of radical causes. After Albert Parsons was executed for conspiracy in the aftermath of the Haymarket bombing, Lucy Parsons emerged as a major American radical and vocal advocate of anarchism. In 1905, she spoke before the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Lucy Parsons believes that women are "the slaves of slaves" because women were lower on the social hierarchy than men. This is evident through the fact that men, both black and white, were given the right to vote, but women were not. She says "we have no ballot, but we have our labor" and explains that "we are exploited more ruthlessly than men." To labor without pay and to not have the basic human right to vote, slave women must have felt like the most belittled people in America during the time. I agree with Parsons' idea of women being the slaves of slaves.

Dear friend Louise: So everybody has the "Flu" at Haskell? I wish to goodness Miss Keck and Mrs. McK. would get it and die with it. Really, it would be such a good riddance, and not much lost either! As many as 90 people die every day here with the "Flu." Soldiers too, are dying by the dozens. So far, Felicity, C. Zane, and I are the only ones of the Indian girls who have not had it. We certainly consider ourselves lucky too, believe me. Katherine and I just returned last Sunday evening from Camp Humphreys "Somewhere in Virginia" where we volunteered to help nurse soldiers sick with the Influenza. ... All nurses were required to work twelve hours a day-we worked from seven in the morning until seven at night, with only a short time for luncheon and dinner. Believe me, we were always glad when night came because we sure did get tired. We had the actual Practical nursing to do-just like the other nurses had, and were given a certain number of wards with three or four patients in each of them to look after. Our chief duties were to give medicines to the patients, take temperatures, fix ice packs, feed them at "eating time", rub their back or chest with camphorated sweet oil, make egg-nogs, and a whole string of other things I can't begin to name. I liked the work just fine, but it was too hard, not being used to it. When I was in the Officer's barracks, four of the officers of whom I had charge, died. Two of them were married and called for their wife nearly all the time. It was sure pitiful to see them die. I was right in the wards alone with them each time, and Oh! The first one that died sure unnerved me-I had to go to the nurses' quarters and cry it out. The other three were not so bad. Really, Louise, Orderlies carried the dead soldiers out on stretchers at the rate of two every three hours for the first two days were there. Two German spies, posing as doctors, were caught giving these Influenza germs to the soldiers and they were shot last Saturday at sunrise. It is such a horrible thing, it is hard to believe, and yet such things happen almost every day in Washington. Repeated calls come from the Red Cross for nurses to do district work right here in D. C. I volunteered again, but as yet I have not been called and am waiting. Really, they are certainly "hard up" for nurses-even me can volunteer as a nurse in a camp or in Washington. There are about 800 soldiers stationed at Potomac Park right her in D. C. just a short distance from the Interior building where I work, and this morning's paper said that the deaths at this Park were increasing, so if fortune favors me, I may find myself there before the week is ended. ... ... All the girls have soldiers-Indian girls also. Some of the girls have soldiers and sailors too. The boys are particularly crazy about the Indian girls. They tell us that the Indian girls are not so "easy" as the white girls, so I guess maybe that's their reason. Washington is certainly a beautiful place. There is so much to be said in favor of it, that if I started, I don't believe I should ever get through. Odile and I have to pass by the Capitol, the Union Station, the War Department, the Pension Bldg., and through the noted Lincoln park every morning to our way to work. The Washington Monument (555ft. high) is within walking distance of the Interior Department (where we work) and we walked there last evening after work. It certainly is high and we are planning to go up in the elevator some time to look over the city. We were going last evening, but the place is closed temporarily, on account of this "Flu". ... All the schools, churches, theaters, dancing halls, etc. are closed here also. There is a bill in the Senate today authorizing all the war-workers to be released from work for the duration of this epidemic. It has not passed the house yet, but I can't help but hope it does. ...

Lutiant Van Wert describes the 1918 Flu Pandemic (1918) Lutiant Van Wert, a Native American woman, volunteered as a nurse in Washington D.C. during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Here, she writes to a former classmate still enrolled at the Haskell Institute, a government-run boarding school for Native American students in Kansas, and describes her work as a nurse. Lutiant's Native American heritage and gender shaped her war experience based on the fact that she was experiencing and seeing a lot of new things. For instance, she describes the beauty of Washington, and how the city had several buildings and places closed off due to the influenza pandemic. It seems as if she had never quite seen a city like Washington before. She also mentions that the soldiers in particular were crazy about Indian girls, explaining that they are not as easy as white girls. With Lutiant being so young, this must've been an interesting part of her experience nursing the soldiers. Lastly, Luitiant dealt with the trauma and sadness of losing some of the soldiers, as sometimes she "had to go to the nurses' quarters to cry it out." I can't imagine being a young Native American girl tending to the wounds, injuries, and deaths of American soldiers.

