The poor people of America will demand decent jobs and incor.docx

The poor people of America will demand decent jobs
and incorhe in massive demonstrations in our nation's
capital, Washington, D.C., this spring.
The Poor People's Campaign, starting in April, is being
organized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with the support
and participation of many local groups and individuals.
WHO WILL BE IN THE POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN?
At the start, several thousand poor people will go to
Washington. We will be young and
old, jobless fathers, welfare mothers, farmers and laborers . We
are Negroes, American
Indians, Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans, poor white people.
WHERE DO THESE POOR PEOPLE LIVE?
All across the nation. SCLC is recruiting poor people in I 0 big
cities and five South-
ern states. Poor people in all other communities and cities are
also invited to join the
Campaign.
DO YOU HAVE TO BE POOR TO BE IN THIS CAMPAIGN?
No . Most persons at the start of the Campaign in Washington
will be poor, but other
people from all walks of life must he prepared to take their
place in the lines of this
campaign.
WHY ARE WE GOJN(; TO WASHINGTON?
Wa shington is the center of government power , and the

national government has the money
and resources to end poverty and fight rae ism. But that
government has failed to do this .
Therefore the Poor People's Campaign wil l dem a nd
government reforms .
WHAT WILL THE POOR PEOP/,E'S CAMPAIGN DO IN
WASHINGTON?
We will build powerful nonviolent demonstrations on the issues
of jobs, income,
welfare, health, housing, education , human rights. These
massive demonstrations will
be aimed at government centers of power, and th ey will be
expanded if necessary. We
must make the government face up to the fact of poverty and
racism. In order to carry
out our demonstrations , we will not reveal to the government in
advance exactly what we
plan to do and where we will demo nstrate.
WHAT Jfi/LL Jf!E DEMAND?
We will present to the government a li st of ddinite demand s
involving jobs, income, and
a decent life for all poor people so that they will co ntrol their
own destiny. This will
cost billions of dollars , but the richest nat ion of all time can
afford to spend this money
if America is to avoid soc ial di saster..
WHAT IF THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOTHING?
We will stay until the government responds, building up the
pressure for action by calling
for thousands upon thousands of people, rich and poor, to come
to Washington or stand
up and be counted in demonstrat ions in-; their hom e com
munities.

SOME IIEED.S FOR THE
POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGII ····
e Local. support committees
e Discussions in churches and other
comrimnity groups
e Recruitment of persons to go to Wash-
ington
• Planning demonstrations in your own
community
e Letter-writing campaigns to Congress-
men and others for action against
poverty
e Publicity through leaflets, news releases,
etc. in your area
e Fund raising for transportation to Wash-
ington, local offices, housing, office
supplies . and equipment, and other
expenses
e Special services such as legal and med-
ical aid, local transportation, baby-sit-
ting, volunteer office work
Southern Christian leadership Conference
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President
334 Auburn Ave., N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30303

. I
. I
So uthern Christian leadership Conference
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President
334 Auburn Ave ., N.E .
Atlanta. GeorP"ia 30~0 'l
,
POOR 'PEOPLE
111 AMERICA
Who are the poor?
The poorest Americans are 35 ~illion per-
sons who do not have enough money for a
decent life. The. government says they fall "
below the "poverty line," earning less than
$3,130 a year for a family of four, or
$1,540 for an individual.
Why are people poor?
Poor people are kept in poverty because
they are kept from power. We must create
"Poor People's Power."
What happens to poor people'?
Poor people do not get decent jobs, decent
incomes, decent housing, decent schools,
decent health care. decent government,
decent police. Poor people do not even get

respect as human beings.
What do poor people do'?
Most poor American adults work hard every
day but are not paid enough for a decent
life for their families. Unemployment is a
severe problem. especially among men, and
the unemployment rate in many places, es-
pecially most big cities. is so high that there
is a Great Depression . Seven million people
are on welfare (mostly children, old people,
the sick, and mothers unable to work). Less
than I per cent of these people are able to
work - if they get proper training.
Rich people and poor pepole.
There is great contrast in the lives of rich
and poor people in America. For example,
a U.S. Congressman is paid nearly $600 a
week, but a Southern sharecropper's family
sometimes earns less than $600 a year. A
maid in a big Northern ci ty may earn $50
a week, while her rich boss may get $50 an
hour.
Can America end poverty'?
Yes. Many nations that are poorer than rich
America provide decent incomes and serv-
ices for all poor people. America spends 10
times as much money on military power as
it does on welfare. The government sub-
subsidizes big companies and farms, and
gives tax favors to rich people, but punishes
the poor. America spends more money in
one month to kill in Vietnam than it spends
in a year for the so-called "war on poverty."

THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW!
,
"POOR PEOPLES LIVES ARE DISRUPTED AND
DISLOCATED
EVERYDAY. WE WANT TO PUT A STOP TO THIS.
POVERTY,
RACISM AND DISCRily!INATION CAUSE FAMILIES TO BE
KEPT APART, MEN TO BECOME DESPERATE, WOMEN TO
LIVE IN FEAR, AND CHILDREN TO STARVE." Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.,
HOW YOIJ CAII JOIN
THE POOR PEOPLE'S
CAMPAIGII
You or your local group are welcome to
join the massive Poor People's Campaign.
All Americans concerned about poverty can
participate - rich and poor, black and
white, young and old.
The campaign action starts in April, in
Washington, D.C. A definite date will be
announced soon.
But much wmj< must be done NOW to
prepare for this campaign.
If you want to work directly, you can
help organize for the Campaign in your
community.
If you want to go to W~shington, you
can begin to prepare yourself and others for

this effort.
If you can not work actively, you can
still be in the Poor People's Campaign by
contributing financial aid or services. Our
resources are very limited, and we need all
possible help in printed materials, supplies,
offic~· space, transportation and many other
expenses .
PLEASE STAND UP FOR POOR
PEOPLE BY CONTACTING:
Rev. Bernard Lafayette, Coordinator
Poor People's Campaign
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Atlanta , Ga. 30303
For Information or Materials :
SCLC
Department of Information
Atlanta, Ga. 30303
Tel. (404) 522-1420
Pl ease make co ntributions
(checks o r money orders)

payabl e to SCLC
University of Northern Iowa
What Shall Be Done about the Philippines?
Author(s): Mayo W. Hazeltine
Source: The North American Review, Vol. 167, No. 503 (Oct.,
1898), pp. 385-392
Published by: University of Northern Iowa
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25119071
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NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
No. Dili.
OCTOBER, 1898.
WHAT SHALL BE DONE ABOUT THE PHILIP
PINES?
BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE.
In pursuance of the protocol, to which the United States
and Spain were parties, the ten plenipotentiaries composing the
Hispano-American Commission will meet this month in Paris
and
endeavor to arrive at an agreement concerning the disposition
to
be made of the Philippines. If an agreement be reached, it will
be embodied in a treaty, together with the other conditions of
peace set forth in the protocol, and this treaty will bind the
executives of the two countries. That this is fully understood
by Mr. McKinley and that he personally has no idea of
recurring
to war, whatever may be the decision of the Commission, is evi
dent from the fact that he has already given orders for the dis
bandment of 100,000 volunteers. The treaty will not, however,
acquire validity until it has been sanctioned by the Cortes, with
out the assent of which no Spanish territory can be alienated,
and
until it has been also ratified by two-thirds of the United States

