United States' Support of Israel Since 1948

Establishing a Jewish Homeland after Centuries of Persecution

Dec 12, 2009 Michael Streich

The rebirth of a Jewish homeland was the culmination of centuries of oppression and persecution, ending with the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel.

Israel became a nation on May 14, 1948 after a long struggle against British opposition. The United States was first to recognize the new state, followed by Soviet Russia. Israel’s rebirth, however, would be greeted with war from neighboring states as Middle East leaders vowed to drive Israel into the sea. The result of the many conflicts with neighbors increased the resolve of the United States to guarantee the sovereignty of Israel while at the same time balancing strategic and commercial interests within the Middle East. Israel’s initial support, however, was in the form of military equipment obtained from Russia through satellite countries like Czechoslovakia.

Zionism and the Creation of a Jewish Homeland

Despite theories advocated by a minority of historians that many European Jewish communities could not directly trace their long term roots to Palestine, prevailing views hold that Israel is the logical and historical site to accommodate a people persecuted for centuries. In a March 4, 2002 speech by James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senator told his colleagues that, “I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel, and that it has a right to the land, because God said so.” The Senator then quoted from Genesis 13: 14-17.

The Jewish people have, historically, been resilient in the face of calamity. After the Babylonian Captivity or exile in 597 BCE ended, Jews returned to Jerusalem, charged by the Persian king Cyrus to rebuild the temple. The candles of Hanukkah are reminders of the Maccabees’ struggles against Antiochus Epiphanes, a brutal and insane king. In 70 CE the Roman general Titus destroyed Jerusalem, beginning an extended process of Diaspora. Almost 2,000 years of European persecution that included massacres during the Crusades and the Bubonic Plague were vivid reminders that Jews would never be fully accepted by society.

Even as mid to late 19th century progress, tied to industrialization and the birth of the modern, promised an end to persecution, Anti-Semitism was still strong and frequently resulted in new demonstrations of intolerance as with the Dreyfus Affair in France or the Russian pogroms under Alexander III. Many Jews immigrated to the United States. In Europe, the birth of the Zionist Movement came with the realization that Jews would only be secure in a national homeland. That homeland became Israel.

Role of the Holocaust

It goes without saying that the more than six million Jews killed during the Holocaust served as a catalyst in the creation of Israel. Prominent American Zionists, members of the Jewish intellectual community, promoted this cause as an extension of American morality, values, and commitment to freedom. Writer Geoffrey Wheatcroft states that these men and women worked under a dual allegiance as good Americans striving to achieve the American dream but also supporting Zionist goals in terms of the security of Israel.

After 1948, according to historian Stephen Ambrose, Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion reminded President Truman that the survival of Israel was a priority for American Jews. Whether Truman interpreted this as a hint regarding the “Jewish vote” may be debatable, but the United States has striven to support Israel ever since the Truman administration’s iron clad guarantee of Israeli sovereignty.

Detractors and Critics

Critics point to the status of the Palestinian people, many of whom became displaced after 1948. They question the “doctrine of propinquity” which holds that Israel has turned a barren land into a productive nation, legitimizing land expansion. Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (also the Green Party candidate for U.S. President) has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and was recently arrested in Israel.

Despite criticism, United States regional interests depend upon close relations with Israel, a fact reemphasized by President Obama several times, including changing views of Israeli frontier settlements. Israel continues on its own path, however, working to ensure that no Holocaust will ever again befall the Jewish people.

Sources:

• Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (Penguin, 1997)
• Senator Jim Inhofe, “Israel’s Right to the Land,” U.S. Senate Speech, March 4, 2002
• Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Controversy of Zion: Jewish Nationalism, the Jewish State, and the Unresolved Jewish Dilemma (Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1996)

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 Effects of the American Civil War

Government, Big Business, and the National Mentality of Sacrifice

© Michael Streich

Jan 14, 2009

The American Civil War created relationships between government and business concerns that continued after the war and sparked Gilded Age industrialization.

The coming of the post Civil War industrial society can be traced to key factors that enabled the North to win the war in 1865. These factors include a laissez faire relationship between government and business, the continuance of population growth through immigration, and a national spirit of sacrifice in order to achieve a goal. At the same time, these factors created significant problems affecting integrity of government, treatment of industrial works and immigrants, and the needs of western farmers.

