Believe it or not, this is my high school American history
textbook, which has been carted around in boxes or sitting on forgotten shelves
since the mid-1980s. Whatever possessed me to read it now? Well, I was looking
for a broad, succinct and authoritative history of the United States, and this
more or less fit the bill.
And you know what? I really enjoyed reading it. I learned
much more than I thought I would. Primarily, it seems, I learned how little I
actually know about particular events and time periods in American history.
What follows is a sampling of the things that seemed to leap off the page at
me, demanding that I take notice of them and adjust my perception of the
American nation appropriately. Maybe they are well known by everyone else and I
was just sleeping in history class on the days they were taught. If so, I ask
your forgiveness for my naiveté.
But before I start the list, let me make two general
observations.
First, this experience has made clear to me how one’s view
of history is tainted by their perceptions and political preferences of today. It’s
a little like how the future is always imagined in the context of the present.
Just as it is difficult to imagine a future fundamentally foreign from the
world we live in, it’s hard to look at the past without filtering it through
our modern sensibilities and political framework. And my sensibilities and
political framework has changed quite a bit since I was in high school. If I
had read this book this closely then, I’m sure an entirely different list of
things would have jumped out at me. Reading this book has not only taught me a
lot about American history, it has also helped me see how much I have changed
in the last twenty-five years.
And second, I couldn’t help but notice how good the book was
at sticking to an honest description of the facts, and keeping from its pages
any sense of slanted political commentary. Today’s textbooks (which I clearly
haven’t read) are derided by some as being full of political correctness and
revisionist history, but if this book is any indication, I’d have to say those
accusations are pretty overblown. The authors sometimes describe what motivated
opposing political sides on particular issues, but only to help the student
understand why certain actions were taken at certain times. I think they did an
excellent job staying above the fray and describing history as accurately as it
could be in such a format for such an audience.
Okay? Here goes.
1. European nations
clearly thought the New World was theirs for the taking.
From the 1300s to the 1700s, the story of America has its
beginnings in the European explorers who came looking for trade routes to the
Far East and, after it was discovered that there were a couple of continents in
the way, valuables and extensions of their colonial empires. The view among
European nations that this “new world” was theirs for the taking is well
demonstrated in this choice excerpt:
Spain and Portugal, both leaders in the new age of
exploration and discovery, did not hesitate to claim all of the Americas. In
1494 they signed a treaty establishing a Line of Demarcation about 1,100 miles
west of the Cape Verde Islands. According to the treaty, all new lands explored
west of this line were to belong to Spain. All new lands explored to the east
were to belong to Portugal.
Looking at a map, it’s clear that Spain got the greater part
of this bargain, but it amazes me to think that the rulers of Spain and
Portugal thought they had the right to even enter into such an agreement. But
they were no different than any of the other European powers at the time (and
America of a few centuries later—see #9 below). King James I of England granted
charters for people and companies to set up shop in the New World, supposedly
under his protection and by his decree.
2. People fled to
pre-colonial America to escape religious persecution in Europe.
During the 1500s and 1600s, Europe was torn by religious
strife that broke out shortly after Columbus’s voyages. At that time nearly
everyone in Western Europe belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. The conflict
began when some people began to question certain Church practices and beliefs.
Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Switzerland were two such people.
These religious leaders and people who shared their feelings
broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established Protestant, or
“protesting,” religious organizations. Roman Catholics called this movement the
Protestant Revolt. Protestants called the same movement the Reformation. By
whatever name, this religious conflict was not just a battle of words and
ideas. Armies marched, wars were fought, and thousands of people died in battle
or were burned at the stake in the name of religion.
We all know this. It falls almost automatically of our
tongue. But before reading this
textbook, I never consciously connected the Protestant Reformation and the
violence that erupted following it as an integral part of the exodus story from
Europe to America.
3. Those seeking
freedom to practice their religion curtailed that freedom for others when given
the reins of power.
