Spring 2022 Part 2

 

 

 

STEM Part 4: Architecture

Architecture is one of the most beautiful aspects of STEM fields. Learning is always a lifelong experience. I never stopped learning about new subjects and new concepts. Architecture is a wide-ranging field that deals with art, planning images, building objects, forming cities including towns, knowing about zoning laws, and constructing other structures. Since the dawn of human history, its wonders have inspired the world. When you see the Great Pyramids of Giza, the great structures of the ancient civilization of Zimbabwe, the World Trade Center (One), and the Statue of Liberty, architecture is fully abundant. It takes a great understanding of mathematics, physics, culture, art, and other subjects to be greatly proficiently in understanding the concepts of the field. Architectural design is beneficial to humanity as it creates homes for people, it establishes institutions to grow society, and it makes us aware the human creative spirit from the human imagination. Some have evaluated theories of architecture revolving around durability, utility, and beauty from the Roman architect Vitruvius. Yet, architecture is more complicated than simplistic theories. At its core, architecture deals with building something that is of value to people or used for a specific function. Many concepts deal with architecture like column, cornice, facade, baluster, capital, architrave, cupola, arcade, frieze, entablature, pediment, cantilever, buttress, gable, and parapet. Being an architect, a construction worker, and other related occupations require study, skills, learning expertise, and being in love with architecture. That is why STEM is so important in our daily lives. Constantly, we are reminded about the power of creativity and various inventions. Learning about architecture certainly is an important aspect of human existence indeed. 

Early Architectural Wonders

Architecture has a very long history in our world of Earth. By the 9000's B.C, there was the Goebekli Tepe in Turkey. This was believed to be the first place of worship. During the most ancient of times, there were earthen mounds, stone circles, megaliths, and other structures. Humans used earth and stone to form geometric forms. Building structures spread globally in the 7000 B.C. when we saw the earliest town sites in areas of Jarmo, Jericho, and Ain Ghazal on the Levant. India saw Lahuradewa architecture too on the Ganes plains of India. Catal Huyuk was built in Turkey too. Wood frames in Chinese architecture like the use of mortise and tenon joinery to build wood beamed houses existed by 6000-2000 B.C. In the 3000's B.C., the city of Harappa was created in the Indus Valley civilization. The Yangshao culture in China flourished by the time of 5000 - 3000 B.C. In the time of the 3000 B.C., ancient Egypt had tons of architecture wonders from cities to the late Great Pyramids of Giza by ca. 2500 B.C. During the 2000's B.C., we saw the development of the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro in India, the Pyramid of Djoser in Egypt, and the Longshan culture of China. In ancient Egypt, the pharaohs or rulers allowed the construction of temples, shrines, statues, and pyramids. The Great Pyramids of Giza had massive mathematical precision which proved that ancient human beings were very intelligent. Homes in ancient Egypt were built with blocks of sun baked sun. 

There were hieroglyphics, carvings, and frescoes around the temples and tombs of ancient Egypt. The large pyramids in Egypt were readily the tombs of pharaohs. One of best architects of the ancient world was the ancient Egyptian architect named Imhotep (he is said to have designed the Step Pyramid of Djoser). Their columns were placed together to support the heavy stone entablature. Art Deco architecture is influenced by ancient Egyptian architecture. One of the most famous architectural structures in world history was Stonehenge, which was created in ca. 2,400 B.C. at Neolithic Great Britain. The structure is 30 meters high and 160 meters wide. The gravel mount of layers of soil, mud, and grass, There are dug pits and tunnels of chalk and clay. Some believe that Stonehenge was build to signify concepts on the environment or astronomical reasons. The Ziggurat of Ur was constructed in the 2000's B.C. too. Chongha Zanbil was built in ancient Harappa in India. By the 1000's B.C., we see architectures in the four corners of the Earth from Africa to the Americas. In fact, the ancient Mayan and Olmec civilizations had tons of great architectural structures. In the 900's B.C., there was the earliest Greek temple built at Samos with some timber framing based on the Mycenaean megaron. Rome was created by the 700's B.C. Ancient Greek architecture was found in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus starting in 515 B.C. We know about the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus completed in Rome in 509 B.C.

 

The Parthenon was finished in Athens, Greece by 432 B.C. We know about the construction of Pataliputra (or Patna) in the Magadha Empire starting in 490 B.C. in the Indian subcontinent. The University of ancient Tazila existed in India by the 300's B.C. We know about the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus being completed in ca. 350 BC. The city of Alexandria was crated in 221 B.C, and the city of Antioch was founded in 300 B.C. The tallest ancient world structure in that time was the Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt. The Erechteion in Athens was formed in ca. 206 B.C. The city of Djenne-Djenno was first occupied in 250 B.C. in Africa. 280 B.C. was when the Colossus of Rhodes was completed. The Roman bridge in Rome was created in 126 B.C. called the Pons Aemilius. There was another bridge across the Tiber in Italy called the Ponte Milvio created in 115 B.C. Herod the Great's temple started to be formed in 37 B.C. We know about of the Roman bridge in Rome called Pons Fabricius, and the Pont du Gard in Provence, France in ca. 50 B.C. By 15 B.C, Vitruvius wrote De Architecura.  

For the first 1000 years after the birth of Jesus Christ on Earth, massive changes in architecture were formed. The Gungnae City of Goruryeo was finished at 3 A.D. The Lighthouse at Bouogne was built in 40 A.D, and the Romans formed the city of Londinium in Britain by 47-50 A.D. The Porta Maggiore was built in Rome too. The Pantheon and the Colosseum in Rome was built by the year of 100 A.D. People know about the Trajan's Column in Rome. The Alcantara Bridge or a Roman multiple arched bridge over the Tagus River in Spain was finished by 106 A.D. The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan was constructed in 200 A.D. The Column of Marcus Aurelius was dedicated in Rome in 193 A.D. The Dura Europos synagogue was formed by 224 A.D. The Nalanda of ancient learning center was built in the Gupta Empire in India by the 300's A.D. The Arch of Constantine in Rome was dedicated to the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 315. By the end of the 1st millennium A.D, cathedrals increase from the Akhtala monastery in the 900's to the Hagia Sophia being made in the 500's A.D. The Qutub Minar was formed in India by the 1190s. The Cologne Cathedral was formed during the 1240s in its start. Notre Dame was created from 1163 to 1345. It was located in France. Mosques spread with great architectural design in the Middle East. We saw the Timbuktu university as well in Africa. More architecture buildings were formed in the Americas and in Europe like St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The Taj Malal was formed in Agra, India by the 1630s. The end of the 1700's saw Baroque style, neo classical, and other architectural movements take shape in the world massively. 

 

Modern Architectural Buildings

By the 1800's, architecture expanded massively in the world. In 1800, the White House in Washington, D.C. was completed by a team of people like George Washington, Pierre L'Enfant, and architect James Hoban. All 3 men were Freemasons. The great African American scholar and STEM expert Benjamin Banneker also worked with Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the original border of the District of Columbia too.  The Temple of Saint Philip Neri in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico was completed in 1802. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris was created by Jean Chalgrin, commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte.  In 1809, there was the birth of the city planner Baron Haussmann. In 1817, Dulwich Picture Gallery in London was designed by Sir John Soane as the first purpose-built art gallery. The United States Capitol was completed by 1811. It was designed by Benjamin Latrobe, a Freemason. In 1821, Karl Friedrich Schinkel completed his Schauspielhaus in Berlin and Benjamin Latrobe's Baltimore Basilica was completed. James Renwick Jr. (the American architect) was born in 1818 and Benjamin Latrobe passed away in 1820. By 1825, the front and rear porticoes of the White House are added to the building. In 1830, the Altes Museum in Berlin, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, is completed after seven years of construction. In 1848, the construction begins on the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., though it will not be completed until 1885. The American Institute of Architects was founded in 1857. The competition to design Central Park in New York is won by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux by 1858. The U.S. Capitol dome was completed in Washington, D.C. by 1863. William Le Baron Jenney builds the first metal-frame skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building, in Chicago in 1885. The 1889 Paris exhibition showcases some of the new technologies of iron, steel, and glass, including the Eiffel Tower. The State of Liberty was completed by 1886. 

The Statue of Liberty has a long history. It's a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in the New York Harbor in New York City. It is the cooper statue being a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States of America. It was designed by the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (a Freemason too). The metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. It was dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue is a figure of Libertas or the robed Roman liberty goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed JULY IV MDCCLXXVI (July 4, 1776 in Roman numerals), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken shackle and chain lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the recent national abolition of slavery. After its dedication, the statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, seen as a symbol of welcome to immigrants arriving by sea.

Bartholdi was inspired by a French law professor and politician, Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to U.S. independence would properly be a joint project of the French and U.S. peoples. The Franco-Prussian War delayed progress until 1875, when Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue and the U.S. provide the site and build the pedestal. Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions.

The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and in Madison Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882. Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened by lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York World, started a drive for donations to finish the project and attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar (equivalent to $29 in 2020). The statue was built in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. The statue's completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland. The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National Park Service as part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, and is a major tourist attraction. Public access to the balcony around the torch has been barred since 1916. It is important to note that Edouard Rene de Laboulaye was President of the French Anti-Slavery Society (who was an important thinker). Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, is supposed to have said: "If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independence, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations." 

William Van Alen completed the Chrysler Building, an Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, US in 1930. The Empire State Building in New York City was completed by 1931. Expo 67 in Montreal features the American pavilion, a geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, and the Habitat 67 housing complex designed by Moshe Safdie. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri was finished by 1966. I. M. Pei's pyramid addition to the Louvre is opened by 1989.  Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, designed by César Pelli completed (the world's tallest building  around1998–2004). Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art by Steven Holl opens to public in 1998. By 2006, the Freedom Tower was started to be constructed.  "Water Cube", "Bird's Nest", South railway station, and other buildings in Beijing, completed for the 2008 Summer Olympics. One World Trade Center opened in NYC in 2014.  In 2010, Burj Khalifa became the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 828 meters (2,717 ft). Torres Obispado in Monterrey, Mexico the tallest skyscraper in Latin America, completed by 2020. In 2021, Central Park Tower in New York City, the tallest residential building in the world, is completed. The Sagrada Familia is expected to be finished by 2026. 

The Culture of Architecture

The culture of architecture is very diverse. Since the 1980's, buildings have existed in a more complex fashion. We see a changing environment too. Some approve or disapprove of the Modernist and Post-Modernist culture of architecture. Recent cultural changes deal with New Urbanism, Metaphoric architecture, and new classical architecture. Because of climate change, there is an increased look at architecture dealing with sustainability. Landscape architecture is very much used in parks, various mountains, and other places. The misconception is that architects must always build something large in order for it to be functional. The truth is that this isn't the case. Some airports have easily navigable locations. Adaptability is one aspect of the culture too. Flexible structures can last for generations. There are cultural architects whose purpose is to change the mindsets of other human beings. Culture is about the ideas, customs, and social behavior of a group of people or society. So, diverse cultures of the world in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, Oceania, the Americas, etc. have tons of temples, buildings, and centers that reflect the cultures of those large global regions. People like Adaeze Cadet and Beverly Lorraine Greene show the long legacy of black architects doing their contributions in the world. 

