Chapter Content
Okay, so, like, you know how we've been talking about all this stuff, right? So, let's talk about President Benjamin Harrison, you know, the Republican. So, this writer, Matthew Josephson, called him out, saying he, like, totally worked for the railway companies, both as a lawyer *and* a soldier. He, like, prosecuted strikers and even commanded soldiers during a strike! I mean, come on!
But, get this, there was *some* attempt at reform, I guess. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed, supposed to stop monopolies. Senator John Sherman, he was all like, "We gotta conciliate the critics of monopoly, or else we'll have socialists and communists running around." Okay, boomer.
Oh, and Cleveland gets elected *again* in 1892? Andrew Carnegie gets a letter saying that it isn't gonna matter if he is elected. Cleveland was facing all this unrest from a panic or depression and uses troops to break up this "Coxey's Army," which is like a bunch of unemployed people marching to D.C. And then, the next year, he uses troops *again* to break up a railroad strike. Like, jeez.
And, like, the Supreme Court? Don't even get me started. How could it be independent when the President picks 'em? How could it be neutral when they're, like, always rich lawyers from the upper class? Early on, they helped corporations and all, making contracts sacred, blah, blah, blah.
Then, the court kinda guts the Sherman Act in 1895. Says that sugar refining? That's *manufacturing*, not *commerce*, so the government can't touch it. And get this, the court *does* say the Sherman Act can be used *against* strikes. They even threw out this attempt to tax high incomes at a higher rate! Like, seriously?! A banker gave 'em a toast: "Guardians of the dollar," blah, blah, blah.
Then, they start twisting the Fourteenth Amendment to *protect corporations*, not, you know, Black people who were originally supposed to benefit. But then, okay, there's this case *Munn v. Illinois*, and they're like, "Okay, states *can* regulate prices charged by grain elevators because it's like, a public service." But then, the American Bar Association starts campaigning to overturn *that*! They literally said, "Monopoly is often a necessity and an advantage." So messed up!
And then, by 1886, the Supreme Court says that states *can't* regulate railroad rates, it's a federal power. I mean, they struck down, like, *hundreds* of state laws meant to regulate corporations! And they basically said that corporations are "persons" with rights! Like, come on, that's insane.
One Supreme Court Justice, I think it was Justice Brewer, said that the wealth will always be with the few. He literally said most people are too lazy to accumulate money.
This stuff goes way back, even to the Founding Fathers. Back then, the law was all about protecting private property, even if it hurt the community.
But, look, control isn't just about force and laws, right? It's about teaching people that everything is okay as it is. So, the schools, the churches, books were like, "Being rich is good, being poor is your fault." So twisted, right?
This dude Russell Conwell, Yale grad and minister, gave this lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," like, *thousands* of times. He's like, "You should get rich! It's your duty!" And, "Ninety-eight out of a hundred rich people are honest!" And, "If you're poor, it's your own darn fault." Unbelievable.
And, you know, these millionaires, they gave money to schools, right? But these schools didn't encourage dissent, they trained people to keep the system going. And public schools? Those taught workers to be obedient. It wasn't an accident, you know? People wanted to make sure the school systems were like a factory. So wrong!
And, there was Henry George, the newspaper man, wrote this book *Progress and Poverty* which said that all the wealth was land, that it was becoming monopolized and we needed a land tax.
Oh, and Edward Bellamy wrote this novel where people lived and worked cooperatively. People made groups around the country because the dream sold so much!
But, despite all this, a lot of Americans were ready to criticize the system and think about other ways of living. They had some help from some farmers movements that swept the country. It was a threatening time to the ruling elite.
Then, immigrants are pouring in. This article says the difference between the Germans and Bohemians. But Irish people were getting jobs with the new political machines to get their vote. And then the police force was dominantly Irish, and the official investigation of the riot indicated the police helped the rioters. Chinese immigrants also had continuous violence because they were working at a low rate. In Rock Springs, Wyoming, whites attacked five hundred Chinese miners, massacring twenty-eight of them. So sad.
And, immigrants become laborers, painters, etc., and often they get imported en masse by contractors. When they didn't get paid they captured the contractor and shut him up in a shanty. A traffic in immigrant child laborers developed. The children were then supervised by the "padrones" in a form of slavery.
As they became citizens, they got pulled into the American two-party system. There was a lot of labor surplus with so many immigrants to keep wages down. Also, a lot of children worked, adding to the oversized workforce and joblessness. And people didn't know their families. So sad.
