Essay On New Deal Dbq

* Workers wanted higher wages, 8 hour work day, and the right to collective bargaining (to negotiate on behalf of other members)

In his book, “Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War”, Thomas G. Andrews construes the trajectory of a unique labor movement of the southern Colorado coal workers. The labor movement is unique as it integrates the social, ecological and industrial context of the strike for a captivating narration of the Ludlow massacre. Andrew’s account is valuable as he insists that credible conclusions must be grounded in complete and sophisticated provenance as opposed to oversimplified explanations. The intent of this response paper is to analyze the burdensome nature of obtaining coal, substandard pay and the treacherous working conditions. Secondly, the paper discusses the ways which helped employees to achieve autonomy and solidarity.

In January of 1920, John L. Lewis, the president of the UMWA announced a campaign to unionize the Appalachian coalfields. In southern West Virginia,

Eventually, the workers of American Coal, who were once the landowners of the very area they were mining, formed a labor union to fight for better working conditions. The union was met with great opposition by the company’s secret police. As time went on, the coal miners continued to fight for their rights, only to be put down violently by the coal company’s strikebreakers. Union leaders were also fired and blacklisted from the company as a means to put a stop to union activity.

WIth the power going to their head, their attitude reflected their beliefs that employers were on a higher level that their workers in every way. So they had a strong distaste towards their employees banning together against them because they were challenging their superiority.Many employers gave them an ultimatum, either you sign a contract similar to the Western Union Telegraph Company’s, promising you wouldn’t have any affiliation with the unions, or you lost your job (Document E). In 1883, in a testimony before the Senate Committee on Labor and Capital, a machinist said that "100 men are able to do now what it took 300 or 400 men to do fifteen years ago" in trying to explain his insignificance to the company he worked for (Document D). Due to the fact that they indeed did not necessarily need as many men as they did in the past, employers had no problem firing them if their protests went too

He started a new freedom in the United States. Wilson passed the 16th Amendment, which gave the right of income taxes, and the 17th Amendment, which established the direct election of senators. Theodore Roosevelt pushed for the direct vote of senators and Wilson worked to make what Roosevelt wanted to happen (Document 4). Wilson also established the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which strengthened the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (Document 5). Wilson strengthened everything that Roosevelt wanted to do. However, he usually could also see both sides to any argument. Therefore, it made the people think he couldn’t make a decision, or in many cases, the right decision. (Document

Two years into his presidency, Wilson enacted the Clayton Antitrust Act, which strengthened the Sherman Antitrust Act by defining prohibited actions by companies, and explained the new laws would be enforced. Wilson wanted to eliminate all monopolies in the market, which went against the views of Roosevelt. Wilson, however, was a democrat and leaned more towards leaving power to the states to regulate trade after the monopolies had been broken

During the Progressive Era, Americans faced the challenge of choosing between four strong candidates of the election of 1912. Each candidate held concrete platforms that would have different effects on progressivism. Americans could chose the conservative presidential incumbent William Howard Taft(R), the New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson (D), the long-time fighter for social reform-Eugene V. Debs (S), or the former president Theodore Roosevelt of the newly formed Bull Moose Party (Progressive Party). Through this election many steps were taken to change the face of the election season, including women's rights, primaries, and third

Roosevelt felt President Taft was too conservative and pro-business (Robinson, 2003). In reaction to that, he met with Progressive leaders after returning from Africa and began plotting a political comeback (Robinson, 2003).

Once Wilson won, he abandoned his campaign platform and shifted to a progressive platform. Croly celebrated that “The Progressive party is dead, but its principles are more alive than ever, because they are to a greater extent embodied in the official organization of the nation” (Milkis).

Unions first came about with the realization that workers were being treated unfairly, worked in

their conviction, it was the striking miners who negotiated with the coal operators. Dan Moar represented the miners and was successful in signing a temporary agreement.

In 1902, the United Mine Workers were willing to submit to arbitration, but the coal operators

Shortly after the Taft-Hartley Act was passed after the veto of President Harry Truman, which stated subjecting labor unions to claims of unfair practices and only

President Roosevelt’s New Deal did not end the Great Depression and possibly even prolonged it. The massive tax increase and beginning of the Social Security program and the 1935 Revenue Act both took money out of the economy, businesses continued to fail and unemployment rose. Scalinge, in his article: Revisiting The Great Depression’s “The Great Depression provided the pretext for repudiating sound money, empowering secretive international financial elites, establishing a federal government stranglehold on agriculture, and in general imposing a regime of industry controls that mirrored the so-called “reforms” of facist and socialist regimes.” (38) It wasn’t until World War II began that the spending brought America out of the Great Depression.