Teddy RooseveltWilliam Howard TaftWoodrow Wilson Warren G. HardingCalvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover.

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Teddy RooseveltWilliam Howard TaftWoodrow Wilson Warren G. HardingCalvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

 Theodore Roosevelt was never intended to be President. He was seen as a reckless cowboy by many in the Republican Party leadership. As his popularity soared, he became more and more of a threat. His success with the Rough Riders in Cuba made him a war hero in the eyes of many Americans. Riding this wave, he was elected as governor of New York.

 During the campaign of 1900, it was decided that nominating Roosevelt for the Vice- Presidency would serve two purposes. First, his popularity would surely help President McKinley's reelection bid. Second, moving him to the Vice-Presidency might decrease his power.

 Vice-Presidents had gone on to the White House only if the sitting President died in office. The last Vice-President elected in his own right had been Martin Van Buren in 1837. Many believed Roosevelt could do less harm as Vice-President than as governor of New York.  McKinley and Roosevelt won the election, and all was proceeding according to plan until an assassin's bullet ended McKinley's life in September 1901.

 Soon it was clear that a new type of President was in town. The Presidency had been dormant since Lincoln's time. Congress seemed to be running the government, and big business seemed to be running Congress.  Philosophically, Roosevelt was outraged by these realities. Although he himself hailed from the wealthy classes, he strongly believed that no individual, no matter how rich and powerful, should control the people's representatives.

 Roosevelt did not wait long to act. Before long he lashed out against the trusts and sided with American labor. The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act protected consumers. Steps were taken to protect America's wilderness lands that went beyond any previous President.

 Furthermore, Roosevelt was convinced that if abuse of workers continued to go unchecked, a violent revolution would sweep the nation. An outspoken foe of socialism, Roosevelt believed that capitalism would be preserved with a little restraint and common sense. Within months he began to wield his newfound power.

 The worst fears of conservatives were realized as Roosevelt used the White House as a "bully pulpit" to promote an active government that protected the interests of the people over big business. The Progressive movement finally had an ally in the White House.

 Roosevelt changed the office in other important ways. He never went anywhere without his photographer. He wanted Americans to see a rough and tumble leader who was unafraid to get his hands dirty. He became the first President to travel out of the country while in office and the first to win the Nobel Prize.

 Unlike his quieter predecessors, Roosevelt knew that if the Washington politicians resisted change, he would have to take his case to the people directly. He traveled often and spoke with confidence and enthusiasm. Americans received him warmly.

 The country was thirsting for leadership and Roosevelt became a political and popular hero. Merchandise was sold in his likeness, paintings and lithographs created in his honor, and even a film was produced portraying him as a fairy-tale hero. The White House was finally back in business.

 Teddy Roosevelt was one American who believed a revolution was coming.  He believed Wall Street financiers and powerful trust titans to be acting foolishly. While they were eating off fancy china on mahogany tables in marble dining rooms, the masses were roughing it. There seemed to be no limit to greed. If docking wages would increase profits, it was done. If higher railroad rates put more gold in their coffers, it was done. How much was enough, Roosevelt wondered?

 Although he himself was a man of means, he criticized the wealthy class of Americans on two counts. First, continued exploitation of the public could result in a violent uprising that could destroy the whole system. Second, the captains of industry were arrogant enough to believe themselves superior to the elected government. Now that he was President, Roosevelt went on the attack.

 The President's weapon was the Sherman Antitrust Act, passed by Congress in 1890. This law declared illegal all combinations "in restraint of trade." For the first twelve years of its existence, the Sherman Act was a paper tiger. United States courts routinely sided with business when any enforcement of the Act was attempted.

 For example, the American Sugar Refining Company controlled 98 percent of the sugar industry. Despite this virtual monopoly, the Supreme Court refused to dissolve the corporation in an 1895 ruling. The only time an organization was deemed in restraint of trade was when the court ruled against a labor union  Roosevelt knew that no new legislation was necessary. When he sensed that he had a sympathetic Court, he sprung into action.

 Theodore Roosevelt was not the type to initiate major changes timidly. The first trust giant to fall victim to Roosevelt's assault was none other than the most powerful industrialist in the country — J. Pierpont Morgan.

 Morgan controlled a railroad company known as Northern Securities. In combination with railroad moguls James J. Hill and E. H. Harriman, Morgan controlled the bulk of railroad shipping across the northern United States. James J Hill E. H. Harriman James J Hill House, St. Paul, MN

 Morgan was enjoying a peaceful dinner at his New York home on February 19, 1902, when his telephone rang. He was furious to learn that Roosevelt's Attorney General was bringing suit against the Northern Securities Company. Stunned, he muttered to his equally shocked dinner guests about how rude it was to file such a suit without warning.

 Four days later, Morgan was at the White House with the President. Morgan bellowed that he was being treated like a common criminal. The President informed Morgan that no compromise could be reached, and the matter would be settled by the courts. Morgan inquired if his other interests were at risk, too. Roosevelt told him only the ones that had done anything wrong would be prosecuted.

 This was the core of Theodore Roosevelt's leadership. He boiled everything down to a case of right versus wrong and good versus bad. If a trust controlled an entire industry but provided good service at reasonable rates, it was a "good" trust to be left alone. Only the "bad" trusts that jacked up rates and exploited consumers would come under attack. Who would decide the difference between right and wrong? The occupant of the White House trusted only himself to make this decision in the interests of the people.

 The American public cheered Roosevelt's new offensive. The Supreme Court, in a narrow 5 to 4 decision, agreed and dissolved the Northern Securities Company. Roosevelt said confidently that no man, no matter how powerful, was above the law. As he landed blows on other "bad" trusts, his popularity grew and grew.

 John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers, represented the miners. He was soft-spoken, yet determined. Many compared his manner to Abraham Lincoln's. In the spring of 1902, Mitchell placed a demand on the coal operators for better wages, shorter hours, and recognition of the union. The owners, led by George Baer, flatly refused. On May 12, 1902, 140,000 miners walked off the job, and the strike was on.

This frightening-looking structure is a coalbreaker, located in Scranton, PA.

 Mitchell worked diligently behind the scenes to negotiate with Baer, but his efforts were rejected. According to Baer, there would be no compromise. Even luminaries such Mark Hanna and J.P. Morgan prevailed in vain on the owners to open talks. As the days passed, the workers began to feel the pinch of the strike, and violence began to erupt.  Soon summer melted into fall, and President Roosevelt wondered what the angry workers and a colder public would do if the strike lasted into the bitter days of winter. He decided to lend a hand in settling the strike.

 No President had ever tried to negotiate a strike settlement before. Roosevelt invited Mitchell and Baer to the White House on October 3 to hammer out a compromise. Mitchell proposed to submit to an arbitration commission and abide by the results if Baer would do the same. Baer resented the summons by the President to meet a "common criminal" like Mitchell, and refused any sort of concession.

 Roosevelt despaired that the violence would increase and spiral dangerously toward a class- based civil war. After the mine operators left Washington, he vowed to end the strike. He was impressed by Mitchell's gentlemanly demeanor and irritated by Baer's insolence. Roosevelt remarked that if he weren't president, he would have thrown Baer out of a White House window.

 He summoned his War Secretary, Elihu Root, and ordered him to prepare the army. This time, however, the army would not be used against the strikers. The coal operators were informed that if no settlement were reached, the army would seize the mines and make coal available to the public. Roosevelt did not seem to mind that he had no constitutional authority to do any such thing.

 J.P. Morgan finally convinced Baer and the other owners to submit the dispute to a commission. On October 15, the strike ended. The following March, a decision was reached by the mediators. The miners were awarded a 10 percent pay increase, and their workday was reduced to eight or nine hours. The owners were not forced to recognize the United Mine Workers.  Workers across America cheered Roosevelt for standing up to the mine operators. It surely seemed like the White House would lend a helping hand to the labor movement.