Adaeze Cadet is one of the greatest architects of the 21st century. It is definitely fitting to show her story to the people. She is a black woman architect who wants to inspire others in architecture careers too, especially among black women. She was raised in Sacramento, California. Later, she is the LA-based Principal and Design Director at the renowned architecture firm of HKS. She earned her Master's Degree. At the age of 9, when she was playing with LEGO blocks, she told her family that she wanted to be an architect when she grows up. Her mother took her to open houses to study the designs of them. She brought her architecture books in order to study further in the field of architecture. She couldn't find architects looking like a black person or a woman years ago. She was motivated to promote representation and diversity in her field of work. Cadet transferred to the HBCU of Prairie View A&M University to further her studies. The professors at the school supported her. Classmates expressed camaraderie with her. HKS is an international architecture and design firm. Adaeze Cadet is the first black woman Principal ever at HKS. Her Master's Degree came from Prairie View in Architecture. She overseen multi-family units, hotels, and resorts. She overcame the racism and sexism found in her job. She never gave up. There is the J.E.D.I. Council or the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion council. She wants BIPOC people and women to achieve leadership roles in architecture occupations. BIPOC is an acronym meaning Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Her recent projects are Robertson Lane in West Hollywood and Japser in San Franscisco, including the Two Tower Residences in Bellevue, Washington. 

Beverly Lorraine Greene was one of the greatest, unsung architects in human history. She lived from October 4, 1915 to August 22, 1957. She was the first African American woman licensed as an architect in the United States according to architectural editor Dereck Spurlock Wilson. By 1942, she was registered as an architect. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and she passed away in New York City. Greene earned her bachelor's degree in architectural engineering in 1936 from the racially integrated University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign (UIUC). She was involved in the drama club called Cenacle and was a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Housing Authority returned to Chicago. She registered with the State of Illinois on December 28, 1942. She had a master's degree at Columbia University from architecture in 1945. She was in the firm of Isadore Rosefield. Later, she worked in a project to build the theater at the University of Arkansas in 1952. She dealt with designs for UNESCO United Nations Headquarters in Prais. Some of the buildings for the University Heights Campus of New York University was worked on by her. Both projects were completed after Greene's death. Her memorial service took place at the Unity Funeral Home in Manhattan, one of the buildings that she had designed.

  

 

The Great Value of Technology

The great value of technology is enumerable. Technology has helped us wake up from sleep, organize our days, travel, and develop complex civilizations. Like always, there should be a balance. Technology is a tool that will enhance human life, but technology should never replace originality among human thinking. We should have the right to establish our own diverse intellectual displays of brilliance. Also, it is important to understand about the how not just the what. It's fine to know about what things are made of, but we need to know how things work in order to advance true innovation in the present plus the future. One of the most interesting things to discover on how is to know how cellphones work. Cellphones have an LCD screen, an earphone socket, battery connector, batter chargers, heatsinks, a piezoelectric buzzer, a buzzer control chip, an antenna connector, and other components. Advanced smartphones have heatsink for processor chips, NFC antenna connectors, infrared focusing beam for its camera, flashlight/camera flash, a quad core qualcomm snapdragon processor chip, a SIM card slot, a mircro SD card slot, lithium ion battery, a digital camera, and other parts. When a person speaks into a cellphone, there is a tiny microchip in the handset that converts the sound of the voice into a pattern of electrical signals. A microchip inside the phones turns these signals into a string of numbers. The numbers are picked up into a radio wave and beamed out from the phone's antenna. The radio waves go through the air at the speed of light until it reaches the closest cellphone mast. The mast receives the signals and passes them on to its base station, which effectively coordinates what happens inside each local part of the cellphone network, which is called a cell. From the base station, the calls are routed onward to their destinations. Calls made from a cellphone to another cellphone on the same network travel to their destination by being routed to the base station nearest to the destination phone, and finally to that phone itself. Calls made to a cellphone on a different network or a land line follow a more lengthy path. They may have to be routed into the main telephone network before they can reach their ultimate destination. So, cellphones use wireless technology. Therefore, the great value of technology is evidently clear. 

 

Conclusion

When it is all said and done, architecture is one of the glories of the Universe. Architecture teaches us that human creativity is powerful and strong. It also gives us the truth that there are limitations of invention. Human beings are very intelligent, but we aren't omnipotent, omnipresent, and all-knowing. Only God is. Therefore, we see architecture as a glimpse into the massive creativity among human beings and the responsibilities that we have in the Universe in general. Some architecture is created for human need like shelter, forming governments, and establishing spiritual locations of worship. Other forms of architecture are established for aesthetical reasons or for the purpose of artistic representations. Engineers, construction people, and other human beings all have a role in the art of architecture. From the Neolithic age to 2022, complex architecture has spread all over the world from Africa to the Americas. As human history evolved from the Neolithic Age to other era, we saw architecture evolve into the Ziggurat of Ur, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Pantheon (found in Rome), the Temple of Diana, the Temple at Teotihuacan, the Great Enclosure of Zimbabwe, Art Deco designs, and other structures. Contemporary architecture in the 21st century is about diversity, not making a single style being dominant, and using high tech, pro-green imagery. The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) represents modern day architecture to the fullest. David Adjaye was one architect out of many architects involved in the project to fully form the NMAAHC building. The building houses an amazing display of black American literature, artifacts, clothes, pictures, sculptures, and other displays of black culture. STEM Fields and architecture go hand in hand, because you need a great understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to make architecture to come alive for real. 

 

Presidents Part 4: Oppression and Movements to Fight It. 

 

This 4th part of the series of the history of the United States Presidents is from Grover Cleveland to Woodrow Wilson. This era of American history saw the end of the 19th century to the start of the 20th century. There was the massive contradiction back then. The contradiction was that during that time, many people had embraced the myth that America was in the midst of Utopian change. Yet, the Gilded Age, racial oppression, and other forms of discrimination including xenophobia were widespread plus vicious. Back then, Chinese people wouldn't go into America. There were tons of black American victims of pogroms filled with terrorism and murder of innocent black people. The destruction of Black Wall Street was done by terrorists who were jealous of a strong, prosperous black community. We saw a huge amount of corporate power so great, that stories were shown of child labor, economic exploitation, and death caused by a lack of regulation of basic industries. Women couldn't vote during this time either. Also, it is important to celebrate the heroic leaders who fought back against injustices during that time like: Robert La Follette, Sojourner Truth, W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, etc. It was a time when imperialism was promoted overtly by the American government. As we know, imperialism is evil and wrong, because no nation has the right to dominate the economic, social, and political policies of another nation by force. Imperialism is all about a lust for power, and racists have used imperialism to promote the myth of white supremacy. The reality is that people have every right to defeat the system of racism and replace it with a system of justice. The end of this era dealt with the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson who saw WWI and its aftermath. 

 

Glover Cleveland

 

President Glover Cleveland (1837-1908) was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States of America. His first term was from 1885 to 1889 and his 2nd term was from 1893 to 1897. He was the only President to serve 2 nonconsecutive terms in office. He was born in Caldwell, New Jersey as a member of the Democratic Party. His parents were Richard Falley Cleveland and Ann (nee Neal) Cleveland. His father was a Congregational and Presbyterian minister who came from Connecticut. His mother was from Baltimore. On his father's side, Cleveland had English ancestors. Some came from Cleveland, England to Massachusetts in 1635. His father's maternal grandfather, Richard Falley Jr. fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill (who was the son of an immigrant from Guernsey). On his mother's side, Cleveland was descended from Anglo-Irish Protestants and German Quakers from Philadelphia. Cleveland was distantly related to General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was named. He was the fifth of 9 children. The Cleveland family moved into Fayetteville, New York in 1841. Later, Glover Cleveland did pranks and loved outdoor sports. His father was sick and passed away from a gastric ulcer after doing missionary work. Glover Cleveland was educated at Fayetteville Academy and the Clinton Liberal Academy. Glover Cleveland moved on West. He lived in Buffalo, New York with his uncle to have a clerical job. He was in the NY bar by 1859. By the American Civil War, he was appointed the assistant district attorney of Eric County on January 1863. 

 

With the American Civil War raging, Congress passed the Conscription Act of 1863, requiring able-bodied men to serve in the army if called upon, or else to hire a substitute. Cleveland chose the latter course, paying $150 (equivalent to $3,153 in 2020) to George Benninsky, a thirty-two-year-old Polish immigrant, to serve in his place. Benninsky survived the war. As a lawyer, Cleveland became known for his single-minded concentration and dedication to hard work. In 1866, he successfully defended some participants in the Fenian raid, working on a pro bono basis (free of charge). In 1868, Cleveland attracted professional attention for his winning defense of a libel suit against the editor of Buffalo's Commercial Advertiser. During this time, Cleveland assumed a lifestyle of simplicity, taking residence in a plain boarding house. He devoted his growing income instead to the support of his mother and younger sisters. While his personal quarters were austere, Cleveland enjoyed an active social life and "the easy-going sociability of hotel-lobbies and saloons." He shunned the circles of higher society of Buffalo in which his uncle's family traveled.

Glover Cleveland started as a sheriff of Erie County. He worked with Democrats and had an aversion to Republicans like John Fremont and Abraham Lincoln. In 1865, he ran for District Attorney, losing narrowly to his friend and roommate, Republican Lyman K. Bass. In 1870, with the help of friend Oscar Folsom, Cleveland secured the Democratic nomination for Sheriff of Erie County, New York. He won the election by a 303-vote margin and took office on January 1, 1871, at age 33. While this new career took him away from the practice of law, it was rewarding in other ways: the fees were said to yield up to $40,000 (equivalent to $864,111 in 2020) over the two-year term. Cleveland's time as sheriff wasn't very eventful, except supporting the execution of Patrick Morrissey (for killing his own mother) and John Gaffney (on February 14, 1873). He returned to his law practice after he left as sheriff. He opened his law practice with his friends Lyman K. Bass and Wilson S. Bissell. By 1872, he was elected to Congress. Glover Cleveland was accused of raping a woman named Maria Halpin. Cleveland called her an alcoholic and consorting with men. She had her institutionalized and had their child taken away plus raised by his friends. She left after the institution say that she didn't belong. The child was a campaign issue for the GOP in Cleveland's first Presidential campaign. Glover Cleveland was a Mayor of Buffalo and Governor of New York. As mayor, he ended an unfair bidding agreement, improved the sewer system in Buffalo, and wanted to end government corruption. As Governor of New York, Cleveland reduced the fares on NYC's elevated trains to 5 cent. People supported his attacks on governmental corruption. Reforms existed by Cleveland when he was Governor of New York state. Glover Cleveland also ran during the 1884 Presidential election. He defeated the Republican Blaine to be President. Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin. 

 

During his first term as President, Glover Cleveland wanted reform in stopping the spoils system. He wanted to reform tariffs. Cleveland also reformed other parts of the government. In 1887, he signed an act creating the Interstate Commerce Commission. He and Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney undertook to modernize the navy and canceled construction contracts that had resulted in inferior ships. Cleveland angered railroad investors by ordering an investigation of western lands they held by government grant. Secretary of the Interior Lucius Q. C. Lamar charged that the rights of way for this land must be returned to the public because the railroads failed to extend their lines according to agreements. The lands were forfeited, resulting in the return of approximately 81,000,000 acres (330,000 km2). Cleveland vetoed bills from a Republican Senate. He vetoed pension bill for American Civil War veterans. He was known to promote limited government, the gold standard, and opposition to the silverites. He supported lower tariffs not a protective tariff as Republicans agreed to. He supported the build up of the U.S. military. 