Plymouth was for Separatists. Massachusetts Bay Colony was
for Puritans who had not at first completely rejected the Anglican Church.
Colonists who refused to accept the official religious beliefs were often
thrown in jail or driven from the colony. Once exiled, they might be put to
death if they returned. Such was the fate of Mary Dyer, a Quaker, who was
hanged in Boston in 1660 when she returned to protest the persecution of
Quakers.
At first it was only Rhode Island, founded by Roger
Williams, that took a different path.
In Rhode Island there was no established church. Church and
state—that is, the government—were separate.
No one could be taxed for the support of the church. No one
could be forced to attend church. No one had to belong to a church in order to
vote. People could worship as they pleased and speak their minds freely.
Maryland and Pennsylvania had similar practices, but both required
a professed belief in “Jesus Christ,” in the case of Maryland, and in the “One
Almighty God,” in Pennsylvania. Had it not been for the experiment in Rhode
Island, one has to wonder if such a concept would have become part of the
growing American tradition.
4. The first public
schools in the English-speaking world were in Massachusetts.
They were started, evidently, to insure the ability among
the populace to read the English Bible. The law, passed in 1647, mandated that
every town with more than 50 households would hire a teacher of reading and
writing with town funds, and those with 100 households or more had to provide
an actual school to prepare young men for college. Everyone, rich and poor
alike, were to benefit from these expenditures.
This law was the first of its kind in the English-speaking
world. It was not popular everywhere in Massachusetts. Towns sometimes
neglected to provide the education ordered by the law. Nevertheless, the law
was a landmark in the history of education. It expressed a new and daring
idea—that education of all the people was a public responsibility.
5. Even Thomas
Jefferson acted unconstitutionally when he thought a higher purpose was being
served.
The particular instance that brought this illumination was
the Embargo Act of 1807. In it, in order to reduce the number of Americans
being impressed on the high seas into the English Navy, President Jefferson
urged for and Congress passed a law forbidding Americans from trading with any
foreign nation. Not just England. Any foreign nation. It also forbade American
vessels to leave for foreign ports. After twenty years of arguing against acts
of previous administrations and Congresses on the grounds that they were
unconstitutional, the Father of Liberty brings about the most oppressive attack
on personal freedom since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. It is episodes
like this that lend credence to the view that American history is one long tale
of ever-increasing encroachments on the personal liberty first guaranteed under
the Constitution (see #6, below).
And please. I can’t help but ask. What is an “American
vessel?” A ship owned by the United States? Or a ship owned by a citizen of the
United States? Of course it is the latter, but the very phraseology, albeit a
common convenience, lends itself directly towards the kinds of usurpations of
liberty envisioned in the Embargo Act itself. Today, no one stands a chance of
successfully arguing that the United States government doesn’t have the right
to restrict the freedom of movement of its citizens, but back in the early days
of the nation, before major precedents had been set, it may have been a
worthwhile discussion to have. Is my car an “American car?” How about the
computer I’m typing on. Is it an “American computer?” What rights should the
government have over the possessions of its citizens?
6. It doesn’t matter
which political party is in charge. The power of the Federal government always
increases.
In 1816, even before President Monroe was elected for the
first time, the Republicans took steps to strengthen the growing nation. In so
doing, they increased the powers of the federal government at the expense of
states’ rights. To justify their actions, they used a loose interpretation of
the Constitution, like the one favored earlier by Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists.
This was one reason that the Federalist Party disappeared. By 1816 the
Republicans were doing many things the Federalists had favored doing for years.
This one was absolutely stunning to me. I know about
Federalists like Alexander Hamilton, people who wanted a strong federal
government and fought passionately for powers that were eventually NOT
explicitly given to the federal government in the new Constitution. And I know
about Republicans like Thomas Jefferson, people who would always see the United
States as a plural noun, as a collection of free and independent states, and
the Constitution as the document where those states explicitly gave only a
limited number of enumerated powers to a federal government of their own
creation. But I guess I never fully realized how little that dispute at the
founding of our country actually mattered in the long run.
