U.S. History Unit 2

Gompers, Samuel

(1850-1924) Labor leader who as a skilled worker (cigar maker) helped to organize the American Federation of Labor between 1881 and 1886 and, except for one year in 1895, served as its president until his death. Observing the difficulties of the Knights of Labor as a result of its emphasis on political reforms, Gompers avoided political issues and focused on bread and butter issues for skilled workers. As Gompers became more prominent and as his union flourished in the Progressive Era, he became more effective, working for such goals as the 8-hour day and the right to organize and bargain collectively. He advanced labor's cause during World War I by organizing the War Committee on Labor, but after the war and the defeat of the steel strike of 1919, he and the union movement lost ground. He symbolizes the skilled workers' efforts to improve their condition even at the expense of the mass of workers, the unskilled.

Debs, Eugene

(1855-1926) The most important socialist leader in the United States in the Progressive Era and the perennial Socialist party candidate for president. Debs began his career as a railroad fireman and labor organizer from Indiana, but became the principal leader of the Socialist party in the early 20th century in the US and ran for president five times (1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, 1920). He became a Socialist after being imprisoned for organizing the American Railway Union in 1893 and and leading it in support of the Pullman Strike of 1894. He is significant for showing that socialism was not limited to recent immigrants or revolutionaries but was identified by its adherents as the best method of obtaining social justice through reform for the disadvantaged including unskilled laborers and poor and tenant farmers when the government under Republicans and Democrats supported big business against labor and the poor as was the case in the Pullman Strike.

Brandeis, Louis D.

(1856-1941) Social justice Progressive who became the first Jewish member of the Supreme Court (1916-1939) after Wilson appointed him in 1916. This was an effort by Wilson to attract Progressive support for his reelection campaign. Before taking the bench, Brandeis had been known as "the people's attorney" for his support of state wage laws, of women's ten hour day laws, of state regulation of insurance companies, and for his opposition to railroad monopolies. During the New Deal, Brandeis influenced FDR to abandon his programs such as the NRA favoring big business and instead tax the corporations and restore competition.

Kelley, Florence

(1859-1932) Progressive reformer who organized and served as executive secretary of the National Consumers League and advocated child labor laws, protective legislation for women, and the safe manufacture of goods. One of her most successful and influential efforts became known as the "Brandeis Brief" which she and the Consumers League developed for their lawyer, Louis Brandeis, for the case Muller v. Oregon in 1908. The brief convinced the Supreme Court to uphold the Oregon law restricting female workers to 10 hour days (at a time when the Court had been overturning state laws regulating wages and hours) by using sociological evidence indicating that long hours injured the health of women and society. This promoted the idea of sociological jurisprudence, the theory which says that the law is a product of society and if society changes, so must the law. But the brief also contributed, perhaps unintentionally, to the argument that women are inferior to men and must be protected. Even the name of the brief, written by Kelley and others rather than Brandeis, shows that women were not recognized for their abilities and contributions.

Addams, Jane

(1860-1935) Social reformer and advocate of international peace, she contributed to the settlement house movement, establishing Hull House in Chicago in 1889, to help the urban and immigrant poor and, later, in 1931 received the Nobel Peace Prize. Politically a socialist, she represents the social justice movement which developed in the late 19th century to deal with the problems of industrialization and urbanization.

Creel, George

(1876-1953) Journalist and publicist from Missouri who became chairman of the Committee on Public Information (1917-1919) and the chairman of the advisory committee for the Works Progress Administration (1935). See Committee on Public Information.

Garvey, Marcus

(1887-1940) Black leader in the 1920s who advocated self-help, black pride, and a Back-to-Africa movement for black Americans. Through his Universal Negro Improvement Association and by beginning black businesses such as the Black Star steamship line and a corps of Black Cross nurses and as a result of his ability to appeal to unschooled blacks by dressing in elaborate uniforms and riding in limousines, Garvey attracted a mass following. After his steamship line went bankrupt in 1923, he was convicted of defrauding his investors and deported to his home in Jamaica. Although considered a huckster and demagogue by W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP, he helped promote black pride and the "New Negro" movement of the 1920s. He represents the separatist strain in black thinking.

City Beautiful Movement

(1890s - early 1900s)Nation-wide effort to make cities more attractive and meaningful through the provision of public parks and the construction of museums, libraries, and other institutions. Inspired by the open and clean look of "White City" designed by Daniel H. Burnham for the Chicago World Fair of 1893, the movement promoted the addition of open spaces and parks, but the movement had little direct impact on most working class central cities where housing remained filthy and overcrowded. It promoted the progressive idea that environment was more important than heredity and their idea that people are born good (rejection of the Christian belief of original sin). Quite simply, if cities were nicer people would act nicer.

Cartel

A business organization in which the members agree to act together, set prices, and limit production. Often international in scope, a cartel is usually part of an oligopoly in which a few large firms control the market place. A good example in the late 20th and early 21st century is OPEC—Oil Producing/Exporting Countries—which, since the 1960s, have cooperated to control the supply and price of petroleum on international markets. In the 1920s, cartels in the United States appeared in industry and in agriculture. In industry, trade associations (encouraged by the Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover) promoted cooperation among businesses in the same industry. In agriculture, the Capper-Volstead Act (1922) and the Cooperative Marketing Act (1926) allowed farmers to organize associations for the purpose of marketing and pricing their products. This is an example of the consolidation movement of the 1920s, and it shows, in contrast to the Progressive policies of regulation for the public good, the government's support for business during the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover Administrations.

Dresden Raid

A famous Allied bombing raid in 1943 on Dresden, Germany which used incendiary bombs to destroy a cultural center. This is an example of the tactic adopted during the 1930s of attacking civilian, non-military targets on purpose in order to destroy public morale and end the war sooner. This led to massive attacks on Germany and Japan destroying whole cities largely as a result of fire, indicating that the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as massive attacks on civilians, were not new. Only the number and kind of bombs changed. Prior to the atomic bomb attacks, however; the effect had not been to end war quickly.

Harlem Renaissance

A flowering of black culture centered in Harlem in New York City in the 1920s. It emphasized black pride, what it meant to be black in America, and the ideal of cultural diversity (as expressed in Alain Locke's The New Negro in 1925) which would end prejudice and recognize the value of different cultures existing side-by-side as a result of the "talented tenth" (W.E.B. Du Bois' term) of the white and black populations reaching out to each other and promoting mutual respect. Most whites, however, saw the Harlem Renaissance not in terms of equality but entertainment, and when the prosperity of the 1920s faded, so did the ideals of equality and respect

Administrative Government

A form of government in which agencies, commissions, boards, etc.—a bureaucracy—function continuously to ensure the efficient operation of the government on a daily basis, to promote decision-making on the basis of merit rather than political connection, and to provide more protection of the public interest. Emerging in the Progressive Era, administrative government developed in response to the problems raised by industrialization, urbanization, and the charges of political corruption in the Gilded Age. The increase in the complexity, size, and demands of society revealed that the legislature and the judiciary—which act only sporadically on social problems--were inadequate to meet the needs of an industrial, urban nation. Because most of these agencies are in the executive branch, their existence has tended to increase the scope and power of the presidency. As the society become more complex and concerns about prosperity and national security became greater (especially during and after the Great Depression and World War II), the size and activity of these agencies increased as did the national government.

