PEACE THROUGH GROWTH: POLITICAL RESPONSE to CLASS CONFLICT in INTERWAR AMERICA, 1919-1923 a Thesis Submitted to Kent State Unive
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PEACE THROUGH GROWTH: POLITICAL RESPONSE TO CLASS CONFLICT IN INTERWAR AMERICA, 1919-1923 A thesis submitted To Kent State University in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts By Alex John Fleet August, 2018 Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials Thesis written by Alex Fleet B. A., Kent State University, 2014 M. A., Kent State University, 2018 Approved by Kenneth J. Bindas_______________________, Advisor Brian M. Hayashi________________________, Chair, Department of History James L. Blank__________________________, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER TWO .......................................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER THREE ...................................................................................................................... 65 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 89 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 93 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Clarence Wunderlin for all his advice and support in the development of my research, as well as his work in acclimating me with the work of previous historians and political theorists. I also owe a great debt to Dr. Kenneth J. Bindas for all his help in overseeing the completion of my thesis and his work in helping me to further develop my thesis. I would also like to thank Drs. David C. Hammack and Elaine Frantz for their input and advice on improving the analysis and organization presented in my thesis. I would also like to thank my mother, Cindy Fleet, and my father, Randy Fleet, for their support and encouragement in the times I found myself most frustrated and confused with my research. iv INTRODUCTION By the end of the 1910s, labor unrest threatened to tear apart the United States. Workers’ dissatisfaction towards capital and the state increased dramatically due to the country’s preparation for World War I, and by 1919 American workers went on an explosive series of strikes across the nation. Workers were upset due to a myriad of factors, but most notably, they were frustrated with the re-privatization of many industries that the government had taken control of for the war effort, such as the railroad industry. In addition, the closing of the National War Labor Board signified, in many ways, that the state planned to surrender its wartime role as negotiator for workers’ rights. With living standards stagnating, and the perception that labor relations would degrade to their dismal prewar state, workers across the nation rose up in revolt. In September, approximately half of all steelworkers across the country went on strike in protest against working conditions, unstable employment, lack of representation in the workplace, and many other issues. The striking workers, organized by the American Federation of Labor, would endure until January of the next year. Steel workers across Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York abandoned the steel mills, numbering over 300,000 at their peak. At the same time, miners across the country began striking and engaging in violence against both the state and against private guards. The striking workers would engage in some of the bloodiest struggles between workers and armed forces in American history. At the same time, 1 roughly 400,000 coal miners went on strike, demanding better hour-wage packages. Workers were not simply resisting the established order, they were actively fighting against it.1 America’s leading bureaucrats and business owners feared the angry reactions of the working class. Many feared that the revolution that had occurred in Russia in 1917 might happen in the US. Both the government and private citizens attacked the striking workers, and the turmoil of this year would lead to the destructive Red Scare of 1919. At the same time, American bureaucrats and employers both recognized that change was needed, and that a violent order could not hold society together. They would need to create a new industrial order that American workers would accept. During this period, state actors restructured the ways that the government interacted both with labor disputes and with economic behavior to create a much larger regulatory apparatus than had existed prior. They declared that the postwar economy’s chaos was the direct result of profiteering and inefficiency in the private economy, and used those conditions to legitimize intervention.2 This climate of economic uncertainty and labor militancy provided the perfect climate for state actors to construct a new federal program for regulating the nation’s railroads. While both President Wilson and Congress agreed to return railroads to their pre-war owners, they developed a new system of oversight that enabled the federal government to control virtually all of the major activities that these private companies could undergo. In essence, federal control of the nation’s railroads did not end in the 1920s but continued on, albeit in a less direct manner. 1 Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, vol. 8 Postwar Struggles, 1918-1920 (New York: International Publishers, 1988), 141-169. 2 Ibid., 20-24. 2 Regulations to the nation’s railroad carriers were nothing new. The first set of regulations were established by Congress in 1887 with the passing of the Interstate Commerce Act, which established the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) The act required railroad companies to set reasonable rates for both passenger and freight travel, and the ICC would hear any disputes over rates. The federal government’s power over the railroad industry expanded further in 1906 as Congress passed the Hepburn Act. The Hepburn Act expanded the ICC’s power over rate setting. Now, Commission would set reasonable rates itself, rather than wait for disputes to reach it. The ICC’s regulatory power over railroads expanded in 1913 with the passing of the Valuation Act. This Act required the ICC to valuate all property and holdings of railroad carriers. The value of this capital would then be used in determining what would constitute reasonable passenger and freight rates.3 With the arrival of World War I, the federal government nationalized the nation’s railway systems with the Railway Control Act. Although the act stipulated that companies whose property had been seized would receive payments from the federal government to accommodate for nationalization and a guarantee for the return of rail systems to private hands following the closure of the war, the federal government had complete control over the activities of the nation’s railway systems.4 3 U.S. Congress, House, An Act to Regulate Commerce, 49th Congress, 2nd sess.; U.S. Congress, House, An Act to amend an Act entitled “An Act to regulate commerce” approved February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty- seven, and all Acts amendatory thereof, and to enlarge the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 59th Congress, 1st sess., H.R. 12987; U.S. Congress, House, An Act to create a commerce court, and to amend the Act entitled “An Act to regulate commerce,” approved February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, as heretofore amended, and for other purposes, 61st Congress, 2nd sess., H. R. 17536; U.S. Congress, House, The Valuation Act of 1913, 62nd Congress, 3rd sess., H.R. 22593. 4U.S. Congress, Senate, An Act to provide for the operation of transportation systems while under Federal control, for the just compensation of their owners, and for other purposes, 65th Congress, 2nd sess., S. 3752. 3 The Transportation Act of 1920 gave far more power to the ICC than these previous laws and focused on giving the Commission power over more activities than simply rate-setting. Railroad carriers were now required to seek ICC approval for any expansion of existing lines; the abandonment of currently-operated branches; the purchase of other railroad companies; or even the issuance of bonds, loans, or securities;. The Transportation Act also set maximum rates of profit that railroad carriers were allowed to accrue. This law asserted that, while the state would fulfill its promise to restore private ownership of the railroad industry, it would still control almost all of the sector’s behavior.5 Historians have examined American industrial relations post- World War I through the lenses of both business and labor history, as well as by examining the history of federal institutions that changed following the war. Some have examined the changes in the relationship between workers and capitalists to the crash, as is the case in Lizabeth Cohen’s Making A New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (1999). In this work, she highlights the efforts of businesses to restore workers’ confidence in capitalism through various benefits