7. History has an
almost creepy tendency to repeat itself.
Read this and tell me what period of history it is talking
about.
By [year] all sections of the United States were enjoying
prosperity. Conditions were so prosperous, in fact, that various groups had
begun to indulge in overspecualtion. This was excessive, risky investment in
land, stock, or commodities in the hope of making large profits. Southerners,
tempted by rising prices for cotton, bought land at inflated prices. Western
settlers, tempted by rising prices for grain and meat, also scrambled to buy
land. Manufacturers in the Northeast, eager to take advantage of the general
prosperity, bought land and built new mills and factories.
All these groups borrowed money to finance their enterprises.
Many banks encouraged the frenzy of speculation by lending money too freely on
the flimsiest security.
Then came the crash. Late in [year] the directors of the Bank
of the United States ordered all their branch banks not to renew any personal
mortgages. The directors also ordered the branch banks to present all state
bank noted to the state banks for immediate payment in gold or silver or in national
bank notes. State banks could not make their payments and closed their doors.
Farmers and manufacturers could not renew their mortgages, and many lost their
property.
By mid-[year], because of numerous foreclosures, the Bank of
the United States had acquired huge areas of land in the South and Middle West
and many businesses in the East. People ruined by foreclosures blamed the bank
for their troubles and called it “the Monster.”
Astute students of history will pick up on the references to
the Bank of the United States and realize that we’re talking about The Panic of
1819. But replace the “Bank of the United States” with the “Federal Reserve
System” and investments in “land, stock, or commodities” with “mortgage-backed
securities” and you have the story of the Great Recession of 2008. Spooky.
Wait. Here’s another.
The roots of the depression. The depression of
[year] had its roots in events that occurred largely during [name]’s
administration. After his election in [year], [name] had gradually withdrawn
federal funds from the Bank of the United States. He then deposited this money
in “pet banks,” many in western states. With the federal money as security, the
“pet banks” printed large amounts of their own bank notes.
Many “pet banks” were also “wildcat banks,” which issued bank
notes far in excess of the federal funds on deposit. Because they were so
plentiful and had so little real value, these bank notes were easy to borrow.
People borrowed this “easy money,” often with a minimum of security, to buy
land and to invest in the nation’s growing transportation system. For a time it
seemed as though almost everyone was speculating with borrowed money.
Land speculators were especially active. Between [year] and
[year], yearly federal income from the sale of public land rose from about
[amount] to about [amount twelve times as much]. Much of this money was in the
form of “wildcat” bank notes. The United States Treasury was flooded with
unsound currency.
In July [year] President [name] acted to check the wave of
speculation sweeping across the country by issuing the Specie Circular. This
Executive Order forbade the Treasury to accept as payment for public land
anything except gold and silver, known as specie, or bank notes backed by
specie.
The panic of [year]. Shortly after
[name] issued his order, the trouble began. The sale of public land dropped off
sharply because few people had gold or silver coins to pay for the land.
Persons holding bank notes began to ask the banks to exchange the bank notes
for the gold or silver itself. Many banks could not redeem their own bank
notes. As a result, banks began to fail. By the end of May [year], soon after
President [name] took office, every bank in the United States had suspended
specie payment. Before the panic ended, hundreds of banks had done out of
business.
As the banks failed and sound money disappeared from
circulation, business suffered. Factories closed. Construction work ended on
buildings and roads. Thousands of workers lost their jobs. Hungry people rioted
in the streets of New York and Philadelphia.
President [name] and other leaders of the time did not think
that the government could or should do anything to try and stop the depression.
[Name] declared that “the less government interferes with private pursuits, the
better for the general prosperity.” Thus he could only sit back and wait for
the depression to run its course.