Senate. Such a ratification may be looked for, even though the
terms of peace may be unacceptable to many Senators. The Sen
ate has rejected treaties, but never a treaty of peace. The Treaty
of Ghent failed to redress a single one of the grievances which
had
been proclaimed the causes of the War of 1812; nevertheless, it
VOL. CLXVII.?NO. 503. 25
Copyright 1898, by The Nobtu American Review Publishing
Company. AU rights reserved.
00:55:32 UTC
386 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
was accepted by the Senate. The treaty which brought to a
close
the war with Mexico in 1848 was also ratified by the Senate,
though
it had only three votes to spare; in this case opposition was due
to the complaint not that we secured too little, but that we se
cured too much, and it was parried by an expedient to which we
shall presently refer. We may, consequently, take for granted
that the Senate will confirm the agreement of the Hispano-
Ameri
can Commission, if any be arrived at, but what the agreement
will be is, at present, a matter of conjecture. The very crea
tion of the Commission is proof that Mr. McKinley, at the time
when the protocol was signed, had not made up his mind what
to do about the Philippines, and that he still remained unde
termined as late as Sept. 10, seems a fair inference from his
selection of plenipotentiaries. Of the five American Commis
sioners, two?Senator Davis and Senator Frye?are known to be

favorable to the annexation of the whole Philippine
archipelago;
a third, Mr. Whitelaw Eeid, is believed to take similar ground;
Judge Day, on the other hand, is understood to have held
former
ly, if he does not still hold, that we should confine ourselves to
securing a coaling station, while Senator Gray is known to have
argued and voted against the annexation of Hawaii, and is,
there
fore, presumably, opposed to the acquisition of dependencies
even more remote. We may assume, however, that all the Com
missioners would not have accepted the trust reposed in them
unless they were prepared to obey the President's final instruc
tions. Those instructions will probably be framed in accordance
with what Mr. McKinley believes, at the last moment, to be the
prevailing opinion of the country. Public opinion is now well
ad
vanced in the process of taking definite shape, after widespread
and prolonged discussion, which has been, or should be, di
rected to two questions, namely, first, what should we wish
to do about the Philippines; and, secondly, what are we
able to do, in view of the situation created by the protocol?
The second question is no less important than the other, al
though many of our newspapers overlook it altogether and talk
as if we were still at liberty to deal with the Philippines as w?
please; whereas, had such been the President's opinion, he
would
have announced it as peremptorily as he did the demand for the
cession of Porto Eico, and would not have relegated the
solution
of the Philippine problem to a Commission.
00:55:32 UTC

WHAT SHALL BE DONE ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES ? 387
I.
Two or three months ago, the President's uncertainty regard
ing the course to be pursued in the Philippines was shared by
many of his countrymen. Neither in its moral nor in its eco
nomical aspects had the problem been thoroughly examined.
There is no doubt that those who organized a conference at
Sarar
toga for the purpose of considering the questions opened by the
war, expected therefrom a declaration that, by the teaching and
practice of the fathers, we were precluded from seeking any
trans
marine possessions, and, especially, such as were parted from
us
by the breadth of the Pacific. As a matter of fact, so rapid
was the diffusion of information and the resultant evolution of
opinion, that the Saratoga Conference pronounced in favor of
annexing not only Porto Eico, but also a port in the Ladrones
and the whole, or part, of the Philippines. There is now reason
to believe that a large majority of our citizens are thoroughly
convinced, first, that, by our victory at Cavit?, and the subse
quent capture of Manila, we assumed a moral obligation toward
the natives of Luzon; secondly, that the obligation can be best
dis
charged by the occupation of all the Philippines, and, thirdly,
that no grievous financial burden will be imposed upon our peo
ple by the discharge of that obligation, seeing that the natural
resources of the Philippines are incalculably great, and that our
occupation of them will give us a voice potential in the future
regulation of China's trade, wherein we are profoundly
interested.

From the viewpoint of these prevalent convictions, let us
glance at the several ways in which it has been suggested by
the
various advisers of the President that the Philippine problem
shall be solved. Shall we restore the whole of the Phil
ippines to Spain, retaining only for ourselves a station for
coaling and repair, as, for example, the city and harbor of Ma
nila? This we cannot do without forfeiting our self-respect and
the respect of the world, for the natives of Luzon, the most pop
ulous and civilized island in the group, have notoriously
suffered
more at the hands of Spain than have the Cubans, and we are
ourselves responsible for the latest uprising on their part.
Moreover, what Spain could not do, when she had a
considerable
navy and funds relatively adequate, she certainly could not ac
complish now that her navy is well nigh extinct and that her
00:55:32 UTC
treasury is bankrupt; that is to say, establish in the island of
Luzon a government which should fulfill the fundamental func
tions of safeguarding life and property. We may dismiss with
a word the fantastic proposal that we should govern Luzon in
partnership with Spain. Such a mongrel administration would
compel us to share the responsibility for evil doing, while de
priving us of power to avert it; Spanish influence, so far as a
joint r?gime permitted its exercise, would be sure to follow the
old channels of oppression and embezzlement. Shall we, then,

declare the island of Luzon independent, and make over the
control of it to Aguinaldo and his followers? It is the con
sensus of all observers, who have studied at first hand the situa
tion in Luzon, that the Tagals could not establish a durable
government of their own. They are an industrious people, do
cile and easily managed by an administration at once firm and
just, but they are very far from possessing the qualifications
for self-rule. Shall we, by resigning our own claim to the Phil
ippines, a claim which, being based upon our capture of their
capital, was, when the news of the signing of the protocol
reached
Manila, actually stronger than our claim to Cuba or to Porto
Eico, enable Spain to sell them to Eussia, France or Germany?
By such an act, we should endow with an inestimable coign of
vantage in the Far East one of the powers, the whole tendency
of whose policy is to minimize our share in China's foreign
trade.
But Spain, it may be argued, could find a purchaser in Great
Britain. We answer that, by the acquisition of the Philippines,
Great Britain would acquire the prospect of such preponderance
in the Far East that the other powers would feel constrained, by
a sense of self-preservation, to avert it by a general war. Our
duty to mankind enjoins us not to precipitate a general war,
and the surest mode of discharging that duty is to take the
Philippines ourselves.
Could we not, however, surmount all difficulties by keeping
Luzon, which represents in area rather more than a third of the
group, and leaving the rest of the islands to Spain, a promise
being exacted from her that they shall not be ceded to any
other power? This solution of the problem is said to be favored
in influential quarters, but it is open to grave objections. In the
first place, it is doubtful if Spain would be able to maintain
peace and order in the rest of the archipelago, and, thereby af

00:55:32 UTC
WHAT SHALL BE DONE ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES ? 389
ford no pretext for foreign intervention. Even when her navy
was relatively strong, it was only with difficulty that she
was able to repress the pirates, who formerly infested the
coasts of Mindanao and the islands of the Sulu group. Sup
pose, however, that, in the remnant of her possessions, she did
contrive to maintain a naval force sufficient for police purposes
and gradually did manage to develop a flourishing island
empire,
we should have at our doors a vindictive neighbor ready to join
any coalition that might be formed against us, and, meanwhile,
eager to foment disaffection in Luzon, which her profession of
a
common religion and her familiarity with the customs and the
character of the Tagals would facilitate. By such a compromise,
in short, we should only invite future trouble, which we can
avoid by assuming control of the whole archipelago. The civ
ilizing of the southern islands, which have, collectively, a
super
ficies of about 75,000 square miles, would be a trivial task to
the American people, which, in less than a century, has
reclaimed
the vast region lying between the Mississippi and the Pacific.
From an economic as well as a humanitarian viewpoint, the
work would be worth its cost, for, at the end of a century, the
whole Philippine group should be able to support fifty millions
of
inhabitants, if we may judge by the experience of Java, which,
in

the course of a hundred years, has seen its population expand
from about two to over twenty millions. If it be true, as Mr.
Benjamin Kidd contends, that the twentieth century is to wit
ness a vehement struggle for the control of tropical lands upon
the part of the nations belonging to the temperate zones, we
should enter upon the contest with one of the most valuable
prizes attainable in the tropics already in our hands. Nor is it
only by their natural resources, capable, as they are, of almost
limitless development, nor by the capacious market for our
manu
factures which they would, eventually, offer, that the
Philippines
would be of immense utility to the United States. Such is their
strategic relation to China that our possession of them would
give us an influence at Pekin second only to that of Eussia and
Great Britain, an influence that we could use to thwart such of
the European powers as contemplate a thorough-going partition
of the Middle Kingdom, and to co-operate effectively with
those
that are resolved to uphold what is left of China's territorial in
tegrity and to keep at all events an open door to that most popu
00:55:32 UTC
390 THE NORTH AMERICAN REV IE W.
lous and resourceful section of the Celestial Empire which is
wa
tered by the Yang-tse-Kiang. It is, in a word, freedom of access
for American manufacturers to the best part of China which
would be powerfully furthered by our retention of the Philip
pines.

