Joni Mitchell explains environmentalism

Perfect for the discussion in this chapter about the difference between conservationism and environmentalism (and the questions about the Turner thesis)….

You may know this song from either the Counting Crows’ version, or being sampled by Janet Jackson….

Well done, Sister Suffragette!

From Mary Poppins! Mrs. Pankhurst was a British leader of the suffrage movement. In this clip, the previous nanny is trying to tell Mrs. Banks that she is quitting because the children are basically… brats.

From The Shame of the Cities

From The Shame of the Cities, 1904, Lincoln Steffens

Perhaps the most influential of the muckrakers was Lincoln Steffens. Steffens’ articles were published in McClure’s magazine in 1902 and 1903 and then collected in The Shame of the Cities, published in 1904.

As you read, consider these questions:

1. What is Steffens’ opinion regarding businessmen?

2. What is Steffens’ opinion regarding politics in America?

3. What influence did Steffens think business had on politics?

4. Were Steffens’ criticisms accurate in 1904? Are they accurate now?

______________________________________________

Now, the typical American citizen is the business man. The typical business man is a bad citizen; he is busy. If he is a “big business man” and very busy, he does not neglect, he is busy with politics, oh, very busy and very businesslike. I found him buying boodlers in St. Louis, defending grafters in Minneapolis, originating corruption in Pittsburgh, sharing with bosses in Philadelphia, deploring reform in Chicago, and beating good government with corruption funds in New York. He is a self-righteous fraud, this big business man. He is the chief source of corruption, and it were a boon if he would neglect politics. But he is not the business man that neglects politics; that worthy is the good citizen, the typical business man. He too is busy, he is the one that has no use and therefore no time for politics. When his neglect has permitted bad government to go so far that he can be stirred to action, he is unhappy, and he looks around for a cure that shall be quick, so that he may hurry back to the shop.

Naturally, too, when he talks politics, he talks shop. His patent remedy is quack; it is business. “Give us a business man,” he says (“like me,” he means). “Let him introduce business methods into politics and government; then I shall be left alone to attend to my business.” There is hardly an office from United States Senator down to Alderman in any part of the country to which the business man has not been elected; yet politics remains corrupt, government pretty bad, and the selfish citizen has to hold himself in readiness like the old volunteer firemen to rush forth at any hour, in any weather, to prevent the fire; and he goes out sometimes and he puts out the fire (after the damage is done) and he goes back to the shop sighing for the business man in politics. The business man has failed in politics as he has in citizenship. Why? Because politics is business.

That’s what’s the matter with it. That’s what’s the matter with everything,—art , literature, religion, journalism, law, medicine,—they’re all business, and all—as you see them. Make politics a sport, as they do in England, or a profession, as they do in Germany, and we’ll have—well, something else than we have now,—if we want it, which is another question. But don’t try to reform politics with the banker, the lawyer, and the dry-goods merchant, for these are business men and there are two great hindrances to their achievement of reform: one is that they are different from, but no better than, the politicians; the other is that politics is not “their line”. …

The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle. “My business is sacred,” says the business man in his heart. “Whatever prospers my business, is good; it must be. Whatever hinders it, is wrong; it must be. A bribe is bad, that is, it is a bad thing to take; but it is not so bad to give one, not if it is necessary to my business.” “Business is business” is not a political sentiment, but our politician has caught it. He takes essentially the same view of the bribe, only he saves his self-respect by piling all his contempt upon the bribe-giver and he has the great advantage of candor. “It is wrong, maybe,” he says, ‘but if a rich merchant can afford to do business with me for the sake of a convenience or to increase his already great wealth, I can afford, for the sake of living, to meet him half way. I make no pretensions to virtue, not even on Sunday.”

And as for giving bad government or good, how about the merchant who gives bad goods or good goods, according to the demand? But there is hope, not alone despair, in the commer-cialism of our politics. If our political leaders are to be always a lot of political merchants, they will supply any demand we may create. All we have to do is to establish a steady demand for good government. The boss has us split up into parties. To him parties are nothing but means to his corrupt ends. He ‘bolts” his parry, but we must not; the bribe-giver changes his party, from one election to another, from one county to another, from one city to another, but the honest voter must not.

Why? Because if the honest voter cared no more for his party than the politician and the grafter, their the honest vote would govern, and that would be bad—for graft. It is idiotic, this devotion to a machine that is used to take our sovereignty from us.

If we would leave parties to the politicians, and would vote not for the party, not even for men, but for the city, and the State, and the nation, we should rule parties, and cities, and States, and nation. If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other parry that is in—then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it. That process would take a generation or more to complete, for the politicians now really do not know what good government is. But it has taken as long to develop bad government, and the politicians know what that is. If it would not “go,” they would offer something else, and, if the demand Were steady, they, being so commercial, would “deliver the goods.”