Black Cabinet

A group of more than 50 young blacks who worked for the government during the New Deal and who met weekly at the home of Mary McLeod Bethune to discuss problems and plan strategy. This is significant because, while the New Deal does not have a specific civil rights policy, it does give hope to minorities and draws them into the Democratic party, helping to create the Roosevelt coalition which made the Democratic party, although a collection of often warring interests, the majority party from 1932 to at least 1968.

Fair Labor Standards Act

A measure passed in 1938, this act set a minimum wage (40 cents/hour), a maximum workweek (40 hours), and prohibited child labor in industries engaged in interstate commerce. An example of the Later New Deal, this legislation was intended to fight the Depression by helping people rather than businesses and by raising prices and business activity through increased demand by giving people more buying power (rather than raising prices through decreased supply as in the Early New Deal).

Collective Security

A plan among nations to take concerted action against military aggression in order to defend international peace and security. Organizations such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the Hague Tribunal are passed on this concept as are such treaties as the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the North Atlantic Treaty. Collective Security marks a move away from the old Balance of Power system.

Fundamentalism

A religious movement based on a pamphlet published in 1910, "The Fundamentals," which identified five elements of belief which were claimed to be common to all Christians. These included the immaculate conception, the virgin birth, the vicarious atonement, the resurrection, and the inerrant Bible. By the 1920s fundamentalists sought to purge the Christian faith of a growing number of modernists who accepted such ideas as evolution which the fundamentalists believed to be contrary to the Fundamentals. This became a major part of the conflict between modernism and traditionalism which characterized the 1920s.

Concentration Camps

A term for any walled or fenced area for keeping prisoners, usually during war, but especially identified during World War II with Nazi Germany's internment camps for Jews who were used for labor or experiments and six million of whom, as part of the Holocaust, were killed by poison gas or starvation. They are an example of the potential of human beings to be totally unfeeling and destructive of others, especially when caught up in a belief in absolute ideas (whatever their source) which supposedly hold the truth and must be realized.

Great Crash

A term for the stock market crash of 1929. See Crash of 1929.

Flapper

A young woman in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed her hair, smoked, drank, danced the Charleston, and engaged in casual sex and became a symbol of women's desire for liberation from traditional restrictions and for equality with men as well as the whole generation's disillusionment with traditional values after the war.

Hepburn Act

Act passed in 1906 under Theodore Roosevelt which broadened the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission and gave it the right to investigate and enforce rates in cases brought before it. It is exemplary of Roosevelt's policy of regulating the corporations so that they would operate for the good of the whole society. But it also shows that Roosevelt did not bust the trusts for the sake of destroying them (only to prove he had the power to regulate) because the act was a compromise in that the ICC could not act unless a case was brought to it.

First New Deal

Also known as the Early New Deal, this was FDR's approach to fighting the depression from 1933 to 1935. This approach involved measures to provide relief, recovery, and reform, but its central objective was the recovery of business. It therefore focused on helping business so that government action such as relief for the destitute would be only temporary. This was based on the view that the depression was the result of overproduction and therefore supply should be reduced to raise prices and make businesses profitable. To control production, the government (through the National Industrial Recovery Act, 1933) encouraged whole industries to engage in self-regulation through fair practice codes under the supervision of the National Recovery Administration. This benefited big businesses most and produced so many codes that small businesses and big businesses soon complained. The Supreme Court declared the NIRA unconstitutional in the "sick chicken case" of Schechter v. U.S. (1935).

Esch-Cummins Act

Also known as the Railroad Transportation Act of 1920, it ended the wartime control of the railroads by the government, returned them to the private sector (contrary to demand for governmental ownership), and directed the Interstate Commerce Commission to plan a consolidation of the railroads into 20 to 35 systems. Hence, while the act also increased the ICC in size (11 members) and in responsibilities (set rates to yield returns of no more than 6% of the estimated value of the railroads) and while it established a Railroad Labor Board which proved unworkable and died in 1926, Congress had virtually reversed the Progressives' goal of regulating big business and trying to prevent consolidation and monopolistic practices. The Esch-Cummins Act is symbolic of the return to a policy of government-business cooperation and of the renewed consolidation movement of the 1920s.

Holocaust

Also known as the shoah, this was an act of genocide, Hitler's effort to exterminate the Jewish people which resulted in the loss of over 6 million lives preceding and during World War II. It led to new efforts to promote human rights worldwide and to establish a homeland for the Jewish people, leading to the establishment of Israel in 1948.

The Clayton Anti—Trust Act

Anti-trust measure of 1914 (passed under Wilson) which prohibited unfair trading practices, outlawed interlocking directorates, made it illegal for corporations to buy stock in other corporations if this tended to reduce competition, and exempted labor from prosecution under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This act was significant as an example of Wilson's legislative agenda, the New Freedom, which intended to restore freedom to compete and freedom to organize so that governmental regulation would no longer be necessary. Labor's exemption from government injunctions, known as the Magna Carta of labor, was soon violated and overturned in Duplex Printing Press v.Deering (1921).

Churchill, Winston

British statesman and Conservative party leader who led Britain to victory during World War II and although a great ally of the U.S. who was suspicious of Stalin and the U.S.S.R., he also disagreed with the U.S. about such matters as keeping the British Empire (while the U.S. preferred self-determination for all countries) and using balance of power politics and spheres of influence (while the U.S. wanted universalism--a single world-wide system of free nations and free trade). Churchill warned FDR and the world of the dangers of Stalin and international communism.

Cash and Carry

Cash and carry was originally a part of the Neutrality Act of 1937, designed to avoid US loans to belligerents and US merchant vessels entering war zones by making the belligerent power pay cash for purchases and carry those purchases back to their homelands in their own vessels. In essence, the US was attempting to avoid entanglements that might result in US participation in another war. The US continued to sell merchandise to the Allies (but not the Axis) after the War began on a cash and carry basis.

Fair Employment Practices Agency

Commission known as the FEPC and established in 1942 to carry out FDR's Executive Order 8802 which stated there would be no discrimination in war industries or government service on account of race, creed, color, or national origin. FDR issued this order to prevent A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (one of the most powerful black organizations of the day), from leading a march on Washington to protest discrimination against minorities in industry and in housing (as blacks and Hispanics moved into cities, forming ghettos). The FEPC opened up jobs, but discrimination and frustration persisted ending in strikes, a race riot in Detroit in 1943, and an attack on Hispanic "zoot-suiters" in Los Angeles. The FEPC also inspired some black leaders at the end of World War II to argue that the federal government had made a commitment to promote equal civil rights for all.

