Name
.
PRIMARY SOURCE
Section 1
a)>
a)
(1)
a)
(I)
-c
0)
d
a)
-J
0)
0
0
0)
0)
0
a)
E
a)
Report on the
Steel Strike of 1919
from
A Commission of Inquiry appointed at the request of the lnterchurch World
Movement of North America prepared a report on the steel strike of 1919. The
report included affidavits from more than 500 striking and nonstriking steel
workers. As you read this portion of the report, consider why investigators
recommended that the 12-hour day and 7-day week be eliminated.
of the industry that “steel is a
killer.” Steel workers are chiefly attendants
of gigantic machines. The steel business tends to
become, in the owners’ eyes, mainly the machines.
Steel jobs are not easily characterized by chilly sci
entific terms. Blast furnaces over a hundred feet
high, blast “stoves” a hundred feet high, coke ovens
miles long, volcanic bessemer converters, furnaces
with hundreds of tons of molten steel in their bel
lies, trains of hot blooms, miles of rolls end to end
hurtling white hot rails along,—these masters are
attended by sweating servants whose job is to get
close enough to work hut to keep clear enough to
save limb and life. It is concededly not an ideal
industry for men fatigued by long hours.
First, what exactly is the schedule of the twelvehour worker? Here is the transcript of the diary of
an American worker, the ol)servations of a keen
man on how his fellows regard the job, the exact
record of his own job and hours made in the spring
of 1919, before the strike or this Inquiry, and
selected here because no charge of exaggeration
could be made concerning it. It begins:
“Calendar of one (lay from the life of a
Carnegie steel workman at Homestead on the open
hearth, common labor:
“5:3() to 12 (midnight)—Six and one-half hours
of shoveling, throwing arid carrying bricks and cm
(icr out of bottom of’ old furnace. \
er hot.
7
“12:30—Back to the shovel and cinder, within
few feet of pneumatic shovel drilling slag, for three
anti one—half hours.
“4 o’clock—Sleeping is pretty general, including
boss.
“5 o’clock—Everybody quits, sleeps, sings,
swears, sighs for 6 o’clock.
“6 o’clock—Start home.
“6:45 o’clock— Bathed, breakfast.
“7:45 oclock—Asleep.
J
,
Date
t
is an epigram
man
“4 i.—Wake up. put on dirty clothes, go to
boarding house, eat supper, get pack of lunch.
“5:30 P.M.—Report for work.”
This is the record of the night shift; a record of
inevitable waste, inefficiency and protest against
“arbitrary” hours. Next week this laborer will work
the day shift. What is his schedule per week?
Quoting again from the diary:
“Flours on night shift begin at 5:30; work for
twelve hours through the night except Saturday,
when it is seventeen hours, until 12 Sunday noon,
with one hour out for breakfast; the following
Monday ten hours; total from 5:30 Monday to 5:30
Monday 87 hours, the normal week.
“The Carnegie Steel worker works 87 hours out
of the 168 hours in the week, Of the remaining 81
he sleeps seven hours per day; total of 49 hours. He
eats in another fourteen; walks or travels in the
street car four hours; dresses, shaves, tends fur
nace, undresses, etc., seven hours. His one reaction
is ‘What the Flell!’—the universal text accompany
ing the twelve-hour day.”
from The Commission of Inquiry, The Interchurch World
Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919 (New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), 58—60.
Activity Options
1. Imagine that you are either a steel worker or a
steel mill of’ficial. Write a letter to the editor of a
newspaper stating your opinion on the 12-hour
day. Share your letter with the class.
2. Interview someone you know who works full
time—a family member, a neighbor, a teacher—
about his or her typical work day. Then compare
this person’s schedule with that of the steel
worker in this excerpt.
Politics of the Roaring Twenties 9
NAME
CLASS
DATE
Growing Up Black
C
H
‘
T
E
R
21
As a child, Daisy Bates was told by her stepfather to “hate discrimination that
eats away at the soul of every black man and woman. Hate the insults and then
try to to do something about it or your hate won’t spell a thing.” As an adult,
Mrs. Bates followed her stepfather’s advice. She became president of the
Arkansas National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and
fought successfully for school integration.
In the reading below, Daisy Bates recalls her childhood in the 1 920s and her first
encounter with racial discrimination.
was born Daisy Lee Gatson in the little
sawmill town of Huttig, in southern Arkansas,
The owners of the mill ruled the town. Huttig
might have been called a sawmill plantation for
everyone worked for the mill, lived in houses
owned by the mill, and traded at the general store
run by the mill.
The hard, red clay streets of the town were
mostly unnamed. Main Street, the widest and
longest street in town, and the muddiest after a
rain, was the site of our business square. It con
sisted of four one-story buildings which housed a
commissary and meat market, a post office, an ice
cream parlor, and a movie house. Main Street also
divided “White Town” from “Negra Town.” How
ever, the physical appearance of the two areas
provided a more definite means of distinction.
The Negro citizens of Huttig were housed in
rarely painted, drab red “shotgun” houses, so
named because one could stand in the front yard
and look straight through the front and back
doors into the back yard. The Negro community
was also provided with two church buildings of
the same drab red exterior, although kept spotless
inside by the Sisters of the church, and a two-room
schoolhouse equipped with a potbellied stove
that never quite succeeded in keeping it warm.
On the other side of Main Street were white
bungalows, white steepled churches and a white
spacious school with a big lawn. Although the
relations between Negro and white were cordial,
the tone of the community, as indicated by outward
appearances, was of the “Old South” tradition.
As I grew up in this town, I knew I was a
Negro, but I did not really understand what that
meant until I was seven years old. My parents,
as do most Negro parents, protected me as long
I
26
•
Chapter 21 Primary Source Activity
as possible from the inevitable insult and humilia
tion that is, in the South, a part of being “colored.”
I was a proud and happy child—all hair and
legs, my cousin Early B. used to say—and an only
child, although not blessed with the privilege of
having my own way. One afternoon, shortly after
my seventh birthday, my mother called me in
from play.
“As I grew up in this town, I knew
I was a Negro, but I did not really
understand what that meant until
I was seven years old.”
“I’m not feeling well,” she said: “You’ll have
to go to the market and get the meat for dinner.”
I was thrilled with such an important errand.
I put on one of my prettiest dresses and my moth
er brushed my hair. She gave me a dollar and
instructions to get a pound of center-cut pork
chops. I skipped happily all the way to the market.
When I entered the market, there were several
white adults waiting to be served. When the
butcher had finished with them, I gave him my
order. More white adults entered. The butcher
turned from me and took their orders. I was a littie annoyed but felt since they were grownups it
was all right. While he was waiting on the adults,
a little white girl came in and we talked while we
waited.
The butcher finished with the adults, looked
down at us and asked, “What do you want, little
girl?” I smiled and said, “I told you before, a
pound of center-cut pork chops.” He snarled,
“I’m not talking to you,” and again asked the
© Prentice-Hall, Inc.
NAME
CLASS
DATE
(continued)
white girl what she wanted, She also wanted a
pound of center-cut pork chops.
“Please may I have my meat?” I said, as the
little girl left. The butcher took my dollar from the
counter, reached into the showcase, got a handful
of fat chops and wrapped them up. Thrusting the
package at me, he said, “Niggers have to wait ‘til
I wait on the white people. Now take your meat
and get out of here!” I ran all the way home crying.
When I reached the house, my mother asked
what had happened. I started pulling her toward
the door, telling her what the butcher had said. I
opened the meat and showed it to her. “It’s fat,
Mother. Let’s take it back.”
“Oh, Lord, I knew I shouldn’t have sent her.
Stop crying now, the meat isn’t so bad.”
“But it is. Why can’t we take it back?”
“Go on out on the porch and wait for Daddy.”
As she turned from me, her eyes were filling with
tears.
When I saw Daddy approaching, I ran to him,
crying. He lifted me in his arms and smiled. “Now,
what’s wrong?” When I told him, his smile faded.
“And if we don’t hurry, the market will be
closed,” I finished.
“We’ll talk about it after dinner, sweetheart.”
I could feel his muscles tighten as he carried me
into the house.
Dinner was distressingly silent. Afterward
my parents went into the bedroom and talked.
PRIMARY SOURcEACTIVITYj
My mother came out and told me my father want
ed to see me. I ran into the bedroom. Daddy sat
there, looking at me for a long time. Several times
he tried to speak, but the words just wouldn’t
come. I stood there, looking at him and wonder
ing why he was acting so strangely. Finally he
stood up and the words began tumbling from
him. Much of what he said I did not understand.
To my seven-year-old mind he explained as best
he could that a Negro had no rights that a white
man respected.
He dropped to his knees in front of me,
placed his hands on my shoulders, and began
shaking me and shouting.
“Can’t you understand what I’ve been say
ing?” he demanded. “There’s nothing I can do! If
I went down to the market I would only cause
trouble for my family.”
As I looked at my daddy sitting by me with
tears in his eyes, I blurted out innocently,
“Daddy, are you afraid?”
He sprang to his feet in an anger I had never
seen before. “Hell, no! I’m not afraid for myself,
I’m not afraid to die. I could go down to that mar
ket and tear him limb from limb with my bare
hands, but I’m afraid for you and your mother.”
That night when I knelt to pray, instead of my
usual prayers, I found myself praying that the
butcher would die. After that night we never
mentioned him again.
From THE LONG SHADOW OF LITTLE ROCK by Daisy
Bates. Copyright © 1987 by the University of Arkansas Press.
Reprinted by permission of the University of Arkansas Press.
1. How did Daisy’s father view the racial attitudes of white people? Why
wouldn’t Daisy’s parents take the meat back to the butcher?
2. Why was Daisy satisfied to let the butcher wait on adult customers before
filling her order?
3. While waiting, Daisy Bates and a little white girl talked to one another.
What might this situation reveal about race relations?
4. Recognizing Cause and Effect Assuming that this episode was not an
isolated occurrence, what can you generalize about the effects of Jim Crow
laws on both white and African Americans?
© Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Chapter 21 Primary Source Activity
•
27
C
H
A
p
T
E
R
21
Name
Date
m
Section 4
PRIMARY SOURCE
from
“When the Negro Was in Vogue”
by Langston Hughes
Poet Langston Hughes was one of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance.
What different aspects of life in Harlem does Hughes capture in this excerpt
from his autobiography?
he I 920s were the years of Manhattan’s black
Renaissance...
White people began to come to Harlem in
droves. For several years they packed the expensive
Cotton Club on Lenox Avenue. But I was never
there, because the Cotton Club was a Jim Crow
club for gangsters and monied whites. They were
not cordial to Negro patronage, unless you were a
celebrity like Bojangles. So Harlem Negroes Cli(l
not like the Cotton Club and iiever appreciated its
Jim Crow policy in the very heart of their dark
community. Nor did ordinary Negroes like the
growing influx of whites toward Harlem after sun
down, flooding the little cabarets and bars where
formerly only colored people laughed and sang,
and where now the strangers were given the best
ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro cus
tomers—like amusing animals in a zoo.
The Negroes said: “We can’t go downtown and
sit and stare at you in your clubs. You won’t even
let us in your clubs.” But they didn’t say it out
loud—for Negroes are practically never rude to
white people. So thousands of whites came to
Harlem night after night, thinking the Negroes
loved to have them there, and firmly believing that
all Harlemites left their houses at sundown to sing
and dance in cabarets, because most of the whites
saw nothing but the cabarets, not the houses.
It was a period when, at almost every Harlem
upper-crust dance or party, one would be intro
duced to various distinguished white celebrities
there as guests. it was a period when almost any
ilarlem Negro of any social importance at all would
be likely to say casually: “As I was remarking the
other (lay to Heywood—,” meaning Heywood
Broun. Or: “As I said to George—,” referring to
George Gershwin. It was a period when local and
visiting royalty were not at all uncommon in
T
Harlem. And when the parties of A’Lelia Walker.
the Negro heiress, were filled with guests whose
names would turu any Nordic’ social climber green
with envy, it was a period when Harold Jackman. a
handsome young Harlem schoolteacher of modest
means, calmly announced one clay that he was sail—
mg for the Riviera for a fortnight, to attend
Princess Murat’s yachting party. It was a period
when Charleston preachers opened up shouting
churches a.s sideshows for white tourists. It was a
period when at least one charming colored chorus
girl, amber enough to pass for a Latin American,
was living in a penthouse, with all her bills paid b’
a gentleman whose name was banker’s magic on
Wall Street. It was a period when every season
there was at least one hit play’ on Broadway acted
by a Negro cast. And when books by Negro authors
were being published with much greater frequency
and much more publicity than ever before or since
in history It was a period when white writers wrote
about Negroes more success fully (corn me rci ally
spealdng) than Negroes did about themselves. It
was the period (God help us!) when Ethel
Barrymore appeared in blackface in Scarlet Si.vtr
! It was the period when the Negro was in
1
Man
a)
a)(I)
a)
C,,
vogue.
0
C
from Langston Hughes, The Big Sea: An Autobiography
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1940).
a)
C,
C
Discussion Questions
C)
1.. How would you describe Harlem of the 1920s
based on your reading of this excerpt?
cC
0)
0)
2. Why do you think white America suddenk’
became fascinated by Harlem?
3. ‘What is ironic about the situations described in
this excerpt?
C,)
C
a)
a)
0
28
UNIT
6,
CHAPTER
21
How BETHUNE-CO OKMAN
COLLEGE BEGAN
1 900s
Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary McLeod Bethune (1875—1955) was born in Mayesville, South Carolina,
the 17th child of former slaves. She rose from disadvantaged conditions to
become director of the National Youth Administration’s Division of Negro
Affairs from 1936 to 1945. In this article, first published in 1941, she recalls the
adversities and triumphs she experienced when she opened The Daytona Literary
and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls in 1904. This school merged with
the Cookman Institute, a school for African-American boys, in 1923 to form
Bethune-Cookman College.
THINK THROUGH HISTORY: Summarizing
What insights does this article provide into the social and economic conditions that
faced many African Americans in the early 1 900s?
