LAD #26 I have a Dream Speech

Martian Luther King starts off his speech similarly how Abraham Lincoln starts off his Gettysburg Address. Instead of four score and seven years ago, King starts off his with five score years ago. He says five score years ago, the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and it gave a beacon of hope from blacks throughout the country. But a hundred years later, the blacks are still not free and is still treated horribly. King explains the blacks have conjugated at the capital to cash in a check, 'a promissory note that the writers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution signed that every American would fall heir.' "The note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the 'unalienable Rights' of 'Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'" King continues to use this analogy of a check and a bank by saying that the whites have marked "insufficient funds" on their check of freedom. But King "refuse(s) to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. (He) refuse(s) to believe that there is insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation." So he wants to cash the overdue check in order to recieve "the riches of freedom and the security of justice." King moves on from the analogy and says this is a time for action so that they get the freedoms they deserve. Blacks can not wait wait any longer or use gradualism to get these desired freedoms. He says the revolt will continue "until the bright day of justice emerges." King goes on to say that blacks must fight for their freedom, but do so with dignity and pride. "We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence." He says we can not turn back and that do not "...wallow in the valley of dsespair..." King procliams that he has a dream that is "deeply rooted in the American dream." His dream is that blacks can live peacefully side by side with whites and that his four children can "one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." He concludes the speech repeating the words of an old African spiritual; "'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"'

LAD #25 Dawes Act

The Dawes Act called for the provision of land to indians on various reservations and extentsion of "the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians." the Act gave the president the power to call the assessment of and land for "agricultural and grazing purposes". The concept of the Dawes Act was to replace communal tribe land holdings with individually owned and maintained properties. It was an attempt basically to assimilate the Indians into the larger American society. It gave the Indians an opportunity to become American citizens, even though many did not want this; if "his residence (is) seperate and apart from any tribe of Indians therin, and has adopted the habits of civilized life, (he) is herby declared to be a citizen of the United States, and he is entitled to all rights, privleges, and immunities of such citizens. The Secretary of the Interior was given the power to "prescribe such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary to secure a just and equal distrubution thereof among the Indians residing upon any such reseervation". The provisions of the Dawes Act, however, was not to be extended "to the territory occupied by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles, and Osage, Miamies and Peorias, and Sacs and Foxes, in the Indian territory, nor any of the reservations of the Senecac Nation of the New York Indians in the state of New York, nor to that strip of territory in the state of Nebraska adjoining the Sioux Nation on the south added by executive order." Which is basically almost all the indians I know of.

LAD #24 Bryan’s “Cross of Gold”

In his speech, William Jennings Bryan spoke on behalf of the Democratic Party to endorse the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16:1; "we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government". The gold standard favors the wealthy minority and it does not benefit the common man, Bryan directs the speech towards the common man and he puts down McKinley's Republican platform. "This struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country". The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it". He also emphasizes the Democratic belief that the most important contributors to the American society are the common people. He champions "the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses".

LAD #23 The Populist Party Platform

The Populist Party emerged as a "response to the growth of industrialism". The Populists opposed the concentrated capital of banks and big businesses and they criticized the negative effects that industrialization had on American society. In their eyes, industrialization had "to the verge of moral, political and material ruin"; the "fruits of the toils" of the "plain people" are stolen "to build up the colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind", causing the gap between the social classes to further widen. The value of silver has been "demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold" yet what resulted was "falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, (and) the impoverishment of the producing class". As a progressive party, the Populist Party worked towards an end of "oppression, injustice, and poverty", and "equal rights and equal privileges securely established for all the men and women of" America.

LAD #22 McKinley's War Message

McKinley's message addresses the "crisis that has arisen in the relations" between the United States and Spain regarding the warfare that has raged in the neighboring island of Cuba for more than three years. The revolution in Cuba "has subjected the United States to great effort and expended in enforcing its neutrality laws, caused enormous losses to American trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoyance and disturbance among our citizens, and, by the exercise of cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized practices of warfare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the humane sympathies of our people." He is speaking on behalf of the safety, the staggering economy of the American people which has been hurt by the tensions with Cuba. McKinley's goal was armistice and "to bring about animmediate termination of the war" as peacefully as possible. He states the grounds of intervention being "in the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there", to protect the citizens of Cuba and "to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal protection", in interest of American commerce. The destruction the USS Maine, no matter how it was sunk, is impressive proof of a state of things in Cuba that is intolerable. For the time being, McKinley, "in the interest of humanity and to aid in preserving the lives of the starving people of the island, saw it necessary to "recommend that distribution of food and supplies be continues, and that an appropriation be made out to the public treasury to supplement the charity of the citizens."