Tweed Days in St. Louis

From “Tweed Days in St. Louis,” by Lincoln Steffens, 1902

As you read, consider:
1. How has St. Louis’s size changed relative to other US cities? Which city (even today) do we and Steffens most compare ourself with?
2. Describe how St. Louis’s city government worked in 1902.
3. What is a combine?
4. What does the title mean?

St. Louis, the fourth city in size in the United States, is making two announcements to the world: one that it is the worst-governed city in the land; the other that it wishes all men to come there (for the World’s Fair) and see it. It isn’t our worst-governed city; Philadelphia is that. But St. Louis is worth examining while we have it inside out.

There is a man at work there, one man, working all alone, but he is the Circuit (district or State) Attorney, and he is “doing his duty.” That is what thousands of district attorneys and other public officials have promised to do and boasted of doing. This man has a literal sort of mind. He is a thin-lipped, firm-mouthed, dark little man, who never raises his voice, but goes ahead doing, with a smiling eye and a set jaw, the simple thing he said he would do. The politicians and reputable citizens who asked him to run urged him when he declined. When he said that if elected he would have to do his duty, they said, “Of course.” So he ran, they supported him, and he was elected. Now some of these politicians are sentenced to the penitentiary, some are in Mexico. The Circuit Attorney, finding that his “duty” was to catch and convict criminals, and that the biggest criminals were some of these same politicians and leading citizens, went after them. It is magnificent, but the politicians declare it isn’t politics.

The corruption of St. Louis came from the top. The best citizens—the merchants and big financiers—used to rule the town, and they ruled it well. They set out to outstrip Chicago. The commercial and industrial war between these two cities was at one time a picturesque and dramatic spectacle such as is witnessed only in our country. Business men were not mere merchants and the politicians were not mere grafters; the two kinds of citizens got together and wielded the power of banks, railroads, factories, the prestige of the city, and the spirit of its citizens to gain business and population. And it was a close race. Chicago, having the start, always led, but St. Louis had pluck, intelligence, and tremendous energy. It pressed Chicago hard. It excelled in a sense of civic beauty and good government; and there are those who think yet it might have won. But a change occurred. Public spirit became private spirit, public enterprise became private greed.

Along about 1890, public franchises and privileges were sought, not only for legitimate profit and common convenience, but for loot. Taking but slight and always selfish interest in the public councils, the big men misused politics. The riffraff, catching the smell of corruption, rushed into the Municipal Assembly, drove out the remaining respectable men, and sold the city—its streets, its wharves, its markets, and all that it had—to the now greedy business men and bribers. In other words, when the leading men began to devour their own city, the herd rushed into the trough and fed also.

…So gradually has this occurred that these same citizens hardly realize it. Go to St. Louis and you will find the habit of civic pride in them; they still boast. The visitor is told of the wealth of the residents, of the financial strength of the banks, and of the growing importance of the industries, yet he sees poorly paved, refuse-burdened streets, and dusty or mud-covered alleys; he passes a ramshackle fire-trap crowded with the sick, and learns that it is the City Hospital; he enters the “Four Courts,” and his nostrils are greeted by the odor of formaldehyde used as a disinfectant, and insect powder spread to destroy vermin; he calls at the new City Hall, and finds half the entrance boarded with pine planks to cover up the unfinished interior. Finally, he turns a tap in the hotel, to see liquid mud flow into wash-basin or bath-tub.

The St. Louis charter vests legislative power of great scope in a Municipal Assembly, which is composed of a council and a House of Delegates. Here is a description of the latter by one of Mr. Folk’s grand juries:

“We have had before us many of those who have been, and most of those who are now, members of the House of Delegates. We found a number of these utterly illiterate and lacking in ordinary intelligence, unable to give a better reason for favoring or opposing a measure than a desire to act with the majority. In some, no trace of mentality or morality could be found; in others, a low order of training appeared, united with base cunning, groveling instincts, and sordid desires. Unqualified to respond to the ordinary requirements of life, they are utterly incapable of comprehending the significance of an ordinance, and are incapacitated, both by nature and training, to be the makers of laws. The choosing of such men to be legislators makes a travesty of justice, sets a premium on incompetency, and deliberately poisons the very source of the law.”

These creatures were well organized. They had a “combine”—a legislative institution—which the grand jury described as follows:

“Our investigation, covering more or less fully a period of ten years, shows that, with few exceptions, no ordinance has been passed wherein valuable privileges or franchises are granted until those interested have paid the legislators the money demanded for action in the particular case. Combines in both branches of the Municipal Assembly are formed by members sufficient in number to control legislation. To one member of this combine is delegated the authority to act for the combine, and to receive and to distribute to each member the money agreed upon as the price of his vote in support of, or opposition to, a pending measure. So long has this practice existed that such members have come to regard the receipt of money for action on pending measures as a legitimate perquisite of a legislator.”

