Practice questions 27-29

Review Questions 27-29 test

1. Pres. McKinley asked Congress to declare war upon Spain because the
A. US had wanted to acquire Cuba for decades, and this would enable that to happen.
B. Spanish government had angered him by insulting him.
C. American people, fanned by the claims of yellow journalists, demanded it.
D. Teller Amendment had been passed.
E. business community favored the conflict.

2. The United States gained rights to Guantanamo Bay as a result of the
A. Platt Amendment.
B. Foraker Act.
C. Teller Amendment.
D. Treaty of Paris of 1898.
E. Monroe Doctrine.

3. President Grover Cleveland rejected the effort to annex Hawai’i because
A. he wanted to protect the interests of Louisiana sugar growers.
B. the US did not have the naval power to protect the islands against Japanese or German threats.
C. he believed that the native Hawai’ians had been wronged and that a majority opposed annexation by the US.
D. passage of the McKinley Tariff made Hawai’ian sugar impossible.
E. the US would then have to establish military bases in Hawai’i.

4. A major factor in the shift of US foreign policy toward imperialism in the late 19th century was
A. the need for overseas markets for increased industrial and agricultural products.
B. the need for additional population.
C. the construction of an American-built isthmian canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
D. the desire for more farmland.
E. all of the above.

5. Anti-imperialists presented all of the following arguments against acquiring the Philippines EXCEPT:
A. the islands were still rightfully Spain’s since they were taken after the armistice was signed.
B. it would violate the “consent of the governed” philosophy of the Declaration of Independence.
C. the Filipinos wanted freedom, not colonial rule.
D. annexation would propel the United States into the political and military chaos of the Far East.
E. the United States might become contaminated by contact with despotic countries such as the Philippines.

6. Hawai’i’s Queen Liliuokalani was removed from power because
A. she insisted that native Hawai’ians should control Hawai’i.
B. she reneged on treaty obligations.
C. Hawai’ian agriculture had failed under her leadership.
D. she did not allow Christian missionaries in her country.
E. President Cleveland believed that US national honor required control of the Hawai’ian government.

7. The insular cases of 1901 were Supreme Court decisions that held that
A. the United States could hold prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
B. the US Constitution did not apply in all territories under the American flag.
C. the US had a right to send troops into foreign countries to protect US citizens there.
D. the Roosevelt Corollary was constitutional.
E. Puerto Ricans were automatically US citizens.

8. The acquisition of the Philippines resulted in the United States
A. gaining valuable spice sources.
B. being hailed as saviors by the Filipino people.
C. gaining a weaker defensive position in the Far East.
D. openly challenging the British in imperialist competition.
E. gaining a new war to fight against nationalist Filipinos.

9. China’s Boxer Rebellion was an attempt to
A. destroy the Open Door policy.
B. restore traditional Chinese religion.
C. throw out or kill all “foreign devils.”
D. overthrow the corrupt Chinese government.
E. establish American power in the Far East.

10. The US gained a perpetual lease on the Panama Canal Zone in the
A. Teller Amendment.
B. Gentlemen’s Agreement.
C. Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.
D. Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.
E. Hay- Bunau- Varilla Treaty.

11. Female progressives justified their reformist political activities on the basis of
A. the harsh treatment of women by their employers.
B. their actions being essentially an extension of women’s traditional roles as wives and mothers.
C. women’s inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
D. the need to assert female power against male oppression.
E. America’s need to catch up with more progressive European nations.

12. President Taft’s foreign policy was called
A. the Good Neighbor Policy
B. Boxer Diplomacy.
C. dollar diplomacy..
D. big-stick diplomacy.
E. the Open Door Policy.

13. President Taft’s image as a progressive was damaged when he
A. signed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff.
B. attacked fewer trusts than Teddy Roosevelt.
C. intervened militarily in Central America.
D. got stuck in the bathtub.
E. adopted a confrontational attitude with other Republicans.

14. In the United States, prohibition
A. began with passage of the 18th Amendment.
B. was already in place in most urban areas before being added to the Constitution.
C. was considered to be a proper issue for men only to discuss, since women were less likely to be drinkers.
D. was considered to be the same thing as temperance.
E. laws were first passed in the state of Maine in 1851.