 

Cleveland was a committed non-interventionist who had campaigned in opposition to expansion and imperialism. He refused to promote the previous administration's Nicaragua canal treaty, and generally was less of an expansionist in foreign relations. Cleveland's Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, negotiated with Joseph Chamberlain of the United Kingdom over fishing rights in the waters off Canada, and struck a conciliatory note, despite the opposition of New England's Republican Senators. Cleveland also withdrew from Senate consideration the Berlin Conference treaty which guaranteed an open door for U.S. interests in the Congo. Glover Cleveland was wrong to bash Reconstruction and was lax in using federal power to enforce the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (which guaranteed voting rights to African Americans). Though Cleveland appointed no black Americans to patronage jobs, he allowed Frederick Douglass to continue in his post as recorder of deeds in Washington, D.C. and appointed another black man (James Campbell Matthews, a former New York judge) to replace Douglass upon his resignation. His decision to replace Douglass with a black man was met with outrage, but Cleveland claimed to have known Matthews personally. Cleveland condemned the outrages against Chinese immigrants, but he believed in the racist view that Chinese immigrants must assimilate into white society. Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard negotiated an extension to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Cleveland lobbied the Congress to pass the Scott Act, written by Congressman William Lawrence Scott, which prevented the return of Chinese immigrants who left the United States. The Scott Act easily passed both houses of Congress, and Cleveland signed it into law on October 1, 1888. That law was immoral. 

 

Glover Cleveland viewed Native Americans as wards of the state needing assimilation. He supported the Dawes Act. Cleveland sent in eighteen companies of Army troops to enforce the treaties and ordered General Philip Sheridan, at the time Commanding General of the U. S. Army, to investigate the matter. He married Frances Folsom Cleveland. The couple had 5 children. He had many judicial nominee and cabinet leaders. He lost to Benjamin Harrison and returned to public life. He won the election again in 1892 against Harrison. During his 2nd Presidential term, he saw the Panic of 1893. There was a depression and a stock market decline. Silver was later not used as a major currency. Tariff reform came. 

 

 

In 1892, Cleveland had campaigned against the Lodge Bill, which would have strengthened voting rights protections through the appointing of federal supervisors of congressional elections upon a petition from the citizens of any district. The Enforcement Act of 1871 had provided for a detailed federal overseeing of the electoral process, from registration to the certification of returns. Cleveland succeeded in ushering in the 1894 repeal of this law (ch. 25, 28 Stat. 36). The pendulum thus swung from stronger attempts to protect voting rights to the repealing of voting rights protections; this in turn led to unsuccessful attempts to have the federal courts protect voting rights in Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475 (1903), and Giles v. Teasley, 193 U.S. 146 (1904). Labor rights people came to the Washington, D.C. to protest Cleveland's anti-silver legislation. It was led by Jacob S. Coxey. They wanted a national roads program to give jobs to working people and a weakened currency to help farmers pay their debt. Coxey and the protesters were arrested on the law of the U.S. Capitol. The group remaining left. The Pullman strike caused a disruption of commerce. Cleveland used the troops to stop the strike in Chicago. The Democrats became more unpopular among the people because of the policies on the economy. Hawaii was dealing with issues too. Cleveland annexed Hawaii by force. Europeans and American forces overthrew Queen Liluokalani, installed the puppet Sanford B. Dole, and soon Hawaii joined America. 

 

Cleveland agreed with Blount's report, which found the populace to be opposed to annexation. Liliuokalani initially refused to grant amnesty as a condition of her reinstatement, saying that she would either execute or banish the current government in Honolulu, but Dole's government refused to yield their position. By December 1893, the matter was still unresolved, and Cleveland referred the issue to Congress. In his message to Congress, Cleveland rejected the idea of annexation and encouraged the Congress to continue the American tradition of non-intervention (see excerpt at right). The Senate, under Democratic control but opposed to Cleveland, commissioned and produced the Morgan Report, which contradicted Blount's findings and found the overthrow was a completely internal affair. Cleveland dropped all talk of reinstating the Queen, and went on to recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the new Republic of Hawaii. Cleveland supported the Monroe doctrine. Glover Cleveland had cancer. He had his surgery to remove a tumor. 

No new states were admitted to the Union during Cleveland's first term. On February 22, 1889, 10 days before leaving office, the 50th Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1889, authorizing North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington to form state governments and to gain admission to the Union. All four officially became states in November 1889, during the first year of Benjamin Harrison's administration. During his second term, the 53rd United States Congress passed an Enabling Act that permitted Utah to apply for statehood. Cleveland signed it on July 16, 1894. Utah joined the Union as the 45th state on January 4, 1896. Glover Cleveland ran again in 1896. His opponent, William Jennings Bryan, was on a Silver platform. The Republican William McKinley won the election. Glover Cleveland later retired in New Jersey. He consulted Theodore Roosevelt. In a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal, Cleveland weighed in on the women's suffrage movement, writing that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence." Of course, this comment is sexist garbage from Glover Cleveland as women have great high intelligence. Women have the right to vote period. 

Cleveland's health had been declining for several years, and in the autumn of 1907 he fell seriously ill. In 1908, he suffered a heart attack and died on June 24 at age 71 in his Princeton residence. His last words were, "I have tried so hard to do right." He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church. President Glover Cleveland is found in bills, names of schools, and was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2013. Glover Cleveland lived to be at the end of Democratic dominance as President for a time. Later, we would see the new 20th century arise with new developments and challenges for humanity. 

 

Benjamin Harrison

Benjmain Harrison (who lived from August 20, 1833 to March 13, 1901) was the 23rd President of the University of America from 1889 to 1893. He was the grandson of the ninth President, William Henry Harrison, and a great grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founder who signed the United States Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Harrison V succeeded Thomas Nelson Jr. as Governor of Virginia. Benjamin Harrison was born on August 20, 1833 in North Bend, Ohio. He was the second child of Elizabeth Ramsey (Irwin) and John Scott Harrison's ten children. His paternal ancestors were Harrison family of Virginia, whose immigrant ancestor, Benjamin Harrison, arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in ca. 1630 from England. Harrison was of English ancestry. All of his ancestors have emigrated to America during the early colonial period. Harrison's family was not wealthy but distinguished. John Scott Harrison would spent much of his farm income on his children's education. Benjamin Harrison loved the outdoors doing fishing and hunting. He was educated in a log cabin near his name. A tutor educated him to prepare for college studies. Fourteen-year-old Benjamin and his older brother, Irwin, enrolled in Farmer's College near Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1847. He attended the college for two years and while there met his future wife, Caroline "Carrie" Lavinia Scott, a daughter of John Witherspoon Scott, the school's science professor, who was also a Presbyterian minister.

Harrison transferred to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1850, and graduated in 1852. He joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which he used as a network for much of his life. He was also a member of Delta Chi, a law fraternity that permitted dual membership. Classmates included John Alexander Anderson, who became a six-term U.S. congressman, and Whitelaw Reid, Harrison's vice-presidential running mate in 1892. At Miami, Harrison was strongly influenced by history and political economy professor Robert Hamilton Bishop. He also joined a Presbyterian church at college and, like his mother, became a lifelong Presbyterian. After Harrison graduated from college, he studied law with Bellamy Storer of Cincinnati. He came to Oxford, Ohio to marry Carolina Scotton October 20, 1853. Caroline's father was a Presbyterian minister, who performed the ceremony. Their 2 children are Russell Benjamin Harrison and Mary Scott Harrison. Harrison and his wife returned to live at The Point, his father's farm in southwestern Ohio, while he finished his law studies. Harrison was admitted to the Ohio bar in early 1854, the same year he sold property that he had inherited after the death of an aunt for $800 (equivalent to $23,043 in 2020) and used the funds to move with Caroline to Indianapolis, Indiana. Harrison worked in the law office of John H. Ray in 1854. He worked as a Commissioner for the U.S. Court of Claims. He was a Whig and later joined the Republican Party. He campaigned for Republican Presidential candidate John C. Fremont. In 1857, Harrison was elected Indianapolis city attorney, a position that paid an annual salary of $400. In 1860, he was elected reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court. Harrison was an active supporter of the Republican Party's platform and served as Republican State Committee's secretary. After Wallace, his law partner, was elected county clerk in 1860, Harrison established a new firm with William Fishback, Fishback and Harrison. The new partners worked together until Harrison entered the Union Army after the start of the American Civil War.

By 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued more calls for more recruits in the Union Army. Harrison wanted to enlist, but he worried about how to support his young family. Harrison recruited many in northern Indiana to raise a regiment. He was a colonel in the 70th Indiana and moved to join the Union Army at Louisville, Kentucky. They built railroads and did reconnaissance duty in Kentucky and Tennessee. By 1864, he joined William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign and moved to the front lines. On January 2, 1864, Harrison was promoted to command the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the XX Corps. He commanded the brigade at the battles of Resaca, Cassville, New Hope Church, Lost Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain, Marietta, Peachtree Creek, and Atlanta. When Sherman's main force began its March to the Sea, Harrison's brigade was transferred to the District of Etowah and participated in the Battle of Nashville. On January 23, 1865, Lincoln nominated Harrison to the grade of brevet brigadier general of volunteers, to rank from that date, and the Senate confirmed the nomination on February 14, 1865. He rode in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. before mustering out on June 8, 1865. After the war, Harrison was the reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court. He supported Republicans in speeches constantly. Later, he campaigned on economic policy and wanted to deflate the national currency. He lived during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. He supported management to end the crisis among strikers. Benjamin Harrison fought hard to be Senator of Indiana. He served in the Senate from March 4 1881 to March 3, 1887. He chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seabord (47th Congress), and the U.S. Senate Committee on Territories (48th and 49th Congresses). 

In 1881, the major issue confronting Senator Harrison was the budget surplus. Democrats wanted to reduce the tariff and limit the amount of money the government took in; Republicans instead wanted to spend the money on internal improvements and pensions for Civil War veterans. Harrison took his party's side and advocated for generous pensions for veterans and their widows. He also unsuccessfully supported aid for the education of Southerners, especially children of the freedmen; he believed that education was necessary to help the black population rise to political and economic equality with whites. Harrison opposed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which his party supported, because he thought it violated existing treaties with China. He failed to get new western states admitted to the Union, as some feared that the new states would elect Republicans to Congress. Harrison returned to Indianapolis after he left the Senate. Democrats had a majority of the state legislature by this time via gerrymandering districts. Benjamin Harrison ran for President in 1888. Blaine supporters shifted their support for Harrison. Benjamin Harrison ran the race against incumbent President Grover Cleveland. Harrison supported protective tariff to gain votes. He focused on Indiana, New Jersey, Connecticut, and other industrial states. Harrison won by winning the Electoral College, but he had 90,000 fewer popular votes than Cleveland. Harrison was known as the Centennial President because his inauguration celebrated the centenary of the first inauguration of George Washington in 1789. In the congressional elections, Republicans increased their membership in the House of Representatives by 19 seats. 

Benjamin Harrison was sworn into office on Monday, March 4, 1889 by Chief Justice Melville Fuller. He gave a short speech. Harrison wanted further growth of America and believed in the imperialistic Monroe Doctrine. He wanted the modernization of the Navy and a merchant marine force. He wanted international peace via noninterference in the affairs of foreign governments. Harrison acted quite independently in selecting his cabinet, much to the Republican bosses' dismay. He began by delaying the presumed nomination of James G. Blaine as Secretary of State so as to preclude Blaine's involvement in the formation of the administration, as had occurred in President Garfield's term. Harrison rejected patronage. In June 1890, Harrison's Postmaster General John Wanamaker and several Philadelphia friends purchased a large new cottage at Cape May Point for Harrison's wife, Caroline. Many believed the cottage gift appeared improper and amounted to a bribe for a cabinet position. Harrison made no comment on the matter for two weeks, then said he had always intended to purchase the cottage once Caroline approved. On July 2, perhaps a little tardily to avoid suspicion, Harrison gave Wanamaker a check for $10,000 (equivalent to $288,037 in 2020) for the cottage. The Dependent and Disability Pension Act was passed in 1890. He supported the law. 