No, this isn’t 2008, either, although it could very well be
with a swap of “fractional reserve banking” for “wildcat banks.” And it’s also
not 1929, although it again could very well be with a swap of “Wall Street
speculation” for “land speculation.” No, the fact that banks were issuing their
own notes, backed or not by their own reserves, is the clue that this is 1837
and the two presidents are Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.
8. The Mexican War
was a war of aggression started by the United States.
They don’t teach this much in high school (at least not the
high school I went to), but the evidence is right there in the textbook. There
was a border dispute. Some people thought the Mexicans invaded the United
States and attacked American soldiers. Others (and most historians today)
thought Americans invaded Mexico and were attacked by Mexican soldiers. Either
way, the Mexicans struck the first blow, and that’s probably why most people,
if they know anything about it at all, think the Americans were fighting for
some kind of noble cause. They weren’t. They were fighting to acquire territory
that they thought they were entitled to, and which most international observers
understood to be part of Mexico.
9. Americans clearly
thought the world was theirs for the taking.
The phrase most often used is Manifest
Destiny. Its spirit is no more brilliantly illustrated than by something called
the Ostend Manifesto.
In 1848 President Polk had tried to buy Cuba for $100
million. Spain had refused to consider the offer, but some southerners
continued to cast longing eyes at Cuba. Finally in 1854, the American ministers
to Great Britain, France, and Spain met is Ostend, Belgium. They issued a
statement now know as the “Ostend Manifesto.”
The ministers declared that, if Spain refused to sell Cuba to
the United States, the United States would have the right to seize it by force.
President Pierce disavowed this statement, but northern abolitionists were
furious. They pointed out that southerners were ready to plunge the nation into
war in order to add slave territory to the Union.
Doesn’t that make sense? If you don’t sell me your iPad, I
have the right to take it from you by force. After all, it has been ordained by
God that I should possess all the iPads, from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Ocean. How else can they be kept safe, and how else can I ensure that nobody is
using them against me and my interests?
10. The raw politics
of the day shaped every era of American history.
By raw politics I mean the political maneuvering that
parties do to gain and keep control of the various branches of government.
Every era has them, and to try and understand why things happened without
understanding the political priorities and motivations of the major players is
to never fully understand what happened and why. These two paragraphs refer to
the North’s plans for reconstructing the South as the Civil War began to draw
to a close.
Some Republicans frankly admitted that their thinking about
reconstruction was influenced by practical politics. They believed that, when
the war ended, white southerners would reject the wartime Republican Party and
flock to the Democratic Party. Southern Democrats returning to Congress would
probably support northern Democrats, thus making the Republicans a minority
party. Such a combination might endanger measures supported by many
Republicans—a high tariff, national banks, free land, and federal aid to
railroads.
The Republicans could keep the Democrats from gaining
majority power in state as well as federal governments in two ways. First, they
could give voting rights to the former slaves. These new voters would support
the Republicans at the polls in gratitude for emancipation. Second, they could
keep former Confederate leaders from voting or holding public office.
Political calculation—maintaining power in Congress—was a
factor in reconstruction policy, just as it is a factor in every modern issue
before today’s Congress. It’s easy to remember that about the present, but
someone difficult to remember that about the past.
Want another example? How about the impeachment of Andrew
Johnson who, whatever you think of his politics (if you even know who I’m
talking about), was evidently not guilty of anything the Founders would’ve
thought was an impeachable offense. But that didn’t stop his political
opponents, the “Radical” Republicans who controlled Congress.
To find grounds for impeachment and to reduce the President’s
power, Congress in 1867 adopted the Tenure of Office Act over Johnson’s veto.
Under this law the President could not dismiss important civil officers without
the Senate’s consent. Believing the law unconstitutional, Johnson decided to
put it to a test. In February 1868 he demanded the resignation of Secretary of
War Edwin M. Stanton. Stanton has consistently cooperated with Johnson’s
political enemies.