It was a home of two tiny rooms. The room in the rear was not much largerthan a good-sized clothes closet, and not the stuffiest of closets could bemore lacking in sunlight and air. The walls were as blank as an undergrounddungeon's. There was neither window nor ventilating shaft. The room infront, almost twice as large, though half a dozen steps would have broughtanybody with full-grown legs across its entire length, was a kitchen andliving-room by day, a bedroom by night. Its two little windows gave a view ofa narrow, stone-paved court and, not ten feet away, the rear wall of anothertenement.The sunlight never found its way into that little court. By day it was dim anddamp, by night a fearsome place, black and sepulchral. In this little bit of ahome lived five persons, my father and mother, myself,my baby brother, and Schmeel, our boarder. What squalid home in NewYork's crowded ghetto is without its boarder? How can that ever-presentbogy, the rent, be met without him? He must be wedged in somehow, nomatter how little space there may be.My father had established this home, our first in the New World, through Godknows how much toil and worry and self-sacrifice. It took him two years to doit, and he must have haggled with all the bartering instinct of his race overthe price of many a banana in the stock on his pushcart in Hester Streetbefore hislittle hoard of savings had grown large enough to hire and furnish those twomiserable rooms and to send tickets to his family in Galicia.I was only five years old when in the summer of 1896 we joined him inAmerica, but I remember well the day when he met us at Ellis Island. He waslike a stranger to me, for I had been not much more than a baby when he leftus on our Galician farm, but no child could be on distant terms with him long.Children took to him at once. He understood them, and was never so happyas when joining in their play. A quiet, unobtrusive man was my father, talland slender, with a short yellow beard and mild blue eyes, and I have notforgotten the childlike glow of happiness that was in his face as he welcomedus. I suppose it is the experience of most people that among the little scrapsof our past lives that we carry with us the most insignificant things are apt tostand out more clearly than others of greater moment. I have found it so. Ilike to go groping into the past now and then, stirred by curiosity as to howfar memory will carry me. It is a fascinating game, this of peering into thedim vistas of the long ago, where the mists of time are shifting as if blown bythe wind.Now against the far horizon one scene stands out clearly, then another, asthe mists fall apart and close again. Now the perfume of flowers comes to me, and I see our garden in front of the old Galician home — the bright littlespot which is all I remember of the Old World. Now a breath of salt air is inmy face, and I see a rolling sea and a distant, low-lying shore — my onememory of our journey to America. But however disconnected and far apartthe few scenes that still come back to me from the first years of my life, Ihave glimpses of our arrival in New York that are as vivid as if it had beenonly yesterday. In a quiet hour alone I wave the years away, and I am a childagain, trudging along beside my father, who, weighted down with the greatrolls of bedding we had brought with us from the old home, is guiding usthrough strange, noisy streets. I am staring in wonder at the great buildingsand the never-ending crowds of people. I am frightened, bewildered, readyto cry. I keep a tiny hand twisted in the tail of my father's coat,fearing to lose him.At last we turn into a dark, dirty alley, which runs like a tunnel under atenement house and leads us to our future home in the building in the rear.Oh, how hot and stuffy were those two little rooms that we entered! The citywas scorching under one of the hot waves that bring such untold misery tothetenements. Not a breath of air stirred. The place was an oven. But, flushedwith heat and perspiring though he was, my father ushered us in with a greatshow of joy and enthusiasm. Suddenly his smile gave way to an expressionthat reflected bitter disappointment and injured pride as he became aware ofthe disgust which my mother could not conceal."So we have crossed half the world for this!" she cried, thinking bitterly ofthe comfortable farmhouse we had left behind us. I can see her now as shestood that moment facing my father, her eyes full of reproach — a pretty,slender woman with thick, black hair and a face as fresh and smooth as agirl's. I am sure it had never occurred to poor, dreamy, impractical LazarusGanz that his wife might be disappointed with the new home he hadprovided for her, or that he had ever fully realized how squalid it was. He wasone of the most sensitive of men, and the look of pain in his face as he sawthe impression the place made on her filled me with pity for him, young as Iwas. A five-year-old child is not apt to carry many distinct memories fromthat age through life, but that scene I have never forgotten.When at last it grows dark we creep up flight after flight of narrow stairs,lighted by only a tiny gas flame at each landing, to the roof. Long rows ofmen, women and children are lying there under the stars. We look off overmiles and miles of housetops to where they disappear in a blue haze. Wespread the beddingwe have carried from below, and we lie down to sleep. All the stars of heavenare winking roguishly down at me as I slip away into dreamland. Beginningwith that first night our housetop had a wonderful fascination for me — the cool breezes, the far vistas over the city's roofs, the mysteries of the nightsky, the magic moonlight — a fairyland, a place of romance after the drearyday in the stuffy little rooms below or in the crowded, noisy streets.