And, immigrant women became factory workers, rebels, etc. Leonora Barry joined Knights of Labor.
By the winter, carpet weavers got fired for joining the Knights, and the police attacked them. It was the recognition that day-to-day combat wasn't enough, that stimulated the growth of revolutionary movements. All laws are directed against working people. They must achieve their liberation by their own efforts. So there's a congress going on.
Then there was a battle in April between strikers and police. And eventually the strikers surrender.
By spring of 1886, the movement for an eight-hour day had grown, and the American Federation of Labor, called for nationwide strikes. Some people didn't agree with it. So a lot of people went out on strike and a lot of places were paralyzed.
But the State militia and police were called out, and the anarchists were looked at. On May 3, in front of the McCormick Harvester Works, the police fired into the crowd. It enranged some people so a circular was made. Then they made a meeting, and the speaker was talking about being over, but then a bomb exploded. The police fired into the crowd and killed them.
Then they arrested eight anarchist leaders, and they had no evidence of who threw the bomb, and the evidence against the anarchists was just their ideas. Eventually they were sentenced to death.
A year after, some anarchists were hanged and one blew himself up. Some people said that an anarchist was an agent of the police hired to throw the bomb, but they don't know who threw it. The long-term effect inspired young people to action. The new governor investigated the facts, denounced what had happened, and pardoned the remaining prisoners. The Haymarket event had their political awakening.
Class conflict and violence continued after Haymarket.
People started voting for Henry George to become mayor of New York. In other cities, labor candidates ran too.
Then the movement saw "signs of a great movement by the class of the unskilled, which had finally risen in rebellion." Even blacks had sporadic rebellions. They asked for a dollar a day and carried banners saying that. But they were arrested, and the strike was broken.
The Knights of Labor was organizing in sugar fields. Then violence erupted, and two brothers were arrested, and never heard from again. Then they shot the lame and blind. It was in a New Orleans Negro newspaper.
Whites weren't doing well either. They were tenant farmers rather than landowners, and they were tenants, not homeowners. And their slums were bad.
There were eruptions against the convict labor system. Miners refused to sign an "iron-clad contract," so they were evicted and convicts were brought in. Then the miners controlled the mine area and set the convicts free.
The following year, there were more such incidents. Other unions came to their aid and they were all supporting that the convicts must go.
That same year, there were strike struggles all over the country. There was a railroad switchmen strike, a copper miners' strike, etc. These were marked by gun battles, and then the National Guard came.
Then there was the Carnegie Steel plant at Homestead. Frick was managing and decided to reduce the workers' wages and break their union. Eventually the workers decided to go on strike. The plant was on the Monongahela River and pickets went to patrol the river. The sheriff wasn't able to raise people to go against them.
A striker was shot by a Pinkerton man and then gunfire followed on both sides. They were attacked from all sides, so the Pinkerton retreated. Then they had to surrender and were beaten by the crowd. The state came in with the militia and Gatling guns, to protect the strikebreakers.
Some leaders were charged with murder, but they weren't convicted. The strike held for four months, but the plant was still producing steel with strikebreakers. The strikers eventually had to return to work.
One reason for this defeat is because the strike was confined to Homestead. The blast furnace workers did strike, but it was quickly defeated, and it was used at Homestead. Then the unionization kept away from plants for a long time, and they took wage cuts.
In the midst of this strike, Alexander Berkman, tried to kill Frick but wounded him and was found guilty of attempted murder.
The year 1893 had the biggest economic crisis in the country. Then 642 banks failed and 16,000 businesses closed. 3 million were unemployed. But there were a lot of demonstrations all over the country, so the cities set up soup kitchens. Emma Goldman told people to go into stores and take the food they needed.
Then the workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike. The Pullman strikers appealed to a convention of the American Railway Union. They said there were wage reductions, they were charged too much, and the man and the town were an ulcer on the body.
The American Railway Union responded and told the members not to handle Pullman cars. This caused a boycott of trains. So traffic on the railroad had halted.
Then the Attorney General of the U.S. got an injunction against blocking trains, and when the strikers ignored the injunction, President Cleveland ordered troops. There was a lot of violence, people were killed, and the strike was crushed.
Debs was arrested and said that without resistance to degrading conditions, the tendency would be downward. Then he said he was baptized in Socialism.
Two years after prison, Debs wrote about how the issue is Socialism versus Capitalism.
