History of the United States Volume Vi Part 20

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Rear-Admiral Charles S. Sperry.

At Auckland Rear-Admiral Evans, who had spent forty-eight years in the navy, having reached the age limit of sixty-two years, was succeeded in command by Rear-Admiral Sperry. Unusual honors were accorded the fleet by j.a.pan. Each American warship was escorted into the harbor of Yokohama by a j.a.panese vessel of the same cla.s.s and many other evidences of friendship were manifest during their visit. The fleet then proceeded to China, through the Suez Ca.n.a.l and the Strait of Gibraltar, and at the end of one year and sixty-eight days, after covering 45,000 miles, dropped anchor in Hampton Roads. The accomplishment of this feat, without precedent in naval annals, still farther contributed to the establishment of the prestige of the United States as a great world power.

In 1889 the government of the United States purchased from the Indians a large irregular tract of land not then occupied by them and erected it into a separate territory under the name of Oklahoma. When it was opened for settlement, April 22, 1889, a horde of settlers who had been waiting on the borders rushed in to take possession of the lands. Cities and towns sprang up as if by magic. The loose system of government exercised by the five civilized tribes became steadily more ineffective when the Indian Territory was thus brought into contact with white settlers. By 1893 affairs had become so confused that Congress decided to take steps toward the ultimate admission of the territory into the Union as a State. A committee of the Senate reported that the system of government exercised by the Indians cannot be continued, that it is not only non-American but it is radically wrong, and a change is imperatively demanded in the interest of the Indians and the whites alike, and such change cannot be much longer delayed, and that there can be no modification of the system. It cannot be reformed; it must be abandoned and a better one subst.i.tuted.

Gradually the five tribes--Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole--were shorn of their governmental powers. Lands were allotted in severalty, certain coal, oil, and asphalt lands being reserved. A public school system was established and maintained by general taxation.

In his message to Congress, 1905, President Roosevelt recommended the immediate admission of Oklahoma and Indian Territory as one State and Arizona and New Mexico as another. A statehood bill embodying this recommendation was pa.s.sed by the House, but was amended in the Senate so as to strike out the provision relative to the admission of New Mexico and Arizona. Opposition to the admission of the last two territories as one State came princ.i.p.ally from the great mining companies of Arizona supported by the railroad corporations. They were in practical control of the territory with hundreds of millions of dollars in property. They were fearful of the loss of control and an increase of taxation under such a combination. Finally an act was pa.s.sed by Congress, in 1906, enabling the people of Oklahoma and Indian Territory to form a const.i.tution and State government and be admitted into the Union. The enabling act provided that all male persons over the age of twenty-one years who were citizens of the United States or who were members of any Indian nation or tribe in said Oklahoma and Indian Territory, and who had resided within the limits of said proposed State for at least six months next preceding the election, should be ent.i.tled to vote for delegate or serve as delegates in a const.i.tutional convention. A number of Indians were delegates in this convention. The const.i.tution, which was adopted by the voters, September 17, 1907, was greatly criticised on account of its radicalism. The new State, the forty-seventh, was formally proclaimed by the President in 1908. It has an area of 70,000 square miles. In 1900 the population was 800,000 which was increased to 1,500,000 by the date of admission. The wonderful climate and fertile soil together with the energy of its population have continued to attract thousands of immigrants each year.

The exclusion of j.a.panese students from the public schools of San Francisco, 1906, seemed for a time to augur grave results. One-half of the ninety j.a.panese who were in attendance upon these schools were above sixteen years of age and were taught in the cla.s.ses with little children. The order of the San Francisco school board excluding the j.a.panese was in harmony with the California law which permitted local school boards to segregate Mongolians in schools apart from those for white children. But this order nullified our treaty with j.a.pan which provided that the subjects of that nation should be granted the same personal rights when in this country that our own citizens enjoy.

President Roosevelt acted with promptness and decision. His att.i.tude was shown in his message to Congress, December, 1907, in which he said: "To shut them out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity ... .