I was born in Mayesville, South Carolina, a country town in the midst of rice
and cotton fields. My mother, father, and older brothers and sisters had been
slaves until the Emancipation Proclamation... After Mother was freed she
continued in the McIntosh employ until she had earned enough to buy five acres
of her own from her former master. Then my parents built our cabin, cutting and
burning the logs with their own hands. I was the last of seventeen children, ten
girls and seven boys. When I was born, the first free child in their own home, my
mother exulted, “Thank God, Mary came under our own vine and fig tree.”...
[In those days] it was almost impossible for a Negro child, especially in the
South, to get education. There were hundreds of square miles, sometimes entire
states, without a single Negro school, and colored children were not allowed in
public schools with white children. Mr. Lincoln had told our race we were free,
but mentally we were still enslaved.
A knock on our door changed my life over-night. There stood a young woman,
a colored missionary sent by the Northern Presbyterian Church to start a school
near by. She asked my parents to send me. Every morning I picked up a little pail
of milk and bread, and walked five miles to school; every afternoon, five miles
home. But I walked always on winged feet.
The whole world opened to me when I learned to read. As soon as I understood
something, I rushed back and taught it to the others at home....
.
1
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
HOWBETHUNE-C’OOKMAN COLLEGE BEGAN
By the time I was fifteen I had taken every subject taught at our little school and
could go no further. Dissatisfied, because this taste of learning had aroused my
appetite, I was forced to stay at home. Father’s mule died—a major calamity—and
he had to mortgage the farm to buy another. In those days, when a Negro
mortgaged his property they never let him get out of debt.
I used to kneel in the cotton fields and pray that the door of opportunity should
be opened to me once more, so that I might give to others whatever I might attain.
My prayers were answered. A white dressmaker, way off in Denver, Colorado...
offered to pay for the higher education of some worthy girl. My teacher selected
me, and I was sent to Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina. There I studied
English, Latin, higher mathematics, and science, and after classes I worked in the
Scotia laundry and kitchen to earn as much extra money as I could....
When I was graduated, I offered myself eagerly for missionary service in Africa,
but the church authorities felt I was not sufficiently mature. Instead, they gave me
another scholarship, and I spent two years at the Moody Bible School, in Chicago.
Again I offered myself for missionary service, and again I was refused. Cruelly
disappointed, I got a position at Haines Institute, in Augusta, Georgia, presided
over by dynamic Lucy C. Laney, a pioneer Negro educator. From her I got a new
vision: my life work lay not in Africa but in my own country. And with the first
money I earned I began to save in order to pay off Father’s mortgage, which had
hung over his head for ten years!
In 1904 I heard,. .[that] Henry Flagler was building the Florida East Coast
Railroad, and hundreds of Negroes had gathered in Florida for construction
work....
I [went to] Daytona Beach, a beautiful little village, shaded by great oaks and
giant pines... .1 found a shabby four-room cottage, for which the owner wanted
a rental of eleven dollars a month. My total capital was a dollar and a half, but
I talked him into trusting me until the end of the month for the rest. This was in
September. A friend let me stay at her home, and I plunged into the job of creating
something from nothing. I spoke at churches, and the ministers let me take up
collections. I buttonholed every woman who would listen to me....
On October 3, 1904, I opened the doors of my school, with an enrollment of
five little girls, aged from eight to twelve, whose parents paid me fifty cents’ weekly
tuition. My own child was the only boy in the school. Though I hadn’t a penny
left, I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in
a living God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve,...
We burned logs and used the charred splinters as pencils, and mashed
elderberries for ink. I begged strangers for a broom, a lamp, a bit of cretonne to
put around the packing case which served as my desk. I haunted the city dump
and the trash piles behind hotels, retrieving discarded linen and kitchenware,
cracked dishes, broken chairs, pieces of old lumber. Everything was scoured and
mended. This was part of the training to salvage, to reconstruct, to make bricks
without straw. As parents began gradually to leave their children overnight,
I had to provide sleeping accommodations. I took corn sacks for mattresses.
Then I picked Spanish moss from trees, dried and cured it, and used it as a
substitute for mattress hair.
2
The Americans © McDouga Littell Inc.
HOWBETHUNE-COOKMAN COLLEGE BEGAN
The school expanded fast. In less than two years I had 250 pupils. In
desperation I hired a large hall next to my original little cottage, and used it as
a combined dormitory and classroom. I concentrated more and more on girls,
as I felt that they especially were hampered by lack of educational opportunities....
I had many volunteer workers and a few regular teachers, who were paid from
fifteen to twenty-five dollars a month and board. I was supposed to keep the
balance of the funds for my own pocket, but there was never any balance—only a
yawning hole. I wore old clothes sent me by mission boards, recut and redesigned
for me in our dress-making classes. At last I saw that our only solution was to stop
renting space, and to buy and build our own college.
Near by was a field, popularly called Hell’s Hole, which was used as a dumping
ground. I approached the owner, determined to buy it. The price was $250. In a
daze, he finally agreed to take five dollars down, and the balance in two years.
I promised to be back in a few days with the initial payment. He never knew it, but
I didn’t have five dollars. I raised this sum selling ice cream and sweet-potato pies
to the workmen on construction jobs, and I took the owner his money in small
change wrapped in my handkerchief.
That’s how the Bethune-Cookman college campus started....
But what use was a plot without a building? I hung onto contractors’ coat-tails,
begging for loads of sand and second-hand bricks. I went to all the carpenters,
mechanics, and plasterers in town, pleading with them to contribute a few hours’
work in the evening in exchange for sandwiches and tuition for their children and
themselves.
Slowly the building rose from its foundations. The name over the entrance still
reads Faith Hall.
I had learned already that one of my most important jobs was to be a good
beggar! I rang doorbells and tackled cold prospects without a lead. I wrote articles
for whoever would print them, distributed leaflets, rode interminable miles of
dusty roads on my old bicycle; invaded churches, clubs, lodges, chambers of
commerce....
Strongly interracial in my ideas, I looked forward to an advisory board of
trustees composed of both white and colored people. I did my best missionary
work among the prominent winter visitors to Florida. I would pick out names of
“newly arrived guests” from the newspapers, and write letters asking whether
I could call.
One of these letters went to James N. Gamble, of Procter & Gamble. He invited
me to call at noon the next day....
Mr. Gamble opened the door, and when I gave my name he looked at me in
astonishment. “Are you the woman trying to build a school here? Why, I thought
you were a white woman.”
I laughed. “Well, you see how white I am.” Then I told my story. “I’d like you
to visit my school and, if it pleases you, to stand behind what I have in my mind,”
I finished.
He consented.. .The next day.. he made a careful tour of inspection, agreed to
be a trustee, and gave me a check for $150—although I hadn’t mentioned money.
For many years he was one of our most generous friends.
.
.
3
The Americans© McDougal LitteH Inc.
HOWBETHUNE-COOKMAN COLLEGE BEGAN
Another experience with an unexpected ending was my first meeting with J. S.
Peabody, of Columbia City, Indiana. After I had made an eloquent appeal for
funds he gave me exactly twenty-five cents. I swallowed hard, thanked him
smilingly, and later entered the contribution in my account book.
Two years later he reappeared. “Do you remember me?” he asked. “I’m one of
your contributors.” I greeted him cordially. He went on: “I wonder if you recall
how much I gave you when I was here last.”
Not wishing to embarrass him, I told a white lie: “I’ll have to look it up in my
account book.” Then after finding the entry, I said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Peabody, you
gave us twenty-five cents.”
Instead of being insulted, he was delighted that we kept account of such minute
gifts. He immediately handed me a check for a hundred dollars and made
arrangements to furnish the building. When he died, a few years later, he left the
school $10,000....
Gradually, as educational facilities expanded and there were other places where
small children could go, we put the emphasis on high-school and junior-college
training. In 1922, Cookman College, a men’s school, the first in the state for the
higher education of Negroes, amalgamated with us. The combined coeducational
college, now run under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal church, is called
Bethune-Cookman College. We have fourteen modern buildings, a beautiful
campus of thirty-two acres, an enrollment in regular and summer sessions of
600 students, a faculty and staff of thirty-two, and 1,800 graduates. The college
property, now valued at more than $800,000, is entirely unencumbered.
When I walk through the campus, with its stately palms and well-kept lawns,
and think back to the dump-heap foundation, I rub my eyes and pinch myself.
And I remember my childish visions in the cotton fields.
But values cannot be calculated in ledger figures and property. More than all
else the college has fulfilled my ideals of distinctive training and service. Extending
far beyond the immediate sphere of its graduates and students, it has already
enriched the lives of 100,000 Negroes.
In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed me director of the division
of Negro affairs of the National Youth Administration. My main task now is to
supervise the training provided for 600,000 Negro children, and I have to run the
college by remote control. Every few weeks, however, I snatch a day or so and
return to my beloved home.
This is a strenuous program. The doctor shakes his head and says, “Mrs.
Bethune, slow down a little. Relax! Take it just a little easier.” I promise to reform,
but in an hour the promise is forgotten.
For I am my mother’s daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart.
They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance
to prove his worth.
Source: Excerpt from “Faith That Moved a Dump Heap” by Mary McLeod
Bethune in Who, The Magazine About People, Volume 1, Number 3, June
1941. Used by permission of Bethune-Cookman College Archives.
4
TheAmericans© McDougal LftteII Inc.
NAME
CLASS
DATE
Teens and Cigarette Smoking
From 1918 to 1928, ciga
rette production more
than doubled in the
United States. Part of
this increase was due
to the number of
American women of
all ages who took up
smoking and the
increasing numbers of
men who replaced their
cigars and chewing
tobacco with cigarettes.
In the letter to the right,
the superintendent of
the National Cigarette
Law Enforcement
League asks President
Herbert Hoover to
study the problem of
cigarette smoking,
especially among
American youth.
As you read the letter,
think about the assump
tions Superintendent
Jones is making. Then
answer the questions that
follow on a separate sheet
ofpaper.
National Cigarette Law Enforcement League Inc.
EXCt1TIV C
r,
Oihrr Di,rtrr
4. 9221,
O. F,.4 Mr,rh
0,. 3’rr,, C Duitr., err..
Nr,n.,,, OkIr.
0,. Wr. Frrrry Hrrd.. l.a V-Pr..
Ok,,n. Cray. Ok..
P,.. 3. 31. Barer.... 3rd Vky,.Pru.
‘
Okitharna City, Old...
r Jar. I. Phr!p., 3rd Vlre.Pr..*.
4
Jrad
(ikl.kar.. Cky. 01).,
Pi. E.,l P. W,un,. 4th Via. Pr,...
.
/ W
/IM”
11/’
Ceir.C1,. CM..
R.e Air. P. J,trarr. Sapt.
Old.leaanr Ciiy, 011...
M.L.ACrayp.gr.Trea
14..,... 03.1..
(a-,
‘‘
4
Mr.. Ala, M. Dan
C3kl..har,ra. 011.,
.‘
Mr. ON
,n,,it,. S.ay.
013.1..’.... City, 01!.,
Pr.(, Fø.rn. C. 1,a..a, A.a)le.,n
C..raa,,ala,, 01),.
Car. 13”. j. HnaIl,rw..y, Ctr.r,a,L
Rn,. C 14. I...
Blathenril, 01).,
Pna). C. W. Gahae.-ra
Okl,ln.r... City, 011..
.
“
SiiU,rrtr,, Ok3.
Mr. d L. K1rn
Cray Ok)..
Crn. 3rd ahn,ora
An,dark UkLr.
Mr. 0. M. Beuahrean
,. OIl...
3
0k1.hn,r.. C1L
.-
‘-.‘n)
Mr.
0l,l..k...r.. Clry, CII..
k. 25,
19.
29
3.....
A- larry.....
011.1...... Clay 010..
M,. 3..,,. ‘31. 1 l,id’an,ak
Okl.harra City, OIl.
The rab].e Rerbert !{cover, President,
United tates of iaeriea,
‘aahington, 33. 13.
Deer Mr. President:
I u eratani that while you were 3eeretary of the Interior yon
gave out a. statement saying, ‘There is no agency in the .worli today
that is so aeriousi.y affecting the health, e&ucation efficiency
and obaraote of boys and girls as the cigarette habit. iNearly every
delinQuent is a cigarette soer.”
Dr. C. I., Barber, former President of the e&ico—Phyaieal Research
eat way of crime is due to the
lsaoeiation of America said, ‘Tb
a
.e a
ise of cigarettes and. moth
and. any other product that has &
c
’ That, ‘MOu
t
kick, is due to the use of cigarettes and. nothing else.
say legislate all the Volstead .cta, or any other acts you have a mind
demoralization unLl
crime
and.
this
ways
of
sto;
will
to, but you. never
you step the manufacture and saleThigaTii.”
Concerning ‘Aerolei,’ ass of the 20 different poisons in the
smoke of a cigarette, Mr. Edison says, ‘rreafly believe aerolein often
makes boys insane.” Ami Dr. Forbes uinslow says, ‘Cigarette smoking
is one of the chief causes of insanity,’
In view of these and like statements, from other eminent authorities,
would. it not be a fine idea for your crime commission of eminent urist5
to make a careful stny of the bearing of cigarette snioking upon the
ni especially Mr. Roover, since there are forty states of
our Union which are trying to protect their tuure citizens from the
cigarette evil y passing laws prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and
cigarette papers to their youths?
If cigarette sacking helps to produce criminals, it may be
necessary to prohibit this evil before our crime wave can be ultimately
solved (t
With great faith in the success of your administration, I an,
Moat Qcr.iially,
Superintanlaut,
Eatioma.]. Cigarette Law Enforcement League.
A2.T/1C,
NATIONAL ARCIILVES
The a920’.—Doaaran.rat 61
QUESTIONS TO Discuss
1. Identifying Assumptions
(3
C
What possible assumptions about cigarette
smoking are reflected in Superintendent Jones’s letter? About young people
who are cigarette smokers?
2. On what evidence, if any, might these assumptions be based?
It
I
0
C)
C
0
3. Why do you think so many young Americans became cigarette smokers
in the 1920s?
