U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties (Magill's Choice)

U.S. LAWS, ACTS, AND TREATIES

Timothy L. Hall, Editor

SALEM PRESS

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

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MAGILL’S C H O I C E

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Volume 1 1776-1928

edited by

Timothy L. Hall University of Mississippi School of Law co-editor

Christina J. Moose

Salem Press, Inc.

Pasadena, California

Hackensack, New Jersey

Copyright © 2003, by Salem Press, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115. ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997). Parts of this publication previously appeared in the following publications, copyrighted by Salem Press, Inc.: Great Events from History: Human Rights (© 1992), Great Events from History: Business and Commerce (© 1994), Great Events from History: Ecology and the Environment (© 1995), Ready Reference: American Justice (c 1996), Great Events from History: Revised North American Series (c 1997), Ready Reference: Censorship (© 1997), Ready Reference: Women’s Issues (© 1997), Natural Resources (© 1998), Encyclopedia of Family Life (© 1999), Racial and Ethnic Relations in America (© 1999), The Sixties in America (© 1999), Aging (© 2000), Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues (© 2000), Encyclopedia of the U.S. Supreme Court (© 2001), Magill’s Choice: American Indian History (© 2002), and Magill’s Choice: The Bill of Rights (© 2002). New material has been added. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data U.S. laws, acts, and treaties / edited by Timothy L. Hall. p. cm. — (Magill’s choice) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58765-098-3 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-099-1 (vol. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-100-9 (vol. 2 : alk. paper)— ISBN 1-58765-101-7 (vol. 3 : alk. paper) 1. United States. Laws, etc. 2. Law—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations—Treaties. I. Title: US laws, acts, and treaties. II. Hall, Timothy L. III. Series. KF385.A4U152 2003 348.73′2—dc21 2002156063 First Printing printed in the united states of america

Contents Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Introduction, by Timothy L. Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii Contents by Popular Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix Declaration of Independence (1776) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Articles of Confederation (1781) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Treaty of Paris (1783) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Ordinance of 1785 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty (1786). . . . . . . . . . . 21 Northwest Ordinance (1787) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 U.S. Constitution: History (1787) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Three-fifths compromise (1787) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Judiciary Act of 1789 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Bill of Rights (1789). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 First Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Second Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Third Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Fourth Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Fifth Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Takings clause (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Sixth Amendment (1789). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Seventh Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Eighth Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Ninth Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Tenth Amendment (1789) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790-1834) . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Naturalization Act of 1790. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Federal Crimes Act (1790) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Jay’s Treaty (1794) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Eleventh Amendment (1798) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Fort Greenville Treaty (1795) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Pinckney’s Treaty (1795) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 v

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Sedition Act of 1798 . . . . . . . . . . . Judiciary Acts of 1801-1925 . . . . . . . Treaty of Monfontaine (1801) . . . . . Black Codes of 1804-1807 . . . . . . . . Twelfth Amendment (1804). . . . . . . Embargo Acts (1806-1807) . . . . . . . Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807) . . . . . . . Fort Wayne Treaty (1809) . . . . . . . . Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814) . . . . . Treaty of Ghent (1814) . . . . . . . . . Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817) . . . . . Convention of 1818 . . . . . . . . . . . Adams-Onís Treaty (1819). . . . . . . . Missouri Compromise (1820) . . . . . . Land Act of 1820 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Monroe Doctrine (1823) . . . . . . . . Indian Removal Act (1830) . . . . . . . Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830) Force Act of 1833. . . . . . . . . . . . . Preemption Act (1841) . . . . . . . . . Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842). . . . Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844) . . . . . . . Independent Treasury Act (1846) . . . Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) . . Oregon Act (1848) . . . . . . . . . . . . Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850) . . . . . . Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 . . . . . . . . Compromise of 1850 . . . . . . . . . . . Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. . . . . . . Pacific Railroad Survey Act (1853) . . . Fort Atkinson Treaty (1853). . . . . . . Treaty of Kanagawa (1854) . . . . . . . Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) . . . . . . . Confiscation Acts (1861-1862) . . . . . Homestead Act of 1862 . . . . . . . . . Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 . . . . . Militia Act (1862) . . . . . . . . . . . . Emancipation Proclamation (1863) . . National Bank Acts (1863-1864) . . . . Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865) . . . . . vi

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131 136 141 143 147 151 153 157 159 160 165 167 169 173 178 181 186 192 194 199 202 207 209 213 217 219 221 225 228 230 235 236 240 244 245 249 254 259 261 265

Contents

Black Codes of 1865 . . . . . . . . . . Thirteenth Amendment (1865) . . . . Civil Rights Act of 1866 . . . . . . . . Reconstruction Acts (1867) . . . . . . Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867) Fourteenth Amendment (1868) . . . Burlingame Treaty (1868) . . . . . . . Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. . . . . . Fifteenth Amendment (1870) . . . . . Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871) . . . . Indian Appropriation Act (1871) . . . Treaty of Washington (1871) . . . . . General Mining Act (1872) . . . . . . Coinage Act (1873) . . . . . . . . . . Comstock Act (1873) . . . . . . . . . Page Law (1875) . . . . . . . . . . . . Removal Act (1875) . . . . . . . . . . Bland-Allison Act (1878) . . . . . . . Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954). . . . . . Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). . . . . Indian Offenses Act (1883) . . . . . . Pendleton Act (1883) . . . . . . . . . Major Crimes Act (1885) . . . . . . . Electoral Count Act (1887) . . . . . . Interstate Commerce Act (1887) . . . General Allotment Act (1887) . . . . Dependent Pension Act (1890) . . . . Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) . . . . Disfranchisement laws (1890) . . . . . Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 . . . . Dingley Tariff (1897) . . . . . . . . . Treaty of Paris (1898) . . . . . . . . . Currency Act (1900) . . . . . . . . . . Direct democracy laws (1913) . . . . . Reclamation Act (1902) . . . . . . . . Platt Amendment (1903) . . . . . . . Burke Act (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906) . . . Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907) . . . Opium Exclusion Act (1909) . . . . . vii

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269 273 278 280 287 291 296 300 302 305 306 310 314 316 320 322 326 327 329 331 335 336 340 341 343 347 351 353 358 362 363 367 369 371 375 381 385 387 391 396

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Copyright Act of 1909 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909) . . . . . . . . . Mann Act (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Panama Canal Act (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . Sixteenth Amendment (1913) . . . . . . . . . Migratory Bird Act (1913). . . . . . . . . . . . Seventeenth Amendment (1913) . . . . . . . . Alien land laws (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Federal Reserve Act (1913) . . . . . . . . . . . Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) . . . . . Clayton Antitrust Act (1914) . . . . . . . . . . Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914) . . . . . . National Defense Act (1916) . . . . . . . . . . National Park Service Organic Act (1916) . . . Immigration Act of 1917. . . . . . . . . . . . . Jones Act (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Espionage Acts (1917-1918) . . . . . . . . . . . Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918) . . . . . . . . Eighteenth Amendment (1919). . . . . . . . . Treaty of Versailles (1919) . . . . . . . . . . . . Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919). . . . . . . . . Mineral Leasing Act (1920) . . . . . . . . . . . Federal Power Act of 1920. . . . . . . . . . . . Nineteenth Amendment (1920) . . . . . . . . Immigration Act of 1921. . . . . . . . . . . . . Sheppard-Towner Act (1921) . . . . . . . . . . Cable Act (1922) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Equal Rights Amendment (1923-1983) . . . . . World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924) Immigration Act of 1924. . . . . . . . . . . . . Indian Citizenship Act (1924). . . . . . . . . . Oil Pollution Act of 1924 . . . . . . . . . . . . Halibut Treaty (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925) . . . . . Geneva Protocol (1925) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Air Commerce Act (1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . Railway Labor Act (1926) . . . . . . . . . . . . McFadden Act (1927) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . viii

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Publisher’s Note Magill’s Choice: Laws, Acts, and Treaties offers librarians and students of U.S. history and law—as well as students of government, Native American studies, environmental law, political science, law sociology, women’s issues, and American ethnic groups—a unique, one-stop resource for basic information and historical context on 433 major U.S. acts of Congress and U.S. treaties, from the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution through the Homeland Security Act of 2002. These in-depth essays, averaging about 1,500 words in length (and ranging from 500 to 2,500 words), cover both the historical provenance and the main provisions of these core laws and treaties. In addition to describing the law’s background and provisions, each essay lists known alternative popular names for the law, such as the “Dawes Act” for the General Allotment Act of 1887; title and section of the 2000 U.S. Code whenever the law is codified mainly within one title of the Code; categories of interest, such as civil rights, family life, health, the environment, or immigration; date of passage or presidential signing; and a list of “Sources for Further Study.” A reference to the United States Statutes at Large by volume and page number is standard in all essays to which it applies (that is, all acts of Congress), employing the standard format of XX Stat. XXX, where XX is the volume and XXX the first page number on which the law appears. Public law numbers appear for all statutory laws after 1956, when the format for these was standardized to list the congressional session number followed by a hyphen and the number of the law. Compiled from sixteen Salem reference works published within the past decade, essays have been updated, new ready-reference data have been added, and each has been subheaded to highlight key features of the law in question. In addition, 50 new essays, unique to this publication, have been added to fill historical gaps and ensure coverage through 2002. These new essays include, for example, the USA Patriot Act of 2001 and the U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement of 2002. Students and librarians alike will appreciate the resulting broad coverage of U.S. laws: both those that played key roles in the history of the Republic and those that remain important today. This scope is reflected in the wide variety of topical areas represented by these laws: ix

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

African Americans Aging Issues Agriculture Animals Asia or Asian Americans Banking, Money, and Finance Business, Commerce, and Trade Children’s Issues Civil Rights and Liberties Communications and Media Constitutional Law Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks Crimes and Criminal Procedure Disability Issues Education Energy Environment and Conservation Food and Drugs Foreign Relations

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Government Procedure and Organization Health and Welfare Housing Immigration Judiciary and Judicial Procedure Labor and Employment Land Management Latinos Military and National Security Native Americans Natural Resources Privacy Property Religious Liberty Slavery Speech and Expression Tariffs and Taxation Transportation Treaties and Agreements Voting and Elections Women’s Issues

The set’s chronological arrangement allows the publication to function as an elaborate and detailed time line, offering students the opportunity to compare and contrast laws passed in the same era. At the same time, alphabetical access by the laws’ popular names is ensured by the presence, at the beginning of each volume, of an alphabetical list of “Contents by Popular Name,” including cross-references from “also known as” names. Volume 3 offers several essential research tools, including a convenient reprint of the first “law” of the nation, the Declaration of Independence; the U.S. Constitution and its twenty-seven amendments; a list of legal research “Resources” including organizations and Web sites; a Categorized Index listing the laws by topic of interest; and a comprehensive Subject Index. Very little one-stop reference on U.S. acts and laws exists— certainly not of this breadth and scope for the general reader. U.S. x

Publisher’s Note

Laws, Acts, and Treaties provides the much-needed service of selecting, from literally thousands of bills, those most likely to come up in classroom discussions, offering not only a summation of the laws’ provisions and significance but also ample historical background and political context. Most other reference works in this area are either highly technical, requiring targeted searches (such as the U.S. government online databases), or limited in scope, geared to narrow thematic coverage by topics such as education, immigration, or civil rights. Salem’s editors hope that this set will offer not only historical breadth but also a large number of laws in each of the main subject areas—accessible through the Categorized Index—that are likely to be of interest in high school and undergraduate history and government courses, allowing the student researcher quick access to (for example) the context and main provisions of historically significant environmental law, immigration law, laws affecting African Americans, or laws related to federal crime. No work of this magnitude and diversity is possible, of course, without the major efforts of academicians and independent scholars in history, political science, government, and legal studies. All essays are signed by their original contributors, and a list of those individuals and their academic affiliations follows this note. In addition, we wish to acknowledge the contributions of Editor Timothy L. Hall of the University of Mississippi School of Law, without whose insight and oversight this publication would not have been possible. His Introduction, as well as his appendix “Resources on the Law,” offers clarity and guidance through the tangled web of source materials fundamental to legal research.

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Contributors Timothy L. Hall, Editor

University of Mississippi School of Law Craig W. Allin Cornell College

Karen L. Barak University of Wisconsin, Whitewater

William Allison Weber State University

Carole A. Barrett University of Mary

Leslie R. Alm Boise State University

Michael L. Barrett Ashland University

Thomas L. Altherr Metropolitan State College of Denver

Joseph E. Bauer State University of New York, Buffalo State College

Earl R. Andresen University of Texas at Arlington

Jonathan Bean Southern Illinois University

John Andrulis Western New England College

Alvin K. Benson Utah Valley State College

Christina Ashton National Writer’s Club

Milton Berman University of Rochester

Mary Welek Atwell Radford University

Cynthia A. Bily Adrian College

Gayle Avant Baylor University

Denis Binder Western New England College

James A. Baer Northern Virginia Community College

Nicholas Birns New School University

Nancy R. Bain Ohio University Siva Balasubramanian Southern Illinois University Ruth Bamberger Drury College

Kent Blaser Wayne State University Amy Bloom Harris Corporation Daniel T. Boatright University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center xiii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Steve D. Boilard California Legislative Analyst’s Office Margaret F. Boorstein C. W. Post College of Long Island University

Sherry Cable University of Tennessee Netiva Caftori Northeastern Illinois University Henry Campa III Michigan State University

Michael R. Bradley Motlow College

Richard K. Caputo Yeshiva University

John Braeman University of Nebraska

David Carleton Middle Tennessee State University

Elise M. Bright University of Texas at Arlington

Jon R. Carpenter University of South Dakota

Daniel A. Brown California State University, Fullerton

Nicholas A. Casner Boise State University

Laura R. Broyles Independent Scholar Susan J. Buck University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Gilbert T. Cave Lakeland Community College Elisabeth A. Cawthon University of Texas, Arlington Richard N. Chapman Francis Marion University

Mary Louise Buley-Meissner University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

H. Lee Cheek, Jr. Lee University

Kirk J. Bundy Tulane University

David L. Chesemore California State University, Fresno

Michael H. Burchett Limestone College

John G. Clark University of Kansas

Aubyn C. Burnside Independent Scholar

Lawrence Clark III Independent Scholar

Dale F. Burnside Lenoir-Rhyne College

Michael D. Clark Louisiana State University, New Orleans

William H. Burnside John Brown University

Thomas Clarkin San Antonio College

Joseph P. Byrne Belmont University

Douglas Clouatre Independent Scholar xiv

Contributors Bill Delaney Independent Scholar

William J. Cooper, Jr. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Judith Boyce DeMark Northern Michigan University

Michael L. Coulter Grove City College

Michael S. DeVivo Bloomsburg University

David A. Crain South Dakota State University

Gerard Donnelly University of Mississippi

Stephen Cresswell West Virginia Wesleyan College

Andrea Donovan Western Michigan University

Norma Crews Independent Scholar

Paul E. Doutrich York College of Pennsylvania

Edward R. Crowther Adams State College

Colleen M. Driscoll Villanova University

David H. Culbert Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Joyce Duncan East Tennessee State University

Sudipta Das Southern University at New Orleans

Eric Elder Northwestern College

Edward J. Davies II University of Utah

Robert P. Ellis Independent Scholar

Jennifer Davis Independent Scholar

Daniel C. Falkowski Canisius College

Merle O. Davis Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

John L. Farbo University of Idaho Randall Fegley Pennsylvania State University

John H. DeBerry Memphis State University

David G. Fenton Connecticut College

Juliet Dee University of Delaware

Anne-Marie E. Ferngren Oregon State University

Bruce J. DeHart University of North Carolina at Pembroke

John W. Fiero University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Tyler Deierhoi University of Tennessee, Chattanooga

Linda E. Fisher University of Michigan, Dearborn xv

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Michael S. Fitzgerald Pikeville College

Nancy M. Gordon Independent Scholar

George J. Fleming Calumet College

Robert F. Gorman Southwest Texas State University

Dale L. Flesher University of Mississippi

Lewis L. Gould University of Texas at Austin

John Fliter Kansas State University

Hans G. Graetzer South Dakota State University

Donald W. Floyd State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Phillip Greenberg Independent Scholar

Richard H. Fluegeman, Jr. Ball State University George Q. Flynn State University of New York, Plattsburgh

Manfred Grote Purdue University, Calumet Susan Grover College of William and Mary Michael Haas Independent Scholar

Andrew M. Forman Hofstra University

Irwin Halfond McKendree College

Donald R. Franceschetti University of Memphis

Timothy L. Hall University of Mississippi

C. George Fry University of Findlay

Susan E. Hamilton Independent Scholar

Michael J. Garcia Arapahoe Community College

Karen V. Harper West Virginia University

John C. Gardner Delaware State College

Katy Jean Harriger Wake Forest University

Louis Gesualdi St. John’s University

Jasper L. Harris North Carolina Central University

Jane M. Gilliland Slippery Rock University

Sandra Harrison Drury College

Richard Goedde St. Olaf College

Stanley Harrold South Carolina State University

Robert Justin Goldstein Oakland University

Fred Hartmeister Texas Tech University xvi

Contributors Baban Hasnat State University of New York, College at Brockport Robert M. Hawthorne, Jr. Independent Scholar James Hayes-Bohanan Bridgewater State College Peter B. Heller Manhattan College Arthur W. Helweg Western Michigan University Eric Henderson University of Northern Iowa Howard M. Hensel United States Air Force— Air War College

Andrew C. Isenberg University of Puget Sound Patricia Jackson Davenport College W. Turrentine Jackson University of California at Davis Robert Jacobs Central Washington University Julapa Jagtiani Syracuse University Duncan R. Jamieson Ashland University Albert C. Jensen Central Florida Community College Dwight Wm. Jensen Marshall University

Maria A. Hernandez Northern Arizona University

K. Sue Jewell Ohio State University

R. Don Higginbotham University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Pamela R. Justice Collin County Community College

Kay Hively Independent Scholar Donald Holley University of Arkansas at Monticello

Karen Kähler Independent Scholar Rajiv Kalra Minnesota State University, Moorhead Charles L. Kammer III The College of Wooster

Eric Howard Independent Scholar

Manjit S. Kang Louisiana State University

Richard Hudson Mercy College

Burton Kaufman Kansas State University

William E. Huntzicker University of Minnesota

Richard Keenan Wayne State College

Raymond Pierre Hylton Virginia Union University

Dan Kennedy Independent Scholar xvii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Vernon N. Kisling, Jr. University of Florida Benjamin J. Klebaner City College, City University of New York

Jeanne M. McGlinn University of North Carolina, Asheville Priscilla H. Machado U.S. Naval Academy

Howard M. Kleiman Miami University

Edward J. Maguire St. Louis University

Mitchell Langbert Clarkson University

Bill Manikas Gaston College

David J. Langum Samford University

Barry Mann Independent Scholar

Eleanor A. LaPointe Ocean County College Eugene Larson Pierce College Sharon L. Larson University of Nebraska, Lincoln Martin J. Lecker Rockland Community College Joseph Edward Lee Winthrop University Thomas T. Lewis Mount Senario College Paul Leyda California Maritime Academy

Nancy Farm Männikkö Independent Scholar Jo Manning Independent Scholar Nancy E. Marion University of Akron Chogallah Maroufi California State University, Los Angeles Lynn M. Mason Lubbock Christian University Patricia C. Matthews Mount Union College

Lester G. Lindley Nova Southeastern University

Michael E. Meagher University of Missouri, Rolla

R. M. Longyear University of Kentucky

Elizabeth J. Miles Independent Scholar

William C. Lowe Mount St. Clare College

Laurence Miller Western Washington University

David C. Lukowitz Hamline University

Liesel Ashley Miller Mississippi State University

Richard B. McCaslin High Point University

Robert Mitchell Independent Scholar xviii

Contributors Wayne D. Moore Virginia Tech

William E. Pemberton University of Wisconsin, La Crosse

William V. Moore College of Charleston

Marilyn Elizabeth Perry Independent Scholar

Christina J. Moose Independent Scholar

Doris F. Pierce Purdue University Calumet

Robert P. Morin California State University, Chico

Erika E. Pilver Westfield State College

Jerry A. Murtagh Fort Valley State University

George R. Plitnik Frostburg State University

Vidya Nadkarni University of San Diego

Mark A. Plummer Illinois State University

William T. Neese University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Christina Polsenberg Michigan State University

Cherilyn Nelson Eastern Kentucky University Joseph L. Nogee University of Houston Anthony Patrick O’Brien Lehigh University Charles H. O’Brien Western Illinois University Lisa Paddock Independent Scholar W. David Patton Boise State University Virginia Ann Paulins Ohio University Darryl Paulson University of South Florida Thomas R. Peake King College William D. Pederson International Lincoln Center, Louisiana State University

David L. Porter William Penn University Francis P. Prucha Marquette University Marc Georges Pufong Valdosta State University Srinivasan Ragothaman University of South Dakota Steven J. Ramold Virginia State University P. S. Ramsey Independent Scholar John David Rausch, Jr. West Texas A&M University Nim Razook University of Oklahoma E. A. Reed Saint Mary’s College of California Merl E. Reed Georgia State University xix

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Jon Reyhner Montana State University, Billings

R. Baird Shuman University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign

Edward J. Rielly Saint Joseph’s College

Donald C. Simmons, Jr. Mississippi Humanities Council

Claire J. Robinson Independent Scholar

Jerold L. Simmons University of Nebraska at Omaha

Stephen F. Rohde Rohde and Victoroff

Sanford S. Singer University of Dayton

Joseph R. Rudolph, Jr. Towson University

Christopher E. Smith Michigan State University

Dorothy C. Salem Cuyahoga Community College

A. J. Sobczak Independent Scholar

Lisa M. Sardinia Pacific University

David R. Sobel Independent Scholar

Helmut J. Schmeller Fort Hays State University

Robert Sobel New College of Hofstra University

Kathleen Schongar May School

John A. Sondey South Dakota State University

John Richard Schrock Emporia State University

Glenn Ellen Starr Appalachian State University

Steven C. Schulte Mesa State College

Barry M. Stentiford Grambling State University

Stephen Schwartz State University of New York, Buffalo State College

Robert J. Stewart California Maritime Academy

Larry Schweikart University of Dayton

Louise M. Stone Bloomsburg University

Rebecca Lovell Scott College of Health Sciences Elaine Sherman Hofstra University

Ruby L. Stoner Penn State University College of Technology

Paul A. Shoemaker University in Shreveport

Leslie Stricker Park University

Thomas E. Shriver University of Tennessee

Irene Struthers Independent Scholar xx

Contributors Taylor Stults Muskingum College

Theodore M. Vestal Oklahoma State University

Glenn L. Swygart Tennessee Temple University

Sharon C. Wagner Missouri Western State College

Larry N. Sypolt West Virginia University

M. Mark Walker University of Mississippi

Harold D. Tallant Georgetown College

Thomas J. Edward Walker Pennsylvania College of Technology

Susan M. Taylor Indiana University

Deborah D. Wallin Skagit Valley College, Whidbey

Carl A. Thames Independent Scholar

Theodore O. Wallin Syracuse University

John M. Theilmann Converse College

Annita Marie Ward Salem-Teikyo University

Emory M. Thomas University of Georgia Susan L. Thomas Hollins University Donald J. Thompson California University of Pennsylvania

William C. Ward III Kent State University Donald A. Watt Southern Arkansas University William L. Waugh, Jr. Georgia State University

Vincent Michael Thur Wenatchee Valley College

Donald V. Weatherman Lyon College

Leslie V. Tischauser Prairie State College

Marcia J. Weiss Point Park College

Kenneth William Townsend Coastal Carolina University

Ashton Wesley Welch Creighton University

Paul B. Trescott Southern Illinois University

D. Anthony White Sonoma State University

Anne Trotter Rosemont College

Nancy A. White Mississippi State University

Robert D. Ubriaco, Jr. Illinois Wesleyan University

Garrett L. Van Wicklen University of Georgia

Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur Eastern Michigan University

Thomas A. Wikle Oklahoma State University xxi

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Theodore A. Wilson University of Kansas

Cynthia Gwynne Yaudes Indiana University

Thomas Winter University of Cincinnati

Clifton K. Yearley State University of New York, Buffalo

Michael Witkoski University of South Carolina

Edward A. Zivich Calumet College

Frank Wu University of Wisconsin, Madison

Priscilla H. Zotti United States Naval Academy

xxii

Introduction Borrowing a phrase from John Adams, observers of American society frequently note that the United States is “a government of laws, and not of men.” By this they mean that the destiny of American citizens does not—or at least, should not—depend on the whim of kings or priests or even talk show hosts, but on rights and obligations embodied in law. We tend to speak of “law” as though it were a seamless tapestry, a single magisterial whole. In fact, however, the rights and obligations that make the United States a “government of laws” do not reside in one book or even in one collection of volumes. What we know as the “laws of the land” are actually a vast assortment of legal rules that proliferate at every level and among every branch of American government. State, local, and federal governments all produce laws; and judges, legislators, and executives such as governors and presidents contribute to the creation of legal rules. Although state and local laws have a profound impact on the lives of American citizens, federal laws—while not necessarily more important than these—are by the terms of the U.S. Constitution the “supreme Law of the Land” and the focus of the present reference work. This series gathers together in three volumes more than 430 of the most important federal laws enacted in the course of U.S. history. Beginning with the Constitution itself, and including all the constitutional amendments, statutes, and treaties, readers will find collected here descriptions and historical backgrounds of the main laws that have shaped, and—in many cases—continue to shape the nation’s life. Each of the three main sources of law that are collected here— constitutional provisions, treaties, and statutes—have distinct methods of creation. The Constitution itself was drafted and approved by the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787 and then ratified by the requisite number of states the following year. Amendments to the Constitution—of which there were twenty-seven by the beginning of the twenty-first century— may be proposed either by a vote of two-thirds of each House of Congress or in a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Although both possibilities exist under Article V of the Constitution, amendments in practice have always begun as proposals from Congress. However inaugurated, though, xxiii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

proposed amendments must be ratified by three-fourths of the states, acting either through their legislatures or through specially called constitutional conventions. The creation of treaties is more straightforward. These are negotiated by the president of the United States with foreign nations but require approval by the Senate to become effective. Federal statutes make up the most common form of federal law, although their creation follows a more complicated path than either constitutional amendments or treaties. Congress derives its authority to make law from the Article I, section 1 of the Constitution, which provides that “[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” Congress consists of two houses, or chambers (hence the term “bicameral legislature”), the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House has more than 430 members, drawn from the fifty states according to their populations. The Senate has 100 members, two from each of the fifty states. A new Congress begins in January of every second year and is numbered sequentially. The Congress meeting in the years 2003-2004, for example, is the 108th. Federal laws enacted by Congress, referred to as “statutes,” begin as a “bill”—or, less commonly, as a “joint resolution”—introduced in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Congress passes both “public” and “private” laws: those which are “public” affecting Americans generally, and those which are “private” focusing on a specific individual or entity. Private laws, for example, may deal with issues such as whether a particular individual may remain in the country rather than be deported. (The laws covered in the present three volumes are exclusively “public laws.”) Although only members of the House or Senate may actually introduce a proposed law, ideas for laws come from a variety of sources. The president of the United States, for example, may propose that Congress pass particular legislation. Article II, section 3 of the Constitution specifies that the president shall “from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” Groups and individuals interested in particular subjects may also seek the passage of legislation to give legal force to their views. Not only may such parties propose legislation to members of the House or Senate; they may also offer xxiv

Introduction

testimony in congressional hearings about a particular bill and may, as well, hire professional representatives—referred to as “lobbyists”—to speak to congressional members or their staffs in support of or in opposition to bills pending before Congress. Bills or joint resolutions introduced first in the House are designated by a number that follows the abbreviations H.R. (for House of Representatives) or H.J.Res (for House Joint Resolution). Those originating in the Senate bear the labels S. or S.J.Res, followed by a number. A majority of bills introduced in each session of Congress actually originate in the House, and the Constitution specifically mandates that revenue bills must originate in the House. By tradition, moreover, appropriation bills are introduced in the House of Representatives rather than in the Senate. Following the introduction of a bill in either the House or the Senate, it is sent to a committee or committees with oversight of the subjects addressed in the bill. Committees typically hold hearings on a bill, and these may include the opportunity for parties interested in the bill to testify before the committee. Following these hearings, committees meet to discuss the bill in detail, and these discussions often yield proposed amendments to the original bill. Eventually, members of the committee considering a bill vote on whether to report the bill—and any approved amendments—to the full House or Senate, or whether to table the bill—that is, to postpone, perhaps indefinitely, any further consideration of the bill. In cases in which a committee refuses to forward a bill to the full House or Senate, it is sometimes possible for supporters of the bill to retrieve it from the purgatory of a committee and to have it presented to the full chamber. In cases in which a committee reports the bill, it will prepare a report which discusses the background of the bill and the reasons the bill is being proposed. Once a bill arrives before the full House or Senate from a committee, congressional members generally have the opportunity to debate the merits of the bill, as amended by the committee, and to offer proposed amendments of their own. Eventually, the bill and its amendments will be voted on. If the bill wins final passage in the House, then it will be forwarded for consideration by the Senate, and vice versa. To become law, a bill must be passed in both the House and the Senate in the same form. Sometimes a bill passed in one chamber of Congress will not be passed by the other. Often, however, the two chambers of Congress pass different versions of xxv

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

essentially the same bill. In this event, final passage of the bill requires that the two chambers negotiate their differences to produce an agreed-upon version of the bill. Commonly, such negotiations occur in a conference committee, with members from both the House and the Senate, whose purpose is to agree upon a version of the bill that can then be voted on again by the full House and Senate. A bill approved by both the House and the Senate is said to be “enrolled” and is forwarded to the president. If the president signs the bill, or fails to return the bill to Congress with objections within ten days after receiving it, then it becomes law. However, the president may disapprove of the bill and may express this disapproval in the form of a veto. If the president vetoes a bill, then it does not become law unless Congress overrides the veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and the Senate. Moreover, if a congressional term expires during the ten days in which the president has to object to a bill and the president has not signed the bill into law, then the bill is considered vetoed. The president’s use of inaction to kill a bill at the end of a congressional term is referred to as a “pocket veto.” Once a bill becomes law, it generally remains effective indefinitely. Congress passes some laws, however, with built-in expiration dates, and these laws cease to be effective upon the arrival of their respective expiration dates. Congress may also pass a subsequent bill that repeals all or part of a previously enacted law. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court may act to invalidate a law. Since the Court’s decision in Marbury v. Madison (1803), which established the doctrine of “judicial review,” the Court has been recognized as having authority to review laws passed at both the federal and state levels to determine whether their provisions are consistent with the U.S. Constitution. Occasionally, the Court determines that a law is unconstitutional, and when it does, the law ceases to be enforceable. When a bill becomes a law, it receives a designation as a “public law,” and a number indicating the Congress in which it was passed. For instance, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, passed by Congress in 2001 in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11 that year on New York’s World Trade Center towers and on the Pentagon, is designated Public Law (or “P.L.”) 107-71. This designation means that the act was passed by the 107th Congress and that it was the 71st law passed by that Congress. The federal governxxvi

Introduction

ment publishes each public law separately in pamphlet form after it has been enacted, and this form of law is referred to as a “slip law.” Eventually, though, the federal government binds public laws together and publishes them in an official series of volumes referred to as the United States Statutes at Large. Were the Statutes at Large the only source for discovering the content of federal laws, then legal research—both by judges and lawyers and by the general public—would be extraordinarily difficult. This is so because any particular bill that is enacted may contain not only wholly new legal provisions but also revisions to one or more previously enacted laws. Thus, discovering the law on a particular subject might require investigating bills enacted by several different Congress over an extended period of years. Consequently, an important step in the life of an individual statute is its codification into the U.S. Code. The U.S. Code collects all the federal statutes currently in force and organizes them by subject matter in a series of nearly fifty “titles.” The Code is itself revised every six years to incorporate laws enacted since the last revision. Once codified, a statute will be included with other federal laws having to do with the same subject. For laws that have been in force for several years or more, the U.S. Code (abbreviated as U.S.C.) is the authoritative reference source. The Code is available in many libraries, especially law libraries maintained by law schools or courts, as well as on the World Wide Web. The Library of Congress, for example, maintains a Web site containing the text of the U.S. Code at http:/ /www.loc.gov/law/guide/uscode.html. For many of the laws appearing in this publication, we have listed the U.S. Code title and section numbers; these refer most often to the current version of the code as accessed via the Web. Many libraries also maintain an unofficial version of the U.S. Code called the U.S. Code Annotated (abbreviated as U.S.C.A.). The U.S.C.A. contains not only the text of the laws included in the U.S. Code but also annotations for each law addressing matters such as important Supreme Court cases that have interpreted the meaning of the law. For recently enacted statutes, the various collections of public laws on the World Wide Web are the most accessible source. Again, the Library of Congress maintains an excellent web site, titled “Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet.” This site, located at http://thomas.loc.gov/, contains an index to and the text of public laws from the present back to the Ninety-third Congress, xxvii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

which met in 1973 and 1974. Perhaps of equal significance for legal researchers, the Thomas site contains a wealth of information about bills currently pending before Congress. This information allows citizens to track the progress of a bill from its introduction in the House or the Senate through its subsequent enactment or—as the case may be—failure to become enacted. Surely “a government of laws” must be a government in which laws are not merely passed but in which they are known. That, at least, is the premise of the present reference set. “Ignorance of the law,” courts are fond of saying, “is no excuse.” Citizens are expected to inform themselves about the substance of the laws that govern their lives. Fortunately, there has never been a time when it is easier for them to do so. With the help of the following articles in this reference set, readers may understand better the laws that help to structure the lives of Americans at the beginning of the twentyfirst century, as well as those which have guided the nation’s course up to the present. Timothy L. Hall University of Mississippi

xxviii

Contents by Popular Name Adams-Onís Treaty (1819), 169 Age Discrimination Act (1975), 1285 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), 1026 Agreed Framework of 1994. See North Korea Pact (1994) Agricultural College Act. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 551 Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935), 647 Air Commerce Act (1926), 530 Air Pollution Control Act (1955), 839 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act (1968), 1060 Airline Deregulation Act (1978), 1343 Alaska Lands Act. See Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980) Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), 1380 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), 1151 Alien Act (1798), 127 Alien land laws (1913), 421 Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988), 1462 Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987), 1448 American Indian Citizenship Act. See Indian Citizenship Act (1924) American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), 1333

Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1474 Animal Welfare Act (1966), 1009 Antarctic Treaty (1961), 898 Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, 610 Anti-Racketeering Act of 1946. See Hobbs Act (1946) Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807), 153 Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974), 1248 Anzus Treaty. See Tripartite Security Treaty (1952) Architectural Barriers Act (1968), 1066 Army Reorganization Act. See National Defense Act (1916) Articles of Confederation (1781), 4 Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 828 Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001), 1560 Banking Act of 1933, 590 Banking Act of 1935, 651 Bilingual Education Act (1968), 1029 Bill of Rights (1789), 46 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002), 1562 Black Codes of 1804-1807, 143 Black Codes of 1865, 269 Bland-Allison Act (1878), 327 Bonus Act. See World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924) Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994), 1524 Bretton Woods Agreement (1944), 744 xxix

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Buckley Amendment. See Privacy Act (1974) Burke Act (1906), 385 Burlingame Treaty (1868), 296 Cable Act (1922), 494 Celler-Kefauver Act (1950), 800 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974), 1218 Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990), 1486 Child product safety laws (1970’s), 1089 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969), 1082 Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984), 1415 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 331 Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966), 997 Civil Liberties Act (1988), 1456 Civil Rights Act of 1866, 278 Civil Rights Act of 1957, 863 Civil Rights Act of 1960, 875 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 933 Civil Rights Act of 1968, 1032 Civil Rights Act of 1991, 1500 Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988), 1452 Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), 432 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), 219 Clean Air Act (1963), 926 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, 1131 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, 1323 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, 1492 Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.), 981

Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), 1192 Coinage Act (1873), 316 Communications Act (1934), 625 Communications Act Amendments (1960), 891 Communications Decency Act (1996), 1546 Communist Control Act (1954), 826 Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984), 1418 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), 1117 Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973), 1213 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. See Superfund Act (1980) Compromise of 1850, 225 Comstock Act (1873), 320 Confiscation Acts (1861-1862), 244 Constitution: History (1787), 28 Constitution: Provisions (1787), 33 Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968), 1044 Consumer Product Safety Act (1972), 1196 Convention of 1800. See Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801) Convention of 1818, 167 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. See Genocide Treaty (1948) Copeland Act. See AntiRacketeering Act of 1934 Copyright Act of 1909, 397 Copyright Act of 1976, 1295

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Contents by Popular Name Corrupt Practices Act. See Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925) Crime of 1873. See Coinage Act (1873) Currency Act (1900), 369 Dancing Rabbit Creek, Treaty of (1830), 192 Dawes Act. See General Allotment Act (1887) Declaration of Independence (1776), 1 Defense of Marriage Act (1996), 1551 Delaney Amendment. See Food Additives Amendment (1958) Department of Energy Organization Act (1977), 1319 Dependent Pension Act (1890), 351 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998), 1555 Dingley Tariff (1897), 363 Direct democracy laws (1913), 371 Disfranchisement laws (1890), 358 Duck Stamp Act. See Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934) Dyer Act. See Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919) Earned Income Tax Credit (1975), 1269 Eastern Wilderness Act (1975), 1254 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 944 Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1981), 1397 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), 1287

Eighteenth Amendment (1919), 460 Eighth Amendment (1789), 91 Eisenhower Doctrine (1957), 849 Electoral Count Act (1887), 341 Eleventh Amendment (1798), 115 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 259 Embargo Acts (1806-1807), 151 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986), 1430 Emergency Price Control Act (1942), 728 Emergency Quota Act of 1921. See Immigration Act of 1921 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974), 1224 Employment Act (1946), 757 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1214 Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966), 1016 Endangered Species, Convention on International Trade in (1975), 1271 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975), 1288 Enforcement Acts. See Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871) Equal Access Act (1984), 1412 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), 1233 Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972), 1165 Equal Pay Act (1963), 909 Equal Rights Amendment (19231983), 495 Espionage Acts (1917-1918), 451 Ethics in Government Act (1978), 1349 Executive Order 8802 (1941), 723

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U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Executive Order 11141 (1964), 929 Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967), 980 Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970), 1108 Fair Housing Act (1968), 1035 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 704 Family and Medical Leave Act (1993), 1513 Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970), 1118 Family Support Act (1988), 1458 Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984), 1417 Farm Act of 1985. See Food Security Act (1985) Federal Aid in Wildlife Act. See Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937) Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act. See Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966) Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969), 1083 Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925), 518 Federal Credit Union Act (1934), 630 Federal Crimes Act (1790), 105 Federal Election Campaign Act (1972), 1155 Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972), 1182 Federal Firearms Act (1938), 619 Federal Food and Drugs Act. See Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906) Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. See Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938)

Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976), 1300 Federal Power Act of 1920, 476 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 425 Federal Tort Claims Act (1946), 763 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 430 Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 302 Fifth Amendment (1789), 71 First Amendment (1789), 56 Food Additives Amendment (1958), 867 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938), 699 Food Security Act (1985), 1426 Force Act of 1833, 194 Force Acts. See Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871) Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938), 691 Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974), 1219 Formosa Resolution (1955), 834 Fort Atkinson Treaty (1853), 235 Fort Greenville Treaty (1795), 118 Fort Jackson Treaty. See Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814) Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, 228 Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, 300 Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784), 13 Fort Wayne Treaty (1809), 157 Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 291 Fourth Amendment (1789), 66 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 Freedom of Information Act (1966), 1002 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, 106 Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, 221

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Contents by Popular Name G.I. Bill (1944), 740 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947, 780 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994, 1537 General Allotment Act (1887), 347 General Mining Act (1872), 314 Geneva Protocol (1925), 524 Genocide Treaty (1948), 790 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 391 Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 160 Glass-Owen Act. See Federal Reserve Act (1913) Gold Standard Act. See Currency Act (1900) Good Neighbor Policy (19331945), 578 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of (1848), 213 Halibut Treaty (1924), 514 Harrison Act. See Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914) Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914), 434 Hatch Act (1939), 709 Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990), 1471 Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. See Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act(1930) Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974), 1237 Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960), 886 Higher Education Act (1965), 995 Highway Beautification Act (1965), 966 Hobbs Act (1946), 761 Homeland Security Act (2002), 1566

Homestead Act of 1862, 245 Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932), 562 Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814), 159 Housing Act of 1961, 901 Housing and Urban Development Act (1965), 976 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 Immigration Act of 1917, 446 Immigration Act of 1921, 483 Immigration Act of 1924, 501 Immigration Act of 1943, 736 Immigration Act of 1990, 1498 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, 985 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 812 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 1435 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 209 Indian Appropriation Act (1871), 306 Indian Bill of Rights. See Indian Civil Rights Act (1968) Indian Child Welfare Act (1978), 1355 Indian Citizenship Act (1924), 505 Indian Civil Rights Act (1968), 1040 Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978), 1176 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), 1465 Indian General Allotment Act. See General Allotment Act (1887) Indian Offenses Act (1883), 335 Indian Removal Act (1830), 186

xxxiii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 620 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975), 1262 INF Treaty (1987), 1444 Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984), 1420 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982), 1401 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948), 778 Interest Equalization Tax Act (1964), 946 Internal Security Act (1950), 799 Internet Tax Freedom Act (1998), 1553 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 343 Invalid Pension Act or Disability Pension Act. See Dependent Pension Act (1890) Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act. See Megan’s Law (1996) Jay’s Treaty (1794), 110 Jencks Act (1957), 861 Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954), 329 Johnson-Reid Act. See Immigration Act of 1924 Jones Act (1917), 448 Judiciary Act of 1789, 41 Judiciary Act of 1875. See Removal Act (1875) Judiciary Acts of 1801-1925, 136 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974), 1231 Kanagawa, Treaty of (1854), 236 Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), 240

Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962), 903 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 547 Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871), 305 Labor-Management Relations Act (1947), 769 Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. See Landrum-Griffin Act (1959) Lame-Duck Amendment. See Twentieth Amendment (1933) Land Act of 1820, 178 Land Grant Act of 1862. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 Land Grant Act of 1890. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), 874 Law of the Sea Treaty (1982), 1403 Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971), 1141 Lend-Lease Act (1941), 719 Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, Convention on (1979), 1374 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980), 1391 McCarran Act. See Internal Security Act (1950) McCarran-Walter Act. See Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 McFadden Act (1927), 541 McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987), 1440 Madison Amendment. See Twentyseventh Amendment (1992) Magnuson Act. See Immigration Act of 1943

xxxiv

Contents by Popular Name Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975), 1263 Maine Indian Claims Act (1980), 1377 Major Crimes Act (1885), 340 Mann Act (1910), 409 Marihuana Tax Act (1937), 674 Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 1189 Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987), 1449 Maternity Act. See SheppardTowner Act (1921) Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965), 959 Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867), 287 Megan’s Law (1996), 1548 Menominee Restoration Act (1973), 1211 Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963), 921 Migratory Bird Act (1913), 415 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934), 603 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 454 Migratory Species of Wild Animals, Convention on the Conservation of (1979), 1372 Military Reconstruction Acts. See Reconstruction Acts (1867) Militia Act (1862), 254 Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937), 675 Mineral Leasing Act (1920), 470 Mining Act. See General Mining Act (1872) Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970), 1137

Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984), 1421 Missouri Compromise (1820), 173 Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801), 141 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 181 Montreal Protocol (1990), 1472 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, 249 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890, 362 Moscow Treaty. See U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002) Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965), 989 Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919), 469 Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act (1984), 1425 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879 Murray Act. See Employment Act (1946) National and Community Service Trust Act (1993), 1517 National Arts and Cultural Development Act (1964), 952 National Bank Acts (1863-1864), 261 National Civil Service Act. See Pendleton Act (1883) National Defense Act (1916), 435 National Defense Education Act (1958), 865 National Environmental Policy Act. See Clean Air Act (1963) National Environmental Policy Act (1970), 1094 National Firearms Act (1934), 619 National Forest Management Act (1976), 1311 National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), 596

xxxv

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties National Labor Relations Act (1935), 638 National Motor Vehicle Theft Act. See Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919) National Narcotics Act (1984), 1422 National Origins Act. See Immigration Act of 1924 National Park Service Organic Act (1916), 440 National Security Act (1947), 774 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 1014 National Trails System Act (1968), 1077 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), 1496 Natural Gas Act (1938), 693 Naturalization Act of 1790, 104 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (1974), 1249 Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act (1950), 797 Neutrality Acts (1935-1939), 657 Newlands Act. See Reclamation Act (1902) News Room Search Act. See Privacy Protection Act (1980) Niagara Power Act (1957), 859 Niagara Redevelopment Act. See Niagara Power Act (1957) Nineteenth Amendment (1920), 478 Ninth Amendment (1789), 92 Noise Control Act (1972), 1203 Nonimportation Acts. See Embargo Acts (1806-1807) Norris-La Guardia Act (1932), 565 North American Free Trade Agreement (1993), 1519 North Atlantic Treaty (1949), 792

North Korea Pact (1994), 1532 Northwest Ordinance (1787), 24 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968), 1054 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 913 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983), 1406 Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970), 1125 Ogdensburg Agreement (1940), 714 Oil Pollution Act of 1924, 509 Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 1480 Oklahoma Welfare Act (1936), 668 Older Americans Act (1965), 956 Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990), 1484 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968), 1052 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 396 Ordinance of 1785, 17 Ordinance of 1787. See Northwest Ordinance (1787) Oregon Act (1848), 217 Organized Crime Control Act (1970), 1103 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 1022 Pacific Railroad Survey Act (1853), 230 Pact of Paris. See Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) Page Law (1875), 322 Panama Canal Act (1912), 412 Panama Canal Treaties (1978), 1328 Panama Tolls Act. See Panama Canal Act (1912) Parens Patriae Act (1974), 1232

xxxvi

Contents by Popular Name Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980), 1396 Paris, Treaty of (1783), 9 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 367 Part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. See Fair Housing Act (1968) Part of the Permanent Reciprocity Treaty of 1903. See Platt Amendment (1903) Part of the Social Security Act. See Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935) Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909), 403 Pendleton Act (1883), 336 Perkins Act (1990), 1483 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996), 1549 Philippines Commonwealth Independence Act. See TydingsMcDuffie Act (1934) Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 123 Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937), 681 Platt Amendment (1903), 381 Political Activities Act. See Hatch Act (1939) Pollution Prevention Act (1990), 1487 Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978), 1337 Preemption Act (1841), 199 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), 1352 Presidential Succession Act of 1947, 772 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 853 Privacy Act (1974), 1252 Privacy Protection Act (1980), 1378

Prohibition. See Eighteenth Amendment (1919) Public Broadcasting Act (1967), 1024 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970), 1098 Public Law 280 (1953), 824 Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act. See SheppardTowner Act (1921) Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978), 1356 Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act. See Jones Act (1917) Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), 387 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970), 1105 Railway Labor Act (1926), 534 Reciprocal Trade Act of 1936, 670 Reclamation Act (1902), 375 Reconstruction Acts (1867), 280 Refugee Relief Act (1953), 820 Removal Act (1875), 326 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), 1306 Resource Recovery Act (1970), 1113 Rio Treaty. See Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948) Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936), 662 Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination Act. See Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936) Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 165

xxxvii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), 1242 SALT I Treaty (1972), 1171 SALT II Treaty (1979), 1367 Seabed Treaty (1972), 1157 Second Amendment (1789), 61 Second Morrill Act. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Securities Exchange Act (1934), 612 Sedition Act (1918 act). See Espionage Acts (1917-1918) Sedition Act of 1798, 131 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act. See G.I. Bill (1944) Seventeenth Amendment (1913), 419 Seventh Amendment (1789), 90 Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Bill. See Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002) Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 489 Sherman Act. See Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 353 Sixteenth Amendment (1913), 414 Sixth Amendment (1789), 85 Sky Marshals Bill. See Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001) Smith Act (1940), 711 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act(1930), 556 Social Security Act (1935), 642 Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965, 992 Southeast Asia Resolution. See Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) Speedy Trial Act (1975), 1260 START II Treaty (1993), 1509

Stimson Doctrine. See HooverStimson Doctrine (1932) Superfund Act (1980), 1386 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977), 1317 Taft-Hartley Act. See LaborManagement Relations Act (1947) Taiwan Relations Act (1979), 1363 Takings clause (1789), 77 Tariff Act of 1909. See PayneAldrich Tariff Act (1909) Tariff Act of 1924. See Dingley Tariff (1897) Tariff Act of 1930. See SmootHawley Tariff Act(1930) Tax Reform Act of 1986, 1434 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 636 Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933), 582 Tenth Amendment (1789), 98 Termination Resolution (1953), 815 Third Amendment (1789), 64 Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 273 Three-fifths compromise (1787), 39 Title I of the Consumer Credit Protection Act. See Truth in Lending Act (1968) Title III of Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act. See Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 937 Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 1178

xxxviii

Contents by Popular Name Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act. See Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970) Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964), 942 Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), 1290 Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790-1834), 102 Trademark Act. See Trademark Law Revision Act (1988) Trademark Law Revision Act (1988), 1469 Transcontinental Treaty. See Adams-Onís Treaty (1819) Treaty of Monfontaine. See Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801) Treaty of San Lorenzo. See Pinckney’s Treaty (1795) Tripartite Security Treaty (1952), 808 Truman Doctrine (1947), 764 Truth in Lending Act (1968), 1050 Tunney Act. See Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974) Twelfth Amendment (1804), 147 Twentieth Amendment (1933), 571 Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967), 1020 Twenty-first Amendment (1933), 601 Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), 928 Twenty-second Amendment (1951), 806 Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), 1505

Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), 1147 Twenty-third Amendment (1961), 896 Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), 606 United States recognition of Vietnam (1995), 1541 Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. See USA Patriot Act (2001) U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952), 810 U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002), 1564 U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty (1967), 931 USA Patriot Act (2001), 1558 Versailles, Treaty of (1919), 464 Victims of Crime Act (1984), 1424 Violence Against Women Act (1994), 1530 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994), 1529 Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty (1786), 21 Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act. See Perkins Act (1990) Voting Rights Act of 1965, 970 Voting Rights Act of 1975, 1274 Wagner-Connery Act. See National Labor Relations Act (1935) Wang Hiya, Treaty of (1844), 207 War Brides Act (1945), 753 War Powers Resolution (1973), 1208 Washington, Treaty of (1871), 310 xxxix

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Wheeler-Howard Act. See Indian Reorganization Act (1934) White-Slave Traffic Act. See Mann Act (1910) Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968), 1071 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), 1077 Wilderness Act (1964), 954 Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992), 1507 Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975), 1280 Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978), 1354 World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924), 499

Water Pollution Control Act. See Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.) Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956, 844 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, 1159 Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, 785 Water Power Act. See Federal Power Act of 1920 Water Resources Research Act (1964), 939 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 202 Weeks-McLean Act. See Migratory Bird Act (1913) Welfare Reform Act. See Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996) Wheeler-Lea Act (1938), 685

Yalta Conference agreements (1945), 750

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Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence Date: Adopted July 4, 1776 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 1-4 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law

The Declaration of Independence marks the beginning of the experiment in democracy that later became the United States of America, articulating the human rights and liberties on which the republic was founded. In the opening months of 1776, the colonists faced a momentous decision. Should they content themselves with a return of British authority as it existed prior to 1763, or should they irrevocably sever all political ties with, and dependence upon, Great Britain? Since Great Britain was unwilling to give them that choice, offering instead only abject surrender to parliamentary sovereignty, Americans in increasing numbers concluded that complete independence, not merely autonomy within the British Empire, must be their goal. Many of the undecided were won over to defiance of the Crown as a result of Parliament’s Prohibitory Act, which called for a naval blockade of the colonies, the seizure of American goods on the high seas, and the dragooning of captured provincial seamen into the royal navy. For many colonists, news of the British ministry’s decision to employ German mercenaries for use in America was the last straw. The requirements of the struggle itself lent weight to the idea of complete separation. People would not do battle wholeheartedly for vaguely defined purposes, nor would French or Spanish aid, deemed essential to military success, be forthcoming if the colonies fought merely for a greater freedom within the empire. In January, 1776, these colonial issues were the subject of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Although it may be doubted that Paine’s widely read pamphlet was the immediate impetus for the break, and although he advanced no new arguments, Paine expressed cogent and compelling arguments for a free America that would pursue its own destiny. Although Americans of almost every persuasion were already disputing the right of Parliament to rule over the colonies, there remained among the colonists a strong at1

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

tachment to the British crown and to King George III. Monarchy in general, and the Hanoverian king in particular, received scathing denunciation from Paine, who asserted that kings were frauds imposed upon people capable of governing themselves. George III, Paine reasoned, was no exception and had engaged in oppressive acts that had destroyed every claim upon American loyalties. Paine held that the break should come immediately, while Americans were in arms and sensitive to their liberties. Independence, he argued, was inevitable for a wealthy, expanding continent that could not long be tied to a small and distant island controlled by “a Royal Brute.” One by one, the Southern and New England colonial assemblies authorized their delegates to the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, to vote for independence. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, obeying instructions from Virginia, introduced at the congress a resolution declaring the colonies independent. Temporarily, the Middle Colonies hesitated to make such a drastic decision, causing a delay in acting on the matter; but on July 2, with only New York abstaining, the vote was 12-0 in favor of Lee’s resolution declaring that “the United colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” Anticipating the outcome, Congress had earlier formed a committee, composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman, to prepare a statement concerning independence. The now-famous document was drafted by Jefferson with some assistance from Adams and Franklin. Congress, after first making some revisions, such as deleting Jefferson’s passage denouncing the king for not ending the slave trade, adopted it on July 4. Purpose and Provisions The purpose of the Declaration of Independence was not to change the legal status of America; on July 2, Congress had voted to sever the colonies from the British Empire. The intent of Jefferson and his colleagues was rather to explain and justify the action of Congress in terms meaningful to Americans and Europeans alike. In doing so, Jefferson drew heavily upon the general cluster of ideas associated with the eighteenth century philosophies collectively known as the Enlightenment. Besides a preface and a conclusion, the Declaration of Independence consists of a statement of 2

Declaration of Independence

the right of revolution based upon the philosophy of natural rights, a list of grievances against the king, and an account of the colonists’ inability to obtain redress of grievances within the structure of the British Empire. Some modern scholars consider the barrage of accusations heaped upon the king to be lacking in dignity and significance in relation to the rest of the document. They point out that George III was a strict constitutionalist whose conduct in the political arena was in accord with the practices and traditions of the earlier Hanoverian monarchs. Moreover, most of the programs and policies held to be reprehensible by the colonists hardly originated in the mind of the king. Still, George III favored a rigid policy of government, and he consistently turned a deaf ear to the remonstrances from the American assemblies and congresses. To counter the public mood of the times, it was essential for Jefferson to lay America’s troubles at the feet of the king. Since the time of the First Continental Congress in 1774, patriot leaders had denied that there was any legitimate parliamentary authority to cast off; it was this lingering loyalty to the Crown that held many to the empire. The Principle of Unalienable Rights The enduring significance of the Declaration of Independence transcends the Anglo-American conflict. The statement that “all men are created equal”—that they have certain unalienable rights under God that governments may not destroy—not only inspired people in that day but also has moved people in the United States and elsewhere ever since. The phrase, applied narrowly at first, came to be the focus of debate as women, people of color, the young, and the poor—excluded de facto from the document’s guarantees—began to fight for full equality. Women were denied the right to vote in federal elections until ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920; African American men received this right in the Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870; persons between eighteen and twenty-one years of age were given the right to vote by the Twenty-sixth Amendment in 1970. Rights and liberties other than voting—due process of law, fair housing and public accommodations, equal opportunity in employment and college admissions—have all been fought for and gradually won by groups previously discriminated against. The force that sparked the emergence of this powerful movement was the burning desire of the 3

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

supporters of the Declaration of Independence to be free to shape their own destiny. The message they conveyed has left a lasting imprint on the conscience of the world. R. Don Higginbotham, updated by Joseph Edward Lee Sources for Further Study Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967. Becker, Carl L. The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas. 2d ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1951. Maier, Pauline. From Resistance to Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972. Middlekauf, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. Wills, Garry. Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978. Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. See also: Articles of Confederation (1781); U.S. Constitution: History (1787); U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Bill of Rights (1789).

Articles of Confederation Date: Ratified March 1, 1781 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 4-9 Categories: Constitutional Law; Government Procedure and Or-

ganization

4

Articles of Confederation

The Articles were the first constitution, the blueprint for an organized compact of the colonies, providing the first American system of government, although not a judicial system. The American experience with nationalism ran counter to developments that had led to nationhood throughout much of the modern world. A sense of American nationalism scarcely existed during the colonial period. Nor did nationalism produce a revolution aimed at the creation of a single, unified American government. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Americans’ sense of oneness grew as the colonies stood together in opposition to Great Britain’s post1763 imperial program. As Americans traveled the long road to 1776 and became more aware of their shared principles and interests, they began to think simultaneously about independence and union. Because the independent states realized they must work cooperatively or perish, American patriots turned to the task of creating a confederacy of states. Building a League of Friendship In June, 1776, while Thomas Jefferson and his committee worked at a statement that justified independence, a second committee was appointed by the Continental Congress. Including one representative from each colony, the committee was instructed to draft a series of articles that would form a cooperative union of states, thus linking the thirteen self-governing states into a “league of friendship.” With John Dickinson from Pennsylvania as chairman, the committee quickly proposed a plan for union, but in late July, opponents of such a union convinced the Continental Congress to reject Dickinson’s document. Nearly five years elapsed before all agreements and compromises could be reached within the Continental Congress and at state level. The exigencies of the war slowed the process as the Continental Congress grappled with enlistments, supplies, finances, and foreign aid. Lawmakers also twice fled, once to Baltimore and once to York, Pennsylvania, from approaching British armies. State governments were similarly distracted, which further slowed the process. Political clashes in and out of the Continental Congress about the contents of the proposed document added yet another obstacle to approval of the Articles. Historians have differed sharply over the nature of the struggles. Some contend that they were ideo5

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

logical in substance, between so-called radicals and conservatives; others contend that they were rivalries between the small and large states. However, few scholars deny that the conflicts over questions concerning local authority versus central authority were conditioned by the colonists’ previous experience with remote, impersonal government control from London. Nor should it be forgotten that creating a central administrative authority for all thirteen states and participating in government beyond the colony level were experiences largely foreign to Americans. Although the committee report, of which Dickinson was the primary architect, was placed before the Continental Congress as early as July 12, 1776, it languished as attention was focused on questions about administering the West and apportioning representation and financial burdens among the states. Most delegates favored a loose confederation, as opposed to a highly centralized and powerful national government. Sometimes explicitly, but more often implicitly, it seemed that the Dickinson draft left too much authority in the hands of Congress. Finally, in November, 1777, the Continental Congress agreed upon the Articles of Confederation and submitted the agreement to the states for ratification. Provisions Under the Articles, the confederated Congress became the only branch of the central government. Each state would have one vote to cast, regardless of population, by delegates selected by the various state legislatures. A simple majority of states could decide issues, except for specified matters that required the consent of nine. Each state had the sole power to tax its population, although each state also was expected to contribute its share of money (based upon improved lands) to the upkeep of the Confederation. States also retained exclusive power to regulate their own commercial activities. Each state claiming territory in the trans-Appalachian region was allowed to keep its possessions instead of turning them over to the United States. Individually, the states were to retain their sovereignty, freedom, and independence, along with any rights not specifically granted to Congress. In turn, the Articles gave the confederated Congress the authority to make war and peace, make military appointments, requisition men and money from the states, send out and receive ambassadors, and negotiate 6

Articles of Confederation

treaties and alliances. Management of postal affairs and the authority to coin money, decide weights and measures, and settle disputes between states were also responsibilities that the Articles gave to the confederated administration. Although the Articles of Confederation vested momentous responsibilities in confederated Congress, the agreement did not give the Congress the authority to discharge those responsibilities. Without the ability to tax or regulate trade and lacking powers of enforcement, Congress could only hope that the states would meet their assigned requisitions and cooperate with the confederated administration in other vital areas. Despite the limits on power built into the Articles of Confederation, some states were reluctant to give their consent to the proposed confederated Congress. Opponents continued to question jurisdictional responsibilities assigned to the central government. By 1779, all states except Maryland had endorsed the Articles. Maryland’s continuing opposition was driven largely by avaricious land speculators. Colonial charters had given Connecticut, Massachusetts, and all states south of the Potomac River land grants extending westward to the Pacific Ocean. Many people from the “landless” states felt that regions beyond the settled areas should be turned over to the Confederation, so that states with extensive western claims would not enter the union with distinct natural advantages over states without western claims. Likewise, “landless” representatives maintained that the West eventually would be won through the combined military efforts of all. If Maryland land speculators (who hoped to fare better from Congress than from the Commonwealth of Virginia in having prewar claims recognized) had exercised a decisive role in their state’s refusal to ratify, their stand did not invalidate the reasoning of others who demanded an equitable solution to the western land problem. To break the impasse, Congress reversed itself and recommended that the landed states relinquish generous portions of their transmontane territories. Virginia, with vast claims, held the key. Prompted by Thomas Jefferson, on January 2, 1781, Virginia offered the Confederation its rights to all lands north of the Ohio River. Equally important and far-reaching were Virginia’s stipulations (ultimately accepted) that speculators’ claims be canceled and that new states be created and admitted to the union on terms of equality with the original thirteen. New York also responded, 7

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

abandoning its tenuous claims, as Connecticut abandoned its more solid ones. In time, the remaining landed states followed suit. Maryland, which had requested French naval protection, was prodded into ratification by the French envoy, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, and on March 1, 1781, Congress announced the formal creation of a “perpetual union.” Characterized as a league of friendship, the Confederation created a union of thirteen sovereign states. Time and circumstances during the 1780’s, however, would demonstrate the inherent flaws in the Articles of Confederation. By the end of the decade, it had become apparent to many Americans that the Articles were not adequate for the needs of the thirteen member states. Instead, the states consented, for the first time, to create a national government. R. Don Higginbotham, updated by Paul E. Doutrich Sources for Further Study Douglas, Elisha P. Rebels and Democrats: The Struggle for Equal Political Rights and Majority Rule During the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955. Henderson, H. James. Party Politics in the Continental Congress. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974. Hoffert, Robert W. A Politics of Tension: The Articles of Confederation and American Political Ideas. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1991. Jameson, J. Franklin. The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1926. Jensen, Merrill. The Articles of Confederation. 1940. Reprint. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970. Main, Jackson T. The Social Structure of Revolutionary America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965. Miller, John C. Triumph and Freedom: 1775-1783. Boston: Little, Brown, 1948. Moore, Wayne D. Constitutional Rights and Powers of the People. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. Morris, Richard B. Forging of the Union, 1781-1789. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. 8

Treaty of Paris

Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. See also: Declaration of Independence (1776); U.S. Constitution:

History (1787); U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787).

Treaty of Paris Date: Signed September 3, 1783 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The treaty brought the American Revolution to a formal close and recognized the United States as a sovereign nation. The United States’ ultimate success in winning the Revolutionary War did not immediately translate into an easy peace. The new nation’s primary objective was to gain formal recognition of its independence from Great Britain; it also needed agreements related to tangential issues, such as boundaries and fishing rights off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. It quickly became evident that the United States could not expect altruistic generosity from either its friends or its former adversaries. France, an ally of Spain, hesitated to support U.S. interests against the wishes of its Bourbon neighbor. Madrid also objected to any new rising empire in the Western Hemisphere, fearing possible instability within its own Latin American colonies. If Great Britain appeared conciliatory toward the United States, its motives were dictated by a desire to weaken the Franco-American Alliance and maintain remaining North American interests. At the same time, as events later revealed, Great Britain and France were willing to cooperate surreptitiously to limit the territorial aspirations of the United States when it proved to be in the interest of either power. The Negotiators The U.S. diplomats at the peace conference were a match for their French and English counterparts, despite problems in undertak9

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

ing their important task. Of those appointed by the Continental Congress to negotiate a peace, Thomas Jefferson did not serve because of the fatal illness of his wife, and Henry Laurens was a prisoner in England during the most crucial period of the peacemaking discussions. Two other appointees, John Jay at Madrid and John Adams at the Hague, were serving in previous diplomatic assignments and did not reach Paris until months after Benjamin Franklin began discussions with the British in April, 1782. (Jay reached Paris in late June, while Adams did not arrive until the end of October.) In London, Lord North had been prime minister throughout the entire war, but King George III largely had dictated government policy. The revolt of the American colonies and their probable loss from the British Empire led to North’s resignation in March, 1782. Lord Rockingham succeeded him but died several months later. William Petty, the earl of Shelburne, the home secretary in Rockingham’s cabinet, had been assigned the responsibility of dealing with the Americans. Shelburne sent to Paris a Scottish merchant named Richard Oswald, an elderly acquaintance of Franklin, to start conversations aimed at luring the venerable commissioner away from France. Oswald argued that the former British colonies in America could gain more by dealing separately with the mother country, but while Franklin revealed a willingness to speak with the British representatives, he remained firmly committed to the FrancoAmerican military alliance created in 1778. He did, however, assure Oswald that a generous peace would go far toward rebuilding ties between the English-speaking nations. When Lord Rockingham died in July, Shelburne became prime minister but was reluctant to concede total independence to the former colonies. When Jay finally arrived in Paris in June, he expressed his deep suspicion of French intentions, correctly believing that the comte de Vergennes, French minister of foreign affairs, favored Spanish ambitions in the disputed region between the Appalachian mountains and the Mississippi River. The conde de Aranda, Spanish ambassador to France, informed Jay of the unwillingness of Charles III, the Bourbon king of Spain, to recognize the United States’ western claims to all lands to the east bank of the Mississippi River north of 31° north latitude and to free navigation of the entire river. Subsequently, Aranda and Gérard de Rayneval, Vergennes’s secretary 10

Treaty of Paris

and diplomatic courier, proposed that the region between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River remain in British hands and that much of the Southwest should become a Spanish protectorate. When he learned that Rayneval had slipped away to London, Jay suspected that the Bourbons might negotiate with Great Britain at U.S. expense. Treaty Provisions Led by Jay, who personally took the initiative in August, the U.S. commissioners assured Shelburne of their willingness to deal directly with the British if London would change Oswald’s instructions to permit him to negotiate openly and with full authority with the representatives of the United States. This would be an implicit recognition of U.S. sovereignty, which Great Britain had hitherto refused to acknowledge. Shelburne now responded positively, believing that the Americans could be separated from France and would be more cooperative with Great Britain in the future. Oswald received his increased authority in September, and the negotiations rapidly clarified the details of an agreement. Franklin was disappointed at not gaining Canada, one of his personal objectives in the negotiations, but the boundaries agreed upon in the preliminary treaty did meet the United States’ aspirations in the northwest and southwest. The Mississippi River was designated as the primary western boundary of the United States. In addition, the new nation was given access to the Canadian fishing grounds, and British forces would be evacuated from U.S. soil. In return, the U.S. commissioners agreed to validate prewar debts owed to British subjects and to recommend to the states that they return confiscated Loyalist property. On balance, the United States gained more than the British in the concessions each side made to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Impact The preliminary articles, signed on November 30, 1782, although without the advice or consent of Vergennes, did not technically violate the letter of the Franco-American Alliance, for the treaty was not to go into effect until France and Great Britain also had come to terms. What the commissioners had violated, however, were the instructions given by Congress in June, 1781, that they do nothing without the knowledge and consent of France. At that time, Con11

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

gress had even withdrawn the requirement that the Mississippi River be the nation’s western boundary, ordering its commissioners to insist only upon independence. The negotiators’ coup enabled Vergennes, never really eager to keep fighting until Spain recovered Gibraltar from the British, to persuade Charles III’s ministers to settle instead for the acquisition of the island of Minorca in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the two Floridas. The final treaties were signed at Paris on September 3, 1783, confirming the detailed Anglo-American understanding of the previous November. With the acceptance of the formal agreement and Congress’s ratification of the treaty, the United States of America entered the community of nations. R. Don Higginbotham, updated by Taylor Stults Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel Flagg. The Diplomacy of the American Revolution. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1935. Reprint. 1957. Burt, Alfred L. The United States, Great Britain, and British North America from the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace After the War of 1812. 1940. Reprint. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968. Cohen, Warren, ed. Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations. 4 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Darling, Arthur B. Our Rising Empire, 1763-1803. 1940. Reprint. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972. Dull, Jonathan R. A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985. Hoffman, Ronald, and Albert, Peter J., eds. Peace and the Peacemakers: The Treaty of 1783. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986. Morris, Richard. The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence. 1965. Reprint. New York: Harper & Row, 1983. See also: Jay’s Treaty (1794); Treaty of Ghent (1814).

12

Fort Stanwix Treaty

Fort Stanwix Treaty Date: Signed October 22, 1784 U.S. Statutes at Large: 7 Stat. 15 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

Through this treaty, Iroquois tribes ceded lands to the United States and were forced to move westward. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix, signed in 1784, was a product of the American Revolution that involved colonists and the Iroquois nations. Because several Iroquois tribes had fought alongside the British during the war, victorious Americans maintained that they had won lands occupied by “defeated” Iroquois. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix marked the beginning of negotiations with Native Americans that dealt with them as a conquered people rather than as equals. The Revolutionary War and resulting treaty negotiations irreparably split the Iroquois Confederacy. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, the Six Nations of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy were divided over whether to support the English, to side with the American rebels, or to remain neutral. The confederation had traded and fought alongside the English for many years and considered the English and colonists as the same. Both British and American Indian agents encouraged Native Americans throughout the colonies to remain neutral. Initially, the Iroquois remained nonpartisan. This allowed the Iroquois to deal with both the British in Canada and the Americans in the colonies, playing one against another as they had the French and British prior to the French and Indian War. As the Revolutionary War progressed, however, both the British and the Americans saw the advantages of including American Indians in their ranks and urged Native Americans to ally themselves. The pressure to choose sides exerted by British and American agents split the six-nation Iroquois Confederacy into two groups. Unable to agree on which side to support, the confederation decided to allow each nation to choose which side, if either, to endorse. The Oneidas and Tuscaroras fought for the rebels. American attacks on Mohawk settlements encouraged the Mohawks to support the British; they were joined by the Onondagas, Cayugas, and 13

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Senecas. These tribes were effective in British attacks on frontier locations, especially in the Mohawk Valley around Fort Stanwix. Competing Promises During the war, British officers had made promises of land to Native Americans who fought with them, but during the peace negotiations in Paris, the defeated British ignored the interests of their Native American allies. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris surrendered all the land east of the Mississippi River to the former colonists. Some of this land belonged to various Native American tribes and was not England’s to grant. New York State granted Iroquois lands to Revolutionary War soldiers as compensation for services during the war. New York tried to negotiate land sales with the Iroquois that would directly benefit the state. Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, admonished New York officials and appointed Indian commissioners Oliver Wolcott, Richard Butler, and Arthur Lee to negotiate peace and land cessions for the United States with the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. A peace conference was called and held in New York at Fort Stanwix near Oneida Lake. A number of Iroquois could not attend because of illness and other factors, and only a quickly formed irregular group of Iroquois representatives was present. The commissioners arrived at Fort Stanwix with an intimidating military escort. Rather than negotiating with the Iroquois as equals, as the English had done previously, American commissioners asserted political sovereignty over all tribal natives on American soil. Iroquois speeches were cut short and credentials challenged. The commissioners insisted that the Iroquois tribes that fought on the side of the British were a conquered people. All lands held by those tribes, therefore, were forfeit to the United States as spoils of war. America would allow them to retain some of their lands but demanded land cessions in reparation for injuries inflicted on Americans during the war. The Iroquois contended (1) that England had had no right to cede tribal lands to America (2) that if the Iroquois were to surrender their lands to Americans, they expected something in return, and (3) that they had not, in any event, been defeated in battle and therefore were not party to peace negotiations. 14

Fort Stanwix Treaty

Mutual Concessions As part of the resulting Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the attending Iroquois ceded a strip of land that began at the mouth of Oyonwaye Creek on Lake Ontario four miles south of the Niagara portage path. The boundary line ran south to the mouth of the Tehosaroro, or Buffalo Creek, to the Pennsylvania line, and along its northsouth boundary to the Ohio River. In effect, the treaty took all Iroquois lands west of New York and Pennsylvania and all of Ohio. The United States released any claim it may have had by right of conquest to tribal lands west of that boundary. Iroquois property in the western region of New York state east of the Oyonwaye remained unaffected. The treaty assured the Oneida and Tuscarora who had fought on the side of the Americans continued peaceful possession of their lands. The United States agreed to protect the remaining Iroquois territories against encroachments, seizures, and other possible violations, and guaranteed the right of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy to independence. Representatives for the Iroquois Confederacy agreed to peaceful relations with the United States. The tribes who had fought against the colonies promised to deliver up all prisoners, black and white, whom they had taken during the war. As guarantee of that promise, six Iroquois would be taken as hostages to Fort Harmar by General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory. Immediately after the congressional commissioners concluded their negotiations, commissioners from Pennsylvania negotiated for large land grants in their state. In return, the Iroquois received five thousand dollars in goods and supplies. Soon after, New York State, in defiance of Congress, negotiated land sales with the Oneida and Tuscarora. Additional land treaties quickly ensued. Congress’s inability to prevent New York State from negotiating separate land sales and to uphold other aspects of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix highlighted the weaknesses in central government under the Articles of Confederation and served as a reminder that each state considered itself a sovereign nation. In 1786, the Iroquois Confederacy held a council meeting at Buffalo Creek, New York. Disappointed and upset with their delegates, they refused to ratify the Treaty of Fort Stanwix and offered to return gifts presented to the delegates at the negotiations. Congress, however, considered the terms of treaty to be valid and acted on them accordingly. 15

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British Interference After the American Revolution, British officials did little to discourage continued relations with northern Native American tribes. The English traded with and provided provisions to local tribes and allowed large councils to be held at British-held forts. After the council of Buffalo Creek, the Iroquois sought support from the British in their effort to denounce the treaty and continue their war against the United States. The Iroquois Confederacy soon discovered that the British had no intention of militarily supporting their former allies in defense of their land rights. Lacking the desire to go to war against the Americans alone, the Iroquois let the treaty stand. On January 9, 1789, St. Clair negotiated the Treaty of Fort Harmar with a group of Senecas. The treaty reaffirmed the terms and boundaries set forth in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. The Iroquois were given permission to hunt in their old lands “as long as they were peaceful about it.” The treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort Harmar further fractionalized the confederation’s six tribes, a process that had begun in 1777, when the Six Nations had split in choosing sides during the Revolutionary War. Joseph Brant led a group of Mohawk, Cayuga, and other tribe members out of the country and into Ontario, Canada, thereby splitting the confederacy in half. Those who remained in the United States were divided over other issues between the American Indians and the settlers. There was no single chief or council that could speak for the entire Iroquois Confederacy, and the Iroquois Confederacy was never again united. Leslie Stricker Sources for Further Study Downes, Randolph C. Council Fires on the Upper Ohio: A Narrative of Indian Affairs in the Upper Ohio Valley Until 1795. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1940. Graymont, Barbara. The Iroquois in the American Revolution. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1972. Jennings, Francis, ed. The History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Guide to the Treaties of the Six Nations and Their League. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1985. 16

Ordinance of 1785

Trigger, Bruce G., ed. Northeast. Vol. 15 in Handbook of North American Indians, edited by William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. Vaughan, Alden T. Early American Indian Documents: Treaties and Laws, 1607-1789. Washington, D.C.: University Publications of America, 1987. Washburn, Wilcomb E., ed. History of Indian-White Relations. Vol. 4 in Handbook of North American Indians, edited by William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Ordinance of 1785 (1785); Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790-1834); Fort Greenville Treaty (1795).

Ordinance of 1785 Date: Adopted May 20, 1785 Categories: Constitutional Law; Land Management

The ordinance regulated the sale of the public domain through an orderly framework for land distribution. By 1779, twelve of the thirteen American states, engaged at that time in the Revolutionary War, had ratified the Articles of Confederation. The recalcitrant state, Maryland, ostensibly refused to ratify the document until the states with land claims in the West ceded those lands to the new government. Pressure from the landless states and the exigencies of the war finally compelled the landed states, particularly New York and Virginia, to cede their western claims to the Revolutionary government. Maryland then ratified the Articles of Confederation early in 1781 and the confederation government came into existence as the owner of a vast public domain. Although little was done by that government to dispose of these lands during the war, in October, 1780, Congress passed an act declaring its intent to sell the public lands and create states out of the new territories. 17

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Securing the “Public Domain” After the Treaty of Paris had been signed in 1783, the Confederation Congress turned to the formulation of a national land policy. To implement the intentions expressed in the Act of 1780, three problems had to be met. First, security against the natives was necessary before the new lands could be established, and some measure of success in this direction was achieved with General Anthony Wayne’s victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Second, some procedure had to be devised for the political organization of the new regions; this problem was resolved with the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. Third, a system for the survey and sale of the lands had to be established, and this was the purpose of the Ordinance of 1785. The debate over disposal of the public domain brought into view two divergent approaches that persisted into the nineteenth century. There were those who desired rapid settlement of the land and who, therefore, favored a policy that would attract settlers by the cheapness of the land. Others, moved by a variety of motives, advocated less liberal terms to settlers. Some of this latter group were concerned about the grave financial situation of the government. The Articles of Confederation did not provide the government with an independent and reliable source of revenue. Proceeds from the sale of public lands might alleviate this situation. Some from eastern (tidewater) areas feared that the rapid growth of the West would quickly diminish the political power of the older states. Others, interested in the possibilities of land speculation, looked upon liberal policies as dangerous competition. There was also disagreement as to the method of land disposal. Two basic forms were available. The more systematic approach was the New England practice of township settlement, which provided for concentrated patterns of ownership, security in communities, and such community institutions as schools and churches. The other approach, generally referred to as the southern method, resulted in dispersed settlement with each individual staking out a claim to hitherto unsettled lands. In the New England plan, survey preceded sale and the possibility of conflicting claims was considerably lessened. Provisions of the Ordinance The matter was debated through 1784 and 1785, and when the Ordinance of 1785 was passed, it appeared to incorporate the basic 18

Ordinance of 1785

features of the New England practice. The principle that survey should precede sale was adopted, as the act provided for rectangular surveys that divided the land into townships of six square miles. Townships were divided into tracts of 640 acres, or sections, which were to be sold at public auction for a minimum price of one dollar per acre. In each township, one lot was set aside for the support of public schools and four for the federal government. A provision giving similar support for religion was narrowly defeated. This ordinance, with its minimal purchase requirement of 640 acres and its prohibition against indiscriminate settlement, seemed to favor the needs of speculators more than bona fide settlers. Few people of the type willing to carve a farm out of the wilderness in an area open to attack by American Indians had $640 in cash. Moreover, the disposition of the people who moved west was to settle where they lit, regardless of surveys, which were unable to keep up with settlement during the nineteenth century. Congress itself, in its desperate need for ready money, compromised the intent of the act by disposing of vast tracts of land to private land companies for purposes of sale to settlers at a profit. The most famous of these companies was the Ohio Company of Associates. In 1787, Congress agreed to sell one and a half million acres of land to this group and another three and a half million to the Scioto Company. This latter speculative venture included many of the most important men in Congress, and their inclusion in the speculation made possible the passage of the Ohio Company grant. Also in 1787, the Symmes Purchase of two million acres was made at about sixty-six cents per acre. Impact of the Ordinance The confederation government did not realize much money from these sales, nor did these sales greatly stimulate settlement. Conditions were too precarious in the Ohio country. The Land Act of 1796, which raised the minimum price to two dollars per acre, did little to advance settlement. The change to a more liberal policy began with the Harrison Land Act of 1800. Nevertheless, the ordinance established an orderly method of disposing of public lands into private hands—a method that solved several problems simultaneously. First, it brought settlers and farmers into the national effort to repay the Revolutionary War 19

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debts. Even if the sales did not achieve what Thomas Jefferson hoped, the concept showed that all the nation’s citizens would be called upon to shoulder part of the price of independence. Second, the principle of organized and methodical settlement—although, again, far from perfect in reality—reflected a clear understanding about the importance of keeping populations reasonably dense for purposes of defense and development. Third, and perhaps most significant, the ordinance ratified the fundamental property rights that undergirded the entire economic system. Land, once only held by nobility, was available to anyone for a tiny sum. Along with Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance, the Ordinance of 1785 allowed people to settle new land, bring it into the Union, and participate as equals in the polity. John G. Clark, updated by Larry Schweikart Sources for Further Study Atack, Jeremy, and Peter Passell. A New Economic View of American History. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. Harris, Marshall D. Origin of the Land Tenure System in the United States. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1953. Hibbard, Benjamin H. A History of the Public Land Policies. New York: Peter Smith, 1960. Morris, Richard B. The Forging of the Union, 1781-1789. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. Pattison, William D. Beginnings of the American Rectangular Land Survey System, 1784-1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957. Robbins, Roy M. Our Landed Heritage: The Public Domain, 1776-1936. New York: Peter Smith, 1962. Treat, Payson Jackson. The National Land System, 1785-1820. New York: E. B. Treat, 1910. See also: Northwest Ordinance (1787); Land Act of 1820 (1820).

20

Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty

Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty Date: Adopted January 16, 1786 Categories: Religious Liberty

The first state law to legislate religious liberty, Virginia’s statute paved the way for the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. The adoption by the state of Virginia of the Statute of Religious Liberty was a pivotal episode in the long struggle for separation of church and state in the United States. The American colonies had inherited from England an organic concept of society that predominated in the Middle Ages and survived the Protestant Reformation. In England, the church and the state had been regarded ideally as parts of a greater and divinely sanctioned social order and so owed mutual support to each other. While the Puritans and other sects emigrated partly to practice their particular faiths without harassment, few were committed to genuine religious freedom. The legal toleration of all Christians in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the complete toleration offered in Rhode Island, were exceptional in the seventeenth century, and even those colonies imposed penalties on Catholics by the time of the Revolutionary War. Whereas, in the later colonial period, toleration of dissenting sects was often a practical necessity, connections between the church and state persisted. The Church of England was established legally in the Southern colonies, and Protestant churches were supported by public funds in most of New England. Catholics and Jews remained under civil disabilities in some states until well into the nineteenth century. Separating Church and State During the period of the American Revolution, there was an acceleration of the long-term evolution to a concept of society in which political and religious life existed in separate compartments and in which religion withdrew, theoretically, into the private sphere of activity. Part of the impetus behind the separation of church and state was religious. Some originally radical Protestant sects were committed to separation early, either because of their own experience with 21

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persecution or out of more abstract considerations. Some agreed with the founder of Rhode Island, clergyman Roger Williams, that a church would be corrupted only by connection with the state. The Baptists were particularly energetic advocates of separation. Isaac Backus, Baptist leader of the fight for religious disestablishment in Massachusetts, has been characterized as the leading American advocate of religious liberty after Williams. In addition to these strains within American Protestantism, the philosophy of the Enlightenment, emphasizing the sanctity of the individual conscience, was influential, most notably among Thomas Jefferson and other leaders of the disestablishment struggle in Virginia. Perhaps the overriding factor in deciding the general issue in the United States, however, was a practical consideration: that because of the extreme multiplicity of sects in the country, in the long run it was not politically feasible to establish any one of them or even a combination. Impact of the Revolution The American Revolution, bringing new state constitutions and the withdrawal of British support for the Anglican establishment, provided an occasion for the reform of relationships between church and state. Virginia’s action in the period following the Declaration of Independence was particularly significant. Virginia— one of the largest and most important states in the new republic and the seat of the most deeply rooted of the Anglican establishments—took the lead in moving toward religious liberty and the complete separation of church and state. Only Rhode Island offered comparable liberty among the original states, although, despite its early toleration, Catholics and Jews had been barred from citizenship there in the late colonial period. Revolutionary Virginia inherited a strongly antiestablishment sentiment, marked historically by disputes over clerical salaries and the long struggle by Baptists and Presbyterians against Anglican domination. The Declaration of Rights, adopted by the Virginia legislature three weeks before the Declaration of Independence, asserted that “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience. . . .” James Madison had suggested this liberal phrasing in preference to a more narrow statement of religious toleration. Later in 1776, penalties against those of dissenting religious persuasion were repealed, and dissenters were exempted from contributing to the support of the 22

Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty

still-established Church of England. In 1779, the legislature moved in the direction of disestablishment by discontinuing the payment of salaries to clergy of the Church of England in Virginia. Provisions of the Statute The conclusive debates in Virginia took place in 1784 and 1785. Patrick Henry led a move in Virginia’s legislature to establish a general assessment for the support of Christian worship, which would have substituted a general Christian establishment for the Anglican establishment. Initially passed in November, 1784, this General Assessment Bill was sharply attacked by Madison and defeated on its final reading in October, 1785. Madison followed up this victory by securing a vote on the “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” proposed by Thomas Jefferson and originally introduced in the legislature in 1779. It was adopted and became law as the Statute of Religious Liberty in January, 1786. With a preamble asserting that God had “created the mind free” and that attempts to coerce it “tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion,” Jefferson’s statute provided “that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief. . . .” There remained some vestigial connections between the church and the state, but their separation had been completed by 1802. States Follow Virginia’s Lead Few other states immediately followed Virginia’s lead. Officeholders under many of the original state constitutions were required to be believers in God, Christians, or even Protestants. It was not until 1818 that Connecticut did away with compulsory public support of churches, and not until 1833 was a similar establishment completely eliminated in Massachusetts. The First Amendment to the federal Constitution, which prohibited religious establishment or infringement of religious liberty on the national level, helped to commend the example of Virginia to its sister states. Michael D. Clark, updated by Daniel A. Brown 23

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Sources for Further Study Drakeman, Donald L. “Religion and the Republic: James Madison and the First Amendment.” Journal of Church and State 25, no. 3 (1983): 427-445. Howe, Mark De Wolfe. The Garden and the Wilderness: Religion and Government in American Constitutional History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Noll, Mark A., ed. Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the 1980’s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Peterson, Merrill D., and Robert C. Vaughan, eds. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Its Evolution and Consequences in American History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Stokes, Anson P., and Leo Pfeffer. Church and State in the United States. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Wald, Kenneth D. Religion and Politics in the United States. 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1992. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Bill of Rights (1789)

First Amendment (1789).

Northwest Ordinance Also known as: Ordinance of 1787 Date: Adopted July 13, 1787 U.S. Statutes at Large: 2 Stat. 514 Categories: Land Management; Slavery

The ordinance marked the rise of federal involvement in the organization of Western lands and the first sectional compromise over the extension of slavery. In March, 1784, the Congress of the Confederation accepted the cession of lands Virginia had claimed west of the Appalachian Mountains. A congressional committee headed by Thomas Jefferson, delegate from Virginia, then took steps to provide for the political organization of the vast area south of the Great Lakes, west of 24

Northwest Ordinance

the Appalachians, and east of the Mississippi River. The committee’s task was to draft legislation for the disposal of the land and the government of its settlers. The proposal of Jefferson’s committee met the approval of Congress as the Ordinance of 1784. Ordinance of 1784 The Ordinance of 1784 divided the West into eighteen districts. Each district would be admitted to the Union as a state when its population equaled that of the least populous of the original states. In the meantime, when the population of a district reached twenty thousand, it might write a constitution and send a delegate to Congress. As Jefferson envisaged it, as many as ten new states might be carved from the new lands, many of them provided with mellifluous classical names. In Jefferson’s original version, slavery was to be excluded after 1800, but this was stricken from the ordinance when it was adopted in 1784. The Ordinance of 1784 was to become effective once all Western lands claimed by the states had been ceded to the government. Before the states ceded their lands, however, a new ordinance was adopted that superseded that of 1784. Ordinance of 1787 The Ordinance of 1787, known as the Northwest Ordinance, was passed, according to some historians, at the insistence of land speculators who opposed the liberality of the Ordinance of 1784. The new ordinance did indeed slow down the process by which a territory might become a state, but it also added certain important features and provided for the more orderly creation of new states. While the Northwest Ordinance may have been less liberal than its predecessor, it was not undemocratic. Provisions for Territories and Statehood The Northwest Ordinance established government in the territory north of the Ohio River. The plan provided for the eventual establishment of a bicameral assembly, the creation of three to five states equal to the original thirteen states, freedom of religion, the right to a jury trial, public education, and a ban on the expansion of slavery. To accomplish these goals, legislation provided that the whole Northwest region should be governed temporarily as a single territory and administered by a governor, a secretary, and three judges 25

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appointed by Congress. When the population of the territory reached five thousand free adult male inhabitants, the citizens might elect representatives to a territorial assembly. Property qualifications for voting were established, but they were small. The general assembly was to choose ten men, all of whom owned at least five hundred acres, from whom Congress would choose five men to serve as the upper house of the legislature. The governor would continue to be selected by Congress and have an absolute veto over all legislation. The territory was to be divided into not fewer than three nor more than five districts. Whenever the population of one of the districts reached sixty thousand free inhabitants, it would be allowed to draft a constitution and submit it to Congress. If the constitution guaranteed a republican form of government, Congress would pass an enabling act admitting the district into the Union as a state on an equal basis with those states already in the Union. Provisions for Basic Rights The ordinance guaranteed certain basic rights to citizens who moved into the new lands. A bill of rights provided for freedom of religion and guaranteed the benefits of writs of habeas corpus, the right of trial by jury, bail, and the general process of law. The third article read: “Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians.” The first of these moral injunctions was implemented as the inhabitants obtained the means to do so. The second, regarding the American Indians, has still to be achieved. The fourth article established the basis for relations between the general government and the territories and states that might be formed from them. The fifth article provided for equitable taxation and the free navigation of the waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence Rivers. The sixth article was epoch-making. It read: “There shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary Servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” This provision determined that the society that developed north of the Ohio River would eventually be free. Influenced by the French slaveholders inhabiting the region, the interpretation of Article VI forbade the further introduction of 26

Northwest Ordinance

slavery but did not abolish slavery or affect the rights of those holding slaves prior to 1787. No such provision was written into the act establishing the Southwest Territory, in 1790. Impact The pattern established by the Northwest Ordinance was more or less followed in the later admission of states into the Union. Some, such as Texas and California, came in without a territorial period. Others, such as Michigan, caused trouble because of boundary disputes with neighboring states. As for the Ohio country, Arthur St. Clair, president of the Confederation Congress in 1787, was appointed first governor of the territory. Indiana Territory was organized in 1803, the same year in which Ohio entered the Union. Indiana entered as a state in 1816, Illinois in 1818, Michigan in 1837, and Wisconsin in 1848. Statehood was delayed for Indiana and Illinois territories as a result of their repeated petitions seeking repeal of the restrictions in the ordinance against the expansion of further slavery in the territory. Congress refused to repeal or revise the section, making slaveholders reluctant to move into the area. The predominant settlement by nonslaveholders eventually led to strengthening of the antislavery movement in the region. The Northwest Ordinance proved to be a crowning legislative achievement of the otherwise lackluster confederation government. However, while Congress was debating the Northwest Ordinance, the Constitutional Convention was occurring in Philadelphia. It has been argued that the antislavery provisions influenced the debates of the constitutional convention over congressional representation. Since each state won two seats in the Senate, Southern states acceded freedom to the Northwest Territory by limiting the number of free states formed from the region. In turn, the Southern states hoped for dominance in the House of Representatives through the three-fifths clause counting slaves for congressional representation. Under the new Constitution, Congress reenacted the Ordinance of 1787 as a model of territorial government. John G. Clark, updated by Dorothy C. Salem 27

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Sources for Further Study Berwanger, Eugene H. “Western Prejudice and the Extension of Slavery.” Civil War History 12 (September, 1966): 197-212. Cayton, Andrew R. L. The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Hyman, Harold M. American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the 1862 Homestead and Morrill Acts, and the 1944 G.I. Bill. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. Johnson, Andrew J. The Life and Constitutional Thought of Nathan Dane. New York: Garland, 1987. Konig, David Thomas. Devising Liberty: Preserving and Creating Freedom in the New American Republic. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995. Onuf, Peter S. Sovereignty and Territory: Claims Conflict in the Old Northwest and the Origins of the American Federal Republic. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. _______. Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Swierenga, Robert P. “The Settlement of the Old Northwest: Ethnic Pluralism in a Featureless Plain.” Journal of the Early Republic 9 (Spring, 1989): 73-105. Vaughan, Alden T. Early American Indian Documents: Treaties and Laws, 1607-1789. Washington, D.C.: University Publications of America, 1987. See also: Ordinance of 1785 (1785); Three-fifths compromise

(1787); Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793); Missouri Compromise (1820); Land Act of 1820 (1820).

U.S. Constitution: History Date: Adopted September 17, 1787; ratified June, 1788 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 10-20 Categories: Constitutional Law; Government Procedure and Or-

ganization

28

U.S. Constitution: History

The Constitution is the highest law of the United States of America, establishing the republic’s government and the basic laws and principles that would guide all future lawmaking in the nation. By the middle of the 1780’s, much dissatisfaction with government under the Articles of Confederation had became evident throughout the United States. Many of those prominent in the political life of the United States—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and Noah Webster, among others— in papers, letters, and conversations criticized the functioning of the Confederation Congress. Specific concerns included Congress’s lack of power to tax, to regulate interstate commerce, and to force states to cooperate more effectively with the central government. All efforts to improve the Articles of Confederation seemed doomed to failure, because amendments required unanimous approval by the states. It became evident to many concerned persons that changes might best be accomplished by abandoning the Articles altogether. The 1785 Conventions In March, 1785, a meeting of delegates from Virginia and Maryland initiated a series of meetings that culminated in the replacement of the Articles. At the March meeting, the two states worked out an agreement involving commercial regulations on the Potomac River. After the success of the meeting, Virginia called for another meeting to be held in Annapolis, Maryland, during the following year. It was hoped that the convention would provide an opportunity for those attending to discuss common problems and possible solutions. Nine states were invited, but only five sent delegates. The most important result of the Annapolis Convention was the publication of a report, probably drafted by Alexander Hamilton, that called for yet another convention. This one, scheduled for Philadelphia in May, 1787, was to include delegates from all states. The 1787 Convention The purpose of the convention was to address and correct the defects in the Confederation government. Copies of the report were sent to each state legislature with a request that delegates be appointed and sent to Philadelphia. Every state except Rhode Island honored the request and sent representatives. Seventy-four dele29

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gates were appointed to the convention, although only fifty-five attended. Thirty-nine signed the final document. The Virginia delegation was among the first to reach Philadelphia, arriving two weeks before the scheduled start of deliberations. The Virginians brought with them the outline of a plan of government that they intended to offer to the convention. The plan, quite controversial at the time, proposed creating a new national government. The Virginians sought a strong government that would include three branches and a sophisticated system of checks and balances. During the days before the convention began, several of the Virginia delegates, particularly James Madison, conferred with other early arrivals to hone their plan. The convention first met on May 25 and appointed George Washington as the presiding officer. The section was significant, because Washington was held in high regard by the American people. The presence of Benjamin Franklin, who at eighty-one years of age was the oldest delegate, also added prestige to the gathering. With two such notable figures participating, the American public anticipated notable results. Competing Proposals On May 29, with the convention only four days old, the Virginia delegation proposed a series of resolutions that immediately were known as the Virginia Plan. Drafted largely by James Madison and introduced by Edmund Randolph, the plan argued that, rather than merely revise the Articles of Confederation, the convention should discard them altogether and create a constitution that embodied an entirely new frame of government. The proposed government would have far more authority than did the confederated administration, and it would not be subordinate to each state government. The proposals set off a fierce debate that dominated the convention throughout most of June. On one side were delegates who endorsed the Virginia Plan. On the other side were delegates who feared that a powerful national government might jeopardize many of the rights and liberties won during the Revolutionary War. As the debate intensified, delegates from several of the smaller states devised a series of resolutions designed to counter the Virginia Plan. Introduced by William Patterson from New Jersey, the resolutions became know as the New Jersey Plan. These proposals rejected the need for a new national government and called in30

U.S. Constitution: History

stead for the convention to retain, but significantly revise, the existing confederated government. Among the more active delegates in favor of establishing a strong federal government were James Madison and George Mason from Virginia, James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris from Pennsylvania, John Dickinson from Delaware, John Rutledge and Charles Pinckney from South Carolina, and Oliver Ellsworth from Connecticut. In addition to Patterson, the leading supporters of the New Jersey Plan included Roger Sherman from Connecticut, Elbridge Gerry from Massachusetts, and Luther Martin from Maryland. Debates over Representation For almost a month, delegates intensely deliberated over the two plans. In late June, with the convention on the verge of dissolution, Benjamin Franklin implored the delegates to find a common ground. Spurred on by Franklin’s pleas, the convention agreed to discard the Articles of Confederation and create a constitution that would embody a strong national government. With the initial differences resolved, other aspects of both the Virginia and New Jersey Plans were debated throughout the summer. Central to the discussions was the concern of less populated states, such as Connecticut and Maryland, that they would lose all power and authority to the national government if representation within the new government were determined exclusively according to population. Responding to these concerns, proponents of the national government agreed to create a dual system of representation within Congress: Membership in the House of Representatives would be determined according to population; in the Senate, each state, regardless of the size of its population, would be given two members. It also was agreed that before a bill could become a law, both houses of Congress would have to approve it. The Great Compromise The agreement concerning representation within the legislative branch, sometimes referred to as the Great Compromise, reflected the spirit of concession that marked convention proceedings during the late summer months. Many other issues, including the length of presidential terms, the electoral procedure, the responsibilities of the judicial branch, the amendment process, and slavery within the new nation, tested the delegates’ ability to negotiate and 31

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cooperate. In the end, the document could not be considered the work of any one group or faction of delegates. It had become a synthesis of the plans of all the delegates. In September, Gouverneur Morris, an outspoken Pennsylvania delegate, became chair of a committee that was instructed to write a final draft of the Constitution. After some preliminary discussions about style and content, the document was formally presented to the convention on September 17. Although few delegates agreed to all revisions, a large majority found the document as a whole acceptable. Signed by thirty-nine delegates, the Constitution was declared adopted “by unanimous consent.” Upon endorsement by the convention, the Constitution was submitted to each state legislature for ratification. In late June, 1788, approval by nine states, the number required for ratification, was reached and implementation of the new national government began. Edward J. Maguire, updated by Paul E. Doutrich Sources for Further Study Conley, Patrick, and John Kaminski, eds. The Constitution and the States: The Role of the Original Thirteen in Framing and Adoption of the Federal Constitution. Madison, Wis.: Madison House, 1988. Farrand, Max. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. 4 vols. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966. Jensen, Merrill. The Making of the American Constitution. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1964. Kammen, Michael. A Machine That Would Go of Itself. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986. McDonald, Forrest. “Novus Ordo Seclorum”: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985. Peters, William. A More Perfect Union: The Making of the United States Constitution. New York: Crown, 1987. Vile, John R. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. 3d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. See also: Articles of Confederation (1781); U.S. Constitution: Pro-

visions (1787); Bill of Rights (1789).

