HIST 118/Ticket #2320 FA 2017 Paper #1 Due: October 30 By reading primary sources, historians reconstruct peoples, events, and structures from the past. Yet primary sources are very often complicated documents. Biases, gaps in information, and other intellectual challenges render meaningful treatment of these sources a rigorous undertaking. Such complications, however, only make the task more rewarding and illuminating: as sources grow more complex, more information presents itself for study and application. PROMPT Deeply investigate a primary source. A successful investigation will: • summarize the source. • critically analyze its strengths and shortcomings. • apply it to an historical theme (or historical themes) that we have studied this semester. Use the “Analyzing Primary Sources” tip-sheet as a guide. GUIDELINES • • • 1-2 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12-point font., one-inch margins. You do not need a title page. A header—including details like the date and course number—is gratuitous and bothersome and takes up valuable space. Really, the only pieces of information you need are: o Your name in the top-left corner of the first page. o The source (e.g., John Morrison, “Testimony of a Machinist”) in the top-right corner of the first page. o Page numbers in the bottom center of each page. An example first page follows. A successful paper necessarily cites from the primary source. Moreover, information from the Shi textbook and/or Mack lecture give your analysis greater credibility. When referencing sources, employ parenthetical notation rather than footnotes or endnotes. A bibliography is not necessary. For this assignment, a correct citation will include the author’s last name or identifying name, the work (or lecture), and the page number (and line number if available). Examples: o “It must also be remembered,” Bryce writes, “that the merits of a president are one thing and those of a candidate another thing” (Bryce, “Why Great Men Are Not Chosen Presidents,” p.3 l. 87-88). 1 HIST 118/Ticket #2320 • • FA 2017 o The ideal of equal opportunity has always been the engine of American distinctiveness” (Shi and Tindall, America, p. 1246). o As Kevin Mack argues, economic motives behind late-nineteenth century imperialism played a secondary role in the eyes of most citizens (Mack, “Imperialism”). For subsequent citations of the same work, only mention the author’s last or identifying name and the page number: o He argues that “first-rate” Americans usually devote themselves to “the business of developing the material resources of the country” rather than politics (Bryce, p. 1 l. 30-38). o During the twenty-first century, America’s population grew rapidly more diverse as immigration levels surged (Shi and Tindall, pp. 1203-1204). Failure to cite according to these guidelines will adversely affect your final grade. Your paper must be submitted two ways: o A hard copy presented to your instructor. o A digital copy uploaded to our Canvas website. Consult the syllabus for grading, rewriting, and late-submitting policies. A SUCCESSFUL PAPER: • • • addresses the prompt with a clear, concise thesis that defines the primary source and describes how it advances historical understanding. supports that thesis with secondary- and primary-source evidence. organizes the argument in a structured and easy-to-understand framework. Typically, the argumentative model is as follows: 1) Short introductory paragraph. After some discussion of historical context, your thesis statement should outline the argument. The effective thesis is the key component and “secret sauce” of compelling essays. Moreover, careful attention to the thesis will help organize everything that follows. For this assignment, your thesis should explain why this source is important and what it tells modern historians. 2) Body paragraphs. These support and give the evidence for your thesis statement. Avoid extraneous or unrelated points, and stay focused on your thesis—tangents only undermine your persuasiveness. In general, each paragraph should explain and extend a distinct point, theme, or concept. 3) Conclusion. This very briefly restates the thesis, then extends beyond it for the reader. Typically, a conclusion might argue why this argument is important, or reference remaining questions, or propose directions for future inquiry. 2 HIST 118/Ticket #2320 • FA 2017 More specifically: “A” “B” “C” “D” “F” RUBRIC Clear and focused thesis; excellent organization; ample support of the argument (by way of extensive and appropriate citations from the texts); concise prose; near-flawless grammar and spelling Clear thesis; strong organization; satisfactory support of the argument (by way of sufficient citations from the texts); concise prose; occasional grammar and spelling mistakes Satisfactory, if unfocused, thesis; decent organization; passable support of the argument (by way of minimal citations from the texts); intelligible, if at times sloppy, prose; several grammar and spelling mistakes Unclear thesis; lack of organization; inappropriate or poor support of the argument (by way of excessive or negligible citations from the texts); sloppy prose; frequent grammar and spelling mistakes Lack of defined thesis; confusing structure and organization; complete lack of textual citation; unintelligible prose; rampant grammar and spelling mistakes 3 HIST 118/Ticket #2320 FA 2017 Kevin Mack John Morrison, “Testimony of a Machinist” Blah blah blah. Stuff about industrialization. This is your introduction. The context bit should be short. Get to the thesis statement: make it clear, unambiguous, confident. A good thesis helps structure everything that follows. Remember, keep everything double-spaced. You get the idea. Insert page numbers at the bottom center. Now I’m just rambling. 1 Analyzing Primary Sources I) Initial Questions: What is basically going on here? A) Who is the creator? 1) Gender and age? (e.g., young women) 2) Socioeconomic class? (e.g., poor farmer) 3) Degree of knowledge about her/his historical situation? (e.g., uneducated and provincial) B) When was the source created? (e.g., ten years after the revolution) C) Who is the intended audience? (e.g., the king—it is a written plea) II) Next-Level Questions: What can I learn from this? A) What is the purpose of the source? (e.g., to swing public opinion) B) What is the type of source? (e.g., a newspaper article) C) What was happening when the source was created? (e.g., widespread economic depression and civil violence) III) Deep Questions: How can I apply this? A) What is missing? 