15. The first Jewish person to sit on the Supreme Court was
A. Felix Frankfurter.
B. Arsene Pujo.
C. Herbert Croly.
D. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
E. Louis Brandeis.

16. Which publication highlighted the plight of tenement dwellers?
A. The Titan.
B. The Jungle.
C. Wealth Against Commonwealth.
D. How the Other Half Lives.
E. Sister Carrie

17. Among the major political issues on which Congress passed legislation during the years 1877-1892 were all of the following EXCEPT
A. civil service reform
B. civil rights
C. control of the trusts
D. the coinage of silver
E. tariffs

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!!!)

Example for Progressives and the income tax

This would be the full answer for a writing prompt I have used in the past on the Progressives and the 16th Amendment. You will be doing a writing prompt in class tomorrow which will be due before you leave at the end of the period.

Why was the 16th Amendment the first Progressive reform placed within the Constitution? What were they hoping to accomplish, and why?

The income tax and tariff were complementary issues: The Underwood Tariff Act not only reduced tariffs to their lowest levels in a half-century, but also included an increase in the income tax to offset the ensuing revenue loss. The shift to income tax was seen as an issue of economic fairness. Replacing the tariff system, which Progressives viewed as both an unpredictable source of government revenue as well as an inequitable government give-away to wealthy manufacturers, was a top priority for the Progressives. A graduated income tax,which had been first proposed by the Populists, would have less of an impact on the working-class and farmers who paid a higher percentage of their income on tariff-impacted goods than the wealthy did. An income tax would also provide a reliable source of government income to help pay for the new services the federal government would provide to the people under a Progressive agenda.

Summary of the history of the income tax

Not too bad, and very brief!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/7762384_history_behind_the_16th_amendment_and_united_states_income_taxes;_ylt=ArQYhxYAlIz1ITvGHe5qh0NH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTRpaWhldmFhBGFzc2V0Ay9zL2FjLzc3NjIzODRfaGlzdG9yeV9iZWhpbmRfdGhlXzE2dGhfYW1lbmRtZW50X2FuZF91bml0ZWRfc3RhdGVzX2luY29tZV90YXhlcwRjY29kZQNyYW5kb20EY3BvcwMyBHBvcwMyBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDaGlzdG9yeWJlaGlu

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/

The meaning of the symbols on the dollar bill

Go here: http://www.talewins.com/essays/onedollar.htm

Make sure you scroll all the way through the fatcs. I like the magic tricks part myself.

 

And try to find the spider and the owl that are hidden in the design. Warning: They are tiny!!

MC practice for Test 27-28 on Monday

Because I am being kind…

1. On the question of whether American laws applied to overseas territory acquired in the Spanish-American War, the Supreme Court held that

A. federal but not state laws applied.

B. only the President’s rulings counted and Congress had no voice in the matter.

C. American laws did not necessarily apply; it was up to Congress to apply constitutional protections on a territory by territory basis.