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U.S. Constitution: Provisions

U.S. Constitution: Provisions Date: Adopted September 17, 1787; ratified June, 1788 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 10-20 Categories: Constitutional Law; Government Procedure and Or-

ganization

The fundamental document establishing the national government of the United States of America, the Constitution describes the nature and limits of political power within the national government as well as the way the branches of government are structured. The Constitution of the United States is an extraordinary document, both theoretically and historically. One of the most important aspects of the Constitution was that it was (and is) firmly based on a clear set of theoretical principles. To describe the Constitution as a document of the Enlightenment—an eighteenth century movement in European thought that celebrated the capacity of reason to solve human problems—would be to tell the truth but not necessarily the whole truth. Alexander Hamilton, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention from New York, claimed that the Constitution reflected what he described as a “new science of politics.” According to Hamilton, this new science was based on principles either unknown to or not fully understood by previous generations. It is generally acknowledged that the most fundamental principles of the Constitution are separation of powers, federalism, and republicanism. Each of these principles is critical to a clear understanding of the American system of government, but each was developed because of the Founders’ commitment to a prior principle—the principle of limited governmental power. A government founded on the principle of limited powers must develop safeguards to ensure that the people who wield the powers of government do not go beyond the limits. Within the American constitutional system this is accomplished by the three principles cited above. Separation of Powers Separation of powers was a political principle advocated by English philosopher John Locke and French philosopher Baron de Mon33

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tesquieu. The Constitution of the United States was the first national political document to apply this concept of government. Distinct governmental powers had long been recognized, but the Constitution of the United States was the first to place these powers in separate branches of government. The first three articles of the Constitution describe the location and authority of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of government. Legislative Branch Article I, section 1 of the Constitution begins by stating: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” In addition to establishing the location of the legislative powers, this statement declares that those powers will be shared by two separate legislative chambers. Bicameralism (the term used to describe a two-chambered legislature) permits the two legislative chambers to provide internal checks on each other. The notes taken at the Constitutional Convention reveal that disagreements over how the representatives to Congress would be apportioned and selected were the most difficult for the delegates to settle. At one point, delegates threatened to withdraw from the convention over this issue. The solution to this dispute produced one legislative chamber that represents states equally (the Senate) and another that represents states according to their population (the House of Representatives). The Senate consists of two senators from each state in the Union. Senators are elected for six-year terms; the long term was intended to give them relative freedom from the passing whims of the electorate. One of the rationales for such long terms was that the Senate would be freer to speak to the long-term needs of the nation. The Constitution requires staggered terms for the senators so that a third of the Senate seats are up for election every two years. This requirement provides a degree of stability and continuity in the national government. In contrast, the members of the House of Representatives hold two-year terms. These shorter terms keep House members in much closer contact with the American voters. By requiring that House members seek reelection every two years, the Constitution provides the voting public with regular access to national lawmakers. 34

U.S. Constitution: Provisions

Legislators who desire new laws or want to alter old ones must be able to persuade a majority of the lawmakers in both legislative chambers of Congress. By design, this process was not intended to be quick or easy. The legislature was meant to be a deliberative group that carefully examines all proposed laws. In a bicameral legislature, proposals that might be rushed through one chamber may be examined carefully in the second chamber. The Framers of the Constitution believed that it was more important that laws be carefully and thoughtfully examined than that they be approved quickly. Executive Branch Article II, section 1 of the Constitution places the executive powers of the United States government in the hands of “a President.” The Constitutional Convention had considerable difficulties developing the executive branch of government. In part, this was attributable to their basic suspicion of executive power. They also realized, however, that one of the greatest shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation was the absence of a clearly defined executive branch. The first question was whether the executive authority should be placed in a single executive or multiple executives. The second question, and one of the last to be settled at the Convention, concerned the method for selecting the executive. After much debate, the Convention settled on a single executive. In the words of Alexander Hamilton, only a single executive would provide the “unity and dispatch” modern governments required. This sentiment prevailed, and the Convention then had to determine how “the President of the United States” would be selected. The electoral college was the method upon which they eventually settled. This system utilizes the states as electoral units and follows the representative principle devised for Congress to distribute the votes among the states. The president’s basic responsibilities are to see that national laws are faithfully executed, to serve as the commander in chief of the national armed forces, to appoint the executive officers of the different federal agencies, and to recommend judges to serve on the Supreme Court and the lesser courts established by Congress. In addition to these responsibilities, the president has a limited veto over the acts of Congress. 35

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Judicial Branch Article III of the Constitution describes the judicial branch of government. More specifically, it establishes the Supreme Court and any additional courts Congress may establish. One of the more unusual aspects of the Constitution is its establishment of an independent judiciary. Judges receive lifelong appointments, so they are as free from political influences as is humanly possible. The only qualification to this independence is that Congress has the power to impeach and remove judges if they behave in a manner that would warrant such removal. In this respect, judges are subjected to the same kind of scrutiny as are members of the executive branch of government. One aspect of the separation of powers that is often given particular consideration is the concept of checks and balances. The Constitution provides that each of the three branches of government has certain “checks” on its power that are under the control of another branch. Congress, for example, controls the budget of the president and the judiciary. The president, on the other hand, can veto acts of Congress (Congress, in turn, can override a veto with a two-thirds vote in both houses). The president also appoints justices to the Supreme Court (with congressional approval). Finally, the Supreme Court can rule that the laws of Congress or the actions of the president are unconstitutional. Federalism This aspect of the Constitution is one of the more ingenious creations to grow out of the Constitutional Convention. Historically, national governments had been either unitary governments or confederal governments. Unitary governments place all power in the hands of a centralized authority. The British government is an example of such a system. In a confederal system, the ultimate power is decentralized among member states. Some responsibility may be given over to a centralized authority, but the real power remains with the decentralized units of government. This was the case under the Articles of Confederation. The federal system established by the Constitution was unique in that it created a governmental system in which the real powers of the political system were truly divided between the centralized and decentralized units of government. The distribution of powers between the states and the national 36

U.S. Constitution: Provisions

government has created considerable political tensions during the course of American history. It is important to realize that these tensions were largely intended by the Founders. Federalism, like the separation of powers, was built into the constitutional system as a check on governmental powers. Article VI establishes the Constitution, acts of Congress, and treaties as the “supreme Law of the Land,” but the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution declares the limits of that supremacy, stating that the states and the people possess all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution. Republicanism Article IV of the Constitution guarantees that every state in the union will have a republican form of government. The Federalist Papers, a collection of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in 1787 and 1788, explain why a republican system of government was considered preferable to a democratic system. The tenth essay of this collection provides a detailed comparison of these two popular systems of government. The first advantage of republicanism is that governmental authority is delegated to a small group of citizens. The second is that republican governments can cover a much larger geographical area than a direct democracy can. When a smaller group has the responsibility of representing a larger group, each of the representatives must speak for a variety of interests. By learning the interests and needs of a diverse number of groups, representatives approach governmental decision making with a broader perspective than they would if they were simply advocating their own interests and needs. Public opinion is thereby filtered through a select group of representatives who must keep the many needs of their district in mind. The advantage of a large geographical area is that it produces a great diversity of interests. This diversity decreases the likelihood that a single interest will constitute a majority on any given issue. For example, while chicken processors may hold a majority interest in Arkansas or oil producers may be a major political force in Texas, neither of these groups can dominate a large geographical area such as the entire United States. Together, these factors increase the likelihood that governmental decisions will serve the general interests of the nation instead of one or a few dominant groups. 37

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The existence of these basic principles within the Constitution creates a significant barrier to government guided by passion as opposed to government guided by reason. The many checks within the system provide numerous obstacles to laws that are not in the interest of a fairly wide and diverse group of citizens. The system also places a substantial burden of proof on those who want to change existing laws or develop new laws. The cumbersome nature of the political process exposes any legislative initiative to a series of examinations before a number of different bodies. Amendments The Constitution has been a remarkably stable political document. The method described in Article V for amending the Constitution has not been utilized very often. By 1995 there were only twentyseven amendments to the Constitution. The first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were passed within three years of the Constitution’s ratification. Three amendments (thirteen through fifteen) were passed at the end of the Civil War to make the institution of slavery unconstitutional and to extend certain citizenship rights to African Americans liberated by the Civil War. One of these, the Fourteenth Amendment, through its requirements of “due process” and “equal protection of the laws,” has been instrumental in expanding basic civil rights to a number of other groups as well. The Seventeenth Amendment instituted the direct election of senators, the Twenty-second Amendment limited presidents to two terms, and the Twenty-fifth Amendment provided for the transfer of power in cases of presidential disability. A number of amendments (the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth) have expanded the electorate. One of the reasons often cited for the Constitution not having gathered more amendments through the years is the role the federal courts have played in determining questions of constitutionality. This process, known as judicial review, has permitted the courts to clarify and fine tune aspects of the Constitution. At times the courts have been accused of taking undue advantage of this authority. President Woodrow Wilson, for example, once referred to the Supreme Court as an ongoing constitutional convention. The Constitution has proved to be one of the most durable political documents of all time. One of the key reasons for this durabil38

Three-fifths compromise

ity is the document’s brevity. The Founders had a sense of what a constitution needed to specify and what it did not. Leaving many details unsettled, the Founders recognized that statutory laws, administrative law, and precedents could handle the more specific and transient details of government. Donald V. Weatherman Sources for Further Study Bloom, Amy. Confronting the Constitution. Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1990. Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. Clinton Rossiter ed. New York: New American Library, 1961. Kelly, Alfred H., Winfred A. Harbison, and Herman Belz. The American Constitution: Its Origin and Development. 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1983. McDonald, Forrest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1979. Mansfield, Harvey C. America’s Constitutional Soul. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Vile, John R. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. 3d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. See also: Articles of Confederation (1781); U.S. Constitution: His-

tory (1787); Bill of Rights (1789).

Three-fifths compromise Date: Adopted September 17, 1787; ratified June, 1788 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 10 Categories: African Americans; Constitutional Law; Slavery

The Constitutional Convention in 1787 adopted the three-fifths compromise, whereby five slaves were counted as three people for purposes of taxation and representation. Article I, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states: 39

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature. . . . Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

The idea of the last part of this provision, which has become known as the “three-fifths compromise,” originated as part of a 1783 congressional plan to base taxation on population. Congress rejected the three-fifths idea, but delegate James Wilson of Pennsylvania resurrected it as an amendment to the Virginia plan at the Constitutional Convention. The Wilson amendment provoked heated debate over the counting of slaves. Most northern delegates regarded slaves as property and not deserving representation, while southern delegates insisted that blacks be counted equally with whites for purposes of representation. Northern delegates wanted slaves counted for taxation, while southern delegates disagreed. Delegates also debated whether the Congress or a census every ten years should determine the apportionment of representatives in the national legislature. Several northern delegates wanted Congress to control apportionment because the West was developing rapidly. They considered the three-fifths idea pro-South and opposed its adoption. Southern delegates, meanwhile, threatened to reject the three-fifths idea if Congress controlled representation. Northern delegates eventually agreed to accept a census every ten years and count slaves as people rather than property, demonstrating the numerical strength of the proslavery interests. Until the Civil War, therefore, slaves were counted as three-fifths of nonslaves for purposes of taxation and representation. David L. Porter

40

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Sources for Further Study Vile, John R. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. 3d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. See also: Northwest Ordinance (1787); U.S. Constitution: History

(1787); U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Missouri Compromise (1820); Compromise of 1850 (1850); Thirteenth Amendment (1865).

Judiciary Act of 1789 Date: September 24, 1789 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 73 Categories: Judiciary and Judicial Procedure

This act of the First Congress created the working structure of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court and a three-tier system of federal courts. The Constitution, written during the summer of 1787 and ratified in 1788, established a new government that started working in April, 1789, when the newly formed Congress began meeting. President George Washington was sworn into office on April 30. At that point two of the three branches of the new government had been formed, but the judicial branch had yet to be created. During the Constitutional Convention, most of the debate revolved around the executive and legislative branches. There was near complete agreement on the need for a federal judiciary, although there was considerable disagreement about what exactly the judiciary would do. That is, the supporters of both the Virginia and New Jersey plans during the Constitutional Convention favored the creation of a federal judiciary, something that did not exist under the previous governing document, the Articles of Confederation. The proposals for a federal judiciary were quite similar. Both supported the creation of a supreme court as well as the formation of inferior tribunals. The inferior courts would be trial 41

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courts, and the highest court would primarily be a court of appeals but would also hear some cases in the first instance. When the Committee on Detail, a small group formed by the men convened in Philadelphia, reported a draft to the full assembly on August 8, 1787, the section in the proposed Constitution regarding the judiciary was nearly identical to the final product of the Convention, which was signed on September 17, 1787. Constitutional Provisions The new Constitution treated the judicial branch of government in Article III, which contains less detail than Articles I and II, which, respectively, lay out the structures and powers of Congress and the president. Article III, section 1, states that “the judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” The Framers of the Constitution did not believe it was prudent or even possible to determine the specifics of the structure of the federal judiciary. They left the exact structure to be determined by the legislative branch. Moreover, Article III, section 2, states that “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases . . . arising under this Constitution, [and] the laws of the United States” as well as matters specifically stated that were best suited for the federal judiciary. A Three-Tiered System Thus the Framers left it to Congress to determine the specifics, and Congress did so with the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Judiciary Act was the first bill introduced in the Senate and consumed much of the Senate’s time during the summer of 1789. It had three principal authors: Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, a member of the Constitutional Convention and later a chief justice; William Paterson of New Jersey, previously the attorney general in New Jersey, a participant in the Constitutional Convention, and later an associate justice; and Caleb Strong of Massachusetts, who also attended the Constitutional Convention but was not an active participant. The Judiciary Act, which was officially titled “An Act to Establish the Federal Courts of the United States,” was signed by President Washington on September 24, 1789. The most significant aspects of the act were its establishment of a three-tier system of courts, es42

Judiciary Act of 1789

tablishing district courts along state boundaries and legislating the jurisdictions, both original and appellate, of the various courts. The highest tier of the newly formed judicial system was the Supreme Court, which, according to the act, would “consist of a chief justice and five associate justices.” The act also indicated that four justices needed to be present for the Court to operate and that the Court would have two sessions each year in the seat of the government. The lowest tier of the federal judiciary would be the district courts. The act set the precedent that jurisdiction for district courts would follow state boundaries. It established thirteen district courts, one for each of the eleven states that had ratified the Constitution at that point and for the districts of Maine and Kentucky, which were not yet regarded as states. The arrangement of the district courts was a compromise between Federalists and Antifederalists. Some Antifederalists wanted state courts to adjudicate violations of federal law, and some Federalists wanted the boundary lines for district courts to be distinct from state boundaries. The judges appointed to each district court would hear criminal cases involving admiralty and maritime crimes as well as other cases involving federal law. All criminal cases would go before a jury. The district courts would also hear minor civil cases involving the federal government. These courts were to meet four times each year. The other tier created by the act was the circuit courts of appeals. The act created three circuits: eastern, middle, and southern. The most remarkable characteristic of these courts to the modern observer is that there were no separate corps of judges for these courts. The judges for the circuit courts of appeals would consist of two Supreme Court justices along with a district court judge from within the territory of each circuit court of appeals. These courts were to be both trial and appellate courts. These courts would hold trials in cases of diversity of citizenship in civil cases as well in cases involving major federal crimes. These courts also heard appeals from the district courts. The act prevented district court judges from hearing appeals in cases in which they had already participated. Supreme Court justices were not prevented from hearing cases in their capacities both as circuit court of appeals judges and as justices of the Supreme Court. However, most justices removed themselves from any cases in which they had pre43

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viously participated. Those justices appointed during the early years of the Court often served mostly as a circuit court judge because few cases made it to the high court. Original and Appellate Jurisdictions After the establishment of the courts, the most significant aspect of the Judiciary Act is the assignation of original and appellate jurisdiction for the various courts. In section 13, the act restated the original jurisdiction for the Supreme Court as outlined in Article III of the Constitution. The act also dictated what kind of appellate jurisdiction the Court would have. Section 13 further stated that the Court could issue writs of mandamus “in cases warranted by the principle and usages of law, to any courts appointed, or persons holding office under the authority of the United States.” Such a writ would in effect force a higher-level official to act in a particular manner. Regarding the jurisdiction of the Court, section 25 of the act indicated that the Court could hear appeals from the highest court in each state on matters of law alone. This section truly established the Court as the highest judicial authority in the new United States. Cases Involving the Act The most famous of the Court cases involving the Judiciary Act of 1789 was Marbury v. Madison (1803). This decision set the precedent for judicial review because the Court ruled on the constitutionality of a statute. William Marbury, who had been appointed by President John Adams to be a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia, asked the Court to deliver a writ of mandamus forcing Madison, who was Jefferson’s secretary of state to deliver his commission to him. Marbury asked for such an action by the Court because the Judiciary Act of 1789 gave the Court original jurisdiction regarding writs of mandamus. Chief Justice John Marshall declared in his decision that section 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 was unconstitutional because Article III of the Constitution indicated the specific kinds of cases in which the Court would have original jurisdiction, and issuing writs of mandamus was not one of those. Another significant case involving the Judiciary Act of 1789 is Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (1816). In Fairfax’s Devisee v. Hunter’s Lessee (1813), the Court had overturned the decision of Virginia’s high44

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est court. The Virginia court of appeals refused to adhere to the Supreme Court’s decision and declared that “the appellate power of the Supreme Court does not extend to this court.” The Virginia court further stated that section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 was not constitutional. The Supreme Court in Martin affirmed the constitutionality of this appellate jurisdiction. In the majority opinion, Justice Joseph Story affirmed the constitutionality of section 25, arguing that the Congress, except for specified cases, was given latitude in determining jurisdiction of the federal courts. In Cohens v. Virginia (1821), the Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789. This case is significant because Chief Justice John Marshall had not participated in Fairfax’s Devisee or Martin because he and his brother had contracted to purchase some of the disputed land. In Cohen, Marshall was part of the majority in affirming the Court’s jurisdiction in reviewing state supreme court decisions. Michael L. Coulter Sources for Further Study Brown, William G. The Life of Oliver Ellsworth. 1905. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970. Corwin, Edward S. The Doctrine of Judicial Review. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1914. Goebel, Julius, Jr. Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801. Vol. 1 in History of the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1971. Marcus, Maeva, ed. Origins of the Federal Judiciary: Essays on the Judiciary Act of 1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Ritz, Wilfred. Rewriting the History of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. Schwartz, Bernard. A History of the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Warren, Charles. The Supreme Court in United States History. Rev. ed. 2 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, 1932. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Judiciary Acts of

1801-1925 (1801); Removal Act (1875).

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Bill of Rights Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law

The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution guaranteed individual rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, separation of church and state, the right to counsel, the right against selfincrimination, and due process. The Bill of Rights has posed an endless series of challenges for the Supreme Court to interpret the scope of personal liberties and the limits of government power. When the Constitutional Convention adjourned in September, 1787, and submitted its new Constitution to a curious public, three of the remaining delegates refused to sign the new charter. One, George Mason of Virginia, declared that he would “sooner chop off this right hand than put it to a constitution without a Bill of Rights.” Fearing that Mason and other Antifederalists might scuttle the ratification of the new Constitution, James Madison promised his fellow Virginians that if they supported the new charter (and elected him to the First Congress), he would sponsor a Bill of Rights. Each side kept its end of the bargain. In December, 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified, launching more than two hundred years of Supreme Court decisions interpreting, defining, and refining the nature of the relationship between the government and its citizens. The Constitution was essentially a plan of government, establishing the legislative, executive, and federal branches and delineating their powers and responsibilities. Although the Constitution purported to grant only limited powers to Congress to pass laws in specified areas, it also provided that Congress had the authority to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” This elastic catch-all clause worried those who feared that the Constitution would install an all-powerful national government, free to dominate the people and the states. It was the Bill of Rights that gave these critics some 46

Bill of Rights

measure of solace that the new federal government would not become the same tyrannical seat of power that they had so recently fought to escape. From the outset, the Supreme Court played a special role in giving meaning to the Bill of Rights. In March of 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Madison that “the Bill of Rights is necessary because of the legal check which it puts into the hands of the judiciary.” Jefferson was referring to a “legal check” on unwarranted government interference with the rights of the citizens. The Bill of Rights touches on every realm of human affairs. It has fallen to the Supreme Court to interpret its elusive and elastic language. In every generation, the Court has been called on to grapple with the challenge of applying its 413 words, written in the late eighteenth century, to circumstances unknown to the authors, arising in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. The Bill of Rights protects both substantive and procedural rights. In contrast to the Constitution itself, which says what the government can do, the Bill of Rights says what the government cannot do. First Amendment The most powerful articulation of individual rights against government intrusion is found in the First Amendment, which is considered by many to be the most important of all the Amendments. The opening words speak volumes about the purpose and intent of the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law . . .” These five words set the tone for all that follows. However, the simplicity is deceiving and the Supreme Court has the responsibility of deciding which laws pass constitutional muster and which do not. Specifically, under the First Amendment, Congress is prohibited from making laws “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In one phrase, the First Amendment simultaneously guarantees the right of individuals to follow the beliefs and practices of their chosen religious faiths, while at the same time, it prohibits the government from singling out any particular religious denomination as a state-sponsored church. The First Amendment built what Jefferson called a “wall of separation” between church and state. The free exercise and establishment clauses have generated great consternation for the Court on controversial issues. From 47

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prayer in school to religious symbols on public property, from religious invocations at high school graduations to vouchers using public funds to subsidize parochial schools, the Court has struggled to ensure that government remains neutral, but not hostile, in matters of religion. The First Amendment next prohibits Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” No portion of the Bill of Rights has engaged the Court’s attention with more intensity, drama, and public interest than its protection of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. Volumes have been written about how and why the Court decided whether particular speech or gatherings are constitutionally protected. No majority of Supreme Court justices ever treated the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment as absolute. Instead, the Court has recognized exceptions for obscenity, libel, criminal solicitation, perjury, false advertising, and “fighting words.” Within and beyond these categories, the Court has shifted, especially in times of war or during external threats, from the protection of wide-open, robust debate to the punishment of controversial ideas. Second Amendment The Second Amendment has been controversial; however, it has been addressed by the Court only on rare occasions. It is popularly known for guaranteeing “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” However, in its most significant pronouncement, the Court unanimously held that this right is qualified by the opening phrase which reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State . . .” In the light of that limitation, the Court has declined to hear an appeal from a lower court ruling upholding a municipal ban on hand guns. Third Amendment The Third Amendment, prohibiting the quartering of soldiers in private houses in times of peace without the consent of the owner, or in times of war, except as prescribed by law, while vitally important when it was written, is no longer the subject of serious Court review. 48

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Fourth Amendment The Fourth Amendment is a catalogue of important personal rights that the Court has sought to interpret by balancing the right of privacy against the legitimate needs of law enforcement. It begins by declaring that the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” The very presence of the undefined term “unreasonable” has required the Court to delve into every manner of search and seizure, developing specific rules that police must follow in order to avoid the exclusion of evidence at trial. The Court has repeatedly articulated that the consequence for an illegal search or seizure is suppression of the evidence, thereby creating an incentive for police to scrupulously follow constitutional requirements. The Fourth Amendment also guarantees that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” Here again the Court developed rules to determine whether probable cause exists. In essence, the Court uses a standard of reasonableness based on all of the facts and circumstances surrounding a challenged search or arrest. The Court places itself in the position of the reasonable police officer, relying on particularized suspicion and past experience, but rejecting mere hunches or guesswork. Fifth Amendment The Fifth Amendment also protects the rights of persons charged with crimes. It prohibits double jeopardy (“subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb”), self-incrimination (being “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself”), denial of due process (being “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”), and a taking without compensation (having “private property . . . taken for public use without just compensation”). The Court takes these rights very seriously because they set critical boundaries on what government may do in prosecuting crime. Sixth Amendment The Sixth Amendment protects the rights of persons charged with criminal violations. Often mischaracterized as mere “technicalities” protecting the “guilty,” Sixth Amendment rights were included in the Bill of Rights because the Founders had lived under a 49

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government that frequently arrested, jailed, convicted, and punished individuals without any semblance of fairness or justice. Under the Sixth Amendment, the accused has a “right to a speedy and public trial.” Both elements of this right are very important. The right to a trial is of little value if the accused is kept in jail for several months or years waiting to be tried. Generally speaking, unless the accused waives the time limit, he or she is entitled to go to trial within sixty days after arrest. Likewise, a “public” trial is vital to ensure that an overzealous prosecutor or corrupt judge does not trample on the rights of the accused. Exposing criminal trials to the bright light of public scrutiny allows the general public and the press to observe the proceedings and see for themselves whether the accused is getting a fair trial. The days of the notorious “Star Chamber,” where Englishmen were tried in secret, are a thing of the past. Anyone accused of a crime is also entitled to “an impartial jury” chosen from the geographical area where the crime was committed. The Sixth Amendment guarantees that no one may sit on a jury if he or she has a demonstrable bias or prejudice against the accused, either individually, or because of his or her gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or any other immutable characteristic. Generally, trial judges go to great lengths to question prospective jurors in order to ferret out those who cannot discharge their duties in an impartial manner. Anyone accused of a crime has a right under the Sixth Amendment “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.” Obviously, in order to defend himself, the accused must know what he is being accused of so that he can establish an alibi or find witnesses who may assist in proving his innocence. Only by knowing the charges can the accused’s attorney challenge the sufficiency of the indictment of the validity of the statute or regulation involved. Closely allied to this right is the important right under the Sixth Amendment “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” An accused is entitled to know who will testify against him or her so that the accused and his or her lawyer can prepare adequate crossexamination. From experience, the Founders knew that it is more difficult to lie to another’s face than to do so when the other person is not present. Also, under the Sixth Amendment, an accused has the right “to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.” In 50

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other words, the accused has the right to subpoena other persons and require them to come to court to testify and to bring papers and documents. Because the government already has this power, this right ensures a level playing field, where an accused can force reluctant witnesses to present evidence that may exonerate him or her or prove that a witness for the prosecution is lying. Without this right, an accused would be confined to presenting only testimony or documents from persons who voluntarily chose to take the time to come to court. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused the right “to have Assistance of Counsel for his defense.” No person should face a criminal trial without competent legal counsel at his or her side. Only attorneys trained in the rules of evidence and trial procedures can adequately navigate through the complexities of a criminal trial. Indeed, so vital is the right to legal counsel that the law requires the state to provide a lawyer free of charge for the most serious crimes where the accused cannot afford one. It is worth noting, before leaving the Sixth Amendment, that it contains no reference to the fundamental principle considered the very foundation of Anglo-Saxon law that one is innocent until proven guilty. Indeed, the presumption of innocence appears nowhere in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. Yet, this essential right has repeatedly been recognized by the courts and remains a vital guarantee of American justice. Seventh Amendment The Seventh Amendment provides that in civil cases in federal courts at common law, where the value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars, “the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” Essentially, any civil case that entitled a litigant to a jury in 1791 still entitles the litigant to a jury today. Numerous rules (too extensive to be discussed here) have been developed by the courts to determine which civil claims must be tried before a jury and which may not. The Seventh Amendment also guarantees that once a fact has been decided by a jury, it may not be otherwise reexamined in any federal court, except as provided by common law. Here again, because juries were viewed by the Founders as a protection against injustice and tyranny, it was important to ensure that once a jury had 51

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decided the facts in a case, a judge could not overturn that finding, except in limited circumstances provided in the common law. Eighth Amendment Further protections for criminal defendants are found in the Eighth Amendment, beginning with the guarantee that “excessive bail shall not be required.” Persons awaiting trial are entitled to be released from jail, provided they post reasonable bail, in cash or property, which will be returned as long as they appear in court where required. The prohibition against excessive bail ensures that an accused is not arbitrarily detained because a judge has set an unreasonably high bail. Closely related is the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “excessive fines.” This provision ensures that once convicted, an individual will be fined in proportion to his or her crime or in keeping with guidelines for similar offenses under similar circumstances. The most important provision of the Eighth Amendment states that “cruel and unusual punishment” shall not be inflicted. This prohibition limits the kinds of punishment that can be imposed on those convicted of crimes. It proscribes punishment grossly disproportionate to the severity of a crime, and it imposes substantive limits on what can be made criminal and punished as such. At its most basic level, the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment was intended to eliminate torture and other barbaric methods of punishment, although as recently as 1963, twenty lashes as part of the sentence for robbery was found not to be in violation of the Eighth Amendment. By far, the most serious and controversial application of the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment came in 1972 when the Court used it to strike down the death penalty (which was then reinstated four years later). The Court found that to the extent the death penalty was administered in an arbitrary and capricious manner, amounting to little more than a lottery, it constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Generally, in determining whether a punishment is cruel and unusual, the courts consider a variety of factors, including the age of the defendant, the attitude of the defendant, the availability of less severe punishments, contemporary standards of decency, the frequency of imposition, the disparity in punishments for the same or lesser crimes, the proportionality to the offense, the inhuman 52

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shocking or barbarous nature of the punishment, and the totality of the circumstances. Ninth Amendment One of the least known but most important provisions of the Bill of Rights is the Ninth Amendment, which in simple but meaningful terms states that the “enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In many ways, these twenty-one words speak volumes about the very nature of the United States’ constitutional democracy. As set forth in the Declaration of Independence, people are born with certain inalienable rights. They are not granted their rights by a benevolent government; they are born with those rights and they establish governments in order to preserve and protect them. Thus, people speak of the Bill of Rights as “guaranteeing” constitutional rights, not “creating” them. The Founders firmly believed in those principles. Indeed at first, the drafters of the Constitution did not include a Bill of Rights because they did not contemplate that the Constitution posed any threat to the inalienable rights of all citizens. However, as noted at the outset, many feared that a new and powerful national government would seize all the power it could, thereby jeopardizing personal rights and liberties. However, when James Madison set about to draft the Bill of Rights during the First Congress in 1789, he faced a dilemma: How could he write a comprehensive list of all rights enjoyed by Americans without the risk of leaving some out? The solution was the Ninth Amendment. There, Madison, with utter simplicity, stated that the fact that “certain rights” were enumerated in the Constitution did not mean that “others retained by the people” were denied or disparaged. Consequently, any analysis of constitutional rights cannot stop by merely examining the specific rights; the “certain rights” spelled out in the first eight amendments. One must go further to determine whether there are “others retained by the people.” One of the most profound applications of the Ninth Amendment relates to the right of privacy. Few rights are more important to Americans than the right to be let alone, yet the right to privacy is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. To 53

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some extent, the entire Constitution and Bill of Rights express a right to privacy, that is, a set of limited and enumerated powers delegated to the government, with all other powers and rights held by the people. When the Supreme Court in the 1960’s and 1970’s began to address laws restricting contraception and abortion, it found that the right of privacy was rooted in several amendments, including the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth, and what it called the “penumbras” emanating from all of the amendments. Trivialized by certain judges and scholars as a mere “water blot” on the Constitution, the Ninth Amendment, on serious examination, may well reflect the true meaning of the Bill of Rights. Tenth Amendment Parallel to the Ninth Amendment, the Tenth Amendment rounds out the Bill of Rights. It provides that the “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Thus, as all rights not expressed in the Constitution are retained by the people, all powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the individual States or to the people. The Tenth Amendment reemphasizes the limited nature of the national government, underscoring the fact that the government possesses only the powers expressly delineated in the Constitution and no others. The Tenth Amendment is rather obscure on the question of whether the reserved powers belong to the states or to the people. This was surely intentional. Having made his point that the national government was a creature of limited powers, Madison and his colleagues left it to others, including state legislatures, state courts, and the people themselves to sort out their respective relationships when it came to these reserved powers. The Bill of Rights continues to serve the majestic purposes for which it was written more than two hundred years ago. Sometimes with intentional ambiguity, often with passionate eloquence and always with elusive simplicity, the Bill of Rights represents one of the most masterful declarations of individual rights and civil liberties in human history. Yet, as a charter written by people to last the test of time, the Bill of Rights demands continuous study and interpretation to meet the challenges of the next century. Stephen F. Rohde 54

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Sources for Further Study Alderman, Ellen, and Caroline Kennedy. In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action. New York: Bard, 1998. Amar, Akhil Reed. The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. Atherton, Herbert M., et al. 1791-1991: The Bill of Rights and Beyond. Washington, D.C.: Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, 1990. Broadus, Mitchell, and Louise P. Mitchell. A Biography of the Constitution of the United States: Its Origin, Formation, Adoption, Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. Butler, Lynda, et al. The Bill of Rights, the Courts and the Law: The Landmark Cases that Have Shaped American Society. 3d ed. Charlottesville, Va.: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy, 1999. Hentoff, Nat. Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Jensen, Merrill. The Making of the American Constitution. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1964. Levy, Leonard W. Origins of the Bill of Rights. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999. Levy, Leonard W., and Dennis J. Mahoney. The Framing and Ratification of the Constitution. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Lloyd, Gordon, and Margie Lloyd, eds. The Essential Bill of Rights: Original Arguments and Fundamental Documents. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1998. Nardo, Don. The Bill of Rights. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1998. Renstrom, Peter G. Constitutional Law for Young Adults: A Handbook on the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1992. Weinberger, Andrew D. Freedom and Protection: The Bill of Rights. San Francisco: Chandler, 1962. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); First Amendment

(1789); Second Amendment (1789); Third Amendment (1789); Fourth Amendment (1789); Fifth Amendment (1789); Takings clause (1789); Sixth Amendment (1789); Seventh Amendment (1789); Eighth Amendment (1789); Ninth Amendment (1789); Tenth Amendment (1789).

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First Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Speech

and Expression; Religious Liberty

The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The wellspring of individual rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, the First Amendment presented the Supreme Court with endless challenges to decide the limits of governmental power and the scope of personal liberties. It guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press, religious liberty, separation of church and state, and the rights peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances. Although the First Amendment, together with the other nine amendments known as the Bill of Rights, became part of the U.S. Constitution on December 15, 1791, the Supreme Court took little note of it until the beginning of the twentieth century. This was not for lack of federal laws impinging on free speech, from the Sedition Act of 1798 and the Comstock Act of 1873 to the Alien Immigration Act of 1930 and a wide variety of postal regulations. However, the Court never found that any of these laws violated the First Amendment. Indeed, in 1907 the Court upheld the conviction of an editor for contempt, rejecting a defense based on the First Amendment on the grounds that it only prohibited prior restraint. It was inevitable that the Court and the First Amendment would travel together through U.S. constitutional law, frequently crossing paths, sometimes diverging, often forced by circumstances to retrace the same ground. Each clause of the First Amendment invites, indeed demands, judicial interpretation. Freedom of Speech Beginning at the end of World War I, the Court tackled the task of devising a series of tests to determine whether particular speech 56

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was constitutionally protected. The Court could not merely cite the general language of the First Amendment; it had to apply those opaque terms to the real world of real cases. The first test was articulated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1919 in a series of cases challenging the convictions of antiwar activists under the Espionage Act of 1917. The “clear and present danger” test looked at whether the speech posed a real and immediate risk of a substantive evil that Congress had a right to prevent. Holmes captured the test in a powerful, albeit often misquoted, metaphor that persists to this day: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” Later in 1919, Holmes and his ally, Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissented in Abrams v. United States, arguing for greater constitutional protection for controversial or even subversive speech. The majority of the Court continued to use the clear and present danger test to uphold the punishment of such speech. Six years later, the majority of the Court tightened the noose on free speech by focusing on whether the expression had a bad tendency. Over bitter dissent from Holmes and Brandeis, the Court upheld a conviction under the New York State Criminal Anarchy Act, stating that a “single revolutionary spark may kindle a fire,” and therefore the state may “suppress the threatened danger in its incipiency.” In 1951 the Court used a slightly reformulated test to uphold the convictions of eleven members of the Communist Party under the Smith Act (1940). Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, writing for the Court, asked “whether the gravity of the ‘evil’ discounted by its improbability” would justify government limits on speech. In 1964 Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., introduced a test that was far more protective of free speech. In the landmark case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the Court held that false criticism of public officials was constitutionally protected unless it was made with knowledge that it was false or in reckless disregard of the truth. Instead of tilting the constitutional balance in favor of the government, the Sullivan test gave the advantage to the speaker. The Holmes-Brandeis view in favor of more robust protection for free speech was finally vindicated in 1967 in Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which the Court declared that mere advocacy of the use of force or violation of the law could no longer be punished unless 57

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“such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action.” The Religion Clauses As in the field of free speech, the perplexing issues surrounding freedom of religion have required the Court to fashion several constitutional tests to ensure the free exercise of religion, without establishing a state-sponsored religion. As the twentieth century ushered in an era of secularization, the dominance of religion in public life began to be seen as inconsistent with the First Amendment’s promise of neutrality when it came to religious faith. Religion was seen as a part of the private sphere of life, leaving the public sphere, including most visibly public schools, free of religious symbols, let alone indoctrination. In several decisions spanning more than twenty years, from Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township in 1947 to Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971, the Court developed the test that any governmental action touching on religion would survive invalidation under the establishment clause only if it had a secular purpose that neither endorsed nor disapproved of religion, had an effect that neither advanced nor inhibited religion, and avoided creating a relationship between religion and government that entangled either in the internal affairs of the other. The Lemon test has been criticized by all ends of the political and constitutional spectrum, but it has provided lower courts and legislators with some level of guidance in dealing with such thorny issues as prayer in schools and financial aid to religious institutions. Meanwhile, the Court had to interpret the free exercise clause of the First Amendment in numerous cases in which believers claimed a right to ignore laws that required them to perform an act that violated their religious beliefs or that prohibited them from performing an act that was required by their religious beliefs. Beginning in 1879 in Reynolds v. United States and for almost a hundred years, the Court dealt with most free exercise cases by upholding laws that punished actions but struck down laws that punished beliefs. However, the easy dichotomy began to break down when, in Sherbert v. Verner (1963), the Court ordered a state to pay unemployment benefits to a Seventh-day Adventist even though she would not make herself available for work on Saturday (her Sabbath). In 1972, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Court held that the 58

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Amish were not required to send their children to public school past the eighth grade in violation of their religious beliefs. By the 1980’s, the pendulum had begun to swing against religious liberty as the Court issued a succession of decisions ruling against a Native American who sought to prevent the government from assigning his daughter a Social Security number, an Orthodox Jew who sought to wear a yarmulke in violation of Air Force uniform regulations, a Native American tribe that sought to prevent construction of a federal highway that would interfere with their worshiping, and two Native Americans who sought unemployment compensation after they were fired from their jobs for smoking peyote as part of tribal religious rituals. The Court has found the religion clauses of the First Amendment fraught with interpretative dangers. Inevitably, the Court is criticized either for going too far in promoting religion or for exhibiting hostility toward religion. That alone may be evidence that the Court is doing its job as conceived by the Founders. The Right to Peaceably Assemble Whereas freedom of speech and freedom to worship protect highly personal rights, the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right “of the people peaceably to assemble” protects the right of association. These are the rights of the people as a community to join together to achieve certain political, social, economic, artistic, educational, or other goals. For the Court, interpreting the right to assemble has been even more difficult than construing other aspects of the First Amendment, because by its very nature, assembly involves both speech and conduct. At first blush, the First Amendment has nothing to do with conduct. However, when the Court is confronted with cases involving public demonstrations, protests, parades, and picketing, it is apparent that these activities are intended to send a message— and communicating messages is clearly protected by the First Amendment. However, blocking traffic, littering the streets, or physically obstructing others from going about their business is not protected by the First Amendment. Consequently, when it comes to freedom of assembly, the Court has used a balancing test, seeking first to determine whether the law regulating assembly is in fact a ruse to suppress a particular viewpoint, and if not, whether the law serves a 59

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compelling state interest unrelated to the suppression of free speech. For example, in 1940 in Thornhill v. Alabama, the Court struck down a state law that prohibited all picketing. Although the First Amendment does not afford an absolute right to picket, the Court overturned the statute because instead of regulating specific aspects of labor demonstrations, it prohibited “every practicable method whereby the facts of a labor dispute may be publicized.” Closely aligned with freedom of assembly is freedom of association or the right of the people to form and join organizations in order to educate themselves and influence public policy on important issues of the day. Even during the hysteria of the Cold War in the 1950’s, the Court held in Yates v. United States (1957) that when membership in the Communist Party involved nothing more than the advocacy or teaching of the abstract doctrine of the forcible overthrow of the government (as contrasted with the advocacy or teaching of direct action to achieve that end) convictions under the Smith were unconstitutional. In 1958, in National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama, the Court found that the forced disclosure of an organization’s membership list violated the members’ rights to pursue their lawful interests and to freely associate with likeminded persons. Although freedom of association is not expressly set forth anywhere in the Constitution, the Court nevertheless found freedom of association to be an integral part of the First Amendment. The Right to Petition the Government The least controversial (and least litigated) right in the First Amendment is the right “to petition the government for redress of grievances.” Aside from a doomed attempt in 1836 by the House of Representatives to impose a gag rule against the receipt of petitions from abolitionists who opposed slavery, Congress has not had the temerity to even attempt to restrict this quintessential right to write to your Congressperson, thereby sparing the Court the task of striking down such legislation. Stephen F. Rohde

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Sources for Further Study Blanchard, Margaret A. Revolutionary Sparks: Freedom of Expression in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Eastland, Terry, ed. Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define the Debate over Church and State. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1995. Flowers, Ronald B., and Robert T. Miller, eds. Toward Benevolent Neutrality: Church, State, and the Supreme Court. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 1998. Gutman, Amy, ed. Freedom of Association. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. Ingelhart, Louis E. Press and Speech Freedoms in the World, from Antiquity Until 1998: A Chronology. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Murphy, Paul L. Rights of Assembly, Petition, Arms, and Just Compensation. New York: Garland, 1990. Noonan, John Thomas, Jr. The Believer and the Powers That Are: Cases, History, and Other Data Bearing on the Relation of Religion and Government. New York: Macmillan, 1987. Shiffrin, Steven H., and Jesse H. Choper. The First Amendment: Cases, Comments, Questions. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1996. Shumate, T. Daniel, ed. The First Amendment: The Legacy of George Mason. London: Associated University Presses, 1985. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Bill of Rights

(1789); Sedition Act of 1798 (1798); Comstock Act (1873); Espionage Acts (1917-1918).

Second Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Military

and National Security

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” 61

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The Second Amendment provided the right of people to keep and bear arms. In comparison to other controversial constitutional guarantees, such as freedom of speech, the Supreme Court has had little to say about the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court’s rare decisions on the Second Amendment have typically been narrowly drawn, leaving the broad issues of gun control and the intent of the Second Amendment unresolved. The Court has generally upheld criminal laws regarding firearms, but it has done so without attempting to establish a guiding interpretation of the amendment. Although the Court overturned two federal gun laws in two decisions during the 1990’s, it did not rule on the laws as they pertained to the Second Amendment. Rather, in keeping with the Court’s states’ rights conservatism under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court ruled on the laws as they pertained to the limits of the federal government’s power to impose its laws on state and local authorities. In Printz v. United States (1997), Jay Printz, the sheriff of Ravalli County, Montana, challenged a federal law that required him to perform background checks on people in his jurisdiction who sought to buy guns. The Court accepted his argument that the federal government may not compel the states to implement federal regulations, overturning the portion of the federal act that required local law enforcement agencies to conduct background checks. Before that, United States v. Lopez (1995) reached the Court after a student, Alfonso Lopez, was charged with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 when he carried a concealed handgun into a high school. The Court upheld an appellate ruling that the federal act exceeded the authority of Congress to legislate under the interstate commerce clause. To allow the act to stand, the Court wrote, would “require this Court to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional commerce clause authority to a general police power of the sort held only by the States.” Printz and Lopez did not address the Second Amendment or rule on how it is to be interpreted. Nor is the controversy settled by a review of Court decisions touching on the Second Amendment. Early Decisions In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), William Cruikshank, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was tried in federal court for violating the federal civil rights laws protecting the African American victims of a murderous riot he led. The trial court found Cruikshank guilty of 62

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conspiring to deprive African Americans of their right to bear arms. The Supreme Court, however, ruled in favor of Cruikshank, arguing that the Second Amendment applied only to Congress and that people must look to local governments for protection against violations of their rights. The Cruikshank decision, like the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), interpreted against use of the Fourteenth Amendment as a means to enforce the Bill of Rights at the state and local level. This interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, has since been abandoned in other decisions not relating to the Second Amendment. The next major Second Amendment case was Presser v. Illinois (1886). Herman Presser led an armed group called the Lehr und Wehr Verein (Educational and Protective Association) on a march through the streets of Chicago. Presser argued that the Illinois law under which he was convicted was superseded by various provisions of federal law, including the Second Amendment. The Court upheld his conviction, arguing that to accept Presser’s interpretations would amount to denying the rights of states to disperse mobs. Indications of Ambivalence The Court in United States v. Miller (1939) upheld the federal regulation against a shotgun’s having a barrel less than eighteen inches long on the basis that the Court had no indication that such a weapon “was . . . ordinary military equipment or . . . could contribute to the common defense.” It may be argued, therefore, that Miller indirectly defends the principle that a firearm that has some reasonable relationship to the efficiency of a well-regulated militia is protected by the Constitution. However, challenges to laws limiting civilian possession of machine guns and assault rifles, which are military weapons, have not met with success. A similar ambivalence can be inferred in Cases v. United States (1943), in which a lower court noted, “apparently . . . under the Second Amendment, the federal government can limit the keeping and bearing of arms by a single individual as well as by a group . . . but it cannot prohibit the possession or use of any weapon which has any reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.” The Court made this observation, however, when declining to review a challenge to a provision of the Federal Firearms Act. In Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove (1983), a circuit court refused to review a Second Amendment case and let stand a decision up63

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holding an ordinance in Morton Grove, Illinois, banning possession of handguns. This decision has been cited to bolster the argument that the individual ownership of firearms is not a constitutional right, but the fact that the Court has done nothing to change the existing laws that allow individual possession of firearms undermines such an argument. Eric Howard Sources for Further Study Bijlefeld, Marjolijn, ed. The Gun Control Debate: A Documentary History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Bogus, Carl R., and Michael A. Bellesiles, eds. The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms. New York: New Press, 2001. Cottrol, Robert J., ed. Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment. New York: Garland, 1993. Halbrook, Stephen P. That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984. Henigan, Dennis A. Guns and the Constitution: The Myth of Second Amendment Protection for Firearms in America. Northampton, Mass.: Aletheia Press, 1996. Malcolm, Joyce Lee. To Keep and Bear Arms: The Evolution of an Anglo-American Right. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996. See also: Bill of Rights (1789); Brady Handgun Violence Protec-

tion Act (1994).

Third Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Privacy;

Property

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The Third Amendment reads: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” The last time the Third Amendment had serious literal application was during the Civil War (1861-1865), when property owners were made to house, feed, and generally support both Union and Confederate soldiers. Today, such literal application is rare. Contemporary use of the amendment by the Supreme Court has been simply as a reference exemplifying constitutional protections of propertybased privacy rights against certain governmental intrusions. However, in Engblom v. Carey (1982), a federal appellate court held that striking corrections officers had a lawful interest in their living quarters, located at the prison and provided in the course of their employment, which entitled them to a legitimate expectation of privacy protected by the Third Amendment. For development of privacy rights, the Supreme Court usually relied on provisions of other amendments, such as the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and used the Third Amendment simply as a nominal reference to general constitutional protections. For example, in a footnote to Katz v. United States (1967), a landmark decision regarding Fourth Amendment privacy rights, Justice Potter Stewart merely listed the Third Amendment in his enumeration of constitutional protections. This contemporary reliance is typified by State v. Coburn (1974), in which the Montana supreme court cited the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments as the “umbrella of constitutional protections” afforded individual privacy. Michael J. Garcia Source for Further Study Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Bill of Rights (1789); Fourth Amendment (1789).

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Fourth Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Privacy

The Fourth Amendment reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The Fourth Amendment protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Framers of the Bill of Rights were concerned with the old English practice of issuing general warrants and writs of assistance. These two legal tools authorized searches with few stipulations on searching agents, allowing searches day or night on bare suspicion. Authorized by the monarch, they were valid for the duration of his or her lifetime. They were not required to name a specific person or place but could be stated in more general terms. No oath before a magistrate was necessary to secure a warrant, and probable cause was not required. Everything was left to the discretion of the holder of the warrant. The result was harassment. The colonists were victims of these general warrants and writs of assistance and purposely set out to outlaw them. James Madison revised his initial draft of the Fourth Amendment, changing the word “secured” to “secure” and adding the clause “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Although Madison’s goal was to eliminate general warrants and writs of assistance, scholars believe these alterations made the meaning of the amendment ambiguous. The Fourth Amendment outlaws only unreasonable searches and seizures, logically allowing those deemed reasonable. The Framers envisioned that searches conducted with a warrant, which required specifics such as who is to be searched, what is to be seized, and when, were constitutionally permissible. The warrant clause stipulated what was expected of police when conducting searches. However, left unanswered were the questions of whether there are times when it is reasonable to search without a 66

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warrant, what constitutes probable cause, and whether the amendment restricts only police or other governmental agents with searching authority. In the early 1900’s the Supreme Court began expanding the applications of the Fourth Amendment, balancing the rights of the accused against the safety of other people. The Court in Wolf v. Colorado (1949) made clear that search warrants had to be supported by probable cause and issued by a neutral and impartial magistrate. However, often searches are conducted without a search warrant. Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement The Court created a number of exceptions to the search warrant requirement. Using the reasonableness clause of the amendment rather than the warrant provision, the Court rejected the idea of a bright-line rule in favor of a more fact-bound, case-by-case approach. The police do not need a warrant for searches incident to arrest; stop-and-frisk situations; when illegal or stolen items are in plain view during a legal search; administrative, consensual, and border searches; and searches involving exigent circumstances such as automobile searches. When an individual is arrested on probable cause, a police officer is permitted to conduct a warrantless search of the person. This exception to the warrant requirement, search incident to arrest, rests on the understanding that the arresting officer must have the power to disarm the accused and preserve any evidence. Protecting the officer’s safety and retaining probative evidence is reasonable. The officer may search not only the person but the areas of immediate control. In Chimel v. California (1969), the Court reasoned that the scope of a search incident to arrest included wherever the arrestee might reach to grab a weapon or piece of evidence. If in the course of a valid search, an officer comes on stolen or illegal items in plain view, they may be seized and used as evidence. This inadvertent windfall is permissible and reasonable under the Fourth Amendment as long as the officer happens on the evidence in the course of conducting a legal search. Related is the plain feel exception. In Minnesota v. Dickerson (1993), the Court held that if an officer feels what seems to be contraband or evidence of a crime when patting down the outside of a suspect’s clothing, the items can be seized. 67

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In Terry v. Ohio (1968), the Court allowed for searches on the street that did not meet the standard of probable cause. In this case, it upheld the brief detention of a suspect for weapons on the grounds of reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause. Only a limited frisk was permitted with the lowered standard of cause. If the pat-down yielded a basis for an arrest, however, a full search incident to arrest could follow. The Court has applied the Fourth Amendment to the increasing problems arising in a mobile society. Planes, buses, trains, and boats all raise exigency concerns because of the highly mobile nature of the place to be searched and the futility of the police in executing search warrants on moving objects. The most common exigent circumstance is created by the automobile. As early as 1925 in Carroll v. United States, the Court made clear that the automobile would not be afforded the same level of privacy rights protection as an individual’s home or person. Stopping an automobile and searching it on the street without a warrant was reasonable. However, the particulars of the car have generated a volume of litigation aimed at answering questions such as whether the police can lawfully open the glove box, the trunk, or containers in the automobile or search the driver, passengers, and their personal items. Given the lower expectation of privacy in automobiles, the Court in Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz (1990) allowed roadblocks to briefly stop all drivers to catch those driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Employees of other governmental agencies, such as housing, fire, health, welfare, and safety inspectors, also have searching capabilities. These agents have a lesser standard than probable cause and often invoke an element of surprise, such as unannounced inspections of restaurants. Related to these types of searches are those to ensure safety in the workplace or school by drug-testing employees and students. In National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (1989), the Court upheld suspicionless mandatory urinalysis testing for promotion on the grounds of safety (the employees would have access to firearms and secure information). By 1995 in Vernonia School District v. Acton, the Court upheld the right to drugtest all student athletes without requiring suspicion of individuals. The courts have long recognized that individuals and items entering the United States may be searched at the international border without warrant or probable cause. The Court has placed 68

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some limits on these searches, such as the level of intrusion. Strip searches, for example, must be justified by real suspicion. In an attempt to stop the influx of illegal drugs, law enforcement developed the drug courier profile, a composite of variables that indicates the likelihood an individual is trafficking drugs. In United States v. Sokolow (1989), the Court upheld the use of the profile as a basis for detaining and searching individuals both at the border and within the continental United States. In Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), the Court acknowledged the use of consent searches, noting that individuals may waive their Fourth Amendment rights and allow a search without a warrant or probable cause. The key to the validity of such searches is that they must be voluntary; an individual must knowingly and freely consent to be searched. The waiver must be uncoerced, given without trickery or fear or promise of reward. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, and a refusal to give consent cannot then be used to establish probable cause. The Fourth Amendment also applies to wiretapping and other forms of police surveillance. The Court in Katz v. United States (1967) reasoned that a person’s expectation of privacy includes the seizure of intangible items such as words. Exclusionary Rule The Fourth Amendment describes the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures without mentioning a remedy. The common-law remedy for search and seizure violations was a suit of trespass. This was used until Weeks v. United States (1914) when the Court adopted the exclusionary rule, which excludes illegally seized evidence from trials. The twofold purpose of the rule is to preserve the integrity of the judiciary and deter police misconduct. Weeks mandated the application of the exclusionary rule to searching agents of the federal government. In 1949 in Wolf, the Court incorporated the Fourth Amendment, thereby requiring states not to abridge the search and seizure rights of their citizens, yet allowing them to choose the remedy. This choice was eliminated in Mapp v. Ohio (1961) when the Court incorporated the remedy of exclusion from trials for all Fourth Amendment violations, by either state or federal officials. Mapp’s scope was limited by the Court. In Linkletter v. Walker (1965), the Court refused to apply the exclusionary rule retroac69

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tively. The exclusion remedy was limited in scope so that it did not include grand jury proceedings in United States v. Calandra (1974). The Court ruled in United States v. Havens (1980) that illegally seized evidence could be used to impeach the credibility of the defendant at trial and in Nix v. Williams (1984) that it could also be admitted into evidence if the police would have inevitably discovered the evidence by lawful means. In 1984 in United States v. Leon and Massachusetts v. Sheppard, the Court allowed the use of illegally obtained evidence if the police error was made in objective good faith. The Court was unwilling to exclude reliable probative evidence when the error made by the police was unintentional and made in the course of attempting to follow the law. Priscilla H. Machado Sources for Further Study Allen, Richard J., Richard B. Kuhns, and William J. Stunz. Constitutional Criminal Procedure: An Examination of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments and Related Areas. New York: Aspen Law and Business, 1995. Amsterdam, Anthony. “The Supreme Court and the Rights of Suspects in Criminal Cases.” New York University Law Review 45 (1970): 785. Burger, Warren E. “Who Will Watch the Watchman?” American University Law Review 14 (1964): 1. Griswold, Erwin N. Search and Seizure: A Dilemma of the Supreme Court. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975. Kamisar, Yale. “Is the Exclusionary Rule an ‘Illogical’ or ‘Unnatural’ Interpretation of the Fourth Amendment?” Judicature 62 (1978): 67 LaFave, Wayne. Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment. Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1978. Landynski, Jacob W. Search and Seizure and the Supreme Court. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966. Lasson, Nelson B. The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1937. O’Brien, David M. Constitutional Law and Politics: Civil Rights and Liberties. 3d ed. 2 vols. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. 70

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Taylor, Telford. Two Studies in Constitutional Interpretation. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. Wiley, Malcolm. “Constitutional Alternatives to the Exclusionary Rule.” South Texas Law Journal 23 (1982): 531. See also: Bill of Rights (1789)

Fifth Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Crimes

and Criminal Procedure

The Fifth Amendment reads: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” The Fifth Amendment provides a right to avoid self-incrimination, a right to a grand jury indictment in capital or infamous crime cases, a right to be free from double jeopardy, and a right to just compensation for property taken by the government. The Supreme Court has used the Fifth Amendment to protect citizens against government coercion. The Right Against Self-Incrimination Although the Fifth Amendment includes more than just a right against self-incrimination, it has become virtually synonymous 71

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with the right against self-incrimination. This right reflected the Framers’ judgment that in a society based on respect for the individual, the government shouldered the entire burden of proving guilt and the accused need make no unwilling contribution to his or her conviction. The Fifth Amendment is restricted on its face to “criminal cases.” However, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment applies to criminal and civil cases and extends to nonjudicial proceedings, such as legislative investigations and administrative hearings. The protection of the clause extends only to people, not organizations such as corporations or unions, and is applicable to witnesses as well as to the accused. The self-incrimination clause is violated if evidence compelled by the government incriminates the person who provides it. Given these standards, self-incrimination violations occur most commonly during police interrogations and government hearings. Although the purpose of the clause is to eliminate the inherently coercive and inquisitional atmosphere of the interrogation room, a person may voluntarily answer any incriminating question or confess to any crime, subject to the requirements for waiver of constitutional rights, even if his or her statements are intended as exculpatory but lend themselves to prosecutorial use as incriminatory. The Court first addressed the meaning of the self-incrimination clause in Twining v. New Jersey (1908). The question was whether the right against self-incrimination was “a fundamental principle of liberty and justice which inheres in the very idea of free government” and therefore should be included within the concept of due process of law safeguarded from state abridgment. The Court decided against the right. It reaffirmed this position in Palko v. Connecticut (1937), in which the Court held that the right against compulsory self-incrimination was not a fundamental right; it might be lost, and justice might still be done if the accused “were subject to a 5duty to respond to orderly inquiry.” MIRANDA and Its Impact The Court abandoned this position in its 1966 decision in Miranda v. Arizona, a tour de force on self-incrimination. The opinion announced a cluster of constitutional rights for defendants held in police custody and cut off from the outside world. The atmosphere and environment of incommunicado interrogation was held to 72

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be inherently intimidating and hostile to the privilege against selfincrimination. To prevent compulsion by law enforcement officials, before interrogation, people in custody must be clearly informed that they have the right to remain silent and anything they say may be used in court against them and that they have the rights to consult an attorney, to have a lawyer present during interrogation, and to have a lawyer appointed if they are indigent. When Chief Justice Warren E. Burger replaced Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1964 and Justice Harry A. Blackmun replaced Justice Abe Fortas in 1970, they joined Justices Byron R. White, John Marshall Harlan II, and Potter Stewart in support of a narrow application of Miranda. These five justices constituted the majority in Harris v. New York (1971), indicating the beginning of a contracting trend for Miranda. Chief Justice Burger held that the prosecution is not precluded from the use of statements that admittedly do not meet the Miranda test as an impeachment tool in attacking the credibility of an accused’s trial testimony. The erosion of Miranda continued in several rulings in the 1970’s. In Michigan v. Tucker (1974), the Court held that failure to inform a suspect of his or her right to appointed counsel before interrogation was only a harmless error in the total circumstances of the case. Then one year later in Oregon v. Haas (1975), the Court reaffirmed Harris and allowed the use of a suspect’s statements for impeachment purposes though they had been made before arrival of counsel that he had requested before making any statements. And the next year in Michigan v. Mosley (1976), the Court did not construe Miranda as invoking a “proscription of indefinite duration on any further questionings . . . on any subject.” This ruling approved an interrogation process in which a suspect had initially used the shield of Miranda rights to remain silent but several hours later in a different room was administered the Miranda rights again and proceeded to respond to questions about a different crime. By the mid-1980’s it was clear that the Court under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist would continue to construe Miranda very narrowly. In New York v. Quarles (1984), for example, the Court held that when a danger to public safety exists, police may ask questions to remove that danger before reading Miranda warnings. Answers given to the police may be used as evidence. In Illinois v. Perkins (1990), the Court ruled that Miranda warnings are not required 73

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when a suspect is unaware he or she is speaking to the police and gives a voluntary statement. The case concerned a jailed defendant who implicated himself in a murder when talking to an undercover agent placed in his cell. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the opinion, “Miranda forbids coercion, not mere strategic deception.” Finally, in Arizona v. Fulminante (1991), the Court admitted that the defendant’s confession was coerced by the threat of physical attack. However, the Court held that if such testimony is erroneously admitted as evidence, a conviction need not be overturned if sufficient independent evidence supporting a guilty verdict is also introduced. At the turn of the century, the Court’s decision to maintain the precedent with continued narrow application of Miranda appeared well entrenched. The majority of the justices appeared to be comfortable with that approach, and changes appeared unlikely. Double Jeopardy Clause Also under the Fifth Amendment, a person shall not be subject “for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” The underlying premise of the double jeopardy clause is to prohibit the government from making repeated attempts to convict an individual. Acquittal acts as an absolute bar on a second trial. The meaning of acquittal, however, often divides the Court. The Court ruled that there is no double jeopardy in trying someone twice for the same offense if the jury is unable to reach a verdict—in United States v. Ball (1896), the jury is discharged—in Logan v. United States (1892), or an appeals court returns the case to the trial court because of defects in the original indictment—in Thompson v. United States (1894). The Court also unanimously ruled in three cases—Jerome v. United States (1943), Herbert v. Louisiana (1926), and United States v. Lanza (1922)—that a person may be prosecuted for the same act under federal law and state law. The theory is that the person is being prosecuted for two distinct offenses rather than the same offense. The double jeopardy clause also prohibits prosecutors from trying defendants a second time for the express purpose of obtaining a more severe sentence. However, in 1969 the Court decided that there is no constitutional bar to imposing a more severe sentence on reconviction (after the first conviction is thrown out), provided 74

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the sentencing judge is not motivated by vindictiveness. In North Carolina v. Pearce; Chaffin v. Stynchcombe (1973), it ruled that the guarantee against double jeopardy requires that punishment already exacted must be fully credited to the new sentence. The double jeopardy clause also bars multiple punishments for the same offense. In United States v. Ursery (1996) and Kansas v. Hendricks (1997), the Court narrowly construed this right. The latter case involved a challenge to a statute that permitted the state to keep certain sexual offenders in custody in a mental institution after they had served their full sentence. The Court ruled that the civil confinement was not a second criminal punishment but a separate civil procedure, thus not a violation of the double jeopardy clause. Right to a Grand Jury The Fifth Amendment also provides that “no person shall be held for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger.” The grand jury procedure is one of the few provision in the Bill of Rights that has not been incorporated into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applied to the states. Instead the Court ruled that states may prosecute on a district attorney’s “information,” which consists of a prosecutor’s accusation under oath in Hurtado v. California (1884) and Lem Wood v. Oregon (1913). The Court held in Costello v. United States (1956) that, unlike in a regular trial, grand juries may decide that “hearsay” evidence is sufficient grounds to indict. In 1992 the Court issued an opinion in United States v. Williams (1992) indicating that an otherwise valid indictment may not be dismissed on the ground that the government failed to disclose to the grand jury “substantial exculpatory evidence” in its possession. In 1974 the Court decided in United States v. Calandra that witnesses before a grand jury may invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against selfincrimination. This privilege is overridden if the government grants immunity to the witness. Witnesses who then refuse to answer questions may be jailed for contempt of court. Witnesses may not refuse to answer because questions are based on illegally obtained evidence. 75

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The Takings Clause Finally, the Fifth Amendment provides that private property shall not “be taken for public use, without just compensation.” This is referred to as the takings clause, or the just compensation clause. The Court incorporated the takings clause under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad Co. v. Chicago (1897); therefore, states are also forbidden from taking private property for public use without just compensation. Not every deprivation of property requires compensation, however. For example, the Court held in United States v. Caltex (1952) that under conditions of war, private property may be demolished to prevent use by the enemy without compensation to the owner. When compensation is to be paid, a plethora of 5-4 decisions by the Court—including United States v. Fuller (1973) and Almota Farmers Elevator and Wholesale Co. v. United States (1973)— demonstrate fundamental disagreements among the justices about the proper method of calculating what is “just.” Court decisions in the early and mid-1990’s underscore the complexity and reach of the takings clause. Several cases broadened the powers of the states, and others expanded property rights. In Yee v. Escondido (1992), a unanimous Court held that a rent-control ordinance did not amount to a physical taking of the property of owners of a mobile home park. A more significant ruling, Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission (1992), narrowed the rights of states to rely on regulatory takings that completely deprive individuals of the economic use of their property. To be exempt from compensating a property owner, a state must claim more than a general public interest or an interest in preventing serious public harm. The Court broadened property rights by holding that land use requirements may be “takings.” The decision in Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994) dealt with the practice of local governments giving property owners a permit for building a development only on the condition that they donate parts of their land for parks, bike paths, and other public purposes. These conditions are valid only if the local government makes “some sort of individualized determination that the required dedication is related both in nature and extent to the impact of the proposed development.” This 5-4 decision underscores the Court’s inability to reach agreement on constitutional principles under the Fifth Amendment. Susan L. Thomas 76

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Sources for Further Study Allen, Richard J., Richard B. Kuhns, and William J. Stunz. Constitutional Criminal Procedure: An Examination of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments and Related Areas. New York: Aspen Law and Business, 1995. Bodenhamer, Davd. Fair Trial: Rights of the Accused in American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Ely, James. The Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Epstein, Richard. Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985. Fireside, Harvey. The Fifth Amendment: The Right to Remain Silent. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow, 1998. Holmes, Burnham. The Fifth Amendment. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Silver Burdett Press, 1991. Lewis, Anthony. Gideon’s Trumpet. New York: Vintage, 1964. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Bill of Rights (1789); Takings clause (1789).

Takings clause Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Prop-

erty

The takings clause is a provision in the Fifth Amendment that prohibits the taking of private property for public use unless the owner is appropriately compensated. The takings clause is one of the most important and vigorously contested constitutional provisions, at the center of numerous cases before the Supreme Court. The clause pits fundamental capitalist 77

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principles of private ownership against the doctrines of state sovereignty and the public good. The U.S. Constitution contains a number of provisions that seek to protect private ownership of property and property rights more generally. Chief among these is the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. The clause provides that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use without just compensation.” In including this provision, the Framers paid respect to a long-standing, basic individual right with roots in seventeenth century English legal tradition. The takings clause seeks simultaneously to protect the property rights of individuals—crucial to the American capitalist economic system and its cultural value of individualism—and to ensure that the state is able to acquire private property when necessary in order to promote the public good. In other words, it is not a person’s property that is inviolable; rather, a person is entitled to the value of that property in the event that the state has a compelling need to acquire (“take”) it. Such state takings of property (usually land) follow the principle of eminent domain—essentially, that the government retains the ultimate right to secure private property for the good of the state because the existence of the state is a precondition of property itself. However, while the principles of eminent domain and just compensation work together neatly under the concept of the takings clause, the business of defining what specific instances warrant the exercise of eminent domain and what level of compensation is just, is fraught with controversy. The Supreme Court has issued a number of landmark decisions on these questions over the years. Condemnation Governments exercise eminent domain—that is, they take private property through a process of “condemnation”—in order to advance projects deemed to be in the interest of the public or the government. For example, state and local governments exercise eminent domain over private property that stands in the way of a planned road expansion, a proposed state building, a public works project such as a dam, or any of a number of other projects. Such condemnation of property typically is construed as a taking and thus requires payment of fair market value to the property owner. Eminent domain can be exercised by all levels of govern78

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ment, as well as some quasi-governmental entities such as public utilities. Disputes may arise over what constitutes the fair market value for a property that is taken by the government through condemnation, but the principle of eminent domain is well established and seldom open to a constitutional challenge. As long as just compensation is provided, the threshold for a valid exercise of eminent domain is relatively low. Sometimes a government may seize property without providing just compensation. For example, a number of laws at the state and federal level provide for the forfeiture of a person’s assets under certain circumstances, including conviction for specified crimes. For example, federal laws permit the forfeiture of certain property, including boats and homes, that were purchased with illicit drug proceeds. Such laws have been challenged as unconstitutional, but generally it is the Eighth Amendment (which prohibits “excessive fines”) that is invoked. Because seizures of this type are considered penalties, they do not require compensation. There are several other circumstances under which the government can seize property without granting compensation. In certain cases, a government may destroy private property in order to preserve public health and safety. For example, the Court has long upheld the right of the state to demolish structures posing a fire hazard as in Bowditch v. Boston (1880), to destroy diseased trees that threaten the health of other trees as in Miller v. Schoene (1928), or otherwise to abate nuisances, all without compensation. In these cases, property is not seized for public use; rather, the state is performing a remediation action where a property owner has failed to meet requirements specified in laws and ordinances. The takings issue becomes much more complicated when a government seeks not outright condemnation of property but rather to restrict its use. Regulating the use of property is a fundamental and indispensable facet of a government’s police powers. Land use restrictions of various kinds have long been a recognized prerogative of government. For example, federal, state, and local governments impose habitability standards for housing, hotels, mobile homes, and other structures. Local governments typically zone different sections of land under their jurisdiction for different uses, such as housing, retail businesses, or parks in order to impose order and promote 79

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compatible uses. Some such zoning ordinances restrict liquor stores or adult bookstores from areas near churches or schools. Zoning may also be used to restrict residential construction from floodplains and other hazardous areas. Local ordinances may limit noise from a factory or amphitheater in order to preserve quiet for nearby neighborhoods. Land developers may be required to provide open space for habitat conservation or public recreation. Easements may be required to facilitate public access to natural resources such as shorelines or parks. In these and myriad other ways, government exercises a long-accepted right to restrict the use of property. Regulatory Takings Governmentally imposed restrictions on the use of property, such as zoning restrictions, can be construed as “regulatory takings” when new restrictions are imposed on a piece of property after a person has purchased it. Presumably restrictions that exist on a property at the time of its purchase are reflected in the purchase price, and thus no governmental compensation is necessary. The idea that regulatory (nonphysical) takings require compensation has evolved slowly and remains controversial. Until the early 1900’s most courts rejected the argument, made by some property owners, that postpurchase regulatory takings warranted compensation under the Fifth Amendment. For example, in Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (1926), the Court rejected a property owner’s argument that he deserved compensation for a local zoning ordinance that banned industrial development on his land. The Court held that the restriction was a valid exercise of police powers exercised by the government for legitimate reasons. Euclid thus upheld the constitutionality of zoning ordinances. At about this time, the Court began to recognize the possibility that zoning and other land use regulations, if restrictive enough, could indeed amount to takings deserving of just compensation. For example, in Nectow v. City of Cambridge (1928), the Court considered another ordinance prohibiting industrial development. In this case, the ordinance would permit only residential development on land under contract to be sold for industrial use. The Court found that the ordinance amounted to a taking because it allowed for “no practical use” of the particular parcel. Many naturally sought guidance on identifying the point at which an otherwise legitimate government exercise of police pow80

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ers becomes a taking under the Fifth Amendment. The issue was addressed, albeit incompletely, in the Court’s opinion in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922). In that case, the first to address nonphysical takings, the Court found that “Government hardly could go on” if every governmental regulation that diminished the value of property had to be accompanied by compensation. Rather, “some values are enjoyed under an implied limitation and must yield to the police power.” At the same time, however, “the implied limitation must have its limits or the contract and due process clauses are gone.” In this case, the Court held that restrictions that prevented coal mining on a particular piece of property made that property virtually worthless, and therefore the owner deserved compensation. Justice Louis D. Brandeis issued a dissenting opinion, however, highlighting some difficult and controversial aspects to the Court’s attempt at balancing public and private interests. Brandeis’s dissent presaged many of the debates that would come into full bloom a half-century later. For many decades after the 1920’s the Court largely avoided takings cases, leaving them to be resolved by state and federal courts. Allowing for some variation among states and regions, legal development during much of the century generally took a fairly conservative approach to the takings clause, emphasizing the need for compelling, often extraordinary state interests in order to effect a taking without compensation. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, however, the Court heard and decided a number of landmark cases that generally had the effect of strengthening the government’s ability to pursue regulatory takings, particularly with the goal of advancing environmental protection. Balancing In the 1980’s the Court identified two major criteria for determining whether a taking had occurred. This approach, which the Court set forth in Agins v. City of Tiburon (1980), called for considering whether the restriction still permitted an economically viable use of the property and whether the regulation advanced a legitimate state interest. This approach is typically referred to as “balancing of public benefit against private loss.” In the Agins decision, the Court determined that a local zoning ordinance that restricted but did not prohibit residential development did not constitute a taking. 81

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It is important to note that denying a property owner the “highest and best” use of his or her property is not adequate grounds for a takings claim. Certainly a regulation eliminating all viable economic use would be considered a taking. This was illustrated in Whitney Benefits v. United States (1989), which held that federal legislation that deprived a mining company of all economic use of its property amounted to a taking without just compensation. Similarly, in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission (1992), the Court found that the denial of a beachfront building permit effectively prohibited all economic use of the land and thus amounted to a taking deserving of compensation. (Lucas allowed an exception for nuisance abatement.) Aside from such extreme cases as Whitney and Lucas, however, it is somewhat difficult to establish whether a regulatory action or zoning ordinance permits “economically viable use.” One case that did so is Goldblatt v. Hempstead (1962), wherein the Court found that an ordinance that effectively prohibited the operation of a gravel pit did nevertheless allow for other, economically viable uses for the property. A similar conclusion was arrived at in Agins. In another landmark case from the 1980’s, the Court ruled in First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles (1987) that even a temporary taking requires just compensation. In this case, a church sought to rebuild some structures on its property that were destroyed in a flood. The county, however, had adopted an interim ordinance preventing construction (including reconstruction) of buildings on the floodplain where the church’s buildings had been located. The Court found that a taking, such as that created by the county ordinance, requires just compensation even when the taking is temporary. This decision closed a potential loophole of long-lived, though putatively temporary, land use restrictions. Open Space and Environment The increasing concern with environmental issues in the latter part of the twentieth century was accompanied by greater governmental regulation of private property to provide open space and public access to natural resources. Although the Court has generally supported such goals as legitimate public purposes, it has also had occasion to identify circumstances in which takings have resulted, thus requiring just compensation. For example, in Kaiser 82

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Aetna v. United States (1980), the Court held that requiring a landowner to provide public access to a private pond amounted to a taking deserving of just compensation. The Court pushed this decision further in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987), holding that a state agency’s demand for a coastal easement on private property amounted to a regulatory taking that required just compensation. In the case of Nollan, it was a public resource (the coastline of the Pacific Ocean), rather than a private pond, for which public access was required. It would seem that the Court accepted a broad range of resource-related goals as legitimate grounds for the exercise of eminent domain. At the same time, the Court seemed to be viewing open space requirements and demands for easements as bona fide takings requiring just compensation. A distinction was generally drawn for open space requirements imposed on land developers whose proposed development would itself generate a need for such open space. For example, a housing development on agricultural land would increase the population of the area, thus arguably creating a need to preserve and create access to some open space, such as parks or greenbelts. Requirements for such environmental impact-mitigating measures might therefore not warrant compensation. However, in Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994), the Court struck down a city’s requirement that a hardware store owner dedicate a portion of property for a trail in order to be permitted to expand the store. The Court held that the city had not satisfactorily established that the requirement was needed to offset any anticipated increase in traffic from the expansion. Dolan thus underscored the need to link mitigating measures to the actual impacts of a proposed project. Later Decisions In the late 1990’s the Court seemed to continue its support for environmentally based regulatory takings, while maintaining or even expanding the requirement that such takings, when significant, require just compensation. The state has a right to insist on property restrictions that protect the environment, the Court seemed to say, but the state must be willing to pay when these restrictions significantly restrict use. A major case from this period was Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (1997). In this case, a property owner sought to 83

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build a home on an undeveloped lot she had purchased fifteen years earlier. The lot, in Nevada near Lake Tahoe, fell under the jurisdiction of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). The agency, charged with protecting environmental quality in the Lake Tahoe Basin, prohibited the development as likely to cause unacceptable environmental damage. TRPA essentially denied all economic use and offered as compensation “transferable development rights.” Such rights could not be used to build on Suitum’s lot but could be sold to a different landowner in the Tahoe basin where such development would not be prohibited. By purchasing those rights, the property owner could build a larger structure than otherwise allowed. Suitum had been told by a lower court that her case was not “ripe”—that she had not accepted and tried to sell the transferrable development rights. However, the Supreme Court held that Suitum’s case was indeed ripe and must be decided by the District Court of Nevada. Transferable development rights are one of a number of the sometimes innovative, sometimes complicated, and frequently controversial approaches that were developed by various governmental bodies in order to regulate land use without running afoul of the Fifth Amendment. Other approaches involve development fees, open space dedications, habitat conservation plans, and statutory compensation programs. Steve D. Boilard Sources for Further Study Allen, Richard J., Richard B. Kuhns, and William J. Stunz. Constitutional Criminal Procedure: An Examination of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments and Related Areas. New York: Aspen Law and Business, 1995. Bethell, Tom. The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Congressional Budget Office. Regulatory Takings and Proposals for Change. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1999. Innes, Robert, et al. “Takings, Compensation, and Endangered Species Protection on Private Lands.” Journal of Economic Perspectives (Summer, 1998): 35-52. 84

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Kanner, Gideon. “Just Compensation Is by No Means Always Just.” The National Law Journal (March 24, 1997): A23. Laitos, Jan. Law of Property Rights Protection: Limitations on Governmental Powers. Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen Law and Business, 1998. Meltz, Robert, et al. The Takings Issue: Constitutional Limits on Land Use Control and Environmental Regulation. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1998. Skouras, George. Takings Law and the Supreme Court: Judicial Oversight of the Regulatory State’s Acquisition, Use, and Control of Private Property. New York: P. Lang, 1998. See also: Bill of Rights (1789); Fifth Amendment (1789).

Sixth Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Crimes

and Criminal Procedure

The Sixth Amendment reads: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed; which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence.” The Sixth Amendment specifies the rights of defendants in the trial stage of the criminal law process, including the rights to a speedy and public trial, an impartial jury in the locale where the alleged crime was committed, information about the nature of charges being prosecuted, an opportunity to confront accusers and adverse witnesses, a compulsory process for obtaining favorable witnesses, and the assistance of counsel. 85

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For most of U.S. history, the Sixth Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights protected individuals against actions by the federal government only. However, during the twentieth century, the Supreme Court ruled that many provisions of the Bill of Rights, including the Sixth Amendment, also applied to state and local governments. Therefore, defendants in all criminal prosecutions came to benefit from the protections afforded by the Sixth Amendment. Right to Counsel Before the twentieth century, the right to counsel provided by the Sixth Amendment simply meant that the government could not prevent a criminal defendant from hiring an attorney when the defendant could afford to do so. Defendants who lacked the necessary funds were required to defend themselves in court without professional assistance. The Court first expanded the right to counsel in Powell v. Alabama (1932). Powell, also known as the Scottsboro case, involved several African American defendants who were accused of raping two white women. The young men were convicted and sentenced to death in a quick trial without being represented by any attorneys. The case was heard at a time when African Americans were subjected to significant racial discrimination in the legal system, especially in southern states. There were troubling questions about the defendants’ guilt, particularly after one of the alleged victims later admitted that she lied about what happened. Given the circumstances, the Court found the legal proceedings to be fundamentally unfair and declared that defendants facing the death penalty were entitled to representation by attorneys. The Court expanded the right to counsel in Johnson v. Zerbst (1938) by declaring that all defendants facing serious charges in federal court are entitled to be provided with an attorney when they are too poor to afford to hire their own. The Court expanded this rule to cover all state and local courts in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), a well-known case initiated by an uneducated prisoner who sent the Court a handwritten petition complaining about a judge denying his request for an attorney. In Douglas v. California (1963), the Court declared that the government must supply attorneys for poor defendants for their first appeal after a criminal conviction. Subsequently, the Court ruled in Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) that 86

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regardless of the seriousness of the charges, criminal defendants are entitled to be represented by an attorney if they face the possibility of serving time in jail. Because people who possess the necessary funds are expected to hire their own attorneys, the Court’s Sixth Amendment decisions primarily protected poor defendants who would not receive professional representation if it were not provided by the government. Although the Court expanded opportunities for poor defendants to receive representation during criminal trials, the right to counsel does not apply to civil trials or to cases pursued by prisoners after they have presented their first postconviction appeal. Trial by Jury The Court did not interpret the Sixth Amendment to apply the right to trial by jury to all serious cases in both state and federal courts until 1968. In Duncan v. Louisiana (1968), the Court overturned the conviction of an African American defendant whose request for a jury trial had been denied when he was convicted and sentenced to sixty days in jail for allegedly slapping a white man on the arm. After the conviction was overturned, the federal courts prevented Louisiana from prosecuting the man again because he and his attorney had been subjected to discrimination and harassment by local law enforcement officials during the course of his arrest and trial. The right to trial by jury does not, however, apply to all criminal cases. In Lewis v. United States (1996), the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial does not apply to defendants facing petty offense charges with six months or less of imprisonment as the possible punishment for each charge. Therefore, defendants may be denied the opportunity for a jury trial if they face multiple petty offenses that, upon conviction, could produce cumulative sentences in excess of six months through separate sentences for each charge. Such defendants are entitled to a trial, but the trial will be before a judge rather than a jury. In its early decisions, the Court expected that juries would be made up of twelve members who reach unanimous verdicts. However, the Court’s interpretation of the Sixth Amendment changed during the 1970’s. In Williams v. Florida (1970), the Court determined that juries could have as few as six members in criminal cases. In Apodaca v. Oregon (1972), the Court declared that states could permit defendants to be convicted of crimes by less than 87

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unanimous jury verdicts. It ruled that Oregon could convict defendants with 10-2 jury votes and Louisiana with 9-3 votes. The right to trial by jury is not implemented in identical fashion in all courts throughout the country. Other Trial Rights The Sixth Amendment’s right to a speedy trial prevents the government from holding criminal charges over a defendant’s head indefinitely without ever pursuing prosecution. People are entitled to have charges against them resolved in a timely manner. Because the Sixth Amendment provides no guidance on how long the government may take in pursuing prosecution, the Court had to establish guidelines through its Sixth Amendment rulings. The Court clarified the right to a speedy trial in Barker v. Wingo (1972), in which a defendant was forced to wait for more than five years for a trial after he was charged with murder. The delay occurred because the prosecution sought to convict a codefendant first but the codefendant’s appeals led to orders for new trials. Therefore, it took several trials to obtain an error-free conviction of the codefendant. When the Court examined the claim that a five-year delay constituted a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial, the Court refused to set a firm time limit for speedy trials. Instead, the Court said the individual circumstances of each case must be examined. The Court ruled that judges must determine whether the right to a speedy trial was violated by considering four aspects of the delay: its length, the reason for it, whether the defendant complained about the delay, and whether it harmed the defendant’s case, such as through the death or disappearance of a key witness. In this case, the Court found that because the defendant never complained about the delay and his case was not disadvantaged by the delay, the five-year wait for a trial did not violate the defendant’s rights despite the fact that the prosecution caused the lengthy delay. Although the Court clarified the factors to be considered in evaluating a speedy trial claim, the exact nature of the right was not clearly defined. The defendant’s right to confront adverse witnesses is intended to prevent the government from holding trials without the defendant’s knowledge or declaring the defendant guilty without permitting the defendant to challenge the prosecution’s evidence. The adversary system underlying the U.S. criminal law process pre88

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sumes that the best way to reveal the truth at a trial is to permit both sides to present their evidence and arguments to the judge and jury during the same proceeding. The Court struggled with its attempts to provide a clear definition of the extent of the confrontation right. For example, in Coy v. Iowa (1988), the justices were deeply divided when they decided that it was not permissible for the state to place a screen in the courtroom to prevent a defendant from having eye contact with child victims who were presenting testimony about an alleged sexual assault. A few years later in Maryland v. Craig (1990), a narrow majority of justices approved the use of closed-circuit television to permit child victims to present testimony from a different room in the courthouse than the courtroom in which the trial was taking place. Thus the defendant could see the witnesses on television, but the children would not risk being traumatized by coming face to face with the person accused of committing crimes against them. The significant disagreements among the justices about the right to confrontation indicate that the Court may need to clarify the circumstances in which it is permissible to use devices to separate defendants from direct contact with witnesses testifying against them. Traditionally, defendants and witnesses were expected to be face to face in the same courtroom, but growing sensitivity to the psychological trauma experienced by crime victims who must testify in court has led to experiments with screens, closed-circuit television, and other techniques that collide with traditional conceptions of the right to confrontation. Other Sixth Amendment issues to come before the Court include whether excessive pretrial publicity prevents the selection of an unbiased jury and in what circumstances judicial proceedings can be closed to the public. When addressing these issues, Court justices tend to focus on their assessment of factors and circumstances that may interfere with a criminal defendant’s opportunity to receive a fair trial. Christopher E. Smith Sources for Further Study Decker, John. Revolution to the Right. New York: Garland, 1992. Garcia, Alfredo. The Sixth Amendment in Modern American Jurisprudence. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992. 89

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Goodman, James. Stories of Scottsboro. New York: Random House, 1994. Heller, Francis Howard. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: A Study in Constitutional Development. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989. Hensley, Thomas R., Christopher E. Smith, and Joyce A. Baugh. The Changing Supreme Court: Constitutional Rights and Liberties. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1997. Lewis, Anthony. Gideon’s Trumpet. New York: Random House, 1964. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. Whitebread, Charles, and Christopher Slobogin. Criminal Procedure. 3d ed. Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1993. See also: Bill of Rights (1789); Seventh Amendment (1789); Speedy Trial Act (1975).

Seventh Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law

The Seventh Amendment reads: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.” The Seventh Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified in 1791. It guaranteed the right to trial by jury in federal civil cases. The amendment was designed to preserve the common law distinction between issues of law and issues of fact. In Baltimore and Carolina Line v. Redman (1935), the Court held that the judge should remain the trier of law, deciding unresolved issues of law, and the 90

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jury should remain the trier of fact, resolving issues of fact under appropriate instructions by the court. The amendment’s guarantee applies to all courts under the authority of the United States, including territories and the District of Columbia. Generally, the amendment does not apply to state courts, except when the state court is enforcing a federally created right. When a federal court is enforcing a state-created right, it may follow its own rules based on the interests of the federal court system. In Colgrove v. Battin (1973), the Court held that a federal district court’s authorization of civil juries composed of six persons instead of the traditional twelve was permissible under the Seventh Amendment. Patricia Jackson Sources for Further Study Summer, Lila E. The Seventh Amendment. Vol. 7 in American Heritage History of the Bill of Rights. Morristown, N.J.: Silver Burdett Press, 1991. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Bill of Rights (1789)

Eighth Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Crimes

and Criminal Procedure

The Eighth Amendment reads: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The Eighth Amendment is the only part of the Constitution that places substantive limits on the severity of punishments in criminal cases. 91

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The Eighth Amendment is derived almost verbatim from the English Bill of Rights (1689). Adopted in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, the amendment was intended to prohibit the abuse of federal government power, but the precise meaning of the amendment is unclear and requires interpretation by the Supreme Court. The first two clauses of the Eighth Amendment (prohibiting excessive bail and fines) have not been applied to the states. Although the Court has never established an absolute right to bail, it has reviewed whether bail has been set higher than necessary to ensure that a defendant appears for trial. The Court has taken a flexible interpretation of the cruel and unusual punishment clause, stating in Trop v. Dulles (1958) that punishments should be evaluated in light of the “evolving standards of decency” of a maturing society. The clause was formally applied to the states in Robinson v. California (1962). Barbaric punishments are prohibited, but the Court has refused to hold that the death penalty itself is cruel and unusual punishment. Punishments disproportionate to the crime, the treatment of prisoners, and conditions of confinement, may also violate the Eighth Amendment. John Fliter Sources for Further Study Buranelli, Vincent. The Eighth Amendment. Morristown, N.J.: Silver Burdett Press, 1991. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Bill of Rights (1789)

Ninth Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Privacy 92

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The Ninth Amendment reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Relying on the Ninth Amendment, the Supreme Court has not confined itself to rights directly stated in the Constitution but has also enforced unenumerated rights, such as the right to privacy. The Ninth Amendment is among the most enigmatic parts of the Bill of Rights. At one level, the thrust of the amendment is relatively clear. The Bill of Rights and other parts of the constitutional text do not contain an exhaustive listing of the people’s rights. However, the questions of what other rights the Constitution protects and from whom, as well as who may enforce such rights and how they relate to delegated and reserved governmental powers, raise complex interpretive problems. Historical Origins and Early Invocations Federalist James Madison apparently drafted the amendment to address concerns that adding a bill of rights to the constitutional text might imply that the people held only the rights listed in that document. Claims that the people held other rights were often linked to a premise that the Constitution delegated limited powers to the federal government. Accordingly, the Ninth Amendment was viewed as a companion to the Tenth Amendment, which reserved for the states or the people all powers “not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States.” Even before the Bill of Rights was ratified by three-fourths of the states, Madison relied on the terms of these two amendments to support arguments that Congress had no authority to establish a national bank. In debates within the House of Representatives on February 2, 1791, Madison claimed the Ninth Amendment “guard[ed] against a latitude of interpretation” and the Tenth Amendment “exclude[ed] every source of power not within the Constitution itself.” The Supreme Court’s decision in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) had implications for interpreting the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. In arguing that Congress had authority to establish a national bank, Chief Justice John Marshall rejected a narrow rule of construction for interpreting the Constitution’s delegations of 93

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power. He argued instead that the Constitution gave Congress “vast powers,” on whose execution “the happiness and prosperity of the nation so vitally depends.” Variations of this reasoning would eventually support expansive conceptions of federal power and correspondingly narrow conceptions of residuals—including reserved powers and retained rights. In Fletcher v. Peck (1810), however, Chief Justice Marshall suggested that judges might enforce unenumerated rights as limits on the states. In subsequent cases, the justices linked the idea of unenumerated rights to principles of limited federal power. The Ninth Amendment and Slavery In Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney argued in his majority opinion that the Missouri Compromise Act of 1850 was invalid because it exceeded constitutional delegations, encroached on reserved powers, and abridged retained rights. Referring to rights of slave ownership, Taney wrote, “The powers over person and property of which we speak are not only not granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are forbidden to exercise them.” More specifically, he argued that Congress “has no power over the person or property of a citizen but what the citizens of the United States have granted.” Reinforcing Taney’s arguments, Justice John A. Campbell quoted statements made by the authors of the Constitution intended to assure Antifederalists that the federal government would be limited to certain enumerated powers. Despite these assurances, the Constitution’s critics demanded an “explicit declaration” that the federal government would not assume powers not specifically delegated to it. As a result, Campbell said, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were “designed to include the reserved rights of the States, and the people . . . and to bind the authorities, State and Federal . . . to their recognition and observance.” Claiming faithfulness to these interpretive premises, Campbell denied that Congress had power to prohibit slavery in the territories. The Civil War Amendments (especially the Thirteenth and Fourteenth) overturned the central holdings of Scott and formalized the results of the Civil War by invalidating slavery and making all native-born people, including African Americans, citizens. However, these changes, along with others, did not end controversy over the scope of delegated powers or their relationship to re94

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served and retained prerogatives. Accordingly, the justices continued to deal with the problems of constitutional construction that were at the heart of the Ninth Amendment. Twentieth Century Precedents These problems came to a head again during the New Deal era. The mid-1930’s inaugurated an increasingly deferential approach to assertions of national power and had corresponding implications for interpreting limitations on those powers. In this context, the Ninth Amendment made its first substantial appearance in a majority opinion for the Court. In Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936), the justices upheld the operation of the Wilson Dam by the Tennessee Valley Authority, an agency of the U.S. government. Among other things, the plaintiffs argued that the sale of electric energy generated by the dam exceeded constitutional delegations of power and abridged rights protected by the Ninth Amendment. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, writing the majority opinion, dismissed both arguments. Referring to the Ninth Amendment, he claimed that “the maintenance of rights retained by the people does not withdraw the rights which are expressly granted to the Federal Government. The question is as to the scope of the grant and whether there are inherent limitations which render invalid the disposition of property with which we are now concerned.” In this passage, Chief Justice Hughes relied on normative premises similar to those implicit in debates by the creators of the Constitution on matters of structure. Following Madison’s example, the chief justice treated delegated powers and retained rights as mutually exclusive and reciprocally limiting prerogatives. However, Hughes suggested that a finding of delegated power precluded opposing claims of retained rights. He characterized the latter, like reserved powers, as residuals beyond the legitimate reach of federal delegations. Eleven years later, Justice Stanley F. Reed commented further on the Ninth Amendment in his opinion for the majority in United Public Workers v. Mitchell (1947). In that case, the justices upheld a section of the Hatch Act (1939) that prohibited employees of the federal government from active participation in political campaigns. Reed accepted the employees’ stance that “the nature of political rights reserved to the people by the Ninth and Tenth 95

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Amendments are involved. The rights claimed as inviolate may be stated as the right of a citizen to act as a party official or worker to further his own political views.” The justice claimed, however, that “these fundamental human rights are not absolutes” and thus were subject to reasonable governmental restriction. By this time, the Court had already enforced many of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. In such cases, the Court repeatedly treated popular rights as “trumps” capable of preempting otherwise legitimate assertions of governmental power. The Court had also repeatedly interpreted enumerated rights as similar limitations on federal powers. In Mitchell, however, Justice Reed did not explore the possibility of judges’ enforcing unenumerated rights as such limitations. Absent such a reconceptualization, the Ninth Amendment—along with the Tenth—would have diminished practical significance. Claims of unenumerated rights would be preempted by increasingly expansive conceptions of delegated powers. The Right of Privacy In the 1960’s, the Court first relied on the Ninth Amendment to enforce unenumerated rights as limits on state powers. The Court made this move in the landmark case of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). The majority opinion, written by Justice William O. Douglas, invoked the Ninth along with the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, to support the Court’s invalidation of a state law prohibiting the use of contraceptives by married couples. According to Douglas, the state law abridged a right of privacy that was “older than the Bill of Rights.” He presumed that the government’s purpose was valid but suggested that the means chosen “swe[pt] unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade[d] the area of protected freedoms.” Justice Arthur J. Goldberg in his concurrence offered his view of the Ninth Amendment’s relevance in this context. In the most extensive explicit analysis of the Ninth Amendment in a Court opinion to date, Goldberg reviewed commentary on the amendment by Madison and Joseph Story, along with judicial precedents enforcing fundamental liberties in addition to enumerated rights. His central claim was that the Ninth Amendment supported inter96

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preting the Fourteenth Amendment as embracing unenumerated along with enumerated liberties. Justice Hugo L. Black in his dissent criticized both the majority opinion and Justice Goldberg’s concurrence. He denied that the Constitution protected a right of privacy and claimed that relying on the Ninth Amendment to enforce such a right against the states turned somersaults with history. He stated that the Ninth Amendment was added to constitutional text “to assure the people that the Constitution in all its provisions was intended to limit the Federal Government to the powers granted expressly or by necessary implication.” In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Court extended its holding in Griswold. Justice Harry A. Blackmun, in the majority opinion, wrote, “The right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” Blackmun hesitated to rely squarely on the Ninth Amendment to strike down the challenged state law. Following Douglas and Goldberg’s opinions in Griswold, however, he suggested connections between the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. A Saving Clause In Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia (1980), Chief Justice Warren E. Burger announced the Court’s ruling that the First and Fourteenth Amendments guaranteed a right of the public and press to attend criminal trials. Burger relied on the Ninth Amendment to rebut arguments that such a right was not protected simply because it was nowhere spelled out in the Constitution. In his view, the Ninth Amendment was significant as a saving clause designed to allay fears that the explicit listing of certain guarantees could be interpreted as excluding others. The amendment prevented people from claiming that “the affirmation of particular rights implies a negation of those not expressly defined.” Burger pointed out, moreover, that the Court repeatedly enforced fundamental rights going beyond those explicitly defined in the Constitution, including the rights of association, of privacy, to be presumed innocent, to travel freely, and to be judged by a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal trial. 97

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It is impossible to ascertain with confidence the extent to which justices have relied on the Ninth Amendment as an interpretive guide but not cited it in their opinions. However, Chief Justice Burger’s opinion in Richmond Newspapers is a reminder that justices have not confined themselves to protecting enumerated rights. They have also protected unenumerated rights and taken positions on what rights the people hold in connection with interpreting the character and scope of federal and state governmental powers. Wayne D. Moore Sources for Further Study Barnett, Randy E., ed. The Rights Retained by the People: The History and Meaning of the Ninth Amendment. 2 vols. Fairfax, Va.: George Mason University Press, 1989-1993. Hyman, Harold, and William P. Hobby, eds. The Ninth Amendment: Preservation of the Constitutional Mind. New York: Garland, 1990. Massey, Calvin R. Silent Rights: The Ninth Amendment and the Constitution’s Unenumerated Rights. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. Moore, Wayne D. Constitutional Rights and Powers of the People. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Bill of Rights (1789); Tenth Amendment (1789); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Hatch Act (1939).