Throughout j.a.pan Americans are well treated and any failure on the part of Americans at home to treat the j.a.panese with a like courtesy and consideration is by just so much a confession of inferiority in our civilization ... . I ask fair treatment for the j.a.panese as I would ask fair treatment for Germans or Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians, or Italians .... In the matter now before me, affecting the j.a.panese, everything that is in my power to do will be done, and all of the forces, military and civil, of the United States which I may lawfully employ will be so employed."

But the problem was not settled, for early in the year 1909 anti-j.a.panese resolutions were brought before the legislatures of California, Nevada, Oregon, and two or three other Pacific States. The bills before the legislature of California provided:

1. For the segregation of j.a.panese and other Orientals in residential quarters at the option of munic.i.p.alities.

2. That aliens should not own land in California.

3. That aliens should not become directors in California corporations.

4. For separate schools for j.a.panese students.

On February 8, President Roosevelt sent a telegram to the Speaker of the California a.s.sembly giving the Government's views on the pending bills.

"The policy agreed to by both governments," he said, "aims at mutuality of obligation and behavior. In accordance with it the purpose is that the j.a.panese shall come here exactly as Americans go to j.a.pan, which is in effect that travellers, students, persons engaged in international business, men who sojourn for pleasure or study, and the like, shall have the freest access from one country to the other, and shall be sure of the best treatment, but that there shall be no settlement in ma.s.s by the people of either country in the other." While there is nothing in the Const.i.tution or laws to prevent the President from urging a State legislature to vote for or against certain pending bills, such a course is unusual. It had become a national question, however, and the President's energy in handling the problem is worthy of praise.

According to the census of 1900, there were over 700,000 children under sixteen years of age at work in the mills, mines, factories, and sweat-shops of the United States. Nearly all of the States had child-labor laws, but they were ordinarily poorly enforced and no State was wholly free from the blight of this child slavery. While fourteen years was the minimum in most of the States, a few permitted the employment of children of ten years of age. In the majority of cases there was no legal closing hour after which children might not be employed.

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Cotton-mill operatives so small that in order to reach their work they have to stand upon the machinery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: About thirty children, age 10 to 15.]

The spinning-room overseer and his flock in a Mississippi cotton-mill.

The subject was given national prominence through the Beveridge-Parsons Bill introduced into the Senate, December, 1907, marking an epoch in the history of federal legislation. This bill proposed to exclude from interstate commerce all products of mines and factories which employ children under the age of fourteen. The bill was not, however, brought up for discussion. The leading arguments of its opponents were as follows: (1) That the question was local only; (2) there was no reason to believe that federal would be better than State administration; (3) that it was limited in effect since it could not prevent children being employed in the manufacture of goods to be sold within a State. A bill pa.s.sed both houses and was signed by the President, authorizing the Secretary of Commerce and Labor "to investigate and report on the industrial, social, moral, educational, and physical conditions of woman and child workers of the United States, wherever employed, with special reference to their age, hours of labor, term of employment, health, illiteracy, sanitary and other conditions surrounding their occupation, and the means employed for the protection of their health, persons, and morals." An appropriation of $150,000 was made with which to carry on this investigation. Among the demands of the National Child Labor Committee have been a shorter day's work for children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, health certificates for factory employment in dangerous trades, and the regulation of children in street trades.

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Electric train, Long Island R. R.

The period of Mr. Roosevelt's administrations was notable on account of advances made in various other directions. Electricity was applied to new and larger uses. Power was transmitted to greater distances. Niagara Falls was made to produce an electric current employed leagues away.

Electric railways, radiating from cities, converted farms and sand-lots into suburban real estate quickly and easily accessible from the great centres. Telephone service was extended far into country parts, and, with the rural free delivery of mail, brought farmers into quick and inexpensive communication with the outside world, robbing the farm of what was once both its chief attraction and its greatest inconvenience--isolation.

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Guglielmo Marconi and his wireless telegraph.