The House immediately adopted a resolution that “Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and
misdemeanors in office.” The Radicals also charged that Johnson “did attempt to
bring into disgrace, ridicule, contempt, and reproach the Congress of the
United States.” The Radicals cited occasions when the President publicly made
“with a loud voice certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues”
against Congress “and did therein utter loud threats and bitter menaces.”
Shocking, I know. Bitter menaces? How such a man ever got
elected in the first place is a mystery.
Under the Constitution a President may be impeached on
grounds of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Although
the charges brought by the House against President Johnson were of doubtful
legality, he was nevertheless impeached.
Johnson’s trial before the Senate, presided over by Chief
Justice Salmon P. Chase, lasted about two months. After prolonged debate it
became clear that Johnson was not guilty of any offense for which he could
legally be removed from office. Nevertheless, when the Senate vote was counted,
it stood 35 to 19 against Johnson, just one vote short of the necessary
two-thirds majority required for removal from office. Johnson continued to
serve as President for almost a year, until his term expired, but his influence
was at an end.
It’s another episode from history eerily reminiscent of a
more current controversy. Looking back a hundred a fifty years, it’s always so
simple to see the political motivations for what they are. Why do we have such
a hard time when the events happen today or in our recent past? Do we somehow
think that the leaders of today are above such petty motivations? Is that what
people thought in Johnson’s time?
11. Industrialization
profoundly changed the character of the nation.
The mechanization of
American life began in the early 1800s with inventions like water-powered
mills, steam-powered machines and interchangeable parts, and industrialization
began in the late 1800s with something they called the Industrial Revolution.
In years to come, the Industrial Revolution would help unite
the American people. It would help solve problems of transportation by binding
the nation together with a web of steel rails. It would provide Americans with
unheard-of labor-saving devices. It would profoundly affect the roles and
status of both women and men in American life. It would help Americans conquer
the wilderness and make use of what were then considered the inexhaustible
resources of forest and sea and soil. It would in time transform the United
States into the wealthiest nation on earth.
Living now in the 21st century, it is difficult to
understand how different life was before industrialization. I caught a glimpse
of how surreal the new ways of life must have seemed to people used to the old
from this paragraph about “company towns.”
Workers in so-called “company towns” faced the greatest
disadvantages. There were mining districts in Pennsylvania and West Virginia
and textile-mill regions in the South where companies owned entire towns—all
the houses, stores, and other buildings. The companies employed the teachers
and the doctors. The local magistrates and the police owed their jobs to the
company. In these towns workers did not dare protest the rent they paid for
their company-owned houses or the prices they paid in the company-owned store.
Frequently, the workers received part of their wages not in cash but in credit
at the company store.
I listened to a podcast recently that talked about how our
modern educational system is also a product of the Industrial Revolution, where
things like standardized testing and multiple-choice questions were invented
specifically to have a better and more reliable way to train children and
immigrants for the life of an industrialized worker. The podcast in question
argued that it was time to start rethinking some of those educational
institutions because the necessary workforce of today or tomorrow is so
radically different from the one that built Henry Ford’s Model Ts, but that’s
not to undermine the profound effects industrialization has had on our nation.
In many ways, its legacy has not yet reached its climax.
12. Industrialization
led in great measure to imperialism.
The textbook offers an interesting
explanation for the age of imperialism that began near the turn of the 19th to
the 20th centuries:
The Industrial Revolution was largely responsible for the
mounting interest in colonies. Factories needed raw materials in ever-growing
quantities. Manufacturers, to keep their factories operating, had to find new
markets for their finished products. Improvements in transportation, especially
the steamship, enabled businesses to buy and sell in a truly worldwide market.
As trade increased and profits accumulated, business executives and bankers
looked overseas for opportunities to invest savings.