Eighteenth Amendment

Constitutional Amendment ratified in 1919 which outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. Put into effect by the Volstead Act, prohibition was the culmination of a campaign dating back to the 1820s, and its advocates (the moralistic Progressives) saw it as a means of reforming the whole society morally. The war effort and the identification of beer and spirits with evil and Germans (Coors, Busch, Schlitz, Hamms) promoted its passage. As a social experiment in raising and controlling people's morals, it failed but still exemplified one of the ways some people sought to use the government in the 20th century. Many circumvented the ban, leading not only to widespread lawbreaking by common citizens and to the idea that "unreasonable" laws should not apply to "me" but also to the enrichment and solidification of organized crime as a form of big business. The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th in 1933.

Fascism

Created by Benito Mussolini, this political and economic philosophy which combines organic nationalism and a belief in intuition and heroic action (as opposed to reason, democratic discussion, and bourgeois materialism) with the purpose of creating a civilization in which the masses find their identity and meaning in the nation and its supreme leader and fulfillment through the state but which produces a totalitarian society and virtual dictatorship. This philosophy began to develop in the late 19th century as a reaction against what some saw as the looming death of western civilization (from decay, weakness, and boredom) and the need revitalize the urban, industrialized, materialistic masses with appeals to instincts and will power rather than culture, to myths rather than history, to self-proclaimed truth rather than debate, to ethnic purity rather than diversity and individual rights. The results included ultra-nationalistic states such as Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini, war, and the Holocaust.

Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy

Dispute within the Taft Administration (1909-1913) over conservation in 1909-1910 which led to an open break between President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt and helped convince TR that he should run for the presidency again in 1912, thereby assuring Taft's defeat. The disagreement also crystallized the division in the Republican party between the Old Guard who were conservatives representing the interests of big business and the Insurgents who were progressive reformers calling for regulations on business which they believed would benefit society as a whole. Taft had a good record on many progressive issues including conservation, but he often sided with the Old Guard. A series of developments completely alienated the Insurgents from Taft in 1909-1910: the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, Taft's railroad bill, and the Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy. In the latter case, many conservationists became concerned about Taft's policies when his Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, attempted to reopen for private development millions of acres earlier set aside as public lands by Roosevelt. Those concerns peaked when Louis Glavis (an Interior Department investigator) informed Gifford Pinchot (Chief Forester of the US and TR's personal friend) that Ballinger had arranged, for personal profit, to turn over government coal lands in Alaska to a syndicate headed by J.P. Morgan and David Guggenheim. Pinchot went to Taft who sided with Ballinger and dismissed Glavis and then Pinchot when he refused to drop the matter. Pinchot went to Italy to see Roosevelt who was just returning from a big game safari in Africa. Roosevelt considered Taft's actions a personal attack on him and his conservation policy. Passions ran as high on this as on any issue of the time, and the party division would lead to the election of the Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

Corporatism

Economically, fascism is a middle way between socialism and capitalism. Keeping the market system, fascist governments controlled the economy and entrepreneurs through government regulation. Corporate businessmen cooperated with fascist governments because they were protected by the government from competition. Fascist countries nationalized basic services such as oil, transportation, and public utilities. Most fascist leaders (Hitler and Mussolini, for example) started out as men of the left (socialists). It was Stalin who denounced them and labeled them "right-wingers" for their merging of socialism and capitalism.

Battle of the Supreme Court (Court Packing Plan)

F.D. Roosevelt's failed attempt in 1937 to increase the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to a potential fifteen in an effort to create a Court more sympathetic to New Deal measures. The Court had ruled against several New Deal measures in 1935 and 1936 and threatened to overturn several more, so after his landslide reelection in 1936, FDR decided that the Court was thwarting the will of the people. He proposed legislation allowing the president to appoint another justice for each one who was over 70 and who refused to retire. FDR's opponents accused him of trying to pack the court, undermine the Constitution, and become a virtual dictator. The effort failed and marked the beginning of a decline in FDR's political power on domestic issues, but the battle also marked a near revolution for the court which afterward began to support New Deal measures and to reverse the conservative positions which it had taken since the mid-1880s, giving more power to the federal government and less to the states and property-holders.

Brain Trust

F.D. Roosevelt's informal cabinet of experts, mainly from the universities and headed by Raymond Moley, who advised him on early New Deal legislation. The presence of these intellectuals in the administration opened FDR to criticism for being too theoretical and impractical, but it is more representative of the fact that FDR's administration was composed of a number of conflicting, disagreeing elements, making Washington into a battleground of contending interest groups which FDR used and borrowed from as he wished. FDR was not theoretical, and the New Deal was not a planned effort with a precise goal but a try-anything, shotgun approach. The Brain Trust is also known as the Brains Trust.

Fireside Chats

F.D. Roosevelt's radio broadcasts which were designed to explain his programs to the American people and which reveal FDR's ability to appeal to the public and restore public confidence, something which Hoover had been unable to do. They symbolize the fact that the New Deal was a personal creation of FDR and his buoyant, optimistic personality, his ability to use the media to obtain popular support, and his expansion of presidential powers. These radio broadcasts restored hope to many Americans.

Federal Trade Commission

Federal agency established in September 1914 on Wilson's recommendation to regulate corporations and act against those accused of unfair trade practices and of restricting competition. It is an example of Wilson's New Freedom program in its attempt to restore competition and to encourage people to be moral and therefore make government action unnecessary. Individual corporate officers could be held accountable and therefore not be allowed to hide behind the impersonal, amoral corporation. The five-member commission was ultimately less successful than expected because Wilson appointed people who identified with business and because the war and postwar situations changed the social climate and encouraged consolidation.

Child Labor Act

Federal legislation of 1916 banning the interstate shipment of goods manufactured by children under the age of 14. The culmination of Progressive efforts since 1904 and of state laws, this was designed to reduce the use of young children in factories for long hours and low pay. It is significant because in 1918 the Supreme Court, continuing its conservative interpretation from the 1880s, in Hammer v. Dagenhart declared the act unconstitutional because it dealt with local labor conditions, not commerce.

Espionage and Sedition Acts

Federal legislation passed respectively in 1917 and 1918 to suppress dissent and criticism of the war effort. The Espionage Act (1917) made illegal any interference with recruiting troops, any resistance to laws, or any release of information jeopardizing national security. The Sedition Act (1918) made it a crime to criticize by speech or writing the government or Constitution of the U.S. Under these acts, the government arrested over 1500 people for disloyalty, suggesting society may agree to curtail freedoms if people think national security is threatened, a condition which was fairly common for much of the 20th century. Similar restrictions would appear later.

American Federation of Labor

Federation of craft unions founded in 1881 by Samuel Gompers which broke with the Knights of Labor in 1886 and which organized skilled workers only and avoided political reforms while emphasizing immediate, realizable "bread and butter" issues such as higher wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions. This left the vast majority of workers, who were unskilled, without effective organization until the 1930s. In the 1930s, as different attitudes toward labor organizations emerged, this was remedied with the alliance between the AFL and the CIO.

Archduke Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne who was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia by Gavrilo Princip (a member of the Black Hand, a Serbian terrorist organization seeking to promote Serbian nationalism and free Bosnia from Austrian control) on June 28, 1914 (the Serbian holiday and anniversary of the battle of the field of blackbirds of 1389 when the Turks defeated the Serbs, took Kosovo, and confirmed their hold on much of the Balkans--thereby establishing the basis for many of the conflicts which still plague the Balkans). Ferdinand's death led the Austro-Hungarian government in Vienna to make demands on Serbia which caused it to turn to Russia for assistance which brought orders for mobilization and, on August 4, the beginning of World War I.