1) Other voices? (e.g., women, the poor, minority groups, etc.) 2) Other information—and is this intentional? (e.g., there is no mention of the previous year’s coup d’état) 3) Assumptions shared by the author’s contemporaries? (e.g., most people believed women’s appropriate sphere was the home) B) Can I trust this? (e.g., ask: is there an ulterior motive?) C) What can I learn about broader society? (e.g., ask: is this emblematic of an occupational group’s values?) As one might expect, former president Herbert Hoover was not a great fan of Franklin Roosevelt or his New Deal. Hoover voiced many conservatives' objections to the legislative program during the 1930s. You will read from a speech delivered during the presidential campaign of 1936. Our focus will be pp. 216-218, 220-223, and 226-227. ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD BY Herbert Hoover 1933-1938 NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1938 COPYRIGHT, 1938, BY EDGAR RICKARD Printed in the United States of America Fourth Printing, October, 1938 BEGIN HERE This Challenge to Liberty DENVER, COLORADO [October 30, 1936] Part I WE ARE near the end of this debate. More than in any election for two generations we are voting on the direction which American civilization will take. The press and the radio have been alive with discussion. It is not alone public men and women who are engaged in this debate. It is between the farmers in the field, the workers at the bench, the women in their homes, and the men in their offices. They have met at the store, at the filling station and the street corner. It is a magnificent thing that a whole people should engage in this discussion. For such debate is the most precious safeguarding of free men that the world has yet discovered. A whole people with the ballot in their hands possess the most conclusive and unlimited power ever entrusted to humanity. If that power is exercised rightly, then America will prosper morally, spiritually, and in its daily occupations. If it is exercised under the spell of hate or selfish purpose or under intimidation it will drive this nation upon the rocks of destruction. These issues are too great and the stakes too large for us to examine these questions in any mean or smearing fashion. I have said the problems we face penetrate to the very center of economic, social, and governmental life. The only field which we have not entered in this debate is the field of sportsmanship. I could wish we had some of that in the campaign. If the Republic is to head in the right direction we must get at the real issues. We must dismiss the shadow boxing of a political campaign 216 ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD 217 We must dismiss secondary questions of governmental policy. We must strip our problems down to the great issue before the country. Speaking just four years ago tonight in closing the Presidential campaign of 1932, I said: "This campaign is more than a contest between two men. It is more than a contest between two parties. It is a contest between two philosophies of government. ... "We must go deeper than platitudes and emotional appeals of the public platform in the campaign, if we will penetrate to the full significance of the changes which our opponents are attempting to float upon the wave of distress and discontent from the difficulties we are passing through." That night I spoke for the regeneration of the American System—the American plan of true liberalism in contrast with the philosophy of the New Deal—and I continued: . . . "You cannot extend the mastery of government over the daily life of a people without somewhere making it master of people's souls and thoughts. . . Every step in that direction poisons the very roots of liberalism. It poisons political equality, free speech, free press, and equality of opportunity. It is the road not to more liberty but to less liberty. True liberalism is found not in striving to spread bureaucracy, but in striving to set bounds to it. True liberalism seeks all legitimate freedom first in the confident belief that without such freedom the pursuit of other blessings is in vain." And in that address four years ago I said: "The spirit of liberalism is to create free men; it is not the regimentation of men." PART II Through four years of experience this New Deal attack upon free institutions has emerged as the transcendent issue in America. All the men who are seeking for mastery in the world today are using the same weapons. They sing the same songs. They 218 ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD all promise the joys of Elysium without effort. But their philosophy is founded on the coercion and compulsory organization of men. True liberal government is founded on the emancipation of men. This is the issue upon which men are imprisoned and dying in Europe right now. The rise of this issue has dissolved our old party lines. The New Deal repudiation of Democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom. The tremendous import of this issue, the peril to our country has brought the support of the ablest leaders of the Democratic Party. It is no passing matter which enlists side by side the fighting men who have opposed each other over many years. It is the unity demanded by a grave danger to the Republic. Their sacrifice to join with us has no parallel in American history since the Civil War. There run through my mind great words from the Battle Hymn of the Republic: . . . "In the watch fires of a hundred circling camps They have builded them an altar." I realize that this danger of centralized personal government disturbs only thinking men and women. But surely the NRA and the AAA alone should prove what the New Deal philosophy of government means even to those who don't think. In these instances the Supreme Court, true to their oaths to support the Constitution, saved us temporarily. But Congress in obedience to their oaths should never have passed these acts. The President should never have signed them. But far more important than that, if these men were devoted to the American system of liberty they never would have proposed acts based on the coercion and compulsory organization of men. Freedom does not die from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer believe in a system based upon Liberty. Mr. Roosevelt on this eve of election has started using the phrases of STOP HERE. SKIP TO P. 220. freedom. He talks sweetly of personal liberty, of individualism, of the American system, of the profit system. He says now that he thinks well of capitalism, and individual enterprise. His devotion to private property seems to be increasing. 