And it was really the Spanish American War that gave the
United States is first taste of being a colonial power. As a result of winning
that war, the Americans found themselves in possession of the Philippines, and
facing a dilemma. Should they set the people of those islands free? Or force
them to live under American rule. In 1898, then President McKinley made the
decision for us. As he later explained…
…the United States could not return the Philippines to Spain,
for “that would be cowardly and dishonorable.” It could not give them to
France, Germany, or Great Britain, for “that would be bad business and
discreditable.” It could not turn them over to the Filipinos, for they were
“unfit for self-government.” McKinley concluded, “There is nothing left for us
to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and
civilize and Christianize them.”
Swell. Except the
Filipinos did not want to be uplifted or civilized (many were, in fact, already
Christians).
The conquest of the Philippines turned out to be more
difficult that the defeat of Spain. The Filipinos, led by Emilio Aguinaldo,
fought as fiercely against American rule as they had against Spanish rule. For
three years 70,000 American troops fought in the islands at a cost of $175 million
($4.6 billion in 2011 dollars) and with a casualty list as high as that as the
war with Spain.
And when the Americans finally won, they set up a government
for the Philippines with an appointed governor, a small elected assembly, an
appointed upper house, and the ability of the United States Congress to veto
all legislation passed. I wonder if any of that would have sounded familiar to
the guys who dumped British tea into Boston Harbor in 1773.
One of the things I found most surprising about this 25-year
old textbook was the way it didn’t shy away from a treatment of imperialism at
all. Chapter 29 is titled “American Expansion in the Caribbean; 1898-1914,” and
one of its section headings is “Americans begin to build an empire in the
Caribbean.” It seems true and
appropriate to me, but it seems like most Americans are opposed to that kind of
perspective on our history. To see it handled so matter-of-factly in print,
especially in a textbook aimed at teenagers, underscored for me the explanatory
power of such a reading.
A big part of this was evidently a corollary Teddy Roosevelt
added to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that not only would the United States act
aggressively against any nation seeking to set-up colonies in the New World,
but that the United States would act as a kind of police officer in any
disputes between outside nations on those in the Americas. The corollary led to
lots of interventions—in Puerto Rico, in Cuba, in Colombia, in Panama, in the
Dominican Republic, in Haiti, in Costa Rica, in Guatemala, in the Virgin
Islands, in Nicaragua—until Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover eventually tried
to put an end to it during their administrations. FDR, too, sought a new
footing with Latin America in his Good Neighbor Policy, which supposedly said that
no state had the right o interfere in the internal or external affairs of
another, and that the United States was now opposed to policies of armed
intervention.
13. The federal
government assumes radical powers in war time.
Imagine if this happened today.
The President was authorized to set prices on many
commodities, including such essentials as food and fuels. He was also
authorized to regulate, or even take possession of, factories, mines,
meat-packing houses, food processing plants, and all transportation and
communication facilities. The President exercised these vast powers through a number
of wartime agencies, or boards.
The War Industries Board, established in [year], became the
virtual dictator of manufacturing. It developed new industries needed in the
war effort. It regulated business to eliminate waste and nonessential goods. Before
the war’s end, the War Industries Board was engaged in regulating the
production of some 30,000 commodities.
Other federal agencies also took an active part in planning
the war program. The War Finance Corporation loaned public funds to businesses needing
aid in manufacturing war materials. The Emergency Fleet Corporation built ships
faster than [enemy] submarines could destroy them. The Railroad Administration
took over the operation of the railroads, reorganized the lines, and controlled
rates and wages. The Fuel Administration stimulated a larger output of coal and
oil and encouraged economies in their use.
This wasn’t World War II. This was World War I. But it
clearly presaged a lot of the government activity that took place during World
War II to marshal industry for the war effort.
14. Some horrible
things have more or less been erased from the public consciousness and,
although true historical events, bear no real weight on the modern citizen’s
understanding of his or her history.
