From 3037b638de3559d51c8cda54b607d3a6b99e42d7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Holden Rohrer Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2020 10:34:42 -0400 Subject: watched a couple of Smith lectures --- smith/04_politics_populism | 153 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ smith/05_american_empire | 141 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 294 insertions(+) create mode 100644 smith/04_politics_populism create mode 100644 smith/05_american_empire diff --git a/smith/04_politics_populism b/smith/04_politics_populism new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ffb36b --- /dev/null +++ b/smith/04_politics_populism @@ -0,0 +1,153 @@ +The Gilded Age: Politics and Populism + +High levels of corruption during the gilded age. + +Woodrow Wilson said that modern politcis had no leaders +Roosevelt, critic of Wilson says that "when role called in senate, +senators don't know whether to say present or not guilty." +Barons/special interests bought favors, priveleges, lobbying. +Common desires to repair the system. +Fed. gov't very small at time (mostly postal), so politics was primarily +local/regional. 20th century saw its growth. +Party loyalty (both for issues and for networking) was very important. + +Rings +- Organizational groups that controlled cities +- Bosses (like William Tweed) controlled +- Used "machines" to support and manage specific action in gov't + - Gave out contracts in a favour system + - Patronage ("Spoils") System for supporters + - Feudal hierarchy. Senator -> Clerk/post -> support + - Managed within schemes of party loyalty + - Brought structure, stability + - Often plundering government + - Expected *appointed* officials to be loyal to bosses + - Acted as judge system +- Civil Service Reformers attacked this system (preferring merit) + +Very high voter turnout with uncontroversial platforms +- Dems for small gov, white supremacy + - Northern Irish-Catholic Germans + - White supremacist southerners + - Disagreed with "party of morality" + - Prohibition to hurt specific group +- Reps against tarriffs but okay with it if it benefits const. + - Popular in Protestant {NE,midwest} + - Relied on votes by African-Americans + - Veterans +- Third party (greenback, populist, prohibition) + - Specific issues +- NAWSA gained women voting rights in 1890s four states. + +Grover Cleveland +- Narrow view of presidency (laissez-faire, administrative) +- Vetoed 2/3 of all bills +- Highly conservative, "Grover the Good" +The Dawes Act +- To break up and assimilate American Indians +- Distributed reservation land as plots among families +- Gave remaining land to white settlers +- Old policy: confine Amerindians to reservations and teach individual + property +- Made Amerindians subject to federal law as individual +- Amerindians had to "prove" they could farm competently over 25 years + - After, they could try to obtain citizenship if success + - If fail, they have to pay taxes + - Land could not yield sustainable crop + +Major Issues? +- Civil Service Reform + Conservative (anti-women's suffrage) + James Garfield murdered by Republican office-seeker + Charles Guitea expected return for working to elect him + Stalks the president because he believes he's destined for + greatness. + "Mordered by the Spoils System" + Pres Chester Arthur keeps promises to avoid spoils politics + Pendleton Act (1883) + Created Civil Service Commission. + Prohibited federal employees from solicit or recv political + contrtibutions from federal workers. + Prohibited political firings + Gov't was growing, so sorely needed. +- Tariffs + - McKinley (ROhio) Tariff appeased businesses and competitors + - Businesses raised prices + - Republicans losing support from this +!!Populist party (farmworkers, wage laborers) +- Currency + - Currency disappearing, so it deflates + Principles: + - Amount of money in circulation determines its value + - Unbacked (by gold or silver) currency loses value rapidly + - Monetary policy hurt farmers because crop value decreased + - "Deflationary spiral" made it hard to repay debts -> continued + deflation + - In 1873, US went bimetallic standard -> gold standard + - Eliminated silver dollar + - Farmers, miners supported return to 16:1 bimetallic standard + - Inflation to help pay debt, "unlimited coinage" + - Congress authorized gov to buy