American Experiment (285 page)
Read American Experiment Online
Authors: James MacGregor Burns
first political speech of,
363–4
as governor of New Jersey,
366
health of,
456
,
463–6
passim
,
469–70
and Lenin’s ideology, compared,
412
and power,
365
as President,
383–475
; and Clemenceau,
450–1
; economic policy of,
374
,
385–91
; election of,
377
,
421
; flexibility of,
388–9
,
391
,
456
; foreign policy of,
399–406
,
418
; Fourteen Points speech,
435
,
437
; and House (E. M.),
386
,
423
,
456
; inauguration of,
383–4
; leadership qualities of,
385–6
,
391
,
417
,
425
; and League of Nations,
414
,
449
,
452
,
453–75
; and Lodge (H. C),
454
,
459–60
; nomination of,
369–70
,
420
; as orator,
363–4
,
383–4
,
463
; at Paris peace talks,
451–3
,
455–7
; progressivism of,
419
; and Supreme Court,
418–19
; travels to Paris (1918),
448–51
; and World War I,
411–13
,
418
,
422–6
,
427
,
434–5
as Princeton president,
365–6
and Roosevelt (T.),
372–3
and third-term possibility,
469
,
473
and wife’s death,
411
Wise, Stephen,
419
Wissler, Clark,
290
Wister, Owen,
288
“Wobblies,”
see
Industrial Workers of the World
women:
in Civil War,
26–7
college education of,
514
in Depression,
546
in farm families,
127–8
health of,
123–4
in labor force: labor unions and,
176
,
179
,
280
,
431
; leadership of,
280–1
; in manufacturing,
19
,
422
; strikes by,
280–1
; wages of,
19
,
140
,
429
,
431
,
489
; in World War I,
429
,
430–1
,
442
leaders among (turn-of-century),
275–81
middle class,
119–27
,
261–2
; housework of,
261
and peace movement,
493
in politics and political parties: 1920s,
534
; People’s Party,
185–6
; socialists,
398
; for suffragist cause,
442
,
444
suffrage of,
442–7
; and black suffrage,
204
,
208–9
; and 15th Amendment,
61
; and 19th Amendment,
444–7
; People’s Party and,
190
; political priorities and tactics on,
209
,
444
; Roosevelt (T.) and,
444
,
445
; state-by-state movement,
445
; support for, among women,
262
,
280
,
445
,
534
; Wilson and,
376
,
418
,
444
,
445
,
446–7
; Woodhull and,
125
and women’s clubs,
262
Women’s Christian Temperance Union,
279
women’s club movement,
262
Wood, Leonard,
471
Woodhull, Victoria Claflin,
124–7
Woodward, C. Vann,
131
,
135
,
187
,
398
workers:
in Chicago stockyards,
111
cultural diversity among,
143–4
and industrial democracy,
392
,
421
Marx on,
112
,
259
,
489
; on class solidarity,
143
,
173
; proletarianization,
260–1
,
382–3
; and trade unionism,
173
political organizing of,
209
Social Darwinism and,
173
sports for,
528
standardization and efficiency of,
258–9
,
480
wages of,
see
wages
women as: labor unions and,
176
,
179
,
280
,
431
; leadership of,
280–1
; in manufacturing,
19
,
422
; strikes by,
280–1
; wages of,
19
,
140
,
429
,
431
,
489
; in World War I,
429
,
430–1
,
442
see also
immigrants
Workingmen’s Party,
101
workweek and workday, length of:
eight-hour day,
176
,
177
,
178
,
421
,
429
five-day week,
144
nine-hour day,
333
World Court,
495
World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893),
271
,
287
World War I,
407–47
aftermath of,
450
; reparations,
496–7
American attitudes toward,
410–11
,
416
,
425
,
438–41
; domestic agitation on,
412–13
Arabic
pledge on ships’ neutrality,
415
,
417
,
422
armistice for,
437–8
aviation and aviators in,
436
House-Grey Memorandum on,
422–3
military aspects of,
407
,
410
,
417
,
431–4
,
435–7
; battles,
see
battles, of World War I
peace negotiations on (Paris, 1919),
450–3
,
455–7
; and League of Nations,
452
,
455–7
; preparations for,
434
,
437
,
448–9
; Treaty of Peace,
452
,
456
propaganda efforts in,
412
,
416–17
,
426–7
,
439
U.S. and: financial aspects,
418
,
421–2
,
425–6
,
439
; military involvement and mobilization,
417
,
425
,
427–30
,
431–2
; neutrality,
411
,
412
,
414
,
416
,
426
; public opinion,
410–16
,
425
,
438–41
Wilson and,
411–13
,
418
,
422–6
,
427
,
434–5
Wounded Knee Creek, massacre at,
219
Wright, Frank Lloyd,
312–13
Wright, Orville and Wilbur,
290
writing and writers, American,
288
,
313–23
best-selling books,
322
“yellow-dog” contracts,
488
,
489
Yosemite valley,
97
Young, Art,
313–14
Young, Brigham,
95
youth (1920s),
512–15
Zimmerman, Joan,
278
Zimmermann, Arthur,
425
I
N CARRYING THIS STUDY
of “The American Experiment” on from the Civil War years to the crises of the early 1930s, I have continued to emphasize the role of purposeful leadership in the processes of historical causation. But now my central concern is with economic as well as intellectual and political leadership. The late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries were indeed an era of great financial and industrial tycoons—Morgan, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, and many others. I have tried to indicate some of the influence these leaders had on American thought, society, and politics.
