Populist Movement Analysis

1.
1A. The Populist movement was one of the most interesting political movements of American History, and as such, faced significant challenges. The first was integrating African-Americans into the party. Many southern whites refused to accept them and few African Americans were jumping at the prospect of leaving Lincoln's party. Moreso, they faced attacks from democrats in the south, in the same fashion as the republicans; intimidation of black voters, stuffing ballot boxes, as well as many other dishonest tactics were used to keep them out of office. Next, the populists failed in the way of urban voter appeal. Their platform was either in direct conflict with the urban American’s interests, or made little difference to them. In addition,

their fiery biblical appeal were strange to the large immigrant and catholic populations. For these reasons, the Populists failed to become popular.
1B.

The turn of the century saw the rise of the southern redeemers. African Americans now faced additional trials and tribulations. First, the reduction of public programs caused a drastic decrease in the availability of education, and hospitals. Second, they drastically increased the ability for the police to arrest who they so chose (vis. African Americans), and commit them to a slavery sentence. Second, working class African Americans were segregated to very few jobs indeed. Third, in this period we see the drastic decrease of African American votership. This is because of laws that targeted them for disenfranchisement, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. This quickly lead to an exclusively white southern government which passed extreme segregation laws. Next, we see the north mostly lose sympathy for the southern black population. Finally, and certainly the most extreme example, we see the lynching of African Americans all across the south. These were mostly said to be caused by the African American raping a white woman, though this is quite suspect in the VAST majority of cases. All in all, this was a hard time for African

Americans
1C. The Chinese have been treated poorly for most of American history. During the turn of the century it was as if there were none on their side. In 1875, in fact, chinese women were excluded from entering the country. This included the wives and daughters of past immigrants. Later, in 1882, the Chinese were banned from entering the country all together. Those who were here were victims of extreme discrimination and mob violence. In fact, until a supreme court ruling in 1885, Chinese children were not admitted to public schools; after 1885, they were segregated. The court also ruled in the Chinese-Americans’ favor in 1886’s Yick Wo vs. Hopkins. Before this time, the city refused to grant laundry licenses, showing that they were segregated into job field as well. In 1893, the court ruled, however, that the government was free to expel Chinese aliens without due process. For all these reasons, and others, the Chinese had trouble integrating for decades still.

2. William McKinley, 25th president of the the United States, was an interesting man to say the least. One of his most remembered actions was overseeing the Spanish-American war, being a revolutionary thinker in American Interventionism. His reasons for wanting to get involved in Cuban-Spanish affairs were multiple. First, he believed it to be the more humane action. Cuba was the site of some of the worst dehumanising practices of the day, including “reconcentration” camps and the violation of the civilians most basic human rights. Second, he believed that the U.S. must protect its business interests in the area. Third and fourth, as Livy said, “Rome conquered the world in self defence.” McKinley argued that we do the same, albeit in a quite different context. In his third point, for the defence of our citizens abroad, and in his fourth for defence of our country's peace and place in the world. A bit of a strange argument (though, in theory, correct), but one that has been used to great effect throughout history, as Livy shows. McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt, had a somewhat different view on the matter. He believed that interventionism was the only way to cultivate the manly virtues. I believe it necessary to intervene wherever we could, else risk losing the chance to get the best of a situation. Moreso, he believed that anyone who stated it was a bad idea, for reasons of the liberty of the people, as well as time and money concerns, were just fearful wimpy men. To him (as with many other things to him), danger was simply an adventure to be conquered. As Cecil Rice, once said of the man, "The thing you have to remember about the President is he's about six."

3. In stark contrast to the views illustrated above are those of the American Anti-Imperialist League; they believed intervention in the Philippines to be a farce. Indeed, they find that our occupation was a “Criminal aggression”. They go so far as to say it tramples the spirit of 1776 with hypocrisy, and they denote the war as a “war against liberty”. Moreso, they assert that the U.S. is needlessly slaughtering the populace, using the methods of the spaniards. They claim that the occupation directly attacks self-governing ideals that americans hold dear. In fact, they claim that we are taking the position of despots in claiming the land without giving its denizens (as opposed to citizens as the case was) representation.

4. In the late 1800’s, America engaged in one of the events that will tarnish our history forever, the Philippine-American War. After we “liberated” the Island from Spanish rule, we had many reasons to take the island for our own. From an economic standpoint, it allowed easier trade with the asian world. Looking at defense, it offered a perfect refueling station in the Pacific. Politically, it (along with our other “acquisitions”) forced the imperial nations of Europe to recognize us as a global power. More individually, it shows a growing move towards imperial thought in the United States. However, these are all symptoms of a larger trend. In 1890, the U.S. Census Bureau had declared the Frontier officially closed. The Frontier has always been important to the american psyche. To many at the time (as well as today), It represented all the greatest american ideals. Moreso, individualism, self-reliance, opportunism, and even (At times) self-governance, were believed to have been formed in the Frontier. This great loss triggered something of an existential crisis among the American populace. The United states developed an acute case of Cabin Fever, as it were. We felt the need to cultivate the more “manly” virtues, as Roosevelt would say, and no place to go for this “grand” adventure. And so, these “growing pains” triggered a reevaluation of imperialism and expansionism, as an attempt to relive the youth of a nation. All of this was to bring about terrible suffering, and a blemish on the history of a nation, for the cause of something akin to a midlife-crisis on a national scale.

5. Emilio Aguinaldo, the principal revolutionary of the Philippines during the turn of the century, was (as most revolutionaries are) a strongly passionate person. He believed there were many ways that the U.S. was betraying its values in order to maintain power in the philippines. To begin, the U.S. were the aggressors against the filipino government. Second, the U.S. has shnown great contempt and disrespect for the people’s government. Both of these show a betrayal of the country's sovereignty and right to self-governance, that which the U.S. was founded on. Third, the U.S., in Aguinaldo’s estimation, seeks to enslave the people of the philippines, by denying them these rights. All of these show a disregard for american values in favor of imperialistic tendencies.

6.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, race was an important issue. On the homefront, we saw white power reassert its stranglehold on the south, through the politics of the democrats. These “redeemers”, as they called themselves, attempted to abolish any policy put forth by the republicans during the reconstruction. Taxes, particularly on landed property, were slashed, leading to drastic decreases in public spending. Among the most affected were hospitals and schools. In fact, louisiana became the only state in which literacy among the white population dropped between 1880 and 1900. If the white schools were this bad, imagine the African American schools. This fact is especially important as, in an effort to reduce African American voting, many states instituted literacy requirements for voting. While this, and other voting requirements (poll tax, an understanding of the state constitution and so on), mostly had an effect on African Americans, 80,000 whites also lost their right to vote. However, this in no way lead to a decrease in their representation in D.C., as the Fourteenth amendment requires. This reduced the freedom of ALL americans by increasing the proportional power of those who make decisions for them. Last, in 1893, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could expel any Chinese alien without due process of law. As always, legal creep allowed this to be used to create a law barring anarchists from entering the country. This was later extended to

felons, prostitutes and “lunatics”. Abroad, we see the subjugation of the Filipino people. Though we had informed the people of these islands that we planned to allow them to govern themselves, this was never the case. These people had no sovereignty (or representation for that matter) until after World War II. Though this does not, in a traditional sense, constrict the freedom of all americans, it devalues every american’s freedom by making it complicit in the subjugation of another’s freedom.

7. (Week #3 Quiz) 2. I like your characterization of this as pseudoscience. Basically he said inequality is a natural consequence of progress and we should live with it.