Posted: May 13th, 2021

HIST 1378 Second History Analysis Exam

Dr. Young
HIST 1378
Fall 2020
Second History Analysis Exam
Due Date: Thursday, December 3, at 11:59 p.m.
Submit your paper to the Turnitin.com link in the Week Fourteen folder on the course Bb page.
Worth 125 points/12.5 percent of the course grade.
Required length is provided for each question in the Task section of the assignment.
The assignment is required of all students.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this assignment is for you to demonstrate that you have learned the art
of “doing history” by answering seven pointed questions about the primary documents included
with the assignment. This exam is identical in form but not content with the first section assignment.
The sort of work asked of you in this assignment is what you have been doing all semester with the
documents you read each week for your discussion boards and also for your section assignments.
Demonstrating your skill with a close read of documents at the end of the semester will show your
intellectual growth over the course of the term.
SKILLS: This assignment will help you demonstrate mastery of the following skills that are essential
to your success in this course, in the university, and in professional life beyond the university.
• You will begin by searching out primary source evidence that addresses the problem.
• Be sure to give these documents a close reading so that you can pull as much meaning as
possible from them. See the Primary Source Reading Guide handout in your Week Two
folder for more details on how to undertake a close reading.
• When you are reading the primary documents, you will gain experience in evaluating the views
and claims contained in each document. Do the statements made accord with what you’ve
read in the other documents? With what you’ve read in your textbook? With what you’ve
heard in the podcasts? Considering these questions will help you discern how much
credibility to give to each document.
• From this primary source evidence, you will discern the most important facts, historical
actors, and events associated with the problem.
• Next, you will compare what you have learned from the primary sources with your textbook
and the podcast lectures, which are your pertinent secondary sources.
• Finally, you will plan and craft your answers for each of the seven questions.
KNOWLEDGE: Successfully completing this assignment requires that you understand the period
from the Progressive Era to the present.
FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS AND A FRIENDLY REMINDER: Type your answers
in a Word document. Use Times New Roman font, 12-point size, and inch margins. Number your
questions so that your TA will easily know what answers are intended for each question. Skip a line
between each answer. All work will be checked for originality and any answers deemed to be
plagiarized will trigger an academic honesty investigation and could result in sanctions. Do your own
work!
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TASK: Answer the seven questions that follow, adhering to the directions within each
question.
QUESTION ONE
10 POINTS
Read the exchange of correspondence below and explain what three things can be learned from
these letters about the Great Depression. Don’t just summarize the letters; you need to probe the
letters and relate them to the broader historical context you have learned from the podcasts and
from your textbook. Number and explain your answer in at least 30 words and no more than 50
words. Be specific.
Reedley, Calif. Jan. 2, 1931
Dear Mrs. Hoover,
I am a poor girl and haven’t many clothes. I have to wear the same dress almost every time I go
somewhere. It came to my mind that maybe you would (have) some clothes that you would
have some discarded ones. If you happen to know anyone that has some, please remember me.
I will be very happy if I would receive some.
Yours Sincerely, Martha Fast R.R.2 Box 916 Reedley Calif.
January 7, 1931 My dear Miss Fast:
Mrs. Hoover receives so many requests more or less like yours every day that she finds it
impossible to be of any help at all.
I am sorry I do not know of any clothing just now which she does not need.
However, Mrs. Hoover often asks a friend or a representative of some organization such as the
Red Cross to call on those needing aid to see if they can help. Would you like her to do this for
you?
Yours sincerely, Secretary to Mrs. Hoover
Miss Martha Fast Route 2, Box 916, Reedley, California.
Source: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum
QUESTION TWO
30 POINTS
Read Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism speech pasted below and use it to answer the three
questions that follow. Roosevelt delivered the speech on August 31, 1910 in Osawatomie, Kansas.
The speech runs from page 3 through page 13 of this exam. You need to read the entire speech to
do well on this question.
