The History Book Club discussion
This topic is about
Woodrow Wilson
PRESIDENTIAL SERIES
>
WOODROW WILSON: A BIOGRAPHY - GLOSSARY (SPOILER THREAD)
date
newest »
newest »
George H. Moses
Moses, George Higgins, a Senator from New Hampshire; born in Lubec, Washington County, Maine, February 9, 1869; attended the public schools of Eastport, Maine, and Franklin, N.H.; graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H., in 1887 and from Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., in 1890; private secretary to the Governor 1889-1891; reporter, news editor, and chief editor on the Concord Evening Monitor 1892-1918; member and secretary of the New Hampshire Forestry Commission 1893-1907; United States Minister to Greece and Montenegro 1909-1912; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on November 5, 1918, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Jacob H. Gallinger; reelected in 1920, and again in 1926, and served from November 6, 1918, to March 3, 1933; served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Sixty-ninth through the Seventy-second Congresses; chairman, Committee on Printing (Sixty-sixth through Sixty-eighth Congresses), Committee on Post Office and Post Roads (Sixty-ninth and Seventieth Congresses), Committee on Rules (Seventy-first and Seventy-second Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1932 and for the Republican nomination for United States Senator in 1936; engaged in literary work in Concord, N.H., and Washington, D.C.; died in Concord, N.H., December 20, 1944; interment in Franklin Cemetery, Franklin, N.H.
(Source: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H...
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg....
by Jo Anne McCormick Quatannens (no photo)
Claude A. Swanson
Swanson, Claude Augustus, a Representative and a Senator from Virginia; born in Swansonville, Va., March 31, 1862; attended the public schools; taught school; attended the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College (now the Virginia Polytechnic Institute) at Blacksburg; graduated from Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Va., in 1885 and from the law department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1886; admitted to the bar in 1886 and commenced practice in Chatham, Pittsylvania County, Va.; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-third and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1893, until his resignation, effective January 30, 1906; unsuccessful candidate for nomination as governor in 1901; Governor of Virginia 1906-1910; appointed as a Democrat to the United States Senate in August 1910, to fill the vacancy in the term ending March 3, 1911, caused by the death of John W. Daniel; again appointed, on February 28, 1911, and subsequently elected to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John W. Daniel, who had been reelected for the term commencing March 4, 1911; reelected in 1916, 1922 and 1928 and served from August 1, 1910, until March 3, 1933, when he resigned to accept a Cabinet portfolio; chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Sixty-third through Sixty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Naval Affairs (Sixty-fifth Congress), Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy (Sixty-sixth Congress); Secretary of the Navy in the Cabinet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 until his death at Rapidan Camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Criglersville, Madison County, Va., July 7, 1939; funeral services were held in the Chamber of the United States Senate; interment in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va.
(Source: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_A...
http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Swans...
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg....
http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/v...
http://www.nga.org/cms/home/governors...
by John W. Raimo (no photo)
by Jo Anne McCormick Quatannens (no photo)(no image) The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography by James T. White (no photo)
(no image) The Governors of Virginia, 1860-1978 by Edward Younger (no photo)
(no image) Claude A. Swanson of Virginia: A Political Biography by Henry C. Ferrell (no photo)
Henry Ford
Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on his family's farm in Dearborn, Michigan. From the time he was a young boy, Ford enjoyed tinkering with machines. Farm work and a job in a Detroit machine shop afforded him ample opportunities to experiment. He later worked as a part-time employee for the Westinghouse Engine Company. By 1896, Ford had constructed his first horseless carriage which he sold in order to finance work on an improved model.
Ford incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903, proclaiming, "I will build a car for the great multitude." In October 1908, he did so, offering the Model T for $950. In the Model T's nineteen years of production, its price dipped as low as $280. Nearly 15,500,000 were sold in the United States alone. The Model T heralds the beginning of the Motor Age; the car evolved from luxury item for the well-to-do to essential transportation for the ordinary man.
Ford revolutionized manufacturing. By 1914, his Highland Park, Michigan plant, using innovative production techniques, could turn out a complete chassis every 93 minutes. This was a stunning improvement over the earlier production time of 728 minutes. Using a constantly-moving assembly line, subdivision of labor, and careful coordination of operations, Ford realized huge gains in productivity.
In 1914, Ford began paying his employees five dollars a day, nearly doubling the wages offered by other manufacturers. He cut the workday from nine to eight hours in order to convert the factory to a three-shift workday. Ford's mass-production techniques would eventually allow for the manufacture of a Model T every 24 seconds. His innovations made him an international celebrity.
Ford's affordable Model T irrevocably altered American society. As more Americans owned cars, urbanization patterns changed. The United States saw the growth of suburbia, the creation of a national highway system, and a population entranced with the possibility of going anywhere anytime. Ford witnessed many of these changes during his lifetime, all the while personally longing for the agrarian lifestyle of his youth. In the years prior to his death on April 7, 1947, Ford sponsored the restoration of an idyllic rural town called Greenfield Village.
(Source: http://inventors.about.com/od/fstarti...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexper...
http://media.ford.com/article_display...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
by Vincent Curcio (no photo)
by Steven Watts (no photo)
by Richard Bak (no photo)(no image) Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 1903-2003 by
Douglas Brinkley(no image) Ford: Expansion and Challenge 1915-1933 by
Allan Nevins
Irvine Lenroot
Lenroot, Irvine Luther, a Representative and a Senator from Wisconsin; born in Superior, Wis., January 31, 1869; attended the common schools; worked as a logger and a court reporter; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1898 and commenced practice in Superior, Wis.; member, State assembly 1901-1907, and served as speaker 1903-1907; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-first and to the four succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1909, until April 17, 1918, when he resigned, having been elected Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on April 2, 1918, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Paul O. Husting; reelected in 1920 and served from April 18, 1918, to March 3, 1927; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1926; chairman, Committee on Railroads (Sixty-sixth Congress), Committee on Public Lands and Surveys (Sixty-eighth Congress), Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Sixty-ninth Congress); resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C.; appointed judge of the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals by President Herbert Hoover in 1929, and served until his retirement in 1944; died in Washington, D.C., January 26, 1949; interment in Greenwood Cemetery, Superior, Wis.
(Source: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irvine_L...
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dicti...
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wmh/a...
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wlhba...
(no image) Senator Lenroot of Wisconsin by Herbert F. Margulies (no photo)
by Jo Anne McCormick Quatannens (no photo)
by Silvano A Wueschner (no photo)
by Barbara Dotts Paul (no photo)
by Nancy C Unger (no photo)
Wilson's Pueblo Colorado Speech, Part OneMr. Chairman and fellow countrymen: It is with a great deal of genuine pleasure that I find myself in Pueblo, and I feel it a compliment in this beautiful hall. One of the advantages of this hall, as I look about, is that you are not too far away from me, because there is nothing so reassuring to men who are trying to express the public sentiment as getting into real personal contact with their fellow citizens.
I have gained a renewed impression as I have crossed the continent this time of the homogeneity of this great people to whom we belong. 'They come from many stocks, but they arc all of one kind. They come from many origins, but they are all shot through with the same principles and desire the same righteous and honest things. I have received a more inspiring impression this time of the public opinion of the United States than it was ever my privilege to receive before.
The chief pleasure of my trip has been that it has nothing to do with my personal fortunes, that it has nothing to do with my personal reputation, that it has nothing to do with anything except great principles uttered by Americans of all sorts and of all parties which we are now trying to realize at this crisis of the affairs of the world.
But there have been unpleasant impressions as well as pleasant impressions, my fellow citizens, as I have crossed the continent. I have perceived more and more that men have been busy creating an absolutely false impression of what the treaty of peace and the Covenant of the League of Nations contain and mean.
I find, moreover, that there is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from which threatened this country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say-I cannot say too often-any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.
If I can catch any man with a hyphen in this great contest I will know that I have got an enemy of the Republic. My fellow citizens, it is only certain bodies of foreign sympathies, certain bodies of sympathy with foreign nations that are organized against this great document which the American representatives have brought back from Paris.
Therefore, in order to clear away the mists, in order to remove the impressions, in order to check the falsehoods that have clustered around this great subject, I want to tell you a few very simple things about the treaty and the covenant.
Do not think of this treaty of peace as merely a settlement with Germany. It is that. It is a very severe settlement with Germany, but there is not anything in it that she did not earn. Indeed, she earned more than she can ever be able to pay for, and the punishment exacted of her is not a punishment greater than she can bear, and it is absolutely necessary in order that no other nation may ever plot such a thing against humanity and civilization.
But the treaty is so much more than that. It is not merely a settlement with Germany; it is a readjustment of those great injustices which underlie the whole structure of European and Asiatic society. This is only the first of several treaties. They are all constructed upon the same plan. The Austrian treaty follows the same lines. The treaty with Hungary follows the same lines.
The treaty with Bulgaria follows the same lines. The treaty with Turkey, when it is formulated, will follow the same lines. What are those lines? They are based upon the purpose to see that every government dealt with in this great settlement is put in the hands of the people and taken out of the hands of coteries and of sovereigns who had no right to rule over the people.
It is a people's treaty, that accomplishes by a great sweep of practical justice the liberation of men who never could have liberated themselves, and the power of the most powerful nations has been devoted not to their aggrandizement but to the liberation of people whom they could have put under their control if they had chosen to do so.
Not one foot of territory is demanded by the conquerors, not one single item of submission to their authority is demanded by them. The men who sat around that table in Paris knew that the time had come when the people were no longer going to consent to live under masters, but were going to live the lives that they chose themselves, to live under such governments as they chose themselves to erect. That is the fundamental principle of this great settlement.
And we did not stop with that. We added a great international charter for the rights of labour. Reject this treaty, impair it, and this is the consequence of the labouring en of the world, that there is no international tribunal which can bring the moral judgments of the world to bear upon the great labour questions of the day.
What we need to do with regard to the labour questions of the day, my fellow countrymen, is tilt them into the light, is to lift them out of the haze and distraction of passion, of hostility, out into the calm spaces where men look at things without passion. The more men you get into a great discussion is the more you exclude passion.
Just as soon as the calm judgment of the world is directed upon the question of justice to labour, labour is going to have to forum such as it never was supplied with before, and men everywhere are going to see that the problem of labour is nothing more nor less o than the problem of the elevation of humanity.
We must see that all the questions which have disturbed the world, all the questions which have eaten into the confidence of men toward their governments, all the questions which have disturbed the processes of industry, shall be brought out where men of all points of view, men of all attitudes of mind, men of all kinds of experience, may contribute their part of the settlement of the great questions which we must settle and cannot ignore.
At the front of this great treaty is put the Covenant of the League of Nations. It will also be at the front of the Austrian, treaty and the Hungarian treaty and the Bulgarian treaty and the treaty with Turkey. Every one of them will contain the Covenant of the League of Nations, because you cannot work any of them without the Covenant of the League of Nations.
Unless you get the united, concerted purpose and power of the great Governments of the world behind this settlement, it will fall down like a house of cards. There is only one power to put behind the liberation of mankind, and that is the power of mankind. It is the power of the united moral forces of the world, and in the Covenant of the League of Nations the moral forces of the world are mobilized. For what purpose?
Reflect, my fellow citizens, that the membership of this great League is going to include all the great fighting nations of the world, as well as the weak ones. It is not for the present going to include Germany, but for the time being Germany is not a great fighting country. All the nations that have power that can be mobilized are going to be members of this League, including the United States.
And what do they unite for? They enter into a solemn promise to one another that they will never use their power against one anther for aggression; that they never will impair the territorial integrity of a neighbour; that they never will interfere with the political independence of a neighbour; that they will abide by the principle that great populations are entitled to determine their own destiny and that they will not interfere with that destiny; and that no matter what differences arise amongst them they will never resort to war without first having done one or other of two things - either submitted the matter of controversy to arbitration, in which case they agree to abide by the result without question, or submitted it to the consideration of the council of the League of Nations, laying before that council all the documents, all the facts, agreeing that the council can publish the documents and the facts to the whole world, agreeing that there shall be six months allowed for the mature consideration of those facts by the council, and agreeing that at the expiration of the six months, even if they are not then ready to accept the advice of the council with regard to the settlement of the dispute, they will still not go to war for another three months.
In other words, they consent, no matter what happens, to submit every matter of difference between them to the judgment of mankind, and just so certainly as they do that, my fellow citizens, war will be in the far background, war will be pushed out of that foreground of terror in which it has kept the world for generation after generation, and men will know that there will be a calm time of deliberate counsel.