 As America grew, Americans were destroying its natural resources. Farmers were depleting the nutrients of the overworked soil. Miners removed layer after layer of valuable topsoil, leading to catastrophic erosion. Everywhere forests were shrinking and wildlife was becoming more scarce. President Theodore Roosevelt with Pioneer environmentalist John Muir on Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley, California.

 The growth of cities brought a new interest in preserving the old lands for future generations. Dedicated to saving the wilderness, the Sierra Club formed in 1892. John Muir, the president of the Sierra Club, worked valiantly to stop the sale of public lands to private developers. At first, most of his efforts fell on deaf ears. Then Theodore Roosevelt inhabited the Oval Office, and his voice was finally heard.

 Roosevelt was an avid outdoorsman. He hunted, hiked, and camped whenever possible. He believed that living in nature was good for the body and soul. Although he proved willing to compromise with Republican conservatives on many issues, he was dedicated to protecting the nation's public lands.

 The first measure he backed was the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902. This law encouraged developers and homesteaders to inhabit lands that were useless without massive irrigation works. The lands were sold at a cheap price if the buyer assumed the cost of irrigation and lived on the land for at least five years. The government then used the revenue to irrigate additional lands. Over a million barren acres were rejuvenated under this program.

 John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt were more than political acquaintances. In 1903, Roosevelt took a vacation by camping with Muir in Yosemite National Park. The two agreed that making efficient use of public lands was not enough. Certain wilderness areas should simply be left undeveloped.

 Under an 1891 law that empowered the President to declare national forests and withdraw public lands from development, Roosevelt began to preserve wilderness areas. By the time he left office 150,000,000 acres had been deemed national forests, forever safe from the ax and saw. This amounted to three times the total protected lands since the law was enacted.

 In 1907, Congress passed a law blocking the President from protecting additional territory in six western states. In typical Roosevelt fashion, he signed the bill into law — but not before protecting 16 million additional acres in those six states.

Yellowstone's Tower Falls and Sulphur Mountain, one of the earliest tracts of preserved wilderness in America. The First National Park Was Yellowstone National park in Wyoming. When Roosevelt became president there were only 4 national parks (Yellowstone, Yosemite Mount Rainer and Sequoia). President Roosevelt almost doubled that number, adding Crater Lake, OR in 1902, Wind Cave, SD in 1903, and Mesa Verde, CO in 1906. Glacier Park, MT was added in 1910. Today it consists of 58 parks across the United States.

 Conservation fever spread among urban intellectuals as a result. By 1916, there were sixteen national parks with over 300,000 annual visitors. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts formed to give urban youths a greater appreciation of nature. Memberships in conservation and wildlife societies soared.  Teddy Roosevelt distinguished himself as the greatest Presidential advocate of the environment since Thomas Jefferson. Much damage had been done, but America's beautiful, abundant resources were given a new lease on life.

 An all-water route between the oceans was still seen as the ideal solution, and the idea of a canal was enhanced by the French success of the Suez Canal (which took 10 years to build the 102 mile canal, more than twice the size of the Panama Canal). The French, under Ferdinand de Lesseps, began construction on a sea-level canal (i.e., without locks) through what was then Colombia's province of Panama, on January 1, 1880.

 The French began work in a rush, with insufficient prior study of the geology and hydrology of the region. Excavation was conducted at such a steep angle that, in some years, rain-induced landslides poured nearly as much material into the canal as had been removed. In addition, disease, particularly malaria and yellow fever, sickened and killed vast numbers of employees, ranging from laborers to top directors of the French company.

 Public health measures were ineffective because the role of the mosquito as a disease vector was then unknown. These conditions made it impossible to maintain an experienced work force as fearful technical employees quickly returned to France. Even the hospitals contributed to the problem, unwittingly providing breeding places for mosquitoes inside the unscreened wards. Actual conditions were hushed up in France to avoid recruitment problems.

 In 1893, after a great deal of work, the French scheme was abandoned due to disease and the sheer difficulty of building a sea-level canal, as well as lack of French field experience, such as with downpours that caused steel equipment to rust.The high toll from disease was one of the major factors in the failure; as many as 22,000 workers were estimated to have died during the main period of French construction (1881–1889).

 At this time, various interests in the United States were also expressing interest in building a canal across the isthmus, with some favouring a route across Nicaragua (see Nicaragua Canal and Ecocanal) and others advocating the purchase of the French interests in Panama. Eventually, in June 1902, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of pursuing the Panamanian option, provided the necessary rights could be obtained. (It is claimed that the vote was swayed by William Nelson Cromwell.)

 On January 22, 1903, the Hay-Herran Treaty was signed by United States Secretary of State John M. Hay and Dr. Tomás Herrán of Colombia. It would have granted the United States a renewable lease in perpetuity from Colombia on the land proposed for the canal. This is often misinterpreted as the "99-year lease" due to misleading wording included in article 22 of the agreement that refers to property within the land but does not pertain to the control of the canal and the right for the United States to renew the lease indefinitely.

 It was ratified by the United States Senate on March 14, 1903, but the Senate of Colombia did not ratify the treaty. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, chief engineer of the French canal company, told Roosevelt and Hay of a possible revolt and hoped that the U.S. would support it with troops and money. President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt changed tactics, promising support for the separation of Panama from Colombia. On November 2, 1903, U.S. warships blocked sealanes for Colombian troops from coming to put down the revolt, while dense jungles blocked land routes.

 Panama achieved independence on November 3, 1903 when the United States sent naval forces to encourage Colombia's surrender of the region. The United States quickly recognized them. Also, on November 6, 1903, Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, Panama's ambassador to the United States, signed the Hay- Bunau Varilla Treaty, granting rights to the United States to build and indefinitely administer the Panama Canal. Although Bunau-Varilla was serving as Panama's ambassador, he was a French citizen and was not authorized to sign treaties on behalf of Panama without Panamanian review.

 This treaty would later become a contentious diplomatic issue between Panama and the U.S..  The United States, under President Theodore Roosevelt, bought out the French equipment and excavations for US$40 million and began work on May 4, 1904. The United States paid Colombia $10 million in 1921 and (later $250,000 per annum), seven years after completion of the canal, for redress of President Roosevelt's role in the creation of Panama, and Colombia recognized Panama under the terms of the Thomson-Urrutia Treaty.

 John Frank Stevens, Chief Engineer from 1905 to 1907, successfully argued the case against the incredibly massive excavation required for a sea- level canal like the French had tried to build and convinced Theodore Roosevelt of the necessity and feasibility of a canal built with dams and locks. One of Stevens' primary achievements in Panama was in building the infrastructure necessary to complete the canal. He had the Panama Railway rebuilt and upgraded with modern heavy-duty equipment.

 Implementing the recommendations of Walter Reed and Dr. William Gorgas, Stevens also built proper housing with screens for canal workers and oversaw investment in extensive sanitation and mosquito- abatement programs that minimized the spread of the deadly mosquito-spread diseases—particularly malaria and yellow fever. The mosquito had been identified as the vector (disease spreading agent) by Cuban physician and scientist Dr. Carlos Finlay in 1881. Finlay's theory and investigative work had recently been confirmed by Dr. Walter Reed while in Cuba with the U.S. Army after the Spanish-American War (1898)

 With the diseases under control, and after significant work on preparing the infrastructure and railroad, construction of an elevated canal with locks began in earnest. Even the construction of the Panama Canal with locks still required the excavation of an enormous volume of material and was envisioned by John Frank Stevens as a massive earth-moving project using the Panama Railway as efficiently as possible.

 The railroad, starting in 1904, had to be comprehensively upgraded with heavy-duty double-tracked rails over most of the line to accommodate all the new rolling stock of about 115 heavy-duty locomotives and 2,300 dirt spoils railroad cars. There were about 102 of the new railroad-mounted steam shovels brought in from the United States and elsewhere. The steam shovels were some of the largest in the world in 1906 when they were introduced. The new railroad closely paralleled the canal where it could and was moved and reconstructed where it interfered with the canal work. In many places the new Lake Gatun flooded over the original rail line and a new rail line had to be raised above the water by massive dirt fills and bridges.