Marie Ganz: American Dream Meets Tenement Reality (1920) Based on Marie Ganz' impressions of the city upon her arrival in New York, it is clear that the American urban environment was not a very glamorous environment for immigrants to engulf themselves in. In the beginning of this work, Ganz explains how tiny the tenement was in which her immigrant family lived, and tells of the dark and eerie qualities it held, comparing it to a dungeon. Urban life was not easy for immigrants in New York; it impacted immigrants negatively as they dealt with poor living conditions in crowded, tiny homes alongside a huge population of other immigrants in search of employment opportunities. The experience living in New York as an immigrant as described by Ganz is one that was widely shared between those coming from different regions of the world. Poor New York residents in several immigrant neighborhoods, not just those inhabited by those coming from Eastern Europe, experienced the detrimental effects of overpopulation, lack of infrastructure, and industrialization. This led new families to deal with health problems due to sanitary issues among other hardships.

Take up the White Man's burden—Send forth the best ye breed—Go send your sons to exileTo serve your captives' needTo wait in heavy harnessOn fluttered folk and wild—Your new-caught, sullen peoples,Half devil and half childTake up the White Man's burdenIn patience to abideTo veil the threat of terrorAnd check the show of pride;By open speech and simpleAn hundred times made plainTo seek another's profitAnd work another's gainTake up the White Man's burden—And reap his old reward:The blame of those ye betterThe hate of those ye guard—The cry of hosts ye humour(Ah slowly) to the light:"Why brought ye us from bondage,"Our loved Egyptian night?"Take up the White Man's burden-Have done with childish days-The lightly proffered laurel,The easy, ungrudged praise.Comes now, to search your manhoodThrough all the thankless years,Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,The judgment of your peers!

Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden" (1899) As the United States waged war against Filipino insurgents, the British writer and poet Rudyard Kipling urged the Americans to take up "the white man's burden." "White man's burden" is a phrase that describes Americans' desire/duty to impose civilization on those who settle in their colonies. At first, it may seem like Kipling's poem is satire. I think he is being straightforward about white superiority, however, considering that this poem was written right after the Spanish-American war, as a response to the American Colonization of the Philippines. After achieving victory and conquest from the war, Americans adopted a new imperialist mindset. This mindset can be seen in Kipling's poem when he says, "your new-caught sullen peoples, / Half devil and half child." Imperialism involves dehumanizing others in order to create a civilization, and Kipling does so very literally in these lines. Furthermore, he places emphasis on the exploitation of these dehumanized people when he says "to seek another's profit / And work another's gain." Exploitation was part of the imperial process, and it was used to benefit the economy of the colony.

We are returning from war! The Crisis and tens of thousands of black men were drafted into a great struggle. For bleeding France and what she means and has meant and will mean to us and humanity and against the threat of German race arrogance, we fought gladly and to the last drop of blood; for America and her highest ideals, we fought in far-off hope; for the dominant southern oligarchy entrenched in Washington, we fought in bitter resignation. For the America that represents and gloats in lynching, disfranchisement, caste, brutality and devilish insult—for this, in the hateful upturning and mixing of things, we were forced by vindictive fate to fight also. 2But today we return! We return from the slavery of uniform which the world's madness demanded us to don to the freedom of civil garb. We stand again to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land. 3It lynches. 4And lynching is barbarism of a degree of contemptible nastiness unparalleled in human history. Yet for fifty years we have lynched two Negroes a week, and we have kept this up right through the war. 5It disfranchises its own citizens. 6Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white. The land that disfranchises its citizens and calls itself a democracy lies and knows it lies. 7It encourages ignorance. 8It has never really tried to educate the Negro. A dominant minority does not want Negroes educated. It wants servants, dogs, whores and monkeys. And when this land allows a reactionary group by its stolen political power to force as many black folk into these categories as it possibly can, it cries in contemptible hypocrisy: "They threaten us with degeneracy; they cannot be educated." 9It steals from us. 10It organizes industry to cheat us. It cheats us out of our land; it cheats us out of our labor. It confiscates our savings. It reduces our wages. It raises our rent. It steals our profit. It taxes us without representation. It keeps us consistently and universally poor, and then feeds us on charity and derides our poverty. 11It insults us. 12It has organized a nation-wide and latterly a world-wide propaganda of deliberate and continuous insult and defamation of black blood wherever found. It decrees that it shall not be possible in travel nor residence, work nor play, education nor instruction for a black man to exist without tacit or open acknowledgment of his inferiority to the dirtiest white dog. And it looks upon any attempt to question or even discuss this dogma as arrogance, unwarranted assumption and treason. 13This is the country to which we Soldiers of Democracy return. This is the fatherland for which we fought! But it is our fatherland. It was right for us to fight. The faults of our country are our faults. Under similar circumstances, we would fight again. But by the God of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if now that that war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land. 14We return. 15We return from fighting. 16We return fighting. 17Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America, or know the reason why