The most dangerous thing for a bad cause is to expose it to the opinion of the world. The most certain way that you can prove that a man is mistaken is by letting all his neighbours know what he thinks, by letting all his neighbours discuss what he thinks, and if he is in the wrong you will notice that he will stay at home, he will not walk on the street.
He will be afraid of the eyes of his neighbours. He will be afraid of their judgment of his character. He will know that his cause is lost unless he can sustain it by the arguments of right and of justice. The same law that applies to individuals applies to nations.
But, you say, "We have heard that we might be at a disadvantage in the League of Nations." Well, whoever told you that either was deliberately falsifying or he had not read the Covenant of the League of Nations. I leave him the choice. I want to give you a very simple account of the organization of the League of Nations and let you judge for yourselves.
It is a very simple organization. The power of the League, or rather the activities of the league, lie in two bodies. There is the council, which consists of one representative from each of the principal allied and associated powers-that is to say, the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, along with four other representatives of smaller powers chosen out of the general body of the membership of the League.
The council is the source of every active policy of the League, and no active policy of the League can be adopted without a unanimous vote of the council. That is explicitly stated in the Covenant itself. Does it not evidently follow that the League of Nations can adopt no policy whatever without the consent of the United States?
The affirmative vote of the representative of the United States is necessary in every case. Now, you have heard of six votes belonging to the British Empire. Those six votes are not in the council. They are in the assembly, and the interesting thing is that the assembly does not vote. I must qualify that statement a little, but essentially it is absolutely true.
In every matter in which the assembly is given a voice, and there are only four or five, its vote does not count unless concurred in by the representatives of all the nations represented on the council, so that there is no validity to any vote of the assembly unless in that vote also the representative of the United States concurs.
That one vote of the United States is as big as the six votes of the British Empire. I am not jealous for advantage, my fellow citizens, but I think that is a perfectly safe situation. There is no validity in a vote, either by the council or the assembly, in which we do not concur. So much for the statements about the six votes of the British Empire.
(Source: http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/w...)
Wilson's Pueblo Colorado Speech, Part TwoLook at it in another aspect. The assembly is the talking body. The assembly was created in order that anybody that purposed anything wrong should be subjected to the awkward circumstance that everybody could talk about it.
This is the great assembly in which all the things that are likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations are to be exposed to the general view, and I want to ask you if you think it was unjust, unjust to the United States, that speaking parts should be assigned to the several portions of the British Empire? Do you think it unjust that there should be some spokesman in debate for that fine little stout Republic down in the Pacific, New Zealand?
Do you think it was unjust that Australia should be allowed to stand up and take part in the debate-Australia, from which we have learned some of the most useful progressive policies of modern time, a little nation only five million in a great continent, but counting for several times five in its activities and in its interest in liberal reform?
Do you think it unjust that that little Republic down in South Africa whose gallant resistance to being subjected to any outside authority at all we admired for so many months and whose fortunes we followed with such interest, should have a speaking part?
Great Britain obliged South Africa to submit to her sovereignty, but she immediately after that felt that it was convenient and right to hand the whole self government of that colony over to the very men whom she had beaten.
The representatives of south Africa in Paris were two of the most distinguished generals of the Boer Army, two of the realest men I ever met, two men that could talk sober counsel and wise advice, along with the best statesmen in Europe. To exclude Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts from the right to stand up in the parliament of the world and say something concerning the affairs of mankind would be absurd.
And what about Canada? Is not Canada a good neighbour? I ask you, Is not Canada more likely to agree with the United States than with Great Britain? Canada has a speaking part. And then, for the first time in the history of the world, that great voiceless multitude that throng hundreds of millions strong in India, has a voice, and I want to testify that some of the wisest and most dignified figures in the peace conference at Paris came from India, men who seemed to carry in their minds an older wisdom than the rest of us had, whose traditions ran back into so many of the unhappy fortunes of mankind that they seemed very useful counsellors as to how some ray of hope and some prospect of happiness could be opened to its people.
I for my part have no jealousy whatever of those five speaking parts in the assembly. Those speaking parts cannot translate themselves into five votes that can in any matter override the voice and purpose of the United States.
Let us sweep aside all this language of jealousy. Let us be big enough to know the facts and to welcome the facts, because the facts are based upon the principle that America has always fought for, namely, the equality of self-governing peoples, whether they were big or little-not counting men, but counting rights, not counting representation, but counting the purpose of that representation.
When you hear an opinion quoted you do not count the number of persons who hold it; you ask, "Who said that?" You weigh opinions, you do not count them, and the beauty of all democracies is that every voice can be heard, every voice can have its effect, every voice can contribute to the general judgment that is finally arrived at. That is the object of democracy.
Let us accept what America has always fought for, and accept it with pride that America showed the way and made the proposal. I do not mean that America made the proposal in this particular instance; I mean that the principle was an American principle, proposed by America.
Well you come to the heart of the Covenant, my fellow citizens, you will End it in article ten, and I am very much interested to know that the other things have been blown away like bubbles. There is nothing in the other contentions with regard to the league of nations, but there is something in article ten that you ought to realize and ought to accept or reject.
Article ten is the heart of the whole matter. What is article ten? I never am certain that I can from memory give a literal repetition of its language, but I am sure that I can give an exact interpretation of its meaning. Article ten provides that every member of the league covenants to respect and preserve the territorial integrity and existing political independence of every other member of the league as against external aggression.
Not against internal disturbance. There was not a man at that table who did not admit the sacredness of the right of self determination, the sacredness of the right of any body of people to say that they would not continue to live under the Government they were then living under, and under article eleven of the Covenant they are given a place to say whether they will live under it or not.
For following article ten is article eleven, which makes it the right of any member of the League at any time to call attention to anything, anywhere, that is likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations upon which the peace of the world depends. I want to give you an illustration of what that would mean.
You have heard a great deal- something that was true and a great deal that was false-about that provision of the treaty which hands over to Japan the rights which Germany enjoyed in the Province of Shantung in China. In the first place, Germany did not enjoy any rights there that other nations had not already claimed.
For my part, my judgment, my moral judgment, is against the whole set of concessions. They were all of them unjust to China, they ought never to have been exacted, they were all exacted by duress, from a great body of thoughtful and ancient and helpless people.
There never was it any right in any of them. Thank God, America never asked for any, never dreamed of asking for any. But when Germany got this concession in 1898, the Government of the United States made no protest whatever.
That was not because the Government of the United States was not in the hands of high-minded and conscientious men. It was. William McKinley was President and John Hay was Secretary of State-as safe hands to leave the honour of the United States in as any that you can cite.
They made no protest because the state of international law at that time was that it was none of their business unless they could show that the interests of the United States were affected, and the only thing that they could show with regard to the interests of the United States was that Germany might close the doors of Shantung Province against the trade of the United States.
They, therefore, demanded and obtained promises that we could continue to sell merchandise in Shantung. Immediately following that concession to Germany there was a concession to Russia of the same sort, of Port Arthur, and Port Arthur was handed over subsequently to Japan on the very territory of the United States.
Don't you remember that when Russia and Japan got into war with one another the war was brought to a conclusion by a treaty written at Portsmouth, N.H., and in that treaty without the slightest intimation from any authoritative sources in America that the Government of the United States had any objection, Port Arthur, Chinese territory, was turned over to Japan?
I want you distinctly to understand that there is no thought of criticism in my mind. I am expounding to you a state of international law. Now, read articles ten and eleven. You will see that international law is revolutionized by putting morals into it. Article ten says that no member of the League, and that includes all these nations at have demanded these things unjustly of China, shall impair the territorial integrity or the political independence of any other member of the League.
China is going to be a member of the League. Article eleven says that any member of the League can all attention to anything that is likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations, and China is for the first time in the history of mankind afforded a standing before the jury of the world.
I, for my part, have a profound sympathy for China, and I am proud to have taken part in an arrangement which promises the protection of the world to the rights of China. The whole atmosphere of the world is changed by a thing like that, my fellow citizens. The whole international practice of the world is revolutionized.
But you will say, "What is the second sentence of article ten? That is what gives very disturbing thoughts." The second sentence is that the council of the League shall advise what steps, if any, are necessary to carry out the guaranty of the first sentence, namely, that the members will respect and preserve the territorial integrity and political independence of the other members.
I do not know any other meaning for the word "advise" except "advise." The council advises, and it cannot advise without the vote of the United States. Why gentlemen should fear that the Congress of the United States would be advised to do something that it did not want to do I frankly cannot imagine, because they cannot even be advised to do anything unless their own representative has participated in the advice.
It may be that that will impair somewhat the vigour of the League, but, nevertheless, the fact is so, that we are not obliged to take any advice except our own, which to any man who wants to go his own course is a very satisfactory state of affairs. Every man regards his own advice as best, and I dare say every man mixes his own advice with some thought of his own interest.
Whether we use it wisely or unwisely, we can use the vote of the United States to make impossible drawing the United States into any enterprise that she does not care to be drawn into.
Yet article ten strikes at the taproot of war. Article ten is a statement that the very things that have always been sought in imperialistic wars are henceforth foregone by every ambitious nation in the world. I would have felt very much disturbed if, sitting at the peace table in Paris, I had supposed that I was expounding my own ideas.
Whether you believe it or not, I know the relative size of my own ideas; I know how they stand related in bulk and proportion to the moral judgments of my fellow countrymen, and I proposed nothing whatever at the peace table at Paris that I had not sufficiently certain knowledge embodied the moral judgment of the citizens of the United States.
I had gone over there with, so to say, explicit instructions. Don't you remember that we laid down fourteen points which should contain the principles of the settlement? They were not my points. In every one of them I was conscientiously trying to read the thought of the people of the United States, and after I uttered those points I had every assurance given me that could be given me that they did speak the moral judgment of the United States and not my single judgment.
Then when it came to that critical period just a little less than a year ago, when it was evident that the war was coming to its critical end, all the nations engaged in the war accepted those fourteen principles explicitly as the basis of the armistice and the basis of the peace. In those circumstances I crossed the ocean under bond to my own people and to the other governments with which I was dealing.
(Source: http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/w...)
Wilson's Pueblo Colorado Speech, Part ThreeThe whole specification of the method of settlement was written down and accepted before hand, and we were architects building on those specifications. It reassures me and fortifies my position to find how before I went over men whose judgment the United States has often trusted were of exactly the same opinion that I went abroad to express. Here is something I want to read from Theodore Roosevelt:
"The one effective move for obtaining peace is by an agreement among all the great powers in which each should pledge itself not only to abide by the decisions of a common tribunal but to back its decisions by force. The great civilized nations should combine by solemn agreement in a great world league for the peace of righteousness; a court should be established.
A changed and amplified Hague court would meet the requirements, composed of representatives from each nation, whose representatives are sworn to act as judges in each case and not in a representative capacity." Now there is article ten.
He goes on and says this: "The nations should agree on certain rights that should not be questioned, such as territorial integrity, their right to deal with their domestic affairs, and with such matters as whom they should admit to citizenship. All such guarantee each of their number in possession of these rights."
Now, the other specification is in the Covenant. The Covenant in another portion guarantees to the members the independent control of their domestic questions. There is not a leg for these gentlemen to stand on when they say that the interests of the United States are not safeguarded in the very points where we are most sensitive.
You do not need to be told again that the Covenant expressly says that nothing in this covenant shall be construed as affecting the validity of the Monroe doctrine, for example. You could not be more explicit than that. And every point of interest is covered, partly for one very interesting reason.
This is not the first time that the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate of the United States has read and considered this covenant. I brought it to this country in March last in a tentative, provisional form, in practically the form that it now has, with the exception of certain additions which I shall mention immediately.
I asked the Foreign Relations Committees of both Houses to come to the White House and we spent a long evening in the frankest discussion of every portion that they wished to discuss. They made certain specific suggestions as to what should be contained in this document when it was to be revised.
I carried those suggestions to Paris, and every one of them was adopted. What more could I have done? What more could have been obtained?
The very matters upon which these gentlemen were most concerned were, the right of withdrawal, which is now expressly stated; the safeguarding of the Monroe doctrine, which is now accomplished; the exclusion from action by the League of domestic questions, which is now accomplished. All along the line, every suggestion of the United States was adopted after the Covenant had been drawn up in its first form and had been published for the criticism of the world. There is a very true sense in which I can say this is a tested American document.