II.
To the first question, then, What should we wish to do about
the Phillipines? we answer that we ought to keep not only Ma
nila, not only the whole island of Luzon, but the entire Philip
pine archipelago, if we are to show ourselves alive to the full
purport of our opportunities and to the full scope of our
mission
in the East. That would be the simplest, safest and cheapest
solu
tion of the problem. Is it, however, any longer possible to
secure
all the Philippines in the new situation created by the protocol?
There is no doubt that President McKinley, before that agree
ment was signed, could have obtained the Philippines well nigh
as
easily as he obtained Porto Eico and Cuba, for Manila was
known
to be upon the point of falling into our hands, which is more
than
could be said for either San Juan or Havana. Had the Madrid
Government proved recalcitrant upon this point, it could have
been quickly brought to terms by naval demonstrations against
the Carolines, the Canaries, the Balearic Isles and the seaports
of
the Iberian peninsula. But, when the President forbore to exer
cise the power which he possessed, and consented to let the
fate
of the Philippines be determined by a commission, in which
Spain should have an equal voice, he, practically, put the reten
tion of all the islands by us out of the question, unless some
con
sideration should be tendered, which would be regarded in Mad
rid as a quid pro quo. For suppose that, in compliance with in

structions from Washington, the five American commissioners
should concur in demanding the cession to us of all the Philip
pines, it is absolutely certain that the five Spanish
commissioners
would, on their part, reject the demand, unless it were coupled
with an offer of compensation. We could not blame them for an
attitude which must, or should have been, foreseen when the
protocol was signed. It is even questionable whether the
Spanish
commissioners will agree to surrender the whole of the island
of
Luzon in the absence of any indemnifying proposal. In that
event, it may be said, the result of the negotiations will be a
00:55:32 UTC
WHAT SHALL BE DONE ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES? 391
deadlock, and, if this cannot be broken, both parties will be
relegated to the arbitrament of war. We answer that the public
opinion of the world would not justify us in recurring to the
arbitrament of war after the solution of the Philippine problem
had been formally committed by our Executive to a joint com
mission. We should be told, justly, that if our President was
resolved to keep the Philippines, or at least Luzon, he ought,
when the protocol was signed, to have proclaimed his
resolution
as distinctly as he did in the case of Porto Eico, and that,
unless
we could and would replace Spain in the position occupied by
her
when hostilities ceased, we should have no right to recur to

war,
merely because the Spanish commissioners saw fit to exercise
the
equal voice which the protocol conferred on them. This is in
disputably true. Our Government has, voluntarily, made the dis
position of the Philippines a subject for negotiation, and it
could
not, with any show of decency, make a deadlock the pretext for
a
recourse to arms.
When the President begins to ponder the methods of escap
ing from the predicament in which the protocol has placed him,
he will find a suggestive precedent in the treatment which Mex
ico received at the hands of President Polk in 1848. At that
time General Scott occupied the Mexican capital, and the entire
Mexican republic was undeniably at our mercy. We might have
an
nexed the whole of it, but public opinion in the Northern States
would not have tolerated such a sweeping exercise of the right
of
conquest; indeed, it was even indisposed to brook an extensive
mutilation of a sister commonwealth. Under these
circumstances,
it was decided that, although we had demonstrated the
possession
of a giant's strength, we would not use it like a giant, and our
com
missioners were instructed not to exact from Mexico a single
acre
by right of conquest, but to offer $15,000,000 in cash and the
as
sumption of debts amounting to $3,000,000 due from Mexico to
American citizens, in exchange for the tract comprising Cali
fornia, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. The purchase

money now seems ludicrously small, but it was eagerly
accepted
by the provisional Mexican Government, the full extent of the
mineral wealth of the ceded territory being, as yet, unguessed
at.
The result of this remarkable transaction, which, so far as we
know, has no counterpart in history, and which presents a strik
ing contrast to the treatment of France by Germany in 1871, dis
00:55:32 UTC
armed, in a considerable degree, the opposition of our Northern
States to the dismemberment of Mexico, and the treaty of peace
was ratified by the Senate.
The bearing of this precedent upon the situation created by
the protocol is obvious. It is most improbable that, without
some
compensation, the Spanish commissioners will agree to give up
the Philippines, or even the island of Luzon. On the other hand,
the maintenance of their authority in the rest of the islands
would
require an outlay of blood and treasure which they are ill able
to
afford. The Madrid Government could escape from the
dilemma,
and, to use the Chinese phrase, " save its face " in the eyes of
the
Spanish people, if, in return for a cession of all the Philippines,
it could secure such a sum of money as would, to a moderate
extent, relieve the necessities of its exchequer. As it happens, a

relatively insignificant part of the Spanish debt is saddled upon
the revenues of the Philippines. This our commissioners might
consent to assume, and they might even go a little further, and
agree to make the United States, or Independent Cuba, respon
sible for a fifth part of the so-called Cuban debt. Why do we
designate this particular fraction? Because, when the Auton
omist government was instituted in Cuba, it^was stipulated by
the Autonomists that the insular revenues should be liable for
only a fifth of the Cuban debt, inasmuch as by the most liberal
estimate not more than a fifth of the money borrowed in Cuba's
name could be regarded as having been applied to the welfare
of
the island. The Philippine debt and one-fifth of the Cuban debt
would not, together, amount to much more than $100,000,000,
a
sum which we could borrow at three per cent., or, for that
matter,
easily spare from our national revenue, distended as this has
been
by the war taxes. We opine that an offer on our part to assume
the indebtedness mentioned would secure the assent of the Span
ish commissioners to the relinquishment of all the Philippines,
and we doubt if their assent to such a proposal can be gained in
any other way.
But why, it may be asked, should we buy what we have con
quered? We answer that the question comes too late. It should
have been put before the signing of the protocol, whereby in
the
disposition of the Philippines the Spaniards acquired an equal
voice.
Mayo W. Hazeltine.

00:55:32 UTC
Contents[385]386387388389390391392Issue Table of
ContentsThe North American Review, Vol. 167, No. 503 (Oct.,
1898), pp. 385-512What Shall Be Done about the Philippines?
[pp. 385-392]Our Policy in China [pp. 393-409]The Movement
for Municipal Reform [pp. 410-417]The Origin of Morality [pp.
418-427]Our National Folly and Its Victims [pp. 428-433]The
United States Navy under the New Conditions of National Life
[pp. 434-444]Manual Training and the Poor [pp. 445-456]The
Minimum Capital of a National Bank [pp. 457-464]Legislative
Elections in France [pp. 465-472]Pilikias [pp. 473-
480]Bismarck and Motley. With Correspondence till Now
Unpublished. II [pp. 481-496]Notes and CommentsThe
Relations between Organized Self Help and State Aid in Ireland
[pp. 497-498]Cable Cutting in War [pp. 498-502]Danger of
Political Apathy [pp. 502-504]Fancy Work or Nature Studies
[pp. 504-507]How Can Homicide Be Decreased [pp. 507-
509]Boys' Clubs [pp. 509-512]
A D o c u m e n t a r y R e a d e r
EDITED BY
WILLIAM A. LINK AND SUSANNAH J. LINK
THE
GILDED AGE
AND
PROGRESSIVE
ERA

EDITED
BY
LINK
AND
LINK
U n c o v e r i n g T h e P a s t
D o c u m e n t a r y R e a d e r s i n A m e r i c a n H i s t o r
y
“This treasure trove of documents is a terrifi c classroom
resource. The Links chose
carefully to achieve geographic, chronological, and thematic
balance. The book’s
organization represents all aspects of the Gilded Age and
Progressive Era and ties them
together interpretatively. Professors will fi nd themselves
assigning documents from the
reader week after week. This is one of the most useful teaching
books I’ve seen.”
Glenda Gilmore, Yale University
“Three cheers for William and Susannah Link, whose
documentary reader offers
interpretive structure and focus alongside its thoughtfully
chosen collection of primary
sources. This reader is authoritative while still compact, giving
enough points of view to
spark controversy without closing down conversation. It is the
perfect companion to the
US survey or more specialized courses in modern American
history.”