The Civil War and American Business

The conduct and course of the war necessitated strong bonds between government and business. This was the debut of the billion dollar federal budget and direct governmental relationships with big business, notably the railroad industry. Railroads had played a significant role in Union victory, freighting supplies and carrying soldiers. After the Mississippi was closed, railroads picked up the cargo traffic normally assigned to the river and its tributaries.

As historian Howard Zinn demonstrates, Union generals at times contracted directly with businesses for arms and supplies. Without government regulatory policies, businesses grew through a self-policing financial community, failing when greed overtook prudence as in the Panic of 1873. Congressional leaders curried favor with big businesses, accepting loans that were never repaid, shares of stocks, and seats on corporate boards. As in the railroad industry, the quid pro quo was substantial land grants enabling railroads to connect the oceans and build hundreds of subsidiary lines.

The amount of railroad construction remained the same in the decade of the Civil War as it has the decade before the war. In the decade of the 1870s, however, railroad construction more than doubled from 20,000 miles of track to over 45,000 miles of track. [1] Much of this can be directly traced to Congressional support, often resulting in kickbacks and other favors. The 1872 Credit Mobilier scandal is but one salient example of graft.

Spirit of Sacrifice and Determination

The war had taught average Americans that victory would come if everyone shared in the sacrifices demanded. This included rationing as well as serving on the front lines. Four years of often intense conflict inculcated this mentality in the minds of Americans. As the United States grew and industrialization changed the face of American aspirations, growing a middle class and producing spectacular innovations, Americans worked within the mentality of sacrifice and determination.

Industrialization harnessed the power of millions of workers, men, women, and children that had no other recourse then to working twelve hour days for low wages. Inequities arising out of Gilded Age wealth production produced labor movements – unions – that challenged the status quo and demanded better working conditions.

Many of these workers were immigrants, unskilled, poor Europeans and Asians, thrust into the economic machine of rapid industrialization. Government, for its part, supported big business and viewed unionization as a step toward anarchism and socialism. Governmental leaders, including Presidents and Cabinet members, had close ties to big business and legislation that attempted to regulate businesses, such as the first Interstate Commerce Commission, had no regulatory teeth.

The End of Laissez Faire

The war between capital and labor would not abate until the Progressive Movement of the early 20th Century and legislation passed under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Yet even before Roosevelt, American voters, notably in 1894 and 1896, rejected Populism and chose the status quo conservatism of on-going capitalism. While the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act did little to effectively “curb” the power of the Trusts and rescue American workers from abuse, it was a first step in recognizing that a problem existed.

Sources:

[1] U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Washington, DC, 1975.

Page Smith, The Rise of Industrial America: A People’s History of the Post Reconstruction Era Vol. 6 (Penguin Books, 1984)

The copyright of the article Effects of the American Civil War in US Civil War is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Effects of the American Civil War in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

 

Progressive Era Contradictions and Betrayals

• Feb 1, 2012
• Michael Streich

The early 20th Century Progressive Revolt galvanized liberal leaders of both political parties but ultimately failed to ameliorate the plight of Americans.

In the summer of 1912, California Governor Hiram Johnson led the call for a third party after the Republicans refused to nominate Theodore Roosevelt. Johnson, a Progressive leader whose swift rise to power was tied to combating political corruption and corporate power, would be chosen as Roosevelt’s Vice Presidential running mate. The new National Progressive Party, revolving around the charismatic “bull moose” Roosevelt, however, would not only split the Republican Party, but divide the loyalties of both Progressive Republicans and Democrats.

What was Progressivism?

Progressivism represented a multi-faceted movement in the early years of the 20th Century. Scholars of the movement question its name: was it a popular social revolt? To what extent was the movement more political than social? And what is to be made out of the contradictions? Roosevelt, the “trust buster,” owed his campaign coffers to the purse strings of the “Steel Trust” and financiers like George Perkins. In 1912, Perkins helped to define the Progressive platform, setting aside language designed to strengthen the Sherman Anti-trust Act.

Prohibition and Progressive Goals

Regulating or eliminating alcohol consumption is rooted in Colonial thinking, notably among religious groups like the New England Congregationalists. The Progressive Movement, however, provided a favorable social and political climate resulting in Prohibition. Historians are quick to point out strong anti-German feelings during World War I significantly contributed to Prohibition: Germans were equated with drinking. What better way to demonstrate American loyalty than to avoid such “German” reminders?