Harrison attempted to make the tariff more acceptable by urging Congress to add reciprocity provisions, which would allow the president to reduce rates when other countries reduced their rates on American exports. The tariff was removed from imported raw sugar, and sugar growers in the United States were given a two cent per pound subsidy on their production. Even with the reductions and reciprocity, the McKinley Tariff enacted the highest average rate in American history, and the spending associated with it contributed to the reputation of the Billion-Dollar Congress. Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust Act to deal with trusts and monopolies via federal governmental power. He didn't enforce it a lot though. Western Republicans and southern Democrats wanted the free coinage of silver, and northeast  people wanted the gold standard. Because silver was worth less than its legal equivalent in gold, taxpayers paid their government bills in silver, while international creditors demanded payment in gold, resulting in a depletion of the nation's gold supply. Owing to worldwide deflation in the late 19th century, however, a strict gold standard had resulted in reduction of incomes without the equivalent reduction in debts, pushing debtors and the poor to call for silver coinage as an inflationary measure. Harrison wanted a free coinage of silver but at its own value not at a fixed ratio to gold. He failed to make a compromise. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act depleted the nation's gold supply that would continue until the Cleveland administration resolved it. 

After regaining the majority in both Houses of Congress, some Republicans, led by Harrison, attempted to pass legislation to protect black Americans' civil rights. Harrison's Attorney General, William H. H. Miller, through the Justice Department, ordered the prosecutions for violation of voting rights in the South; however, white juries often failed to convict or indict violators. This prompted Harrison to urge Congress to pass legislation that would "secure all our people a free exercise of the right of suffrage and every other civil right under the Constitution and laws." Harrison supported the Federal Elections Bill (written by Representative Henry Cabot Lodge and Senator George Frisbie Hoar) in 1890, but the bill was defeated in the Senate. Harrison spoke in favor of civil rights for African Americans. He gave an address to Congress on December 1889 and said that, "The colored people did not intrude themselves upon us; they were brought here in chains and held in communities where they are now chiefly bound by a cruel slave code...when and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law? When is that quality of influence which our form of government was intended to secure to the electors to be restored? … in many parts of our country where the colored population is large the people of that race are by various devices deprived of any effective exercise of their political rights and of many of their civil rights. The wrong does not expend itself upon those whose votes are suppressed. Every constituency in the Union is wronged." Harrison supported a bill proposed by Senator Henry W. Blair, which would have granted federal funding to schools regardless of the students' race. He also endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling in the Civil Rights Cases (1883) that declared much of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. None of these measures gained congressional approval.

 

Harrison signed the Land Revision Act of 1891 that promoted national forests. He lived during the Ghost Dance movement of the Lakota Sioux. On December 29, 1890, troops from the Seventh Cavalry clashed with the Sioux at Wounded Knee. The result was a massacre of at least 146 Sioux, including many women and children; the dead Sioux were buried in a mass grave. The Ghost Dance was a spiritual movement. Harrison wanted an investigation and ordered 3,500 troops to South Dakota. The uprising ended. Harrison believed in the false premise that Native Americans must assimilate into white society. This policy was part of the allotment system and the Dawes Act. This plan failed as white speculators gotten more Native Americans' land at low prices. Harrison wanted to modernize the navy and military technology. Electricity light switches were in the White House during Harrison's time. On another front, Harrison sent Frederick Douglass as ambassador to Haiti, but failed in his attempts to establish a naval base there. Harrison made trade deals with many nations. Europeans nations had an embargo of U.S. pork, and it would take time for it to end. He prevented war against Chile. In the last days of his administration, Harrison dealt with the issue of Hawaiian annexation. Following a coup d'état against Queen Liliuokalani, the new government of Hawaii led by Sanford Dole petitioned for annexation by the United States. Harrison wanted to annex Hawaii to advance American imperialism. He appointed many people on the Supreme Court and other cabinet positions. He saw North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming admitted to the Union. Love of travel was part of his life. His reelection campaign came in 1892. 

The Panic of 1893 crippled the nation. Harison saw many Republicans refusing to support him. Cleveland would defeat him. Harrison also lost by many western Republican voters joining the Populist Party candidate James Weaver who wanted free silver, veterans' pensions, and a 8 hour work day. Harrison's wife passed way from tuberculosis. After he left office, Harrison visited the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in June 1893. After the Expo, Harrison returned to his home in Indianapolis. Harrison had been elected a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States in 1882 and was elected as commander (president) of the Ohio Commandery on May 3, 1893. For a few months in 1894, Harrison lived in San Francisco, California, where he gave law lectures at Stanford University. Some wanted him to run for President again, but he came about to support William McKinley for President. He was in Purdue University as a Board of Trustees from July 1895 to March 1901. He remarried to 37 year old Mary Scott Lord Dimmick and had one child together named Elizabeth. His 2 adult children disapproved of the marriage. He was an active member of the Presbyterian Church. He passed away from pneumonia at his home on March 13, 1901 at the age of 67.  His last words were reported to be, "Are the doctors here? Doctor, my lungs...". Harrison's remains are interred in Indianapolis's Crown Hill Cemetery, next to the remains of his first wife, Caroline. After her death in 1948, Mary Dimmick Harrison, his second wife, was buried beside him. President Benjamin Harrison was an innovative President dealing with antitrust, monetary policy, and tariffs. He developed the Navy, but he promoted the illogical view of the Monroe Doctrine. He had his progressive moments of supporting African American voting rights, supporting generous Civil War pensions, and being for other policies. He was the last of an era, and he existed in the start of the new era in preparation of the 20th century. 

 

William McKinley

 

 

One of the most controversial Presidents in history was President William McKinley. He only had one term, but his influence on the Presidency was monumental. He lived from January 29, 1842 to September 14, 1901. He was one of the few Presidents who was a victim of assassination, and he was in love with the gold standard as we know. As a Republican, he was the last President to have served in the American Civil War. He was born in Niles, Ohio. He was the 7th of 9 children. His parents were William McKinley Sr. and Nancy (nee Allison) McKinley. William McKinley was a descendant of English and Scots-Irish people from western Pennsylvania during the 18th century. Their immigrant ancestor was David McKinley, born in Dervock, County Antrim, in present-day Northern Ireland. William McKinley Sr was born in Pennsylvania, in Pine Township, Mercer County. The family moved into Ohio when the senior McKinley was a boy. The family lived in Lisbon, Ohio. The Allison family was mostly of English descent and among Pennsylvania's earliest European settlers. The family trade on both sides was iron making.  McKinley senior operated foundries throughout Ohio, in New Lisbon, Niles, Poland, and finally Canton. The McKinley household was, like many from Ohio's Western Reserve, steeped in Whiggish and abolitionist sentiment, the latter based on the family's staunch Methodist beliefs. 

 

William McKinley supported Methodism. He was active in the local Methodist church at the age of 16 years old. By 1853, the family moved from Niles to Poland, Ohio. McKinley graduated from Poland Seminary in 1859. Later, he was enrolled at the Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He was an honorary member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He remained at Allegheny for one year, returning home in 1860 after becoming ill and depressed. McKinley also studied at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio as a board member. Although his health recovered, family finances declined and McKinley was unable to return to Allegheny. He began working as a postal clerk and later took a job teaching at a school near Poland, Ohio. During the American Civil War, the Southern states seceded from the Union. Thousands of people in Ohio volunteered for service, including McKinley and his cousin William McKinley Osbourne. They were privates in the newly formed Poland Guard in June 1861. The men left for Columbus where they were consolidated with other small units to form the 23rd Ohio Infantry. William McKinley drove back Confederate troops at Carnifex Ferry in West Virginia. McKinley was assigned duty at the brigade quartermaster office.

 

That September, McKinley's regiment was called east to reinforce General John Pope's Army of Virginia at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Delayed in passing through Washington, D.C., the 23rd Ohio did not arrive in time for the battle but joined the Army of the Potomac as it hurried north to cut off Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia as it advanced into Maryland. The 23rd was the first regiment to encounter the Confederates at the Battle of South Mountain on September 14. After severe losses, Union forces drove back the Confederates and continued to Sharpsburg, Maryland, where they engaged Lee's army at the Battle of Antietam, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. The 23rd was in the thick of the fighting at Antietam, and McKinley came under heavy fire when bringing rations to the men on the line. McKinley's regiment suffered many casualties, but the Army of the Potomac was victorious, and the Confederates retreated into Virginia. McKinley's regiment was detached from the Army of the Potomac and returned by train to western Virginia. William McKinley was called back to back. McKinley and his regiment moved to the Shenandoah Valley as the armies broke from winter quarters to resume hostilities. Crook's corps was attached to Major General David Hunter's Army of the Shenandoah and soon back in contact with Confederate forces, capturing Lexington, Virginia, on June 11. Then, he became a Freemason. After the war, William McKinley married Ida Saxton and had children. He was a lawyer, supported Rutherford B. Hayes, and he defended a group of coal striking miners. William McKinley was skeptical of free trade, so he believed in protective tariff. He wanted manufacturing to grow the American economy. From 1892 to 1896, he was the Governor of Ohio after his time in Congress. He supported businesses and wanted an arbitration board to handle work related disputes. The Republican Party was divided during this time. By 1896, William McKinley ran for President. 

 

Despite the Republican bosses, William McKinley won the Republican nomination. He went from supporting bimetallism to supporting the gold standard. McKinley viewed himself as a tariff man. The issue of silver and gold dominated the campaign. William McKinley won the Northeast and the Midwest. Bryan won the South and much of the West Coast except for California and Oregon. The 1896 presidential election is often seen as a realigning election, in which McKinley's view of a stronger central government building American industry through protective tariffs and a dollar based on gold triumphed. The voting patterns established then displaced the near-deadlock the major parties had seen since the Civil War; the Republican dominance begun then would continue until 1932, another realigning election with the ascent of Franklin Roosevelt. Bryan was popular among rural voters, but McKinley had strong urban voters. 

 

William McKinley was sworn in as President on March 4, 1897. He desired tariff reform, and other policies. McKinley's most controversial Cabinet appointment was that of John Sherman as Secretary of State. Sherman had an outstanding reputation but old age was fast reducing his abilities. He had to deal with Cuba. Cuba by 1895 wanted independence from Spain. War existed in the island, and most Americans supported the rebels against Spain. McKinley disagreed with Spain's action. McKinley wanted a peaceful resolution, but most Americans back then wanted war to liberate Cuba. The United States and Spain began negotiations on the subject in 1897, but it became clear that Spain would never concede Cuban independence, while the rebels (and their American supporters) would never settle for anything less. By January 1898, Spain promised more concessions to the rebels. There were riots in Havana. America sent the battleship USS Maine there. Later, the Maine exploded and sank to kill 266 men on February 15, 1898. This increased the crisis. McKinley wanted a court of inquiry to see if the explosion was accidental. On March 20, the court ruled that the Maine was blown up by an underwater mine. As pressure for war mounted in Congress, McKinley continued to negotiate for Cuban independence. Spain refused McKinley's proposals, and on April 11, McKinley turned the matter over to Congress. He did not ask for war, but Congress declared war anyway on April 20, with the addition of the Teller Amendment, which disavowed any intention of annexing Cuba. Nick Kapur says that McKinley's actions were based on his values of arbitrationism, pacifism, humanitarianism, and manly self-restraint, and not on external pressures. 