0
Chapter 21 Survey Edition
Chapter 11 Modern American History Edition
Primary Source Activity
•
27
INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING
CONDUCT ON RAIDS
ISSUED BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
1920
On June 2, 1919, bombs exploded in eight cities, including one bomb that
damaged the home of the Attorney General of the United States, A. Mitchell
Palmer. The following November, Palmer launched a series of raids against the
radicals (including Communists, socialists, and anarchists) he held responsible
for the bombs, On January 2, simultaneous raids in 33 cities led to the arrest of
2,000 alleged radicals. The next morning, the New York Times published the
following list of instructions given to arresting officers. By March 1920,
thousands of people had been rounded up in “Palmer Raids.” Those arrested
were often beaten, held without hearings and deported without trials.
THINK THROUGH HISTORY: DrawingConclusions
What do the instructions for the raids reveal about Palmer’s attitudes toward
Communists?
INSTRUCTIONS
Our activities will be directed against the radical organizations known as the
Communist Party of America and the Communist Labor Party of America, also
known as Communists.
The strike will be made promptly and simultaneously at 8:30 P.M. in all
districts. The meeting places of the Communists in your territory, and the
names and addresses of the officers and heads that you are to arrest, are on the
attached lists.
You will also arrest all active members where found.
Particular efforts should be made to apprehend all the officers irrespective of
where they may be, and, with respect to such officers, their residence should be
searched and in every instance all literature, membership cards, records and
correspondence are to be taken.
When a citizen is arrested as a Communist, he must be present with the
officers searching his home at the time of the search.
Meeting rooms should be thoroughly searched.
1
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING CONDUCT ON RAIDS
Locate and obtain the charter. All records, if not found in the meeting rooms,
will probably be found in the home of the Recording Secretary or Financial
Secretary, but in every instance, if possible, records should be found and taken.
All literature, books, papers, pictures on the walls of the meeting places,
should be gathered together and tagged with tags which will be supplied you,
with the name and address of the person by whom obtained and where
obtained.
In searching meeting places, a thorough search should be made and the walls
sounded.
It is an order of the Government that violence to those apprehended should
be scrupulously avoided.
Immediately upon the apprehension of the alien, or citizen, search him
thoroughly. If found in groups in a meeting room, they should be lined up
against the wall and searched. Particular efforts should be made to obtain
membership cards on the persons who are taken.
Make an absolute search of the individual. No valuables, such as jewelry and
moneys, to be taken away from those arrested.
After a search has been made of the person arrested you will take all the
evidence you have obtained from his person and place in an envelope, which
will be furnished you, placing the name, address, contents of the envelope, by
whom taken and where, on the outside of the envelope and deliver to me with
the alien.
Everybody will remain on duty until relieved, without exception.
Flashlights, string, tags and envelopes should be carried, as per instructions.
In searching rooms of an alien pay particular attention to everything in the
room and make a thorough search thereof.
You are also warned to take notice “that no violence is to be used.”
You will communicate with me by telephone from your several districts, the
number of the telephone herewith given.
Attached you will find a list of those to be apprehended in your district, and
you will also apprehend all those found arrested with these names at the time of
the arrest whom you find to be active members of the Communist Party.
You are also instructed to use reasonable care and good judgment.
Source: “Raiders Ordered to Make Cleanup Thorough; Warned Against
Violence or Taking Valuables,” in the New York Times, January 3, 1920, p. 1.
2
The Americans © McDougal Littell inc.
Date
Name
PRIMARY SOURCE
Section 1
Bartolomeo Vanzetti’s
Speech to the Jury
from
When Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested for murder and robbery in Braintree,
Massachusetts, many observers believed the men were convicted because of
their radical political views and Italian immigrant backgrounds. What does this
excerpt from Vanzetti’s last statement to the jury reveal about the trial?
\Vhat I say is that I am innocent, not only of
the Braintree ennie bitt also of the
l3ridgewater crime. That I am not only innocent of
these two crimes, but in all mv life I have never
stole and I have never killed and I have never
spilled blood. That is what I want to say. And it is
not all. Not only ann I innocent of these two crimes,
not only in all my life I have never stole, never
killed, never spilled blood, but 1 have struggled all
mv life, since I began to reason, to eliminate crime
twin the eimth,
Ivemybody that knows these two arms knows
very well that I did not need to go in between the
street and kill a man to take the rnone’. I can live
with my two arms and live well. But besides that, I
can live even without work with my arm for other
people. I have had plenty of chance to live in(le—
pendently and to live what the world conceives to
be a higher lift than not to gain our bread with the
sweat of our brow.
\\ll, I want to reach a little point firther, amn(l it
is this—that not only have I not been trying to steal
in I3ridgewater. not only have I not been in
Braintree to steal and kill and have never steal or
kill or spilt blood in all m life, not only have I
struggled hard against crimes, but I have refused
myself the commodity of glory of life, the pride of
life of a good position because in my consideration
it is riot right to exploit man,
Now. I sliomilti say that I am riot oniy innocent
of all these things, not only have I never committed
a real crime in m life—though some sins, but nut
crimes—not univ have I struggled all trw life to
eliminate crimes that the official law and the offi—
cial moral condemns, hut also the crime that the
official moral and the official law sanctions and
sanctifies,—the exploitation and the oppression (if
time man by the man, and if there is a reason why I
am here as a guilt man, if’ there isa reason why
von in a few minutes can doom me, it is this reason
and none else,
Y
CS.
I beg your pardon. There is the more good man
I ever cast my eves uponi since I lived, a man that
vill last and will grow always more near and more
clear to the people, as far as into the heart of’ the
people, SO long as admiration fur goodness and for
He
sacrifice will last. I mean Eugene Debs.
know, and not only he but every man of under
standing in the world, not only in this country but
also in the other countries, men that we have pro—
Vj(led a certain amount of’ a record of the tunes,
they all stick with us, the flower of’ mankind of
Europe, the better writers, the greatest thinkers, of’
Europe, haye pleaded in our favor. The people of
foreign nations have I)1ele(1 in our favor,
Is it possible that only a few on the jury, only
two or three men, who would condemn their moth
er for worldly honor arid fur earthly fortune; is it
possible that they are right against what the world,
the whole world has say it is wrong arid that I know
that it is wrong? If there is one that I should know
it, if it is right or if’ it is wrong, it is I and this man.
You see it is seven years that we are in jail. \Vhat
we have suf’fered during those years no human
tongue can say, and vet you see me bef’ore von, not
trembling, you see me looking you in your ey’es
straight, not blushing, not changing color, not
ashamed or in tCar.
W”e have proved that there could not have been
another Judge on the flice of the earth more preju—
(heed arid mirore cruel than y’otn have been against
us. We have pro’e1 that. Still they refuse the new
trial. We kniov, and you know in your heart, that
von have been against us f’roiii the very beginning,
before you see us. Before you see us you already
know that we were radicals, that we were under—
dogs, that we were the enemy’ of’ the institution that
von can believe in good faith in their goodness—I
clont want to condemn that—amid that it was easy
on the tune of’ the first trial to get a verdict of
guiltiness.
.
Politics of the Roaring Twenties 7
Name
Bartolomec Vanzetti ‘s Speech continued
We know that you have spoke yourself and have
spoke your hostility against us, and your despise
ment against us with friends of yours on the train,
at the University Club, of Boston, on the Golf Club
of Worcester, Massachusetts. I am sure that if the
people who know all what you say against us would
have the civil courage to take the stand, maybe
your Honor—I am sorry to say this because you are
an old man, and I have an old father—but maybe
you would be beside us in good justice at this time.
When you sentenced me at the Plymouth trial
you say, to the best part of my memory, of my good
faith, that crimes were in accordance with my prin
ciple,—something of that sort—and you take off
one charge, if I remember it exactly, from the jury.
The jury was so violent against me that they found
me guilty of both charges, because there were only
two.
We were tried during a time that has now
passed into histoiy I mean by that, a time when
there was hysteria of resentment and hate against
the people of our principles, against the foreigner,
against slackers, and it seems to me—rather, I am
positive, that both you and Mr. Katzmann has done
all what it were in your power in order to work out,
in order to agitate still more the passion of the
juror, the prejudice of the juror, against us.
Well, I have already say that I not only am not
guilty of these crimes, but I never commit a crime
in my life,—I have never steal and I have never Idli
and I have never spilt blood, and I have fought
against the crime, and I have fought and I have sac
rificed myself even to eliminate the crimes that the
law and the church legitimate and sanctifr
This is what I say: I would not wish to a clog or
to a snake, to the most low and misforturiate crea
ture on the earth—i would not wish to any of them
what I have had to suffer for things that I am not
guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered
for things that I am guilty of 1 am suffering
because I am a radical and indeed I am a radical: I
have suffered because I was an Italian, and indeed
I am arm Italian; I have suffered more for my family
and for my beloved than for myself; but I am SO
convinced to be right that if you could execute me
two times, and if I could be reborn two other
times, I would live again to do what I have done
already. I have finished. Thank you.
from Osmond K. Fraenkel, The Sacco-Vanzetti Case (New
York: Alfred Knopf, 1931). Reprinted in Henry Steele
Commager, ed., Documents of American Historij, 7th ed.,
Vol. II (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963),
218—219.
Discussion Questions
1. What crimes did Vanzetti maintain that he did
not commit?
2. Did Vanzetti believe that Judge Thaver had been
fair arid impartial? Give evidence to support
your response.
3. What accusation did Vanzetti make against the
prosecuting attorney, ‘Mr. Katzmann?
4. Vanzetti said he had suffered for his guilt. What
“crimes” did he mention?
5. Some people likened the execution of Sacco and
Vanzetti to the executions during the Salem
witch trials in the 17th century. Do you agree
with this comparison? Explain your reasons.
.
V
a)
(1)
a).
U,
0)
C,
a)
-J
a,
0)
0
0’
0
co
a)
0’)
Ci’)
C
a)
.
8
UNIT
6,
CHAJrEn 20 PRIMARY
SouRcE
from
MY BOOTLEGGER
1921
Samuel Hopkins Adams
In September 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act which prohibited the
sale, manufacture, and import of all “intoxicating beverages.” The Eighteenth
Amendment was ratified in support of the Volstead Act in 1920, yet federal
agents were unable to successfully enforce these laws. This article from
Collier’s magazine describes some of the troubling consequences of Prohibition.
THINK THROUGH HISTORY: DrawingConclusions
According to this article, why was Prohibition difficult to enforce?
“My bootlegger used to be a good citizen. So did I. He respected and obeyed
the law. As I did. Before the Volstead enactment he would never have
considered taking part in any furtive or forbidden trade; not any more than I
would. But he needed the money, and when he saw his opportunity of making it
at the expense of a law which he believed unfair and oppressive, he took it. I
wanted liquor to which I had always been accustomed and which I had never
abused, and when he offered me opportunity of supplying myself at the expense
of a law which I believe unfair and oppressive, I took it. Thus he became an
illicit seller and I became an illicit buyer. Together we are successfully defeating
and overthrowing the law of the land. Doubtless there are thousands of teams
like us all over the country. We represent, I suppose, an abnormal condition of
the body politic. My bootlegger is the symptom of it. I, I suspect, am the
disease.
So writes to me a friend of many years’ standing, a man who has attained
success and prominence in his chosen profession, honored, thoughtful, fairminded, courageous enough to look at himself in relation to the problem under
discussion with candor, tenacious of his own rights, respectful of the rights of
others, an instinctive believer in law and order, a typical “best citizen.” Yet the
phrase “my bootlegger” comes naturally from his pen, a profoundly significant
phrase. Back of it lies the implication that the hired violator of law, the criminal
who makes his profit out of systematized defiance of the will of the people duly
enacted, has become an established institution, partnership in which need not
be occasion for shame on the part of a self-respecting citizen. The man who
asserts his right or privilege to live on the same basis as in ante-Volstead days
now has his bootlegger as he has always had his physician, his lawyer, his
tobacconist.
1
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
FROM
MY BOOTLEGGER
So far have we progressed along the road into which prohibition has led us!
And here at the turn of the road stands “my bootlegger” pointing the way to
contempt of the law, to anarchism, limited to one selected phase, it is true, but
essentially corruptive of respect for all law. How widespread and important an
institution “my bootlegger” has become may be estimated from any week’s file
of the larger newspapers. Everywhere the drink question is to the fore. Properly
and logically it should be a dead issue, since for nearly two years we have
theoretically banned booze; yet it still holds the center of the stage.
As a nation, if the newspapers correctly reflect what most interests us, we sit
in rapt contemplation of ourselves in the act of discrediting a law which we
enacted only after the maturest and most careful consideration; and if many of
us greet the anomalous performance with hisses, millions of others contribute
laughter and applause. A stranger, ignorant of our peculiar national
psychology, might justifiably suspect a deliberate conspiracy to overthrow the
law of the land, with “our leading citizens” and “my bootlegger” as chief
conspirators.
There is, of course, no such conspiracy. If there were, the situation would be
far simpler. Conspiracy is positive action. It can be dealt with positively. The
present revulsion is mainly negative. It is an unformulated, almost instinctive
campaign of obstruction and nullification; a sullen, contemptuous, resentful
determination not to be bound by a restriction upon personal tastes, even
though every dictate of patriotism and good citizenship calls for submission. It
therefore follows with inevitable logic (does it not?) that the revolt is made up of
the lawless and disreputable classes; criminals, wastrels, the vicious, the
outcast, the dregs of society?
Nothing could be farther from the fact. The people who are in more or less
active rebellion against prohibition (that is to say, the law) comprise pillars of
the social structure—as well, of course, as many of the other kind—props of
church and state, leaders in the professions, the industrial world, and society,
men such as the friend from whose letter I quote above; the type which exults
in terming itself 100 per cent American. A strange and saddening phenomenon,
the solubility of 100 per cent Americanism when it encounters the one-half of 1
per cent alcoholic limit.