W.E.B DuBois, "Returning Soldiers" (May, 1919) In the aftermath of World War I, W.E.B. DuBois urged returning soldiers to continue fighting for democracy at home.

The struggle for existence is aimed against nature. It is from her niggardly hand that we have to wrest the satisfaction for our needs, but our fellow-men are our competitors for the meager supply. Competition, therefore, is a law of nature. Nature is entirely neutral; she submits to him who most energetically and resolutely assails her. She grants her rewards to the fittest, therefore, without regard to other considerations of any kind. If, then, there be liberty, men get from her just in proportion to their works, and their having and enjoying are just in proportion to their being and their doing. Such is the system of nature. If we do not like it, and if we try to amend it, there is only one way in which we can do it. We can take from the better and give to the worse. We can deflect the penalties of those who have done ill and throw them on those who have done better. We can take the rewards from those who have done better and give them to those who have done worse. We shall thus lessen the inequalities. We shall favor the survival of the unfittest, and we shall accomplish this by destroying liberty. Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative; liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries society downwards and favors all its worst members. For three hundred years now men have been trying to understand and realize liberty. ... What we mean by liberty is civil liberty, or liberty under law; and this means the guarantees of law that a man shall not be interfered with while using his own powers for his own welfare. It is, therefore, a civil and political status; and that nation has the freest institutions in which the guarantees of peace for the laborer and security for the capitalist are the highest. Liberty, therefore, does not by any means do away with the struggle for existence. We might as well try to do away with the need of eating, for that would, in effect, be the same thing. What civil liberty does is to turn the competition of man with man from violence and brute force into an industrial competition under which men vie with one another for the acquisition of material goods by industry, energy, skill, frugality, prudence, temperance, and other industrial virtues. Under this changed order of things the inequalities are not done away with. Nature still grants her rewards of having and enjoying, according to our being and doing, but it is now the man of the highest training and not the man of the heaviest fist who gains the highest reward. It is impossible that the man with capital and the man without capital should be equal. To affirm that they are equal would be to say that a man who has no tool can get as much food out of the ground as the man who has a spade or a plough; or that the man who has no weapon can defend himself as well against hostile beasts or hostile men as the man who has a weapon. If that were so, none of us would work any more. We work and deny ourselves to get capital just because, other things being equal, the man who has it is superior, for attaining all the ends of life, to the man who has it not. Considering the eagerness with which we all seek capital and the estimate we put upon it, either in cherishing it if we have it, or envying others who have it while we have it not, it is very strange what platitudes pass current about it in our society so soon as we begin to generalize about it. If our young people really believed some of the teachings they hear, it would not be amiss to preach them a sermon once in a while to reassure them, setting forth that it is not wicked to be rich, nay even, that it is not wicked to be richer than your neighbor. It follows from what we have observed that it is the utmost folly to denounce capital. To do so is to under- mine civilization, for capital is the first requisite of every social gain, educational, ecclesiastical, political, aesthetic, or other.

William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism (ca.1880s) William Graham Sumner, a sociologist at Yale University, penned several pieces associated with the philosophy of Social Darwinism. In the following, Sumner explains his vision of nature and liberty in a just society. Sumner's mindset regarding the Darwinian notion of "survival of the fittest" as a way to defend inequality, acquisitiveness, and competition has several repercussions. Firstly, it implies that inequality, acquisitiveness, and competition is a necessary and unavoidable part of a functional society. However, this is an inhumane mindset; Sumner suggests that not everyone deserves success, money, and/or fair treatment. His ideal society includes both people who struggle to be successful or to just exist, and people that are successful. Based on these inhumane notions, I would not like to live in a society like this.

