19Th-20th centuries

Between the Civil war and the First World War the United States of America were transformed from a rural republic to an urban state.

Iron and steel were forging ahead, protected by a high tariff. In agriculture a shift from hand labor to machine farming meant increasing of the number of forms in the country (from 2 million in 1860 to 6 million in 1912).

The “gold rush” in the Far West meant establishing communities, settlement of the cities, exploring the country.

Texas became a flouring cattle-raising state after the Civil war.

At the same time settlers and ranchers were conflicting with the Indians of the West.

Conflicts with the Plain Indians (the Sioux and the Apache) began in 1862 with a Sioux massacre of whites. In 1876 the last serious Sioux war erupted. In 1876, General George Custer was defeated on the Little Big Horn River. In 1890, a ghost dance ritual in the Northern Sioux reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, ended in the death of hundreds of Sioux men, women and children.

The Apache wars ended in 1885, when Geronimo, their last important chief, was captured.

The last decades of the 19^th century were a period of imperial expansion for the United States. It was a period of imperialist frenzy, as European powers raced to carve up Africa and competed for influence and trade in Asia – along with a new rival, Japan. It was clear, that to safeguard the interests of the United States, the country had to stake out sphere of economic influence. The doctrine of “manifest destiny” was revived to assert that the US had a right and duty to extend its influence and civilization in the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean, as well as across the Pacific.

America’s first venture beyond her continental borders was the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. In 1959, when Alaska became the 49^th state, it replaced Texas as the largest state in the Union. Besides, in the 1890s gold was found on the Klondike River.

By 1860s, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only remnants of Spain’s empire in the New World. In 1895 Cuba began the war for independence. America was preserving neutrality, but in 1898 a ghastly explosion destroyed the battleship Maine in Havana harbor, killing 260 of its crew. “Remember the Maine!” became a battle cry.

The war with Spain was swift and decisive. During the four months it lasted, not a single American reverse of any importance occurred. A week after the declaration of war, six vessels proceeded to the Philippines, the core of Spanish power in the Pacific. The entire Spanish fleet was caught at anchor and destroyed without losing an American life.

In Cuba, troops captured Santiago. The new heroes of the nation became George Dewey and Theodore Roosevelt, who resigned as assistant secretary of the navy to lead the “Rough Riders”, a volunteer regiment he recruited for service in Cuba.

In the treaty signed on December 10, 1898, Cuba was transferred to the US for temporary occupation preliminary to the island’s independence. In addition, Spain ceded Puerto Rico and Guam in lieu of war indemnity, and the Philippines on payment of $20 million (the Philippines became fully independent in 1946).

American involvement in the Pacific area was not limited to the Philippines. In 1893, American businessmen in the Hawaiian Island joined with influential Hawaiians to install a new government, which then asked to be annexed to the United States. At first annexation was rejected, but in July 1898, after the Spanish-American war, the Congress voted to annex the islands and thus acquired an important naval base at Pearl Harbor. In 1959 Hawaii became the 50^th state in the Union.

Cuba acquired nominal independence when American troops departed in 1902. In 1934 the USA stopped to intervene into its domestic affair but only in 1959, when Fidel Castro overthrew the government in power, America lost its economic and political influence in Cuba.

In 1917 the US Congress granted Puerto Rico the right to elect all of their legislators. But the same law made it officially a US territory and gave its people American citizenship. In 1950 the Congress granted Puerto Rico complete freedom to decide its future. In 1952, the citizens chose a commonwealth status.

Now when the US was a power in both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, it saw the necessity to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. (The first attempts of digging the canal were made by the French in the late 19^th century).

At the turn of the century, what is now Panama was a northern province of Colombia. In 1903 Colombian government did not let the US build and manage a canal, and a group of Panamanians, with the support of the US Marines, rose in rebellion and declared Panama’s independence from Colombia. The breakaway country was immediately recognized by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Panama granted the USA a perpetual lease to a 16-kilometer-wide strip of land between the Atlantic and the Pacific, in return for $10 million and a yearly fee of $250,000. Colombia later received $25 million as partial compensation.

The Canal was completed in 1914.

Between 1900 and 1920, the US intervened in six Western Hemispheric nations, establishing protectorates in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and periodically stationing US Marines in Nicaragua.

In 1889 Secretary of State James G. Blaine proposed that the 21 independent nations of the Western Hemisphere join in an organization firstly known as the Pan-American Union, and today as the Organization of American States (OAS).

In 1901, after assassination of William McKinly, Theodore Roosevelt, his vice-president, assumed the presidency. His accession coincided with a new epoch in American political life.

Roosevelt’s reforms.

By the early 20^th century the country had changed greatly. Roosevelt initiated a policy of increased government supervision in the enforcement of antitrust laws and prompted the passage of major regulatory bills.

In 1904 he won the election. In his first annual message to Congress, he called for drastic railroad regulation, and in June 1906 Congress passed the Hepburn Act, which gave the Interstate Commerce Commission real authority in regulating rates.

Among his major achievements are conservation of the nation’s natural resources, that put an end to wasteful exploitation of raw materials. He increased the territory of preserved land and parks to 59,200,000 hectares.

The election of 1908 showed that Roosevelt’s popularity was at its peak, but he did not break the tradition of holding office for more that 2 terms. Instead, he supported William Howard Taft, who won the election.

He continued the prosecution of trusts, further strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission, established a postal savings bank and a parcel post system, expanded the civil service and sponsored the enactment of two amendments to the Constitution.

The 16^th Amendment authorized a federal income tax; the 17^th Amendment mandated the direct election of senators by the people (not by state legislatures).

By 1910 Taft’s party was divided and Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, campaigned against Taft (the Republican candidate) and Roosevelt (the Progressive Party candidate).

Wilson defeated both rivals. Under his leadership, the new Congress enacted one of the most notable legislative programs in American history. Its first task was tariff revision. The Underwood Tariff, signed on October 3, 1913, was an attempt to lower the cost of living (it reduced rates on imported raw materials and foodstuffs, cotton and woolen goods, iron and steel).

The second item was reorganization of the inflexible banking and currency system. The Federal Reserve Act of December 23, 1913, imposed upon the existing banking system a new organization that divided the country into 12 districts, with a Federal Reserve Bank in each, all supervised by a Federal Reserve Board. These banks were to serve as depositories for the cash reserves of those banks that joined the system.

The next imported task was trust regulation and investigation of corporate abuses.

A federal loan act made credit available to farmers at low rates of interest.

The Federal Workingman’s Compensation Act of 1916 authorized allowances to civil service employees for disabilities at work.

All these achievements made Wilson one of the nation’s foremost political reformers.