Ironically, some U.S. Senators publically supporting Prohibition continued to stock their own liquor cabinets. According to one writer, at least a half dozen Senators were “habitually drunk.” (Gould) Similar contradictions impacted the women’s suffrage movement – part of the overall Progressive electoral reform movement.

Women’s Suffrage and Wilson’s Support

Due to social considerations as well as the fear that women voting might lead to federal interference with state impediments designed to eliminated black suffrage, Southern lawmakers opposed women’s suffrage. President Woodrow Wilson, considered a progressive with roots in the South, only supported women’s suffrage because it was politically expedient to do so.

Role of the Federal Government

Progressivism focused on ordinary people, especially the weakest members of society such as children. The 1912 party platform, however, highlighted the role of the federal government rather than state or locally originating reforms. By contemporary standards, this vast reform-minded platform could be deemed socialist, yet it was conservative Republicans like Theodore Roosevelt, William Borah, and imperialist Al Beveridge who championed Progressive ideals.

History also demonstrates that direct election of U.S. Senators as well as primary elections did not result in better candidates. In many cases, the image of a “smoke filled back room” of party bosses dictating candidates and issues remained. This was how party leaders ultimately supported Warren Harding in 1920.

The Progressivism of Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson won the 1912 presidential election; only 58.8 percent of eligible voters had cast a ballot in the second lowest percentage of voter turnout between 1876 and 1920. Despite his Progressive ideals, Wilson supported Southern segregation. Historian Page Smith sums up the movement writing, “It was, of course, limited in its vision of social justice and the uses of the state to achieve it. It left blacks and immigrants, workingmen and labor unions, and, to a lesser extent, women outside its charmed circle.”

Other historians chart the stream of Jeffersonian democracy and late 19th Century Populism as roots culminating in Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Alfred Kelly writes that, “This tradition of reform accepted all the values of the ‘American dream’ and sought to bring that dream closer to reality for the mass of Americans.”

Progressive Reform Set Aside

Teddy Roosevelt went on another international romp after the 1912 election, this time to Brazil. He, along with other Progressive leaders, made peace with the Republican Party even as the Great War was ending and America was easing into Harding’s normalcy, another period represented by great wealth and great poverty. Taft became the nation’s Chief Justice, ready to overturn the courts past liberal decisions. He would preside over one of the most conservative courts in American judicial history.

The zealous Progressive spirit was redirected after Wilson left the United States to participate in the Versailles Peace conference, leaving key Republicans at home despite their ascendancy in Congress after the 1918 midterm election. Republicans, led by Henry Cabot Lodge and William Borah, exerted every ounce of energy to defeat Wilson. At issue was United States participation in the League of Nations. The prolonged and at times vicious battle froze Progressivism in a political time warp.

A National Stream of Consciousness

Progressivism was more than a grand experiment in direct democracy or a federal program of social justice. It represented an ideal by which American political, social, and economic goals should be measured. In this sense, it harkened back to Jefferson’s vision of the pursuit of happiness. This was no socialist revolution. Sadly, too few Americans shared the goals and those that did, like Senator La Follette of Wisconsin, were marginalized and, after 1917, labeled cowards for opposing the war. In the end, the powerful interests won and Progressivism receded into the past, waiting for a dynamic leader to resurrect social justice as a government priority.

References:

• Lewis L. Gould, The Most Exclusive Club: A History of the Modern United States Senate (Basic Books, 2005)
• Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development, fifth edition (W.W. Norton & Company, 1976)
• Frank K. Kelly, The Fight For the White House: The Story of 1912 (Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1961)
• Page Smith, America Enters the War: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I, Volume Seven (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985)
• Philip Vandermeer, “Hiram Johnson and the Dilemma of California Progressivism,” The Human Tradition in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, edited by Ballard C. Campbell (Scholarly Resources Inc., 2000)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

Michael Streich - Former Adjunct Instructor, History & Global Studies

 

Post Progressive Religion and the Rise of Fundamentalism

• Feb 16, 2012
• Michael Streich

Protestant evangelicals coming out of the American Progressive Movement reasserted an orthodoxy that defined itself as Fundamentalism in the 1920's.

The waning years of American Progressivism following the end of World War One dramatically altered Protestantism, fusing evangelical denominations like the Baptists and Presbyterians into a movement defined as Fundamentalism. Although Fundamentalism focused on the perceived duality between science and religion, it was tied together by several cornerstone beliefs that included Bible inerrancy, orthodox Christology, and a premillennial eschatology rejecting the notion that human progress, particularly equated with an American mission founded on the “city on a hill” ideology, would result in global Utopia.