Of all the quadrupeds that have lived upon the earth, probably no other species has ever marshaled such innumerable hosts as those of the American bison. It would have been as easy to count or to estimate the number of leaves in a forest as to calculate the number of buffaloes living at any given time during the history of the species previous to 1870. Even in South Central Africa, which has always been exceedingly prolific in great herds of game, it is probable that all its quadrupeds taken together on an equal area would never have more than equaled the total number of buffalo in this country forty years ago. ... Between the Rocky Mountains and the States lying along the Mississippi River on the west, from Minnesota to Louisiana, the whole country was one vast buffalo range, inhabited by millions of buffaloes. One could fill a volume with the records of plainsmen and pioneers who penetrated or crossed that vast region between 1800 and 1870, and were in turn surprised, astounded, and frequently dismayed by the tens of thousands of buffaloes they observed, avoided, or escaped from. They lived and moved as no other quadrupeds ever have, in great multitudes, like grand armies in review, covering scores of square miles at once. They were so numerous they frequently stopped boats in the rivers, threatened to overwhelm travelers on the plains, and in later years derailed locomotives and cars, until railway engineers learned by experience the wisdom of stopping their trains whenever there were buffaloes crossing the track. ... ... No wonder that the men of the West of those days, both white and red, thought it would be impossible to exterminate such a mighty multitude. The Indians of some tribes believed that the buffaloes issued from the earth continually, and that the supply was necessarily inexhaustible. And yet, in four short years the southern herd was almost totally annihilated. ... It will be doubly deplorable if the remorseless slaughter we have witnessed during the last twenty years carries with it no lessons for the future. A continuation of the record we have lately made as wholesome game butchers will justify posterity in dating us back with the mound-builders and cave-dwellers, when man's only known function was to slay and eat. The primary cause of the buffalo's extermination, and the one which embraced all others, was the descent of civilization, with all its elements of destructiveness, upon the whole of the country inhabited by that animal. From the Great Slave Lake to the Rio Grande the home of the buffalo was everywhere overrun by the man with a gun; and, as has ever been the case, the wild creatures were gradually swept away, the largest and most conspicuous forms being the first to go. The secondary causes of the extermination of the buffalo may be catalogued as follows: (1) Man's reckless greed, his wanton destructiveness, and improvidence in not husbanding such resources as come to him from the hand of nature ready made. (2) The total and utterly inexcusable absence of protective measures and agencies on the part of the National Government and of the Western States and Territories. (3) The fatal preference on the part of hunters generally, both white and red, for the robe and flesh of the cow over that furnished by the bull. (4) The phenomenal stupidity of the animals themselves, and their indifference to man. (5) The perfection of modern breech-loading rifles and other sporting fire-arms in general. Each of these causes acted against the buffalo with its full force, to offset which there was not even one restraining or preserving influence, and it is not to be wondered at that the species went down before them. Had any one of these conditions been eliminated the result would have been reached far less quickly. Had the buffalo, for example, possessed one-half the fighting qualities of the grizzly bear he would have fared very differently, but his inoffensiveness and lack of courage almost leads one to doubt the wisdom of the economy of nature so far as it relates to him. ... The buffalo supplied the Indian with food, clothing, shelter, bedding, saddles, ropes, shields, and innumerable smaller articles of use and ornament. In the United States a paternal government takes the place of the buffalo in supplying all these wants of the red man, and it costs several millions of dollars annually to accomplish the task. ... The Indians of what was once the buffalo country are not starving and freezing, for the reason that the United States Government supplies them regularly with beef and blankets in lieu of buffalo. Does any one imagine that the Government could not have regulated the killing of buffaloes, and thus maintained the supply, for far less money than it now costs to feed and clothe those 54,758 Indians? ... There is reason to fear that unless the United States Government takes the matter in hand and makes a special effort to prevent it, the pure-blood bison will be lost irretrievably...

William T. Hornady on the Extermination of the American Bison (1889) Hornady blames civilization. He blames the "man with the gun," who operates on greed and destructiveness, and no thought saved for the protection of nature and the thoughtful time distribution of consuming nonrenewable resources. He explains that humans act stupidly and irrationally, and do not think about the consequences of their endless taking.