I am dwelling upon these points, my fellow citizens, in spite of the fact that I dare say to most of you they are perfectly well known, because in order to meet the present situation we have got to know what we are dealing with.
We are not dealing with the kind of document which this is represented by some gentlemen to be; and inasmuch as we are dealing with a document simon-pure in respect of the very principles we have professed and lived up to, we have got to do one or other of two things-we have got to adopt it or reject it. There is no middle course.
You cannot go in on a special-privilege basis of your own. I take it that you are too proud to ask to be exempted from responsibilities which the other members of the League will carry. We go in upon equal terms or we do not go in at all; and if we do not go in, my fellow citizens, think of the tragedy of that result-the only sufficient guaranty to the peace of the world withheld!
Ourselves drawn apart with that dangerous pride which means that we shall he ready to take care of ourselves, and that means that we shall maintain great standing armies and an irresistible navy; that means we shall have the organization of a military nation; that means we shall have a general staff, with the kind of power that the general staff of Germany had; to mobilize this great manhood of the Nation when it pleases, all the energy of our young men drawn into the thought and preparation for war.
What of our pledges to the men that lie dead in France? We said that they went over there not to prove the prowess of America or her readiness for another war but to see to it that there never was such a war again. It always seems to make it difficult for me to say anything, my fellow citizens, when I think of my clients in this case.
My clients are the children; my clients are the next generation. They do not know what promises and bonds I undertook when I ordered the armies of the United States to the soil of France, but I know, and I intend to redeem my pledges to the children; they shall not be sent upon a similar errand.
Again and again, my fellow citizens, mothers who lost their sons in France have come to me and, taking my hand, have shed tears upon it not only, but they have added, "God bless you, Mr. President!" Why, my fellow citizens, should they pray God to bless me?
I advised the Congress of the United States to create the situation that led to the death of their sons. I ordered their sons overseas. I consented to their sons being put in the most difficult parts of the battle line, where death was certain, as in the impenetrable difficulties of the forest of Argonne.
Why should they weep upon my hand and call down the blessings of God upon me? Because they believe that their boys died for something that vastly transcends any of the immediate and palpable objects of the war. They believe and they rightly believe, that their sons saved the liberty of the world.
They believe that wrapped up with the liberty of the world is the continuous protection of that liberty by the concerted powers of all civilized people. They believe that this sacrifice was made in order that other sons should not be called upon for a similar gift-the gift of life, the gift of all that died - and if we did not see this thing through if we fulfilled the dearest present wish of Germany and now dissociated ourselves from those alongside whom we fought in the world, would not something of the halo go away from the gun over the mantelpiece, or the sword? Would not the old uniform lose something of its significance?
These men were crusaders. They were not going forth to prove the might of the United States. They were going forth to prove the might of justice and right, and all the world accepted them as crusaders, and their transcendent achievement has made all the world believe in America as it believes in no other nation organized in the modern world.
There seem to me to stand between us and the rejection or qualification of this treaty the serried ranks of those boys in khaki, not only these boys who came home, hut those dear ghosts that still deploy upon the fields of France.
My friends, on last Decoration day I went to a beautiful hillside near Paris, where was located the cemetery of Suresnes, a cemetery given over to the burial of the American dead. Behind me all the slopes was rank upon rank of living American soldiers, and lying before me upon the levels of the plain was rank upon rank of departed American soldiers.
Right by the side of the stand where I spoke there was a little group of French women who had adopted those graves, had made themselves mothers of those dear ghosts by putting flowers every day upon those graves, taking them as their own sons, their own beloved, because they had died in the same cause-France was free and the world was free because America had come!
I wish some men in public life who are now opposing the settlement for which these men died could visit such a spot as that. I wish that the thought that comes out of those graves could penetrate their consciousness. I wish that they could feel the moral obligation that rests upon us not to go back on those boys, but to see the thing through, to see it through to the end and make good their redemption of the world. For nothing less depends upon this decision, nothing less than liberation and salvation of the world.
You will say, "Is the League an absolute guaranty against war?" No; I do not know any absolute guaranty against the errors of human judgment or the violence of human passions but I tell you this: With a cooling space of nine months for human passion, not much of it will keep hot.
I had a couple of friends who were in the habit of losing their tempers, and when they lost their tempers they were in the habit of using very unparliamentary language. Some of their friends induced them to make a promise that they never would swear inside the town limits.
When the impulse next came upon them, they took a street car to go out of town to swear, and by the time they got out of town they did not want to swear. They came back convinced that they were just what they were, a couple of unspeakable fools, and the habit of getting angry and of swearing suffered great inroads upon it by that experience.
Now, illustrating the great by the small, that is true of the passions of nations. It is true of the passions of men however you combine them. Give them space to cool off. I ask you this: If it is not an absolute insurance against war, do you want no insurance at all? Do you want nothing? Do you want not only no probability that war will not recur, lout the probability that it will recur?
The arrangements of justice do not stand of themselves, my fellow citizens. The arrangements of this treaty are just, but they need the support of the combined power of the great nations of the world. And they will have that support. Now that the mists of this great question have cleared away, I believe that men will see the truth, eye to eye and face to face.
There is one thing that the American people always rise to and extend their hand to, and that is the truth of justice and of liberty and of peace. We have accepted that truth and we are going to be led by it, and it is going to lead us, and through us the world, out into pastures of quietness and peace such as the world never dreamed of before.
(Source: http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/w...)
The Assassination of James Garfield
Less than four months after his inauguration, President Garfield arrived at the Washington railroad depot on July 2, 1881, to catch a train for a summer's retreat on the New Jersey seashore. As Garfield made his way through the station, Charles Guiteau raced from the shadows and fired two shots point blank into the president. One grazed Garfield's arm; the other lodged in his abdomen. Exclaiming, "My God, what is this?" the president collapsed to the floor remaining fully conscious, but in a great deal of pain.
The first doctor on the scene administered brandy and spirits of ammonia, causing the president to promptly vomit. Then D. W. Bliss, a leading Washington doctor, appeared and inserted a metal probe into the wound, turning it slowly, searching for the bullet. The probe became stuck between the shattered fragments of Garfield's eleventh rib, and was removed only with a great deal of difficulty, causing great pain. Then Bliss inserted his finger into the wound, widening the hole in another unsuccessful probe. It was decided to move Garfield to the White House for further treatment.
Leading doctors of the age flocked to Washington to aid in his recovery, sixteen in all. Most probed the wound with their fingers or dirty instruments. Though the president complained of numbness in the legs and feet, which implied the bullet was lodged near the spinal cord, most thought it was resting in the abdomen. The president's condition weakened under the oppressive heat and humidity of the Washington summer combined with an onslaught of mosquitoes from a stagnant canal behind the White House. It was decided to move him by train to a cottage on the New Jersey seashore.
Shortly after the move, Garfield's temperature began to elevate; the doctors reopened the wound and enlarged it hoping to find the bullet. They were unsuccessful. By the time Garfield died on September 19, his doctors had turned a three-inch-deep, harmless wound into a twenty-inch-long contaminated gash stretching from his ribs to his groin and oozing more pus each day. He lingered for eighty days, wasting away from his robust 210 pounds to a mere 130 pounds. The end came on the night of September 19.
(Source: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ga...)
More:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/Gar...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin...
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects...
http://americanhistory.si.edu/preside...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/hea...
by
Candice Millard
by Allan Peskin (no photo)
by Charles E. Rosenberg (no photo)
by H.G. Hayes (no photo)(no image) The Garfield Orbit by Margaret Leech (no photo)
Thanks for posting Wilson's Pueblo speech, Bryan. In general, I think it is a very good defense of how the League would operate and how the interests of the United States would be protected. He would have convinced me.A couple of things bothered me.
He said, "I want to say-I cannot say too often-any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready." I assume this is an attack against the German-Americans and the Irish-Americans who opposed the treaty. This seems a very unfair attack.
Also, he identifies himself with the only moral position and considers himself an emissary of the "people", who are always right. Could have fooled me. :)
Here is an example:
I had gone over there with, so to say, explicit instructions. Don't you remember that we laid down fourteen points which should contain the principles of the settlement? They were not my points. In every one of them I was conscientiously trying to read the thought of the people of the United States, and after I uttered those points I had every assurance given me that could be given me that they did speak the moral judgment of the United States and not my single judgment.
He ends the speech with this: There is one thing that the American people always rise to and extend their hand to, and that is the truth of justice and of liberty and of peace. We have accepted that truth and we are going to be led by it, and it is going to lead us, and through us the world, out into pastures of quietness and peace such as the world never dreamed of before.
Great points, Ann. Yes, he comes off rather arrogant. It gets worse as he is ill. It is hard to compromise if you are on a high horse.
It reminds me of the old adage, "Politics is the art of the possible." He seems to have have believed that he could get everything he wanted because he was "right."I think Clayton is very good in showing how his decline in health and especially his collapse affected him and made him even more rigid.
Yes, his behavior did change for the worse.
King Albert I
Albert, the younger son of Philip, Count of Flanders, was born in 1875. Albert succeeded his uncle, Leopold II, as king of Belgium, in 1909.
As Belgium occupied the only wide open space between France and Germany, its neutrality was a vital component of the European balance of power. The king's foreign policy was to maintain a neutral stance between its two powerful and antagonistic neighbours and therefore did not join either the Triple Alliance or the Triple Entente.
After the warlike statements made after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28th June, 1914, the Belgian Army was placed on its borders. The German ultimatum to Belgium on 2nd August gave King Albert and his government the choice of fighting or being conquered. Albert responded by taking personal command of the armed forces and although outnumbered, decided to resist the German invasion that began on 4th August.
The German Army quickly overwhelmed Belgian defences and King Albert was forced to move his government to Le Havre in France. However, the Belgian Army resisted more than the Germans expected and this help to frustrate the Schlieffen Plan. By the end of September 1914, Germans ruled most of Belgium and over the next few years was accused of carrying out atrocities against the civilian population.
Albert took command of the Belgian Army in the Courtrai offensive against the Central Powers during the autumn of 1918 and on 22nd November he entered Brussels in triumph.
After the Armistice Albert took an active part in the industrial reconstruction of Belgium. This was reflected in the Albert Canal that linked Liege with Antwerp. He also introduced constitutional reform that gave equal rights to Flemish citizens.
King Albert was killed in a climbing accident in 1934 and was succeeded by his son, Leopold III.
(Source: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_I...
http://www.monarchie.be/history/albert-i
http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/albe...
http://www.king-albert.ch/
http://www.worldwar1.com/biocbka.htm
by Charles D'Ydewalle (no photo)
by Herman Van Goethem (no photo)
by Els Witte (no photo)(no image) Albert, King of the Belgians in the Great War: His Military Activities & Experiences Set Down with His Approval by Emile J. Galet (no photo)
(no image) The War Diaries of King Albert by Albert I (no photo)
Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium
Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria (born Elisabeth Gabriele Valérie Marie, Duchess in Bavaria) (25 July 1876 – 23 November 1965) was Queen of the Belgians as the spouse of King Albert I. She was the mother of King Leopold III of Belgium and of Queen Marie José of Italy, and grandmother of kings Baudouin and Albert II of Belgium.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabet...)
More:
http://madmonarchist.blogspot.com/201...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gF6IL...
by Els Witte (no photo)
by Herman Van Goethem (no photo)
by Janet Elisabeth Larson (no photo)
by Anne Commire (no photo)
Edward VIII
As Prince of Wales, Edward VIII (reigned January-December 1936) had successfully carried out a number of regional visits (including areas hit by economic depression) and other official engagements. These visits and his official tours overseas, together with his good war record and genuine care for the underprivileged, had made him popular.
The first monarch to be a qualified pilot, Edward created The King's Flight (now known as 32 (The Royal) Squadron) in 1936 to provide air transport for the Royal family's official duties.
In 1930, the Prince, who had already had a number of affairs, had met and fallen in love with a married American woman, Mrs Wallis Simpson. Concern about Edward's private life grew in the Cabinet, opposition parties and the Dominions, when Mrs Simpson obtained a divorce in 1936 and it was clear that Edward was determined to marry her.
Eventually Edward realised he had to choose between the Crown and Mrs Simpson who, as a twice-divorced woman, would not have been acceptable as Queen.
On 10 December 1936, Edward VIII executed an Instrument of Abdication which was given legal effect the following day, when Edward gave Royal Assent to His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act, by which Edward VIII and any children he might have were excluded from succession to the throne.