Tenth Amendment Date: Approved September 29, 1789; enacted December 15, 1791 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97-98 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law 98

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The Tenth Amendment reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The Tenth Amendment protects the reserved powers of the state, those not delegated to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution. The First Congress received numerous requests to include a means of protecting the reserved powers of the states. These concerns arose in many quarters during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and ratification process, especially among the Antifederalists, who feared that an overbearing national government would assume the authority of the states. Article II of the Articles of Confederation had contained explicit provisions for protecting states, initiating a system whereby “each state retains its sovereignty.” Various early state constitutions included provisions outlining the primacy of states in the confederal arrangement. Federalists and Antifederalists The most popular form of amendment requested during the state ratification conventions and proposed to the First Congress concerned a reserved powers clause. The defenders of the Constitution argued that such a provision was unnecessary. James Madison suggested in No. 39 of The Federalist (1788) that each state was “a sovereign body,” bound only by its voluntary act of ratification. Other Federalists at the Virginia ratifying convention, including James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall, held that such a provision was already present in the Constitution and that the new government would have only the powers delegated to it. Opposition to and suspicion of the proposed Constitution on the grounds that it would infringe on the privileged status of the states was widespread. The defenders of state authority viewed the states as the repository of reserved power, and many believed that states were invested with an equal capacity to judge infractions against the federal government. In the Virginia ratifying convention, George Nicholas and Edmund Randolph, members of the committee reporting the instrument of ratification, noted that the Constitution would have only the powers “expressly” delegated to it. If Federalists disagreed with the stress on state authority, they generally viewed a reserved power clause as innocuous, and Madison included such a provision among the amendments he introduced in 1789. 99

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In the First Congress, Elbridge Gerry, a Founder and Antifederalist elected to the House of Representatives, introduced a proposal reminiscent of the Articles of Confederation, leaving to the states all powers “not expressly delegated” to the federal government. Gerry’s proposal was defeated, in part because of concerns about the similarity between the language of his amendment and that of the articles. Others who took a states’ rights or strict constructionist view of the Constitution, including Thomas Jefferson, persisted in defending state power. Before ratification of the Tenth Amendment, Jefferson advised President George Washington that incorporating a national bank was unconstitutional, basing his opinion on the amendment. Jefferson would later compose the Kentucky Resolves, which defended the states as the sovereign building blocks of the American nation and noted that the states retained a means of protection when threatened. To describe the process of state action, Jefferson supplied a new term, nullification, to note the immediacy and severity of the “remedy” necessary to prohibit the federal government from absorbing state authority. Defenders of the federal government, sometimes described as nationalists or loose constructionists, argued that Congress must assume more power if the needs of the country were to be met. Most prominent among the advocates of increased federal authority was Hamilton. For Hamilton, the Tenth Amendment was unnecessary as the political order already protected states. The Constitution, according to the nationalists, already contained provisions for the exercise of federal power, including the necessary and proper clause and supremacy clause. The Court and the Amendment The Supreme Court addressed the controversy in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). The Court upheld the constitutionality of a national bank, even though such an institution was not specified in the Constitution. In dismissing a strict delineation of state and federal authority, the Court, under the leadership of Marshall, extended the powers of Congress at the expense of the states. However, the Marshall Court also affirmed the notion that police powers belonged exclusively to the states. Under Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, the Court assumed more of a strict constructionist posture. 100

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With the Civil War and Reconstruction, the authority and influence of the federal government were greatly increased. The role of the Tenth Amendment was essentially disregarded as federal troops occupied southern states and Congress provided governance. The authority of the states continued to suffer, resulting in part from a series of Court decisions in the twentieth century. In Champion v. Ames (1903), the Court affirmed a congressional act that prohibited the sale of lottery tickets across state lines as an effort to limit gambling. Before Champion, decisions regarding gambling were made by the states. The decisions of the Court were not consistent, and it soon adopted a view of the relationship between states and the federal government that allowed each to be authoritative in its own sphere, exempting “state instrumentalities” from federal taxation. In Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), the Court ruled in favor of state power in terms of commerce. The Tenth Amendment would, however, suffer its most severe criticism in United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941). In this decision, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone discredited the amendment as “redundant” and a “constitutional tranquilizer and empty declaration.” Although Stone dismissed the amendment, continued authentication of its importance can be seen in Fry v. United States (1975), in which the Court affirmed that the amendment “expressly declares the constitutional policy that Congress may not exercise power in a fashion that impairs the States’ integrity or their ability to function effectively in a federal system.” In Printz v. United States (1997), the Court again forcefully affirmed the amendment, noting that the amendment made express the residual state sovereignty that was implicit in the Constitution’s conferring of specific governmental powers to Congress. H. Lee Cheek, Jr. Sources for Further Study Berger, Raoul. Federalism: The Founders’ Design. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. Berns, Walter. “The Constitution as Bill of Rights.” In How Does the Constitution Secure Rights?, edited by Robert A. Goldwin and William Schambra. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1985. 101

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_______. “The Meaning of the Tenth Amendment.” In A Nation of States, edited by Robert A. Goldwin. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963 Calhoun, John C. “A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States.” In Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun, edited by Ross M. Lence. Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1992. Hickok, Eugene W., Jr. “The Original Understanding of the Tenth Amendment.” In The Bill of Rights, edited by Hickok. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1991. Kaminski, John P., et al., eds. The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, Volumes VIII-X: Ratification of the Constitution by the States, Virginia. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1993. Lofgren, Charles A. “The Origins of the Tenth Amendment, History, Sovereignty, and the Problems of Constitutional Intention.” Constitutional Government in America, edited by Ronald K. L. Collins. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1980. Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Vol. 2. Boston: C. C. Little and J. Brown, 1833. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Bill of Rights (1789); Ninth Amendment (1789).

Trade and Intercourse Acts Date: 1790-1834 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 137 (1790 act) Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Native Americans

These acts represent early efforts by the U.S. government to restrain private settlement and enterprise by European Americans in Indian territory; the restrictions eroded as a part of the market revolution of the nineteenth century. 102

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In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the United States government feared that rapacious private traders and landgrabbing settlers were creating resentment among Indians that could lead to war on the frontier of white settlement. Therefore, the government sought to prevent the wholesale migration of white settlers westward to lands controlled by Indians, regulate the trade in furs between Indians and European Americans, and acculturate Indians to Euro-American norms. The government hoped that these efforts would preserve peace between Indians and European Americans. The vehicles for these goals were the successive Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts. The first Trade and Intercourse Act was passed in 1790 and was scheduled to expire at the end of the congressional session of 1793. Before expiration, a new Trade and Intercourse Act was passed in 1793. Further laws were enacted in 1796, 1799, and 1802. The 1802 act was made permanent; it stood until 1834. The Trade and Intercourse Acts built upon precedents established by the Continental Congress in an ordinance of August 7, 1786. The Ordinance of 1786 empowered the federal government to issue licenses to United States citizens allowing them to reside among or trade with Indians. Like the later Trade and Intercourse Acts, the ordinance was an assertion of federal over state power in the regulation of Indian affairs. The Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790 provided for the licensing of private traders and outlined the penalties for trading without a license. The act of 1790 also detailed the punishments for crimes committed by whites against Indians. The act of 1793 reiterated the provisions of the 1790 act in stronger terms and further authorized the distribution of goods to Indians to promote acculturation to Euro-American mores. In response to the continuing influx of white settlers, the act of 1796 delineated the boundaries of territories belonging to Indians, the first such delineation by the federal government. The acts of 1799 and 1802 were substantially similar to the act of 1796. In 1834, the federal government for the last time passed an Indian Trade and Intercourse Act. The 1834 act defined Indian territory as all lands west of the Mississippi River excluding the states of Missouri and Louisiana and the territory of Arkansas. The 1834 act banned liquor from the trade and outlawed white fur trappers from operating in Indian territory. Unlike any of the previous acts, 103

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however, the 1834 law empowered the federal government to use force to stop intertribal wars in order to protect the interests of fur trade companies. Ironically, a series of acts that began in 1790 by reining in white traders in order to preserve peace ended in 1834 by policing Indians in order to protect traders. Andrew C. Isenberg Source for Further Study Prucha, Francis P. American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 1790-1834. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970. See also: Maine Indian Claims Act (1980).

Naturalization Act Date: March 26, 1790 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 103 Categories: Immigration

Naturalization is the legal process by which a state or country confers citizenship on a person not born in that nation. This law established the means for non-U.S. citizens to become citizens. After the American colonies gained their independence from Britain in 1787, each state adopted different rules for conferring U.S. citizenship upon its residents. President George Washington suggested that a uniform naturalization act at the federal level was needed. Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to pass uniform laws for naturalization. Congress exercised this power for the first time when it passed “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” on March 26, 1790. This act granted “all free white persons” with two years of residence the right of citizenship. In addition, the act stated that “the children of citizens of 104

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the U.S. that may be born beyond sea, or out of limits of the U.S., shall be considered as natural born citizens.” In effect, the act created two separate classes of people: free and white citizens, able to hold political office and entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship, and nonwhite persons, ineligible for membership in the U.S. community. The act further reinforced the part of the Constitution that limits membership in Congress to citizens who meet stipulated residence requirements and the presidency to natural-born citizens. The Naturalization Act was repealed five years later. Stephen Schwartz Sources for Further Study Aleinikoff, Thomas Alexander. Between Principles and Politics: The Direction of U.S. Citizenship Policy. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998. Madison, James. Writings. Edited by Jack N. Rakove. New York: Library of America, 1999. Neuman, Gerald L. Strangers to the Constitution: Immigrants, Borders, and Fundamental Law. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996. See also: Alien and Sedition Acts (1798); Sedition Act of 1798

(1798).

Federal Crimes Act Date: April 30, 1790 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 112-119 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

This law identified a number of federal crimes, established penalties for their commission, and established the foundation for the U.S. Criminal Code. 105

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When the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1789, it specifically charged the federal government with a narrow criminal jurisdiction, covering only counterfeiting and piracies and other felonies committed on the high seas. Yet the Constitution granted Congress the authority to make laws it deemed “necessary and proper for carrying into execution” the broad powers granted to it. It was by this authority that the first Congress passed the Federal Crimes Act in 1790. The act specified penalties for a range of federal crimes, including counterfeiting and piracy, as well as treason, murder and manslaughter within a federal jurisdiction, receiving property stolen in a federal crime, bribery and perjury in connection with federal suits, and other crimes. Penalties ranged from fines of three hundred dollars to death by hanging. Most of the penalties specified by the act have since been altered, and some of the crimes themselves have been redefined. More important, what began as a relatively modest catalog of federal crimes has since expanded to more than one thousand general criminal statutes. Steve D. Boilard Sources for Further Study Levasseur, Alain A., and John S. Baker, eds. An Introduction to the Law of the United States. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1992. Marion, Nancy E. A History of Federal Crime Control Initiatives, 19601993. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Judiciary Act of

1789 (1789); Judiciary Acts of 1801-1925 (1801).

Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 Date: February 12, 1793 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 302 Categories: African Americans; Business, Commerce, and Trade;

Civil Rights and Liberties; Slavery

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This law established a federal procedure for slave owners to recover slaves who fled north, aggravating sectional conflict between free and slave states. In colonial America, the return of fugitives within and between jurisdictions was a common practice. These fugitives were usually felons escaping from jails; persons charged with crimes; apprentices and indentured servants fleeing from their employers; or black, white, or Native American slaves running away from their masters. Their rendition between jurisdictions depended on comity among colonial authorities. The articles of the New England Confederation of 1643 included a provision for the return of fugitive slaves and servants. Like all subsequent American legislation on the topic, it did not provide for a trial by jury. Antislave vs. Slave States In the late eighteenth century, with the growth of antislavery sentiment in the North and the settlement of territory west of the Appalachian Mountains, a uniform method for the return of fugitive slaves became necessary. Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 excluding chattel slavery provided that persons escaping into the territory from whom labor or service was lawfully claimed in any one of the original states might be returned to the person claiming their labor or service. The provision did not distinguish between slaves and indentured servants. The United States Constitution of the same year incorporated the provision, without limiting the claimants to residents of the original states of the union. One of several concessions intended to win support from the slaveholding states, Article IV, section 2, states that “no person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” In 1793, Congress decided to set federal rules for the rendition of alleged fugitives. This action was prompted by Pennsylvania’s attempt to recover from Virginia several men accused of having kidnapped John Davis, a free black man. Unable to receive satisfaction, the governor of Pennsylvania brought the matter to the attention of President George Washington, who referred it to the Congress. 107

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Various Proposals A committee of the House of Representatives, led by Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, reported a rendition bill on November 15, 1791, but no action was taken. A special Senate committee, consisting of George Cabot of Massachusetts, Samuel Johnston of North Carolina, and George Read of Delaware, submitted a bill on December 20, 1792, establishing a ministerial procedure for the extradition of judicial fugitives. It also provided a system for the recovery of fugitives from labor or service. A claimant had to present a written deposition from one or more credible persons to a local magistrate who would order officers of the court to seize the fugitive and turn him or her over to the claimant. The bill set penalties for harboring a fugitive, neglecting a duty, or obstructing an arrest. After debate, the bill was recommitted with instructions to amend, and John Taylor of Virginia and Roger Sherman of Connecticut were added to the committee. On January 3, 1793, a revised bill was reported to the Senate by Johnston, allowing the claimant or his agent to seize a fugitive and bring that person to a federal court or a local magistrate. Oral testimony or an affidavit certified by a magistrate of the master’s state sufficed to establish a claim. To guard against the kidnapping of free African Americans, residents of the territory or state in which they were seized, the new bill included a proviso assuring them their rights under the laws of that territory or state. This meant they were entitled to a judicial inquiry or a jury trial to determine their status. They were also to be presumed free, until proven otherwise, and allowed to testify on their own behalf. Provisions of the 1793 Law After two debates, during which the proviso was dropped, the bill passed the Senate on January 18. It was entitled “An act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from their masters.” The House passed it with little discussion, February 5, by a vote of 48 to 7. Seven days later, President Washington signed the bill into law. The first two sections of the act, known popularly as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, dealt with the interstate rendition of fugitives from justice. The third section provided that when a person held to labor escaped into any state or territory of the United States, the master or a designated agent could seize that individual and bring him or her before a judge of the federal courts in the state or be108

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fore any magistrate of a county, city, or incorporated town. Title was proven by the testimony of the master or the affidavit of a magistrate in the state from which the escapee came, certifying that the person had escaped. The judge or magistrate then had to provide a certificate entitling the petitioner to remove the fugitives. The act applied to fugitive apprentices or indentured servants as well as to slaves, a provision important at that time to representatives of the northern states. The act did not admit a trial by jury, and it contained no provisions for the alleged fugitives to offer evidence on their own behalf, although they were not prevented from doing so if the presiding judge or magistrate agreed. Section 4 provided criminal penalties, a fine of five hundred dollars, in addition to any civil action the owner might have under state law, for obstructing the capture and for rescuing, harboring, aiding, or hiding fugitives. Aftermath and Impact Although many attempts were made to amend the act, it remained the law of the land until the abolition of slavery, its constitutionality repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court. It was amended and supplemented, not replaced, by the Second Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, part of the Compromise of 1850. The statute contributed significantly to acerbating the growth of sectional conflict within the United States. Efforts to enforce its provisions encountered immediate resistance in Northern states, isolated and scattered at first but increasingly well organized and vigorous (for example, the Underground Railroad), as slavery prospered in the Old South and spread to western lands. Many Northern states passed personal liberty laws (Indiana in 1824, Connecticut in 1828, New York and Vermont in 1840). Designed to prevent the kidnapping of free African Americans, these laws provided for trial by jury to determine their true status. The effectiveness of the statute was further diminished by the Supreme Court’s decision in Prigg v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1842) that state authorities could not be forced by the national government to act in fugitive slave cases. Subsequently, Massachusetts (1843), Vermont (1843), Pennsylvania (1847), and Rhode Island (1848) forbade their officials to help enforce the law and refused the use of their jails for fugitive slaves. Because the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 provided no federal means of apprehending fugitive slaves, owners 109

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had to rely on the often ineffectual and costly services of slave catchers. With the outbreak of the Civil War, the law ceased to apply to the Confederate States. It was considered valid in the loyal border states until it was repealed June 28, 1864. Charles H. O’Brien Sources for Further Study Campbell, Stanley. The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970. Finkelman, Paul. “The Kidnapping of John Davis and the Adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793.” The Journal of Southern History 56, no. 3 (August, 1990): 397-422. _______. Slavery in the Courtroom: An Annotated Bibliography of American Cases. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1985. McDougall, Marion G. Fugitive Slaves, 1619-1865. 1891. Reprint. New York: Bergman, 1969. Morris, Thomas D. Free Men All: The Personal Liberty Laws of the North, 1780-1861. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Wiecek, William M. Liberty Under Law: The Supreme Court in American Life. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988. _______. The Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism in America, 17601848. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977. See also: Northwest Ordinance (1787); U.S. Constitution: Provi-

sions (1787); Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850).

Jay’s Treaty Date: Signed November 19, 1794; Senate ratified June 24, 1795 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

This resolution to outstanding conflicts between Britain and the United States led to large-scale settlement of the Northwest Territory but opened a rift with France. 110

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After Great Britain’s recognition of the United States as an independent nation in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the United States had to make that independence meaningful and permanent. For the next three decades, the new nation struggled to maintain its integrity by achieving security against hostile forces facing it to the north and south. The southern and western boundaries were in dispute with Spain. There also existed many outstanding problems in Anglo-American relations after 1783, a number of which stemmed from the apparent unwillingness of either side to abide fully by the Treaty of Paris. The British in Canada, for example, refused to evacuate military posts in the Northwest Territory, which the Treaty of Paris recognized as belonging to the United States. Disputes over exact boundaries and fishing rights of Americans along the Grand Banks created further tensions. European Conflicts To compound this unstable situation, Britain and other European powers went to war in 1793 with France to put down the subversive doctrines evolving from the French Revolution and the later military ambitions of Napoleon Bonaparte. The war between France and the rest of Europe continued from 1793 to 1815, with only brief pause, and the United States was buffeted first by one belligerent and then by the other. The 1794 treaty negotiated by John Jay of New York is an episode in the struggle of the United States to cope with these difficulties. The United States and Great Britain by 1793 found themselves competing in commercial affairs. In an effort to secure trade for British vessels, Great Britain prohibited American vessels from carrying goods to British colonial ports. At the same time, Great Britain enjoyed a virtual monopoly of American markets for manufactured goods. Even though it became evident that Great Britain could best supply credit and merchandise to the United States, many Americans resented their economic subservience to Great Britain. The administration of President George Washington only with difficulty prevented the passage of commercial legislation designed to retaliate against alleged British discriminatory practices. The United States therefore attempted to increase its trade with France. When war between France and Great Britain broke out in 1793, new grievances added to the old, and relations between Great Britain and the United States took a rapid turn for the worse. The posi111

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tion of the United States as the major maritime neutral was critical. There was also residual hostility toward Great Britain in contrast to a generally favorable attitude toward France, the United States’ important military ally during the Revolutionary War. Neutral Ships Seized The British quickly gained mastery of the oceans, which substantially isolated the French West Indies. These islands could no longer trade with France in French ships. Into this vacuum flowed the merchant fleet of the United States, which gained great profits from this opportunity. The British realized that their naval and commercial supremacy was being weakened. In November, 1793, a British Order in Council ordered British naval commanders to seize all neutral vessels trading with the French islands. So suddenly was this order implemented that approximately 250 U.S. ships were seized and about half of them condemned to be sold as lawful prizes. Such action led to widespread anti-British opinion in the United States. James Madison, then congressman from Virginia, led a vigorous campaign to pass retaliatory legislation. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton successfully thwarted this effort, with Washington’s blessing. To blunt Madison’s attack further, the president sent John Jay to London as envoy extraordinary to negotiate with the British government. Washington apparently believed that war with Britain was inevitable unless Jay, at that time chief justice of the United States, returned with an acceptable settlement. Negotiations and Treaty Provisions The treaty that Jay negotiated in London struck many contemporary observers as barely acceptable. Nevertheless, parts of the agreement do show Jay’s success. It required the British to surrender the military posts which they held on American soil in the Northwest Territory, by June of 1796. It also provided for the creation of a joint commission to settle the claims of British citizens for unpaid prerevolutionary U.S. debts, to settle the claims of Americans for the illegal seizures of their ships, and to determine the disputed boundary between Maine and Canada. The rest of the treaty dealt with commercial matters and was to be in force for twelve years. It stated that the “most favored nation” principle was to operate between the United States and the United Kingdom. 112

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American vessels were promised the same privileges as British in both Great Britain and the East Indies. Jay failed, however, to gain British acceptance of several important U.S. objectives. American trading rights with the British West Indies were so restricted that the United States struck out that part of the treaty when it was submitted to the Senate. The agreement included a broad definition of contraband, but said nothing on the important matters of the rights of visit and search and impressment. Other issues were not resolved or included. A number of these issues later contributed to the underlying causes of the War of 1812. Controversial Passage The agreement was signed on November 19, 1794, in London, and Jay returned to the United States satisfied with his efforts. When the terms of the treaty became known, however, advocates of U.S. commercial rights and anti-British opinion criticized Jay for his apparent failure to obtain complete success in the London negotiations. The Republicans charged the Washington administration with selling the nation out to the British. Effigies of Jay were burned throughout the country. Political pamphleteers and journalists entered the fray. Congress debated the controversial treaty. The Senate ratified it June 24, 1795, by a vote of 20 to 10, barely meeting the two-thirds minimum required under the Constitution. After ratification by the Senate in a strictly partisan vote (Federalists for, Republicans against), the arguments continued both in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Secretary of State Edmund Randolph was forced to resign in a scandal related to the treaty’s adoption. Washington, disappointed by the unevenness of the treaty, reluctantly signed it because he believed its acceptance the only alternative to war. Only an intense effort by his administration prevented the Republicans in the House of Representatives from undercutting the treaty by their threat to refuse to appropriate the funds necessary for its implementation. The essential legislation passed the House in 1796 by a narrow margin of only three votes (51 to 48). Impact The effects of Jay’s Treaty were significant. Most important, it kept the peace between the United States and Great Britain. It also in113

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duced Spain to conclude a treaty the following year (Pinckney’s Treaty) that was very favorable to the United States, and it prepared the way for the large-scale settlement of the Northwest Territory. The disagreements over the treaty completed the organization of the opposition Republican Party, intensified by Jefferson’s and Madison’s antagonism to Hamilton and his policies. The Federalists also were divided and weakened. Washington’s invulnerability to political attack was breached. The restraining influence of the British on the Indians along the northwestern frontier was withdrawn, creating further problems in that region. Most significant, the French First Republic was incensed at this apparent repudiation by the United States of the Franco-American Treaty of 1778. While relations with Great Britain improved temporarily, the United States and France drifted apart. This rift between the only republican governments in the world culminated in an undeclared war and proved to be the dominant issue during the administration of President John Adams (1797-1801). Positive relations with Great Britain eventually deteriorated, culminating in the War of 1812. John G. Clark, updated by Taylor Stults Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel F. Jay’s Treaty: A Study in Commerce and Diplomacy. 2d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962. Cohen, Warren, ed. Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Combs, Jerald A. The Jay Treaty: Political Battleground of the Founding Fathers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970. McColley, Robert, ed. Federalists, Republicans, and Foreign Entanglements, 1789-1815. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Monaghan, Frank. John Jay. 1935. Reprint. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1972. Reuter, Frank T. Trials and Triumphs: George Washington’s Foreign Policy. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1983. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Pinckney’s Treaty (1795); Treaty of Monfontaine (1801); Treaty of Ghent (1814). 114

Eleventh Amendment

Eleventh Amendment Date: Ratified February 7, 1795; certified January 8, 1798 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 402 Categories: Constitutional Law; Judiciary and Judicial Procedure

The Eleventh Amendment has been cited as the justification for many Supreme Court decisions that extend far beyond what it states overtly. The Eleventh Amendment was the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution following the adoption of the ten original amendments known as the Bill of Rights in 1791. It reads: The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

CHISHOLM V. GEORGIA The Eleventh Amendment was adopted specifically to overrule a Supreme Court decision, Chisholm v. Georgia (1793). In this decision, the Court ruled that a default judgment in favor of the plaintiff, who served as executor for the estate of a South Carolina merchant, was valid because the defendant, the state of Georgia, had refused to appear in its own defense at the trial. Georgia claimed that, as an independent and sovereign state, it enjoyed immunity from such litigation. Article III, section 2, of the U.S. Constitution grants jurisdiction to federal courts in the case of controversies between a state and citizens of another state. In a 4-1 decision, with only justice James Iredell dissenting, the Court set a precedent by ruling that the plaintiff in Chisholm had the right to sue the state of Georgia and that the state of Georgia was legally remiss in not responding to that suit. Opinions by Justices John Jay and James Wilson reiterated the nationalist view that sovereignty rests in the people of the United States for the purposes of union. In regard to these purposes, Georgia, in the eyes of these justices, did not meet the criterion of being a sovereign state.

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Passage and Ratification Within a year of the Chisholm decision, Congress, on March 4, 1794, drafted the Eleventh Amendment and urged its passage. By February, 1795, the legislatures of the requisite three-quarters of the states had ratified this amendment, which officially made it a law and a part of the U.S. Constitution. By an odd circumstance, however, the amendment was not officially declared a part of the Constitution until January 8, 1798, when President John Quincy Adams declared it so in a presidential message. The date on which the Eleventh Amendment officially became a part of the Constitution is often given as January 8, 1798, although it is now conceded that presidents play no official role in the amendment process, so the Eleventh Amendment officially became a part of the Constitution after its ratification in 1795. The only states not voting for it were Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Provisions and Court Cases Under the Eleventh Amendment, federal courts are prohibited from deciding lawsuits brought against states by two specific classes of people, citizens of other states and citizens or subjects of foreign states. As time passed, however, the Eleventh Amendment was interpreted more broadly than had perhaps been originally intended by its framers. In New Hampshire v. Louisiana (1883), the Supreme Court ruled that one state could not sue another state if it did so in the interests of one or more of its citizens rather than in its own interest. Shortly thereafter, in Hans v. Louisiana (1890), the Court held that citizens of a state could not sue their own state in the federal courts. A further extension of the Eleventh Amendment occurred in Ex parte New York (1921), when the Court found that the amendment applied to admiralty jurisdiction so that sovereign states, as defined by the Court, could not be sued in federal courts for events that took place in the waters that adjoined those states. In Monaco v. Mississippi (1934), the Court clearly found that foreign sovereigns could not sue sovereign states of the United States in federal courts. The decision in Edelman v. Jordan (1974) established, again under the jurisdiction of the Eleventh Amendment, that in situations where state officials are sued and compensation for past misdeeds would have to be paid from state treasuries, the complainants cannot pursue their actions in federal courts. 116

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Exceptions To ensure fairness, however, certain exceptions have been made to this amendment. Although a law exists stating that parties may not bestow jurisdiction on courts, individual states may, in some situations, waive their protection under the Eleventh Amendment and consent to being sued. Congress, under the enforcement powers accorded it in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, may approve private causes of action against states, invoking the commerce clause of the Constitution. Perhaps no amendment to the Constitution has been interpreted as variously as the Eleventh. Some noted legal scholars have called for its restatement and simplification. Others have proposed that the amendment be interpreted literally from the forty-three words that constitute it. At present, however, citizens who have cause to take action against states must resort to political action or work within the framework of exceptions resulting from the complexities that varying interpretations of the Eleventh Amendment have evoked. R. Baird Shuman Sources for Further Study Baum, Lawrence. The Supreme Court. 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1991. Orth, John V. The Judicial Power of the United States: The Eleventh Amendment in American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Spaeth, Harold J. Studies in U.S. Supreme Court Behavior. New York: Garland, 1990. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. Wagman, Robert J. The Supreme Court: A Citizen’s Guide. New York: Pharos Books, 1993. See also: Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988).

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Fort Greenville Treaty Date: Signed August 3, 1795 U.S. Statutes at Large: 7 Stat. 49 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

The Fort Greenville Treaty, combined with Jay’s Treaty, served as an important benchmark in the tripartite Anglo-American-Indian struggle for control of the region between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River. During the twenty years following the end of the American Revolution in 1783, the question of which power—American Indians, the United States, or England—would control the region between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes constituted one of the greatest challenges confronting the new government of the United States. Historical Background According to the terms of the Treaty of Paris (signed on September 3, 1783), Great Britain agreed to remove its commercial and military presence from the region between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River, a region then called the Old Northwest. Notwithstanding this commitment, however, the British delayed in implementing this treaty provision. Several factors accounted for this delay, but one of the most significant was the conviction of many influential Britons that the region north of the Ohio was too strategic to surrender to the Americans. Instead, they believed that Britain should attempt to maintain at least an indirect presence in the area, thereby placing Great Britain in an advantageous position should the loosely confederated United States politically disintegrate. It was in this context that the British considered the possibility of sponsoring the creation of a British satellite or buffer state spanning the territory between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes and consisting of a confederation of Indian tribes. Thus, in the hope of promoting such an entity (there were also other reasons), London opted to maintain its commercial and military presence south of the Great Lakes. Indeed, not only did the British continue their presence at Michilimackinac, Detroit, Fort Niagara, Oswego, and other locations on American soil, but also, in 1786, British au118

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thorities issued a directive to hold or, if necessary, recapture these sites should the United States attempt to seize them. Simultaneously, beginning in 1785, British agents actively attempted to promote the establishment of a pro-British confederation among the tribes. For their part, the Indians were extremely dissatisfied with Congress’s policy toward the tribes and the northwest region generally. The Indians thought that the treaties of Forts Stanwix, McIntosh, and Finney, which had been concluded between several of the tribes and the United States government, were unfair to Indian interests. Indeed, many of the original signatory tribes had subsequently repudiated these treaties. Those tribes that had not been parties to these treaties naturally refused to abide by their terms. The treaties, however, provided the context for an infusion of American frontiersmen into the lands north of the Ohio River. The small military force that Congress had raised from the states was clearly insufficient either to prevent the frontiersmen from intruding into Indian territory or to overawe the tribes into abiding by the treaties—to say nothing about convincing them to make additional territorial concessions. Consequently, the British agents sent to promote the establishment of the Indian confederation north of the Ohio under British protection met with a receptive audience. Finally, in 1788, the Chippewa, Delaware (Lenni Lenape), Iroquois, Miami, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Shawnee, and Wyandot (Huron) tribes formed a confederation and repudiated the treaties of Forts Stanwix, McIntosh, and Finney, agreed not to cede any additional land to the United States without the consent of the entire confederation, and demanded U.S. recognition of an Indian state between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. This development, combined with the continued British military and commercial presence on U.S. territory south of the Great Lakes, provided London with a strong bargaining position as the United States and Great Britain opened regular diplomatic relations. Great Britain’s new ambassador to the United States arrived in Philadelphia in October, 1791, with instructions from his government to agree to the evacuation of the British presence south of the Great Lakes only if the United States agreed to abide by the British interpretation of the terms of the Treaty of Paris and accepted the establishment of the Indian state, de facto under British protection, between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. 119

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The Washington administration totally rejected the British stance as a violation of U.S. territorial integrity and sovereignty. With only a small military force, the administration attempted to negotiate a new treaty with the Indians. In the negotiations, held at Fort Harmar in January, 1789, the territorial governor, Arthur St. Clair, capitalized on dissension among the tribes and succeeded in concluding a treaty that, while providing some compensation to the Indians, reaffirmed the boundaries established under the terms of the treaties of Forts McIntosh and Finney. By the autumn of 1789, however, war had erupted along the frontier as a result of continued Indian resentment of U.S. policy generally and the Treaty of Fort Harmar specifically, as well as the continued provocations from the American frontiersmen in Indian country. Military Operations, 1790-1794 Yielding to pressure from the westerners, the Washington administration dispatched a series of military expeditions into the wilderness north of the Ohio River. The first two of these expeditions, in October, 1790, and August-November, 1791, under the successive leadership of Josiah Harmar and St. Clair, designed to overawe the Indians and assert U.S. control over the region, yielded disastrous results. Harmar’s October, 1790, expedition resulted only in the destruction of a few Miami villages along the Maumee River and the death of a small number of Indians at the cost of 75 regulars and 108 militiamen killed and another 31 wounded. Similarly, St. Clair’s late summer and autumn 1791 expedition resulted in a second disastrous defeat with 623 soldiers killed and 258 wounded. Indeed, St. Clair’s defeat was considered an especially significant setback in asserting U.S. sovereignty over the region north of the Ohio. Conversely, the Indians were euphoric with success and, encouraged by British expression of support for the Indian Confederation, intensified warfare against the American frontiersmen while demanding U.S. recognition of their confederation. In the autumn of 1793, the new U.S. military commander in the Ohio Valley, Major General Anthony Wayne, initiated a new offensive against the Indians. Throughout the winter and spring of 1794, Wayne carefully launched a limited operation into Indian country. He methodically constructed a series of forts to serve both as a line of defense and as a base for a new offensive against the tribes. Moreover, his emphasis on training and his focus on troop 120

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discipline, combined with his perseverance during the harsh winter, impressed the Indians. Meanwhile, throughout the winter, as Wayne consolidated his position, the British reinforced their policy in the Northwest. In February, 1794, the British governor in Canada told the Indians that when war between the United States and the tribes came, Britain would support the Indian attempt to regain full control over their lands. Simultaneously, the British began construction of a new post, Fort Miami, on U.S. soil along the Maumee River. The new fort was intended to solidify the British position in Indian country further as well as to provide an advance defense for the British presence at Detroit. These developments convinced the Indians that London would support them against General Wayne’s army. Hence, confident of future success, the tribes assembled approximately two thousand warriors outside Fort Miami. On June 30 and July 1, 1794, the Indians attacked Wayne’s forces but were repulsed and withdrew into the wilderness along the Maumee River. On July 28, Wayne, now reinforced (bringing his total force to about thirty-five hundred men), advanced into Indian country. Although he reached the Maumee River on August 8, he delayed in assaulting the Indians until he had secured his lines of communications and established a forward base (Fort Defiance). Finally, on August 20, after a series of deceptive initiatives, Wayne surprised and defeated the Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Following the battle, the defeated Indians retreated to Fort Miami, whereupon the British refused to provide any refuge or assistance. Realizing that they had been betrayed by the British, the disillusioned Indians retired to the forest. The Treaties The dramatic change in the British policy toward the Indians reflected a larger transformation in British policy toward the United States. During the spring of 1794, the British government moved toward a rapprochement with the Americans; during the summer of 1794, negotiations were opened in Britain between the U.S. representative, John Jay, and British officials. It was in the context of this change in the complexion of Anglo-American relations that the British decided to abandon the Indians rather then precipitate a crisis on the Maumee River that could, in turn, lead to the collapse of Anglo-American negotiations before they had begun and 121

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possibly provoke a war between the two powers. Eventually, on November 19, 1794, the negotiators concluded a new treaty, Jay’s Treaty, which resolved the outstanding Anglo-American disputes stemming from the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Under the terms of Jay’s Treaty, London, among other things, agreed finally to evacuate the British posts on U.S. soil. Deprived of British support, the demoralized Indians entered into new negotiations with General Wayne from a position of weakness. On August 3, 1795, Wayne and chiefs representing the Delaware, Miami, Shawnee, and Wyandot Indians and the United States delineated a demarcation separating Indian lands from those open to settlement. The line ran along the Cuyahoga River, across the portage to the Tuscarawas River, westward to Fort Recovery, and finally southward to the Ohio River across from its confluence with the Kentucky River. Hence, the U.S. government opened for settlement all of the future state of Ohio, except the north-central and northwest portions of the state, as well as opening the extreme southeastern corner of the present-day state of Indiana. In addition, the U.S. government reserved a series of specific sites within Indian country primarily for commercial and/or military purposes. Thus, as a result of the Fort Greenville Treaty and Jay’s Treaty, a new balance between the Americans and the Indians was struck along the northwestern frontier. Almost immediately, however, pressure began to mount which soon challenged the supposed permanence of the Fort Greenville Treaty line, and the stage was set for the next phase in American westward expansion at the expense of the Indians. Howard M. Hensel Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel Flagg. Jay’s Treaty. Rev. ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962. Billington, Ray Allen. Westward Expansion. New York: Macmillan, 1949. Kohn, Richard H. Eagle and Sword. New York: Free Press, 1975. Philbrick, Francis S. The Rise of the West, 1754-1830. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Prucha, Francis Paul. The Sword of the Republic. New York: Macmillan, 1969. 122

Pinckney’s Treaty

Williams, Robert A. Linking Arms Together: American Indian Treaty Visions of Law and Peace, 1600-1800. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784); Ordi-

nance of 1785 (1785); Jay’s Treaty (1794).

Pinckney’s Treaty Also known as: Treaty of San Lorenzo Date: Signed October 27, 1795 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

Wars in Europe prompt Spain to recognize the United States’ western boundary claims, ensuring free navigation of the Mississippi River. The negotiation of Pinckney’s Treaty clearly demonstrates how European conflicts contributed to American diplomatic success and facilitated the nation’s territorial growth and expansion during its formative years. With Spain, France, and Great Britain involved in yet another series of wars during the French Revolution, the European powers found it extremely difficult to maintain control over their empires in North America. This situation was complicated by the expanding westward moving population of the United States, and Spain quickly realized that it needed to settle its dispute with the United States in the West in order to sufficiently mobilize all of their resources for the European war. Once again, as the historian Samuel Flagg Bemis concluded, the United States benefited from European distress. Spanish America One of the most pressing diplomatic problems facing the United States after 1783 was Spanish occupation of, and claims to, a large portion of the southern and southwestern continent of North America. The Spanish had enjoyed undisputed possession since 1763 of the territory that had been French Louisiana. They had 123

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also regained Florida in 1783, after Great Britain had temporarily obtained control over this region between 1763 and 1783. Spanish power rested solidly along the entire Gulf Coast of North and Central America, both banks of the Mississippi River from its mouth to a point midway between present-day Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi, and the west bank of the river north to the Missouri River and west to the Pacific Ocean. In addition to these vast holdings, the Spanish claimed by right of conquest during the American Revolution a large portion of the present-day states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. In other words, Spain held or claimed both banks of the Mississippi from its mouth to the mouth of the Ohio River and east to the western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. Yet with American settlers and commerce expanding rapidly into this disputed territory, a potentially volatile diplomatic dispute erupted between the Washington administration and Spain. Rights to the Mississippi The United States had received the right to navigate the Mississippi from Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Since Spain, however, had not been a party to this treaty, it refused to accept this settlement and closed the Mississippi to all but Spanish commerce. This action directly threatened both the commercial and political success of the American settlers crossing the Appalachians. In an attempt to thwart American westward expansion, the Spanish, as did the English in the north, manipulated Native American antagonism toward the settlers and encouraged Indian raids in this region. At the same time, the Spanish, intermittently schemed with dissident western Americans who were dissatisfied with the lackluster western policies of the federal government. Looking to strengthen its position within the southeastern region of North America, Madrid tried to convince the settlers to abandon their ties with the United States and form a new republic aligned with Spain. Spain was desperately seeking a face-saving solution to its problem in America due to its inability to control and manage its affairs in the region. Aggressive and lawless in nature, the frontiersmen threatened the Spanish with an invasion because of the closure of the Mississippi River and Spanish-sponsored Indian raids on American settlements. Military conflicts, separatist sentiments, and navigation rights posed grave problems for the United States. The Washington ad124

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ministration, fearful over the potential establishment of an independent republic on its southern border, recognized that the right to free navigation of the river was an absolute necessity to the west, since the river was the only economically feasible route to the market. The federal government was also under pressure by western speculative interests whose landholdings suffered in value as a result of Spanish-supported Indian attacks. Washington realized that if he failed to mollify western interests, it could significantly undermine American territorial growth. Little progress was made in solving the disputes until 1794. Until that time western intrigues, Spanish fears of a Franco-American invasion, and Indian wars were recurrent themes along the southern border. The Spanish attempted, with the aid of the American Major-General James Wilkinson and others, to stimulate disunion in the West. The Spanish, in an attempt to generate momentum for the separatist movement, opened up trade on the Mississippi to Americans on payment of a 15 percent duty. This somewhat mollified the West but failed to produce any meaningful support for separation. Then, in 1794-1795, the French revolutionary wars brought relations to a crisis. In this instance, as has often been the case throughout American history, European wars provided the United States with the opportunity of achieving a striking diplomatic victory without surrendering any of its initial demands. Negotiating with Spain Spain had joined with Great Britain in the war against the French First Republic. In 1794-1795, when the war turned against Spain, it began to look for a way out. In 1794, even before Spain made its decision relative to the war, it indicated willingness to negotiate with the United States. As a result of this offer, President Washington dispatched Thomas Pinckney, minister to Great Britain, as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Madrid. Pinckney arrived in 1795, and since Spain’s military position had so deteriorated that it had decided to make a separate peace with France, the delay worked to America’s advantage. Spain was also apprehensive concerning John Jay’s diplomatic mission to Great Britain. These negotiations convinced the Spanish foreign minister, Don Manuel de Godoy, that a possible Anglo-American rapprochement was about to take place, and that a joint attack on Spain’s overseas empire might coincide with the signing of Jay’s Treaty. Furthermore, 125

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Spain was about to abrogate its alliance with Great Britain and reenter the war allied with France. Thus Godoy feared British retaliation. Pinckney was able to capitalize on Spain’s anxieties in negotiating the Treaty of San Lorenzo, or Pinckney’s Treaty, signed on October 27, 1795. The Spanish conceded point after point, while the United States gave up virtually nothing in return. Spain recognized American sovereignty to the east bank of the Mississippi north of the thirty-first parallel; granted permission to Americans to navigate the river; established a place to deposit American goods for transfer to oceangoing vessels; and recognized the American definition of neutral rights. Both powers promised to restrain the Native Americans. This was a tacit admission by Spain that it had incited them in the past. In addition, the treaty did not affect the drive of westward expansion. America’s Advantage The Spanish implementation of the treaty came slowly. Because of Spain’s unfavorable situation in Europe, however, Godoy’s government had little choice but to acquiesce to Washington’s demands. Spain pulled out of the disastrous war with the French First Republic in the secret Treaty of Basel in 1795. The following year, in the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain plunged into an equally disastrous war as an ally of the French against Great Britain. With Spain preoccupied with the war in Europe, the United States emerged from Pinckney’s negotiations completely victorious. Thus, as Samuel Flagg Bemis concluded, this treaty represents an excellent example of how “America’s advantage” resulted from “Europe’s distress.” For the second time the possibility of an Anglo-American alliance against Spain compelled Spain to placate the United States. The Treaty of San Lorenzo was executed in full by 1798. In negotiating the Treaty of Greenville (1795) with the Indians, Jay’s Treaty, and Pinckney’s Treaty, the Washington administration had achieved much in the field of diplomacy. The separatist movement was dead, and the West was secured to the Union. John G. Clark,updated by Robert D. Ubriaco, Jr. 126

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Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel Flagg. Pinckney’s Treaty: A Study of America’s Advantage from Europe’s Distress. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1926. Darling, Arthur B. Our Rising Empire, 1763-1803. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940. DeConde, Alexander. Entangling Alliances: Politics and Diplomacy Under George Washington. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1958. Tucker, Robert W., and David C. Hendrickson. Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Young, Raymond A. “Pinckney’s Treaty: A New Perspective.” Hispanic American Historical Review 43, no. 4 (1963): 526-535. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Jay’s Treaty (1794); Treaty of

Monfontaine (1801); Treaty of Ghent (1814); Adams-Onís Treaty (1819); Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848).

Alien and Sedition Acts Date: 1798: June 18 (Naturalization Act); June 25 (Alien Act); July 6

(Alien Enemies Act); July 14 (Sedition Act)

U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 566 (Naturalization Act), 1 Stat. 570

(Alien Act), 1 Stat. 577 (Alien Enemies Act), 1 Stat. 596 (Sedition Act) Categories: Immigration; Speech and Expression The four laws collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts—the Alien Act, the Alien Enemies Act, the Naturalization Act, and the Sedition Act—were ostensibly passed to avoid war with France but led to a debate regarding the function of the Bill of Rights during wartime, the role of the federal government in legislating for the states, and the process of judicial review. News of the XYZ affair—in which three French officials had demanded a bribe from Americans during during negotiations between the two countries to forestall war—descended upon the 127

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American people and their representatives in Congress like a thunderbolt. It galvanized the government into action on the high seas; it helped unite Americans against the French, just as the initial news of British seizures had united them against Great Britain; it seriously weakened the infant Republican Party, which was associated with Francophilism; and it firmly entrenched the Federalists in power. Even President John Adams, for a time, seemed to relish the thought of leading the United States against its newest antagonist, but Adams regained his sense of moderation in time to prevent a catastrophe. The same cannot be said of certain elements of the Federalist Party, which exploited the explosive situation to strike out at their political opponents. Federalists and Foreign Affairs The Federalist Party, or at least its old guard, deeply resented gains made by the Republican opposition. Many of the Federalist leaders resented the very existence of the other political party. The High Federalists were by no means committed to a two-party system and rejected the idea of a loyal opposition. With the Republican tide at low ebb, these Federalists intended to strike a killing blow at two sources of Republican strength: the immigrant vote and the manipulation of public opinion through the use (and abuse) of the press. In selecting these targets, the Federalists demonstrated an acute awareness of the impact of the press on the growth of political parties, and they intended to use their political power to muzzle the Republican press, while leaving the Federalist press intact. Furthermore, Federalists expressed a deep xenophobia, as they viewed people of foreign birth as threats to the fabric of ordered liberty they believed the Federalists had built and must preserve. Many Federalists had a long history of antiforeign sentiment. With the United States on the verge of war with France, the Federalists were apprehensive over the loyalty of thousands of French West Indian refugees who had flocked to the United States in an effort to escape the ferment of the French Revolution and its accompanying “Terror.” The Federalists were further concerned by the fact that the refugees who became U.S. citizens generally aligned themselves with the Republican Party. Much the same was true of the Irish, who supported anyone who opposed the English. Such conditions threatened the continued hold of the Federalists on political power in the national government. To deal with such poten128

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tial subversives, foreign and domestic, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed a series of four acts, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Acts Three of the acts dealt specifically with aliens or immigrants. The Sedition Act declared speech or writing with the intent to defame the president or Congress to be a misdemeanor. The Alien Act permitted the president to deport allegedly dangerous aliens during times of peace. Neither act was enforced, however. The Naturalization Act struck at the immigrant vote. Previously, aliens could become naturalized citizens after residing for five years in the United States. The new act raised the probationary period to fourteen years. The Sedition Act was by far the most notorious. It imposed heavy fines and imprisonment as punishment on all those found guilty of writing, publishing, or speaking against the federal government. By allowing a defendant to prove the truth of statements as a defense, the Sedition Act was a definite improvement over the English laws of sedition libel. The fact remains, however, that its intent was the repression of political opposition and the annoying Republican press, and the Sedition Act seemed plainly to ignore the First Amendment. Under the law, suits were initiated against the editors of eight major opposition presses. The principal target was the Philadelphia Aurora, whose editor, William Duane, was prosecuted under the act. Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont received a jail sentence of four months and was fined one thousand dollars for disparaging remarks he made about President Adams. Some of these suits gave a comic air to the gross abuse of power. One gentleman was fined one hundred dollars for wishing out loud that the wadding of a salute cannon would strike President Adams in his backside. Impact and Opposition Republican opposition to these laws was immediate. Vice President Thomas Jefferson, himself a Republican, believed that the Alien and Sedition Acts were designed to be used against such leading Republicans as the Swiss-born congressman from Pennsylvania, Albert Gallatin. Republicans were convinced that the Sedition Act was designed to destroy them as an organized political party. The 129

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act had passed the House strictly along sectional-party lines. The vote was 44 to 41, with only two affirmative votes coming from south of the Potomac River, where the Republicans were strongest. From the Federalist point of view, the acts were completely unsuccessful in suppressing the opposition. They were resented by many, and it soon became obvious even to those who first supported the new laws that they were as unnecessary as they were ineffective. The handful of “subversives” prosecuted under the Sedition Act hardly compensated for the fact that its existence gave the Republicans another campaign issue. Jefferson through the Kentucky legislature, and Madison through the Virginia legislature, penned immediate responses to the Alien and Sedition Acts. These remonstrances, known as the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves, aroused little enthusiasm at the time but did point out not only some of the basic principles of the Republican Party but also some striking differences between two streams of thought within the party. Both resolutions maintained that the Constitution was a compact between sovereign states that granted to the federal government certain narrowly defined powers, while retaining all other enumerated powers. If the states created the Constitution, they had the power to decide when the federal government had overstepped its proper bounds. Jefferson, in the Kentucky Resolves, went much further than Madison in assigning to the states the power to nullify a federal law—to declare it inoperable and void within the boundaries of a state. South Carolina was to do so in 1832, when it nullified the Tariff of 1828. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolves had no immediate effect, but they had spelled out the theoretical position that those advocating states’ rights could, and ultimately did, take. The Alien and Sedition Acts took their place among a growing list of grievances against the Federalist Party. The Alien Act expired in 1800 and the Sedition Act in the following year. The Naturalization Act was repealed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 1802. The only tangible effect of these measures was to contribute to the defeat of Federalism in 1800. However, the mood that led to their passage was to return in later days. John G. Clark, updated by Edward R. Crowther 130

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Sources for Further Study Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. McCoy, Drew R. The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jefferson’s America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980. Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951. Sharp, James Roger. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993. Smith, James Morton. Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966. See also: Sedition Act of 1798 (1798); Force Act of 1833 (1833).

Sedition Act of 1798 Date: July 14, 1798 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 596 Categories: Speech and Expression

Federal statute enacted in 1798 that made interference or attempted interference with operations of the U.S. government a crime, criminalized oral and written utterances that tended to bring the government into disrepute, and liberalized the common law of seditious libel. Among the 1978 laws that came to be known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, one, the Sedition Act, stands out for its historical significance and later impact. The Sedition Act had three substantive sections. Provisions Section 1, the least controversial, provided that opposition to governmental operations or antigovernment conspiracies could be punished by fines up to five thousand dollars and confinement between six months to five years. 131

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Section 2, the most controversial, codified the common law of seditious libel. It penalized certain kinds of political speech and permitted criminal prosecution for “knowingly and willingly” writing, publishing, or uttering statements that were “false, scandalous, and malicious” with the intent to defame the government, Congress, or president or to bring them into disrepute. Statements that turned people against the government or that promoted opposition to the nation’s laws were likewise actionable. Conviction allowed imprisonment for up to two years and a maximum fine of two thousand dollars. Section 3 liberalized seditious libel procedures. Under the common law, libel charges against the government were actionable if they tended to disturb the public peace or create animosities. Prosecutors had to prove publication and bad tendency to secure convictions. The common law allowed truth as a defense to private libel but not to libel aimed at the government or public officials. The reformed procedures provided that juries, not judges, decided issues of publication and bad tendency. Judges continued to charge juries and explain the law, but juries decided the facts and the law and judged a statement’s truth or falsity. These procedural reforms shifted decision making from judges to juries. Early Views The Supreme Court never ruled directly on the Sedition Act, but from its enactment to its expiration in March, 1801, justices riding on circuit upheld the measure, some heartily. Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth believed it limited the dangers that the national government confronted. Associate Justice Samuel Chase was the Court’s most ardent defender of the measure. In cases against James T. Callendar and Thomas Cooper, prominent Antifederalist writers, Chase was, in essence, more a prosecutor than a neutral justice. Chase’s overzealous involvement in Sedition Act cases was reflected in several charges in the articles of impeachment brought against him in 1804 by the House of Representatives. Justices William Cushing, William Paterson, and Bushrod Washington all warmly endorsed the act. Like Chase, they informed juries that it was constitutional and encouraged convictions. Jeffersonian Republicans (also referred to as DemocraticRepublicans) opposed the act from the outset and fought vigorously for its repeal in 1799, but failed. They insisted that it violated 132

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the freedom of speech and press clauses of the First Amendment and secured resolutions to that effect from the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky. After becoming president, Thomas Jefferson pardoned those who had been convicted under the act and remitted some fines, stating that the act was unconstitutional. In 1840 Congress agreed and repaid the remaining Federalist-imposed fines. Later Views In a well-known dissent to Abrams v. United States (1919), Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “I had conceived that the United States through many years had shown its repentance for the Sedition Act.” Louis D. Brandeis joined his dissent. Some thirty years later, in a dissenting opinion in Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952), Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson, chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg War Crimes trial, observed that the enactment of the Sedition Act had come to be viewed as “a breach of the First Amendment.” Continuing, he wrote that “even in the absence of judicial condemnation, the political disapproval of the Sedition Act was so emphatic and sustained that federal prosecution of the press ceased for a century.” The Sedition Act met considerable condemnation in the latter half of the twentieth century. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., noted that “although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history.” Associate Justices Hugo L. Black and William O. Douglas concurred in Brennan’s judgment that the court of history condemned the act. They noted that it had “an ignominious end and by common consent has generally been treated as having been a wholly unjustifiable and much to be regretted violation of the First Amendment.” In a concurring opinion in Garrison v. Louisiana (1964), Douglas and Black quoted Holmes’s 1919 observation that the nation had repented for having passed the act. A decade later, they reiterated their contempt for the 1798 measure in Gertz v. Robert Welch (1974), noting that it was a congressional attempt to “muzzle” the First Amendment, “a regrettable legislative exercise plainly in violation of the First Amendment.”

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Freedom vs. Unity In Sullivan, Brennan summarized not only the modern view of the act but also the classic reason for conflicting views about its constitutionality. Brennan wrote, “Thus we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” Although Brennan severely criticized the act and praised Jefferson for pardoning those sentenced under it, his method of interpretation comports well with that of both the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans in the early national era. National commitments were central to Brennan and those who supported or opposed the act during its short life. Expressive freedoms were not ends in themselves but served broad national commitments. When those commitments changed, interpretations of the freedom of speech and press clauses changed. The Federalists and Democratic-Republicans had different commitments and dramatically different notions about speech and press functions. Both parties had a keen pride of accomplishment in winning the American Revolution and securing the Constitution. However, each viewed itself as the true revolutionary heir, and in the 1790’s, they accused each other of deliberately squandering dearly won freedoms embodied in the Constitution. Each came perilously close to thinking of the other as an illegitimate faction, animated by a party spirit that threatened to undermine the benefits that the Revolution had secured. It seemed clear that if the other party threatened the nation, it should be suppressed. They agreed that limitations on expressive freedoms were instrumental to preserving the Revolution and protecting the Constitution but split decisively over which level of government was responsible for protecting the nation from illegitimate factions. The Federalists passed the politically inspired Sedition Act in an attempt to suppress the Democratic-Republicans. Federalist prosecutors targeted only Democratic-Republican editors, newspapers, and party leaders, enforcing the act most vigorously just before the election of 1800 in order to dampen attacks by the opposition party and to maintain control of the national government. In all, twentyfour or twenty-five individuals were arrested for violating the act. At least fifteen were indicted, and of the eleven who went to trial, 134

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ten were convicted. Because Supreme Court justices accepted the Federalist position, they upheld the act’s constitutionality. In the early nineteenth century, after Jefferson became president, Democratic-Republicans—sometimes with Jefferson’s approval, if not urging—prosecuted Federalist editors. Like their Federalist counterparts, Democratic-Republican prosecutors targeted political speech. Neither party tried to curb completely the other’s speech. Prosecutions were intermittent, inconsistent, and unpredictable. Each party used law to create a legal environment that forced the other to be self-censoring; if self-censorship was glaringly ineffective, prosecutors might spring into action. The Two-Party System Americans of the early national era believed they had good but fragile institutions, worthy of careful nurturing. Federalists and Democratic-Republicans felt obligated to shield the nation from unwarranted partisan attacks and to preserve revolutionary gains by limiting the other party’s expressive freedom. In essence, the two parties bitterly contested the legitimacy of competing parties. They agreed that the other’s licentious speech needed curbing but split over whether the national or state governments should impose the limits. In Dennis v. United States (1951), Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter noted that the central issue in the case was federalism rather than free speech or press. Jefferson, he wrote, had not condemned the Sedition Act because it limited political speech but because he thought states, not Congress, had “the right to enforce restrictions on speech.” By the end of the 1820’s Americans believed that competing parties were a logical analog to the Constitution; parties gave an additional method of checking power. When one party put forth a program or set of policies, the competing party sponsored an alternative and thus acted as a check on the first party. As the party system gained legitimacy, the need for restraints on speech and press, such as those in the Sedition Act, disappeared. In the twentieth century, the Court consistently condemned the Sedition Act; however, it sustained restrictions on expressive freedoms when, as the Federalists believed in the 1790’s, a good society with decent institutions was under unwarranted assault. Lester G. Lindley 135

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Sources for Further Study Berns, Walter. “Freedom of the Press and the Alien and Sedition Laws: A Reappraisal.” Supreme Court Review (1970): 109-159. Costa, Gregg. “John Marshall, the Sedition Act, and Free Speech in the Early Republic.” Texas Law Review 77 (1999): 1011-1047. Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Hofstadter, Richard. The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780-1840. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970. Levy, Leonard W. Emergence of a Free Press. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. _______. Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960. McCoy, Drew R. The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jefferson’s America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980. Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951. Sharp, James Roger. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993. Smith, James Morton. Freedom’s Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966. Stevens, John D. “Congressional History of the 1798 Sedition Law.” Journalism Quarterly 13 (Summer, 1966): 247-256. See also: First Amendment (1789); Alien and Sedition Acts (1798).

Judiciary Acts of 1801-1925 Date: February 13, 1801; April 10, 1869; March 3, 1891; Febru-

ary 13, 1925

U.S. Statutes at Large: 2 Stat. 89 (1801); 16 Stat. 44 (1869); 26 Stat.

826 (1891); 42 Stat. 936 (1925)

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These laws established the number of justices who sit on the Supreme Court, created federal courts other than the Supreme Court, and defined jurisdictions of all federal courts, including, except for what is constitutionally mandated, the Supreme Court. The Judiciary Acts changed required review of cases by the Supreme Court to discretionary review, eliminating routine appeals affecting only individual litigants and allowing the Court to deal with those cases in which the decisions are of wide public significance. The status of the federal judiciary in the beginning of the nineteenth century was determined by the first Judiciary Act, enacted on September 24, 1789, in the first session of Congress. According to the act, the Supreme Court was to consist of a chief justice and five associate justices. Each justice, in addition to Supreme Court duties, was required to serve as circuit judge in one of the three judicial circuits that ran the length of the Eastern seaboard. These circuit courts had original jurisdiction in some cases, which meant that they acted as the court of the first instance or the trial court. The circuit courts also had appellate jurisdiction in that they heard appeals on some cases from the federal district courts. Riding the circuit immediately proved to be burdensome. Great distances needed to be covered as the court traveled from district to district within the several states that comprised the circuit. At the time, travel conditions were primitive and the health of some justices precluded it. The dual role as a circuit judge also created an anomaly in that an justice might decide a case as circuit judge and then have to decide it again if it was appealed to the Supreme Court. Judiciary Act of 1801 In February, 1801, the outgoing Federalist Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801. Six new circuit courts were created to be staffed by newly appointed judges. The Supreme Court justices were relieved of their circuit court duties and the number of Supreme Court justices reduced to five. President John Adams, whose term of office was expiring in a few weeks, quickly made the judicial appointments, which were speedily confirmed by the Senate. This law was widely viewed by the incoming administration of President Thomas Jefferson as a ploy by his political opponents to name a new group of federal judges and protect the Supreme Court from 137

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any immediate change through an appointment made by Jefferson. Consequently, the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801 was one of the first items of legislative action of the incoming Congress and was passed on March 8, 1802. The Supreme Court justices therefore had to resume their roles as circuit judges, a job that was not eliminated until 1891. Because of population growth, especially in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, an additional justice was added to the Supreme Court in 1807, bringing the total to seven. The next significant legislation was the Judiciary Act of 1837, which created three new judicial circuits and added two justices to the Supreme Court. This enabled President Andrew Jackson to make two appointments and ensured the domination of the Court by Southern Democrats. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln secured passage of legislation to add a tenth seat to the court. Although the appointment of a tenth justice could on the surface be justified because of the creation of a circuit court for California and Oregon, Lincoln sought a majority on the Court in support of his war policies, a group that would uphold the constitutionality of his war powers. Such political maneuvering continued after Lincoln’s assassination. His successor, President Andrew Johnson, was anathema to the Radical Republican leadership in Congress. To prevent Johnson from nominating any Supreme Court justices, in 1867 Congress reduced the number of justices on the Court from ten to seven. Judiciary Act of 1869 The election of popular war hero Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency in 1868 eliminated the reason for the reduction of justices, and the membership of the Court was increased to nine justices in the Judiciary Act of 1869. The act also alleviated some of the circuit court duties of the Supreme Court justices. A separate circuit court judiciary was established consisting of one circuit court judge for each of the nine circuit court districts that now existed. The Supreme Court justices still had circuit court responsibilities, but they now had to attend circuit court proceedings only once every two years. Until 1869, Supreme Court justices did not receive retirement benefits, which meant that a number of justices who found it difficult to carry out their duties because of age or disability hesitated to submit their resignations. This problem was partly remedied by 138

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the 1869 act, which provided that any federal judge or justice who attained the age of seventy with at least ten years of service could resign and continue to receive the same salary for life. A problem not addressed by the 1869 act was the increasing caseload of the Court. From the end of the Civil War to the 1890’s, it was not unusual for a case to be on the docket for two or three years before it could be argued before the Court. Litigants had the right to appeal a decision of a lower federal court to the Supreme Court, which was required to decide the appeal. It was not until the enactment of legislation in 1891 and later in 1925 that the hearing of most appeals would be made discretionary for the Court. Circuit Court of Appeals Act of 1891 Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, an energetic and able administrator, put the weight of his office behind court reform. He cultivated the important members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and convinced them of the need for reform. He was advised that the committee members would like recommendations from the justices. The justices, in a report prepared by Justice Horace Gray, recommended the establishment of circuit courts of appeals. Because the Supreme Court justices would not be expected to sit in the new courts, it would relieve them of circuit duty. Senator George F. Edmunds, a key member of the Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill designed to relieve docket congestion in the Supreme Court and to eliminate the circuit court obligations of its justices. The Circuit Court of Appeals Act of 1891 created the U.S. circuit courts of appeals, intermediate appellate courts, to hear appeals from the federal district courts and the federal circuit courts. The circuit courts of appeals were to consist of three justices appointed to each of the nine judicial regions or districts. The act eliminated the circuit riding responsibilities of the Supreme Court justices. The old circuit courts that existed after 1789 were not abrogated by this legislation but were abolished in 1911. The 1891 act also reduced direct appeals to the Supreme Court from the lower federal courts. The decisions of the circuit courts of appeals would be final except in certain cases such as those involving constitutional issues, capital crimes, jurisdictional issues, and those cases in which different circuit courts of appeals ruled differently on the same point of law. 139

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Judiciary Act of 1925 A committee of justices set up by Chief Justice William H. Taft became actively engaged in promoting court reform to relieve the Court’s congested docket. The Judiciary Act of 1925 was largely the result of the Court’s efforts. According to Justice Taft, the philosophy of the 1925 act was to ensure that the rights of each litigant were protected by the court of the first instance and the trial court, and if still aggrieved, be given one review by an intermediate court of appeal. The function of the Supreme Court was not to remedy the wrongs of particular litigants on appeal on a case-by-case basis but to consider those cases involving principles in which the application would be of wide public significance. The act sharply curtailed appeals of right made to the Court. Decisions of the circuit courts of appeals could be appealed only if the appeals court found a state law invalid under the Constitution or because of a federal law or treaty. In such cases, review was limited to the federal question involved. From state courts, the only appeals of right were in cases where a state law was upheld despite a constitutional challenge or where a federal law or treaty was held invalid by the state court. Having eliminated most of the cases that it was heretofore required to review, the makeup of the Court’s docket became largely a discretionary matter. This discretion was exercised by any four of the justices agreeing to issue a writ of certiorari so that a case could be heard and decided by the Court. This transformed the Court from a mere tribunal of the last resort to an institution with the ability to form social policy equal to or beyond that of the executive or legislative branch Gilbert T. Cave Sources for Further Study Baum, Lawrence. The Supreme Court. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1981. Biskupic, Joan, and Elder Witt. Supreme Court at Work. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1997. Foster, Roger. The Federal Judiciary Acts of 1875 and 1887, with an Appendix Containing the Equity Rules. New York:: L. K. Strouse, 1887. Freund, Paul A., ed. Supreme Court of the United States. 11 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1971. 140

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Marcus, Maeva, ed. Origins of the Federal Judiciary. New York, Oxford University Press, 1982. Paddock, Lisa. Facts About the Supreme Court. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1996. Schwartz, Bernard. A History of the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Witt, Elder, ed. Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1979. See also: Judiciary Act of 1789 (1789); Eleventh Amendment

(1798); Removal Act (1875)

Treaty of Monfontaine Also known as: Treaty of Mortefontaine; Convention of 1800 Date: Ratified December 21, 1801 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

Among the earliest of American foreign treaties, the Treaty of Monfontaine preserved relations with the French as the United States maneuvered to ensure its independence from Great Britain. In 1777, Americans, fighting the British for their independence, asked France for assistance, which France granted. Worried that support for America would lead to war with England, France insisted that America commit itself to mutual defense in return for military support, supplies, preferred trading status in French ports, and direct loans to the American treasury. The agreement came to be known as the Franco-American Treaty of 1778. While vital to victory over the British, the treaty with France restricted America’s efforts to create an independent foreign policy after the war. First, the war with England ended after the victory at Yorktown in 1781, but until England and France settled their differences America officially remained at war. Second, the French believed that their granting of preferred trading status to America gave the French a monopoly on American trade, and American at141

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tempts to establish economic and diplomatic contacts with England after the Revolution suffered accordingly. Last, the treaty language implied that the treaty was in effect for perpetuity, a condition that became troublesome when the French Revolution and the subsequent European wars threatened to include the United States. In 1793, France, under Napoleon Bonaparte, was entering a war with Great Britain and many of its European neighbors that would last until 1815. The effect of the older American-French alliance was placing pressures on the young American republic, and in 1794 the American negotiator John Jay arranged a treaty between the United States and Great Britain. The new treaty strained the relationship between France and the United States. The French, feeling betrayed by its American ally’s signing treaties with its English enemy, responded by seizing U.S. vessels as economic retaliation. While unhappy with the French action, President John Adams was unwilling to abrogate the French treaty that protected America from British dominance. Instead of a direct war with France, Adams initiated an undeclared conflict, since known as the Quasi War. French and American warships fired upon each other and seized any opposition merchant vessels they encountered. After three years in inconclusive conflict, both sides sought to end the struggle. France was again at war with its European neighbors, and President Adams’s popularity had suffered in an election year. Therefore, the French proved receptive when Adams offered to end the Quasi War and redefine the Franco-American agreement of 1778, and Adams dispatched William Vans Murray to negotiate the American position. Murray insisted on two points: financial compensation for the American ships captured during the Quasi War and an end to the mutual defense portion of the 1778 treaty. France countered that Americans could not have it both ways: America had to have a treaty (and hence diplomatic relations) with France to demand compensation, or America could demand compensation after reaffirming the 1778 treaty. Murray agreed to drop the issue of compensation in order to assure future American diplomatic freedom. The terms of the subsequent Treaty of Monfontaine formally ended the Quasi War, guaranteed the return of all captured merchant vessels, voided any American claim to financial compensation, and formally ended the mutual defense agreement from 142

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1778. Each side granted open trade to the other with no preferred status. While losing the economic benefits of preferred trade with France, the United States, through the Treaty of Monfontaine, was guaranteed economic and diplomatic freedom with England, which proved far more beneficial in the long term. Steven J. Ramold Sources for Further Study McCullough, David G. John Adams. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001. Stagg, John C. Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Jay’s Treaty (1794); Pinckney’s Treaty (1795); Embargo Acts (1806-1807); Treaty of Ghent (1814).

Black Codes of 1804-1807 Date: 1804, 1807 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Slavery

These Ohio laws denied civil rights to African Americans and discouraged black immigration to that state. The Northwest Territory was established in 1787 and ultimately became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. In 1800, what was to become the state of Ohio separated from the rest of the territory. Two years later, Ohio elected delegates to a constitutional convention in preparation for a statehood petition, which was approved in 1803. Slavery in Ohio? Although the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery in that territory, Ohio’s constitutional convention debated the issue 143

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during its sessions. With the slaveholding states of Virginia on Ohio’s eastern boundary and Kentucky on its southern boundary, there was considerable pressure for Ohio to recognize slavery. Many of the immigrants to Ohio came from slave states and saw nothing evil in the system. While many southern Ohioans did not object to slavery, persons in the northern part of the state were more likely to oppose it. Immigrants from New England, New York, and Pennsylvania tended to accept the concepts of the Enlightenment, as expressed in Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man (17911792) and the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed the concepts of liberty and equality for all people. Northern Ohioans, many of whom had little contact with African Americans, usually opposed slavery from an idealistic perspective. Thus, a geographic division with regard to slavery existed within the state from the first. Delegates at Ohio’s 1802 constitutional convention debated several questions that focused on African Americans. Should slavery be permitted in Ohio? If slavery were prohibited, what about indentured servitude? Regardless of the outcome of those two discussions, the place of African Americans in the new state needed to be defined: Should they be allowed to vote? Should they be granted civil rights? Should they be encouraged to emigrate to Ohio? Should their immigration to the state be discouraged? Edward Tiffin, from Virginia, was president of the convention. Before leaving Virginia, he had freed his slaves. He did not necessarily support the concept of equal rights for African Americans, however. When there was a tie in the vote on granting African Americans the right to vote, Tiffin cast the deciding ballot against it. There was no strong feeling for instituting slavery in Ohio; there was, however, strong opinion in favor of limited rights for African Americans. African Americans in Ohio When the constitutional convention, held in Chillicothe, began on November 1, there were approximately five hundred African Americans in the Ohio territory, representing approximately 10 percent of the population. None of them was represented in the constitutional convention, however, because none could meet the property qualifications required for voting. After a major debate over allowing African Americans to vote, it was decided not to delete the 144

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word “white” from the qualifications for the franchise. Nevertheless, the African American population grew from five hundred in 1800 to nearly two thousand by 1810; it is probable that most of the growth occurred before the passage of the first Black Laws. The 1804 Law Former Southerners living in Ohio were responsible for the Black Codes. In 1804, the legislature debated and passed the first of these laws, “An Act to Regulate Black and Mulatto Persons.” The intent of this legislation was clearly to discourage African Americans from moving into Ohio and to encourage those already there to leave. Many delegates from areas near Virginia and Kentucky undoubtedly acted based on their geographic location. Ohio shared a 375mile border with those two states, and many legislators did not want to see a mass migration of African Americans to Ohio. Early Ohioans generally rejected slavery, but not strongly enough to protest against it. At the same time, they opposed African Americans living in Ohio as free citizens. The law, which went into force in January, 1804, had several provisions designed to control African Americans. First, no African American or mulatto could settle in Ohio without a certificate of freedom from a United States court. African Americans or mulattoes already residing in Ohio had until June 1 to produce such a certificate. Certificates cost twelve and one-half cents each, and were required of children as well as adults. It was a criminal offense for a white to employ, for more than one hour, an African American or mulatto who did not have the appropriate certificate. The fine was at least ten dollars but not more than fifty dollars for each offense, with half the money going to the informant. An additional fifty cents a day had to be paid to the African American’s owner; the law assumed that a black or mulatto who did not have a certificate must be a slave. Penalties for aiding a fugitive from slavery remained the same, but the fine for assisting a fugitive slave attempting to escape from the state could be as much as one hundred dollars. Again, the vote was split, with those in the northern half of the state opposed to the restrictions on African Americans and delegates from the south of Ohio supporting them. The bill passed in the House by a vote of 19 to 8 and in the Senate by a vote of 9 to 5, although the geographic lines in the Senate were not as clearly drawn as they were in the House. 145

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The 1807 Law A few years later, an even stronger bill to restrict African Americans was presented in the Senate. In its final version, it forbade African Americans from settling in Ohio unless they could present a fivehundred-dollar bond and an affidavit signed by two white men that attested to their good character. Fines for helping a fugitive slave were doubled. Finally, no African American could testify against a white in court. While there is no record of the vote in the Senate, the bill passed the House twenty to nine and became law in January, 1807. However restrictive the original Black Codes were, the new law was far worse. African Americans were stripped of legal protection and placed at the mercy of whites. Whites did not need to fear being tried for offenses against African Americans unless there was a white witness who would testify. There is evidence of at least one African American being murdered by whites, with only African American witnesses to the crime. African American witnesses could not provide evidence against a white assailant. Even if a case went to court, it would be heard by an all-white jury before a white judge. African American victims could not testify on their own behalf, because of the restrictions against providing testimony against whites. Because they could not vote, African Americans could neither change nor protest these laws. The Codes’ Fate While the Black Codes of 1804 and 1807 were enforced only infrequently, they still were the law and were a constant reminder that African Americans in Ohio had only the barest minimum of human and civil rights, and that those rights existed only at the whim of white society. The laws fell into disuse and finally were repealed in 1849, long after the abolitionist movement, with its western center located in Oberlin, Ohio, was well under way, and long after the Underground Railroad had opened several stations in Ohio. Duncan R. Jamieson Sources for Further Study Bell, Howard H. “Some Reform Interests of the Negro During the 1850’s As Reflected in State Conventions.” Phylon 21, no. 2 (1960): 173-181. 146

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Erickson, Leonard. “Politics and the Repeal of Ohio’s Black Laws, 1837-1849.” Ohio History 82, nos. 3/4 (1973): 154-175. Franklin, John Hope. From Slavery to Freedom. New York: McGrawHill, 1994. Knepper, George W. Ohio and Its People. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1989. Rodabaugh, James H. “The Negro in the Old Northwest.” In Trek of the Immigrants: Essays Presented to Carl Wittke. Rock Island, Ill.: Augustana College Library, 1964. Wilson, Charles Jay. “The Negro in Early Ohio.” Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly 39, no. 4 (1930). See also: Northwest Ordinance (1787); Three-fifths compromise (1787); Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793); Missouri Compromise (1820); Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850); Black Codes of 1865 (1865); Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954); Disfranchisement laws (1890).

Twelfth Amendment Date: Ratified June 15 or July 27, 1804; certified September 25,

1804

U.S. Statutes at Large: 2 Stat. 306 Categories: Constitutional Law; Government Procedure and Or-

ganization; Voting and Elections

This amendment simplified procedures for electing the president and vice president of the United States. The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution was necessitated by a basic flaw in the original document. Article II, section 1, clause 3 of the Constitution had established a most complicated and confusing procedure for electing the president and vice president. According to this procedure, the election was to be determined by the vote of an electoral college composed of electors from each of the states. Each state was entitled to the same number of electors as it had representatives in Congress. These electors, appointed in whatever manner the individual state legis147

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latures chose, were to vote for two persons, presumably one for president and the other for vice president, although the ballots were not so labeled. The person receiving the highest number of votes, provided he received a majority of the electoral votes possible, was elected president. The person having the next highest number of votes was elected vice president. Election Problems If there were more than two major candidates for either the presidency or the vice presidency, it was possible that none would receive a clear majority of the electoral vote. In this situation, the House of Representatives would elect the president from the top five candidates. Two-thirds of the members constituted a quorum for this purpose, and each state had one vote—a measure designed to ensure that the smaller states had equal weight. A simple majority vote in the House was required for election. If the same situation occurred in the vice presidential election, the Senate would elect the vice president from the top two vote-getters by majority vote. Again, there was one vote for each Senator, and a quorum was two-thirds of the Senate. If the president should die or become disabled between the time of the popular election and determination of the electoral voter, the vice president would become president. This was similar to the case of the president’s death during his term of office. Problem Elections When the Constitution was written, it was presumed that many worthy candidates would receive votes from the various electors and that seldom, if ever, would anyone receive a majority of the electoral vote. The electoral college was intended to serve only as a nominating procedure to provide five good candidates for consideration by the House. The Framers did not anticipate the development of political parties, which began forming in the 1790’s. The election of 1796 found Federalist John Adams, from Massachusetts, opposed by Republican Thomas Jefferson, from Virginia. Adams won the election, but his running mate, Thomas Pinckney, from South Carolina, finished in third place, nine votes behind Jefferson. This unusual election resulted in a situation in which presidential rivals, representing different political parties, were forced to serve four years together as president and vice president. 148

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A different, but equally awkward, result came out of the electoral balloting in 1800. In this election, Jefferson and his vice presidential running mate, Aaron Burr, from New York, received the same number of votes. This election went into the House of Representatives, where Federalist opposition to Jefferson was strong. Although it was common knowledge that the electors who voted for Jefferson and Burr intended to place Jefferson in the top position, many die-hard Federalists were determined to thwart their intentions and to put Burr into the presidency. Moderate Federalists, influenced by Burr’s home-state rival Alexander Hamilton, finally tipped the scales in favor of Jefferson. The Virginian was elected on the thirty-sixth ballot, dangerously close to Inauguration Day. Proposals for Change The somewhat bizarre results of the elections of 1796 and 1800 brought forth a demand for a change in the electoral system. John Taylor and other Jeffersonian Republicans prepared a series of resolutions suggesting an appropriate amendment to the Constitution. The resolutions were introduced into Congress, where support from several states was immediately evident. The major objection to changes in the electoral college came from smaller states and from the Federalists. The smaller states feared that their role in the presidential elections might be diminished if the electoral college was abandoned. The Federalists merely hoped to disrupt or confuse the election of 1804. After much debate, agreement was finally reached in Congress in December of 1803. An amendment was written and sent to the states for ratification. Within a year, the necessary number of states, thirteen out of seventeen, had ratified the amendment. (New Hampshire’s legislature approved on June 15 but the state’s governor vetoed that ratification; Tennessee then approved on July 27. Some argue for the earlier date, seeing the gubernatorial veto as unconstitutional.) On September 25, 1804, Secretary of State James Madison announced the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in time for the election of 1804. The Amendment’s Effect Although the Twelfth Amendment did not abolish the electoral college or radically change the method of electing the president and vice president, it did remedy some basic defects. Separate bal149

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lots were provided for the election of president and vice president, thus preventing the problem of 1796. Provision was also made for the vice president to take over as acting president if the House should delay too long in selecting a president, which almost occurred after the election of 1800. When no candidate received a majority vote in the electoral college, the House of Representatives was to choose a president from the three candidates who received the most votes, rather than from five. Equality among the states was maintained when presidential or vice presidential elections went into the House or the Senate. Three times in the history of the United States, a president has been elected despite having received a smaller percentage of the popular vote than an opponent. The first time, in 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes assumed the presidency after an election so close that ballots from at least four states were in dispute. A special commission was set up to decide the outcome. The second time, in 1888, Grover Cleveland had a majority of the vote but lost the presidency to Benjamin Harrison. Finally, in 2000, Republican George W. Bush was elected over Democrat Al Gore when a hotly contested Florida electoral vote went to Bush despite a narrow majority of the national popular vote for Gore. There has been, from time to time, discussion about amending the Twelfth Amendment to ensure that such an election cannot happen again. The usual proposal is that the electoral vote be counted in proportion to the popular vote. If there were two candidates for president and a state had ten electoral votes, a candidate who received 60 percent of the popular vote would receive six electoral votes, and the opponent would receive four electoral votes. Edward J. Maguire, updated by Susan M. Taylor Sources for Further Study Hockett, Homer C. The Constitutional History of the United States. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan, 1939. Holder, Angela Roddey. The Meaning of the Constitution. New York: Barron’s, 1987. Kuroda, Tadahisa. The Origins of the Twelfth Amendment: The Electoral College in the Early Republic, 1787-1804. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. 150

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Luttbeg, Norman R. American Electoral Behavior, 1952-1992. 2d ed. Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock, 1995. Roseboom, Eugene H. A Short History of Presidential Elections. New York: Collier Books, 1967. Rule, Wilma, and Joseph Zimmerman. Electoral Systems in Comparative Perspective: Their Impact on Women and Minorities. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. Wright, Russell O. Presidential Elections in the United States: A Statistical History, 1860-1992. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Press, 1995. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Electoral Count Act (1887); Presidential Succession Act (1947); Twenty-second Amendment (1951); Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967).

Embargo Acts Also known as: Nonimportation Acts Date: April 18, 1806 (Nonimportation Act); December 22, 1807

(Embargo Act)

U.S. Statutes at Large: 2 Stat. 451 (Embargo Act) Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Foreign Relations

European wars that interfere with American trade led Thomas Jefferson to urge passage of these acts, which nevertheless failed to secure American trade neutrality. The nineteenth century opened with England and France once again at war with one another. In addition to conducting battlefield operations, each nation attacked the other’s economy by trying to restrict its foreign trade. The United States declared its neutrality in the conflict and continued to trade with both nations, but European conflicts would soon seriously affect America’s economy. 151

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Seizure of U.S. Ships Through a series of edicts, Napoleon banned neutral ships trading with England from landing in French-controlled ports. In retaliation, England’s Orders in Council required all ships trading with France or her colonies first stop in British ports. The United States’ neutral rights were violated when French and English officials boarded American merchant ships for inspection. British naval officers seized not only goods but also American citizens and impressed them into the British navy, claiming the sailors were deserters. Thomas Jefferson was determined to use “peaceable coercion” rather than war to settle the issue. When diplomatic channels failed, he urged Congress to pass the Nonimportation Act (April 18, 1806). The measure established a boycott on all British goods. However, before the measure went into effect the British frigate Leopard tried to board and search the American Chesapeake. When the Chesapeake‘s captain refused to be boarded, the Leopard fired upon her, killing three Americans. The British boarded the ship and impressed four of her sailors. Outraged Americans called for war. At Jefferson’s urging Congress passed the Embargo Act on December 22, 1807. The act forbade U.S. ships from leaving the United States to trade with any country anywhere in the world. Furthermore, commercial foreign ships were forbidden from entering American ports. In effect, the Embargo Act shut down all external American commerce. Jefferson hoped European nations would suffer without America’s business and rescind their offending edicts and orders. Failure of the Acts Unfortunately, Jefferson’s economic sanctions did not produce the desired effect in Europe. French ports were already blockaded by the English and Britain simply increased its trade with Latin American countries to offset any losses suffered from the United States’ embargo. Conversely, the Embargo Act had a devastating effect on the U.S. economy. American sailors, merchants, dockworkers, and tradesmen were immediately out of work. Manufacturers lost worldwide markets for their wares, and farmers suffered the loss of their largest customers for cotton and tobacco. As a result, Americans found numerous ways to circumvent the “dambargo” by smuggling and trading through inland waterways with Canada. 152

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To stem the tide of illegal activity, Congress passed the Enforcement Act in 1809, closing trade along inland waterways and giving government officials more power against smugglers. The Enforcement Act, however, served only to anger Americans further. New England states that were heavily invested in a naval economy discussed seceding from the Union, and Jefferson’s own political party split on the issue. Congress repealed the Embargo Act, replacing it with another nonimportation act shortly before Jefferson left office. This act allowed Americans to trade with both nations. Should either England or France repeal its edicts, the United States would trade solely with that country. Neither country rescinded its restrictions, and the United States eventually found it necessary to fight for her rights in the War of 1812. Leslie Stricker Source for Further Study Sear, L. M. Jefferson and the Embargo. London: Octagon Books, 1967. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Jay’s Treaty (1794); Treaty of Monfontaine (1801).

Anti-Slave Trade Bill Date: March 2, 1807 U.S. Statutes at Large: 2 Stat. 426-430 Categories: African Americans; Business, Commerce, and Trade;

Foreign Relations; Slavery

The outlawing of a two-century tradition failed to condemn slavery outright, reflecting the young nation’s moral ambiguity. By the seventeenth century, England had begun to gain ascendancy by developing the notorious “triangular slave trade,” involving importation of African slaves to the North American colonies 153

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from coastal Africa and the Caribbean. This trade had reached its peak at the time Great Britain’s American colonies revolted and established the United States of America. Thus, by 1790, there were three-quarters of a million African Americans, almost nine-tenths of whom labored as slaves in the Southern states, with Virginia alone claiming three hundred thousand of them. About 28 percent of African Americans in the North were free, but only one American city, Boston, had no black slaves at all. The American struggle for political independence did not effect freedom for the slaves and their offspring. Roots of Abolitionism Antislavery sentiment was growing at the time of the American Revolution but needed competent leadership to challenge the longstanding practice of people enslaving their fellow humans. The Society of Friends (Quakers), some of whose members had a long history of opposition to slavery, led the antislavery, or abolitionist, movement in Pennsylvania, beginning shortly before the outbreak of the American Revolution, and a few clergymen of other religious congregations in England and America took up the cause. Arguments against slavery at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 foundered on threats that delegates from South Carolina and Georgia would ratify no constitution that outlawed the slave trade. Not all opposition to slavery was high-minded. The French Revolution of 1789 had led to African American efforts to end tyranny over blacks in the French colony of St. Dominque, or San Domingo, on Hispaniola (the island of the twentieth century Dominican Republic and Haiti). In the United States, fear of a similar uprising was probably a more powerful motive than democratic or humanitarian sentiments in the antislavery agitation of the 1790’s. The Rise of King Cotton Several states had outlawed slavery by that time, sometimes through legislation that instituted abolition gradually or at least banned traffic in slaves. Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey had all passed legislation in the 1780’s, as did even South Carolina for a few years. Piecemeal legislation could not stop the trade in human beings, however, particularly after 1793, when Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin made cotton a more profitable crop by greatly increasing the speed at which seeds 154

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could be separated from the picked cotton, thus increasing plantation owners’ desire for more cotton pickers. It has been said that slavery would have died out in the United States but for the New Englander’s invention. Northern merchants, although not slave owners themselves, had few scruples against supplying new slaves for the cotton-growing states, and New England textile mill owners’ delight over the burgeoning supply of cotton was not likely to make abolitionists of them. It has been estimated that no fewer than twenty thousand new slaves were imported in Georgia and South Carolina in 1803. Weak Legislation, Weak Enforcement In December, 1805, Senator Stephen R. Bradley of Vermont introduced legislation that would prohibit the slave trade beginning in 1808, but the bill was stalled for some months. A similar bill was offered in the House of Representatives by Barnabas Bidwell of Massachusetts, again to no effect. Later that year, President Thomas Jefferson urged passage of the bill in his message to Congress. On March 2, 1807, Congress enacted a law specifying a twenty-thousanddollar fine and forfeiture of ship and cargo for importing slaves, as well as other penalties for acts ranging from equipping a slave ship to knowingly buying an imported slave. The disposition of illegally imported slaves was left to the states, however. The law also prohibited coastal trade in slaves carried in vessels smaller than forty tons. Enforcement of the law was delegated first to the secretary of the treasury and later to the secretary of the navy. Antislavery forces rejoiced in this new and symbolically important law, but enforcement proved weak. An exhaustive census of the slave trade published in 1969 estimated that 1.9 million slaves were imported illegally between 1811 and 1870; more recent research has called that estimate low. Probably one-fifth of the Africans who became Americans involuntarily arrived after 1808, when the law took effect. Although more than one hundred slave vessels were seized and their officers arrested in the years between 1837 and 1862, and nearly as many cases were prosecuted, convictions were difficult to attain, and when they were attained, judges often pronounced light sentences. Furthermore, because of meager press coverage, few Americans were aware of the extent of the violations. Just as white Americans for a century after the Civil War tended to regard African Americans as sharing in their own entitle155

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ment as citizens, most people in the decades following the 1807 law thought of slave importation as something of the past. Some people, particularly in the South, continued to sympathize with the slave trade. Another weakness of the 1807 law was that it permitted the continuation of slave traffic between states. An owner could take his slaves into another slave state or, according to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, into a western territory south of 36°30′, an area greatly increased by the annexation of Texas in 1845. Nor was a runaway slave out of danger in a “free” state. A half century after the 1807 law, according to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, anyone capturing a fugitive slave anywhere in the United States was legally obliged to return that slave to his or her owner. Moral Compromise It was morally important that Stephen Bradley and Barnabas Bidwell took initiatives to end the sanctioning of U.S. participation in the transatlantic slave trade and that Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves and whose ambiguous attitude toward slavery has continued to cause debate among historians, used his presidential influence to secure passage of the law. It was one step in the direction of a free society, and if not a highly effective step, it was a necessary one in a new nation that could not agree to condemn slavery outright at that nation’s birth or in its early decades. Yet, the underlying problem with the law forbidding importation of slaves was the institution of slavery itself. As long as a person could be someone else’s property, that person would inevitably be subject to slave trade of some sort. It was illogical to try to restrict the buying and selling of men, women, and children as long as slavery itself continued to be legal. Nothing better illustrates the problems of compromise between holders of diametrically opposed convictions than the long series of compromises over slavery. Ultimately, the nation could find no better solution for its ambiguous struggle with slavery than the bloody Civil War of 1861-1865. Robert P. Ellis Sources for Further Study Blackburn, Robin. The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848. New York: Verso, 1988. 156

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Davis, David Brion. Slavery and Human Progress. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Eltis, David, and James Walvin, eds. The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Origins and Effects in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981. Franklin, John Hope. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. 5th ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. Howard, Warren S. American Slavers and the Federal Law: 1837-1862. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. Rawley, James A. The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. Walvin, James. The Slave Trade. Sutton, 1999. See also: Three-fifths compromise (1787); Fugitive Slave Act of

1793 (1793); Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850); Emancipation Proclamation (1863); Thirteenth Amendment (1865).

Fort Wayne Treaty Date: Signed September 30, 1809 U.S. Statutes at Large: 7 Stat. 113 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

Negotiated by William Henry Harrison and repudiated by Tecumseh, the leader of a pan-Indian movement, this treaty precipitated a chain of events that culminated in the Battle of Tippecanoe. On September 30, 1809, governor of the Indiana Territory William Henry Harrison met with leaders of the Delaware (Lenni Lenape), Miami, and Potawatomi in the fort built by General “Mad” Anthony Wayne. They signed the Treaty of Fort Wayne, which exchanged 2.5 million acres of Indian land southeast of the Wabash River for goods worth about $7,000 and an annuity of $1,750. Later that year, a separate treaty with the Kickapoo and Wea added half a million acres. While the exchange rate of two cents per acre was higher than usual for such treaties, it was still an unfair exchange. 157

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The treaty culminated a process begun in 1795 with the Fort Greenville Treaty, which had ceded a meager 6 square miles of Miami land to the United States government. In the ensuing period, more than fifteen treaties had been signed, most of them negotiated by Harrison, relinquishing control of Indian lands. While Harrison was able to maintain friendly relations with the major tribal leaders, the loss of native lands had started a countermovement. Led by the Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa, a pan-Indian movement developed that was based on opposition to the cession of Indian lands and to the tribal leaders who had negotiated the treaties. Tenskwatawa, his brother Tecumseh, and their followers refused to recognize the validity of the treaties on the ground that the land belonged to all Indian peoples so the chiefs had no authority to sign the lands away. To show defiance of the treaties, Tenskwatawa established new Indian towns at Greenville from 1806 to 1808 in defiance of the Fort Greenville Treaty. From 1808 to 1811, he established Prophetstown at Tippecanoe to show that his movement did not honor the Treaty of Fort Wayne. As Harrison continued his plans to open the recently acquired lands, Tecumseh assumed the role of war chief and took command of the nativist movement. He warned Harrison to keep surveyors and settlers out of the territory. So threatening was his presence that for two years, virtually no settlement occurred. In order to break the stalemate, Harrison led troops on Prophetstown in 1811 while Tecumseh was farther south trying to gain allies among the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee. The ensuing Battle of Tippecanoe efficiently removed Tecumseh’s followers from the immediate area. It was also, however, the opening action of a war that would last until 1815 and would see Tecumseh ally his forces with the British in the War of 1812. Charles L. Kammer III Sources for Further Study Deloria, Vine, and Raymond J. Demallie. Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775-1979. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Falkowski, James E. Indian Law/Race Law: A Five Hundred Year History. New York: Praeger, 1992. 158

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Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. See also: Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784); Trade and Intercourse Acts

(1790-1834); Fort Greenville Treaty (1795); Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814).

Horseshoe Bend Treaty Also known as: Fort Jackson Treaty Date: Signed August 9, 1814 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

This agreement eliminated any possibility of an effective Creek alliance against U.S. expansion and thus facilitated the removal of the Creek people to the trans-Mississippi region during Andrew Jackson’s presidency. After his defeat of the Red Stick faction of the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, General Andrew Jackson took full advantage of his authorization to secure a peace agreement. His purpose was twofold: to secure large tracts of land as compensation for the cost of his campaign and to eliminate Creek political power by isolating them. In the Horseshoe Bend Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Fort Jackson, signed on August 9, 1814, Jackson received, on behalf of the United States, 22 million acres in south Georgia and central Alabama, or half of the Creek domain. Cessions in the west isolated the Creeks from the Choctaws and Chickasaws, while those in the south created a buffer against the Seminoles and the Spanish. Ironically, only one Red Stick signed the treaty; the remaining signatories were Creek allies of Jackson, who lost much of their own land. Each Creek ally was allowed to keep a square mile of land as long as they or their family used it, but the United States reserved the right to build forts, trading posts, and roads on Creek lands. Richard B. McCaslin 159

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Sources for Further Study Deloria, Vine, and Raymond J. Demallie. Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775-1979. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Falkowski, James E. Indian Law/Race Law: A Five Hundred Year History. New York: Praeger, 1992. Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. See also: Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784); Trade and Intercourse Acts

(1790-1834); Fort Greenville Treaty (1795); Fort Wayne Treaty (1809).

Treaty of Ghent Date: Signed December 24, 1814; in force February 17, 1815 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The Treaty of Ghent brought a formal end to the War of 1812, the United States’ “second war for independence.” Chances of a negotiated, honorable peace ending the War of 1812 appeared remote in the summer of 1814. The United States ostensibly had gone to war to protect its rights on the high seas. President James Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe had repeatedly stated that the recognition of such rights, and particularly an end to the practice of impressing U.S. sailors into the British navy, was essential to any settlement. War of 1812: Final Days The British had refused to abandon impressment, and the war continued. Militarily, the conflict had been inconclusive. In many ways, the British were in the stronger position at the outset of the talks. By the summer of 1814, they and their allies had defeated Napoleon; now Great Britain could turn its attention and energies to 160

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the war with its former colonies. With France subdued and veteran troops available for North American duty, Great Britain seemed in a position to end the war by military conquest. Moreover, the United States was divided over “Mr. Madison’s War.” The Federalist Party and New England generally had opposed the war from its beginning. The Republican administration faced the unpleasant prospects of political humiliation, military defeat, or both, should it continue to pursue its war aims. Negotiators Such were the circumstances when U.S. and British commissioners met in Ghent on August 9, 1814. The British had agreed to direct meetings as an alternative to mediation by Alexander I, czar of Russia, and evinced no haste to deal with the U.S. upstarts. Ghent was chosen as a convenient, easily accessible site—a pleasant, neutral city in what was then the Austrian Netherlands, soon to be part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands and a major city in Belgium after that country’s independence in 1830. The United States government dispatched five commissioners, representing a broad spectrum of backgrounds. John Quincy Adams, a Massachusetts Republican and nominally the head of the delegation, was a staunch nationalist. Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell were “war hawks” from Kentucky and Rhode Island, respectively. James A. Bayard, a Delaware Federalist, and Albert Gallatin, a Pennsylvania Republican, were moderates; the latter, because of his role as peacemaker among his colleagues, emerged as the functional leader of the U.S. delegation at Ghent. The representatives from the United States often quarreled among themselves, but they stood firmly together in the face of their British counterparts. Adams and Russell arrived in Ghent on June 23 and the others, by July 6. Clearly, the talks were going to be protracted, and so the U.S. delegates moved out of their hotel and into the Lovendeghem House in the heart of the city. Far from being the “five lonely Americans” as they have been often described, they became active in local intellectual and cultural life. Negotiations began in an atmosphere of distrust as a result of a monthlong wait by the U.S. delegates for their British counterparts. The British delegation included Admiralty lawyer Dr. William Adams, Vice-Admiral Lord Gambier, and Henry Goulburn of the Colonial Office. Accompanied by a secretary, Anthony J. 161

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Baker, they took up residence in a former Carthusian monastery at Meerhem. Their principal role was not so much to negotiate as to act as the messengers of Viscount Castlereagh (Robert Stewart), the British foreign secretary. Negotiations Although the United States had always posed as the injured party in the conflict, the British dominated the early months of the conference. They proposed the establishment of an American Indian buffer state in the American Northwest and asked for a substantial cession of land along the border between Canada and the United States. The U.S. representatives refused. The British, anticipating the capture of New Orleans, then suggested that each party continue to occupy the territory it held at the conclusion of hostilities (uti possidetis). Again, the United States refused, holding to its principle of the restoration of territory as it was held prior to the outbreak of war (status quo ante bellum). Finally, the constancy and apparent unanimity of the U.S. delegation bore fruit. Throughout the negotiations, the British cabinet had debated whether to conquer or conciliate the United States. Foreseeing greater good in Anglo-American friendship than in lasting enmity between the kindred nations, Castlereagh led the way toward compromise. Several factors, some only vaguely relating to the war, confirmed Castlereagh’s judgment. The British were having difficulties at the Congress of Vienna with their recent allies in the Napoleonic Wars. It seemed for a time that war with Russia was imminent. France was restive, portending Napoleon’s return from Elba in 1815. At home, the British people were war-weary and growing resentful of taxation. To make matters worse, the United States won a timely victory at Plattsburg on September 11, 1814. The architect of the victory over Napoleon, the duke of Wellington, estimated that a conquest of the United States would come only at a heavy cost of men, money, and time. At this juncture, the British decided to compromise. The commissioners at Ghent still bargained hard, but the stakes were no longer so great. On November 11, 1814, the United States presented a proposal that would maintain prewar boundaries. They agreed that the treaty would say nothing about impressment, which would be unnecessary in a post-Napoleonic Europe. The 162

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British abandoned their designs on U.S. territory and their desire for a buffer state. They still demanded the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, the right of navigation on the Mississippi River, and prohibitions on U.S. rights to dry fish in Newfoundland. In the end, the participants at Ghent delegated these matters to commissions to resolve after peace had been concluded. The Peace of Ghent provided for a return to the status quo ante bellum, the state of affairs prior to the war. The two sides signed the treaty on Christmas Eve, 1814. Given the slow communications of the era, the treaty only took effect on February 17, 1815, after ratification by the governments of both sides. In the meantime, the British suffered a humiliating defeat in the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815. Sovereignty Secured, Friendship Found Called America’s second war for independence, the War of 1812 had several important results. Spawning a legacy of bad feeling between Great Britain and the United States, which persisted for many years, the war gave the U.S. people a greater feeling of national identity, simultaneously paving the way for the decimation of native populations. The war stimulated the growth of manufacturers and turned the U.S. people increasingly toward domestic matters and away from foreign affairs. The treaty had a major impact on the United States’ relationships with both Canada and the American Indian nations. Future war was averted by the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817, which limited armaments around the Great Lakes. Boundary commissions and subsequent treaties in 1818, 1842, and 1846 determined most of the border between the United States and British North America (Canada). The Red River Valley went to the United States; the borders of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan were moved south to 49° north latitude. Oregon Territory (Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia) was to be jointly administered by Great Britain and the United States. The United States agreed to exact no retribution and to take no land from the American Indians who had fought for the British. However, the defeat of the British and their American Indian allies helped to open the Old Northwest and Southwest to the waves of settlement that would lead to white domination east of the Mississippi and eventually beyond. 163

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At the time, the treaty was, in many ways, a victory for neither side. Yet for the United States, there was cause for rejoicing. The United States had stood firm against a great power. Castlereagh and the British had recognized U.S. military potential and decided to court instead of conquer. Most important, the peace that both sides wanted and needed was secure. The treaty provided a steady foundation for an Anglo-American relationship that, over a century, would transform the two nations’ foreign policies from suspicious opposition to firm friendship. Emory M. Thomas, updated by Randall Fegley Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949. Burt, A. L. The United States, Great Britain, and British North America from the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace After the War of 1812. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940. Coles, Harry. The War of 1812. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. Dangerfield, George. The Era of Good Feelings. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952. Engelman, Fred. The Peace of Christmas Eve. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1962. Gallatin, James. The Diary of James Gallatin. New ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. Horsman, Reginald. The War of 1812. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969. Perkins, Bradford. Castlereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812-1823. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. Vannieuwenhuyse, Johan. The Treaty of Ghent. Ghent: Museum Arnold Vander Haeghen-Stadsarchief, 1989. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Jay’s Treaty (1794); Treaty of

Monfontaine (1801); Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817).