Bunau-Varilla, Philippe:

French engineer and heavy investor in the French-owned New Panama Canal Co. who helped convince Theodore Roosevelt (after the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901 allowed the U.S. to build a canal across Central America) that the US should build that canal across the Isthmus of Panama (and buy out the New Panama Canal Co.) rather than through Nicaragua. When Colombia rejected the terms of the Hay-Herran Treaty (1903) with the U.S., Bunau-Varilla let Roosevelt know that the Panamanians were ready to revolt from Colombia, and when they did revolt in November 1903, Roosevelt immediately recognized the new Republic of Panama which promptly sent Bunau-Varilla as minister to Washington to revise the Hay-Herran Treaty as the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903), granting the U.S. a zone 10 miles wide from sea to sea in perpetuity for a $10 million payment and rent of $250,000 annually. The New Panama Canal Co. received $40 million. The U.S. guaranteed the independence of the Republic of Panama and built the Panama Canal between 1904 and 1914, insuring Panama would become a protectorate of the U.S.

Federal Housing Administration

Government agency created in 1934 to increase loans for construction or repair of houses, insure home mortgages, reduce down payments, and increase the length of home mortgage loans. This was part of the Early New Deal effort to encourage the construction industry and the banks to increase housing construction as a means of restoring business activity, providing jobs, and building houses for the common man.

Bank Holiday

In one of the first major acts of his administration, Franklin D. Roosevelt closed the nation's banks from March 6 to March 15, 1933, to forestall additional bank failures and stabilize the banking system. Some states had already closed all their banks, thereby threatening the ability of businesses to operate and making the depression worse. The Holiday is significant because it restores public confidence and saves the banks and the banking system and, hence, capitalism. It suggests that FDR did not want to establish socialism or some version of it, as is sometimes maintained, because in the crisis of that moment, he could have nationalized the banks and did not.

Federal Reserve Act

Major banking reform measure passed during the Wilson Administration in December 1914 which created a decentralized banking system (with the U.S. divided into 12 districts, each with a Federal Reserve Bank) under a centralized administration (the Federal Reserve Board) which was designed to provide a flexible currency system, reduce the power of the finance capitalists, and create a national banking system which would be able to moderate the extremes of the business cycle. This was the U.S.'s first truly national banking system since Andrew Jackson destroyed the second Bank of the United States in the 1830s. It was believed at the time that through government control they would end future panics (recessions and depressions).

Indian Reorganization Act

Measure passed in 1934 to enable Native Americans to regain a sense of self-esteem and overcome the poverty of the reservations by ending the assimilation efforts and allotment system of the Dawes Act, by establishing tribal governments (with powers like those of cities), by allowing tribal members the opportunity to vote to return their individual lands to tribal control (which most rejected), and by encouraging the revival of their traditional cultures. The person most responsible was John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1933 to 1945 when he resigned as a result of efforts to return to a policy of assimilation. Those opposed attacked it as a segregationist policy and as a conspiracy to promote pagan religions and communism. It is symbolic of the New Deal's willingness to try new approaches and of the opposition's inclination to see those efforts as undermining the American way.

Carranza, Venustiano

Mexican leader who ultimately carried out the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) and put the Mexican Constitution of 1917 into effect. Coming to power in August 1914 as the third leader of the revolution (after Francisco Madero and Victoriano Huerta), Carranza overcame widespread turmoil including various regional warlords such as Francisco "Pancho" Villa. Carranza is most significant for the U.S. because he represents how Wilson's Missionary Diplomacy almost led to disaster. Carranza favored representative government and social reforms, but he wanted Mexicans to control Mexico and therefore resisted Wilson's suggestions, leading Wilson to support Villa and then, after Villa's attack on Americans, to the intervention of U.S. troops (U.S. Expeditionary Force) in Mexico, chasing Villa but clashing with regular troops and nearly causing war.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

Multinational treaty of 1928 which outlawed war and was eventually signed by 62 nations, including the U.S. This is an example of the inclination of the U.S. in the 1920s to engage in escapism and idealism. The U.S. refused to join the League of Nations, but it signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact because it allowed the U.S. to act as a moral leader of the world (advocating peace) and simultaneously avoid any responsibility if the peace was broken (retaining isolationism). When Japan broke the pact in 1931, the U.S. condemned Japan as immoral but took no other action.

Civilian Conservation Corps

New Deal agency established in 1933 to put young, urban unemployed men to work on projects designed to preserve the nation's resources. The men usually worked and lived in camps (room and board supplied) and had $25 of their $30 monthly wages sent directly to their families. The program helped both destitute families and the society at large, and it shows that FDR favored traditional values such as the work ethic rather than welfare (direct payment by government). People had to have a job before they received any payment. The work of the CCC provided some of the infrastructure of the national park system.

Frontier of Europe

New realization about the nature of American culture which developed after 1918. Prior to this, Americans had thought of themselves as creating a new society free of the corruption of Europe. But now Americans came to see themselves as an advanced model of western civilization rather than something new.

Balance of Power

One of several methods by which nations have tried to achieve national security. This method became the traditional one in Europe between the 1400s when it began to be used by the Italian city-states such as Florence and Milan and the 1800s when the European nation-states created a balance following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. This concept of international relations is based on shared ideas and practices and assumes that all nations in the region must be prepared to engage in shifting coalitions and even war in order to prevent any one nation from gaining hegemony and dominating all the others. It is therefore a practical-minded approach rather than idealistic and does not anticipate the possibility of eliminating self-interest or conflict or war but only the goal of keeping those inclinations under control by using countervailing power. Partly because it considered national interests ineradicable and was limited in its goals, leaders in the U.S. criticized it in the early 20th century for contributing to the coming of World War I. This U.S. criticism has been seen as a sign that the U.S. is too extreme in its foreign policy inclinations--rather than cooperate in the uncertain and difficult world of shifting alliances and self-interests, the U.S. seems to want clear, quick, certain resolutions which lead it to withdraw from the world in isolationism or try to dominate the world through mission. One of the nations most responsible for the balance of power approach was Great Britain which in the 1500s began to ally with The Netherlands and the Rhineland states to prevent Spain and then France from controlling areas which would facilitate an invasion of Britain.

Margaret Sanger

One of the most prominent feminists to champion the eugenic agenda.The leader of the American birth control movement. Margaret Sanger saw birth control as a means to lower the number of minorities (blacks), low-intelligence whites, and prevent unwanted children from being born into a disadvantaged life. Sanger also sought to discourage the reproduction of persons who, it was believed, would pass on mental disease or serious physical defects. She advocated sterilization (forced if necessary) in cases where the subject was unable to use birth control.

