Apush Ch 24-32 Journals

(24) The Interstate Commerce Act was designed to regulate the railroad industry. In part this was to stop the monopolistic practices happening in the railroad industry but it had other bigger purposes.For example the Act stated that railroad prices must be "reasonable and just" and also stopped long haul short haul fare discrimination. It created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) which was tasked with upholding the new regulations and insuring they were followed. This law was overall a success in my eyes because it helped to protect the farmers from price discrimination. Although with that in mind additions to the law were necessary and the government had to take complete control of the railroads to stop discrimination completely.

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act prohibits certain business activities that the federal government deems to be anti-competitive, and requires the government to pursue and take down trusts. The law tries to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restricting trade and supply. In other words innocent monopolies are perfectly legal, but acts by a monopolist to artificially preserve his status or other attempts to create a monopoly are not. I do not believe this law was very effective mainly because the government generally did not put much effort into enforcing it. However it was a good idea and with several reforms allowed presidents like Teddy Roosevelt to take down monopolies like Rockefeller and Morgan who were destroying the competitive capitalism in America.

(25) Native born Americans feared the New Immigrants of the early 1900's. This was because many of them came from countries with little to no history of democracy. They also all followed orthodox churches and synagogues. And as always with immigrants americans were concerned with the lack of jobs available and that these immigrants were happy to fill the positions for cheaper. As a general rule americans were just not ready for the change that came with the floods of new immigrants new language, religions, customs, etc they were used to the shared customs of themselves and british and european immigrants who had come from places with similar ways of life to us and fused almost seamlessly into american society where they could simply go on about their lives almost as though they were in their own country. I do not think their fears were well rounded because it was these immigrants that earned the U.S. the nickname “The Melting Pot” becoming a cultural center of places all around the globe welcoming anyone who wanted to come. Even though these people had different customs to us it ultimately just enhanced the culture of the U.S. bringing new ideas into the U.S. to show us the difference in cultures around the world.

(26) Populists showed several pieces of evidence to say that the government was working with big business. They brought up things such as the Homestead Act which provided cheap land to farmers. However this was later discovered to be a giant hoax. The standard 160 acres frequently proved pitifully inadequate on the rain scarce Great Plains. Thousands of farmers were forced to give up in the struggle against drought. The railroads were also allowed to charge outrageous prices with long short haul discrimination. This cost the farmers thousands more dollars. In addition to this there was the constant struggle against the artificial inflation of crop prices. This made the crops that farmers grew nearly worthless. All of this combined made being a farmer an extremely hard job. I would have to say that this evidence does in fact convince me that the farmers tales were in fact well rounded and backed up well. There was a lot of corruption and with power in hands of the barons the farmers faced a very hard life. All of these were obvious indicators that something needed changed but the government simply stood back and watched. Later laws were put into place preventing or limiting these actions but at the time they were happening farmers willpower were being put to the test as they were continuously attacked by big businesses.

(27) The teller amendment stated that Cuba would gain its independence after the U.S. had won the war. This was a wise move for the U.S. because whether or not their original intentions were to in fact release Cuba completely it kept the cuban people in submission and prevented any mass resistance from the cuban people making the occupation of it much easier and saving the lives of troops that could have been put in danger by possible rebels.

The platt amendment allowed the United States to intervene unilaterally in Cuban affairs, and made them pledge to lease land to the United States for naval bases on the island. This however may not have been the wisest move the U.S. made. This put cuban american relations at an all time low because it essentially voided the previous act which stated that cuba would receive their independence. This later led to things such as the USSR being able to put missiles in cuba during the cold war.

Lastly the rulings in the insular cases were also not the wisest way to go about things. These ruling led to poor relations with Puerto Rico and The Philippines basically saying that the U.S. did not have to supply rights to people that were not in its direct jurisdiction. The U.S. later used these rulings as an excuse to not send supplies to an in need Puerto Rico.

(28) As Roosevelt once said "Speak softly and carry a big stick". And i don't think Roosevelt's foreign policy could possibly be summed up better. I believe that Roosevelt's foreign policy did more good than it did bad all things considered.Roosevelt spent a good portion of his presidency pushing for a bigger navy stating the importance of sea power which did a good job of protecting citizens.Another example is The Roosevelt corollary his own addition to the Monroe doctrine which supported policing in Latin America which brought us great dislike from them he did prevent european intervention there. And despite allowing the panamanian insurgents to be victorious by preventing reinforcements from arriving he did end up getting america the Panama Canal.And yet again despite his larger goals for american interests in Asia Roosevelt managed to mediate and eventually put to an end the Russo Japanese war. Despite the obvious hatred between the Russians and the Japanese. In other words although Roosevelt had some odd viewpoints on foreign policy in the end all in all i think that he did more good than evil because for every questionable thing he did he managed to perform an almost opposite action in attempt to even things out.

(29) Roosevelt did many positive things for america during his presidency. I would say one of the most important however is his trust busting. Roosevelt busted about 40 trusts restoring