1. What did Theodore Roosevelt mean by New Nationalism? Warning: do not attempt to
Google your answer. We will know if you do and you will not get credit for the answer. The
best answers will derive from the document. Write my Essay Online Writing Service with Professional Essay Writers – Explain your answer in no more than 50 words.
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2. What short quote–no more than ten contiguous words–would you use in an essay where
you are defending Roosevelt’s demand for a New Nationalism? Write my Essay Online Writing Service with Professional Essay Writers – Explain your answer in no
more than 50 words.
3. What short quote–no more than ten contiguous words–would you use in an essay where
you are refuting Roosevelt’s demand for a New Nationalism? Write my Essay Online Writing Service with Professional Essay Writers – Explain your answer in no
more than 50 words.
To do well on this question you must demonstrate that you understand the larger context of
Progressivism in the early 20th century.
We come here today to commemorate one of the epoch-making events of the long struggle for
the rights of man–the long struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our country–this great Republicmeans nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular
government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be
guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him. That is why the history of
America is now the central feature of the history of the world; for the world has set its face
hopefully toward our democracy; and, O my fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your
shoulders not only the burden of doing well for the sake of your country, but the burden of
doing well and of seeing that this nation does well for the sake of mankind.
There have been two great crises in our country’s history: first, when it was formed, and then,
again, when it was perpetuated; and, in the second of these great crises–in the time of stress
and strain which culminated in the Civil War, on the outcome of which depended the
justification of what had been done earlier, you men of the Grand Army, you men who fought
through the Civil War, not only did you justify your generation, but you justified the wisdom of
Washington and Washington’s colleagues. If this Republic had been founded by them only to be
split asunder into fragments when the strain came, then the judgment of the world would have
been that Washington’s work was not worth doing. It was you who crowned Washington’s
work, as you carried to achievement the high purpose of Abraham Lincoln.
Now, with this second period of our history the name of John Brown will forever be associated;
and Kansas was the theatre upon which the first act of the second of our great national life
dramas was played. It was the result of the struggle in Kansas which determined that our
country should be in deed as well as in name devoted to both union and freedom; that the
great experiment of democratic government on a national scale should succeed and not fail. In
name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the
words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in so
far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere; but, O my friends, it should be truest of all in
political life. A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics. No
man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep
after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life. I
care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present. I speak of
the men of the past partly that they may be honored by our praise of them, but more that they
may serve as examples for the future.
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It was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable with all such struggles, it had also a dark and
terrible side. Very much was done of good, and much also of evil; and, as was inevitable in such
a period of revolution, often the same man did both good and evil. For our great good fortune
as a nation, we, the people of the United States as a whole, can now afford to forget the evil,
or, at least, to remember it without bitterness, and to fix our eyes with pride only on the good
that was accomplished. Even in ordinary times there are very few of us who do not see the
problems of life as through a glass, darkly; and when the glass is clouded by the murk of furious
popular passion, the vision of the best and the bravest is dimmed. Looking back, we are all of us
now able to do justice to the valor and the disinterestedness and the love of the right, as to
each it was given to see the right, shown both by the men of the North and the men of the
South in that contest which was finally decided by the attitude of the West. We can admire the
heroic valor, the sincerity, the self-devotion shown alike by the men who wore the blue and the
men who wore the gray; and our sadness that such men should have to fight one another is
tempered by the glad knowledge that ever hereafter their descendants shall be fighting side by
side, struggling in peace as well as in war for the uplift of their common country, all alike
resolute to raise to the highest pitch of honor and usefulness the nation to which they all
belong. As for the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, they deserve honor and
recognition such as is paid to no other citizens of the Republic; for to them the republic owes it
all; for to them it owes its very existence. It is because of what you and your comrades did in
the dark years that we of to-day walk, each of us, head erect, and proud that we belong, not to
one of a dozen little squabbling contemptible commonwealths, but to the mightiest nation
upon which the sun shines.
