10. Prohibition “After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. “ - Amendment 18 (1919)
11. Female Suffrage “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. “ - Amendment 19 (1920)
37. Economic Distress: Banks Growing losses from bad loans Forced banks / investors to contract credit Forced businesses and consumers to reduce debt Stock Brokers to issue margin calls
38. Economic Distress: Employment Demand for goods decline -> price deflation Fewer goods -> companies cut production Lower production -> led to layoffs Layoffs lead to less consumption
39. Post-Crash of 1929 Problems Growing Unemployment Deflation Failing Banks International Distress (Debt Payments) Vocal (Socialist) Opposition to Capitalism
40. Enter Herbert Hoover Wealthy businessman in global mining Extensive private charity work during / after WWI Brought food and clothing relief to poor “To Hoover” meant to do good in Finland “Hoover Lunches” were free food for kids in need Secretary of Commerce (1921 – 1929) President (1929 – 1933) Conflicted by opposing personal desires to: Actively help people in need Not expand government to provide charity Regulate business activity centrally
41. Hoover Responds (1929 – 1930) Wanted to keep wages, prices and employment high Tried to convince business leaders to ignore market forces Agricultural Marketing Act (1929 – before stock crash) Authorized Federal Farm Board to buy/sell farm products Protectionist Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (1930) Raised prices on over 2,000 imported goods 1,028 Economists signed petition against the bill Foreign countries responded with tariffs on American goods Public works construction - boost employment (1930)
42. Hoover Admin. Responses (1931 – 1933) Democrats took control of House of Reps (1931) Small Republican Senate majority Some Republicans were Progressives (left) 1-year moratorium: war loan repayment (1931) Affects U.S. Banks / Lending institutions Japan Conquers Manchuria in China (1931) Breaking Washington Naval Treaty of 1922
43. Hoover Responses (1932 – 1933) Fends off “Bonus Army” with real army (July 28, 1932) WWI Veterans promised bonuses in 1945 but wanted them early Revenue Act of 1932 Marginal tax rate raised from 25 to 63% Doubled estate taxes Raised corporate taxes by 15% Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932) Loans made to banks/businesses (esp. RR) in distress Norris-La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act (1932) Begged FDR to boldly state his intentions (1933) Anything is better than uncertainty in business
44. Response to Hoover Hoover blamed for distress “Hoovervilles” – shanty / tent towns of homeless “Hoover wagons” – cars pulled by horses “Hoover blanket” – old newspaper used as blanket “Hoover flag” – empty pocket turned inside out “Hoover leather” – cardboard replaces shoe sole Conservatives accused him of being a socialist Socialists accused him of not going far enough Canadians did same to leader: “Bennet Buggies”
46. Economic Distress? Change Parties! Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Conservative” Democrat Accused Hoover of recklessly expanding government power Promised reduced expenditures & balanced budget Keep a “sound currency” (gold standard) “at all hazards” Regulation of banks, holding companies, utility rates Unemployment and old age protection “under state laws” Sought to appear bold, but without specific policies Willing to change only “foolish” traditions Surrounded himself with a “Brain Trust” of intellectuals Repeal Constitutional Amendment 18 (Prohibition) Sought to help “the forgotten man at the bottom” 1932: BIG Democratic Victory: FDR / House / Senate
Many returning soldiers cynical w/worldDisillusioned by the suffering of WWIOffended by the careless love of wealth in USASome move to Paris & later awed by Stalin’s USSR
Killed 20-40 million peopleWWI Casualties: 16 million dead / 21 million wounded
Two Italian anarchists (socialists) arrested, tried and hanged (after prolonged due process – hanged in 1927) for robbing and killing a paymaster in a town near Boston.
It happened on September 16th, 1920 at almost exactly noon, just a little southwest of the New York Stock Exchange in front of what was then the J.P. Morgan Bank at 23 Wall Street. A battered horse-drawn wagon drew up in front of the building, its driver walked away, and then there was a devastating explosion.The wagon had contained roughly 100 pounds of standard-issue industrial dynamite, which originally led investigators to assume that the disaster was an accident, but it quickly became clear that it was anything but. The bundle of explosives had been attached to a timer, and surrounded with cast iron window sash weights to make as much shrapnel as possible. Thirty people died (a toll that would eventually rise to 38) and hundreds were injured.Hearing the news, Boston and San Francisco moved to protect their own financial districts. Thirty policemen were assigned to the Madison Avenue home of Jack Morgan, heir of J.P. Morgan and head of the family since his father had died, in case the attack was more personal than general—Morgan had survived an assassination attempt just five years before.The first real suspect was Edwin P. Fischer, an American living in Hamilton, Ontario (and a former U.S. Open mixed doubles tennis champion) who had mailed warnings to his friends before the bomb went off. Unfortunately, after he travelled to New York to be questioned it became clear that he was mentally ill—during the interrogation he wore three suits, one over another, and attributed his warning to a premonition given to him by unseen spirits. Convinced that his prediction had been a coincidence, police released him to his family and he was institutionalized at the Amityville Insane Asylum (yes, that Amityville).Even while that was going on, suspicion had fallen on the followers of Luigi Galleani. Galleani was an Italian immigrant with a long record of anarchist agitation in Europe before he came to the United States in 1901. In 1903 he’d founded the CronacaSovversiva (“The Subversive Chronicle”), an Italian-language anarchist newspaper that circulated among working-class immigrants in the US northeast. Galleani eventually built up a circle of compatriots who were willing to engage in propaganda by the deed, and embarked on a series of terrorist attacks starting in 1914. These were mostly bombings in New York City, but included a spectacular mass poisoning at a banquet for the Archbishop of Chicago, George Mundelein, that affected 200 people.Beyond attacking the current order of things, the Galleanists’ hallmarks were conspiracy to protect