 The building of the canal was completed in 1914, two years ahead of the target date of June 1, 1916. The canal was formally opened on August 15, 1914 with the passage of the cargo ship SS Ancon. Coincidentally, this was also the same month that fighting in World War I (the Great War) began in Europe. The advances in hygiene resulted in a relatively low death toll during the American construction; still, about 5,600 workers died during this period (1904–1914). This brought the total death toll for the construction of the canal to around 27,500.

Construction of locks on the Panama Canal, 1913 SS Kroonland at the Culebra Cut while transiting the Panama Canal on 2 February 1915.

 A canal was inevitable. A trip by boat from New York to San Francisco forced a luckless crew to sail around the tip of South America — a journey amounting to some 12,000 miles. The new empire might require a fast move from the Atlantic to the Pacific by a naval squadron. Teddy Roosevelt decided that the time for action was at hand. The canal would be his legacy, and he would stop at nothing to get it.

 Fearing that either side would build an isthmathian canal and use it for national advantage, the United States and Great Britain agreed in the 1850 Clayton- Bulwer Treaty that neither side would build such a canal. A half century later, the now dominant United States wanted to nullify this deal. Great Britain, nervous about its South African Boer War and an increasingly cloudy Europe, sought to make a friend in the United States. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty permitted the United States to build and fortify a Central American canal, so long as the Americans promised to charge the same fares to all nations. One roadblock was clear.

 The next question was where to build. Ferdinand de Lessups, the same engineer who designed the Suez Canal, had organized a French attempt in Panama in the 1870s. Disease and financial problems left a partially built canal behind. While it made sense that the United States should buy the rights to complete the effort, Panama posed other problems. Despite being the most narrow nation in the region, Panama was very mountainous, and a complex series of locks was necessary to move ships across the isthmus. Nicaragua was another possibility. The canal would be situated closer to the United States. The terrain was flatter, and despite Nicaragua's width, there were numerous lakes that could be connected. Volcanic activity in Nicaragua prompted the United States to try to buy the territory in Panama.

 But Panama was not an independent state. To obtain the rights to the territory, the United States had to negotiate with Colombia. The 1903 Hay-Herran Treaty permitted the United States to lease a six-mile wide strip of land at an annual fee. The treaty moved through the United States Senate, but the Colombian Senate held out for more money. Roosevelt was furious. Determined to build his canal, Roosevelt sent a U.S. gunboat to the shores of Colombia.

 At the same time, a group of "revolutionaries" declared independence in Panama. The Colombians were powerless to stop the uprising. The United States became the first nation in the world to recognize the new government of Panama. Within weeks, the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty awarded a 10-mile strip of land to the United States, and the last hurdle was cleared.

 Or so it seemed. Construction on the canal was extremely difficult. The world had never known such a feat of engineering. Beginning in 1907, American civilians blasted through tons of mountain stone. Thanks to the work of Walter Reed and William Gorgas, the threats of yellow fever and malaria were greatly diminished. When Theodore Roosevelt visited the blast area, he became the first sitting American President to travel outside the country. Finally, the deed was done. In 1914, at the cost of $345 million, the Panama Canal was open for business.

 For many years, the Monroe Doctrine was practically a dead letter. The bold proclamation of 1823 that declared the Western Hemisphere forever free from European expansion bemused the imperial powers who knew the United States was simply too weak to enforce its claim. By 1900, the situation had changed. A bold, expanding America was spreading its wings, daring the old world order to challenge its newfound might. When Theodore Roosevelt became President, he decided to reassert Monroe's old declaration.

 American policy. Fearful that the new nation would be prey to the imperial vultures of Europe, United States diplomats sharpened American talons on the island. In the Platt Amendment of 1901, Cuba was forbidden from entering any treaty that might endanger their independence. In addition, to prevent European gunboats from landing on Cuban shores, Cuba was prohibited from incurring a large debt. If any of these conditions were violated, Cuba agreed to permit American troops to land to restore order. Lastly, the United States was granted a lease on a naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Independent in name only, Cuba became a legal protectorate of the United States.

 Convinced that all of Latin America was vulnerable to European attack, President Roosevelt dusted off the Monroe Doctrine and added his own corollary. While the Monroe Doctrine blocked further expansion of Europe in the Western Hemisphere, the Roosevelt Corollary went one step further. Should any Latin American nation engage in "chronic wrongdoing," a phrase that included large debts or civil unrest, the United States military would intervene.

 Europe was to remain across the Atlantic, while America would police the Western Hemisphere. The first opportunity to enforce this new policy came in 1905, when the Dominican Republic was in jeopardy of invasion by European debt collectors. The United States invaded the island nation, seized its customs houses, and ruled the Dominican Republic as a protectorate until the situation was stabilized.

 The effects of the new policy were enormous. Teddy Roosevelt had a motto: "Speak softly and carry a big stick." To Roosevelt, the big stick was the new American navy. By remaining firm in resolve and possessing the naval might to back its interests, the United States could simultaneously defend its territory and avoid war. Latin Americans did not look upon the corollary favorably. They resented U.S. involvement as Yankee imperialism, and animosity against their large neighbor to the North grew dramatically. By the end of the 20th century, the United States would send troops of invasion to Latin America over 35 times, establishing an undisputed sphere of influence throughout the hemisphere.

 China still had an emperor and system of government, but the foreign powers were truly in control. Although the Chinese Empire was not carved into colonies such as Africa, Europe did establish quasi-colonial entities called spheres of influence after 1894. Those enjoying special privileges in this fashion included Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan. Secretary of State John Hay feared that if these nations established trade practices that excluded other nations, American trade would suffer. Britain agreed and Hay devised a strategy to preserve open trade. He circulated letters among all the powers called Open Door Notes, requesting that all nations agree to free trade in China. While Britain agreed, all the other powers declined in private responses. Hay, however, lied to the world and declared that all had accepted. The imperial powers, faced with having to admit publicly to greedy designs in China, remained silent and the Open Door went into effect.

 In 1900, foreign occupation of China resulted in disaster. A group of Chinese nationalists called the Fists of Righteous Harmony attacked Western property. The Boxers, as they were known in the West, continued to wreak havoc until a multinational force invaded to stop the uprising. The Boxer Rebellion marked the first time United States armed forces invaded another continent without aiming to acquire the territory. The rebels were subdued, and China was forced to pay an indemnity of $330 million to the United States.

 Japan was also a concern for the new imperial America. In 1904, war broke out between Russia and Japan. The war was going poorly for the Russians. Theodore Roosevelt offered to mediate the peace process as the war dragged on. The two sides met with Roosevelt in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and before long, a treaty was arranged. Despite agreeing to its terms, the Japanese public felt that Japan should have been awarded more concessions. Anti- American rioting swept the island. Meanwhile, Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. This marked the first time an American President received such an offer.

 America were faced with harsh discrimination, including segregated schooling. In the informal Gentleman's Agreement of 1907, the United States agreed to end the practice of separate schooling in exchange for a promise to end Japanese immigration. That same year, Roosevelt decided to display his "big stick," the new American navy. He sent the flotilla, known around the world as the Great White Fleet, on a worldwide tour. Although it was meant to intimidate potential aggressors, particularly Japan, the results of the journey were uncertain. Finally, in 1908, Japan and the United States agreed to respect each other's holdings on the Pacific Rim in the Root- Takahira Agreement. Sending troops overseas, mediating international conflicts, and risking trouble to maintain free trade, the United States began to rapidly shed its isolationist past.

 Before his two terms came to a close, the federal government passed legislation further restricting trusts, banning child labor, and requiring worker compensation. The Progressive causes of temperance and women's suffrage were embedded into the Constitution.

 The Progressive lock on the Presidency did not end with Theodore Roosevelt. His popularity secured the election in 1908 of his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft. Although Taft continued busting America's trusts, his inability to control the conservative wing of the party led to a Republican versus Republican war.