Jane Dailey, University of Chicago
“Wisely selected fi rst-person accounts coupled with the
editors’ trenchant introductions
bring to life civics and society at the dawn of modern America.
It is a valuable resource
that will engage students.”
Andrew Haley, University of Southern Mississippi
Following the conclusion of the Civil War and Reconstruction,
the Progressive Era
brought a wholesale restructuring of social and political
institutions. The period from
the 1870s through World War I was characterized by the
nationalization of American
life, the establishment of the United States as a global power,
the refashioning of social
relationships, and the reconstruction of the political system.
This volume gathers together documents that illustrate the
variety of experiences and
themes involved in the transformation of American political,
economic, and social systems
during this period, and presents the essential perspectives of
race, class, gender, and culture.
Situating the documents within their historical context, the book
is divided into fi ve
thematic sections: the American frontier after Reconstruction;
the transformations that
arrived with industrialization; the social and political crisis that
gripped the United States
at the end of the nineteenth century; reform; imperialism and
war.

This collection enables readers to engage actively in historical
interpretation and to understand
the interplay between social and political forces in the period,
exploring the experiences of
people during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era from a
variety of diverse perspectives.
William A. Link is Richard J. Milbauer Professor of History at
the University of Florida.
His publications include Roots of Secession: Slavery and
Politics in Antebellum Virginia (2003)
and Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern
American Conservatism (2008).
Susannah J. Link is instructor in American history at the
University of North Carolina,
Greensboro.
Cover image: ‘The Trust Giant’s Point of View’, cartoon by
Horace Taylor
showing John D. Rockefeller holding the White House and
President
McKinley in the palm of his hand, 1900. © Photos 12/Alamy.
Cover design by Simon Levy
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Uncovering the Past: Documentary Readers in American
History
Series Editors: Steven Lawson and Nancy Hewitt

The books in this series introduce students in American history
courses to two
important dimensions of historical analysis. They enable
students to engage
actively in historical interpretation, and they further students’
understanding
of the interplay between social and political forces in historical
developments.
Consisting of primary sources and an introductory essay, these
readers are
aimed at the major courses in the American history curriculum,
as outlined
further below. Each book in the series will be approximately
225–250 pages,
including a 25–30‐page introduction addressing key issues and
questions
about the subject under consideration, a discussion of sources
and method-
ology, and a bibliography of suggested secondary readings.
Published
Paul G.E. Clemens
The Colonial Era: A Documentary
Reader
Sean Patrick Adams
The Early American Republic:
A Documentary Reader
Stanley Harrold
The Civil War and Reconstruction:

Steven Mintz
African American Voices:
A Documentary Reader, 1619–1877
Robert P. Ingalls and David K.
Johnson
The United States Since 1945:
Camilla Townsend
American Indian History:
Steven Mintz
Mexican American Voices:
Brian Ward
The 1960s: A Documentary
Reader
Nancy Rosenbloom
Women in American History Since
1880: A Documentary Reader
Jeremi Suri
American Foreign Relations Since
Carol Faulkner
Women in American History to
David Welky
America Between the Wars,
1919–1941: A Documentary

Reader
William A. Link and
Susannah J. Link
The Gilded Age and Progressive
Era: A Documentary Reader
ffirs.indd iiffirs.indd ii 11/24/2011 3:07:14 PM11/24/2011
3:07:14 PM
The Gilded Age
and Progressive Era
Edited by
William A. Link
and Susannah J. Link
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
ffirs.indd iiiffirs.indd iii 11/24/2011 3:07:15 PM11/24/2011
3:07:15 PM
This edition first published 2012
© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Limited
Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in
February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing
program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific,
Technical, and Medical business to form

Wiley‐Blackwell.
Registered Office
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Editorial Offices
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For details of our global editorial offices, for customer
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The right of William A. Link and Susannah J. Link to be
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
The Gilded Age and Progressive Era : a documentary reader /
edited by William A. Link
and Susannah J. Link.
p. cm. – (Uncovering the past : documentary readers in
American history ; 12)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4443-3138-7 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4443-3139-
4 (paperback)
1. United States–History–1865-1921–Sources. 2. United States–
Politics and
government–1865-1933–Sources. 3. United States–Social
conditions–1865-1918–Sources.
4. Progressivism (United States politics)–Sources. I. Link,
William A. II. Link, Susannah J.
E661.G455 2012
973.8–dc23
2011034658

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library.
Set in 10/12.5pt Sabon by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry,
India
1 2012
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3:07:15 PM
54 The Gilded Age and Progressive Era
2 Chief Joseph, Selected Statements and Speeches
by the Nez Percé Chief, 1877–79 2
Chief Joseph ( ca. 1840–1904), honoring the words of his
dying father, refused
to sign a treaty turning Nez Percé lands in Idaho over to the
Americans, and
joined with other non‐signing tribes in the region who resisted
their removal
to reservations. After a series of confrontations with American
settlers and
soldiers, the allied tribes fled toward Canada, but were stopped
short of the
border by the troops of Colonel Nelson Miles. This clash
resulted in the
deaths of several key Indian leaders, and Chief Joseph finally
surrendered .
The remaining Nez Percé were relocated to Montana, Kansas,
and
eventually to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Many, however,

succumbed to
epidemic diseases. Chief Joseph campaigned to return to the
Northwest, and,
in 1885, the remaining band of 286 Nez Percé moved to several
northwestern
reservations. Joseph has become a strong symbol of the Native
Americans’
long struggle for justice.
The first white men of your people who came to our country
were named
Lewis and Clark. They brought many things which our people
had never
seen. They talked straight and our people gave them a great
feast as proof
that their hearts were friendly. They made presents to our chiefs
and our
people made presents to them. We had a great many horses of
which we
gave them what they needed, and they gave us guns and tobacco
in return.
All the Nez Percé made friends with Lewis and Clark and
agreed to let them
pass through their country and never to make war on white men.
This
promise the Nez Percé have never broken.
II
For a short time we lived quietly. But this could not last. White
men had
found gold in the mountains around the land of the Winding
Water. They
stole a great many horses from us and we could not get them
back because
we were Indians. The white men told lies for each other. They

drove off a
great many of our cattle. Some white men branded our young
cattle so they
could claim them. We had no friends who would plead our cause
before the
law councils. It seemed to me that some of the white men in
Wallowa were
doing these things on purpose to get up a war. They knew we
were not
2 Chester Anders Fee, Chief Joseph: The Biography of a
Great Indian (New York: Wilson‐Erickson,
1936) (
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/jospeak
.htm ).
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Native Americans 55
strong enough to fight them. I labored hard to avoid trouble and
bloodshed.
We gave up some of our country to the white men, thinking that
then we
could have peace. We were mistaken. The white men would not
let us alone.
We could have avenged our wrongs many times, but we did not.
Whenever
the Government has asked for help against other Indians we
have never
refused. When the white men were few and we were strong we
could have
killed them off, but the Nez Percé wishes to live at peace.

