"The black men of America have a duty to preform, duty stern and delicate, a forward movement to oppose a part of the work of their greatest leader. So far as Mr. Washington preaches Thrift, Patience, and Industrial Training for the masses, we must hold up his has and strive with him, rejoicing in his honors and glorying i the strength of this Joshua called of God and of man to lead the headless host."
"The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing." Booker T. Washington, The Atlanta Exposition address.
" Mr. Washington represents in Negro thought the old attitude of adjustment and submission; but adjustment at such a peculiar time as to make his program unique. This is an age of unusual economic development, and Mr. Washington program naturally takes an economic cast, becoming a gospel of work and money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life." W.E.B. DuBois, The souls of Black folk.
The battle of Ideologies between these two great leaders has raged on for nearly 100 years. Both of these men had similar aspirations for their race, but completely different ideas on how to reach the goal. In Brief DuBois philosophy involved the belief that education provides freedom, and Washington believed that through labor, financial independence can be achieved. Both of these philosophies have roots in the day and time when created, but amazingly the question can still be asked today. Which is a faster route to success in America?
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When deciding targets to hit, we looked for strategic targets and strongholds. There were many rumors that if we invaded Nagasaki and Hiroshima with ground forces, hundreds of thousands of American live would have been lost and it might reach the millions with Japanese military and civilian lives included.
Hiroshima
Hiroshima was responsible for the defense of all of southern Japan as the 2nd Army Headquarters was stationed there. Many of the buildings were built of extremely think concrete to withstand earthquakes, but also managed to still stand after an atomic blast.
The ending of the Great Depression is not signified by any specific event in history. However, most historians say that America entering World War II was the end of the Great Depression. When America first considered entering the war in Europe, they began the arming process. Workers were needed in factories to make war time supplies for America and its allies. With such a high demand for supplies, Americans that were previously unemployed were now
getting jobs in factories making supplies for the war. The unemployment rate went below 10%. Productivity rose like never seen before. People were working overtime, and not going out as often with their families. People began saving money and budgeting their everyday spending.
America was brought out of the Great Depression thanks to WWII, however it was more the morale of the Americans. Without the Americans undisputed support of the war, business owners may not have pushed production to the extent they did. In the end, the fact that supplies were needed pulled America back to the forefront of international industry.
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WWII
Ever since Upton Sinclair’s, “The Jungle” first came into print in 1906, it has been has been used by generations as a tool to illustrate the corruption of the beef industry in turn-of-the-20th-Century Chicago. No doubt readers have cringed at the torturous descriptions of wailing animals and the spectacle of filthy, disease ridden disassembly lines producing every product imaginable including lard, sausage, glue, and fertilizer. Even President Theodore Roosevelt was shaken by this story and questioned whether-or-not tainted meat products were responsible for deaths in the Spanish American War. The Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 were the result of The Jungle. And although, the book’s notoriety may have made Sinclair famous, the resulting healthier meat products and increase in the number of vegetarians were unintended consequences.
Sinclair’s goal in the novel was to create an awareness of the greater human tragedy of urban slums and the factory systems throughout the world. He once wrote, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” For this reaso
n the book’s effectiveness as a work of propaganda may not have been completely realized.
Sinclair was a Socialist, and his goal from the beginning was to bring attention to the plight of workers. The book was commissioned by the largely circulated Socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, with the goal of bringing attention to working-class liberation. He made his intentions clear when he first arrived in Chicago to research for the book 1904 and declared, “Hello! I’m Upton Sinclair, and I have come to write the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the labor movement.” And although the book is a work of fiction, its content was based on indisputable facts about the awful conditions and corruption dominating Chicago at the time. Only the names were changed to protect the innocent.
Roosevelt sent his own agents to Chicago to investigate whether meat packing was as bad as Sinclair described. The conditions were actually a hundred times worse, the agents reported back.
The president invited Sinclair to the White House and solicited his advice on how to make inspections safer. By June 30, Congress had passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, cracking down on unsafe food and patent medicines, and the Meat Inspection Act. To this day, our hamburgers, chicken patties and other meats are safeguarded by the same law.
Roosevelt was so taken with Sinclair that he coined the term “muckrakers” to describe him and other reformist crusaders, even though the president’s phrase was not meant to be wholly complimentary.
The book reeked with the stink of the Chicago stockyards. He told how dead rats were shoveled into sausage-grinding machines; how bribed inspectors looked the other way when diseased cows were slaughtered for beef, and how filth and guts were swept off the floor and packaged as "potted ham."
In short, "The Jungle" did as much as any animal-rights activist of today to turn Americans into vegetarians.
But it did more than that. Within months, the aroused -- and gagging -- public demanded sweeping reforms in the meat industry.
President Theodore Roosevelt was sickened after reading an advance copy. He called upon Congress to pass a law establishing the Food and Drug Administration and, for the first time, setting up federal inspection standards for meat.