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Rush-Bagot Agreement

Rush-Bagot Agreement Date: Accepted April 28, 1817; Senate ratified April 16, 1818 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

This agreement, the first example of reciprocal naval disarmament in the history of international relations, began the demilitarization of the U.S.-Canadian border and remained in force for more than a century. The Treaty of Ghent (1814), ending the War of 1812, failed to deal with the problem of naval forces on the Great Lakes. Both nations maintained warships there, and both sides continued to build more vessels, raising the possibility of an expensive arms race. Americans had earlier wanted to demilitarize the lakes, which would clearly be advantageous to the United States. President John Adams had proposed limiting armaments on the Great Lakes when negotiating the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and John Jay unsuccessfully raised the issue again in 1794. Securing the Great Lakes American minister to Britain John Quincy Adams, acting upon instructions from Secretary of State James Monroe, proposed to Viscount Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, that both nations limit warships on the lakes to those necessary for guarding against smuggling. Adams made the proposal informally in February of 1816, repeating the offer in writing on March 21. Because Adams lacked authority to conclude a definitive agreement, Lord Castlereagh transferred the negotiations to Washington, where British minister Charles Bagot could deal directly with Monroe. While negotiations continued, Adams and Castlereagh entered into a gentlemen’s agreement not to introduce new armaments in the Great Lakes region. On August 2, 1816, Monroe proposed specific terms, which Bagot transmitted to Castlereagh in London. By the time Castlereagh’s response arrived, Monroe had been elected president and Richard Rush was acting secretary of state. Bagot sent Rush a note dated April 28, 1817, formally notifying the United States of British acceptance of Monroe’s terms; on the following day Rush replied, 165

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expressing the president’s satisfaction with the British response. Although Rush played no role in negotiating the accord, his signature on the second note attached his name to the Rush-Bagot Agreement. The following year, Monroe submitted the pact to the Senate, which unanimously approved it on April 16, 1818, giving it the status of a treaty. Treaty Provisions The basic provisions of the treaty limited each country to one vessel on Lake Ontario, one ship on Lake Champlain, and two vessels on the upper lakes. Each ship could be of no more than one hundred tons’ burden and carry only a single eighteen-pound cannon. All other armed vessels on the lakes were to be dismantled. Nothing in the text dealt with land fortifications or armies. The agreement was the first example of reciprocal naval disarmament in the history of international relations. However, both countries continued to fortify the land frontier for the next fifty years, as it still seemed a likely place of future conflict. The treaty began the demilitarization of the U.S.-Canadian border and, as land fortifications became obsolete in the twentieth century, they were retained only as historical monuments. The naval treaty remained unmodified for 122 years. When the United States, Canada, and Britain allied against Adolf Hitler’s Germany, agreements in 1940 and 1941 permitted construction of warships and naval training on the Great Lakes. Milton Berman Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949. Perkins, Bradford. Castlereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812-1823. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. Stacy, C. P. The Undefended Border: Myth and Reality. Ontario: Canadian Historical Association, 1953. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Jay’s Treaty (1794); Treaty of

Monfontaine (1801); Treaty of Ghent (1814); Convention of 1818 (1818). 166

Convention of 1818

Convention of 1818 Date: Signed October 10, 1818; Senate ratified January 25, 1819 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

This agreement settled questions of the United States’ northern border as well as issues of access to territory west of the Rockies. The Treaty of Ghent (1814) ended the War of 1812 but left many issues unresolved. The major American grievance concerning impressment of American seamen by the British was not addressed in the treaty. Other disputes involved the northwest boundary with Canada, the status of the Oregon Country, compensation by the British for American slaves seized during the war, the right of Americans to fish off the coasts of Newfoundland, and access to trade with the British islands in the West Indies. Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, suggested arbitration of the disputes, but President James Monroe preferred negotiation. When the Convention of 1815, dealing with transatlantic trade, needed renewal, Monroe suggested that a joint commission settle all outstanding questions. He appointed Richard Rush, American minister to Britain, and Albert Gallatin, minister to France, to negotiate for the United States. Two issues proved intransigent. The negotiators came close to an agreement on impressment but failed to settle essential details. Even though American ships had freely traded with the West Indies before independence, the American delegates could not convince Britain to modify its long-standing policy excluding non-British ships from its colonies. Agreement Provisions The final agreement covered five points. The commission easily agreed at its first meeting to extend the Commercial Convention of 1815 for ten years. The issue of compensation for slaves taken by the British went to arbitration by Czar Alexander I of Russia, who awarded the United States $1,204,960. The British contended that American privileges to fish off the coast of Newfoundland, secured in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, had been abrogated when the United States declared war in 1812; Americans insisted on retaining all 167

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such rights. A compromise granted Americans substantial fishing rights, displeasing Canadians who hoped to displace them and upsetting New Englanders facing reduced access to Canadian shores and waters. Two sections of the treaty dealt with boundary disputes. The 1783 peace treaty, working with poor maps, located the northern boundary of the United States on a line extending from the northwestern point of Lake of the Woods due west to the Mississippi River. Exploration later revealed the source of the river to be more than one hundred miles south of Lake of the Woods. The British wanted to move the boundary southward to approximately the latitude of Minneapolis, thus opening navigation of the Mississippi to them. The Americans refused. The British finally accepted a line from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains along the fortyninth parallel. The conferees compromised conflicting claims to the Northwest Coast by providing that, for ten years, all territory west of the Rocky Mountains claimed by Great Britain or the United States would be free and open to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of both powers. This joint occupation of Oregon continued until 1846, when the British agreed to divide the region along the 49-degree line, originally proposed by the Americans in 1818. Milton Berman Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949. Powell, J. H. Richard Rush, Republican Diplomat, 1780-1859. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1942. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Treaty of Ghent (1814); RushBagot Agreement (1817); Oregon Act (1848).

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Adams-Onís Treaty

Adams-Onís Treaty Also known as: Transcontinental Treaty Date: Signed February 22, 1819; in force February 22, 1821 U.S. Statutes at Large: 5 Stat. 252 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

After Spain ceded Florida to the United States in this treaty, a definitive western boundary for the Louisiana Purchase territory was established. Following the end of the War of 1812, the United States intensified its efforts to resolve long-standing disputes with Spain. Spanish difficulties with the United States had entered a critical new phase during the undeclared naval war with France (1798-1800). As an ally of France at that time, Spain had permitted its ships to assist in ransacking U.S. commerce on the high seas and allowed the French to seize U.S. ships in Spanish ports. The United States later demanded compensation from Spain for the loss of these vessels and cargoes. In 1802, the Spanish suspended the right of the United States to deposit and transfer goods at New Orleans, causing economic damage to the trans-Appalachian West. Although the Treaty of San Lorenzo of 1795 (known also as the Pinckney Treaty) between the United States and Spain had guaranteed U.S. deposit rights and prohibited privateering by either nation upon the other, the Spanish balked at paying compensation for its transgressions, leaving the issue deadlocked by 1805. The Louisiana Purchase The United States’ purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803 added serious complications to Spanish-American relations. The French had obtained the territory from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800. By this agreement, France had pledged not to transfer Louisiana to another power without first offering to restore the territory to Spain. The Spanish thus considered the Louisiana Purchase to be illegal and continued to demand its return until 1818. The United States soon adopted an extensive definition of Louisiana’s boundaries, which included two adjacent Spanish provinces: Texas and West Florida. U.S. claims to the latter terri169

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tory were dubious at best, and Spanish rights to western and central Texas were solidly founded upon the chain of forts and missions established there by 1800. East Texas, however, was largely unsettled and would become the crux of the dispute after the War of 1812. U.S. interest in Spanish territory also extended to areas to which the United States could make no plausible claim. East Florida was such an area, and the United States negotiated continuously for its purchase, beginning in the 1790’s. U.S. leaders believed that possession of Florida would give their nation command of the Gulf of Mexico and would secure from foreign interference the trade that passed through the Mississippi River. After 1808, U.S. prospects for acquiring both West and East Florida improved greatly: Napoleon had invaded Spain, diverting that nation’s resources to a life-ordeath struggle against France. War of 1812 In the summer of 1810, the United States colluded in the successful rebellion of settlers in the Baton Rouge region of West Florida. Later in the same year, the area was legally annexed to the United States up to the Pearl River, eventually becoming part of the state of Louisiana. After the United States went to war with Great Britain in 1812, the U.S. government came under domestic pressure to use the opportunity to expand at Spain’s expense. In the spring of 1813, Congress authorized the occupation of Mobile, the principal port in the section of West Florida between the Pearl and Perdido Rivers. The Spanish responded to U.S. aggression by allowing the British to use Pensacola as a base, and by assisting the Creek Indians in their 1813-1814 war against the United States. The War of 1812 thus dramatically illustrated U.S. vulnerability: In the hands of Spain, Florida had become a yawning gap in the United States’ coastal defenses—a highway through which the interior of the country could be penetrated easily. The Fight for East Florida After peace with Great Britain was concluded in early 1815, the acquisition of East Florida became the prime goal of U.S. foreign policy. Spain recognized that it had only two choices to avoid a shameful abandonment of the region: to gain the support of a European ally, or to attain a semblance of honor in the affair by winning from 170

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the United States favorable territorial concessions west of the Mississippi. At first, the Spanish were successful in securing the support of the British, who warned the United States against further encroachments on their neighbors. Bolstered by Britain’s encouragement, Spain’s minister to the United States, Luis de Onís, successfully sparred with his counterpart, Secretary of State James Monroe, throughout 1815 and 1816. The Spaniard demanded the return of Louisiana and West Florida and protested against the United States’ supplying of Spain’s rebelling Latin American colonists and the privateers operating out of Baltimore against Spanish shipping. Soon, Spain had developed its own list of financial claims against the United States and was demanding compensation. President James Madison declined to intensify the diplomatic struggle, because delay only aided the United States, which would grow stronger in the future while Spain progressively weakened. The inauguration of James Monroe as president in March, 1817, placed the negotiations in impatient, decisive hands. Monroe was determined to push the Spanish to an agreement and appointed a secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, who shared his views. In the fall of 1817, the U.S. cabinet decided to adopt a new attitude toward Spain, a decision that resulted in the dispatch of an army under the command of Major General Andrew Jackson into Florida— ostensibly to pursue Seminoles, who were raiding in retaliation for the destruction of one of their villages. Jackson’s orders from Washington were ambiguous: He was authorized to enter Florida to punish the Seminoles, but forbidden to attack them if they sheltered under a Spanish fort. At the same time, he was also enjoined to adopt the measures necessary to end the conflict. Once Jackson was actually in Florida, he discovered evidence of Spanish aid to the Seminoles. Relying on the discretion allotted to him, he judged that only the capture of Spanish forts would end the conflict. Jackson accordingly adopted these “necessary measures” by seizing St. Marks and Pensacola, effectively wresting Florida from Spain. Although the U.S. administration would later deny having intended that Jackson should take such extreme action, Adams used the military pressure to cajole the Spanish into retreating from their extreme negotiating positions. International conditions also encouraged Spain to accommodate U.S. demands. By early 1818, Great Britain had made it clear that it would not risk another war 171

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with the United States by seeking to enforce mediation of SpanishAmerican disputes. European commitments and dangers had caused the British to reconsider their support for Spain and to seek détente with the United States. In the summer, Great Britain agreed to negotiate with the United States over all outstanding issues. These talks resulted in the Convention of 1818. Anglo-American rapprochement thus ended Spanish pretensions to power. Negotiations Negotiations between the United States and Spain resumed in the fall of 1818, after the United States had agreed to restore the forts to the Spanish. Near the end of the year, the two nations agreed upon a western boundary that went up the Sabine River from its mouth and continued north to the Red River, zigzagged westward along the Red and Arkansas Rivers, followed the crest of the Rocky Mountains to the forty-second parallel, and then turned westward to the Pacific Ocean. On February 22, 1819, Adams and Onís signed the treaty that bears their names. It embodied the compromise western boundary and resolved nearly all disputes between their two nations. The Spanish retained Texas but gave up claims to the Oregon Country. Spain ceded all territory east of the Mississippi to the United States. Both nations renounced their claims for damages, although the United States agreed to assume the claims of its citizens against Spain up to a maximum of five million dollars. Adams successfully avoided guaranteeing that the United States would not recognize the Latin American nations. King Ferdinand VII of Spain initially refused to ratify the treaty because the United States had failed to provide such guarantees. In January, 1820, a revolution in Spain brought to power a liberal regime whose leaders were inclined to accommodate the United States. France and Russia, who feared that the Spanish-American quarrel threatened world peace, pressured the new government to settle. Spain finally ratified the treaty in October, 1820, and the Adams-Onís Treaty (also known as the Transcontinental Treaty) became effective on February 22, 1821. Impact This agreement was crucial to determining the course of North American history. It signified the decay of Spanish power in the New World and provided conclusive evidence of British acquies172

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cence in limited United States expansion. The acquisition of Florida strengthened the United States materially and enhanced its national security by closing a gap in its coastal defenses. Spain’s recognition of U.S. rights in Oregon signaled the beginning of the United States’ role as a global power. Resolving problems with Spain largely freed the United States from European entanglements for several decades. The treaty was also the decisive event in modern Seminole history. By replacing stagnant Spanish rule with that of a demographically and economically expanding United States, the treaty ensured that the Seminoles could not long remain in possession of their lands. Their removal westward inevitably followed during the 1830’s. Michael S. Fitzgerald Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel F. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949. Brooks, Philip C. Diplomacy and the Borderlands: The Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1939. Cox, Isaac J. The West Florida Controversy, 1798-1813: A Study in American Diplomacy. 1918. Reprint. Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1967. Griffin, Charles C. The United States and the Disruption of the Spanish Empire, 1810-1822. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937. Weeks, William E. John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Jay’s Treaty (1794); Pinckney’s Treaty (1795); Treaty of Monfontaine (1801); Treaty of Ghent (1814); Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848).

Missouri Compromise Date: March 6, 1820 U.S. Statutes at Large: 3 Stat. 545 Categories: African Americans; Slavery 173

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The Missouri Compromise was an attempt to pacify both Northern and Southern sectional interests by allowing slavery to exist in the southern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory. Between 1818 and 1819 both the territories of Missouri and Maine petitioned the U.S. Congress to be admitted as new states. The Missouri Territory had been created from the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and was promised constitutional protection. However, Congress could not decide if the right of property applied to the institution of slavery. Should it be allowed in Missouri and the rest of the Louisiana Purchase, or did Congress have the moral responsibility to rectify the issue of slavery that had been avoided since the Constitutional Convention of 1787? It would take three sessions of Congress between 1818 and 1821 before Missouri was fully admitted as a state. The issue of slavery sparked by the ensuing debate spread throughout the country and threatened to cause disunion between the northern and southern regions. The Slavery Question At the time that Missouri and Maine applied for statehood, the United States consisted of eleven free states and eleven slave states. This political balance had been achieved since 1789 by admitting a slave state and then a free state determined by geographical location and each region’s history with regard to slavery. This arrangement supplied each section with an equal number of senators (two per state) and attempted to equalize representation in the House of Representatives through the three-fifths clause. The three-fifths compromise, added to the final draft of the Constitution, allowed slave states to count each slave as three-fifths of a person to balance their representative power against that of the more densely populated North. Nevertheless, the North had a majority of representatives in Congress (105 to 81). Missouri’s admission as a free or slave state therefore became an important issue in the very body that would resolve it. Missouri threatened either to extend the influence of the industrial free North in the Senate or to provide the majority to the agrarian slaveholding South. In 1818, Missouri’s boundaries were approximately the same as those of today, and the territory was estimated to have between two thousand and three thousand slaves. Slavery was a historical byproduct of prior French and Spanish colonial policies. Missouri 174

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reasoned that slavery should be allowed to continue as it had in other territories that had been granted statehood since 1789. In February, 1819, the House of Representatives responded to this debate by adopting the Tallmadge amendment. Representative James Tallmadge of New York proposed an amendment to the bill allowing Missouri to frame a state constitution. The two clauses in the amendment would restrict the further introduction of slavery into Missouri and provide that all children born to slaves would be free at age twenty-five. Both clauses passed the House. Southern senators were shocked by the bitterness of the debate in the House and the ability of the North to muster votes. They saw the Tallmadge amendment as the first step in eliminating the expansion of slavery. Voting along sectional lines, the Senate rejected both clauses. Admission of Maine and Missouri Congress adjourned session until December 6, 1819. During this interim, Maine formed a constitution and applied for admission as a free state. Maine had been incorporated into the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691 but had started to agitate for separate statehood during and after the War of 1812. Its application for statehood as a free state seemed to provide a possible solution to the Missouri debate that threatened the stability of the young nation. On February 18, 1820, the Senate Judiciary Committee joined the two measures and the Senate passed Maine’s and Missouri’s applications for statehood but without mentioning slavery. This infuriated Maine, which had, as part of Massachusetts, outlawed slavery in 1780. What should have been a routine confirmation of new states became part of the most explosive issue to face the country. Maine would be allowed to separate from Massachusetts and gain statehood as long as Congress approved it by March 4, 1820, or the nine counties would revert back to Massachusetts. Even so, many of Maine’s constituency urged that Maine’s application fail so that slavery would not spread into Missouri. Sectional Polarization Senator J. B. Thomas of Illinois offered a compromise amendment to the Senate bill that would admit Missouri as a slave state with the proviso that the remaining territories in the Louisiana Purchase above 36°30′, Missouri’s southern border, would be free 175

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of slavery. The Northern-controlled House responded by rejecting this Thomas amendment and passed a proviso prohibiting the further introduction of slavery anywhere. The result was polarization along sectional lines. In turn, the Senate struck out the antislavery provision and added the Thomas amendment. Thus began the final debate over whether slavery would be allowed to expand. Senator Rufus King of New York continued the debate by stating that Congress, under Article IV, section 3 of the Constitution, was empowered to exclude slavery from the territory and to make slavery an issue for statehood: “New states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.” A precedent had been established under Article IV, section 3 of the Constitution which forbade slavery in lands above the Ohio River in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Therefore, in the minds of many of the northern congressmen, they should take this opportunity to eliminate slavery from any point west of the Mississippi. In response, Senator William Pickering of Maryland stated that the United States was composed of an equal number of slave states and free states; Missouri should be allowed to determine its own fate. Missouri responded with anger and frustration, asserting that the issue was not about slavery but rather the issue of state sovereignty. Congress had delayed its admission for years. Missouri, like other states, had the right to choose its property laws. In Missouri as well as the rest of the South, the issue swung from one dealing with slavery to one dealing with property rights and the equality of states within the United States. These issues captured the attention of citizens throughout the country and led to heated debates on all levels. For the first time, slavery was being justified and defended as a good way of life by not only southern politicians but also the southern clergy. Would the country be influenced by restrictionists who sought to control this institution, or would states’ rights be preserved? The Compromise A compromise between the two houses was eventually reached in a conference formed to break the deadlock. Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky stated that he would not support Maine’s admission unless Missouri was admitted with no restrictions. The Senate took the House bill and inserted the Thomas amendment. The House under Henry Clay’s leadership voted to admit Maine as 176

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a free state and Missouri as a slave state and restricted slavery north of 36°30′. It is interesting to note that seven of Maine’s nine representatives in the Massachusetts delegation voted against Maine’s admission so that their state would not be used to provide a solution to the slavery issue. Missouri continued to be an issue when it presented a state constitution in November, 1820. As if to get the final word, the Missouri Constitutional Convention had incorporated into its constitution a provision excluding free blacks and mulattoes from the state. This provision incited the antislavery factions in the Senate and House and threatened to destroy the fragile compromise. A “Second Missouri Compromise” was needed which stated that Missouri would not gain admission as a state unless its legislature assured Congress that it would not seek to abridge the rights of citizens. The Missouri legislature agreed to this in June, 1821. On August 10, 1821, President James Monroe admitted Missouri as the twenty-fourth state. After waiting a short time, Missouri’s state congress sought to have the last say when it approved statutes forbidding free blacks from entering the state. The Missouri Compromise would stand for the next three decades. During that time it served to mark a clear delineation between the growing regional and sectional problems of the North and South and made states’ rights the rallying cry for the South until the Civil War. Vincent Michael Thur Sources for Further Study Brown, Richard H. The Missouri Compromise: Political Statesmanship or Unwise Evasion? Boston: D. C. Heath, 1964. Clark, Charles E. Maine: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977. Commager, Henry Steele, ed. Documents of American History. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1958. Hurt, R. Douglas. Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri’s Little Dixie. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992. McPherson, James M. The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1988. Moore, Glover. The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1967. 177

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Nagel, Paul C. Missouri: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977. Nash, Gary B., ed. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society. 2d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1990. See also: Northwest Ordinance (1787); Three-fifths compromise (1787); Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793); Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807); Black Codes of 1804-1807 (1804-1807); Compromise of 1850 (1850); Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850); Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854).

Land Act of 1820 Date: April 24, 1820 U.S. Statutes at Large: 3 Stat. 566 Categories: Land Management

The 1820 Land Act formed the basis for transferring the public domain to individual U.S. citizens for the next two decades. The British colonies in North America had been, from the beginning, colonies of settlement. By the time of the Revolutionary War, most of the good agricultural land in the original thirteen colonies had been turned into farms by the settlers, and many were anxious to move west of the Alleghenies, to the area later known as the Old Northwest. The British, in order to ensure the friendship of the natives in that section, had forbidden settlement. With British defeat in the Revolutionary War, the area now belonged to the thirteen colonies, where the pressure to open it to settlement was overwhelming. Pressures for Settlement In 1785, the Confederation Congress first began deliberations about how to arrange the transfer of land in the Old Northwest, as well as those portions of the Old Southwest, acquired by the 1783 Treaty of Paris with Britain. Several principles were agreed on: 178

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Before settlement and transfer of title, the land would have to be ceded by treaty with the Native Americans; the land would have to be surveyed, in square township units, and sale would be by portions of the surveyed townships; and the proceeds of the sale would be used to pay down the federal debt. These principles were embodied in the Ordinance of 1785, which continued to bind the federal government after the adoption of the Constitution in 1789. In addition to pressure from would-be settlers, the federal government owed obligations to thousands of veterans of the Revolutionary War, who had been promised land grants in lieu of pay during the war. Many of the veterans had received scrip, redeemable in grants from the public domain. As a result, the federal government attempted to begin surveying the land; once at least a modest proportion had been mapped, it could be subdivided into townships and offered for sale. Treaties had been negotiated with some of the native tribes in 1784, 1785, and 1786, in which those tribes ceded much of western New York and western Pennsylvania and large portions of southern Ohio to the United States; the belief prevailed in the Congress that this laid the foundation for surveying and subsequent settlement by Euro-Americans. However, some of the Indians refused to accept the treaties, and battles were fought in the early 1790’s between the natives and federal troops. The natives won the first battle, in 1791, but lost in 1794 to a force commanded by General Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Wayne then ravaged the Indian settlements in northern Ohio and forced them to accept the Fort Greenville Treaty, in 1795, by which they accepted confinement to a reservation in northwestern Ohio and ceded the rest of Ohio, as well as parts of Indiana, Illinois, and a small part of Michigan, to the United States. In the Old Southwest—which would become the states of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as parts of western Georgia—numerous treaties were concluded with the tribes located there, defining their tribal lands and opening up significant lands for Euro-American settlement, mostly in the southern portions of the area. Surveys and Sales Alexander Hamilton, at the Treasury, had begun organizing the system that would administer sales of the land, which, according to the Ordinance of 1785, was to be sold at auction for at least one 179

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dollar per acre after being surveyed. Sales were to be administered by the Treasury, and surveying would be supervised by the U.S. geographer (a post abolished in 1796 and replaced by the surveyor general). Surveys were to be of townships in six-mile-square units. In 1796, the price was raised to two dollars per acre, but plots of 640 acres were allowed. However, sales on this scale proved disappointing. In 1800, William Henry Harrison induced Congress to change the terms of sale. Sales of smaller parcels were allowed, and purchasers were permitted to buy on the installment plan, with payments to be made over a four-year period. Simultaneously, Albert Gallatin, at the Treasury, put in place an organization of land offices located in the areas to be sold; in 1812, these were subordinated to a General Land Office that supervised the local offices, rapidly increasing in number as more land was surveyed and put up for sale. This rearrangement of the system, particularly the inclusion of purchases on credit, laid the basis for a large land boom in the period between 1812 and 1819. Weakened Economy The land boom revealed the weakness of the system created in 1800. Purchases on credit were hard to keep track of, with the limited clerical help in the local land offices and in the General Land Office; and Congress had passed a number of relief acts since 1800, extending the time limits on credit purchases. By 1820, only about a third of the purchase price of the lands recorded as sold had been collected. Federal finances were in perilous shape as a result of the War of 1812, which had raised the federal debt to new heights. Since receipts from land sales, along with tariff receipts, were the only sources of federal income, and as the South opposed any increases in tariff, reform of the sales of public lands was needed. Provisions of the 1820 Land Act The Land Act of 1820 abolished credit purchases, requiring full payment in cash. However, the price was reduced from $2 per acre to $1.25 per acre, and those who still owed money on previous credit purchases were given more time to complete payments. Purchasers who still owed money would be allowed to surrender part of the land they had bought to cover the remaining debt due. Al180

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though this law dealt with some of the problems in the system of selling off the public domain, it failed to still criticism, for the public lands issue had become deeply enmeshed in sectional politics, which would determine subsequent modifications. Nancy M. Gordon Sources for Further Study Carstensen, Vernon, ed. The Public Lands: Studies in the History of the Public Domain. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963. Clark, Thomas D., and John D. W. Guice. Frontiers in Conflict: The Old Southwest, 1795-1830. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989. Gates, Paul W. History of Public Land Law Development. Washington, D.C.: Zenger, 1968. North, Douglas C., and Andrew R. Rutten. “The Northwest Ordinance in Historical Perspective.” In Essays on the Economy of the Old Northwest, edited by David C. Klingaman and Richard K. Vedder. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1987. Rohrbough, Malcolm J. The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789-1837. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Sword, Wiley. President Washington’s Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. See also: Ordinance of 1785 (1785); Northwest Ordinance (1787); Preemption Act (1841).

Monroe Doctrine Date: Delivered December 2, 1823 Categories: Foreign Relations

The Monroe Doctrine became the primary articulation of the United States’ foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. 181

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On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe delivered his annual message to Congress. Although most of his remarks concerned domestic matters and largely have been forgotten, his foreign policy declaration became the cornerstone of U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. “The American Continents,” Monroe declared, “by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by a European power.” The president then turned to European colonial policy in the New World: With the existing Colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose Independence we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner, their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.

Three Principles Monroe’s message contained three main points outlining the United States’ new role as defender of the Western Hemisphere. First, the president announced to Europe that the United States would oppose any attempt to take over any independent country in the Western Hemisphere (the no-transfer principle). Second, he promised that the United States would abstain from European quarrels (non-intervention). Third, Monroe insisted that European states not meddle in the affairs of the New World countries. In other words, Monroe declared that the United States would not take sides in European disputes, but in return, Europe could not tamper with the status quo in the Western Hemisphere. Monroe’s bold message offered no threat to such nations as Great Britain and France. In 1823, the United States lacked the power to enforce its new role in the Western Hemisphere. Fortunately for the United States, Great Britain desired just such a policy as Monroe suggested. The British fleet, not Monroe’s declaration, would maintain the independence of Latin America. It was not until 1852 that anyone referred to Monroe’s declaration as the Mon182

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roe Doctrine, and it was not until the twentieth century that the United States had enough power to insist on international acceptance of the Monroe Doctrine. Quintuple Alliance and the Concert of Europe Even so, Monroe’s words reflected the change in unfriendly relations between the United States and Great Britain that had led to the War of 1812. The explanation lies in the decisions made at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Napoleon had been defeated; Prussia, Russia, Austria, France, and Great Britain set out to turn the clock back, through establishing a Quintuple Alliance to undo the damage wrought by Napoleon’s ambition. The establishment of the alliance led to the Concert of Europe, which sponsored four congresses between 1818 and 1822. The congresses created the modern system of conference diplomacy, although the various members failed to agree on Europe’s future. Autocratic reactionaries hampered the Quintuple Alliance’s effectiveness from the beginning. Czar Alexander I of Russia led the way, convincing the monarchs of Austria and Prussia to join him in the Holy Alliance, which dedicated itself to upholding autocratic rule. Great Britain chose not to join, but continued to be a member of the Quintuple Alliance. As a member of the Quintuple Alliance, Great Britain seemed to support a policy of reestablishing monarchy and opposing revolution. By refusing to join the Holy Alliance, however, the British avoided appearing as the bastion of the conservative reactionaries. When put to the test, Great Britain’s actions proved that it favored a system of monarchy and a European balance of power, but not systematic oppression of revolution in others parts of the world. “Other parts of the world” referred to the newly independent states in the New World. Spain, for one, demanded the return of its New World colonies. In 1820, when Prince Clemens von Metternich, the architect of reaction, suggested that the Concert of Europe had a sacred duty to crush revolution, Great Britain protested. Metternich’s proposal would have meant sending an army to Latin America to overthrow the new republics. Great Britain distinguished between a European balance-of-power system, in which revolution would not be permitted, and a colonial empire in the New World where revolution would be allowed to occur. In addition, Spain had monopolized trade with its colonies; only as inde183

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pendent republics could the former colonies maintain a profitable trade with the British. Alexander I also tried to extend his interests in North America. Through an imperial decree on September 14, 1821, Russia claimed territory on the Pacific coast south to the fifty-first parallel (well into Oregon Country) by insisting that all foreign ships must remain a substantial distance from the coast that far south. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams vigorously opposed the decree, citing the U.S. principle of noncolonization. Russia never enforced the decree. The Polignac Memorandum Viscount Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, decided that Spanish claims to territory in the New World were less important to Great Britain than profitable trade with Spain’s former colonies. Accordingly, the British began devising an arrangement with the United States that would prevent European powers from taking new, or regaining old, colonies in the Western Hemisphere. In August, 1823, George Canning, Castlereagh’s successor, suggested to Richard Rush, the U.S. minister to Great Britain, that the two countries jointly declare that they would oppose further colonization of the New World. Rush was reluctant to agree to such a bold move without consulting his own superior, Adams. Canning began a series of discussions with Prince Jules de Polignac, the French ambassador in London, seeking some guarantee that France would not help Spain regain lost colonies in the New World. On October 12, 1823, the ambassador gave Canning the specific assurances he wanted, in a document known as the Polignac Memorandum. France’s promise to Great Britain, not the Monroe Doctrine, ended any chance of Spain regaining its colonies in the New World. Unaware of the Polignac Memorandum, Adams advised Monroe against a joint noncolonization declaration with the British. Instead, he suggested that the United States make a unilateral declaration opposing further European colonization in the Western Hemisphere. The resulting declaration came in the president’s message to Congress in December, 1823. Impact Since 1823, Monroe’s message has gained much greater significance. During the Civil War, France established a puppet govern184

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ment under Austria’s Archduke Maximilian in Mexico. In 1867, by invoking the Monroe Doctrine and threatening invasion, the United States ensured the collapse of Emperor Maximilian’s government. In December, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt added a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, in which he stated that the United States would not interfere with Latin American nations that conducted their affairs with decency. Should they fail to do so, the United States would then intervene and exercise international police power to ensure the stability of the Western Hemisphere. In 1930, President Herbert Hoover formally repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary by revealing the publication of the Clark Memorandum adjuring any right of the United States to intervene in Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine would thus be applied only as originally intended—to protect Latin America from European intervention. The United States, however, has found reasons for intervening in the affairs of countries in the Western Hemisphere since 1930. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson ordered U.S. troops into the Dominican Republic to prevent a takeover of that country by a communist government, although the official justification for that action was the protection of U.S. citizens and property. The same justification was used by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 to invade the small island nation of Grenada. President George Bush, in 1989, used hemispheric stability and his war on drugs to invade Panama and capture Panamanian dictator and alleged drug lord Manuel Noriega. David H. Culbert, updated by William Allison Sources for Further Study Bemis, Samuel Flagg. The Latin American Policy of the United States: An Historical Interpretation. New York: Norton Library, 1967. Donovan, Frank Robert. Mr. Monroe’s Message: The Story of the Monroe Doctrine. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963. Hart, Albert Bushnell. The Foundations of American Foreign Policy. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970. May, Ernest R. The Making of the Monroe Doctrine. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975. 185

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Rappaport, Armin, ed. The Monroe Doctrine. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. Ronfedlt, David F. Rethinking the Monroe Doctrine. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1985. Smith, Gaddis. The Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine, 1945-1993. New York: Hill & Wang, 1994. See also: Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850); Good Neighbor Policy (1933); Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948).

Indian Removal Act Date: May 28, 1830 U.S. Statutes at Large: 4 Stat. 411-413 Categories: Native Americans

The act marked the beginning of forced resettlement of sixty thousand eastern Native Americans to lands west of the Mississippi River. Cherokees and other members of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes—Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Seminole, and Creek— established independent republics with successful governments. Adapting to their white neighbors, they became farmers, miners, and cattle ranchers. Some had plantations, even owning slaves. They built schools and churches, wrote constitutions, and established independent governments. Eventually, they learned a bitter lesson: Whites wanted their land, not their assimilation into EuroAmerican society. White-Native Conflicts As a local militia leader and politician, Andrew Jackson negotiated the acquisition of fifty million acres of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi even before he became president of the United States in 1828. By then, the Cherokees had lost their land outside Georgia, and neighbors had grown increasingly jealous of Cherokee success. For generations, Cherokees had provided a textbook picture of Jefferson’s ideal nation of farmers. Sequoyah, a young 186

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man of Cherokee and white blood, invented a phonetic alphabet, or syllabary, that enabled almost every member of his nation to become literate within a few months. To hold their remaining land, Cherokees made the sale of any additional land to whites a capital offense. Yet violent conflicts between whites and natives became so common that many friends and enemies alike advocated removal to protect Cherokees from white citizens who routinely attacked them. In 1817, some Cherokees exchanged land in North Carolina for space in Arkansas. Within two years, six thousand had moved voluntarily, but the move only worsened Cherokee problems. By 1821, the Cherokees were at war with the Osages who had been in Arkansas Territory already, and both groups fought whites who continued to move onto their land. Early Removals These early voluntary removals proved so disastrous that the Cherokees and Choctaws remaining in Georgia vowed to stay on their native land. Although President James Monroe proposed removal again in 1825, neither Monroe nor his successor, John Quincy Adams, could get the measure through Congress. Only the enthusiasm of President Jackson got removal approved on a close vote in 1830. In 1829, President Jackson admitted that the five republics had made “progress in the arts of civilized life,” but he said American Indians occupied land that whites could use. Beyond the Mississippi River lay enough land for Native Americans and their descendants to inhabit without interference “as long as grass grows or water runs in peace and plenty.” Meanwhile, the Georgia legislature extended its power over the Cherokee nation and stripped Native Americans of civil rights. These laws forbade anyone with American Indian blood to testify in court against a white man, annulled contracts between Native Americans and whites, and required an oath of allegiance to Georgia by white people living among American Indians. The laws also prevented Native Americans from holding meetings or digging for gold on their own land. Legal Challenges Instead of going to war, the Cherokees hired two prominent Washington lawyers and went to the U.S. Supreme Court. They lost their 187

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first case, challenging Georgia for hanging a Cherokee man convicted under Cherokee law. The second case (Worcester v. Georgia) challenged the loyalty oath designed to remove teachers, missionaries, and other whites from the reservation. The Reverend Samuel Worcester and other missionaries among Cherokees refused to sign the loyalty oath, despite public humiliation, abuse, and imprisonment. Chief Justice John Marshall declared repressive Georgia laws unconstitutional. American Indian nations, Marshall said, were “domestic dependent nations” that could have independent political communities without state restrictions. President Jackson, who had fought American Indians in the South, suggested that Georgia could ignore the Court’s decision. The president, not the Court, controlled the army. Creation of Indian Territory Congress also took up Georgia’s cause. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 began a process of exchanging Indian lands in the twentyfour existing states for new lands west of the Mississippi River. In 1834, Congress established Indian Territory, now much of Oklahoma, as a permanent reservation. Major Ridge and his family had been among the strongest opponents of removal, and Cherokee lobbyists, including John Ridge, celebrated their Supreme Court victory in Worcester. However, they had thought Whigs in Congress would prevail against Jackson’s removal policy. The federal removal law did not say that Native Americans could be forced to move, but the Ridge family and Cherokee newspaper editor Elias Boudinot began to see the move as necessary to protect Cherokees from increasing violence. Principal Chief John Ross, however, still resisted removal. Believing it in their nation’s best interests, the Ridge family signed a removal treaty without approval of the tribal council. Resistance to Removal Many natives resisted removal from their ancient homelands. The Alabama Creeks were forcibly removed, some of them in chains. Choctaws were forced out of Mississippi in winter, with no chance to bring provisions against the cold. Some were tricked into getting drunk and signing away their possessions. Others signed away 188

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their lands, believing the promises of government officials. Forced marches of Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees brought sickness, starvation, and death to thousands of people throughout the 1830’s. The Cherokees faced a special horror. Georgia’s repressive laws had created a climate of lawlessness. Whites could steal land, and Cherokees could not testify in court against them. In one notorious case, two white men enjoyed dinner in the home of a family whose father was part Cherokee. In the evening, the parents left temporarily and the guests forced the children and their nurse from the home and set it on fire, destroying the house and all of its contents. The men were arrested, but the judge dismissed the case because all the witnesses were part Cherokee. Only pure-blooded whites were allowed to testify in court. Finally, Jackson’s successor, President Martin Van Buren, ordered General Winfield Scott, with about seven thousand U.S. soldiers and state militia, to begin the forced removal on May 26, 1838. Soldiers quietly surrounded each house to surprise its occupants, according to James Mooney, a researcher who interviewed the participants years later. Under Scott’s orders, the troops built stockades to hold people while being prepared for the removal. “From these,” Mooney wrote, squads of troops were sent to search out with rifle and bayonet every small cabin hidden away in the coves or by the sides of mountain streams, to seize and bring in as prisoners all the occupants, however or wherever they might be found. Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of trail that led to the stockade.

Men were taken from their fields, children from their play. “In many cases, on turning for one last look as they crossed the ridge, they saw their homes in flames.” Some scavengers stole livestock and other valuables, even before the owners were out of sight of their homes. “Systematic hunts were made by the same men for Indian graves, to rob them of the silver pendants and other valuables deposited with the dead.” Some sympathetic soldiers allowed one family to feed their chickens one last time, and another to pray quietly in their own language before leaving their home. 189

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Within a week, the troops had rounded up more than seventeen thousand Cherokees and herded them into concentration camps. In June, the first group of about a thousand began the eight-hundred-mile journey. Steamboats took them on the first leg down the Tennessee River. The oppressive heat and cramped conditions fostered disease and caused many deaths. Then the Cherokees walked the last leg of the trip to beyond the western border of Arkansas. Because of the oppressive heat, Cherokee leader John Ross persuaded General Scott to permit them to delay the largest removal until fall. Thus, the largest procession—about thirteen thousand people—started on the long overland march in October, 1838. Most walked or rode horses; they drove 645 wagons. The Trail of Tears Dozens of people died of disease, starvation, or exposure on each day of the journey. More than four thousand Cherokees died on the journey that the survivors named the Trail of Tears. The procession reached the Mississippi River opposite Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in the middle of winter. Most had only a single blanket to protect themselves from the winter winds as they waited for the river ice to clear. In March, 1839, they reached their destination in Indian Territory. Many were buried along the road, including Chief John Ross’s wife, Quatie Ross, who died after giving up her blanket to a sick child in a sleet- and snowstorm. Her death left Ross to grieve both his wife and his nation. In his last message to Congress, President Jackson said he had settled the Native American problem to everyone’s satisfaction and saved the race from extinction by placing them “beyond the reach of injury or oppression.” Native Americans would now share in “the blessings of civilization” and “the General Government will hereafter watch over them and protect them.” Between 1778 and 1871, 370 treaties stipulated land cessions to whites. Jackson ridiculed the idea of making treaties with Native Americans and called the idea of treating American Indians as separate nations an absurd farce. By the end of June, 1838, Georgians could boast that no Cherokees remained on their soil, except in the stockade. Sixty thousand members of the five republics had been removed beyond the Mississippi River. As many as fifteen thousand men, women, and children died of starvation and disease. The Choctaw had moved in 190

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1832; the Chickasaw in 1832-1834, the Seminole in 1836, and the Creek in 1836-1840. In June, 1839, members of the Ross faction, in revenge for the law that John Ridge signed into effect, murdered John Ridge, Major Ridge, and Elias Boudinot for their signing a removal treaty selling Cherokee land. William E. Huntzicker Sources for Further Study Foreman, Grant. Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians. 2d ed. 1953. Reprint. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. Green, Michael D. The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government in Crisis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Guttmann, Allen. States’ Rights and Indian Removal: “The Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia.” Boston: D. C. Heath, 1965. Hoig, Stanley. Night of the Cruel Moon: Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears. New York: Facts On File, 1996. McLoughlin, William G. Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. _______. Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789-1839. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984. Mooney, James. Historical Sketch of the Cherokee. Chicago: Aldine, 1975. Moulton, Gary E. John Ross, Cherokee Chief. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1978. Remini, Robert V. The Legacy of Andrew Jackson: Essays on Democracy, Indian Removal, and Slavery. Reprint. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. Wallace, Anthony F. C. The Long, Bitter Trail: Andrew Jackson and the Indians. New York: Hill & Wang, 1993. Wilkins, Thurman. Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People. Rev. ed. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. See also: Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830); Preemption Act (1841); Indian Appropriation Act (1871); General Allotment Act (1887).

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Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek Date: Signed September 27, 1830 U.S. Statutes at Large: 7 Stat. 333 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

In the first treaty signed after passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the experience of the Choctaws foreshadowed that of many tribes as they sold their lands in Mississippi and agreed to move west. The Choctaws originally occupied much of present-day Mississippi. The tribe prided itself on good relations with the United States and the fact that it had never fought against the United States. Instead Choctaws had fought as American allies in the Creek War (18131814) and War of 1812. Forced Cession of Lands Nevertheless the Choctaws came under increasing pressure from American settlers as the area filled rapidly after the War of 1812. In treaties going back to 1801, the Choctaws had ceded land to facilitate settlement. Pressed by General Andrew Jackson, in 1820 the tribe agreed to the Treaty of Doak’s Stand. Five million acres of land in western and west-central Mississippi were sold to the United States; in return, the Choctaws acquired thirteen million acres west of the Mississippi. The acquisition of western land clearly raised the prospect of removal, though few Choctaws chose to emigrate. American pressure mounted, however, especially after Jackson’s election to the presidency in 1828. Encouraged by his administration’s stated goal of removing the tribes east of the Mississippi, in January, 1830, the Mississippi legislature voted to extend state jurisdiction over Choctaw lands, effectively ignoring tribal claims to the land. Feeling pressured and believing that American power was irresistible, Choctaw leaders agreed to negotiate. Terms proposed by Greenwood LeFlore, recently elected principal chief of the tribe, were rejected as too expensive. The Choctaws then agreed to a new round of negotiations at Dancing Rabbit Creek. Terms of the Treaty There in September, 1813, chiefs LeFlore, Mushulatubbee, and Nitekechi and six thousand Choctaws met American commission192

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ers John Eaton and John Coffee. The Americans had made elaborate preparations to feed and entertain the Choctaws and to create a festive air for the negotiations. Reluctantly, the chiefs agreed to the terms requested: In return for a $20,000, twenty-year annuity and other financial considerations, the Choctaws would give up the remaining ten million acres of their land in Mississippi and move to their lands in present-day southeastern Oklahoma. Choctaws who wished to stay in Mississippi would receive one-squaremile allotments and U.S. citizenship, provided they registered within six months of the treaty’s ratification and lived on their lands for five years. Relatively few Choctaws remained under this provision. Removal Though a few hundred Choctaws had departed for Indian Territory in 1830 in hopes of locating the best land, removal of the bulk of the tribe began in 1831 and extended over a three-year period. Much hardship accompanied the Choctaw Trail of Tears, especially in 1831, and about 15 percent of the tribe died during removal. The Choctaws were the first major tribe to be moved under the Indian Removal Act, and their experience established an important precedent that would be followed with other eastern tribes. William C. Lowe Sources for Further Study Deloria, Vine, and Raymond J. Demallie. Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775-1979. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Falkowski, James E. Indian Law/Race Law: A Five Hundred Year History. New York: Praeger, 1992. Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. See also: Indian Removal Act (1830).

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Force Act of 1833 Date: March 2, 1833 U.S. Statutes at Large: 4 Stat. 632 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Tariffs and Taxation

When the South invoked states’ rights and the doctrine of nullification to counter tariffs, the Jackson administration passed the Force Act of 1833 to make North Carolina and other states adhere to federal law, in this early conflict between South and North, federal and state governments. By the late 1820’s, the southeastern section of the nation was economically depressed. Most of its fiscal ailments were blamed on the Tariff of 1828, which protected the North against competition for its textile goods but limited the South’s disposing of its agricultural commodities in the world market. While the South languished, the industrial Northeast flourished. In truth, the soil in the older Southern states was worn out, which meant that the region could not compete on equal terms with the new Gulf states. Leadership in the fight against the tariff fell to South Carolina, where the planter aristocrats enjoyed political power and the relative decline in prosperity was the greatest. The Antitariff South The key to South Carolina’s defiance against the tariff was its racial demography and a very conservative political structure, different from that of its slaveholding neighbors. In 1830, South Carolina was the only state with an absolute majority of blacks. Most of them were concentrated on the sea islands and tidal flats south of Charleston. The low-country planters controlled state politics. Very high property qualifications for holding office kept power in the hands of the planter elite. This elite controlled the state legislature, which appointed most officials and therefore had tremendous leverage on public opinion in the state. A cotton state, South Carolina had experienced a collapse of cotton prices in the Panic of 1819, soil erosion, competition from cotton produced on cheaper, more fertile western lands, and an exodus of its white population. Up-country slaveholders incurred 194

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heavy losses when upland cotton prices fell 72 percent by 1829, and they were receptive to the argument of the antitariff advocates, or Nullifiers, who blamed the tariff for their plight. Tariff rates had increased up to 50 percent by 1828, and the Nullifiers argued that these high tariffs caused prices on domestic manufactured goods to rise and potentially limited export markets for agricultural goods. The tariffs penalized one class for the profits of another. Along with the tariff issue, there was the issue of slavery. The leaders of Nullification were rice and sea-island cotton planters whose greater fear was not losing cotton profits but losing control over their African American majority. The Nullification Doctrine South Carolina’s most eloquent spokesman was John C. Calhoun, who by the late 1820’s had completed his philosophical change from ardent nationalist to states’ rights advocate. Calhoun then advocated the ultimate in states’ rights thinking—a belief in, and support of, the doctrine of nullification, first stated by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolves of 1798. In 1828, while running as a vice presidential candidate, Calhoun anonymously wrote the “South Carolina Exposition and Protest.” This essay was a protest against the Tariff of 1828, known as the Tariff of Abominations by Southerners because of its high protective duties. Calhoun’s authorship of this document remained secret, and for four years South Carolina did not act upon it, hoping that President Andrew Jackson would fight for a lower tariff. The “Exposition” and a later paper called “A Disquisition on Government” explained Calhoun’s doctrine of nullification. Contrary to popular belief, Calhoun’s theory did not advocate secession; rather, he believed that nullification would prevent the disruption of the Union. Calhoun saw nullification as an antidote to secession. The basic tenets of his argument were that sovereignty was, by its very nature, absolute and indivisible. Each state was sovereign, and the Union was a compact between the states. Each individual state entered into an agreement with the others, and the terms of this covenant went into the Constitution. The Constitution provided for a separation of powers between the states and the federal government, but not a division of sovereignty. Sovereignty was not the sum of a number of governmental powers but the will of the political community, which could not be divided without be195

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ing destroyed. The states had been sovereign under the Articles of Confederation, and they had not given up their supreme authority when they joined the new Union. Since the Union had been created by the states, and not vice versa, it logically followed that the creator was more powerful than the creature. As the federal government was not supreme, it could exercise only those powers given it by the states, as embodied in the Constitution. Should it exceed these powers, the measures enacted would be unconstitutional. Who was to be the arbiter of constitutionality? Certainly not the Supreme Court, for it was an instrument of the federal government; and if the federal government were not sovereign, then a branch of that government could not be sovereign. The supreme authority rested solely in the people of the states. When a state believed that a federal law exceeded the delegated powers of Congress, that state could declare the law null and void and prevent its enforcement within its own boundaries. When passing on the constitutionality of a law of the federal government, the state acted through a convention called for the express purpose of considering this question, for this was the only way in which the people of a state could give expression to their sovereign will. This action, however, should be taken only as a last resort to protect its rights. Congress could then counter by offering an amendment authorizing the powers that the state contested. If the amendment were not ratified, the law was to be annulled not only for the state but also for the entire nation. Should it pass, the dissatisfied state would have to yield or secede—it could not remain in the Union without accepting the amendment. Thus, the final arbiter would be the same power that created the Constitution, the people of the states. Calhoun was sure that this would prevent secession, for after three-fourths of the states had spoken against her, rarely would a state secede. Tariff of 1832 and Southern Nullification After simmering for four years, the issue of nullification erupted in 1832 over a new tariff. In December, 1831, President Andrew Jackson recommended to Congress a downward revision of the tariff and the elimination of the worst features of the Tariff of 1828. Such a bill finally was pushed through on July 14, 1832, but the new tariff was not low enough for the Southern planters. Although some of the “abominations” were removed, the general level of the duties 196

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was only slightly lower. The greatest reductions were made on noncompetitive manufactured items, and the protective make-up of the tariff hardly had been changed. By mid-1832, the South Carolina extremists were ready to put the nullification theory into action. Many denounced the Tariff of 1832 as unconstitutional and oppressive to the Southern people. In the subsequent state election that fall, the States’ Rights and Unionist parties made the tariff and nullification the chief issues, and when the States’ Rights Party elected more than two-thirds of the legislature, it promptly called for a state convention. The convention met in November, 1832, and by a vote of 136 to 26 adopted an Ordinance of Nullification on November 24. Both the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were declared null and void. After February 1, 1833, the tariff duties were not to be collected, and should the federal government attempt to collect them forcibly, South Carolina would secede. Jackson’s Force Bill Jackson met this challenge in typical fashion. He boldly proclaimed on December 10, 1832, that the Constitution formed a government, not a league, and that the power of a single state to annul a federal law was “incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive to the great object for which it was formed.” He called nullification an “impractical absurdity” and concluded that “disunion by armed force is treason.” This “Proclamation to the People of South Carolina” received the enthusiastic support of nationalists. While Jackson was bold, he was also conciliatory. In his fourth annual message to Congress, in December, 1832, Jackson promised to press for further reduction of the hated tariffs. This was repeated later the same month when the president issued a proclamation to the people of South Carolina. On January 16, 1833, Jackson sent a message to Congress reviewing the circumstances in South Carolina and recommending measures that would enable him to cope successfully with the situation. Tension mounted as the Senate passed the Force Bill in February. This measure authorized Jackson to use the United States Army and Navy to enforce the federal laws, if necessary. 197

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Fulfilling his promise to see that the tariffs were reduced, Jackson did his best to see that legislation giving him full power to force obedience to the laws was accompanied by bills to reduce the tariffs. While the Force Bill was being debated, Henry Clay brought forward a new compromise tariff bill calling for the gradual reduction of tariff duties over the next ten years. By 1842, the tariff was not to exceed 20 percent. South Carolinians waited anxiously to see what would happen, for it was already apparent that no Southern states were coming to her aid, and she would have to fight it out alone. Calhoun, who had resigned the vice presidency after the passage of the Tariff of 1832 and had been elected immediately to the Senate, objected to the Force Bill but feared that strong opposition might hurt the chances of reconciliation that were presented by the Compromise Tariff. He and Clay worked to push the new tariff bill through Congress, and on March 2, 1833, Jackson signed into law both the Force Bill and the Compromise Tariff of 1833. Effects Once the Compromise Tariff was passed, South Carolina repealed its Ordinance of Nullification (January 21); however, in a last gesture of defiance, the convention declared the Force Bill null and void. Jackson ignored this final face-saving move on the part of South Carolina, for the Force Bill was irrelevant if the tariff duties were being collected. Both sides claimed victory. Nationalists declared that the power of the federal government had been upheld by both the president and Congress, while South Carolina asserted that nullification had proved an effective method of sustaining states’ rights. However, the failure of any other Southern state to rally to South Carolina’s defense showed that the doctrine of nullification was unpopular, and from that time forward, militant Southerners looked to the doctrine of secession as their best redress of grievances. John H. DeBerry, updated by Bill Manikas Sources for Further Study Bancroft, Frederic. Calhoun and the South Carolina Nullification Movement. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1928. 198

Preemption Act

Barney, William L. The Passage of the Republic. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1987. Bedford, Henry F., and H. Trevor Colbourn. The Americans: A Brief History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. Boucher, Chauncey S. The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1916. Capers, Gerald M. John C. Calhoun: Opportunist. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1960. Coit, Margaret L. John C. Calhoun. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1950. Smith, Page. The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Antebellum Years. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981. See also: Tenth Amendment (1789); Alien and Sedition Acts

(1798).

Preemption Act Date: September 4, 1841 U.S. Statutes at Large: 5 Stat. 456 Categories: Land Management

The Preemption Act gave the West a sectional victory in the drive for free land. The passage of the Land Act of 1820 did not terminate the debate over public land policy in the United States. Indeed, the western portion of the United States became more insistent and demanding concerning the liberalization of land laws. With migration feeding the West with a never-ending stream of inhabitants and with numerous Western territories ready for admission to the Union as states, this section of the nation gained political power. As the West grew in influence, the Northeast and the Southeast vied with each other to gain the political support of the West. Growth of Sectionalism Between 1815 and 1850, the political life of the nation became increasingly sectionalized. Each section had a position on the major 199

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issues of the day, which included land policy, tariffs, internal improvements, and fiscal policies. These issues assumed more importance as the national debt was paid off, freeing up resources for other purposes. On most issues, the Northeast and the Southeast were on opposite sides. This allowed the West to embark on protracted negotiations designed to win support for liberalization of land policies in return for support on issues of major significance in the Northeast or Southeast. It was in this context that the West was able to push for its pet objectives, preemption and graduation. This pressure also led to the decision of the Jackson administration to force the tribes of the Old Southwest—the Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Seminoles—to move to new lands west of the Mississippi River. These lands, now the state of Oklahoma, were designated Indian Territory. The forced transfer of these, the Five Civilized Tribes, became the infamous Trail of Tears. Meanwhile, the West pressed for liberalization of the laws governing sale of the public lands. Graduation Graduation was a device whereby the price of land would be reduced proportionate to the time that the land had been on the market unsold. At the end of a specified period of time, unsold land would be turned over to the state in which it was located. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri introduced such legislation in 1824 and again in 1830, but it was not until 1854 that the Graduation Act was passed; it contributed to the land boom of the mid1850’s. Preemption Preemption meant recognition of the legal right of squatters on the public domain to purchase the land they occupied when it was offered for sale. As early as 1807, with the Intrusion Act, effective preemption was provided retrospectively for squatters on public land; between 1799 and 1830, a number of preemption acts had been passed, but they were all retrospective, of limited duration, and restricted to specific localities. In 1830, Congress passed the first general preemption law, the Preemption Act of 1830, permitting squatters cultivating the land in 1829 to buy up to 160 acres at the minimum price. This kind of legislation proved very difficult to 200

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administer, and there were numerous instances of fraud. Nevertheless, several hundred thousand acres of land were sold to settlers under the terms of this law. What the West wanted, however, was permanent and prospective preemption. Henry Clay and the Whigs preferred distribution, that is, turning over the receipts from sale of the public lands to the states to finance internal improvements. After extensive and complex political maneuverings, a Distribution-Preemption Act passed Congress in September of 1841, with the proviso tacked on that if the tariff rose above 20 percent, distribution would be halted. This occurred in 1842, and distribution was halted, but preemption remained a permanent part of the public land laws of the United States. Provisions and Impact The Preemption Act of 1841 recognized that settlement prior to purchase did not constitute trespassing, and that the use of the land for settlement was more important than for raising revenue, although the latter goal had been the original objective of selling off the public lands. Under the law, any adult citizen (or an alien who had declared his intention to become a citizen) who had occupied, cultivated, and erected a dwelling on the public lands could purchase a tract of up to 160 acres at the minimum price. Theoretically, the provision still applied only to surveyed lands; however, squatting on unsurveyed lands increased, and the original settlers, if interested, were normally allowed to benefit from the Preemption Act once the lands were surveyed. The Preemption Act of 1841 proved to be only a waystation in the process of moving the distribution of public lands to free lands. This principle was incorporated in the Homestead Act of 1862, whose passage then became possible because the South had withdrawn from the Union and the West had the power to achieve its ultimate end, free land for settlers. John G. Clark, updated by Nancy M. Gordon Sources for Further Study Carstensen, Vernon, ed. The Public Lands: Studies in the History of the Public Domain. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968. 201

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Feller, Daniel. The Public Lands in Jacksonian Politics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. Gates, Paul W. History of Public Land Law Development. Washington, D.C.: Zenger, 1968. North, Douglas C., and Andrew B. Rutten. “The Northwest Ordinance in Historical Perspective.” In Essays on the Economy of the Old Northwest, edited by David C. Klingaman and Richard K. Vedder. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1987. Rohrbough, Malcolm J. The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789-1837. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. See also: Land Act of 1820 (1820); Homestead Act (1862); Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 (1862).

Webster-Ashburton Treaty Date: Signed August 9, 1842 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The settlement of a U.S.-Canadian boundary dispute sets a precedent for amicable relations between North American neighbors. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty settled a boundary controversy that had irritated Anglo-American relations since the Treaty of Paris had been signed in 1783. This dispute in the Northeast involved sovereignty over portions of northern Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The area involved was not large, the region was remote and lightly populated, but again and again from 1783 to 1842, conflict between America and Great Britain intruded to prevent some rational settlement of the dispute. The Boundary Problem The boundary problem was the result of ignorance about the geography of the northeastern region and of the failure of the negotiators at Paris in 1783 to attach maps to the treaty with the boundary 202

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line clearly marked upon them. The treaty language stated that the Maine-New Brunswick boundary was to be the St. Croix River from Passamaquoddy Bay to its source, and then “a line drawn due north, from the source of the St. Croix River, to the Highlands which divide those rivers which empty into the River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean.” Unfortunately, British-American surveyors could not agree on which of two streams emptying into Passamaquoddy Bay was the St. Croix River; nor were the highlands described in the treaty identified to the satisfaction of both sides. As a result, until the boundary was definitely fixed, the inhabitants of an area of approximately 7.7 million acres did not know whether they owed allegiance to Canada or to the United States. Numerous efforts were made to settle the conflict. One provision of Jay’s Treaty in 1794 was for a mixed commission to identify the “real” St. Croix River and chart its course. Its findings, which offered a compromise solution to the dispute, were made part of a general convention signed in 1803. Congress refused, however, to consent to this agreement, largely because of the article dealing with the Northwest boundary question involving Oregon. Nothing further was attempted until the negotiations at Ghent in 1814 called to end the War of 1812. There, the British tried hard to win a favorable Canadian boundary settlement because, during the war, they had become aware of the importance of the area for the construction of a projected military highway from Montreal and Quebec to the Maritime Provinces. The United States refused to accede to British demands, and the peace treaty merely created four commissions to mark the entire boundary from the Atlantic to the Lake of the Woods, west of Lake Superior. With regard to the Northeast, the treaty provided that, should the commission fail to agree, the question would be given over to arbitration by a third state. When the joint commission failed to reach agreement, the king of the Netherlands was asked to arbitrate the matter in 1827. The royal arbitrator proposed to divide the disputed territory almost equally between the two parties. Great Britain was willing to accept this compromise, as was President Andrew Jackson, but the states of Maine and Massachusetts opposed a solution that gave away a large piece of Maine’s territory. Jackson submitted the issue to the Senate, which rejected the solution that had been proposed by the 203

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king of the Netherlands. Political pressures and concern for national prestige prevented the issue from being resolved for another decade. The C AROLINE Affair The 1830’s witnessed numerous incidents related to the boundary issue, which further heightened the tension between the United States and Great Britain. The Canadian insurrection of 1837 elicited great sympathy from Americans along the frontier, and the Caroline affair (in which a U.S. citizen, Amos Durfee, was killed on U.S. soil by Canadians assisting British authorities) inflamed opinion against Great Britain throughout the United States. The arrest and trial in 1840 of Alexander McLeod, a Canadian deputy sheriff, for the murder of Durfee, which most historians believe he did not commit, brought anti-British sentiment to a peak and stood in the way of any compromise on the boundary issue. Great Britain threatened war if McLeod was convicted. McLeod was acquitted and the threat passed, but the incident underscored the danger of letting the tension between Great Britain and the United States over Canadian border issues continue to simmer. More directly related was the so-called Aroostook War—a threatened conflict between Maine and New Brunswick forces in 1839. The fertile Aroostook Valley was, in this period, the scene of incidents of claim-jumping and furious competition for timber and land, and there was increasing violence. The danger of an armed clash was averted through a truce arranged by General Winfield Scott, but the basic problems remained to imperil the peace. Negotiations The conflict was finally resolved in 1841, soon after Daniel Webster became secretary of state and Baron Ashburton (Alexander Baring), who had married a Philadelphia heiress and had extensive financial interests in the United States, was appointed special envoy for Great Britain with powers to resolve the boundary controversy. Ashburton’s appointment signified the new priority placed by the British on Canadian issues. In the aftermath of Lord George Durham’s report, which had called attention to Great Britain’s previous neglect of the Canadian situation, the British government now was determined to take Canadian matters in hand. Ashburton was instructed to negotiate amicably with the 204

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United States and to settle the border issue once and for all. Even before Ashburton’s arrival, Webster had announced that the United States would consider a compromise boundary in the Northeast. Webster, as pro-British as any U.S. politician of his era, was convinced that the dispute must be settled. To do so, however, the McLeod case would have to be resolved and the state of Maine would have to be persuaded to accept a surrender of territory claimed as its own. McLeod was acquitted by a New York jury, but direct intervention by Webster was required to accomplish the second aim. The negotiation of the Canadian border treaty was a high personal priority for Webster. He saw it as the capstone of his tenure as secretary of state and prolonged his tenure in that office just to negotiate the treaty. William Henry Harrison, the Whig president who had appointed Webster to the State Department, had died in 1841 after only a month in office, leaving the presidency to his vice president, John Tyler, who was a Democrat by party. Most of Harrison’s cabinet were Whigs, and most resigned when Tyler showed he had no intention of following Whig policies. Webster, although also a Whig, stayed on because he believed the negotiation of the treaty with Great Britain would be a crucial and fundamental diplomatic achievement. Treaty Provisions Webster and Ashburton began informal conversations in the autumn of 1841 and made rapid progress. They agreed to “split the difference” over the territory in dispute between Maine and New Brunswick; the United States won the line north of latitude 45° north as the boundary of New York and Vermont; minor adjustments were made in the region of Lake of the Woods in Minnesota and articles dealing with extradition, suppression of the international slave trade, and the Caroline affair were drafted. The objections of Maine and Massachusetts to a compromise settlement, which were overcome only after strenuous efforts, culminated in the payment of $150,000 to each of the two states by the federal government. Jared Sparks, a noted historian, lobbied for the treaty in the Maine legislature, for which he was paid $14,500 by Ashburton. The treaty was signed on August 9, 1842, and was approved by the Senate less than two weeks later. 205

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Impact The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was an important achievement. It removed a source of potential conflict and brought about immediate improvement in Anglo-American relations. Historians agree that settlement of the Oregon controversy would have been exceedingly difficult without use of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty as a precedent. Nevertheless, the negotiations, or more precisely Webster’s role in them, are accounted by some as a failure in United States diplomacy. By the treaty’s terms, the United States conceded approximately five thousand of the twelve thousand square miles of disputed territory to Great Britain. There now exists strong evidence (much of which was available to Secretary of State Webster, had he wished to uncover it) to support the validity of the original U.S. claims. On the other hand, concessions made by Ashburton in the Lake of the Woods region gave the United States clear title to sixty-five hundred square miles of territory that later revealed valuable deposits of iron ore. The United States had fought two previous wars against British troops based in Canada. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty did much to ensure that such a circumstance would never happen again. Although Webster was accused of sacrificing more territory to the British than necessary, his flexibility no doubt contributed to British willingness to let the United States have the richest portions of the Oregon Territory only a few years later. Webster and Ashburton did much to guarantee the unprecedented amity and peace that prevailed on the United States-Canadian border in the centuries after their agreement. Theodore A. Wilson, updated by Nicholas Birns Sources for Further Study Bourne, Kenneth. Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815-1908. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Jones, Howard. To the Webster-Ashburton Treaty: A Study in AngloAmerican Relations, 1783-1843. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977. Peterson, Merrill D. The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Raddall, Thomas. The Path of Destiny. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957. 206

Treaty of Wang Hiya

Stevens, Kenneth R. Border Diplomacy: The Caroline and McLeod Affairs in Anglo-American-Canadian Relations, 1837-1842. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Jay’s Treaty (1794); Treaty of

Ghent (1814); Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817); Convention of 1818 (1818); Treaty of Washington (1871).

Treaty of Wang Hiya Date: Signed July 3, 1844 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations; Treaties

and Agreements

This treaty opened China to American trade. Although the quality of Chinese ceramics, silk, and tea was much valued, for centuries China was not interested in establishing normal commercial relations. Often, European merchants visiting China were held hostage or killed. In 1786, one year after the first American ship traded with China, Major Samuel Shaw of Boston was appointed the first American consulate general to China. In 1787, England tried to send an ambassador. Both were unsuccessful in normalizing trade with China, which was largely handled by a guild of Chinese merchants in Canton who were known for capriciousness and corruption. The First Opium War Meanwhile, Britain and other countries began to make huge profits by selling opium grown in India and elsewhere on the black market in Canton; the supply increased sevenfold from 1821 to 1837. In 1839, China declared a war on drugs that ultimately led to blockading the foreign community in Canton, stopping all trade, arresting a leading foreign dealer, and demanding that merchants surrender all their opium, which was then burned. One day during the antiopium campaign, drunken British sailors killed a Chinese 207

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man. Although British officials followed the common practice of bringing them to justice in a British tribunal, Chinese authorities insisted that they be tried in a Chinese court. British officials in Canton refused. The conflict escalated, London sent gunboats, and the First Opium War began in November, 1839. The Treaty of Nanking of August, 1842, concluded the war. U.S. Trade Delegation After the Nanking treaty won trade advantages for Britain, other counties sought the same. Accordingly, U.S. president John Tyler, with congressional approval, dispatched a trade mission, including a small naval escort, headed by Congressman Caleb Cushing. His assignment was to present American diplomatic credentials to the emperor in Beijing and to negotiate a commercial treaty. After the mission arrived in Portuguese Macao in February of 1844, Cushing, through two American Cantonese-speaking members of his delegation, asked Chinese officials if he could proceed to Canton, Tientsin, and Beijing, but his requests were denied. Instead, he waited until the emperor sent Commissioner Ch’i-ying, the negotiator of the Nanking treaty, who arrived along with other officials at Macao on June 20. When Cushing finally dropped his persistent request to go to Beijing, the Chinese negotiator came to terms, and the Treaty of Wang Hiya was completed and signed on the same day. Treaty Provisions Similar to the Nanking treaty, Wang Hiya opened five ports to American trade, consular representatives were allowed with extraterritoriality privileges, and China granted most-favored-nation status; that is, British and any future favorable concessions would be automatically granted to the United States. Unlike the Nanking agreement, The Wang Hiya treaty prohibited trade in opium, and the United States did not demand to appropriate Chinese territory. Terms of the Treaty of Wang Hiya were not consistently observed. After the Second Opium War, China signed several treaties in Tientsin during 1858, granting much more favorable terms. The American treaty of Tientsin, also known as the Burlingame Treaty, was revised in 1868 to provide a temporary basis for importing Chinese laborers to build the transcontinental railroad. Michael Haas 208

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Sources for Further Study Hewes, Agnes Danforth. Two Oceans to Canton: The Story of the Old China Trade. New York: Knopf, 1944. Swisher, Earl. China’s Management of the American Barbarians: A Study of Sino-American Relations, 1841-1861. New York: Octagon Books, 1972. See also: Burlingame Treaty (1868).

Independent Treasury Act Date: August 6, 1846 U.S. Statutes at Large: 9 Stat. 59 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance; Government Proce-

dure and Organization; Tariffs and Taxation

Management of Treasury funds was removed from state-chartered banks, resulting in a federal means of regulating the monetary system. Creation of the Independent Treasury system, finally achieved in 1846, was the outgrowth of the controversy arising from President Andrew Jackson’s refusal to accept recharter of the Second Bank of the United States. In 1833, Jackson and his secretary of the Treasury, Roger B. Taney, determined to withdraw government deposits from the Second Bank and transfer them to state-chartered banks. Since there was a hint of political patronage in this process, the newly selected deposit banks were soon termed the “pet banks.” There were few checks on how these banks were to operate. Boom and Bust The years from 1833 to 1836 were a time of economic boom. Gold flowed into the country in payment for cotton exports and foreign investment. The gold entered bank reserves and banks responded by expanding loans, note issues, and deposits. There was a strong upsurge in sales of public lands by the government, bringing a 209

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flood of revenues and enabling the government to pay off the national debt. Government deposits expanded rapidly, and in June of 1836, Congress voted to distribute the surplus to the states. In 1837, however, a deflationary panic occurred, partly in response to the withdrawal of specie from banks to carry out the distribution of the surplus. The Panic of 1837, and the depression that followed, resulted in the failure of numerous banks, including some that held government deposits. More commonly, banks continued to operate but refused to redeem their liabilities in specie. As the economic depression reduced government revenue, the Treasury was hard-pressed by the unavailability of its bank deposits. Furthermore, there was widespread public resentment against the banking system, which was blamed for the panic and depression. The Treasury found itself obliged to make some of its payments using depreciated notes of its deposit banks. An element among the Jacksonian politicians had long held the view that banks’ privilege to issue banknote currency should be curbed. This view was reflected in government directives restricting the acceptability of small-denomination banknotes in payments to the government, and in the Specie Circular of July, 1836, which ordered that payments to the government for public-land purchases be made in gold or silver. However, the Panic of 1837 proved short-lived. Most banks resumed specie payments in the spring of 1838, a process facilitated by continued inflow of gold from overseas. Then, during 1839, deflationary conditions returned. This time, there were heavy gold exports and downward pressure on money and credit, leading to a 30 percent decline in prices between 1839 and 1843. Concern for the Treasury deposits and antibank sentiment combined to provide support for creating an Independent Treasury—independent of the banks, that is. Developing the Independent Treasury Proposals for an Independent Treasury system began as early as 1834 in Congress, when William F. Gordon, an anti-Jackson Democrat, introduced such a measure to curb the potential political influence involved in relations with the “pet banks.” President Martin Van Buren, in a message to a special session of Congress on September 5, 1837, called for a specie currency, criticized the operation of state-chartered banks, and suggested a plan to open Trea210

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sury depositories independent of the banks. Congress debated the idea for the next nine years and finally passed the Independent Treasury Act on June 30, 1840, only to repeal it on August 13, 1841. On August 1, 1846, such a system was enacted again. It served as the basis for managing government funds until the inception of the Federal Reserve System in 1914. The Independent Treasury Act adopted in 1840 reflected the antibank sentiments of Jacksonian Democrats. The election of 1840 shifted power to the Whigs, who repealed the 1840 law before it had much effect. The Independent Treasury was replaced as an issue by the efforts of Henry Clay and the Whigs to charter a new national bank. However, the untimely death of President William Henry Harrison brought John Tyler into the presidency. Tyler, a strong proponent of states’ rights, vetoed two bills to create a new national bank. The victory of James K. Polk and the Democratic Party in 1846 allowed the reenactment of the Independent Treasury. The New System Under the new system, subtreasuries were established in six leading cities, with responsibility for receiving, safeguarding, and paying out government funds. The government’s mints participated in these operations. All government transactions were to be conducted either in gold and silver coin or in Treasury notes. The latter were short-term, interest-bearing securities issued as part of the national debt. Some of them were issued with very low interest rates and were clearly designed to circulate as paper currency, even though they were not technically legal tender. The government now maintained no deposit accounts with banks, nor could it receive checks or banknotes for payments to the government. Although technically independent of the banks, the Treasury’s operations soon displayed substantial influence on banking conditions. At times, government revenues exceeded disbursements, and specie accumulated in the Treasury offices, draining off reserves from the banks and putting banks under pressure to contract loans, with deflationary consequences. At other times, government deficits led to a net flow of specie from Treasury to banks, with expansionary effects that were not always desirable. Ingenious methods were devised by secretaries of the Treasury to try to prevent these operations from causing financial damage. During the 211

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early 1850’s, for example, boom conditions—arising in part from the California gold discoveries—led to a large increase in specie held in the Treasury. The national debt had increased substantially since 1836. This gave Secretary of the Treasury James Guthrie the opportunity to buy government securities in the open market. These purchases helped transfer funds from the Treasury to the banks and relieve them from deflationary pressure. Such operations became an important element in Treasury operations during the remainder of the period until to 1914. The Civil War altered the character of the system. In 1863 and 1864, with the passage of the National Bank Acts, the government adopted a system of chartering local banks, to be called national banks. These were eligible to hold government deposits. Legaltender government paper currency, the “greenback,” was introduced in 1862. Both government and banks went off the specie standard until 1879, so government transactions were conducted with paper money. However, the subtreasuries continued to operate and to influence bank reserves and monetary conditions. Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Hammond, Bray. Banks and Politics in the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957. McPaul, John M. The Politics of Jacksonian Finance. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972. Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Age of Jackson. New York: Mentor Books, 1945. Taus, Esther Rogoff. Central Banking Functions of the United States Treasury, 1789-1941. New York: Columbia University Press, 1943. Timberlake, Richard H. Monetary Policy in the United States: An Intellectual and Institutional History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. See also: National Bank Acts (1863-1864); Coinage Act (1873); Currency Act (1900); Federal Reserve Act (1913).

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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Date: Signed February 2, 1848 U.S. Statutes at Large: 9 Stat. 922 Categories: Foreign Relations; Latinos; Native Americans; Treaties

and Agreements

The treaty ended the Mexican-American War, forcing Mexico to cede about half its national territory to the United States and disrupting the lives of native peoples in the ceded territory. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, drafted and signed at the Mexican village of Guadalupe Hidalgo, near Mexico City, ended the Mexican War (1846-1848). The war had been prompted partly by hawkish adherents of “manifest destiny,” a belief in the inevitable expansion of the United States through the whole of North America, although it had nominally erupted over disputed territories shortly after the United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845. The specific cause of the war was the dispute over which river—the Rio Bravo del Norte or the Nueces—marked a boundary line between the two countries. War had been declared formally in April of 1846, after Mexican and U.S. troops clashed in the disputed territory between the two rivers. The Mexican War In Mexico, political turmoil and poor military strategy and preparedness at first led to fairly easy U.S. victories. Successful campaigns in northeastern Mexico by General Zachary Taylor caused the collapse of the Mexican government and the recall from exile of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, who fought a close but losing battle against Taylor at Buena Vista in February of 1847. The tide turned fully against Mexico when General Winfield Scott invaded Mexico at Veracruz and fought his way inland against tough resistance to capture Mexico City. The crucial battle in Scott’s march from the sea was fought against Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo on April 18, 1847; even with Santa Anna’s defeat, Scott’s army had difficulty, and it was not until September 14, 1847, that his troops entered and took control of the Mexican capital. 213

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Negotiations Begin Santa Anna, threatened with impeachment for his conduct of the war, went once more into exile. In order to take direct command of the Mexican forces, he earlier had named Manuel de la Peña y Peña interim president and eventually had to ask the Peña government for permission to leave Mexico. It was Peña who was forced to agree to the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, negotiated under the weakest possible conditions for Mexico. For a payment of $15 million and $3.25 million in claims of Mexican citizens, Mexico ceded to the United States the territories of New Mexico and Upper California. The agreement also established the MexicanAmerican boundary, which followed the course of the Rio Grande from the Gulf of Mexico to the southern border of New Mexico, west to the Gila and Colorado Rivers, and eventually to a point just south of San Diego on the Pacific Ocean. The negotiations leading up to the treaty were complex. In April of 1847, President Polk had sent Nicholas P. Trist of the Department of State to Scott’s camp with a secret treaty proposal drafted by James Buchanan, secretary of state. Trist was empowered to consider counterproposals and secure an armistice, which was actually arranged in late August of that same year. Scott had been in secret communication with Santa Anna, who, without the knowledge of the Mexican government, was trying to arrange treaty terms on his own. Santa Anna assured Scott that hostilities could be suspended and a treaty negotiated if and when Scott’s army laid siege to Mexico City. Scott had even written a memorandum in which he avowed that he would fight a battle in view of the capital and then “give those in the City an opportunity to save the capital by making a peace.” A Break in the Armistice Scott, with victories at Contreras and Churubusco in August, 1847, had met Santa Anna’s conditions. The road to Mexico City was open, and the remnants of Santa Anna’s army had been put to disordered flight, taking refuge within the capital. Scott was certain that a peace with a compliant Santa Anna could be quickly negotiated. Santa Anna, however, was as deceitful and crafty as Scott was forthright and naïve. He knew that Scott’s army was wracked by disease, declining morale, and logistics problems, and he believed that time was an invisible ally. As his blame-shifting maneuvers 214

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made clear, he also wanted to avoid making any treaty concessions that would tarnish his national image. Thus, although a cease-fire was arranged and agreed to, the efforts to draft a mutually acceptable set of terms at the ensuing peace conference proved futile and were probably doomed from the outset. The armistice broke off on September 6, and on September 14 Scott took Mexico City. Santa Anna had already fled. When it became clear to Buchanan and Polk that Santa Anna was stalling, Polk ordered the recall of Trist, in part to counteract the impression that the United States was anxious to achieve a peace, a view gaining currency among the Mexican people. Trist did not return, however; he stayed on after the futile negotiations broke off and fighting resumed. The war dragged on past the departure of Santa Anna, who met his final defeat at Puebla on October 11. It was abundantly clear that Mexico could not turn the war’s tide, and within two months, it sued for peace. Trist, never having returned home, became the chief U.S. negotiator at Guadalupe Hidalgo, where the treaty was finally signed. Treaty Provisions The drafted terms, readied by January 24, 1848, more fully realized the territorial ambitions of the United States than the terms that had been discussed during the earlier armistice conference, which had at least left the Texas border question open. However, even from the outset of the earlier negotiations, it had been clear that the United States was determined to annex both Upper California and New Mexico. In the end, Santa Anna’s delaying tactics had proved a bit more costly to Mexico. Because a flawed map was used during the treaty negotiations, the boundaries between Mexico and the United States remained open to interpretation. Surveyors could not agree on the identity of the first branch of the Gila River, one of the important demarcation lines, and the boundary line between Mexico and the United States in the area separating the Gila River and the Rio Grande was not settled. However, both the Rio Grande and the Gila River were established as principal boundaries. Mexico thereby ceded territories south of the Nueces River and all of Upper California from one nautical league south of San Diego to the Northwest Territories. The United States gained all of the Territory of New Mexico, the disputed lands in southern Texas, and Upper California. In consid215

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eration for ceding this vast acreage, the United States was to pay only the stipulated $15 million plus the $3.25 million in claims. It was a grand bargain for the expansionist believers in manifest destiny. The treaty terms were quickly accepted by Polk and, with some amendments, ratified by the U.S. Senate on March 10, 1848. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo did not immediately end the boundary issue. In 1853, during the administration of Franklin Pierce, the current border between Mexico and the United States was finally set when the United States purchased the Arizona Territory from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase and described the boundary line between the two countries in the disputed area. An important provision of that treaty, Article VII, granted U.S. citizenship with full constitutional rights to the Mexicans living in the ceded territories and guaranteed them ownership of their land. However, through the invalidation of Spanish and Mexican land grants, federal courts and the U.S. Congress allowed government agencies, ranchers, land speculators, and business and railroad magnates to gobble up acreage that, by the terms of the treaty, rightly belonged to Mexican Americans. Over two generations, almost twenty million acres of their land was lost to private owners and state and federal agencies. John W. Fiero Sources for Further Study Brack, Gene M. Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, 1821-1846: An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975. Callahan, James M. American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations. New York: Macmillan, 1932. McAfee, Ward, and J. Cordell Robinson, comps. Origins of the Mexican War: A Documentary Source Book. 2 vols. Salisbury, N.C.: Documentary Publications, 1982. Pletcher, David M. The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1973. Singletary, Otis A. The Mexican War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. See also: Adams-Onís Treaty (1819); Oregon Act (1848). 216

Oregon Act

Oregon Act Date: August 14, 1848 U.S. Statutes at Large: 9 Stat. 323 Categories: Land Management

This bill organized the Oregon territory and laid the groundwork for its later statehood. The need to organize an Oregon government arose after the United States and Great Britain agreed to divide the Oregon region at the forty-ninth parallel in June of 1846. When Congress convened in December, President James K. Polk recommended that Oregon be recognized as a territory eligible for statehood. Polk did not expect difficulties. The residents of Oregon had already created a provisional government and in 1844 passed two laws: the first prohibiting slavery, the second forever forbidding residence by free black persons. No one doubted that Oregon would be free territory. Wilmot Proviso When Polk asked for an Oregon bill, he also requested three million dollars to purchase land from Mexico, thus entangling Oregon in the Mexican territory dispute. Northern congressmen angered southern defenders of slavery when they tried attaching the Wilmot Proviso, banning slavery from any land acquired from Mexico, to Polk’s Three-Million Bill. The House Committee on Territories reported an Oregon bill on January 14 using the language of Thomas Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance of 1787 to exclude slavery. A southern congressman proposed an amendment stating that Oregon was free territory because it lay north of the 36°30′ Missouri Compromise line. Northerners objected that this reversed the Wilmot Proviso’s objective, implying that land south of the line could be slave territory. The amendment lost on a strictly sectional vote of 83 to 118. When a Senate committee took the slavery ban out of the Oregon Bill, northern senators tabled the bill rather than accept it in that form. Even though Northerners and Southerners agreed that Oregon would be free, they could not disentangle this agreement from their disagreement over territories in gen217

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eral. Their opposing positions hardened into demands that slavery either be sanctioned in all territories or prohibited in all territories. Provisions for Statehood When an Indian war broke out in Oregon, underscoring the urgency of organizing the region, Polk, in June 1848, again requested Congress to accept the Missouri Compromise line. The Senate approved a bill specifying the 36°30′ line as the basis for excluding slavery, but the House defeated the measure. On August 12, three slave-state senators shifted their votes and accepted a bill specifying that Oregon would be free of slavery under the provisions of the 1787 ordinance and existing local laws. Polk signed the bill on August 14. The bill provided that voters could elect a territorial legislature and send a nonvoting delegate to Congress. The president appointed the governor, secretary, judges, and governor’s council. When the population reached sixty thousand, Oregon could hold a convention and submit a constitution to Congress for approval. The 1857 convention asked voters to separately consider the two articles banning slavery and prohibiting admission of free blacks. Both provisions passed by margins of eight to one. The exclusion clause was not repealed until 1926. Oregon became a state within its present boundaries in 1859 and voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Milton Berman Sources for Further Study Nevins, Allan. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852. Vol. 1 in Ordeal of the Union. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947. Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. See also: Northwest Ordinance (1787); Treaty of Ghent (1814);

Convention of 1818 (1818); Missouri Compromise (1820); Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848).

218

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty Date: Signed April 19, 1850 Categories: Foreign Relations; Transportation; Treaties and Agree-

ments

Although criticized for violating the Monroe Doctrine, this treaty between Great Britain and the United States was negotiated to ensure U.S. and British neutrality in building land routes and waterways across the Central American isthmus. After the United States acquired Oregon in 1846 and California in 1848, the need for quicker communications between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts stimulated American interest in a canal across Central America. Great Britain, the major maritime power of the world, alarmed the United States by its activities in that region. Britain had established a protectorate over the Mosquito Indians on the east coast of Nicaragua and occupied Greytown at the mouth of the San Juan River. Many observers believed the most feasible canal route crossed Nicaragua, reaching the Atlantic via the San Juan River. Britain appeared intent on controlling that path. Negotiating Neutrality A worried American secretary of state, John M. Clayton, had the American minister in London ask the British foreign secretary if his country intended to establish new colonies in Central America and whether Britain would join the United States in guaranteeing the neutrality of any interoceanic canal. Britain denied any intention of establishing new colonies and sent Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer to Washington in December, 1849, to negotiate an agreement reconciling the views of the two countries regarding Central America. After much diplomatic sparring, Clayton and Bulwer signed a treaty the following April providing that neither nation would try to control any canal or railroad built across Central America. Both agreed not to fortify a future canal, to cooperate in guaranteeing the neutrality of any that might be built, and to assure equal access for all nations to the prospective waterway. Article I pledged that neither country would colonize or exercise dominion over any part of Central America. 219

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Article I proved a source of bitter dispute between the two countries. The phraseology on noncolonization was deliberately ambiguous; Clayton had wanted the British to pledge the return of the Mosquito Coast and Greytown to Nicaragua, but Bulwer would not admit that Britain’s actions were improper. When the United States later requested that Britain withdraw from the Mosquito country, the British refused, insisting the treaty could not be applied retroactively to existing British positions. An Unpopular Treaty The treaty was persistently unpopular in the United States. Critics said it violated the Monroe Doctrine by treating Great Britain as an equal partner in the Western Hemisphere. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, American opinion began to demand exclusive American control of any Isthmian canal. Presidents, beginning with Ulysses S. Grant, tried without success to convince Great Britain to revoke the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and permit sole United States construction and control of a canal. Acquisition of the Philippines increased American desire for a canal. Diplomatic difficulties during the Boer War influenced Great Britain to be more flexible. The 1901 Hay-Pauncefote agreement granted the United States the right to construct, own, and operate an Isthmian canal and empowered the United States to fortify the waterway, as long as it was available to all nations on an equal basis. When the canal opened in 1914, it crossed Panama rather than Nicaragua. Milton Berman Sources for Further Study Van Alstyne, Richard W. “British Diplomacy and the ClaytonBulwer Treaty, 1850-1860.” Journal of Modern History 11 (1939): 149-183. Williams, Mary Wilhemine. Anglo American Isthmian Diplomacy, 1815-1915. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1916. See also: Monroe Doctrine (1823); Panama Canal Act (1912); Pan-

ama Canal Treaties (1978).

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Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Date: September 18, 1850 U.S. Statutes at Large: 9 Stat. 462 Categories: African Americans; Slavery

This law, aimed at making the rendition of fugitive slaves from Northern states easier for Southern slaveholders, exacerbated tensions between North and South. Congress passed the Second Fugitive Slave Law in September, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850. This compromise, its supporters hoped, would provide a permanent settlement of the long-standing dispute between the North and the South over slavery. The dispute had reached crisis proportions in 1848, after the United States forcibly acquired from Mexico huge territories in the Southwest, which raised the issue of the status of slavery in those territories. Most of the provisions of the Compromise of 1850 dealt with that issue. Southern white spokespersons also insisted that the government do something to prevent slave escapes into the North and to make it easier for masters to reclaim fugitive slaves from there. Slave Escapes Slave escapes had been common long before the United States became an independent country. It was the decision of the Northern states following the Revolutionary War to abolish slavery within their bounds that created a sectional issue. As a result, in 1787, Southern influence brought about the insertion in the U.S. Constitution of a clause providing that slaves escaping from one state to another were not to be freed but returned to their masters. This clause established the constitutional basis for fugitive slave laws. The first such law, passed by Congress in 1793, allowed masters, on their own, to apprehend escaped slaves in the free states. Although this law provided no legal protection for persons accused of being fugitive slaves, neither did it authorize state or federal assistance for masters attempting to reclaim slaves. Personal Liberty Laws Several events in the 1840’s prompted Southern whites to intensify demands for a stronger fugitive slave law. First, the number of slave 221

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escapes increased as the slave labor system in the border slave states weakened. Second, a few black and white abolitionists became active in helping slaves escape. Third, Northern states began passing “personal liberty laws” requiring jury trials to determine the status of African Americans accused of being fugitive slaves. Such trials provided protection to those falsely accused and also made it more difficult for masters to reclaim actual escapees. The Supreme Court addressed this last issue in the case of Prigg v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1842). In Prigg, the Court ruled that a state could not interfere with the right of a master to recapture slaves. The Court also ruled, however, that, because the power to legislate on the fugitive slave issue was purely national, states were not required to assist in the enforcement of the First Fugitive Slave Law. This ruling allowed for a new series of personal liberty laws that denied masters the support they needed to apprehend alleged slaves. For many Southern whites, who feared that slave escapes were a major threat to the existence of slavery in the border slave states, the fugitive slave law issue loomed as large as the issue of slavery in the territories in the late 1840’s. In response to these concerns, Senator James Mason of Virginia proposed the passage of a new and stronger fugitive slave law, on January 3, 1850. Harsh Provisions When Mason’s much-amended bill became law nine months later, it appeared to be all that Southern whites demanded. It provided that United States marshals had to assist masters in arresting fugitive slaves and that the marshals could, in turn, summon Northern citizens to help. It provided that United States circuit courts appoint numerous commissioners who were empowered to evaluate the truth of a master’s claim and authorize the return of fugitives to a master’s state. Accused fugitives were not permitted to testify before the commissioners. The commissioners would receive a fee of ten dollars if they accepted a master’s claim and only five dollars if they did not. Anyone who interfered with the apprehension of alleged fugitive slaves or who helped such persons escape was subject to a fine of up to one thousand dollars and imprisonment for up to six months. To many Northerners, the new law seemed to be excessively harsh and corrupting. Even Northerners who expressed no opposition to slavery in the South had little enthusiasm for assisting in the ren222

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dition of fugitive slaves. The denial to the accused of the right to testify, of the writ of habeas corpus, and of a jury trial appeared to be invitations for the unscrupulous to use the new law to facilitate kidnapping of free African American Northerners. That commissioners were paid more to remand to the South persons accused of being fugitive slaves than to exonerate such persons seemed to be a bribe in behalf of the putative masters. The official explanation of the different fees—that to send the accused back to the South required more paperwork than to reject a master’s claim—seemed a disingenuous excuse to many Northerners. Finally, because the law was retroactive, fugitive slaves who had lived safely in the North for many years were now subject to recapture. To abolitionists, who opposed the very existence of slavery and encouraged slaves to escape, and to antislavery politicians, who contended that the South was seeking to expand its slave system into the North, the new law was anathema. The law’s harshness and its apparent invasion of Northern states’ rights led less committed Northerners to oppose it as well. Even as the bill that became the Second Fugitive Slave Law made its way through Congress, antislavery senators Salmon P. Chase of Ohio and William H. Seward of New York attempted, without success, to defeat it or to include in it provisions for jury trials. Antislavery Northerners denounced Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts for his March 7, 1850, endorsement of the bill. When it became law on September 18, there were protests throughout the North, although most Northerners acquiesced in its enforcement. Resistance In many instances, however, enforcement was very difficult. As soon as the law went into effect, African Americans escaping from the South went to Canada, beyond the reach of the law. Others who had lived in the North for years took refuge across the Canadian border in times of danger. New personal liberty laws in a number of Northern states—several of which required jury trials—not only protected those falsely charged with being fugitive slaves but, by adding expenses, discouraged masters from pressing claims. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s best-selling novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, first published in serial form in 1851-1852, both reflected and encouraged Northern antipathy to the Second Fugitive Slave Law. By portraying slavery as a brutal system and depicting fugitive slaves sympa223

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thetically, Stowe aroused an emotional Northern reaction against the law. Most striking, blacks and whites physically resisted enforcement of the law throughout the 1850’s. Shortly after the law went into effect, former slave Harriet Tubman, with the help of black and white abolitionists, began her career of leading bands of slaves out of the South. Meanwhile, in Boston, Massachusetts; Christiana, Pennsylvania; Syracuse, New York; Wellington, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and elsewhere in the North, armed biracial mobs obstructed the enforcement of the act. While the law was peacefully enforced in large regions of the North, its most important effect was to widen the gulf between the North and South. Many Northerners considered the law to be unconstitutional and an immoral Southern aggression, in behalf of an oppressive institution, upon not only African Americans but also the rights and values of Northern whites. White Southerners, many of whom had predicted that the new Fugitive Slave Law would be ineffective, regarded Northern resistance to it as another sign of antipathy toward the South and its institutions. What had been designed as part of a compromise to quiet sectional animosities, instead increased those animosities and helped lead the nation into civil war in 1861. Stanley Harrold Sources for Further Study Brandt, Nat. The Town That Started the Civil War. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972. Hamilton, Holman. Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850. New York: W. W. Norton, 1964. Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. Completed and edited by Don. E. Fehrenbacher. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Slaughter, Thomas P. Bloody Dawn: The Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. See also: Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793); Missouri Compromise

(1820); Compromise of 1850 (1850); Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854). 224

Compromise of 1850

Compromise of 1850 Date: September 20, 1850 U.S. Statutes at Large: 9 Stat. 452 (statute on California) Categories: African Americans; Slavery

Following the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the 1850 law was a last national attempt to resolve the question of slavery in the territories. The U.S. Constitution, while creating a mechanism for the addition of states and acknowledging the right of each state to permit and even encourage slavery within its boundaries, made no mention of slavery’s status in future states. Congress, when it admitted a state, could impose any condition it wished. The national government had first addressed the issue of slavery in territories and new states when the Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. This ordinance excluded slavery from the unsettled area north of the Ohio River to the Mississippi River’s eastern bank, the edge of the United States’ holdings. The Missouri Question The issue reemerged in 1817, when Missouri, where between two thousand and three thousand slaves lived, applied to join the United States as a slave state. The question came before the Congress in 1819, and sectional tensions erupted. The U.S. Senate had eleven states each from the free North and the slave-owning South, but the North’s growing population gave it a decisive advantage in the House of Representatives, so proslave forces committed themselves, at the minimum, to maintaining a balance between the regions in the Senate. A temporary solution emerged in 1820, when Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky brokered a solution to the crisis. The Missouri Compromise stipulated that Missouri would be admitted to the Union as a slave state, while Maine, which had petitioned for statehood in late 1819, was admitted as a free state. The compromise also prohibited slavery from the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase in the area north of 36°30′ north latitude, while permitting it 225

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south of that line. Between 1820 and 1848, this solution maintained national peace, and the Senate remained balanced. The Southwest and California The Mexican-American War disrupted the relative peace. The United States received millions of acres of land spanning the area from the Continental Divide west to the Pacific Ocean and south from the forty-ninth parallel to Mexico. Before the war ended, David Wilmot, a member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, attached an amendment to an appropriations bill stipulating that any territory acquired from Mexico must exclude slavery in perpetuity. Although the bill failed to win passage, the Wilmot Proviso fueled the smoldering fires of sectionalism, as many assumed that any additional western lands would be governed by the Missouri Compromise. In 1849, just a year after the discovery of gold in California, the young California Republic petitioned the Senate for admission to the Union. Besides disrupting the balance between slave and free states, California straddled the 1820 compromise’s line and threw the prior agreements into chaos. In both houses of Congress, the question of slavery became paramount: Southerners rejected any attempt to exclude the practice from the West by nearly unanimous margins, while Free-Soilers from the North rejected the possibility of losing equal economic competition by similar percentages. Left in the middle were some elements of the national Whig Party, which struggled to preserve the Union while remaining a national party. The idea of disunion grew. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, long a firebrand for states’ rights, proposed the formation of a sectional party to guarantee the practice of slavery. William Seward, an abolitionist representative from New York, also rejected the possibility of a compromise, citing the immorality of slavery. President Zachary Taylor, a hero of the MexicanAmerican War and a southerner, supported California’s admission as a free state while rejecting the extreme position of persons such as Calhoun. Five Resolutions The first concrete proposal for compromise came from Senator Clay on January 29, 1850. Clay proposed a series of five resolutions: that the California Republic join the United States as a free state; 226

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that the rest of the territory acquired in the Mexican Cession be organized without any decision on slavery; that Texas receive monetary compensation in exchange for giving up its claims to parts of contemporary New Mexico; that the slave trade within the District of Columbia be abolished (although the actual practice of slavery would not be affected); and that a more rigorous fugitive slave law be enacted. On February 5 and 6, Clay presented his resolutions and spoke for the Union’s preservation. One week later, Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis rejected Clay’s proposals, using bitter language that also attacked northern intentions. On March 4, the ailing Calhoun, in a speech delivered by Virginia’s James Mason, rejected compromise on the principle of slavery in the territories. On March 7, Daniel Webster acknowledged that both sides had just grievances and urged support for Clay’s whole plan, calming some tensions with his eloquent plea that the Union be preserved. On March 11, Seward stated the abolitionist’s opposition to the compromise because of the immorality of slavery. In April, the Senate referred Clay’s resolutions to a select committee. The committee reported back to the full Senate an omnibus bill that contained the substance of the five original resolutions and sparked another four months of debate. Two major stumbling blocks to the compromise disappeared in July, when President Taylor and Calhoun both died. Millard Fillmore, who supported the compromise’s ideas, replaced Taylor, who had bitterly opposed the omnibus bill. While Clay was vacationing, Stephen A. Douglas broke the omnibus bill into five parts and steered them through the Senate, and the House of Representatives followed suit. By September 20, Congress had adopted the five bills that made up the Compromise of 1850. Kansas-Nebraska Act In 1854, the attempts at balancing the competing interests of the Free-Soil North with the proslave South ended when Senator Douglas proposed that the Kansas and Nebraska areas be organized using the concept of popular sovereignty. Congress adopted the Kansas-Nebraska Act that year, triggering the formation of a national political party dedicated to the idea of an exclusively free-soil policy in the West. The new Republican Party immediately became a force on the national political landscape, and its candidate, 227

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John C. Frémont, came within four states of being elected president in 1856. Ultimately, the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, a man committed to both the preservation of the Union and the free-soil doctrine, drove the South to secession. John G. Clark, updated by E. A. Reed Sources for Further Study Collins, Bruce. The Origins of America’s Civil War. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981. Foner, Eric, ed. Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Holman, Hamilton. Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966. Potter, David. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Stampp, Kenneth, ed. The Causes of the Civil War. Rev. ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974. See also: Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793); Missouri Compromise

(1820); Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850); Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854).

