LAD # 31 Wilson's Fourteen Points

Wilson’s Fourteen Points calls for peace and an international policy of openness. “The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world.” He also calls for a sense of national unity when he says that “all the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest”.
1. calls for public diplomacy
2. freedom of navigation of the seas – in both times of war and peace
3. equality of trade conditions
4. reduction of national armaments
5. impartial adjustment of all colonial claims – allowing the populations to have a voice in colonial decisions
6. “evacuation of all Russian territory” and assistance for the Russian government
7. sovereignty for Belgium
8. a correction of the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine and sovereignty for all French territories
9. “readjustment of the frontiers of Italy”
10. free opportunity to autonomous development for the peoples of Austria-Hungary
11. evacuation of Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro
12. Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees and sovereignty for the Turkish portion of the ottoman empire
13. erection of a sovereign polish state guaranteed by international covenant
14. “ a general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike”
Wilson asks for peace and mutual understand with Germany and international unity.

LAD # 30 Schenck vs. U.S. Cases

On March 3rd, 1919, Schenk was declared guilty with the “mailing of printed circulars in pursuance of a conspiracy to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service”, “an unlawful use of the mails for the transmission”, and for an “offence against the United States...to use the mails for the transmission of matter declared to be non-mailable”. Despite the protection of freedom of speech by the first amendment, Schenck’s distribution of printed documents posed a serious threat and danger so therefore Congress had the right to halt his activities. According to the testimony, Schenck was general secretary for the socialist party and he was in charge of the socialist headquarters from where the documents were sent. “The document in question upon its first printed side recited the first section of the Thirteenth Amendment, said that the idea embodied in it was violated by the Conscription Act and that a conscript is little better than a convict.” Schenck’s messages were: “"Do not submit to intimidation” and to “Assert your rights”. His impassioned document was to prevent the draft. “It denied the power to send our citizens away to foreign shores to shoot up the people of other lands, and added that words could not express the condemnation such cold-blooded ruthlessness deserves”. During times of peace, Schenck’s document may have been completely within the realm of the rights of a citizen, but his words were a threat to the smooth operation of the military as it was a time of war. It is similar to yelling fire in a crowded movie theatre when there is no fire: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force.” Schenck simply commited a crime that was an obstruction of the recruiting services.

LAD # 28 Clayton Anti-Trust Act

The Clayton Anti-Trust Act was set in place in order for the government to get a grip on regulating business. It was passed by Woodrow Wilson's administration after introduced by Alabama Democrat Henry De Lamar Clayton, Jr. This act helped set the base of the regulation of business done by the government today. Earlier in the past, the Sherman anti-Trust act was the only way the government could control big businesses.Theodore Roosevelt used the act to become America's first trust buster. The Clayton Anti-trust Act, passed alongside the Federal Trade Commission Act, was used to control the behaviors of large corporations that are not enforced under law. The major difference between the Clayton Anti-Trust Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act is that the Clayton Act can not be used against labor unions. The Sherman Anti-trust act was used to threaten labor unions such as the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor. One of very few companies exempt from the Clayton Anti-Trust Act was Major League Baseball due to its national heritage. With the new anti-trust act in place, labor unions could be formed and boycotts, picketing, and strikes were permitted without the threat of interference with the government.

LAD # 27 The Keating-Owen Child, Labor Act

The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916 "limited the working hours of children and forbade the interstate sale of goods produced by child labor." The 1900 census showed that two million children were working all across America, all ranging from small child to teen. This census caused a movement that fought for the end of child labor. Lewis Hines and other muckrakers took pictures of children laboring in factories where they were forced to fix dangerous machinery and do back-breaking work in coal mines for long hours. Many influential men joined the fight against child labor, including Carl Marx and Charles Dickens. Dickens wrote many books, including Oliver Twist, that portrayed young orphans working in factories and living in poorhouses in London. Albert Leveridge first proposed the bill in 1906 and "used the government's ability to regulate interstate commerce to regulate child labor. The act banned the sale of products from any factory, shop, or cannery that employed children under the age of 14, from any mine that employed children under the age of 16, and from any facility that had children under the age of 16 work at night or for more than 8 hours during the day." This law was eventually passed by Congress and signed by Woodrow Wilson, however, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Hammer vs. Dagenhart Case. This was because "it overstepped the purpose of the government's power to regulate production and commerce." Another law, the Child Labor Tax Law of 1919 was proposed, but soon ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Not until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was there a successful law enforcing child labor regulations, which is still upheld today.

LAD # 29 Wilson's First Inaugural

Wilson begins his inaugural address by praising the political system and the industrial success of the country. "But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded. But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded." He says that Americans are wasteful. The physical and spiritual cost cost of human life and natural energy has not been reviewed. "With the great Government went many deep secret things which we too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with the candid, fearless eye. The great government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish proposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people." Essentially, the government is not doing its proper duty of protecting the citizens of the United States. In turn, Wilson says that "our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, (and) to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it." He reminds his audience that the original intention of the American democracy was policy " (that) was meant to serve the humblest as well as the most powerful, with an eye single to the standards of justice and fair play." He directly addressed an unjust tariff, a corrupted banking and currency system, a restricting industrial system, an inefficient agricultural body, and misuse of the natural environment. The security of society is the most important service that the government can offer. Finally, he concludes his speech with a call for patriotism.

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.