 1908 was not a good year for Teddy Roosevelt. The nation was recovering from a financial panic that had rocked Wall Street the previous year. Many leading industrialists unjustly blamed the crisis on the President. The Congress that he had finessed in his early term was now dominated by conservative Republicans who took joy at blocking the President's initiatives. Now his time in the White House was coming to a close.

 He had promised not to seek a third term when he was elected in 1904. No prior President had ever broken the two-term tradition. Roosevelt would keep his word. He decided that if he could no longer serve as President, the next best option was to name a successor that would carry out his programs. He found the perfect candidate in William Howard Taft.

 Taft and Roosevelt were best friends. When Roosevelt was sworn in as chief executive, Taft was serving as governor of the Philippines. Roosevelt offered his friend a seat on the Supreme Court, but his work in the Philippines and the ambitions of Mrs. Taft propelled him to decline. In 1904, he became Secretary of War and his friendship with Roosevelt grew stronger.

 By 1908, Roosevelt was convinced that Taft would be the ideal successor. His support streamrollered Taft to the Republican nomination, and the fall election against the tired William Jennings Bryan proved to be a landslide victory.

 Upon leaving the White House, Roosevelt embarked on a worldwide tour, including an African safari and a sojourn through Europe. Taft was left to make his own mark on America. But he lacked the political skill of his predecessor to keep both the progressive and conservative wings of his party happy. Soon he would alienate one side or the other.

 The defining moment came with the Payne-Aldrich Tariff. Progressives hated the measure, which raised rates, and conservatives lauded it. Taft signed the bill, and his progressive supporters were furious.

 Ballinger-Pinchot controversy. Richard Ballinger was Taft's Secretary of the Interior. His appointment shocked Gifford Pinchot, the nation's chief forester and longtime companion of Theodore Roosevelt. Pinchot rightly saw that Ballinger was no friend to Roosevelt's conservation initiatives. When Pinchot publicly criticized Ballinger, Taft fired Pinchot, and progressives were again outraged. The two wings of the party were now firmly on a collision course.

 Despite criticism from progressive Republicans, Taft did support many of their goals. He broke twice as many trusts in his one term as Roosevelt had broken in his two. Taft limited the workday of federal employees to 8 hours and supported the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which empowered the Congress to levy a federal income tax. He also created a Children's Bureau and supported the 17th Amendment, which allowed for senators to be directly elected by the people instead of the state legislatures.

Unfortunately, Taft is probably most famous for getting stuck in his bathtub. His obvious obesity helped change American attitudes toward fitness.

 Still, when Roosevelt returned to America, progressives pressed him to challenge Taft for the party leadership. As 1912 approached, the fight was on. Teddy Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912, splitting the party wide open.

 Roosevelt's decision to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912 was most difficult. Historians disagree on his motives. Defenders of Roosevelt insist that Taft betrayed the progressive platform. When Roosevelt returned to the United States, he was pressured by thousands of progressives to lead them once more. Roosevelt believed that he could do a better job uniting the party than Taft. He felt a duty to the American people to run.

 The two former friends hurled insults at each other as the summer of 1912 drew near. Taft had the party leadership behind him, but Roosevelt had the people. Roosevelt spoke of a New Nationalism — a broad plan of social reform for America.

 Rather than destroying every trust, Roosevelt supported the creation of a Federal Trade Commission to keep a watchful eye on unfair business practices. He proposed a minimum wage, a workers' compensation act, and a child labor law. He proposed a government pension for retirees and funds to assist Americans with health care costs. He supported the women's suffrage amendment. The time of laissez faire was over. The government must intervene to help its people.

 Teddy Roosevelt survived an assignation attempt on the way into the convention. The bullet was stopped by his speech, which he had folded in his pocket. When asked how he felt, Roosevelt responded “I fell as strong as a bull moose”. This was later taken as the name for Roosevelt’s new political party – The Bull Moose Party.

 Although the Republicans lost the election, it was not necessarily a loss for Progressives. The winning Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, embraced much of the Progressive agenda himself.

 Progressives did not come only in the Republican flavor. Thomas Woodrow Wilson also saw the need for change.  Born in Staunton, Virginia, Wilson served as president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey. He combined a southern background with northern sensibilities.

 His 1912 platform for change was called the New Freedom. Wilson was an admirer of Thomas Jefferson. The agrarian utopia of small, educated farmers envisioned by Jefferson struck a chord with Wilson. Of course, the advent of industry could not be denied, but a nation of small farmers and small businesspeople seemed totally possible. The New Freedom sought to achieve this vision by attacking what Wilson called the Triple Wall of Privilege — the tariff, the banks, and the trusts.

 Tariffs protected the large industrialists at the expense of small farmers. Wilson signed the Underwood-Simmons Act into law in 1913, which reduced tariff rates. The banking system also pinched small farmers and entrepreneurs. The gold standard still made currency too tight, and loans were too expensive for the average American. Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, which made the nation's currency more flexible.

 Unlike Roosevelt, Wilson did not distinguish between "good" trusts and "bad" trusts. Any trust by virtue of its large size was bad in Wilson's eyes. The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 clarified the Sherman Act by specifically naming certain business tactics illegal. This same act also exempted labor unions from antitrust suits, and declared strikes, boycotts, and peaceful picketing perfectly legal.

 When Wilson's first term expired, he felt he had to do more. The nation was on the brink of entering the bloodiest conflict in human history, and Wilson had definite ideas about how the postwar peace should look. But he would have to survive reelection first.

 As an appeal to the Roosevelt progressives, he began to sign many legislative measures suggested by the Bull Moose Campaign. He approved of the creation of a federal trade commission to act as a watchdog over business. A child labor bill and a workers' compensation act became law. Wilson agreed to limit the workday of interstate railroad workers to 8 hours. He signed a federal farm loan act to ease the pains of life on the farm.

 Progressive Republicans in the Congress were pleased by Wilson's conversion to their brand of progressivism, and the American people showed their approval by electing him to a second term.

 In two years, he successfully attacked each "wall of privilege." Now his eyes turned to greater concerns, particularly the outbreak of the First World War in Europe.

 The 1920s saw the culmination of fifty years of rapid American industrialization. New products seemed to burst from American production lines with the potential of revolutionizing American life. Other products that had previously been toys for the rich were now available to a majority of Americans. The standard of living increased as the economy grew stronger and stronger. The results were spectacular. The America of 1929 was vastly different from the America of 1919.

 The automobile was first and foremost among these products. The practices of Henry Ford made these horseless carriages affordable to the American masses. Widespread use of the automobile ushered in changes in work patterns and leisure plans. A host of support industries were launched. Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village. Model T — 1919

 Dating and education were changed by the automobile. Radio usage brought further changes. For the first time, a national popular culture was supplanting regional folkways. Americans across the continent were sharing the same jokes, participating in the same fads, and worshipping the same heroes. Housework was minimized with the introduction of labor saving devices. As a result, leisure time was increased.

 The bleak outlook and large sacrifices of the wartime era were now a part of the past. Young Americans were looking to cut loose and have a good time. Prohibition did not end alcohol usage. The romantic subculture of the speakeasy kept the firewater flowing. Organized crime flourished as gangland violence related to bootlegged liquor plagued America's cities.

 Flapper women strove to eliminate double standard values. Young females engaged in behaviors previously reserved for men including smoking and drinking. Sigmund Freud's assertion that sexual behavior was a natural instinct brought down more barriers as young Americans delved into sexual experimentation. The Harlem Renaissance brought a new form of entertainment. The sounds of jazz bands had appeal that transcended African American audiences, as thousands flocked to hear the new sounds.

 The 1920s ushered in more lasting changes to the American social scene than any previous decade. Escapism loomed large as many coped with change by living in the present and enjoying themselves. The economic boom that unleashed the transformation and its consequences made the Roaring Twenties an era to remember.