Post World War One Social and Religious Battles

For Fundamentalist American Christians, the battle between science and religious belief structures focused on Darwinism and Creation. This was a non-negotiable battle exacerbated by evangelical notions that faith and reason were diametrically opposed. The most dramatic expression of this duality was the 1925 Scopes Trial (Tennessee v John Thomas Scopes). This view fit into the new eschatological conclusions that the world was approaching the apocalypse, part of a detailed time line popularized by dispensational theology.

The idea that the “Great Commission” wedded to human progress would result in millennial peace, prosperity, and goodwill ended on the world war battle fields. The Great War shattered the Social Gospel, enabling American evangelicals to reassess long-held views. This change retooled the evangelical missionary motivation from an emphasis on community service and the carrying out of Social Gospel mandates. God was not only love, but a reconfiguration of Jonathan Edward’s “sinners in the hands of an angry God.”

Woodrow Wilson, despite his best efforts at the Versailles peace conference, had not made the world “safe for democracy.” If anything, the world of the 1920’s, as seen by evangelical Christians, was more in need of Christ than ever before.

Sin as a human state existing in the absence of God impacted Prohibition, social purity crusades, and concerns over Communism. Marxian beliefs were viewed as atheistic, making Socialism an integral part of end-of-time scenarios, a belief system working in tandem with Darwin’s insidious theory of evolution. Post war Progressive Protestantism transformed itself into militant Fundamentalism poised to combat, according to one historical writer, the “…loss of spiritual dynamic.” (Allen)

Prohibitionist and Anti Catholic

Unable to police its own faithful, Fundamentalists, much like evangelical Christians supporting various temperance movements in the 19th Century, turned to state governments to eliminate alcohol, eventually dragging the federal government into the debate. In the decade before the world war, President Taft was one of the more reasonable chief executives, vetoing Prohibitionist measures in order to avoid greater federal interference in state matters resulting in the creation of a larger federal bureaucracy. Woodrow Wilson, however, had strong Calvinist roots, beginning Cabinet meetings with prayer and supporting William Jennings Bryan, his first Secretary of State, in the banning of alcohol within the State Department.

Prohibition also enabled the federal government to tie the moral issue to patriotism. Consumption of beer and wine was most often tied to German and Italian immigrant groups frequently suspected of anarchistic actions and socialist leanings. Prohibition fit into the propaganda of war patriotism, helping pave the post-war thinking of white American nativist Fundamentalists.

These biases also affected views of Roman Catholicism. Anti-Catholicism was an historic byproduct of 19th Century American nativist beliefs. Ignorance and fear prompted some Fundamentalists to incorporate Anti-Catholicism into end-of-time scenarios, equating Catholicism with the apocalyptic anti-Christ. Dispensational theology called for a “revived Roman Empire,” an entity that included a complicit Catholic Church.

The Morality Crusade

Fundamentalism fought the expanding mentalities of “roaring twenties” freedom with as much vigor as the battle against science. Feminism contradicted biblical gender roles – or at least how such roles were perceived by conservative Protestantism. Progressivism attempted to limit the working hours of women and combat the transportation of females for “immoral purposes (Mann Act of 1910). Fundamentalists viewed the popular culture as a threat to the female as a wife and bearer of children.

Evangelical Protestantism in the 1920’s emerged out of Progressive ideals. Taken further and infused with the “old time religion” that incorporated new views of millennial expectations, Fundamentalism created a pattern that eventually evolved during the latter 20th Century into a cogent political force. What was lost in American Christianity, notably Protestantism, was what Francis Schaeffer, an evangelical mid-century thinker, called the “unity of thought.”

References:

• Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s (Harper & Row, 1964)
• Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992)
• James A. Morone, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (Yale University Press, 2003)
• Page Smith, America Enters the War: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I, Volume Seven (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

Michael Streich - Former Adjunct Instructor, History & Global Studies

DARK HOUSE CANDIDATES IN U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Dark Horse candidates represent a happy medium between all factions battling for the party nomination. In 1844 their intransigence enabled James K. Polk to be nominated as a Democrat, facing Whig candidate Henry Clas. The Barnburners, associated with New York Democrats, would rather burn down the barn with att the rats inside.

Unlike the favored frontrunners,dark horse candidates come out of the tumult of a chaotic national convention at a time other party factions are strong, but not strong enough to ensure the nomination of their man or woman. James K Polk was the first dark horse, promising to serve only one term. Polk was the political gesture that held together Jackson's followers against Henry Clay. Other dark horses included Franklin Pierce, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Warren Harding.