Sinclair used as his prop, an unfortunate and misguided group of Lithuanian immigrants to showcase the inequities of capitalism or the “wage slave” system. The story is seen through the eyes and mind of Jurgis Rudkus, a boldly ambitious young man, who despite his incredible strength and work ethic becomes a casualty of greed and avarice at a place called “Packingtown.” The villains of the story are the American Beef Trust, the corrupt political machine of Chicago, and capitalism altogether.
Rudkus brings with him to America, his aging father Antanas, his young fiancé Ona, and members of her family including her mother Elzbieta. When they arrive in Chicago Jurgis seeks employment in Packingtown, and because of his brawn, immediately finds work to the chagrin of the hordes of onlookers who fruitlessly wait daily for the opportunity of employment within the slaughterhouses and processing factory. Before long the realities of many desperate situations set in, and despite Jurgis’ pledge to “work harder,” the family goes deeper into a cycle of debt and poverty until every capable member of the family is forced to work in deplorable and dangerous conditions for paltry wages. The biggest contributor to their demise was being conned into purchasing a home they could not afford.
Before long, Ona dies in childbirth because they cannot afford a doctor and eventually their only surviving son drowns in a mud hole in a street near their tenement boarding house. In exhausted frustration, Jurgis abandons the family entirely and leaves for life as a hobo in the heartland. Eventually he returns to Chicago where he takes up every means of employment available; from being a criminal to a political operative, which in most cases by Sinclair’s description, are one and the same. His political shenanigans lead him back to Packingtown, where many betrayals leave him unemployed and eventually imprisoned. Ultimately, he ends up as a high risk beggar on the streets where nightly he faces death from freezing or starvation.
One particular evening he went indoors to join an audience listening to a speech, something he did frequently as a way of seeking refuge from the cold. This time, however, he was spellbound by a charismatic Socialist orator whose words seemed to be describing the agony of Rudkis’ travails on a personal level. From that point on, he became a Socialist “Comrade” with his life finally taking a positive turn and becoming all he had hoped for in coming to America. This is the part of the story that was supposed to be the epiphany of Sinclair’s book, that Socialism was the answer to all societal evils. Unfortunately for Sinclair, most reader’s minds were already more fixated about not eating Tubercular beef than on the plights of exploited workers. So, based on Sinclair’s original intent of promoting Socialism, his work of fiction was less effective as a work of propaganda.
There is also much racism in "The Jungle", African Americans hate Latino immigrants, whites get the best jobs, and blacks and mexicans get the jobs on the slaughter house floor, doing the cutting and killing. The descrptions he uses about what goes on in meatpacking plants in 1906 is horrific and appauling. Dead rats, rat poison, feces, dirty water, rust and cigarette butts were dumped in vats with fresh meat to make sauseges and canned meat. It's horrific. That is one reason I've been a vegetarian for nine years.
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1906
On January 16, 1920 the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The sale or use of alcohol was now illegal. America was entering the era of prohibition. Frederick Lewis Allen wrote about this era in his book "Only Yesterday" this book was written in 1931 about the 1920s. It was not a very long look back. Mr. Allen spoke of how easily the amendment was passed seemingly without much opposition. He also said it was taken for granted that this law would be followed and easily enforced.It turned out the law was not easily enforced as alcohol became quite prevalent and easily available. Alcohol was being made illegally all over the country as well as being shipped in from Canada and other countries. perhaps the most famous or infamous character from this time was Alphonse Capone more commonly known as simply Al Capone. Al Capone was a gangster from Chicago who made the majority of his money from bootlegging. That is the nickname given for the illegal sale of alcohol. It is estimated that Capone's gang made around 60 million dollars a year most of that profit came from bootlegging. Mr. Allen states that prohibition was a big reason for the rise of organized crime in America.
"To say that prohibition-or if you prefer, the refusal of the public to
abide by Prohibition-caused the rise of the gangs to lawless power would be
altogether too easy an explanation. There were other causes: the
automobile which made escape easy, as the officers of robbed banks had
discovered; the adaptation to peace-time use of a new arsenal of handy and
deadly weapons; the murderous traditions of the Mafia, imported by Sicilian
gangsters; the inclination of a wet community to wink at the by-products of a
trade which provided them with beer and gin; the sheer size and unwieldiness of
the modern metropolitan community, which prevented the focusing of public
opinion upon any depredation which did not immediately concern the average
citizen; and, of course the easy-going political apathy of the times. But
the immediate occasion of the rise of gangs was was undoubtedly
prohibition"
I agree with Mr. Allen in his contention that prohibition was a silly law which was enacted way too easily without much thought. I also feel that a similar situation is occurring now with the war on drugs. The government is spending billions of dollars to fight drugs rather than legalizing them, which when taxed would make the government billions of dollars in profit. Drugs are part of society weather we like it or not, we might as well make some money off of them rather than put all that money in the hands of the drug kingpin's who continue to blaze the path that Al Capone paved for them.