I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely from the historic standpoint. Our interest is
primarily in the application to-day of the lessons taught by the contest a half a century ago. It is
of little use for us to pay lip-loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely endeavor
to apply to the problems of the present precisely the qualities which in other crises enabled the
men of that day to meet those crises. It is half melancholy and half amusing to see the way in
which well-meaning people gather to do honor to the men who, in company with John Brown,
and under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved the great problems of the nineteenth
century, while, at the same time, these same good people nervously shrink from, or frantically
denounce, those who are trying to meet the problems of the twentieth century in the spirit
which was accountable for the successful solution of the problems of Lincoln’s time.
Of that generation of men to whom we owe so much, the man to whom we owe most is, of
course, Lincoln. Part of our debt to him is because he forecast our present struggle and saw the
way out. He said:
“I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in
ameliorating mankind.”
And again:
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“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never
have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much
the higher consideration.”
If that remark was original with me, I should be even more strongly denounced as a Communist
agitator than I shall be anyhow. It is Lincoln’s. I am only quoting it; and that is one side; that is
the side the capitalist should hear. Now, let the working man hear his side.
“Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. . . . Nor should this
lead to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; . . . property is
desirable; is a positive good in the world.”
And then comes a thoroughly Lincoln-like sentence:
“Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and
build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when
built.”
It seems to me that, in these words, Lincoln took substantially the attitude that we ought to
take; he showed the proper sense of proportion in his relative estimates of capital and labor, of
human rights and property rights. Above all, in this speech, as in many others, he taught a
lesson in wise kindliness and charity; an indispensable lesson to us of today. But this wise
kindliness and charity never weakened his arm or numbed his heart. We cannot afford weakly
to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which faces us today. The issue is joined, and we must
fight or fail.
In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only
object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this
great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from
one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction
of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must
always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or
position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what
you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now.
At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more
than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central
condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right
of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government
into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the
essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and
citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the
commonwealth. That is nothing new. All I ask in civil life is what you fought for in the Civil War. I
ask that civil life be carried on according to the spirit in which the army was carried on. You
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never get perfect justice, but the effort in handling the army was to bring to the front the men
who could do the job. Nobody grudged promotion to Grant, or Sherman, or Thomas, or
Sheridan, because they earned it. The only complaint was when a man got promotion which he
did not earn.
Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results.
First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the
highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and
unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his
family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the
commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man
who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that
service to which it is fairly entitled.
I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that
I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules
changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally
good service. One word of warning, which, I think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. When I say I
want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who
remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a
chance will not make good, then he has got to quit. And you men of the Grand Army, you want
justice for the brave man who fought, and punishment for the coward who shirked his work. Is
that not so?
Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister
influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery
threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business
interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own
profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. Every
special interest is entitled to justice–full, fair, and complete–and, now, mind you, if there were
any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may
be, that I most dislike, and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the
greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should
have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in
Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution
guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give
the right of suffrage to any corporation.
The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the
servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s
making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the
United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into
being.
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There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an
end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.
We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may
know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their
management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be
passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is
still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for
political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have
supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.
It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization,
not only of public-service corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of all corporations
doing an interstate business. I do not wish to see the nation forced into the ownership of the
railways if it can possibly be avoided, and the only alternative is thoroughgoing and effective
legislation, which shall be based on a full knowledge of all the facts, including a physical
valuation of property. This physical valuation is not needed, or, at least, is very rarely needed,
for fixing rates; but it is needed as the basis of honest capitalization.
We have come to recognize that franchises should never be granted except for a limited time,
and never without proper provision for compensation to the public. It is my personal belief that
the same kind and degree of control and supervision which should be exercised over publicservice corporations should be extended also to combinations which control necessaries of life,
such as meat, oil, or coal, or which deal in them on an important scale. I have no doubt that the
ordinary man who has control of them is much like ourselves. I have no doubt he would like to
do well, but I want to have enough supervision to help him realize that desire to do well.
I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held
personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.
Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be
repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially
failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely
controlling them in the interest of the public welfare. For that purpose the Federal Bureau of
Corporations is an agency of first importance. Its powers, and, therefore, its efficiency, as well
as that of the Interstate Commerce Commission, should be largely increased. We have a right to
expect from the Bureau of Corporations and from the Interstate Commerce Commission a very
high grade of public service. We should be as sure of the proper conduct of the interstate
railways and the proper management of interstate business as we are now sure of the conduct
and management of the national banks, and we should have as effective supervision in one
case as in the other. The Hepburn Act, and the amendment to the act in the shape in which it
finally passed Congress at the last session, represent a long step in advance, and we must go
yet further.
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There is a wide-spread belief among our people that, under the methods of making tariffs
which have hitherto obtained, the special interests are too influential. Probably this is true of
both the big special interests and the little special interests. These methods have put a
premium on selfishness, and, naturally, the selfish big interests have gotten more than their
smaller, though equally selfish, brothers. The duty of Congress is to provide a method by which
the interest of the whole people shall be all that receives consideration. To this end there must
be an expert tariff commission, wholly removed from the possibility of political pressure or of
improper business influence. Such a commission can find the real difference between cost of
production, which is mainly the difference of labor cost here and abroad. As fast as its
recommendations are made, I believe in revising one schedule at a time. A general revision of
the tariff almost inevitably leads to logrolling and the subordination of the general public
interest to local and special interests.
The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting
has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men,
whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need to is to change the
conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare
that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own
power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again,
comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge,
but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by leading
their army to victory. So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably
obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing
damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining
represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active
governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have
yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is
now necessary.
No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received
should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered-not gambling in stocks, but service
rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires
qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of
relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in
another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective-a graduated inheritance
tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount
with the size of the estate.
The people of the United States suffer from periodical financial panics to a degree substantially
unknown to the other nations, which approach us in financial strength. There is no reason why
we should suffer what they escape. It is of profound importance that our financial system
should be promptly investigated, and so thoroughly and effectively revised as to make it certain
that hereafter our currency will no longer fail at critical times to meet our needs.
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It is hardly necessary to me to repeat that I believe in an efficient army and a navy large enough
to secure for us abroad that respect which is the surest guaranty of peace. A word of special
warning to my fellow citizens who are as progressive as I hope I am. I want them to keep up
their interest in our international affairs; and I want them also continually to remember Uncle
Sam’s interests abroad. Justice and fair dealings among nations rest upon principles identical
with those which control justice and fair dealing among the individuals of which nations are
composed, with the vital exception that each nation must do its own part in international police
work. If you get into trouble here, you can call for the police; but if Uncle Sam gets into trouble,
he has got to be his own policeman, and I want to see him strong enough to encourage the
peaceful aspirations of other people’s in connection with us. I believe in national friendships
and heartiest good-will to all nations; but national friendships, like those between men, must
be founded on respect as well as on liking, on forbearance as well as upon trust. I should be
heartily ashamed of any American who did not try to make the American government act as
justly toward the other nations in international relations as he himself would act toward any
individual in private relations. I should be heartily ashamed to see us wrong a weaker power,
and I should hang my head forever if we tamely suffered wrong from a stronger power.
Of conservation I shall speak more at length elsewhere. Conservation means development as
much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use
the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by
wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so
behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor
creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer
who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his
children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a
nation.
Moreover, I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people,
and not monopolized for the benefit of the few, and here again is another case in which I am
accused of taking a revolutionary attitude. People forget now that one hundred years ago there
were public men of good character who advocated the nation selling its public lands in great
quantities, so that the nation could get the most money out of it, and giving it to the men who
could cultivate it for their own uses. We took the proper democratic ground that the land
should be granted in small sections to the men who were actually to till it and live on it. Now,
with the water-power, with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face with the
fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are
to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental reasons why the
special interests should be driven out of politics. Of all the questions which can come before
this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which
compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for
our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and
pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the
safety and continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are
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at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great
work the national government must bear a most important part.