D. only tariff laws could be enforced.

E. only the Bill of Rights applied.

______________________

2. America’s initial Open Door policy was an argument to promote

A. free trade in China.

B. equal spheres of influence in China.

C. military protection for the Chinese emperor.

D. exclusive trade concessions for the US in Shanghai,

E. the principle of self-determination.

_______________________

3. Teddy Roosevelt became the first US president awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for

A. his work as the assistant secretary of the navy.

B. negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo Japanese War of 1904.

C. his treatment of the Filipino people.

D. his demand for fair treatment for Japanese laborers living in the US.

E. his principled status as a conscientious objector during the Spanish-American War.

______________________

4. The real heart of the progressive movement was the effort by reformers to

A. preserve world peace.

B. ensure the Jeffersonian style of government.

C. use the government as an agent for social welfare.

D. get the government off the backs of the people.

E. remove power from state and local governments.

______________________

5. The real purpose of Teddy Roosevelt’s assault on trusts was to

A. fragment big business.

B. establish himself as a bigger trustbuster than Taft.

C. halt the trend toward combination and integration in business.

D. prove that government, not big business, ruled the country.

E. demonstrate his complete mastery over the country.

______________________

6. All of the following were causes of US imperialism EXCEPT:

A. economic competition among industrialized nations.

B. a search for raw materials.

C. political and military competition, including the creation of a strong navy.

D. a belief in the racial and cultural superiority of American (WASP) people.

E. requests for American assistance from native peoples.

______________________

7. The acquisition of the Philippines resulted in the United States

A. gaining a weaker defensive position in the Far East.

B. openly challenging the British in imperialist competition.

C. gaining a new war to fight against nationalist Filipinos.

D. being hailed as saviors by the Filipino people.

E. gaining valuable spice sources.

______________________

8. The US gained a perpetual lease on the Panama Canal Zone in the

A. Hay- Bunau- Varilla Treaty.

B. Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.

C. Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.

D. Gentlemen’s Agreement.

E. Teller Amendment.

______________________

9. Female progressives justified their reformist political activities on the basis of

A. their actions being an extension of women’s traditional roles as wives and mothers.

B. America’s need to catch up with more progressive European nations.

C. women’s inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

D. the harsh treatment of women by their employers.

E. the need to assert female power against male oppression.

______________________

10. In the United States, prohibition

A. began with passage of the 18^th Amendment.

B. was already in place in most urban areas before being added to the Constitution.

C. was considered to be a proper issue for men only to discuss, since women were less likely to be drinkers.

D. was considered to be the same thing as temperance.

E. laws were first passed in the state of Maine in 1851.

______________________

11. In the 1908 landmark case of Muller v. Oregon the Supreme Court ruled that

A. sanitation codes were legal.

B. workingmen’s compensation was legal.

C. antiliquor laws were constitutional.

D. laws protecting female workers were legal.

E. antitrust laws were constitutional.

______________________

12. The public outcry  after the horrible Triangle Shirtwaist fire led many states to pass

A. mandatory fire escape plans for all businesses employing more than ten people.

B. safety regulations and workmen’s compensation laws for job injuries.

C. restrictions on female employment in the garment industry.

D. zoning regulations limiting where factories could be located.

E. laws guaranteeing unions the right to raise safety questions.

______________________

13. The Elkins and Hepburn Acts dealt with the subject of

A. regulation of the railroad industry.

B. the purity of food and drugs.

C. conservation of natural resources.

D. women’s working conditions.

E. regulation of municipal utilities.

______________________

14. The idea of “multiple use resource management” included all of the following EXCEPT:

A. recreation.

B. damming of rivers.

C. sustained yield logging.

D. summer stock grazing.

E. watershed protection.

______________________

15. The Supreme Court’s “rule of reason” as applied in the case of Standard Oil v. US in 1911 held that

A. it was immensely reasonable to assume that all trusts harmed the public welfare.

B. the amount of profits generated by Standard Oil was unreasonable, and therefore the company should be dissolved.

C.  only trusts that unreasonably restrained trade were subject to penalty under the Sherman Act.

D. any sort of limitations placed on corporations was unreasonable.

E. corporations reasonably behaved as persons under the law, and therefore were protected under the 14^th Amendment.

______________________

16. Theodore Roosevelt defended his building of the Panama Canal by claiming that

A. other nations in Latin America had requested his help.

B. the canal would strengthen the American relationship with Latin American nations.

C. he had received a “mandate from civilization.”

D. Britain would have built the canal had the US not taken the initiative.

E. it would enhance the economic development of the West Coast.

______________________

17. The Roosevelt Corollary added a new provision to the Monroe Doctrine that was specifically designed to

A. enable the US to rule Puerto Rico and the Canal Zone.

B. stop European colonization in the Western Hemisphere.

C. restore cordial relations  between the US and Latin Americans countries.

D. establish a friendly partnership with Britain so that together the two countries countries could police Latin American affairs.

E. justify US intervention in the affairs of Latin American countries.

______________________

18. The “Gentlemen’s Agreement” that Teddy Roosevelt worked out with the Japanese in 1907-1908

A. concluded the Russo-Japanese War.

B. helped him win the 1908 Nobel Peace Prize.

C. restricted Japanese immigration to upper class Japanese males.

D. ended racist “yellow journalism” being practiced in the US.

E. caused Japan to halt the flow of laborers to the US in exchange for the repeal of a racist San Francisco school board decree.