James K Polk entered the 1844 presidential race promising to annex Texas and settle the Oregon boundary dispute with Great Britain. A rabid expansionist, he vowed to acquire Mexico's western continental territories, completing what many believed was part of an American "Manifest Destiny." And he promised not to seek reelection.  

"General" Pierce was selected at a time the Democratic Party was fracturing following the Compromise of 1850. Unlike Polk, this dark horse failed to impact U.S. history - for good or ill, helping to postpone the inevitable crisis resulting in Civil War.  

Hayes, the third "dark horse," was the product of the "stolen election of 1876." Strong factions within the Republican Party, unable to agree on a candidate, selected Hayes in order to buy political time.  

Warren G. Harding was the last Dark Horse. A candidate to come out of the backroom bickering and negotiating, he was a notorious womanizer and drinker whose only positive act may have been eating bad fish while in California and ending his life. Yet This dark horse candidate is equated with America's "return to normalcy" after World War I. Harding died in office and is still considered one of the least effective presidents in U.S. History. 

 

Michael Streich - Former Adjunct Instructor, History & Global Studies Dark Horse Candidates in U.S. Presidential Elections

 

Electability in 1912

• Jan 25, 2012
• Michael Streich

Bob La Follette entered the 1912 campaign expecting the Progressive leadership, but was deceived by Teddy Roosevelt who wanted the nomination for himself.

By the time the first presidential preference primary was held in North Dakota on March 19, 1912, the Progressive Party was already split between Wisconsin’s Bob La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt. Both men concluded that the Taft administration was too closely aligned to the so-called establishment elements of the party, unconcerned with the progressive reform movement that championed, among other things, the Referendum, Initiative, and the Judicial Recall.

La Follette viewed himself as the only viable Republican with Progressive credentials strong enough to be considered for the presidency: “I had campaigned only for supporters willing to make the fight for principle, ready to win, or to lose, if need be, in the interest of a cause.” “Fighting Bob” handily defeated Roosevelt in North Dakota, impacting TR’s support in other contests still to come.

Progressivism in the Farm States

North Dakota was a farm state which had bitterly opposed the 1911 Reciprocity Treaty with Canada. William Howard Taft, Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor, supported the treaty. Despite documentation demonstrating that former President Roosevelt supported the treaty and advised Taft to support it as well, TR entered the contest denying his past support. It didn’t help his efforts.

Farm states and Progressive havens had their own prerequisites. In North Dakota it was La Follette. In Iowa it was Albert B. Cummins. In California Governor Hiram Johnson had been seduced by the Roosevelt folks with the promise of the vice presidency. La Follette brought thirty-six delegates to the Republican National Convention on June 18, 1912 as a bargaining chip.

Big Business Funds Roosevelt’s Campaign: the First Super-Pac

In his “true” account of the 1912 campaign, La Follette intimates that Roosevelt’s poor showing in North Dakota resulted in a reappraisal of his candidacy. $300,000 would never be enough to secure the nomination. Both La Follette and Taft’s “political machine” blamed Roosevelt’s vast increase in campaign contributions on the pockets of big business (“Why Big Business is Attacking Taft,” New York Times, January 17, 1912).

Roosevelt’s largesse was due to the efforts of men like George W. Perkins who was on the board of the Steel Trust and managed a large New York insurance firm. The Taft administration had sought to abrogate an 1832 Treaty with Russia that would have been disadvantageous to Perkin’s corporate interests which included International Harvester, headquartered in Illinois. At the same time, La Follette was advocating stringent federal policies tied to business regulations. Little wonder that an unscientific January 28, 1912 Kansas City Poll gave Roosevelt 1,152 votes, followed by 197 for La Follette and 157 for Taft. People still saw TR as a "trust buster," although the facts gave a different conclusion.

The Roosevelt Myth

Roosevelt, for many Americans, was larger than life. During his two terms he had fought the evil trusts, gained global respect for American expansion, and secured the Panama Canal. His stewardship view of the presidency allowed him to take proactive steps not necessarily forbidden by the Constitution but not explicitly expressed either.