In 1937, Edward was created Duke of Windsor and married Wallis Simpson in a ceremony in France.
During the Second World War, the Duke of Windsor escaped from Paris, where he was living at the time of the fall of France, to Lisbon in 1940. The Duke of Windsor was then appointed Governor of the Bahamas, a position he held until 1945.
He lived abroad until the end of his life, dying in 1972 in Paris (he is buried at Windsor).
Edward was never crowned; his reign lasted only 325 days. His brother Albert became King, using his last name George.
(Source: http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthem...)
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_...
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic...
http://www.biography.com/people/edwar...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
by Philip Ziegler (no photo)
by Frances Donaldson (no photo)
by Kirsty McLeod (no photo)
by Jesse Russell (no photo)
by Hector Bolitho (no photo)
Seattle General Strike (1919)
The Seattle strike of 1919 was the first large-scale general strike in the United States. Although sparked by wage grievances of shipyard workers, the strike quickly grew into a larger showdown between the city’s AFL movement and local politicians, business interests, and federal war agencies, all of whom saw it as a crucial test of the power that organized labor would wield in the wake of World War One.
For four days, labor reigned. 65,000 walked off their jobs. Strikers served food, supplied hospitals and kept peace in the streets with astonishing organization and efficiency. But under pressure from the mayor, federal troops and unsupportive AFL internationals, the walkout collapsed.
It left an ambivalent legacy. The failure of such a massive action to raise shipyard wages -- let alone ward off the union-busting and red-hunting that followed -- showed the limits of local labor’s power against state-supported, anti-union capital. Yet the memory of a moment when working people not only shut down an entire city, but ran a successful system of essential services along syndicalist lines, also offered hope. In the short run it fueled Seattle’s vibrant union-affiliated cooperative movement. In the long run it inspired generations who dreamed of building a labor-based social order.
(Source: http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/s...)
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle...
http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/s...
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?...
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/...
http://seattletimes.com/special/cente...
by Jesse Russell (no photo)
by Jeremy Brecher (no photo)
by Philip S. Foner (no photo)
by
Ann Hagedorn (no image) Seattle General Strike by General Strike Committee (no photo)
Boston Police Strike (1919)
The political climate after World War I was characterized by immense fear, instilled by “government and business propaganda” about a Communist takeover of the United States. One of the main targets of this propaganda was the Labor Movement, which organized workers in order to collectively bargain for fair wages and hours. The Red Scare was increased as police forces across the nation began to organize in unions. Propaganda made it seem as if the Communists were attempting a take over from within.
Nothing fueled the anti-union, Red Scare propagandists more than the Boston Police Strike of 1919. Police in Boston had a number of reasons why they wanted to join a union. Like any other worker in any other sector, they felt that their wages were too low and their hours were too long. “Their wages were even significantly lower than the earnings of most unskilled factory workers. For this meager pay they were asked to work as many as seventy-two to ninety-eight hours a week.” The Boston Police force, discouraged by lack of attention paid to their numerous grievances, joined the “Boston Social Club, affiliated with the AFL” in August of 1919. Police Commissioner Edwin Curtis believed that a police officer could not belong to a union and serve his proper duty at the same time. As a result of his misguided beliefs, Curtis promptly suspended nineteen police officers who were working as union organizers.
In retaliation to the suspension of the nineteen union officers and the Police Commissioner’s refusal to allow the them to join the AFL, the Boston Police went on strike. A few people took advantage of the situation, looting stores and breaking windows. As a result, the State Guard was called in to stop the criminals. Public opinion began to turn against the Police, and national AFL President Samuel Gompers suggested that the officers return to work and to the bargaining table. Commissioner Curtis opted to not allow the striking officers their jobs and to completely replace the force. The Commissioner had the full support of President Woodrow Wilson and then Governor Calvin Coolidge, who had made himself a national hero by quelling the strike.
Public response to the strike was staggering. Few sided with the police, and the strike became damaging to the entire Labor Movement due to the increasing fear of Communist Revolution in the United States. After the strike the LA Times wrote, “...no man's house, no man's wife, no man's children will be safe if the police force in unionized and made subject to the orders of Red Unionite bosses." Since the strike, public opinion of public sector strikes has been much less sympathetic than toward strikes in the private sector. None of the striking Police Officers ever returned to the force. An entirely new Police Force was hired at “at increased wages and with better working conditions.”
(Source: http://www.massaflcio.org/1919-boston...)
More:
http://www.iboston.org/mcp.php?pid=po...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_P...
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hi...
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h134...
http://www.jstor.org/stable/361175
by Francis Russell (no photo)
by
Amity Shlaes
by Robert Sobel (no photo)
by Philip S. Foner (no photo)
by Jack Tager (no photo)
Ann wrote: "Thanks for posting Wilson's Pueblo speech, Bryan. In general, I think it is a very good defense of how the League would operate and how the interests of the United States would be protected. He wo..."Hi Ann,
I'm getting caught up with reading posts . . . I had a slightly different view about Wilson's comment about hyphenated names . . . to me it meant the usage of that hyphen symbolized that the person did not really view themselves as a citizen of this country . . . the use of the hyphen made them somehow separate and different instead of identifying themselves as members of the country they chose to live in.
I agree that was Wilson's viewpoint, but I also think it was a particular dig against German-Americans and Irish-Americans who strongly opposed the treaty. Is it different if we leave out the hyphen?
Yeah, I'm not sure why the hyphen was used. I suppose you could argue that it was a way to connect to your mother country. But I suspect ID purposes, or prejudice or separation by the native born citizens could be involved.
Edwin Meredith
Edwin Thomas Meredith was born in Avoca, Iowa, on December 23, 1876, and attended Highland Park College in Des Moines. By 1894, he had become general manager of Farmer's Tribune, the weekly Populist newspaper run by his grandfather. Meredith ran the paper from 1896 until founding a new paper, Successful Farming, in 1902; its subscriber base numbered 100,000 by 1908.
Meredith would later serve as vice president and president of the Agricultural Publishers Association. Once a member of the Populist Party, Meredith became a Democrat after his former party's demise, running unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in 1914 and the governorship of Iowa in 1916. In 1915, Meredith was named to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Three years later, President Woodrow Wilson appointed him to the Treasury Department's Advisory Committee on Excess Profits. Meredith became secretary of agriculture in 1920. That same year, he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Leaving the cabinet upon Wilson's departure from office, Meredith returned to publishing, buying Dairy Farmer and launching Fruit, Garden, and Home (what later became, in 1924, Better Homes and Gardens). He died on June 17, 1928.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/wil...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_T....
http://www.nndb.com/people/548/000168...
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedi...
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/ba...
https://www.iowa4hfoundation.org/inde...
by Hesperides (no photo)
by David Hudson (no photo)
by Richard Sisson (no photo)
by David Pietrusza (no photo)
by Linda Lotridge Levin (no photo)
John Payne
John Barton Payne was born on January 26, 1855, in Prunytown, Virginia (now West Virginia). Prior to becoming a lawyer, Payne was president of the Chicago Law Institute in 1889 and judge of the superior court of Cook County, Illinois, from 1893 until 1898. Earlier in his life, Payne helped the West Virginia Democratic Party and served as mayor of Kingwood, West Virginia. He was also general counsel and later chairman of the U.S. Shipping Board, and he served on the U.S. Railroad administration. Payne practiced law in Chicago firm of Winston, Payne, Strawn & Shaw, from 1902 to 1917.
During the presidential administration of Woodrow Wilson, Payne served as secretary of the interior, from 1920 to 1921, taking over from Franklin Lane. While in power, Payne fervently fought against building reclamation dams in Yellowstone National Park, affirming that the national parks should never be commercialized.
Payne is probably better known as head of the American Red Cross, a position he held from 1921 to until his death in 1935. During that time, he helped establish the Red Cross as a leading organization dedicated to international relief operations. Payne died on January 24, 1935, following complications from an appendectomy.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/wil...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bar...
http://www.redcross.int/en/history/no...
http://scdb.swem.wm.edu/?p=collection...
http://www.fauquiercounty.gov/governm...
http://www.doi.gov/whoweare/past_secr...
by Faith Jaycox (no photo)
by Robert Paehlke (no photo)
by Peter Balakian (no photo)
by Laton McCartney (no photo)
by
Olivier Zunz
Bainbridge Colby
Bainbridge Colby was born on December 22, 1869, in St. Louis, Missouri. He went to local schools before graduating from Williams College in 1890. Colby earned a law degree from the New York Law School in 1892, the same year he was admitted to the bar and opened a New York City law practice.
In 1912, Colby walked out of the Republican national convention to support Theodore Roosevelt's bid for the presidency under the banner of the Progressive, or Bull Moose, Party. Colby himself ran as a Progressive candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from New York but was defeated in both 1914 and 1916.
Following American entrance into the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Colby to the U.S. Shipping Board; Colby later became vice president of the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation in 1917. That same year, Wilson named him to serve as U.S. delegate to the Inter-allied conference to promote cooperation between the Allies.
Following Robert Lansing's resignation as secretary of state, Wilson asked Colby to become the nation's chief diplomat. Colby accepted and remained secretary of state until the end of the Wilson administration (1920-1921). While in the cabinet, he pushed for ratification of the Versailles Treaty in the U.S. Senate.
Following the end of the Wilson administration, Colby formed a Washington, D.C., law practice with former President Wilson until he founded his own practice. He remained there until retirement in 1936.
Colby was at first a supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt but eventually became a critic of the New Deal, forming an anti-Roosevelt group named the American Liberty League. Bainbridge Colby died on April 11, 1950, in Bemus Point, New York.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/wil...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bainbrid...
http://history.state.gov/departmenthi...
http://memory.loc.gov/service/mss/ead...
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg....
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1888982
by Edward S. Mihalkanin (no photo)
by Louis A. Pérez Jr. (no photo)
by Fred Greenbaum (no photo)
by Donald Davis (no photo)
by
Thomas J. Fleming
Bryan,I have been catching up on the material in this thread. I was especially interested in the information on mutinies in the French army. I had heard of them, but had no idea of their extent.
It's no wonder that there were mutinies. According to http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources..., 73.3% of the total French forces suffered casualties. In contrast, only 35.8 of the British forces and a measly 7.1% of the U.S. forces suffered casualties. The figure for the Germans was 64.9%. No wonder the French took such a hard line against the Germans during the treaty negotiations.
I was also very interested in the strikes and the Red Scare after the war. This was a very bad time for Wilson to be disabled and so disengaged from domestic policies.
Yes, very interesting topics. Yeah, going over the wall too many times got to many soldiers.The Red Scare/Strikes was an interesting time, worth reading more.
This is what I find so interesting in reading and discussion . . . it leads me off on another book accumulation . . .
Tomerobber wrote: "This is what I find so interesting in reading and discussion . . . it leads me off on another book accumulation . . ."So true, so true.
Auckland Geddes
Sir Auckland Geddes (1879-1954) served in British wartime recruitment positions during World War One.
Although having trained as a surgeon Geddes - brother of Sir Eric Geddes, who served as wartime First Lord of the Admiralty - spent much of his career in public duty.
He was appointed Britain's Director of Recruiting in 1916 and then, the following year, as Minister of National Service, replacing Neville Chamberlain.
In the latter position Geddes oversaw an extension of the ministry's powers to include military recruitment; he also worked well with the newly-established Ministry of Labour in determining the two department's division of responsibilities in wartime manpower management.
Despite this by the time of his appointment in 1917 Geddes found the manpower well starting to run dry, despite the extension - in 1918 - of conscription to all men aged from 18-51 and the scrapping of military service exemptions.
Measures such as these, intended to provide fresh resources for the various Fronts, often served only to antagonise the trade unions, with its consequent threat of strikes and industrial action. Geddes was forced however to cancel planned conscription in Ireland given the volatile state of affairs in that country.
After the war Geddes served as President of the Board of Trade and subsequently as British ambassador to the U.S.
He died in 1954.
(Source: http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/gedd...)
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aucklan...
http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xs...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/articl...
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/...
by Joseph Hanaway (no photo)
by Keith Grieves (no photo)
by Lawrence Spinelli (no photo)
by T.G. Otte (no photo)(no image) Britain Between The Wars, 1918 1940 by Charles Loch Mowat (no photo)
1920 Democratic Convention
The 1920 Democratic National Convention was held at the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California from June 28 - July 6, 1920. It resulted in the nomination of Governor James M. Cox of Ohio for President and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt from New York for Vice President.