______________________

19. In the Root-Takahara agreement of 1908,

A. the US and Japan agreed to respect each other’s territorial holdings in the Pacific.

B. the Japanese government agreed to limit Japanese laborers entering the US.

C. the US agreed to accept a Japanese sphere of influence in China.

D. the US recognized Japanese control of Korea.

E. Japan  accepted US control of the Philippines in exchange for Japanese control of Manchuria.

______________________

20. When the US captured the Philippines from Spain,

A. Filipinos were granted US citizenship.

B. they did so without Filipino assistance.

C. Spain immediately asked for an end to the war.

D. Hawai’i was annexed as a key territory in the Pacific.

E. America granted the Philippines their independence.

The “Square Deal,” in TR’s own words

Theodore Roosevelt tells the secrets of “a Square Deal” to farmers at the New York State Agricultural Association, Syracuse, NY, September 7, 1903.

In speaking on Labor Day at the annual fair of the New York State Agricultural Association, it is natural to keep especially in mind the two bodies who compose the majority of our people and upon whose welfare depends the welfare of the entire State.  If circumstances are such that thrift, energy, industry, and forethought enable the farmer, the tiller of the soil, on the one hand, and the wage-worker on the other, to keep themselves, their wives, and their children in reasonable comfort, then the State is well off, and we can be assured that the other classes in the community will likewise prosper.  On the other hand, if there is in the long run a lack of prosperity among the two classes named, then all other prosperity is sure to be more seeming than real.

It has been our profound good fortune as a nation that hitherto, disregarding exceptional periods of depression and the normal and inevitable fluctuations, there has been on the whole from the beginning of our government to the present day a progressive betterment alike in the condition of the tiller of the soil and in the condition of the man who, by his manual skill and labor, supports himself and his family, and endeavors to bring up his children so that they may be at least as well off as, and, if possible, better off than, he himself has been.  There are, of course, exceptions, but as a whole the standard of living among the farmers of our country has risen from generation to generation, and the wealth represented on the farms has steadily increased, while the wages of labor have likewise risen, both as regards the actual money paid and as regards the purchasing power which that money represents.

Side by side with this increase in the prosperity of the wage-worker and the tiller of the soil has gone on a great increase in prosperity among the business men and among certain classes of professional men; and the prosperity of these men has been partly the cause and partly the consequence of the prosperity of farmer and wage-worker.  It cannot be too often repeated that in this country, in the long run, we all of us tend to go up or go down together. If the average of well-being is high, it means that the average wage-worker, the average farmer, and the average business man are all alike well-off.  If the average shrinks, there is not one of these classes which will not feel the shrinkage.  Of course, there are always some men who are not affected by good times, just as there are some men who are not affected by bad times.  But speaking broadly, it is true that if prosperity comes, all of us tend to share more or less therein, and that if adversity comes each of us, to a greater or less extent, feels the tension.

Unfortunately, in this world the innocent frequently find themselves obliged to pay some of the penalty for the misdeeds of the guilty; and so if hard times come, whether they be due to our own fault or to our misfortune, whether they be due to some burst of speculative frenzy that has caused a portion of the business world to lose its head–a loss which no legislation can possibly supply–or whether they be due to any lack of wisdom in a portion of the world of labor–in each case, the trouble once started is felt more or less in every walk of life.

It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognize this community of interest among our people.  The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class and promote merely that class’s selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and to work for their interests by working for our common country.

We can keep our government on a sane and healthy basis, we can make and keep our social system what it should be, only on condition of judging each man, not as a member of a class, but on his worth as a man.  It is an infamous thing in our American life, and fundamentally treacherous to our institutions, to apply to any man any test save that of his personal worth, or to draw between two sets of men any distinction save the distinction of conduct, the distinction that marks off those who do well and wisely from those who do ill and foolishly.  There are good citizens and bad citizens in every class as in every locality, and the attitude of decent people toward great public and social questions should be determined, not by the accidental questions of employment or locality, but by those deep-set principles which represent the innermost souls of men.