I have spoken elsewhere also of the great task which lies before the farmers of the country to
get for themselves and their wives and children not only the benefits of better farming, but also
those of better business methods and better conditions of life on the farm. The burden of this
great task will fall, as it should, mainly upon the great organizations of the farmers themselves. I
am glad it will, for I believe they are all well able to handle it. In particular, there are strong
reasons why the Departments of Agriculture of the various states, the United States
Department of Agriculture, and the agricultural colleges and experiment stations should extend
their work to cover all phases of farm life, instead of limiting themselves, as they have far too
often limited themselves in the past, solely to the question of the production of crops. And now
a special word to the farmer. I want to see him make the farm as fine a farm as it can be made;
and let him remember to see that the improvement goes on indoors as well as out; let him
remember that the farmer’s wife should have her share of thought and attention just as much
as the farmer himself.
Nothing is more true than that excess of every kind is followed by reaction; a fact which should
be pondered by reformer and reactionary alike. We are face to face with new conceptions of
the relations of property to human welfare, chiefly because certain advocates of the rights of
property as against the rights of men have been pushing their claims too far. The man who
wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the
advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to
the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare
may require it.
But I think we may go still further. The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest
is universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor,
which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good. The
fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in which he will
make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare. Understand what I say there.
Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he
lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that
he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him. No man can be a good citizen unless he has a
wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so
after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management
of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being
good citizens by the conditions of life by which we surround them. We need comprehensive
workman’s compensation acts, both State and national laws to regulate child labor and work
for women, and, especially, we need in our common schools not merely education in booklearning, but also practical training for daily life and work. We need to enforce better sanitary
conditions for our workers and to extend the use of safety appliances for workers in industry
and commerce, both within and between the States. Also, friends, in the interest of the working
man himself, we need to set our faces like flint against mob-violence just as against corporate
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greed; against violence and injustice and lawlessness by wage-workers just as much as against
lawless cunning and greed and selfish arrogance of employers. If I could ask but one thing of my
fellow countrymen, my request would be that, whenever they go in for reform, they remember
the two sides, and that they always exact justice from one side as much as from the other. I
have small use for the public servant who can always see and denounce the corruption of the
capitalist, but who cannot persuade himself, especially before election, to say a word about
lawless mob-violence. And I have equally small use for the man, be he a judge on the bench or
editor of a great paper, or wealthy and influential private citizen, who can see clearly enough
and denounce the lawlessness of mob-violence, but whose eyes are closed so that he is blind
when the question is one of corruption of business on a gigantic scale. Also, remember what I
said about excess in reformer and reactionary alike. If the reactionary man, who thinks of
nothing but the rights of property, could have his way, he would bring about a revolution; and
one of my chief fears in connection with progress comes because I do not want to see our
people, for lack of proper leadership, compelled to follow men whose intentions are excellent,
but whose eyes are a little too wild to make it really safe to trust them. Here in Kansas there is
one paper which habitually denounces me as the tool of Wall Street, and at the same time
frantically repudiates the statement that I am a Socialist on the ground that that is an
unwarranted slander of the Socialists.
National efficiency has many factors. It is a necessary result of the principle of conservation
widely applied. In the end, it will determine our failure or success as a nation. National
efficiency has to do, not only with natural resources and with men, but it is equally concerned
with institutions. The State must be made efficient for the work which concerns only the people
of the State; and the nation for that which concerns all the people. There must remain no
neutral ground to serve as a refuge for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great
wealth, who can hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both
jurisdictions. It is a misfortune when the national legislature fails to do its duty in providing a
national remedy, so that the only national activity is the purely negative activity of the judiciary
in forbidding the State to exercise power in the premises.
I do not ask for the over centralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and farreaching nationalism where we work for what concerns our people as a whole. We are all
Americans. Our common interests are as broad as the continent. I speak to you here in Kansas
exactly as I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are those which
affect us all alike. The National Government belongs to the whole American people, and where
the whole American people are interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the
National Government. The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly
through the National Government.
The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without which we cannot
hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional
or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures
attempting to treat national issues as local issues. It is still more impatient of the impotence
which springs from over division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it
12
possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring
national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the
steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in
human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall
represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people.