Neither President Woodrow Wilson, in spite of his failing health, nor former Secretary of State and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan had entirely given up hope that their party would turn to them, but neither was, in the event, formally nominated. In addition to the eventual nominee, Cox, the other high-scoring candidates as the voting proceeded were: Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo and Attorney General Mitchell Palmer. On the forty-fourth ballot, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio was nominated for the Presidency.
The platform adopted by the convention supported the League of Nations, albeit with qualifications, and women's suffrage.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Dem...)
More:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zypIIH...
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi...
http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/democratic...
http://politicalgraveyard.com/parties...
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/p...
by David Pietrusza (no image)
by James Middleton Cox (no photo)
by Kenneth Davis (no image)
by
Lawrence W. Levine
by James MacGregor Burns (no photo)
James Cox
Ohio governor James Middleton Cox was born on March 31, 1870, in Butler County, Ohio. His parents were Gilbert and Eliza Cox. Cox spent his childhood on his parents farm. After attending the public schools, Cox briefly became a teacher. Soon he decided to become a journalist instead. Over time, Cox gained a name for himself in journalism. He eventually owned and edited newspapers in Ohio, including the Dayton Daily News and the Springfield News, as well as papers in Florida and Georgia.
Cox, a Democrat, first entered politics in 1908, when he successfully ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cox served two consecutive terms in Congress, from 1909 to 1913, before being elected governor of Ohio. Although Cox was a member of the Democratic Party, he was very supportive of many Progressive reforms. This commitment to reform contributed to his success in the gubernatorial election.
Cox had a very successful record as governor. He was able to work with the state legislature to enact a number of important Progressive reforms. It was during Cox's first term as governor (1913-1915) that Ohio formally adopted direct primaries, initiative and referendum. Cox's administration oversaw reforms within the state court system, the civil service, and the budget and tax processes. The state passed laws that dealt with municipal home rule, workmen's compensation, educational reform, and prison reform, among numerous other issues.
Despite the progress Cox made in Ohio during his term, he was unsuccessful in gaining reelection in 1914. Instead, Republican candidate Frank B. Willis became the state's next governor. Cox ran again in 1916 and was successful this time. He also gained reelection in 1918, becoming the first Ohio governor to serve three full terms in office.
Cox faced new challenges after election to his second term in office. He continued to work for Progressive reforms, but he also had to mobilize Ohio to support the American war effort during World War I. The governor worked particularly hard to keep labor disputes from disrupting war production in the state during the war. Cox also helped to build patriotism and support for the war effort, including supporting a law that banned the teaching of the German language in Ohio schools. The Ake Law, as it was known, was very popular at the time, as Ohioans wanted to do all that they could to be patriotic, but the Supreme Court later declared it unconstitutional.
His prominence within the Democratic Party in Ohio thrust Cox into the national political arena in 1920. His party chose him as their presidential candidate and chose Franklin D. Roosevelt as his vice presidential running mate. Cox's campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, and fellow Ohioan Warren G. Harding was elected president instead.
When Cox's third term as governor ended in 1921, he retired from politics. Cox focused his attention on his newspapers, both in Ohio and in the South. Cox briefly returned to public service in 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to the American delegation to a world economic conference. Cox published his memoirs, which he titled Journey Through My Years, in 1946.
Cox died in Dayton, Ohio, on July 15, 1957.
(Source: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/J...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_M....
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg....
http://www.nga.org/cms/home/governors...
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5639
by David Pietrusza (no image)
by James Middleton Cox (no photo)
by Kenneth Davis (no image)
by James MacGregor Burns (no photo)(no image) James Cox Jrnalist Polit by Cebula (no photo)
1920 Presidential Election
The United States presidential election of 1920 was dominated by the aftermath of World War I and the hostile reaction to Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic president. The wartime boom had collapsed. Politicians were arguing over peace treaties and the question of America's entry into the League of Nations. Overseas there were wars and revolutions. At home, 1919 was marked by major strikes in meatpacking and steel, and large race riots in Chicago and other cities. Terrorist attacks on Wall Street produced fears of radicals and terrorists.
Outgoing President Wilson had become increasingly unpopular, and following his severe stroke in 1919 could no longer speak on his own behalf. The economy was in a recession, the public was weary of war and reform, the Irish Catholic and German communities were outraged at his policies, and his sponsorship of the League of Nations produced an isolationist reaction.
The Democrats nominated newspaper publisher and Governor James M. Cox; in turn the Republicans chose Senator Warren G. Harding, another Ohio newspaper publisher. Cox launched an energetic campaign against Senator Harding, and did all he could to defeat him. To help his campaign, he chose future president Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate. Harding virtually ignored Cox and essentially campaigned against Wilson, calling for a return to "normalcy"; with an almost 4-to-1 spending advantage, he won a landslide victory. Harding's victory remains the largest popular-vote percentage margin (60.3% to 34.1%) in Presidential elections after the victory of James Monroe in the election of 1820.
(Source: http://www.270towin.com/1920_Election/)
More:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/nfhtml/nf...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_S...
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showel...
http://www.davidpietrusza.com/1920-Pr...
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmv...
by David Pietrusza (no photo)
by Paul F. Boller Jr. (no photo)(no image) Selling the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding by John A. Morello (no photo)
(no image) Road To Normalcy: The Presidential Campaign &Amp; Election Of 1920 by Wesley Marvin Bagby (no photo)
(no image) History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-1968 by
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
State of the Union (1920), Part OneWhen I addressed myself to performing the duty laid upon the President by the Constitution to present to you an annual report on the state of the Union, I found my thought dominated by an immortal sentence of Abraham Lincoln's-"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it" -a sentence immortal because it embodies in a form of utter simplicity and purity the essential faith of the nation, the faith in which it was conceived, and the faith in which it has grown to glory and power. With that faith and the birth of a nation founded upon it came the hope into the world that a new order would prevail throughout the affairs of mankind, an order in which reason and right would take precedence over covetousness and force; and I believe that I express the wish and purpose of every thoughtful American when I say that this sentence marks for us in the plainest manner the part we should play alike in the arrangement of our domestic affairs and in our exercise of influence upon the affairs of the world.
By this faith, and by this faith alone, can the world be lifted out of its present confusion and despair. It was this faith which prevailed over the wicked force of Germany. You will remember that the beginning of the end of the war came when the German people found themselves face to face with the conscience of the world and realized that right was everywhere arrayed against the wrong that their government was attempting to perpetrate. I think, therefore, that it is true to say that this was the faith which won the war. Certainly this is the faith with which our gallant men went into the field and out upon the seas to make sure of victory.
This is the mission upon which Democracy came into the world. Democracy is an assertion of the right of the individual to live and to be treated justly as against any attempt on the part of any combination of individuals to make laws which will overburden him or which will destroy his equality among his fellows in the matter of right or privilege; and I think we all realize that the day has come when Democracy is being put upon its final test. The Old World is just now suffering from a wanton rejection of the principle of democracy and a substitution of the principle of autocracy as asserted in the name, but without the authority and sanction, of the multitude. This is the time of all others when Democracy should prove its purity and its spiritual power to prevail. It is surely the manifest destiny of the United States to lead in the attempt to make this spirit prevail.
There are two ways in which the United States can assist to accomplish this great object. First, by offering the example within her own borders of the will and power of Democracy to make and enforce laws which are unquestionably just and which are equal in their administration-laws which secure its full right to Labor and yet at the same time safeguard the integrity of property, and particularly of that property which is devoted to the development of industry and the increase of the necessary wealth of the world. Second, by standing for right and justice as toward individual nations. The law of Democracy is for the protection of the weak, and the influence of every democracy in the world should be for the protection of the weak nation, the nation which is struggling toward its right and toward its proper recognition and privilege in the family of nations.
The United States cannot refuse this role of champion without putting the stigma of rejection upon the great and devoted men who brought its government into existence and established it in the face of almost universal opposition and intrigue, even in the face of wanton force, as, for example, against the Orders in Council of Great Britain and the arbitrary Napoleonic decrees which involved us in what we know as the War of 1812.
I urge you to consider that the display of an immediate disposition on the part of the Congress to remedy any injustices or evils that may have shown themselves in our own national life will afford the most effectual offset to the forces of chaos and tyranny which are playing so disastrous a part in the fortunes of the free peoples of more than one part of the world. The United States is of necessity the sample democracy of the world, and the triumph of Democracy depends upon its success.
Recovery from the disturbing and sometimes disastrous effects of the late war has been exceedingly slow on the other side of the water, and has given promise, I venture-to say, of early completion only in our own fortunate country; but even with us the recovery halts and is impeded at times, and there are immediately serviceable acts of legislation which it seems to me we ought to attempt, to assist that recovery and prove the indestructible recuperative force of a great government of the people. One of these is to prove that a great democracy can keep house as successfully and in as business-like a fashion as any other government. It seems to me that the first step toward providing this is to supply ourselves with a systematic method of handling our estimates and expenditures and bringing them to the point where they will not be an unnecessary strain upon our income or necessitate unreasonable taxation; in other words, a workable budget system. And I respectfully suggest that two elements are essential to such a system-namely, not only that the proposal of appropriations should be in the hands of a single body, such as a single appropriations committee in each house of the Congress, but also that this body should be brought into such cooperation with the Departments of the Government and with the Treasury of the United States as would enable it to act upon a complete conspectus of the needs of the Government and the resources from which it must draw its income.
I reluctantly vetoed the budget bill passed by the last session of the Congress because of a constitutional objection. The House of Representatives subsequently modified the bill in order to meet this objection. In the revised form, I believe that the bill, coupled with action already taken by the Congress to revise its rules and procedure, furnishes the foundation for an effective national budget system. I earnestly hope, therefore, that one of the first steps to be taken by the present session of the Congress will be to pass the budget bill.
The nation's finances have shown marked improvement during the last year. The total ordinary receipts of $6,694,000,000 for the fiscal year 1920 exceeded those for 1919 by $1,542,000,000, while the total net ordinary expenditures decreased from $18,514,000,000 to $6,403,000,000. The gross public debt, which reached its highest point on August 31, 1919, when it was $26,596,000,000, had dropped on November 30, 1920, to $24,175,000,000.
There has also been a marked decrease in holdings of government war securities by the banking institutions of the country, as well as in the amount of bills held by the Federal Reserve Banks secured by government war obligations. This fortunate result has relieved the banks and left them freer to finance the needs of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce. It has been due in large part to the reduction of the public debt, especially of the floating debt, but more particularly to the improved distribution of government securities among permanent investors. The cessation of the Government's borrowings, except through short-term certificates of indebtedness, has been a matter of great consequence to the people of the country at large, as well as to the holders of Liberty Bonds and Victory Notes, and has had an important bearing on the matter of effective credit control.
The year has been characterized by the progressive withdrawal of the Treasury from the domestic credit market and from a position of dominant influence in that market. The future course will necessarily depend upon the extent to which economies are practiced and upon the burdens placed upon the Treasury, as well as upon industrial developments and the maintenance of tax receipts at a sufficiently high level. The fundamental fact which at present dominates the Government's financial situation is that seven and a half billions of its war indebtedness mature within the next two and a half years. Of this amount, two and a half billions are floating debt and five billions, Victory Notes and War. Savings Certificates. The fiscal program of the Government must be determined with reference to these maturities. Sound policy demands that Government expenditures be reduced to the lowest amount which will permit the various services to operate efficiently and that Government receipts from taxes and salvage be maintained sufficiently high to provide for current requirements, including interest and sinking fund charges on the public debt, and at the same time retire the floating debt and part of the Victory Loan before maturity.
With rigid economy, vigorous salvage operations, and adequate revenues from taxation, a surplus of current receipts over current expenditures can be realized and should be applied to the floating debt. All branches of the Government should cooperate to see that this program is realized. I cannot overemphasize the necessity of economy in Government appropriations and expenditures and the avoidance by the Congress of practices which take money from the Treasury by indefinite or revolving fund appropriations. The estimates for the present year show that over a billion dollars of expenditures were authorized by the last Congress in addition to the amounts shown in the usual compiled statements of appropriations. This strikingly illustrates the importance of making direct and specific appropriations. The relation between the current receipts and current expenditures of the Government during the present fiscal year, as well as during the last half of the last fiscal year, has been disturbed by the extraordinary burdens thrown upon the Treasury by the Transportation Act, in connection with the return of the railroads to private control. Over $600,000,000 has already been paid to the railroads under this act-$350,000,000 during the present fiscal year; and it is estimated that further payments aggregating possibly $650,000,000 must still be made to the railroads during the current year. It is obvious that these large payments have already seriously limited the Government's progress in retiring the floating debt.