The failure in public and in private life thus to treat each man on his own merits, the recognition of this government as being either for the poor as such or for the rich as such, would prove fatal to our Republic, as such failure and such recognition have always proved fatal in the past to other republics.  A healthy republican government must rest upon individuals, not upon classes or sections.  As soon as it becomes government by a class or by a section, it departs from the old American ideal.

Many qualities are needed by a people which would preserve the power of self- government in fact as well as in name.  Among these qualities are forethought, shrewdness, self-restraint, the courage which refuses to abandon one’s own rights, and the disinterested and kindly good sense which enables one to do justice to the rights of others.  Lack of strength and lack of courage and unfit men for self-government on the one hand; and on the other, brutal arrogance, envy — in short, any manifestation of the spirit of selfish disregard, whether of one’s own duties or of the rights of others, are equally fatal.

In the history of mankind many republics have risen, have flourished for a less or greater time, and then have fallen because their citizens lost the power of governing themselves and thereby of governing their state; and in no way has this loss of power been so often and so clearly shown as in the tendency to turn the government into a government primarily for the benefit of one class instead of a government for the benefit of the people as a whole. Again and again in the republics of ancient Greece, in those of medieval Italy and medieval Flanders, this tendency was shown, and wherever the tendency became a habit it invariably and inevitably proved fatal to the state.  In the final result, it mattered not one whit whether the movement was in favor of one class or of another.

—————

There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler.

—————

The outcome was equally fatal, whether the country fell into the hands of a wealthy oligarchy which exploited the poor or whether it fell under the domination of a turbulent mob which plundered the rich.  In both cases there resulted violent alternations between tyranny and disorder, and a final complete loss of liberty to all citizens–destruction in the end overtaking the class which had for the moment been victorious as well as that which had momentarily been defeated.  The death-knell of the Republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.

The reason why our future is assured lies in the fact that our people are genuinely skilled in and fitted for self-government and therefore will spurn the leadership of those who seek to excite this ferocious and foolish class antagonism.  The average American knows not only that he himself intends to do what is right, but that his average fellow countryman has the same intention and the same power to make his intention effective.  He knows, whether he be business man, professional man, farmer, mechanic, employer, or wage-worker, that the welfare of each of these men is bound up with the welfare of all the others; that each is neighbor to the other, is actuated by the same hopes and fears, has fundamentally the same ideals, and that all alike have much the same virtues and the same faults.  Our average fellow citizen is a sane and healthy man who believes in decency and has a wholesome mind.  He therefore feels an equal scorn alike for the man of wealth guilty of the mean and base spirit of arrogance toward those who are less well off, and for the man of small means who in his turn either feels, or seeks to excite in others the feeling of mean and base envy for those who are better off.  The two feelings, envy and arrogance, are but opposite sides of the same shield, but different developments of the same spirit…

The line of cleavage between good citizenship and bad citizenship separates the rich man who does well from the rich man who does ill, the poor man of good conduct from the poor man of bad conduct.  This line of cleavage lies at right angles to any such arbitrary line of division as that separating one class from another, one locality from another, or men with a certain degree of property from those of a less degree of property.

The good citizen is the man who, whatever his wealth or his poverty, strives manfully to do his duty to himself, to his family, to his neighbor, to the States; who is incapable of the baseness which manifests itself either in arrogance or in envy, but who while demanding justice for himself is no less scrupulous to do justice to others.  It is because the average American citizen, rich or poor, is of just this type that we have cause for our profound faith in the future of the Republic.

There is no worse enemy of the wage-worker than the man who condones mob violence in any shape or who preaches class hatred; and surely the slightest acquaintance with our industrial history should teach even the most short-sighted that the times of most suffering for our people as a whole, the times when business is stagnant, and capital suffers from shrinkage and gets no return from its investments, are exactly the times of hardship, and want, and grim disaster among the poor.  If all the existing instrumentalities of wealth could be abolished, the first and severest suffering would come among those of us who are least well-off at present.  The wage-worker is well off only when the rest of the country is well-off; and he can best contribute to this general well-being by showing sanity and a firm purpose to do justice to others.