I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect property as well as human welfare.
Normally, and in the long run, the ends are the same; but whenever the alternative must be
faced, I am for men and not for property, as you were in the Civil War. I am far from
underestimating the importance of dividends; but I rank dividends below human character.
Again, I do not have any sympathy with the reformer who says he does not care for dividends.
Of course, economic welfare is necessary, for a man must pull his own weight and be able to
support his family. I know well that the reformers must not bring upon the people economic
ruin, or the reforms themselves will go down in the ruin. But we must be ready to face
temporary disaster, whether or not brought on by those who will war against us to the knife.
Those who oppose reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if
our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in
both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism.
If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination
of money in any part of our affairs. We need to make our political representatives more quickly
and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the
people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary. The direct primary is a
step in this direction, if it is associated with a corrupt-services act effective to prevent the
advantage of the man willing recklessly and unscrupulously to spend money over his more
honest competitor. It is particularly important that all moneys received or expended for
campaign purposes should be publicly accounted for, not only after election, but before
election as well. Political action must be made simpler, easier, and freer from confusion for
every citizen. I believe that the prompt removal of unfaithful or incompetent public servants
should be made easy and sure in whatever way experience shall show to be most expedient in
any given class of cases.
One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours is to make
certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom
they are elected, and not the special interests. I believe that every national officer, elected or
appointed, should be forbidden to perform any service or receive any compensation, directly or
indirectly, from interstate corporations; and a similar provision could not fail to be useful within
the States.
The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of
a nation are desirable chiefly so long as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good
citizens. Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound
judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs,-but, first of all, sound in their home, and the
father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well,-just so far, and no farther, we
13
may count our civilization a success. We must have-I believe we have already-a genuine and
permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation or administration really
means anything; and, on the other hand, we must try to secure the social and economic
legislation without which any improvement due to purely moral agitation is necessarily
evanescent. Let me again illustrate by a reference to the Grand Army. You could not have won
simply as a disorderly and disorganized mob. You needed generals; you needed careful
administration of the most advanced type; and a good commissary-the cracker line. You well
remember that success was necessary in many different lines in order to bring about general
success. You had to have the administration at Washington good, just as you had to have the
administration in the field; and you had to have the work of the generals good. You could not
have triumphed without the administration and leadership; but it would all have been
worthless if the average soldier had not had the right stuff in him. He had to have the right stuff
in him, or you could not get it out of him. In the last analysis, therefore, vitally necessary though
it was to have the right kind of organization and the right kind of generalship, it was even more
vitally necessary that the average soldier should have the fighting edge, the right character. So
it is in our civil life. No matter how honest and decent we are in our private lives, if we do not
have the right kind of law and the right kind of administration of the law, we cannot go forward
as a nation. That is imperative; but it must be an addition to, and not a substitute for, the
qualities that make us good citizens. In the last analysis, the most important elements in any
man’s career must be the sum of those qualities which, in the aggregate, we speak of as
character. If he has not got it, then no law that the wit of man can devise, no administration of
the law by the boldest and strongest executive, will avail to help him. We must have the right
kind of character-character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good
father, and a good husband-that makes a man a good neighbor. You must have that, and, then,
in addition, you must have the kind of law and the kind of administration of the law which will
give to those qualities in the private citizen the best possible chance for development. The
prime problem of our nation is to get the right type of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must
have progress, and our public men must be genuinely progressive.
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QUESTION THREE
10 POINTS
Evaluate the effectiveness of this cartoon as a commentary on the New Deal. Is the cartoonist
supportive of the New Deal? Why or why not? How is President Roosevelt presented? How is
Congress presented? How is the country presented? Be specific. Don’t just summarize the cartoon;
you need to probe the cartoon and relate it to the broader historical context you have learned from
the podcasts and from your textbook. Complete your answer in at least 30 words and no more than
50 words.