Closely connected with this, it seems to me, is the necessity for an immediate consideration of the revision of our tax laws. Simplification of the income and profits taxes has become an immediate necessity. These taxes performed an indispensable service during the war. The need for their simplification, however, is very great, in order to save the taxpayer inconvenience and expense and in order to make his liability more certain and definite. Other and more detailed recommendations with regard to taxes will no doubt be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/spe...)
State of the Union (1920), Part TwoIt is my privilege to draw to the attention of Congress for very sympathetic consideration the problem of providing adequate facilities for the care and treatment of former members of the military and naval forces who are sick and disabled as the result of their participation in the war. These heroic men can never be paid in money for the service they patriotically rendered the nation. Their reward will lie rather in realization of the fact that they vindicated the rights of their country and aided in safeguarding civilization. The nation's gratitude must be effectively revealed to them by the most ample provision for their medical care and treatment as well as for their vocational training and placement. The time has come when a more complete program can be formulated and more satisfactorily administered for their treatment and training, and I earnestly urge that the Congress give the matter its early consideration. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Board for Vocational Education will outline in their annual reports proposals covering medical care and rehabilitation which I am sure will engage your earnest study and commend your most generous support.
Permit me to emphasize once more the need for action upon certain matters upon which I dwelt at some length in my message to the second session of the Sixty-sixth Congress. The necessity, for example, of encouraging the manufacture of dyestuffs and related chemicals; the importance of doing everything possible to promote agricultural production along economic lines, to improve agricultural marketing, and to make rural life more attractive and healthful; the need for a law regulating cold storage in such a way as to limit the time during which goods may be kept in storage, prescribing the method of disposing of them if kept beyond the permitted period, and requiring goods released from storage in all cases to bear the date of their receipt. It would also be most serviceable if it were provided that all goods released from cold storage for interstate shipment should have plainly marked upon each package the selling or market price at which they went into storage, in order that the purchaser might be able to learn what profits stood between him and the producer or the wholesale dealer. Indeed, It would be very serviceable to the public if all goods destined for interstate commerce were made to carry upon every packing case whose form made it possible a plain statement of the price at which they left the hands of the producer. I respectfully call your attention also to the recommendations of the message referred to with regard to a federal license for all corporations engaged in interstate commerce.
In brief, the immediate legislative need of the time is the removal of all obstacles to the realization of the best ambitions of our people in their several classes of employment and the strengthening of all instrumentalities by. which difficulties are to be met and removed and justice dealt out, whether by law or by some form of mediation and conciliation. I do not feel it to be my privilege at present to, suggest the detailed and particular methods by which these objects may be attained, but I have faith that the inquiries of your several committees will discover the way and the method.
In response to what I believe to be the impulse of sympathy and opinion throughout the United States, I earnestly suggest that the Congress authorize the Treasury of the United States to make to the struggling government of Armenia such a loan as was made to several of the Allied governments during the war, and I would also suggest that it would be desirable to provide in the legislation itself that the expenditure of the money thus loaned should be under the supervision of a commission, or at least a commissioner, from the United States in order that revolutionary tendencies within Armenia itself might not be afforded by the loan a further tempting opportunity.
Allow me to call your attention to the fact that the people of the Philippine Islands have succeeded in maintaining a stable government since the last action of the Congress in their behalf, and have thus fulfilled the condition set by the Congress as precedent to a consideration of granting independence to the Islands. I respectfully submit that this condition precedent having been fulfilled, it is now our liberty and our duty to keep our promise to the people of those islands by granting them the independence which they so honorably covet.
I have not so much laid before you a series of recommendations, gentlemen, as sought to utter a confession of faith, of the faith in which I was bred and which it is my solemn purpose to stand by until my last fighting day. I believe this to be the faith of America, the faith of the future, and of all the victories which await national action in the days to come, whether in America or elsewhere.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/spe...)
S Street Home
Woodrow Wilson is the only American President to select Washington to be his home following his final term in office. Late in 1920, Woodrow Wilson's second term neared its end, and Mrs. Wilson started to search for an appropriate residence. On December 14, Mr. Wilson insisted that his wife attend a concert and when she returned he presented her with the deed to this S Street house. Built by Henry Parker Fairbanks in 1915, the red brick house of Georgian style was designed by the architect Waddy B. Wood. The Wilsons installed an elevator and a billiard room, constructed a brick garage and placed iron gates at the entrance to the drive. Some partitions were changed and shelves were built for Mr. Wilson's 8000-volume library. Wilson, partially paralyzed from a stroke he suffered in 1919, spent his few remaining years in partial seclusion at the house, under the continuous care of his wife and servants. On February 3, 1924, he died in the upstairs bedroom and was laid to rest in Washington National Cathedral. Mrs. Wilson continued to live in the residence until her death in 1961. Prior to that time, she had donated it and many of the furnishings to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which opened the Woodrow Wilson House to the public in 1963. Included in Mrs. Wilson's gift to the American people are furnishings, portraits, books, autographed photographs of personages identified with events in Wilson's administration, a Gobelin tapestry, commemorative china, and early furniture owned by the Bolling family of Virginia.
(Source: http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc4...)
More:
http://www.woodrowwilsonhouse.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_...
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_...
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/ww...
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/dc0104/
by Jeanne Fogle (no photo)
by Robert Benedetto (no photo)
by Amy B. Wang (no photo)
by Phyllis Lee Levin (no photo)
by Paul Williams (no photo)
Harry F. Sinclair
Harry Ford Sinclair (born July 6, 1876, Wheeling, West Virginia, U.S.—died November 10, 1956, Pasadena, California), American oilman who founded Sinclair Oil Corporation, a major integrated petroleum company of the early and mid-20th century. He also figured in the Teapot Dome Scandal in the 1920s.
Sinclair grew up in Independence, Kansas, and studied pharmacy at the University of Kansas (1897–98). After making an unsuccessful attempt in the drugstore business (1898–1901), he decided to venture into the oil fields, which were in the early phase of their development in the central part of the country. Initially a lease broker, he subsequently became an independent producer of oil wells in Oklahoma and finally entered refining and marketing. In 1916 he consolidated his interests into Sinclair Oil and Refining Corporation (later renamed Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation), headquartered in New York City. Within a few years he became a major independent producer with holdings worldwide. During World War I he served on the Council of National Defense, a board that advised on the mobilization of raw materials and industry for the war effort.
In 1922 Albert B. Fall, then secretary of the interior in the Warren G. Harding administration, leased the U.S. Navy’s Teapot Dome oil reserve near Casper, Wyoming, to the Mammoth Oil Company, which had been set up by Sinclair. The lease was given to Mammoth without competitive bidding, and it granted Sinclair exclusive rights to take and dispose of all oil and gas from the reserve. It was later disclosed that Fall had received large cash gifts and no-interest “loans” from Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny, another oil producer who had taken out a similar lease with Fall’s approval.
A Senate investigation subsequently brought the scandal to light, and the leases were canceled. Sinclair was cited for contempt of the U.S. Senate for refusing to answer certain questions during the investigation. In addition, he and others were indicted and tried for bribery and conspiracy to defraud the government, but Sinclair’s trial was interrupted by a sensational charge that he had hired a detective agency to investigate the jurors with the aim of finding one who might be bribed to vote for acquittal. In a separate trial on this charge, he was convicted for contempt of court. In the resumed conspiracy trial, however, the jury acquitted Sinclair of the major charge, ruling that the government had not proved that the gifts had been given in order to obtain favours for Sinclair. Nevertheless, for contempt of court and of the Senate, he served six and one-half months in prison in 1929.
Sinclair left prison denying all guilt and returned to his oil business, which continued to prosper. During the Great Depression he purchased troubled oil companies, continuing to build a nationwide network of oil fields, pipelines, and refineries. He also sold off assets in Europe as tensions on that continent made the prospect of war likely. His company, renamed the Sinclair Oil Corporation, participated fully in the mobilization of World War II, during which time Sinclair served again on an industrial advisory board. By the time of his retirement in 1949, Sinclair Oil was said to have assets of $1.2 billion, with earnings of $68 million. In 1969 it was merged into Atlantic Richfield Company.
Sinclair was also interested in sports. He was the owner of a stable that raised Thoroughbred horses (one of which won the Kentucky Derby in 1925), and he was one of the organizers of the short-lived Federal League in baseball in 1914–15.
(Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_F....
http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/harry-...
http://sinclair.quarterman.org/who/ha...
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/de...
http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html...
by Jeffrey D. Schultz (no photo)
by Laton McCartney (no photo)
by Gerald D. Nash (no photo)
by David H. Stratton (no photo)
by Burl Noggle (no photo)
Teapot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Dome Scandal, a political scandal of President Harding's administration. Teapot Dome was an area near Casper, Wyoming, set aside as a naval oil reserve (an oil field reserved for future use). In 1921 Harding's secretary of the interior, Albert B. Fall, arranged to have control over all naval oil reserves transferred from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior. Shortly thereafter he leased the Teapot Dome reserve to Harry F. Sinclair and the Elk Hills reserve in California to E. L. Doheny. The leases were given without competitive bidding and each oilman loaned Fall large sums of money.
These dealings were revealed in 1923 and 1924 by a Senate investigating committee whose leading figure was Senator Thomas J. Walsh. The courts canceled the oil leases. Sinclair and Doheny were found innocent of conspiring to defraud the government. However, Fall was convicted of accepting a bribe and served a prison sentence. Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby was forced by public pressure to resign his office.
(Source: http://history.howstuffworks.com/amer...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_D...
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/his...
http://hnn.us/articles/550.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/h...
by Jeffrey D. Schultz (no photo)
by Laton McCartney (no photo)
by Gerald D. Nash (no photo)
by David H. Stratton (no photo)
by Burl Noggle (no photo)
by Margaret Leslie Davis (no photo)(no image) The Origins of Teapot Dome: Progressive Parties and Petroleum, 1909-1921 by James Leonard Bates (no photo)
Tomb of Unknown Soldier
On March 4, 1921, Congress approved a resolution providing for the burial of an unidentified American soldier, following the custom adopted by other allied countries after World War I. The site was to be the plaza of Arlington National Cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater, which had been dedicated the previous year.
On Memorial Day, 1921, an unknown was exhumed from each of four cemeteries in France. The remains were placed in identical caskets and assembled at Chalon sur Marne.
On October 24, Army Sergeant Edward F. Younger, wounded in combat and highly decorated for valor, selected the unknown soldier for World War 1 by placing a spray of white roses on one of the caskets. Those remaining were interred in the Meuse Argonne Cemetery, France. The Unknown Soldier then returned home to the U.S. to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until Armistice Day. On November 11, 1921, President Warren G. Harding officiated at the interment ceremonies at the Amphitheater.
The monument which rests on top of the Unknown grave is a sarcophagus simple but impressive in its dimensions. Its austere, flat-faced form is relieved at the corners and along the sides by neo-classic pilasters, or columns, set unto the surface.
Sculpted into the panel which faces Washington are the three figures of Valor, Victory, and Peace. On the plaza face the words "Here Rests in Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God".
On August 3, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill to select and pay tribute to the Unknown Soldiers of World War II and Korea on Memorial Day 1958. The World War II Unknown was selected from 19 remains exhumed from military cemeteries in Hawaii, Europe, and the Philippines.
Two Unknowns from World War II, one from the European Theatre and one from the Pacific Theatre, were placed in identical caskets and taken aboard the U.S.S. Canberra, a guided missile cruiser resting off the Virginia capes. Hospital Man First Class William R. Charette, then the Navy’s only active duty Medal of Honor recipient, selected the Unknown Soldier of World War II. The remaining casket received a burial at sea.
Four unknown Americans who had lost their lives in Korea were disinterred from the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. Master sergeant Ned Lyle, U.S. Army made the final selection. Both the caskets arrived in Washington on May 28, 1958 where they lay in the Capital Rotunda until May 30.
That morning they were carried on caissons to Arlington National Cemetery. President Eisenhower awarded each the Medal of Honor and the Unknowns were interred in the Plaza beside their comrade of World War 1.
Twenty six years later, on Memorial Day, May 28, 1984, after a search made difficult because of advances in technologies used to identify the remains of unknown soldiers, President Ronald Reagan presided over the interment ceremony for the Vietnam Unknown service member. Like his predecessors, he was laid to rest in the plaza of the Tomb during a ceremony that received national coverage.