As in the first volume, however, I do not conceive leadership as a function merely of the more celebrated persons, but as the product of numberless purposes and actions of leaders of the second and third cadres in many social and political arenas. Even in situations where the top economic leadership—the great industrialists and financiers—appears capable of wielding enormous economic and political power, the “subordinate” leaders in my view have a critical influence on the course of events. Their role also helps to explain why economic power cannot be simply or mechanically converted into political power; for these “lesser” leaders, reflecting as they do the endless social and ideological diversity of the American people, will often tend to lie outside, or even block or divert, the vertical flow of power from the top—and the more numerous and varied such leaders, the greater this tendency. I plan to return to the central problem of the role of concentrated economic power in a democratic republic in the third volume of this trilogy.
Once again I have sought to illuminate the role of second- and third-cadre leaders by sinking “historical drill-holes” in specific sectors and situations, through research in a number of archives and libraries. For their unfailing helpfulness I thank the archivists and librarians at the Baker Library at Harvard Business School, the Buffalo Historical Society, California Historical Society, Columbia University Library, Ford Motor Company, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Huntington Library, Kansas State Historical Society, Library of Congress, Louisiana State University Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, Minnesota State Archives, New-York Historical Society, New York Public Library, Ohio Historical Society, Pennsylvania Historical Society, Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, Stanford University Library and Archives, Stowe-Day Library (Hartford), Williams College Library, and various other, more specialized archives and libraries.
This volume, like
The Vineyard of Liberty,
has been very much a collaborative venture, in which I have had the privilege of working with great and varied talents. Once again I have pitilessly enlisted assistance from my family. My wife and fellow author, Joan Simpson Burns, helped me understand literary and other cultural forces in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries by sharing with me her ideas on and extensive knowledge of these subjects. I made full use of the versatility of Deborah Edwards Burns, a journalist who helped me with research on women’s history and related social history, and who conceived and executed the illustrative endpapers. Trienah Meyers Kuykendall critiqued the whole manuscript, making particular use of her legal background, and I tested my ideas against those of Peter Meyers, a young political theorist. I was especially fortunate to have the creative assistance of Stewart Burns, author of a doctoral dissertation, “The Populist Movement and the Cooperative Commonwealth: The Politics of Non-Reformist Reform” (1984), who generously helped me in placing the role of the Farmers Alliance in a broad historical and theoretical framework, shared with me his data, and collaborated with me in the drafting of the sections on the Alliance, Populism, and related intellectual and political developments.
Because of the emphasis on economic and social history as well as intellectual and political history in this volume, I am especially grateful for help and collaboration from social historians working in these areas. Joan G. Zimmerman gave me indispensable assistance in the fields of Progressive politics, social legislation, and women’s education, as did Ellen M. James and Dee Ann Montgomery in women’s history, Eric Scheye in intellectual and ethnic history, Fran Burke in the political leadership of women, Anne Margolis in intellectual history, and Philippa Strum, author of a preeminent study of Louis Brandeis, in legal history and politics. Others who provided valued help in specific areas were Eunice Burns, Laurie Burns Gray, Rodger Davis, Lee Farbman, Michael Koessel, and Jay Leibold. Michael Beschloss, Lisl Cade, and Maurice Greenbaum also contributed in important ways. Milton Djuric provided extensive and invaluable editorial assistance at every stage of the book’s preparation.
The most important contribution to the volume was made by my good friend, close associate, and former student, Jeffrey P. Trout. Not only did he collaborate with me in planning, researching, and drafting in areas in which he is especially knowledgeable—military, diplomatic, and political history; he also worked closely with me in conceptualizing the whole volume, in organizing the flow of chapters, and in bibliographical research and criticism. His sense of history, enthusiastic participation, and crisis-management have improved every part of the volume.
As with the first volume, I solicited critical reviews of the manuscript from scholars far more expert than I, and I was fortunate in receiving stringent and constructive criticism from David Burner, John Milton Cooper, Jr., Eric Foner, James M. McPherson, Jerome Mushkat, Irwin Unger, and my longtime friend and colleague at Williams, Robert C. L. Scott. At our neighboring North Adams State College, historians W. Anthony Gengarelly, Clark Billings, Richard Taskin, and David Oppenheimer generously shared their specialized knowledge with me. My friends in the Faculty Secretarial Office at Williams literally made possible the production of this work. At Alfred A. Knopf, my editor, Ashbel Green, Betty Anderson, Peter Hayes, Anne Eberle, and Melvin Rosenthal played indispensable roles.