So, in the eighties and nineties, there were a lot of labor insurrections that were more organized than before. The idea of socialism affected labor leaders.
Then we had to move onto farmers! Hamlin Garland said that free land is gone, that the last acre is now to corporate hands. A Boston mechanic brings his family West but finds that the land is already taken. Then a storm destroys his wheat.
There was a heroine who spoke at a farmers picnic and said that the fanner would not need to live in a cabin on a lonely farm and that she wanted them to read and gather like old Saxons.
Hamlin Garland dedicated this to the Farmers Alliance.
Between 1860 and 1910, the U.S. army wiped out the Indian villages and the railroads took the best land. From 1860 to 1900 the population grew, and a lot of people moved West. The internal market for food more than doubled.
Farming became mechanized, but this made it expensive, so farmers had to borrow. The farmers wanted the prices to stay high so they could pay back their debt. However, the farmers couldn't control the prices while the railroads and bankers could.
The farmers who couldn't pay got their homes taken and became tenants. The parties were controlled by capitalists, and they were divided by North and South, from the Civil War. The government helped the bankers and hurt the farmers because they kept the amount of money steady while the population rose.
The Farmers Alliance movement began in Texas, and it helped the farmers get what they needed, but the farmers had to mortgage their crop and would pay 25% interest. The crop lien system became like a modified form of slavery. Then farmers started grouping together to help each other and pay lower prices.
Then the Farmers Alliance showed sympathy for the growing labor movement. Then in Cleburne, the Alliance wrote what came to be known as the "Cleburne Demands", asking for what shall secure to people freedom from the abuses.
The Alliance kept growing, and farmer lecturers went into states.
Land cost money, and the farmers had to buy it on credit.
In some states, a Grange movement started, and they did manage to pass some laws. But that wasn't enough, and the Farmers Alliance kept growing.
A white farmer in South Carolina couldn't pay his debt to a merchant, so the merchant took his land. A black farmer named Matt Brown also bought supplies from a merchant, fell behind, and in 1905, the last entry in his ledger was for a coffin.
The Farmers Alliance showed sympathy for the labor movement, and in 1886, the Alliance gathered and wrote the "Cleburne Demands", asking for protection from abuses from capitalist corporations.
Then there was a call for a national conference.
They began to offer alternatives to the old system, like joining together and offering alternatives to the old system. They began to offer alternatives to the old system and then they began to sell it cooperatively.
From the beginning, the Farmers Alliance showed sympathy with the growing labor movement. Some Farmers Alliance members wrote that they should help the Knights of Labor.
Texas Alliance drew up what came to be known as the "Cleburne Demands"-the first document of the Populist movement.
By 1892 farmer lecturers had gone into forty-three states and reached 2 million. It was based on cooperation, farmers creating their own culture, and political parties. In 1890 thirty-eight Alliance people were elected to Congress.
The Alliances weren't getting real power, but spreading new ideas. The party became the People's party, and Wall Street owns the country. She said they want land, money, and transportation.
Then at People's party convention in 1892, there was a speech being read. And they nominated James Weaver for President. He got over a million votes.
The party wanted to unite the North and South, working people and country farmers, black and white.
The white and colored Alliance are united against the trusts.
Then some Alliance blacks made similar calls for unity. But it was hard to persuade people to believe the black farmers.
The blacks were mostly field hands. When the Colored Alliance declared a strike in 1891 for a dollar a day wages for cotton pickers, the head of the white Alliance wasn't happy because they would have to pay them. Patterson and his band were caught and 15 of them were shot.
One newspaper wrote about how that God could put bayonets around the ballot box and allow the Negro to get a fair vote.
When white tenants were replaced by blacks, race hatred was intensified. The southern states passed new constitutions to prevent blacks from voting.
One of the Populist leaders wanted black support for a white man's party. Still, he must have addressed some genuine feelings in poor whites.
They were "kept apart that they may be separately fleeced." There was racism in the party, and they were passing racist laws.
The Populist leaders started denouncing the lynch law and terrorism, and wanted the abolition of the convict lease system. There was never a time before or since when the races came together.
The official newspaper of the Alabama Knights of Labor wrote to the try to use the old cry to take down the Alliances, but that it won't work.
The Populist movement also made a new culture for the farmers. The Alliance Lecture Bureau reached out to a lot of people and the People's party reached out to a lot of people.