(Source: http://www.army.mil/info/organization...
More:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/tomb...
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hi...
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/visi...
http://www.today.com/video/today/5199...
https://tombguard.org/
by
Neil Hanson
by Laura Wittman (no photo)
by George L. Mosse (no photo)
by James Edward Peters (no photo)
by Roger Wachtel (no photo)
Al Smith
Born on December 30, 1873, Alfred Emanuel Smith was destined to become a "man for the people." His childhood playground, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, taught him much about diversity inasmuch as its population combined the immigrant cultures of the Irish, Germans, French, Polish, Italians, and Spaniards - to name but a few.
During his formative years, Governor Smith attended the local parish school of Saint James, which had the reputation of being one of the best elementary schools in the city. Additionally, by 1882, an orphanage and an industrial school to feed and teach orphans and homeless children had been built in connection with Saint James School.
Unfortunately, the Governor's education was interrupted by the untimely death of his father.
At thirteen, the young boy found himself forced to work a series of jobs in order to support his family, the most famous of which was his seven year stint at the Fulton Fish Market.
One of the early loves of Governor Smith's life was the theatre, and his experiences in theatre did much to enhance his later political career. Ultimately, the Governor abandoned his thoughts of a theatrical career and, in 1900, married his beloved wife, Catherine Dunn. The two would have five children - Alfred Jr., Emily, Catherine, Arthur, and Walter.
Governor Smith's career in politics began in 1895, with an appointment on the basis of a recommendation from a friend in Tammany Hall, as an investigator in the Office of the City Commissioner of Jurors. When he was elected to the State Assembly in 1903, he quickly proved himself to be a skilled politician and an influential reformer. Service on a 1911 commission to investigate factory conditions and as a 1915 delegate to the State Constitutional Revision Committee further expanded Governor Smith's vision. The Governor's political career began to truly flourish, however, with his 1915 Tammany Hall appointment as Sheriff of New York County and his 1917 election as President of the Board of Aldermen of Greater New York.
In 1918, to the surprise of many, he was elected Governor of the State of New York. Although he lost the 1920 election, he ran successfully again in 1922, 1924, and 1926 - making him one of three New York State Governors to be elected to four terms. While Governor, he achieved the passage of extensive reform legislation, including improved factory laws, better housing requirements, and expanded welfare services. Additionally, he reorganized the State government into a consolidated and business-like structure.
Governor Smith won the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States in 1928. During his campaign he continued to champion the cause of urban residents.
(Source: http://www.alsmithfoundation.org/thes...)
More:
http://www.alsmithfoundation.org/thes...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Smith
http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/mep/disp...
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/gener...
http://thecontenders.c-span.org/Conte...
by Christopher M. Finan (no photo)
by Oscar Handlin (no photo)
by Alfred E. Smith (no photo)
by Robert A. Slayton (no photo)(no image) The World Beyond the Hudson by Donn C. Neal (no photo)
(no image) Al Smith, Hero Of The Cities: A Political Portrait Drawing On The Papers Of Frances Perkins by
Matthew Josephson
Death of Warren Harding
During the course of 1923, President Warren Harding began to be aware of scandals within his administration. Few believe that Harding himself was corrupt or that he had knowledge of the breadth of the offenders' misconduct. He did remark, however, that what kept him awake at night was not the actions of his political foes, but those of his friends.
In part to escape from those worries, Harding and his wife departed on a trip to Alaska. He made many stops along the way and delivered a number of speeches. On the return trip in late July, Harding clearly was not well and he suffered an attack of food poisoning in Seattle. Several days later in San Francisco, the president died.
On August 3, Vice President Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office from his father, a small town justice of the peace in Vermont.
A large funeral was held for Harding and prominent Americans made the obligatory laudatory remarks about the departed leader. The public was indeed shocked by Harding’s death, but more by its unexpected nature than by a sense of loss of a revered leader. As time passed and news of the scandals came out, some Republican leaders were relieved that Harding was gone; his continuation in office may have threatened the party’s hold on power.
Rumors about the cause of death began to circulate almost immediately. Foremost among them was a poison theory, in which some speculated that Harding took his own life in despair over troubles within the administration; others suggested that Mrs. Harding poisoned her husband to end his unfaithfulness. Another theory pointed to unhappy cronies who feared that the president might make good on his promise to clean up his administration.
Recent scholarship has effectively scuttled such speculation.* The opening of Harding’s physician’s records indicates that the president had long suffered from high blood pressure and that a heart attack was the cause of death.
(Source: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h137...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G...
http://python.net/crew/manus/Presiden...
http://millercenter.org/president/har...
http://history1900s.about.com/od/peop...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presi...
by Carl Sferrazza Anthony (no photo)
by Robert H. Ferrell (no photo)
by Gaston B. Means (no photo)
by John W. Dean (no photo)
by Francis Russell (no photo)
Ida Tarbell
Ida Tarbell helped transform journalism by introducing what is called today investigative journalism. Through her achievements she not only helped to expand the role of the newspaper in modern society and stimulate the Progressive reform movement, but she also became a role model for women wishing to become professional journalists.
Born on the oil frontier of western Pennsylvania in 1857, Tarbell was among the first women to graduate from Allegheny College in 1880. After trying her hand at the more traditional women's job of teaching, Tarbell began writing and editing a magazine for the Methodist Church. Then, after studying in France for a few years, she joined S. S. McClure's new reform-minded magazine in 1894. Initially she wrote two popular biographical series--on Napoleon and Abraham Lincoln.
In 1902, she embarked on her ground breaking study of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, or what was called the Standard Oil Trust. Her History of the Standard Oil Company, published in 1904, was a landmark work of exposé journalism that became known as "muckraking." Her exposure of Rockefeller's unfair business methods outraged the public and led the government to prosecute the company for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. As a result, after years of precedent-setting litigation, the Supreme Court upheld the break-up of Standard Oil.
As the most famous woman journalist of her time, Tarbell founded the American Magazine in 1906. She authored biographies of several important businessmen and wrote a series of articles about an extremely controversial issue of her day, the tariff imposed on goods imported from foreign countries. Of this series President Woodrow Wilson commented, "She has written more good sense, good plain common sense, about the tariff than any man I know of." During World War I she joined the efforts to improve the plight of working women. In 1922, The New York Times named her one of the "Twelve Greatest American Women." It was journalism like hers that inspired Americans of the early twentieth century to seek reform in our government, in our economic structures, and in our urban areas. Along with other muckrakers like Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, and Upton Sinclair, Tarbell ushered in reform journalism.
Ever since, newspapers have played a leading role as the watchdogs and consciences of our political, economic, and social lives. Although Tarbell was not, herself an advocate of women's issues or women's rights, as the most prominent woman active in the muckraking movement and one of the most respected business historians of her generation, Tarbell succeeded in a "male" world – the world of journalism, business analysis, and world affairs, thus helping to open the door to other women seeking careers in journalism and, later, in broadcasting.
(Source: http://www.greatwomen.org/women-of-th...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/gener...
http://www.pagetutor.com/standard/ind...
http://tarbell.allegheny.edu/treckel....
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexper...
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/...
http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/finda...
by Kathleen Brady (no photo)
by Steve Weinberg (no photo)
by
Ann Bausum
by Barbara A. Somervill (no photo)
by Steve Weinberg (no photo)
by Ida Tarbell
by
Ida Minerva Tarbell(no image) A life of Napoleon Bonaparte by
Ida Minerva Tarbell
Wilson's Pierce Arrow
When Woodrow Wilson returned from France after negotiating the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, a new Pierce-Arrow limousine awaited him at the dock in New York to take him back to Washington. The automobile had just been added to the White House fleet. Wilson favored this automobile so much that when he left office his friends purchased it for him to use. The car had received its finishing touches at the plant of the manufacturer, the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company of Buffalo, New York, in June 1919. It was the 120th of the "Series 51" model.
From July, 1919, until the inauguration of his successor in 1921, President Wilson rode frequently in the handsome limousine on official business. The automobile was distinguished by two special emblems. On each of its arched rear passenger doors, the Presidential Seal was displayed. On the front of the radiator panel was the AAA symbol, for in 1917 he was the first President of the United States to join the association.
(Source: http://www.woodrowwilson.org/museum/p...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierce-A...
http://www.pierce-arrow.org/index.php
http://www.pierce-arrow.com/
http://www.piercearrow-corp.com/#en_one
http://www.newsleader.com/VideoNetwor...
by Phyllis Lee Levin (no photo)
by Stephen B. Goddard (no photo)
by Michael L. Bromley (no photo)
by Beverly R. Kimes (no photo)(no image) Pierce-Arrow by Maurice D Hendry (no photo)
Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871-July 23, 1955) was born in a log cabin in present day Pickett County, Tennessee (Overton County until 1879), the third of the five sons of William and Elizabeth (Riley) Hull. His father was a farmer and subsequently a lumber merchant. The only one of the five boys who showed an interest in learning, Cordell wanted to be a lawyer. He obtained his elementary school training in a one-room school that his father had built in nearby Willow Grove; then for a period of about three years, he attended in succession the Mountvale Academy at Celina, Tennessee, the Normal School at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio. He received a law degree in 1891 after completing a one-year course at Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee.
Not yet twenty, Hull began the practice of law in Celina, but having participated in political campaigning even while a student, decided to run for the state legislature. From 1893 to 1897 he was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, abandoning politics temporarily to serve as captain of the Fourth Tennessee Regiment in the Spanish-American War. Hull returned to the practice of law in Gainesboro, Tennessee, but in 1903 was appointed Judge of the Fifth Judicial District. He held his position until 1907.
Hull's Public Life
Elected to Congress from the Fourth Tennessee District in 1907, Hull served as a U.S. Representative until 1931, interrupted only by two years as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In his distinguished career in Congress, Hull was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee for eighteen years, leader of the movement for low tariffs, the author of the first Federal Income Tax Bill (1913), the Revised Act (1916), and the Federal and State Inheritance Tax Law (1916), as well as the drafter of a resolution providing for the convening of a world trade agreement congress at the end of World War I. He became a recognized expert in commercial and fiscal policies.
Hull was elected U.S. Senator for the 1931-1937 term but resigned upon his appointment as secretary of state by the age of sixty-two. In 1944 when he resigned because of ill health, he had occupied this post for almost twelve years, the longest tenure in American History.
He headed the American Delegation to the Monetary and Economic Conference in London in July 1933, a conference which ended in failure. Despite this failure, in November of that year he headed the American Delegation to the Seventh Pan-American Conference, held in Montevideo Uraguay, and there won the trust of the Latin American diplomats, laying the foundation for the "Good Neighbor" Policy, followed up in the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace held in Buenos Aires (1936) , the eighth Pan-American Conference in Lima (1938), the second consecutive Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics in Havana (1940). Given authority through the Trade Agreements Act of 1934, he negotiated reciprocal trade agreements with numerous countries, lowering tariffs and stimulating trade.
Hull was responsive to the problems arising in other parts of the globe. From 1936 on, foreseeing danger to peace in the rise of dictators, he advocated rearmament, pled for the implementation of a system of collective security, opposed Japanese encroachment into Indochina, warned all branches of the U.S. Military well in advance of the attack on Pearl Harbor to prepare to resist simultaneous, surprise attacks at various points.
The Seeds of the United Nations
Shortly after the outbreak of the war, Hull proposed the formation of a new world organization in which the United Stated would participate after the war. To accomplish this aim, in 1941 he formed an Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy composed of both Republicans and Democrats. Mindful of President Wilson's failure with the League of Nations, Hull took pains to keep discussion of the organization nonpartisan. By August, 1943, the State Department had drafted a document entitled "Charter of the United Nations," which became the basis for proposals submitted by the United States at the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference. Ill health forced Hull to resign from office on November 27, 1944 before final ratification of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco. President Roosevelt praised Secretary Hull as "the one person in all the world who has done his most to make this great plan for peace an effective fact."
Prior to Secretary Hull's resignation, President Roosevelt offered him the Vice Presidency in his bid for election. Because of his health, Hull declined, and Harry Truman became Vice President.