The telephone and telegraph gave McKinley more control over the management of the war. War among Spain and America existed. America defeated Spanish forces in Cuba and in the Philippines. The Battle of San Juan Hill was when America was victorious but both sides had huge causalities. Cuba was soon under American control by July 17 after the battle of Santiago. McKinley wanted America to control the Philippines which was opposed by the American Anti-Imperialist League. McKinley also wanted Spain to leave Cuba and Puerto Rico.  Spain ultimately agreed to a ceasefire on those terms on August 12, and treaty negotiations began in Paris in September 1898. The talks continued until December 18, when the Treaty of Paris was signed. The United States acquired Puerto Rico and the Philippines as well as the island of Guam, and Spain relinquished its claims to Cuba; in exchange, the United States agreed to pay Spain $20 million (equivalent to $622.16 million in 2020). McKinley had difficulty convincing the Senate to approve the treaty by the requisite two-thirds vote, but his lobbying, and that of Vice President Hobart, eventually saw success, as the Senate voted in favor on February 6, 1899, 57 to 27. McKinley wanted to control Hawaii and annex it despite the Queen of Hawaii opposed to it. The resulting Newlands Resolution passed both houses by wide margins, and McKinley signed it into law on July 8, 1898. McKinley believed in the ignorant view that Manifest Destiny gives him the right to control Hawaii. The Boxer Rebellion happened when Chinese people wanted independence from Western imperialism. Many missionaries were threatened with death. Americans and other westerners in Peking were besieged and, in cooperation with other western powers, McKinley ordered 5000 Amerian troops to the city in June 1900 in the China Relief Expedition. Some Democrats criticized him for doing this without consulting the legislature. 

McKinley had spoken out against lynching while governor, and most black people, who could still vote, supported him in 1896. McKinley's priority, however, was in ending sectionalism, and they were disappointed by his policies and appointments. Although McKinley made some appointments of black people to low-level government posts, and received some praise for that, the appointments were less than they had received under previous Republican administrations. His did minimal action in terms of civil rights. Black people decreased their support of him.  When black postmasters at Hogansville, Georgia in 1897, and at Lake City, South Carolina the following year, were assaulted, McKinley issued no statement of condemnation. Although black leaders criticized McKinley for inaction, supporters responded by saying there was little that the president could do to intervene. Critics replied by saying that he could at least publicly condemn such events, as Harrison had done. When a group of white supremacists violently overthrew the duly elected government of Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898, in an event that came to be recognized as the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, McKinley refused requests by black leaders to send in federal marshals or federal troops to protect black citizens, and ignored city residents' appeals for help to recover from the widespread destruction of the predominantly black neighborhood of Brooklyn. William McKinley was wrong for that action. According to historian Clarence A. Bacote, "Before the Spanish–American War, the Negroes, in spite of some mistakes, regarded McKinley as the best friend they ever had." Under pressure from black leaders, McKinley required the War Department to commission black officers above the rank of lieutenant. McKinley toured the South in late 1898, promoting sectional reconciliation. He visited Tuskegee Institute and the famous black educator Booker T. Washington. He also visited Confederate memorials. In his tour of the South, McKinley did not mention the racial tensions or violence. Although the president received a rapturous reception from Southern whites, many blacks, excluded from official welcoming committees, felt alienated by the president's words and actions. Gould concluded regarding race, "McKinley lacked the vision to transcend the biases of his day and to point toward a better future for all Americans."

 

 

William McKinley won the election in 1900. By this time, people talked about silver, war, and foreign policy. The Democrats viewed McKinley as a puppet of big business and capital. He won a landslide victory against Bryan. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1901. He toured the nation. Traveling mostly by rail, the McKinleys were to travel through the South to the Southwest, and then up the Pacific coast and east again, to conclude with a visit on June 13, 1901 to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. However, the first lady fell ill in California, causing her husband to limit his public events and cancel a series of speeches he had planned to give urging trade reciprocity. He also postponed the visit to the fair until September, planning a month in Washington and two in Canton before the Buffalo visit. William McKinley gave a speech.  On September 5, McKinley delivered his address at the fairgrounds before a crowd of 50,000. In his final speech, McKinley urged reciprocity treaties with other nations to assure American manufacturers access to foreign markets. He intended the speech as a keynote to his plans for a second term. A man in the crowd named Leon Czolgosz hoped to assassinate McKinley. He had managed to get close to the presidential podium, but did not fire, uncertain of hitting his target. After hearing a speech by anarchist Emma Goldman in Cleveland, Czolgosz had decided to take action that he believed would advance the cause. After his failure to get close enough on September 5, Czolgosz waited the next day at the Temple of Music on the exposition grounds, where the president was to meet the public. Czolgosz concealed his gun in a handkerchief and, when he reached the head of the line, shot McKinley twice in the abdomen at close range. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt heard of the news. Later, he survived for many days until McKinley passed away. 

Relatives and friends gathered around the death bed. The first lady sobbed over him, saying, "I want to go, too. I want to go, too." Her husband replied, "We are all going, we are all going. God's will be done, not ours," and with final strength put an arm around her. He may also have sung part of his favorite hymn, "Nearer, My God, to Thee," although other accounts have the first lady singing it softly to him. At 2:15 a.m. on September 14, McKinley died. Theodore Roosevelt rushed back to Buffalo and took the oath of office as president. Czolgosz, put on trial for murder nine days after McKinley's death, was found guilty, sentenced to death on September 26 and executed by electric chair on October 29, 1901. His wife, Ida, had a shrine in her home. She lived in Canton until her passing at 59 on May 26, 1907. She died only months before the completion of the large marble monument to her husband in Canton, which was dedicated by President Roosevelt on September 30, 1907. William and Ida McKinley are interred there with their daughters atop a hillside overlooking the city of Canton. President William McKinley saw a transition. He was the first President to be President in the 20th century. He saw some of the most important foreign policy crises in human history. He saw the power of the Republican Party increase for decades until the time of FDR.  Other McKinley appointees who later became major figures include Day, whom Roosevelt elevated to the Supreme Court where he remained nearly 20 years, and William Howard Taft, whom McKinley had made Governor-General of the Philippines and who succeeded Roosevelt as president. After the assassination, the present United States Secret Service came into existence when the Congress deemed it necessary that presidential protection be part of its duties. 

 

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most famous, complex Presidents in history. He had liberal and conservative policies on many issues. He lived from October 27, 1858 to January 6, 1919. He has been a politician, a conservationist, a naturalist, a historian, and a writer. He was the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. Theodore Roosevelt was the 25th Vice President under William McKinley from March to September 1901. Also, he was the 33rd Governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. He was born in Manhattan, NYC at 28th East 20th Street. As the 2nd of 4 children, Roosevelt lived an interesting life. His parents were Martha Stewart Bulloch and Theodore Roosevelt Sr. He had an older sister (Anna, nicknamed "Bamie"), a younger brother (Elliott) and a younger sister (Corinne). Elliott was later the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Theodore's distant cousin, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His paternal grandfather was of Dutch descent. His other ancestry included primarily Scottish and Scots-Irish, English and smaller amounts of German, Welsh and French. Theodore Sr. was the fifth son of businessman Cornelius Van Schaack "C. V. S." Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill as well as a brother of Robert Roosevelt and James A. Roosevelt. Theodore's fourth cousin, James Roosevelt I, who was also a businessman, was the father of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mittie was the younger daughter of Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha P. "Patsy" Stewart. Through the Van Schaacks, Roosevelt was a descendant of the Schuyler family. Theodore Roosevelt had issues of asthma as a child. He had so many asthma attacks at night, that he was almost near death. He was energetic too. Making museums of dead animals was part of his childhood activities. He learned taxidermy. Theodore Roosevelt preserved seals, insects, and other species.

 

His father inspired him. His father (Theodore Roosevelt Sr.) was a leader of New York's cultural affairs, and Theodore Roosevelt Sr. helped to found the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His father worked to support the Union during the American Civil War, though his in-laws were Confederate leaders. Roosevelt said, "My father, Theodore Roosevelt, was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness." Family trips abroad, including tours of Europe in 1869 and 1870, and Egypt in 1872, shaped his cosmopolitan perspective. Teddy Roosevelt kept pace with his father by 1869 when his family were hiking in the Alps. Theodore Roosevelt used fitness exercise to reduce his asthma and bolster his spirit. That is why he had a large regime of exercise. After being beaten up by 2 older boys on a camping trip, he found a boxing coach to teach him how to fight to strengthen his body. When he was six years old, he witnessed the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln from his grandfather's mansion in Union Square, New York City. He was photographed in the window along with his brother Elliot. This was confirmed by Edith, who was also present. Theodore Roosevelt was homeschooled. He knew about history, geography, French and German. Theodore struggled with mathematics and the classical language. When he entered Harvard College on September 27, 1876, his father advised: "Take care of your morals first, your health next, and finally your studies." His father's sudden death on February 9, 1878, devastated Roosevelt, but he eventually recovered and doubled his activities. 

In Harvard, Roosevelt did well in science, philosophy, and rhetoric courses but continued to struggle in Latin and Greek. He studied biology intently and was already an accomplished naturalist and a published ornithologist. Roosevelt read prodigiously with an almost photographic memory. While at Harvard, Roosevelt participated in rowing and boxing. That is why Theodore Roosevelt was once runner-up in a Harvard boxing tournament. Roosevelt was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi literary society (later the Fly Club), the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and the prestigious Porcellian Club; he was also an editor of The Harvard Advocate. In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa (22nd of 177) from Harvard with an A.B. magna cum laude. After his father's death, Roosevelt had inherited $65,000 (equivalent to $1,743,121 in 2020), enough to live off comfortably for the rest of his life. Theodore Roosevelt studied at Columbia Law School. Soon, he joined into politics. He was a famous member of the Republican Party. His love of geography made him an expert of naval history and strategy. Alice Hathaway Lee was his first wife. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt was born on February 12, 1884. Roosevelt saw his mother and his wife pass away. He never wrote about Alice for the rest of his wife, even in his autobiography. Theodore Roosevelt was elected in the New York State Assembly in 1882, 1883, and in 1884. Roosevelt fought to eliminate corruption in government. His anti-corruption efforts won him great support. He supported Governor Cleveland's efforts to pass a civil reform bill. Theodore Roosevelt supported Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont for President.

Roosevelt attended the 1884 GOP National Convention in Chicago and gave a speech convincing delegates to nominate African American John R. Lynch, an Edmunds supporter, to be temporary chair. Roosevelt fought alongside the Mugwump reformers; however, Blaine, having gained support from Arthur's and Edmunds's delegates, won the nomination by 541 votes on the fourth ballot. In a crucial moment of his budding political career, Roosevelt resisted the demand of the Mugwumps that he bolt from Blaine. He bragged about his one small success: "We achieved a victory in getting up a combination to beat the Blaine nominee for temporary chairman...To do this needed a mixture of skill, boldness and energy... to get the different factions to come in... to defeat the common foe." After Blaine won the Republican nomination, he lost support of many reformers. He supported Blaine to maintain his presence in the GOP. Teddy Roosevelt moved into North Dakota as a cattle rancher. He hunted bison in 1883. He embraced the western lifestyle, and Roosevelt promoted the cattle business. He lived in New York and Dakota to advance his ranch. After the 1884 Presidential election, Theodore Roosevelt created his ranch named Elkhorn in the city of Medora, North Dakota. He learned to ride western style, rope, and hunt on the Little Missouri. The cowboys respected him but were not overly impressed. He addressed the issue of conservation to preserve resources. His 2nd wife was Edith Kermit Carrow. They married on December 2, 1886, and Edith was his childhood and family friend. The couple married at St. George's, Hanover Square in London, England. Their five children were: Theodore "Ted" III in 1887, Kermit in 1889, Ethel in 1891, Archibald in 1894, and Quentin in 1897. The couple also raised Roosevelt's daughter from his first marriage, Alice, who often clashed with her stepmother. 