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 Date: Signed September 17, 1851 U.S. Statutes at Large: 11 Stat. 749 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

In an unprecedented effort to promote peace during western expansion, a council was convened at Fort Laramie whereby ten thousand Indians of various nations gathered at one time to sign a peace treaty with representatives of the U.S. government. During the mid-nineteenth century the continuing rush of covered wagon immigrants across the Plains of the United States began to have an unsettling effect on American Indian tribes liv228

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ing there. Wild game was driven out and grasslands were being cropped close by the immigrants’ cattle and horses. U.S. government policy provided some reimbursement to Indians for losses of game, grass, and land caused by the continuing influx of white settlers. In 1847, Thomas Fitzpatrick was appointed the first U.S. government representative to the various nomad tribes of the High Plains. Aware of the mounting losses and the potential for Indian uprisings against the settlers, Fitzpatrick campaigned long and hard for congressional funding to help alleviate growing tensions. Preparing a Treaty Council In February, 1851, Congress appropriated $100,000 for the purpose of holding a treaty council with the tribes of the High Plains. D. D. Mitchell, superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis, and Fitzpatrick were designated commissioners for the government. They selected Fort Laramie as the meeting location and September 1, 1851, as the meeting date. Word was sent throughout the Plains of the impending treaty council. By September 1, the first arrivals included the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahos. Later arriving participants included the Snakes (Shoshones), and Crows. Because of the vast number of participants—more than ten thousand Indians and 270 soldiers—it became apparent that the forage available for Indian and soldier ponies and horses was insufficient. The council grounds were therefore moved about 36 miles south, to Horse Creek. Negotiations and Treaty Provisions On September 8, the treaty council officially began. The assembly was unprecedented. Each Indian nation approached the council with its own unique song or demonstration, dress, equipment, and mannerisms. Superintendent Mitchell proclaimed that all nations would smoke the pipe of peace together. The proposed treaty asked for unmolested passage for settlers over the roads leading to the West. It included rights for the government to build military posts for immigrants’ protection. The treaty also defined the limits of territory for each tribe and asked for a lasting peace between the various nations. Each nation was to select a representative, a chief who would have control over and be responsible for his nation. In return, the government would provide each Indian nation an an229

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nuity of $50,000 for fifty years, the sum to be expended for goods, merchandise and provisions. After much discussion and conferencing, the treaty was signed on September 17 by the U.S. commissioners and all the attending chiefs. Adding to the festivities, on September 20, a delayed caravan of wagons arrived at the treaty council with $50,000 worth of goods and merchandise. These goods were summarily distributed to all the nations represented, and feelings of good will permeated the gathering. To further the sense of lasting peace, Fitzpatrick later took a delegation of eleven chiefs with him to Washington, D.C., where they visited with President Millard Fillmore in the White House. John L. Farbo Sources for Further Study Allen, Charles W., and Richard E. Jensen, eds. From Fort Laramie to Wounded Knee: In the West That Was. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Hafen, LeRoy, and Francis Young. Fort Laramie and the Pageant of the West, 1834-1890. Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1938. Hedren, Paul L. Fort Laramie and the Great Sioux War. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. _______. Fort Laramie in 1876: Chronicle of a Frontier Post at War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. See also: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848); Fort Atkinson

Treaty (1853); Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867); Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 (1868).

Pacific Railroad Survey Act Date: March 2, 1853 U.S. Statutes at Large: 10 Stat. 201 Categories: Land Management; Transportation

This legislation was an attempt to break a political and economic deadlock over the location of the first transcontinental railroad. 230

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On March 2, 1853, Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Survey Bill, which authorized the secretary of war, Jefferson Davis, to initiate exploration of possible routes across the trans-Mississippi West to the Pacific Ocean and to report findings to Congress within ten months. Davis decided to use officers of the Army Topographical Corps to make the surveys and placed them under Major William H. Emory. A Northern Route For years, there had been a proposal for a northern railroad route from Lake Michigan to the Columbia River, with a branch to San Francisco. Isaac Stevens, a young Army officer who had just accepted the governorship of Washington Territory, was placed in command of the northern survey, which covered the country between the forty-seventh and forty-eighth parallels. This party was divided into two sections: one group, led by Stevens, ascended the Missouri River to the mouth of the Yellowstone River at Fort Union and explored westward; a second party, led by Captain George B. McClellan, explored eastward from Puget Sound, seeking adequate passes through the Cascade Mountains. Numerous supposedly satisfactory passes across the Continental Divide were located, but no pass over the Cascades was found, because McClellan erroneously thought the snow of Snoqualmie Pass and elsewhere was too deep. Snowdrifts forty feet high could bury railroad workmen’s cabins. Nevertheless, in 1853, Stevens enthusiastically reported that two practical routes through different passes over the Cascade Mountains were available. Citizens around Puget Sound were not convinced, and the legislature of Washington Territory commissioned Frederick West Lander, a civilian engineer, to survey another route from Puget Sound to South Pass. Central Routes South of Stevens’s survey was a route near the thirty-eighth parallel along a line proposed by Thomas Hart Benton, senator from Missouri, with its starting point at St. Louis and its terminus in San Francisco. In 1848, Benton’s son-in-law, John C. Frémont (called “Pathfinder” in a newspaper), had explored a portion of this route, named the Buffalo Trail. In seeking a satisfactory pass through the mountains in southern Utah, he had failed dramatically and disastrously by getting his group trapped twelve thousand feet up in the 231

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Rocky Mountains in mid-December. Ten of his men starved or froze to death. When Lieutenant John W. Gunnison subsequently was placed in command of the official survey along the thirtyeighth parallel instead of Frémont, Benton, in disappointment, promoted two privately sponsored explorations along the same route. One, led by Frémont, was accompanied by newspaper reporters to publicize the route. Gunnison’s expedition, including topographer Richard H. Kern and a German botanist, Frederick Creuzefeldt, left Fort Leavenworth in June, 1853, and explored several new routes across the Great Plains. Gunnison was killed in October on the Sevier River in Utah by Paiute Indians. Before his death, he had reported that the railroad route along the thirty-eighth parallel was far inferior to the one along the forty-first parallel that had been used by emigrants in covered wagons. The death of his party closed the Buffalo Trail. Gunnison’s was the only one of the four government survey expeditions to end in death. Central route surveys were resumed the following spring, when Lieutenant E. G. Beckwith moved westward along the forty-first and forty-second parallels. His first responsibility was to reexamine the path traversed in 1850 by Captain Howard Stansbury, from Fort Bridge westward to Salt Lake. Beckwith found two satisfactory routes into the Great Basin through the Weber and Timpanagos Canyons. This route had elevations ranging from nine thousand to twelve thousand feet. Up to this point, contact with American Indian tribes had been peaceful, except with the Paiutes, who resisted the intrusion onto their lands. Authorized to continue the fortyfirst-parallel survey into California in February, 1854, Beckwith’s party followed the customary emigrant route along the Humboldt River across Nevada, but upon reaching the sink of the stream, the party turned north to explore new passes across the Sierra Nevada and was successful in locating two: Madeline Pass and Nobles Pass. Southern Routes The third party, under Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple, was ordered to explore the thirty-fifth-parallel route via Albuquerque and the Zuñi villages. This route was championed by California senator William H. Gwin, who hoped for a railroad from San Francisco to Albuquerque, from where several branches would go to Independence, Missouri; Fort Smith, Arkansas; Austin, Texas; and 232

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elsewhere. West of Albuquerque, the surveying group examined a route, later adopted by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Whipple traversed the Mojave Desert to the Cajon Pass and crossed over into San Bernardino. He reported that this pass, so long used by traders and emigrants, was practical for railroad construction. The southern, or thirty-second-parallel, route had already been explored by Emory, first when he was serving the Army of the West in the Mexican War and later as a member of the United StatesMexican Boundary Commission. Emory’s survey of the boundary was accepted to bridge the gap from the Pima villages to the Colorado River, and Lieutenant R. S. Williamson was assigned the exploration in California. After extensive examination of the mountains of southern California, Williamson and his associates concluded that Walker Pass, long thought to be the southern gateway into California, was impractical for a railway because of its difficult westward approach. Nearby Tehachapi Pass was found to be superior. John G. Parke recommended a route from the mouth of the Gila River via the San Gorgonio Pass into Los Angeles, rather than a more southerly line to San Diego. From Los Angeles, a railway northward into the San Joaquin Valley could easily cross Tejon Pass. These politically inspired routes were not properly engineered. The government surveys did not address the fact that railroads require grades no steeper than 116 feet to the mile and curves with a minimum three-hundred-foot radius to keep locomotives on track. It took the genius of Theodore Judah to engineer the first workable cut through the Sierras between California’s American and Yuba Rivers, making possible the linking of east with west at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869. Coastal Routes The final phase for field operations of the Pacific Railroad surveys was that of Williamson and Lieutenant H. L. Abbott seeking the best routes from California into the Pacific Northwest. They located two practical coastal routes, one to the east and one to the west of the Cascades. The officers of the Topographical Corps thus located most of the accessible routes through the mountain barrier to the Pacific Slope that were to be followed by modern railroads and highways. Their numerous reports, published in a series of quarto volumes at 233

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the direction of Congress in 1857, plainly showed that there was no unsurmountable difficulty in building a railroad to the Pacific. At least four routes were practicable, so instead of settling the sectional deadlock over the proposed route, as originally intended, the surveys stimulated new discussion. However, the surveys had reconnoitered the routes that later were used by the transcontinental railroads. Relations with Native Americans Each of the survey groups met some of the many Native American tribes indigenous to the areas traversed. Using interpreters who had been captives of these tribes lessened the possibility of social error. Thus, the survey groups met with chiefs on equal terms. Gifts and goods were exchanged, and each could make only good reports of any encounter. Some survey groups made tribal lexicons, some having only twenty-eight words as an entire vocabulary. Whipple’s group noted that nearly all the wealthy American Indians of central Oklahoma and western Arkansas had Mexican or African slaves. Lieutenant Whipple, in a letter dated June 30, 1855, to Jefferson Davis, said, “The quiet and peaceful manner in which we passed through the various tribes of Indians, usually hostile toward Americans is a proof of the sound discretion of those officers, and the good discipline of the men composing their command.” Only after the intrusion of the wagon trains, the railroads, and white settlements did the Native Americans rise up in arms. W. Turrentine Jackson, updated by Norma Crews Sources for Further Study Albright, George L. Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1921. Ogburn, Charlton. Railroaders: The Great American Adventure. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1977. Robertson, Donald B. Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Books, 1986. United States War Dept. Reports of Explorations and Surveys to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1855. 234

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Wheeler, Keith, and the editors of Time-Life Books. The Railroaders. New York: Time-Life Books, 1973. Williams, John H. A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad. New York: Times Books, 1988. See also: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848); Oregon Act (1848).

Fort Atkinson Treaty Date: Signed July 27, 1853 U.S. Statutes at Large: 10 Stat. 1013 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

This treaty was drawn to establish peace among southern Plains tribes in order to ease white passage westward and facilitate the building of a transcontinental railroad through Indian lands. Personally negotiated by Thomas Fitzpatrick, a white trader and Indian agent of the Upper Platte Agency, the Treaty of Fort Atkinson was one of a series of U.S.-Indian treaties signed during the 1850’s to open passage to America’s Far West while promoting the Christianization and civilization of the Plains Indians. Fitzpatrick previously had helped to bring the Sioux and seven other Plains tribes together to sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie with the United States in 1851. The signatories to the Fort Atkinson Treaty agreed to establish peace among the affected Indian tribes, as well as between Indians and whites. It sanctioned the passage of whites through Indian lands, and acknowledged U.S. rights to establish military roads and posts thereon. It also provided for annuities to be paid by the United States (for a ten-year term) to the affected Indians. Clifton K. Yearley Source for Further Study Ney, Virgil. Fort on the Prairie: Fort Atkinson on the Council Bluff, 18191827. Washington, D.C.: Command, 1978. See also: Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 (1851). 235

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Treaty of Kanagawa Date: Signed March 31, 1854 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Business, Commerce, and

Trade; Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The treaty facilitated trade between the United States and the formerly isolationist nation of Japan. The mission of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry to Japan from 1852 to 1854 was dramatic evidence of the United States’ increasing interest in eastern Asia. It followed a series of overtures by other Western countries and coincided with a period of significant debate within Japan’s ruling class over the prospect of opening the country to outside, particularly Western, influences. Japanese Isolationism From 1620 until Commodore Perry’s squadron sailed into Edo Bay (later called Tokyo Bay), Japan had practiced a policy of rigid isolation and the exclusion of foreigners. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Japan’s experiences with Western missionaries and traders had been so negative that almost all contact with the outside world was broken off. Only the Dutch, Chinese, and Koreans were allowed to trade through one small port. In the nineteenth century, the desire to develop commercial relations, to exploit Japan’s proximity to China, and to satisfy curiosity about Japan caused repeated attempts to open relations with Japan. Prior to Perry’s expedition, several European countries attempted to develop relations with Japan. Between 1771 and 1804, Russian individuals and government representatives made four separate, unsuccessful attempts to open Japan to trade. Japan redoubled its commitment to defend its northern islands against possible Russian advances, and no further interaction took place until Russia again exerted pressure in 1847. England was rebuffed in its 1818 effort to convince Japan to open trade. Following China’s defeat in the Opium Wars, Japan was even further resolved to resist foreign influence. 236

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Perry’s Mission Perry’s mission was at least the fourth U.S. effort to open relations with Japan. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson had sent an envoy, Edmund Roberts, to negotiate treaties in East Asia. He concluded treaties with Siam (later known as Thailand) and with the Sultan of Muscat (later part of Oman) but died en route to Japan in 1836. In 1837, the merchant ship USS Morrison attempted to land in Japan but was repelled by cannon fire. In 1846, Commodore James Biddle arrived in Japan with the same goal that Edmund Roberts had been unable to achieve, but the Japanese refused to negotiate. By 1850, the U.S. government was being pressed to open Japan. There was a clamor for the negotiation of a convention to protect U.S. sailors shipwrecked in Japanese waters, and the growing use of steam-powered merchant ships led to the demand for coaling stations. There also was a great desire for new markets in the Far East. In 1852, Millard Fillmore, thirteenth president of the United States, sent another expedition in an attempt to break down Japan’s seclusion. He chose Perry as its commander and minister plenipotentiary and gave him broad powers. Perry was assigned five steam warships and four sailing vessels; his instructions were to arrange for commercial relations and to negotiate a treaty. Perry’s expedition left Hampton Roads, Virginia, in November, 1852. Gifts were carried to demonstrate the United States’ technological prowess, including a telegraph set and a miniature steam locomotive with cars and track. Eight months later, in 1853, Perry led four ships into Edo Bay. The Japanese, who had never seen steamships before, were greatly impressed. Perry was determined to avoid the mistakes of other Western envoys. Under strict orders to use force only if absolutely necessary, he assumed a confident bearing and insisted on dealing only with the highest officials. At first, representatives of the bafuku, or military government, demanded that the ships proceed to Nagasaki, the only port at which Westerners were permitted to have contacts with the Japanese government. Perry refused to be intimidated or to leave Edo Bay until he was assured that the dispatches he carried, including a letter from the president of the United States to the emperor of Japan, would be delivered in the appropriate quarters. When the Japanese finally promised that the emperor would receive the U.S. treaty proposals, Perry steamed away, but not before he informed 237

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the emperor’s agents that he intended to return in the spring of 1854 with a larger force and with the expectation of a favorable response. The bafuku solicited advice from members of the Japanese ruling class on how to respond to Perry’s demands. Seven hundred proposals were submitted, with none offering an ideal solution. A group led by the lord of Mito, Tokugawa Nariaki, advocated resistance to invasion at all costs. The Rangakusha, or “masters of Dutch learning” school, which had learned something of the West through Japan’s limited connections to the Netherlands, argued that Japan’s substantial military capabilities would be no match for Western armies backed by modern industrial technologies. They also believed that Japan would benefit more than it would lose from more exposure to Western ideas and technologies. While Emperor Komei and his advisers debated what response Japan should make to U.S. overtures, Perry returned to his exploration of the Far East. Believing that the glittering prospects for U.S. trade in the Far East required that the United States gain territorial footholds in the area, he took possession of certain of the Boning Islands, established a coaling station on Okinawa, and cast covetous eyes on Formosa; however, his superiors in Washington repudiated these actions. In February, 1854, Perry returned to Japan with an impressive squadron of eight warships. The Japanese leaders had decided to deal with the North Americans as the least threatening of the Western powers. Japan was ready to accept, at least in part, the proposals of the United States. Perry exploited his advantage by demanding a treaty similar to the liberal agreement that the United States had negotiated with China in 1844, but the final terms, concluded in the Treaty of Kanagawa, signed on March 31, 1854, were less inclusive. Treaty Terms The United States was to be permitted to establish a consulate at Shimoda, a small port on Honshu near Edo Bay, but there was no provision allowing U.S. citizens to take up permanent residence, and U.S. citizens and merchant vessels were allowed to enter only two small ports, Shimoda and Hakodate. Japan bound itself to assist shipwrecked U.S. sailors and return them and their belongings to the proper authorities. The agreement did not provide for the 238

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establishment of coaling facilities or for extraterritorial rights for U.S. citizens, but it did contain an article ensuring that the United States would be offered any future concessions that might be offered to other powers. Japan soon reached similar agreements with England, France, Russia, and the Netherlands. The immediate and practical effects of the treaty negotiated by Perry were minimal, and even they were not supported fully by Emperor Komei and his advisers. The treaty prepared the way, however, for a broader commercial treaty that was signed by the emperor’s senior councillor, Hotta Masayoshi, in 1858. Theodore A. Wilson, updated by James Hayes-Bohanan Sources for Further Study Fallows, James. “When East Met West: Perry’s Mission Accomplished.” Smithsonian 25, no. 4 (July, 1994): 20-33. Hane, Mikiso. “The Fall of the Tokugawa Bakufu.” In Modern Japan: A Historical Survey. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992. McDougall, Walter A. “Edo 1853.” In Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Morison, Samuel Eliot. “Old Bruin”: Commodore Matthew C. Perry, 1794-1858. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Morton, W. Scott. “The Winds of Change: The Tokugawa Shogunate: Part II, 1716-1867.” In Japan: Its History and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984. Preble, George Henry. The Opening of Japan: A Diary of Discovery in the Far East, 1853-1856. Edited by Boleslaw Szczesniak. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962. observations of the expeditions. Wiley, Peter Booth, with Korogi Ichiro. Yankees in the Land of the Gods: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan. New York: Viking, 1990. See also: Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844); Gentlemen’s Agreement

(1907).

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Kansas-Nebraska Act Date: May 30, 1854 U.S. Statutes at Large: 10 Stat. 277 Categories: African Americans; Slavery

By subverting the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, this act renewed the problem of slavery in the territories and escalated tensions between North and South. The issue of the expansion of slavery was laid aside only temporarily with the passage of the Compromise of 1850, although the compromise had seemed to be fairly successful in the two or three years immediately following its enactment. Several events kept the compromise in the public eye, including the seizure in the North of African Americans under the provisions of the Second Fugitive Slave Law (1850), the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, and the last of three filibustering expeditions launched from New Orleans in August, 1851, by Venezuelan Narcisco Lopez against Spanish Cuba. The Slavery Question Many people in the United States hoped that the slavery issue would disappear, and the economic pressures of life absorbed the attention of most average citizens. Moreover, no prominent politicians had captured the public’s imagination. Lackluster, noncontroversial candidates were nominated in the presidential campaign of 1852—Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire for the Democrats and General Winfield Scott for the Whigs. The election, won by Pierce, was no more exciting than the candidates. Evidence of the desire of U.S. voters to maintain the status quo was demonstrated further in the poor showing of John P. Hale of New Hampshire, the standard-bearer of the Free-Soil Party. With the Democrats in control and apparently committed to the Compromise of 1850, the United States seemed destined to at least another four years of relative calm. The issue of slavery in the federal territories was reopened in January, 1854, when Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, chairman of the Committee on Territories, reported a bill to organize the Platte 240

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country west of Iowa and Missouri as the territory of Nebraska. Douglas’s main interest was in opening the West to settlement and to the construction of a railroad to the Pacific coast. Douglas did not wish to deal with the slavery question and he (like his soon-tobe nemesis, Abraham Lincoln) doubted that the institution could survive on the Great Plains, but he realized that he needed Southern votes to get the territorial bill through Congress. Drafting the Bill In the original form, the bill included a provision, similar to that found in the acts organizing the territories of Utah and New Mexico, that the territory would determine the question of its status as a slave or free state at the time of admission. The clause dealing with slavery was intentionally ambiguous, but it probably would have left in effect—at least during the territorial stage—the provisions of the Missouri Compromise that barred slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory north of 36°30′ north latitude. The ambiguity of the bill bothered Southern political leaders, particularly the rabidly proslavery David R. Atchison of Missouri, president pro tempore of the Senate and acting vice president. Yielding to the pressure of Senator Atchison and other Southern leaders, Douglas and his committee added a section to the bill that permitted the people of the territory, acting through their representatives, to decide whether the territory should be slave or free. This “popular sovereignty” formula for dealing with the slavery question implied the repeal of the Missouri Compromise restriction on slavery. The proslavery leaders were not satisfied with the implicit abrogation of the Missouri Compromise. As Whig senator Archibald Dixon of Kentucky pointed out, under popular sovereignty, the restriction of slavery would remain in effect until the territorial settlers acted to end it. In the interim, immigration of slaveholders into the territory would be prohibited. Proslavery leadership forced Douglas to amend the bill further so as to repeal explicitly that section of the Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery north of 36°30′. In addition, the territory was divided at the fortieth parallel into the two territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Most Northerners considered the Missouri Compromise to be a sacred pledge, and its repeal was quite enough to destroy the relative political calm that had been prevalent in the nation since 1850. 241

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Much more was at work, however. The Missouri Compromise had led to the creation of the political party system, utilized by the Democrats and finally adopted by the Whigs, under which party loyalty was ensured through the disposition of party and government jobs (known as patronage or the spoils system). Under that system, the tensions created by the Missouri Compromise were to be kept under control, for anyone could be controlled by the promise of employment, according to the assumptions of the new party system. The effect of the party system was to increase the size and scope of federal government operations in every election, because to get elected, a candidate had to promise more jobs than his opponent. The result for the slavery interests was that the South, slowly but surely, was being placed in a permanent minority status in the Senate and House. If an antislavery president were elected, the now-powerful federal government could act directly on slavery in the South. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, especially Douglas’s concept of popular sovereignty, offered hope to the South that the dynamic created by the spoils system could be short-circuited. If territories could decide whether or not to permit slavery, then slave interests could flood the new territories with proslavery settlers and vote in slavery, regardless of the attitudes of Congress or the president. Passage Douglas still had to guide the bill through passage in the face of widespread and violent criticism from the North. The bill was certain of passage in the Senate, although it was the object of impassioned attack by Senators Salmon Chase of Ohio and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. In the House, however, the issue was doubtful, and it was there that Douglas marshaled the power of the Pierce administration to force dissident Democrats into line behind the bill. By whip and spur, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was driven through the House by a large sectional vote of 113 to 100. Nearly all Southern Democrats supported the measure. All forty-five Northern Whigs opposed it, while thirteen of nineteen Southern Whigs, led by Alexander Stephens of Georgia, favored it. The divisiveness of the issue was represented best by the fact that of eighty-six Northern Democrats, forty-two voted against it in spite of patronage and other pressures brought to bear by administration leaders. In doing so, the Democrats showed the utter futility of basing a slav242

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ery strategy on the spoils system: Ideology proved stronger than economics, and the idea that the national debate over slavery could be contained with the promise of a few jobs was mortally wounded. Consequences The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act had momentous consequences. The act touched off the forces that eventually brought war. It reopened sectional issues and embittered sectional relations by arousing the entire North. It destroyed the Whig Party in the deep South and increased Southern unity and influence in the Democratic Party. It contributed greatly to the demise of the Whig Party in the North and divided the Northern Democrats, inducing many of them to leave the party. Most important, it led to the formation, beginning in 1854, of the Republican Party. That party was founded in diametric opposition to the operating principles of the Democratic Party. Instead of holding that economic self-interest took precedence over ideology, the Republicans held that fundamental beliefs mattered more than temporal, material benefits in the long run. The Republicans thus made slavery—the issue that the Democrats and the Whigs refused to touch—the focal point of their campaigns. On a personal level, Douglas gained little support in the South and lost an important part of his support in the North. Douglas, misinterpreting Northern sentiment toward this initially innocent piece of legislation, had opened a political Pandora’s box. The legislation reflected Douglas’s personal views accurately, though. He sincerely disliked slavery, but thought that it was an issue of choice of the slaveholder; therefore, the matter of human bondage was not a moral issue but simply a matter of votes. Douglas could say honestly that he opposed slavery personally, but supported a slaveholder’s right to own slaves. Thus, the agony of Douglas and the struggle for Kansas had begun. John C. Gardner, updated by Larry Schweikart Sources for Further Study Gienapp, William E. The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 243

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Holt, Michael. The Political Crisis of the 1850’s. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978. Johannsen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. McPherson, James W. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Era of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Nevins, Allen. A House Dividing, 1852-1857. Vol. 2 in Ordeal of the Union. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947. Nichols, Roy Franklin. “The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 43 (September, 1956): 187-212. Wolff, Gerald. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill: Party, Section, and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Revisionist Press, 1977. See also: Missouri Compromise (1820); Compromise of 1850

(1850).

Confiscation Acts Date: August 6, 1861; July 17, 1862 U.S. Statutes at Large: 12 Stat. 319, 589 Categories: Military and National Security; Property

Congress permanently confiscated Confederate property and justified the action by declaring Confederates to be traitors. Congress passed a law confiscating all property, including slaves, used in the Confederate war effort. The law required judicial proceedings before any property could be appropriated, and it left unclear whether any confiscated slaves would be freed. The following July, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act. The 1862 law, which also required a judicial hearing, declared that rebels were traitors whose property could be seized for the lifetime of the owner. The only property that would not be returned to the rebels’ heirs was slaves, who were regarded as captives of war and set free after a period of sixty days. President Abraham Lincoln 244

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doubted that Congress possessed the constitutional authority to free slaves in the states. When he signed the bill into law, he included a statement of objections to its provisions. Although the power to confiscate rebel property was rarely used during or after the war, the difference between the first and second acts revealed the growing determination in the Union to end slavery and set the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln issued in January, 1863. Thomas Clarkin Sources for Further Study Caton, Bruce. Mister Lincoln’s War. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1951. McPherson, James M. Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. _______. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. See also: Militia Act (1862); Emancipation Proclamation (1863).

Homestead Act Date: May 20, 1862 U.S. Statutes at Large: 12 Stat. 392 Public law: 37-64 Categories: Agriculture; Land Management

Response to the demand for land in the West stimulated settlement of vast territories; this law was passed to encourage settlement and development of the land. The United States grew enormously between 1840 and 1860. The continental limits of the nation were reached, with the exception of Alaska, by 1854, through the acquisition of Mexican territory ceded in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and the Gadsden 245

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Purchase (1853). The population continued its upward spiral, moving from slightly more than seventeen million in 1840 to more than thirty million in 1860. Canals, steamboats, turnpikes, and railroads knot the nation together into an integrated economic unit. Hundreds of thousands of people crossed the Atlantic to take up residence in the dynamic nation, while other hundreds of thousands moved into the western regions of the country. The growth of the West was especially marked. While the population of all sections grew, the North and the South experienced less relative growth during these two decades than did the West. The West achieved a position of equality with the older sections during this period and became more insistent in its demands upon the government. Sectionalism The intensification of sectional antagonisms engendered by the controversy over slavery and its future in the nation fatally obstructed efforts at the national level to provide guidelines and incentives for growth. By the opening of the 1840’s, sectional lines had hardened. Southern majorities in Congress consistently blocked legislation called for by the other sections of the country. This was true in debates over the tariff, internal improvements, central banking, and land policy. The West won a significant victory in the debate over the disposition of the public domain with the passage of the Preemption Act of 1841, which gave squatters the right to purchase up to 160 acres of land that they had settled and improved for $1.25 per acre. The next logical step for Westerners was for the government to provide completely free land as a reward for those who settled and developed the region. The Fight for Free Land The campaign to achieve free land was waged on two fronts. Westerners such as Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton consistently pushed for such legislation and were joined by increasing numbers of other Westerners committed to the free-soil idea. The slavery controversy erupted vigorously during the Mexican War, with efforts by free-soil Whigs to pass the Wilmot Proviso. It was obvious that the idea of free homesteads would work to the advantage of free-soil groups, by attracting into the newly won territories the more mobile population of the North. Therefore, the Free-Soil 246

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Party made homestead legislation part of its platform for the 1848 campaign. By the 1850’s, most Northerners accepted the idea that the land should be settled as rapidly as possible in order to bring it into production and to provide a stable population that would serve as a market for the industrial centers in the East. The Easternbased Land Reform movement, led by George Henry Evans and supported by Horace Greeley and his New York Tribune, rounded out the alliance. Struggle for Passage The struggle for homestead legislation was waged in Congress during the 1850’s. The congressional sessions of 1851, 1852, and 1854 devoted much time to such proposals. Southerners were opposed to the concept and argued that no benefits would accrue to their section. In spite of the leadership of Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the Senate, dominated by the Southern wing of the Democratic Party, managed to block passage of several bills that passed the House of Representatives. When the Senate finally passed a homestead bill, in 1860, it was vetoed by President James Buchanan. The Republican Party committed itself to this policy and incorporated a homestead plank in its platform of 1860. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 did not guarantee the passage of homestead legislation, because the South still controlled the Senate. The secession of the Southern states made passage possible. During the special session of Congress in 1861, a bill was introduced into the House and passed in February, 1862. It passed the senate in May and was signed by President Lincoln on May 20. Provisions and Later Legislation Under the provisions of the bill, which was to go into effect January 1, 1863, a settler twenty-one years of age or older who was, or intended to become, a citizen and who acted as the head of a household could acquire a tract of acres of surveyed public land free of all but a $10 registration payment. Title to that land went to the settler after five years of continuous residence. Alternatively, after six months, the claimant could purchase the land for $1.25 per acre. Over the years, amendments and extensions of the act made it applicable to forest land and grazing land and enlarged the maximum acreage tract that the settler could acquire. 247

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In 1873, the Timber Culture Act attempted to adjust the original act to more arid Western conditions by allowing the homesteading of an additional 160 acres on which the homesteader agreed to plant at least 40 acres (later reduced to 10 acres) of trees. The Desert Land Act of 1877 allowed Western ranchers to homestead up to a square mile, or 640 acres, of ranch land in certain areas. In the 1930’s executive decisions by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Taylor Grazing Act withdrew the remainder of the public domain from private entry. By then, 285 million acres had been homesteaded. Qualified Success The Homestead Act was not the complete success its supporters hoped it would be. Homesteading was never attractive to the working class and urban poor in the East. There also were many competing forms of federal land distribution, including purchase by speculators, massive land grants to railroads, the sale of dispossessed Native American lands, and Morrill Act lands turned over to states for sale to support public education. Altogether, more than 80 percent of public lands were distributed through means other than homesteading. In addition, fewer than half of the nearly three million homesteaders who filed claims actually “proved up” and acquired title to the land after five years. A “Southern” Homestead Act of 1866, designed to provide land to former slaves, was especially disappointing. It was never effectively implemented and was strenuously opposed by Southern whites. Despite failures, the Homestead Acts helped several million families to obtain land and settle in the West, and it became an important symbol of the effort to create an egalitarian, middle-class, agrarian society in the United States in the nineteenth century. John G. Clark, updated by Kent Blaser Sources for Further Study Fite, Gilbert C. The Farmers’ Frontier: 1865-1900. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966. Gates, Paul Wallace. History of Public Land Law Development. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968. Hyman, Harold M. American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordi248

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nance, the 1862 Homestead and Morrill Acts, and the 1944 G.I. Bill. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. Lanza, Michael L. Agrarianism and Reconstruction Politics: The Southern Homestead Act. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. Layton, Stanford J. To No Privileged Class: The Rationalization of Homesteading and Rural Life in the Early Twentieth-Century American West. Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1988. Shannon, Fred A. The Farmer’s Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1945. Stratton, Joanna. Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. Tilghman, Wendy B. The Great Plains Experience. Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Mid-America, 1981. See also: Land Act of 1820 (1820); Preemption Act (1841); Morrill

Land Grant Act of 1862 (1862); Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 (1890); Taylor Grazing Act (1934).

Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 Also known as: Land Grant Act of 1862 Date: July 2, 1862 U.S. Statutes at Large: 12 Stat. 503 Categories: Agriculture; Education; Land Management

The federal government granted land to states for the establishment of agricultural and engineering colleges, paving the way toward higher education for the masses. The author and successful promoter of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 was Justin Smith Morrill, congressman from Vermont. Morrill was first elected to national office in 1854 as a Whig. With the demise of that party, Morrill helped to found the Republican Party in Vermont. In the House, Morrill served on both the Committee on Territories and the Committee on Agriculture, and he fi249

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nally became chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in 1861. Elected to the Senate in 1862, he served there until his death in 1898. Precedents for Public Education Several attempts to use land revenues to aid the promotion of public education had been made before Morrill’s bill. The Ordinance of 1785 provided that the sixteenth section in each township was to be set aside for educational purposes. In 1848, when the Oregon Territory was organized, section 36 was added to section 16 in each township for common schools. The Preemption Act of 1841 (known also as the Distribution-Preemption Act) turned over to the states, for internal improvements, one-half million acres. Wisconsin, Alabama, Iowa, and Oregon used the proceeds from the sale of these lands for public schools. Revenues from the Swamp Lands Acts of 1849 and 1850 were applied in many states for the purpose of common education. Beginning as early as the 1840’s, a movement made progress in the northeastern states for the establishment of agricultural colleges. In the 1850’s, several states petitioned Congress for land to be used for educational purposes. Training in Agricultural and Mechanical Arts Morrill was interested in both education and agriculture. He regretted the fact that most existing institutions taught on the classical plan, so farmers, mechanics, and others employed at manual labor were not scientifically trained, and in most cases, they were doomed to the haphazard methods of self-education. In 1856, Morrill introduced a resolution that the Committee on Agriculture investigate the possibility of establishing one or more agricultural schools patterned after West Point and Annapolis. This resolution was not acted upon, but in 1857, Morrill introduced a bill that public lands be donated to the states for the purpose of providing colleges to train students in agricultural and mechanical arts. The land was to be apportioned to each state in a quantity of twenty thousand acres for each senator and representative the state had in Congress, and sixty thousand acres to each territory. Proceeds from the sale of this land were to be used in the state as a perpetual fund, the interest of which was to be appropriated to the support of a college. Within a period of five years after the passage of the bill, a college had to be established. If sufficient land for such a grant 250

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were not available in a particular state, that state was to receive an equivalent amount of land scrip that could be used to purchase land elsewhere. This scrip had to be sold to private individuals, who could then choose holdings in the unoccupied areas of any public-land state according to the amount of scrip purchased. Difficult Passage Once the bill was presented to both houses of Congress, much opposition appeared. The South argued that it was inexpedient and unconstitutional, and many of the Western states believed that since the grants were to be made on the basis of population, it differed little from Henry Clay’s distribution scheme. Many congressmen from states with large holdings attacked the bill on the grounds that large quantities of land scrip would be issued to the older Eastern states where there was no public domain, and the scrip soon would be acquired by land speculators who would claim large tracts of the best lands in the newer states. This land would then be held until the values had increased, and Western settlement and improvement thus would be retarded. In spite of this opposition, the bill passed both the House and the Senate by narrow margins. President James Buchanan vetoed the land bill. It was, he said, unconstitutional and deprived the government of the needed revenue from land sales. It would make the state too dependent upon the federal government and would set up colleges in competition with existing institutions. Finally, the federal government could not compel the states to use the funds for the specified purpose if the states chose to do otherwise. A vote was quickly taken in the House to override the veto, but it failed to get the necessary twothirds vote. Unwilling to accept defeat, Morrill presented a second bill on December 16, 1861. It was almost identical to the first bill, except that the number of acres was increased to thirty thousand for each representative and senator. President Abraham Lincoln previously had informed Morrill that he would allow such a bill to become law. The issues were practically the same as before; however, in this instance, the representatives from the older Eastern states made a determined effort to force passage of the bill. With the passage of the Homestead Act virtually assured (it was signed into law in May and granted land acreage in 160-acre lots to anyone willing to re251

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side upon it continuously for five years), the Easterners feared that their other chances to secure title to Western lands were materially reduced. President Lincoln signed the bill on July 2, 1862. Populist Provisions The language of the Morrill Land Grant Act that Lincoln signed into law suggested a populist leaning. It provided for at least one college in each state at which studies of agriculture and the “mechanic arts” (engineering) would be available to support both a liberal and practical education of what were termed “the industrial classes,” that is, the working class. Morrill no doubt was influenced by the rising democratic social climate in the United States; the growing power of workers and middle and lower managers; the importance of agriculture, industry, and commerce; and the growing body of scientific knowledge. The bill also struck a blow at the traditions of college education inherited from England and Germany that directed higher education to the preparation of well-to-do young men for careers as ministers, lawyers, scientists, college faculty, and high-level civil servants. The concept of the land-grant college was a major contribution to the wider availability of higher education in the United States. The colleges were readily supported by the states. They made possible public college-level learning at low cost and established research as a legitimate activity of higher education. As a result, agricultural and engineering arts and sciences, as professions, were elevated to positions of academic respectability. Most of the land-grant colleges received not land but scrip, which they used to purchase public land at $1.25 per acre. Under the terms of the act, eleven states received 1,769,440 acres of land. Public-land states later admitted to the Union received similar grants. Twenty-seven states eventually received scrip instead of land, and almost eight million scrip-acres were issued. The older states, which benefited because of their large populations, were authorized to select their acreage anywhere in the West. New York, for example, selected forest lands in Wisconsin and prairie lands scattered throughout the western Mississippi River Valley to use its 990,000-acre allotment. In all, the states received 140 million acres through the Morrill Land Grant Act and similar measures. None of this land was given to homesteads, and nearly all of it passed through the hands of speculators on its way to final users. 252

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A second Morrill Land Grant Act was passed in 1890, stipulating that Congress was to make regular appropriations for the further support of land-grant colleges. The 1890 act resulted in the creation of seventeen agricultural and mechanical colleges in the South for African Americans. This act also established the practice of federal grants to institutions of higher education. Appropriations were increased in 1907, 1935, 1952, and 1960. By the 1960’s, there was at least one land-grant institution in every state in the Union. Long-Term Impact Land-grant institutions have played a special role in developing several fields of study, particularly in agriculture and veterinary medicine. About 75 percent of the bachelor’s degrees and 98 percent of the advanced degrees in these subjects are awarded by landgrant colleges. Engineering is another field that has been well developed in land-grant colleges, two-fifths of all such degrees coming from these institutions. Almost 51 percent of degrees in home economics are conferred by land-grant schools. A significant and little-known role is the one played by the land-grant college in military education. Thousands of officers have received their initial military training from these institutions. Although the initial role of land-grant colleges was to teach the arts of agriculture and engineering. Over the years, as additional funds and needs arose, the institutions directed some of their efforts toward research and bringing the results of that research to the users through extension offices. In many instances, the colleges must not only satisfy the needs of their traditional clientele but also serve the interests of the general public. In addition, landgrant colleges increasingly face the challenges of international competition and environmental sensitivity and awareness. John H. DeBerry, updated by Albert C. Jensen Sources for Further Study Cross, Coy F., II. Justin Smith Morrill: Father of the Land-Grant Colleges. East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1999. Eddy, Edward D., Jr. Colleges for Our Land and Time: The Land-Grant Ideas in American Education. New York: Harper & Row, 1956. 253

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Hyman, Harold M. American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the 1862 Homestead and Morrill Acts, and the 1944 G.I. Bill. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. James, Edmund Janes. The Origin of the Land Grant Act of 1862 (the So-Called Morrill Act) and Some Account of Its Author, Jonathan B. Turner. Urbana-Champaign, Ill.: University Press, 1910. Meyer, James H. Rethinking the Outlooks of Colleges Whose Roots Have Been in Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. _______. “The Stalemate in Food and Agriculture Research, Teaching, and Extension.” Science 260 (May 14, 1993): 881, 1007. Nevins, Allan. The Origins of the Land-Grant Colleges and State Universities: A Brief Account of the Morrill Act of 1862 and Its Results. Washington, D.C.: Civil War Centennial Commission, 1962. Parker, William Belmont. The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924. Rasmussen, Wayne D. Taking the University to the People: Seventy-five Years of Cooperative Extension. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1989. U.S. Department of the Interior. Survey of the Land-Grant Colleges and Universities. Directed by Arthur J. Klein, Chief of the Division of Collegiate and Professional Education. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1930. See also: Ordinance of 1785 (1785); Land Act of 1820 (1820); Preemption Act (1841); Oregon Act (1848); Homestead Act (1862); Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 (1890); G.I. Bill (1944).

Militia Act Date: July 5, 1862 U.S. Statutes at Large: 12 Stat. 510 Categories: Military and National Security

The United States’ first conscription act tapped Northern manpower to defeat the South. 254

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The firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, came at a time when the regular army numbered only about sixteen thousand officers and troops. The traditional method of increasing the size of the army was to expand the state militias and to form a volunteer emergency national army recruited through the states. The immediate response of President Abraham Lincoln to the firing on Fort Sumter was to call for seventy-five thousand militia volunteers for three months’ service. This call was exceeded, and some volunteers were turned away because the expectation was that a show of force would be sufficient to defeat the South. The Need for a Draft Congress and the president subsequently found it necessary, however, to call for more volunteers. Repeated defeats of the Union Army and the resultant loss of men caused President Lincoln to call for three hundred thousand volunteers in the summer of 1862. The difficulty of obtaining volunteers was soon apparent; bounties were increased and the threat of the draft was invoked. Congress passed the Militia Act of July, 1862, which allowed the states to draft men into the militia and encouraged enlistments. President Lincoln called for another three hundred thousand men to be enrolled into the militia. Although the Militia Act of 1862 gave the federal government power to enroll men in situations where the state machinery was inadequate, the short-term (nine-month maximum) nature of the militia draft and the inequities of the system made it less than satisfactory. Spurred by the loss of seventy-five thousand men, by news of a conscription law passed by the Confederacy, and by the failure of the states to provide men promptly for the various calls, Congress passed the Conscription Act of March 3, 1863. Henry Wilson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, was responsible for the introduction of a bill that eventually was passed and labeled “An Act for Enrolling and Calling Out the National Forces and for Other Purposes.” This act was the first national draft law in the history of the nation. It called for the creation of the “national forces,” which were to consist of all able-bodied male citizens and alien declarents between twenty and forty-five years of age, including African Americans. White opposition to blacks in federal army uniforms noticeably lessened as a result of the draft. In all, more 255

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than 168,000 African American recruits were drafted. Certain high officials, medically unfit persons, and hardship cases were exempted. Exemption could also be obtained by paying three hundred dollars or by securing a substitute. The Conscription Process The system was operated by the War Department under the direction of Colonel James B. Fry, provost-marshal-general. Provostmarshals were appointed in districts similar to the congressional districts and enrollments began. Quotas were established and credit was given for enlistments. If the quotas were not met, drawings were held to determine who should be drafted. Small cards were placed in sealed envelopes in a large trunk, and the names were drawn in public by a trustworthy citizen wearing a blindfold. The system of paying three hundred dollars for exemption from service subsequently was abolished, but the privilege of hiring a substitute was continued. The names of more than three million men were gathered, but only about 170,000 were drafted, and 120,000 of those produced substitutes. The primary intent for passage of the law was to speed up voluntary enlistment, and more than one million men enlisted. The chief motivation for these enlistments was probably the threat of the draft. Resistance and Riots The draft brought President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton into conflict with state governors. Those governors who were unenthusiastic about the conduct of the war openly criticized the president and the draft, while governors who favored a more vigorous prosecution of the war often complained that their states had not been given full credit for previous enlistments. Lincoln and Stanton often temporized with the governors by granting postponements or additional credits as the end of the war drew near. There was considerable resistance to the draft. Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky had considerable problems with enrollment, and draft offices and officers were attacked in those states. The Irish in New York and New Jersey were particularly incensed by the draft, many viewing the conflicts as a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. With fifty-one categories of diseases 256

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qualifying men for medical exemption, the system was fraught with medical resistance problems. Surgeons administering medical qualifying exams were confronted by pretended hernias (the most widespread cause of exemption), eye problems caused by applying eye irritants, and feigned deafness. Giving incorrect birth dates, claiming false dependents, and even the enrollment of dead people were other methods of noncompliance. Finally, there were the runaways. Given time to settle their affairs before departing for camp, a considerable number of draftees either relocated or fled to Canada. With the public generally hostile to the draft, the best way for a community to completely avoid it was to fill the quota with volunteers. Consequently, bounty taxes were implemented to raise revenues to attract foreigners, new immigrants, and the povertystricken to enlist. The paying of bounties corrupted the draft system. It produced bounty jumpers who, attracted by lump-sum payments, were willing to jump off trains or boats and escape. Notorious resistance to the draft instigated the draft riots in New York City. Governor Horatio Seymour’s speech of July 4, 1863, attacking the Lincoln administration for violations of individual liberty, did nothing to decrease the hostility of the New York Irish toward African Americans and the abolitionists. Antidraft rioting, which took place between July 13 and 15, destroyed property and physically harmed many African Americans. Some New York militia units that had been engaged at Gettysburg were hastily ordered back to New York to stop the rioting. Estimates of the casualties in the violence range up to more than one thousand. In spite of the violence, the federal government was determined to enforce the draft with even more fervor. Confederate Conscription The Confederacy’s calls for volunteers and its national conscription law antedated those of the Union. Jefferson Davis’s call for one hundred thousand volunteers came before the firing on Fort Sumter, and the Conscription Act was passed on April 16, 1862, almost a year before similar legislation was passed by the United States. The Confederate act conscripted men from eighteen to thirty-five years of age; later the same year, it was extended to include those between seventeen and fifty years of age. The Confed257

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erate law included a substitute system and a controversial list of exempted persons held to be essential at home. The category that caused the most discussion was that which exempted one slave owner or overseer for each twenty slaves. The Confederate draft was also controversial because it was a national levy; it made no concession to the doctrine of states’ rights for which most Southerners claimed to be fighting. It appears that the Confederacy’s early use of a conscription law enabled General Robert E. Lee’s armies to continue their general success in the Civil War well into 1863. It was only after the North also began drafting men that President Lincoln could be confident of victory. The North, with a much larger population, was able to sustain its losses and to continue the war indefinitely; the Confederacy could not. Continuance of the draft underscored Northern determination to continue the war to its conclusion. The result was Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the restoration of the Union. Mark A. Plummer, updated by Irwin Halfond Sources for Further Study Bernstein, Iver Charles. The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Geary, James W. We Need Men: The Union Draft in the Civil War. Dekalb: Illinois University Press, 1991. Kohn, Stephen M. Jailed for Peace: The History of American Draft Law Violation, 1658-1985. New York: Praeger, 1987. Murdock, Eugene C. One Million Men: The Civil War Draft in the North. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1971. Shannon, Fred A. The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861-1865. 1928. Reprint. 2 vols. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965. See also: Confiscation Acts (1861-1862).

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Emancipation Proclamation Date: Issued September 22, 1862; effective January 1, 1863 U.S. Statutes at Large: 12 Stat. 1267 Categories: African Americans; Slavery

The Emancipation Proclamation was an order to the Union Army to free all slaves held in regions of the Confederacy still in rebellion against the Union. The proclamation provided the means by which the majority of American slaves became free. During the Civil War, 600,000 slaves freed themselves by escaping to Union Army lines, presenting military commanders with the question of what to do with the fugitives. In time, most commanders accepted the slaves into their lines because the Confederate war effort would be injured by denying it the use of slave labor. Although initially hesitant to turn the Civil War into a crusade against slavery, President Abraham Lincoln, too, embraced the idea that destroying slavery would weaken the Confederacy. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, was a military order which freed all slaves in areas still in rebellion against the United States. Lincoln’s critics claimed that the Emancipation Proclamation had little real meaning because the Confederate slaves were beyond Lincoln’s control. Critics also charged that Lincoln was not fully committed to emancipation, because the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in the loyal slave states or in parts of the Confederacy conquered before 1863. Such criticisms fail to note the real meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln’s action turned the Union Army into an army of liberation which henceforward freed slaves in the parts of the South it occupied. Thus, the vast majority of American slaves obtained their freedom from the military actions of the Union Army operating under the orders of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln’s power to free the slaves came from his power, as commander in chief, to seize enemy property. Lincoln could not constitutionally use this power against loyal citizens of the Union or against defeated areas of the Confederacy which were no longer waging war against the United States. The sincerity of Lincoln’s commitment to emancipation can be seen in the fact that both before and after he issued the Emancipation 259

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Proclamation, Lincoln urged Congress to pass a constitutional amendment which would free all American slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation ensured that slavery would be a casualty of the Civil War. Subsequently, most of the loyal slave states and conquered areas of the Confederacy bowed to the inevitable and abolished slavery by the actions of state legislatures during the Civil War: West Virginia (1863), Maryland (1864), Louisiana (1864), Tennessee (1865), and Missouri (1865). Only two loyal slave states, Kentucky and Delaware, refused to abolish slavery by state law. Slavery was abolished in these states and other scattered parts of the South by the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1865), which freed all remaining slaves owned by American citizens. The last black slaves on American soil to be emancipated were the property of American Indian nations. These slaves were freed by treaty between the Indians and the United States government in 1866. Harold D. Tallant Sources for Further Study Franklin, John Hope. The Emancipation Proclamation. Rev. ed. Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1995. Holford, David M. Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation in American History. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2002. Klingaman, Willam K. Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, 1861-1865. New York: Viking, 2001. Riehecky, Janet. The Emancipation Proclamation: Abolition of Slavery in 1863. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann Library, 2002. Tackach, James. The Emancipation Proclamation: Abolishing Slavery in the South. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group, 1999. Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Young, Robert. The Emancipation Proclamation: Why Lincoln Really Freed the Slaves. New York: Dillon Press, 1994. Zall, Paul M. Lincoln’s Legacy: The Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1994. See also: Thirteenth Amendment (1865). 260

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National Bank Acts Date: February 25, 1863; June 3, 1864 U.S. Statutes at Large: 12 Stat. 665, 13 Stat. 99 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

This measure to finance the Civil War placed control of the United States’ banking and monetary system under the auspices of the federal government. Of the many crises faced by the federal government in conducting the war against the Confederacy, none was more difficult to resolve than financing the conflict. The government had to obtain revenue to pay for the war and at the same time expand support for the war among members of the financial community. Revenues declined while expenses mounted. Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln’s first administration, was reluctant to impose an income tax, aware that such taxes generated strong hostility. Chase, a Democrat, had no personal qualms about issuing paper money or about having government control the banks; he was much more interested in what he considered to be the larger issue—successfully prosecuting the war. An income tax was enacted in August, 1861, which commanded 3 percent of incomes exceeding eight hundred dollars per year, and that percentage rose in subsequent years. Nevertheless, taxation could raise only a small part of the income needed to fight the war. Foreign lenders, having recently lost money in the Panic of 1857, did not want to invest in a nation at war. Public confidence in the United States was low, especially after the early Union failures on the battlefield. The banks of the country had suspended specie payments by December, 1861. Lincoln’s first administration met that crisis by issuing paper currency. Paper Currency The first Legal Tender Act of February 25, 1862, authorized the issue of $150 million in national notes, or “greenbacks.” Subsequent acts raised the authorized total to $450 million. Since the federal government itself suspended specie payments, refusing to redeem the paper money in gold or silver, the greenbacks were an incon261

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vertible paper money supported only by the credit of the government. More important to war financing, however, was the sale of bonds by the government through the efforts of financier Jay Cooke. He utilized mass-marketing strategies to reach new groups of middle-class investors with great success. Cooke and his associates sold more than $1 billion worth of federal securities. However, during the early days of the war, in 1862 and 1863, when the battlefield success of the Union was in doubt, even Cooke had difficulty selling the bonds. The government ultimately sold its bond issues because of the relationship between bond purchases and the establishment of the national banking system. Prior to the Civil War, privately owned, state-chartered banks could issue their own money, backed by a specie reserve. The notes of those banks competed in the open market like other commodities, with weaker banks’ notes trading at a substantial discount. Critics argued that the nation needed a uniform currency, and that the state banks were unstable. (Similar arguments had been made in the early nineteenth century by those wishing to establish the Bank of the United States.) The latter charge was not true; some systems, especially in the South, proved remarkably solvent and stable during the Panic of 1857, particularly where branch banking was permitted. A National System Some critics saw a national banking system as a way to link the uniform currency to a banking system that also would provide an outlet for the government’s securities. In January, 1863, the Senate started work on such a system. State banks resisted, correctly fearing that a national banking system would have unfair competitive advantages. Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, opposed the new system. Secretary Chase, however, with support from Senator John Sherman of Ohio, pushed the bill through the Senate with a close vote. Stevens blocked the bill in the House for months, but it passed there in February, 1863. Many who voted for the bill opposed the concept in principle, but supported it at the request of Chase, who argued that it was necessary in order to continue the war. Cooke also threw his influence behind the bill. The act provided for the creation of national banks, which were required to purchase government bonds as a condition of receiving their federal charters. They then were permitted to issue notes 262

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up to 90 percent of the market value of the bonds. In an amending act of June, 1864, Congress made provisions for converting state banks into members of the national banking system. Still, state banks resisted, and only the imposition of a federal tax of 10 percent upon state banknotes eliminated state bank competition. That act also ensured that the government would have a monopoly over the creation of money and could inflate at will. National banks were limited to note issues of $300 million, which, along with the greenbacks, became the national currency. The system suffered from inadequate balance in its distribution of money across the nation—$170 million of the $300 million went to New England and New York—and the national banks proved to have inadequate redemption mechanisms. Demand for money in the West, especially, evolved into a considerable political issue after the Civil War. The laws also prohibited national banks from establishing branches (unless they entered the system with branches) and had other restrictions, including higher capital requirements, than banks with state charters had. On the positive side, only national banks could be chosen as depositories for the Treasury Department’s tax revenues, and only national banks could issue notes. States retaliated by lowering their capital requirements, and state banks found that they could avoid the tax on banknotes by using demand deposits to finance their loans and investments, making state banknote issues irrelevant. Over time, the number of state-chartered banks overtook the number of national banks. Impact The national banking system did not eliminate financial crises or panics. Indeed, the poor redemption mechanisms and the lack of competitive currencies from state banks made panics more likely. Nationwide panics occurred in 1873, 1893, and 1907, eventually generating calls for reform that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. By 1900, deposits in national banks stood at $2.35 billion, while deposits in nonnational banks totaled $3 billion. Creation of national banks and the corollary destruction of private note issue had another effect on the nation’s banking system. After the Civil War, the South’s banking system was devastated, and the prospects for either former Confederates or freedmen receiving federal charters were slim, if not nonexistent. Without national 263

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banks in the South, a dearth of capital occurred that retarded the postbellum growth of the region. Moreover, the destruction of competitive note issue by banks eliminated opportunities for the freedmen to create their own sources of capital. Thus, the National Bank Acts discriminated against the newly freed slaves. Whether the Radical Republicans in Congress intended to punish the South or the system accidentally discriminated against the South and West remains a matter of debate. Another effect, almost surely unintended, was to destabilize the banking system by removing an important market constraint, namely the necessity for banks to maintain specie reserves for their notes. At the same time, the government had to reduce the number of greenbacks in circulation, and from 1865 to 1879, the amount of greenbacks fell. Nevertheless, international factors led to the long-term deflation that the nation experienced from 1865 to almost 1900. That deflation was viewed by farmers and miners as damaging, and helped create groups, such as the Populists, who sought inflation, either through “free silver” or through the renewed issue of greenbacks. The Populists and others feared that the money power was concentrated in New York, particularly in the hands of New York Jewish bankers. Those fears were incorporated into the Federal Reserve Act, by which twelve Federal Reserve Banks were spread throughout the country. Most people unhappy with the national bank system, however, had failed to note the more serious threat: Note issue was centralized within the federal government in Washington, not with financiers in New York. Consequently, it proved relatively easy to move final authority over the nation’s money and banking system to Washington, D.C., during the Great Depression. John G. Clark, updated by Larry Schweikart Sources for Further Study Doti, Lynne Pierson, and Larry Schweikart. Banking in the American West: From the Gold Rush to Deregulation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. Livingston, James. Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalism, 1890-1913. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986. 264

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Schweikart, Larry. Banking in the American South from the Age of Jackson to Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987. Sharkey, Robert P. Money, Class, and Party: An Economic Study of Civil War and Reconstruction. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959. Timberlake, Richard H. The Origins of Central Banking in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978. See also: Independent Treasury Act (1846); Coinage Act (1873); Currency Act (1900); Federal Reserve Act (1913).

Freedmen’s Bureau Act Date: March 3, 1865 U.S. Statutes at Large: 13 Stat. 507 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Health

and Welfare; Labor and Employment; Slavery

Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau to help newly freed African Americans to function as free men, women, and children. On March 3, 1865, Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau, a temporary agency within the War Department. The Freedmen’s Bureau, also known as the United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, was administered by General Oliver Otis Howard from 1865 until it was dismantled by Congress in 1872. The primary objective of the Freedmen’s Bureau was to help newly freed African Americans to function as free men, women, and children. In order to achieve this goal, the bureau was expected to assume responsibility for all matters related to the newly freed slaves in the Southern states. The bureau’s mission was an enormous undertaking because of limited resources, political conflicts over Reconstruction policies, and a hostile environment. The work of the bureau was performed by General Howard and a network of assistant commissioners in 265

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various states, largely in the South. The Freedmen’s Bureau attempted to address many of the needs of the newly freed African Americans, including labor relations, education, landownership, medical care, food distribution, family reunification, legal protection, and legal services within the African American community. Labor Relations In the area of labor relations, the Freedmen’s Bureau dealt with labor-related issues such as transporting and relocating refugees and the newly freed persons for employment, contract and wage disputes, and harsh legislation enacted by some states. Concerning the last issue, many Southern states had passed laws, called Black Codes, that required adult freed men and women to have lawful employment or a business. Otherwise, they would be fined and jailed for vagrancy, and sheriffs would hire them out to anyone who would pay their fine. Given the scarcity of jobs, this policy resulted in former slave owners maintaining rigid control over newly freed African Americans. Another discriminatory law gave the former owners of orphaned African Americans the right to hire them as apprentices rather than placing them with their relatives. Again, this law resulted in the continuation of free labor for many Southerners. The Freedmen’s Bureau has been criticized for the failure of its agents to negotiate labor contracts in the interest of the newly freed. The bureau was frequently accused of protecting the rights of the Southern planters, instead. Education Obtaining an education was extremely important to the newly freed African Americans. They knew that learning to read and write would enable them to enter into contracts and establish businesses, and would aid them in legal matters. The Freedmen’s Bureau provided some support, by providing teachers, schools, and books and by coordinating volunteers. The bureau also made a contribution to the founding of African American colleges and universities. Southern opposition to educating African Americans was a result of the Southerners’ fear that education would make African Americans too independent and unwilling to work under the terms established by their former owners. Therefore, Southerners instituted control over the educational administration and classrooms and the entire system. Southern planters used a variety of 266

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methods to exert control: frequent changes in administrative personnel, the use of racial stereotypes regarding the intellectual inferiority of African Americans, and educational policy decision making based on paternalism and self-interest. Consequently, educational opportunities were significantly restricted for African American youth. Land Distribution The newly freed African Americans were eager to acquire property. They demonstrated their interest in owning their own land as individuals and formed associations to purchase large tracts of land. Their sense of family and community was the basis for their strong desire to own land. The Freedmen’s Bureau was initially authorized to distribute land that had been confiscated from Southern plantation owners during the Civil War. Specifically, on the sea islands of South Carolina, the bureau was mandated to lease or sell lands that had been confiscated. This land was to be distributed in parcels of forty acres. The decision of Congress to authorize the distribution of land was based on a proposal made by Thaddeus Stevens, the Republican congressman from Pennsylvania. However, President Andrew Johnson acceded to pressure from the rebellious planters to return their lands. The plantation owners were pardoned, and their property rights were restored by President Johnson. Consequently, all land that had been distributed to African Americans was returned to its previous owners. African Americans then were encouraged to sign contracts to work on the land that they once owned. Many refused to comply with this arrangement. Others would not voluntarily leave the property they once owned. When the freed men and women refused to vacate this property, they were evicted. Health Services A medical department was created within the Freedmen’s Bureau. It was to be a temporary service, to ensure that medical services were provided to African Americans until local governments assumed this responsibility. In spite of inadequate resources, the bureau founded forty-five hospitals in fourteen states. Some of the more common problems of the bureau’s medical department were inadequately staffed hospitals, medical personnel with little control over health concerns, frequent personnel changes and reloca267

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tion of hospitals, and lack of funds to purchase food for patients. In spite of these problems, the bureau experienced some success in providing for the medical needs of newly freed African Americans, rendering medical services to large numbers of former slaves, though unable to meet the medical needs of many. Social Welfare The Freedmen’s Bureau also attempted to provide for the social welfare of the freed persons. The agency was noted for rationing food to refugees and former slaves; it assisted families in reuniting with members who had been sold or separated in other ways during slavery. Protecting the rights of the former slaves was a major task of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Republicans believed that African Americans should have the same rights as whites. However, many Southern states enacted Black Codes that severely restricted the civil rights of the freed men, women, and children. These laws, exerting social and economic control over African Americans, represented a new form of slavery. When state legislation prohibited African Americans’ equal rights, the bureau attempted to invoke the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which offered African Americans the same legal protections and rights as whites to testify in courts, to own property, to enforce legal contracts, and to sue. The bureau found it extremely difficult to enforce the Civil Rights Act and to prosecute state officials who enforced laws that were discriminatory against African Americans. A shortage of agents and a reluctance among bureau commissioners to challenge local officials contributed to the agency’s limited success in enforcing the Civil Rights Act. Finally, the Freedmen’s Bureau also established tribunals to address minor legal disputes of African Americans within their own communities. In many instances, freed slaves were able to resolve their own problems. When they could not, they presented their legal concerns to bureau agents. Assessment The task assigned to the Freedmen’s Bureau was monumental. The responsibilities of the bureau significantly exceeded the resources and authority granted to it by Congress. The bureau’s ability to perform its varied tasks also was impeded by personnel shortages. President Johnson’s Reconstruction policies represented another 268

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major challenge to the bureau, as they were not always supportive of the bureau’s mandate and objectives. Myriad problems associated with the bureau meant that the newly freed men, women, and children were not able to receive the goods and services necessary to gain economic independence. Consequently, they developed extensive self-help networks to address their needs. K. Sue Jewell Sources for Further Study Crouch, Barry A. The Freedmen’s Bureau and Black Texans. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. Foster, Gaines M. “The Limitations of Federal Health Care for Freedmen, 1862-1868.” In The Freedmen’s Bureau and Black Freedom, edited by Donald G. Nieman. New York: Garland, 1994. Franklin, John Hope. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. Magdol, Edward. A Right to the Land: Essays on the Freedmen’s Community. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977. Westwood, Howard C. “Getting Justice for the Freedmen.” In The Freedmen’s Bureau and Black Freedom, edited by Donald G. Nieman. New York: Garland, 1994. See also: Black Codes of 1865 (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Reconstruction Acts (1867); Fourteenth Amendment (1868).

Black Codes of 1865 Date: Beginning November 24, 1865 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Labor

and Employment; Slavery

Fearing the effects of the end of slavery, Southern states passed laws to control newly freed African Americans. 269

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The months immediately following the end of the U.S. Civil War were a period of great uncertainty. Wartime president Abraham Lincoln had been killed, and his successor, Andrew Johnson, was wholly untested. No leadership could be expected from Capitol Hill, since Congress had gone into a long recess. In the Southern states, a host of questions required immediate answers; foremost among these were questions relating to the place of the recently freed slaves in postwar Southern society. Would the freed slaves continue to furnish an economical and reliable labor force for Southern cotton planters? Would the former slaves exact subtle or blatant revenge upon their former masters? Should lawmakers grant African Americans the vote in the Southern states? Should the U.S. government give them land? Should the states pay the cost of a basic education for them? What legal rights would these five million African Americans enjoy in the postbellum South? Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan President Johnson developed a lenient plan for Reconstruction, one that called on the Southern states to quickly reorganize their state governments. His only major demands of these new governments were that they admit that no state had the right to leave the Union and that they ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery. As the new Southern state legislatures began to meet, their exclusively white members were most interested in passing laws that would answer some of the nagging questions about the future place of African Americans in Southern society. Many legislators believed the freed slaves would not work unless forced to do so, and they feared the double specter of an economy without a labor supply and a huge mass of people who would live on charity or plunder. In earlier years, laws known as the “slave codes” had controlled the African American population; some lawmakers now called for a renewal of the slave codes to control the freed black population. Mississippi’s Codes Mississippi’s legislature was the first to take up the question of the rights of, or limitations on, African Americans. This body met in October, 1865, and quickly fell into arguments over what policies on racial matters should be enacted. Nearly half of the legisla270

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tors favored laws that would, in almost every way, return African Americans to the position they had occupied in the time of slavery. Mississippi’s governor, Benjamin G. Humphreys, intervened and urged lawmakers to ensure certain basic rights to the newly freed slaves. After Humphreys’s intervention, the moderates in the Mississippi legislature had the upper hand and, on November 24, 1865, enacted a bill entitled “An Act to Confer Civil Rights on Freedmen.” As its title promised, Mississippi’s new law did confer some basic rights on African Americans that they had not enjoyed as slaves. These rights included the right to sue and be sued, the right to swear out criminal complaints against others, the right to purchase or inherit land, the right to marry, and the right to draw up labor or other contracts. Although the law’s title did speak of conferring civil rights, and a few new rights were indeed granted, this law—the first of the Black Codes of the Southern states—was remarkable primarily for the rights it denied to African Americans. It did give African Americans the right to own land, but it denied them the right to rent rural land—thus the legislators sought to perpetuate large gangs of landless agricultural workers. The act recognized the right to marry, but it also provided that interracial marriage would be punished by life imprisonment for both parties. The right to testify in court was eroded by certain provisions that said the right to testify did not apply to cases in which both parties in a lawsuit or criminal case were white, nor to criminal cases in which the defendant was African American. Most ominous was the provision that every black citizen in the state must sign a one-year labor contract by January 1 of each year and must honor that contract. Should the employee leave the employer before the end of the year, law enforcement officers were empowered to return the worker forcibly to his or her place of employment. In a provision reminiscent of the old laws that forbade giving help to runaway slaves, this new law made it a crime to give food, clothing, or shelter to any African American worker who had left his or her employer while still under contract. The punishment for helping a runaway was up to two months in jail; for those who helped the fugitive find work in a state other than Mississippi, the punishment was up to six months in jail. Once again, securing a stable labor supply for the state was at the forefront of lawmakers’ goals. 271

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Codes in Other Southern States After Mississippi passed this first Black Code, a flood of other laws soon followed in Mississippi and the other Southern states. South Carolina’s Black Codes forbade African Americans from pursuing any occupation other than agricultural work, unless the worker paid a prohibitively expensive fee. Black farm workers there were required by law to work from sunup to sundown and forbidden from leaving the plantation without the permission of their employer. South Carolina and Mississippi both enacted severe vagrancy laws that called for the arrest of idle persons, drunkards, gamblers, wanderers, fighters, people who wasted their pay, circus hands, actors, and even jugglers. If these persons were African American, they were to be considered vagrants and fined up to one hundred dollars and imprisoned. If unable to pay their fine, their labor would be auctioned off to a white employer, and their wages used to satisfy the fine. The Black Codes varied from state to state, but their Northern opponents said they all had the common goal of returning the freed slaves to a system equivalent to bondage. In some Southern states, blacks were prohibited from owning guns. In other states, their assembly in groups was forbidden, or an evening curfew was imposed. President Johnson, himself a Southerner, saw little objectionable in the Black Codes, but many Northerners did. Occupying generals Daniel E. Sickles in South Carolina and Alfred H. Terry in Virginia overturned all or parts of the Black Codes in their areas, pending action in Congress. In Washington, Senator Lyman Trumbull wrote the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared that all persons born in the United States were U.S. citizens, and that all U.S. citizens enjoyed equality before the law. Congress passed this measure over the veto of President Johnson. By 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment brought this same promise of equality before the law into the Constitution itself. Weak Enforcement The Black Codes were barely enforced. Overturned by the actions of occupying generals, and later by the U.S. courts, which found them in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment, they were important chiefly for fueling a conflict in Washington between Johnson’s lenient Reconstruction plan and Congress’s insistence that the basic rights of African Americans be protected. These codes 272

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are also important for their role in bringing about passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although African Americans’ rights generally were protected between 1866 and 1876, the Southern states found many ways to draft laws that were color-blind on their face but that could be enforced in a racially biased way. After Reconstruction, few Southern elected officials, and few officeholders nationwide, were very interested in championing African American civil rights. Stephen Cresswell Sources for Further Study Cohen, William. “Negro Involuntary Servitude in the South, 18651940: A Preliminary Analysis.” Journal of Southern History 42 (February, 1976): 35-50. Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Harris, William C. Presidential Reconstruction in Mississippi. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967. Litwack, Leon F. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Wilson, Theodore B. The Black Codes of the South. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1965. See also: Black Codes of 1804-1807 (1804-1807); Fugitive Slave Act

of 1850 (1850); Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Reconstruction Acts (1867); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954); Disfranchisement laws (1890).

Thirteenth Amendment Date: Ratified December 6, 1865; certified December 18, 1865 U.S. Statutes at Large: 13 Stat. 567 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Consti-

tutional Law; Slavery

273

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The first of the Civil War amendments states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . shall exist within the United States. . . .” The antislavery and abolition movements did not begin with the Civil War. As early as 1652, the state of Rhode Island passed antislavery legislation. In 1773, Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Benjamin Rush formed the first abolition society in America. In 1832, the New England Anti-Slavery Society was formed by newspaper editor William Lloyd Garrison, who also helped found the American AntiSlavery Society in 1833. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, a religious group who settled early in the history of the United States, were very active in the antislavery movement. Their religion forbade the holding of slaves. Quakers primarily settled in the northern part of the country. Early Antislavery Laws In 1807, federal legislation was passed outlawing the importation of slaves after January 1, 1808. However, this did not end the use of slaves in the United States. The writers of the Constitution could not resolve the issue of slavery in America, and so had declared that the slave trade could end by 1808 or anytime later. Eventually, the inability of national leaders to resolve this issue would divide the nation. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 banned slavery in most of the western states and territories. This was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1857, in the famous Dred Scott decision (Scott v. Sandford). The split between the states was well in place at this point. Congress, in an attempt to appease pro- and antislavery proponents, adopted five provisions in the Compromise of 1850. The most notable was the Second Fugitive Slave Law, passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, which provided for slaves who escaped from the South and were found in Northern antislavery states to be returned to slave owners. A great deal of violence erupted over this legislation, which led to the act’s repeal on June 28, 1864. This split between the North and the South eventually resulted in the Civil War. Abolitionists The abolitionist movement had fought throughout the history of the United States for an end to the institution of slavery. Robert 274

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Dale Owen, an abolitionist and legislator, struggled for the emancipation of slaves and is thought to have influenced President Abraham Lincoln with his Policy of Emancipation (1863), or Emancipation Proclamation. Another radical opponent of slavery was Wendell Phillips, a noted speaker and a graduate of Harvard Law School. He believed that the U.S. Constitution supported slavery and therefore was owed no allegiance by abolitionists. Harriet Tubman was active in the Underground Railroad, which was successful in bringing many slaves into Northern states that would not return them to their owners. John Brown adopted more violent means of expressing his abolitionist sentiment. He raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and encouraged a slave revolt. He was eventually hanged for his violent actions. Frederick Douglass was an important abolitionist who played a significant role in the passage toward freedom for the slaves. A runaway slave, he spoke eloquently about the need to redress the wrongs created by slavery. Emancipation Proclamation As Civil War broke out, the movement placed greater pressure on President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln had focused a great deal of attention on the issue of slavery during the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862, well after the beginning of the Civil War. It announced that in states that had seceded from the union, all slaves would be freed effective January 1, 1863. This proclamation did not free many slaves. It did not apply to states that were part of the Union and was unenforceable in those states involved in the Confederacy. The major function of the Emancipation Proclamation was to announce to all that the Civil War was about slavery. At the time that the Civil War began, the African American population of the United States consisted of approximately four and a half million people, four million of whom were slaves. White supremacy was the general ideology of both Southerners and Northerners. Slaves were denied such rights as the right to legal marriage, choice of residence, and education, and existed in perpetual servitude. Without significant changes in institutional structures, there was no hope of freedom. 275

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Civil War Amendments The Thirteenth Amendment was one of three amendments (the others being the Fourteenth and Fifteenth) known as the Civil War amendments. The combined purpose of these three amendments was to free the slaves and promote their participation in their country. The Thirteenth Amendment states “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” One of the battles surrounding the Thirteenth Amendment in particular, and all the Civil War amendments in general, concerned the interpretation of the Tenth Amendment. The Tenth Amendment stated that no federal legislation could detract from the power of state government. Those who opposed the Thirteenth Amendment claimed that the right to allow slavery was not specifically denied in the Constitution and therefore fell within the authority of the state. With the passage of this amendment, the long fight to abolish slavery was over. The amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, and officially announced on December 18, 1865. For some abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison, the battle had been won: Slavery was ended. Others saw the Thirteenth Amendment as only a beginning. Expectations and Impact Frederick Douglass did not have the same high hopes held by Garrison. Douglass believed that slavery would not be abolished until the former slaves acquired the right to vote. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 did not provide this right. It was not until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, in 1868, that citizenship and the rights thereof were guaranteed to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Finally, in 1870, former slaves were expressly given the right to vote. Within weeks, the first African American in the U.S. Senate, Hiram R. Revels, took his seat. On April 15, 1865, President Lincoln died from wounds inflicted by an assassin the night before. Vice President Andrew Johnson took over the reins of the presidency and reconstruction of the nation. Johnson, however, was not highly supportive or sympathetic to the needs of the slaves. Johnson blocked every attempt to extend rights to former slaves. In fact, Johnson vetoed most of the bills that were passed by Congress, only to have his veto overridden 276

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by a two-thirds majority of Congress. Impeachment charges eventually ensued, and Johnson was spared by only a one-vote margin. At that point, Johnson withdrew from reconstruction activities and allowed Congress to control the process. Sharon L. Larson Sources for Further Study Anastaplo, George. The Amendments to the Constitution: A Commentary. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. 1791 to 1991: The Bill of Rights and Beyond. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1991. Farber, Daniel A., William N. Eskridge, Jr., and Philip P. Frickey. Constitutional Law: Themes for the Constitution’s Third Century. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1993. Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 18631877. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Franklin, John Hope. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. 3d ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. Furnas, J. C. The Road to Harpers Ferry. London: Faber & Faber, 1961. Klingaman, Willam K. Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, 1861-1865. New York: Viking, 2001. McKissack, Pat, and Fredrick McKissack. The Civil Rights Movement in America from 1865 to the Present. 2d ed. Chicago: Children’s Press, 1991. Owen, Robert Dale. The Wrong of Slavery, the Right of Emancipation, and the Future of the African Race in the United States. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1864. Richards, David A. J. Conscience and the Constitution: History, Theory, and Law of the Reconstruction Amendments. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Riehecky, Janet. The Emancipation Proclamation: Abolition of Slavery in 1863. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann Library, 2002. Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 277

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807); Emancipation Proclamation (1863); Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Fifteenth Amendment (1870).

Civil Rights Act of 1866 Date: April 9, 1866 U.S. Statutes at Large: 14 Stat. 27 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties

These statutes were designed to give legal protection for the fundamental rights of African Americans in the South but generally failed to provide long-term, effective protection because of Supreme Court decisions and public disenchantment. After the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States in 1865, almost all freed blacks were without property or education, and most white southerners bitterly opposed any fundamental improvement in their political and social status. In 1865-1866, southern legislatures enacted the highly discriminatory Black Codes, and proponents of racial equality responded by calling for new federal laws. Provisions of the Act Congress, using its new authority under the Thirteenth Amendment, overrode President Andrew Johnson’s veto to pass the first Civil Rights Act on April 9, 1866. This law conferred citizenship on African Americans, a measure necessitated by the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision (Scott v. Sandford, 1857). The law included a list of enumerated rights, including the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue and give evidence in court, and to purchase and inherit all forms of property. It also punished public officials if they used their legal powers to deny equality to blacks. Since the law’s constitutionality was questionable, many of its major provisions were incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment. On July 16, 1866, Congress again overrode President Johnson’s veto, this time 278

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to enlarge the scope of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Among other items, this law authorized the bureau to use military commissions to try persons accused of violating the civil rights of freedmen. Subsequent Civil Rights Legislation Again voting to override a presidential veto on March 2, 1867, Congress passed the First Reconstruction Act. Dividing the South into five military districts, the act required southern states to call new constitutional conventions elected by universal male suffrage and to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. Under the act, 703,000 blacks and 627,000 whites were registered as voters, with black majorities in five states. As the Ku Klux Klan conducted a wave of terrorism against African Americans and Republicans in the South, Congress responded with the Ku Klux Klan Acts of 1870 and 1871, which provided police protection to enforce the rights guaranteed in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. In several decisions, such as United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court ruled that key parts of the statutes exceeded the constitutional powers of Congress. Finally, on March 1, 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1875. This far-reaching act, largely the work of Senator Charles Sumner, outlawed discrimination based on race in public accommodations (inns, businesses, theaters, and the like) and made it illegal to exclude blacks from jury trials. In the Civil Rights cases (1883), however, the Supreme Court struck down most of the 1875 law, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment did not authorize Congress to prohibit discrimination by private individuals. This decision ended almost all federal attempts to protect African Americans from private discrimination until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Long-Term Impact Although the Civil Rights Acts of the Reconstruction era failed to guarantee any long-lasting equality for blacks, they did provide points of reference for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was resurrected in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company (1968), when the Supreme Court upheld its use to outlaw private racial discrimination in economic transactions as a “badge of slavery.” Thomas T. Lewis 279

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Sources for Further Study Abernathy, M. Glenn. Civil Liberties Under the Constitution. 5th ed. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989. Asch, Sidney H. Civil Rights and Responsibilities Under the Constitution. New York: Arco, 1968. Bardolph, Richard, ed. The Civil Rights Record: Black Americans and the Law, 1849-1870. New York: Thomas Crowell, 1970. Blaustein, Albert P., and Robert L. Zangrando, eds. Civil Rights and the American Negro: A Documentary History. New York: Trident Press, 1968. Chalmers, David M. Hooded Americanism: The First Century of the Ku Klux Klan. 3d ed. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1987. Franklin, John Hope. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. 3d ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. Henry, Christopher E., and Wilbert Jenkinds. Forever Free: From the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights Bill of 1875. Broomall, Pa.: Chelsea House, 1995. McKissack, Patricia, and Frederick McKissack. The Civil Rights Movement in America, from 1865-Present. 2d ed. Chicago: Children’s Press, 1991. Weinstein, Allen, and Frank Otto Gatell. Freedom and Crisis: An American History. 2 vols. New York: Random House, 1978. See also: Black Codes of 1804-1807 (1804-1807); Fugitive Slave Act

of 1850 (1850); Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Reconstruction Acts (1867); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Fifteenth Amendment (1870).

Reconstruction Acts Also known as: Military Reconstruction Acts Date: Beginning March 2, 1867 U.S. Statutes at Large: 14 Stat. 428 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Govern-

ment Procedure and Organization

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These acts were passed to enlist military and other governmental aid in reconstruction of the Southern states following the Civil War. The end of the Civil War brought on the enormously complex task of reconstructing the nation. The situation in the South was desperate: Its commercial heart had been destroyed and economic paralysis had set in; banks, money, and credit were nonexistent; people in many areas faced actual starvation; institutions such as churches, schools, and city and county governments had ceased to function. Were these seceded and now destitute Southern states to be treated as erring rebels and quickly returned to the Union? Ten Percent Plan Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States, consistently maintained that the “seceding” Southern states had, in fact, never left the Union; those Southern states, according to Lincoln, were to be brought back into their “proper relationship” with the federal government; then “safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had been abroad.” While the war was still in progress, Lincoln had turned his thoughts to the problem of reconciliation and had devised a plan to restore the South with maximum speed and minimum humiliation. The basis of this restoration would be a loyal minority in each state. To create such a body, Lincoln expected to use the presidential pardoning power. He granted amnesty to all ex-Confederates, except high civilian and military officials, who would take an oath of loyalty to the United States. When 10 percent of the 1860 electorate in the state took the oath, that state could then set up a new state government, which would then be recognized by the president. Lincoln proclaimed this “ten percent plan” in effect on December 8, 1863. Radical Reconstruction The more radical members of Congress—led in the House by Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and in the Senate by Charles Sumner of Massachusetts—were annoyed by the mildness of Lincoln’s approach, and they repudiated the state governments of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, which had been established under this plan. The electoral votes from these states were not counted in 1864, and their representatives were not seated in Con281

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gress. Forced by political necessity to provide an alternative, the Radical Republicans countered Lincoln by passing the Wade-Davis Bill in June, 1864. That measure stipulated that Congress was to put the Reconstruction program into effect. A majority of the number of persons who had voted in 1860, rather than ten percent, was required to swear allegiance before state governments could be established. Other rigid provisions were enumerated. The new state constitutions had to abolish slavery, repudiate the Confederate debt, and disfranchise Confederate military leaders. Prospective voters had to swear an “ironclad oath” of past as well as future loyalty in order to qualify for the franchise. Since the bill was passed an hour before the session of Congress ended, Lincoln, who objected to the harshness of the radical position, permitted the bill to die by pocket veto. The radicals then approved the Wade-Davis Manifesto, which bitterly attacked Lincoln for ostensibly usurping congressional power. The sentiment behind a program of Radical Reconstruction had been present from the earliest days of the Civil War, but it coalesced around the Wade-Davis Bill, a measure that would have eliminated the Southern ruling class from participation in the political process. This measure came about as a response by Republicans in Congress who resented or eschewed the reconstruction proposals outlined by Lincoln in December, 1863. Johnsonian Reconstruction Before any action could be taken by either side, Lincoln was assassinated in April, 1865. His death removed from politics a far-sighted statesman of tact and influence and a man well versed in handling recalcitrant congressmen. It elevated Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat from Tennessee, to the presidency. Not elected to this highest office, Johnson lacked the respect and gratitude of the nation that Lincoln had gained as the wartime president. Also, Johnson was stubborn and adamant, particularly when he believed his cause to be right. In such a time of crisis, the Tennessean was, perhaps, ill-suited for the presidency. Although a Southerner and a former slave owner, Johnson was a devoted Unionist. Without calling Congress into session, he put into operation a plan of reconstruction that closely resembled Lincoln’s. This, referred to by historians as “Presidential Reconstruction,” was not revealed until May 29, 1865. The basic difference be282

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tween Johnson’s and Lincoln’s plan was the number of people excluded from the amnesty; Johnson listed a total of fourteen categories of Southerners who were ineligible for pardon. Still, his pardon policy was extremely lenient, and by September of 1865, pardons were being issued “wholesale.” In addition, he asked for explicit guarantees: The new state constitutions had to abolish slavery, declare the secession ordinances null and void, and repudiate the Confederate war debt. Majority consent, rather than 10 percent, was implied, but not specified, and the new legislatures were to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. By the time Congress reconvened in December, 1865, all the exConfederate states except Texas had fulfilled Johnson’s terms, and the president announced to the assembled legislators that Reconstruction was over. Johnson’s plan staggered many Republicans who determined to contest it. Seeking guarantees that the South accepted the results of the war, the Republicans instead saw that the Southern governments reestablished under the Johnson plan had enacted Black Codes, regulations that had the effect of placing African Americans in a kind of peonage system in Southern society. The Black Codes, in various forms in the Southern states, effectively kept newly freed slaves from voting, getting an education, finding homes, taking advantage of economic opportunities, and gaining equal access to the judicial system. Furthermore, Southern governments had failed to prevent race riots, had elected to office important ex-Confederates such as Alexander H. Stephens, the former vice president of the Confederacy, and generally had given little evidence of a suppliant mood. Politically, the Republicans did not want to jeopardize their position by the rapid return of the Democratic South. Economically, Northern business interests feared Southern opposition to high tariffs and government subsidies, and humanitarians from all sections of the country wanted to see African Americans given political and social equality. Perhaps the most important motivating force was psychological; many Northerners wanted to gloat over their victory and see some direct evidence of Southern repentance. Fourteenth Amendment After many proposals and counterproposals, the Republicans in Congress proposed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitu283

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tion, which they considered to be a peace treaty. If the South would accept it, the Southern states would be readmitted. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed African Americans citizenship, imposed political disabilities upon ex-Confederates, and attempted to compel the former slave states to allow African American suffrage by decreasing their representation in the House of Representatives and the electoral college in the event of disenfranchisement. Given the temper of the North and of Republicans in the spring of 1866, it was an eminently moderate measure. Johnson opposed it, however, and urged the Southern states to reject it. They did, and the measure failed. Military Reconstructon On March 2, 1867, Congress passed the first of the Military Reconstruction Acts. This act replaced civil administration with military rule, dividing the South into five military districts whose administrating officers were to take orders from General Ulysses S. Grant rather than from the president. The first duties of these military regimes were to protect persons and property, to create a new electorate based on male suffrage, and to supervise the election of conventions that were to draft new state constitutions. The military governments were also given the right to replace civil officials who had been “fraudulently” elected and to remove “disloyal” members from the state legislatures. The South was now ruled with a firm hand by its military governors. Confederate veterans’ organizations and historical societies were suppressed, state and local officials were removed from office, and military tribunals assumed the duties of civil courts when it was found that those courts could not be depended upon to punish violence against African Americans. The army of occupation, consisting of nearly twenty thousand men and aided by an African American militia, enforced military rule; but these forces, deeply resented by the local populace, were kept largely in the background. In general, they were not called out except to supervise elections or to control civil disorders. In each Southern state, the new African American electorate that had been registered by the military helped to choose the conventions that drafted new state constitutions. The new constitutions gave African Americans the right to vote while denying this right to former Confederate leaders. Civil and political equality was also granted to freedmen. 284

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By the summer of 1868, reconstructed governments had been established in seven of the Southern states. After their state legislatures had ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the states were formally readmitted to the Union and were allowed to send senators and representatives to Congress. The states of Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Texas were not “reconstructed” until 1870. This era of “Black Reconstruction” has been greatly misrepresented, for varied and often deceitful reasons, as a time when the South fell prey to uneducated African Americans, opportunistic Northern “carpetbaggers,” and a minority of disloyal Southern “scalawags.” In reality, however, African Americans never dominated any Southern state government, nor did they ever hold offices in proportion to their numbers within the population. The African Americans elected to office were most often equal in ability to their white predecessors; some, such as Hiram R. Revels, senator from Mississippi, were men of extraordinary talent and ability. Due to a lack of political experience, however, some African American officeholders were manipulated and exploited by avaricious whites. In general, the corruption that characterized several of the state governments in this period was a result of the triumph of white political sophistication and wiles over the political naïveté of the newly elected officeholders. It is interesting to note that the new African American legislators never did attempt to pass vindictive laws aimed at their former masters. However, no matter what form the new reconstructed governments took, they were bound to be hated by the majority of Southern whites. A program of rebuilding the physical structure of the area—cities, roads, railroads—necessary for economic growth and recovery, resulted in deficit spending characterized by the crushing burden of taxation that was placed on the Southern gentry, plus the graft and bribery that took place on a large scale; such corruption was also common in the North at that time. To answer the threat of this alleged oppression, many Southern whites turned to the formation of secret white supremacist societies such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camelia. A series of pillages, whippings, and even murders resulted. These actions resulted in the enactment of the Force Acts, or Ku Klux Klan Acts, authorizing the president to suspend habeas corpus and to send federal troops to areas that were considered to be the most unruly. By 285

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means of this congressional legislation, portions of which were later declared unconstitutional, the first incarnation of the Klan was largely stamped out by 1872 (it would resurface again in the twentieth century). End of Reconstruction By 1874 the Democrats had captured control of the House of Representatives, marking the end of Northern Radicalism. The Amnesty Act of 1872 had restored full political rights to the disfranchised ex-Confederates. Factional splits in the Republican Party had been caused by struggles between carpetbaggers and scalawags. African Americans who had been promised “forty acres and a mule” by the Republicans began to desert the party when their hopes failed to materialize. Instead, they would turn to the old master class, in which they had more confidence. These white “redeemer” governments recaptured control of state political machinery between 1869 and 1871 in Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, and in 1874 to 1875 in Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, and Mississippi. With the Civil War a more distant memory by this time, the North no longer cared about the freedmen in the South, and shortly after the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877, Reconstruction came to an official end when President Hayes withdrew the last federal troops from Louisiana on April 24 of that year. John H. DeBerry, updated by Liesel Ashley Miller Sources for Further Study Anderson, Eric, and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., eds. The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991. Burr, Virginia Ingraham, ed. The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Carter, Dan T. When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, 1865-1867. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985. Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 18631877. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. 286

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McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. Smith, Page. Trial by Fire: A People’s History of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Vol. 5. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982. Sutherland, Daniel E. The Confederate Carpetbaggers. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. See also: Black Codes of 1804-1807 (1804-1807); Fugitive Slave Act

of 1850 (1850); Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865); Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Fifteenth Amendment (1870).

Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty Date: Concluded October 21, 1867 U.S. Statutes at Large: 15 Stat. 589 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

Tribes of the Great Plains entered an agreement that ultimately resulted in total submission to the U.S. government. For many years, five Native American tribes—the Comanche, the Kiowa, the Kiowa-Apache, the Southern Cheyenne, and the Arapaho—roamed the vast area of the southern Great Plains, following huge buffalo herds. This area became parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. Northern Cheyenne, Sioux, and other tribes lived a similar life on the northern Great Plains. Warfare was a part of the daily life of these tribes, generally as a result of intertribal rivalries and disputes concerning control of certain sections of the plains. This traditional life began to change when the first Europeans began to arrive on the Great Plains in the sixteenth century. Until the early nineteenth century, however, the changes were limited to the acquisition of steel knives, guns, and other products from European traders. The tribes soon became dependent on these items, but their day-by-day life changed very little. 287

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The dominant leaders of the region were the Comanches, called the Lords of the Southern Plains. Joined by the Kiowas, with whom they established friendly relations about 1790, they controlled the smaller Kiowa-Apache tribe and all land south of the Arkansas River. Their chief rivals north of the Arkansas River were the southern Cheyenne. In 1840, the Comanches and Cheyennes established a fragile peace that also included the Arapaho, the less numerous allies of the Cheyenne. Plains Indians and the United States This peace came at the beginning of a decade that would change forever the face of the southern Great Plains. In 1846, the United States annexed Texas. The end of the Mexican War in 1848 added New Mexico, Arizona, and other areas of the Southwest to the United States. For the next half century, the fragile Native American peace of 1840 became a strong bond of brotherhood for the southern plains tribes as they fought to defend themselves and their land against European American settlers, railroads, buffalo hunters, soldiers, and other newcomers. With the acquisition of Texas, the United States inherited a long and bloody conflict between Texans and Comanches, who were described by some as the best light cavalry in the world. The Comanches had long hunted from the Arkansas River to the Rio Grande. In 1821, the government of Mexico began giving land grants in west Texas to settlers from the United States. These settlers immediately challenged the Comanches for control of the area. Comanche Reservations The first attempt to confine the Comanches to reservations was a May, 1846, treaty that created two small reservations on the Brazos River. The few Comanches who settled on them soon yearned for the nomadic life on the vast plains. By 1850, discoveries of precious metals from the southern Rocky Mountains to California were drawing numerous wagon and pack trains through the southern plains. These were soon followed by stagecoach lines and, later, railroads. The increase in traffic was paralleled by increased confrontation with the tribes, who were accustomed to unhindered pursuit of the buffalo. Between 1846 and 1865, several treaties were signed between the Native Americans of the southern plains and the government 288

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of the United States. Lack of confidence and open contempt on both sides doomed these treaties to failure. The frustration felt by the Native Americans increased when cholera and other diseases carried by Europeans began rapidly decreasing the native populations. In March of 1863, a party of Native American chiefs from the southern plains went to Washington, D.C., and met with President Abraham Lincoln. Returning home loaded with gifts, these leaders were convinced that coexistence with European Americans was possible. This confidence was hard to maintain after the bloody and unprovoked massacre of Cheyennes at Sand Creek, in Colorado, the following year. Nevertheless, Ten Bears of the Comanche, who had met President Lincoln, Black Kettle of the Cheyenne, who had escaped from Sand Creek, and other chiefs still felt that peace was their best protection and was possible to achieve. Treaties and Peace Commissions The next effort toward peace was the Little Arkansas Treaty in October, 1865. Representatives of the five southern plains tribes met with U.S. commissioners at the mouth of the Little Arkansas River near Wichita, Kansas. The government wanted to end native American hindrances to movements in and through the plains. The treaty, little more than a stopgap measure, committed the tribes to reservations—the Cheyenne and Arapaho in northern Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache in western Texas and southwestern Indian Territory. These boundaries were impossible to enforce and did not end the violence, but the treaty set the stage for a more important meeting two years later. In July, 1867, Congress created a peace commission to establish permanent settlements of grievances between Native Americans and European Americans on the Great Plains. The commission was led by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Nathaniel Taylor and included a senator and three generals. The group chose to meet representatives of the southern plains tribes on the banks of Medicine Lodge Creek in southwestern Kansas. Joining them there were more than four thousand Native Americans representing all five tribes, but not all bands of the tribes. Noticeably absent was the Quahadi, a Comanche band that wanted no peace with the United States government. 289

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The council opened on October 19, 1867, with Senator John B. Henderson giving the opening remarks. Under a large brush arbor, he referred to reservation homes, rich farmland, livestock, churches, and schools for all Native Americans. Although most tribal leaders accepted the promises as positive, the idea of being restricted to reservations covering only a fraction of their beloved Great Plains was sickening. The Kiowa chief Satanta, or White Bear, lamented, “I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die.” The Yamparika Comanche chief Ten Bears gave one of the most eloquent statements, declaring, I was born where there were no inclosures and where everything drew a free breath. I want to die there and not within walls. . . . when I see [soldiers cutting trees and killing buffalo] my heart feels like bursting with sorrow.