 Although the technology for the automobile existed in the 19th century, it took Henry Ford to make the useful gadget accessible to the American public. Ford used the idea of the assembly line for automobile manufacturing. He paid his workers an unprecedented $5 a day when most laborers were bringing home two, hoping that it would increase their productivity. Furthermore, they might use their higher earnings to purchase a new car.

 Ford reduced options, even stating that the public could choose whatever color car they wanted — so long as it was black. The Model T sold for $490 in 1914, about one quarter the cost of the previous decade. By 1920, there were over 8 million registrations. The 1920s saw tremendous growth in automobile ownership, with the number of registered drivers almost tripling to 23 million by the end of the decade.

 The growth of the automobile industry caused an economic revolution across the United States. Dozens of spin-off industries blossomed. Of course the demand for vulcanized rubber skyrocketed. Road construction created thousands of new jobs, as state and local governments began funding highway design.

 Even the federal government became involved with the Federal Highway Act of 1921. Gas stations began to dot the land, and mechanics began to earn a living fixing the inevitable problems. Oil and steel were two well- established industries that received a serious boost by the demand for automobiles. Travelers on the road needed shelter on long trips, so motels began to line the major long- distance routes.

 Even cuisine was transformed by the automobile. The quintessential American foods — hamburgers, french fries, milk shakes, and apple pies — were hallmarks of the new roadside diner. Drivers wanted cheap, relatively fast food so they could be on their way in a hurry. Unfortunately, as new businesses flourished, old ones decayed. When America opted for the automobile, the nation's rails began to be neglected. As European nations were strengthening mass transit systems, individualistic Americans invested in the automobile infrastructure.

 The social effects of the automobile were as great. Freedom of choice encouraged many family vacations to places previously impossible. Urban dwellers had the opportunity to rediscover pristine landscapes, just as rural dwellers were able to shop in towns and cities. Teenagers gained more and more independence with driving freedom. Dating couples found a portable place to be alone as the automobile helped to facilitate relaxed sexual attitudes.

 Americans experienced traffic jams for the first time, as well as traffic accidents and fatalities. Soon demands were made for licensure and safety regulation on the state level. Despite the drawbacks, Americans loved their cars. As more and more were purchased, drivers saw their worlds grow much larger.

 Saloons were closed, bottles were smashed, and kegs were split wide open. When the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages was outlawed. Protestant ministers and progressive politicians rejoiced and proclaimed a holier and safer America. It was predicted that worker productivity would increase, families would grow closer, and urban slums would disappear. Yet for all its promise, prohibition was repealed fourteen years later, after being deemed a dismal failure.

 In fairness, there were advantages to prohibition. Social scientists are certain that actual consumption of alcohol actually decreased during the decade. Estimates indicate that during the first few years of prohibition, alcohol consumption declined to a mere third of its prewar level. Although no polls or surveys would be accurate, health records indicate a decrease in alcoholism and alcohol-related diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver. Family savings did increase during the decade, but it was difficult to determine whether the increase was due to decreased alcohol consumption or a robust economy.

 The minuses seemed to outweigh the pluses. First, federal allocation of funds to enforce prohibition were woefully inadequate. Gaping loopholes in the Volstead Act, the law implemented to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment, encouraged abuse. Alcohol possession was permitted for medical purposes, and production of small amounts was permitted for home use. The manufacturing of near beer — regular beer without the alcohol — was also permitted. The problem was that to make near beer, it was first necessary to brew the real variety, so illegal breweries could insist their product was scheduled to have the alcohol removed. Soon a climate of lawlessness swept the nation, as Americans everywhere began to partake in illegal drink. Every city had countless speakeasies, which were not-so-secret bars hidden from public view.

 While the number of drinkers may have decreased, the strength of the beverages increased. People drank as much as they could as fast as they could to avoid detection. Because alcoholic production was illegal, there could be no regulation. Desperate individuals and heartless profiteers distilled anything imaginable, often with disastrous results. Some alcohol sold on the black market caused nerve damage, blindness, and even death. While women of the previous generation campaigned to ban alcohol, the young women of the twenties consumed it with a passion.

 The group that profited most from the illegal market was organized crime. City crime bosses such as Al Capone of Chicago sold their products to willing buyers and even intimidated unwilling customers to purchase their illicit wares. Crime involving turf wars among mobsters was epidemic. Soon the mobs forced legitimate businessmen to buy protection, tainting those who tried to make an honest living.

 Even city police took booze and cash from the likes of Al Capone. After several years of trying to connect Capone to bootlegging, federal prosecutors were able to convict him for income tax evasion.

 The Eighteenth Amendment was different from all previous changes to the Constitution. It was the first experiment at social engineering. Critics pointed out that it was the only amendment to date that restricted rather than increased individual rights. Civil liberties advocates considered prohibition an abomination. In the end, economics doomed prohibition. The costs of ineffectively policing the nation were simply too high. At the deepest point of the Great Depression, government officials finally ratified the Twenty-First Amendment, repealing the practice once and for all.

 In the 19th century, the American world consisted of children and adults. Most Americans tried their best to allow their children to enjoy their youth while they were slowly prepared for the trials and tribulations of adulthood. Although child labor practices still existed, more and more states were passing restrictions against such exploitation. The average number of years spent in school for young Americans was also on the rise.

 Parents were waiting longer to goad their youngsters into marriage rather than pairing them off at the tender age of sixteen or seventeen. In short, it soon became apparent that a new stage of life — the teenage phase — was becoming a reality in America. American adolescents were displaying traits unknown among children and adults. Although the word teenager did not come into use until decades later, the teenage mindset dawned in the 1920s.

 The single greatest factor that led to the emergence of the independent teenager was the automobile. Teens enjoyed a freedom from parental supervision unknown to previous generations. The courtship process rapidly evolved into dating. In earlier times, young boys and girls spent their first dates at home. The boy would meet the girl's parents, they would have a sitting in the parlor, followed by dinner with the entire family.

 Later in the evening, the couple might enjoy a few moments alone on the front porch. After several meetings, they could be lucky enough to be granted permission for an unchaperoned walk through town. The automobile simply shattered these old-fashioned traditions. Dating was removed from the watchful eyes of anxious parents. Teenagers were given privacy, and a sexual revolution swept America. Experimentation with sexual behaviors before marriage became increasingly common. Young Americans were now able to look beyond their own small towns at an enlarged dating pool.

 Automobile technology led directly to the other major factor that fostered a teenage culture: the consolidated high school. Buses could now transport students farther from their homes, leading to the decline of the one-room schoolhouse. Furthermore, Americans were realizing the potential of a longer education, and states were adding more years to their compulsory schooling laws.

 As a result, a larger number of teenagers were thrown into a common space than ever before. It was only natural that discussions about commonalties would occur. Before long, schools developed their own cultural patterns, completely unlike the childhood or adult experience. School athletics and extracurricular activities only enhanced this nascent culture. The American teenager was born.

 Flappers were northern, urban, single, young, middle-class women. Many held steady jobs in the changing American economy. The clerking jobs that blossomed in the Gilded Age were more numerous than ever. Increasing phone usage required more and more operators. The consumer-oriented economy of the 1920s saw a burgeoning number of department stores. Women were needed on the sales floor to relate to the most precious customers — other women. But the flapper was not all work and no play.

 By night, flappers engaged in the active city nightlife. They frequented jazz clubs and vaudeville shows. Speakeasies were a common destination, as the new woman of the twenties adopted the same carefree attitude toward prohibition as her male counterpart. Ironically, more young women consumed alcohol in the decade it was illegal than ever before. Smoking, another activity previously reserved for men, became popular among flappers.

 With the political field leveled by the Nineteenth Amendment, women sought to eliminate social double standards. Consequently, the flapper was less hesitant to experiment sexually than previous generations. Sigmund Freud's declaration that the libido was one of the most natural of human needs seemed to give the green light to explore.