Taking laws in general, it is practicable to classify as respectable citizens
those who obey them and as dubious citizens those who do not. Not so with this
National Prohibition Law; there is no such line of cleavage. In fact, there is no
clear line of cleavage whatsoever, social, sectional, political, economic, or
religious, other than the elementary difference between those who want to take
a drink and those who are determined—though most ineffectually thus far—
that they shall not take it.
The trail of the bootlegger is over us all. From the Mexican border come
reports of a reliable supply pouring into States, some of which were dry before
the nation voted that way, and are decidedly less dry now. A southern
2
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
FROM MY BOOTLEGGER
California acquaintance tells me:
I can go or send across the border to Tia Juana or other places, put in an
order, and have the stuff delivered to me, safe and not too expensive, at
whichever one of half a dozen spots is most convenient.”
The officials on the border estimate that not more than 3 per cent of the
contraband is confiscated.
San Francisco is well supplied both by land and by water. The “Barbary
Coast” resorts are wide open except when warned of occasional spasmodic
reactions of official virtue, and “Dago red” flows plentifully at many
restaurants.
On the Eastern coast the “booze ships,” despite an occasional capture, do a
steady traffic. The moonshiner continues to supply the South as he has always
done, except that his trade area has broadened to take in the cities as well as the
country districts. Along the northern border there is a constant stream of
Canadian booze flowing in through systematized channels: from original seller
to Canadian representative of bootlegger, thence to boat for transfer across the
water, from boat to temporary storage in boathouse on the American side,
finally by motor car or van to bootleg headquarters in the city whence it is
distributed, There was a time when as high as 3,000 cases a week were coming
into Buffalo, mainly by moving van, from the banks of the Niagara River....
The influx into Buffalo via water probably averages 500 cases a week. Yet
when I was recently there the local government office had available just two
agents for field work! A regiment might successfully have guarded the river
frontage, though I am inclined to think that the regiment would have needed a
fleet to reenforce it....
If there were no other testimony to the absurdity to which the law has been
reduced, the figures of the Department of Commerce for the fiscal year would
be enough, showing that $5,000,000 worth of intoxicants were imported into
the United States (not including, of course, that brought in by border runners),
as against one-tenth of that total in the previous year. One item which may be
commended to the thoughtful and law-abiding is 195,000 gallons of whisky,
brought in from overseas. All this may be for non-beverage, medical,
sacramental, or manufacturing purposes, but as the reported shipments for
1920 were but 32,000 gallons, the inference is that Europe is acting the part of
“my bootlegger” on an increasing international scale.
It is impossible to study the effects of prohibition over a large area and escape
the conviction that never before has there been enacted a law which has bred
such widespread corruption, official and unofficial. To hold the law itself
responsible is, of course, the shallowest casuistry. The blame must be imputed
first to our national spirit of insubordination which bids us refuse allegiance to
the will of the majority unless our own private conscience jump with it; second,
to the attitude, supine or worse, of those who, having promulgated the law,
now cripple their own enactment by negligence of the means to enforce it, as if
3
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
FROM
M BOOTLEGGER
a man should build and launch a ship and then leave it, masterless, to the
disposal of wind and wave.
Prohibition enforced would be at least an honest and worthy experiment.
Prohibition half enforced or unenforced is merely an incitement to trickery,
lawlessness, blackmail, and extortion. It has hatched a precious brood of
lawbreakers ministering to the unashamed demand for stimulants of a public
which would blush at the thought of a tacit conspiracy to nullify any other
law...
The prohibition leaders most skillfully stimulated public opinion to pass the
law. They have not inspired it to respect the law. They ceased effective work
just when their missionary endeavors were most needed. For—let me repeat it
again—new and restrictive laws do not enforce themselves.
Hence “my bootlegger.” So long as the prohibition enactment remains, in the
minds of a large, determinedly rebellious, otherwise law-abiding and selfrespecting minority, as “your law” or “Volstead’s law” or “blue law,” it will
continue in its present slow-poisoning process of dry rot. But if ever, by a
repetition of the endeavors which enacted it, it can be made to be regarded in
any wide sense as “my law,” to be rigorously respected and jealously upheld,
then good-by to “my bootlegger” and all that he implies.
Source: “My Bootlegger” by Samuel Hopkins Adams in Collier’s, September
17, 1921. Reprinted in A Cavalcade of Collier’s, edited by Kenneth McArdle
(New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, Inc., 1959), pp. 228-237.
4
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
SENATE DEMANDS INFORMATION
ON TEAPOT DOME
1922
Teapot Dome was the name of the naval oil reserve in Wyoming that became
the focus of a congressional inquiry in the spring of 1922. A decade of litigation
eventually revealed that the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, had received
more than $400,000 in bribes from two oil companies in exchange for
exclusive rights to this resource-rich land. This editorial that appeared in the
Denver Post was one of the first to break news of preliminary investigations to
the public.
THINK THROUGH HISTORY: Evaluating Decisions
What interests would individual senators have had in pursuing the Teapot Dome
investigation?
Washington, April 1 5th.—The secretary of the interior and the secretary of
the navy were requested to inform the senate if negotiations are being conducted
for the leasing to private oil interests of 7,000 acres of government oil lands in
Wyoming, by a resolution adopted by the senate Saturday by a viva voce vote.
The resolution was sponsored by Senator Kendrick, Democrat, of Wyoming.
EDITOR’S NOTE
After having made an unpardonable and inexcusable blunder in the leasing of
the naval oil reserve in Wyoming to the Sinclair oil interest, purely a Standard
Oil company, the secretaries of the navy and interior have issued the statement
below, not because it is news, but in a feeble attempt to justify the most serious
blunder that the present administration has made up to date.
The preposterous idea of getting oil out of the ground where it is stored free
and putting it into tanks that cost a lot of money, where loss from evaporation
and from other causes are large, where danger from fire, lightning and storm is
constant and tremendous, is an absurdity so great as to make all oil people and
all sensible people smile and wonder if this is a sample of the efficiency of our
naval and interior departments.
They leased the entire Teapot dome, the very center of the best oil field in the
world; a section five miles long by one mile wide; a section that is supposed to
contain over a half a billion dollars worth of oil; and they leased that to one
1
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
SENATE DEMANDS INFORMATION ON TEAPOT DOME
company, and did not give a single other person or company in the world a right
to bid.
It is beginning to look as tho the present administration is heart and soul in
harmony with all the big corporation interests in the United States, and that the
common everyday fellow is to get very little except the pleasure of paying
enormous taxes and help make the corporations of the United States so rich and
powerful as to dominate our officials and to pass and construe our laws.
That’s what the people of Colorado, Wyoming and the Rocky mountain
region are protesting against. It is just such favoritism, based on just such stupid
reasons as the secretary of the navy and the secretary of the interior are using to
try to justify this awful lease that shakes confidence in our Washington officials.
The most powerful corporation of the country gets everything and not an
independent oil man in the United States is even given a chance to bid.
A few such arbitrary and autocratic deals as this will set the country aflame
with protest against these kinds of methods, these kinds of deals, and this kind
of favoritism of the government for the powerful and already completely
entrenched oil monopoly.
Source: “Senate Demands Information on Deal to Lease Teapot Oil Dome to
Private Interests,” Denver Post, April 15, 1922.
2
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
from
A LETTER REGARDING
1MM IG RATI ON RESTRICTIONS
1924
Louis Marshall
Nearly 1 million immigrants a year flooded the United States following World
War I. Congress responded by enacting legislation in 1921 that set a total
immigration quota at 350,000 per year and banned all Asian immigration. Three
years later, the National Origins Act lowered the quota to 150,000. In this letter
written to a woman in favor of immigration quotas, Louis Marshall (1856—1929),
one of the leading lawyers of his time and the son of German Jewish immigrants,
argues in favor of a culturally diverse America.
THINK THROUGH HISTORY: Analyzing Issues
Based on your analysis of this document and an understanding of the 1920s, what were
some of the specific economic, social, and political issues affecting immigration at that
time? Do any of these issues remain relevant today?
If The New York Times quoted me as saying that there was no demand for a
restriction of immigration, it was an inaccuracy. Knowing of the existence of the
organization of which you are an official and of other similar organizations,
I could not possibly have made the remark. What I argued was that there was
no reason for the restriction of immigration beyond that contained in the basic
Immigration Act of 1917, which I described as a highly selective immigration law.
By its terms all persons who are mentally, morally and physically unfit, who are
likely to become public charges, who are opposed to organized government,
and who are followers of anarchistic and communistic theories, are excluded.
If properly administered by an adequate staff of public officials there is no possible
doubt in my mind but that the law to which I have referred would prove in every
way advantageous to the country.
I also called attention to the fact that much of the objection to immigration is
due to a lack of understanding of the immigrants who have come to this country
and to hatred and prejudice, which, unfortunately, prevail all over the world and
which bode ill for the happiness of mankind. I emphasized the fact that, for the
first time in our history, we are seeking to legislate along racial, nationalistic and
religious lines, to differentiate between the various inhabitants of our country, to
create a class spirit, to sow the seeds of jealousy and suspicion, and to forget our
finest American traditions and the underlying spirit of our Government.
You refer to the members of Congress who have voted against the Immigration
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
1
FROM
A
LETTER REGARDING IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS
Bill as being cheap politicians, who pander to what you term “the foreign vote.”
May I not retort in kind by saying that there are many Congressmen who voted for
the bill who were the cowards and whose votes were dictated by political
considerations, knowing as any calm observer must know the great debt which
our country owes to its immigrants, who have advanced its development in every
direction and who have brought to it noble spiritual, moral and ethical gifts?
Taking our population in its entirety, on an average there are not two generations
which separate our present population from the steerage of an immigrant ship.
Among the most exalted contributors to science in this country are such
immigrants as Tesla, Marconi, Steinmetz, Prof. Pupin and Prof. Jacques Loeb.
President Wilson’s mother was an immigrant. Both parents of our present
Secretary of State were immigrants. I could present to you thousands upon
thousands of names the very enumeration of which would afford an unanswerable
argument in favor of immigration. Are you aware of the number of immigrants,
many of them unnaturalized, who served in our army during the late war, and so
far as that is concerned in every war in which we have been engaged, not excluding
that of the Revolution? It is a very easy thing to indulge in denunciation, but after
all is said and done the record of our industrial, commercial and intellectual life
refutes the appeals of fanaticism....
There are others in this country who have made remarks which are inconsistent
with American ideals. I refer to those of the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux
Klan....
Your statement that during this last Congress foreign blocs threatened our
Government and the Republican Party if they passed the Johnson bill, is incorrect.
Of course foreign governments have nothing to say about our legislation. Under
the Constitution it is within the power of Congress to pass any law it desires on
the subject of immigration. There are always, however, two ways of reaching a
result—one which is right and the other which is wrong; one calculated to give
unnecessary offence and irritation, and the other of a conciliatory character. The
fact that our honored President—and I speak not only as an American citizen, but
also as a Republican—has been greatly embarrassed by the manner in which
Congress dealt with the Japanese phase of immigration, shows that it has been
attempting to make laws in a superheated atmosphere not congenial to that calm
thought which should accompany the formulation of far-reaching national policies.
You voice the fervent wish that you can live to see America speaking one
language, reading one language, and united in ideals. It is my wish that we shall
always have a united country, that it shall not be impervious to the thought that
there are other parts of the world in which there are human beings actuated by
noble motives who seek the advancement of humanity, that although it is desirable
that every person living here shall, as soon as possible, speak and read the English
language, I trust that the time will never come when we shall be so chauvinistic
as to refuse to be receptive to the intellectual sustenance to be derived from the
literatures of other peoples, not only those of England, France, Germany, Italy
2
The Americans© McDougal LitteW Inc.
FROM
A LETTER REGARDING IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS
and Spain, but even those of Russia and Poland, and of that language in which
the greatest spiritual possession of the world, the Bible, was written. We have been
a liberal nation, broad in our sympathy, lofty in our aspirations. Let us not become
narrow, provincial and bigoted. If there is one thing more than another that
immigration has done for the United States, it has been to give it a wider and more
extensive perspective and a better understanding of its mission as a great civilizing
influence based upon the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity.
Source: From Louis Marshall: Champion of Liberty, edited by Charles Reznikoff.
Used with the permission of the American Jewish Committee.
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
3
THE SULTAN OF SWAT STEALS
A WORLD SERIES SHOW
1923
Heywood Broun
George Herman “Babe” Ruth (1895—1948) played for the New York Yankees
from 1920 to 1934, stunning audiences with his incredible skill and power. In
1927, he hit more home runs in one season than had any previous player, and
more home runs than any other team in the American League. “The Babe” was
one of the premier sports celebrities of his day. Newspaper articles such as this
one from the New York World elevated Ruth to the status of mythic hero.
THINK THROUGH HISTORY: RecognizingBias
Do you think the author of this article intended his report to be read for
entertainment or as a historical account? Support your opinion with specific
examples.
The Ruth is mighty and shall prevail. He did yesterday. Babe made two home
runs, and the Yankees won from the Giants at the Polo Grounds by a score of
four to two. This evens up the World Series, with one game for each contender.
It was the first game the Yankees won from the Giants since October 10,
1921, and it ended a string of eight successive victories for the latter, with one
tie thrown in.
Victory came to the American League champions through a change in tactics.
Miller Huggins could hardly fail to have observed Wednesday that terrible
things were almost certain to happen to his men if they paused anyplace along
the line from first to home.
In order to prevent blunders in base running he wisely decided to eliminate it.
The batter who hits a ball into the stands cannot possibly be caught napping off
any base.
The Yankees prevented Kelly, Frisch, and the rest from performing tricks in
black magic by consistently hammering the ball out of the park or into sections
of the stand where only amateurs were seated.
Though simplicity itself, the system worked like a charm. Three of the
Yankees’ four runs were the product of homers, and this was enough for a
winning total. Erin Ward was Ruth’s assistant, Irish Meusel of the Giants also
made a home run, but yesterday’s show belonged to Ruth.
For the first time since coming to New York, Babe achieved his full brilliance
in a World Series game. Before this he has varied between pretty good and
1
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
THE SULTAN OF SWAT STEALS A WORLD SERIES SHOW
simply awful, but yesterday he was magnificent.
