Chapter 29 Flashcards
Underwood Tariff (1913)
This tariff provided for a substantial reduction of rates and enacted an unprecedented, graduated federal income tax. By 1917, revenue from the income tax surpassed receipts from the tariff, a gap that has since been vastly widened.
Federal Reserve Act (1913)
An act establishing twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks and a Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the president, to regulate banking and create stability on a national scale in the volatile banking sector. The law carried the nation through the financial crises of the First World War of 1914-1918
Federal Trade Commission Act (1914)
A banner accomplishment of Woodrow Wilson’s administration, this law empowered a standing, presidentially appointed commission to investigate illegal business practices in interstate commerce like unlawful competition, false advertising, and mislabeling of goods.
Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)
Law extending the anti-trust protections of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and exempting labor unions and agricultural organizations from antimonopoly constraints. The act conferred long overdue benefits on labor.
Holding companies
Companies that own part or all of other companies’ stock in order to extend monopoly control. Often, a holding company does not produce goods or services of its own but only exists to control other companies. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 sought to clamp down on these companies when they obstructed competition.
Workingmen’s Compensation Act (1916)
Passed under Woodrow Wilson, this law granted assistance to federal civil-service employees during periods of disability. It was a precursor to labor-friendly legislation passed during the New Deal.
Adamson Act (1916)
This law established an eight-hour day for all employees on trains involved in interstate commerce, with extra pay for overtime. The first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies, it was upheld by the Supreme Court in Wilson v. New
Tampico Incident (1914)
An arrest of American sailors by the Mexican government that spurred Woodrow Wilson to dispatch the American navy to seize the port of Veracruz in April 1914. Although War was avoided, tensions grew between the United States and Mexico.
Jones Act (1916)
Law according territorial status to the Philippines and promising independence as soon as a “stable government” could be established. The United States did not grant the Philippines independence until July 4, 1946.
Central Powers
Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by Turkey and Bulgaria, made up this alliance against the Allies in World War I.
Allies
Great Britain, Russia, and France, later joined by Italy, Japan, and the United States, formed this alliance against the Central Powers in World War I.
U-boats
German submarines, named for the German Unterseeboot, or “undersea boat,” proved deadly for Allied ships in the war zone. U-boat attacks played an important role in drawing the United States into the First World War.
Lusitania
British passenger liner that sank after it was torpedoed by Germany on May 7, 1915. It ended the lives of 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and pushed the United States closer to War.
Zimmermann note (1917)
German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman had secretly proposed a German-Mexican alliance against the United States. When the note was intercepted and published in March 1917, it caused an uproar that made some Americans more willing to enter the war.
Fourteen Points (1918)
Woodrow Wilson’s proposal to ensure peace after World War I, calling for an end to secret treaties, widespread arms reduction, national self-determination, and a new League of Nations.
Committee on Public Information (1917)
A government office during World War I known popularly as the Creel Committee for its chairman George Creel, it was dedicated to winning everyday Americans’ support for the war effort. It regularly distributed pro war propaganda and sent out an army of “four-minute men” to rally crowds and deliver “patriotic pep.”
Espionage Act (1917)
A law prohibiting interference with the draft and other acts of national “disloyalty.” Together with the Sedition Act of 1918, which added penalties for abusing the government in writing, it created a climate that was unfriendly to civil liberties.
Schenck v. United States (1919)
A Supreme Court decision that upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts, reasoning that freedom of speech could be curtailed when it posed a “clear and present danger” to the nation.
War Industries Board (1917)
Headed by Bernard Baruch, this federal agency coordinated industrial production during World War I, setting production quotas, allocating raw materials, and pushing companies to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. Under the economic mobilization of the War Industries Board, industrial production in the United States increased 20 percent during the war.
Industrial Workers of the World (1905)
The IWW, also known as the “Wobblies,” was a radical organization that sought to build “one big union” and advocated industrial sabotage in defense of that goal. At its peak in 1923, it could claim 100,000 members and could gain the support of 300,000. The IWW particularly appealed to migratory workers in agriculture and lumbering and to miners, all of whom suffered from horrific working conditions.
Great Migration
The movement of 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the urban North and West in two major waves. The first, from World War I until the onset of the Great Depression, brought more than 1.5 million migrants to northern cities. From 1940 to 1970, another 5 million left the South, pushed off the land by the mechanization of cotton farming and lured north and west by hopes for greater economic opportunity and more equitable political participation. After 1970, increasing numbers of African Americans trekked back to the South in what was called the New Great Migration, as new jobs became more plentiful in the South than in the older industrial cities of the North and radical relations improved in the South.
Nineteenth Amendment (1920)
This constitutional amendment, finally passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified in 1920, gave women the right to vote over seventy years after the first organized calls for woman’s suffrage in Seneca Falls, New York.
Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act (1921)
Designed to appeal to new women voters, this act provided federally financed instruction in maternal and infant health care and expanded the role of government in family welfare.
American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
The name given to the U.S. Army force deployed to Europe in World War I commanded by General John J. Pershing and composed mostly of conscripts. Because the United States entered the war so late, by the time the AEF was raised, trained, and deployed, the war was in its last year (1918). Units of the AEF fought at Cantigny in May and at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood in June; its major engagements were at Saint Mihiel (September 12-15) and the Meuse-Argonne (September 26- November 11).
Château-Thierry, Battle of (1918)
The first significant engagement of American troops in World War I-and, indeed, in any European war. To weary French soldiers, the American doughboys were an image of fresh and gleaming youth.
Meuse-Argonne offensive (1918)
General John J. (“Black Jack”) Pershing led American troops in this effort to cut the German railroad lines supplying the western front. One of the few major battles that Americans participated in during the entire war, it was still under way when the war ended.
League of Nations (1919)
A world organization of national governments proposed by President Woodrow Wilson and established by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It worked to facilitate peaceful international cooperation. Despite emotional appeals by Wilson, isolationists’ objections to the League created the major obstacle to American signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
Treaty of Versailles (1919)
Signed in France’s famed palace after six months of tough negotiations, it established the terms of settlement of the First World War between Germany and the Allied and Associates Powers (most notably France, Britain, Italy, and the United States). Article 231, soon dubbed “the war guilt clause,” blamed the war on Germany as justification for forcing German disarmament and saddling Germany with heavy reparations payments to the Allied victors. Germans detested the treaty as too harsh, the French feared it was too weak to prevent future aggression, and the U.S. Senate rejected it, largely because it obliged the United States to join the League of Nations.
Irreconcilables
Led by Senators William Borah of Idaho and Hiram Johnson of California, this was a hardcore group of militant isolationists who opposed the Wilsonian dream of international cooperation in the League of Nations after World War I. Their efforts played an important part in preventing American participation in the international organization