Roosevelt, acting through loyal cohorts like the Pinchot brothers, played a coy political game until the spring of 1912, hiding behind what his closest advisors viewed as a “dummy campaign” by Bob La Follette. La Follette, however, maintained until the end that he was a viable candidate, in it until the bitter end. As such he repudiated Roosevelt’s Progressive pedigree, claiming that Roosevelt had allowed himself to be used by the “interests” in order to ultimately divide the progressives.

The Most Electable Republican

Who was the most electable Republican? In hindsight, La Follette demonstrated that Roosevelt, even in the best circumstances, never had enough delegates to win the nomination. Part of the excuse used by close supporters hinged on early Southern presidential contests where Roosevelt’s team was still unorganized but Taft had a major organizing lead.

Roosevelt’s supporters claimed “theft” and vowed to set up an alternative party, in effect dooming the Republicans in 1912 and ensuring the election of New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson. Taft would go on to teach at Yale and end his days as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a position he always craved.

La Follette’s Philadelphia Speech

Some historians point to Bob La Follette’s February 2, 1912 Periodical Publishers’ Association Speech in Philadelphia as the crucial moment of decision concerning the candidate. La Follette spoke last and was exhausted. His daughter was scheduled for a surgical procedure the following morning. “Sensational accounts of this speech” have him drinking before the address; La Follette admits only to his physical condition.

Splitting the Republican Party gave victory to Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats; such was the animosity between Taft and Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s Progressives were viewed as too out of touch (La Follette, though remaining in the Republican Party, even advocated that the Recall be applied to Supreme Court Justices). La Follette would ultimately lead the charge against U.S. entry into World War I while TR deplored Wilson’s vacillation, demanding U.S. reaction to the European conflict. Wilson waited until 1917 to ask for a war declaration. His idealistic Fourteen Points evaporated, vindicating La Follette when they went down in the flames of European balance of power arguments by European leaders that knew how to divert Wilson.

For Republicans, 1912 was a year of electability. Three strong Republicans vied for the nomination. Had Roosevelt not bolted, Taft would have won reelection. As it was, some historians believe that the most unelectable man, Woodrow Wilson, entered the White House at the wrong time in order to involve the United States in the wrong war. Between Wilson and Roosevelt, La Follette’s priorities would have been America first, something not understood by the new Anglophile President who saw himself more as a Prime Minister rather than a chief executive.

References:

• “Why Big Business is Attacking Taft,” New York Times, January 17, 1912
• James Chase, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs – The Election that Changed the Country (Simon & Schuster, 2004)
• Robert M. La Follette, La Follette’s Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences (Madison, WIS: The Robert M. La Follette Co., 1913)
• Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbidon, Fifth Edition, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development (W.W. Norton & Company, 1976)
• Frank K. Kelly, The Fight for the White House: The Story of 1912 (NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1961)
• “Roosevelt Leads in the Polls,” New York Times, January 28, 1912
• Page Smith, America Enters the World: A People’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I, Volume Seven (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

 

Woodrow Wilson’s America 100 Years Ago

July 30, 2013 by Michael Streich 

During his term in office, Woodrow Wilson saw many similar problems to those America faces today. Image by A. B. Lagrelius & Westphal, Stockholm; courtesy of Nobel Prize.

“The old political formulas do not fit the present problems; they read now like documents taken out of a forgotten age.”

This observation seems appropriate in describing the contemporary political climate in the United States. It was written, however, by the newly elected president, Woodrow Wilson, in 1913. It was the year before the Great War in Europe, a time of changing social trends and growing economic disparity. The new president was a Democrat, the first one since Grover Cleveland and only the second one since 1860 and the election of Abraham Lincoln.

Wilson’s America in 1913

Wilson won with 6,293,454 popular votes out of over 15 million cast in 1912. The dominant Republican Party split between incumbent William Howard Taft and former president Theodore Roosevelt. Although the period was dubbed the Progressive Era, Wilson’s America was characterized by great wealth disparity, deplorable working conditions, and an influx of immigrants, many coming from non-traditional regions such as Eastern Europe and Russia.

Unlike Roosevelt and Taft, Wilson had no political background except for having served two years as the governor of New Jersey. He was not aligned to the social upper class. After winning the presidency, for example, his wife was “appalled,” according to historian Virginia Cowles, that Mrs. Taft, the former First Lady, had spent over $6,000 a year on clothing appropriate to her position.

Mrs. Wilson reportedly remarked, “I like to be tastefully gowned but I do not think that extravagance brings a woman happiness.”