Just before the game John McGraw remarked:
“Why shouldn’t we pitch to Ruth? I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, we
pitch to better hitters than Ruth in the National League.”
Ere the sun had set on McGraw’s rash and presumptuous words, the Babe
had flashed across the sky fiery portents which should have been sufficient to
strike terror and conviction into the hearts of all infidels. But John McGraw
clung to his heresy with a courage worthy of a better cause.
In the fourth inning Ruth drove the ball completely out of the premises.
McQuillan was pitching at the time, and the count was two balls and one strike.
The strike was a fast ball shoulder-high, at which Ruth had lunged with almost
comic ferocity and ineptitude.
Snyder peeked at the bench to get a signal from McGraw. Catching for the
Giants must be a terrific strain on the neck muscles, for apparently it is etiquette
to take the signals from the bench manager furtively. The catcher is supposed to
pretend he is merely glancing around to see if the girl in the red hat is anywhere
in the grandstand, although all the time his eyes are intent on McGraw.
Of course the nature of the code is secret, but this time McGraw scratched
his nose, to indicate: “Try another of those shoulder-high fast ones on the Big
Bam and let’s see if we can’t make him break his back again.”
But Babe didn’t break his back, for he had something solid to check his
terrific swing. The ball started climbing from the moment it left the plate. It was
a pop fly with a brand-new gland and, though it flew high, it also flew far.
When last seen the ball was crossing the roof of the stand in deep right field at
an altitude of 315 feet. We wonder whether new baseballs conversing together
in the original package ever remark: “Join Ruth and see the world.”
In the fifth Ruth was up again, and by this time McQuillan had left the park
utterly and Jack Bentley was pitching. The count crept up to two strikes and
two balls. Snyder sneaked a look at the little logician deep in the dugout.
McGraw blinked twice, pulled up his trousers, and thrust the forefinger of his
right hand into his left eye. Snyder knew that he meant, “Try the Big Bozo on a
slow curve around his knees and don’t forget to throw to first if you happen to
drop the third strike.”
Snyder called for the delivery as directed, and Ruth half topped a line drive
over the wall of the lower stand in right field. With that drive the Babe tied a
record. Benny Kauff and Duffy Lewis are the only other players who ever made
two home runs in a single World Series game.
But was McGraw convinced and did he rush out of the dugout and kneel
before Ruth with a cry of “Maestro” as the Babe crossed the plate? He did not.
He nibbled at not a single word he has ever uttered in disparagement of the
prowess of the Yankee slugger. In the ninth Ruth came to bat with two out and
a runner on second base. By every consideration of prudent tactics an
intentional pass seemed indicated.
2
The Americans © McDougal Littell inc.
THE SULTAN OF SWAT STEALS A WORLD SERIES
SHOW
Snyder jerked his head around and observed that McGraw was blowing his
nose. The Giant catcher was puzzled, for that was a signal he had never
learned. By a process of pure reasoning he attempted to figure out just what it
was that his chief was trying to convey to him.
“Maybe he means if we pitch to Ruth we’ll blow the game,” thought Snyder,
but he looked toward the bench again just to make sure.
Now McGraw intended no signal at all when he blew his nose. That was not
tactics, but only a head cold. On the second glance, Snyder observed that the
little Napoleon gritted his teeth. Then he proceeded to spell out with the first
three fingers of his right hand: “The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders.”
That was a signal Snyder recognized, although it had never passed between him
and his manager.
McGraw was saying: “Pitch to the big bum if he hammers every ball in the
park into the North River.”
And so, at Snyder’s request, Bentley did pitch to Ruth, and the Babe drove
the ball deep into right center; so deep that Casey Stengel could feel the hot
breath of the bleacherites on his back as the ball came down and he caught it. If
that drive had been just a shade to the right it would have been a third home run
for Ruth. As it was, the Babe had a great day, with two home runs, a terrific
long fly, and two bases on balls.
Neither pass was intentional. For that McGraw should receive due credit. His
fame deserves to be recorded along with the men who said, “Lay on,
MacDuff,” “Sink me the ship, Master Gunner, split her in twain,” and “I’ll
fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” For John McGraw also went
down eyes front and his thumb on his nose.
Babe Ruth was too much for the baffled Giants. The American League
Yankees won the 1923 World Series from the National League champions by a
final score of four games to two.
During the 1932 World Series between the New York Yankees and the
Chicago Cubs the Babe performed his greatest feat. The Windy City team, with
Root pitching, was giving Ruth an unmerciful riding. He had already hit one
home run when he came to bat in the latter part of the game. The entire Cub
bench came to the front of the dugout to hurl choice epithets at him. When
Ruth missed the first pitch, the Chicago fans roared, whereupon he held up one
finger so that everyone could see it. When he swung again and missed, the
crowd rocked with laughter and the Cub players hurled more insults. The Babe
held up two fingers. Then there were two pitches, pitches wide of the mark.
At this point came the magnificent gesture. With his forefinger extended, the
Babe pointed to the flagpole in center field to show the pitcher, the Cubs, and
the crowd where he was going to wallop the next ball for a home run. He
blasted the next ball straight and true out of the park at exactly the point he had
predicted. It was an amazing feat, and it is already being denied by baseball
historians.
3
The Americans
© McDougal Littell Inc.
THE SULTANOF SWATSTEALSA WORLD SERIES SHOW
The Babe’s legs gave out at forty, and he retired. He never got the chance to
manage a big-league ball club; it was said that nobody could be sure that Ruth
could manage himself. When, in the summer of 1948, the Big Fellow died, after
a prolonged and cruel illness, some 80,000 fans filed past his bier as he lay in
state at Yankee Stadium, “the House that Ruth Built.” “It is part of our national
history,” the New York Post’s Jimmy Cannon commented, ‘that all boys
dream of being Babe Ruth before they are anyone else.”
Source: “The Sultan of Swat Steals a World Series Show” by Heywood Broun,
from New York World, October 12, 1923. Reprinted in A Treasury of Great
Reporting, edited by Louis L. Snyder (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949),
pp. 414—4 16.
4
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
from
FLAPPER JANE
1925
Bruce Bliven
The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 granted women the right to
vote—and fostered new attitudes among many young women. Nowhere was
this more evident then in the short skirts, unbuckled boots, loose beads, and
heavy makeup of the “flapper.” Daring-minded teenage girls shocked older
generations with their outrageous fashions and attitudes, although the author of
this magazine article sounds mostly amused.
THINK THROUGH HISTORY: AnalyzingCauses, Recognizing Effects
Why do you think the push for the vote ushered in an era of new attitudes and
fashion among many American women?
Jane’s a flapper. That is a quaint, old-fashioned term, but I hope you
remember its meaning. As you can tell by her appellation, Jane is 19... .She
urgently denies that she is a member of the younger generation. The younger
generation, she will tell you, is aged 15 to 17; and she professes to be decidedly
shocked at the things they do and say. Yet if the younger generation shocks
her as she says, query: how wild is Jane?
Before we come to this exciting question, let us take a look at the young
person as she strolls across the lawn of her parents’ suburban home, having just
put the car away after driving sixty miles in two hours. She is, for one thing, a
very pretty girl. Beauty is the fashion in 1912. She is frankly, heavily made up,
not to imitate nature, but for an altogether artificial effect—pallor mortis,
poisonously scarlet lips, richly ringed eyes—the latter looking not so much
debauched (which is the intention) as diabetic... And there are, finally, her
clothes.
These were estimated the other day by some statistician to weigh two
pounds.... I doubt they come within half a pound of such bulk. Jane isn’t
wearing much, this summer. If you’d like to know exactly, it is: one dress, one
step-in, two stockings, two shoes.
A step-in, if you are 99 and 44/100 ths percent ignorant, is underwear—one
piece, light, exceedingly brief but roomy. Her dress, as you can’t possibly help
knowing if you have even one good eye, and get around at all outside the Old
People’s Home, is also brief. It is cut low where it might be high, and vice versa.
The skirt comes just an inch below her knees, overlapping by a faint fraction her
rolled and twisted stockings. The idea is that when she walks in a bit of a
breeze, you shall now and then observe the knee (which is not rouged—that’s
just newspaper talk) but always in an accidental, Venus-surprised-at-the-bath
..
.
.
1
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
FROM FLAPPER JANE
sort of way. This is a bit of coyness which hardly fits in with Jane’s general
character.
Jane’s haircut is also abbreviated. She wears of course the very newest thing
in bobs, even closer than last year’s shingle. It leaves her just about no hair at all
in the back, and 20 percent more than that in the front.. .Because of this new
style, one can confirm a rumor heard last year; Jane has ears.
The corset is as dead as the dodo’s grandfather; no feeble publicity pipings by
the manufacturers, or calling it a “clasp around” will enable it, as Jane says, to
“do a Lazarus.” The petticoat is even more defunct. Not even a snicker can be
raised by telling Jane that once the nation was shattered to its foundations by the
shadow-skirt. The brassiere has been abandoned, since 1924....
These which I have described are Jane’s clothes, but they are not merely a
flapper uniform. They are The Style, Summer of 1925, Eastern Seaboard. These
things and none other are being worn by all of Jane’s sisters and her cousins and
her aunts. They are being worn by ladies who are three times Jane’s age, and
look ten years older; by those twice her age who look a hundred years older.
Their use is so universal that in our larger cities the baggage transfer companies
one and all declare they are being forced into bankruptcy. Ladies who used to
go away for the summer with six trunks can now pack twenty dainty costumes
in a bag.
Not since 1820 has feminine apparel been so frankly abbreviated as at
present; and never, on this side of the Atlantic, until you go back to the little
summer frocks of Pocahontas. This year’s styles have gone quite a long step
toward genuine nudity. Nor is this merely the sensible half of the population
dressing as everyone ought to, in hot weather. Last winter’s styles weren’t so
dissimilar, except that they were covered up by fur coats and you got the full
effect only indoors. And improper costumes never have their full force unless
worn on the street. Next year’s styles, from all one hears, will be, as they
already are on the continent, even More So....
“Jane,” say I, “I am a reporter representing American inquisitiveness. Why
do all of you dress the way you do?”
“I don’t know,” says Jane. This reply means nothing: it is just the device by
which the younger generation gains time to think. Almost at once she adds:
“The old girls are doing it because youth is. Everybody wants to be young,
now—though they want all us young people to be something else. Funny, isn’t
it?
“In a way,” says Jane, “it’s just honesty. Women have come down off the
pedestal lately. They are tired of this mysterious feminine-charm stuff. Maybe it
goes with independence, earning your own living and voting and all that. There
was always a bit of the harem in that cover-up-your-arms-and-legs business,
don’t you think?
“Women still want to be loved,” goes on Jane, warming to her theme, “but
they want it on a 50-50 basis, which includes being admired for the qualities
they really possess. Dragging in this strange-allurement stuff doesn’t seem
sporting. It’s like cheating in games, or lying.”
.
2
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
FROM FLAPPER JANE
“Ask me, did the War start all this?” says Jane helpfully. “The answer is,
how do I know? How does anybody know?
“I read this book whaddaya-call-it by Rose Macaulay, and she showed where
they’d been excited about wild youth for three generations anyhow—since
1870. I have a hunch maybe they’ve always been excited.
“Somebody wrote in a magazine how the War had upset the balance of the
sexes in Europe and the girls over there were wearing the new styles as part of
the competition for husbands. Sounds like the bunk to me. If you wanted to nail
a man for life I think you’d do better to go in for the old-fashioned line: ‘March
me to the altar, esteemed sir, before you learn whether I have limbs or not.’
“Of course, not so many girls are looking for a life meal-ticket nowadays.
Lots of them prefer to earn their own living and omit the home-and-baby act.
Well, anyhow, postpone it years and years. They think a bachelor girl can and
should do everything a bachelor man does.
“It’s funny,” says Jane, “that just when women’s clothes are getting scanty,
men’s should be going the other way. Look at the Oxford trousers!—as though
a man had been caught by the ankles in a flannel quicksand.”
Do the morals go with the clothes? Or the clothes with the morals? Or are
they independent? These are questions I have not ventured to put to Jane,
knowing that her answer would be “so’s your old man.” Generally speaking,
however, it is safe to say that as regards the wildness of youth there is a good
deal more smoke than fire. Anyhow, the new Era of Undressing, as already
suggested, has spread far beyond the boundaries of Jane’s group. The fashion is
followed by hordes of unquestionably monogamous matrons, including many
who join heartily in the general ululations as to what young people are coming
to. Attempts to link the new freedom with prohibition, with the automobile, the
decline of Fundamentalism, are certainly without foundation. These may be
accessory, and indeed almost certainly are, but only after the fact.
That fact is, as Jane says, that women to-day are shaking off the shreds and
patches of their age-old servitude. “Feminism” has won a victory so nearly
complete that we have even forgotten the fierce challenge which once inhered
in the very word. Women have highly resolved that they are just as good as
men, and intend to be treated so. They don’t mean to have any more unwanted
children. They don’t intend to be debarred from any profession or occupation
which they choose to enter. They clearly mean (even though not all of them yet
realize it) that in the great game of sexual selection they shall no longer be
forced to play the role, simulated or real, of helpless quarry. If they want to
wear their heads shaven, as a symbol of defiance against the former fate which
for three millennia forced them to dress their heavy locks according to male
decrees, they will have their way. If they should elect to go naked nothing is
more certain than that naked they will go, while from the sidelines to which he
has been relegated mere man is vouchsafed permission only to pipe a feeble
Hurrah!
Hurrah!
3
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
FROM FLAPPER JANE
Source: ‘Flapper Jane” by Bruce Bliven in The New Republic. Copyright ©
1925 The New Republic. Reprinted by permission of The New Republic, Inc.
4
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
from
Mi
DDLETOWN
1929
Robert S. and Helen Merrell Lynd
In 1929, Robert S. and Helen Merrell Lynd published Middletown, a landmark
sociological study based on research conducted in 1924—1925 in Muncie, Indiana.