 The flapper had an unmistakable look. The long locks of Victorian women lay on the floors of beauty parlors as young women cut their hair to shoulder length. Hemlines of dresses rose dramatically to the knee. The cosmetics industry flowered as women used make-up in large numbers. Flappers bound their chests and wore high heels. Clara Bow, Hollywood's "It" Girl, captured the flapper image for the nation to see.

 Many women celebrated the age of the flapper as a female declaration of independence. Experimentation with new looks, jobs, and lifestyles seemed liberating compared with the socially silenced woman in the Victorian Age. The flappers chose activities to please themselves, not a father or husband. But critics were quick to elucidate the shortcomings of flapperism.

 The political agenda embraced by the previous generation was largely ignored until the feminist revival of the 1960s. Many wondered if flappers were expressing themselves or acting like men. Smoking, drinking, and sexual experimentation were characteristic of the modern young woman. Short hair and bound chests added to the effect. One thing was certain: Despite the potential political and social gains or losses, the flappers of the 1920s sure managed to have a good time.

 It was time for a cultural celebration. African Americans had endured centuries of slavery and the struggle for abolition. The end of bondage had not brought the promised land many had envisioned. Instead, white supremacy was quickly, legally, and violently restored to the New South, where ninety percent of African Americans lived. Starting in about 1890, African Americans migrated to the North in great numbers.

 This Great Migration eventually relocated hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Many discovered they had shared common experiences in their past histories and their uncertain present circumstances. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, the recently dispossessed ignited an explosion of cultural pride. Indeed, African American culture was reborn in the Harlem Renaissance.

 The Great Migration began because of a "push" and a "pull." Disenfranchisement and Jim Crow laws led many African Americans to hope for a new life up north. Hate groups and hate crimes cast alarm among African American families of the Deep South. The promise of owning land had not materialized. Most blacks toiled as sharecroppers trapped in an endless cycle of debt.

 In the 1890s, a boll weevil blight damaged the cotton crop throughout the region, increasing the despair. All these factors served to push African Americans to seek better lives. The booming northern economy forged the pull. Industrial jobs were numerous, and factory owners looked near and far for sources of cheap labor.

 Unfortunately, northerners did not welcome African Americans with open arms. While the legal systems of the northern states were not as obstructionist toward African American rights, the prejudice among the populace was as acrimonious. White laborers complained that African Americans were flooding the employment market and lowering wages. Most new migrants found themselves segregated by practice in run down urban slums. The largest of these was Harlem. Writers, actors, artists, and musicians glorified African American traditions, and at the same time created new ones.

 The most prolific writer of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. Hughes cast off the influences of white poets and wrote with the rhythmic meter of blues and jazz. Claude McKay urged African Americans to stand up for their rights in his powerful verses. Jean Toomer wrote plays and short stories, as well as poems, to capture the spirit of his times.

 Book publishers soon took notice and patronized many of these talents. Zora Neale Hurston was noticed quickly with her moving novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Music met prose in the form of musical comedy. The 1921 production of Shuffle Along is sometimes credited with initiating the movement. Actor Paul Robeson electrified audiences with his memorable stage performances.

 No aspect of the Harlem Renaissance shaped America and the entire world as much as jazz. Jazz flouted many musical conventions with its syncopated rhythms and improvised instrumental solos. Thousands of city dwellers flocked night after night to see the same performers. Improvisation meant that no two performances would ever be the same. Harlem's Cotton Club boasted the talents of Duke Ellington. Singers such as Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday popularized blues and jazz vocals. Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong drew huge audiences as white Americans as well as African Americans caught jazz fever.

 The continuing hardships faced by African Americans in the Deep South and the urban North were severe. It took the environment of the new American city to bring in close proximity some of the greatest minds of the day. Harlem brought notice to great works that might otherwise have been lost or never produced. The results were phenomenal. The artists of the Harlem Renaissance undoubtedly transformed African American culture. But the impact on all American culture was equally strong. For the first time, white America could not look away.

 The 1920s was a decade of increasing conveniences for the middle class. New products made household chores easier and led to more leisure time. Products previously too expensive became affordable. New forms of financing allowed every family to spend beyond their current means. Advertising capitalized on people's hopes and fears to sell more and more goods.

 By the end of the 1920s, household work was revolutionized. A typical work week for a housewife before the twenties involved many tedious chores. All the furniture was moved off the carpets, which were rolled up and dragged outside to beat out the week's dirt and dust. The ice in the icebox was replaced and the waterpan that lay beneath was repeatedly changed. The clothes were scrubbed in a washing tub on a washboard. An iron was heated on the stove to smooth out the wrinkles.

 Women typically spent the summer months canning food for the long winter. Clothes were made from patterns, and bread was made from scratch. Very few of these practices were necessary by the end of the decade. Vacuum cleaners displaced the carpet beater. Electric refrigerators, washing machines, and irons saved hours of extra work. New methods of canning and freezing made store-bought food cheap and effective enough to eliminate this chore. Off-the-rack clothing became more and more widespread. Even large bakeries were supplying bread to the new supermarkets. The hours saved in household work were countless.

 "Buy now, pay later" became the credo of many middle class Americans of the Roaring Twenties. For the single-income family, all these new conveniences were impossible to afford at once. But retailers wanted the consumer to have it all. Department stores opened up generous lines of credit for those who could not pay up front but could demonstrate the ability to pay in the future.

 Similar installment plans were offered to buyers who could not afford the lump sum, but could afford "twelve easy payments." Over half of the nation's automobiles were sold on credit by the end of the decade. America's consumers could indeed have it all, if they had an iron stomach for debt. Consumer debt more than doubled between 1920 and 1930.

 Fueling consumer demand were new techniques in advertising. This was not a new business, but in the increasingly competitive marketplace, manufacturers looked to more and more aggressive advertising campaigns. One major trend of the decade was to use pop psychology methods to convince Americans that the product was needed. The classic example was the campaign for Listerine. Using a seldom heard term for bad breath — halitosis — Listerine convinced thousands of Americans to buy their product. Consumers might not have known what halitosis was, but they surely knew they did not want it.

 Advertisers were no longer simply responding to demand; they were creating demand. Radio became an important new means of communicating a business message. Testimonials from Hollywood film stars sold products in record numbers.  The advertising business created demand for the gadgets and appliances being manufactured by American factories.

 Commercial radio in America had humble beginnings. Frank Conrad, an engineer for Westinghouse, set up an amateur radio station above his garage in a Pittsburgh suburb. Since the wireless technology was developed by Guglielmo Marconi in the late 19th century, thousands of enthusiasts across the world experimented with the new toy. After World War I, Conrad began broadcasting a variety of programming from his "station."

 High school music groups performed, phonograph records were played, and news and baseball scores were reported. Conrad had dramatically improved the transmitter, and soon hundreds of people in the Pittsburgh area were sending requests for air time. The bosses of Westinghouse knew that Conrad was on to something and convinced him to make his hobby commercially profitable.

 On the night of November 2, 1920, Conrad and his Westinghouse associates announced that Warren G. Harding had defeated James Cox to become the next President. The message was heard as far north as New Hampshire and as far south as Louisiana. The federal government granted the call letters KDKA to the Pittsburgh station and a new industry was born. For nearly a year, KDKA monopolized the airwaves.

 But competition came fast and furious; by the end of 1922, there were over 500 such stations across the United States. The federal government excercised no regulation over the nascent enterprise, and the result was complete chaos. Stations fought over call letters and frequencies, each trying to outbroadcast the closest competitor. Finally in 1927, Congress created the Federal Radio Commission to restore order.

 One of the great attractions to the radio listener was that once the cost of the original equipment was covered, radio was free. Stations made money by selling air time to advertisers. The possibility of reaching millions of listeners at once had advertising executives scrambling to take advantage. By the end of the decade advertisers paid over $10,000 for an hour of premium time.

 The Radio Corporation of America created a new dimension to the venture in 1926. By licensing telephone lines, RCA created America's first radio network and called it the National Broadcasting Company. For the first time, citizens of California and New York could listen to the same programming simultaneously.