On account of the treaty made by the other bands of the Nez
Percé the
white man claimed my lands. We were troubled with white men
crowding
over the line. Some of them were good men, and we lived on
peaceful terms
with them, but they were not all good. Nearly every year the
agent came
over from Lapwai and ordered us to the reservation. We always
replied that
we were satisfied to live in Wallowa. We were careful to refuse
the presents
or annuities which he offered.
Through all the years since the white man came to Wallowa we
have been
threatened and taunted by them and the treaty Nez Percé. They
have given
us no rest. We have had a few good friends among the white
men, and they
have always advised my people to bear these taunts without
fighting. Our
young men are quick tempered and I have had great trouble in
keeping them
from doing rash things. I have carried a heavy load on my back
ever since
I was a boy. I learned then that we were but few while the white
men were
many, and that we could not hold our own with them. We were
like deer.
They were like grizzly bears. We had a small country. Their
country was
large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit
Chief made
them. They were not; and would change the mountains and

rivers if they did
not suit them.
III
[At his surrender in the Bear Paw Mountains, 1877]
Tell General Howard that I know his heart. What he told me
before I have
in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed.
Looking Glass is
dead, Tu‐hul‐hil‐sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the
young men
who now say yes or no. He who led the young men [Joseph’s
brother Alikut]
is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children
are freezing
to death. My people—some of them have run away to the hills
and have
no blankets and no food. No one knows where they are—
perhaps freezing
to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see
how many of
them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear
me, my
chiefs, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands
I will fight
no more against the white man.
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IV
[On a visit to Washington, DC, 1879]
At last I was granted permission to come to Washington and
bring my
friend Yellow Bull and our interpreter with me. I am glad I
came. I have
shaken hands with a good many friends, but there are some
things I want to
know which no one seems able to explain. I cannot understand
how the
Government sends a man out to fight us, as it did General
Miles, and then
breaks his word. Such a government has something wrong about
it. I cannot
understand why so many chiefs are allowed to talk so many
different ways,
and promise so many different things. I have seen the Great
Father Chief
[President Hayes]; the Next Great Chief [Secretary of the
Interior]; the
Commissioner Chief; the Law Chief; and many other law chiefs
[Congressmen] and they all say they are my friends, and that I
shall have
justice, but while all their mouths talk right I do not understand
why noth-
ing is done for my people. I have heard talk and talk but nothing
is done.
Good words do not last long unless they amount to something.
Words do
not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country
now overrun
by white men. They do not protect my father’s grave. They do
not pay for
my horses and cattle. Good words do not give me back my

children. Good
words will not make good the promise of your war chief,
General Miles.
Good words will not give my people a home where they can live
in peace
and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to
nothing.
It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words
and all the
broken promises. There has been too much talking by men who
had no right
to talk. Too many misinterpretations have been made; too many
misunder-
standings have come up between the white men and the Indians.
If the white
man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace.
There need
be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them the same laws.
Give them all
an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the
same Great
Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all
people, and
all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well
expect all riv-
ers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man
should be
contented penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
If you tie a
horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an
Indian up on
a small spot of earth and compel him to stay there, he will not
be contented
nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the Great
White Chiefs
where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall

stay in one
place, while he sees white men going where they please. They
cannot tell me.
I only ask of the Government to be treated as all other men are
treated. If
I cannot go to my own home, let me have a home in a country
where my
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Native Americans 57
people will not die so fast. I would like to go to Bitter Root
Valley. There my
people would be happy; where they are now they are dying.
Three have died
since I left my camp to come to Washington.
When I think of our condition, my heart is heavy. I see men of
my own
race treated as outlaws and driven from country to country, or
shot down
like animals.
I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own with
the white
men as we are. We only ask an even chance to live as other men
live. We ask
to be recognized as men. We ask that the same law shall work
alike on all
men. If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If a
white man

breaks the law, punish him also.
Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work,
free to trade
where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow
the religion
of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself—and I will
obey every
law or submit to the penalty.
Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each
other then
we shall have no more wars. We shall be all alike—brothers of
one father
and mother, with one sky above us and one country around us
and one
government for all. Then the Great Spirit Chief who rules above
will smile
upon this land and send rain to wash out the bloody spots made
by brothers’
hands upon the face of the earth. For this time the Indian race is
waiting
and praying. I hope no more groans of wounded men and women
will
ever go to the ear of the Great Spirit Chief above, and that all
people may
be one people.
Hin‐mah‐too‐yah‐lat‐kekht has spoken for his people.
3 Lakota Accounts of the Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1896 3
The massacre of Lakota Indians by the US Army took place on
December
29, 1890, and was a reaction against the Ghost Dance, which
was part of a

new religious fervor among Native Americans that called for a
rejection of
attempts by whites to force Indians to assimilate and for a
return to Native
American culture. Sitting Bull had been killed two weeks earlier
while
resisting arrest, and another Lakota leader, Big Foot, led his
followers toward
Pine Ridge Reservation. They were met by US cavalry and were
led to
Wounded Knee Creek to be disarmed. As they were surrounded
by the
3 James Mooney, “The Ghost‐dance Religion and the Sioux
Outbreak of 1890,” 14th Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution,
1892–93 , Part 2 (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1896), pp. 884–6.
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EDITED BY
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history.”
the Progressive Era

war.
Greensboro.
Horace Taylor
President
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History
courses to two
students to engage
understanding
developments.
readers are
as outlined
225–250 pages,
questions
and method-
Published
Paul G.E. Clemens
Reader
Sean Patrick Adams
Stanley Harrold

Steven Mintz
Johnson
Camilla Townsend
Steven Mintz
Brian Ward
Reader
Nancy Rosenbloom
Jeremi Suri
Carol Faulkner

David Welky
Reader
William A. Link and
Susannah J. Link
3:07:14 PM
The Gilded Age
and Progressive Era
Edited by
William A. Link
3:07:15 PM

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Immigrants in the Industrial Age 165
5 Theodore Roosevelt, Hyphenated Americanism, 1915 11
From the 1890s until the early 1920s, the term “hyphenated
American”
was used as a derogatory description of immigrant Americans
who
retained strong loyalties to their native countries, particularly
Irish‐
Americans and German‐Americans during World War I. Both
Theodore
Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson applied this term to those they
believed
did not have as their primary goal the best interests of the
American
republic.
Figure 7.2 Sweatshop in Ludlow Street Tenement, New
York, 1889. From

Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives , 1890 (New York:
Dover Publications,
1971), p. 96.
Source : Photograph by Jacob A. Riis, Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs
Division.
11 October 12, 1915, address to the Knights of Columbus,
Carnegie Hall, New York City.
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The following speech, delivered to the Irish‐American,
Catholic group
Knights of Columbus, has been used up to the present day by
conservative
and nativist Americans who disagree with growing
multiculturalism, ethnic
identity, and immigration in American society. Historians have
disagreed over
the intent of Roosevelt’s speech and have used it to justify
nationalism and
anti‐immigrant sentiments, as well as to confirm the view that
Roosevelt was
a racist who opposed immigration to the United States by
non‐Europeans,
particularly Asians.
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism.
When I refer
to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized

Americans. Some of
the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized
Americans,
Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an
American at
all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the
hyphen as of
the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before
the hyphen.
Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our
allegiance must be
purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any
man who
holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal
to this
Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good
an American
as any one else.
The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin,
of
preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all,
would be
to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an
intricate
knot of German‐Americans, Irish‐Americans,
English‐Americans, French‐
Americans, Scandinavian‐Americans or Italian‐Americans, each
preserving
its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy
with
Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the
American
Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing
else are
hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them

in this
country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and
who yet
shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign
land,
plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body
politic. He has
no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he
feels his
real heart‐allegiance, the better it will be for every good
American. There
is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good
American. The
only man who is a good American is the man who is an
American and
nothing else.
For an American citizen to vote as a German‐American, an
Irish‐
American, or an English‐American, is to be a traitor to
American
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Immigrants in the Industrial Age 167
institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize
American
politicians by threats of the foreign vote are engaged in treason
to the
American Republic.
Americanization

