LAD #31: Wilson's Fourteen Points

Wilson's Fourteen Points focus primarily on calling for an international policy of open relations and peace.  "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." Too, he urges the American people to come together through a new sense of national unity, stating that "all the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest." Together, his fourteen parts are as follows:

1. Calling for diplomacy,

2. Freedom of the seas both during peace and war,
3. Equal trading conditions throughout the globe,
4. A reducing of national arms,
5. The adjustment, impartially, of colonial claims,

6. Evacuation of the Russian Territory and aiding Russian Government,

7. Freedom for Belgium,

8. A correction by France for the wrongs done against Prussia in 1871,

9. Readjusting the territories of Italy,

10. Free opportunity for the people of Austri-Hungary to autonomous development,

11. Evacuations of the countries of Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania,

12. Dardenelles permanently opened to free trade and freedom to Turkey from the Ottomans,

13. Erection of a free Polish State,

14. And mutual guarantees of territorial and political stability and independence for small nation states.

LAD #30: Schenck vs. United States Case

Due to 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,” Schenck was found guilty on March 3rd, 1919. Congress, stating that Schenck's documents posed as a threat and a serious danger, had a right to halt their distribution despite his first amendment right to free speech. With regards to the testimony, it was claimed that Schenck was the general secretary for the socialist party and was in charge of the headquarters from where the dangerous documents were being distributed. “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 primary intentions were: “"Do not submit to intimidation” and “Assert your rights”. His socialist 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”. Due to the fact that these were distributed in times of warfare rather than peace, they were considered to be outside of the realm of acceptable practice. “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 obstructed the recruiting forces, that was his crime.

LAD #29: Keating-Owen Child Labor Act

In the year 1916, the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act limited the number of hours that a child could work and forbade the sale of goods produced through child labor to be sold across state borders. Ranging from young children to smaller teens, a census showed that nearly two-million girls and boys were working across America at the beginning of the twentieth-century. This finding called for an end to be brought to child labor. Muckrakers such as Lewis Hines used photography of children fixing dangerous machinery and working in filthy coal mines to further this movement. Many influential individuals, such as Carl Marx and Charles Dickens, sided with these muckrakers against child labor. Dickens used his works of literature, such as Oliver Twist, showing the lives of young orphans working and living in poorhouses in London. First proposed in the year 1906, the Keating-Owen Child Labor 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." Eventually being passed by Congress and instituted by Woodrow Wilson, the act was later found to be unconstitutional in the Supreme Court case of Hammer vs. Dagenhart. It was not until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, an Act still in place today, was an effective labor act set into motion in the United States.

LAD #28: Wilson's First Inaugural

Woodrow Wilson begins his first inaugural address by praising the industrial success and political integrity of this country. But he states that Americans are wasteful; the spiritual and physical costs of natural energy and human life have not been effectively evaluated. "But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded." Essentially, Wilson is claiming that the United States Government is not doing its duties to properly protect its citizens. "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 purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people." With regards to this, the president claims, "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 the American public that the governments duty is to serve both the humble and the powerful, using justice and fair play to do so. Directly addressing an unjust tariff, restricting the industrial system, a corrupt bank and currency system, as well as a misuse of natural resources, he seeks to restore security to a vulnerable society. Calling for patriotism, he ends his speech.

LAD #27: The Clayton Anti-Trust Act

In order for the government to gain an increased level of control on business, the Clayton Anti-Trust Act was set in place. The administration of Woodrow Wilson passed the Act after Henry De Lamar Clayton, Jr., a Democrat from Alabama, introduced it. This act helped to set the basis upon which businesses are regulated today. In the past, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the only means through which big businesses could be monitored. Using this act, Theodore Roosevelt was able to become the nation's first trust buster. The Clayton Anti-Trust Act, passed in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission Act, was used to regulate the behaviors of large corporations with regards to the law. Unlike the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which effectively hindered the actions of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, the Clayton Anti-Trust Act cannot be used against labor unions. Due to its national heritage, Major League Baseball was one of the only corporations left untouched and unregulated by the Clayton Anti-Trust Act. Now, unlike in the past, strikes, pickets, and labor unions could be enacted against big businesses without interference from the government.

LAD #26: "I Have a Dream"

Martin Luther King, mirroring the words of Abraham Lincoln, begins his speech with the reality that five score years ago the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, giving the blacks previously contained by slavery a beacon of hope for years to come. Yet, one-hundred years later, Martin Luther King asserts that these African Americans are neither free nor treated fairly. King states that the people have gathered here upon the day of his speech in order to follow up on a previous note. "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.'" Using the analogy of a check and a bank, King asserts that whites have marked "insufficient funds" for their benefit on their check of freedom. King wishes to cash the check that is far overdue for blacks, "refus(ing) 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." He wants to secure freedom and enable blacks to enjoy the riches of justice. Blacks deserve their freedoms issued under the Emancipation Proclamation, and King asserts that they cannot wait any longer or use gradual methods in order to gain what they desire. Rather, King states that a revolt will continue until the "bright day where justice emerges." They will fight for their freedom with dignity and pride, but they must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence." King procliams that he has a dream that is "deeply rooted in the American dream." This dream is that African Americans can live peacefully with their white brothers and sisters and that his 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 by repeating the words of an old African spiritual; "'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"' 

LAD #25: The Dawes Act

The Dawes Act clearly requests the provision of land to Native Americans on various reservations. Too, it calls for the extension of the "protection of laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians." The Act states that the president has the power to call the assessment and land for any grazing and agricultural purpose. The entire purpose of this is to remove the concept of a communal tribal land holding and replace it with individually maintained and owned properties. Although many did not wish to allow Native Americans to gain citizenship, this was all done in attempts to assimilate many of these Native individuals into American society. For example, 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." Under the act, the Secretary of the Interior was also deemed the power to issue any restrictions or laws he saw fit in order to secure the equal distributions of lands to Native American inhabitants on a reservation. These rights, however, were 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." Conclusively, the act did not encompass too many Native American groups and did very little as a result.