those who committed attacks (the author of the banquet poisoning, Nestor Dondoglio alias Jean Crones, escaped to the east coast of the US and lived in hiding until he died in 1932), and retaliation if an anarchist was arrested. This last attitude was presumed to be the motive for the Wall Street bombing. The United States had entered WWI in 1917, and in response had passed the civil rights-battering Sedition Act of 1918. A series of much less deadly bombings in 1919 then provoked the Palmer Raids, which ultimately led to the deportation of eight Galleanists under the Act, including Luigi Galleani himself, and a whopping 249 Russian immigrants suspected of being connected to the Bolshevik Revolution (the raids also secured the directorship of the FBI for J. Edgar Hoover).Furthermore, two of Galleani’s contributors to CronacaSovversiva were Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In what would become one of the eight or nine “Trials of the Century” to punctuate the 20th, Sacco and Vanzetti had been arrested for the murder of Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli on May 5th, 1920, and indicted the day before the attack on Wall Street. A few minutes before the explosion a letter carrier found five sheets of paper, all printed with the same message, that had been deposited in a nearby mailbox:“Remember We will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you. American Anarchist Fighters”. That the Wall Street bombing might have been revenge for the indictment was one of the key factors leading to Sacco and Vanzetti’s problematic trial (the two may have committed the murders, are even likely to have, but their civil rights were certainly trampled on). With Luigi Galleani now in Italy his followers came to focus on the trial of their two compatriots to the exclusion of all else.As a result, the bombing was close to anarchism’s last hurrah as a political movement in the United States. After Sacco and Vanzetti’s execution there were attempts on the life of various figures involved in the trial; Sacco and Vanzetti’s trial judge, Webster Thayer, survived a bombing attempt in 1931, and in 1927 a cigarette manufacturer was targeted for trying to capitalize on the publicity by naming a brand after the pair. The last notable anarchist attack not connected to Sacco and Vanzetti was when rogue anarchist (if that isn’t an oxymoron) Giuseppe Zangara tried to assassinate Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933, but besides that the movement just faded away.The general public’s attitude to the bombing was defiant. The stock exchange’s directors met in the afternoon of the day of the attack and decided to re-open for business in the morning. When they did, the Sons of the American Revolution held a patriotic rally in front of the damaged J.P. Morgan building which was attended by thousands. The New York Herald and New York Sunboth ran articles full of quotes from stockbrokers and government officials working in the area, all saying they wouldn’t let events change their daily lives. The Dow Jones Industrial Average continued a dip that had begun before the attack, but eventually turned around and marched ever-upwards until 1929. The desire to seem unaffected spread to the point that the J.P. Morgan company even decided against replacing the shrapnel-scarred blocks at the base of their building. Visitors to 23 Wall Street can see the pockmarks even today.http://passingstrangeness.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/murder-on-wall-street/
Palmer Raids: Raids in the 1920’s of suspected socialists who were either put to jail or deported from the Untied States.Mitchell Palmer the new Attorney General appointed my Woodrow Wilson.Reasons for the Palmer RaidsIn April the Untied States post office found a total of 38 bombs sent out to big name politicians.An Italian anarchist was the blown up in front of Mitchell P almers house.These events led to enforcement officials to believe that terrible events were to occur. Leading to the arrest or deportation of any one suspicious.The first of the “Palmer Raids” was on November 7, 1919. 1,000’s of communists and anarchists were charged, and over 200 were deported to Finland and then later moved to RussiaThough there was no evidence of that communism was going to spread the “Palmer Raids” went on. In January 1920 over 6,000 were arrested.Many believed that Palmer did the raids so he would be a presidential nominee for the Democratic Party in the upcoming election.
Organized crime thrived in providing the boozeLed to police corruption & Kennedy fortuneMay have contributed to the recession 1919-21
Organized crime thrived in providing the boozeLed to police corruption & Kennedy fortuneMay have contributed to the recession 1919-21
Hitler on bottom left of left photo
Steepest deflation in 120 yearsFordney-McCumber Tariff was protectionist and hurt allies trying to sell goods to the USAStock markets thrivedStocks purchased with margin loans
Dangerous circle of debt and inflation created- Germans borrow U.S. Gold to pay Allied reparations- Allies use German gold to pay war debts to the U.S.- Germans resort to paper inflation out of desperation- German Hyperinflation by 1923 (3.25 × 106 percent per month)Nicholas II among high-ranking military leaders of the allied countries' forces.Description:Russian Emperor Nicholas II (third right) among high-ranking military leaders of the allied countries' forces, i.e., Marsengo, Italy (left), Baron Rickel, Belgium (second left), General Williams, Britain (third left), Marquis de Guiche, France (second right), and Colonel Londkievic, Serbia (right). World War One (1914-1918).http://visualrian.com/images/item/24387
Germans resort to paper inflation out of desperationHyperinflation by 19233.25 × 106 percent per month
Germans resort to paper inflation out of desperationHyperinflation by 19233.25 × 106 percent per month
Liberated in styles and behaviorFemale smoking and drinking became acceptableFlappers showed more skin and cut hairMovies popularized “liberated” female imageJazz music embodied spirit of freedom & emotionWar jobs liberated womenSpeakeasies
First advertisement by Radio in 1922Most people with electricity had radio by 1929
Buying on credit/installments popularizedReplaced the ice box
Buying on credit/installments popularizedReplaced the ice box
Trans-continental air travel a reality by WWII1927 - Solo non-stop transatlantic flight from NY to ParisCharles A. Lindbergh
Brokers/banks Liquidated stocks when extra cash not deposited
Many banks went bankrupt642 in 1929, >1284 in 1930, 2298 in 1931Fractional reserve banking magnified the effects.
