THE 20TH CENTURY

1. NEW REFORMS

Fast growth brought many problems. The early 1900's became another age of reform. A number of reforms were carried out to stop criminal governments from using tax money for their political bosses’ personal and political needs. Grand juries of people were meeting to study evidence of a possible crime and to decide whether or not a crime had been committed. Magazine and newspapers writers (called muckrakers) dug up facts about the work of political machines as organizations of crooked politicians and showed how criminals were allowed to run free. Voters in some places reformed their city governments, and new city governments worked to stop crime.

Americans found that state governments could be improved too. Changes in state governments of that period are closely connected with the name of Robert M. La Follette. In 1900 he was elected governor of Wisconsin and learned about the railroad companies' control over the state officials. By giving the people, not the political leaders, the right to choose officials, the new system he had promoted, the system of primary elections, made big companies lose control of the elections. In 1904 Wisconsin held its first primary election. Within ten years, most states were holding primary elections.

La Follette got laws passed that would let the state set control over the railroad companies' rates, and he also told to use tax money for such things as schools, parks, and hospitals. La Follette was called Battling Bob by the people, and after serving two terms as governor of Wisconsin, he was elected to the United States Senate. As a senator, he continued to work hard for reforms.

Theodore Roosevelt, who became President in 1901, was one of most popular Presidents in American history. People called him Teddy or TR. A popular toy, the Teddy Bear, was named for him. Under President Roosevelt, the United States government took many of the giant companies to court. Here is a list of some of the new laws passed by the national government in the early 1900's: about ways of financing water supply to dry farmland, about government loans to help farmers, about making illegal selling dangerous foods and medicines, about making working conditions at factories and in mines safer, about setting up national forests and parks, about starting an income tax, etc.

In the same period the movement of most active women-fighters for their rights became stronger. Their first demand was the right to vote, i.e. suffrage. Suffragists gained strength by joining together. In 1917 women's suffragists demonstrated in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., and were arrested, charged with "obstructing traffic". Among them was Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman's Party in 1913 and author of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923. Paul and the other women were jailed; there they were given worm-filled food. When they chose to go on a hunger strike, they were force-fed with tubes stuck up their nostrils and down their throats. Women's right to vote would not be ratified until 1920, when a new amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States, which said that women would now able to vote in all elections.

By 1900 laws had divided the South into two separate societies - one white and the other black. This segregation kept two groups of people who lived in the same area apart from each other - southern black people had to live in separate neighborhoods and shop at separate shops, they had certain schools for their children. States and towns passed laws called Jim Crow laws to enface segregation. Black people were also kept from voting or running for business. Equality was the main demand of some black leaders who, in 1905, formed a group called the Niagara Movement. Its supporters, both colored and white, started a new organization, called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP.

1. What were the political problems of American cities?

2. Who was Robert M. La Follette? What is he known for?

3. What kinds of reforming laws were passed by the national government in the early 1900’s?

4. What did the suffragists work for?

5. Why was the NAACP started?

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1089