The silk industry in Paterson, New Jersey employed many children with low wages and cruel conditions. Strikes in 1913 closed the factories. Library of Congress photo. Part of the Bain Collection.

In 1913 the American nation was in a period of transition. Like their counterparts in Britain who tended to be more aggressive, suffragettes marched, fighting for the right to vote. Wilson opposed them, as did his wife. Wealth disparity, highlighted in the nation’s social columns reporting on the Newport parties and other such gatherings, bred the fear of socialism. In the election of 1912, Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs had received almost a million popular votes.

On the world stage, the United States was an imperialist power. Directly and indirectly, the spheres of influence included the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Conquering the Philippines came as a result of the Spanish American War and enhanced the career of William Howard Taft who had served as governor of the territory followed by an appointment to Teddy Roosevelt’s Cabinet.

From the War Department, Taft’s next career move was as President. He golfed, ate out of frustration – according to several historians – and worked with the Congress to achieve reforms Progressive legislators deemed paltry while appeasing the money interests.

Reforms and Issues Facing Wilson

But it was Wilson, beginning in 1913, who personally spearheaded reforms like the Federal Reserve and tariff reform. A “brilliant historian and political theorist,” according to Constitutional scholar Alfred Kelly, Wilson modeled his executive leadership more on the British parliamentary system, going to the Congress himself to push through “administration” bills. When lobbying interests opposed him, he took his case directly to the people.

Wilson was, at heart, a schoolmaster, the Princeton professor immersed in research and lecturing. He was conservative by contemporary standards, religiously moral, and an idealist. He supported Prohibition yet fought tenaciously for a new world order at the end of World War I, including the creation of the League of Nations. It was this man, who began every Cabinet meeting with prayer, that rose to lead the nation in 1913.

The “big money trusts,” however, controlled practically every aspect of business and finance. The Federal Reserve Act, crafted by Wilson and Representative Carter Glass of Virginia, was originally conceived on Jekyll Island, Georgia – the “millionaires retreat,” by Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and a small group of bankers.

The Congressional “Pujo Committee,” after months of hearings and interviews, determined that, “In all, 341 directorships in a hundred and twelve corporations [had] aggregate resources of $22,245,000,000.” (Virginia Cowles, 1967). The wealthiest and most powerful man was J.P. Morgan. Morgan’s vast holdings included the British White Star Line which included the ill-fated RMS Titanic. Morgan missed the maiden voyage; his stateroom remained empty.

America in 1913 was both patriotic and religious. Wilson was a conservative Presbyterian. His Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, was a fundamentalist who would defend creationism in the Scopes Trial in 1925 Tennessee. In 1913, evangelist Billy Sunday was still drawing large crowds to his revivalist meetings where he preached against the sin of alcohol consumption. Yet, according to writer Bob Frost, Sunday earned more in one day than an average American family earned annually.nd of 1913, Henry Ford began to pay his employees five dollars a day after recording record profits of twenty million in 1913.

Pursuing the American Dream

Early in 1913 underpaid restaurant workers staged a walkout in New York. Mobs of waiters and kitchen employees broke the windows of the famed Hotel Knickerbocker, Hotel Belmont, Waldorf Astoria, the Ritz-Carlton, and Delmonico’s.

These actions, under the auspices of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), were followed by a strike in Paterson, New Jersey lasting four months. Ironically, both actions were planned in the Greenwich Village apartment of Mrs. Mabel Dodge, one of the wealthiest Americans, and a leader in New York society.

This was also the time new music – syncopation, “modern” art, and silent movies were altering society. The Birth of a Nation, which premiered in 1915, received a “thumbs up” from President Wilson, who supposedly commented, “that’s the way it really was.” The film perpetuated many of the myths associated with the Reconstruction Era as well as stereotyping blacks in the South.

One hundred years later the nation is still divided between post-modernists and the social purists who yearn for a simpler past. The history of America, however, has always been of struggle and the attainment of the American Dream. At the end of 1913 many believed that Henry Ford was making that dream possible by raising wages for his workers from two to five dollars a day. World War One was only six months away.

Resources

Cowles, Virginia. 1913 An End and a Beginning. (1967). New York: Harper & Row.

Frost, Bob. Soul Saver. (July/August 2013). History Channel Magazine.

Kelly, Alfred and Winfred A. Harbison. The American Constitution Its Origins and Development. (1976). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Smith, Page. A People’s History of the United States. (1986). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

© Copyright 2013 Michael Streich, All rights Reserved. Written For: Decoded Past