German experiments developed an electric surface car with a speed of two miles a minute. Wireless telegraphy came into use. By means of high masts rigged, with wires diverging to the earth somewhat like the frame of a partly opened umbrella, it was found possible under favorable atmospheric conditions to telegraph hundreds of miles through the air.

The most notable use of this invention was to communicate between ships and the sh.o.r.e or between ships at sea, a particularly desirable facility in fog, storm, or darkness, when other signals were useless.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Four steel towers and some small buildings.]

Marconi Transatlantic Station at South Wellfleet, Cape Cod, Ma.s.s.

Electricity and the gasolene engine were applied to bicycles, vehicles, and boats, often generating sufficient power to run a small factory.

Bicycles somewhat pa.s.sed from vogue, but automobiles became fashionable, partly for rapid transit, partly for work formerly consigned to heavy teams. Auto-carriages capable of railway speed, varying indefinitely in style and in cost, might be seen upon the smoother roads about cities all the way from Maine to California. They exerted great influence in inducing communities to macadamize roads, for which the pa.s.sing of the stage-coach and the spread of railroads had diminished the demand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Man standing on a metal frame beneath a balloon about fifty feet long and fifteen feet in diameter.]

Courtesy of Scientific American.

The "Arrow" getting under way.

Effort with flying machines was incessant but only partially successful.

No air-ship had thus far been devised which could undertake a definite voyage of length with any certainty of reaching its destination. The best feat yet was that of the air-ship Arrow, which, October 25, 1904, at St. Louis, made a ten-mile trip. On the other hand, the development of boats able to carry life for hours beneath the surface of the sea added a new form of attack and defence against the well-nigh impenetrable sides and enormously powerful guns of modern naval ships.

About 1890 the use of the Australian ballot system became general, and thus the purchase of votes became more difficult. But this reform did not eliminate the evils of machine politics. State laws were extended to the control of party affairs, with severer punishments for corrupt practices, the control of lobbying, and the requirement of publicity for campaign expenses. In a few States the primary election system was put into operation. Public officers won popular approval in numerous States and cities by their activity in revealing "graft" and by their fearless enforcement of the law.

These reforms were made possible by the increase of independent voting in State and city politics. Politicians must reckon, as never before, with the demand of the average citizen for honesty in public service.

The influence of corporations in governmental affairs received a check, and there came to be a growing demand for the more complete control of public utilities, and for the public ownership of them in cities.

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Courtesy of Scientific American Baldwin's airship "Arrow" at a height of 600 feet over the Exposition Palaces, St. Louis, October 25, 1904.

The prominence of the moral element in the business and political reforms mentioned above characterizes this as an era of "awakened civic conscience." Both moral and economic considerations may be seen in the protest against the excessive use of alcoholic liquors that has resulted in the prohibition of liquor selling in a number of States and parts of States, especially in the South. Educationally, the period showed increased attention to the industrial and practical aspects of school work. Courses in manual training came to be regarded as necessary for the complete development of mind and body. Physical education received greater attention. The establishment of public libraries, aided by the munificent gifts of Andrew Carnegie, was rapid.

Millions of dollars, also, were contributed to the cause of education and research. Among the most notable of these gifts were those by Mr.

Carnegie for the establishment of the Carnegie Inst.i.tution and the Carnegie Foundation, and the contribution to the General Education Board by John D. Rockefeller. In 1902 the Carnegie Inst.i.tution at Washington was established by a gift of $10,000,000 by Andrew Carnegie. This sum he afterward increased to $25,000,000. The work of the inst.i.tution is to carry on scientific study and research. Material is being collected for the economic history of the United States, and students of American history have been aided by the catalogues showing the location of doc.u.mentary and other source material. While the head-quarters of the Inst.i.tution is in Washington, important departments are located elsewhere throughout the country. There is a laboratory at Tucson, Arizona, for the study of desert plant life; a biological laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island; a marine biological laboratory at Tortugas, off the Florida coast, and an astronomical observatory at Mount Wilson, California.

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Atlanta, Ga.

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