The Treaty and Its Consequences In spite of such emotional appeals, Ten Bears and other Comanche chiefs signed the Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek on October 21, 1867, thereby committing their people to life on the reservation. Black Kettle, with the horrors of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre fresh in his mind, represented the Cheyenne at the council. He would not sign the treaty until other Cheyenne chiefs arrived on October 26. Although less happy with the treaty than the Comanche and Kiowa leaders, the Cheyenne chiefs signed, primarily to get ammunition for their fall buffalo hunt. The Arapaho chiefs soon did likewise. At the end of the council meeting, Satank rode alone to bid farewell to the Peace Commission. He expressed his desire for peace and declared that the Comanche and the Kiowa no longer wanted to shed the blood of the white man. The Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek restricted the five southern Plains tribes to reservations in the western half of Indian Territory. However, vague terminology and unwritten promises made the treaty impossible to understand or to enforce. Violence soon erupted on the southern plains. One year after Medicine Lodge Creek, Black Kettle was killed in a confrontation similar to the Sand Creek Massacre, this time on the Washita River in Indian Territory. The violence escalated for several years, then dwindled to isolated incidents before ending at Wounded Knee in 1890. 290

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A poignant illustration of the ultimate effect of the treaty occurred on June 8, 1871, when the seventy-year-old Satank—who along with Satanta and a young war chief named Big Tree had been arrested for attacking a mule train carrying food that the rationdeprived Indians sorely needed—was being transported to Texas to stand trial for murder. Chewing his own wrists in order to slip out of his manacles, Satank then attacked a guard and was shot dead, fulfilling a prophecy that he had uttered only minutes before to fellow prisoners: “Tell them I am dead. . . . I shall never go beyond that tree.” Glenn L. Swygart Sources for Further Study Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. Grinnell, George Bird. The Fighting Cheyennes. 1915. Reprint. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956. Hagan, William T. United States-Comanche Relations. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976. Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. 500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. Mooney, James. Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. 1898. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979. Rollings, Willard H. The Comanche. New York: Chelsea House, 1989. See also: Indian Removal Act (1830); Treaty of Dancing Rabbit

Creek (1830); Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848); Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 (1851); Fort Atkinson Treaty (1853); Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 (1868); Indian Appropriation Act (1871); General Allotment Act (1887).

Fourteenth Amendment Date: Probably ratified July 9, 1868; certified July 28, 1868 U.S. Statutes at Large: 15 Stat. 706-707 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Consti-

tutional Law; Slavery

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The first article of this amendment, perhaps the most important after the Bill of Rights, states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The Fourteenth Amendment was part of the plan for Reconstruction formulated by the Republican majority in the Thirty-ninth Congress. Before Congress met in December, 1865, President Andrew Johnson had authorized the restoration of self-government in the former Confederate states, and the congressmen and senators from those states waited in Washington to be seated in Congress. The state legislatures elected under Johnson’s program had met to develop a series of laws called Black Codes, which restricted the rights of the former slaves. Republicans Fight Status-Quo Reconstruction While the Republican majority in Congress had no intention of permitting the Johnson approach to Reconstruction to prevail or of seating the unrepentant white Southern representatives, they had no comprehensive counterproposal. To gain time and to work out a positive approach, Republicans in the House and the Senate created the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction. This committee was composed of six senators and nine representatives. The Republican majority rejected Johnson’s plan because, as the Black Codes demonstrated, the old Confederates could not be trusted to respect the rights of the freedmen. Moreover, the Republicans had no intention of permitting white Southerners, whom they regarded as rebels and traitors, to increase the representation in the House of Representatives of the Southern Democrats. The abolition of slavery had destroyed the old compromise under which five slaves counted as three free persons in apportioning representation in the House and the electoral college, and the Republicans wanted to make sure that the South did not add to its numbers in the House and thus profit from rebellion. Between December, 1865, and May, 1866, the Republicans attempted to hammer out a program that would accomplish their 292

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purposes in the South, unite members of their party in Congress, and appeal to Northern voters. Given the diversity of opinion within the party, this undertaking proved to be difficult. The radicals wanted African American suffrage, permanent political proscription, and confiscation of the property of ex-Confederates. Some maintained they were authorized in these actions by the Thirteenth Amendment, which, they believed, gave Congress the power to abolish the “vestiges of slavery.” Moderate Republicans, on the other hand, feared political repercussions from African American suffrage, as such a requirement would result in beginning the Reconstruction process over again. Many moderates also believed that an additional amendment to the Constitution was needed to provide precise authority for Congress to enact civil rights legislation. From deliberations of the joint committee and debate on the floor of the House came the Fourteenth Amendment. Many Republicans believed that the proposal was in the nature of a peace treaty, although this view was not explicitly stated. If the South accepted the amendment, the Southern states were to be readmitted and their senators and representatives seated in Congress; in other words, Reconstruction would end. Republicans presented a united front during the final vote as a matter of party policy. Because the amendment was an obvious compromise between radicals and moderates, it was too strong for some and too weak for others. Provisions The Fourteenth Amendment became the most important addition to the constitution since the Bill of Rights had been adopted in 1791. It contains five sections: Section 1, the first constitutional definition of citizenship, states that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside. It includes limits on the power of states by providing that no state may abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens, deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of law. This section was intended to guarantee African Americans the rights of citizenship, although the amendment’s framers did not define exactly which rights were included. Nor did they define “state action” to specify whether the term meant only official acts 293

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of state government or the actions of individuals functioning privately with state approval. The courts later interpreted the due process clause to extend the rights of the accused listed in the Bill of Rights, which had applied only to the federal government, to the states. They expanded the notion of equal protection to include other categories, such as sex and disability, as well as race. They also interpreted the word “person” to include corporations as legal persons; under this interpretation, corporations found protection from much state regulation. Section 2 gives a new formula of representation in place of the old three-fifths compromise of the Constitution, under which five slaves were counted as equal to three free persons in determining a state’s representation in the House of Representatives and the electoral college. All persons in a state were to be counted for representation, but if a state should disfranchise any of its adult male citizens, except for participation in rebellion or any other crime, the basis of its representation would be reduced proportionately. While not guaranteeing suffrage to African Americans, this provision threatened the South with a loss of representation should black males be denied the vote. Section 3 declares that no person who has ever taken an oath to support the Constitution (which included all who had been in the military service or held state or national office before 1860) and has then participated in the rebellion can be a senator or representative or hold any civil or military office, national or state. This disability could be removed only by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress. This section took away the pardoning power of the president, which congressional Republicans believed Andrew Johnson used too generously. Section 4 validates the debt of the United States, voids all debts incurred to support rebellion, and invalidates all claims for compensation for emancipated slaves. Section 5 gives Congress authority to pass legislation to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. The correspondence and speeches of those who framed the Fourteenth Amendment do not support any theories of economic conspiracy or ulterior motives. The amendment’s framers desired to protect the former slaves and boost Republicanism in the South by barring old Confederates from returning to Congress and the electoral college with increased voting strength. They hoped to do 294

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this without threatening the federal system or unduly upsetting the relationship between the central government and the states. At the same time, Republicans wanted to unify their party and project a popular issue for the approaching electoral contest against Andrew Johnson. William J. Cooper, Jr., updated by Mary Welek Atwell Sources for Further Study Benedict, Michael Les. A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863-1869. New York: W. W. Norton, 1974. Cox, LaWanda, and John H. Cox. Politics, Principle, and Prejudice: Dilemma of Reconstruction America, 1865-1866. New York: Free Press, 1963. Hyman, Harold M., and William Wiecek. Equal Justice Under Law: Constitutional Development, 1835-1875. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. Lively, Donald E. The Constitution and Race. New York: Praeger, 1992. Nieman, Donald G. Promises to Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Perry, Michael J. We the People: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Renstrom, Peter G. Constitutional Law for Young Adults: A Handbook on the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1992. Richards, David A. J. Conscience and the Constitution: History, Theory, and Law of the Reconstruction Amendments. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Stampp, Kenneth M. The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Three-fifths compromise (1787); Black Codes of 1804-

1807 (1804-1807); Emancipation Proclamation (1863); Black Codes

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of 1865 (1865); Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Reconstruction Acts (1867); Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954); Disfranchisement laws (1890).

Burlingame Treaty Date: Signed July 28, 1868 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations; Treaties

and Agreements

This treaty established reciprocal rights between China and the United States, including respect for territorial sovereignty and bilateral immigration. Formal United States interest in China dates from the thirteenthousand-mile voyage of the U.S. ship Empress of China, under the command of Captain John Green, which departed from New York City on February 22, 1784. The vessel returned from Canton in May, 1785, with tea, silks, and other trade goods of the Orient. Merchants in Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, and New York quickly sought profits in the China trade. By the late 1830’s, “Yankee clippers” had shortened the transit time from America’s Atlantic ports to Canton from a matter of many months to a mere ninety days. Political problems, however, hindered commercial relations. The Manchu, or Ch’ing, Dynasty (1644-1912), fearful of Western intentions, restricted trade to one city, Canton, and sharply curtailed the rights of foreigners in China. Chafing at these limits, especially China’s refusal to deal with Europeans on terms of equality, caused Great Britain to begin hostilities with the Manchu Dynasty, occasioned by the “unsavory issue” of England’s trade in opium with China. The Opium War (1839-1842) resulted in the Treaty of Nanking (August 24, 1842), a triumph for the political and commercial interests of Great Britain in eastern Asia. England obtained the cession of the island of Hong Kong and the opening of four additional cities—Amoy, Ningpo, Foochow, and Shanghai—to British trade. 296

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Seeking Trade with China The U.S. government desired similar rights and obtained them in the Treaty of Wang Hiya (named for a village near Macao) on July 3, 1844; Commissioner Caleb Cushing, although not formally received by China as a minister, was permitted to negotiate this landmark agreement. The United States secured access to the newly opened ports and was extended the right of extraterritoriality; that is, U.S. citizens were to be tried for offenses committed in China under U.S. law by the U.S. consul. Within the next twenty years, trade with China grew. The United States acquired Washington, Oregon, and California, and, with Pacific ports, had greater access to Chinese markets. The California gold rush (1849) and the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad (completed in 1869), with its need for labor, encouraged Chinese emigration to the United States. Meanwhile, U.S. missionaries, merchants, travelers, and adventurers were arriving in China. Conditions in “the Middle Kingdom,” however, were not good. The authority of the central government had been challenged by the anti-Western Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) and was suppressed only with outside help. Further European incursions into China, epitomized by the Anglo-French War with the Manchus (1854-1858), threatened to curtail U.S. cultural and commercial opportunities in China. If the United States did not act, it would face the prospect of being excluded from China by European imperialism. Burlingame Goes to China Secretary of State William Henry Seward believed that it was time for the United States to have formal representation at the Manchu court. His fortunate choice was Anson Burlingame. Born on November 14, 1820, in rural New York, the son of a “Methodist exhorter,” Burlingame had grown up in the Midwest, graduating from the University of Michigan. After attending Harvard Law School, Burlingame went into practice in Boston. With a gift of oratory and exceptional personal charm, Burlingame served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1855-1861) and was a pioneer of the new Republican Party. As a reward for his labor and in recognition of his talents, Burlingame was offered the post of U.S. minister to Austria, but the Habsburgs refused him because of his known sympathies with Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian revolutionary. As a 297

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second choice and a compensatory honor, Burlingame was given the assignment to China. Because the United States was distracted with the Civil War, Burlingame was left on his own and could count on little U.S. military might to support his actions. Acquiring a great admiration for and confidence in the Chinese, Burlingame won the trust and respect of I-Hsin, known as Prince Kung, the co-regent of China with the dowager empress Tz’u-hsi. When Burlingame resigned as the U.S. minister to China, in November, 1867, the Imperial Manchu court asked him to head China’s first official delegation to the West. The Burlingame mission toured the United States, being warmly received, and arrived in the United Kingdom as William Gladstone was assuming the prime ministership of that nation. Burlingame’s brilliant career was cut short during a subsequent visit to Russia, where he contracted pneumonia, dying in St. Petersburg on February 23, 1870. Few had served their own country so well, and it was said that none had given China a more sincere friendship. Fair Treaty, Nativist Fears The most outstanding accomplishment of the Burlingame mission, the Burlingame Treaty, was signed on July 28, 1868, in Washington, D.C. This document dealt with a variety of issues between China and the United States. The United States pledged itself to respect Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, a position in sharp contrast to that of the European powers and one that anticipated the United States’ subsequent “open door policy” (1899). The Burlingame Treaty accepted bilateral immigration between China and the United States, and by 1880 there were 105,000 Chinese living in the United States. By the standards of the 1860’s, the Burlingame Treaty was a landmark of fairness and justice. Unfortunately, the United States did not honor its spirit or letter. Anti-immigrant feeling focused on a fear of Chinese “coolie” labor. The infamous Sandlot Riots in San Francisco, in June, 1877, were symptomatic of both the mistreatment of Asian immigrants and the rising sentiment for Asian exclusion. On March 1, 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed a congressional bill limiting the number of Chinese passengers on board ships bound for the United States as a violation of the Burlingame Treaty. Hayes did, however, send a mission to China to 298

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work for the revision of the Burlingame Treaty. In 1880, China recognized the United States’ right to regulate, limit, and suspend, but not absolutely forbid, Chinese immigration. Two years later, President Chester A. Arthur vetoed a twentyyear suspension of Chinese immigration as being a de facto prohibition, but on May 6, 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act passed, suspending the importation of Chinese labor for a ten-year period. In 1894, another ten-year exclusion period was enacted; in 1904, exclusion was extended indefinitely. When, on December 17, 1943, Chinese immigration was permitted by an act of Congress, it was within the strict limits of the 1920’s quota system, allowing the entrance of only 105 Chinese annually. Not until the mid-twentieth century did the United States depart from an immigration policy centered on ethnic origin, thus allowing the original intent of the Burlingame Treaty to be realized. C. George Fry Sources for Further Study Dulles, Foster Rhea. China and America: The Story of Their Relations Since 1784. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1946. Fairbank, John K. China Perceived: Images and Policies in ChineseAmerican Relations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974. Fairbank, John K., Edwin O. Reischauer, and Albert M. Craig. East Asia: Tradition and Transformation. Rev. ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. Miller, Stuart Creighton. The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 1785-1882. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Mosher, Steven W. China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality. New York: Basic Books, 1990. Tsai, Shih-shan Henry. China and the Overseas Chinese in the United States, 1868-1911. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1983. See also: Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844); Page Law (1875); Chinese

Exclusion Act (1882); Opium Exclusion Act (1909); Alien land laws (1913).

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Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 Date: Signed November 5, 1868 U.S. Statutes at Large: 15 Stat. 635 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

This treaty was meant to provide a lasting peace through mutual concessions involving territorial rights and peaceful behavior, but it ultimately failed. By mid-1800’s, the vast area of land claimed by the Sioux Nation was subjected to inexorable pressures from America’s westward expansion, which accelerated after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Pioneers, settlers, farmers, gold prospectors, railroads, and the army all encroached on Sioux territory. Inevitably, armed conflict between whites and Indians occurred. Attempts to arrive at a peaceful solution and compromise, such as the treaties of 1851, 1865, and 1866, provided only short-lived respites. On July 20, 1867, after vigorous debate over whether to subdue the Indians militarily and punish them or reach a peaceful accord with them, both houses of Congress approved a bill which authorized a government commission to make peace with the Plains tribes. The commission was directed by Congress to establish peace, remove if possible the causes of war, safeguard frontier settlements and the rights-of-way for the transcontinental railroads, and establish reservations for the Plains Indians with adequate arable land so they could become self-sufficient farmers. Terms of the Treaty The peace commission, headed by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Nathaniel Taylor, worked its way west, meeting various tribes of Sioux and listening to their demands. In April, 1868, the commission convened at Fort Laramie with a draft treaty that met many of these demands. Article 2 established the Great Sioux Reservation, which gave to the Sioux all of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River, including the sacred Black Hills, “for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupancy of the Sioux.” Article 16 established the Powder River Country to the north and west of the Great Sioux Reservation as “unceded Indian territory,” where whites 300

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were not permitted to go unless given permission by the Sioux. Article 11 gave the Sioux hunting rights along the Republican River and above the Platte River in Nebraska and Wyoming for “so long as the buffalo may range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase.” Other articles promised that all Sioux who resided within the Great Sioux Reservation would be provided with food for the next four years (until they learned to become farmers). The reservation was promised schools, mills, blacksmiths, doctors, and teachers and an agent to administer the various programs and maintain order. Additionally, no chief could unilaterally sign away treaty rights, as any sale of land had to be approved by threefourths of all adult Sioux males. In return, the United States asked for peace and asked that the Sioux make their permanent residence within the boundaries of the reservation. The Sioux relinquished the right to occupy any lands outside the reservation permanently, including the unceded territory. The Sioux were not to oppose the building of railroads on the plains and were not to attack settlers and their wagon trains or take white prisoners. Additionally, provisions would be distributed by the government not at the western end of the reservation, near traditional hunting grounds and where the Sioux customarily traded with whites, but at agencies established along the Missouri River in the eastern part of the reservation, in order to reorient Sioux life to these agencies. Failure of the Treaty Red Cloud was the final Sioux chief to sign the treaty, on November 5, 1868, only after the government abandoned its forts along the Bozeman Trail in Sioux territory. The treaty was rejected, however, by the influential and powerful Sioux chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, who remained in the unceded territory and refused to live on the reservation. In the end, this treaty proved no more effective in maintaining the peace and Sioux way of life than previous ones had been. Violations of Sioux territory by white emigrants and the army, the discovery of gold in the Black Hills (and the taking of the Black Hills by the government in 1877 without compensation), problems administering the reservation, and the refusal of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull to live on the reservation despite government threats of war undermined any hope that the treaty’s 301

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terms would be honored and observed. By 1880 the Sioux had been either killed or defeated and were confined to the reservation. Laurence Miller Sources for Further Study Allen, Charles W., and Richard E. Jensen, eds. From Fort Laramie to Wounded Knee: In the West That Was. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Hedren, Paul L. Fort Laramie and the Great Sioux War. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. _______. Fort Laramie in 1876: Chronicle of a Frontier Post at War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. See also: Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 (1851); Fort Atkinson Treaty

(1853); Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867); Indian Appropriation Act (1871).

Fifteenth Amendment Date: Probably ratified February 3, 1870; certified March 30, 1870 U.S. Statutes at Large: 15 Stat. 346 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Consti-

tutional Law; Voting and Elections

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1869 and ratified in 1870, stated that the right to vote could not be denied to any citizen “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment was to extend the franchise to the African American men who had been freed from slavery as a result of the Civil War. At the time, women were not regarded as citizens and were therefore not covered by the measure. The amendment marked a continuation of the program of the Republican Party to provide political rights for black men after the 302

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defeat of the Confederacy. The Thirteenth Amendment had ended slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment had provided civil rights to all citizens born or naturalized in the United States. These amendments, however, had not ensured that black men could vote throughout the United States. To accomplish that end, the Republicans in Congress, in a lame-duck Congress that met in early 1869, decided that ensuring the right to vote would both carry on the moral impetus of Reconstruction (1863-1877) and act to offset any political comeback of the antiblack Democratic Party. Need for an Amendment A constitutional amendment would have the additional benefit, as the Republicans saw it, of providing a clear legal basis for enforcement of voting rights in the South. In its language, the amendment did not ensure that blacks could hold public positions nor did it rule out such barriers to voting as literacy tests or property requirements. Nonetheless, it represented a clear forward step for African Americans and offered the promise of greater participation in elections and the operations of government. The ratification process broke down along the existing party alignments of the Reconstruction era. Republicans favored the measure and Democrats resisted it in the state legislatures that addressed ratification. It required vigorous campaigning, especially in such key states as Ohio, to achieve approval from the requisite number of states by March, 1870. Weak Enforcement The Fifteenth Amendment did not prevent southerners from excluding African Americans from the political process at the end of the nineteenth century. With a political stalemate between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, enforcement of the amendment proved difficult. Federal courts did not encourage a broad interpretation of the amendment. In 1889-1890, the Republicans endeavored to strengthen federal legislation to ensure fair elections in the South, but Democrats defeated their efforts. When the Democrats regained control of the White House and both branches of Congress in 1893-1895, they repealed the existing legislation that gave the government authority over elections. As a result, discriminatory practices kept African Americans from voting in many parts of the South for three-quarters of a century. 303

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In the middle of the twentieth century with the rise of the Civil Rights movement, efforts resumed to revive the Fifteenth Amendment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enabled blacks to enter the political process in large numbers and, in so doing, to redeem the unfulfilled promise that the framers of the Fifteenth Amendment had originally envisioned. Lewis L. Gould Sources for Further Study Ball, Howard, Dale Krane, and Thomas P. Lauth. Compromised Compliance: Implementation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Braeman, John. Before the Civil Rights Revolution: The Old Court and Individual Rights. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Dawson, Michael. Behind the Mule: Race and Class in American Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. Greenberg, Jack. Race Relations and American Law. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. Kousser, J. Morgan. The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974. _______. Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Lowenstein, Daniel Hays. Election Law. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1995. Richards, David A. J. Conscience and the Constitution: History, Theory, and Law of the Reconstruction Amendments. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. Schwartz, Bernard, and Stephen Lesher. Inside the Warren Court. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983. Thernstrom, Abigail M. Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996.

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Ku Klux Klan Acts See also: Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865); Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Reconstruction Acts (1867); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Ku Klux Klan Acts (18701871); Disfranchisement laws (1890); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975).

Ku Klux Klan Acts Also known as: Enforcement Acts; Force Acts Date: May 31, 1870; February 28, 1871; April 20, 1871 U.S. Statutes at Large: 16 Stat. 140; 16 Stat. 433; 17 Stat. 13 Categories: African Americans; Crimes and Criminal Procedure;

Voting and Elections

These laws were an attempt to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and to end Ku Klux Klan violence. Also known as the Enforcement Acts, or Force Acts, these three laws were enacted by the U.S. Congress in response to the terrorist activities of the Ku Klux Klan and other groups committed to white supremacy in the South during the era of Reconstruction, immediately following the Confederate defeat at the end of the Civil War. The first act, passed in May, 1870, made night riding (the practice of riding on horseback at night and committing various acts of intimidation and harassment) a federal felony and reaffirmed the rights of African Americans provided for in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Congress passed a second act in February, 1871, which provided for election supervisors to ensure against fraud and racial discrimination. Two months later, Congress approved a third statute aimed specifically at the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. This law made it a federal offense to violate anyone’s voting rights. In addition, it allowed the president to proclaim areas in which state governments failed to curb domestic violence to be in “rebellion” and authorized the use of military force and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus to end rebellions. In Octo305

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ber, 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant used the law to declare nine counties in South Carolina to be in rebellion. These laws proved effective in suppressing white supremacy organizations. Thomas Clarkin Sources for Further Study Trelease, Allen W. White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. West, Jerry Lee. The Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan in York County, South Carolina, 1865-1877. New York: McFarland, 2002. Williams, Lou Falkner. The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871-1872. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. See also: Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865); Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Reconstruction Acts (1867); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Disfranchisement laws (1890); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975).

Indian Appropriation Act Date: March 3, 1871 U.S. Statutes at Large: 16 Stat. 544 Categories: Native Americans; Treaties and Agreements

Congress unilaterally determined that Native Americans no longer belonged to their own sovereign nations, thereby ending treaty-making between U.S. and tribal governments. In 1871, Congress voted to end treaty making with Native American peoples. Since the origins of the republic, the U.S. government had dealt with tribes by recognizing each one as an independent nation living within the United States. Hence, ambassadors 306

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were sent out from Washington, D.C., to negotiate treaties, and each agreement had to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, as provided in the Constitution. Chief Justice John Marshall, in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), had determined that this process had to be followed because each tribe was self-governing and sovereign in its own territory. The change took place because many people in the United States came to believe that the Native American nations no longer acted like sovereign states. They were too weak, post-Civil War whites believed, and many had become dependent on the federal government for their existence. Members of Congress expressed that view in a series of discussions on American Indian policy in 1870-1871. In the House of Representatives, the feeling also grew that the House was being ignored in the development of Indian policy. The only way the House could influence Native American relations would be by renouncing the treaty concept. The attack on treaty making gained strength during the debate over the money to be appropriated for the United States Board of Indian Commissioners. This agency had been created in 1869 to oversee money authorized to be spent on Indian programs. Policy Changes The commissioners’ first report suggested major changes in Indian policy. It called for ending the treaty system and dealing with “uncivilized” native peoples as “wards of the government.” Board chair Felix R. Brunot echoed the views of many U.S. citizens when he declared that it was absurd to treat “a few thousand savages” as if they were equal with the people and government of the United States. President Ulysses S. Grant supported that view, as did his commissioner of Indian affairs, Ely S. Parker, a member of the Seneca nation. Parker believed that it was a cruel farce to deal with the tribes as equals; in his view, most were “helpless and ignorant wards” of the federal government. The resentment of members of the House of Representatives at their exclusion from Indian policy making became apparent during debates over treaties negotiated in 1868 and 1869. A May, 1868, agreement with the Osage Nation in Kansas had ceded eight million acres of land to the government. The land then would be sold to a railroad company for twenty cents per acre. The House voted unanimously to recommend that the Senate not ratify the treaty 307

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because the land transfer had taken place outside the traditional methods of selling public property. The Senate responded to the House plea by rejecting the treaty. Later, however, the land was sold to the railroad company with the approval of the House. The House took up the issue of treaty making again in 1869 during a debate over the Indian appropriation for 1870. It provided money for food, clothes, and education for tribe members living on reservations. The House refused to accept an increase in funds voted by the Senate. Representatives also began to question whether native peoples were capable of signing official treaties with the United States. Most members attacked the traditional system, although three congressmen spoke in favor of the treaty process. Representative William Windom of Minnesota argued that changing the process would be a breach of faith with the tribes. Revoking the process would create great confusion among Native Americans and add to their distrust of the U.S. government. Representative John J. Logan, Republican of Illinois, responded for the majority, however, by declaring that “the idea of this Government making treaties with bands of wild and roving Indians is simply preposterous and ridiculous.” Amid loud cheers and laughter, Logan attacked the character of native peoples and suggested that they were an inferior race that should not be treated as equal in status to the people of the United States. The House refused to approve the appropriation, and the Senate refused to compromise; therefore, no Indian appropriation bill passed Congress in 1869. In the debate over the 1871 appropriation, both sides raised the same arguments. In the Senate, supporters of the treaty system argued that any change would severely injure any goodwill native peoples still held toward the U.S. government system. Senator Richard Yates reiterated the antitreaty sentiment, declaring that the tribes were not civilized and that making treaties with them had been a mistake. The Senate, however, passed an appropriation bill and sent it to the House. While the debate took place, many tribes were waiting for the money due to them under treaties negotiated in 1868 and 1869. Unless Congress agreed to an appropriation bill, they would receive nothing. In a compromise arranged between the two legislative branches, a sum of two million dollars was appropriated to pay off prior obligations. Debate over the appropriation for the next year bogged down in the House, however. 308

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Agitation Against Treaties The Board of Indian Commissioners helped the House position by calling for an end to treaty making and for abrogating all existing agreements. Only Representative Eugene M. Wilson of Minnesota spoke in favor of continuing the historic policy. If Native Americans were not protected by treaties, they would be cheated out of their lands by white speculators and end up with nothing, he argued. Debate in the Senate and the House seemed far more concerned with constitutional technicalities than with the welfare of native peoples. Once more, no bill seemed possible. On the last day of the session, President Grant urged a compromise, or, he warned, a war with the tribes was sure to break out. Under this threat, Congress agreed to put aside its differences temporarily and passed a bill. When the new Congress opened on January 4, 1871, Representative Henry Dawes of Massachusetts led the call for change. Dawes, who in 1887 would author a major bill in the Senate drastically changing policy toward native peoples, called for a quick program of assimilation in this earlier debate. If natives were to become Americanized—a policy he supported—they should be treated as individuals rather than as members of foreign nations. Native peoples were not and never had been equal to the United States. The House passed a bill denouncing “so-called treaties.” In the Senate, an amendment to delete the words “so-called” before “treaties” led to a vigorous debate. Senator William Stewart of Nevada objected to the amendment: “The whole Indian policy of feeding drunken, worthless, vagabond Indians, giving them money to squander . . . has been a growing disgrace to our country for years.” Treaties with “irresponsible tribes” were no treaties at all. Only a few senators agreed with this amendment, however, and “socalled” was eliminated. This angered the House, which refused to accept the Senate version. Many congressmen and senators were tired of the endless debate and seemed willing to compromise. A conference committee of senators and representatives agreed that past treaties would be accepted or the integrity of the United States would be compromised. It agreed that no more treaties should be negotiated with Native Americans, however. Most conferees agreed that the tribes remaining hardly seemed like legitimate nations, as they were too small, weak, and miserable. The final compromise asserted the va309

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lidity of prior agreements but provided that in the future, “no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty.” Both the Senate and the House accepted the compromise, and President Grant signed it into law on March 3, 1871. Treaties would no longer be negotiated with Native American peoples. Native Americans would, instead, become “wards of the state.” Leslie V. Tischauser Sources for Further Study Cohen, Fay G. Treaties on Trial: The Continuing Controversy Over Northwest Indian Fishing Rights. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986. Heizer, Robert F. “Treaties.” In California. Vol. 8 in Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978. Jones, Dorothy V. License for Empire: Colonialism by Treaty in Early America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Kvasnicka, Robert M. “United States Indian Treaties and Agreements.” In History of Indian-White Relations, edited by Wilcomb E. Washburn. Vol. 4 in Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. See also: Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 (1868); General Allotment Act (1887); Burke Act (1906); Indian Citizenship Act (1924); Indian Reorganization Act (1934); Termination Resolution (1953).

Treaty of Washington Date: Signed May 8, 1871 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

This U.S.-British settlement of differences became a milestone in international conciliation. 310

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On February 27, 1871, official Washington shrugged off late-winter dreariness to celebrate the beginning of a momentous gathering of American and British dignitaries. The social festivities that took place did much to dissipate the feelings of bitterness and suspicion that had dominated Anglo-American relations since the Civil War years. The Washington Conference had been called to deal with the Alabama claims, the major legacy of Union-British conflict over neutral rights and duties during the Civil War. Proceedings began on a surprisingly cordial note, and within three months the two delegations had reached solutions or provided for later agreement on almost all matters at issue. A LABAMA Claims Neither side would have believed when the negotiations were first arranged that such an explosive issue as the Alabama claims could be resolved with so little difficulty. In the years immediately following the Civil War, Anglo-American relations were dangerously tense. The principal cause was the lasting bitterness of Americans toward what they regarded as Great Britain’s shamefully unneutral support of the Confederacy. The British government had on several occasions come perilously close to recognizing Confederate independence, an act tantamount to intervention on the South’s behalf. Though that step was not taken, British sympathy for the Confederacy was manifested by toleration of repeated evasions of the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, especially that section which prohibited construction in British yards of warships for belligerent powers. The Confederacy hoped to break the blockade and drive Union commerce from the seas by building a navy in Great Britain. The gamble almost succeeded. Confederate warships produced by British shipbuilders sank or seized about 250 Union merchant ships. Three fast commerce destroyers, the Florida, the Shenandoah, and the notorious Alabama, accounted for almost one-fourth of the sinkings. The case of the Alabama was so blatant a violation of Great Britain’s neutrality that just before her scheduled launching in July, 1862, proceedings were begun to detain the ship. However, the Alabama escaped to begin an amazing (and, to the British government, a most embarrassing) career. Although the British soon closed the loopholes in their neutrality laws, the United States government considered that the damage had been done and that Great Britain must be made to pay for its callous disregard of neutral obligations. 311

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During the remainder of the war, Union claims for indemnity arising from depredations committed by the Alabama and her sister ships mounted steadily, but the ministry of Lord Palmerston refused to accept responsibility for the Confederate cruisers’ activities. American determination to gain satisfaction culminated in the suggestion in 1869 by Senator Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that Great Britain be made to pay for the damages caused by the Confederate cruisers (estimated at $15 million), the cost of catching them, destruction to the United States merchant marine ($110 million), and (since action by the cruisers had prolonged the war by two full years) an additional $2 billion to cover the cost of war for that period. Sumner’s aim was not to bankrupt the British treasury but to force Great Britain to satisfy American demands by the cession of Canada to the United States. London dismissed Sumner’s arguments as utter insanity but was forced to note that both President Ulysses S. Grant and his new secretary of state, Hamilton Fish, supported the proposal. Negotiations and Treaty Provisions Great Britain decided to negotiate. Fish then adopted a more moderate position, asking for payment of existing claims by Great Britain and an expression of regret. Informal conversations were begun between Fish and Sir John Rose, a British-Canadian statesman and businessman residing in England, whom the British Foreign Office had chosen to convey its interest in pacific settlements of the various disputes. It was soon agreed that a joint commission should be convened to deal with all unresolved issues: the Alabama claims, a long-standing conflict over American fishing rights off the Canadian coast, the matter of ownership of the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound, and other minor problems. Arbitration of the Alabama claims took place in Geneva, Switzerland, in December, 1871. The discussions nearly collapsed at the outset, for Charles Francis Adams, the United States commissioner, carrying out express instructions from Secretary of State Fish, revived the question (which the British had thought dead and buried) of indirect damages. Fish’s motivation was not money, not Canada, but domestic politics. He desired that the tribunal deal with and reject the matter of indirect damages; otherwise, Congress might throw out the treaty. Although the British representa312

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tive, Sir Alexander Cockburn, lord chief justice of England, was enraged by this tactic, the tribunal exceeded its jurisdiction and ruled out the indirect claims. This act allowed for adjudication of the direct claims. The court found in favor of the United States and awarded damages of $15.5 million. The commission, comprising five American and five British representatives, met in Washington from February 27 to May 8, 1871. Buoyed by foxhunting weekends, liberal ministrations of fine liquor, and superb food, the commissioners agreed without serious difficulty on a fair settlement. Most important was the treaty provision regarding the Alabama claims. Great Britain offered regrets for the escape of the Alabama and other warships and agreed to submit the claims to binding arbitration. Furthermore, it accepted a definition of rules to govern neutral obligations toward belligerents. Although these regulations were not retroactive, the British were conceding victory to the American position in the forthcoming arbitration proceedings. This Anglo-American agreement was a historic one for the future of neutrality. The treaty also provided for a temporary resolution of the quarrel over fishing privileges, an agreement to submit the question of the San Juan Islands to arbitration, and numerous other economic and territorial agreements. The Washington Treaty was a remarkable accomplishment and had been termed by some as the greatest example of international conciliation ever known. It certainly represented a significant diplomatic victory for the United States. Theodore A. Wilson Sources for Further Study Allen, Harry C. Great Britain and the United States: A History of AngloAmerican Relations, 1783-1952. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1955. Boykin, Edward C. Ghost Ship of the Confederacy: The Story of the Alabama. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1957. Cushing, Caleb. The Treaty of Washington: Its Negotiation, Execution, and the Discussions Relating Thereto. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1873. Duberman, Martin B. Charles Francis Adams, 1807-1886. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. 313

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Nevins, Allan. Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration. 2 vols. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1936. Smith, Goldwin A. The Treaty of Washington, 1871: A Study in Imperial History. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1941. Winks, Robin W. Canada and the United States: The Civil War Years. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960. See also: Treaty of Paris (1783); Jay’s Treaty (1794); Treaty of

Ghent (1814); Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817); Convention of 1818 (1818); Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842); Oregon Act (1848).

General Mining Act Also known as: Mining Act Date: May 10, 1872 U.S. Statutes at Large: 17 Stat. 91 U.S. Code: 30 § 22 Categories: Land Management; Natural Resources

The General Mining Law of 1872 fought post-Civil War economic depression and unemployment by opening the vast federal lands in the West for development. Amended many times over the years, this law still governs the exploitation of “hard-rock” minerals in the United States. In its original form, the General Mining Law covered all mineral resources on more than one billion acres of federal land. It now covers only “hard-rock” minerals, those associated with igneous and metamorphic rocks. By the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, the fossil fuels and some minerals were “withdrawn” from coverage under the law. The Common Varieties Mineral Act of 1955 withdrew sand, gravel, stone, and other common rocks and minerals. In 1976 the last of the national parks and monuments were withdrawn from coverage, thus protecting them from mining. As a result of these withdrawals, the total acreage now covered under the law is approximately four hundred million. 314

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Provisions of the 1872 Law The General Mining Law permits U.S. citizens to lay claim to federal land. In exchange, the claimant has only to pay a $100 fee and make minimal annual improvements (“assessments”) to the land or pay a $100 annual assessment fee. Actual mining need not be done. Claimants possess the right to any mineral deposits below ground; they also possess the right to the exclusive use of the land surface. Claims can be of two types: placer or lode. Placer claims are for 20acre sites, whereas lode claims, those designed to exploit localized veins of ore, are for tracts measuring 1500 by 600 feet. For a fee of $2.50 per acre (placer claim) or $5.00 per acre (lode claim), a claim can be “patented,” or converted to private ownership. Pros and Cons Opponents of the law find fault with it in three areas. First, the federal treasury receives no income from minerals taken from lands that belong to the public. Second, the law makes no provision for environmental concerns—concerns which did not exist in 1872. Third, abuses of the law abound, including the resale of claims for thousands of times the original purchase price. Proponents of the law, primarily the major mining companies, argue that while royalties are not paid, mining provides thousands of jobs and significant tax revenue. The mining industry must compete in a global market against nations that exploit cheap labor and are government-subsidized. Whereas the original mining law took no cognizance of environmental concerns, any mining on federal lands is now covered by the same environmental legislation that governs all mining. Proposed modifications to the law revolve around three key issues: royalty payments, patenting, and environmental concerns. Suggested levels of royalty payment range from 2 percent on the net value (after taxes and cost) to 8 percent on the gross value of the minerals produced. Either patenting would be eliminated or claimants would be allowed to purchase the mining patents for the fair market value of the land surface. Environmental concerns would be addressed by requiring restoration of the land and by using royalty payments to establish a fund for the cleanup of abandoned mine properties. Donald J. Thompson 315

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Sources for Further Study Barringer, Daniel Moreau. The Law of Mines and Mining in the United States. Reprint. Holmes Beach, Fla.: Gaunt, 2000. Dobra, John L. Congressional Testimony on the U.S. Mining Act of 1872. Reno: Nevada Policy Research Institute, 1993. Gelb, Bernard A. Hardrock Mining, the 1872 Law, and the U.S. Economy. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 1994. Gordon, Richard L. Two Cheers for the 1872 Mining Law. Policy Analysis 300. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1998. Humphries, Marc. The 1872 Mining Law: Time for Reform? Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1998. Maley, Terry S. Mining Law. 5th ed. Boise, Idaho: Mineral Land Publications, 1992. See also: Mineral Leasing Act (1920); Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970); Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977).

Coinage Act Also known as: Crime of 1873 Date: February 12, 1873 U.S. Statutes at Large: 17 Stat. 424 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

Proponents of free silver charged that this law, which made gold the sole monetary standard, represented a “gold conspiracy.” The Coinage Act of 1873 was known by its opponents as the Crime of 1873. The emotion-laden nickname was first used in 1876 by proponents of the free coinage of silver to express hostility toward the Coinage Act, passed on February 12, 1873, which made gold the sole monetary standard, with no provision for the coining of silver dollars. The money controversy, which the shibboleth “Crime of 1873” dramatized, raged between 1865 and 1896 and can best be 316

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understood in the context of the nation’s antebellum and Civil War monetary policies. Bimetallism Until the Civil War, the United States functioned under bimetallism—a monetary system based on silver and gold, supplemented by the notes of its banks. The use of the two kinds of specie as money was deemed desirable because there were insufficient quantities of precious metals for the requirements of trade, commerce, and exchange. Under bimetallism, both silver and gold were acceptable for the payment of debts at a rate fixed by the government. The Currency Act of 1834 established a legal ratio between the two metals of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold (16:1). Under this “mint ratio,” the Treasury was obligated to purchase either metal at the established price. Bimetallism presented a problem in that the value of silver and gold fluctuated on the world market in response to changes in supply. New supplies of gold from Russia, Australia, and California during the 1840’s, for example, caused gold gradually to decline in value. Therefore, silver was undervalued if priced at the mint ratio of 16:1. As predicted by Gresham’s law—that higher-valued money is driven out of circulation by cheaper money—silver coins disappeared from circulation, because silver producers preferred to sell their bullion on the world market, where the price was higher than at the mint. By 1853, the market ratio of silver to gold was 15.4:1. In other words, silver producers needed sixteen ounces of silver to exchange for an ounce of gold at the mint, but only 15.4 ounces on the bullion market. Having been out of circulation for years, silver was reduced by Congress in 1853 to a subsidiary metal. Silver remained scarce and undervalued as coin until the 1870’s. Paper Currency Under great pressure to raise money during the Civil War, the government abandoned the specie standard and passed the Legal Tender Acts of 1862, which authorized the printing of fiat money (greenbacks), unsupported by specie but legally acceptable (legal tender) for all debts except interest on government bonds and excise taxes. During the war, the Treasury circulated more than $450 million in greenbacks, which inflated precipitously by 1864. The use of gold became limited primarily to international trade. 317

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When the war ended, the Treasury began urging a program of deflation leading to the eventual retirement of the greenbacks and a return to a specie standard. Resistance in Congress to this hardmoney scheme came from a group of soft-money advocates, who opposed a return to specie but differed among themselves over the issue of inflation. Consequently, the Treasury received authority to retire only small quantities of greenbacks. Some soft-money advocates who favored inflation demanded the printing of more greenbacks to be used for payment of the national debt, a proposal that was written into the Democratic Party platform of 1868. By this time, the money controversy had caused factions to grow in the business community (among farmers, bankers, and manufacturers), in geographical regions, and to some extent in political parties, with soft-money supporters generally showing greater strength in the states west of the Appalachians. However, the Greenbackers suffered serious reverses with the passage of the Public Credit Act of 1869, which pledged payment of the national debt in gold, and the Resumption Act of 1875, which ordered the redemption of greenbacks with gold by 1879. Passage of the Act In the midst of the greenback controversy, John Jay Knox, comptroller of the currency, aided by special assistant Henry Richard Linderman, former director of the mint at Philadelphia, began preparing a revision of the laws dealing with the mints and coinage. One aspect of their work appeared in the Coinage Act of 1873, which discontinued the coinage of silver dollars. The following year, the Revised Statutes of the United States demonetized silver by limiting its legal tender function to debts not more than five dollars. Both laws gave belated recognition to the fact that silver had not circulated since the 1840’s. At the time, the legislation disturbed no one, not even the silver miners who preferred to sell on the open market. Indeed, Senator William M. Stewart of the silver state of Nevada, who later used the slogan “Crime of ’73,” failed to oppose either law. “Crime of ’73”? Even as the legislation was passed, however, new mines were opening in the Western states, augmenting the world supply of silver. The market ratio, 15.9:1 in 1873, climbed to 16.1:1 in 1874, and to 318

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16.6:1 by 1875, or about ninety-six cents in gold. As silver prices dropped, mining interests discovered to their dismay that the Currency Act of 1873 blocked the profitable sale of silver to the mint at 16:1. On March 2, 1876, George M. Weston, secretary of the United States Monetary Commission, charged in a letter to the Boston Globe that the demonetization of silver was a conspiracy by the creditor class against the people. Weston’s letter, which used the word “crime” for the first time, began the controversy over silver. Other advocates of silver took up the charge, demanding the free coinage of silver. Later, Greenbackers and other inflationists, fighting losing battles against resumption, also began supporting silver. Agitation for the free coinage of silver continued until 1896, when new gold supplies began inducing the price increases that post-Civil War inflationists had desired. Congress, however, previously had passed legislation permitting limited silver coinage. The Bland-Allison Act of 1878 required the Treasury to buy between two and four million ounces of silver per month at the prevailing market price. According to the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, four million ounces had to be purchased each month. This legislation demonstrated that those who favored silver had far greater strength than the Greenbackers had a decade earlier. The conspiracy charge against the Currency Act of 1873, which alleged that British financiers plotted to influence Congress, was rejected by most nineteenth century economists and writers. The issue was raised again in 1960 with the discovery of new evidence that seemed to indicate that Linderman foresaw an increase in silver output and, as a monometallist, allegedly plotted to omit silver coinage from the 1873 legislation. Nevertheless, most modern scholarship continues to reject the conspiracy thesis. Merl E. Reed, updated by Charles H. O’Brien Sources for Further Study Barrett, Don Carlos. The Greenbacks and Resumption of Specie Payments, 1862-1879. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931. Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. 319

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Hixson, William F. Triumph of the Bankers: Money and Banking in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993. Laughlin, J. Laurence. The History of Bimetallism in the United States. 4th ed. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968. Studenski, Paul. Financial History of the United States. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952. Timberlake, Richard H. Monetary Policy in the United States: An Intellectual and Institutional History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Unger, Irwin. The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865-1879. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964. Weinstein, Allen. Prelude to Populism: Origins of the Silver Issue, 18671878. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1970. See also: Independent Treasury Act (1846); National Bank Acts

(1863-1864); Bland-Allison Act (1878); Currency Act (1900); Federal Reserve Act (1913).

Comstock Act Date: March 3, 1873 U.S. Statutes at Large: 17 Stat. 598 Categories: Communications and Media; Food and Drugs; Health

and Welfare; Speech and Expression

The most restrictive antiobscenity statute ever passed by the U.S. Congress, this law expanded existing federal obscenity statues and effectively outlawed the advertisement and transportation of birth control and drugs that induced abortion. In 1865, Congress passed the Postal Act, making it a crime to use the mails for sending any “publication of a vulgar or indecent character.” Anthony Comstock, a tireless crusader against pornography, successfully lobbied Congress to make the postal regulations 320

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more restrictive. The resulting 1873 legislation created special agents with wide discretion to seize obscene matter and provided for criminal penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment for the first offense. Books and magazines, including serious novels such as Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900), were proscribed if they contained any references considered “lewd” or “lascivious” by Victorian standards. By the 1930’s, the Comstock Act had been amended to become less restrictive, but much of its language, while reinterpreted, continued into the 1990’s. The Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the law’s principles in numerous cases after 1877, but beginning with the landmark case Roth v. United States (1957), the Court liberalized the law by insisting on a narrow definition of obscenity. Thomas T. Lewis Sources for Further Study Bates, Anna Louise. Weeder in the Garden of the Lord: Anthony Comstock’s Life and Career. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995. Beisel, Nicola Kay. Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in Victorian America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. Bennett, Belinda. Legal Narratives: From Comstockery to the Food and Drug Administration. Madison: University of Wisconsin Institute for Legal Studies, 1989. Boyer, Paul S. Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America. New York: Scribner, 1968. Broun, Heywood. Anthony Comstock, Roundman of the Lord. New York: A & C Boni, 1927. See also: First Amendment (1789); Racketeer Influenced and Cor-

rupt Organizations Act (1970).

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Page Law Date: March 3, 1875 U.S. Statutes at Large: 18 Stat. 477 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration; Women’s Is-

sues

The Page Law, designed to prohibit Chinese contract workers and prostitutes from entering the United States, eventually excluded Asian women in general. On February 10, 1875, California congressman Horace F. Page introduced federal legislation designed to prohibit the immigration of Asian female prostitutes into the United States. Officially titled “An Act Supplementary to the Acts in Relation to Immigration,” the Page Law evolved into a restriction against vast numbers of Chinese immigrants into the country regardless of whether they were prostitutes. Any person convicted of importing Chinese prostitutes was subject to a maximum prison term of five years and a fine of not more than five thousand dollars. An amendment to the law prohibited individuals from engaging in the “coolie trade,” or the importation of Chinese contract laborers. Punishment for this type of violation, however, was much less severe and was much more difficult to effect, given the large numbers of Asian male immigrants at the time. As a consequence of this division of penalties, the law was applied in a most gender-specific manner, effectively deterring the immigration of Asian women into the United States. Within seven years following the implementation of the law, the average number of Chinese female immigrants dropped to one-third of its previous level. Enforcement and Implementation An elaborate bureaucratic network established to carry out the Page Law’s gender-specific exclusions was a catalyst for the decline in Chinese immigration rates. American consulate officials supported by American, Chinese, and British commercial, political, and medical services made up the law’s implementation structure. Through intelligence gathering, interrogation, and physical examinations of applicants, the consulate hierarchy ferreted out unde322

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sirable applicants for emigration and those suspected of engaging in illegal human trafficking. This investigative activity evolved well beyond the original intent of the law’s authors. Any characteristic or activity that could be linked, even in the most remote sense, to prostitution became grounds for denial to emigrate. Most applications to emigrate came from women from the lower economic strata of society; low economic status therefore became a reason for immigration exclusion. The procedure was a complicated one. Many roadblocks were placed in the way of prospective immigrants. Acquiring permission to emigrate took much time and effort. Passing stringent physical examinations performed by biased health care officials was often impossible. Navigating language barriers through official interviews aimed at evaluating personal character often produced an atmosphere of rigid interrogation, bringing subsequent denial of the right to emigrate. Such a complex system aimed at uncovering fraudulent immigrants placed a hardship upon those wishing to leave China. Because Hong Kong was the main point of departure for Chinese emigrating to the United States, all required examinations were performed there with a hierarchy of American consulate officials determining immigrant eligibility. In a sense, the Page Law actually expanded consulate authority beyond any previous level. Corruption Charges Such increased power of the consular general in implementing the law provided an opportunity for possible abuses of power. In 1878, the U.S. consul general in Hong Kong, John Mosby, accused his predecessors of corruption and bribery. According to Mosby, David Bailey and H. Sheldon Loring were guilty of embezzlement. Both men were accused of setting up such an intricate system to process immigration applications that bribery soon became the natural way to obtain the necessary permission to do so. Mosby went on to charge that Bailey had amassed thousands of dollars of extra income by regularly charging additional examination fees regardless of whether an exam was performed. Mosby also accused Bailey of falsifying test results and encouraging medical personnel to interrogate applicants in order to deny immigration permission to otherwise legal immigrants. 323

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Most of the allegations of corruption surrounded the fact that monies allotted by the federal government for implementation of the Page Law were far below the amount Bailey required to run his administration of it. Given this scenario, the U.S. government scrutinized Bailey’s conduct. No indictments resulted from the official investigation, however, and Bailey, who had previously been promoted to vice consul general in Shanghai, remained in that position. Further examination of Bailey’s tenure in Hong Kong has suggested that, if anything, he was an overly aggressive official who made emigration of Chinese women to the United States a priority issue of his tenure there rather than an opportunity for profit. Bailey was replaced in Hong Kong by Loring. Unlike his predecessor, Loring did not enforce the Page Law with as much vigor, allowing a slight yet insignificant increase in the annual numbers of Chinese immigrants. Nevertheless, Loring did enforce the law in an efficient manner, publicly suggesting that any ship owner who engaged in the illegal transport of women would be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. Even so, Loring was accused of sharing Bailey’s enthusiasm for the unofficial expensive design of the immigration procedure. During Loring’s tenure, questions about his character began to surface mostly on account of his past relationships with individuals who engaged in questionable business practices in Asia. By the time that Mosby replaced him, such questions had become more than a nuisance. The new U.S. consul to Hong Kong began to describe his predecessor as a dishonest taker of bribes. Once again, the official dynamics of such charges brought forth an official inquiry from Washington. Like the previous investigation of Bailey, however, this investigation produced no official indictment against Loring. The only blemish concerned an additional fee that Loring had instituted for the procuring of an official landing certificate. As there was precedent for such a fee, Loring, like his predecessor, was exonerated of all charges. Having decided that his predecessors were indeed corrupt, yet unable to prove it, Mosby pursued enforcement of the Page Law with relentless occupation. Keeping a posture that was above accusations of corruption, Mosby personally interviewed each applicant for emigration, oversaw the activities between the consulate and the health examiners, and eliminated the additional charges for the landing permits. In the end, the numbers of Chinese immi324

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grants remained similar to those of Loring and below those of Bailey, with the numbers of Chinese female immigrants continuing to decline. Aside from being free from charges of corruption, Mosby’s tenure in office was as authoritative as those of his predecessors. Regardless of the personalities of the consulate officials in charge of implementing the Page Law, the results were the same: The number of Chinese who emigrated to the United States decreased dramatically between the 1875 enactment of the law and the enactment of its successor, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Furthermore, the law’s specific application to Chinese women ensured a large imbalance between numbers of male and female immigrants during the period under consideration. In the long run that imbalance negatively affected Asian American families who had settled in the United States. The barriers that the Page Law helped to erect against female Chinese immigrants made a strong nuclear family structure within the Asian American community an immigrant dream rather than a reality. Thomas J. Edward Walker and Cynthia Gwynne Yaudes Sources for Further Study Cheng, Lucy, and Edna Bonacich. Labor Immigration Under Capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Foner, Philip, and Daniel Rosenberg. Racism, Dissent, and Asian Americans from 1850 to the Present. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. Peffer, George Anthony. “Forbidden Families: Emigration Experience of Chinese Women Under the Page Law, 1875-1882.” Journal of American Ethnic History 6, Fall, 1986. See also: Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844); Burlingame Treaty (1868);

Page Law (1875); Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); Opium Exclusion Act (1909); Alien land laws (1913); Immigration Act of 1921 (1921); Cable Act (1922); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943); War Brides Act (1945).

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Removal Act Also known as: Judiciary Act of 1875 Date: March 3, 1875 U.S. Statutes at Large: 18 Stat. 470 Categories: Judiciary and Judicial Procedure

This act granted lower federal courts original and removal jurisdiction over federal question cases. After 1875 all cases arising under the Constitution, federal laws, or treaties could be prosecuted in federal district courts, expanding the power, influence, and decisionmaking scope of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. The Removal Act of 1875, also known as the Judiciary Act of 1875, provided federal courts with original and removal jurisdiction. The Judiciary Act of 1789 was Congress’s initial exercise of the powers in Article III of the U.S. Constitution. It allowed state courts to retain jurisdiction over federal question cases, those cases arising under the Constitution, federal laws, or treaties. The end of the Civil War brought expansion and growth of federal government power. Three constitutional amendments and various congressional statutes were passed during the Reconstruction period. The primary purpose of these enactments was to secure equal rights for the newly emancipated slaves. Congress viewed the federal courts as necessary to the implementation of Reconstruction legislation and to the expansion of federal court jurisdiction and powers. The Removal Act awarded federal courts jurisdiction over cases alleging that a state law or an action of a state official violated the Constitution. The Removal Act allowed a federal question suit to be filed in federal district court. Such actions filed in state court could be removed to federal district court for disposition. No subsequent jurisdictional statute enacted by Congress has so significantly enlarged the caseloads and jurisdiction of the federal courts. The Removal Act resulted in federal courts, including the Supreme Court, becoming the primary forum for litigating constitutional rights. Robert P. Morin 326

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Source for Further Study Foster, Roger. The Federal Judiciary Acts of 1875 and 1887, with an Appendix Containing the Equity Rules. New York: L. K. Strouse, 1887. See also: Judiciary Act of 1789 (1789); Eleventh Amendment

(1798); Judiciary Acts of 1801-1925 (1801).

Bland-Allison Act Date: February 28, 1878 U.S. Statutes at Large: 20 Stat. 25 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

This act represented an early victory for silver advocates in the goldsilver debate that dominated the 1880’s, but it failed to establish silver as a basis for the U.S. currency. During the latter half of the nineteenth century one of the great political debates focused on whether gold or silver should be the currency of the United States. In 1873 Congress made gold the single currency for the country. The Depression that followed led to turmoil and protests in favor of using silver as a form of currency. The Bland-Allison Act was one battle in that debate. The act, passed by Congress in 1878, was sponsored by Missouri congressman Richard Bland and Iowa senator William Allison. Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to determine the proper currency for the country. During the presidential administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, several bills trying to make silver a currency equal with gold were passed by the House but rejected by the Senate. Bland sought broad power for the Treasury to make silver a currency equal to gold. His bill passed the House in 1878. The Senate, led by Allison, watered down the original bill. The new piece of legislation required the Treasury Department to buy 327

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between two and four million dollars of silver every month. That silver would be coined and used as currency. The idea behind the act was that because silver was more plentiful than gold, the money supply would be inflated, which would help farmers repay their debts. The act would also aid silver mining interests in the West, which sought to sell more of their commodity on the open market. Finally, the act was seen as the first step in a bimetal approach to currency. The act did not work as expected. President Hayes and his successors did not generally approve of silver being a form of currency. They purchased the minimum amount of silver and coined it, limiting how much silver would be circulated through the country and allowing gold to remain the dominant currency. Because of this limitation on the amount of silver used as currency, the political battles over the use of gold as a single currency continued past the Hayes administration. It divided the eastern half of the United States against the more rural western half of the country. Yet the Bland-Allison Act did act as a guide for future congresses, which continued to debate using silver as currency. In 1890, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was passed, vastly increasing the silver-purchasing power of the Treasury Department. Douglas Clouatre Sources for Further Study Friedman, Milton, and Anna Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Hoogenboom, Ari. The Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1988. See also: Independent Treasury Act (1846); National Bank Acts

(1863-1864); Coinage Act (1873); Currency Act (1900); Federal Reserve Act (1913).

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Jim Crow laws Date: 1880’s-1954 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties

Jim Crow laws were part of an organized attempt throughout the American South to subvert the Fourteenth Amendment and keep African Americans permanently in a socially subordinate status in all walks of life and to limit possibilities for any form of contact between people of different racial backgrounds. The precise origins of the term “Jim Crow” are unknown. It may have first appeared in 1832, in a minstrel play by Thomas D. “Big Daddy” Rice. The play contained a song about a slave titled “Jim Crow.” The expression was used commonly beginning in the 1890’s. In 1904, the Dictionary of American English listed the term “Jim Crow law” for the first time. Jim Crow laws had predecessors in the so-called Black Codes, passed in many southern states after the Civil War (1861-1865) to limit the freedom of African Americans and assure a continuous labor supply for the southern plantation economy. Radical Reconstruction, which placed most parts of the South under military government, put an end to this. Even after the official end of Reconstruction in 1877, race relations in the South remained in a state of flux. The Jim Crow Era Jim Crow laws emerged during the 1880’s and 1890’s as conflict over political control in the South between different parties and between factions within parties intensified. Disfranchisement of African Americans and the segregation of whites and blacks were intended to assure the permanent subjugation of the latter and the prevention of future biracial political movements which could challenge white rule in the South. Domestic politics do not bear the sole responsibility, however: Jim Crow laws emerged at a time when the United States acquired colonies in the Pacific and the Caribbean and in the process subjugated the indigenous populations of those areas. Race theories used to justify American imperialism did not substantially differ from the white supremacy rhetoric of southern politicians. 329

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The first Jim Crow law was passed by the state of Florida in 1887, followed by Mississippi in 1888, Texas in 1889, Louisiana in 1890, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee in 1891, and Kentucky in 1892. North Carolina passed a Jim Crow law in 1898, South Carolina in 1899, and Virginia in 1900. Statutes requiring racial segregation had been quite common in northern states before the Civil War, but only in the post-Reconstruction South did racial segregation develop into a pervasive system regulating the separation of white and black in all walks of life. Jim Crow laws segregated public carriers, restaurants, telephone booths, residential areas, workplaces, public parks, and other recreational spaces. Mobile, Alabama, passed a special curfew law for African Americans in 1909. In Florida, the law required separate textbooks, which had to be separately stored. The city of New Orleans segregated white and black prostitutes in separate districts. Many states outlawed interracial marriages. Jim Crow laws were not even limited to life: Cemeteries, undertakers, and medical school cadavers were all subjects of segregation under the laws. These laws, however, represented only symptoms of larger and even more pervasive patterns of discrimination and racial oppression. White vigilante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, often enforced their own brand of racial justice through violent means, frequently with the quiet consent and even cooperation of law enforcement officers. In addition, contract labor laws and corrupt law enforcement and prison officials created a system of peonage, which kept large numbers of African Americans in the turpentine and cotton belts in debt slavery. U.S. Supreme Court In the process of legally entrenching racial segregation through socalled Jim Crow laws, the U.S. Supreme Court served as a willing handmaiden. In the 1883 Civil Rights cases, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in privately owned railroads, theaters, hotels, restaurants, and similar places comprised private acts of discrimination and as such did not fall under the Fourteenth Amendment. In the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, concerning the constitutionality of a Louisiana Jim Crow law, the Supreme Court redefined segregation from a matter of private prejudice into a mandate of state law. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court approved of segregation as long as facilities were “separate but equal.” In the 1930’s 330

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and 1940’s, the Supreme Court began to strike down segregation. Eventually, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court, in the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, declared that separate facilities by their very nature were unequal, thereby reversing previous decisions. Thomas Winter Sources for Further Study Daniel, Pete. The Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South, 1901-1969. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972. Finkelman, Paul, ed. The Age of Jim Crow: Segregation from the End of Reconstruction to the Great Depression. Vol. 4 in Race, Law, and American History, 1700-1900. 11 vols. New York: Garland, 1992. Miller, Loren. The Petitioners: The Story of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Negro. New York: Pantheon Books, 1966. Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. 3d rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. See also: Black Codes of 1804-1807 (1804-1807); Black Codes of

1865 (1865); Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871); Executive Order 8802 (1941); Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965); Civil Rights Act of 1968 (1968); Fair Housing Act (1968); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975).

Chinese Exclusion Act Date: May 6, 1882 U.S. Statutes at Large: 22 Stat. 58 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration

This act represents the first time the United States sought to exclude immigrants by race and nationality; it marked a turning point in what had been, until then, an open door to immigrants from around the world. 331

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The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended immigration by Chinese laborers to the United States for a period of ten years and prohibited Chinese residents in the United States from becoming naturalized citizens. Merchants, students, and tourists, however, were still permitted to enter the United States for visits. Although the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was established as a temporary suspension of immigration by Chinese laborers, it was only the first of many laws designed to exclude Asians from entry into the United States. This law was both a political and social reaction to increasing non-European immigration in the second half of the nineteenth century. As the country became more industrialized and its frontier began to disappear, Americans became increasingly apprehensive about employment and the role of immigrants. American labor organizations objected to what they perceived as unfair competition by Chinese laborers. Background Chinese immigration to the mainland United States began in earnest after the Taiping Rebellion in 1848. Most Chinese immigrants headed for California, where the gold rush of 1849 led to an increased need for labor. In 1854, 13,100 Chinese came to the United States. This immigration, regulated by the Burlingame Treaty in 1868, was unrestricted; by 1880, the number of immigrants had risen to 105,465. The majority remained in California, where they were hired as laborers by the railroads, worked as domestics, and opened small businesses. San Francisco was the port of entry for many Chinese; the population of its Chinatown grew from two thousand to twelve thousand between 1860 and 1870. The size and nature of this early Chinese immigration brought a long-lasting prejudice. Californians thought of Chinese laborers as “coolies”—that is, as cheap labor brought to the United States to undercut wages for American workers. Chinese workers were also accused of being dirty. Authorities in San Francisco suspected that crowded areas of Chinatown were the focus for disease and passed the Cubic Air Ordinance, prohibiting rental of a room with fewer than five hundred cubic feet of space per person. This municipal ordinance was later declared unconstitutional. Discrimination and violence increased during the 1870’s. In 1871, a mob attacked and killed nineteen Chinese people in Los Angeles. Denis Kearney, a naturalized citizen from Ireland, orga332

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nized the Workingmen’s Party in 1877 to oppose Chinese immigrants. Shouting, “The Chinese must go!” Kearney threatened violence to all Chinese immigrants. In July, 1877, men from an “anticoolie club” led workers into San Francisco’s Chinatown on a rampage that lasted several days. Because most local ordinances against the Chinese had been declared unconstitutional, people who opposed Chinese immigration turned to Congress for new legislation. Congress responded in 1879 with a bill to limit Chinese immigration by prohibiting ships from bringing more than fifteen Chinese immigrants at a time. The bill was vetoed by President Rutherford B. Hayes on the grounds that it violated the Burlingame Treaty. With popular sentiment against continuing Chinese immigration, however, the treaty was amended in 1880, allowing the United States to limit the number of Chinese immigrants. Exclusionary Legislation The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a response to the intensity of anti-Chinese feelings in the West and to close political elections that made western electoral votes critical. As signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur, the act suspended immigration by Chinese laborers for ten years. The vote in the House of Representatives reflected the popularity of the measure. There were 201 votes in favor, 37 against, and 51 absent. Representatives from every section of the country supported the bill, with southern and western House members voting unanimously for the legislation. Later laws were even more draconian. An amendment in 1884 excluded all Chinese and Chinese residents living in other countries from entering the United States except as students, merchants, or tourists. The Scott Act of 1888 prohibited outright the entry of Chinese laborers and denied reentry to those who traveled abroad, even if they held reentry visas. The law also placed additional restrictions on those who were still permitted to come to the United States. In 1892 the Geary Act extended for an additional ten years the exclusion of Chinese immigrants, prohibited the use of habeas corpus by Chinese residents in the United States if arrested, and required all Chinese people to register and provide proof of their eligibility to remain in the United States. The act was renewed in 1902, and Congress made permanent the exclusion of Chinese immigrant laborers in 1904. 333

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These exclusionary laws reflected a bias in American attitudes toward immigration by non-Europeans and increasing racial discrimination. Restrictions on intermarriage and land ownership by Chinese in many western states in the early 1900’s led to a reduction in the number of Chinese residing in the United States from more than 100,000 in 1890 to 61,639 by 1920. On December 17, 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. By then the threat of competition by Chinese labor was no longer an issue, and China was an ally of the United States in the war with Japan. James A. Baer Sources for Further Study Allen Jones, Maldwyn. American Immigration. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Barth, Gunther. Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850-1870. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964. Chan, Sucheng, ed. Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Coolidge, Mary Roberts. Chinese Immigration. New York: Henry Holt, 1909. Hoexter, Corinne K. From Canton to California: The Epic of Chinese Immigration. New York: Four Winds Press, 1976. Knoll, Tricia. Becoming Americans: Asian Sojourners, Immigrants, and Refugees in the Western United States. Portland, Oreg.: Coast to Coast Books, 1982. LeMay, Michael C. From Open Door to Dutch Door: An Analysis of U.S. Immigration Policy Since 1820. New York: Praeger, 1987. Miller, Stuart Creighton. The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 1785-1882. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Tarnished Golden Door: Civil Rights Issues in Immigration. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980. 334

Indian Offenses Act See also: Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844); Burlingame Treaty (1868); Page Law (1875); Opium Exclusion Act (1909); Alien land laws (1913); Immigration Act of 1921 (1921); Cable Act (1922); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943); War Brides Act (1945).

Indian Offenses Act Date: 1883 U.S. Statutes at Large: 22 Stat. 400 Categories: Judiciary and Judicial Procedure; Native Americans

The federal government created courts, located on reservations, run by Native Americans, who were responsible for policing native cultural practices deemed offensive by European American society. Courts of Indian Offenses were created by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1883. The judges of these courts were Indian men appointed by the federal agent on each reservation, and they heard only cases involving certain cultural practices, termed “Indian offenses,” which were banned on the reservations. All decisions of the court were subject to the approval of the Indian agent. Essentially, the Indian offenses were a list of common traditional practices that the government determined were “demoralizing and barbarous” and therefore should be discontinued so that Indians could become more assimilated into mainstream American culture and values. The list of Indian offenses included dancing, plural marriages, feasts, giveaways, and destroying the property of the dead (a funerary custom among some tribes). Additionally, and most devastating to many Indian people, traditional religious practices including sun dances, sweat-lodge ceremonies, vision questing, and shamanism were strictly prohibited in the hope that Indian people would be more likely to convert to Christianity. In short, Indian offenses were an extensive body of religious and cultural practices that the federal government banned because they 335

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were deemed disruptive to the smooth functioning of reservations. When living within the reservation context, Indian people were not granted constitutional protections. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Falkowski, James E. Indian Law/Race Law: A Five Hundred Year History. New York: Praeger, 1992. Hoxie, Frederick E. A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Prucha, Francis Paul, ed. Documents in United States Indian Policy. 2d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Washburn, Wilcomb E., ed. History of Indian-White Relations. Vol. 4 in Handbook of North American Indians, edited by William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. See also: Major Crimes Act (1885); Indian Citizenship Act (1924);

Indian Reorganization Act (1934); Termination Resolution (1953).

Pendleton Act Also known as: National Civil Service Act Date: January 16, 1883 U.S. Statutes at Large: 22 Stat. 403 Categories: Government Procedure and Organization

The act created the civil service system for federal employees to replace a corrupt political spoils system. On July 2, 1881, President James A. Garfield prepared to leave Washington for a vacation in New York State. As the presidential party neared the waiting train, Garfield was shot in the back by Charles J. Guiteau, an unsuccessful aspirant to the office of consul to Paris. He shouted, “I am a Stalwart and Arthur is president now!” 336

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Government Corruption Even in an age of widespread graft, Chester A. Arthur, the vice president, had been well known as the head of the New York Customs House, a classically corrupt government agency, and as a spoilsman in Roscoe Conkling’s New York Republican political machine. Few expected him to change when he became president at Garfield’s death on September 19, but he exhibited an unanticipated coolness toward the Stalwarts (professional machine Republicans) in selecting cabinet replacements and insisted on continuing the prosecution of the “Star Route” mail fraud case. These actions are credited with costing Arthur the presidential nomination in 1884, as well as providing the Democrats with numerous victories in the elections of fall, 1882. As a result, the outgoing Republican Congress was impelled to adopt civil service reform legislation in 1883. Calls for Reform However, a confluence of reasons were responsible, finally, for civil service reform. George Washington, when he was president, initiated the idea that persons of high competence and integrity should be sought to fill public service jobs. This approach resulted in a stable and fairly skilled workforce but contributed to its elite quality. When Andrew Jackson became president in 1829, he operated under the belief that the “common man” had as much right to a government job as the wealthy and that most government jobs could be done by people without special training. He democratized the civil service but also helped justify the spoils system. By the 1880’s, the number of public jobs had greatly increased, and the quality of those serving in them had declined. Several reform attempts failed. The first serious attempt to reform the system was led by Thomas Allen Jenckes, a Republican congressman from Rhode Island. Jenckes was a patent lawyer by profession and also had financial interests in several companies. In both activities he had to rely on the federal mail service, which was inefficient and corrupt. In 1865 he introduced his first civil service reform bill covering all federal agencies, including the post office. His proposal was patterned after the British system and would have covered all federal officials except those appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate. A decade later a number of organized reform groups around the country, concerned first with local and 337

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then with national corruption, were formed. A national reform movement was spearheaded by the National Civil Service Reform League, presided over by George William Curtis. Passage and Provisions The assassination of Garfield was the spark that lit the smoldering coals not only of the reformers’ attempts but also of elected officials’ weariness with long lines of people seeking jobs, patronage appointees’ weariness with blatant assessments of percentages of their salaries for political party support, and the Republican Congress’s assessment that its power might be about to end. Therefore in 1883 the Republican Congress passed an act drafted by Dorman B. Eaton, secretary of the National Civil Service Reform League, and sponsored by Democratic senator George Pendleton of Ohio: the National Civil Service Act, commonly known as the Pendleton Act. The act had two purposes: to eliminate political influence from administrative agencies and to assure more competent government employees. It established a three-member bipartisan Civil Service Commission appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate for indefinite terms. Eaton became the first chairman of the Civil Service Commission. About ten percent of the government positions were included initially, but other positions, to be designed by the president, could be “covered in”; that is, current patronage appointees could remain in their positions when those positions were included under the act. This provision gave outgoing presidents an incentive to “cover in” increasing numbers of positions over time, which is in fact what happened. The act provided that civil service positions were to be filled through open and competitive examinations; lateral entry was encouraged, and employees were assured tenure regardless of political changes at the tops of the organizations. Employees were also protected against political pressures such as assessments and required participation in campaign activities. Subsequent Legislation The adoption of a merit system at the federal level was followed immediately by similar adoptions in some of the states. Widespread coverage at the state and local levels was subsequently brought about through requirements attached to most federal grant monies. 338

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Over the years, legislation was added to improve the civil service system. The Classification Act of 1923 established a system for classifying jobs according to qualifications needed to carry them out and tying them to various pay grades, thus providing uniformity throughout the federal system. The Hatch Political Activities Act of 1939 prohibited national civil service workers from taking an active part in politics, and later amendments extended the ban to state and local employees whose programs were financed fully or in part by federal funds. In 1978 the Civil Service Reform Act reassigned the Civil Service Commission’s often contradictory functions to two agencies: a new Office of Personnel Management, responsible for policy leadership, and a Merit Systems Protection Board, to handle investigations and appeals. A Senior Executive Service was also established, creating a separate personnel system for the highest-ranking civil service officials in an attempt to provide greater flexibility in assignments and incentives for top senior personnel. Anne Trotter, updated by Erika E. Pilver Sources for Further Study Cayer, N. Joseph. Public Personnel Administration in the United States. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Emmerich, Herbert. Federal Organization and Administrative Management. University: University of Alabama Press, 1971. Hoogenboom, Ari. Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement, 1865-1883. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961. Ingraham, Patricia, and Carolyn Ban, eds. Legislating Bureaucratic Change: The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984. See also: Hatch Act (1939); Securities Exchange Act (1934); Ethics in Government Act (1978); Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992); Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002).

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Major Crimes Act Date: March 3, 1885 U.S. Statutes at Large: 23 Stat. 385 U.S. Code: 18 § 1153 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Native Americans

The Major Crimes Act gave the U.S. government, rather than tribal courts, criminal jurisdiction to prosecute fourteen major crimes committed by one reservation Indian against another. The Major Crimes Act gave the U.S. government jurisdiction over serious crimes committed by Indians on tribal lands. Congress reacted strongly to the Ex parte Crow Dog (1883) decision, in which an Indian who killed another Indian was released by the federal government because it lacked federal jurisdiction in Indian country. Two years after the Crow Dog incident, Congress passed the Major Crimes Act, which gave the United States the right to prosecute Indians for seven crimes: murder, manslaughter, rape, assault with intent to kill, arson, burglary, and larceny. This law applied to any Indian who committed a crime against another Indian on a reservation. Over the years, the list of criminal offenses expanded to include kidnaping, maiming, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault resulting in bodily injury, incest, theft, and sexual abuse. Indians accused of lesser crimes are tried in tribal court. However, federal court decisions narrowed the act so it covers only enrolled Indians who commit crimes on their own reservations. This act transformed the relationship between tribes and the federal government by limiting tribal sovereignty and the power of tribal courts and making it nearly impossible for tribes to deal with serious crimes committed on their reservations. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Falkowski, James E. Indian Law/Race Law: A Five Hundred Year History. New York: Praeger, 1992. Hoxie, Frederick E. A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. 340

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Prucha, Francis Paul, ed. Documents in United States Indian Policy. 2d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Washburn, Wilcomb E., ed. History of Indian-White Relations. Vol. 4 in Handbook of North American Indians, edited by William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. See also: Indian Offenses Act (1883); Indian Citizenship Act

(1924); Indian Reorganization Act (1934); Termination Resolution (1953).

Electoral Count Act Date: February 3, 1887 U.S. Statutes at Large: 24 Stat. 373 Categories: Voting and Elections

This act, originally passed to correct the mistakes of the 1876 election, played an important role in the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. In 1887, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act. The law was enacted to prevent a repeat of the 1876 election, in which Republican Rutherford B. Hayes narrowly defeated Democrat Samuel Tilden after a dispute over the slates of electors appointed by several states. The legislation established the criteria for deciding whether a state’s choice of electors is the final list to be submitted to Congress when the body assembles to count the electoral votes. In states where the selection of an elector or electors is challenged, the act provided that the conflict would be settled according to state law in effect prior to election day. The law also specified that the dispute had to be settled at least six days before the electors were supposed to meet to vote for president and vice president. Passage of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 marked the end of more than ten years of debate in Congress over legislation to correct the mistakes of the 1876 election. The Senate passed bills similar to the Electoral Count Act in 1878, 1882, 1884, and 1886. Each time the House of Representatives either rejected the legislation or passed bills that differed significantly from the Senate’s bill. 341

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The 2000 Presidential Election The Electoral Count Act existed largely unnoticed in federal law for more than a century. It became an issue for the first time in the disputed presidential election of 2000. Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, held a slim lead over Texas Governor George W. Bush, a Republican, in the popular vote and the electoral vote. Because of some voting irregularities, the electors from the state of Florida were in dispute. A series of lawsuits resulted in the case Bush v. Gore (531 U.S. 98 [2000]) being taken to the United States Supreme Court. The court was asked to apply the provisions of the Electoral Count Act to the dispute. Lawyers representing Vice President Gore argued that the law regulated each state’s process only to resolve disputes over which electors could cast votes. According to Gore’s lawyers, the court should accept a Florida Supreme Court decision issued after election day allowing manual recounts of ballots in that state. Lawyers for Governor Bush argued that the Florida Supreme Court decision was a law enacted after election day, a violation of the Electoral Count Act’s provision that disputes be resolved using laws enacted before election day. The Supreme Court ruled in Bush’s favor. The 5-4 majority decided that the Electoral Count Act required that “any controversy or contest that is designed to lead to a conclusive selection of electors be completed by December 12,” six days before electors were scheduled to meet in their respective state capitols. Vice President Gore conceded the presidency to Governor Bush. John David Rausch, Jr. Sources for Further Study Schickler, Eric, Terri Bimes, and Robert W. Mickey. “Safe at Any Speed: Legislative Intent, the Electoral Count Act of 1887, and Bush v. Gore.” Journal of Law and Politics, Fall, 2000, 717-764. Sunstein, Cass R., and Richard A. Epstein, eds. The Vote: Bush, Gore, and the Supreme Court. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. See also: Seventeenth Amendment (1913); Twenty-third Amend-

ment (1961); Federal Election Campaign Act (1972); Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002).

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Interstate Commerce Act Date: February 4, 1887 U.S. Statutes at Large: 24 Stat. 379 U.S. Code: 49 § 10721, 10761 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Transportation

This law, which created the Interstate Commerce Commission, was passed to regulate the operation of the railroads. By the 1880’s, the United States had experienced more than fifty years of railroad expansion. Transcontinental railroad lines tied the nation together, while spurring the growth of industry and agriculture through the rapid transportation of both raw materials and finished goods. During much of this time, government had served as a willing partner to the rapid growth of the railroads. Both national and state governments had provided land for the railroad right-of-way, as well as other subsidies to underwrite the cost of this vital form of transportation. Monopolies and Price-Fixing By the end of the Civil War, however, many people in the United States had begun to have second thoughts about the railroads. Although almost no one doubted the need for railroads, many criticized the business practices of the railroad companies. Consumers suffered when railroad companies experienced either too much or too little competition. In regions where one company dominated, that company often took advantage of its monopoly of the market and charged its customers exorbitant fees for necessary services. Where competition was intense, the railroads too often resorted to unfair practices in order to attract and retain the business of largevolume shippers. They reduced rates in some areas to meet competition and raised rates in noncompetitive areas to compensate. They also engaged in such practices as offering rebates or kickbacks to large-volume shippers at the expense of the average consumer. The railroads entered into agreements, often referred to as “pools,” among themselves to fix rates at a level higher than the free market permitted. They charged more for a short haul in order to offer special long-haul rates to large shippers. The rail343

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roads also were guilty of watering their stock, or overcapitalizing issues, to bilk the investor. These and other practices worked to the advantage of the railroads and a few favored customers. As a result of railroad manipulation of freight charges, it often cost small farmers more to ship their grain than they would receive in payment for it, while large mill owners would receive a discount on the shipment of the finished flour. The unethical business practices thus worked to the detriment of the ordinary shippers, farmers, and the public. State Reforms The states responded first to the demands for railroad reform. Many states passed laws that compelled railroads to offer standard rates for all, and many states set up regulatory boards to supervise the practices of the railroad companies. The states, however, could not supervise interstate operations. Farmers shipping grain from the Dakotas to Minnesota mills or cattle from Texas to Chicago slaughterhouses were not protected by individual state regulations. In addition, the state regulatory laws and boards often created more problems than they solved. Finally, the railroads resisted attempts at state regulation and fought enforcement in the courts. In October, 1886, the Supreme Court (in Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railway v. Illinois) held that a state could not regulate commerce that went beyond its boundaries. This meant that any regulation of interstate commerce would have to come from the federal government. The Need for a Federal Law Numerous groups and individuals had long pressed for national legislation to reform the railroads. Organizations of producers, shippers, and merchants demanded an end to practices by which railroad companies took advantage of the need for rail transportation. F. B. Thurber, a New York wholesale grocer, and Simon Sterne, chairman of New York’s Board of Trade and Transportation, became active lobbyists. Some of the loudest demands for some system of national regulation began to come from the railroad companies themselves, particularly in the East, where competition was ruthless. Financiers such as Jay Gould recognized that without some reforms, public outrage could lead to harsh regulations in the future. 344

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John H. Reagan, a congressman from Texas and the chairman of the House Committee on Commerce, during the 1870’s and early 1880’s introduced many bills in Congress that would outlaw specific practices, such as pools, rebates, and price discrimination between long and short hauls. Reagan’s approach to the problem was an attempt to clean up the competition among the railroads on the assumption that fair competition was economically healthy for the entire nation. The proposed bills described what would constitute illegal practices but contained no provisions for investigation or regulation. Reagan’s attempts to regulate the railroads met with little success until the first administration of President Grover Cleveland. Passage and Provisions Cleveland, a Democrat, strongly opposed the growth of government but opposed the idea of government favors to business even more. Following the Supreme Court decision in Wabash Railroad v. Illinois, Cleveland urged Congress to take action to regulate the railroads. This time, Congress seemed ready to pass regulatory legislation. Reagan once again introduced a bill in the House of Representatives, while in the Senate, Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois proposed a more far-reaching solution. Cullom’s approach, which emerged from extensive committee hearings, embodied a regulatory commission with broad powers to investigate and to bring into court railroad companies whose rates or practices were unfair. Cullom proposed that the federal government take positive action in laying down precisely what constituted unfair tactics and rates. The Reagan and Cullom bills went to a joint committee of the House and the Senate. President Cleveland exerted some influence in favor of Cullom’s proposals. From the joint committee emerged the Interstate Commerce Act. The act followed Reagan’s suggestions and prohibited specific abuses, such as long- and short-haul discrimination. It also created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). Under the provisions of the act, the commission would comprise five members whose duty it was to investigate and expose unfair rates and practices among interstate carriers. Congress empowered the commission to take unrepentant railroads into court. After decades of encouraging and subsidizing the railroads, the government had begun to regulate them. 345

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Weak Enforcement The jubilation of the railroad reformers was short-lived. The courts and the ICC itself seemed determined to frustrate substantive reform. The commission, whose first chairman was Thomas M. Cooley, a professor of law at the University of Michigan, often dealt with the railroads in an extremely conservative manner, and the Supreme Court weakened the commission’s powers. Cooley believed in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and was reluctant to expand the power of the federal government. When the railroads chose to dispute the rulings of the ICC, they generally won in court. Of the sixteen cases involving railroads and the ICC that were heard by the Supreme Court between 1887 and 1911, the railroads won fifteen. In the process, the Supreme Court destroyed the commission’s power to act against fixing rates, pooling, and long- and short-haul discrimination. Government regulation had been established in theory, but not yet in practice. The Interstate Commerce Act was significant chiefly as a precedent for the genuine economic reform that followed in later years. Emory M. Thomas, updated by Nancy Farm Männikkö Sources for Further Study Cullom, Shelby Moore. Fifty Years of Public Service: Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969. Jones, Alan R. The Constitutional Conservatism of Thomas McIntyre Cooley: A Study in the History of Ideas. New York: Garland, 1987. Neilson, James W. Shelby M. Cullom: Prairie State Republican. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962. Reagan, John H. Memoirs, with Special Reference to Secession and the Civil War. 1906. Reprint, edited by Walter Flavius McCaleb. New York: AMS Press, 1978. Stone, Richard D. The Interstate Commerce Commission and the Railroad Industry: A History of Regulatory Policy. New York: Praeger, 1991. Welch, Richard E. The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988. See also: Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); Federal Trade Commis-

sion Act (1914); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968); Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974); Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974).

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General Allotment Act Also known as: Dawes Act; Indian General Allotment Act Date: February 8, 1887 U.S. Statutes at Large: 24 Stat. 388-391 U.S. Code: 25 § 331 Categories: Land Management; Native Americans

This law established a policy of allotting land to individual Native Americans in severalty, a practice that effectively dissolved the tribal nations. When the General Allotment, or Dawes, Act became law on February 8, 1887, proponents hailed it as the Indian Emancipation Act and Secretary of the Interior L. Q. C. Lamar called it “the most important measure of legislation ever enacted in this country affecting our Indian affairs.” Land Ownership and Citizenship The law dealt primarily with Native American ownership of land. It authorized the president of the United States, through the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior, to allot the lands on reservations to individual Native Americans, so that they would hold the land in severalty instead of the tribe’s owning the land communally. Each head of a household would receive a quarter-section of land (160 acres); single persons over eighteen years of age and orphans would receive eighty acres; and other persons, forty acres. (In 1891, an amendment to the law equalized the allotments to provide eighty acres for each individual, regardless of age or family status.) The United States government would hold the allotments in trust for twenty-five years, during which time the Native American could not sell or otherwise dispose of his or her land. At the end of that period, he or she would receive full title to it. After the process of dividing up the reservation land for allotments, the federal government could sell the surplus land (often a considerable portion of the reservation) to willing purchasers (most of whom would be European Americans). The money from such sales would go to a fund to benefit Native American education. 347

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The Dawes Act also provided for Native American citizenship. Native Americans who received allotments in severalty or who took up residence apart from their tribe and adopted what European Americans considered civilized ways became citizens of the United States and subject to the laws of the state or territory in which they lived. In 1924, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, granting full citizenship to nearly all Native Americans who were not already citizens, and measures in the late 1940’s extended such status to Arizona and New Mexico Native Americans that the 1924 law had missed. Proponents of the Act Two groups of European Americans especially welcomed the Dawes Act. Land-hungry settlers who had long cast covetous eyes on the reservation lands—which, to European American thinking, were going to waste because of the lack of productive agricultural practices by Native Americans—were now able to acquire the lands left over from the allotment process. No doubt, the less scrupulous among the settlers also looked forward to the day when individual Native Americans would receive full title to their land and be able to sell, lease, or otherwise dispose of it. Then pressure, legitimate or not, would likely induce the new owner to part with the acreage. A second group, however, was more influential in securing passage of the Dawes Act. These were the humanitarian reformers of the day, who considered private ownership of land in severalty, U.S. citizenship, education, and consistent codification of laws to be indispensable means for the acculturation of the Native Americans and their eventual assimilation into the mainstream of U.S. society. As ministers from several Christian denominations, educators, civil servants, politicians, and even a few military personnel, these philanthropists exerted a clout beyond their numbers. Calling themselves the Friends of the Indian, these reformers had been meeting annually at the Catskills resort of Lake Mohonk to discuss ways to bring the tribal peoples to what the conveners deemed to be civilization. Federal politicians had long considered private ownership of land essential to the civilizing process. Thomas Jefferson and the like-minded policymakers of his time had strongly advocated it, and in 1838 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs gave voice to a 348

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widespread view when he said, “Unless some system is marked out by which there shall be a separate allotment of land to each individual . . . you will look in vain for any general casting off of savagism. Common property and civilization cannot co-exist.” It was not until the post-Civil War years, when increasing European American pressures on the Native Americans created crisis after crisis, that humanitarians and philanthropists began a concerted drive for “Indian reform.” Land in severalty would be the most important factor in breaking up tribalism. The reform groups that were organized—the Board of Indian Commissioners (1869), the Women’s National Indian Association (1879), the Indian Rights Association (1882), the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian (1883), and the National Indian Defense Association (1885), to name the most important—all strongly espoused allotment in severalty. Nor were they satisfied with the piecemeal legislation that affected one tribe at a time; the panacea they sought was a general allotment law. Although supporters argued over the speed of implementing allotment, such proponents as Carl Schurz, Herbert Welsh, and the Reverend Lyman Abbott fought energetically for such legislation. They finally won to their cause Senator Henry L. Dawes, chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, who successfully shepherded through Congress the measure that bears his name. Voices Against Allotment Only a few European American voices cried out against the proposal. Congressman Russell Errett of Pennsylvania and a few others protested that the bill was a thinly disguised means of getting at the valuable tribal lands. Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado argued that the Native Americans did not want to own land in severalty and were not prepared to assume the responsibilities that went with private property and citizenship. He denied the contention of the reformers that private ownership of land would lead to civilization. Albert Meacham, editor of The Council Fire, maintained that there was little enthusiasm for severalty among traditionalist Native Americans, and anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan believed that allotment would result in massive poverty. Presbyterian missionaries apparently were disunited on the subject of allotment, and their views fell by the wayside as the juggernaut of reform plunged ahead. 349

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Native American response to allotment has largely gone unrecorded. The Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Sac, Fox, and a few other tribes in Indian Territory, as well as the Seneca in New York, contended that they already mostly owned land individually and won exclusion from the act’s operation. By 1906, however, Congress extended allotment to them as well. Most of the complaints came after the act’s passage, when Native Americans lost land and found farming difficult under its provisions. Assessment “February 8, 1887,” one optimistic spokesman of the Board of Indian Commissioners commented, “may be called the Indian emancipation day.” Although much sincere Christian goodwill motivated passage of the Dawes Act, it turned out to be a disaster for Native Americans. The sponsors of the Dawes Act had assumed an unrealistically romantic view of the Native American. People who had had firsthand experience with tribal peoples attempted to convince the reformers that the “noble savage” had never existed. In 1891, Congress allowed Native Americans to lease their allotments if they were not able to farm for themselves. The allotments and the leasing moved faster and with less careful discrimination than Dawes and other promoters had intended. Instead of being a measure that turned Native Americans into selfsupporting farmers, the act, through the rapid alienation of the Native Americans’ lands, meant the loss of the land base on which the tribal peoples’ hope for future prosperity depended. Tribal peoples held claim to about 150 million acres of land in 1887. The Dawes Act eventually diverted two-thirds of that acreage out of Native American ownership, down to about forty-eight million acres by 1934. Not until that year, with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (the Wheeler-Howard Act, also known as the “Indian New Deal”), did the federal government repeal the Dawes Act and encourage communal forms of ownership again, but by that time much of the former reservation land was gone as surplus sales, leases, or sales by the individual allottees. Francis P. Prucha, updated by Thomas L. Altherr

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Sources for Further Study Gibson, Arrell Morgan. “The Centennial Legacy of the General Allotment Act.” Chronicles of Oklahoma 65, no. 3 (1987): 228-251. Greenwald, Emily. Reconfiguring the Reservation: The Nez Perces, the Jicarilla Apache, and the Dawes Act. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. Hoxie, Frederick E. A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Mintz, Steven, ed. Native American Voices. St. James, N.Y.: Brandywine Press, 1995. Prucha, Francis Paul, ed. Americanizing the American Indians: Writings of the “Friends of the Indian” 1880-1900. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973. Washburn, Wilcomb E. The Assault on Indian Tribalism: The General Allotment Law (Dawes Act) of 1887. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1975. See also: Indian Removal Act (1830); Indian Appropriation Act

(1871); Burke Act (1906); Indian Citizenship Act (1924); Indian Reorganization Act (1934); Termination Resolution (1953).

Dependent Pension Act Also known as: Invalid Pension Act or Disability Pension Act Date: June 27, 1890 U.S. Statutes at Large: 26 Stat. 182 Categories: Health and Welfare

This law created the first large, government-supported pension program to assist Civil War veterans. Civil War legislation relating to the benefits of Union veterans and their dependents began in February, 1862, a few months after the outbreak of the 1861-1865 conflict. Feelings of indebtedness to those who had served and sacrificed for the nation, the destitution of many veterans and their dependents, and the reluctance by men 351

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to volunteer because of family concerns motivated these laws. There followed the discovery that pension benefits could be used for patronage, partisanship, and political advantage. Indeed, the 1888 reelection defeat of Democratic president Grover Cleveland, who had vetoed the Dependent Pension Bill of 1887 (a forerunner of the 1890 act) as overly generous, had been a political object lesson. Frequent budget surpluses, driven by high tariffs, also helped, as did “soldier-president” General Benjamin Harrison, who signed the 1890 law following its passage by both Republican-dominated Houses of Congress. Thus, in the quarter century that had elapsed since the end of the Civil War, much legislative tinkering and increasingly liberal administrative interpretations—spurred by such interest groups as Union veterans’ organizations and pension lawyers filing benefit applications and collecting supporting evidence—expanded the number of those covered and the substance of the benefits, as witness the retroactive Arrears of Pension Act of January 25, 1879. The 1890 law provided that the dependent parents of Civil War veterans who had served at least ninety days in the Union forces and had been honorably discharged would be entitled to a pension. Also, veterans suffering from a physical or mental disability from nearly any cause not of their own “vicious” habits would be entitled to a pension for as long as the disability lasted or even for life. A dependent widow and minor children under sixteen years of age would each qualify for a pension. Finally, the law set a maximum fee for intermediaries acting as agents for applicants. Amendments in 1900, 1907, 1908, and 1912 liberalized benefits for veterans and their widows even further. Thus, an extensive social welfare system grew dramatically after passage of the 1890 act. In 1891 there were some 115,000 Civil War pensioners on the federal rolls. By 1893 there were nearly 460,000 costing taxpayers more than sixty-eight million dollars that year and aggregating to some five billion dollars by World War I. This benefits program was viewed by many as a system of national public care but only for the deserving members of a special generation. Peter B. Heller

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Sources for Further Study Glasson, William H. “Civil War Pensions: The Act of June 27, 1890.” Chapter 3 in Federal Military Pensions in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1918. McClintock, Megan J. “Civil War Pensions and the Reconstruction of Union Families.” Journal of American History 83, no. 2 (September, 1996): 456-480. Skocpol, Theda. “Public Aid for the Worthy Many: The Expansion of Benefits for Veterans of the Civil War.” Chapter 2 in Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. See also: World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924); Social Security Act (1935); G.I. Bill (1944); Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974).