Berryman cartoon, 1934
15
QUESTION FOUR
30 POINTS
Read carefully the document pasted below and craft five substantive research questions based on the
document. These should be the sort of questions you would ask if you were writing about
Watergate. The questions can involve topics, issues, individuals, etc., that you believe warrant further
investigation. Alternatively, the questions can point toward what you might argue in a thesis
statement about Watergate. Number your answers.
In developing your answers, be as specific as possible about what issues this document raises in your
mind. Your answer should be 150 words maximum. Be sure to include specific examples from the
document in your answer, but DO NOT QUOTE. Remember that your answer needs to
demonstrate that you understand the larger historical context as well as the particulars suggested by
the document.
TRANSCRIPT OF A RECORDING OF A MEETING BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND H.R. HALDEMAN
IN THE OVAL OFFICE ON JUNE 23, 1972 FROM 10:04 TO 11:39 AM
June 23, 1972 FROM 10:04 TO 11:39 AM
**********
HALDEMAN: okay -that’s fine. Now, on the investigation, you know, the Democratic
break-in thing, we’re back to the-in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control,
because Gray doesn’t exactly know how to control them, and they have, their investigation is
now leading into some productive areas, because they’ve been able to trace the money, not
through the money itself, but through the bank, you know, sources – the banker himself. And,
and it goes in some directions we don’t want it to go. Ah, also there have been some things, like
an informant came in off the street to the FBI in Miami, who was a photographer or has a friend
who is a photographer who developed some films through this guy, Barker, and the films had
pictures of Democratic National Committee letter head documents and things. So I guess, so it’s
things like that that are gonna, that are filtering in. Mitchell came up with yesterday, and John
Dean analyzed very carefully last night and concludes, concurs now with Mitchell’s
recommendation that the only way to solve this, and we’re set up beautifully to do it, ah, in
that and that…the only network that paid any attention to it last night was NBC…they did a
massive story on the Cuban…
PRESIDENT: That’s right.
HALDEMAN: thing.
PRESIDENT: Right.
HALDEMAN: That the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray
and just say, “Stay the hell out of this…this is ah, business here we don’t want you to go any
further on it.” That’s not an unusual development,…
16
PRESIDENT: Um huh.
HALDEMAN: …and, uh, that would take care of it.
PRESIDENT: What about Pat Gray, ah, you mean he doesn’t want to?
HALDEMAN: Pat does want to. He doesn’t know how to, and he doesn’t have, he
doesn’t have any basis for doing it. Given this, he will then have the basis. He’ll call Mark Felt in,
and the two of them …and Mark Felt wants to cooperate because…
PRESIDENT: Yeah.
HALDEMAN: he’s ambitious…
PRESIDENT: Yeah.
HALDEMAN: Ah, he’ll call him in and say, “We’ve got the signal from across the river
to, to put the hold on this.” And that will fit rather well because the FBI agents who are working
the case, at this point, feel that’s what it is. This is CIA.
PRESIDENT: But they’ve traced the money to ’em.
HALDEMAN: Well they have, they’ve traced to a name, but they haven’t gotten to the
guy yet.
PRESIDENT: Would it be somebody here?
17
QUESTION FIVE
10 POINTS
What can be learned from this World War II poster about the American home front? Be specific.
Don’t just summarize the poster; you need to probe the document and relate it to the broader
historical context you have learned from the podcasts and from your textbook. Complete your
answer in at least 30 words and no more than 50 words.
WPA War Services, [between 1941 and 1943]
18
QUESTION SIX
25 POINTS
What ten things can be learned about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s from the eighteen political
cartoons, AIDS education posters, photographs, and works of art pasted below? All the images
come from the 1980s or early 1990s and they are found on pp. 18-30. Don’t just summarize the
images; you need to probe them and relate them to the broader historical context you have learned
from the podcasts and from your textbook.