One legislator consulted a lawyer with the intention of suing a firm to recover an unpaid balance on a fee for the grant of a switch-way. Such difficulties rarely occurred, however. In order to insure a regular and indisputable revenue, the combine of each house drew up a schedule of bribery prices for all possible sorts of grants, just such a list as a commercial traveler takes out on the road with him. …

From the Assembly, bribery spread into other departments. Men empowered to issue peddlers‘ licenses and permits to citizens who wished to erect awnings or use a portion of the sidewalk for storage purposes charged an amount in excess of the prices stipulated by law, and pocketed the difference. The city’s money was loaned at interest, and the interest was converted into private bank accounts. City carriages were used by the wives and children of city officials. Supplies for public institutions found their way to private tables; one itemized account of food furnished the poorhouse included California jellies, imported cheeses, and French wines! A member of the Assembly caused the incorporation of a grocery company, with his sons and daughters the ostensible stockholders, and succeeded in having his bid for city supplies accepted although the figures were in excess of his competitors’. In return for the favor thus shown, he endorsed a measure to award the contract for city printing to another member, and these two voted aye on a bill granting to a third the exclusive right to furnish city dispensaries with drugs.

Who was Teddy Roosevelt?

The Talented Mr. Roosevelt
Here is a good video from the history channel about Theodore Roosevelt.

Chapter 28 questions- now due Friday!

Chapter 28 questions- Due Friday Jan. 31

1. Compare the demographic details provided in the opening paragraphs with the first two paragraphs under “March of the Millions” on p. 308 and the chart on p. 309. What are three conclusions you can draw regarding the changes in the American population?
2. Explain (specifically) what the progressives believed about government power, and why. How did economic concerns from the Gilded Age fuel progressive beliefs in the early 20th century?
3. What previous writers and movements helped propel progressive reform in the US? What more extreme movement threatened to gain strength if progressive reforms were not initiated?
4. What did muckrakers do? What magazines were associated with muckraking? Compare and contrast muckrakers and yellow journalists.
5. What was the claim of David G. Phillips? What Progressive Amendment attempted to deal with this problem? What was Phillips’ reward?
6. Explain the quote: “The cure for the ills of American democracy… was more democracy.”
7. Why is there no socialism in the United States, according to Werner Sombart?
8. What was the IWW? Why were they controversial?
9. What were the two chief goals of the progressives, according to p. 708?
10. What six specific measure did progressives enact to increase voter control over government? Explain each one.
11. How did women first get the right to vote? What arguments did suffragists use to support their case?
12. What progressive reforms were put into place at the local government level?
13. What progressive reforms were put into place at the state government level? In which states was this the strongest?
14. What organizations did women use to gain influence besides the vote? What is the notion of the “separate spheres?”
15. Was Mueller v. Oregon a true victory for women? Explain.
16. How does the incident at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory help illuminate Scoop’s dictum that a law is only as good as its enforcement?
17. What victories did workers gain during the progressive era?
18. Why did progressives target alcohol? What did they believe were the ties between political machines and saloons?
19. What was the Square Deal, and what were the three C’s? How did they work together?
20. What were the causes of the coal strike of 1902 and what were the effects?
21. What specific measures were enacted against the railroads? Explain each one.
22. What, according to TR, were the differences between “good trusts” and “bad trusts?” What were the limits to TR’s trustbusting?
23. What were the two political effects of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle?
24. What were the goals of the three 19th century laws sought to conserve the environment? What laws and actions did TR put in place?
25. Read carefully—how did the Turner thesis influence the national mood for conservation?
26. What is the difference between conservationism and environmentalism (or preservationism)?
27. How does the struggle over the Hetch Hetchy Valley show the limits of conservationism in protecting the environment? What was “multiple-use resource management?”
28. What happened during the “Roosevelt Panic” of 1907? Why was his disavowal of a third term a mistake?
29. Who was Eugene V. Debs? Use the index in the back of your book to give a complete answer.
30. What were Taft’s (WHT) political liabilities? What was “dollar diplomacy?”
31. How did the “rule of reason” impact government efforts to control trusts?
32. What were the causes of eventual rift between TR and WHT?

Bad Romance parody on Woman Suffrage

This is VERY well done!

I Want My Suffrage!

Progressive reforms at the ballot box

Here are some useful links for tomorrow:
http://www.citizensincharge.org/learn/history/the-populist-and-progressive-era

http://michael-streich.suite101.com/progressive-era-reforms-the-17th-amendment-a82723

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/sat-ii-us-history-moving-through-the-progressive-e.html (Don’t be insulted!!!)

How the Other Half Lives

Here is a link to a digital copy of the book: http://tenant.net/Community/Riis/title.html

Here is background on the book: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/davis/photography/riis/otherhalf.html

Links for the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

http://www.csun.edu/~ghy7463/mw2.html

This one has better images and a timeline of events: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/