Sherman Antitrust Act Also known as: Sherman Act Date: July 2, 1890 U.S. Statutes at Large: 26 Stat. 209 U.S. Code: 15 § 1 et seq. Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Crimes and Criminal

Procedure

Among most important antitrust laws, this act outlawed certain trusts, or “loose combinations,” and monopolies, empowering the U.S. attorney general to bring criminal or civil court actions against violators. The period following the Civil War was one of rapid economic growth and change in the United States. Creation of a nationwide network of railroads gave individual firms a way to serve a nationwide market, enabling them to grow to a large size to improve their efficiency or simply to gain strategic advantages. A conspicuous firm was Standard Oil, led by John D. Rockefeller. The firm was ef353

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ficient and progressive in developing petroleum refining, but was heavily criticized for such actions as pressuring railroads for preferential rebates and discriminatory price-cutting to intimidate competitors. Standard Oil Standard Oil effectively controlled the petroleum-refining industry by 1879. In addition to lubricants, its principal product was kerosene, aggressively marketed worldwide as the first cheap and convenient source of artificial light. In 1882, the firm was reorganized in the form of a trust, facilitating the acquisition of competing firms. Although the trust form went out of use soon after, the term “trust” became a common name for aggressive big-business monopolies. Other large combinations were soon formed, so that by 1890, large companies controlled the production of such items as whiskey, sugar, and lead, and dominated the nation’s railroads. Opposition to big-business abuses spread among farmers and in small-business sectors such as the grocery business. Popular concern was fueled by writings such as Edward Bellamy’s utopian novel Looking Backward, which had sold a million copies within fifteen years after its publication in 1881. Individual states adopted antimonopoly legislation or brought court actions against alleged monopolists. By 1891, eighteen states had adopted some sort of antitrust legislation. Both major political parties adopted vague antimonopoly statements in their platforms for the 1888 election, but neither rushed to submit appropriate legislation at the next congressional session. President Benjamin Harrison was moved to ask for such a statute in his annual message of December, 1889. A bill introduced by Senator John Sherman of Ohio was extensively revised by the Senate Judiciary Committee, under the able guidance of George Hoar and George F. Edmunds. The resulting bill was passed by Congress with virtually no debate and only one opposing vote. President Harrison signed it into law July 20, 1890. Three Main Provisions The Sherman Antitrust Act contained three important types of provisions. First, the law outlawed “every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states or with foreign nations. . . .” 354

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This came to be viewed as dealing with “loose combinations” of several firms undertaking joint action. Second, the law made it illegal for any person to monopolize or attempt to monopolize any part of that trade or commerce. This was viewed as dealing with activities of individual large firms. The key terms were not defined, and it remained for lawyers and judges to try to find satisfactory and consistent meanings for them. Third, the law provided for a variety of means of enforcement. The attorney general was empowered to bring criminal or civil court actions against violators. Civil remedies often proved attractive, because the burden of proof was not so difficult to achieve, and the remedies could involve changing industry structure and behavior, not merely applying punishments. In addition, private individuals could sue offending firms for triple the value of their losses. Effects Between 1890 and 1904, only eighteen suits were filed under the act. Several of these aimed at collusive rate-fixing by railroads, despite their regulated status under the Interstate Commerce Commission. At the time of the Pullman Strike (1894), the courts held that the Sherman Act could be applied to the activities of labor unions. Unions were repeatedly subjected to injunctions and tripledamage suits for strikes, picketing, and boycotts, even after Congress attempted, in the Clayton Act of 1914, to exempt most union activities from antitrust laws. The Sherman Act’s effectiveness was limited severely by the Supreme Court in an 1895 case against the sugar trust, United States v. E. C. Knight Company. The ruling defined commerce so narrowly that it excluded almost all forms of interstate enterprise except transportation. The Court was led to make a ruling of this type by the way in which the Justice Department, under Attorney General Richard Olney, framed the case. Collusive behavior among a number of separate firms, however, was not granted such a loophole. In 1899, activities by six producers of cast-iron pipe to agree on contract bids were held illegal in Addyston Pipe and Steel Co. v. U.S. These two cases indicated that activities involving several firms were much more likely to be found illegal than the operations of a single-firm monopolist. Perhaps in response, the decade of the 1890’s witnessed an unprecedented boom in the formation of giant corporations through mergers and consolidations. 355

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The process culminated in the creation of United States Steel Corporation in 1901, capitalized at more than one billion dollars. Again, public outcry arose. Congress appointed an Industrial Commission in 1899 to consider the trust problem. A preliminary report in 1900 observed that “industrial combinations have become fixtures in our business life. Their power for evil should be destroyed and their means for good preserved.” The commission’s 1902 report recommended stronger actions against price discrimination. Some large firms were prosecuted successfully. A giant railroad merger was blocked in the Northern Securities case of 1904, helping to gain for President Theodore Roosevelt a reputation as a vigorous trust-buster. In 1911, two notorious trusts, Standard Oil and American Tobacco, were convicted of Sherman Act violations. In each case, the convicted firm was ordered to be broken into several separate firms. The Standard Oil settlement made it much easier for new firms to enter petroleum refining, making possible the emergence of such new competitors as Texaco and Gulf Oil. However, prosecution of the ultimate corporate giant, U.S. Steel, was dismissed in 1920. The Clayton Act In 1914, Congress adopted the Clayton Act, which amended the Sherman Act to specify business actions to be prohibited. This outlawed price discrimination, tying and exclusive-dealing contracts, mergers and acquisitions, and interlocking directorships, where these tended to decrease competition or to create a monopoly. The Federal Trade Commission was also established in 1914, charged with preventing unfair methods of competition and helping to enforce the Clayton Act. Later Impact of the Sherman Act Until 1950, Sherman Act prosecutions tended to be relatively effective against collusive actions by separate firms in interstate commerce—situations involving, for example, price-fixing, and agreements to share markets, to boycott suppliers, or to assign market territories. On the other hand, individual firms were left relatively free, even if large and dominant. Treatment of individual large firms shifted somewhat after the government successfully prosecuted the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) in 1945. The court agreed with the prosecution that the firm’s market share was 356

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large enough to constitute a monopoly, and that ALCOA had deliberately undertaken to achieve this monopoly. This case provided a basis for successful antitrust actions against United Shoe Machinery Company in 1954 and against American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) in 1982. In the AT&T case, the telephone industry was drastically reorganized. The various regional operating companies became independent, and entry into long-distance phone services was opened up for new competitors. The government’s ability to block the formation of giant-firm monopoly was strengthened in 1950, when Congress passed the Celler-Kefauver Antimerger Act, which gave the government stronger authority to block mergers that seemed to threaten to produce monopoly. Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Blair, Roger D., and David L. Kaserman. Antitrust Economics. Homewood, Ill.: Irwin, 1985. Kintner, Earl W., ed. Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes: A Legislative History. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978. Kovaleff, Theodore P., ed. The Antitrust Impulse: An Economic, Historical, and Legal Analysis. 2 vols. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994. Letwin, William L. Law and Economic Policy in America: The Evolution of the Sherman Act. New York: Random House, 1956. Shenefield, John H. The Antitrust Laws: A Primer. 3d ed. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1998. Sherman, Roger. Antitrust Policies and Issues. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1978. Thorelli, Hans. The Federal Antitrust Policy: Origination of an American Tradition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955. Walker, Albert H. History of the Sherman Law of the United States of America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1980. Whitney, Simon N. Antitrust Policies: American Experience in Twenty Industries. 2 vols. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1958. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Celler-Kefauver Act (1950); Parens Patriae Act (1974); Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974). 357

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Disfranchisement laws Date: August, 1890 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Voting

and Elections

In August, 1890, the Mississippi legislature passed laws that effectively eliminated the black vote in the state. At the end of the nineteenth century, Mississippi and South Carolina had the largest black populations in the United States. In 1890, fifty-seven of every hundred Mississippians were black. The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified in 1870) provided that no state could deny the right to vote on account of race; thus, Mississippi had a large black electorate. During the early 1870’s, Mississippi voters elected hundreds of black officeholders, including members of Congress, state legislators, sheriffs, county clerks, and justices of the peace. In the mid-1870’s, white Democrats launched a counteroffensive, using threats, violence, and fraud to neutralize the African American vote. After 1875, very few blacks held office in Mississippi. Circumventing the Fifteenth Amendment By 1890, many politicians in Mississippi were calling for a convention to write a new constitution for the state. They complained that although only a small number of African Americans were voting, this small number could prove decisive in close elections. Many white leaders worked toward a new constitution with provisions that effectively would disfranchise black voters. It would be difficult to draft such provisions, however, without running afoul of the Fifteenth Amendment. The state’s two senators illustrated the divisions of opinion that were so widespread among white Mississippians. Senator Edward C. Walthall argued against a constitutional convention, warning that it would only excite political passions for no good purpose. He felt certain there was no way to eliminate black political participation without violating the Fifteenth Amendment, and that if Mississippi made such an attempt, the U.S. government would 358

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show new interest in enforcing African American voting rights. On the other hand, Senator James George attacked the old constitution, claiming that it had been drafted by carpetbaggers and ignorant former slaves. George urged that the “best citizens” should now take the opportunity to draft a new state constitution. He warned that black voting could revive unless the state took measures to reduce the black electorate by provisions of the state’s highest law. A bill calling a constitutional convention passed both houses of the state legislature in 1888, but Governor Robert Lowry vetoed it, warning that it was better to accept the state’s existing problems than to run the risk of creating new ones by tampering with the state’s constitution. Two years later, a similar bill passed both houses of the legislature, and the new governor, John M. Stone, signed the law. Election for delegates was set for July 29, 1890. The voters would elect 134 delegates, 14 of them from the state at large and the rest apportioned among the counties. The state’s weak Republican Party (to which many African Americans adhered as the party that had freed them from slavery) decided not to field a slate of candidates for at-large delegates. In heavily black Bolivar County, Republicans did offer a local delegate slate with one black and one white candidate. In Jasper County, the white Republican candidate for delegate, F. M. B. “Marsh” Cook, was assassinated while riding alone on a country road. In two blackmajority counties, the Democrats allowed white conservative Republicans onto their candidate slates. In several counties, Democrats split into two factions and offered the voters a choice of two Democratic tickets. As it turned out, the constitutional convention was made up almost exclusively of white Democrats. The membership included only three Republicans, three delegates elected as independents, and one member of an agrarian third party. Only one of the 134 delegates was black: Isaiah T. Montgomery of Bolivar County. The Mississippi Plan Delegates elected the conservative lawyer Solomon S. Calhoon as president of the convention and immediately set about their work. Convention members had no shortage of ideas on how to limit the suffrage almost exclusively to whites without violating the Fifteenth Amendment. Some suggested that voters must own land, 359

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which few African Americans in Mississippi did. Others favored literacy tests, since African Americans, only a generation removed from slavery, had had fewer educational opportunities than whites and therefore were often illiterate. As finally devised, the Mississippi plan for disfranchisement had a number of parts, the most important of which were a literacy test and a poll tax. Under the literacy test, the would-be voter must either be able to read or to explain a part of the state constitution when it was read to him. This latter provision, the so-called “understanding clause,” was included as a loophole for illiterate whites. Delegates knew that voting registrars could give easy questions to white applicants and exceedingly difficult ones to African Americans. The poll tax provision stated that a person must pay a poll tax of at least two dollars per year, for at least two years in succession, in order to qualify to vote. The voter would have to pay these taxes well in advance of the election and keep the receipt. The tax was quite burdensome in a state where tenant farmers often earned less than fifty dollars in cash per year. Because Mississippi’s African Americans were often tenant farmers, poorer than their white counterparts, it was thought they would give up the right to vote rather than pay this new tax. Discriminatory Impact In a notable speech, the black Republican delegate, Isaiah T. Montgomery, announced that he would vote for these new suffrage provisions. He noted that race relations in the state had grown tense and that black political participation in the state had often led whites to react violently. His hope now, Montgomery explained, was that black disfranchisement would improve race relations and as the years passed, perhaps more African Americans would be permitted to vote. The new constitution passed the convention with only eight dissenting votes; it was not submitted to the voters for their ratification. The new suffrage provisions went into effect just before the 1892 elections. The new voter registration requirements disfranchised the great majority of African Americans in the state; they also resulted in the disfranchisement of about fifty-two thousand whites. The new registration resulted in a list of seventy thousand white voters and only nine thousand African American voters. The predominantly black state Republican Party had won 26 percent of the 360

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vote for its presidential candidate in 1888; after the new registration, in 1892, the Republican standard-bearer won less than 3 percent. Under the Constitution of 1890, Mississippi had an almost exclusively white electorate for three-quarters of a century. This constitution served as a model for other Southern states, which eagerly copied the literacy test, the understanding clause, and the poll tax into their state constitutions. Only after passage of new laws by the U.S. Congress in 1964 and 1965 would African American voters again make their strength felt in southern elections. Stephen Cresswell Sources for Further Study Cresswell, Stephen. Multiparty Politics in Mississippi, 1877-1902. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995. Kirwan, Albert D. Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics, 18761925. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1951. Kousser, J. Morgan. The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880-1910. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974. McLemore, Richard Aubrey, ed. A History of Mississippi. Hattiesburg: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1973. Stone, James H. “A Note on Voter Registration Under the Mississippi Understanding Clause, 1892.” Journal of Southern History 38 (1972): 293-296. See also: Black Codes of 1804-1807 (1804-1807); Black Codes of

1865 (1865); Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Reconstruction Acts (1867); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871); Jim Crow laws (1880’s1954); Disfranchisement laws (1890); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975).

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Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Also known as: Agricultural College Act; Land Grant Act of 1890;

Second Morrill Act Date: August 30, 1890

U.S. Statutes at Large: 26 Stat. 419 U.S. Code: 7 § 321 Categories: African Americans; Agriculture; Education; Land Man-

agement

The second Morrill Act expanded the land-grant colleges established by the first Morrill Act, supporting the establishment of higher education for African Americans. In 1862, Congress passed the first Morrill Land Grant Act to authorize the establishment of a land-grant institution in each state to educate citizens in agriculture, mechanic arts, home economics, and other practical professions. Because of the emphasis on agriculture and mechanic arts, these institutions were referred to as A&M colleges. Because of the legal separation of the races in the South, African Americans were not permitted to attend these original land-grant institutions. This situation was rectified in 1890, when Congress passed the second Morrill Land Grant Act, expanding the 1862 system of land-grant colleges to provide support for the establishment of African American institutions of higher learning in states that lacked such facilities. Each of the southern states that did not have an African American college by 1890 established one or more under the second Morrill Land Grant Act. The 1890 institutions evolved into a major educational resource for the United States. For more than a century, these institutions have provided the principal means of access to higher education for African Americans. They continue to be a major source of African American leaders who render valuable service to their communities, the nation, and the world. Alvin K. Benson Sources for Further Study Cross, Coy F., II. Justin Smith Morrill: Father of the Land-Grant Colleges. East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1999. 362

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Hyman, Harold M. American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the 1862 Homestead and Morrill Acts, and the 1944 G.I. Bill. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. James, Edmund Janes. The Origin of the Land Grant Act of 1862 (the So-Called Morrill Act) and Some Account of Its Author, Jonathan B. Turner. Urbana-Champaign, Ill.: University Press, 1910. Nevins, Allan. The Origins of the Land-Grant Colleges and State Universities: A Brief Account of the Morrill Act of 1862 and Its Results. Washington, D.C.: Civil War Centennial Commission, 1962. See also: Ordinance of 1785 (1785); Land Act of 1820 (1820); Preemption Act (1841); Homestead Act (1862); Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 (1890); G.I. Bill (1944).

Dingley Tariff Also known as: Tariff Act of 1924 Date: July 24, 1897 U.S. Statutes at Large: 30 Stat. 207 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Tariffs and Taxation

Successful protective tariff policies of the late 1890’s become the focus of criticism after 1900. One of the most controversial political issues of the late nineteenth century was the protective tariff. Republicans argued that high customs duties on imports to the United States protected U.S. businesses from foreign competition and provided jobs to farmers and workers. Democrats countered that the policy raised prices to consumers and favored some businesses at the expense of others. The tariff became a key issue dividing the two major parties, with the Republicans united behind protection and most Democrats advocating lower tariffs. In the presidential elections of 1888 and 1892, the two parties offered very different approaches to trade policy. The Republicans received support for protectionism in 1888; the Democrats elected Grover Cleveland in part on the promise of lower tariffs in 1892. 363

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Protectionism vs. Lower Tariffs Republicans enacted the protective McKinley Tariff in 1890 and saw their control of the House of Representatives vanish as voters rejected the higher prices associated with the law. When the Democrats regained the White House in 1893 under President Cleveland, they endeavored to pass a law to lower the tariff. Divisions within the party over other issues and the onset of the economic depression of the 1890’s made it difficult for the Democrats to agree on a reform law. The result was the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894, which lowered rates somewhat but also made concessions to protectionist sentiment within the Democratic Party in order to get a bill through Congress. Cleveland let the bill become law without his signature, and the Republicans hammered away at the measure in the congressional elections of 1894. When the Republicans regained the House of Representatives in that year, they promised that if a Republican president were elected in 1896, the tariff would be revised upward. Hammering Out the Tariff The Republican nominee in 1896 was William McKinley, who had long been associated with the protective tariff in the House of Representatives. By this time, however, McKinley had decided that it would be wise to include a policy of reciprocal trade whereby the United States would moderate its tariff rates in return for concessions from other trading partners. The new president was not a free-trader. Reciprocity would occur within the protective system, but he envisioned an expansion of trade with this approach. After he defeated William Jennings Bryan in 1896, McKinley urged Congress to move ahead quickly on a tariff law. He summoned the lawmakers into session in March, 1897. Advance planning meant that the House could act quickly on the tariff. The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Nelson Dingley, reported out a new tariff bill, called the Dingley Tariff, on March 18, three days after the session opened. The Speaker of the House, Thomas B. Reed, used the power of the Republican majority to push the bsill through within three weeks of the opening of the session. The situation was more complex in the Senate, where Republican control was less secure. There the Dingley Tariff became entangled with another issue. To achieve a greater use of silver in international trade, the United States had opened negotiations with 364

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France about an agreement on a policy known as international bimetallism. The French indicated interest in helping the United States if they could receive some concessions for their products in the new tariff bill. These elements led Nelson Aldrich, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, to produce an initial tariff measure in the Senate that recognized French desires, including lower rates on French luxury products. As time passed, however, the various interest groups within the Republican coalition increased the pressure for higher tariff rates. The result was a bill that raised duties on such products as wool and woolen clothing, while hiking rates on French items such as silks, gloves, and olive oil. When the bill became more protectionist, Senate supporters of international bimetallism pushed the idea of tariff reciprocity treaties as a way of promising future concessions to France and other nations. The Senate bill, as passed on July 7, included language that allowed the president to negotiate treaties for a reduction of up to 20 percent on the duties in the Dingley bill. Final Provisions The conference committee of the House and Senate leaned more toward the protectionist side. The final bill retained the raised duties on wool, silk, and other products of concern to France. There was wording that allowed the president to offer countries reductions on specific items and to negotiate reciprocal trade treaties as well. The bill came out of conference on July 19, and both houses approved it by July 24, 1897. Despite not having a dependable majority in the Senate, the Republicans had passed a tariff bill quickly and with little intraparty friction. The French initiative on international bimetallism collapsed later in the summer, for reasons unrelated to the passage of the Dingley Tariff. Arguments for Reciprocity Public reaction to the bill was quiet. The returning prosperity of the summer of 1897 made the action of the Republican Congress seem appropriate. Although President McKinley tried to use the reciprocity sections of the law during the remainder of his term, and negotiated agreements with France, Jamaica, Argentina, and other nations, the strength of protectionist sentiment on Capitol Hill limited his accomplishments. In his last public speech, on September 5, 1901, in Buffalo, New York, McKinley argued for reci365

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procity as a policy of the future and sought to guide public opinion to tolerance of freer trade. The next day he was shot and, with his death on September 14, 1901, reciprocity waned. The new president, Theodore Roosevelt, proved willing to let Congress have its way on the tariff. Until 1900, the Dingley Tariff enjoyed general political acceptance. As the return of prosperity following the Spanish-American War became more apparent, consumer prices rose and inflation became an issue. The rise of large corporations and public fears about the trusts also were associated with the protective policy. Democrats charged that the tariff law had stimulated the growth of giant corporations and raised prices that average citizens had to pay. Within the ranks of the Republicans, sentiment to reform the tariff law grew, especially in the plains states of the Midwest. Party regulars remained steadfast in support of the law, and an internal dispute about the tariff marked the history of the Republicans during the first decade of the twentieth century. Later Tariffs In the presidential election of 1908, public pressure and the attacks of the Democrats led the Republicans to promise a revision of the tariff following the outcome of the race for the White House. The winner, William Howard Taft, followed through on this commitment and set in motion events that led to the enactment of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909. The controversy that stemmed from that event led, in turn, to a split in the Republican Party and the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912. After Wilson took office, the Democratic Congress passed the Underwood Tariff in 1913, which lowered rates and finally replaced the Dingley Tariff completely. The Republicans achieved substantial political benefits from the Dingley Tariff during the McKinley administration. After 1901, it became a source of persistent friction and opposition internally and from the Democrats. In that period, the law gained its enduring historical reputation as the embodiment of the high protective tariff policies associated with the Republican Party during the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century. Lewis L. Gould, based on the original entry by Anne Trotter 366

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Sources for Further Study Becker, William H. The Dynamics of Business-Government Relations: Industry and Exports, 1893-1921. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Gould, Lewis L. “Diplomats in the Lobby: Franco-American Relations and the Dingley Tariff of 1897.” Historian 39 (August, 1977): 659-680. _______. The Presidency of William McKinley. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1980. Taussig, Frank W. The Tariff History of the United States. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967. Terrill, Tom E. The Tariff, Politics, and American Foreign Policy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973. Wolman, Paul. Most Favored Nation: The Republican Revisionists and U.S. Tariff Policy, 1897-1912. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. See also: Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909); Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act

(1930).

Treaty of Paris Date: Signed December 10, 1898; Senate ratified February 6, 1899 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The 1898 Treaty of Paris closed the Spanish-American War and ceded overseas territory to the United States. Although traditionally anti-imperialist, America became increasingly interested in obtaining overseas colonies by the late nineteenth century. The remnants of Spain’s once massive empire in the Western Hemisphere, now reduced to Cuba and Puerto Rico, seemed an attractive target. A Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule attracted American sympathy and prompted the trip of the battleship USS Maine to Cuba in February, 1898, to demonstrate American interest in the situation. When the Maine mysteriously 367

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exploded (killing 260 Americans), Americans believed Spain was responsible and demanded vengeance. Congress declared war a month later, and America moved to expel Spain from Cuba. Despite some military shortcomings, the United States defeated the Spanish garrison at Santiago, Cuba, and destroyed a small squadron of Spanish ships based there. American troops occupied Puerto Rico with little opposition, and American ships under the command of Commodore George Dewey destroyed Spanish naval power in the Philippine Islands and established American control there as well. Defeated on every front, Spain agreed to an armistice on August 12, 1898, and peace talks began in Paris. Obstacles to Peace While America’s military had clearly defeated Spain on the battlefield and Cuban independence was also clearly presumed, two large hurdles to a formal peace agreement remained. First was the issue of the Philippines, which Spain was reluctant to give up. Spain agreed to grant independence to Cuba and cede Puerto Rico to the United States, as the cost of maintaining these islands exceeded the profits the islands generated. The Philippines, however, was another matter. Although facing a local rebellion, Spain had maintained strong control over the islands and the land remained profitable. Also, while Spain was willing to cede the two Caribbean islands, giving up the massive Philippine Archipelago (containing hundreds of islands) was too much for Spanish pride to bear. Only when the United States threatened to void the armistice and renew the war did Spain agree to American demands, signing the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. The other hurdle was the American Congress, where strong anti-imperialist elements in the Senate threatened to defeat the treaty’s ratification. The anti-imperialists feared that empire would corrupt American values and possibly drag the United States into future wars around the world. American jingoism, however, overcame anti-imperialist efforts, and the Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris by a single vote on February 6, 1899. Terms of the Treaty Under the terms of the treaty, Cuba became an independent country, although the Platt Amendment (1903) gave the United States rights to intervene in Cuban affairs at any time, essentially reduc368

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ing Cuba to the status of an American protectorate until the United States abrogated the Platt Amendment in 1934. Spain ceded to the United States control of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and the island of Guam. As compensation for the loss of the Philippines, the United States paid Spain $20 million. The United States inherited the Philippine rebellion along with the islands, and subsequent efforts to suppress the rebel Filipinos took another three years, costing 4,300 American and approximately 600,000 Filipino lives. Steven J. Ramold Sources for Further Study Blow, Michael. A Ship to Remember: The Maine and the Spanish-American War. New York: Morrow, 1992. Millis, Walter. The Martial Spirit: A Study of Our War with Spain. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1931. See also: Platt Amendment (1903); Jones Act (1917).

Currency Act Also known as: Gold Standard Act Date: March 14, 1900 U.S. Statutes at Large: 31 Stat. 45 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

The Currency Act reestablished the “gold standard” and stabilized the dollar after a period of economic upheaval. In 1879, following the monetary disorder of the Civil War, the United States returned to a formal gold standard. Gold coins circulated, and bank deposits and paper currency could be freely exchanged for gold. A declining price level created many economic hardships, especially for farmers. 369

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Free Silver Debate Agitation arose for a more expansionary monetary policy and focused on coinage of silver as the means. Silver producers were a powerful lobby, pressuring the government to permit unlimited coinage of silver (at the initiative of private silver producers) at favorable values. The policy would increase the money supply and raise prices. Opponents feared a return to the inflationary monetary conditions of the Civil War. The issue was central to the presidential election of 1896. Democrat William Jennings Bryan advocated the “free silver” program but lost the election to Republican William McKinley, who opposed it. One purpose of the Currency Act of 1900 was to solidify the position of gold in the monetary system. The law created a monometallic system with the dollar equivalent to 25.8 grains of gold, nine-tenths fine, equivalent to a price of $20.67 an ounce. The government would continue to issue silver coins, but in limited supply, so that their monetary value could exceed the market value of their silver content without inflationary results. To maintain governmentissued paper currency and silver coins at parity with gold, the law provided for the Treasury to maintain a reserve fund of $150 million in gold. Paper currency was also issued by national banks under federal supervision, and the law contained several provisions to increase the supply of this type of currency. Minimum capital required to start a national bank was reduced. National banks were allowed to issue more notes for a given amount of government securities which they held as security. Tax rates on national banks were reduced. Foreign Investors The silver agitation of the 1890’s had been very damaging to the international financial position of the United States. Foreign investors feared that the value of the dollar would fall. The Currency Act of 1900 eliminated this threat. As a result, funds flooded into the United States for investment in railroads, steel mills, petroleum refineries. The new law also helped produce a large increase in national banknotes, from $265 million in 1900 to $614 million in 1908. More than three thousand new national banks opened over that period. However, the monetary and banking system still possessed serious defects, which were dramatized by financial panic in 1907. In 370

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response, the government adopted the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. The gold standard did not prevent severe inflation during World War I, and its shortcomings became painfully evident during the disastrous economic downswing of 1929-1933 known as the Great Depression. The United States and other nations adopted severely deflationary policies to maintain gold parities. The gold standard was essentially abolished by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Issue of national-bank-note currency was discontinued in 1935. Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Studenski, Paul, and Herman E. Krooss. Financial History of the United States. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963. Timberlake, Richard H. Monetary Policy in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Trescott, Paul B. Money, Banking, and Economic Welfare. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960. See also: Independent Treasury Act (1846); National Bank Acts

(1863-1864); Bland-Allison Act (1878); Currency Act (1900); Federal Reserve Act (1913).

Direct democracy laws Date: June 2, 1902-May 31, 1913 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Voting and Elections

During the first decade of the twentieth century, a slate of both state and federal measures were passed to increase the political tools of direct citizen involvement in government. Although the Declaration of Independence asserted that all “men” are created equal and, in later years, Abraham Lincoln movingly spoke of government as being “of, by, and for” the people, there 371

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was a gap between such sentiments and political realities. Admittedly, by 1890 the franchise included all male citizens. Women, however, were excluded except in a few Western states, and even the enfranchised found their prerogatives circumscribed. They were unable to vote directly for their United States senators and lacked legal methods to force recalcitrant legislatures to take specific action or to rid themselves of unsuitable elected public officials before their terms ended. Clearly something had to be done to make government at all levels more responsive to the will of the people. The Progressive movement provided the vehicle for change as it initially sought to bring about reforms on the municipal and state levels. Among those responsible for reform were Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette and the virtually forgotten William U’Ren of Oregon. They were joined in their attempts to alter state government by hoards of urban reformers who realized that the city was so tied to the state that in order to correct fully the basic problems of the former, the latter had to be changed as well. Secret Ballot In one respect the burden was eased by an earlier reform—the Australian, or secret, ballot—whose ramifications were just beginning to be recognized fully. This new form of voting replaced the older system, under which different colored ballots, printed by the political parties or independent candidates, were distributed to the voters, who then deposited them in the proper box under the watchful eyes of their employers’ representatives or the local political boss. Obviously the old system protected those in power. Fraud, bribery, and corruption were rampant. In an attempt to end these evils, Massachusetts adopted the secret ballot in 1888. Through the efforts of such individuals as Grover Cleveland, the system was used nationwide by the election of 1910. Additionally, many Progressive states enacted corrupt-practices laws and limited the amount of money a candidate could spend. Similar federal laws followed. Primary Elections The early twentieth century also saw the election of the first great reform governor when La Follette bested the ruling Republican machine in Wisconsin. During his years in office, 1901-1906, he transformed that state into a Progressive commonwealth, a “labo372

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ratory of democracy.” A major accomplishment was to give the voter increased control over the nomination of candidates for public office. On May 23, 1903, Wisconsin held the first statewide primary to select those who would run in the general election. The primary abolished the old boss-dominated party caucus which had previously chosen the candidates. Initiative, Referendum, and Recall La Follette’s actions seemed to trigger a chain reaction across the West. In 1904 a young reformer, Joseph W. Folk, smashed the unusually corrupt machine running Missouri to become governor. Slowly but surely traditional frontier democracy, lost in the Gilded Age, reasserted itself as some states enfranchised women and almost all enacted fundamental political reforms. Nowhere was this trend more apparent than in Oregon, home of the little-known William U’Ren, who indirectly affected national political life as did few of his more famous contemporaries. U’Ren, a blacksmith turned newspaper editor and lawyer, never held a major political office, yet because of his ability to marshal public opinion was the unofficial fourth branch of Oregon’s government. He first became interested in direct democracy in the 1890’s, after reading of its use in Switzerland, and spent a large part of his time working to introduce it into Oregon and the rest of the nation. Oregon adopted the initiative and referendum on June 2, 1902, the direct primary in 1904, and the recall in 1910, thereby putting direct democracy into practice. Initiative and referendum made it possible for a majority vote of the electorate to pass laws when the legislature was unable or unwilling to do so, and to veto unpopular legislation. Recall allowed an elected official to be promptly removed if a majority of citizens were displeased with the person’s conduct. This device was most often adopted in states west of the Mississippi, where its threat was generally sufficient to bring an official into line. Initiative and referendum, being less tinged with “radicalism” than recall, were usually adopted by the more conservative Eastern states. Direct Election of Senators Another drive occurring simultaneously was aimed at amending the U.S. Constitution to allow a direct vote for U.S. senators. The Constitution provided for their election by state legislatures as a 373

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means of removing the Senate from direct control by the “rabble.” By the late nineteenth century, however, the office had become an item to be purchased like a loaf of bread. In 1907 Simon Guggenheim shocked the nation by publicly declaring what he had spent for the office in Colorado. As the stronghold of special privilege, the Senate had opposed and often thwarted Progressive measures such as tariff revision, the abolition of child labor, and revision of the method for selecting U.S. senators. Realizing that an amendment was out of the question, several Western states began holding primary elections to select Senate nominees. In some states the legislature was bound to abide by the decision of the voters. In 1912, with twenty-nine states using this device to circumvent the Constitution and public pressure for change mounting, the Senate reluctantly yielded and submitted an amendment to the states. The Seventeenth Amendment, providing for direct election of senators, was ratified on May 31, 1913. With this ratification the major political reforms proposed by the Progressives had been accomplished. The responsibilities of the electorate had been dramatically enlarged. Control over the quality of government was now in the hands of the voter. The only question remaining was how the new powers would be exercised. Anne Trotter Sources for Further Study Cronin, Thomas E. Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989. Goldman, Eric F. Rendezvous with Destiny. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952. Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955. La Follette, Robert M. Autobiography. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1911. Mowry, George E. The California Progressives. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951. _______. The Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1900-1912. New York: Harper & Row, 1958. Nye, Russel B. Midwestern Progressive Politics, 1870-1958. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959. 374

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Schmidt, David D. Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. See also: Seventeenth Amendment (1913); Nineteenth Amendment (1920); Twenty-third Amendment (1961); Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971).

Reclamation Act Also known as: Newlands Act Date: June 17, 1902 U.S. Statutes at Large: 32 Stat. 388 Categories: Agriculture; Land Management; Natural Resources

The 1902 Reclamation Act provided for federal development of irrigated agriculture and eventually transformed the Western United States. On June 17, 1902, the Reclamation Act (sometimes called the Newlands Act) became law after more than twenty years of discussion and failed federal land policy. Before 1902, irrigation and reclamation policies in the arid West were mostly aimed at promoting private and state initiatives to develop irrigated agriculture. The act represented the first of several conservation initiatives by the Theodore Roosevelt administration and set a precedent for active federal investment and direction of natural resources management. Arid Lands of the West In 1878, John Wesley Powell’s Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States laid the groundwork for land classification according to land’s capability to produce different kinds of goods and services. Early federal land policy initiatives such as the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Desert Land Act of 1877 failed to grasp both the scope of the problem of aridity and the cooperative approaches that would be required to overcome it. Powell proposed that federal lands be classified according to their best use and disposed of based on that classification. He suggested organiz375

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ing lands and local governments on a watershed basis, providing homesteads of 2,560 acres that included a mix of irrigable land and rangeland, and creating cooperative irrigation districts. Powell’s ideas proved unpopular with Congress because they were at odds with the traditional image of the hearty, independent settler. Yet the Reclamation Act of 1902, which was passed a few months before Powell’s death, incorporated many of his ideas. Public land scholars have come to recognize his report as one of the most significant documents in American conservation history. Water-Resources Inventory In 1888, Congress authorized the first water-resources inventory of the arid West. Frederick H. Newell, an assistant hydraulic engineer (and later chief hydrographer) of the U.S. Geological Survey, took charge of the project and set out to measure water supplies, survey potential dam and canal sites, and calculate the area of potentially irrigable land. Congress had authorized Powell, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, to reserve all such sites from entry under the public land laws. Powell’s reservation of 127 reservoir sites and 30 million acres of potentially irrigable public land angered Western congressmen. In 1890, Congress restored the right of entry to all the withdrawn land except that required for dam and reservoir sites. Private funding of irrigation efforts had largely come to a halt by the mid-1890’s. The most profitable sites had already been developed, and many private projects failed in the financial panic of 1893. State efforts to develop irrigation districts in California and Colorado met with little success. In 1894, Congress passed the Carey Act, which granted one million acres to each Western state to promote irrigation. The grants resulted in few projects, however, because there was limited available financing. A coalition that supported federal financing of reclamation projects eventually emerged among scientists such as Newell and Powell and Western economic development interests. Newlands and the Roosevelt Administration Francis G. Newlands came to Nevada in the late 1880’s to manage the estate of his wealthy father-in-law, Senator William Sharon. Nevada was rapidly losing population as a result of the end of the silver boom. Newlands recognized irrigated agriculture as one 376

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method to promote economic stability, and he became a principal in a privately financed project in the Truckee basin. The project failed, and Newlands suffered a financial loss; in the process, however, he had investigated and acquired many of the potential reservoir sites in the state, which he offered to sell to water-users’ associations. Upon his election to the House of Representatives, he became one of the principal promoters of federal financing of irrigation and a prominent member of the National Irrigation Congress, an influential interest group that promoted reclamation. Upon the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became president. Roosevelt had already become familiar with Western land and water issues through his experience as a gentleman rancher in North Dakota. A progressive Republican, Roosevelt also recognized the political advantages that he might reap from running against large corporate interests and supporting public efforts to conserve natural resources. As governor of New York, he had advocated scientific management of natural resources and had already established a relationship with Newell and Gifford Pinchot, a leader of the forest-conservation movement. At the prompting of Newell and Pinchot, Roosevelt made reclamation and forest conservation a major theme in his first address to Congress. Given new support from the president, Newlands’s proposals gained momentum. His bill authorized federal funding of irrigation projects through a reclamation fund composed of proceeds from the sale of Western public lands. The bill gave the secretary of the interior discretion in selecting and constructing projects and withdrew the reclaimed areas from all but homestead entries. To promote development of family farms, Newlands included a provision that limited each individual to water rights for eighty acres. Newlands’s intent was to deny speculation in the federal projects and to reinforce the ideal of the yeoman farmer. Newlands’s bill was opposed by Western representatives who wanted a larger water-rights acreage limitation and who wanted the lands to be open to other than merely homestead entries. Newlands compromised and raised the limitation to 160 acres, but the bill was defeated in the House. A rival measure with few of Newlands’s provisions passed the Senate in early 1902, and Newlands introduced a new version of his bill. Roosevelt convinced the Senate to incorporate much of Newlands’s language into an amended Senate version, and the Reclamation Act became law on June 17, 1902. 377

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Impact of the Act Perhaps no single law has had a greater effect on the Western United States than the Reclamation Act of 1902. The projects that eventually evolved under the Bureau of Reclamation transformed the face and economy of half a continent. El Paso, Denver, Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City could not have grown into great metropolises without the massive water developments and associated hydroelectricity made possible by the act. The agricultural and manufacturing economies of the Western states would also be wholly different without the act and the work it engendered. Yet this transformation came at a substantial environmental price. The increased salinization of irrigated lands, the degradation of the Colorado River delta, the demise of salmon stocks in the Pacific Northwest, and the loss of biological diversity caused by conversion of unregulated rivers to reservoirs are some of the broader costs of irrigated agriculture and hydroelectric power production. These costs must be balanced against the benefits that the Western states and the nation as a whole have derived from economic development. In fiscal year 1992, the Bureau of Reclamation delivered 30 million acre-feet of water to 28 million people and irrigated close to 10 million acres, producing annual crops valued at almost $9 billion. The bureau also operated fifty-two hydroelectric plants, generating 40 billion kilowatt hours, making it the eleventh-largest producer of electricity in the United States. In addition to such obvious environmental impacts, the Reclamation Act of 1902 had a number of subtler but nevertheless important implications. Political scientists have observed that the concentration of political power among a “water aristocracy” in the Western United States is one result of the failure to implement the original policy of providing for a system of family farms. The act also set a precedent for a growing, activist federal presence in the West that directly controls or influences most forest, rangeland, and water resources in the region. During the late 1940’s, federal subsidies to reclamation programs became increasingly contentious. In the early and mid1950’s, the subsidy issue combined with an awakening environmental movement to block the construction of the Echo Park Dam, which had been proposed for Dinosaur National Monument in western Colorado. 378

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Like other conservation programs designed during the Progressive Era, the Reclamation Act of 1902 envisioned an independent, self-financing funding mechanism to pay for efficient projects. The act had established a reclamation fund through the sale of Western federal lands. Homesteaders would repay the fund for project construction costs (without interest) within ten years of the time that water became available to them, and the repayments would then allow new projects. By 1914, all projects that could be developed within the ten-year framework had been exhausted. In subsequent acts, Congress extended the period for repayment to twenty years in 1914, to forty years in 1926, and to fifty years in 1934. The last revision allowed for nonreimbursable allocation of project costs to flood control and navigation. This revision was subsequently interpreted to allow use of electricity-generation revenues to pay for irrigation costs that were beyond the financial ability of irrigators. Even with these provisions, however, the development and approval of projects by the secretary of the interior were limited by poor economic returns. When conservation groups, economists, and Southern California water interests combined to block construction of the Echo Park Dam and the larger Upper Colorado River Basin Project in the 1950’s, it marked the end of an era and the once-potent dream of “making the desert bloom.” By the 1970’s, growing environmental awareness and poor economic feasibility left the Bureau of Reclamation vulnerable to political change. One of the bureau’s projects, the Teton Dam, failed on June 5, 1976, claiming eleven lives and causing damage estimated as high as $2 billion. In November, 1976, President Jimmy Carter was elected on a platform stressing environmental protection and governmental reform. In April, 1977, the Carter “hit list” successfully proposed eliminating five of the largest reclamation projects and reducing several others. In addition, the Carter administration proposed reduced budgets and several other reforms that substantially reduced the bureau’s powers. Despite a political ideology that favored Western development, Carter’s successor, President Ronald Reagan, implemented budget reforms that further constrained the growth of federal reclamation projects. In the early 1980’s, controversy arose over the original act’s limitation on the size of farms that were eligible to receive federally subsidized water. The government failed to enforce the limitation 379

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of 160 acres per farm (320 acres per couple) and associated restrictions on leasing and residency. Attempts by the Carter administration to enforce the law led to the act’s revision during the Reagan administration. The 160-acre limitation was raised to 960 acres, and growers were required to pay full cost for water used in excess of the 960-acre limit. By 1988, however, the General Accounting Office found that some farms that exceeded the limit had been divided into holdings of less than 960 acres but had continued to operate as a single unit. For example, the agency identified a 12,000acre farm that had been divided into fifteen holdings so that it could continue to receive federally subsidized water at a savings of $500,000 per year. One environmental problem facing many reclamation projects is that of increasing salinity. As fresh water evaporates, it may concentrate and deposit salt in the irrigated soil; the elevated salinity levels that result can retard or eliminate crop yields. By treaty, the United States must deliver water containing less than nine hundred parts per million of salt to Mexico from the Colorado River. Salinity levels have exceeded the legal limit, and the United States has built an expensive desalinization plant near Yuma, Arizona, to improve water quality. In the San Joaquin Valley of California, a related problem has caused environmental concern. Increasing salinity prompted construction of a drainage system that concentrated used irrigation water in the Kesterson Reservoir. The reservoir acted as an artificial wetland, attracting many migratory waterfowl. In the early 1980’s, biologists observed that many birds were being sickened or killed; by the mid-1980’s, researchers confirmed that the cause was selenium poisoning. Selenium, a naturally occurring element in the region’s soils, was being carried from irrigated soils and concentrated in the reservoir. Overall, the Reclamation Act of 1902 proved successful in reaching its original goal of developing agriculture, commerce, and settlement in the West. The environmental consequences of that development were largely unforeseen at the time of the act’s passage, but they have become increasingly problematic in the latter part of the twentieth century. Donald W. Floyd 380

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Sources for Further Study Clarke, Jeanne N., and Daniel McCool. Staking Out the Terrain. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985. Dana, Samuel T., and Sally K. Fairfax. Forest and Range Policy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1947. Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert. New York: Viking Penguin, 1986. Stegner, Wallace. Beyond the Hundredth Meridian. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Stratton, Owen, and Phillip Sirotkin. The Echo Park Controversy. University: University of Alabama Press, 1959. Wyant, William K. Westward in Eden. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. See also: National Park Service Organic Act (1916); Water Pollu-

tion Control Act (1948); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956); Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960); Water Resources Research Act (1964); Wilderness Act (1964); Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972); Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974); Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976).

Platt Amendment Also known as: Part of the Permanent Reciprocity Treaty of 1903 Date: Signed May 22, 1903 Public law: 56-803 Categories: Foreign Relations; Latinos; Treaties and Agreements

The Platt Amendment underscored Cuba’s independence from Spain but at the same time secured U.S. influence in Cuba for the next three decades. 381

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In 1895, Cuban revolutionaries initiated what was ultimately to become a successful revolt against Spanish colonial domination. The break from Spain was brought about by a variety of factors, the two most critical being the repressive nature of the colonial rule of Spain and a change in U.S. tariff policy as a result of the recessions and depressions in the United States during the 1890’s. The WilsonGorman Tariff of 1894 imposed a duty on Cuban sugar arriving in the United States, which previously had entered duty-free. With the economy of Cuba reeling from dwindling Cuban-United States trade because of the new tariff, Cuban dissidents, who had been waiting for an opportunity to act, launched a revolution. Led by José Martí, who had strong ties to the United States, the rebels who called for Cuban independence began a guerrilla war against the Spanish. Even after the death of Martí during the first year of fighting, the ranks of the Cuban rebel forces continued to increase. Spanish authorities responded to the groundswell of domestic support for the rebels by attempting to separate the rebels from their supporters in rural areas. Under a new policy known as reconcentration, more than a quarter-million Cubans were interred in concentration camps guarded by Spanish soldiers. Thousands of Cubans died in the camps, which served as breeding grounds for disease. U.S. sympathy for the Cuban rebels was stimulated by reports of atrocities occurring as a result of the new Spanish policy, and people in the United States began to call for an end to the conflict through reconciliation. The mysterious sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, ended all hope of a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The Spanish-American War The sinking of the U.S. battleship, which had been ordered to Cuba in an effort to display U.S. concern for events unfolding on the island and to protect U.S. citizens, drew the United States further into the conflict. Naval investigators concluded that a Spanish mine had caused the explosion. U.S. president William McKinley responded to events by demanding that Spain grant Cuban independence. Finding the Spanish response unsatisfactory, McKinley requested on April 11, 1898, that Congress grant him authorization to stop the war in Cuba by force, if necessary. Following some debate, on April 19 Congress declared that Cuba was and should be independent, demanded an immediate withdrawal of Spain from 382

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Cuba, authorized the use of force to accomplish that withdrawal, and vowed not to annex the island. Known as the Teller Amendment, the vow not to annex Cuba was perhaps the most controversial of the issues debated. Despite the Teller Amendment, the entrance of the United States into the conflict initiated the beginning of an exploitive relationship between the United States and Cuba, which was dictated by the former. As the war drew to an end and Spanish withdrawal began to be realized, the United States downplayed the role of the Cuban rebels in the success of the military campaign. The Treaty of Paris, which halted the conflict, required Spain to surrender all claims to Cuba, but the McKinley administration refused to recognize the former Cuban rebels as a legitimate government or the Cuban people as being capable of self-rule. For two years, the U.S. military performed the functions of government. Although the U.S. military made substantial improvements in the infrastructure of Cuba and generally improved the quality of life on the island, Cubans resented the U.S. occupation. Many Cubans felt that they had traded one colonial master for another. In 1900, Cubans were allowed to draft a constitution and hold elections. The United States refused to withdraw its troops, however, until provisions were made for the continuation of U.S. relations. Elihu Root, the U.S. secretary of war, proposed such provisions, which ultimately were included in a bill sponsored by Senator Orville H. Platt. Platt, a Republican from Connecticut, attached a rider to the Army Appropriations Bill of 1901 that essentially made Cuba a U.S. protectorate. Provisions of the Platt Amendment The Platt Amendment, as the provisions would come to be known, severely restricted Cuba’s ability to make treaties and its right to contract public debt. The United States also declared its right to intervene in Cuban affairs in order to preserve Cuban independence and maintain order. Cuba also was expected to give the United States the right to maintain naval bases and coaling stations on the island. The Cuban government reluctantly appended the provisions of the Platt Amendment to the Cuban constitution. The last U.S. forces finally withdrew from Havana in 1902. The Platt Amendment became a formal part of a U.S.-Cuba treaty on May 22, 1903. 383

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The Platt Amendment formed the basis for United States-Cuban relations for the next sixty years, until Fidel Castro emerged as the leader of Cuba. Forced to submit to the will of the United States, Cuba was soon inundated with U.S. investment. Foreign investors controlled and manipulated Cuban politics and the economy. U.S. troops reoccupied Cuba from 1906 to 1909, under the authority of the Platt Amendment, following an uprising that protested, among other things, U.S. involvement in Cuban affairs. The 1930’s The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as U.S. president in 1933 initially brought little change in U.S.-Cuban relations, despite his “good neighbor policy,” which was based on the belief that no state had the right to intervene in Latin America. Roosevelt was forced to deal with a Cuba in turmoil. President Gerardo “the Butcher” Machado y Morales, who had dominated Cuban politics for a decade, was forced to resign in 1933 because of popular opposition and U.S. pressure. His successor, Ramón Grau San Martín, was no more acceptable to the Roosevelt administration. Viewed as too radical by Roosevelt, the government of Grau was never recognized as legitimate by the U.S. administration. It was not until Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar led a coup and installed a government acceptable to the United States that the Roosevelt administration agreed to discuss revoking the Platt Amendment. The second Treaty of Relations, as it came to be known, eliminated the limitations on Cuban sovereignty imposed by the Platt Amendment. The new treaty did allow the United States to retain its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which could be revoked only by mutual consent of both states. Despite the formal end of U.S. involvement in Cuba, the new Cuba, which was controlled by Batista, was no less tied to the United States financially or politically. Batista was viewed by many international observers as a puppet for the U.S. government. Cuba attracted more U.S. investment under Batista than ever before. Many Cubans argued that despite the end of the Platt Amendment, Cuba was still a U.S. dependency. It was this sense of frustration over their inability to achieve a true sense of sovereignty that served as a catalyst for Fidel Castro’s successful coup in 1959. Donald C. Simmons, Jr. 384

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Sources for Further Study Abel, Christopher, and Nissa Torrents, eds. José Martí: Revolutionary Democrat. London: Athlone Press, 1986. Langley, Lester D. The Cuban Policy of the United States. New York: Wiley, 1968. Perez, Louis A., Jr. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. _______. Cuba Under the Platt Amendment: 1902-1934. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986. _______. Intervention, Revolution, and Politics in Cuba, 1913-1921. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1978. Suchlicki, Jaime. Cuba: From Columbus to Castro. 3d rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s (U.S.), 1990. Thomas, Hugh. Cuba: Or, The Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Perhaps the most extensive work written about the country. See also: Treaty of Paris (1898); Good Neighbor Policy (1933).

Burke Act Date: May 8, 1906 U.S. Statutes at Large: 34 Stat. 182 U.S. Code: 25 § 349 Categories: Land Management; Native Americans

Passed to improve the process of allotting tribal lands to individual American Indians, the Burke Act contributed to the large-scale loss of Indian land between 1887 and 1934. In 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act (or Dawes Act). This act sought to make small farmers out of American Indians by dividing tribal lands into individual allotments. Indians taking allotments received United States citizenship; the government held the title for the lands in trust for twenty-five years, during which time they could not be sold. At the end of the period, the In385

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dian would receive a fee patent assigning full ownership of the land. Criticism of Allotment The administration of the General Allotment Act prompted considerable criticism. Many of those sympathetic to the Indians were concerned at the distinction between citizenship, which was taken up at the outset, and ownership, which came at the end of the trust period. The discrepancy became a source of worry in 1905 when the Supreme Court ruled that citizenship exempted an Indian from direct federal supervision, thus invalidating federal restrictions on liquor on allotments. Other people simply thought that the trust period postponed too long the time when an Indian might sell his allotment. Provisions and Impact In 1906, Congress passed the Burke Act, named for South Dakota Congressman Charles Henry Burke. The act provided that the trust period could be extended indefinitely on presidential authority, though it also permitted the secretary of the interior to cut the period short if requested by Indians who could prove competence to manage their own affairs. In either case, there would be no citizenship until the end of the trust period, during which individuals would remain subject to federal control. The Burke Act had a major effect on the awarding of allotments, though not the one that some of its supporters had hoped. Though certificates of competency (and fee patents) were awarded cautiously at first, there were clear signs that many allotments quickly passed out of Indian possession once they could be sold or mortgaged. During the act’s first decade of operation, roughly ten thousand fee patents were issued, the vast majority of allotments passing out of Indian ownership. When the ardent assimilationist Fred K. Lane became secretary of the interior in 1917, the process speeded up. Competency certificates and fee patents were often given without the requisite individual investigation, sometimes to Indians who had not asked for them. In four years twenty thousand fee patents were issued, again with much of the land quickly alienated. During the 1920’s, when Burke himself was commissioner of Indian affairs, the process slowed, but the overall trend of allotment 386

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lands passing into the hands of non-Indians continued. By 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act finally stopped the allotment process, Indians had lost 86 million of the 138 million acres they had controlled in 1887. In the meantime the citizenship available under the Burke Act had been made redundant by Congress’s grant of citizenship to all Indians in 1924. William C. Lowe Sources for Further Study Hoxie, Frederick E. A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Prucha, Francis Paul, ed. Americanizing the American Indians: Writings of the “Friends of the Indian” 1880-1900. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973. Washburn, Wilcomb E. The Assault on Indian Tribalism: The General Allotment Law (Dawes Act) of 1887. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1975. See also: General Allotment Act (1887); Indian Citizenship Act

(1924); Indian Reorganization Act (1934).

Pure Food and Drugs Act Also known as: Federal Food and Drugs Act Date: June 30, 1906 U.S. Statutes at Large: 34 Stat. 768 Public law: 59-384 U.S. Code: 21 § 1ff. Categories: Agriculture; Business, Commerce, and Trade; Food

and Drugs; Health and Welfare

One of the earliest laws passed to protect consumer safety, this act prohibited the adulteration or mislabeling of specified food and drug products shipped in interstate or international commerce. 387

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With the rise of the food processing and packaging industry at the end of the 1800’s, consumers became increasingly concerned about the purity of their food. Ingredients that had once come from trusted local sources were now produced by machines and marketed by faceless corporations unaccountable to the public. Adulterated Food In 1883, Harvey Wiley became head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Bureau of Chemistry. Wiley began to investigate and discover incidents of food adulteration, ranging from the use of nontoxic extenders and fillers to the presence of poisonous preservatives. Following the example of Great Britain, which had passed its first national food and drug act in 1875, Wiley began to campaign for a pure food law in the United States, but the powerful food industry lobby branded him a socialist and blocked his efforts, including an unsuccessful bill in 1889. Despite Wiley’s initial failures, public distrust of the food supply continued to mount, fomented by the deaths from botulism of U.S. soldiers who had eaten spoiled canned meat in the SpanishAmerican War (1898), early exposés of the meatpacking industry by William Randolph Hearst, and various other muckraking articles and pamphlets. With only scattered state regulation and none at the federal level, a “buyer beware” caveat governed food and drug consumption. Some housewives even performed their own chemical tests on their food at home to determine its makeup and quality. Food manufacturers countered consumer concerns with advertising designed to emphasize the purity of their products, promoting them as hygienic and staging pure food fairs around the country with samples and cooking demonstrations. While such fairs were very popular and served to introduce processed food products into U.S. domestic life, consumer anxiety about manufactured food persisted. Sinclair’s Exposé In 1904, socialist journalist Upton Sinclair received a challenge from one of his editors: to investigate and write about the lives of the industrial working class. Already working on an article detailing an unsuccessful strike by meat packers in Chicago, Sinclair chose Packingtown there as his investigative site and undertook 388

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seven weeks of research, disguising himself as a stockyard worker to observe the meatpacking process at first hand. The result was The Jungle (1906), a novel about a family of Lithuanian immigrants destroyed by the brutality of stockyard work. The novel’s story was tragic, but its true impact lay in passages graphically depicting unsanitary slaughtering and processing procedures, exposing the widespread practice of selling to the public products made from diseased and chemically tainted meats. The horrors recounted in The Jungle included the sale of spoiled meat whose rot was concealed with chemicals; inclusion of rats’ poisoned carcasses and feces in sausages; the prevalence of tuberculosis among workers handling meat; instances of workers falling into cooking vats, their flesh cooking off into the contents that were subsequently packaged and sold; the use of tripe, pork fat, and beef suet in potted chicken; the rechurning of rancid butter; and the treatment of milk with formaldehyde. In support of his allegations, Sinclair included footnotes quoting from the USDA’s meat-inspection regulations. Macmillan, the publisher initially contracted to publish The Jungle, declined to do so for fear of libel suits from the food industry. Sinclair finally found a potential buyer in Doubleday, Page, and Company, which sent investigators to Packingtown to confirm Sinclair’s allegations. Convinced that the novel’s descriptions could withstand legal challenge and despite pressure from the meat industry, Doubleday agreed to publish The Jungle with one of the first mass publicity campaigns for a book in U.S. history, ushering in the age of modern mass media. Doubleday’s campaign highlighted the novel’s muckraking exposé and targeted everyone from newspaper editors to President Theodore Roosevelt himself, to whom the publisher sent an advance proof of the book. The Jungle was released in February, 1906, to an outraged public primed by advance publicity and became an immediate best-seller. Investigations of the Meatpacking Industry The economic impact of The Jungle‘s disturbing descriptions was dramatic and long-lasting: Domestic meat sales dropped by more than half and remained depressed for more than two decades, leading to an industrywide “eat more meat” campaign in 1928; publication of the book in Great Britain and in seventeen transla389

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tions created an international scandal and caused Germany to raise its import duties on U.S. meat. The political result soon followed: President Roosevelt, after a personal consultation with Sinclair at the White House, wrote to Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson on March 12, 1906, requesting that he undertake a secret investigation of the meatpacking industry with Sinclair’s collaboration. The resulting Neill-Reynolds report gave the president the ammunition he needed to support pure food legislation. Harvey Wiley drafted the law, and Indiana senator Albert Beveridge, the president’s ally and an architect of Progressive reform, brought it to Congress. Passage, Provisions, and Enforcement Beveridge’s bill passed the Senate on May 26 as an amendment to the Agricultural Appropriations bill, but stalled in the House at the behest of the chair of the Committee on Agriculture, James W. Wadsworth, who was apparently under pressure from the meat lobby. Roosevelt responded by releasing the first part of the NeillReynolds report, which confirmed Sinclair’s version of meatprocessing practices and raised public outrage to fever pitch. The meat lobby conceded and, after minor compromises, Congress passed both the Pure Food and Drugs Act and the Meat Inspection Act on June 30, 1906. The Pure Food and Drugs Act prohibited the interstate transportation and sale of adulterated food, including any product that is combined or packed with another substance that adversely affects its quality or strength; is substituted in whole or in part by another substance; has had any essential component removed; has been blended, coated, colored, or stained to conceal damage or inferiority; contains poisonous or harmful additions; is composed of filthy or decomposed animal or vegetable matter; or is the product of a diseased animal or one that died other than by slaughtering. Enforcement of the act was consigned to the USDA’s Bureau of Chemistry until 1928, when the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration (renamed the Food and Drug Administration in 1931) was formed to assume the responsibility. The act was amended in 1911, 1913, and 1919; then, amid charges that the law was inadequately enforced and served to benefit the largest food-processing companies, it was superseded by the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. That act, supplemented by numerous amendments and 390

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acts addressing food processing and inspection procedures, fair packaging and labeling, and drug testing and safety, became the basis of food and drug law. The Food and Drug Administration has remained one of the nation’s oldest consumer protection agencies, and its roots clearly extend back to the events of 1906. Elizabeth J. Miles Sources for Further Study Bloodworth, William A., Jr. Upton Sinclair. Boston: Twayne, 1977. Harris, Leon. Upton Sinclair: American Rebel. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975. Root, Waverly, and Richard de Rochemont. Eating in America: A History. New York: Ecco Press, 1995. Shapiro, Laura. Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. 1906. Reprint. New York: New American Library, 1980. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Milestones in U.S. Food and Drug Law History. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. See also: Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938); Food Additives Amendment (1958); Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968); Food Security Act (1985).

Gentlemen’s Agreement Date: March 14, 1907 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations; Immigra-

tion

Immigration from Japan to the mainland United States was limited to nonlaborers, laborers already settled in the United States, and their families. 391

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From 1638 to 1854, Japan maintained a policy of isolation toward the world, both to preserve peace, which it had not enjoyed for several hundred years, and to protect its cultural values and feudal institutions from foreign influence. This long period of seclusion changed in 1852, when Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry arrived in Edo, Japan, to deliver a letter from President Millard Fillmore to the emperor. Diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States began on March 31, 1854, when a treaty was signed opening two Japanese ports to U.S. ships and permitting the United States to receive any future concessions that might be granted to other powers. For the next thirty years, trade flourished between the two countries. A treaty of commerce and navigation in 1884 retained the most-favored-nation clause in all commercial matters. Japanese Immigration Until 1868, Japan prohibited all emigration. Without obtaining their government’s permission to leave, a group of Japanese laborers, the gannenmono (“first-year” people), arrived in Hawaii on May 17, 1868. Japan was in transition during the 1870’s and 1880’s. During the Meiji Restoration period, following the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867), Japan’s economy and government had been modernized extensively. However, industrialization in urban areas was not accompanied by similar developments in agricultural areas. By 1884, overpopulation, compounded with high unemployment, conditions of drought, crop failure, and famine, had engendered political upheaval and rioting. These changed circumstances led to the legalization of emigration in 1885. The first Japanese immigrants who arrived in California in 1871 were mostly middle-class young men seeking opportunities to study or improve their economic status. By 1880, there were 148 resident Japanese. Their numbers increased to 1,360 in 1891, including 281 laborers and 172 farmers. A treaty between the United States and Japan in 1894 ensured mutual free entry although allowing limitations on immigration based on domestic interests. By 1900, the number of Japanese recorded in the U.S. Census had increased to 24,326. They arrived at ports on the Pacific coast and settled primarily in the Pacific states and British Columbia. An increase in the demand for Hawaiian sugar in turn increased the demand for plantation labor, especially Japanese labor. An era 392

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of government-contract labor began in 1884, only ending with the U.S. annexation of Hawaii in 1898. Sixty thousand Japanese in the islands then became eligible to enter the United States without passports. Between 1899 and 1906, it is estimated that between forty thousand and fifty-seven thousand Japanese moved to the United States via Hawaii, Canada, and Mexico. Nativist Antagonism On the Pacific coast, tensions developed between Asians and other Californians. Although the Japanese immigrant workforce was initially welcomed, antagonism increased as it began to compete with U.S. labor. The emerging trade-union movement advocated a restriction of immigration. An earlier campaign against the Chinese had culminated in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States for ten years. This act constituted the first U.S. law barring immigration based on race or nationality. A similar campaign was instigated against the Japanese. On March 1, 1905, both houses of the California State legislature voted to urge California’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., to pursue the limitation of Japanese immigrants. At a meeting in San Francisco on May 7, delegates from sixty-seven organizations launched the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, known also as the Asiatic Exclusion League. President Theodore Roosevelt, who was involved in the peace negotiations between Japan and Russia, observed the developing situation in California. George Kennan, who was covering the Russo-Japanese War, wrote to the president: It isn’t the exclusion of a few emigrants that hurts here . . . it’s the putting of Japanese below Hungarians, Italians, Syrians, Polish Jews, and degraded nondescripts from all parts of Europe and Western Asia. No proud, high spirited and victorious people will submit to such a classification as that, especially when it is made with insulting reference to personal character and habits.

Roosevelt agreed, saying he was mortified that people in the United States should insult the Japanese. He continued to play a pivotal role in resolving the Japanese-Russian differences at the Portsmouth Peace Conference. Anti-Japanese feeling waned until April, 1906. Following the San Francisco earthquake, an outbreak of crime occurred, includ393

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ing many cases of assault against Japanese. There was also an organized boycott of Japanese restaurants. The Japanese viewed these acts as especially reprehensible. Their government and Red Cross had contributed more relief for San Francisco than all other foreign nations combined. Strained Relations with Japan Tension escalated. The Asian Exclusion League, whose membership was estimated to be 78,500 in California, together with San Francisco’s mayor, pressured the San Francisco school board to segregate Japanese schoolchildren. On October 11, 1906, the board passed its resolution. A protest filed by the Japanese consul was denied. Japan protested that the act violated most-favored-nation treatment. Ambassador Luke E. Wright, in Tokyo, reported Japan’s extremely negative feelings about the matter to Secretary of State Elihu Root. This crisis in Japanese-American relations brought the countries to the brink of war. On October 25, Japan’s ambassador, Shuzo Aoki, met with Root to seek a solution. President Roosevelt, who recognized the justification of the Japanese protest based on the 1894 treaty, on October 26 sent his secretary of commerce and labor to San Francisco to investigate the matter. In his message to Congress on December 4, President Roosevelt paid tribute to Japan and strongly repudiated San Francisco for its anti-Japanese acts. He encouraged Congress to pass an act that would allow naturalization of the Japanese in the United States. Roosevelt’s statements and request pleased Japan but aroused further resentment on the Pacific coast. During the previous twelve months, more than seventeen thousand Japanese had entered the mainland United States, two-thirds coming by way of Hawaii. Roosevelt recognized that the basic cause of the unrest in California— the increasing inflow of Japanese laborers—could be resolved only by checking immigration. Negotiating an Agreement Negotiations with Japan to limit the entry of Japanese laborers began in late December, 1906. Three issues were involved: the rescinding of the segregation order by the San Francisco school board, the withholding of passports to the mainland United States by the Japanese government, and the closing of immigration chan394

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nels through Hawaii, Canada, and Mexico by federal legislation. The Hawaiian issue, which related to an earlier Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1900, was the first resolved through the diplomacy of Japan’s foreign minister, Tadasu Hayashi, ambassadors Wright and Aoki, and Secretary of State Root. Before Japan would agree to discuss immigration to the mainland, it was necessary for the segregation order to be withdrawn. In February, 1907, the president invited San Francisco’s entire board of education, the mayor, and a city superintendent of schools to Washington, D.C., to confer on the segregation issue and other problems related to Japan. On February 18, a pending immigration bill was amended to prevent Japanese laborers from entering the United States via Hawaii, Mexico, or Canada. Assured that immigration of Japanese laborers would be stopped, the school board rescinded their segregation order on March 13. An executive order issued by the president on March 14 put into effect the restrictions on passports. Subsequently, the Japanese government agreed to conclude the Gentlemen’s Agreement. In January, 1908, Foreign Minister Hayashi agreed to the terms of immigration discussed in December, 1907. On March 9, Secretary of State Root instructed Ambassador Wright to thank Japan, thus concluding the negotiations begun in December, 1906. As reported by the commissioner general of immigration in 1908, the Japanese government would issue passports for travel to the continental United States only to nonlaborers, laborers who were former residents of the United States, parents, wives, or children of residents, and “settled agriculturalists.” A final provision prevented secondary immigration into the United States by way of Hawaii, Mexico, or Canada. When the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907 cut off new supplies of Japanese labor, Filipinos were recruited to take their place, both in Hawaii and in California, as well as in the Alaskan fishing industry. As U.S. nationals, Filipinos could not be prevented from migrating to the United States. Susan E. Hamilton Sources for Further Study Boddy, E. Manchester. Japanese in America. 1921. Reprint. San Francisco: R&E Research Associates, 1970. 395

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Esthus, Raymond A. Theodore Roosevelt and Japan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967. Herman, Masako, ed. The Japanese in America, 1843-1973. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1974. Kikumura, Akemi. Issei Pioneers: Hawaii and the Mainland, 1885 to 1924. Los Angeles: Japanese American National Museum, 1992. U.S. Department of State. Report of the Hon. Roland S. Morris on Japanese Immigration and Alleged Discriminatory Legislation Against Japanese Residents in the United States. 1921. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1978. See also: Treaty of Kanagawa (1854); Alien land laws (1913); Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932); War Brides Act (1945); U.S.Japanese Treaty (1951).

Opium Exclusion Act Date: February 9, 1909 U.S. Statutes at Large: 35 Stat. 614 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Business, Commerce, and

Trade; Food and Drugs; Health and Welfare

The Opium Exclusion Act prohibited the use and importation of the drug for other than medicinal purposes. The sponsors of the act intended to suppress illicit uses of the drug and to send a signal to countries involved in the production and trade of opium to do the same. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts introduced the opium exclusion bill on January 4, 1909. Drafted by Elihu Root, chairman of the American Opium Commission, the bill was part of the commission’s attempt to root out the Chinese opium trade through international cooperation. A bill regulating the importation of opium into the United States was needed as a signal to other countries. Enemies of the bill opposed it on the grounds that the act, by placing the Department of Agriculture in charge of executing it, 396

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would give the federal government police powers constitutionally reserved for the states. To accommodate the critics, the authors of the bill changed it to transfer responsibility for implementing the law from the Agriculture Department to the Treasury Department, thereby declaring it a revenue bill. Thomas Winter Sources for Further Study Bewley-Taylor, David R. The United States and International Drug Control, 1909-1997. New York: Pinter, 1999. Courtwright, David T. Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America. Enlarged ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. Musto, David F., ed. Drugs in America: A Documentary History. New York: New York University Press, 2002. See also: Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844); Burlingame Treaty (1868);

Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906); Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914); National Narcotics Act (1984).

Copyright Act of 1909 Date: March 4, 1909 U.S. Statutes at Large: 35 Stat. 1075 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Copyrights, Patents,

and Trademarks

The Copyright Act of 1909 was the end product of hundreds of years of common and statutory copyright law. Under copyright law in general, authors or creators of original works have the exclusive right to reproduce (or authorize others to reproduce) these works and are protected against unlawful copying, known as plagiarism or piracy. “Original” does not mean “unique.” Original works are those created by the author’s own in397

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tellectual or creative effort, as opposed to having been copied. Copying all or part of a work without permission of the author (or any agency the author has authorized for copying) constitutes copyright infringement. Willful unauthorized copying for the purpose of making a profit is a criminal offense punishable by fine or imprisonment. When authors suspect infringement but have no grounds for charging criminal intent, they can bring civil action against the alleged offender. Under certain circumstances, parts of authors’ works can be copied without permission according to what is known as the fair use doctrine. The Basics of Copyright Works are protected by copyright for a specific length of time. At the end of that time, a work is said to be in the public domain and can be copied without permission. Ever since the concept of the right to copy was established and codified, copyright has existed under both common and statutory law. Common law is unwritten law, based on tradition and precedent. Statutory law is written law passed by a legislative body, such as the British Parliament or the U.S. Congress. In general, common law protects a work before it is published and statutory law protects it after it is published. In both common and statutory law, it is assumed that what is written or created is property. The creator of a work has sole ownership of the work and the right to dispose of it as one would any other type of property; that is, to sell it, lease it, transfer it, or leave it in a will. Upon publication of the work, the author gives up some of the ownership rights granted by common law but is given monetary rewards for doing so. The law is based on two sometimes conflicting principles: authors should be rewarded for their labors and knowledge should be made readily available to the pubic for the good of society as a whole. Much of the history of copyright law is concerned with attempts to reconcile these two principles. Historical Precedents The concept and fundamental issues of copyright date back at least as far as the fifteenth century. With the invention of printing, copies of both ancient and contemporary works began to proliferate and become readily available to the public. Early English copyright law began to address the questions of what should be printed, who 398

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ultimately owned the works and for how long, how the owners should be compensated for them, and who should be authorized to copy them. Throughout Europe, by the sixteenth century printing had developed from an unregulated cottage industry of craftsmen to a full-fledged profession and a thriving large-scale industry. Usually, the printers of books were also the vendors of them. In England, the printing and selling of books was done by a monopoly called the Stationers’ Company. Copyright at this time was a license given to the Stationers’ Company by royal decree. The decree gave the company exclusive rights to print all works the government deemed proper to print. The law was for the benefit of publishers and booksellers more than for authors. Furthermore, since the license to publish was granted on the basis of what the government decided could or could not be published, it was actually a form of censorship. It bore little resemblance to the laws that followed but did recognize that what was written in a book was as much property as was the book itself. Authors, who had hitherto been supported by wealthy, interested patrons rather than by sale of their work, could now earn money (although hardly a living wage) apart from patronage by selling their manuscripts to printers, who paid them a lump sum. It was generally accepted that once the manuscript was sold, the work was no longer the property of the author. Copyright infringement, which frequently consisted of printing unauthorized works outside the Stationers’ monopoly, was more an offense against the publisher, or those who licensed the publisher, than against the author. By the late seventeenth century, the English press was generally liberated from the dictates of the authorities. There was much less censorship, and licenses to the Stationers’ Company were no longer renewed. Freedom of the press destroyed the Stationers’ monopoly, for now anyone could print virtually anything. An unfettered press also meant a lack of protection for authors from piracy and plagiarism. Literary piracy long had been considered an outrage, if not actually a criminal offense, and was supposed to be prevented by common law, but there were few means of enforcing common law. Both authors and booksellers pressured Parliament for legislation that would protect authors from piracy and provide booksellers with enough security to allow them to stay in business. In 1710, Parliament responded with the Statute of Anne, named 399

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for the reigning queen. The Statute of Anne established time limits, with renewals, on how long a published work would be protected before it went into the public domain and outlined penalties for copyright infringement. The law was not clear, however, on how long an unpublished work was protected by common law or whether common law was superseded by statutory law after a work was published. It did not answer whether an author gave up all rights to a work after it was published. There were many cases in which publishers freely copied works for which the statutory term of protection had expired. When the authors of the works complained that this free copying was a violation of their common law rights, the English courts decided that once a work had been published and the term of protection had expired, common law rights no longer applied. This conflict sparked long and heated debates over ownership and the balance between authors’ rights and the public good. These debates continued through the twentieth century. Limited and controversial as it was, the Statute of Anne became the pattern for all subsequent copyright legislation in both England and the United States. Twelve of the thirteen original states adopted copyright statutes before the federal Constitution was drawn up. These statutes were summarized in Article I, section 8 of the federal Constitution, which says: “Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” The first federal copyright law, enacted in 1790, was revised in 1831 and 1879. On March 4, 1909, Congress passed a copyright law that remained in effect until revisions were made in 1976. Provisions of the 1909 Act The 1909 law states that the purpose of copyright is “not primarily for the benefit of the author, but primarily for the benefit of the public.” Although unpublished works were still held to be covered by common law, publication was necessary in order for a work to be covered by statutory law, and an author’s rights under statutory law were substantially different from what they were under common law. Under the 1909 law, there was no general protection of unpublished works. Omission of or serious error in a copyright notice or failure to deposit a copy in the Copyright Office resulted in loss or forfeit of copyright. 400

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The Copyright Office, located in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., was established by the 1909 law to keep records and register works. The law outlined procedures for registration of copyright, detailed circumstances of and penalties for infringement, and listed fourteen categories of works that could be copyrighted. It codified the standard of copyrightability of a work as being original by the author and not copied from other work. It also lengthened the duration of copyright to twenty-eight years, renewable for twenty-eight more. Just as the Statute of Anne had responded to the implications of the new technology of the printing press, so the law of 1909 tried to respond to the new technology of the early twentieth century. The 1909 law grew out of centuries of political upheaval, factional controversy, technological development, and legislative compromise. As English government swung from monarchy to republic and back to monarchy again, up to the early eighteenth century, written work was first strictly censored and then liberated to the point of anarchy. Printing had made works of all kinds widely available, and once the press was liberated in England, the rights of publishers, authors, and the public came into sharp conflict. Some of the conflicts were resolved by the Statute of Anne, which served as a pattern for American copyright law. In the spirit of the original state laws and the federal copyright law of 1790, the 1909 law stated its purpose as being “primarily for the public,” thus favoring the rights of the public over the rights of authors but allowing for reward to authors in order to encourage them to continue producing. In this way, the conflicting principles of rewards to creators and the “promotion of progress in science and useful arts” for the common good seemed to be reconciled. By extending the term of copyright coverage, it gave more protection to authors than previous legislation had. It provided no protection, however, for unpublished work, and it tended to supersede common law, since publication was a necessary condition for copyright. Nor did it address the special issues of copyright involved for writers as employees or contractors, such as newspaper reporters and freelance writers, who do what is known as “work for hire.” The fair use doctrine had been applied even in early copyright law and was based on the constitutional principle of public benefit from authors’ works. In 1961, while the 1909 law was still in effect, the Copyright Office listed what could be copied without permis401

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sion and for what purpose. Research, instruction, and literary review, for example, were given fairly broad rights to copy. Fair use was not codified until the copyright law revision of 1976. New Technology, Need for Revision As technology improved and became more varied, the 1909 law lagged in its provisions. In describing the classes of works that were copyrightable, the language of the 1909 law indicated that it was still largely based on the technology of the printing press. It protected the “writings” of an author, whereas later law protects “original works of authorship,” thus broadening the definition of “author” and lengthening the list of what can be considered to be authors’ works. Although the 1909 law listed motion pictures and sound recordings among the classes of copyrightable works, it made inadequate provision for the protection of what was disseminated via these new technologies and no provision at all for infringement issues arising from the use of photocopy machines, television, videotapes, computers, or cable and satellite communications. Beginning in 1955, there were several attempts to revise the law, but it was not extensively revised until 1976 (effective in 1978). The most significant impact of the 1909 copyright law on the writing and publishing world and on society in general, as beneficiary of authors’ work, is that it was specific, whereas prior legislation had been general. By establishing a Copyright Office, listing the kinds of works that could be copyrighted, and outlining how they could be protected, it sought to resolve the ongoing conflict between rewarding creators and benefiting their audiences. Christina Ashton Sources for Further Study Brylawski, E. Fulton, and Abe Goldman, eds. and comps. Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act. South Hackensack, N.J.: F. B. Rothman, 1976. Bunnin, Brad, and Peter Beren. “What Is Copyright?” In The Writer’s Legal Companion. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1988. Dible, Donald M., ed. What Everybody Should Know About Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights. Fairfield, Calif.: Entreprenuer Press, 1978. 402

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Goldfarb, Ronald L., and Gail E. Ross. “What Every Writer Should Know About Copyright.” In The Writer’s Lawyer. New York: Times Books, 1989. Johnston, Donald F. Copyright Handbook. 2d ed. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1982. Kaplan, Benjamin. An Unhurried View of Copyright. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. Moore, Waldo, and Kirk Polking. “Ten Questions About the New Copyright Law.” In Law and the Writer, edited by Leonard S. Meranus. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 1978. Wincor, Richard, and Irving Mandell. “Historical Background— Copyright Law.” In Copyright, Patents, and Trademarks. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1980. See also: Copyright Act of 1976 (1976); Trademark Law Revision

Act (1988); North American Free Trade Agreement (1993); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994); Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998).

Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act Also known as: Tariff Act of 1909 Date: August 5, 1909 U.S. Statutes at Large: 36 Stat. 95 U.S. Code: 48 § 739 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance; Business, Commerce,

and Trade; Tariffs and Taxation

The Tariff Act of 1909 forced corporations, for the first time, to open their books to the United States government for inspection and audit. The Tariff Act of 1909, also known as the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, can be characterized as one part of a growing progressive movement against rapid concentrations of wealth during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Social forces were driven by sentiment against those business tycoons perceived as reaping exorbitant profits at the expense of the masses of laborers. In the 403

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meantime, political figures, determined to address the concerns of their constituents, were also challenged by growing federal deficits. The need to finance and eradicate the national debt while circumventing the appearance of imposing an income tax, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, was imperative. Provisions and Penalties The direct result was an excise tax on corporate forms of businesses. An indirect result was the authorization for the Internal Revenue Service to audit corporate records with respect to enforcing compliance with the excise tax. The invasion into corporate records and accounting practices, which were until that time considered highly guarded secrets, was as traumatic to business as was the tax itself. Section 38 of the Tariff Act of 1909 authorized a special excise tax on net incomes of domestic corporations, joint stock companies, associations organized for profit and having capital stock represented by shares, insurance companies, and foreign corporations operating in the United States or United States territories. The tax was 1 percent of net incomes in excess of $5,000 after allowing deductions for ordinary and necessary operating expenses, losses, depreciation charges, interest and taxes paid, and dividends received from organizations subject to this new tax. All taxable incomes were assessed on a calendar-year basis, with tax returns due on March 1 of the following year. Penalties were determined for fraud, failure to file, and late returns. Fraud carried a corporate penalty of 100 percent of the tax due and a fine with a minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $10,000. Individuals responsible for fraud were subject to fines of up to $1,000, imprisonment of up to one year, or both. Failure to file a return carried a corporate penalty of 150 percent of the tax due and a fine with a minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $10,000. Responsible individuals were subject to the same fines and imprisonment terms as set forth for fraud. Corporations were assessed a penalty of 5 percent of the tax due plus 1 percent interest, per month, of the tax due for late returns. Socioeconomic Conditions The period from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s was one in which the United States experienced an economic transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society. This transition 404

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caused a population shift from the country to cities. Wealth became concentrated among the few fortunate enough to own businesses. The business climate was ripe for increases in wealth for going concerns, as business was favored by cheap immigrant labor and raw materials, an expanding market, and high protective tariffs against imports, such as those imposed by the Dingley Tariff Act of 1897. Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller reached their financial zeniths during this time period in the steel, banking, and railroad industries, among others. The recessions of 1893 and 1907 also contributed to wealth concentration, as they allowed or encouraged large corporations to buy out smaller firms unable to weather the financial storms. For example, the Morgan family bought the Morse shipping interests, a competitor to the Morgan New Haven Railroad. Morgan’s United States Steel Corporation bought the troubled Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. Monopolies or highly concentrated markets were formed as a result of this financial concentration. For example, 95 percent of the railroad track in the United States was owned by six investment groups by 1900. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was designed to defuse monopoly power by breaking large monopolies into smaller, diversely owned entities. The Sherman Act was loosely enforced by the government, however, and corporations often appeared to have more wealth and political power than did the government. Industrialists circumvented antitrust law by breaking up their consolidated corporations and creating holding companies, which evaded antitrust legislation but in substance were essentially the same form of entities. Organized Labor On the labor side, the experiences of the 1880’s and 1890’s brought a maturity to organized labor, which became strong enough to begin challenging corporate sovereignty. The oppression of labor through low wages, poor working conditions, and long hours encouraged the formation of labor unions. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) grew to a membership of approximately half a million by 1898 and more than 1.6 million by 1906, accounting for more than three-fifths of all trade-union workers. The unity of labor, demonstrated by strikes, caused industrialists to become conciliatory toward labor, and corporate concessions 405

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were made. For example, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) won an unprecedented victory in 1897 when the conditions of 100,000 striking mine workers were met, including a 20 percent pay increase, the eight-hour day, abolition of company stores, recognition of the union, and a provision for annual joint conferences with the mine operators. This newfound success encouraged labor to move toward a socialist philosophy, not to abolish capitalism but to share in corporate profits. States also began exercising power over corporations by passing prolabor legislation in the early 1900’s. Child protection laws were passed in all states, and many states passed laws to protect laborers, particularly women, from unsafe working conditions. Workers’ compensation laws were passed in Maryland (1902), Montana (1909), Massachusetts (1909), and New York (1910). These laws were declared unconstitutional shortly thereafter but were constitutionally reinstated before 1920. Finally, the federal government saw the mood as right to challenge the power of corporate America. Immediate Impact of the Tariff The convergence of social, political, and legal sentiment against large corporations led to the Tariff Act of 1909. The act was sponsored by senators Sereno Elisha Payne and Nelson W. Aldrich. Aldrich was a particularly powerful senator who wished to mitigate or repeal certain tariffs contained in the Dingley Tariff Act of 1897 pertaining to favored special interest groups. To offset the revenue reductions, however, new taxes had to be imposed to meet the $100 million federal deficit. Opposed to an income tax, Aldrich included an inheritance tax in his act. A coalition of Republican Party dissidents demanded that an income tax be included. To prevent a split within the Republican Party, President William Howard Taft stepped in and worked out a compromise. The result was the Tariff Act of 1909, authorizing an excise tax on the privilege of operating corporate forms of business with the excise based on corporate net incomes. The immediate, and most significant, impact of the Tariff Act of 1909 was the intrusion of government into corporate financial affairs. Government had established an implicit control of corporations, at least in principle. The Internal Revenue Service was authorized to audit corporate records if it had reason to believe 406

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returns were incorrect or not filed as required. Authorization was also given to use the courts to force compliance. Challenging the Tariff’s Constitutionality Looking more like an income tax than an excise tax, the special tax was challenged in Flint v. Stone Tracy Company in 1911. It was affirmed by the Supreme Court as constitutional. The Court ruled that this tax was an indirect tax, not a direct tax, on individuals through stock ownership and therefore was not subject to apportionment according to the population. The Court expounded that there were distinct advantages to operating in the corporate form of entity and that Congress had the right to tax that privilege with an excise tax. The tax could be based on any component of the corporation that Congress saw fit, including its income. The 1911 decision made it apparent that corporations had no further recourse. For the first time in history, records of U.S. corporations were open to outside inspection. Laissez-faire no longer applied. Furthermore, the requirement to report corporate incomes on standardized government forms set in motion a standardization of accounting principles and an accountability to shareholders virtually nonexistent before. Prior to 1909, corporate records were guarded closely by the few principal corporate owners. Most investment bankers and stockholders were uninformed regarding the financial position and operations of corporations. They relied on the reports of the principals, sometimes to their detriment. Moreover, investors were generally unsophisticated in financial matters and were therefore willing to accept the reports in blind faith. When investment bankers asked for audited financial statements, some corporations would refuse to sell securities through those individuals. Long-Range Effects Reporting behavior changed as a result of the excise tax. It was not uncommon for corporations to keep two sets of records, one for tax reporting and one for reporting to stockholders and other users of financial statements. Lower, and probably more accurate, earnings were reported to the government. Despite this new accountability to the government, shareholders had no protection from securities fraud until the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934. 407

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Depreciation policy received greater attention as a result of the act because this was the only expense deductible against income that could be based on estimates rather than determined on a cash basis. Before the Tariff Act of 1909, no method of depreciation allocation was prescribed, and accordingly, a multitude of methods was used. For example, Standard Oil Company applied depreciation rates of 6 to 35 percent around 1905, depending on the equipment, but the rates were not necessarily applied in proportion to the normal lives of the assets. John D. Rockefeller, the company’s principal owner, thought that the company assets were undervalued around the time of the Tariff Act. Consequently, the public records of Standard Oil show “depreciation restored.” It is uncertain whether this short-lived practice was used to recapitalize asset values for later tax deductions. Although the Tariff Act of 1909 required no standard method of depreciation, later tariff acts narrowed the methods acceptable for reporting purposes. The corporate excise tax became a corporate income tax in 1913 with the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, which allowed for direct taxation not apportioned according to population. The difference between the income tax of 1913 and the excise tax before 1913 was in name only. The reporting requirements remained the same. As later tariff acts refined income and expense reporting requirements, tax planning became an important corporate management function. When the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934 created the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the accounting of corporations that publicly traded securities, many of the accounting methods established by the tariff acts, such as depreciation methods and inventory costing methods, were adopted by the commission. The Tariff Act of 1909 thus formed a basis for generally accepted accounting principles to be used by publicly owned corporations. Paul A. Shoemaker Sources for Further Study Anderson, Donald F. William Howard Taft: A Conservative’s Conception of the Presidency. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973. Beth, Loren P. The Development of the American Constitution 18771917. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. 408

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Carson, Gerald. The Golden Egg. Boston: Houghton Miffin, 1977. Degler, Carl N. Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modern America. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Faulkner, Harold U. The Decline of Laissez Faire, 1897-1917. New York: Rinehart, 1951. _______. The Quest for Social Justice 1898-1914. New York: Macmillan, 1931. Kintner, Earl W., ed. Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes: A Legislative History. 11 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978, 1982-1985. Ratner, Sidney. Taxation and Democracy in America. New York: John Wiley, 1967. Seligman, Edwin. The Income Tax: A Study of the History, Theory, and Practice of Income Taxation at Home and Abroad. 2d ed. New York: Macmillan, 1914. See also: Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); Dingley Tariff (1897);

Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909); Sixteenth Amendment (1913); Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930); Securities Exchange Act (1934).

Mann Act Also known as: White-Slave Traffic Act Date: June 25, 1910 U.S. Statutes at Large: 36 Stat. 825 U.S. Code: 18 § 2421 (for 1948) Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

This act prohibited the interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes and was the first national legislation specifically outlawing sexually oriented activities considered detrimental to the public welfare. Prostitution in the United States is as old as the country. Until the Mann Act, it was regulated by state statutes that generally prohibited the practice. Enforcement, however, was universally lax. The powerful men who controlled the syndicates that owned many of 409

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the brothels and controlled the women who worked in them had the political influence it took to protect their operations even though laws existed in virtually every state that specifically prohibited prostitution. Vigorous enforcement of antiprostitution laws generally occurred only after vice commissions or outraged citizens’ groups, often religiously oriented, raised a loud outcry against prostitution in their communities. Enforcement stepped up when such outcries arose, then died down quickly and continued to be sporadic. Many law enforcement officials across the nation grew wealthy from the bribes they accepted from those who controlled prostitution. “White Slavery” Beginning in the reform era of the 1890’s and continuing into the early 1900’s, however, sensational reports began to surface about the widespread existence of “white slavery,” the name given to the transportation of women from depressed rural areas to large cities, where they were forced into prostitution. Such reports alarmed a public that had already been shocked by Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1896) and Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900), two influential novels that drew widespread attention to prostitution and aroused strong public sentiment against it. Lincoln Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities (1904), which focused attention on the corruption that pervaded most major American cities of that period, also aroused the public. At this time, it must be remembered, the many women’s suffrage groups actively crusading to gain the franchise for women were focusing considerable attention upon women’s rights. Also active in the 1890’s and early 1900’s were temperance groups, most of them dominated by women, who were calling for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Members of these groups, most notably members of the Anti-Saloon League, founded in 1893, were active in calling for strict enforcement of antiprostitution statutes. Provisions The Mann Act was also enacted to comply with an international treaty prohibiting the movement of prostitutes between nations and to respond to domestic hysteria that a conspiracy of coerced prostitution, so-called “white slavery,” was flourishing in U.S. cities. It pro410

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hibited the interstate transportation of women for “prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.” The act initially imposed a fine of up to five thousand dollars and a prison term of up to five years, or both, upon those who violated this law. These penalties were doubled if the victims were minors. The legislative history is clear beyond serious argument that Congress did not intend the law to address premarital sex or extramarital affairs, not commercial in nature, that involved a woman crossing a state line. Supreme Court Decisions In Hoke v. United States (1913), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the statute against a charge that it exceeded the power of the federal government under the interstate commerce clause. Viewed with the hindsight of history, this was a modest expansion of federal power; far greater was yet to come. Caminetti v. United States (1917) is the best known of the Mann Act cases to come before the Court. Two couples, in extramarital but totally noncommercial relationships, traveled from California to Nevada and were charged with violating the act. The defendants pointed to the legislative history of the statute and argued that the law was intended to criminalize the transportation of prostitutes only. The Court rejected this means of interpretation and declared that it would look only to the plain meaning of the statute. “Immoral purpose” had to mean something beyond prostitution; an extramarital relationship was “immoral,” and therefore, the male defendants were guilty. Although the Court occasionally revisited the Mann Act and further refined its meaning, Hoke and Caminetti are the most significant cases. During the 1910’s and 1920’s the act was vigorously enforced, especially in noncommercial interstate travel involving unmarried couples. As American mores changed, it was increasingly used to combat prostitution, its original purpose. Ultimately in 1986 Congress amended the law, changing the prohibition to apply to interstate transportation of women for prostitution or any other sexual activity that is punishable by law. Interstate travel involving legal, noncommercial sexual activity was no longer a federal felony. R. Baird Shuman (through “White Slavery”) and David J. Langum (“Provisions” and “Supreme Court Decisions”) 411

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Source for Further Study Langum, David J. Crossing Over the Line: Legislating Morality and the Mann Act. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. See also: Violence Against Women Act (1994); Megan’s Law

(1996).

Panama Canal Act Also known as: Panama Tolls Act Date: August 24, 1912 U.S. Statutes at Large: 37 Stat. 560 U.S. Code: 48 § 1305 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Foreign Relations;

Transportation

The Panama Canal Act provided for the establishment, administration, and functions of government in the ten-mile-wide Panama Canal Zone. The Spanish-American War (1898) emphasized the need for a canal to be built across the isthmus of Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. On June 28, 1902, Congress passed the Spooner Act, designating that the canal be constructed across Panama. Colombia controlled Panama and rejected offers made by the United States. In 1903, Panama revolted against Colombia and declared its independence on November 3. On November 18, 1903, Phillippe Jean Bunau-Varilla, the appointed Panamanian ambassador to the United States, and U.S. Secretary of State John Hay completed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty giving the United States the authority to construct and operate a canal across Panama. Construction on the canal began in 1906. On August 24, 1912, the Panama Canal Act provided for the establishment, administration, and functions of government in the ten-mile-wide Panama Canal Zone. Under the direction of the president of the United States, a governor selected by the U.S. Senate would oversee the operation of the canal, as well as the duties 412

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associated with governing the Canal Zone. A U.S. district court would hold legal jurisdiction over the Canal Zone, with a judge appointed by the president of the United States. Appeals would go through the Fifth U.S. Court of Appeals headquartered in New Orleans. Provisions were made for the president of the United States to establish regulations for health matters, sanitation, tolls, and military control of the Canal Zone during times of war or other emergencies. The act exempted all U.S. vessels from the payment of canal tolls. The British protested, claiming that the exemption violated the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901. They demanded that the United States either repeal the toll exemption or arbitrate the dispute. The act of 1912 provided the governance necessary to complete the colossal canal in August, 1914, at a cost of about four hundred million dollars. On June 15, 1914, at the request of President Woodrow Wilson, the U.S. Congress repealed the U.S. toll exemption clause from the act of 1912. Canal traffic increased dramatically after World War I. Almost all commercial and private interoceanic travel use the Panama Canal. Oil supertankers are an exception because they are too wide to pass through the locks of the canal. On September 7, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty guaranteeing that the Panama Canal would be transferred to Panama by the year 2000. After a long and bitter debate, the U.S. Senate approved the treaty. On December 31, 1999, control of the canal was officially transferred to Panama, some eighty-seven years after the Panama Canal Act of 1912 was approved. Alvin K. Benson Source for Further Study Chidsey, Donald Barr. The Panama Canal: An Informal History. New York: Crown Publishers, 1970. LaFeber, Walter. The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. McCullough, David G. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977. See also: Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850); Panama Canal Treaties

(1978).

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Sixteenth Amendment Date: Ratified February 3, 1913; certified February 25, 1913 U.S. Statutes at Large: 36 Stat. 184 Categories: Constitutional Law; Tariffs and Taxation

Adopted to overturn an 1895 Supreme Court ruling that found an income tax to be unconstitutional, this amendment permitted the imposition of an income tax without the need to apportion the tax among the states on the basis of population. The Supreme Court, in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co. (1895), ruled that the income tax law of 1894 was unconstitutional and void. Because part of the tax applied to money received from the leasing of land, it was a direct tax and therefore needed to be apportioned among the states on the basis of population This decision raised a public outcry because the tax law, which affected only the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, was very popular. After his inauguration in 1909, President William H. Taft proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn the Court’s ruling. The result was the Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, which gave Congress the power to impose an income tax without apportioning it. Although the explicit purpose of the amendment was to overturn the Court’s ruling, the Court, in Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. (1916), averred that the amendment conferred no new power of taxation but simply prohibited taking the income tax out of the category of indirect taxes, “to which it inherently belonged.” John Andrulis Source for Further Study Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909).

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Migratory Bird Act Also known as: Weeks-McLean Act Date: March 4, 1913 U.S. Statutes at Large: 37 Stat. 828, 847 Categories: Agriculture; Animals; Environment and Conservation

The Migratory Bird Act gave the U.S. Department of Agriculture authority to regulate the hunting seasons of migratory game and insectivorous birds. On March 4, 1913, the U.S. Congress passed and President William Howard Taft signed the Weeks-McLean Act. Also known as the Migratory Bird Act, the law gave the Department of Agriculture authority to regulate the hunting season of a wide range of bird species. The act placed under U.S. protection all migratory game and insectivorous birds with northern or southern migration paths that passed through any U.S. state or territory. The passage of the act was an important step in bird protection. While individual states had laws protecting resident bird species from excessive hunting, the laws did not protect birds that migrated from the Canadian Arctic to the American Gulf Coast. The Weeks-McLean Act extended federal protection to these species. Events in the late 1800’s led to a changing public view of the need for bird protection. The slaughter of birds in their nesting grounds had severely depleted the populations of several species. The birds’ plight, brought to the public’s attention by the cooperation of many organizations, resulted in widespread support for the Weeks-McLean Act. Decline of Species At the beginning of the twentieth century, responsibility for bird protection rested mainly with a scientific group, the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU). The main purpose of the AOU, which was founded in 1883, was to help identify and classify bird species. Although the union supported state laws that prohibited the killing of certain endangered birds, it had no enforcement power. The mass destruction of the passenger pigeon by commercial hunting did much to help change public attitudes. These birds 415

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were killed by the millions. Commercial hunters descended on breeding grounds covering up to forty-five square miles and slaughtered so many birds that the birds’ bodies filled freight cars. Once numbering in the hundreds of millions, the pigeon was scarce by the 1880’s. The species became extinct in 1914, when the last bird died in the Cincinnati Zoo. Less publicized was the destruction of nongame birds such as warblers, terns, and egrets. The feathered-hat craze of the late 1800’s resulted in the mass slaughter of these nongame birds for their feathers. Commercial hunters invaded nesting areas, wiping out colony after colony. Lacey Act Sportsmen’s groups and state Audubon societies helped to pass the first federal legislation for bird protection, the Lacey Act of 1900. Sponsored by Representative John F. Lacey of Iowa, the law forbade the interstate shipment of any birds killed in violation of state laws. Although the Lacey Act’s application was limited to species already protected by individual states, it placed the authority and enforcement powers of the federal government behind the birdprotection movement. Many protected songbirds were being killed and sold across state lines as game birds; other species were hunted as sources of hat feathers. The Lacey Act, wherever enforced, stopped these practices. The act made the Bureau of Biological Survey in the Agriculture Department responsible for enforcing the law. The Biological Survey was charged with enforcing the Lacey Act, but Congress did not provide funding for a federal police force. The survey had to rely on the cooperation of states, conservation groups, and commercial interests to protect bird species. Sportsmen and nature lovers thus continued to fight for federal protection of migratory birds. Passage of Weeks-McLean In 1912, Representative John W. Weeks of New Hampshire and Senator George P. McLean of Connecticut proposed a bill to regulate migratory birds on the grounds that migration of waterfowl across state boundaries constituted interstate commerce. Because the bill extended federal powers, it was strongly opposed by states’rights congressmen from the South and West. Widespread public support for bird protection urged the passage of the bill, but Con416

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gress would not act on it. Toward the end of the congressional session in March, 1913, the migratory bird legislation was attached as a rider to an agricultural appropriation bill. Concealed in this manner, it passed both houses of Congress and was signed by Taft during the last hours of his administration. With the passage of the Weeks-McLean Act, the secretary of agriculture authorized the Biological Survey to draft suitable regulations prescribing and fixing hunting seasons. The regulations clearly defined the species considered to be migratory game and insectivorous birds. The regulations also provided a detailed schedule of closed hunting seasons on these birds for various zones throughout the United States. George Grinnell and John Lacey were among those appointed to an advisory board to assist the secretary of agriculture in making the law effective. The regulations went into effect on October 1, 1913. Impact and Subsequent Legislation The Weeks-McLean Act was the most sweeping action of its time taken by the country for the protection of wildlife, but its usefulness was hampered by Congress’s failure to provide sufficient enforcement funding. The greatest blow to the Migratory Bird Act, however, came from a federal court case in Arkansas in 1914. An individual had killed birds in violation of the Weeks-McLean law and was indicted for the offense. The federal judge for the case rendered an opinion adverse to the law. He stated that no provision of the Constitution allowed Congress to claim that migratory birds were the property of the U.S. government. In his opinion, attempts to regulate the shooting of these birds were unconstitutional. The judge’s decision effectively negated the Migratory Bird Act. In the meantime, a bird-protection treaty was being negotiated between the United States and Canada. Supporters of the WeeksMcLean Act actively urged passage of the treaty. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was passed by Congress in 1918. Its regulations had a firmer legal foundation; treaties take precedence over state laws. The treaty also gave the Biological Survey international responsibilities in protecting and regulating hunting of migratory birds. Even though the Weeks-McLean Act itself was unsuccessful in protecting bird species, the massive public support for the law aided in the passage of the treaty. The regulations of the bird law formed the basis for the protection of migratory and insectivorous 417

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birds under the international treaty. This treaty was a major step in satisfying America’s growing desire to protect its wildlife. The Weeks-McLean Act formed the basis for future wildlife protection policy in the United States. The law’s regulations recognized the importance of species other than game birds. Insectivorous birds are song and other perching birds that feed either entirely or chiefly on insects. The protection of these migratory birds would indirectly protect farmers, as many of the insects eaten by these birds are destructive to crops and fruit trees. The act also established the Biological Survey as a federal agency empowered to enforce its regulations. With the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the survey became part of early international efforts to protect bird and other wildlife species. The survey would eventually become the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with a wider range of responsibilities. The regulations written for the Weeks-McLean Act recognized the importance of protecting birds in their nesting grounds from any hunting. Species could not reproduce adequately if breeding colonies were destroyed. This concept would later be expanded to include the protection of wildlife habitats by the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Pamela R. Justice Sources for Further Study Bird Lore. “The Federal Migratory-Bird Law in the Courts.” July, 1914, 322-323. _______. “Proposed Regulations for the Protection of Migratory Birds.” July, 1913, 230-235. Cooke, Wells W. “Saving the Ducks and Geese.” National Geographic, March, 1913, 360-380. Dunlap, Thomas R. Saving America’s Wildlife. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Fox, Stephen. John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement. Boston: Little, Brown, 1981. Pearson, T. G. “Weeks-McLean Law.” Bird Lore, March, 1913, 137138. Reiger, John F. American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. Scientific American. “Federal Regulations for Protection of Migratory Birds.” July 22, 1913, 66. 418

Seventeenth Amendment See also: Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918); Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934); Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Endangered Species Act (1973); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979).

Seventeenth Amendment Date: Ratified April 8, 1913; certified May 31, 1913 U.S. Statutes at Large: 37 Stat. 646 Categories: Constitutional Law; Voting and Elections

The Seventeenth Amendment provided for direct election of U.S. senators and represents one of the first advances in the movement toward direct democracy during the early twentieth century. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 provided for a bicameral national legislature. The House of Representatives, voted on directly by the electorate, reflects a measure of direct, or pure, democracy. The other chamber, the Senate, was created to represent the states, thereby providing a check on the lower chamber. In contrast to the members of the House, who are voted on every two years, the Senate’s members (according to the first clause of Article I, section 3 of the U.S. Constitution) were initially chosen by state legislatures. In cases of vacancy, section 2 allowed the state executive to make temporary appointments of senators pending state legislative action. Only one-third of the Senate seats are up for election every two years. James Wilson of Pennsylvania proposed direct election of senators at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, and in the midnineteenth century Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee, advocated direct elections both as senator and as president, but there was virtually no support for that approach. After the Civil War, however, popular sentiment changed rapidly. Industrialization, large-scale immigration, and urbanization spawned big-city bosses, the rise of special interests, and public corruption. The 419

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Senate heard increasing numbers of bribery cases, and states experienced legislative deadlock. A groundswell of popular support for the direct election of senators emerged as a result of combined criticism voiced by the Populists—especially William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic Party, the mostly western Bull Moose progressive faction of the Republican Party, “muckraker” journalists in the vein of Lincoln Steffens, and influential newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. Southerners and the mostly industrial northeastern states, bastion of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, resisted the change. The House of Representatives, the people’s voice in Congress, overwhelmingly passed direct election amendments, but the Senate consistently killed them in its Committee on Privileges and Elections. Western states circumvented the status-quo Senate. In 1901, the “Oregon system” was launched. It provided for state primary elections that allowed the state legislature to ratify voters’ preferences. After twenty-nine states adopted similar legislation and thirty-three state legislatures called for a direct election amendment, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported such legislation out on January 1, 1911. By then, membership of the Senate had changed and on May 13, 1912, Congress approved the bill. On April 8, 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. Representative democracy was enhanced significantly. William D. Pederson Sources for Further Study Bernstein, Richard B. Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It? New York: Random House, 1993. Grimes, Alan P. Democracy and the Amendments to the Constitution. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1978. Rossum, Ralph A. Federalism, the Supreme Court, and the Seventeenth Amendment: The Irony of Constitutional Democracy. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001. Vile, John R. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. 3d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. 420

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_______. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABCCLIO, 1996. See also: Electoral Count Act (1878); Direct democracy laws

(1913).

