Chapter 37, 23 - 29

Postwar Baby Boom 23. The most dramatic upheaval in postwar America was the huge leap in birthrate. The result of this by the end of the 1950s was 50 million new babies.

24. In 1957 birthrate crested and was followed by a "deepening birth dearth," fertility rates dropped below the rate necessary to maintain the existing population figures in 1973, the only thing to lift U.S. population above the 1996 level of 264 million was immigration.

25. The "pig passing through the python" was the wave of baby boomers straining and distorting many aspects of American life as they passed through the stages. In the 1950s canned food and baby products had a big market, 1960s it was clothes and rock music, and the 1970s fuller jeans were popular because they were getting fatter, 1980s they jostled the job market, in the 1990s they had their own children, and now they put strain on social security as they start to retire.

Truman: The "Gutty" Man from Missouri

26. Truman's personality: He was called "average man's average man", first president in many years to not have a college education, had humility, no one thought he could handle the job, "shrinking pipsqueak"

President he turned out to be: "scrappy little cuss", confident to the point of cockiness, loyal to his bad "Missouri gang", trying to show decisiveness and power of command but ending up sticking to wrongheaded notions, had down-home authenticity, few pretensions, rock solid probity, and moxie

Famous sign on his desk: "The buck stops here."

Shaping the Postwar World

27. U.S behavior before WWII was very isolationist, after WWII the U.S. became more international with the development of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which encouraged world trade by regulating currency rates with Western allies and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) which promotes economic growth. U.S. took lead in creating these and supplied funding.

28. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the United Nations charter on July 28, 1945. The U.S., Britain, USSR, France, and China were on the Security Council.

29. The "priceless opportunity" to "tame the nuclear monster in its infancy" was lost in this era.

Jacob

Ch.33 (numbers 52 - 62)

The Three-Way Race for the White House in 1924

52. The Democrats were divided into the "wets" and "drys", urbanites and farmers, Fundamentalists and Modernists, Northern liberals and Southern stand-patters, and immigrants and old-stock.

53. The conventioneers, by just one vote, failed to pass a resolution condemning the Ku Klux Klan.

54. After being put to the vote 102 times, John W. Davis was the Democratic candidate, and he was really no different from Coolidge.

55. Liberal candidate Senator La Follette from Wisconsin emerged at the head of the Progressive party. This presidential ticket was a "head without a body" because there were no candidates for local office. It's platform was supporting of government ownership of railroads and relief for farmers, it was against monopoly and antilabor injunctions, also urged a constitutional amendment to limit the Supreme Court's power to invalidate laws passed by Congress

56. Coolidge won the election.

Foreign-Policy Flounderings

57. The "glaring exception" to U.S. isolationism in the ear was the armed interventionism in the Caribbean and Central America.

58. During 1914 to 1934 American troops remained in Haiti and from 1907 - 1933 in Nicaragua.

59. Coolidge avoided in 1962 a Mexican Oil crisis with skillful diplomatic negotiating, yet Americans weren't liked in Mexico and elsewhere throughout Latin America

60. The issue of international debt (which overshadowed all other foreign policy issues of the era) was a complicated tangle of private loans, Allied war debts, and German reparations payments.

61. WWI resulted in a change to America's status in the world because before it had been a debtor nation but after the war it became a creditor nation.

62. The allies wanted the U.S. to write off as war costs the $10 billion it was "owed" due to wartime "loans," aside from the "wall of flesh and bone" the allies (unlike the U.S.) had contributed to the war effort the allies also said the real effect of their money had been to fuel the boom in the roaring wartime economy of America where purchases had been made, also America post war tariff walls made it almost impossible for them to sell the goods to earn the dollars to pay their debts.

Now to Victoria . . .

The Prohibition "Experiment"

Prohibition was authorized in 1919 by the 18th Amendment and it was implemented by the Volstead Act. It got a lot of support from women as well as churches.

It was popular in both the South and the West:

- South: the whites were eager to keep drinks away from blacks (in case they burst out of "their place")

- West: the people saw it as an attack on all vices associated with the Western saloon (public drunkenness, prostitution, corruption, and crime)

Not so popular in big eastern cities:

- the immigrants were influenced by the Old World styles of sociability ("wet" foreign-born people)

People were convinced the Prohibition was there to stay so they had last wild flings before the "alcoholiday."

The prohibitionists were a bit naive:

- forgot the American tradition (strong drink, weak central government)

- the federal authorities had never successfully enforced a law that the majority opposed

- couldn't make a crime out of something the people didn't consider to be a crime in the first place

There were certain conditions that hampered the enforcement of prohibition:

- slaking thirst became a cherished personal liberty (some people came to believe that repeal could be accomplished by a large enough violation)

- legislators voted "dry" but drank "wet"

-soldiers returning from France were angry

- workers were angry about the loss of their cheap beer while the rich could buy all the illicit drinks they wanted

- youth thought it "smart" to swill bootleg liquor

- the old engaged in "bar hunts"

Prohibition may have worked better if there had been a larger army of enforcement officials (they were understaffed and underpaid), people (even innocent bystanders) were killed by dry agents