Among other findings, the Lynds’ research showed that a typical middle-American
city of the mid-1920s had undergone dramatic changes due to the influence of
increasing industrialization and the availability of new consumer items. This
excerpt examines life within the high school.
THINK THROUGH HISTORY: DrawingConclusions
What conclusions can you, as a historian, draw through an analysis of this sociological
study? Be specific in your response.
ScHooL “LIFE”
Accompanying the formal training afforded by courses of study is another and
informal kind of training, particularly during the high school years. The high
school, with its athletics, clubs, sororities and fraternities, dances and parties,
and other “extracurricular activities,” is a fairly complete social cosmos in itself,
and about this city within a city the social life of the intermediate generation
centers. Here the social sifting devices of their elders—money, clothes, personal
attractiveness, male physical prowess, exclusive clubs, election to positions of
leadership—are all for the first time set going with a population as yet largely
undifferentiated save as regards their business class and working class parents.
This informal training is not a preparation for a vague future that must be taken
on trust, as is the case with so much of the academic work; to many of the boys
and girls in high school this is “the life,” the thing they personally like best about
going to school.
The school is taking over more and more of the child’s waking life. Both high
school and grades have departed from the attitude of fifty years ago, when the
Board directed:
“Pupils shall not be permitted to remain on the school grounds after
dismissal. The teachers shall often remind the pupils that the first duty
when dismissed is to proceed quietly and directly home to render all
needed assistance to their parents.”
Today the school is becoming not a place to which children go from their homes
for a few hours daily but a place from which they go home to eat and sleep.
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
1
FROM MIDDLETOWN
This whole spontaneous life of the intermediate generation that clusters about
the formal nucleus of school studies becomes focused, articulate, and even
rendered important in the eyes of adults through the medium of the school athletic
teams—the ‘Bearcats.” The business man may “lay down the law” to his
adolescent son or daughter at home and patronize their friends, but in the basket
ball grandstand he is if anything a little less important than these youngsters of his
who actually mingle daily with those five boys who wear the colors of “Magic
Middletown.” There were no high school teams in 1890. Today, during the height
of the basket-ball season when all the cities and towns of the state are fighting for
the state championship amidst the delirious backing of the rival citizens, the
dominance of this sport is as all-pervasive as football in a college like Dartmouth
or Princeton the week of the “big game.” At other times dances, dramatics, and
other interests may bulk larger, but it is the “Bearcats,” particularly the basket-ball
team, that dominate the life of the school. Says the prologue to the high school
annual:
“The Bearcat spirit has permeated our high school in the last few years
and pushed it into the prominence that it now holds. The ‘24 Magician has
endeavored to catch, reflect and record this spirit because it has been so
evident this year. We hope that after you have glanced at this book for the
first time, this spirit will be evident to you.
“However, most of all, we hope that in perhaps twenty years, if you
become tired of this old world, you will pick up this book and it will restore
to you the spirit, pep, and enthusiasm of the old Bearcat Days’ and will
inspire in you better things.”
Every issue of the high school weekly bears proudly the following “Platform”:
“1. To support live school organizations.
“2. To recognize worth-while individual student achievements.
“3. Above all to foster the real ‘Bearcat’ spirit in all of Central High
School.”
Curricular and social interests tend to conform. Friday nights throughout the
season are preempted for games: the Mothers’ Council, recognizing that every
Saturday night had its own social event, urged that other dances be held on Friday
nights instead of school nights, but every request was met with the rejoinder that
“Friday is basket-ball night.”
This activity, so enthusiastically supported, is largely vicarious. The press
complains that only about forty boys are prominent enough in athletics to win
varsity sweaters. In the case of the girls it is almost 100 per cent vicarious. Girls
play some informal basket-ball and there is a Girls’ Athletic Club which has a
monogram and social meetings. But the interest of the girls in athletics is an
interest in the activities of the young males. “My daughter plans to go to the
University of———,” said one mother, “because she says, ‘Mother, Ijust couldn’t
2
The Americans © McDougal Littefl Inc.
FROM MIDDLETOWN
go to a college whose athletics I couldn’t be proud of!” The highest honor a senior
boy can have is captaincy of the football or basket-ball team, although, as one
senior girl explained, “Every member is almost as much admired.”
Less spectacular than athletics but bulking even larger in time demands is the
network of organizations that serve to break the nearly two thousand individuals
composing the high school microcosm into the more intimate groups human beings
demand. These groups are mainly of three kinds: the purely social clubs, in the
main a stepping down of the social system of adults; a long distance behind in
point of prestige, clubs formed around curriculum activities: and, even farther
behind, a few groups sponsored by the religious systems of the adults....
“When do you study?” some one asked a clever high school Senior who
had just finished recounting her week of club meetings, committee meetings,
and dances, ending with three parties the night before. “Oh, in civics I know
more or less about politics, so it’s easy to talk and I don’t have to study that.
In English we’re reading plays and I can just look at the end of the play and
know about that. Typewriting and chemistry I don’t have to study outside
anyway. Virgil is worst, but I’ve stuck out Latin four years for the Virgil
banquet; Ijust sit next to———and get it from her. Mother jumps on me for
never studying, but I get A’s all the time, so she can’t say anything.”
The relative status of academic excellence and other qualities is fairly revealed in
the candid rejoinder of one of the keenest and most popular girls in the school to
the question, “What makes a girl eligible for a leading high school club?”
“The chief thing is if the boys like you and you can get them for the
dances,” she replied. “Then, if your mother belongs to a graduate chapter
that’s pretty sure to get you in. Good looks and clothes don’t necessarily get
you in, and being good in your studies doesn’t necessarily keep you out unless
you’re a ‘grind.’ Same way with the boys—the big thing there is being on the
basket-ball or football team. A fellow who’s just a good student rates pretty
low. Being good-looking, a good dancer, and your family owning a car all
help.”...
In this bustle of activity young Middletown swims along in a world as real and
perhaps even more zestful than that in which its parents move. Small wonder that
a local paper comments editorially, “It is a revelation to old-timers to learn that
a genuine boy of the most boyish type nowadays likes to go to school.” “Oh, yes,
they have a much better time,” rejoined the energetic father of a high school boy to
a question asked informally of a tableful of men at a Kiwanis luncheon as to
whether boys really have a better time in school than they did thirty-five years ago
or whether they simply have more things. “No doubt about it!” added another.
“When I graduated early in the nineties there weren’t many boys—only two in our
class, and a dozen girls. All our studies seemed very far away from real life, but
today—they’ve got shop work and athletics, and it’s all nearer what a boy’s
3
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
FROM MIDDLETOWN
interested in”
The relative disregard of most people in Middletown for teachers and for the
content of books, on the one hand, and the exalted position of the social and
athletic activities of the schools, on the other, offer an interesting commentary on
Middletown’s attitude toward education. And yet Middletown places large faith in
going to school. The heated opposition to compulsory education in the nineties has
virtually disappeared; only three of the 124 working class families interviewed
voiced even the mildest impatience at it. Parents insist upon more and more
education as part of their children’s birthright; editors and lecturers point to
education as a solution for every kind of social ill; the local press proclaims,
“Public Schools of [Middletowni Are the City’s Pride”; woman’s club papers
speak of the home, the church, and the school as the “foundations” of
Middletown’s culture. Education is a faith, a religion, to Middletown,...
Source: Excerpt from Middletown: A Study in American Culture by Robert S. Lynd
and Helen Merrell Lynd (Harcourt Brace and Company, 1929). Used by
permission of Staughton Lynd.
4
The Americans © McDougal Littell Inc.
204
Eyewitnesses and Others: Readings in American Hictory, Volume 2
“The Task for the
Future—A Program for
1919.”
The NAACP
Program of 1919
(1919)
In the late i 800s, African Americans in the United
States suffered numerous setbacks. In the South laws
legalizing racial segregation were passed. Other laws
kept blacks from voting. In the North blacks faced
economic and social barriers, Throughout the country,
lynchings of blacks made headlines.
In 1910 a group of blacks and whites joined
together to form the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People INAACP) in an
effort to secure equal protection under the Constitution
for blacks. At the end of its first decade of existence
in 1919, the organization published a document that
clearly stated its goals and objectives. As you read
the document, try to determine the main objective of
the NAACP at the time the document was written.
irst and foremost among the objectives for 1919
must be the strengthening of the Association’s
organization and resources. Its general program must
be adapted to specific ends. Its chief aims have many
times been stated:
1. A vote for every Negro man and woman
on the same terms as for white men and women.
2. An equal chance to acquire the kind of an
education that will enable the Negro everywhere
wisely to use this vote.
3. A fair trial in courts for all crimes of which
he is accused, by judges in whose election he has
participated without discrimination because of race.
4. A right to sit upon the jury which passes
judgment upon him.
F
The NAACP Program of 1919
5. Defense against lynching and burning at the
hands of mobs.
6. Equal service on railroad and other public
carriers. This to mean sleeping car service, dining
car service, Pullman service, at the same cost and
upon the same terms as other passengers.
7. Equal right to use of public parks, libraries
and other community services for which he is taxed.
8. An equal chance for a livelihood in public
and private employment.
9. The abolition of color-hyphenation and the
substitution of ‘straight Americanism.”
If it were not a painful fact that more than
four-fifths of the colored people of the country are
denied the above named elementary rights, it would
seem an absurdity that an organization is necessary
to demand for American citizens the exercise of
such rights, One would think, if he were from Mars,
or if he knew America only by reading the speeches
of her leading statesmen, that all that would be need
ful would be to apply to the courts of the land
and to the legislatures. Has not slavery been abol
ished? Are not all men equal before the law? Were
not the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments passed
by the Congress of the United States and adopted
by the States? Is not the Negro a man and a citizen?
When the fundamental rights of citizens are
so wantonly denied and that denial justified and
defended as it is by the lawmakers and dominant
forces of so large a number of our states, it can be
realized that the fight for the Negro’s citizenship
rights means a Fundamental battle for real things,
for life and liberty.
This fight is the Negro’s fight. “Who would
he free, himself must strike the blow.” But, it is no
less the white man’s fight. The common citizenship
rights of no group of people, to say nothing of
nearly 12,000,000 of them, can be denied with
impunity [without any costj to the State and the
social order which denies them. This fact should
205
Are not all
men equal
before the law?
•
•
206
Eyewitnesses and Others: Readings inAmer can Histoiy, Volume 2
be plain to the dullest mind among us, with the
upheavals of Europe before our very eyes. Whoso
loves America and cherishes its institutions, owes
it to himself and his country to join hands with
the members of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People to “Americanize”
America and make the kind of democracy we Ameri
cans believe in to be the kind of democracy we
shall have in fact, as well as in theory.
The Association seeks to overthrow race preju
dice but its objective may better be described as a
fight against caste. Those who seek to separate the
Negro from the rest of Americans are intent upon
establishing a caste system in America and making
of all black men an inferior caste. As America could
not exist “half slave and half free” so it cannot exist
with an upper caste of whites and a lower caste of
Negroes. Let no one be deceived by those who
would contend that they strive only to maintain
“the purity of the white race” and that they wish
to separate the races but to do no injustice to the
black man. The appeal is to history which affords
no example of any group or element of the population
of any nation which was separated from the rest
and at the same time treated with justice and consid
eration. Ask the Jew who was compelled [forced]
to live in the proscribed Ghetto whether being held
separate he was afforded the common rights of citi
zenship and “equal protection of the laws?” To raise
the question is to find the answer “leaping to the
eyes,” as the French say.
Nor should any one be led astray by the tire
some talk about “social equality.” Social equality is
a private question which may well be left to individual
decision. But, the prejudices of individuals cannot
be accepted as the controlling policy of a state.
The National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People is concerned primarily with public
ecluality. America is a nation—not a private club. The
privileges no less than the duties of citizenship be-
TbeNAACPPrograinoflQI9
long of right to no separate class of the people but
to all the people, and to them as individuals. The
constitution and the laws are for the protection of
the minority and of the unpopular, no less than
for the favorites of fortune, or they are of no meaning
as American instruments of the government.
Such a fight as has been outlined is worthy of
the support of all Americans. The forces which seek
to deny, and do deny, to the Negro his citizenship
birthright, are powerful and intrenched. They hold
the public offices. They administer the law. They
say who may, and who may not vote, in large mea
sure. They control and edit, in many sections, the
influential organs [publications] of public opinion.
They dominate. To dislodge them by legal and con
stitutional means as the N.A.A.C.P. proposes to en
deavor to dislodge them, requires a strong
organization and ample funds. These two things at
tained, victory is but a question of time, since justice
will not forever be denied.
The lines along which the Association can best
work are fairly clear, Its fight is of the brain and
207
The National Associa
tion for the Advance
ment of Colored People
(NAACP), whose early
offices are shown here,
became a very effective
political organization
fighting for civil rights
of African Americans.
208
Eyewitnesses and Othm: Readings in American History, Volume 2
the soul and to the brain and soul of America. It
seeks to reach the conscience of America. America is a large
and busy nation. It has many things to think of
besides the Negro’s welfare. In Congress and state
legislatures and before the bar of public opinion,
the Association must energetically and adequately
defend the Negro’s right to fair and equal treatment.
To command the interest and hold the attention
of the American people for justice to the Negro requires
money to print and circulate literature which states
the facts of the situation. And the appeal must be
on the basis of the facts. It is easy to talk in general
terms and abstractly. The presentation of concrete
data necessitates ample funds.
Lynching must be stopped. Many Americans do not
believe that such horrible things happen as do happen
when Negroes are lynched and burned at the stake.
Lynching can be stopped when we can reach the
htarts and consciences of the American people.
Again, money is needed.
Legal work must be done. Defenseless Negroes are
every day denied the “equal protection of the laws”
because there is not money enough in the Associa
tion’s treasury to defend them, either as individuals
or as a race.
Legislation must be watched. Good laws must be
promoted wherever that be possible and bad laws
opposed and defeated, wherever possible. Once
more, money is essential.