Agricultural Marketing Act

Passed in 1929 under Hoover, this legislation established the Federal Farm Board which was to supervise a voluntary program of marketing among farmers in order to overcome the problems of over-production and low prices from which farmers had been suffering since 1919. The board was to promote the formation of farm cooperatives and establish stabilization corporations (guaranteeing the cooperatives against losses). The cooperatives bought farm products in large amounts and forced up prices, but when the depression hit after the stock market crash of 1929, prices dropped further on world markets and the cooperatives were stuck with large surpluses, bought at high prices. The effort failed and was abolished in 1933. One significance of this act was that it is exemplary of the attitudes of the Republican administrations of the twenties which sought to use the market, volunteer organizations, and corporate activity--with the support and aid of the government--to solve economic problems, while reasserting a belief in laissez faire economics as had been done in the late 19th century.

Dewey, John (1859-1952)

Philosopher and educator who developed a form of Pragmatism known as Instrumentalism which argues that ideas are tools for action and that education should emphasize the development of practical, experimental, creative intelligence which would better solve problems and social conflicts. The aim of life was not to reach perfection and, hence, a limiting end but to develop a process which could be used to transform the self continually to adjust to the continuing changes in life. Dewey is best-known as the leader of the progressive education movement who argued that schools should be child-centered rather than subject oriented and that students should learn by doing.

Danbury Hatters Case

Popular name for the case, Loewe v. Lawler (1908), in which the Supreme Court ruled that trade unions were subject to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act because secondary boycotts were conspiracies in restraint of trade and that union members could be held personally libel for money lost by a business during a strike. This case confirmed Samuel Gompers' opinion that political action should be avoided, and it further weakened labor unions.

Anti-Semitism

Prejudice against people who are Jewish. This has created discrimination, hatred, and violence, dating back to early Christian communities as a result of the association of Jews with the cruxifiction of Jesus and including attacks on Jewish communities at various times from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, attacks designed to remove Jews, often totally, from different countries. The worst of these outbursts of Anti-Semitism and the most deadly effort at genocide for the Jews occurred in Nazi Germany during World War II when six million plus died in the concentration camps, a slaughter of innocent people known as the holocaust or shoah.

Dollar Diplomacy

President Taft's foreign policy which emphasized securing opportunities for U.S. business investments overseas and protecting those investments. According to Taft, such investments would serve a double purpose. They would increase US business and trade, and they would improve the economic conditions in and therefore the stability of these other countries (especially in Latin America), thereby making U.S. military intervention unnecessary. More trade, prosperity, stability, and peace would all result. But this also meant that, if necessary, the flag would follow (and protect) the dollar sign.

Disney, Walt

Producer of animated cartoons and movies whose Mickey Mouse and other characters illustrated morals and boosted morale in the thirties and after. The fame of these characters and the success of Disney as a company are indications of the growing world wide influence of American culture after World War I.

Arabic Pledge

Promise by the German ambassador on September 1, 1915 that Germany would not attack ocean liners without warning, a public promise which was in accord with a private German government policy of June 6 which ordered U-boats not to sink liners. The proximate or immediate cause of this pledge was the German sinking of the British liner Arabic and the loss of 2 American lives on August 19, 1915. But it was part of a series of developments brought by German submarine warfare and U.S. policies, including benevolent neutrality and strict accountability. The latter, announced by Wilson on February 6, 1915 and reiterated after the Lusitania sinking on May 7, declared that the U.S. would hold Germany to strict accountability for any loss of life or property as a result of submarine warfare, thereby suggesting the possibility of war. This policy seemed to put the U.S. in the position of being forced to react to whatever the Germans did, and when the Germans sank the French steamer, Sussex, in March 1916, many in the U.S. saw it as a violation of the Arabic pledge and brought pressure on Wilson to declare war. Wilson refused then, but war came in April 1917.

Commission Plan

Proposal for reforming municipal government during the Progressive Era which revealed the Progressive emphasis on order and efficiency. First instituted in Galveston, Texas in 1901 after a hurricane had destroyed that city, this plan spread to other cities across the country as a means of dealing with the problems created by industrialization and urbanization, especially rapid growth, inadequate services, boss government, and corruption. The Commission Plan established a new form of city government that combined executive, legislative, and administrative powers in the hands of a five or six person body. Each commissioner was responsible for a different aspect of the city's operation—one for streets, one for fire and police, one for parks and public areas, one for water and sewage. A mayor would have equal powers with the other members of the commission. Each was supposed to be an expert in his area of responsibility, and all would run for office in a city-wide election. The city-wide elections and the elimination of the city council tended to weaken boss government and reduce corruption, but they also reduced the ability of the minorities in the various wards to express their needs and interests, a sign of the belief that immigrants and minorities were inferior and easily manipulated by the unscrupulous. Progressives favoring the Commission Plan advocated it as a means of promoting the interest of the public as a whole by having experts in charge who would act in a disinterested, fair way while providing more order, more and better services, and less corruption, all of which would mean, they claimed, a more democratic society. But if democracy means an opportunity for all to be heard and not just the majority, then democracy suffered. Under the Commission Plan, those individuals and minorities with interests and concerns unrepresented by the majority lost power and opportunity.

Coldspot

Refrigerator with a streamline design which came to symbolize the electrical appliances which lightened work for many women in the thirties and altered American life.

Black Hand

Serbian nationalist-terrorist organization a member of which (Gavrilo Princip) on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, Bosnia assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and thereby provided one of the immediate causes of the "Great War" or World War I (August 2, 1914-November 11, 1918). The Black Hand is also significant because it represents one of the underlying causes of the war—ethnic nationalism. This form of nationalism arose in the latter half of the 19th century, and according to it, governments should restrict full citizenship in that state to those denizens who had the proper ethnicity (physical characteristics, culture, history). It also suggests, therefore, that every ethnic group (people with common identifiable characteristics) should have its own nation-state. Ethnic nationalism also meant that the people of each country were inclined to think the worst of the people of other countries; hence, each nationality was more inclined to go to war and, once at war, to fight to the finish. By the early 20th century, such nationalistic feelings were strong especially among the minority populations in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian Empire. The Black Hand wanted all areas with Serbs within the Austro-Hungarian Empire to be freed so that they could join Serbia, a cause which took on new intensity after Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia in 1909. The attack on Franz Ferdinand became more likely when he dared to visit Sarajevo on the Serbian national holiday of June 28 (the day of the Battle of Black Bird Field in 1289 in which the Serbs lost to the Turks, thereby contributing to the Balkans becoming a turbulent mix of people with different cultures and religions—Islamic, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic—a differentiation which came to be identified as ethnic and unbridgeable although many of the Muslims, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholics had similar backgrounds other than their faiths).

Hoovervilles

Shantytowns which grew up on the edges of large cities during the early years of the Great Depression and whose names indicate how President Hoover was blamed for people's suffering. Ironically, Hoover had done more than any previous president to try to end the depression, but he did not believe in direct government aid (welfare) and his efforts had not succeeded.