In his turn, the capitalist who is really a conservative, the man who has forethought as well as patriotism, should heartily welcome every effort, legislative or otherwise, which has for its object to secure fair dealing by capital, corporate or individual, toward the public and toward the employee.  Such laws as the franchise-tax law in this State, which the Court of Appeals recently unanimously decided constitutional–such a law as that passed in Congress last year for the purpose of establishing a Department of Commerce and Labor, under which there should be a bureau to oversee and secure publicity from the great corporations which do an interstate business–such a law as that passed at the same time for the regulation of the great highways of commerce so as to keep these roads clear on fair terms to all producers in getting their goods to market–these laws are in the interest not merely of the people as a whole, but of the propertied classes.  For in no way is the stability of property better assured than by making it patent to our people that property bears its proper share of the burdens of the State; that property is handled not only in the interest of the owner, but in the interest of the whole community.

Among ourselves we differ in many qualities of body, head, and heart; we are unequally developed, mentally as well as physically.  But each of us has the right to ask that he shall be protected from wrong-doing as he does his work and carries his burden through life.  No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry.  Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing; and this is a prize open to every man, for there can be no better worth doing than that done to keep in health and comfort and with reasonable advantages those immediately dependent upon the husband, the father, or the son. There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler, for the man or the woman whose object it is throughout life to shirk the duties which life ought to bring.  Life can mean nothing worth meaning, unless its prime aim is the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.  A recent writer has finely said: ; “After all, the saddest thing that can happen to a man is to carry no burdens.  To be bent under too great a load is bad; to be crushed by it is lamentable; but even in that there are possibilities that are glorious.  But to carry no load at all–there is nothing in that.  No one seems to arrive at any goal really worth reaching in this world who does not come to it heavy laden.”

Surely from our own experience each one of us knows that this is true.  From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life’s burdens.  The men whom we most delight to honor in all this land are those who, in the iron years from ’61 to ’65, bore on their shoulders the burden of saving the Union.  They did not choose the easy task.  They did not shirk the difficult duty.  Deliberately and of their own free will they strove for an ideal, upward and onward across the stony slopes of greatness.  They did the hardest work that was then to be done; they bore the heaviest burden that any generation of Americans ever had to bear; and because they did this they have won such proud joy as it has fallen to the lot of no other men to win, and have written their names forevermore on the golden honor-roll of the nation.  As it is with the soldier, so it is with the civilian.  To win success in the business world, to become a first-class mechanic, a successful farmer, an able lawyer or doctor, means that the man has devoted his best energy and power through long years to the achievement of his ends.  So it is in the life of the family, upon which in the last analysis the whole welfare of the nation rests.  The man or woman who, as bread-winner and home-maker, or as wife and mother, has done all that he or she can do, patiently and uncomplainingly, is to be honored; and is to be envied by all those who have never had the good fortune to feel the need and duty of doing such work.  The woman who has borne, and who has reared as they should be reared, a family of children, has in the most emphatic manner deserved well of the Republic.  Her burden has been heavy, and she has been able to bear it worthily only by the possession of resolution, of good sense, of conscience, and of unselfishness.  But if she has borne it well, then to her shall come the supreme blessing, for in the words of the oldest and greatest of books, “Her children shall rise up and call her blessed;” and among the benefactors of the land, her place must be with those who have done the best and the hardest work, whether as lawgivers or as soldiers, whether in public or private life.

This is not a soft and easy creed to preach.  It is a creed willingly learned only by men and women who, together with the softer virtues, possess also the stronger; who can do, and dare, and die at need, but who while life lasts will never flinch from their allotted task.  You farmers, and wage-workers, and business men of this great State, of this mighty and wonderful nation, are gathered together today, proud of your State and still prouder of your nation, because your forefathers and predecessors have lived up to just this creed.  You have received from their hands a great inheritance, and you will leave an even greater inheritance to your children, and your children’s children, provided only that you practice alike in your private and your public lives the strong virtues that have given us as a people greatness in the past.  It is not enough to be well-meaning and kindly, but weak; neither is it enough to be strong, unless morality and decency go hand in hand with strength.  We must possess the qualities which make us do our duty in our homes and among our neighbors, and in addition we must possess the qualities which are indispensable to the make-up of every great and masterful nation–the qualities of courage and hardihood, of individual initiative and yet of power to combine for a common end, and above all, the resolute determination to permit no man and no set of men to sunder us one from the other by lines of caste or creed or section.  We must act upon the motto of all for each and each for all.  There must be ever present in our minds the fundamental truth that in a republic such as ours the only safety is to stand neither for nor against any man because he is rich or because he is poor, because he is engaged in one occupation or another, because he works with his brains or because he works with his hands.  We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man.  We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.