Theodore Roosevelt came back into political life in 1886 at New York City. Roosevelt lost his NYC mayoral election to Abram Hewitt (a Democrat. Henry George ran for mayor in NYC too). His book about the west called The Winning of the West was a great success for Teddy Roosevelt. Then, Roosevelt worked on promoting civil service reform. Reforming the police force in NYC was his role as NYC Police Commissioner. Roosevelt implemented regular inspections of firearms and annual physical exams, appointed recruits based on their physical and mental qualifications rather than political affiliation, established Meritorious Service Medals, and closed corrupt police hostelries. During his tenure, a Municipal Lodging House was established by the Board of Charities, and Roosevelt required officers to register with the Board. Also, Theodore Roosevelt had telephones installed in station houses. The book of How the Other Half Lives exposed poverty among millions of poor immigrants in New York City. This inspired Theodore Roosevelt to be part of the progressive movement. The author of the book was Jacob Riis or the muckraking Evening Sun newspaper. Roosevelt was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy by the late 1800's. Roosevelt wanted to build up the Navy, create battleships, and wanted foreign policy to be studied. Desiring Spain to be ejected from Cuba was his aim. On February 15, 1898, USS Maine, an armored cruiser, exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing hundreds of crew members. While Roosevelt and many other Americans blamed Spain for the explosion, McKinley sought a diplomatic solution. War existed between America and Spain. Roosevelt supported this war. Colonel Roosevelt fought in Cuba. His "Rough Riders" trained in San Antonio, Texas for weeks. The Rough Riders won 2 major battles in Cuba. 

 

After Cuba, Theodore Roosevelt was the Governor of New York state. As governor, Roosevelt learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. Chessman argues that Roosevelt's program "rested firmly upon the concept of the square deal by a neutral state." The rules for the Square Deal were "honesty in public affairs, an equitable sharing of privilege and responsibility, and subordination of party and local concerns to the interests of the state at large." Teddy Roosevelt taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations via the Ford Franchise Tax law. His policies of regulation, mediation of conflicts of capital and labor, and conservation of natural resources helped his Presidential run. After McKinley was President, Teddy Roosevelt was Vice President. On September 2, 1901, Roosevelt first publicized an aphorism that thrilled his supporters: "Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far." After William McKinley was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at Buffalo, New York, Roosevelt was President. He was sworn in at Ansley Wilcox House. People were nervous about him, but Roosevelt assured people that he would follow McKinley's policies. Shortly after taking office, Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. This sparked a bitter, and at times vicious, reaction among racist whites across the heavily segregated South. Roosevelt reacted with astonishment and protest, saying that he looked forward to many future dinners with Washington. Upon further reflection, Roosevelt wanted to ensure that this had no effect on political support in the white South, and further dinner invitations to Washington were avoided; their next meeting was scheduled as typical business at 10:00 a.m. instead. 

When Roosevelt was President, he promoted trust busting and regulation. He used the Sherman Antitrust Act to fight corruption from big business. Roosevelt viewed big business as part of the American economy, but he wanted to stop bad trusts with unrestrained actions. He broke up many monopolies like the Northern Security Company and regulating Standard Oil. 44 antitrust suits existed under him. Bolstered by his party's winning large majorities in the 1902 elections, Roosevelt proposed the creation of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, which would include the Bureau of Corporations. While Congress was receptive to the Department of Commerce and Labor, it was more skeptical of the antitrust powers that Roosevelt sought to endow within the Bureau of Corporations. Roosevelt successfully appealed to the public to pressure Congress, and Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass Roosevelt's version of the bill. Some didn't like this like House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon accused Roosevelt of making the executive branch control all domestic policy making. The 1902 coal strike was solved by negotiation, and that strike could cause a national energy shortage. J. P. Morgan gave miners more pay for fewer hours but no union recognition. Roosevelt was the first President to help settle a labor dispute. Teddy Roosevelt ended misconduct among people in his administration who cheated the Creek people and other tribes out of land parcel. This was land fraud. 

In November 1902, Roosevelt and Secretary Ethan A. Hitchcock forced Binger Hermann, the General Land Office Commissioner, to resign from office. On November 6, 1903, Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor and obtained 146 indictments involving an Oregon Land Office bribery ring. U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell was indicted for bribery to expedite illegal land patents, found guilty in July 1905, and sentenced to six months in prison. More corruption was found in the Postal Department, that brought on the indictments of 44 government employees on charges of bribery and fraud. President Roosevelt used the Hepburn Act to regulate railroad rates, regulate food and drugs (via the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act). Food regulation was inspired by Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. The Meat law banned misleading labels and preservatives that had harmful chemicals.  The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped. Roosevelt also served as honorary president of the American School Hygiene Association from 1907 to 1908, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on the Care of Dependent Children. One of his greatest achievements was his work on conservation. He helped to use policies to protect natural resources and wildlife. Roosevelt worked closely with Interior Secretary James Rudolph Garfield and Chief of the United States Forest Service Gifford Pinchot to enact a series of conservation programs that often met with resistance from Western members of Congress, such as Charles William Fulton.

Nonetheless, Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately 230 million acres (930,000 square kilometers). Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as president. By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 150 million acres (600,000 square kilometers) of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment, despite the perception in Congress that he was encroaching on too many lands. Eventually, Senator Charles Fulton (R-OR) attached an amendment to an agricultural appropriations bill that effectively prevented the president from reserving any further land. Before signing that bill into law, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish an additional 21 forest reserves, waiting until the last minute to sign the bill into law. In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states. Prior to Roosevelt, only one president had issued over 200 executive orders, Grover Cleveland (253). The first 25 presidents issued a total of 1,262 executive orders; Roosevelt issued 1,081.

One of the situations of Roosevelt was his dealing with foreign policy. Teddy Roosevelt was wrong to promote an overt imperialist policy. Hawaii was annexed in 1898. America controlled the Philippines for a time. He wanted to conquer the Philippines in his 1900 campaign. He failed by 1902. He promoted friendly relations with Japan. Roosevelt mediated a peace conference to stop Russia and Japan from furthering going into war. In California, anti-Japanese racism increased. Tokyo protested. So, Roosevelt wanted explicit Japanese discrimination to end. He sent ships to promote American forces in Japan. He allowed America to control the Philippines, and Japan to control Korea. Roosevelt saw America to be a world power having the largest economy in the world. He worked with Britain. He also worked in promoting the Panama Canal. This allowed ships to come from Europe to Asia quickly. Teddy Roosevelt loved to write in magazines and communicate with the press. Roosevelt later won the 1904 Presidential election. During the campaign, he denied corruption after Parker plus Democrats accused him of it. During his 2nd term, Roosevelt promoted more reforms. He fought for an eight hour work day for federal employees, a postal savings system to help local banks, and campaign reform laws. On domestic issues, he moved to the left. Teddy Roosevelt loved being President. He ran again in 1908, but he failed. Roosevelt disliked one candidate and considered him to be too independent. Instead, Roosevelt settled on his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, who had ably served under Presidents Harrison, McKinley, and Roosevelt in various positions. Roosevelt and Taft had been friends since 1890, and Taft had consistently supported President Roosevelt's policies. Taft said that he wanted a rule of law and judges to make decisions about fairness. Taft was less energetic than Roosevelt. Taft wanted to lower the tariff. 

Theodore Roosevelt visited Africa to hunt and kill animals like elephants. He allowed some specimens to be maintained for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Roosevelt went over the line and killed or trapped about 11,400 animals. This has nothing to do with conservation but the overkill of animals. By 1910, the Republican Party was divided between Taft and Roosevelt. Taft was more conservative than Roosevelt on domestic policy issues. He wanted progressives to control the Republican Party to not split it in causing the Democrats to win it in 1912. In August 1910, Roosevelt gained national attention with a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, which was the most radical of his career and marked his public break with Taft and the conservative Republicans. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", Roosevelt emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions. Roosevelt wanted to control the GOP. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin joined with Pinchot, William White, and California Governor Hiram Johnson to create the National Progressive Republican League; their objectives were to defeat the power of political bossism at the state level and to replace Taft at the national level. Taft ironically was right to promote trade arbitration to end problems, but Roosevelt wanted more confrontation to end trade disputes. Though Taft was more wrong on economic issues than Roosevelt. Roosevelt couldn't win the Republican primary in 1912, so he ran on the Progressive Bull Moose Party. Taft won it in the RNC at Chicago. 

Roosevelt's platform echoed his 1907–1908 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests. Though many Progressive party supporters in the North were supporters of civil rights for black people, Roosevelt did not give strong support to civil rights and ran a "lily-white" campaign in the South. Rival all-white and all-black delegations from four southern states arrived at the Progressive national convention, and Roosevelt decided to seat the all-white delegations. Nevertheless, he won little support outside mountain Republican strongholds. Out of nearly 1100 counties in the South, Roosevelt won two counties in Alabama, one in Arkansas, seven in North Carolina, three in Georgia, 17 in Tennessee, two in Texas, one in Virginia, and none in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, or South Carolina. He survived being shot in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912. Woodrow Wilson won the election in 1912. Wilson was a Democrat. Roosevelt respected Wilson, but the two differed on various issues; Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor (he viewed these as state issues), and attacked Roosevelt's tolerance of large businesses. He traveled into South America for an expedition after his loss in the 1912 election. Roosevelt disagreed with Wilson on many issues, but agreed with some of Wilson's reforms. Later, Roosevelt wanted Progressives to support the Republican party. In 1916, Wilson won the Presidency with many Progressive joining the Republican Party by 1916. When WWI exited, Roosevelt supported the Allies and wanted a harsh military response against Germany. Roosevelt opposed the foreign policy of Wilson calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. He was wrong to question the patriotism of Irish and German Americans. Wilson refused to allow him to send Rough Riders to volunteer to fight in WWI. Roosevelt never forgave Wilson for that. His book The Fores of Our Own Household criticized President Wilson by name.  Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, a pilot with the American forces in France, was killed when shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918, at the age of 20. It is said that Quentin's death distressed Roosevelt so much that he never recovered from his loss. Roosevelt supported the concept of a League of Nations but not Wilson's version of it. He viewed Wilson's 14 Points as too lenient to Germany.  He wrote William Allen White, "I wish to do everything in my power to make the Republican Party the Party of sane, constructive radicalism, just as it was under Lincoln." Accordingly, he told the 1918 state convention of the Maine Republican Party that he stood for old-age pensions, insurance for sickness and unemployment, construction of public housing for low-income families, the reduction of working hours, aid to farmers, and more regulation of large corporations. By 1918, Republicans won the Congress in the midterm election because Wilson's political issues. Roosevelt had many diseases. The end was near.

 

By the night of January 5, 1919, Roosevelt had breathing problems. Treatment helped him for a time. He passed away the next morning at the age of 60. A blood clot traveled to his lungs. Many people gave him words of condolences, even Woodrow Wilson's vice President Thomas R. Marshall.  Following a private farewell service in the North Room at Sagamore Hill, a simple funeral was held at Christ Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay. Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, Charles Evans Hughes, Warren G. Harding, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were among the mourners. The snow-covered procession route to Youngs Memorial Cemetery was lined with spectators and a squad of mounted policemen who had ridden from New York City. Roosevelt was buried on a hillside overlooking Oyster Bay. President Roosevelt loved to write. He was a Freemason and lived a strenuous life. Many people don't know that he learned jiu-jitsu. Men and women back then studied jiu-jitsu in America plus Japan. Roosevelt followed the Reformed Church. President Theodore Roosevelt's legacy is complex. He had positions appealing to liberals and conservatives. He wanted the federal government to have a regulatory role in society. He promoted protection of natural resources, consumer protection, and control of corporations. Roosevelt was bad on foreign policy to believe in social darwinism and being an overt imperialist. His domestic reforms laid the ground work for the future New Deal and the growth of the social safety net of FDR's time. So, he was right to promote federal taxation, establish reforms, and protect the environment, but he was wrong on advancing interventionist imperialism.  He is celebrated worldwide in statues, buildings, movies, and plays. His legacy is remembered by us in 2022 indeed. 