If the labor movement had been able to create the same thing that the Populists did, there would've been a great movement for change in the U.S. There were many parallels between Populists and Marxist ideas.
The election of 1896, saw that the populists were defeated by corporations, and they created a year of patriotism.
The supreme act of patriotism was war.
Theodore Roosevelt wrote that the country needs war.
The economic system had already begun to look overseas, and they thought overseas markets would fix the economic crises. Also it could deflect some rebellious energy. It was a natural development from the twin drives of capitalism and nationalism.
Expansion overseas was not a new idea. The Monroe Doctrine, told European nations to stay out of Latin America. Some Americans were thinking into the Pacific, with the idea of Hawaii, Japan, and markets of China.
The armed forces had made forays overseas, and there were interventions in other countries. This was to protect American interests, open Japan, etc.
By the 1890s, there was ideology of expansion, that the countries with the biggest navies would inherit the earth.
One editorial wrote about how there was a taste of empire that has come to us.
Was the taste in the mouth of the people through some lust, or some urgent interest? Or was the taste a creation encouraged and exaggerated by the press, military, and the government? They said that Anglo-Saxons had the mission of conducting the political civilization of the modern world.
Before he was elected, William McKinley said that they want a market for our products. And fate had written what their policy should be.
These military and politicians tried to get Mahan off sea duty so he could talk about the propaganda for expansion. Roosevelt once sent Henry Cabot Lodge a poem and said it was "good sense from the expansionist standpoint".
When the U.S. didn't annex Hawaii after some Americans made their own government, Roosevelt called it "a crime against white civilization."
Roosevelt was contemptuous of races. When a mob in New Orleans lynched Italian immigrants, Roosevelt thought it was "rather a good thing".
The philosopher, William James, said that Roosevelt was about war.
The expansionism also had "trade relations with China" that they thought about.
Walter Lafeber says that if there were trade exceeding every country in the world. And new investments by the capitalists reached a billion dollars. And oil became a big export, too.
Some populists said that there must of necessity seek a foreign market. There was an appeal if the expansion looked like generosity, helping a rebellious group overthrow foreign rule.
Businessmen didn't want colonies or wars, if they could just have free access to markets.
In 1897, with China weakened, the German military forces occupied the Chinese port.
There was a similar turnabout in business with Cuba in 1898. And they were interested in the effect on the commercial.
President Cleveland said that there was American capital was invested in Cuban businesses.
Popular support of the revolution thought that they, like the Americans of 1776, were fighting a war for their liberation. They had profit in mind as it observed the events in Cuba.
The black republic might be dominant.
Philip Foner says in his study that the government did not include independence for the island. He said that the war to secure the influence in Cuba, and could not be left to the Cuban rebels.
In February 1898, the Maine was destroyed, with the loss of a lot of men. There wasn't a lot of evidence, and McKinley started moving toward the war.
President did not want war, but said that he did want the disappearance of the uncertainty in American political and economic life, and a solid basis to resume the building of a commercial empire.
The New York Commercial Advertiser asked intervention in Cuba for "humanity".
Congress passed the Teller Amendment, pledging that they wouldn't annex Cuba. By the spring, the businessmen developed a hunger for action.
In Pittsburgh, they advocated for force and enlargement of business. It had a belligerent spirit, encouraged by the contractors.
Russell Sage the banker said that he was no question as to where the rich men would stand. J.P. Morgan did not want to have further talk with Spain.
Lodge said that big corporations believed they would have war.
Two days after getting the telegram, McKinley asked for an armistice and not about independence. They had to go a step farther to show that they wanted American replacement.
When McKinley asked for war, he did not recognize the rebels as belligerents. When American forces moved to Cuba, the rebels welcomed them.
American labor unions had sympathy for the Cuban rebels as soon as the insurrection against Spain began in 1895.
Samuel Gompers of the AFL wrote that sympathy is genuine, but that they are not committed to certain adventurers who are apparently suffering from hysteria. The workingmen were getting killed so often, but no popular uproar is heard.
The organ of the Connecticut AFT warned that there is a scheme that is going on to place the United States in the front, and the real reason was so the capitalists could have the whole thing.
Some unions called for the U.S. intervention after the Maine, but most were against war. They said that others would get the glory.
Some socials opposed the war.
The majority of the trade unions had war fever. Sam Gompers said that war was glorious.
They did not allow an antiwar parade, but they did allow a parade to urge Jewish workers to support the war. They should kill and wound the poor workers.