Finally, we must keep ever in mind that a republic such as ours can exist only by virtue of the orderly liberty which comes through the equal domination of the law over all men alike, and through its administration in such resolute and fearless fashion as shall teach all that no man is above it and no man below it.

Florence Kelley on Child Labor

Florence Kelley Speaks Out on Child Labor and Woman Suffrage, Philadelphia, PA, July 22, 1905.

Consider these questions as you read:

1. What are Kelley’s criticisms regarding child labor?

2. What connection does she make about labor laws and the right of women’s suffrage?

3. Think: Why would “no labor organization in this country ever [fail] to respond to an appeal for help in the freeing of children [from labor]?

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We have, in this country, two million children under the age of sixteen years who are earning their bread.  They vary in age from six and seven years (in the cotton mills of Georgia) and eight, nine and ten years (in the coal-breakers of Pennsylvania), to fourteen, fifteen and sixteen years in more enlightened states.

No other portion of the wage earning class increased so rapidly from decade to decade as the young girls from fourteen to twenty years.  Men increase, women increase, youth increase, boys increase in the ranks of the breadwinners; but no contingent so doubles from census period to census period (both by percent and by count of heads), as does the contingent of girls between twelve and twenty years of age.  They are in commerce, in offices, in manufacturing.

Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons for us to buy.

In Alabama the law provides that a child under sixteen years of age shall not work in a cotton mill at night longer than eight hours, and Alabama does better in this respect than any other southern state.  North and South Carolina and Georgia place no restriction upon the work of children at night; and while we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in the mills in those states, working eleven hours at night.

In Georgia there is no restriction whatever! A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by night.  And they will do so tonight, while we sleep.

Nor is it only in the South that these things occur.  Alabama does better than New Jersey.  For Alabama limits the children’s work at night to eight hours, while New Jersey permits it all night long.  Last year New Jersey took a long backward step.  A good law was repealed which had required women and [children] to stop work at six in the evening and at noon on Friday.  Now, therefore, in New Jersey, boys and girls, after their 14th birthday, enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long.

In Pennsylvania, until last May it was lawful for children, 13 years of age, to work twelve hours at night.  A little girl, on her thirteenth birthday, could start away from her home at half past five in the afternoon, carrying her pail of midnight luncheon as happier people carry their midday luncheon, and could work in the mill from six at night until six in the morning, without violating any law of the Commonwealth.

If the mothers and the teachers in Georgia could vote, would the Georgia Legislature have refused at every session for the last three years to stop the work in the mills of children under twelve years of age?

Would the New Jersey Legislature have passed that shameful repeal bill enabling girls of fourteen years to work all night, if the mothers in New Jersey were enfranchised? Until the mothers in the great industrial states are enfranchised, we shall none of us be able to free our consciences from participation in this great evil.  No one in this room tonight can feel free from such participation.  The children make our shoes in the shoe factories; they knit our stockings, our knitted underwear in the knitting factories.  They spin and weave our cotton underwear in the cotton mills.  Children braid straw for our hats, they spin and weave the silk and velvet wherewith we trim our hats.  They stamp buckles and metal ornaments of all kinds, as well as pins and hat-pins.  Under the sweating system, tiny children make artificial flowers and neckwear for us to buy.  They carry bundles of garments from the factories to the tenements, little beasts of burden, robbed of school life that they may work for us.

We do not wish this.  We prefer to have our work done by men and women.  But we are almost powerless.  Not wholly powerless, however, are citizens who enjoy the right of petition.  For myself, I shall use this power in every possible way until the right to the ballot is granted, and then I shall continue to use both.

What can we do to free our consciences? There is one line of action by which we can do much.  We can enlist the workingmen on behalf of our enfranchisement just in proportion as we strive with them to free the children.  No labor organization in this country ever fails to respond to an appeal for help in the freeing of the children.

For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children will vote after we are dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children from toil!