 

William Howard Taft

The27th President of the United States was President William Howard Taft. He was the opposite of Theodore Roosevelt. He was the 19th chief justice of the United States Supreme Court too from 1921-1930). He lived from September 15, 1857 to March 8, 1930. He experienced on term in office. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Alphonso Taft and Louise Torrey. The Taft family was not wealthy but lived in a modest house in the suburb of Mount Auburn. Alphonso was a judge, an ambassador, and the War Secretary plus Attorney General for President Ulyssess S. Grant. William Taft worked hard. His parents wanted to push him for success.  He attended Woodward High School in Cincinnati. At Yale College, which he entered in 1874, the heavyset, jovial Taft was popular and an intramural heavyweight wrestling champion. One classmate said he succeeded through hard work rather than by being the smartest, and had integrity. He was elected a member of Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society co-founded by his father, one of three future presidents (with George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush) to be a member. In 1878, Taft graduated second in his class of 121. He attended Cincinnati Law School, and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1880. William Taft was in law school, and he worked on The Cincinnati Commercial newspaper, edited by Murat Halstead. He covered local courts proceedings. Reading law in his father's office was part of his life. Also, he knew knowledge of the law and graduated from law school. Taft went to Columbus to take the bar examination. He easily passed. 

William Howard Taft was an Ohio lawyer and judge after he was admitted to the Ohio bar. He was at the Commercial newspaper full time. Taft became the assistant prosecutor for Hamilton County. In 1884, Taft campaigned for the Republican candidate for president, Maine Senator James G. Blaine, who lost to New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Later, Taft was appointed to a vacancy on the Superior Court of Cincinnati by Governor Joseph B. Foraker. It was good for over a year. He was elected for a full five year term. Taft ruled against an union's action as amounted to a secondary boycott, which to him was illegal. William Taft married Helen Herron on June 19, 1886. They had 3 children, and their eldest, Robert, was a U.S. Senator. 

Later, there was a vacant on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1889. Taft was the Solicitor General. Taft was 32 years old. As Solicitor General, Taft won 15 of the 18 cases that he argued before the Supreme Court. He was glad when in March 1891, the United States Congress created a new judgeship for each of the United States Courts of Appeal and Harrison appointed him to the Sixth Circuit, based in Cincinnati. In March 1892, Taft resigned as Solicitor General to resume his judicial career. Taft feared unrest, but he supported the right of labor to organize and strike. He ruled against employers in many negligence cases. Among these was Voight v. Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Co. Taft's decision for a worker injured in a railway accident violated the contemporary doctrine of liberty of contract, and he was reversed by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, Taft's opinion in United States v. Addyston Pipe and Steel Co. was upheld unanimously by the high court. Taft's opinion, in which he held that a pipe manufacturers' association had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, was described by Henry Pringle, his biographer, as having "definitely and specifically revived" that legislation. 

William Taft was a Republican supporter. He was lukewarm in his support of McKinley. Taft promoted international legal situations. Later, he taught international law at the Yale Law School. He came into the Philippines. This came during the Philippine Revolution when Filipinos wanted independence. Yet, the U.S. forces, led by military governor General Arthur MacArthur Jr. defeated the independence forces in 1900. The commission took executive power in the Philippines on September 1, 1900; on July 4, 1901, Taft became civilian governor. MacArthur, until then the military governor, was relieved by General Adna Chaffee, who was designated only as commander of American forces. Taft sought to make the Filipinos partners in a venture that would lead to their self-government; he saw independence as something decades off. Many Americans in the Philippines viewed the locals as racial inferiors, but Taft wrote soon before his arrival, "we propose to banish this idea from their minds." Taft did not impose racial segregation at official events, and treated the Filipinos as social equals. Nellie Taft recalled that "neither politics nor race should influence our hospitality in any way. Obviously, Filipinos are never an inferior race period. All human beings are created equal deserving of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When Theodore Roosevelt existed as President, Taft was once his friend. Taft was the Secretary of War too. His dream was to be in the Supreme Court. In 1908, William Taft ran for President. He easily won the Republican National Convention. Taft's opponent in the general election was Bryan, the Democratic nominee for the third time in four presidential elections. As many of Roosevelt's reforms stemmed from proposals by Bryan, the Democrat argued that he was the true heir to Roosevelt's mantle. Corporate contributions to federal political campaigns had been outlawed by the 1907 Tillman Act, and Bryan proposed that contributions by officers and directors of corporations be similarly banned, or at least disclosed when made. Taft was only willing to see the contributions disclosed after the election, and tried to ensure that officers and directors of corporations litigating with the government were not among his contributors.

William Howard Taft won the 1908 election in the North, most of the Midwest, and most of the West Coast. Bryan wanted bank guarantees, so that depositors could be rapid if banks failed. Taft opposed it. Taft ignored the issue of temperance or the alcohol issue. Taft was sworn in as President on March 4, 1909. Taft saw ice, and the inauguration took place within the Senate Chamber rather than outside the Capitol as is customary. The new president stated in his inaugural address that he had been honored to have been "one of the advisers of my distinguished predecessor" and to have had a part "in the reforms he has initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my promises, and to the declarations of the party platform on which I was elected if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those reforms a most important feature of my administration." President Taft promised to make reforms. Taft helped his wife survive a severe stroke and teaching her to speak again (that took a year). Taft caused the State Department to work internationally in Asia, Latin America, and Western Europe. Taft supported tariffs, an income tax, and other policies. The Monroe Doctrine was a key part of his agenda. When Taft entered office, Mexico was increasingly restless under the grip of longtime dictator Porfirio Díaz. Many Mexicans backed his opponent, Francisco Madero. There were a number of incidents in which Mexican rebels crossed the U.S. border to obtain horses and weapons; Taft sought to prevent this by ordering the US Army to the border areas for maneuvers. Taft told his military aide, Archibald Butt, that "I am going to sit on the lid and it will take a great deal to pry me off." He showed his support for Díaz by meeting with him at El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, the first meeting between a U.S. and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president visited Mexico. The day of the summit, Frederick Russell Burnham and a Texas Ranger captured and disarmed an assassin holding a palm pistol only a few feet from the two presidents. Before the election in Mexico, Díaz jailed opposition candidate Madero, whose supporters took up arms. This resulted in both the ousting of Díaz and a revolution that would continue for another ten years. In the U.S.'s Arizona Territory, two citizens were killed and almost a dozen injured, some as a result of gunfire across the border. Taft was against an aggressive response and so instructed the territorial governor.

Taft was reluctant to support the Republic of China headed by Sun Yat-sen. Taft was a supporter of settling international disputes by arbitration, and he negotiated treaties with Great Britain and with France providing that differences be arbitrated. These were signed in August 1911. Neither Taft nor Knox (a former senator) consulted with members of the Senate during the negotiating process. By then many Republicans were opposed to Taft and the president felt that lobbying too hard for the treaties might cause their defeat. He made some speeches supporting the treaties in October, but the Senate added amendments Taft could not accept, killing the agreements. President Taft support antitrust policies. Taft announced in his inaugural address that he would not appoint African Americans to federal jobs, such as postmaster, where this would cause racial friction. This differed from Roosevelt, who would not remove or replace black officeholders with whom local whites would not deal. Termed Taft's "Southern Policy", this stance effectively invited white protests against black appointees. Taft followed through, removing most black office holders in the South, and made few appointments of African Americans in the North. At the time Taft was inaugurated, the way forward for African Americans was debated by their leaders. Booker T. Washington felt that most black people should be trained for industrial work, with only a few seeking higher education; W. E. B. DuBois took a more militant stand for equality. Later, we know that Booker T. Washington and DuBois supported voting rights more militantly before they passed. Washington was right to promote industry, agriculture, and economic development in the black community. He was wrong for his immigration views and his capitalist extremism. DuBois was right to fight imperialism, capitalist exploitation, and unjust racism. DuBois was wrong to support the Talented Tenth concept. Taft tended towards Washington's approach. According to Coletta, Taft let the African-American "be 'kept in his place'  ... He thus failed to see or follow the humanitarian mission historically associated with the Republican party, with the result that Negroes both North and South began to drift toward the Democratic party." 

So, President Taft followed racist policies. Taft made 6 appointments to the Supreme Court. By the 1912 Presidential election, he ran for President again. He faced Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt not only attacked the Supreme Court's 1905 decision in Lochner v. New York, he accused the federal courts of undermining democracy, and called for them to be deprived of the power to rule legislation unconstitutional. This attack horrified Taft, who privately agreed that Lochner had been wrongly decided. Roosevelt called for "elimination of corporate expenditures for political purposes, physical valuation of railroad properties, regulation of industrial combinations, establishment of an export tariff commission, a graduated income tax" as well as "workmen's compensation laws, state and national legislation to regulate the [labor] of women and children, and complete publicity of campaign expenditure." According to John Murphy in his journal article on the breach between the two presidents, "As Roosevelt began to move to the left, Taft veered to the right." Roosevelt wanted a new Nationalism progressive programs. Roosevelt believed that the GOP evolved into the party of Gilded Age instead of the party of Lincoln. 

Wisconsin Senator La Follette announced a presidential run as a Republican and was backed by a convention of progressives. Roosevelt began to move into a position for a run in late 1911, writing that the tradition that presidents not run for a third term only applied to consecutive terms. Taft lost the election to Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt ran a campaign in the Bull Moose Party. After Taft lost the Presidency, he returned to Yale.  He supported WWI with America's involvement. When Wilson proposed establishment of a League of Nations, Taft expressed public support. He was the leader of his party's activist wing, and was opposed by a small group of senators who vigorously opposed the League. Taft's flip-flop on whether reservations to the Versailles Treaty were necessary angered both sides, causing some Republicans to call him a Wilson supporter and a traitor to his party. The Senate refused to ratify the Versailles pact. He fulfilled his dream to be in the Supreme Court. By 1930, he passed away of health issues. He had heart disease, liver issues, and high blood pressure. He was 72 years old. Taft lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda. Three days following his death, on March 11, he became the first president and first member of the Supreme Court to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. James Earle Fraser sculpted his grave marker out of Stony Creek granite. President William Taft was a person with a legacy of mixture of policies. He wanted to get out of Theodore Roosevelt's shadow, but he couldn't fully escape it. He loved the law and the judicial processes. In a way, Taft loved the legal debates and being on the Supreme Court more than the Presidency. 

 

Woodrow Wilson 

President Woodrow Wilson was one of the most impactful and controversial Presidents in American history. He lived from December 28, 1956 to February 3, 1924. He saw the nadir of race relations in America and the First World War. He was born in the South and was a governor of a Northern state. He promoted racism and oppression against black Americans. So, we shall look at his life comprehensively. He was born to a family of Scots-Irish and Scottish descent in Staunton, Virginia. He was the third of four children of Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Janet Woodrow. Wilson's paternal grandparents had immigrated to the United States from Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland in 1807, settling in Steubenville, Ohio. His grandfather James Wilson published a pro-tariff and anti-slavery newspaper, The Western Herald and Gazette. Wilson's maternal grandfather, Reverend Thomas Woodrow, moved from Paisley, Scotland to Carlisle, England, before migrating to Chillicothe, Ohio in the late 1830s. Joseph met Jessie while she was attending a girl's academy in Steubenville, and the two married on June 7, 1849. Soon after the wedding, Joseph was ordained as a Presbyterian pastor and assigned to serve in Staunton. Thomas was born in The Manse, a house of the Staunton First Presbyterian Church where Joseph served. Before he was two, the family moved to Augusta, Georgia.