The public must be kept informed. This means a regular
press service under the supervision of a trained news
paper man who knows the difference between news
and gossip, on the one hand, and mere opinion on
the other. That colored people are contributing their
fair share to the well-being of America must be made
known. The war has made familiar the heroic deeds
of the colored soldier. The colored civilian has been,
and is now, contributing equally to America’s welfare.
If men have proven to be heroes in warfare, they
must have had virtues in peace time. That law-abiding
I
The NAACP Program of 1919
colored people are denied the commonest citizenship
rights, must be brought home to all Americans who
love fair play. Once again, money is needed.
The facts must be gathered and assembled. This requires
effort. Facts are not gotten out of one’s imagination.
Their gathering and interpretation is skilled work.
Research workers of a practical experience are
needed. Field investigations, in which domain the
Association has already made some notable contribu
tions, are essential to good work. More money.
The country must be thoroughly organized. The Asso
ciation’s nearly 200 branches are a good beginning.
A field staff is essential to the upbuilding of this
important branch development. A very large percent
age of the branch members are colored people, As
a race they have less means, and less experience in
public organization, than white people. But, they
are developing rapidly habits of efficiency in organi
zation. Money, again is needed.
But, not money alone is needed. Men and women
are vital to success. Public opinion is the main force
upon which the Association relies for a victory of
justice.
REVIEWING THE READING
1. What do you think was the main objective
of the NAACP at the time the document
was written?
2, According to the document, why should
all Americans, black and white, be con
cerned with democracy for blacks?
3. Using Your Historical imagination. Why
do you think the NAACP placed greater
emphasis on public equality than on social
equality? Do you think that one could be
achieved without the other? Explain your
answer.
209
210
Eyewitnesses and Others: Readings in American History, Volume 2
From The Bq Money by
John Dos Passos.
A Novelist’s Portrait of Heniy Ford
A Novelist’s Portrait
of Henry Ford
(ca. 1920)
Americans coming of age in the early 19205 faced
a world their parents had not even dreamed of. Industri
alization and technology were expanding at a dizzying
rate. Radios, airplanes, and automobiles were common
sights. The Jazz Age was in full swing. People
swarmed to the movies and to sporting events. For
most people times were good.
Henry Ford, one of America’s greatest industrial
pioneers, helped bring about those good times. Ford
helped change the automobile from a toy for the rich
to a practical form of transportation for the common
person. The following selection is an excerpt from a
novel written by American author John Dos Passos.
In it the author uses an almost poetic style of writing—
often ignoring the spacing and punctuation usually
found in narratives—to characterize many of the
events and people of the early twentieth century. As
you read the author’s characterization of Henry Ford,
try to determine how Ford’s production methods revolu
tionized the automobile industry.
r. Ford the automobileer,” the featurewriter t.vrote in
II
1900,
“Mr. Ford the automobileer began by giving his steed
three or four sharp jerks with the lever at the righthand side
of the seat; that is, he pulled the lever up and down sharply
in order, as he said, to mix air with gasoline and drive the
charge into the exploding cylinder.
Mr. Ford slipped a
small electric switch handle and there followed a puff, puff,
puff.
The puffing of the machine assumed a higher key.
She was flying along about eight miles an hour. The ruts in
the road were deep, but the machine certainly went with a
.
.
.
.
.
.
dreamlike smoothness. There was none of the bumping common
even to a streetcar.
By this time the boulevard had
been reached, and the automobileer, letting a lever fall a little,
let her out. Whiz! She picked up speed with infinite rapidity.
As she ran on there was a clattering behind, the new noise
of the automobile.”
For twenty years or more,
ever since he’d left his father’s farm when he
was sixteen to get a job in a Detroit machineshop,
Henry Ford had been nuts about machinery. First
it was watches, then he designed a steamtractor,
then he built a horseless carriage with an engine
adapted from the Otto gasengine he’d read about
in The World of Science, then a mechanical buggy with
a one cylinder fourcycle motor, that would run for
1
ward but not back
at last, in ninetyeight, he felt he was far enough
along to risk throwing up his job with Detroit Edison
Company, where he’d worked his way up from night
fireman to chief engineer, to put all his time into
working on a new gasoline engine,
Un the late eighties he’d met Edison at a meeting
of electriclight employees in Atlantic City. He’d gone
up to Edison after Edison had delivered an address
and asked him if thought gasoline was practical as
a motor fuel. Edison had said yes. If Edison said it,
it was true. Edison was the great admiration of Henry
Ford’s life)
1
and in driving his mechanical buggy, sitting
there at the lever jauntily dressed in a tight-buttoned
jacket and high collar and a derby hat, back and
forth over the level ilipaved streets of Detroit,
scaring the big brewery horses and the skinny
trotting horses and the sleekrumped pacers with the
motor’s loud explosions,
looking for men scatterbrained enough to invest
money in a factory for building automobiles.
He was the eldest son of an Irish immigrant
who during the Civil War had married the daughter
of a prosperous Pennsylvania Dutch farmer and
.
.
.
211
212
Eyewitnesses and Othess: Rsadings in American History, Volume 2
This photograph from
1919 shows Henry
Ford seated in his office.
settled down to farming near Dearborn in Wayne
County, Michigan,
like plenty of other Americans, young Henry
grew up hating the endless sogging through the
mud about the chores, the hauling and pitching ma
nure, the kerosene lamps to clean, the irk and sweat
and solitude of the farm.
He was a slender, active youngster, a good
skater, clever with his hands, what he liked was to
tend the machinery and let the others do the heavy
work. His mother had told him not to drink, smoke,
gamble, or go Into debt, and he never did.
When he was in his early twenties his father
tried to get him back from Detroit, where he was
working as mechanic and repairman for the Drydock
A NovelisD’s Portrait ofHenry Ford
Engine Company that built engines for steamboats,
by giving him forty acres of land.
Young Henry built himself an uptodate square
white dwellinghouse with a false mansard roof [roof
with two slopes on each of four sides] and married
and settled down on the farm,
but he let the hired men do the farming,
he bought himself a buzzsaw and rented a sta
tionary engine and cut the timber off the woodlots.
He was a thrifty young man who never drank
or smoked or gambled or coveted his neighbor’s
wife, but he couldn’t stand living on the farm.
He moved to Detroit, and in the brick barn
behind his house tinkered for years in his spare time
with a mechanical buggy that would be light enough
to run over the clayey wagonroads of Wayne County,
Michigan.
By 1900 he had a practicable car to promote.
He was forty years old before the Ford Motor
Company was started and production began to move.
Speed was the first thing the early automobile
manufacturers went after, Races advertised the makes
of cars.
Henry Ford himself hung up several records
at the track at Grosse Pointe and on the ice on
Lake St. Clair. In his 999 he did the mile in thirtynine
and fourfifths seconds.
But it had always been his custom to hire others
to do the heavy work. The speed he was busy with
was speed in production, the records in efficient
output. He hired Barney Oldfield, a stunt bicyclerider
from Salt Lake City, to do the racing for him.
Henry Ford had ideas about other things than
the designing of motors, carburetors, magnetos, jigs
and fixtures, punches and dies, he had ideas about
sales:
that the big money was in economical quantity
production, quick turnover, cheap interchangeable
easilyreplaced standardized parts:
it wasn’t until 1909, after years of arguing with
213
214
•
•
Eyewitnesses and Others: Readings in American Histoiy, Volume 2
•
In 1913
they established
the assembly line
at Ford’s.
his partners, that Ford put out the First Model T.
Henry Ford was right.
That season he sold more than ten thousand
tin lizzies, ten years later he was selling almost a
million a year.
In these years the Taylor plan was stirring up
plantmanagers and manufacturers all over the coun
try. Efficiency was the word. The same ingenuity
that went into improving the performance of a ma
chine could go into improving the performance of
the workmen producing the machine.
In 1913 they established the assemblyline at
Ford’s. That season the profits were something like
twentyfive million dollars, but they had trouble in
keeping the men on the job, machinists didn’t seem
to like it at Ford’s.
Henry Ford had ideas about other things than
production.
He was the largest automobile manufacturer
in the world
1 he paid high wages, maybe if the steady
workers thought they were getting a cut (a very
small cut) in the profits, it would give trained men
an inducement [a reason] to stick to their jobs,
welipaid workers might save enough money to
buy a tin lizzie
1 the first day Ford’s announcement
that cleancut properlymarried American workers who
wanted jobs had a chance to make Five bucks a
day (of course it turned out that there were strings
to it, always there were strings to it)
such an enormous crowd waited outside the
Highland Park plant
all through the zero January night
that there was a riot when the gates were
opened, cops broke heads, jobhunters threw bricks,
property, Henry Ford’s own property, was destroyed.
The company dicks [armed guards] had to turn on
the firehose to beat back the crowd.
The American Plan automotive prosperity seep
ing down from above, it turned out there were strings
to it.
A Novelist’s Portrait of Herny Ford
But that five dollars a day
paid to good, clean American workmen
who didn’t drink or smoke cigarettes or read
or think,
and who didn’t commit adultery
and whose wives didn’t take in boarders,
made America once more the Yukon [reference
to the Alaska gold rush I of the sweated workers of
the world,
made all the tin lizzies and the automotive age,
and incidentally,
made Henry Ford the automobileer, the admirer
of Edison, the birdlover,
the great American of his time.
REVIEWING THE READING
1.
2.
3.
in what way did Ford revolutionize the
automobile industry? How did his new
methods make it possible for the common
person to buy a car for the first time?
Why did Ford give his workers a small
cut in the profits of the company?
Using Your Historical Imagination.
Henry Ford and many other industrialists
of his time were opposed to labor unions
and laws governing the rights of workers.
What policies do you think workers at
the Ford plant might have changed if they
had had a choice?
215
216
Eyewitnesses and Others:
Readings in
American Histoiy, Volume 2
A Minister Calls for Christian Unit
y
Iroin The Call 1a Unity:
The Bedell Lectures for
1919 Dcli j’ered at Kenvon
(.olleqe May 24th and
25th, 1920, bvWiIIiamT.
Manning.
A Minister Calls for
Christian Unity
(1920)
In the sixteenth century, a phenomenal religious up—
heava i—the Reformation—took place in Europe and
resulted in the founding of Protestantism and the break
ing away of millions of Christians from the Roman
Catholic church. Over the centuries, groups of religious
reformers formed many different denominations of
Christian churches, each with its own doctrines and
traditions.
By the twentieth century, there was a growing
concern among many Christian leaders about the
lack of cooperation among the churches. Many believed
that this lack of cooperation was interfering tvith
the ability of any of the churches to be truly effective
in bringing the message of Christianity to the world.
In the following excerpt from his book of collected
lectures, William T. Manning, Rector of Trinity
Church in New York, calls for Christian unity. As
you read the selection, written in 1 920, try to determine
the reasons that Manning and others believed Christian
unity was so important.
T
he whole world to-day is moved by the thought
of fellowship. It is not surprising therefore that
we feel more than ever the incongruity [disharmony]
of our lack of fellowship in the Christian Church.
The desire for fellowship among Christians has in
fact reached a new point of progress. It has ceased
to be merely a pious aspiration [religious hope],
and has become a world wide movement. Never
since the divisions in the Church of Christ took
place has the need of reunion been felt as it is now.
And this necessity is being forced hom
e upon us
from many sides. Hard facts are drivi
ng us to see
the evils, and the perils of our presen
t situation.
The outbreak of the world war burned
into
our souls the weaknesses of a divided
Christianity.
We saw that, as a power to preserve
peace among
men, the Church did not seriously
count. Its voice
was not heard speaking unitedly and
clearly for those
principles of justice and righteousness
upon which
alone peace can rest. Its influence in
the hour of
the world’s crisis was negligible. And
the whole
course of events since has served to
make this inade
quacy clearer to us. Whatever expl
anation, or de
fense, or palliation [excuse] there may
be for them,
it is plain that our divisions
are a disaster to the
cause of Christ. Before the present
unprecedented
need of the world, the Christian Chu
rch stands with
her life enfeebled, her witness weak
ened, her message
in large measure discredited by her
own differences
and dissensions [disagreements].
Christian Unity is no mere ecclesiast
ical [reli
gious] problem. It is the greatest,
and the most far
reaching of all present day questions
. It lies back
of, and holds the key to, all our oth
er problems,
national and international, social,
political and eco
nomic. As men face the tremend
ous responsibilities
and tasks of this new time, they
are feeling the
need of support and guidance. The
y know that if
there is to be a new order it must
be filled with a
new spirit. They are looking for mora
l and spiritual
strength and help. But they are not
looking, with
confidence, to the Church for this,
A disunited
A disunited
Church cannot call forth the faith
of men, nor give Chu
rch cannot
the message of Christ to the world.
Its own inconsis
tency, and self-contradiction are
call forth the
too evident. How
can the world learn the Gospel of
fait
h of
fellowship from
an organization which is at variance
men
with itself? What
power is there in an appeal for a uni
ted world issued
by a divided Church? What force
is there in a plea
for brotherhood by those who fail
to give evidence
217
218
Eyewitnesses and Others: Readings in American History, Volume 2
Episcopal minister Wi!
(jam T. Manning was
one of the first American
Protestants to argue for
greater cooperation be
tween Christian denomi
nations in the United
States.
of brotherlinesS? Such an appeal suggests at once
the retort: ‘Physician, heal thyself,”
The Christian Church is commissioned to show
the world the true meaning of human brotherhood.
It is for this that the Church is set here among
men. It is to preach and to be, the truest realization
of fellowship ever seen on this earth
1 a fellowship
which transcends all bounds of nation, or race, or
1 a fellowship blessed, made holy and complete,
color
in oneness with Jesus Christ. This fellowship was
to be the proof of the Church’s Divine mission and
of the power of Him in Whose Name she speaks.
While the Church fails to furnish this proof, can
we wonder if the world listens to her message with
doubt and uncertainty?
The Church should be the inspiration and guid
ing force of the present movements for social ad
vance. Changes far greater than any of us realize
are taking place. We have entered into a new era.