Fit to Fight

Slogan of the Commission on Training Camp Activities which indicated their desire to keep American fighting men free of alcohol, venereal disease, and other sins--an extension of the efforts of Progressives to eradicate social evils throughout the U.S. The argument that such reforms were necessary as patriotic measures and in order to fight the war more effectively led to such successes as the 18th Amendment and the mass closing of prostitution houses and districts in cities. This is symbolic of the moralistic attitudes by some Progressives and, in comparison to other countries, by the U.S. generally, as shown by the French offer to provide U.S. troops with licensed prostitutes as they did for their own and the response of Secretary of War Newton Baker that if Wilson finds out, "he'll stop the war." It also shows the willingness of some progressive Americans to use the government to impose their moral values on the whole society.

The Jungle

Socialist novel written by Upton Sinclair which described unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing industry so graphically that it inspired the passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. Sinclair had written the novel to arouse the public to act in favor of the workers and thereby inspire political reform. Instead, he inspired two consumer protection acts: the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Roosevelt said the revelations threatened U.S. exports of meat.

Anthracite Coal Strike

Strike by United Mine Workers in 1902 in Pennsylvania to protest low wages, long hours, and unsafe working conditions which was settled as the result of Theodore Roosevelt's intervention which forced the mine owners to accept arbitration. This is significant because it shows Roosevelt's attitudes toward economic issues and because it shows the owners' attitudes toward their businesses and labor. After the arbitration commission granted the workers a 10% raise, a 9-hour day, and a board of conciliation (but no union recognition) to help negotiate future disputes, many people saw Roosevelt as pro-labor, but Roosevelt only intended to have the president act as a mediator, balancing the different interests and forces in society to serve the best interest of the society as a whole, while leading the nation as the central figure in the national government. The attitude of the mine owners seemed to require his action because they refused to even talk to the miners, and as winter approached, the lack of coal threatened homes with inadequate heat and the nation with inadequate power. The owners said that God had given them their property and that they knew what was best concerning it. Roosevelt forced them to accept arbitration.

Boston Police Strike

Strike in September 1919 by Boston policemen after the police commissioner refused to recognize their union or allow it to join the AFof L and fired those who had brought the proposal. One of a series of strikes across the U.S., it contributed to a fear of labor activism and to the Red Scare of 1919-1920. The result was that the mayor broke the strike by using the state militia, and Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge became famous as an advocate of law and order and won the vice-presidential nomination for the Republicans in 1920 as a result of calling out the state guard and making the comment, "there is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime." Efforts by workingmen to improve conditions were treated, not as signs of real grievances, but as seditious activities organized by foreign or radical agitators.

Insular Cases

Supreme Court cases of 1901, dealing with Puerto Rico, which stipulated that the US Constitution and the privileges of citizenship and constitutional rights do not automatically apply to people living in territory annexed to the US but only as and when Congress sees fit. This meant that the US could keep the territories acquired after the Spanish-American War and not offer the inhabitants equality under the Constitution. US officials maintained that the US would so govern these territories only temporarily until they were deemed ready for self-rule.

Income Tax

Tax on incomes which was made possible by the 16th Amendment of 1913. Enacted along with the Underwood Tariff of 1913, it was imposed partially to counter the loss of revenues from the lower tariff of 1913, partially as a result of demands by farmers and workers to have a more equitable tax. It was the third income tax because the Union had imposed an income tax during the Civil War, and a second income tax was passed in 1894 and declared unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. (1895). The tax of 1913 was a graduated tax so that those who had a larger income paid more in taxes. Initially, the tax was low, and only a small portion of the population made enough income to fall under the tax.

D-Day Invasion

The Allied attack against the German positions in Normandy on June 6, 1944 which was the beginning of the defeat of Germany in France and on the western front during World War II. But this is also significant because it points out that for three years (from June 1941 when Germany attacked the U.S.S.R.), the majority of the Axis-Allied fighting in Europe occurred on the eastern front, mostly within the U.S.S.R. The Soviet Union had asked that a second (western) front be opened in 1942, and when it was delayed, the Russians began to wonder about the West's intentions. D-Day was delayed partly because Britain and the U.S. wanted to assure its success, and by June 1944, success was much more likely because beginning in 1942 at the battle of Stalingrad, the Russians had begun to push the Germans back. The U.S.S.R. played the major role in defeating Germany.

Atlantic Charter

The Atlantic Charter was the product of the Atlantic Conference, a meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill held off of the coast of Newfoundland in August, 1941, to discuss purchasing policies, general strategy, and postwar aims. The Atlantic Charter consisted of Allied war aims, and, in many respects, resembles Wilson's 14 Points. The aims include 1. No territorial changes not in accord with the wishes of the people 2. the right of all people to choose their own government 3. restoration of self-government to those forcibly deprived of it 4. equal access for all nations to world trade and raw materials 5. economic collaboration of all nations to improve the material status of all 6. freedom from fear and want 7. freedom of the seas 8. disarmament after the war.

FDIC

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was created in 1933 by the Glass-Steagall Act. It insured individual deposits in national banks (members of the Federal Reserve System) and those state banks arranging to participate, originally up to $5,000. This was part of FDR's effort to stabilize the banks by restoring public confidence in them.

Industrial Workers of the World

The IWW was a militant, leftist (Marxist/Communist) radical labor organization formed in 1905 in Chicago under the leadership of "Big Bill" Haywood which called for the end of capitalism and the wage labor system by uniting all workers, regardless of gender, race, or skill, into one big union which would be irresistible. Organized by Eugene Debs, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, and Daniel De Leon as well as Haywood, the Wobblies (as the members were known) were workers in the most menial occupations with the greatest numbers among miners, lumberjacks, and migratory workers in the West and textile workers in the East. After conducting a number of strikes and arousing considerable animosity, the IWW was suppressed during World War I on the grounds that it was a treasonous and seditious organization because it opposed U.S. entry into the war. It reveals that the Progressive Era included a wide range of political positions including socialism which many saw as the best means of obtaining social justice.

Hiroshima

The Japanese city which was the target of the first atomic bomb, dropped on August 6, 1945. Three-fifths of the city was immediately demolished. The Japanese surrendered after a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. The U.S. became the first and only nation to ever use atomic weapons, and it did so on two civilian targets.

First Hundred Days

The beginning of FDR's first administration from March to June 1933 during which FDR proposed and Congress passed an unprecedented number of bills in such a brief time. This became the standard for measuring the success of subsequent administrations, but the quick action was possible (and unduplicated) not only because the Democrats controlled both branches but also because there was widespread demand for action to fight the depression and prevent social turmoil. This legislation formed the core of the Early New Deal.

Installment Buying

The concept of buying on time using credit. Developed in 1915 and used extensively in the 1920s, this system of payment allowed the customer to pay a small amount down at the time of purchase and then make subsequent payments at intervals until the item is paid off. In the 1920s this contributed to the development of the consumer goods revolution in which consumer goods (such as autos) replaced capital goods (such as steel) as the primary product of industry, and it allowed people to have immediate gratification and engage in personal deficit financing, behavior which the traditionalists in society said was contributing to the ruin of the U.S. and its character. It is an example of how the twenties were characterized by a clash of cultures--pitting the young, urban modernists against the older, more rural traditionalists. Also contributed to personal debt.