Wilson played in his yard in Augusta, Georgia. He heard of people not being happy that Abraham Lincoln was elected and war was coming. Wilson's parents were in the South and supported the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Wilson's father was one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) after it split from the Northern Presbyterians in 1861. He became minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, and the family lived there until 1870. From 1870 to 1874, Wilson lived in Columbia, South Carolina, where his father was a theology professor at the Columbia Theological Seminary. In 1873, Wilson became a communicant member of the Columbia First Presbyterian Church; he remained a member throughout his life. Wilson came into Davidson College in North Carolina from 1873-1874. Later, he transferred to the College of New Jersey (or Princeton University today). Wilson studied political philosophy and history. He joined the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and was active in the Whig literary and debating society. He supported football and baseball plus he was the managing editor of the student's newspaper. He supported the Democratic candidate for Presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden. That was in 1876. Later, Wilson attended the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was involved in the Virginia Glee Club and served as President of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society.

 

He studied law in Wilmington, North Carolina. The Georgia bar allowed Wilson to be in legal practice. He left the legal practice in Atlanta by 1882 since he wanted to study political science and history. By 1883, Wilson met and fell in love with Ellen Louise Axson, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister from Savannah, Georgia. He proposed marriage in September 1883; she accepted, but they agreed to postpone marriage while Wilson attended graduate school. Ellen graduated from Art Students League of New York, worked in portraiture, and received a medal for one of her works from the Exposition Universelle (1878) in Paris. She sacrificed her art career to marry Wilson in 1885. His wife knew German, so she translated works of political science to help with Wilson's research. The couple had many children like Margaret, Jessie, and Eleanor. People know Woodrow Wilson as a Professor of Byrn Mawr College, a women's college near Philadelphia. He got his Ph.D. in history and government from John Hopkins in 1886 at Baltimore. He is the only U.S. President with a Ph.D. He coached the football team at Wesleyan University. In the 1896 presidential election, Wilson rejected Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan as too far to the left. He supported the conservative "Gold Democrat" nominee, John M. Palmer. Wilson wrote about history and political science. Wilson wrote about banning child labor, improving the sanitation of factories, and limiting hours of labor. He was the President of Princeton University. He appointed Jewish and Roman Catholic people in the faculty. Back then, many Jewish people and Roman Catholics were forbidden to have high positions in even universities because of discriminatory reasons. 

Wilson used fundraising to fund the school of Princeton. Wilson was a racist who wanted to keep African Americans out of Princeton when other Ivy League schools were accepting a small number of black human beings. Wilson had health issues with being blind in the left eye. He had hypertension and a blood clot. From 1911 to 1913, Wilson was the Governor of New Jersey. He won the 1910 gubernatorial election in New Jersey. Democratic leaders supported him. Wilson spoke against trusts and corruption. Wilson wanted to be part of the Progressive Movement. He defeated Vivian M. Lewis. While he was governor of New Jersey, he made antitrust laws like the Seven Sisters. He passed a law that removed the power to select juries from local sheriffs. By 1912, he was in the Democratic Nomination as a Presidential campaign. The Progressive movement supported him. His other followers are Princeton alumni such as Cyrus McCormick and Southerners such as Walter Hines Page, who believed that Wilson's status as a transplanted Southerner gave him broad appeal. Wilson had allies like William Gibbs McAddoo and "Colonel" Edward M. House to manage his campaign. Woodrow Wilson won the 1912 Presidential election. He defeated Roosevelt who had similar views on many issues. Wilson was President from 1913 to 1921. Wilson allowed the white racist Josephus Daniels to be the Secretary of the Navy. 

A young New York attorney Franklin D. Roosevelt was chosen to be the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Colonel Edward M. House was his closest adviser. Woodrow Wilson promoted his New Freedom domestic agenda. He had four major domestic priorities: the conservation of natural resources, banking reform, tariff reduction, and equal access to raw materials, which was accomplished in part through the regulation of trusts. He also signed the law to created the Federal Reserve System and the Revenue Act of 1913 that evolved into the IRS system. He supported bans on child labor and other regulations to stop corruption in labor. He opposed immigration from southern and eastern Europe. He wanted a gradual independence of the Philippines. He had pressure to not advance military intervention in Mexico. In early 1916, Pancho Villa raided the village of Columbus, New Mexico, killing or wounding dozens of Americans and causing an enormous nationwide American demand for his punishment. Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing and 4,000 troops across the border to capture Villa. By April, Pershing's forces had broken up and dispersed Villa's bands, but Villa remained on the loose and Pershing continued his pursuit deep into Mexico. Carranza then pivoted against the Americans and accused them of a punitive invasion, leading to several incidents that nearly led to war. Tensions subsided after Mexico agreed to release several American prisoners, and bilateral negotiations began under the auspices of the Mexican-American Joint High Commission. Eager to withdraw from Mexico due to tensions in Europe, Wilson ordered Pershing to withdraw, and the last American soldiers left in February 1917.

Woodrow Wilson had a gradual plan in WWI. Back then, many Americans at first wanted neutrality. The Central Powers fought the Allied Powers. The Central Powers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria. The Allied Powers were Britain, France, Russia, and Serbia. Both parties wanted a peace agreement. Later, Germany had a submarine campaign against merchant vessels in the British Isles. Some submarines bomb American ships. Later, when the RMS Lusitania was bombed killing 1,198 passengers including 128 American citizens, this changed everything. Wilson wanted Germany to have accountability. The military of America improved. Theodore Roosevelt wanted war against Germany. Wilson's first wife died, and he remarried a woman named Edith Bolling Galt. Wilson was re-elected in 1916. In an effort to win progressive voters, Wilson called for legislation providing for an eight-hour day and six-day workweek, health and safety measures, the prohibition of child labor, and safeguards for female workers. He also favored a minimum wage for all work performed by and for the federal government. Germany continued to have unrestricted submarine warfare against ships in the British Isles. The Zimmermann Telegram existed that wanted Germany to try to convince Mexico to fight America. Then, Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany on April 2, 1917. With the U.S. entrance into the war, Wilson and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker launched an expansion of the army, with the goal of creating a 300,000-member Regular Army, a 440,000-member National Guard, and a 500,000-member conscripted force known as the "National Army." Despite some resistance to conscription and to the commitment of American soldiers abroad, large majorities of both houses of Congress voted to impose conscription with the Selective Service Act of 1917. Seeking to avoid the draft riots of the Civil War, the bill established local draft boards that were charged with determining who should be drafted. By the end of the war, nearly 3 million men had been drafted. 

Woodrow Wilson wanted a common peace to prevent future conflicts. The war was on. He also promoted the League of Nations. The Fourteen Points was promoting self determination of the peoples of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Russia left the war after signging the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Later, Pershing and American forces foguht in Europe. Americans and the rest of the Allies combined defeated Germany in the Battle of Belleau Wood and the Battle of Château-Thierry. Beginning in August, the Allies launched the Hundred Days Offensive, pushing back the exhausted German army. Meanwhile, French and British leaders convinced Wilson to send a few thousand American soldiers to join the Allied intervention in Russia, which was in the midst of a civil war between the Communist Bolsheviks and the White movement. Hoping to break Allied lines before American soldiers could arrive in full force, the Germans launched the Spring Offensive on the Western Front. Both sides suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties as the Germans forced back the British and French, but Germany was unable to capture the French capital of Paris. There were only 175,000 American soldiers in Europe at the end of 1917, but by mid-1918 10,000 Americans were arriving in Europe per day.

By the end of September 1918, the German leadership no longer believed it could win the war, and Kaiser Wilhelm II appointed a new government led by Prince Maximilian of Baden. Baden immediately sought an armistice with Wilson, with the Fourteen Points to serve as the basis of the German surrender. House procured agreement to the armistice from France and Britain, but only after threatening to conclude a unilateral armistice without them. Germany and the Allied Powers brought an end to the fighting with the signing of the Armistice of November 11, 1918. Austria-Hungary had signed the Armistice of Villa Giusti eight days earlier, while the Ottoman Empire had signed the Armistice of Mudros in October. By the end of the war, 116,000 American soldiers had died, and another 200,000 had been wounded.  In America, there were food drives, women workers in factories, and other programs to fund the war effort. After World War I, Wilson was part of the Paris Peace Conference. This was after the armistice was signed. Wilson came into Europe to lead the American delegation. He was the first incumbent President to go into Europe. 

Many people in Washington wanted more U.S. representation in the Congress. Wilson wanted the League of Nations. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando made up the "Big Four," the Allied leaders with the most influence at the Paris Peace Conference. The Conference refused to oppose imperialism, and it refused advance freedom for people in Africa and Asia. Japan wanted the conference to endorse racial equality, but Wilson was indifference (Australia and Britain opposed that plan). The Treaty of Versailles ended the war. The League of Nations failed for many reasons like it being new, not strongly enforced, and the growth of fascist movements in the world. The Red Scare, racial riots against black people, and other bombings by anarchists existed during this time. The Palmer Raids suppressed many people. He lost the 1920 election to Warren Harding. Wilson opposed women's suffrage at first, and then he wanted national voting plans. Wilson received the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize. Wilson's health was not improving. He lived in Washington, D.C. He passed away on February 3, 1924 at the age of 67 years old. He was interred in the Washington National Cathedral, being the only President buried in the nation's capital. Woodrow Wilson was a racist who believed in the lost cause myth (that teaches that the Confederacy was right during the U.S. Civil War). Southern segregationists celebrated Wilson's victories. 

Woodrow Wilson praised the pro-KKK film of The Birth of a Nation in 1915. He segregated governmental offices in D.C. Wilson fired tons of black American governmental officials without just cause. Wilson said that he was against lynching, but Wilson never intervened massively to stop anti-black riots in East St. Louis, Chicago, and in places nationwide. Woodrow Wilson's legacy is a combination of being part of history like WWI, an expansion of the federal government, and having a more interventionist foreign policy. Yet, Wilson has a long legacy of promoting racism in society being one of the most racially intolerant Presidents in American history. Many African Americans voted for him in 1912, but didn't later on because of his support of segregation. In the wake of the Charleston church shooting, some individuals demanded the removal of Wilson's name from institutions affiliated with Princeton due to his stance on race. Now, people know the truth about Woodrow Wilson. 

 

Conclusion

The late 19th century and the early 20th century of American history saw many changes in the world. This period of time was after the American Civil War and Reconstruction. We saw America went from a nation being young to a nation being an international power with military resources, trade, and other forms of power. The contradiction of that time and in our time (to be honest) is that while America claimed to be democratic, many of its policies domestically and internationally was the opposite of democracy. For example, the U.S. government advanced the Monroe Doctrine that wanted Latin American nations to be client states of America. American forces occupied Cuba and the Philippines in imperialistic, wicked adventures. Also, Jim Crow grew to harm tons of black people in murders, rapes, oppressive laws, and overt terror. Jim Crow apartheid was terrorism. This terrorism harmed Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma where innocent men, women, and children were murdered and stripped of their resources brutally. Debates about the role of government existed with the Presidencies of Cleveland, Roosevelt, and Taft. Many Presidents wanted an expanded role of the federal government to change society, and other President didn't desire that reality. The Progressive Movement desired the policies to have antitrust laws, to have workplace protections, labels on foods, and an end to child labor. Me personally, I do believe that the federal government should have an active role in improving our society (in promoting the general welfare). After Woodrow Wilson, future Presidents will see some of the greatest changes in American history from World War Two to the Civil Rights Movement. The next part of the History of the Presidency series will deal with people from Warren G. Harding to John Fitzgerald Kennedy. That time period saw WWII, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Malcolm X, Motown, and the early stages of the Vietnam War. The journey continues. 

By Timothy