The year that the annexation proved that the war was one of conquest.
After these wars, there was a prediction of what the wartime corruption.
Of the officers and men that served in the war there were a lot of deaths, due to disease and other reasons.
There is not a mention of what happened and the solders got a lot of food poisoning.
The Americans acted like the rebels did not exist. No Cubans got to sign the surrender.
There was another protest to the General and said he was not honored for his word about the negotiations for peace, and why were they still selected by the Queen of Spain.
Americans started taking over railroads, mines, and sugar properties when the war ended. $30 million was invested. American Tobacco Company arrived. They took over a lot of the islands.
During the occupation there were strikes. The authorities arrested strike leaders. But it the strikes continued and there were a lot of strikes, so some leaders were forced to say that the strikes were over.
The Plait Amendment had to be included in the Constitution. This is the Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government, the coaling or naval stations.
The Cubans denounced these measures.
It told them before that they should adopt all these measures. This was all bad.
Now they rejected them.
They were asked to hand over the keys to their house so that it can enter at any time. The only Cuban government that would live would be that which count on the support, and it could not be more inadmissible.
Leonard Wood wrote in 1901 that there was little independence in the Plait Amendment. Cuba was brought to American. However, there were more annexations. Puerto Rico and the Hawaiian Islands, and Wake Island. It had formally turned over Guam and the Philippines
There was argument over whether to take the Philippines. The Americans were thinking that they couldn't trust Germany or France and the only choice would be to educate them and uplift them.
They are ours forever, with China's markets.
The Pacific was their ocean. The best man said the island had 40 miles of coal. He does not think they know what self-government means. The war has been said to be cruel, but those people are not like Europeans.
The fighting began when the insurgents attacked. They said the colonel had ordered him to provoke a conflict with the insurgents.
There was a banquet celebrating Senate's ratification of the peace treaty. But some people said that the President's cold pot stank. They need to be able to stop the Philippine operation and they were using the store to kill the smaller shops.
The prominent Americans created the Anti-Imperialist League and to educate the public about the Philippine war. William James said that the U.S. had bad conduct in the Isles.
The League published letters. A captain said there wasn't one living native. And our fighting blood was up, and we all wanted to kill "niggers". It was a time with intense racism in the U.S. the average they would lynch black people. To the usual indiscriminate brutality of war was added the factor of racial hostility.
Then they shot innocent children.
Elihu Root responded to charges of brutality and said that they were not bad.
There was an officer that was accused of shooting the defenseless without a trial. General Smith said that everything over the age of 10 can be killed.
Of the population of 300,000 there were only two-thirds killed.
I've pacified and destroyed their fields; burned their villages and made them orphans; and hoisted a flag that's the Sultans. They're a world power.
The British said that it is simply massacre. It meant that they had the support of the people.
Some of the trade unions supported the action in the Philippines. They could all repeat what big business was saying, that expansion prevent the next depression.
When there was a problem of what the problem was a way to have more to purchase.
Locals of the League had meetings all over the country. When the Senate finally did ratify, it was with one vote.
Black soldiers were not able to get up and thought of this was brutal.
There was a book that wrote about 114 letters to Negro newspapers written by black soldiers. In Tampa, Negroes killed a civilian. And there was a chaplain who said that the black veterans were not allowed to be at Kansas.
They were for the idea that a campaign of conquest.
I was struck and they are going to do the same things to burn.
Another letter said if the natural was here with the Filipinos. But had not turn out backs on our community.
A black infrantryman wrote that this is nothing but a scheme of robbery.
In mass assembly the message went to the president, about how the town was with two blood days and nights. And the blacks went without freedom or aide. It was the same with the black's murder.
The "patience, industry and moderation" were used to get more blacks, for the war to sink the first numbers of the group were in the first years of the twentieth century became black the great, unpatriotic.
They came into mind a anger.
Emma said that's the Spanish and they said that it caused a war and they saw that people were protecting the capitalists.
Twain said that the returning was disgraced and returned and got the job done.
Authors had a voice over socialism. They had sold a million's of books and they had all said something.
Upton created and he did do he to do and said what they do and a demand for loss.
One was Jack London. He said that they to have had a thousand times they're and nothing is the conclusion that that has and they had to take of the world as well.
In the face that modern man lives more wretchedly, and that his producing power is a thousand times greater, no other conclusion is possible that to has and criminally mismanaged.
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