Vast problems are pressing for solution. The truer
A Minister Calls for Christian Unity
order of cooperation, fellowship, brotherhood is to
be established. In all this the Church should be
not a spectator, nor a mere sympathetic influence,
but the great guiding power. The one true hope
for the world is that these movements shall be actu
ated [motivated] by the spirit, and the principles,
of Christ. There should now be a world-wide call
from the Church for a redeemed social order, in
which the spirit and law of Christ shall rule, for
the bringing of Christian principles into the whole
fabric of modern civilization
1 for the Christianization
of every department of life. Who but the Church
can issue such a call? What other power but that
of religion is able to bring the spirit of brotherhood
into human relationships and “to make justice and
love the controlling motive in all social conditions”?
But her own divided state makes it impossible for
the Church to give such a call with effect. “Doth a
fountain send forth at the same place sweet water
and bitter?” Can a Church which is divided by the
spirit of sect liberate men’s hearts from the spirit
of class and of caste? Can a Church which maintains
barriers of religious antagonism and division be the
herald of cooperation, and of the common life? Can
a Church in which men are separated into competi
tive and rival groups preach effectively the social
message of the Gospel? In his interesting essay on
“Christianity and the Working Classes,” Mr. Arthur
Henderson very pointedly asks “Is Christianity, as
we have it represented to-day, split up as it is into
almost innumerable denominational churches, capa
ble of dealing adequately with the growing forces
of reaction?” and he adds: “However much Christians
may console themselves that a Church divided into
numerous sects is justified and, as many think, a
source of strength, the multitude is slow to believe
in a Christianity so divided.”
Of the practical waste, the squandering of
energy, time and resources, occasioned by our
divisions it is scarcely necessary to speak. We see
219
220
Eyewitnesses and Others: Readings in American History, Volume 2
the evidences of this on every hand. It is obvious
that the energies, which as Christians, we devote
to controversy and conflict with each other should
be concentrated on the one great purpose for which
the Church exists. But the overlapping, the duplica
tion of effort, the competition and rivalry among
Christians are worse than mere waste of power, seri
ous as this is. They are a spectacle which lessens
the faith of men, which brings religion into disrepute
[disfavor], and which does daily hurt to the cause
of Christ. Men generally are not hostile to religion,
but the message of Christ seems to them confused
and uncertain. Amid the controversies of the
churches they cannot hear the great central message
of the Church. The fact which they see clearly is
that, however the divisions may be accounted for,
they conflict with the Church’s own teaching, and
contradict her own fundamental principles. They
know that whatever else the Church of Christ stands
for it must, if it truly represents Him, stand for har
mony, not f’or discord, for peace, not for dissension,
for fellowship, brotherhood and love. A divided
Church is giving us a non-believing world.
REVIEWING THE READING
1.
What reasons did Manning give to sup
port his call for Christian unity?
2.
According to Manning, what is the pri
mary purpose of the Christian church?
How does he believe churches have failed
in this mission?
3. Using Your Historical Imagination. Why
do you think the minister believed that
the period of time in which he spoke—
in 1920—was a good time to call for unity
of the Christian churches after so many
centuries of diSunity?
A Portrait ofFDR,fro,n Sunrise at Campobello
A Portrait of FDR,
from Sunrise at
Campobello (1924)
In June 1924 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who would
later become the thirty-second president of the United
States, clicked heavy braces into place on his legs,
positioned crutches under his arms, and slowly began
a long ten steps forward. Then, leaning against the
lectern for support, Roosevelt electrfied the delegates
of the Democratic convention with a rousing speech
nominating Alfred E. Smith for president.
More than 30 years later, playwright Dory
Schaiy captivated theater audiences with his play
Sunrise at Campobello. The play dramatically
captured Roosevelt’s struggle from the onset of the
polio that crippled him in 1921 to his courageous
return to the political arena at the 1924 Democratic
convention. As you read the final two scenes from
the play, consider the courage Roosevelt displayed
as he faced those ten dfflcult steps.
Scene Two
e are in a small room of Madison Square Garden.
We are aware of the roaring sound of the Convention
hail, which is swarming with delegates. The sound is constant
and present in the room, but not loud enough to distract
us.
26, 1924, about 11:30 P.M.
In the room is FDR, seated in a more conventional
wheel chair than the ones he has used in his home, He is
bronzed and beaming with vitality. JAMES, the eldest son,
stands near the back wall, on which his father’s crutches
lean. ELEANOR [Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s wife] is seated
to the left of FDR, knitting. HOWE [Louis M. Howe,
aide and close advisor to FDR] is standing by. Missy
It is June
From Sunrise at
Campobello by Dore
Schary.
j
221
222
Eyewitnesses and Othm: Readings inAmerian Hictory, Volume 2
[Missy LeHand, FDR’s private secretary] is seated to
the right of FDR. A uniformed POLICEMAN is on duty,
guarding the door. A screen is in one corner of the room,
large enough to cover FDR and his wheel chair. FDR’s
braces are on the desk. A roar goes up outside. HOWE looks
at his watch.
That, very likely is the finish of Miss
Kennedy’s address to the brethren.
ELEANOR: Now what’
HOWE: Now Bill Sweet, to second the nomination
of McAdoo—then the roll call—and if
Connecticut remembers its cue, it yields to New
York—and—
(He points to FDR)
FDR: Then they get one half-hour of little ol’ me.
(DALY, a young man, dashes in. He is frantic)
DALY: Mr. Roosevelt, I’ve checked everything again
and again—and everything should be all right.
FDR: I’m certain it will be, Daly.
DALY: You’re feeling okay?
FDR: (Nodding) Fine.
DALY: Is there anything I can do for you, sir?
FDR: No, thank you.
HOWE: (Noticing DALY’S tension) Say, Daly—
DALY: Yes—
HowE: I’d like to make sure that everything is on
schedule. Take a look—size up the crowd—get
some impressions and then report back. Will you
do that?
DALY: Of course.
HowE: Thanks. Thanks very much.
(HOWE motions to MissY to open the door. She does,
as DALY approaches it. We see the POLICEMAN and
hear the crowd, louder now. DALY goes out, and the
HOWE:
door closes)
FDR: Thanks, Louie.
HOWE: I wasn’t thinking about you. He was driving
me crazy. (He crosses to FDR) You’d better get ready,
Franklin.
A Portrait
Of FDR,frOIn
Sunrise at Campobello
FDR: Jimmy—
I’ve got them, Father.
(JIMMY takes the braces from the desk and goes behind
the screen with FDR. HOWE takes a step toward the
screen and calls over)
HOWE: Franklin, I want to take another crack at
you about the finish of the speech. FDR: (Back
of the screen) Louie, not again.
HowE: Yes, again. Listen, Franklin, this phrase of
Proskauer’s is a rich one, and I think you’re
murdering it by not using it at the finish.
FDR: (Back of the screen) It’s close enough to the finish.
HOWE: I think it ought to be the last thing you
say. “I give you—the Happy Warrior of the
Political Battlefield—Al Smith.” Period, Crash.
FDR: (Back of the screen) I don’t think so. Period. Crash.
HoWE: You’re wrong. It’s a sock phrase and will
stick. It ought to be the punch line.
ELEANOR: Franklin, may I say a word?
FDR: (Back of the screen) Certainly. If you’re going
to agree with me.
ELEANOR: Then I’ve nothing to say.
FDR: (Back of the screen, annoyed) That’s hardly a sign
of wifely devotion.
HOWE: Your being here and doing this is the most
important thing. I only feel you’re losing the value
of the last minute or two of a good speech.
FDR: (Back of the screen) Louie—I’m not sold on
changing it. I’m sorry.
HOWE: Further deponent [one who gives sworn
testimony] sayeth not.
(At that moment FDR appears with JIMMY from behind
the screen)
JIMMY: Did I get it too tight, Father?
FDR: I don’t think so, Jimmy. No, that’s fine.
(At this moment SAa ROOSEVELT enters. The noise
is suddenly louder.)
SARA: Franklin, they hardly let me through to you—
FDR: Mama, ever the lady. You came in just at the
right time—just as I stepped into my pants.
JIMMY:
223
224
Eyewitnesses and Others: Readings in American History, Volume 2
Oh, Franklin—
FDR: Welcome to the smoke-Filled back room of
politics.
SARA: That howling mob outside is frightening.
That
FDR: That howling mob consists of ladies and
gentlemen conducting the business of democracy.
howling mob
consists of ladies SARA: How anything of consequence can be
accomplished out of such a babble is a miracle.
and gentlemen
FDR: Mama—I’m all for noisy congregations. God
conducting the
help us if our conventions ever turn into high
business of
school pageants.
democracy.
SARA: Franklin, this is hardly the time to give me
lessons in politics. I wanted only a moment to
say God bless you.
FDR: (Simply) He has given me many blessings.
(SARA kisses him)
SARA: And, Franklin, speak out loudly and clearly.
(SARA exits)
HowE: Franklin, if I know Mama, in a couple of
months she’ll be working on a political primer.
(He looks at his watch) I know this is awful—but
I’m getting nervous.
ELEANOR: And I have dropped three stitches.
FDR: He’s only been on a few minutes. It just seems
long.
(The noise swells as the door bursts open. The POLICEMAN
is gripping DALY)
DALY: Mr. Howe—Mr. Howe—for God’s sake, Miss
LeHand, will you tell this man I belong here?
Missy: (To POLICEMAN) He does. He does.
(The POLICEMAN unhands DALY, who moves into the
room, excited)
DALY: Sorry I got panicky. Mr. Howe, you ought
to get ready. The crowd is enormous and busting
with excitement. Senator Walsh says it’s time to
get Mr. Roosevelt to the platform.
HowE: Missy—will you check the press handouts.
Take Daly here with you for anything you need.
Missy: Right. (Crosses to FDR, shakes his hand) Boss, I
know you’ll be tremendous,
A Portrait ofFDR, from Sunrise at Campobello
225
SAi:
•
.
.
FDR: Thanks, Missy. For everything.
(Missy starts for the door)
DALY: Good luck, Mr. Roosevelt—and to
you, Mrs.
Roosevelt—and to you, Elliott.
JIMMY: James—Jimmy.
Yes—thank you.
Okay, Daly. Good luck to you.
(DALY waves and goes out with Missy)
FDR. Jimmy, are you all set?
JIMMY: Yes, Father. In my mind I
have gone over it
a hundred times. (He smiles) You make the speech,
and I’ll worry about everything else.
FDR: (With a laugh) That’s my son—man of iron.
(Now FDR leans over his legs) Better check the braces.
(He clicks them into place—turns them with his hands
and then releases them, leaving his knees limp again.
JIMMY brings the crutches over) They should
be
Fine. Jimmy, if I slip, pick me up in a hurry.
(ELEANOR comes to him and they caress each other)
DALY:
HOWE:
This 1924 photo shows
Franklin Delano Roose
velt at the time he re
turned to politics after
his recovery from polio.
226
Eyewitnesses and Others: Readings in American History, Volume 2
I’m ready.
Jimmy—battle
stations!
•
•
.
FDR: (He takes the crutches from Jimmy) I’m ready.
Jimmy—battle stations!
(JIMMY starts to push the chair as DALY bursts in excitedly)
DALY: Mr. Roosevelt—
The Curtain Falls
Scene Three
The scene reveals the platform in Madison Square Garden.
We are looking toward the rear platform. Facing us are huge
drapes of bunting and pictures of Wilson and Jefferson, Stage
front is the speaker’s lectern, about twenty feet from the rear,
where are grouped FDR in his wheel chair, JIMMY, holding
the crutches next to him, the other children, ELEANOR ROOSE
VELT, SARA ROOSEVELT, Missy, Louis HOWE, and the
POLICEMAN.
At the lectern is a SPEAKER. Next to him is SENATOR
of Montana, the Chairman. The crowd noise swells,
loud and turbulent. It comes from all sides. There is no micro
phone, and the speakers must yell to be heard. It is bedlam
as the SPEAKER tries to be heard.
WALSH
A Portrait qfFDR,from Sunrise at Campobello
(Banging for quiet) Ladies and Gentlemen! (He
hammers away vi th his gavel and finally gets some attention)
The Chair recognizes the Honorable Franklin D.
Roosevelt of the State of New York!
WALSH:
(As he says this, there is applause. JIMMY hands FDR the
crutches, he gets to his feet and then, proud, smiling and
confident, he starts to walk on his crutches to the lectern, as
the applause mounts in intensity. Slowly, but strongly and
surely, FDR walks those ten great steps. The cheering starts—
whistles, screams, and rebel yells—and the band plays “Side
walks of New York.” FDR reaches the lectern and hands
the crutches to JIMMY, who takes them and steps down. The
screaming crowd continues to sound off. FDR stands there,
holding the lectern with his left hand. Now he waves his
right hand at the crowd in that familiar gesture. He smiles
broadly, basking in the warmth of this genuine and whole
hearted tribute to his appearance, his courage and his future.
The cheering continues as:)
The Curtain Falls
REVIEWING THE READING
(Banging gavel and screaming) Ladies and
Gentlemen! Please—give the speaker your
attention—
(There is some measure, small but noticeable, of attention)
SPEAKER: (Also yelling) There is a good deal of mail
accumulating for the delegates in the Convention
post office—and we urge you, please, to pick up
your mail. It’s getting very crowded. Please pick
up your mail! Thank you!
(There is cheering and screaming again. WALSH takes
the gavel)
WALSH: (After hammering the audience into some quiet) We
will continue with the calling of the roll.
Connecticut!
VoicE: (From the pit) Connecticut, the Nutmeg State,
yields to the great Empire State of New York!
(An enormous cheer and more yelling)
WALSH:
I.
In what way did Roosevelt show tremen
dous courage by agreeing to give the nom
inating address at the convention?
2. How did the delegates of the convention
show their respect for Roosevelt?
3. Using Your Historical Imagination. In
1928 Roosevelt was elected governor of
New York, and just five years later he
would be elected to the first of four terms
as president. (He died in office before
completing his fourth term.) What effect
do you think Roosevelt’s choice to walk,
rather than use his wheelchair, at the 1924
convention had on his future career in
politics?
227