The “Bonus Army,” 17,000 strong, arrived in Washington, D.C.,
in June 1932. They were veterans of World War I and they called themselves the
“Bonus Expeditionary Force.” Many arrived with their families. They traveled in
freight cars, trucks, and wagons and on foot. They were in Washington to plead
for a war bonus owed them. The money was not due until 1945, but they wanted it
in advance.
They were allowed to live in empty government buildings and
to camp on a swampy area across the Potomac River. The army provided them with
tents, cots, field kitchens, and food. When the Senate refused to grant to
bones payment, most of them gave up a returned home with money provided by the
government.
Some 2,000 of the veterans, many of whom had no place to go,
decided to stay. They were ordered to leave. In a clash with the police,
several veterans and police officers were killed. Army troops then moved in
with machine guns, tanks, and tear gas. The troops drove the veterans from the
buildings and broke up their encampment across the river, burning the shacks as
they did so.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around this one. I’d
never heard of it before, and this is the sum total of the information
presented about it in the textbook. Imagine if 17,000 Gulf War Veterans marched
on Washington today, demanded payments they had been promised to help them
during times of economic depression. Imagine next that, while these veterans
were camped out on the Mall, Congress voted not to support them and they were
sent away. Those that didn’t leave voluntarily, some 2,000 of them, were
attacked by the units of the National Guard, pepper spray and assault rifles
used as needed to clear people out, and flamethrowers used to destroy the
detritus they left behind. Could such a thing happen today? I would’ve have
thought no, but knowing that such a thing did happen in 1932 forces me to
reassess my assumptions.
15. America’s entry
into World War II didn’t end the depression. It deepened it.
I was especially sensitive to this one, because the idea that
World War II, and the government spending that accompanied the war effort,
ended the Great Depression is one of the most enduring historical
misunderstandings of our time. I wanted to see how this high school textbook
would handle it, so I was sure to underline passages like this:
Where did the money come from to finance the war? A little
more than one third came from taxes, which were raised to the highest level in
American history. The government borrowed the remainder, chiefly by selling
huge issues of bonds. Because of this borrowing, the national debt shot upward
from about $49 billion in 1941 to nearly $259 billion by the spring of 1945.
The dollar cost of the war was staggering. By 1945, military
expenditures totaled $400 billion. This was twice the sum that the federal
government had spent for all of its activities, including all wars, between
1789 and 1940!
And this:
Despite these [rationing] efforts, the process of consumer
goods rose, especially food prices. By 1944 the cost of living had risen 30
percent above 1941 prewar levels.
And this:
In July 1942 the National War Labor Board (NWLB) tried to
work out a compromise. It granted a 15-percent wage increase to meet the rises
in living costs. Several months later Congress and President Roosevelt
authorized the NWLB to freeze the wages and salaries of all workers at the
newly established levels.
And this:
The most drastic means of controlling profits was the excess
profits tax, levied in 1940. The tax obliged corporations to pay to the government
as much as 90 percent of all excess profits.
The highest taxes in American history, including a 90
percent excess profit tax on businesses. A ballooning national debt. A
30-percent increase in the cost of living with frozen wages and salaries. Exactly
how did all of this get America out of the Great Depression?
16. The Bay of Pigs
and the Cuban Missile Crisis were two separate incidents.
All you Boomers can start razzing me now, but somehow I
managed to conflate the two episodes in my admittedly poor understanding of the
Kennedy administration. It’s not such much that I consciously thought they were
the same thing. I just didn’t really know what the Bay of Pigs was and I
must’ve just pushed it together with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The textbook has set me straight, but here’s the funny
thing. Knowing how that they are separate incidents—the Bay of Pigs refers to
an April 1961 CIA invasion of Cuba that was an attempt to overthrow the Castro
regime and the Cuban Missile Crisis is, of course, the standoff between the
Americans and the Soviet Union over nuclear missiles in Cuba in October
1962—I’m left with the conclusion that the two events were, in fact, related.