The foreign‐born population of this country must be an
Americanized pop-
ulation—no other kind can fight the battles of America either in
war or
peace. It must talk the language of its native‐born
fellow‐citizens, it must
possess American citizenship and American ideals. It must
stand firm by its
oath of allegiance in word and deed and must show that in very
fact it has
renounced allegiance to every prince, potentate, or foreign
government. It
must be maintained on an American standard of living so as to
prevent
labor disturbances in important plants and at critical times.
None of these
objects can be secured as long as we have immigrant colonies,
ghettos, and
immigrant sections, and above all they cannot be assured so
long as we
consider the immigrant only as an industrial asset. The
immigrant must not
be allowed to drift or to be put at the mercy of the exploiter.
Our object is
not to imitate one of the older racial types, but to maintain a
new American
type and then to secure loyalty to this type. We cannot secure
such loyalty
unless we make this a country where men shall feel that they
have justice
and also where they shall feel that they are required to perform
the duties
imposed upon them. The policy of “Let alone” which we have
hitherto
pursued is thoroughly vicious from two stand‐points. By this

policy we have
permitted the immigrants, and too often the native‐born laborers
as well, to
suffer injustice. Moreover, by this policy we have failed to
impress upon the
immigrant and upon the native‐born as well that they are
expected to do
justice as well as to receive justice, that they are expected to be
heartily and
actively and single‐mindedly loyal to the flag no less than to
benefit by living
under it.
We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of
immi-
grants merely as industrial assets while they remain social
outcasts and
menaces any more than fifty years ago we could afford to keep
the black
man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. We
cannot
afford to build a big industrial plant and herd men and women
about it
without care for their welfare. We cannot afford to permit
squalid over-
crowding or the kind of living system which makes impossible
the decen-
cies and necessities of life. We cannot afford the low wage rates
and the
merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both
individual and
family life and morals to the industrial machinery. We cannot
afford to
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leave American mines, munitions plants, and general resources
in the hands
of alien workmen, alien to America and even likely to be made
hostile to
America by machinations such as have recently been provided
in the case of
the two foreign embassies in Washington. We cannot afford to
run the risk
of having in time of war men working on our railways or
working in our
munition plants who would in the name of duty to their own
foreign coun-
tries bring destruction to us. Recent events have shown us that
incitements
to sabotage and strikes are in the view of at least two of the
great foreign
powers of Europe within their definition of neutral practices.
What would
be done to us in the name of war if these things are done to us
in the name
of neutrality?
One America
All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no matter
in what
way we may severally worship our Creator, must stand shoulder
to shoulder
in a united America for the elimination of race and religious
prejudice. We
must stand for a reign of equal justice to both big and small. We

must insist
on the maintenance of the American standard of living. We must
stand for
an adequate national control which shall secure a better
training of our
young men in time of peace, both for the work of peace and for
the work of
war. We must direct every national resource, material and
spiritual, to the
task not of shirking difficulties, but of training our people to
overcome
difficulties. Our aim must be, not to make life easy and soft,
not to soften
soul and body, but to fit us in virile fashion to do a great work
for all
mankind. This great work can only be done by a mighty
democracy, with
these qualities of soul, guided by those qualities of mind, which
will both
make it refuse to do injustice to any other nation, and also
enable it to hold
its own against aggression by any other nation. In our relations
with the
outside world, we must abhor wrongdoing, and disdain to
commit it, and
we must no less disdain the baseness of spirit which lamely
submits to
wrongdoing. Finally and most important of all, we must strive
for the
establishment within our own borders of that stern and lofty
standard of
personal and public neutrality which shall guarantee to each
man his rights,
and which shall insist in return upon the full performance by
each man of
his duties both to his neighbor and to the great nation whose

flag must
symbolize in the future as it has symbolized in the past the
highest hopes of
all mankind.
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EDITED BY
THE
GILDED AGE
AND
PROGRESSIVE
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EDITED
BY
LINK
AND
LINK
y

history.”

the Progressive Era
war.

Greensboro.
Horace Taylor
President
T
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A
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D
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R
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S
IV
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A
History
courses to two
students to engage
understanding
developments.
readers are

as outlined
225–250 pages,
questions
and method-
Published
Paul G.E. Clemens
Reader
Sean Patrick Adams
Stanley Harrold
Steven Mintz
Johnson
Camilla Townsend

Steven Mintz
Brian Ward
Reader
Nancy Rosenbloom
Jeremi Suri
Carol Faulkner
David Welky
Reader
William A. Link and
Susannah J. Link
3:07:14 PM

The Gilded Age
and Progressive Era
Edited by
William A. Link
3:07:15 PM
Wiley‐Blackwell.
Registered Office
Editorial Offices
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Act 1988.

4 (paperback)
Politics and
E661.G455 2012
973.8–dc23
2011034658
Library.
India
1 2012
3:07:15 PM

The Debate about World War I 307
decided whether it would submit to military despotism and an
endless armed
peace—if peace it could be called—or whether they would put
down the
menace of German militarism and inaugurate the United States
of the World.
We of the colored race have no ordinary interest in the
outcome. That
which the German power represents today spells death to the
aspirations of
Negroes and all darker races for equality, freedom and
democracy. Let us
not hesitate. Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special
grievances and
close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow
citizens and
the allied nations that are fighting for democracy. We make no
ordinary
sacrifice, but we make it gladly and willingly with our eyes
lifted to the hills.
November 1918
It was a tremendous speech that Woodrow Wilson made in New
York City,
September 27, 1918. On one point alone was its meaning vague
to us of the
darker world, who listened with bated breath. Listen to these
words:
“Shall the military power of any nation or group of nations be
suffered to

determine the fortunes of peoples over whom they have no right
to rule,
except the right of force?
“Shall strong nations be free to wrong nations and make them
subject to
their purpose and interest?
“Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in their own
internal affairs,
by arbitrary and irresponsible force, or by their own will and
choice?
“Shall there be a common standard of right and privilege for all
peoples
and nations, or shall the strong do as they will and the weak
suffer without
redress?
Is it possible that these flaming arrows were not aimed at the
Vardamans in
Mississippi as well as at Huns in Europe? Is it thinkable that
President Wilson
did not have clearly in mind Kamerun as well as Serbia? It is
neither possible
or thinkable if English is English and Justice is Justice, and
with this true, Mr.
Wilson’s speech is one of the half dozen significant utterances
of human history.
2 Eugene V. Debs, The Canton, Ohio, Anti‐War Speech, 1918
2
Eugene Debs (1855–1926) was born in Terre Haute, Indiana,
and worked in
the railroad industry as a boilerman. Subsequently, he became

involved in
union organizing in the conservative railway brotherhoods, but
he eventually
2 Eugene V. Debs, Eugene V. Debs Speaks , ed. Jean Y.
Tussey (New York: Pathfinder Press,
1970), pp. 243–79. Copyright © 1970 by Pathfinder Press.
Reprinted by permission.
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helped to organize a more radical group, the American Railway
Union, in
1893. Debs became involved in the famous Pullman strike in the
Chicago
area in 1894, and he was sent to jail for ignoring a court order
requiring the
unions to return to work. Debs subsequently helped to organize
the Socialist
Party of America, and he ran as its presidential candidate five
times between
1900 and 1920.
Debs, like most other Socialists, opposed American
intervention in World
War I, and here he denounced the Wilson administration’s
prosecutions of
Socialists for their antiwar activities. In this famous speech, at
the state
convention of the Socialist party in Canton, Ohio, Debs
connected the war