Prohibition didn't prohibit too well:

- saloons replaced by "speakeasies"

- hard liquor drunk by the cocktail (because of difficulties transporting/concealing bottles drinks with high alcoholic content were popular)

- foreign rumrunners from West Indies and Canada (which would sometimes strain American relations)

"Home brew" and "bath tub gin" became popular

- worst of the homemade "rotgut" could cause blindness, even death

But, prohibition wasn't an entire failure:

- bank savings increased

- absenteeism in industry decreased

- there was probably less alcohol consumed then before Prohibition although strong drink was still available

Next is Andrew

Ch. 31 Study Guide 52 - 60

The Domestic Parade of Prejudice

52. The members of each of the following groups found something objectionable about the Treaty of Versialles that Wilson helped to forge

a. Isolationists - didn't like the League of Nations and wanted no part of "entangling alliance"

b. "hun-haters" - thought the pact wasn't harsh enough on the Germans

c. other hyphenated Americans - it wasn't favorable to their native lands

d. Irish-Americans - denounced the League because they thought it gave Britian too much influence which could be used to force the U.S. to crush a rising for Irish independence.

Wilson's Tour and Collapse

53. The effort to amend the Treaty of Versailles was led by Senator Lodge, he and Wilson were enemies that hated each other.

54. Wilson, in order to secure passage of the Treaty that included the League of Nations, decided to go on a speech making tour, it affected him by making him ill (he fainted and then was paralzyed on half his body) and didn't see his cabinet for 7 months afterward

55. Lodge's objectons to the League were mostly Article X that morally bound the U.S. to aid any memeber victimized by external aggression

56. Wilson kept sending orders to the Senate democrats to vote against ratification of the treaty because he thought the ratifications "emasculated" the entire pact

57. The treaty was defeated by the Lodge-Wilson personal feud, traditionalism, isolationism, disillusionment, and partisanship, and Wilson himself when he asked for all or nothing (and got nothing).

The Solemn Referendum of 1920

58. Warren G. Harding (Republican) won the election of 1920, the democrats lost because their attempts to make campaigning a referendum on the League were thwarted by Senator Harding.

The Betrayl of Great Expectations

59. The U.S. would have been well advised to assume its war-born responsibilities and embraced its role of global leader

60. The three principles of Wilsonianism that have "largely defined the character of America foreign policy ever since - for better or worse" were: 1. the era of American isolation from world affaris has ended 2. the U.S. must infuse own founding political and economic ideas (democracy, rule of law, free trade, and national self-determination/anti-clolonialsim) nto the international order 3. American influence can eventually steer the world away from rivalry and warfare and towards cooperative and peaceful international system through the League of Nations (later United Nations).

Progressive Era Foreign Policy Acts

Panama Canal Tolls Act 1912

This is Taft's act that had exempted Ameican coastwise shipping from tolls which had provoked protests from Britian, and in 1914 Wilson persuaded Congress to repeal it.

Jones Act of 1916

This act was passed by Wilson and was anti-imperial. It granted the Philippines territorial status and promised independence as soon as "stable government" was reached (which came 30 years later July 4, 1946).

Progressive Era Conservation/Land Use Acts

Desert Land Act 1877

The federal government sold land cheap if the buyer would irrigate the soil within three years.

Forest Reserve Act 1891

This authorized the president to be able to set aside public forests as national parks and other reserves. This saved some 46 million acres of trees in the 1890s.

Carey Act of 1894

This act distributed federal land to the states under the condition that it would be irrigated and settled.

Newlands Act of 1902

This authorized Washington to take the money it made on the sale of public lands and use it for the development of better irrigation projects. It ended up being a revolving fund to help finance more of these projects. Dozens of dams on the major western rivers were created because of this.

How Progressives tended to view conservation...

The Progressives looked at nature in a certain way. They knew that it shouldn't be abused as it had been previously, but they didn't see it as John Muir or Hetch Hetchy did as a "temple". They wanted nature to be used, but used correctly. For example, Teddy Roosevelt would preserve a forest so he could hunt the deer.

New Federal Agencies

Women's Bureau (1920)

This was part of the Department of Labor and a way for female activists to get the word out. They saw it as a "wedge" into the federal bureaucracy and gave them a stage for social investigation and advocacy.

Children's Bureau (1912)

Created by the women activists who were always drawn to "moral" issues like protecting the children from dirty, hard labor in sweatshops and winning pensions for mothers with dependent children.

Federal Trade Commission (1914)

It was a presidentially appointed commission who would keep an eye on industries engaged in interstate commerce. Their goal was to crush the monopolies by catching unfair trade practices (included unlawful competition), false advertising, mislabeling, adulteration, and bribery.

Federal Reserve (1913)

Very important piece of economic legislation. The Board was appointed by the president (Wilson) and oversaw a nationwide system of twelve regional reserve districts, each with its own central bank. This ended up guaranteeing a substantial measure of public control. It also had the power to issue paper money (Federal Reserve Notes) backed by commercial paper.

Federal Farm Loan Act (1916)

This made credit available to farmers at low rates of interest.