 Regional differences began to dissolve as the influence of network broadcasting ballooned. Americans listened to the same sporting events and took up the same fads. Baseball games and boxing matches could now reach those far away from the stadiums and arenas. A mass national entertainment culture was flowering. RCA Radiola Senior and the Radiola Jr. The Junior was a Crystal set, and the Senior was a one tube radio. These radios were made in 1922.

 The Roaring Twenties was a time of great change. As exciting as dynamic times may seem, such turmoil generates uncertainty. Sometimes, in an effort to obscure tensions, people seek outlets of escape. Fads — sometimes entertaining, sometimes senseless — swept the nation. Another coping strategy in a time of great uncertainty is to find role models who embody tried and true values. National heroes heretofore unknown to peacetime America began to dominate American consciousness.

 The radio created the conditions for national fads. Without such a method of live and immediate communication, fads could amount only to local crazes. Roaring Twenties fads ranged from the athletic to the ludicrous. One of the most popular trends of the decade was the dance marathon. New dance steps such as the Charleston swept the nation's dance halls, and young Americans were eager to prove their agility. In a typical dance marathon, contestants would dance for forty-five minutes and rest for fifteen. The longest marathons lasted thirty-six hours or more.

 Beauty pageants came into vogue. The first Miss America Pageant was staged in Atlantic City in 1921. One of the most bizarre fads was flagpole sitting. The object was simple: be the person who could sit atop the local flagpole for the longest period of time. Fifteen-year-old Avon Foreman of Baltimore set the amateur standard — ten days, ten hours, ten minutes, and ten seconds.

 Flagpole sitting was a popular fad of the 1920s and was definitely the thing to do!

 Mah-jongg is a Chinese tile game. Colored tiles with different symbols were randomly arranged geometrically. The object is to remove all the game pieces.

 Crossword puzzle fever swept the nation when Simon and Schuster published America's first crossword puzzle book.

 The Book-of-the-Month Club drew thousands of readers into literary circles. Two new periodicals began to grace American coffee tables. The nation's first weekly news magazine, Time, was founded by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden. Their punchy writing on timely stories and eye-grabbing pictures hit the newsstands in 1923. DeWitt Wallace made a business out of condensing articles from other periodicals. His publication, Reader's Digest, began in 1921 and boasted a half million subscriptions a decade later.

 No individual personified the All-American hero more than Charles Lindbergh. His courage was displayed to the nation when he flew his Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris, becoming the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. National and international news was hidden in the back pages of the major newspapers while Lindbergh stole the front pages.

 Confetti flew and bugles sounded in New York City when he returned successfully, and President Coolidge hosted a gala celebration. There was more to Lindbergh's appeal than his bravery. Throughout the ordeal, Lindbergh maintained a hometown modesty. He declined dozens of endorsement opportunities, ever refusing to sell out.

 Spectator sports provided opportunities for others to grab the limelight. Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth were role models for hundreds of thousands of American boys. Fortunately, Cobb's outward racism and Ruth's penchant for drinking and womanizing were shielded from admiring youngsters.

 Football had Red Grange (The Galloping Ghost), and boxing had Jack Dempsey. Gertrude Ederle impressed Americans by becoming the first woman to swim the English Channel. These heroes gave Americans, anxious about the uncertain future and rapidly fading past, a much needed sense of stability.

 World War I was over, but the hysteria lingered. The Eastern front had not gone well for Russia. The pressures of their losing effort forced the Russian czar to abdicate. The new government had not fared much better. Finally in November 1917, Lenin led a successful revolution of the Bolshevik workers. The ideas of Karl Marx had been known since 1848, but nowhere in the world until now had a successful communist revolution occurred.

 Once the war against Germany was over, the Western powers focused their energies at restoring Czar Nicholas. Even the United States sent troops to Russia hoping the White Russians could oust the communist Reds. All this effort was in vain. The Bolsheviks murdered the entire royal family and slowly secured control of the entire nation.

 Back in the United States, veterans were returning home. Workers who avoided striking during the war were now demanding wage increases to keep pace with spiraling inflation. Over 3,300 postwar strikes swept the land. A small group of radicals formed the Communist Labor Party in 1919. Progressive and conservative Americans believed that labor activism was a menace to American society and must be squelched. The hatchetman against American radicals was President Wilson's Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer. Palmer was determined that no Bolshevik Revolution would happen in the United States.

 From 1919 to 1920, Palmer conducted a series of raids on individuals he believed were dangerous to American security. He deported 249 Russian immigrants without just cause. The so-called "Soviet ark" was sent back to Mother Russia. With Palmer's sponsorship, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was created under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover.

 In January of 1920, federal agents broke into the homes of suspected anarchists without search warrants, jailed labor leaders, and held about 5,000 citizens without respecting their right to legal counsel. Palmer felt that American civil liberties were less important than rooting out potential wrongdoers. Eventually most of the detainees were released, but some were deported.

 The climate set by Palmer and Hoover could not be contained. Still agitated by wartime propaganda, members of the American public took matters into their own hands.

 American Legionnaires in Centralia, Washington attacked members of the Wobblies. Twelve radicals were arrested; one of them was beaten, castrated, and then shot. The New York State Legislature expelled five Socialist representatives from their ranks. Twenty-eight states banned the public display of red flags. It seemed as though the witch hunt would never end. Responsible Americans began to speak out against Palmer's raids and demand that American civil liberties be respected. By the summer of 1920, the worst of the furor had subsided.

 On April 15, 1921, two employees of a shoe warehouse in South Braintree, Massachusetts, were murdered during a robbery. The police investigating the crime arrested two Italian immigrants named Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.  Sacco and Vanzetti maintained their innocence, but they already had a strike against them: they were anarchists and socialists. Just a little over two weeks after their arrest, they were found guilty.

 Many people, particularly fellow socialists, protested the verdict, saying the two men were convicted more on political and ethnic prejudice than on any real evidence. Indeed, four years later, another man said he had committed the crime with a local gang.

 Despite appeals, Sacco and Vanzetti were never granted a retrial. When they were sentenced to death on April 9, 1927, protests erupted around the country. But to no avail — the men were executed on Aug. 23, 1927. They claimed they were innocent until the moment of their deaths.  Scholars still debate the guilt and innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, but there is little question that the trial was biased against them.

 When Darwin announced his theory that humans had descended from apes, he sent shock waves through the Western world.  In the years that followed his 1859 declaration, America's churches hotly debated whether to accept the findings of modern science or continue to follow the teachings of ancient scripture. By the 1920s, most of the urban churches of America had been able to reconcile Darwin's theory with the Bible, but rural preachers preferred a stricter interpretation.

 In 1925, the Tennessee legislature passed the Butler Law, which forbade the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution in any public school or university. Other Southern states followed suit.  The American Civil Liberties Union led the charge of evolution's supporters. It offered to fund the legal defense of any Tennessee teacher willing to fight the law in court. Another showdown between modernity and tradition was unfolding.

 The man who accepted the challenge was John T. Scopes, a science teacher and football coach in Dayton, Tennessee. In the spring of 1925, he walked into his classroom and read, from Dayton's Tennessee-approved textbook Hunter's Civic Biology, part of a chapter on the evolution of humankind and Darwin's theory of natural selection. His arrest soon followed, and a trial date was set.

 Representing Scopes was the famed trial lawyer Clarence Darrow. Slick and sophisticated, Darrow epitomized the urban society in which he lived.  The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state. The "Great Commoner" was the perfect representative of the rural values he dedicated his life to defend.

 Bryan was a Christian who lobbied for a constitutional amendment banning the teaching of evolution throughout the nation. Legendary defense lawyer Clarence Darrow faces off against William Jennings Bryan in the Dayton, Tennessee trial of schoolteacher John Scopes. Bryan died in Dayton five days after the trial ended.

 The trial turned into a media circus. When the case was opened on July 14, journalists from across the land descended upon the mountain hamlet of Dayton. Preachers and fortune seekers filled the streets. Entrepreneurs sold everything from food to Bibles to stuffed monkeys. The trial became the first ever to be broadcast on radio.

 Scopes himself played a rather small role in the case: the trial was reduced to a verbal contest between Darrow and Bryan. When Judge John Raulston refused to admit expert testimony on the validity of evolutionary theory, Darrow lost his best defense.

 He decided that if he was not permitted to validate Darwin, his best shot was to attack the literal interpretation of the Bible. The climax of the trial came when Darrow asked Bryan to take the stand as an expert on the Bible. Darrow hammered Bryan with tough questions on his strict acceptance of several Bible's stories from the creation of Eve from Adam's rib to the swallowing of Jonah by a whale.

 The jury sided with the law. Clearly, Scopes was in violation of Tennessee statute by teaching that humans descended from monkeys. He was fined $100 and released. But the battle that played out before the nation proved a victory for supporters of evolutionary theory. A later court dismissed the fine imposed on Scopes, though in the short term, the antievolution law was upheld.

 airwaves, ministers such as Billy Sunday reached audiences of thousands. Aimee Semple McPherson of California preached her fundamentalist message over loudspeakers to arena-sized crowds. At one point, she used a giant electric sports scoreboard to illustrate the triumph of good over evil, foreshadowing generations of televangelists who would follow her lead.  Clearly, the 1920s did not see the end to these conflicts or the answers to their major questions.

 They were called the Lost Generation. America's most talented writers of the 1920s were completely disillusioned by the world and alienated by the changes in modern America. The ghastly horrors of trench warfare were a testament to human inhumanity. The ability of the human race to destroy itself had never been more evident.

 The materialism sparked by the Roaring Twenties left many intellectuals empty. Surely there was more to life than middle-class conformity, they pined. Intolerance toward immigrants and socialists led many writers to see America as grossly provincial. Thus the literature of the decade was that of disaffection and withdrawal, and many of America's greatest talents expatriated to Europe in despair.

 F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the excesses of the Jazz Age. He and his wife Zelda operated among the social elite in New York, Paris, and on the French Riviera. The Great Gatsby, his most famous novel, highlights the opulence of American materialism while harshly criticizing its morality. Ernest Hemingway wrote of disillusioned youths wandering Europe in the wake of World War I in search of meaning in The Sun Also Rises..

 T.S. Eliot commented on the emptiness of American life in his epic poem The Waste Land. American theater earned worldwide acclaim in the 1920s. The foremost playwright of this newly respected American genre was Eugene O'Neill, noted for Desire Under the Elms and A Long Day's Journey Into Night. The sharpest critic of American middle- class lifestyle was Sinclair Lewis. In Main Street, he takes aim on small-town American life. Babbitt denounced the emptiness of middle-class life in the city. After a string of successful novels, Lewis brought honor to American writers by becoming the first to win a Pulitzer Prize for literature.

 While the written page marked a quest for intellectual insight, the movie industry catered to mass audiences. Every town seemed to have at least one theater for the new craze. The early decade saw millions flock to the screens to see silent action films and slapstick comedies by the likes of Charlie Chaplin. Sex appeal reigned supreme as American women swooned for Rudolph Valentino and American men yearned for the all-American beauty Mary Pickford.

 The first feature film was “Birth of a Nation” by D.W. Griffin in 1915, about the Civil War. It cost $112,000 to make and made $50,000,000.

 To keep standards of morality high in the film industry, the Hays Office stifled artistic license by censoring objectionable scenes. Because of soaring profits, studios sought quantity rather than quality. Therefore the decade saw few pictures of merit. The first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, appeared in 1927. Walt Disney introduced Mickey Mouse to the American public the following year in Steamboat Willie. By the end of the decade over 100 million viewers attended moviehouses each week, more than the number of weekly churchgoers.

Mary Pickford Buster Keaton Charlie Chaplin Gloria Swanson Rudolph Valentino Laurel and Hardy

 Despite all the verve of the American social scene in the 1920s, the Presidential leadership of the decade was quite unremarkable. Warren Harding won his bid for the White House in 1920 with the campaign slogan "Return to Normalcy." Republicans believed Americans had grown weary of the turmoil caused by World War I and promised tranquility. Harding found himself mired in scandals unknown in America since the Grant Administration.

 Although Harding himself was above the graft, his friends were more than willing to dip into the public treasury. Fraud and bribery plagued the Veterans Bureau and the Justice Department. The Teapot Dome Scandal exposed Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall for accepting bribes for allowing private oil companies to lease public lands. Harding fell ill in 1923 and died shortly thereafter.

 Calvin Coolidge brought no significant change to Harding's laissez faire, pro-business style. Progressives bemoaned the end of activist Presidents protecting the public good, prompting Fighting Bob LaFollette to launch an unsuccessful run for the Presidency under the Progressive Party banner in 1924. The only successful progressive reforms occurred on the state and local levels.

 Politics became interesting in the election year of 1928. The Democrats nominated Al Smith, the first Catholic ever to earn the nomination of a major party. Smith raised eyebrows with an open opposition to the Prohibition amendment. As a result, the South broke with a long tradition of supporting Democrats and helped Herbert Hoover to continue Republican domination of the Presidency.

 On the international scene, two themes dominated American diplomacy. The first was to take steps to avoid the mistakes that led to World War I. To this end, President Harding convened the Washington Naval Arms Conference in 1921. The United States, Great Britain, and Japan agreed to a ten-year freeze on the construction of battleships and to maintain a capital ship ratio of 5:5:3.

 They also agreed to uphold the Open Door Policy and to respect each other's holdings in the Pacific. In 1928, the United States and France led an initiative called the Kellogg- Briand Pact, in which 62 nations agreed to outlaw war. These two measures showed the degree to which Americans hoped to forestall another disastrous war. The second priority dealt with outstanding international debt.

 While practicing political isolation, the United States was completely entangled with Europe economically. The Allies owed the United States an enormous sum of money from World War I. Lacking the resources to reimburse America, the Allies relied on German reparations. The German economy was so debased by the Treaty of Versailles provisions that they relied on loans from American banks for support. In essence, American banks were funding the repayment of the foreign debt.

 As Germany slipped further and further into depression, the United States intervened again. The Dawes Plan allowed Germany to extend their payments on more generous terms. In the end, when the Great Depression struck, only Finland was able to make good on its debt to the United States.

 Stock prices soared to record levels. Millionaires were made overnight. In 1925, the total value of the New York Stock Exchange was $27 billion. By September 1929, that figure skyrocketed to $87 billion. This means that the average stockholder more than tripled the value of the stock portfolio he or she was lucky enough to possess.

 Fueling the rapid expansion was the risky practice of buying stock on margin. A margin purchase allows an investor to borrow money, typically as much as 75% of the purchase price, to buy a greater amount of stock. Stockbrokers and even banks funded the reckless speculator. Borrowers were often willing to pay 20% interest rates on loans, being dead certain that the risk would be worth the rewards.

 On October 24, 1929, "Black Thursday," this massive sell- a-thon began. By the late afternoon, wealthy financiers like J.P. Morgan pooled their resources and began to buy stocks in the hopes of reversing the trend.  But the bottom fell out of the market on Tuesday, October 29. A record 16 million shares were exchanged for smaller and smaller values as the day progressed. For some stocks, no buyers could be found at any price. By the end of the day, panic had erupted, and the next few weeks continued the downward spiral. In a matter of ten short weeks the value of the entire market was cut in half. Suicide and despair swept the investing classes of America

Teddy RooseveltWilliam Howard TaftWoodrow Wilson Warren G. HardingCalvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover.

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Teddy RooseveltWilliam Howard TaftWoodrow Wilson Warren G. HardingCalvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover.

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Presentation on theme: "Teddy RooseveltWilliam Howard TaftWoodrow Wilson Warren G. HardingCalvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover."— Presentation transcript:

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