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

The early New Deal's principal means of trying to solve the farm problem of overproduction and low prices (which had existed since ca. 1919), the AAA (established in 1933) sought to control and reduce production of basic commodities such as wheat, corn, cotton, and milk in an effort to raise prices and provide the farmers with parity or buying power equal to other sectors of the economy as measured (initially) by the buying power of the period 1909-1914. To do this, the government granted subsidies to farmers in return for not planting crops. This policy also favored larger farm operations and forced poor farmers and tenants off the land, often causing more human suffering while prices rose but also undermining sharecropping in the South. Many in the Midwest (Okies) went to California; blacks in the South began to move to cities. The Supreme Court declared the AAA unconstitutional in U.S. v. Butler (1936), but Congress restored it in 1938 after FDR had replaced several Supreme Court justices with judges who agreed with his ideas.

Great Depression

The economic downturn which lasted from 1929 to 1941 and constituted the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. At its nadir in 1932-33, it involved massive business failure, unemployment rates of 25% and up, personal incomes reduced by half and more, the near collapse of the banking system, industry operating at 12 to 20% of capacity, and a widespread loss of confidence accompanied by growing resentment. The New Deal eased but did not end these conditions. It ended when the U.S. began to become involved in World War II which increased government spending in massive amounts (the biggest single New Deal annual budget was $8 billion, the biggest annual budget during WWII was $100 billion) and which put nearly everyone to work. The desire for national security and to win the war overcame the ideology of laissez faire economics which had limited government spending during the New Deal. People will spend anything for war but relatively little for social justice or poverty.

Destroyers for Bases

The exchange of 50 older U.S. ships to Britain in September 1940 for the U.S. right to take 99 year leases on naval and air bases on British territory in the western hemisphere. This is an example of how FDR avoided violating isolationist law and sentiment while providing aid to Britain which was, after June 1940, under dire threat as the only power actively opposing the Axis powers. FDR presented the agreement as a means of strengthening U.S. defenses and making its action outside the western hemisphere unnecessary.

The Jazz Singer

The first big hit movie which had sound, released in 1927 and starring Al Jolson. The first sound or "talking" movie was Don Juan, released in 1926. The Jazz Singer assured that the "talkies" would replace silent movies, a development which led to the expansion of the movie industry into one of the most influential and representative activities of the 20th century--it was in the business of image making (and later creating celebrities and their celebration) and could influence masses of people quickly in many places at once. Moreover, the movies sold the new lifestyle of the young modernists and therefore represented another threat to the traditionalists.

Conservation

The idea of protecting the environment which began to become prominent in the late 19th century and which took two competing forms: one version (touted by Theodore Roosevelt ca. 1900) called for conserving natural resources so that they can be used effectively as a national and business necessity, the other version (advanced by naturalist John Muir ca. 1900) insisted on conserving areas of natural beauty as an end in itself. Only in the 1960s did a strong environmental protection movement emerge as a result of books such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) which points out the dangers of pesticides such as DDT. All these conservation efforts were responses to the traditional American culture of material advancement and immediate gratification which grew up in a land of apparently endless resources. That suggests shortages or lost opportunities could require major cultural adjustments which could cause significant social disruptions.

Great Migration North

The movement of blacks from the South to northern cities during World War I to work in war industries. This was first massive migration of blacks off the land and out of the South since Reconstruction. Blacks improved their standard of living and developed new expectations as a result of the war and the promises it seemed to make. The increased numbers of blacks in cities and their raised expectations about good jobs and equal rights led to black demands for equality, the right to vote, and the end of segregation (Wilson had said the U.S. was fighting to save the world for democracy). Those demands contributed to a white backlash in 1919 and after which involved the formation of the second Ku Klux Klan, race riots, and lynchings.

Business Pyramids:

The multi-leveled business structures composed largely of holding companies which, on paper, formed pyramids with as many as seven tiers of companies. Created during the 1920s, these pyramids were a primary way by which firms were consolidated into larger organizations during the 1920s--after the restrictions of the Progressive Era were removed. Under this method, consolidation occurred when individuals formed a holding company which then took control of two operating companies. A holding company does not conduct any operations or produce any products. It exists only to hold stock in and therefore control other companies which could be either operating companies or other holding companies. This meant that a relatively small amount of money could control a huge operation. The holding company at the top needed only enough capital to control the two holding companies below it; those two companies in turn could control four holding companies below them, etc. Because the pyramids were composed largely of holding companies controlling other holding companies, they were inherently unstable, and when the stock market crashed in 1929 and some of the companies failed, many of these pyramids collapsed. That weakened the banks that had often provided the capital to form the holding companies and undermined the economy generally. The significance of these pyramids is that they are an example of the speculative mood of the twenties and the decade's faith in capitalism and laissez faire economics as the unquestionable method of carrying on economic and social activity.

Allied Powers (Allies WW I)

The name generally used for Great Britain, France, and Russia during World War I (which prior to WWI were known as the Triple Entente), and, to be more precise, the name adopted (as World War I progressed) for the twenty-one nations (including the U.S. after 1917) which gradually joined with Great Britain, France, and Russia to win the war. Their adversaries in World War I (the Empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Turks) had been known as the Triple Alliance, but especially after 1917 became known as the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary being located in Central Europe). The Allied Powers were important because they won the war, but the term is also significant as an indicator of ethnocentrism (the belief that one's own culture and ethnic group is more important than others and is central to existence, so things must be defined according to it). Hence, after the U.S. entered World War I on the side of the Triple Entente (but as an associate power, not an official member of the alliance which would be contrary to U.S. traditions of isolationism and exceptionalism), those powers had to be the Allies and the allies of the Triple Alliance could not be the Allies.

Dust Bowl

The name given to a region of the western and southwestern Great Plains in the mid-1930s which suffered from severe drought. By 1934 winds raised dust storms five miles high making day like night and choking out the sun, crops, and livelihoods. The western parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska suffered as the topsoil blew away, forcing many off the land. Their plight was captured by John Steinbeck in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, in which he used the term "Okies" to refer to those who lost their land and sought work and a new life in California.

Axis Powers

The name given to the alliance (during World War II) initially between the fascist states, Germany (under Adolph Hitler) and Italy (under Benito Mussolini), which began with their cooperation during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-36 and the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 and became formal after Italy's withdrawal from the League of Nations in December 1937. Japan became the third member after it attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. They threatened to gain control of the world. Hitler wanted at least to control Europe; Mussolini wanted to restore the Roman Empire; and Japan wanted an empire in Eastern Asia.

Allies (WW II)

The name used for the nations which combined to defeat the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, Japan during World War II (1939 to 1945). These nations were also known as the United Nations after twenty-six signed the Declaration of the United Nations in January 1942. The leading powers--the United Kingdom (Britain), the U.S., and the U.S.S.R.--were also referred to as the Grand Alliance. The Allies are significant because they defeated the fascist powers and because they promoted both peace and war after 1945. They laid the basis for maintaining the postwar peace through an international organization (the United Nations) and their own cooperation, but they began to disagree about the purposes of the war (to achieve security through universalism or spheres of influence) and the meaning of their actions after 1945, leading to the Cold War.