220 ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD of members of Congress to be sapped by the pork barrel. It has subtly undermined the rights and the responsibility of States and local governments. Out of all this we see government daily by executive orders instead of by open laws openly arrived at. The New Deal taxes are in forms which stifle the growth of small business and discourage new enterprise. By stifling private enterprise the field is tilled for further extension of government enterprise. Intricate taxes are interpreted by political bureaucrats who coerce and threaten our business men. By politically managed currency the President has seized the power to alter all wages, all prices, all debts, and all savings at will. But that is not the worst. They are creating personal power over votes. That crushes the first safeguard of liberty. Does Mr. Roosevelt not admit all this in his last report on the state of the Union: "We have built up new instruments of public power" which he admits could "provide shackles for the liberties of the people?" Does freedom permit any man or any government any such power? Have the people ever voted for these shackles? Has he abandoned this "new order," this "planned economy'* that he has so often talked about? Will he discharge these associates of his whom daily preached the "new order" but whom he does not now allow to appear in this campaign? Is Mr. Roosevelt not asking for a vote of confidence on these very breaches of liberty? Is not this very increase in personal power the suicide road upon which BEGIN AGAIN. every democratic government has died from the time of Greece and Rome down to the dozen liberal governments that have perished in Europe during this past twenty years? PART III I gave the warning against this philosophy of government four years ago from a heart heavy with anxiety for the future of our country. It was born from many years' experience of the forces moving in the world which would weaken the vitality of ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD 221 American freedom. It grew in four years of battle as President to uphold the banner of free men. And that warning was based on sure ground from my knowledge of the ideas that Mr. Roosevelt and his bosom colleagues had covertly embraced despite the Democratic Platform. Those ideas were not new. Most of them had been urged upon me. During my four years powerful groups thundered at the White House with these same ideas. Some were honest, some promising votes, most of them threatening reprisals, and all of them yelling "reactionary" at us. I rejected the notion of great trade monopolies and price fixing through codes. That could only stifle the little business man by regimenting him under his big brother. That idea was born of certain American Big Business and grew up to be the NRA. I rejected the schemes of "economic planning" to regiment and coerce the farmer. That was born of a Roman despot fourteen hundred years ago and grew up into the AAA. I refused national plans to put the government into business in competition with its citizens. That was born of Karl Marx. I vetoed the idea of recovery through stupendous spending to prime the pump. That was born of a British professor. I threw out attempts to centralize relief in Washington for politics and social experimentation. I defeated other plans to invade State rights, to centralize power in Washington. Those ideas were born of American radicals. I stopped attempts at currency inflation and repudiation of government obligation. That was robbery of insurance policy holders, savings banks depositors and wage earners. That was born of the early Brain Trusters. I rejected all these things because they would not only delay recovery but because I knew that in the end they would shackle free men. Rejecting these ideas we Republicans had erected agencies of government which did start our country to prosperity without the loss of a single atom of American freedom. All the ardent peddlers of these Trojan horses received sympathetic The "professor" being John Maynard Keynes. The "Brain Trusters" being economists and other experts who advised FDR. 222 ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD hearings from Mr. Roosevelt and joined vociferously in his election. Men are to be judged by the company they keep. Our people did not recognize the gravity of the issue when I stated it four years ago. That is no wonder, for the day Mr. Roosevelt was elected Recovery was in progress, the Constitution was untrammeled, the integrity of the government and the institutions of freedom were intact. It was not until after the election that the people began to awake. Then the realization of intended tinkering with the currency drove bank depositors into the panic that greeted Mr. Roosevelt's inauguration. Recovery was set back for two years, and hysteria was used as the bridge to reach the goal of personal government. PART IV I am proud to have carried the banner of free men to the last hour of the term my countrymen entrusted it to me. It matters nothing in the history of a race what happens to those who in their time have carried the banner of free men. What matters is that the battle shall go on. The people know now the aims of this New Deal philosophy of government. We propose instead leadership and authority in government within the moral and economic framework of the American System. We propose to hold to the Constitutional safeguards of free men. We propose to relieve men from fear, coercion and spite that are inevitable