silver in 1890 + Sherman Silver Purchasing Act + Increased nation's money supply, inflating economy + +Panic of 1893 +- Soon after inauguration for Grover Cleveland's second term +- Farmers worried about droughts, crop prices, foreclosures, railroad + price discrimination +- Stock market crash and successive bank run in May +- Gets worse by 1894 + - Businesses, banks shuttering + - Lasts until 1898 + - Cleveland restricts credit +- Jacob Coxey's Army + - Wants $5M to build more railroads and employ men + - Civil War vet, farmer, business-owner + - Marched on Congress for bimetallic standard to reverse + deflationary spiral + - Coxey arrested and sent to jail for 20 days + +Pullman Strike +- Protesting wage cuts and layoffs from pullman railcar workers + - Pay rent to company; wages reduced without reduction in rent +- 10 days after coxey's army +- Cleveland sends in armed forces on basis of interference with mail + delivery +- Chicago +- Court issued injunction against union + - Violent confrontation between illegal union and police + - 26 men died + - Army occupied railroad yards to "restore order" + +Populism +- Want better farm profits, less debt to farmers +- For bimetallic standard (unlimited coinage), regulation of + railroads/utilities (rail price discrimination) +- Also direct election of senators +- Political Platform +- James Weaver (populist nominee) loses with 1M votes in 1892 +- 1896 Election: "Battle of the Standards" + - Democrat division + - Bourbon democrats: Democrat establishment support gold + - Back Grover Cleveland + - Destroyed by economy, Cleveland loses + - Silver democrats: farmers, miners favouring bimetallic + - Silverites + - Silver signified support of rural, downtrodden, shift away from NE + - McKinley (R) supports big biz. + - Rallies around property owners and conservative on change + - Gives speech from portch + - Silverites (dems+pop) nominate Williamns Jennings Bryan (D-NE) + - Cross of Gold speech: ``you shall not crucify mankind upon + a cross of gold'' (or press upon the working man crown of + thorns) + - Appeals to populist platform + - Repubs call him "leader of malcontents" + - Took campaign directly to voters (visit 18K mile, 27 state) + becuase Eastern newspapers wouldn't support him + - "Merchandising" campaign + - Cleanse nation of corruption and inequality, pro-rural, + pro-religious + - Despite legendary campaign, 4% lead in favor of McKinley + because Bryan failed to reach urban-industrial NErs + - Followed by 36 years of Republican dom except Woodrow diff --git a/smith/05_american_empire b/smith/05_american_empire new file mode 100644 index 0000000..377c09b --- /dev/null +++ b/smith/05_american_empire @@ -0,0 +1,141 @@ +Wanted to avoid Europe. + +Manifest Destiny +- US Blessed by god and destined to expand westward +- Justified imperialism + - Spread christianity, capitalist/dem ideals, greed + - Create colonies without turning into states + +Americans embraced expansionism +- 1898: America, in one-sided war with Spain becomes ruler of colonies + +"Winning of the West" by Teddy Roosevelt + America needs to rule the "backwards peoples of the world" + Like Amerindians, new subjects + +What factors motivated America's new imperialism during the late +nineteenth century? + +Pre-age of empires +Washington's outgoing address to public: + - Avoid factionalism and war (entanglement with European powers) + - Isolationism +[James] Munroe Doctrine: + - Non-interference in East and control of West + - View interference with US as hostile + +1867-1899: +Imperialism starts + - Expanding a nation's power through colonialism, annexation +James G Blaine (of Garfield cabinet) + other "foreign policy elites" + - Believed in aggressive expansion of the US to compete w/ GB, FR + - Economic argument: farmers, manufacturers need new markets + - Want China as mkt + - Believed that expansion would solve domestic problems. +Frederick Jackson Turner authored a book + "The Frontier" builds American character (darwinism, self, manhood) + - Battle between native-born white americans and "Indian savages" + - The literal frontier is "closed," so develop a "new frontier" +Alfred Thayer Mahan, military strategist + - "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" + - What makes a nation great? + Wealth through foreign trade and + Protection of distant ports with a powerful navy + - Build an isthmus canal protected by US navy + - Stepping stones and refueling stations in Pacific (Hawaii, Guam, + Wake Island, Philippines) +Racial/Civilization argument + - Spread Christianity, civilization(materialism,property), democracy + - Josiath Strong: expansionist minister + - "Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis" (1885) + - US is in a race with other nations to conquer the world +Rudyard Kipling + - Poem: "The White Man's Burden" (1899) + - White Anglo-sax (am,gb) need to govern dark-skinned people + ("inferior races") by imposing Christian, American principles + - Their duty to establish success and stability of their nations + +What were the causes of the Spanish-American War (1898)? + +Cuba is a Spanish colony. + But it trades more with US than with Spain. + US moguls who set up mining, sugar concerned about sec of investment +Jose Marti, journalist and poet who started revolution + Scorched earth policy (burning trains, exploding bridges) + Burned American plantations to provoke American involvement + Spanish Gen. Valeriano Weyler moves villages of people to other + parts of country (concentration camps) + During the revolution, Americans worried they wouldn't get the + chance to colonise/control Amer. interests + McKinley considered buying Cuba and ending conflict + +"Penny Press" and Yellow Journalism +- William Randolph Hearst: NY Journal +- Joseph Pulitzer: NY World +- Competing for readership with sensational headlines about possibly + invented Spanish atrocities + Hearst: newspapers have the duty to shape public opinion, legis. + "Have the power to declare war" +- Yellow Journalism shapes public opinion with false stories + - Portray Cubans as light-skinned civilized freedom lovers and + Spaniards as dark-skinned brutes + +Enrique DuPuy De Lome: Spanish ambassador to US + - Called McKinley "weak and bitter for the admiration of the crowd" + - USS Maine exploded, killing 260/354. Years later ruled an + accident, but warmongerers (like T. Roosevelt, navyman) declared + this an act of war + - Public liked Spain less and less + - "Remember The Maine, and to hell with Spain!" + - At first, Spain agreed to every American demand + - Apr 20: Congress demanded withdrawal of Spain, and US begins to + blockade Cuban ports. + - Before war is declared, navy declares victory over Philippines + - Dewey, with American navy, easily beats outdated Cuban forces + - German and Brit. forces cruised around, waiting to takeover if + the US doesn't (it does months later, with backup) +Roosevelt and the Rough Riders + - Roosevelt is pro-imperialism, believing it to make a nation + powerful + - Rough Riders cavalry become weary walkers + - Roosevelt wanted to defeat Spain + - Believed that fighting in war was the ultimate test of manhood + +What were the consequences of the Spanish-American war for the United +States? + +- Spain surrenders after 4 months +Dec 10, 1898: US and Spain sign Treaty of Paris +- Cuba -> independent +- US annexes PR and Guam as territories +- US annexes Manila, expecting to take over in US +- Reinforces Manifest Destiny +- Europe respects America as an international power + +Business and missionaries support annexation to bring commerce and +Christianity to "the little brown brother" (and penetrate China) + +Emilio Aguinaldo -- Filipino General and Independence Leader +- It came to McKinley that he wanted to annex after many days of + decisionmaking: don't give power to Spain/Fr/Germany and don't free + because they "cannot self-govern" +- Locals support independence movements + - 1899: Filipinos declare independence + - 1899-1902 Filipino-American War + - Aguinaldo is president + - US fires on "Insurrectos" + - Jun 2, Filipino Insurrectos declare war + - 4x as many troops, $600M, >200K Filipinos (many civilians), >4K am + - 1902: Filipinos were unorganized territory (ineligible for state) + +China +- Japan wins first Sino-Japanese were in 1844-45 and Eur. nations + establish spheres of influence +- Open Door Notes by Sec. of St. John Hay + - Nations shouldn't take control of China because market should be + available to the world + - GB accepts policy, but only GB. + - Hay announces all accept policy, but they just didn't disagree +- Boxers Rebellion (1900) rejects foreign power and destroys foreign + embassies + - Organization to recover ambassadors -- cgit