Each response must be one or two sentences in length, ranging between 10 and 30 words. At least
four of your answers must identify concrete points specific to individual advertisements akin to the
sort of example you would use as evidence in a body paragraph in an essay (one point per
advertisement). At least three of your points must be analytical and identify overarching themes akin
to strong topic sentences for body paragraphs within an essay (draw each of these points from at
least three advertisements). The remaining three responses can fall into either category.
Be specific, and remember that your answers need to demonstrate that you understand the larger
historical context as well as the particulars suggested by the images. Number your answers.
Image One:
19
Image Two:
Image Three:
20
Image Four:
Image Five:
21
Image Six:
Image Seven:
22
Image Eight:
23
Image Nine:
Poster from 1986, courtesy of the Health Education Resource Organization.
24
Image Ten:
Poster from the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum, in Los Angeles, 1985. Photo courtesy of
the National Library of Medicine.
25
Image Eleven:
This poster spoke to parents about the challenges of talking to a teenager about AIDS, but stressed
that the issue was relevant and important to young Americans. Courtesy of the National Library of
Medicine.
26
Image Twelve:
Poster text: Think about it. When you sleep with someone, you’re sleeping with everyone he or she has
slept with for the past eight years. And if someone along the line had the AIDS virus, you would have
been exposed. Unfortunately there is no known cure for AIDS. Everyone who gets it dies. But AIDS
can be prevented. By saying no to sex. And by saying no to needle drugs. Don’t let it embarrass you to
death. Get all the facts about AIDS, and talk about them with your girlfriend or boyfriend. Then if you
choose to have sex, stick to one partner. And use a condom, properly, every time. It’s one of the best
defenses against AIDS. The point is, if you’re going to have sex, you should do it responsibly. Don’t fool
around with your life. Find out more about how AIDS is transmitted, and how you can protect yourself.
Call the Dallas County Health Department. (214) 351-4335. All calls are strictly confidential. AIDS. IT
Can’t BE CURED. BUT IT CAN BE PREVENTED.
Poster courtesy of Dallas County Health Department.
27
Image Thirteen:
Text from the poster: AIDS. Even Its Name Is Deceptive. The most dangerous killer is the deceptive
one. The one you Can’t see. The one you Can’t recognize. The one you can’t stop. The AIDS virus has
caused fear because of its elusiveness. Passed along during sex or in the exchange of blood, it silently
invades the genetic core of certain cells in the body’s immune system, opening the way for a number of
“opportunistic” infections. A simple cold can threaten a human life. The virus has been able to escape
detection, and it protects itself unlike any other living cell. There is no cure for AIDS, and every case has
the same horrible outcome. AIDS is one of the most difficult challenges ever faced by modern medicine
– a social and political crisis that is rapidly approaching epidemic proportions. The AIDS Resource
Center in Dallas is helping people to face this crisis. Our volunteers provide hope and comfort to
persons with AIDS and their families. Food, clothing, and financial assistance are among our services,
but more resources are needed to fight the battle against AIDS right in our own neighborhood. Help us
pass on the truth about AIDS through education and assistance. Because people in Dallas are dying. And
with your help, the AIDS Resource Center is going to do something about that. Call 559-AIDS. The
Truth About AIDS. Pass it On!
Poster from the AIDS Resource Center.
28
Image Fourteen:
Poster from the Pharmacists Planning Service.
29
Image Fifteen:
The early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic were marked with stigma and confusion. (Rollis
University/New York Historical Society)
Image Sixteen:
1985 protest in New York City.
30
Image Seventeen:
Donald Moffett — “He Kills Me” (1987)
Image Eighteen:
Keith Haring — “Silence = Death” (1989)
31
QUESTION SEVEN
10 POINTS
Write my Essay Online Writing Service with Professional Essay Writers – Explain the attitudes of this cartoonist toward federal government spending on the Vietnam War
and on domestic problems in the late 1960s. Don’t just summarize the cartoon; you need to probe
the cartoon and relate it to the broader historical context you have learned from the podcasts and
from your textbook. Be specific. Complete your answer in at least 30 words and no more than 50
words.
The Mini-and-Maxi Era, 1969
Published in the Washington Post, December 18, 1969

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