in personal government. We propose to demobilize and decentralize all this spending upon which vast personal power is being built. We propose to amend the tax laws so as not to defeat free men and free enterprise. We propose to turn the whole direction of this country toward liberty, not away from it. The New Dealers say that all this that we propose is a worn-out System, which this machine age requires new measures for ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD 223 which we must sacrifice some part of the freedom of men. Men have lost their way with a confused idea that governments should run machines. Manmade machines cannot be of more worth than men themselves. Free men made these machines. Only free spirits can master them to their proper use. The relation of our government with all these questions is complicated and difficult. They rise into the very highest ranges of economics, statesmanship, and morals. And do not mistake. Free government is the most difficult of all government. But it is everlastingly true that the plain people will make fewer mistakes than any group of men no matter how powerful. But free government implies vigilant thinking and courageous living and selfreliance in a people. Let me say to you that any measure which breaks our dykes of freedom will flood the land with misery. STOP HERE. SKIP TO P. 226. THE SOCIAL FIELD In the field which is more largely social our first American objective should be the protection of the health, the assurance of the education and training of every child in our land. We want children kept out of our factories. We want them kept in school. We want every character building agency to surround them, including good homes. Freedom can march only upon the feet of educated, healthy and happy children. We want a land of health, and greater recreation for everybody. We want more opportunity for the creation and care of beauty and those things which satisfy the spirit. THE ECONOMIC FIELD In the field which is more largely economic our first objective must be to provide security from poverty and want. We want security in living for every home. We want to see a nation built of homeowners and farmowners. We want to see their savings protected. We want to see them in steady jobs. These are the first economic securities of human beings. 226 ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD more important to a nation than material welfare. It is possible to have a prosperous country under a dictatorship. It is not possible to have a free BEGIN CONTINUE THE END Great OF country. NoAGAIN. great question will ever be THROUGH settled in dollars and cents. questions must be settled on moral grounds and the tests of what makes free THIS SPEECH men. What is the nation profited if it shall gain the whole world and lose its own soul? We want recovery. Not alone economic recovery. We must have moral recovery. And there are many elements in this. We must reestablish truth and morals in public life. No people will long remain a moral people under a government that repudiates its obligations, that uses public funds to corrupt the people, which conceal its actions by double bookkeeping. We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants. We must stop this softening of thrift, self-reliance and self-respect through dependence on government. We must stop telling youth that the country is going to the devil and they haven't a chance. We must stop this dissipating the initiative and aspirations of our people. We must revive the courage of men and women and their faith in American liberty. We must recover these spiritual heritages of America. All this clatter of class and class hate should end. Thieves will get into high places as well as low places and they should both be given economic security—in jail. But they are not a class. This is a classless country. If we hold to our unique American ideal of equal opportunity there can never be classes or masses in our country. To preach these class ideas from the White House is new in American life. There is no employing class, no working class, and no farming class. You may pigeonhole a man or woman as a farmer or a worker or a professional man or an employer or even a banker. But the son of the farmer will be a doctor or a worker or even a banker, and his daughter a teacher. The son of a worker will be an employer—or maybe President. And certainly the sons of even economic royalists have a bad time holding the title of nobility. The glory of our country has been that every mother could ADDRESSES UPON THE AMERICAN ROAD 227 Look at the babe in her arms with confidence that the highest position in the world was open to it. The transcendent issue before us today is free men and women. How do we test freedom? It is not a catalogue of political rights. It is a thing of the spirit. Men must be free to worship, to think, to hold opinions, to speak without fear. They must be free to challenge wrong and oppression with surety of justice. Freedom conceives that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if he be free to pattern his own life, to develop his own talents, free to earn, to spend, to save, to acquire property as the security of his old age and his family. Freedom demands that these rights and ideals shall be protected from infringement by others, whether men or groups, corporations or governments. The conviction of our fathers was that all these freedoms come from the Creator and that they can be denied by no man or no government or no New Deal. They were spiritual rights of men. The prime purpose of liberal government is to enlarge and not to destroy these freedoms. It was for that purpose that the Constitution of the United States was enacted. For that reason we demand that the safeguards of freedom shall be upheld. It is for this reason that we demand that this country should turn its direction from a system of personal centralized government to the ideals of liberty. And again I repeat that statement of four years ago—"This campaign is more than a contest between two men. It is a contest between two philosophies of government." Whatever the outcome of this election that issue is set. We shall battle it out until the soul of America is saved.
Purchase answer to see full attachment