with forces of international capitalism. Because of this speech,
he was
prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917 and was sentenced
to ten years
in federal prison. He served time in the federal penitentiary in
Atlanta from
April 1919 to December 1921 – and ran for president from
prison, attracting
nearly a million votes – when President Warren G. Harding
commuted his
sentence.
Comrades, friends and fellow‐workers, for this very cordial
greeting, this
very hearty reception, I thank you all with the fullest
appreciation of your
interest in and your devotion to the cause for which I am to
speak to you
this afternoon. . . .
I realize that, in speaking to you this afternoon, there are
certain limitations
placed upon the right of free speech. I must be exceedingly
careful, prudent,
as to what I say, and even more careful and prudent as to how I
say it. I may
not be able to say all I think; but I am not going to say anything
that I do
not think. I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail
than to be a
sycophant and coward in the streets. They may put those boys in
jail—and
some of the rest of us in jail—but they cannot put the Socialist
movement in
jail. Those prison bars separate their bodies from ours, but their
souls are

here this afternoon. They are simply paying the penalty that all
men have
paid in all the ages of history for standing erect, and for seeking
to pave
the way to better conditions for mankind. . . .
They who have been reading the capitalist newspapers realize
what a
capacity they have for lying. We have been reading them lately.
They know
all about the Socialist Party—the Socialist movement, except
what is true.
Only the other day they took an article that I had written and
most of you
have read it—most of you members of the party, at least—and
they made it
appear that I had undergone a marvelous transformation. I had
suddenly
become changed—had in fact come to my senses; I had ceased
to be a wicked
Socialist, and had become a respectable Socialist, a patriotic
Socialist—as if
I had ever been anything else.
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What was the purpose of this deliberate misrepresentation? It is
so self‐
evident that it suggests itself. The purpose was to sow the seeds
of dissension
in our ranks; to have it appear that we were divided among

ourselves; that
we were pitted against each other, to our mutual undoing. But
Socialists
were not born yesterday. They know how to read capitalist
newspapers; and
to believe exactly the opposite of what they read. . . .
They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our
institutions are
democratic; that we are a free and self‐governing people. This is
too much,
even for a joke. But it is not a subject for levity; it is an
exceedingly serious
matter.
To whom do the Wall Street Junkers 3 in our country marry
their daughters?
After they have wrung their countless millions from your sweat,
your agony
and your life’s blood, in a time of war as in a time of peace,
they invest these
untold millions in the purchase of titles of broken‐down
aristocrats, such as
princes, dukes, counts and other parasites and no‐accounts.
Would they be
satisfied to wed their daughters to honest workingmen? To real
democrats?
Oh, no! They scour the markets of Europe for vampires who are
titled and
nothing else. And they swap their millions for the titles, so that
matrimony
with them becomes literally a matter of money.
These are the gentry who are today wrapped up in the American
flag, who
shout their claim from the housetops that they are the only

patriots, and
who have their magnifying glasses in hand, scanning the
country for evidence
of disloyalty, eager to apply the brand of treason to the men
who dare to
even whisper their opposition to Junker rule in the United Sates.
No wonder
Sam Johnson declared that “patriotism is the last refuge of the
scoundrel.”
He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least
their prototypes,
for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the
exploiter who
has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or
both to
deceive and overawe the people.
They would have you believe that the Socialist Party consists
in the main
of disloyalists and traitors. It is true in a sense not at all to their
discredit. We
frankly admit that we are disloyalists and traitors to the real
traitors of this
nation . . . .
Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and
plunder. In
the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles
whose
towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge
their domains,
to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they
declared war
upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any
more than the

3 The Junkers were the Prussian landed aristocracy who
dominated Germany’s social,
political, and military leadership.
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modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The
feudal barons
of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists
of our day,
declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the
battles. The poor,
ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe
that when
their masters declared war upon one another, it was their
patriotic duty to
fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the
profit and
glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And
that is war
in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the
subject class
has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to
gain and noth-
ing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and
all to lose—
especially their lives.
They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be
your patriotic
duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their

command. But
in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a
voice in
declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any
nation in
any age has ever been declared by the people.
And here let me emphasize the fact—and it cannot be repeated
too often—
that the working class who fight all the battles, the working
class who make
the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their
blood and
furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either
declaring war or
making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both.
They alone
declare war and they alone make peace.
They are continually talking about your patriotic duty. It is not
their but
your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a
decided differ-
ence. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or
chucks them
into the trenches.
And now for all of us to do our duty! The clarion call is ringing
in our ears
and we cannot falter without being convicted of treason to
ourselves and to
our great cause. . . .
Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be
con-
cerned about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to

yourself and
you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.
Yes, in good time we are going to sweep into power in this
nation and
throughout the world. We are going to destroy all enslaving and
degrading
capitalist institutions and re‐create them as free and humanizing
institu-
tions. The world is daily changing before our eyes. The sun of
capitalism is
setting; the sun of socialism is rising. It is our duty to build the
new nation
and the free republic. We need industrial and social builders.
We Socialists
are the builders of the beautiful world that is to be. We are all
pledged to do
our part. We are inviting—aye challenging you this afternoon in
the name of
your own manhood and womanhood to join us and do your part.
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In due time the hour will strike and this great cause
triumphant—the
greatest in history—will proclaim the emancipation of the
working class
and the brotherhood of all mankind.
3 Espionage Act, 1917 4

The Espionage Act, along with an amendment passed in 1918
and often
called the Sedition Act, was passed by Congress and signed by
Woodrow
Wilson as a response to widespread fears in the United States
that alleged
traitors and anarchists were trying to sabotage the government
during World
War I. The portion of the law that places rigid restrictions on
freedom of
speech led to strenuous objection by people concerned about
civil liberty.
During the discussion of the bill in Congress, Representative
Martin Madden
of Illinois noted that, “while we are fighting to establish the
democracy of
the world, we ought not to do the thing that will establish
autocracy in
America.” A number of important Supreme Court cases resulted
from this
law and the Sedition Act : Schenck v . United States, Frohwerk
v . United States,
Debs v . United States, and Abrams v . United States. In
each of these cases,
the Supreme Court upheld the law. In Schenck, Justice Oliver
Wendell
Holmes wrote the unanimous opinion, which included the
doctrine of
“a clear and present danger.” This doctrine restricted speech
that might cause
widespread panic, unless there was an immediate danger, as in
yelling “Fire!”
in a movie theater. In Abrams, Holmes, in a famous dissent,
clarified this
doctrine when he wrote, “Only the emergency that makes it
immediately

dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time
warrants making
any exception to the sweeping command, ‘Congress shall make
no law
abridging the freedom of speech .’”
The law was used especially often against Socialists, such as
Eugene Debs,
and in western states where the International Workers of the
World were
active. Because the law could be enforced at the discretion of
US attorneys, it
was applied unevenly throughout the country. Convicted under
the law for
making a speech that allegedly restricted military recruiting,
Debs was
sentenced to ten years in prison (although his sentence was
commuted by
Warren G. Harding after five years) and ran for president in
1920 from
prison. The poet, e.e. cummings, was convicted and served three
months of
military detention for saying openly that he did not hate
Germans. Albert S.
Burleson, the postmaster general, used the law as justification
for censoring
the mail if a local postmaster believed that it constituted
antiwar propaganda.
4 “Session I, Chapter 30,” Statutes at Large of the United
States of America: from April, 1917,
to March, 1919 , Concurrent Resolutions of the Two Houses of
Congress and Recent Treaties,
Conventions, and Executive Proclamations Amendment to the
Constitution , Vol. XL, Part I
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919), pp. 217–