GI

The name used for the regular American soldier during World War II. They symbolize the fact that the U.S. had to rely on citizen soldiers who early in the war had to be drafted and trained quickly. The GI's used their own initiative and creativity and have been praised for making a major contribution to the war effort.

Four Freedoms

The objectives FDR outlined for his third administration in a speech to Congress on January 6, 1941. The four, which he said were rights of all humans around the world, were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The Allies during World War II and the United Nations in the postwar period adopted these as goals to be attained for all people.

Eugenics Movement

The progressive social movement claiming to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilization. A hallmark of the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century, eugenicists believed they could lower (or eliminate) the inferior elements of society.

Crash of 1929

The rapid fall in the value of stocks in October 1929 which resulted from an uncontrolled boom period fed by overconfidence and speculation and which marked the onset of the Great Depression. The causes included a national mood of irrational exuberance in which everyone was supposed to get rich, the Federal Reserve artificially keeping interest rates low which caused personal and business debt, and an international trade situation to which the U.S. had become central and in which the U.S. needed to act as broker since it was the most important creditor nation after World War I but which the U.S. rejected insisting on payment of the debts owed to it from World War I, thereby causing instability on the world scene and helping to make the economic downturn after 1929 into a world-wide depression in the 1930s.

Big Stick Diplomacy

Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy calling for active, aggressive U.S. action to keep international order, thereby promoting US interests including peace, international trade, and (in Roosevelt's view) civilization among lesser cultures, especially in the Western Hemisphere. His big stick was the US navy with its new steel-plated battleships.

Creel Committee

This government agency, established by Congress in April 1917 under George Creel and appointed by Wilson, had the mission of uniting public opinion behind the war effort. The committee proceeded to try to create and shape public opinion by issuing ultra-nationalistic, often hate-filled propaganda, a practice which became known as political warfare. The result was a climate of hatred and fear in the U.S. which did not end with the war but continued into the postwar period when its anti-subversive, nationalistic attitudes were redirected against communists and anarchists, contributing to the Red Scare of 1919-1920.

Isolationism

Traditional belief about US foreign policy which was dominant for most of the 19th century and which argues that the US should practice a policy of non-involvement in overseas affairs both for practical and ideological reasons. The practical reasons, which were strongest in the early 19th century, have been that the US has a natural geographic security provided by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and that the US, as a land of immense natural resources, can exist on its own. The ideological reasons include the arguments 1) that if the US becomes too involved with Europe or the rest of the world, it will be corrupted and lose its ability to establish and maintain a free society and 2) that too much involvement will lead to military engagements and the necessity of maintaining a standing army which the founding fathers considered a threat to liberty.

Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty

Treaty negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and Philippe Bunau-Varilla, acting on behalf of Panama, by which the U.S. would build and fortify a canal across the isthmus in accordance with terms previously accorded Colombia in the ill-fated Hay-Heran Treaty. By those terms, the U.S. gained control of a 6-mile wide canal zone for 100 years with right of renewal in return for $10 million and $250,000 annually to be paid to Panama; in addition, the French Canal Company would received $40 million. As a result of this treaty, Panama became a U.S. protectorate, and the U.S. began building the canal.

Commission Government

Type of municipal government favored by progressive municipal reformers who wished to replace mayors and city councils with groups of nonpartisan administrators. First adopted in Galveston in 1901, this plan placed executive, administrative, and legislative powers in a five or six man commission with each commissioner responsible for a particular segment of city life such as police and fire or streets and drains and with each elected in a city-wide contest. The intentions included increasing the efficiency and reliability of government because each commissioner was to be an expert in his area and eliminating corruption because the bosses or machines which had controlled the different districts or wards of the cities (and therefore the council and mayor) would no longer have a power base. This would also supposedly protect democracy by preventing immigrants from selling their vote, but it also reduced the power of minorities who would be regularly outvoted by the majority.

Dawes Plan

U.S. plan of 1924 (devised by a commission headed by Charles Dawes) for reducing and extending the reparations payments owed by Germany to the Allies (according to the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I) after the German economy virtually collapsed in 1923. By borrowing extensively from the U.S., Germany met these revised payments until it faltered in 1929 when the Young Plan replaced the Dawes Plan. This plan is indicative of the unreasonableness and short-sightedness of the U.S. during the 1920s when it insisted that the Allies pay the $22 billion borrowed to fight the war. The Allies could not pay, but they pointed out that if Germany paid them the reparations, then they could pay the U.S. So the U.S. loaned money to Germany to pay the Allies to pay the U.S., and after the stock market crash of 1929, the loans stopped, and the international community dropped into a depression.

Good Neighbor Policy

U.S. policy toward Latin America initiated by Herbert Hoover but identified with FDR who expanded it, it reversed the Progressive Era's policy of intervention in Latin America and sought both good relations as the international situation became more unstable and dangerous in the 1930s and continued U.S. influence in Latin America by means other than force. The policy manifested itself in the removal of U.S. troops from Latin American countries, the Clark Memorandum which argued that the Roosevelt Corollary misinterpreted the Monroe Doctrine, and an agreement under FDR that no nation had the right to intervene in the affairs of another. U.S. influence continued through loans, the activities of the Export-Import Bank, the presence of American businesses in Latin America, and the rise to power of pro-U.S. dictators.

Bonus Army

Unemployed World War I veterans who marched on Washington and stayed from May to July 1932 to pressure Congress to vote for immediate payment of the extra compensation which had been promised to them for their wartime service. The bonus bill had been passed in 1924 but was not to pay out until 1945, but people began to propose using it to aid the veterans during the Depression. Congress passed a bill for a loan to veterans in February 1932, but Hoover vetoed it. Democratic Congressmen then proposed an immediate cash payment of the bonus, eliciting the arrival of 15,000 veterans in Washington. After the Senate defeated the measure in June, Hoover encouraged and then ordered the 2,000 veterans who remained to leave. When they resisted, the army under General Douglas MacArthur drove them by force of arms out of Washington. This affair made Hoover look heartless and uncaring, and it contributed to the tendency of people to make Hoover into a scapegoat for the Depression and people's suffering.

Fourteen Points

Wilson's peace plan of January 1918 which called for freedom of the seas, equal access to markets and raw materials, self-determination of all peoples, partial settlement of colonial claims, open negotiation of treaties, reduction of arms, and a League of Nations to preserve the peace. The Germans agreed to an armistice in November 1918 on the assumption that the Treaty of Versailles would be based on this plan, but for the most part it was not, leading to claims of betrayal in Germany.

CIO: Congress of Industrial Organization

a labor union which in the 1930s sought to organize unskilled workers in industrywide unions rather than separating them by skill or craft. Beginning as a part of the American Federation of Labor in 1935, the CIO was initially the Committee of Industrial Organization and changed its name to Congress in 1938 after the AFof L expelled its unions. Led by John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, the CIO was able to organize unskilled workers into a viable and effective organization because Section 7a of the New Deal's National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) guaranteed labor's right "to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing." The NIRA and the CIO were the real beginning of Big Labor as a third leg in national politics with Big Business and Big Government, allowing the mass of workers to improve their conditions and aspire to membership in the middle class.