Not that the textbook actually connected those dots for me.
Regardless of what you think of Fidel Castro, do you suppose he was motivated
to bring Soviet missiles and technology to his island nation because his giant
American neighbor had tried to overthrow his government with a CIA-led
invasion?
17. The Vietnam War
was an unconstitutional mistake, based on a lie, that irrevocably blurred the
line between right and wrong.
I don’t know how else to characterize it. Especially when
you read about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
On August 4, 1964, President Johnson appeared on television with
shocking news. He announced that two American destroyers had been attacked by
North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. The President stated that
he had therefore ordered American planes to bomb North Vietnamese torpedo bases
and oil refineries. He also asked Congress to grant him authority to take
action against North Vietnam.
The President did not tell the nation that the American ships
had been assisting South Vietnamese gunboats that were making raids on North
Vietnam’s coast. He also did not inform the nation that there was some doubt
whether there had been any attack on American ships at all.
Three days later Congress granted the President’s request. It
adopted what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This gave the
President power “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attach
against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”
The House votes unanimously for the measure. The Senate
passed it by a vote of 88 to 2. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, who voted
against it, warned that “we are in effect giving the President warmaking powers
in the absence of a declaration of war. I believe that to be a historic
mistake.
At a minimum, I believe Senator Morse was right. It was a
historic mistake. One, unfortunately, that future Congresses would repeat in
future situations. What I find most striking about this is that it is language
from a high school history textbook, published a little more than 20 years
after the fact. This isn’t some anti-war rag. This is mainstream history,
boiled down to a few declarative sentences, and it all but says that the
President lied and that the war was fought unconstitutionally.
And what a war.
The Air Force poured bombs, napalm, rockets, and machine-gun
fire on Viet Cong villages, hideouts, and supply routed in South Vietnam. … With
support from the air, South Vietnamese and American ground forces carried out
“search-and-destroy” mission against the Viet Cong. In areas they could not
hold or defend, they moved the people to refugee centers and burned the
villages.
The Viet Cong, by the way, were not robots, but human
beings, and their villages were populated by families. By the end of the war,
at least 6 million people were refugees and 160,000 South Vietnamese and
922,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese people had been killed.
Yet the textbook only uses terms like “guerilla tactics” and
“terrorism” to describe the actions of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.
What was that I said about history repeating itself?
18. There were two
energy crises in the 1970s.
The energy crisis of the late 1970s is a dim memory for me
(I was born in 1968). I remember the lines of automobiles at the gas station,
but what I don’t remember is the energy crisis of the early 1970s, the one
President Nixon tried to deal with, in part by announcing a program to make the
United States independent of all foreign countries for its energy requirements
by the early 1980s. How’d that work out?
19. President Reagan
had virtually nothing to do with the release of the American hostages in Iran.
This, too, exists as one of my earliest political memories.
Somehow, I was left with the impression that after Carter’s failed negotiations
and botched rescue attempt, President-elect Reagan secretly brokered a deal
with the Iranians and saw the hostages released on the day he was inaugurated
as President.
That’s evidently not what happened. Instead the Carter
Administration continued to negotiate after the failed rescue attempt, and
secured the release with the Algerian government acting as a neutral arbitrator
and in exchange for a payment in gold tonnage and a promise never to interfere
with Iran’s internal politics again (that last bit I actually picked up from
Wikipedia, not my high school textbook).
Why did Iran want a promise that the U.S. would never
interfere with them again? Because the reason the hostages were taken in the
first place stemmed from the CIA-led overthrow of the democratically-elected
Iranian government and the installation of the Shah, a dictatorial ruler, in
1953. The Shah had eventually been deposed in 1979 by an internal revolution,
and he had fled to the United States for protection. The hostage takers wanted
the Shah returned to Iran so he could be executed for his crimes against the
Iranian people, and they took the hostages when the U.S. refused to comply.