The Nobel Peace Prize
Following nomination by Roosevelt, the Norwegian Nobel Committee presented the 1945 Nobel Prize for Peace to Hull in recognition of his work in the Western Hemispheres, for his International Trade Agreements, and for his efforts in establishing the United Nations. Too ill to receive the award in person, Hull sent a brief acceptance speech that was delivered by the United States Ambassador to Norway, Mr. Lithogow Osborne. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, Hull wrote:
"Under the ominous shadow which the Second World War and its attendant circumstances have cast on the world, peace has become as essential to civilized existence as the air we breathe is to life itself. There is no greater responsibility resting upon peoples and governments everywhere, than to make sure that enduring peace will this time...at long last...be established and maintained...The searing lessons of this latest war and the promise of the United Nations Organization will be the cornerstones of a new edifice of enduring peace and the guideposts of a new era of human progress."
The Personal Life of Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull was a quiet,and dedicated man. His whole life was so immersed in politics that he did not get married until 1917 at age 46, when he married Rose Frances Witz.. He and Rose had no children. Hull hated the social life of Washington, preferring instead the simplicity of his private life and his other work. Other than a mild interest in golf and croquet, he spent little time on anything but his work.
His will provided the placing of the artifacts and books from his private apartment in a museum which was opened in Pickett County, Tennessee in September 1996. With financing from the State of Tennessee, this was made possible by his niece, Katherine Hull Ethridge, and the inexhaustible efforts of The Friends of Cordell Hull, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving his life and work.
Cordell Hull's nearly twelve-year tenure as Secretary of State has never been exceeded in length. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Secretaries. British diplomat Lord Halifax, praised Hull as "a great example to statesmen of any country...universally respected, known, and trusted."
(Source: http://www.cordellhullmuseum.com/hist...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordell_...
http://millercenter.org/president/fdr...
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prize...
http://history.state.gov/departmenthi...
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...
by Mark Dudney (no photo)
by Harold B. Hinton (no photo)
by Irwin Gellman (no photo)
by Cordell Hull (no photo)
by Hatsue Shinohara (no photo)
Calvin Coolidge
A quiet and somber man whose sour expression masked a dry wit, Calvin Coolidge was known as "Silent Cal." After learning of his ascendancy to the presidency following the death of Warren Harding in 1923, Coolidge was sworn in by his father, a justice of the peace, in the middle of the night and, displaying his famous "cool," promptly went back to bed.
Calvin Coolidge was born on Independence Day, 1872, and raised in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. His father was a pillar of the community, holding a variety of local offices from tax collector to constable. From him, Coolidge inherited his taciturn nature, his frugality, and his commitment to public service. The early death of his mother and sister contributed to his stoical personality.
Climbing the Political Ladder
While practicing law in Northampton, Massachusetts, Coolidge began to climb the ladder of state politics. From a spot on the City Council in 1900, he became chairman of the Northampton Republican Committee in 1904 and joined the state legislature in 1907. His term as governor of Massachusetts placed him in the national arena just in time to benefit from the return to power of the Republicans at the end of World War I. As governor, he called in the state guard to break a strike by city police in Boston, claiming that "there is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime." This bold action won him public acclaim and swept him onto the Republican ticket as the vice presidential nominee with Warren Harding. As vice president, Coolidge kept a low profile, sitting silently during cabinet meetings and seldom speaking in his constitutional position as presiding officer of the U.S. Senate.
After Harding's death in 1923, Coolidge became President. Intent on running for reelection in 1924, he dispatched his potential Republican rivals with relative ease. He had emerged unscathed from the scandals that plagued the Harding administration, earning a reputation for being honest, direct, and hardworking. The Democrats were split in 1924, finally settling on a compromise candidate, John W. Davis of West Virginia. With a rebounding economy to help him, Coolidge won handily with the slogan "Keep Cool With Coolidge."
A Visible Yet Passive Presidency
In contrast to his disdain for small talk, Coolidge was a highly visible leader, holding press conferences, speaking on the radio, and emerging as the leader among what one survey called "the most photographed persons on earth." Reveling in what would become known as the "photo op," he posed before the cameras dressed in farmer overalls, a cowboy hat and chaps, and an Indian headdress. But his prominent profile was not matched by a commitment to activism. He believed in small government, especially at the federal level, and practiced a passive style of leadership. He saw little need to intervene in issues that Congress or the states could handle without him.
Nonetheless, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had changed the presidency into an activist institution, and public opinion fairly demanded a modicum of leadership from the White House. Coolidge did have an agenda. His chief concern was economics, where he favored low taxes, reduced regulation of business, and a balanced budget. Alongside his Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, the wealthy Pittsburgh industrialist who advocated "trickle-down" economics, as critics called it, Coolidge secured reductions in rates for wealthy Americans (most citizens at the time paid little federal tax). Although many observers at the time gave the President and Secretary Mellon credit for the so-called "Coolidge Prosperity" that characterized the seven years of his presidency, in retrospect he came under criticism for having failed to try to stop the feverish stock-market speculation toward the end of his term that contributed to the stock market crash of 1929. Coolidge also fought against farm-relief legislation that might have shored up the depressed farm economy.
Like Harding, Coolidge allowed his cabinet a free hand in foreign affairs, delegating authority to Treasury Secretary Mellon, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, and Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, all holdovers from Harding's cabinet. The President believed that the United States should seek out foreign markets and refrain from entangling alliances and participation in the League of Nations. He supported the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as a means of settling international differences, a largely symbolic pact that nonetheless became an important precedent in fostering reliance on international law. In Latin America, Coolidge's administration tended to support the interests of U.S. businesses, although the President made steps toward a less adversarial posture than his predecessors had typically maintained.
Coolidge chose not to run for a second term because his republican political philosophy led him to value highly the unwritten two-term precedent (toward which he counted the balance of Harding's term that he served). Moreover, the death of his teenage son in 1924 had taken much of the joy out of his work. True to his simple tastes, he imagined he would be happier in retirement in Northampton, Massachusetts.
First Lady Grace Coolidge was as sunny and sociable as her husband was taciturn and sardonic. The press photographed her at every opportunity, and she once joked that she was the "national hugger." Having been trained as an instructor for the deaf, Grace Coolidge brought national attention to the plight of the nation's hearing-impaired and became a close personal friend of the author and activist, Helen Keller, who was both deaf and blind.
Although the public admired Coolidge during his time in office, the Great Depression turned public opinion against him. Many linked the nation's economic collapse to Coolidge's policy decisions. He vetoed the problematic McNary-Haugen bill to aid the depressed agricultural sector while thousands of rural banks in the Midwest and South were shutting their doors and farmers were losing their land. His tax cuts worsened the maldistribution of wealth and overproduction of goods, which destabilized the economy. Although in the 1980s, conservatives, led by Ronald Reagan--who hung Coolidge's portrait in the White House--revived something of a cult of Coolidge, most historians look upon the Coolidge presidency with skepticism, considering him to have offered little in the way of a positive vision, however strong his personal integrity.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/coo...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_C...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presi...
http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexper...
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...
by
Amity Shlaes
by David Greenberg (no photo)
by Robert Sobel (no photo)
by
Calvin Coolidge
by Robert H. Ferrell (no photo)
John W. Davis
John William Davis, (son of John James Davis), a Representative from West Virginia; born in Clarksburg, Harrison County, W.Va., April 13, 1873; attended various private schools; was graduated from the literary department of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va., in 1892; taught school; reentered the university and was graduated from its law department in 1895; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Clarksburg, W.Va.; professor of law at Washington and Lee University in 1896 and 1897; resumed the practice of law in Clarksburg, W.Va., in 1897; member of the State house of delegates in 1899; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1904; president of the West Virginia Bar Association in 1906; appointed a member of the West Virginia Commission on Uniform State Laws in 1909; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses and served from March 4, 1911, to August 29, 1913, when he resigned; one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1912 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against Robert W. Archbald, judge of the United States Commerce Court; Solicitor General of the United States 1913-1918; appointed Ambassador to the Court of St. James and served from November 21, 1918, to March 31, 1921; member of the American delegation for conference with Germany on the treatment and exchange of prisoners of war, held in Berne, Switzerland, in September 1918; honorary bencher of the Middle Temple, London, England; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President of the United States in 1924; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1932; was a resident of Nassau County, N.Y., and practiced law in New York City until his death; died in Charleston, S.C., March 24, 1955; interment in Locust Valley Cemetery, Glen Cove, Long Island, N.Y.
(Source: http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._...
http://www.johnwdavis.org/
http://law.wlu.edu/faculty/profiledet...
http://www.nndb.com/people/745/000134...
http://www.wvculture.org/history/gove...
by William Henry Harbaugh (no photo)
by Ophelia De Laine Gona (no photo)
by Harold Franklin Bass (no photo)
by Cathal J. Nolan (no photo)
by Neil A. Wynn (no photo)
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The A to Z from the Great War to the Great Depression (other topics)Dawn of Desegregation: J.A. De Laine and Briggs v. Elliott (other topics)
Notable U.S. Ambassadors Since 1775: A Biographical Dictionary (other topics)
Historical Dictionary of United States Political Parties (other topics)
Lawyers Lawyer: The Life of John W. Davis (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Ophelia De Laine Gona (other topics)Harold F. Bass Jr. (other topics)
William Henry Harbaugh (other topics)
Cathal J. Nolan (other topics)
Neil A. Wynn (other topics)
More...
Warren Harding was raised in a small town in Ohio. His wholesome and picture book childhood—farm chores, swimming in the local creek, and playing in the village band—was the basis of his down-home appeal later in life. As a young man, Harding brought a nearly bankrupt newspaper, the Marion Star, back to life. The paper became a favorite with Ohio politicians of both parties because of Harding's evenhanded reporting. Always well-liked for his good-natured manner, Harding won a seat in the Ohio State Senate, serving two terms before becoming a U.S. senator from Ohio in 1914. During his term as senator, Harding missed more sessions than he attended, being absent for key debates on prohibition and women's suffrage. Taking no stands meant making no enemies, and his fellow Republicans awarded Harding the 1920 presidential nomination, sensing the nation's fatigue with the reform agenda of Woodrow Wilson. Running with the slogan, "A Return to Normalcy," Harding beat progressive Democrat James M. Cox in a massive landslide.
Weak and Mediocre Presidency
Once in office, Harding admitted to his close friends that the job was beyond him. The capable men that Harding appointed to his cabinet included Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state, Andrew Mellon as secretary of the treasury, and Herbert Hoover as secretary of commerce. But he also surrounded himself with dishonest cheats, who came to be known as "the Ohio gang." Many of them were later charged with defrauding the government, and some of them went to jail. Though Harding knew of the limitations of men like Harry Dougherty, the slick friend he appointed attorney general, he liked to play poker with them, drink whiskey, smoke, tell jokes, play golf, and keep late hours.
Known as a "good fellow," Harding enjoyed being liked more than he prized being a good leader. Though Harding was never linked to any crooked deals, the public was aware of his affairs with at least two women. Carrie Phillips, who had been a German sympathizer during the war, tried to blackmail Harding and was paid hush money by the Republican Party. Nan Britton, a pretty blond thirty years younger than the President, was given a job in Washington, D.C., so that she could be near Harding. The two often met in the Oval Office, and their affair continued until Harding's death.
Decidedly conservative on trade and economic issues, Harding favored pro-business government policies. He allowed Andrew Mellon to push through tax cuts for the rich, stopped antitrust actions, and opposed organized labor.
Harding knew little about foreign affairs when he assumed office, preferring to give Secretary of State Hughes a free hand. Hughes was concerned with securing foreign markets for wealthy American banks, such as the one run by John D. Rockefeller. Hughes and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover used the Fordney-McCumber Tariff to secure oil markets in the Middle East, especially in modern-day Iraq and Iran. His administration revised Germany's war debts downward through legislation, passed in 1923, known as the Dawes Plan. Hughes also called for a naval conference with nine other nations to freeze naval spending in an effort to reduce spending.
Shaken by the talk of corruption among the friends he had appointed to office, Harding and his wife, Florence "Flossie" Harding, organized a tour of the western states and Alaska in an attempt to meet people and explain his policies. After becoming ill with what was at the time attributed to ptomaine (food) poisoning, Harding had a heart attack and died quietly in his sleep. The rumors flew that Flossie had poisoned the President to save him from being engulfed in the charges of corruption that swept his administration. The Hardings never had any children; Flossie died of kidney disease in 1924.
Most historians regard Harding as the worst President in the nation's history. In the end, it was not his corrupt friends, but rather, Harding's own lack of vision that was most responsible for the tarnished legacy.
(Source: http://millercenter.org/president/har...)
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G...
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presi...
http://americanpresidents.org/preside...
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/presiden...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLdvFi...