Transcript The Death and Rebirth of Progressivism: 1917-1938

The Death and Rebirth of
Progressivism: 1917-1938
I. “Fatal to Our Form of Government and
American Ideals”: WWI on the Home Front



A. War Capitalism
Mobilization unprecedented
involvement
Food Administration (produce
+ conserve); Fuel
Administration (coal/gas)
shortages at home
(inflation/black market)
War Industries Board:
purchases, allocated, set prices
(all on business advice huge
profits); standardization goods




National War Labor
Board mediates + AFL
cooperates few strikes
Enough men/ material in
E + full employment
(but cost living up)
Race riots (Chicago, July
27-Aug 2, 1919): “Negro
invasion” (38 d, 537 i)
Total # women work not
grow much change
type of job

1,000s volunteer war
effort + Alice Paul and
National Woman’s Party
embarrassment
passage 19th


Paid 1/3 taxes; 2/3 bonds/loans debt $1B
(1914) $25B (1919)
$33.5B cost; interest + vet benefits 3x (Bonus
Army)
B. War Democracy
“Once lead this people into war
and they’ll forget there ever
was a thing as tolerance. To
fight you must be brutal and
ruthless, and the spirit of
ruthless brutality will enter into
the very fibre of our national
life, infecting Congress, the
courts, the policeman on the
beat, the man in the street.”
Woodrow Wilson
April 1917






Wilson silence dissent
Committee on Public Information
(CPI)
CPI sought mind mobilization w/
propaganda:
Demonized Germany
Urged self-censorship & spied on
neighbors
Vigilantes harassed GermanAmericans
State/ local governments,
businesses, & colleges fired
dissenters, banned German
culture (sauerkraut liberty
cabbage)


Espionage Act (1917) banned
treasonous (loosely defined)
material from mail
Sedition Act (1918) banned
criticism of USG




FBI to enforce J. Edgar Hoover
USG crushed IWW, imprison
Eugene V. Debs (socialist)
Schenck v. U.S. (1919): “clear and
present danger”
Post-war: 4 million workers strike
(delayed demands) + growing
black militancy (DuBois, vets) +
Bolshevik Rev. (W sent troops)
“Red” summer Red Scare
Post-War Depression



1920-21: post-war dislocations 24% fall
GDP
Relatively quick recovery
Shaped attitudes Americans + Hoover in
1929

1929 GDP falls only 12%, short recovery
before collapse
II. The Death of Capitalism


A. Causes
1) ‘20s economy “overheating”
(tech + productivity justified?)
Fed Reserve puts on brakes +
econ begins slowdown (housing,
durable goods, farm)
 Fed overshoots “correction,”
too little too late, other
mistake (1937) length +
depth
 Monetary vs. fiscal policy
(Pres. doesn’t matter); public
rather than private sector
failure
Stock crash spreads tight
money, not v. important cause
(mostly psych)

2) Global economy: 1)
failure Versailles + 2)
gold standard (Am
not Britain + limits
fiscal response) + 3)
tariffs + 4) leftistgov’ts (jobs over
gold) + 5) ag. glut=
worldwide crisis
B. Blame Hoover
Beliefs:
Not straight laissez-faire: the
Great Engineer
 1) Opp. socialism
 2) “Self-made” man
 3) “American system” sound
(1920s utopian): only need
“confidence” to revive
 4) Jeffersonian economic
individualism + property rights
no compel voluntary action
(saw success Sec’y Commerce)
 5) Foreign causes thinks
globally, can’t act locally
1st 60 Days

Agricultural Marketing Act (1929): ag. co-ops
sustain markets, Federal Farm Board buy glut
sustain prices


Mix voluntary + direct intervention
Prob.: a) missed WWI systemic; b) growing FFB
surplus hangs over market lower prices

1932: Cotton Corporation begs plow under (voluntary
vs. AAA)
“All of Its Powers"


Post-Crash advocated heavy
intervention 1) Fed Reserve eases
credit, 2) "the first shock must fall on
profits and not on wages" (pre-Keynesian:
prop up consumption); 3) construction
programs
Prob: 1) fed gov’t v. small: HH nearly 2x
federal public works expenditures but still
much less state + private; 2) wages
high greater unemployment
Reconstruction Finance Corporation



Banking crisis (run)
1931: National Credit
Corporation: association
of banks (not enough)
1932: RFC: loans to banks


Limited: 1) public list fear
runs; 2) high cost to banks
(collateral)
Broke ideological barrier
to fed relief greater
demands

20% unemployment (10
million); Midwest 50-80%
(esp. big cities)
Blunders


1) Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930) highest ever
(protectionist/ “beggar-thy-neighbor”)
retaliatory tariff war globalization of
Depression
2) 1932: greatest tax hike US history (to point):
balance budget ($2.7B, 60% expenditures;
proportionally larger any ND budget) + hoped
revitalize credit markets (confidence + pay back
debt) poor hit hardest
Death to the Great Humanitarian

3) Refused direct Fed aid to poor: a) loss
local control, b) undermine “confidence,”
c) dole long-term econ prob (Europe),
d) undermine character

1930 drought: $45M save AR livestock,
resisted $25M feed farmers (loan; Red Cross
pick up slack)
4) Bonus
Army/March/Expeditionary Force


June 1932: vets demand
$1000 bonus (1945)
Congress denies, but pays
way home for most
More militant stay
vagrants, squatters,
Hoovervilles police
riot federal cavalry
(MacArthur, Eisenhower,
Patton): tanks, tear gas



Claim made
that Bonus
Army full of
communists
(untrue)
Response
fueled by rise
of Hitler and
militarism: US
revolution?
V. unpopular
killed chances
election 1932
C. Hoover
Evaluated


New York Times (March
2, 1930): "No one in his
place could have done
more“
FDR adviser: "Practically
the whole New Deal was
extrapolated from
programs that Hoover
started… his policies were
substantially correct."

Political
ineptitude
stymied success

Hoover unable
to substantially
break with old
order and
thinking must
save system w/o
violating basic
ideas of
capitalism and
democracy



FDR far more
successful in
passing legislation
(at least until 1938)
Willing to
experiment with
anything to save
capitalism and
democracy
Began conservative
(’32 election:
balance budget,
Prohibition), pushed
to radicalism
(Wagner Act, Social
Security)