19.
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“Lynch Law in America”
(Speech Given in Chicago, Illinois; Jan. 1900)
by
Ida B Wells
Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature
of an
hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the
unspeakable
brutality of an insane mob. It represents the cool, calculating
deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is
an
“unwritten law” that justifies them in putting human beings to
death
without complaint under oath, without trial by jury, without
opportunity
to make defense, and without right of appeal. The “unwritten
law” first
found excuse with the rough, rugged, and determined man who
left the
civilized centers of eastern States to seek for quick returns in
the gold-
fields of the far West. Following in uncertain pursuit of
continually
eluding fortune, they dared the savagery of the Indians, the
hardships of

mountain travel, and the constant terror of border State outlaws.
Naturally, they felt slight toleration for traitors in their own
ranks. It was
enough to fight the enemies from without; woe to the foe
within! Far
removed from and entirely without protection of the courts of
civilized
life, these fortune-seekers made laws to meet their varying
emergencies.
The thief who stole a horse, the bully who “jumped” a claim,
was a
common enemy. If caught he was promptly tried, and if found
guilty was
hanged to the tree under which the court convened.
Those were busy days of busy men. They had no time to give
the
prisoner a bill of exception or stay of execution. The only way a
man
had to secure a stay of execution was to behave himself. Judge
Lynch
was original in methods but exceedingly effective in procedure.
He
made the charge, impaneled the jurors, and directed the
execution. When
the court adjourned, the prisoner was dead. Thus lynch law held
sway in
the far West until civilization spread into the Territories and the
orderly
processes of law took its place. The emergency no longer
existing,
lynching gradually disappeared from the West.

But the spirit of mob procedure seemed to have fastened itself
upon the
lawless classes, and the grim process that at first was invoked to
declare
justice was made the excuse to wreak vengeance and cover
crime. It next
appeared in the South, where centuries of Anglo-Saxon
civilization had
made effective all the safeguards of court procedure. No
emergency
called for lynch law. It asserted its sway in defiance of law and
in favor
of anarchy. There it has flourished ever since, marking the
thirty years of
its existence with the inhuman butchery of more than ten
thousand men,
women, and children by shooting, drowning, hanging, and
burning them
alive. Not only this, but so potent is the force of example that
the
lynching mania has spread throughout the North and middle
West. It is
now no uncommon thing to read of lynchings north of Mason
and
Dixon’s line, and those most responsible for this fashion
gleefully point
to these instances and assert that the North is no better than the
South.
This is the work of the “unwritten law” about which so much is
said, and
in whose behest butchery is made a pastime and national
savagery
condoned. The first statute of this “unwritten law” was written
in the
blood of thousands of brave men who thought that a government

that
was good enough to create a citizenship was strong enough to
protect it.
Under the authority of a national law that gave every citizen the
right to
vote, the newly-made citizens chose to exercise their suffrage.
But the
reign of the national law was short-lived and illusionary. Hardly
had the
sentences dried upon the statute-books before one Southern
State after
another raised the cry against “negro domination” and
proclaimed there
was an “unwritten law” that justified any means to resist it.
Ida B. Wells, “Lynch Law in America”, January 1900
2
Created for Lit2Go on the web at etc.usf.edu
http://etc.usf.edu
http://etc.usf.edu
The method then inaugurated was the outrages by the “red-
shirt” bands
of Louisiana, South Carolina, and other Southern States, which
were
succeeded by the Ku-Klux Klans. These advocates of the
“unwritten
law” boldly avowed their purpose to intimidate, suppress, and
nullify the
negro’s right to vote. In support of its plans the Ku-Klux Klans,
the “red-
shirt” and similar organizations proceeded to beat, exile, and
kill negroes

until the purpose of their organization was accomplished and
the
supremacy of the “unwritten law” was effected. Thus lynchings
began in
the South, rapidly spreading into the various States until the
national law
was nullified and the reign of the “unwritten law” was supreme.
Men
were taken from their homes by “red-shirt” bands and stripped,
beaten,
and exiled; others were assassinated when their political
prominence
made them obnoxious to their political opponents; while the Ku-
Klux
barbarism of election days, reveling in the butchery of
thousands of
colored voters, furnished records in Congressional
investigations that are
a disgrace to civilization.
The alleged menace of universal suffrage having been avoided
by the
absolute suppression of the negro vote, the spirit of mob murder
should
have been satisfied and the butchery of negroes should have
ceased. But
men, women, and children were the victims of murder by
individuals
and murder by mobs, just as they had been when killed at the
demands
of the “unwritten law” to prevent “negro domination.” Negroes
were
killed for disputing over terms of contracts with their
employers. If a few
barns were burned some colored man was killed to stop it. If a
colored

man resented the imposition of a white man and the two came to
blows,
the colored man had to die, either at the hands of the white man
then and
there or later at the hands of a mob that speedily gathered. If he
showed
a spirit of courageous manhood he was hanged for his pains, and
the
killing was justified by the declaration that he was a “saucy
nigger.”
Colored women have been murdered because they refused to tell
the
mobs where relatives could be found for “lynching bees.” Boys
of
fourteen years have been lynched by white representatives of
American
civilization. In fact, for all kinds of offenses—and, for no
offenses—
3
http://etc.usf.edu
http://etc.usf.edu
from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death
without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was
no
longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went
on just
the same. A new name was given to the killings and a new
excuse was
invented for so doing.

Again the aid of the “unwritten law” is invoked, and again it
comes to
the rescue. During the last ten years a new statute has been
added to the
“unwritten law.” This statute proclaims that for certain crimes
or alleged
crimes no negro shall be allowed a trial; that no white woman
shall be
compelled to charge an assault under oath or to submit any such
charge
to the investigation of a court of law. The result is that many
men have
been put to death whose innocence was afterward established;
and to-
day, under this reign of the “unwritten law,” no colored man, no
matter
what his reputation, is safe from lynching if a white woman, no
matter
what her standing or motive, cares to charge him with insult or
assault.
It is considered a sufficient excuse and reasonable justification
to put a
prisoner to death under this “unwritten law” for the frequently
repeated
charge that these lynching horrors are necessary to prevent
crimes
against women. The sentiment of the country has been appealed
to, in
describing the isolated condition of white families in thickly
populated
negro districts; and the charge is made that these homes are in
as great
danger as if they were surrounded by wild beasts. And the world
has

accepted this theory without let or hindrance. In many cases
there has
been open expression that the fate meted out to the victim was
only what
he deserved. In many other instances there has been a silence
that says
more forcibly than words can proclaim it that it is right and
proper that a
human being should be seized by a mob and burned to death
upon the
unsworn and the uncorroborated charge of his accuser. No
matter that
our laws presume every man innocent until he is proved guilty;
no
matter that it leaves a certain class of individuals completely at
the
mercy of another class; no matter that it encourages those
criminally
disposed to blacken their faces and commit any crime in the
calendar so
4
http://etc.usf.edu
http://etc.usf.edu
long as they can throw suspicion on some negro, as is
frequently done,
and then lead a mob to take his life; no matter that mobs make a
farce of
the law and a mockery of justice; no matter that hundreds of
boys are

being hardened in crime and schooled in vice by the repetition
of such
scenes before their eyes—if a white woman declares herself
insulted or
assaulted, some life must pay the penalty, with all the horrors of
the
Spanish Inquisition and all the barbarism of the Middle Ages.
The world
looks on and says it is well.
Not only are two hundred men and women put to death
annually, on the
average, in this country by mobs, but these lives are taken with
the
greatest publicity. In many instances the leading citizens aid
and abet by
their presence when they do not participate, and the leading
journals
inflame the public mind to the lynching point with scare-head
articles
and offers of rewards. Whenever a burning is advertised to take
place,
the railroads run excursions, photographs are taken, and the
same jubilee
is indulged in that characterized the public hangings of one
hundred
years ago. There is, however, this difference: in those old days
the
multitude that stood by was permitted only to guy or jeer. The
nineteenth
century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off
flesh, and
distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd.
If the
leaders of the mob are so minded, coal-oil is poured over the
body and

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