Alien land laws Date: Beginning May 20, 1913 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration; Property

These measures deprived Japanese Americans of their property rights. Immigration from Japan to the United States increased significantly during the final decade of the nineteenth century, with most of the Asian immigrants settling in the Pacific states. As the number of Japanese laborers arriving in California increased substantially, however, a strong anti-Japanese sentiment developed: Their success threatened and antagonized the emerging labor unions. The Asian Exclusion League was formed in 1905, and a campaign to bar Japanese immigration was launched. Negotiations begun in 1906 between the United States and Japan resulted in the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, which limited immigration from Japan to nonlaborers and to families who were joining previously settled laborers. In 1907, an immigration bill was amended to prevent Japanese laborers from entering the United States via Hawaii, Mexico, and Canada. The First Proposals The California legislature’s attempts to pass alien land bills began in 1907 when it appropriated funds to investigate Japanese agricultural involvement. The California State Labor Commission’s report, which was favorable to the Japanese, resulted in a reprimand for the commissioner. In 1910, twenty-seven anti-Japanese proposals were introduced in the legislature. Enactment of the proposed anti-Japanese legislation was prevented that year by influence from 421

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the White House and, in 1911, by President William Howard Taft’s direct intervention. On April 4, 1913, a California bill that would prohibit Japanese and other foreigners ineligible for citizenship from holding or leasing land in California prompted the Japanese ambassador, Viscount Chinda, to make an informal protest to the Department of State. The proposed bill in California was modeled on an 1897 federal law barring ownership of land by aliens ineligible for citizenship. The federal law, however, contained a proviso that it would not be applicable where treaty obligations conferred the right to own and hold land. The California bill included a clause prohibiting the leasing of land to Japanese, but the Japanese contended that this right had been conferred previously by the Treaty of 1894 and reenacted in the Treaty of 1911. In Washington, D.C., the introduction of the 1913 California Alien Land bill was viewed seriously. The prevailing opinion was that its effect could be more sweeping than the problems of 1908 and could lead once again to talk of war. When Secretary William Jennings Bryan and Ambassador Chinda exchanged mutual assurances of continuing friendship between the United States and Japan on April 4, the Department of State expressed confidence that the matter would be resolved amicably. The following day, Bryan met with the California congressional delegation, which emphasized the necessity of the proposed legislation. Members of the delegation described how, in many parts of California, more than half the farms were operated by Japanese, and neither U.S. nor Chinese workers could compete with Japanese labor. They asserted that despite the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, “coolie laborers” were arriving continuously. The feeling in California was so strong, they reported, that people who leased land to the Japanese were ostracized by their neighbors. Members of the delegation intimated that violent protests against the increase in Japanese competition were imminent. In Japan, the Tokyo press vehemently opposed the legislation. The Japanese government filed a formal protest on April 7. President Woodrow Wilson’s position was to remain outside the conflict because he believed that the proposed legislation lay within the rights of a sovereign state. The final draft of the new law was adopted by the California Senate on April 12. Ambassador Chinda presented his government’s 422

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formal protest against the bill to the Department of State. Because of agitation in Tokyo, where the bill was denounced by the press and where demonstrators were calling for war, the California legislature, despite overwhelming margins in both houses, delayed further action until May 20, when the Alien Land Law, known also as the Webb-Henley bill, was signed into law by Governor Hiram Warren Johnson. The statute barred all aliens ineligible for citizenship, or corporations with more than 50 percent ineligible alien ownership, from the legal right to own agricultural land in California, and it limited land-leasing contracts in the state to three years’ duration. Further Restrictions To prevent the Japanese from circumventing the law, a more restrictive alien land bill was introduced in the California legislature in 1920 to forbid the Issei (first generation Japanese Americans) from buying land in the name of their U.S.-born children, the Nisei. It also prohibited the transfer of land to noncitizens by sale or lease and established criminal penalties for aliens caught attempting to bypass the 1913 law. In a statewide ballot, California voters passed the 1920 Alien Land Law by a three-to-one margin. A number of cases to test the constitutionality of the new law were instigated by the Japanese. In 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Issei in four of these cases. Further restrictions also were passed in a 1923 amendment, which, together with the 1924 Immigration Act, effectively denied further immigration and determined the status of Japanese immigrants in the United States. The alien land laws in California were not repealed until 1956. During 1917, an alien land law was enacted in Arizona. In 1921, Washington, Texas, and Louisiana followed suite, as did New Mexico in 1922, and Oregon, Idaho, and Montana in 1923. Other states followed: Kansas in 1925; Missouri in 1939; Utah, Arkansas, and Nebraska in 1943; and Minnesota in 1945. Susan E. Hamilton Supreme Court decisions In 1923 the Supreme Court upheld alien land laws in four separate cases. In Terrace v. Thompson, the Court upheld a Washington state statute prohibiting citizens from leasing land to Japanese immi423

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grants. Porterfield v. Webb involved a similar statute in California. In Webb v. O’Brien, the Court found sharecropping agreements between citizens and aliens to be illegal, and in Frick v. Webb, it upheld a statue prohibiting aliens from owning stock in certain types of agricultural corporations. Furthermore, two Court cases in 1922, Yamashita v. Hinkle and Ozawa v. United States upheld the constitutionality of denying naturalized citizenship to Japanese immigrants. However, in Oyama v. California (1948), the Court declared California’s 1920 alien land law to be “outright racial discrimination” and in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1952 the McCarran-Walter Act granted Japanese immigrants the right to naturalized citizenship. State referendums officially repealed the remaining alien land laws, with the last law reversed in Washington state in 1966. Mary Louise Buley-Meissner Sources for Further Study Chuman, Frank F. The Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese-Americans. Del Mar, Calif.: Publisher’s Inc., 1976. Curry, Charles F. Alien Land Laws and Alien Rights. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921. Ichioka, Yuji. The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924. New York: Free Press, 1988. McGovney, Dudley. “The Anti-Japanese Land Laws of California and Ten Other States.” California Law Review 35 (1947): 7-54. Nomura, Gail M. “Washington’s Asian/Pacific American Communities.” In Peoples of Washington: Perspectives on Cultural Diversity, edited by Sid White and S. E. Solberg. Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1989. Takaki, Ronald, ed. Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. See also: Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907); Immigration Act of 1917 (1917); Immigration Act of 1921 (1921); Cable Act (1922); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943); War Brides Act (1945); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952). 424

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Federal Reserve Act Also known as: Glass-Owen Act Date: December 23, 1913 U.S. Statutes at Large: 38 Stat. 251 U.S. Code: 28 § 2671 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance; Government Proce-

dure and Organization

Money and the banking system are placed under control of a central bank, giving the federal government significant economic powers. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the U.S. economy was the most powerful in the world, yet its banking system was less than efficient. The United States had two major types of commercial banks: those chartered by the states, and those chartered by the federal government. National Banks, State Banks National banks received their charters through the authority of the National Bank Acts of 1863 and 1864, which required a bank seeking a national charter to purchase government securities and submit to federal regulation. The bank then could issue national banknotes, which became the national currency after greenbacks were withdrawn, beginning in 1865. Most important, the National Bank Acts either prohibited (in the case of national banks) or did not expressly permit branch banking, particularly interstate branch banking. That had the dual effect of subjecting the individual state systems to the vicissitudes of local or regional economic dislocations, and of producing state-line barriers to rapid transfers of money and capital in the event of such dislocations. As a result, the nation’s banking system operated under two regulatory systems, one for state banks and one for national banks. States had far lower capital requirements for banks, and some states permitted intrastate branch banking, making their systems far more attractive to prospective bankers when they determined to obtain a charter. Thus, after a brief period during which national charters expanded, state-chartered banks soon eclipsed those receiving federal charters. A more significant problem involved the inelasticity of the currency, which meant that the money 425

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supply could not expand and contract with the seasonal needs of the economy, particularly in agricultural areas. The system also suffered from flawed redemption mechanisms, making it even more difficult to contract the money supply in bad times than to expand it in prosperous periods. Interstate branching would have solved many, if not all, of those problems, as would maintenance of the pre-Civil War system of competitive banknote issue, wherein any chartered bank could print its own money. The National Bank and Currency Acts, however, had placed a 10 percent tax on all non-national banknotes, giving the government a monopoly over currency creation. Thus, the government had the authority, but not the capability, to control the money supply, while private banks had the capability, but not the authority, to do so. Proposals for Reform Numerous reform measures were advanced to meet those problems in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The greenback movement of the 1870’s and the Populists’ agitation in the 1890’s for “free silver”—unlimited coinage of silver at fixed (inflated) prices—both sought to address the long-term deflation caused by international economic forces. Both those plans would have required the federal government to inflate the money supply artificially. Other reformers wanted to place more control in the federal government, through creation of a central bank akin to the Bank of England. The United States had not had a central bank since President Andrew Jackson effectively destroyed the Second Bank of the United States by vetoing its recharter in 1832. Two other factors accelerated the reform agenda. First, the Panic of 1907 persuaded many Americans, including the nation’s premier banker J. P. Morgan, that no single private bank or group of banks could rescue the nation from depressions (as Morgan had in the Panic of 1893, when he loaned the government 3.5 million ounces of gold). Many bankers concluded that they needed a lender of last resort to keep banks afloat during periods of financial panic, and that such emergency loans themselves would quell the hysteria and impose financial stability. Second, with the Populists leading the way, Americans grew increasingly alarmed over the concentration of financial power in New York City. Many openly spoke of conspiracies—and especially linked “money power” to 426

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Jews, even though the largest New York bankers, like Morgan, were Protestant Christians. As a result, the reform movement focused on creating a lender of last resort, adding elasticity to the system, and reducing the power of New York City. Following the Panic of 1907, a National Monetary Commission, composed of members of Congress, was created in 1908 to devise a plan for a revision of the banking system. Headed by Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, the commission prepared the so-called Aldrich Plan. That plan called for a voluntary system headed by a central bank, the National Reserve Association, having branch banks that would issue currency and hold the deposits of the federal government, while furnishing reserve credit to member banks. Some large banks supported the Aldrich Plan, but by the time it was submitted to Congress in 1912, it faced strong opposition. Many Progressives feared that, under the plan, Wall Street would retain control over the nation’s financial markets. Unit bankers convinced Congress that interstate banking would permit large New York City banks to extend into middle America, driving the smaller country banks out of business. Woodrow Wilson, elected president in 1912, shared Progressive sentiments. The Democrats controlled the Congress but were divided on the banking issue. Southern and Western radicals followed William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska. Conservatives were headed by Congressman Carter Glass of Virginia, chairman of the House Banking Committee. Bryan, who was joined by William G. McAdoo, soon to be secretary of the Treasury, and Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, insisted that the government control any banking system enacted and that it also control the money supply. Glass and his faction opposed any plan for a central bank and favored a loose, disconnected system of regional reserve banks. Crafting a New Banking Law In the weeks before Wilson’s inaugural, Glass worked with Wilson and H. Parker Willis, a banking expert, on a new banking law to provide a privately controlled system of regional reserve banks, with a general supervisory and coordinating board. The plan developed by Wilson, Glass, and Willis resembled a decentralized version of the Aldrich Plan. After incorporating into it changes demanded by the radical faction, such as a federal guarantee of notes issued by the new system, the plan was submitted to Congress as the 427

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Federal Reserve, or Glass-Owen, bill. After further changes, the measure was finally passed in December, 1913, almost a year after its inception. The Federal Reserve Act had the stated purposes of providing for the establishment of no more than twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, furnishing an elastic currency, affording means for rediscounting commercial paper, and establishing a more effective supervision of banking in the United States. The twelve “bankers’ banks” neither accepted deposits from individuals nor loaned them money, and were controlled by a five-member Board of Governors (later increased to seven members) appointed by the president for ten-year terms. They worked along with the secretary of the Treasury and the comptroller (originally ex officio members) to oversee operation of the system. Member banks elected six of the nine directors of the district Federal Reserve Banks, whose capital was subscribed by the commercial banks that joined the system. Technically, the system was a corporation owned by the member banks, but the “Fed” (as it is called) came to act completely independently of the banks. Although it is directly responsible to Congress, neither Congress nor the president ever successfully exercised control over it. Thus, Fed policies had far-reaching effects on the U.S. economy, yet Fed leadership was virtually unaccountable. Impact of the “Fed” The intent of the Federal Reserve Act was to decentralize power and move it out of New York City; therefore, most of the reserve banks were located in the West and South, with the state of Missouri alone containing two. Yet the New York Fed immediately emerged as the most powerful and quickly dominated the others, thanks to its brilliant governor, Benjamin Strong. Under Strong’s leadership, the New York Fed merely took over the role that J. P. Morgan once had held. Strong died in 1928; his absence left a leadership void in New York as the worldwide economic crises of the 1920’s reached their apex. At that point, another set of factors grounded in the Federal Reserve Act exacerbated economic problems. First, the act essentially had undercut the role of the successful clearinghouse associations that had developed in the absence of interstate branching by the turn of the century. The associations had provided rapid information transmission among members—a task that the Fed assumed 428

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for itself. Second, the act had made little mention of the gold standard, assuming that it would continue to function. However, as European nations’ economies collapsed in the 1920’s, those nations left the gold standard. By the end of the decade, the United States was one of the few countries remaining on the gold standard, which led to a sharp outflow of gold from the United States. Federal Reserve notes were guaranteed by gold, and financial panics started. The Fed then turned a recession into a disaster by raising interest rates, choking off the money supply at the very time business needed an expanding money supply to sustain growth. In addition, some economists have pointed to the misjudgment of the New York Fed in failing to rescue the Bank of the United States, triggering further runs. The result was the Great Depression, a cyclical downturn exacerbated by, if not caused by, Fed policies. Congress reformed the banking system yet again during the Great Depression, instituting deposit insurance and separating banking and securities operations. An indirect result of those reforms was the savings and loan crisis of the 1980’s, in which the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) virtually went bankrupt attempting to support savings and loans that had collapsed due to federal restrictions on their lending. Through the mid-1990’s, the Fed has maintained somewhat steady interest rates but has had little success supporting the value of the dollar internationally. Merle O. Davis, updated by Larry Schweikart Sources for Further Study Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Greider, William. Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. Timberlake, Richard H. “Federal Reserve Act.” In Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography: Banking and Finance to 1913, edited by Larry Schweikart. New York: Facts On File, 1990. Wheelock, David. The Strategy and Consistency of Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, 1924-1933. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 429

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White, Eugene Nelson. The Regulation and Reform of the American Banking System, 1900-1929. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. See also: Independent Treasury Act (1846); National Bank Acts

(1863-1864); Coinage Act (1873); Currency Act (1900); McFadden Act (1927); Banking Act of 1933 (1933); Banking Act of 1935 (1935).

Federal Trade Commission Act Date: September 26, 1914 U.S. Statutes at Large: 38 Stat. 717 U.S. Code: 15 § 41 et seq. Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Government Proce-

dure and Organization

This act created the Federal Trade Commmission, which is mandated to protect the public against unfair and deceptive business practices. Congress passed the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) for the purpose of protecting consumers from unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts in commerce. The act created the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce the provisions of the act and to determine what is unfair competition and what constitutes deceptive acts. The passage of the act was the result of a program by President Woodrow Wilson to curtail the growth of business trusts and monopolistic businesses and to preserve competition as an effectual regulator of business. Purpose and Provisions The underlying philosophy of the act is that markets should generally be left to competitive market forces and that noncompetitive market structures should be prevented. The intent was to prevent unfair practices rather than punish perpetrators. The fundamental objectives of the FTC are to initiate antitrust actions and to protect the consumer public. The FTCA was 430

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amended by the Wheeler-Lea Act in 1938, which prohibits a variety of deceptive practices in commerce. The FTCA gave the FTC power to promote free and fair competition through the prevention of price-fixing agreements, boycotts, combinations in restraint of trade, interlocking directorates, unfair acts of competition, false advertising, and other deceptive business practices. Businesses need not have committed a deceptive act to be in violation of the provisions of the FTCA. The law does not require an actual deception; a company may be held liable for unfair and deceptive acts when there is a possible likelihood that a consumer might be deceived. A company can be held liable for the unfair and deceptive acts of its employees, agents, or other representatives. The act applies to interstate and foreign commerce but does not apply to banking institutions, savings and loan institutions, federal credit unions, or common carriers—all of which are regulated by other federal agencies. Federal Trade Commission The FTC consists of five commissioners who are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. Not more than three of the commissioners can be from the same political party. Commissioners serve seven-year terms. Among the FTC’s activities are the enforcement of the provisions of the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914, and amendments to these acts. The FTC also enforces the Truth in Lending Act of 1968 and some aspects of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977. To enforce legislation, the FTC can investigate corporate conduct, hold hearings, and issue cease-and-desist orders. If a person or company fails to comply with the cease-and-desist order, the FTC turns to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals for enforcement. Over its history, several Supreme Court decisions have frustrated the work of the FTC, but the commission has done much toward ridding the economy of anticompetitive business practices. Dale L. Flesher Sources for Further Study Holt, William Stull. The Federal Trade Commission: Its History, Activities, and Organization. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1922. 431

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O’Dell, George T. “The Federal Trade Commission Yields to Pressure.” The Nation, January, 1921, 36-37. Rublee, George. “The Original Plan and Early History of the Federal Trade Commission.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January, 1926, 115-117. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Wheeler-Lea Act (1938); Celler-Kefauver Act (1950); Truth in Lending Act (1968); Parens Patriae Act (1974); Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974).

Clayton Antitrust Act Date: October 15, 1914 U.S. Statutes at Large: 38 Stat. 730 U.S. Code: 15 § 12 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Labor and Employ-

ment

The Clayton Act outlawed a number of business practices limiting competition and strengthened the legal position of labor unions. While providing a symbolic victory for those seeking to halt the dominance of American industry by large corporations, the act proved disappointing in its impact. The growing power of great corporations, or “trusts,” was a major concern in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. How best to deal with the problem was a major issue in the 1912 presidential campaign. Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate, advocated a “New Freedom” platform that promised to cut trusts down to size and encourage a more competitive business environment. Strengthening Sherman After Wilson’s election, one approach of his administration was to remedy what was thought to be too general language of the 432

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Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), the nation’s primary antitrust law. In 1914, under the leadership of Congressman Henry D. Clayton, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Congress proceeded to pass a new antitrust measure whose main thrust was to foil would-be monopolists by outlawing tactics that in the past had fostered the growth of large corporations. The Clayton Act attacked a range of business practices: acquisition of stock of a competitor, interlocking directorates (the same directors sitting on the boards of supposedly competing companies), price discrimination (giving some customers an advantage by charging them lower prices than their competitors), and exclusive or tying contracts. All these practices were outlawed “where the effect may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create monopoly.” The act also made corporate officials personally liable for the actions of their companies. Individuals or heads of firms who believed that they had been harmed by such tactics could seek an injunction to stop the objectionable practice, and they could sue for triple damages. The act also sought to improve the legal position of organized labor. It declared that labor was not a commodity and that antitrust laws could not be used against legitimate union activities, such as peaceful strikes or boycotts. It also prohibited the use of injunctions in labor disputes unless danger threatened persons or property. Circumventing Clayton The Clayton Act proved disappointing to many of those who had supported it. President Wilson switched his emphasis, trying to encourage greater competition in the economy through regulation provided by the Federal Trade Commission, also created in 1914. Corporate lawyers soon found ways to get around the act’s provisions, especially since the courts found latitude in the act’s wording that made violations difficult to prove. Though strengthened in 1936 and 1950, the act has been less important in antitrust law than the Sherman Act. Although labor leader Samuel Gompers had hailed the act as “labor’s Magna Carta,” it did not meet the hopes of its supporters in this arena either, for it failed to end the use of injunctions in labor disputes. William C. Lowe 433

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Source for Further Study Kintner, Earl W., ed. Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes: A Legislative History. 11 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978, 1982-1985. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Sherman Antitrust Act

(1890); Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); Wheeler-Lea Act (1938); Celler-Kefauver Act (1950); Truth in Lending Act (1968); Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974).

Harrison Narcotic Drug Act Also known as: Harrison Act Date: December 17, 1914 U.S. Statutes at Large: 38 Stat. 785 Categories: Food and Drugs; Health and Welfare

The most comprehensive federal drug legislation at the time, the Harrison Narcotic Drug Act was designed to control the production and dispensation of narcotics; however, it raised issues of federal versus state authority and the protected physician-patient relationship. Prompted by international treaty obligations under the 1912 Hague Convention and concerns over drug abuse, Representative Francis Burton Harrison, a Democrat, introduced H.R. 6282 on June 10, 1913. The bill passed Congress on December 14, 1914, and President Woodrow Wilson signed it on December 17, 1914. The Harrison Act required the registration of all producers and dispensers of narcotics with the district internal revenue collector and the payment of an annual fee of one dollar. Violations carried a penalty of up to two thousand dollars and five years’ imprisonment. Section 8 of the Harrison Act declared as unlawful the possession of specified drugs by unregistered persons unless the drugs were prescribed by a physician, and it placed the burden of proof 434

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on the defendant. Federal district courts ruled, however, that addicts could not be arrested for possession as long as they had obtained the drug by prescription. In June, 1916, the Supreme Court ruled in Jin Fuey Moy v. United States (1916) that the Hague Convention (which had banned narcotics trafficking) did not require the police powers specified in section 8, which overturned central portions of the act. Thomas Winter Sources for Further Study Temin, Peter. Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Milestones in U.S. Food and Drug Law History. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. See also: Opium Exclusion Act (1909); Marihuana Tax Act (1937);

Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938); Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970); National Narcotics Act (1984).

National Defense Act and Military Appropriations Act Also known as: Army Reorganization Act Date: June 3, 1916; August, 1916 U.S. Statutes at Large: 39 Stat. 203 Categories: Military and National Security

On the eve of U.S. entry into World War I, these acts authorized the president to commandeer plants for production of war matériel and coordinated government, civilian, and military organizations through the Council of National Defense. 435

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The War Industries Board (WIB) was organized on July 8, 1917, to coordinate and control the industrial resources of the United States in its World War I effort against Germany. Establishment of the WIB was the climax of several frustrating months of efforts to mobilize agencies of production and distribution following the nation’s entry into the war in April. Mobilizing for War Federal coordination of industry had begun in 1915, when Congress authorized the creation of a Committee on Industrial Preparedness to study the supply requirements of the Army and Navy. The committee’s work was narrow in scope—its primary accomplishment was the preparation of an inventory of plants able to manufacture munitions. As the war emergency in the United States became more acute, the government extended its power over the nation’s industrial life. By the National Defense Act of June, 1916, Congress authorized the president to place orders for war matériel with any source of supply and to commandeer plants when it was in the national interest to do so. Two months later, Congress approved a Military Appropriations Act, providing for a Council of National Defense consisting of the secretaries of war, navy, interior, agriculture, commerce, and labor, and an advisory commission comprising civilian representatives from all the major sectors of the nation’s economy. The purpose of both committees was to plan for the most efficient use of the country’s resources in case of war. The advisory commission, which served as the executive committee of the Council of National Defense, did most of the work and mapped out extensive preparations to meet wartime needs. Each of the seven members of the commission took charge of a special segment of the economy, such as transportation, engineering and education, munitions and manufacturing, medicine and surgery, raw materials, supplies, and labor. The commission soon became the nucleus of numerous committees and boards that were the forerunners of several wartime agencies, including the WIB. Finally, Bernard Baruch, a Wall Street investor and the commissioner in charge of raw materials, formulated an elaborate plan whereby representatives of various businesses were organized into “committees of the industries” to work with the council in coordinating the country’s resources. For their efforts, they received one dollar a year, and thus were known as the “dollar-a-year men.” 436

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Council of National Defense Because the Council of National Defense had been formed to plan for, rather than direct, industrial mobilization, its powers were only advisory. Moreover, its organization was extremely loose; many of its ablest men served only in a part-time capacity. It was illprepared, therefore, to assume the responsibility of directing mobilization, which was forced upon it after the United States’ entry into war in 1917. That unpreparedness was readily apparent in the council’s attempt to coordinate the purchases of the U.S. Departments of the Navy and War. For that purpose, the advisory commission first established a Munitions Standard Board and then a General Munitions Board, on which members of the commission and representatives from the military purchasing bureaus served. The power and authority of the board were poorly defined, and its machinery nearly broke down under the pressure of the war orders. Within a month after its establishment, it was found that the board merely overlapped in jurisdiction and authority with many of the other committees formed by the Advisory Commission. As a result, it was unable to coordinate the purchases of the military bureaus, which, jealous of their own prerogatives, continued to go their own ways. Realizing that a central coordinating agency was needed, the Council of National Defense, on July 18, 1917, replaced the General Munitions Board with the WIB, comprising five civilians and one representative each from the Army and the Navy. War Industries Board Before the Civil War, the United States had adopted a policy of procuring many, if not most, wartime goods and weapons from civilian businesses. With the exception of a few shipyards or munitions plants, the government therefore relied primarily on private industry to provide a steady stream of war goods and combat weapons. Coordinating that production and flow was a major problem for a nation that allowed the market to determine the type and number of goods to be supplied. In wartime, the urgency of delivery dictated that coordination of production and delivery systems fall to the government. While the War Industries Board was given broad responsibilities for the direction of war industry needs, its ability to do effective work suffered from the lack of any executive power. As a result, the government’s effort to coordinate the nation’s military and indus437

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trial efforts continued to flounder for the next eight months. The board’s first chairman, F. A. Scott, broke down under the strain of the war; its second, Daniel Willard, resigned because he believed that the board lacked authority. In the spring of 1918, President Woodrow Wilson reorganized the board and named Bernard Baruch as its chairman. In effect, the president transferred to Baruch the power to coordinate industry that Congress had granted to the president in the National Defense and Military Appropriations Acts of 1916, as well as giving Baruch certain controls over the military that Wilson had in his capacity as commander in chief. Endowed with this authority, Baruch was able to determine priorities, requisition supplies, conserve resources, commandeer plants, and make purchases for the United States and the Allies. The only important control he did not exercise directly was that of fixing prices, which was left to a separate committee within the board. Despite some sharp criticism later by congressional critics regarding the extent of power that the War Industries Board assumed, the board was highly effective in coordinating the nation’s industrial and military effort. The pattern of organization created by the board became the model for the war regulation of industry by the Allies in World War II. Moreover, the introduction of businessmen into government procurement placed professional business managers in close proximity with bureaucrats. This led to an appreciation by business for the role of control and planning, and convinced many in government that business management practices would be effective in improving the government during peacetime. Business already had undergone a managerial revolution that emphasized planning; therefore, the new, centralized control reinforced the notion that stability could be achieved by proper accounting and forecasting. The quintessential proponent of that approach was Herbert Hoover, elected president in 1928, who attempted to apply such nostrums to the Great Depression. On December 31, 1918, President Wilson directed that the board be dissolved, and it was liquidated on July 22, 1919. Other wartime agencies that were involved in economic mobilization— such as the War Trade Board, which licensed exports and imports and rationed supplies to neutrals, and the United States Railroad Administration, which controlled the nation’s railroads—also were dissolved gradually after the war ended. 438

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Impact of War Mobilization Aided by the National Defense and Military Appropriations Acts, the friendly relationship between big business and government that emerged from the war cemented an alliance that lasted until the Great Depression. In the short term, business thought that it was the beneficiary of that relationship, receiving government contracts and favorable treatment. Although the boom provided by the Roaring Twenties proved nourishing to many small businesses, as witnessed by the extensive growth of all business during that decade, the special treatment afforded to such new enterprises as airplane and some shipping companies, based on future wartime needs, served to align government with some industries at the expense of others. More important, however, were the lessons learned by the government during wartime that were inapplicable during peacetime. The government assumed that wartime planning—based on the coercive powers yielded to bureaucrats by citizens facing a national emergency—would provide the same degree of effectiveness in the absence of the emergency. Since the national tendency of government was to increase during emergencies, but never to recede to its original levels, the war intruded federal authority into the lives of millions of people who had never before experienced it. Thus, although the WIB was disbanded after World War I, the notion that government planning and direct management of businesses could keep the economy stable was revived on a larger scale during the Great Depression. Burton Kaufman, updated by Larry Schweikart Sources for Further Study Baruch, Bernard. American Industry in the War. New York: PrenticeHall, 1941. Clarkson, Grosvenor B. Industrial America in the World War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923. Crowell, Benedict, and Robert F. Wilson. How America Went to War. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1921. Cuff, Robert D. “Bernard Baruch: Symbol and Myth in Industrial Mobilization.” Business History Review 43 (Summer, 1969): 115133. 439

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Higgs, Robert. Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Schaffer, Ronald. America in the Great War: The Rise of the War Welfare State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. See also: Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); Espionage Acts (1917-1918); Treaty of Versailles (1919); World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924).

National Park Service Organic Act Date: August 25, 1916 U.S. Statutes at Large: 39 Stat. 535 U.S. Code: 16 § 1 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Land Management

The act established the National Park Service to promote and regulate the use of national parks and monuments. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act, establishing the National Park Service (NPS). Forty-four years had passed since President Ulysses S. Grant had signed the act on March 1, 1872, establishing Yellowstone National Park, the first area ever designated a national park. Many people and events would play important roles in the development of the national park system. Previous Conservation Legislation John Muir, a naturalist and conservationist, arrived in California’s Yosemite State Park in 1868. A conservation prophet, explorer, advocate, and writer, he stayed there until his death in 1914. Muir led the fight to set aside a larger state-controlled area on the Sierra range, which caused Congress to establish a national park nearly the size of Yellowstone and focused attention on the giant sequoia trees that were being destroyed by logging. Congress made an important distinction between national parks and national forests in the 1890’s. In 1891, the Forestry Reserve 440

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Act gave the president the authority to establish national forests from the public domain without congressional approval. National parks still required a separate act of Congress. Four presidents had set aside more than 175 million acres of national forest lands before the Forestry Reserve Act was abolished in 1907. The year 1906 proved to be significant in the history of national parks. Legislation indicated that there could be other than scenic values in the parks. As early as 1880, people were outraged at the looting of cliff dwellings and Pueblo ruins in the Southwest. Many sites were plundered and vandalized to supply the demands of collectors. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, established on June 29, 1906, put historic preservation on the national level. Creation of the park gave permanent protection to the tableland two thousand feet above the surrounding country. The Antiquities Act, passed that same year, proved one of the best pieces of park legislation ever devised. The act forbade the removal, destruction, or excavation of any historic or prehistoric object or ruin on public land. The act also allowed the president to declare any site on federal lands containing outstanding historic, scientific, or scenic value to be a national monument until Congress could be persuaded to make the area a national park. Caves, forts, canyons, battlefields, pueblos, and birthplaces of famous persons could be considered national monuments. Also that year, President Theodore Roosevelt created four national monuments: Devils Tower in Wyoming, El Moro in New Mexico, Montezuma Castle in Arizona, and the Petrified Forest in Arizona. He was the first president to make conservation a national goal. Roosevelt also convened a conference on conservation at the White House in 1908, bringing together many national leaders and telling them that it was time for the country to take account of its natural resources. In 1912, several national park supporters convinced President William Howard Taft that the disorganized way of handling national parks should be streamlined and given professional direction. At the time, each national park had one superintendent and little or no other staff. All were under the supervision of the secretary of the interior. There was no specific national park division. There was little or no funding for staff at the parks, and development was left up to private concessionaires or to those willing to erect a building in which guests could stay while visiting a park. 441

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The U.S. Cavalry was in charge of Yellowstone National Park for many years, and other Army units were in charge of Yosemite and Sequoia during the summers. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was in charge of building roads in all the parks. The Campaign for a National Park Service Horace M. Albright went to work for Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane in 1913. Albright had planned to work in Washington for one year and then go back to his native California. Working closely with Lane and Stephen Mather, whom Lane brought in to coordinate the national parks, Albright was instrumental in getting legislative support for the National Park Service Organic Act. He also developed policy issues and served as Mather’s assistant. He devoted the next twenty years to the National Park Service. Mather was sworn in as an assistant to the secretary of the interior in charge of national parks in January, 1915. Mather immediately began promoting the issue of a separate national park service. He brought prominent people together and courted those who had influence in business and politics. He generated great public interest in the national parks and enlisted The Saturday Evening Post and National Geographic to join his campaign. The railroads, which would benefit from an increase in the number of travelers, paid for a National Parks Portfolio publication, which was distributed free to more than 250,000 people. It was well worth the effort. President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill establishing the National Park Service on August 25, 1916. Provisions of the Act The act addressed in general terms the way the new organization should provide for public use while protecting park resources. The park service was established to promote and regulate the use of national parks and monuments, with the purpose of conserving the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the parks in such a manner as would leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. The National Park Service thus became a reality. The new federal agency initially oversaw fourteen national parks, twenty-one national monuments, Hot Springs Reservation, and Casa Grande Ruin. Mather and Albright were ready to put their plans for the 442

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new system in motion, but the necessary funding had not been approved. The appropriation to organize the new agency came from Congress only a few days after war was declared on Germany in April, 1917, but it was not sufficient to provide proper personnel and equipment for the park system. Mather was appointed director on May 16, 1917, giving formal structure to the National Park Service. Getting Started A special appropriation in the summer of 1918 enabled the new National Park Service to hire a qualified force of rangers for parks under its control. Many service policies and programs were established during these early years: uniformed ranger service, interpretive and information programs, concessionaires, and professional natural and cultural resources management functions. In 1917, Mount McKinley National Park became the first national park to be created under the new agency. Despite the war and the ensuing Depression, the park system increased in size. For the first time in history, national parks were established in the most populated regions of the country. Land was donated east of the Mississippi River to establish national parks across the United States, making the system a truly national one. The act creating the National Park Service resulted in many changes in the national parks. The Army was withdrawn from its governance of certain national parks, freeing troops for war service. Mather replaced the soldiers with a professional ranger corps. He publicized the beauty and other attractions of the parks with railroad lines and automobile clubs. Parks were promoted for both their beauty and historic culture. The National Park Service became an official agency of the federal government, with its own staff, equipment, and budget. The way was paved for other lands and sites to become future national parks. Land in the eastern part of the United States was given national park status; the system thus covered the whole country. Mid-Century Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, suffered a stroke in 1928; he was succeeded by Horace Albright, who had been the field director of the service and superintendent of 443

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Yellowstone National Park, in 1929. Albright’s administrative talent set a pattern for all the parks. Growth of the park system and professionalization of personnel were Albright’s two main goals. His most valuable contribution, however, was in the field of historic preservation. The conservation movement in the late 1920’s had almost no interest in historic preservation. Albright argued that the American heritage was made up of the unique grandeur of the geography of the nation’s parks and the heroic deeds of its people, and that both should share in the conservation movement. Three months after President Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933, he signed two executive orders reorganizing the national park system. The reorganization orders consolidated all national parks and monuments, all military parks, eleven national cemeteries, all national memorials, and the parks of the nation’s capitol under National Park Service authority. For the first time, almost all natural and historic parks in the country were under one agency. In many respects, the reorganization was a personal achievement of Horace Albright. Reorganization The 1933 reorganization had three major consequences: It made the National Park Service the agency responsible for almost all federally owned parks, monuments, and memorials, greatly strengthening the system’s institutional position and importance; it changed the idea of what the National Park Service should comprise by adding new kinds of areas not before considered as national parks or monuments; and it increased the number and geographic diversity of the Park Service’s holdings by adding a dozen natural areas in ten Western states and fifty historical sites in seven Eastern states and the District of Columbia to the system. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was established in 1933 as a conservation and reforestation measure. Many of the CCC camps were set up in national park-controlled properties for the purposes of planting trees, cutting fire and hiking trails, and constructing recreation and camping areas, roads, and shelters. The formal structure provided a natural work environment for the greatest reforestation program in U.S. history. It also brought new kinds of parks into the system, such as the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Skyline Drive, and Lake Mead, behind Hoover Dam. 444

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The end of World War II brought instant growth in tourist travel. The park service budget had been reduced by war, and it was not until after the Korean War that the budget was raised to meet needs. Roads and trails had deteriorated because of the lack of repair money. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was presented a tenyear restoration program called “Mission 66.” The program was to be completed by the fiftieth anniversary of the National Park Service. It would rehabilitate the parks and add interpretation centers and museums. These centers would explain the history, geology, and wildlife of the area being visited. New facilities would be constructed in all parks, and two new training centers were proposed that would provide Park Service employees with one of the most extensive training programs in the federal government. More than 300 million visits are made to the national parks each year. Such visits were made possible by the foresight of men such as Lane, Mather, Albright, and Muir. Through their efforts, the natural beauty and historic areas of America have been preserved for the enjoyment of succeeding generations. Larry N. Sypolt Sources for Further Study Albright, Horace M. The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33. Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1986. Everhart, William C. The National Park Service. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983. Mackintosh, Barry. The National Park Service Administrative History: A Guide. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 1991. _______. The National Parks: Shaping the System. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. Olsen, Russell K. Administrative History: Organizational Structures of the National Park Service, 1917 to 1985. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. See also: Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937); Wil-

derness Act (1964); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Eastern Wilderness Act (1975); National Forest Management Act (1976).

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Immigration Act of 1917 Date: February 5, 1917 U.S. Statutes at Large: 39 Stat. 874 Public law: 64-301 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration

The Immigration Act of 1917 significantly restricted immigration into the United States by use of a literacy test, among other measures. Public concern over immigration prompted the U.S. Congress to establish a Joint Commission on Immigration in 1907. The commission consisted of three members of the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives, and three other appointees. In 1910 and 1911, the Dillingham Commission, named after the legislation’s author and the commission’s chairman, Senator William P. Dillingham of Vermont, issued a forty-two-volume report that advocated the restriction of immigration. It stated that recent immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were more likely to be unskilled, unsettled, and generally less desirable than the northern and western European immigrants who had arrived previously. Experts later disputed these conclusions, but the report was used to justify the new restrictions that Congress continued to write into law in the comprehensive Immigration Act of 1917. Literacy Tests A number of different ways to restrict immigration were suggested by the commission. They included instituting a literacy test, excluding unskilled laborers, increasing the amount of money that immigrants were required to have in their possession, and increasing the head tax. The commission also advocated the principle of racial quotas. Major attention was directed toward the literacy test. Congress had introduced prior bills requiring literacy tests for immigrants. In 1897, such a bill was vetoed by President Grover Cleveland, who said that immigration restrictions were unnecessary. The House voted to override the president’s veto on March 3, 195 to 37. The Senate referred the veto message and bill to the Committee on Immigration. When the bill resurfaced at the Sixty-second Congress, it was the Senate that voted to override President William Howard 446

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Taft’s veto on February 18, 1913, while the House voted to sustain it on February 19. During the Sixty-third Congress (1914-1917), the House voted to sustain the veto of President Woodrow Wilson. At the second session of the Sixty-fourth Congress, a bill was introduced “to regulate the immigrating of aliens to, and the residence of aliens in, the United States.” Again, Wilson vetoed the bill. On February 1, 1917, the House voted to override the president’s veto, 287 to 106, and the Senate voted similarly on February 5, 1917, 62 to 19. The veto was overridden, and the bill became Public Law 301. The act excluded from entry “all aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who can not read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish.” Other Provisions Other major recommendations made by the Dillingham Commission six years earlier were passed. The head tax was increased, and vagrants, alcoholics, advocates of violent revolutions, and “psychopathic inferiors” all were barred. A further provision created an Asiatic Barred Zone in the southwest Pacific, which succeeded in excluding most Asian immigrants who were not already excluded by the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Susan E. Hamilton Sources for Further Study Bernard, William S., ed. American Immigration Policy. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1969. Cose, Ellis. A Nation of Strangers. New York: William Morrow, 1992. Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Harper, Elizabeth J. Immigration Laws of the United States. 3d ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975. Nugent, Walter. Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations, 18701914. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. See also: Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); Gentlemen’s Agreement

(1907); Alien land laws (1913); Immigration Act of 1921 (1921); Cable Act (1922); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943); War Brides Act (1945); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952);. 447

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Jones Act Also known as: Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act Date: March 2, 1917 U.S. Statutes at Large: 39 Stat. 951 Categories: Foreign Relations; Immigration; Land Management;

Latinos

The Jones Act of 1917 formed a unique relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. On December 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris between Spain and the United States ended the Spanish-American War and set forth terms that became effective April 11, 1900. The agreement transferred the control of Puerto Rico to the United States, thereby legitimizing the occupation of the island and its satellites by U.S. forces. One of the provisions of the Treaty of Paris was as follows: “The civil rights and the political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.” The natives of Puerto Rico, no longer subjects of the Spanish crown, now found themselves without any citizenship recognized under international law or U.S. domestic law. The Organic Act of 1900 (known as the Foraker Act, after its sponsor) established a political entity called the People of Porto Rico (Puerto Rico), but there was no mention of U.S. citizenship for those born on the island, only that they would be “held to be citizens of Porto Rico, and as such entitled to the protection of the United States.” Puerto Ricans were now stateless, essentially confined to their island because of the difficulty of traveling without a passport. The U.S. Supreme Court, in cases such as Downes v. Bidwell (1901), confirmed that Puerto Rico was merely a possession of the United States, not an incorporated territory, to be disposed of by the U.S. Congress. The Citizenship Debate The reelection of William McKinley to the U.S. presidency in 1900 favored U.S. imperial expansion. Nevertheless, the debate as to whether racially, culturally, and linguistically distinct peoples 448

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brought under U.S. control should be granted U.S. citizenship and, if so, with what rights, continued intermittently between 1900 and 1916. In that year, the Philippines, also seized by the United States from Spain in the war, was promised independence by the Organic Act of the Philippine Islands (also known as the Jones Act of 1916). The Organic Act of 1917 (the Jones Act of 1917) did not similarly grant independence to Puerto Rico, but it did confer U.S. citizenship collectively on the natives of the island. Although the Jones Act of 1917 changed the status of Puerto Ricans from that of U.S. nationals—noncitizens, but owing allegiance to and subject to the protection of the United States—the granting of citizenship did not give the islanders the right to vote in U.S. federal elections because the territory fell short of statehood. In Balzac v. Porto Rico (1922), the Supreme Court ruled that as citizens of an unincorporated territory, the islanders enjoyed only fundamental provisions in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, not procedural or remedial rights such as the guarantee of trial by jury. The extent to which Puerto Ricans participated in the debate relating to their prospective status between 1900 and 1917 remains a matter of conjecture. For one thing, the spokesmen of the Puerto Rican community—such as Resident Commissioner Luís Muñoz Rivera and the Puerto Rican House of Delegates (the local legislature)—were ambivalent and contradictory on the subject. For another, much of the evidence placed before the Congress about the Puerto Ricans’ preferences during the drawn-out debate was impressionistic and anecdotal rather than objective. Accordingly, while some U.S. legislators talked of the yearnings, longings, and aspirations of Puerto Ricans to citizenship, critics claim that citizenship was pressed on the islanders. It is also charged that the expediency of acquiring additional recruits for military service only weeks before President Woodrow Wilson sought a declaration of war on Germany on April 4, 1917, was not absent from congressional thinking. Whatever the truth, making Puerto Ricans native U.S. citizens and the establishment of a seemingly permanent political link between the United States and Puerto Rico by the Jones Act of 1917 contrasted with the creation of an articulately temporary relationship between Washington, D.C., and the Philippines. In fact, the defining of the latter’s status under the 1916 Jones Act catalyzed the following year’s Jones Act relating to 449

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Puerto Rico. The racist comments peppering the congressional debates were infinitely harsher as they related to Filipinos, partly because of their spirited resistance to U.S. occupation, than in regard to Puerto Ricans, who were much more receptive to occupation. Some legislators even produced statistics to “prove” that a high percentage of the islanders were white in order to justify their being granted U.S. citizenship. Provisions of the Act The final version of the 1917 Jones bill, introduced in the House on January 20, 1916, was only slightly different from Congressman Jones’s earlier versions. The only noteworthy change was that Puerto Ricans residing on the island were allowed one year, instead of six months, to reject U.S. citizenship if they desired. The House passed the bill by voice vote on May 23, 1916; the Senate approved it on February 20, 1917; and the House-Senate Conference Committee followed suit on February 24, 1917. President Wilson, a Democrat, signed it into law on March 2, 1917. Only 288 Puerto Ricans legally declined to accept U.S. citizenship within the statutory period, thereby losing their right to hold or run for any public office on the island. Because the Jones Act had established five different categories in determining the status of different individuals, there was great confusion as to who qualified for citizenship. The U.S. Congress subsequently passed several additional laws in the interest of administrative simplification. In 1952, the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico became the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, known in Spanish as a “free associated state.” As such, Puerto Rico elected a nonvoting representative to the U.S. Congress but cast no vote in presidential, congressional, or senatorial elections. While islanders paid no federal taxes, the aid Puerto Rico received from Washington was less than it would have received had it been a state. On November 14, 1993, a nonbinding referendum, which President Bill Clinton nevertheless pledged to respect, was held regarding the island’s future status. Puerto Ricans who opted for continued commonwealth status cast 48.4 percent of the votes; statehood received 46.2 percent; and 4.4 percent of the 2.1 million ballots cast favored independence. The spread between the first two options had narrowed drastically since an earlier referendum in 1967. The issue of Puerto Rico’s status—and thus the nature of the 450

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citizenship of the islanders—was far from over. It now was up to Puerto Ricans themselves, increasingly aware of their Latino roots, to decide their own political future. Peter B. Heller Sources for Further Study Cabranes, Jose A. Citizenship and the American Empire: Notes on the Legislative History of the United States Citizenship of Puerto Ricans. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979. De Passalacqua, John L. A. “The Involuntary Loss of United States Citizenship upon Accession to Independence by Puerto Rico.” Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 19, no. 1 (Fall, 1990): 139-161. Gatell, Frank O. “The Art of the Possible: Luís Muñoz Rivera and the Puerto Rico Jones Bill.” The Americas 17, no. 1 (July, 1960): 1-20. Karst, Kenneth L. Belonging to America: Equal Citizenship and the Constitution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989. See also: Platt Amendment (1903); Treaty of Paris (1898).

Espionage Acts Also known as: Sedition Act (1918 act) Date: June 15, 1917; May 16, 1918 U.S. Statutes at Large: 40 Stat. 217, 40 Stat. 553 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Speech and Expres-

sion

Espionage Act prosecutions led to the first significant attempts by the Supreme Court to interpret the free speech provisions of the First Amendment, including the original espousal of the “clear and present danger” test. On June 15, 1917, two months after the United States entered World War I, Congress passed the Espionage Act. In addition to outlawing a wide variety of acts that fit the commonsense defi451

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nition of “espionage,” including the gathering, transmission, or negligent handling of information that might harm U.S. defense efforts, the law forbade, during wartime, the willful making or conveying of false information with intent to interfere with the nation’s armed forces or to promote the success of its enemies, as well as willful attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty within the military or the obstruction of military recruitment or enlistment. In practice, this law was used as the springboard for massive prosecutions of antiwar speeches and publications of all kinds across the United States, based on the theory that many such viewpoints were false and, in any case, aimed at undermining recruitment or other aspects of the war effort. Despite the sweeping language and even more sweeping prosecutions associated with the 1917 law, a far more draconian amendment to the Espionage Act, sometimes known as the Sedition Act, was enacted in 1918 in response to complaints that the original law was not stringent enough to suppress antiwar sentiment. The 1918 amendments outlawed virtually all conceivable criticism of the war, including any expressions of support for “any country with which the United State is at war” or that opposed “the cause of the United States therein.” Also banned was the oral or printed dissemination of all “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the “form of government” of the country, the Constitution, the flag, the military, and military uniforms, as well as any language intended to bring any of the above into “contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute.” Under these laws, more than two thousand people were indicted for written or verbal criticism of the war and more than one thousand were convicted, resulting in more than one hundred jail terms of ten years or more. No one was convicted under the espionage acts during World War I for spying activities. The 1918 amendments to the Espionage Act were repealed in 1920. Although the original 1917 law remains in effect, it was virtually never used after World War I to prosecute expressions of opinion (partly because the 1940 Smith Act included more updated sedition provisions); it has, however, been used in cases involving alleged theft of information, including in the prosecutions of Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg during the Cold War and the Vietnam War-era prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg for dissemination of the Pentagon Papers. 452

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Court Rulings The Supreme Court handed down six rulings concerning the constitutionality of Espionage Act prosecutions in 1919-1920, during a severe “red scare.” In every case, it upheld lower court convictions. Although the Court’s rulings no doubt reflected the anticommunist climate, they had long-term significance because they were the first cases in which the Court sought to interpret the free speech clauses of the First Amendment and thus helped shape decades of subsequent debate and interpretation of this subject. In Schenck v. United States (1919), the Court upheld the conviction (under the original 1917 law) of a group accused of seeking to obstruct enlistment in the armed forces by mailing antidraft leaflets. Despite the lack of evidence that Schenck’s mailings had any effect whatsoever, the Court, in a famous ruling penned by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, rejected Schenck’s First Amendment claims. Holmes wrote that although the defendants would have been within their constitutional rights in saying what they did in ordinary times, the character of “every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.” Just as “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic,” the question was always whether the expression was used in such circumstances and was of such a nature as to create a “clear and present danger ” that it would cause the “substantive evils” that Congress has the right to prevent. In Abrams v. United States (1919), a second landmark case (based on the 1918 amendment), the Court upheld the conviction of a group of defendants who had thrown from a New York City rooftop leaflets critical of U.S. military intervention against the new Bolshevik government in Russia. This case became known especially because of a dissent by Holmes, who essentially maintained that no clear and present danger had been demonstrated and that Congress could not constitutionally forbid “all effort to change the mind of the country.” In words that became famous both for their eloquence and because, after 1937, most Court rulings in First Amendment cases reflected their sentiment more than the those of the majorities in either Abrams or Schenck, Holmes declared that U.S. constitutional democracy was based on giving all thought an opportunity to compete in the free trade in ideas, and as long as that experiment remained part of the Constitution, Americans should be “eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expres453

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sion of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.” In the only significant Espionage Act case involving First Amendment claims to be decided by the Court after 1920, a Court majority reflected Holmes’s Abrams dissent. In Hartzel v. United States (1944), involving a man who had mailed articles attacking U.S. policies during World War II to Army officers and draft registrants (circumstances almost identical to Schenck), the Court reversed Hartzel’s conviction on the grounds that there was no proof he had willfully sought to obstruct the activities of the armed forces. Robert Justin Goldstein Sources for Further Study Chafee, Zechariah. Free Speech in the United States. New York: Atheneum, 1969. Goldstein, Robert Justin. Political Repression in Modern America: 1870 to the Present. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1978. Polenberg, Richard. Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech. New York: Viking Penguin, 1987. Preston, William. Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903-1933. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. See also: First Amendment (1789); Alien and Sedition Acts (1798);

Sedition Act of 1798 (1798).

Migratory Bird Treaty Act Date: July 3, 1918 U.S. Statutes at Large: 40 Stat. 755 U.S. Code: 16 § 703 Categories: Agriculture; Animals; Environment and Conservation;

Treaties and Agreements

454

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The act established federal ownership of economically important migratory birds, thus shifting the power to regulate wildlife away from the states. Until 1920, wildlife management was a state-level activity. In 1913, however, the federal Migratory Bird Act was passed to protect migratory game and insectivorous birds from excessive hunting pressure. Lower federal courts found the act unconstitutional. In 1916, Congress concluded a treaty with Great Britain for the protection of migratory birds, and in 1918, Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to implement the provisions of the treaty. In 1920, this act withstood a constitutional challenge brought to the Supreme Court in Missouri v. Holland. The Court decided that the treaty power of the federal government, unlike its legislative power, is not constrained by the constitutional rights of the states. The decision destroyed the doctrine of state ownership of wildlife and set the stage for further assertions of federal supremacy. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was the first successful challenge to the established legal doctrine that ownership and control of wildlife were vested in state governments and held in trust for state citizens. Based on English common law, the state-ownership doctrine evolved as states sought to protect their dwindling fish-andgame resources from heavy commercial demand. The height of the state-ownership doctrine was reached in Geer v. Connecticut (1896). A Connecticut law that prohibited interstate transportation of game that had been lawfully killed in Connecticut was successfully defended against the charge that this was unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce. The Supreme Court decided that the state, as owner of the wildlife, could impose any reasonable restriction on its use, alive or dead. Lacey Act While Geer established the states’ rights to prohibit the export of wildlife, states still had no mechanism to prohibit the importation of wildlife. Many states had laws restricting hunting and the sale of illegally harvested game, but they were hampered in enforcing such laws by market hunters who brought in game killed in other states. Dealers charged with violating state laws could claim that their product was taken in another state, and it was virtually impossible to disprove such assertions. Solving such problems was clearly 455

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a federal concern, since the matter involved interstate commerce. In 1900, Representative John Lacey of Iowa introduced a bill in Congress to remedy this problem. Passed in 1900, the Lacey Act provided federal sanction to state laws that prohibited interstate transportation of unlawfully killed animals. The act also allowed states to assume that any dead wildlife found within a state had been killed in the state and thus was subject to state game laws. The Lacey Act helped the states in their efforts to enforce existing laws, but it did nothing to regularize or to enhance protection for migratory birds. Across the nation, a patchwork of hunting regulations and irregular enforcement left many species at the mercy of the casual hunter. Lobbyists such as T. Gilbert Pearson began to work toward federal regulation, and in a political climate that increasingly supported centralization of governmental power, they soon found supporters in Congress. Weeks-McLean Migratory Bird Act The first congressional attempt to establish federal control over migratory birds came in 1904, when Pennsylvania congressman George Shiras III introduced a bill to put the birds under the protection of the national government. His first bill died in the Agriculture Committee; a second attempt in 1906 failed as well. Two years later, after Shiras had retired, Massachusetts congressman John Weeks introduced a similar but also unsuccessful bill. By 1912, when Weeks, joined by Connecticut senator George McLean, tried again, other interest groups had begun to rally around the cause. The firearms manufacturers and dealers were interested in protecting their markets. Game associations wished to preserve their sport. Some advocates were moved by the plight of the disappearing species and the wanton slaughter, especially for feathers in women’s hats. The bill was expanded to include insectivorous birds, bringing agricultural interests into the fold. The legislation was hidden as a rider to an agricultural appropriations bill and was signed by President William Howard Taft on March 4, 1913, as his administration was rushing to a close. Taft later said that he thought the migratory bird provisions of the bill were unconstitutional and that he would have vetoed the bill had he been aware of its contents. Relying on the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, the Weeks-McLean Migratory Bird Act gave jurisdiction over mi456

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gratory birds to the federal Department of Agriculture. Challenges to the Migratory Bird Act reached the federal courts in United States v. Shauver in 1914 and United States v. McCullagh in 1915; in both cases, the courts relied on Geer, finding the Migratory Bird Act to be an unconstitutional exercise of federal power. Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds President Taft had not been alone in his misgivings over the act. Only a month after the act became law, the rapid state response challenging the bill led Senator McLean to introduce a resolution asking the president to negotiate a North American treaty to protect migratory birds. The resolution passed, aided considerably by the public furor over the death in 1914 of the last known passenger pigeon. Treaty negotiations with Great Britain (on behalf of Canada) began almost at once. The Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds was signed on August 16, 1916, and swiftly ratified by the Senate; the convention entered into force on August 22, 1916. Migratory Bird Treaty Act Opposition in Congress to the enabling act for the Migratory Bird Treaty was stiff. Members of Congress were dismayed that the treaty power was being used to give the federal government an authority that would otherwise be unconstitutional. Issues of states’ rights were hotly debated. Even members who recognized the need to protect diminishing bird populations feared that this use of the treaty power to limit state authority might undermine the federal system of government. They warned that the national government might use the same vehicle to invade other areas constitutionally reserved to the states. Nevertheless, Congress passed enabling legislation in 1917, and on July 3, 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson. The states moved promptly to challenge the enabling legislation in court, but use of the federal treaty power complicated their arguments considerably. The landmark case that decided the supremacy of the treaty power over the reserved rights of the states was Missouri v. Holland (1920). This case arose in federal district court against federal game warden Ray P. Holland, whose enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in Missouri was interfering with the amount of state revenues generated by hunting. The district judge found that the treaty-making power of the United States 457

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was supreme over state authority; therefore, he ruled, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was constitutional. Missouri appealed to the Supreme Court, but the Court upheld the lower-court decision. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was indeed constitutional; the erosion of the state ownership doctrine confirmed in Geer had begun. Impact of the Act Federal assumption of control over wildlife was part of a larger effort to centralize national power. Virtually all congressional debates over the Migratory Bird Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act focused on the constitutional issues of the proper relationship between the state and federal governments. It is clear from the congressional debates and judicial opinions that all parties were agreed that game in general, and migratory birds in particular, needed protection. They also agreed that the federal acts would provide protection, yet they argued bitterly over the legislation. For the most part, the arguments were not on scientific or administrative grounds but rather on constitutional ones. Even men who favored the policy ends were driven to object to the policy means. Using a popular policy agenda to achieve a hidden agenda is an ancient political ploy. Environmental policy is often used to camouflage less respectable goals, partly because environmental issues have such high social appeal. For example, Arthur McEvoy notes in The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in California Fisheries, 18501980 (1986) that regulation of California shrimp fisheries was as much an attempt to force Chinese immigrants out of business as it was scientific regulation of a natural resource. Having flexed its muscles over migratory birds, the federal government allowed the states to retain some control over wildlife. Throughout much of the twentieth century, the states were given considerable autonomy in choosing how and to what extent they complied with federal guidelines, subject of course to the silken chains of federal money through such programs as the PittmanRobertson Act (1937), which redistributes a federal tax on ammunition and firearms sales to the states for wildlife restoration. Yet some protective legislation, such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), the Endangered Species Act (1973), and implementation legislation for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975), places responsibility for compliance with the national government. The courts have continued to 458

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support federal authority over wildlife: For example, federally owned lands within state borders are not subject to state regulation (Hunt v. United States, 1928), the federal government may kill animals on national land without state permits (New Mexico State Game Commission v. Udall, 1969), and the interstate commerce clause gives Congress the power to protect wildlife in navigable waters when such wildlife is affected by dredge and fill operations conducted on privately owned riparian land (Zabel v. Tabb, 1970). None of this would have been possible had the state ownership doctrine enunciated in Geer been allowed to stand. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which withstood a legal challenge to the constitutional right of the federal government to regulate wildlife, was thus the beginning of a unified national policy for wildlife regulation. Susan J. Buck Sources for Further Study Bean, Michael. The Evolution of National Wildlife Law. New York: Praeger, 1983. Belanger, Dian Olson. Managing American Wildlife: A History of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. Chandler, William. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” In Audubon Wildlife Report 1985, edited by Roger Di Silvestro. New York: National Audubon Society, 1985. Fox, Stephen. The American Conservation Movement: John Muir and His Legacy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981. Hays, Samuel. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. Orr, Oliver H., Jr. Saving American Birds: T. Gilbert Pearson and the Founding of the Audubon Movement. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992. Tober, James A. Who Owns the Wildlife? The Political Economy of Conservation in Nineteenth Century America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981. See also: Migratory Bird Act (1913); Migratory Bird Hunting and

Conservation Stamp Act (1934); Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Endangered Species Act (1973); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979). 459

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Eighteenth Amendment Also known as: Prohibition Date: Ratified January 16, 1919; certified January 29, 1919; re-

pealed December 5, 1933 U.S. Statutes at Large: 40 Stat. 1059 Categories: Constitutional Law; Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Food and Drugs Called a “noble experiment” by President Herbert Hoover, the amendment imposed a national ban on the production, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages; its failure brought an end to a major reform effort.

The prohibitionist movement existed as early as the colonial period, but most historians date the modern form to the 1850’s. The movement met with local and state successes in the late nineteenth century. By 1900 a quarter of the U.S. population was living in “dry” areas (areas where the sale of alcohol was illegal); by 1917, twenty-nine states were dry. Passage of the Act Congress first enacted a temporary prohibition of the sale of alcohol in 1917 as a war measure. Then, in December, 1917, a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution stating that the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited” was introduced into Congress. It speeded its way through the Senate and the House of Representatives and was sent to the states for ratification. Mississippi was the first state to ratify (on January 8, 1918), and a little more than a year later, Nebraska became the thirty-sixth, the last required. Passage of the Volstead Act, a measure designed both to continue the wartime prohibition and to provide enforcement of Prohibition as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, followed on October 28, 1919. The Volstead Act defined alcoholic beverages as those containing at least 0.5 percent alcohol. 460

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The Prohibition Era Almost from the first, Prohibition appeared to be largely unenforceable. Those who wanted to drink had little trouble locating bootleggers, and speakeasies (clubs that served alcohol illegally) abounded. The Prohibition Bureau’s budget was small, and all the presidents of the period—Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover—expressed doubts about its viability. One of the side effects of Prohibition was the rise of organized crime. Until the 1920’s gangs had been local, but that soon changed. Although there were bootleggers and illicit distillers and brewers in all parts of the country, “Scarface Al” Capone, who operated out of Chicago, became the symbol of them all. By 1927 the Capone gang was grossing an estimated $60 million a year on beer alone, and by 1929 the figure approximated $100 million. Capone’s beer earnings were said to be larger than the profits of Standard Oil of Indiana, Ford, or General Electric. Without Prohibition, this situation would have been impossible. That Prohibition was considered the most divisive American political question of the 1920’s is generally conceded by historians who study the period. The matter was addressed directly in the 1928 presidential election, when the country was presented with a choice between Republican Herbert Hoover, who supported Prohibition, and Democrat Al Smith, who opposed it. The election resulted in a Hoover landslide, although it was attributable more to the fact that the nation was basking in prosperity than to other issues. Despite his support of Prohibition, Hoover indicated his conviction that the Volstead Act was unenforceable. On May 29, 1929, he appointed a group to study Prohibition and make recommendations. The National Commission on Law Observation and Enforcement, headed by former attorney general George Wickersham, released its findings in 1931. The Wickersham Report concluded that a more serious attempt at enforcement would be required if Washington expected the public to take the Volstead Act seriously. Prohibition was a major issue in the 1932 presidential race. The Republicans renominated Hoover and at his insistence adopted a conciliatory position on Prohibition, calling for the Eighteenth Amendment to be resubmitted to the states for ratification. The Democrats, led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, supported outright repeal. 461

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Repeal of Prohibition Roosevelt’s election spelled the end of Prohibition. On December 7, 1932, the House Ways and Means Committee held hearings on the matter of modifying the Volstead Act. Shortly thereafter, Representative James Collier introduced a measure to legalize beer with a 2.75 percent alcohol content. It won approval in the House and was sent on to the Senate. There it became the CollierBlaine Bill, which in its new form upped the alcoholic content to 3.05 percent—another sign that Prohibition was a fading crusade. On February 20, 1933, Congress passed what would become the Twenty-first Amendment, repealing the Eighteenth. It was sent to the states for ratification. Roosevelt did not have to wait until ratification to ask for changes in the Volstead Act, however; legislation based on the Collier-Blaine Bill, now known as the Cullen-Harrison Bill, which legalized 3.2 percent beer, was passed by Congress. On March 22, in the midst of his famous “hundred days,” in which a rush of legislation was passed to fight the Great Depression, Roosevelt signed into law the Beer and Wine Revenue Act—the title was significant—which legalized beer and wine with an alcohol content of 3.2 percent, effective April 7, 1933, in those states and areas without local laws to the contrary. At the same time, the proposed amendment made its way through the states. Utah ratified it on December 5, whereupon it became part of the Constitution. Prohibition at the federal level died. Most historians agree that Prohibition marked a major step in the development of a federal presence in law enforcement. The modern Federal Bureau of Investigation had its origins in the enforcement of Prohibition statutes. Prohibition also made possible the growth of organized crime. Defenders of the “war against drugs” observe that liquor consumption fell in the 1920’s; opponents point to the experience of Prohibition as an indication that criminalization of such behavior does not work. Both sides agree, however, that the way in which the laws were enforced (or not enforced) prompted a disrespect for law in general. Robert Sobel Supreme Court decisions The Supreme Court’s decisions in such cases as Crane v. Campbell (1917), Hawke v. Smith (1920), and the National Prohibition Cases 462

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(1920) strengthened the basis for and strongly endorsed the amendment. In Crane, the Court supported national prohibition by ruling that possessing alcohol for personal use was not a constitutional right. In Hawke, the Court upheld the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment by the Ohio General Assembly over the referendum by Ohio voters who rejected the amendment. According to the Court, when Congress requested that a constitutional amendment be ratified by state legislatures, it neither authorized nor permitted a referendum. In the National Prohibition Cases, the Court completed the process of making national prohibition part of the law of the United States. In these cases, the justices upheld the constitutionality of the Eighteenth Amendment and approved the method by which the state legislatures had ratified it. On December 5, 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. This amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and ended constitutional prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Louis Gesualdi Sources for Further Study Asbury, Herbert. The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950. Cashman, Sean D. Prohibition: The Lie of the Land. New York: Free Press, 1981. Chidsey, Donald Barr. On and Off the Wagon: A Sober Analysis of the Temperance Movement from the Pilgrims Through Prohibition. New York: Cowles, 1969. Dobyns, Fletcher. The Amazing Story of Repeal. Chicago: Willett, Clark, 1940. Engelmann, Larry. Intemperance: The Lost War Against Liquor. New York: Free Press, 1979. Furnas, J. C. The Life and Times of the Late Demon Rum. London: W. H. Allen, 1965. Kerr, K. Austin. Organized for Prohibition: A New History of the AntiSaloon League. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985. Krout, John. The Origins of Prohibition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. Kyvig, David E., ed. Law, Alcohol, and Order: Perspectives on National Prohibition. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985. 463

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Merz, Charles. The Dry Decade. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1931. Root, Grace C. Women and Repeal: The Story of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1934. Rumbarger, John J. Profits, Power, and Prohibition: Alcohol Reform and the Industrializing of America, 1800-1930. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989. Schlesinger, Arthur M. The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957. Sinclair, Andrew. Era of Excess: A Social History of the Prohibition Movement. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Spinelli, Lawrence. Dry Diplomacy: The United States, Great Britain, and Prohibition. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1989. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Hundred Days legislation (1933); Twenty-first Amendment (1933).

Treaty of Versailles Date: Signed June 28, 1919 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The treaty brought World War I to a close, establishing a fragile basis for European peace. The agreement created the League of Nations, the first global collective security organization, but dealt harshly with Germany. While World War I had been raging in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson had begun to articulate the hopes of many people in the United States for a liberal peace. He believed that the victors could not indulge themselves in the luxury of vengeance: Only a just and merciful settlement could ensure a lasting peace. In early 1917, 464

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three months before the United States entered the conflict, Wilson called for a “peace without victory,” with no indemnities and annexations to sow the seeds of future wars. Wilson’s Fourteen Points Wilson sought more than a just settlement; he wanted to create a new, rational, international order. On January 8, 1918, addressing a joint session of Congress, he outlined his famous Fourteen Points. The first five applied to all nations: open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, removal of barriers to free trade, arms reductions, and impartial adjustments of colonial claims. The next eight revolved around the principle of national self-determination, listing the French, Belgian, and Russian territory that Germany must evacuate and promising autonomy to the subject nationalities of Eastern Europe. The capstone was Wilson’s fourteenth point: the creation of an international League of Nations. Wilson envisioned, above all, the United States playing a permanent role in world affairs through membership in a collective security organization. Great Britain and France had already made secret treaties that violated several of Wilson’s points, but on November 11, 1918, representatives of Germany, the United States, and the Allies, meeting in a railroad car in the Compiègne Forest, signed an armistice based substantially on Wilson’s program. The Great War was over. The Peace Conference Two months later, on January 18, 1919, the peace conference convened at Paris amid an atmosphere of crisis. The war had left Europe in confusion. Half a dozen small wars still raged. As the Bolsheviks tightened their hold on Russia, communist hysteria swept through Eastern Europe. The conference, although sensing the need for haste, had to consider calmly the fate of much of the world. Thirty-two nations sent delegations, but the actual decision making devolved on the Big Four: Great Britain’s David Lloyd George, France’s Georges Clemenceau, Italy’s Vittorio Orlando, and the United States’ Woodrow Wilson. Clemenceau, the cynical French “Tiger,” was suspicious of Wilsonian idealism. “God gave us the Ten Commandments, and we broke them,” he said. “Wilson gives us the Fourteen Points. We shall see.” The Big Four approved the demilitarization of Germany, Allied occupation of the Rhineland, the return of Alsace-Lorraine 465

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to France, and an Anglo-French-U.S. mutual defense pact. These provisions, if maintained, would guarantee French security. Italy received Southern Tyrol, a region populated by some two hundred thousand Austrians. The conference also redrew the map of Eastern Europe. A series of new, independent nations sprang to life: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, and Finland. The boundary areas of Poland and Czechoslovakia included large populations of German-speaking people. In the Far East, Japan took over German economic rights in the Chinese province of Shantun, while Great Britain and France divided up the other German colonies in the Pacific and Africa. The conference forced Germany not only to take full responsibility for causing the war but also to provide a “blank check” for reparations, including damages to civilian properties and future pensions. The Germans signed the treaty on June 28. They would later learn that they owed thirty-three billion dollars. The Treaty of Versailles hardly lived up to Wilson’s ideas of selfdetermination, although it left a smaller proportion than ever of European people living under foreign governments. Nor was it a peace without victory. Wilson did win acceptance for the League of Nations, however, with the League Covenant being incorporated into the treaty itself. The League, he hoped, would later correct any imperfections in the work of the conference. American Response to the League of Nations When Wilson returned to the United States from Paris, public opinion favored ratification of the treaty and membership in the League of Nations, but the Senate would have the final decision. In March, 1919, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge had ominously secured a “round robin” resolution with the signatures of thirty-seven senators—more than enough to kill the treaty—announcing their opposition to the League Covenant in its current form. Wilson could count on the support of most of the Senate Democrats, but he could not meet the two-thirds majority necessary for ratification without a large block of Republican votes. A dozen or so Republican senators had mild reservations about the League; another group had strong reservations. These latter opposed Article 10 of the League Covenant, a provision binding nations to preserve the territorial integrity and independence of all League members against aggression. Senator William E. Borah was the leader of the 466

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“irreconcilables,” who unconditionally opposed the treaty with or without reservations. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, Lodge played a crucial role in the fight over the League of Nations. Unlike the irreconcilables, he was no isolationist. He claimed to favor the League but with strong reservations. Yet Lodge possessed an intense personal dislike for Wilson and a distrust of his leadership. For two weeks, Lodge stalled for time by reading aloud the text of the treaty, all 268 pages of it. Then he held six weeks of hearings, calling witnesses who opposed ratification. At last, he drew up a list of fourteen reservations, as if to ridicule Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Gradually, the mood of the country shifted against the treaty. Wilson, overworked and ill, decided to go to the people in a whirlwind speaking tour. In three weeks, he traveled eight thousand miles and delivered thirty-six major speeches, typing them out himself on his portable typewriter. On the night of September 25, he fell ill in Pueblo, Colorado. The presidential train rushed him back to Washington. On October 20, in the White House, he collapsed: He had suffered a stroke that paralyzed his left side. For the next six weeks, the country was virtually without a president, and Wilson never fully recovered. When the treaty came to a vote, he passed word for Democrats to vote against the treaty with the Lodge reservations. On November 19, 1919, and in a second vote on March 19, 1920, a coalition of Democrats and irreconcilables sent the treaty to defeat. The failure of Wilson’s efforts to win support for unqualified U.S. participation in the League of Nations ultimately reduced the League’s effective operation. As for the peace itself, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution formally bringing hostilities to an end on July 2, 1921. Despite the isolationist mood of the country, the United States eventually participated in a number of League activities, although never as a formal member. The absence of the United States from the League Council hampered its peacemaking capacity. More deadly to the League’s future, however, were the growing nationalism throughout Europe, the deep resentment among the Germans with regard to what they viewed as unfair Versailles Treaty provisions, and the lack of consensus about how to deal with violations of League Covenant provisions. Like many of Wilson’s idealized Fourteen Points, the League of Nations was a noble experiment that foundered on political reali467

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ties. The world was not ready for a global collective security organization, but the League’s work in a number of economic and humanitarian areas did substantially advance international cooperation. These efforts, coupled with greater realism about power politics and keeping international peace, led to more realistic structures in the League’s successor, the United Nations. U.S. policymakers played the lead role in fashioning the new organization, as Wilson had with the League, but they were more careful to build bipartisan domestic support for the United Nations as they seized, rather than spurned, global leadership. Donald Holley, updated by Robert F. Gorman Sources for Further Study Bennet, A. LeRoy. International Organizations: Principles and Issues. 6th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1995. Boemeke, Manfred F., Gerald D. Feldman, and Elisabeth GlaserSchmidt, eds. The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment After Seventyfive Years. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Dockrill, Michael L., and John Fisher, eds. The Paris Peace Conference 1919: Peace without Victory? Palgrave, 2001. Hay, Jeff, ed. Treaty of Versailles. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Heckscher, August. Woodrow Wilson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1991. Levin, N. Gordon. Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America’s Response to War and Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. Mayer, Arno J. The Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918-1919. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. Northedge, F. S. The League of Nations: Its Life and Times, 1920-1946. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986. Stone, Ralph A. The Irreconcilables: The Fight Against the League of Nations. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970. See also: National Defense Act (1916).

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Motor Vehicle Theft Act Also known as: Dyer Act; National Motor Vehicle Theft Act Date: October 29, 1919 U.S. Statutes at Large: 41 Stat. 324 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

Establishing penalties for motor vehicle theft involving interstate commerce, this act was one of a series of bills utilizing the Constitution’s commerce clause to expand federal involvement in the enforcement of criminal law. In 1919, approximately 6.5 million motor vehicles were registered in the United States. Criminals and criminal rings, particularly in larger cities, were taking advantage of this rapidly expanding opportunity, so that automobile theft was a burgeoning problem and insurance rates were rising significantly. Although all states already had established laws against automobile theft, the Motor Vehicle Theft Act (the Dyer Act) made the theft of motor vehicles and the receipt of stolen vehicles a federal offense when state boundaries were crossed. It specified penalties of five thousand dollars, up to five years in prison, or both. The commerce clause of the Constitution thus was used to justify federal involvement in what had been the jurisdiction of state and local authorities. Some opposed the legislation out of concern for states’ rights, and President Woodrow Wilson did not support the bill, which became law without his signature. In following years, federal regulation of business and labor would be expanded significantly on the basis of the commerce clause. Steve D. Boilard Sources for Further Study Cooke, Frederick H. Commerce Clause of the Federal Constitution. Reprint. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1987. Kallenbach, Joseph Ernest. Federal Cooperation with the States Under the Commerce Clause. Reprint. New York: Greenwood Press, 1970. See also: Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act (1984). 469

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Mineral Leasing Act Date: February 25, 1920 U.S. Statutes at Large: 41 Stat. 437 U.S. Code: 30 § 181 Categories: Land Management; Natural Resources

The act gave statutory effect to the policy of leasing government lands containing mineral deposits such as coal, gas, oil, oil shale, phosphates, potassium, and sodium to private parties for development. On February 25, 1920, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Mineral Leasing Act, giving statutory effect to the policy of leasing government lands containing mineral deposits such as coal, gas, oil, oil shale, phosphates, potassium, and sodium to private parties for development. The law did not satisfy everyone. Many Westerners, businesspeople, and conservatives preferred a policy of permanent alienation or sale of government lands to private parties without conditions. Some conservationists and Progressives desired that the government not only own the public lands but also conserve and develop the resources contained within them. After more than a century of uncontrolled development and exploitation, however, the act represented a victory for conservation. Rise of the Conservation Movement Prior to the twentieth century, federal lands were generally sold for nominal fees or given away outright. The General Mining Act of 1872 turned public-land mineral deposits of gold, silver, and copper over to developers at a minimal cost with few restrictions by the federal government. Lands containing coal deposits were treated in much the same way. In the early twentieth century, however, as the exhaustion of the nation’s vast lands and resources became a possibility, a conservation movement emerged during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt. Yet not everyone was a conservationist. Many people in the West, for example, claimed that conservationists tended to be Easterners whose lands were already developed and who were thus enforcing a double standard on the West, denying opportunities to the citizens of those states. Others argued that government conservation policies were a viola470

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tion of the rights of property and individualism as set forth in the Declaration of Independence; some complained that government conservation was paternalistic and autocratic. In 1906, Roosevelt proposed a coal-leasing bill to Congress. In order to protect the public interest and increase government revenues, the government would retain ownership of the land but would lease it to private interests for a royalty. Some critics argued that the proposal was a socialistic violation of states’ rights. Others, such as Wisconsin senator Robert M. La Follette, wanted tighter legislative controls, fearing that a loose leasing law might result in increased private monopoly of the nation’s resources. No leasing law resulted, but Roosevelt and his successors William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson began withdrawing certain government lands containing mineral deposits from the public domain. By 1916, more than 140 million acres had been set aside, including fifty oil reserves totaling 5,587,000 acres. To many private interests, leasing became a viable approach in developing the mineral resources on federal lands, both to generate income and to preserve and develop the nation’s resources. Oil and the Leasing Debate It was oil rather than coal, however, that became the focus of the debate. Oil was destined to be the energy source of the future, and part of the oil debate revolved around naval power and U.S. defense policy. In 1912, Taft created two naval oil reserves in California’s San Joaquin Valley: reserve number 1, Elk Hills, and reserve number 2, Buena Vista Hills. Taft’s successor, Woodrow Wilson, established a third reserve in 1915 in Wyoming, at Teapot Dome. Wilson’s secretary of the interior, Franklin K. Lane, a Progressive from California, supported leasing for oil and other minerals. Lane’s major opponent in the administration, Josephus Daniels, the secretary of the navy and also a Progressive, was a strong advocate of oil reserves for exclusive naval use and was critical of leasing. Most conservationists, notably Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt’s chief forester, advocated the concept of leasing. Several leasing bills were introduced during the Wilson years. The leasing debate was a regional, rather than a political, issue at that time. Scott Ferris, an Oklahoma Democrat, and Irvine Lenroot, a Wisconsin Republican, led the leasing campaign in the House. Daniels was opposed 471

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to any leasing bill that would alienate public oil lands, particularly those set aside for the navy. Progressives such as Idaho’s Senator William Borah argued that natural resources should be maintained and operated by the government for the people. Others, such as William King of Utah, wanted no government conservation program of any kind. Secretary Lane was caught in the middle. He admired the private businesspeople who had built America, and he was sympathetic to those who claimed that they had established a stake in the withdrawn oil reserves. He also wished to open Alaska to development, and his water-power sites policy came under attack for lacking sufficient government controls. In 1916, Pinchot called Lane an anticonservationist. Pinchot did not believe that administrators should be narrowly bound by restrictive regulations, but he believed that Lane had acted unwisely. Wilson’s Democrats suffered defeat in the 1918 congressional elections. Losses were particularly severe in the West, and in February, 1919, Wilson, risking the wrath of conservationists, gave his support to a mineral-leasing bill, which included both leasing and sale provisions. Many conservationists were dismayed. The naval reserves were not protected, and the national forests, Grand Canyon National Park, and Mount Olympus National Monument were opened to prospectors. The bill easily passed the House by a vote of 233 to 109, La Follette kept the bill from coming to a vote in the Senate, and it died when the congressional session ended in March, 1919. With Republican control of Congress, the long campaign for a leasing bill came to fruition. The Republican leadership needed to appear constructive, particularly after the party’s opposition to the Treaty of Versailles and Wilson’s League of Nations. Westerners and conservatives, both Democrats and Republicans, worried that without a leasing bill government operation might result. Utah’s Reed Smoot, the chairman of the Senate Public Lands Committee, preferred no government involvement but recognized the political need to compromise if any development was to occur. With the prodding of the Pinchot bloc from the outside and Lenroot’s actions within the committee, the Smoot bill evolved during the summer of 1919 in a manner pleasing to conservationists. Unlike the previous bill, it was entirely a leasing bill, with no sales or alienation alternatives. The Grand Canyon and Mt. Olympus were removed from coal and other mineral exploration. LaFollette led the fight 472

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on the Senate floor and supported the bill as an improvement over previous bills, although he wished for additional controls over possible monopolies and unfair prices. Provisions of the Leasing Act The bill was passed by the Senate in September, 1919, was passed by the House at the end of October, and was signed into law by Wilson on February 25, 1920. The Mineral Leasing Act applied to oil and gas as well as to coal, sodium, and phosphates. Prospecting was allowed on unproven lands, some preference was given to those with earlier claims, and each state was allocated 37.5 percent of resource royalties from lands within its borders. The secretary of the interior was given considerable responsibility for administering the new law. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 established the principle that the government would retain ownership of the public lands containing mineral deposits and would lease those lands and their resources to private developers. In so doing, the federal government became permanently involved in managing the mineral resources of the nation. By the 1980’s, more than 100 million acres of public lands were under oil and gas lease, and approximately 70 million tons of coal were mined on federal lands. The people’s interests were to be protected, and preservation and planning would be possible—or, at least, so it seemed in 1920. Effects of Leasing In operation, the mineral-leasing law proved to be controversial, and within a few years it led to one of the most famous scandals in U.S. history. The early twentieth century Progressives trusted the advice of supposedly apolitical experts. Objective in their assessments, such experts, according to Progressives, would provide the necessary scientific knowledge to elected or appointed administrators, who were given broad leeway to implement the laws. In practice, however, experts’ opinions often differed on specific points, such as whether the naval reserves could intentionally or inadvertently be drained by outside drilling. During debate on the Smoot bill, La Follette proposed an amendment to the bill to exclude the naval reserves from the leasing bill, and, citing expert opinion, denied that separate naval reserves would be damaged by nearby drilling. Montana’s Democratic senator Thomas J. Walsh, who fa473

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vored Western development, claimed that his expert, E. L. Doheny, predicted that the naval reserves would be drained and thus should be developed and the oil stored or sold. La Follette’s amendment failed, but in June, 1920, in an amendment to another bill, the naval reserves were made the responsibility of the secretary of the navy. Administrators, who were given the broad discretion that the Progressives deemed necessary, did not always administer the laws as some had anticipated. New Mexico’s Republican senator Albert Fall, the archetypal Westerner distrustful of federal conservation policies, opposed leasing and any other governmental restrictions on development. Gifford Pinchot hoped to be chosen as the new secretary of the interior after the Republican victory in the 1920 presidential election, but President Warren G. Harding selected Fall for the position. Republican conservationists were concerned, but they hoped for the best. They received the worst. The Teapot Dome Affair In May, 1921, Fall persuaded Harding’s secretary of the Navy, Edwin Denby, to turn the naval reserves over to Fall’s interior department. This was legal but was antithetical to the spirit of the mineral-leasing legislation. Fall then surreptitiously but legally leased Elk Hills to the Doheny oil interests and Teapot Dome to Harry Sinclair. When Fall went to jail years later, it was not because he had violated provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act but because he had received financial and other compensation from Doheny and Sinclair. There were several paradoxes in the Teapot Dome affair. First, the scandal was misnamed, as the Teapot Dome reserves were less important than those at California’s Elk Hills. Second, the original justification for establishing the reserves was to offset a perceived shortage of oil, a scenario that did not materialize. Third, although LaFollette was one of the chief figures in exposing the Teapot Dome scandal, the primary investigator was Senator Thomas J. Walsh, who had been sympathetic to Western developers during Wilson’s administration. Senator Lenroot, one of the conservationist architects of the Smoot bill, defended the Harding administration’s conservation decisions. When the Leasing Act of 1920 was passed, it was viewed as a conservation measure; however, the scandal demonstrated that, in the hands of a willful administrator op474

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posed to the spirit of conservation, the act’s outcome could be radically different. Long-Range Impact The intent of the law, at least as far as conservationists were concerned, was better served by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. New Deal liberals were not the direct political heirs of the earlier Progressives, but conservation was a common concern, and Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, was a former Progressive Republican. Ickes was a committed conservationist, and during his tenure he conscientiously supervised the mineralleasing program through the General Land Office, as well as through the Bureau of Mines, the U.S. Fuel Administration, the Bituminous Coal Commission, the U.S. Coal Commission, and the Federal Oil Conservation Board. The battle between conservationists and developers continued. The Wilderness Act of 1964 established 9.1 million acres as wilderness areas largely exempt from mining and drilling. At the same time, the nation needed additional amounts of oil and other resources, needs that were increasingly met by imports. In the 1970’s, a movement developed in the West to give greater say to states and local areas in the use of federal public lands and resources. Many conservationists reacted by demanding revisions in the Mineral Leasing Act that would place a higher priority on environmental considerations. Conservationists warned about the threat of monopoly and price fixing, noting that 70 percent of the coal leases were held by only fifteen corporations. The oil embargoes instituted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), however, added another justification for additional development: The nation’s survival seemed to require it. By the end of the 1970’s, Western demands, known popularly as the Sagebrush Rebellion, were paralleling those of the years prior to 1920. “Sagebrush Rebels” claimed that federal government policies were infringing upon needed development. Most disputants agreed that the government would retain ownership of the public lands and lease them to private parties for development, but there remained the contentious questions of how much, how fast, by whom, and at what environmental cost should such development be undertaken. These issues would necessarily be fought out in the political arena by each generation. The Mineral Leasing Act of 475

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1920 established the principle of continued government ownership of mineral lands, but enactment of the law did not end the debate about the actual use of those lands. Eugene Larson Sources for Further Study Bates, J. Leonard. The Origins of Teapot Dome. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963. Cawley, R. McGreggor. Federal Land, Western Anger. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. Noggle, Burl. Teapot Dome. New York: W. W. Norton, 1965. Robbins, Roy M. Our Landed Heritage. 2d ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976. Wyant, William K. Westward in Eden. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. See also: General Mining Act (1872); Wilderness Act (1964); Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970); Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977).

Federal Power Act Also known as: Water Power Act Date: June 10, 1920 U.S. Statutes at Large: 41 Stat. 1063 Categories: Agriculture; Energy; Natural Resources

The Federal Power Act created the Federal Power Commission to regulate hydroelectric development on rivers in the United States. The Federal Power Act provided for the secretaries of the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and War to regulate water power development jointly. Prior to passage of the Water Power Act, each of 476

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these cabinet departments had individually overseen hydroelectric plants on streams falling under their respective jurisdictions: Agriculture oversaw development in national forests, for example, and the War Department bore responsibility for navigable rivers. The new agency would review permit applications and approve engineering designs for dams and powerhouses. The act was approved in 1920 after many years of lobbying, negotiation, and compromise in Congress. The first hydropower development in the United States occurred in 1882, but despite its advantages hydropower development lagged behind steam plants. A 1914 report found sixteen different sources of potential problems in obtaining water rights for hydro-projects. Lobbyists representing interest groups ranging from conservationists to industrialists pushed for a coherent federal water power policy. Background By 1915 Congress had two bills to consider, the Adamson Bill, which was an amendment to the Federal Dam Act of 1906 and dealt with navigable waters, and the Ferris Bill, which dealt with power development on public lands. The major differences between the Ferris and the Adamson Bills lay in two areas—what specific waters were covered and who would have the administrative responsibilities—not with actual provisions regarding water power development. Both bills allowed for a fifty-year permit system with the permit being nonrevocable. Under the old system, permits could be revoked at any time. Both bills also provided for payment of fees by permit holders to the federal government. Licensing fees meant the public could benefit from development of public resources by private firms. Water power continued to be debated for several more years, despite claims by lobbyists that emergency situations caused by World War I required quick action. It was not until 1918 that a compromise bill was introduced. This bill proposed a commission consisting of the three departments already involved in waterpower regulation (War, Interior, and Agriculture) and covering water power on navigable streams, public lands, and national forests. Oscar C. Merrill, chief forester with the U.S. Forest Service, was the primary author of the proposed legislation. Still, legislative inertia following World War I slowed the act’s passage. 477

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Provisions It was not until June 10, 1920, that the Federal Water Power Act became law. By then, numerous compromises necessary to ensure its approval had weakened conservationists’ intentions. The act as passed reads as though its goal had always been regulation of technology rather than wise use of natural resources. It provided for fees to be collected and engineering design work to be submitted for approval. The FPC’s executive secretary, Merrill, supported conservation, but he was only one man. Congress failed to allocate funding for even one clerk-typist for the FPC; all staff had to be “borrowed” from component departments. It was not until the FPC’s reorganization in 1930 that it began to function as a truly regulatory agency. Nancy Farm Männikkö Source for Further Study Baum, Robert David. The Federal Power Commission and State Utility Regulation. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Public Affairs, 1942. See also: Natural Gas Act (1938); Price-Anderson Act (1957); Ni-

agara Power Act (1957); Department of Energy Organization Act (1977).

Nineteenth Amendment Date: Ratified August 18, 1920; certified August 26, 1920 U.S. Statutes at Large: 41 Stat. 362 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Voting

and Elections; Women’s Issues

After more than a century of struggle, the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. . . .” Written in 1848 at the first Women’s Rights Convention, held at Seneca Falls, New York, these words announced 478

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the opening of a new movement in which the goal was to establish political, social, and economic equality for men and women. The First Women’s Movement Although the campaign for the vote created the greatest public outcry, suffrage was merely one facet of the larger struggle of women to enter the professions, to own property, and to enjoy the same legal rights as men. By attaining these goals, nineteenth century reformers hoped to see women emerge from second-class citizenship to a status equal to that of their male counterparts. The 1848 meeting was not an isolated phenomenon; it was part of the general reform spirit of the period. Prosperous middle and upper classes had developed in large urban centers along the Atlantic seaboard. This prosperity had created a new, leisured class of women who could devote at least part of their time to worthy causes. Many chose to support the cause of women’s rights in some way. Both men and women worked for social reforms. As each effort was successful, it inevitably led to others, thus creating a climate in which reform prospered. This process could be seen most clearly in the 1830’s and 1840’s, again in the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, and in the first two decades of the twentieth century. These three periods saw changes in the legal, social, and economic positions of African Americans,women, and labor. As their problems were interrelated, advancement for one group normally brought some gains for the others. The moving force behind the 1848 meeting and the establishment of an Equal Rights Association was Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Like many other activists for women, Stanton came to the issue from the abolitionist movement. Many of the mid-nineteenth century reformers saw parallels between the position of slaves and the position of all women. Both groups were regarded by society as inherently inferior. Many abolitionists also believed that only when women enjoyed full rights to participate in the political process would they achieve their goal of a more egalitarian society. Thus, from the outset, the idea of women’s political rights was regarded by their supporters as both a means and an end in itself. In the early years, Stanton’s most important coworkers were Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone. Anthony later emerged as the organizing genius of the suffrage drive. Her administrative talents provided 479

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a perfect complement to Stanton’s gifts as a writer and theoretician. Although the Equal Rights Association was chronically short of funds, it managed to establish a short-lived newspaper, sponsor hundreds of speeches, and organize women’s groups to petition and lobby for the vote in their home states. During the Civil War era, pressure for equal rights was submerged, first by the demand for the abolition of slavery and later by the drive to pass the Fifteenth Amendment. Male abolitionists promised that if women would work to secure suffrage for black men, their turn would come next. Thus the Equal Rights Association was placed in the position of working for a suffrage amendment that did not include women among its beneficiaries. Anthony and Stanton found such a position intolerable and founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869. Stone, who accepted that women must step aside during “the Negro’s hour” of Reconstruction, formed the rival American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) that same year. The split in suffrage organizations reflected differences of personality and strategy. The AWSA concentrated on suffrage as its sole issue and followed a plan to educate citizens to try to achieve votes for women on a state-by-state basis. The NWSA at first allied itself with anyone who supported women’s rights, including the selfproclaimed free-love advocate and presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull. After enduring great criticism and financial loss for its endorsement of Woodhull, the NWSA also decided to focus most of its efforts on suffrage. In 1889, the rival woman suffrage organizations decided to present a united front, and they merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The Second Women’s Movement: Push for Suffrage The 1890’s saw the death or retirement of most of the original suffrage leaders, but fortunately for the movement, the new century brought new leaders, such as Harriot Stanton Blatch, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Alice Paul; new organizations, such as the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government, the College Equal Suffrage League (1901), and the Congressional Union (1912), later called the Woman’s Party; and the adoption of new techniques and ideas. Leaders and participants were better educated and better funded than before, and in the early twentieth 480

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century, the woman suffrage movement joined with other efforts to make the U.S. system more democratic and more just. The crusade for votes for women was an integral part of the Progressive movement and took strength from the widespread support for reform. Suffragists had learned from the more militant English movement the value of publicity to call attention to themselves. To speeches and petitions, they added mass picketing, demonstrations, and rallies, including a huge suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., in 1913. On that day, when president-elect Woodrow Wilson arrived for his inauguration, he wondered why no crowd met him at the station. People were watching the suffrage parade instead, seeing marchers attacked by boisterous bystanders and rescued by federal troops. The parade drew national attention to the suffrage movement and led to congressional hearings. Not only did the method of focusing attention on the issue of suffrage change, but also the means for attaining the end. The NAWSA realized that the only way to achieve national woman suffrage was through an amendment to the federal constitution. In 1915, Carrie Chapman Catt became the organization’s president. Having helped to orchestrate adoption of woman suffrage in the states of Idaho, Colorado, Washington, California, and Illinois, Catt brought superb organizing skills to the NAWSA. In 1916, she developed her Winning Plan, by which suffragists would move on all fronts. In the states where women could vote, they would pressure their legislatures to urge Congress to pass a federal amendment. The NAWSA set up a Washington, D.C., office with a milliondollar budget to lobby President Wilson and the legislators. Alice Paul and the Woman’s Party picketed the White House with banners asking, “Mr. President! How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?” Inside and outside Washington, opponents of suffragists also prepared for a struggle. In the conservative South, white supremacists believed that raising the question of votes for women would reopen the question of the black vote. In other states, the traditional friendship between prohibitionists and advocates of women’s rights led to liquor interests’ financing successful campaigns against woman suffrage. Anti-suffragist groups also drew support from business groups that feared that voting women would eliminate child labor and lead to pressure to improve other working conditions. 481

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Although both political parties included statements endorsing woman suffrage in their 1916 platforms, they failed to translate the words into action after the election, when national attention was focused on European events. The United States’ entry into World War I in 1917 led to arguments about the priority of winning the vote versus winning the war. While the more conservative women worked harder for the second goal, others redoubled their efforts for suffrage. How, Paul demanded, could President Wilson talk of fighting for democracy abroad and deny American women the right to vote? The Woman’s Party continued picketing the White House, carrying placards addressed to “Kaiser Wilson.” Suffragists were denounced as traitors, and many were arrested and sentenced to jail for disturbing the peace. There, the women protested conditions and demanded to be treated as political prisoners. They finally went on a hunger strike. When the public read of the women’s miserable imprisonment, including the painful force-feeding of the hunger strikers, popular opinion forced the administration to release the prisoners and drop the charges. Public Backing President Wilson endorsed woman suffrage but considered other problems to be more pressing. With his recommendation, the amendment passed the House in 1918 in a dramatic vote, with one member leaving the deathbed of his suffragist wife to cast an affirmative ballot. Although the Senate rejected the amendment in 1918, public opinion was firmly on the side of woman suffrage, and by the following year, passage was inevitable. On June 4, 1919, the proposed amendment passed the Senate and was submitted to the states. On his mother’s advice, the youngest member of the Tennessee legislature cast the deciding vote in the decisive state. On August 16, 1920, U.S. women were enfranchised, after seventy-two years and countless hours of work and determination, beginning with the Seneca Falls meeting. Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment opened the door to full citizenship for women in the United States, a necessary step on the road to full equality. Anne Trotter, updated by Mary Welek Atwell 482

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Sources for Further Study Cott, Nancy F. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. New York: Free Press, 1989. Flexner, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975. Scott, Anne Firor, and Andrew M. Scott. One Half the People: The Fight for Woman Suffrage. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1975. Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. See also: Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Equal Rights Amendment

(1923).

Immigration Act of 1921 Also known as: Emergency Quota Act of 1921 Date: May 19, 1921 U.S. Statutes at Large: 42 Stat. 5 Public law: 67-5 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration

Immigration legislation in 1921 created a quota system that favored the nations of northern and western Europe and put an end to the ideal of the United States as a melting pot. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, immigration to the United States was open to anyone who wanted to enter. By the 1880’s, however, this unlimited freedom was beginning to disappear. The first law restricting immigration came in 1882, when Chinese were excluded from entering American territory. Hostility to Chinese workers in California sparked Congress to pass a bill amid warnings that Chinese worked for lower wages than whites and came from such a culturally inferior civilization that they would 483

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never make good Americans. The law became permanent in 1902. Five years later, under a gentlemen’s agreement with the Japanese government, citizens of that country were added to the excluded list. The only other people barred from entering the United States were prostitutes, insane persons, paupers, polygamists, and anyone suffering from a “loathsome or contagious disease.” Under these categories, compared to more than a million immigrants per year from 1890 to 1914, less than thirteen thousand were kept out annually. Nativist Xenophobia The small number of those excluded troubled anti-immigrant groups, such as the American Protective Association, founded in 1887, and the Immigration Restriction League, created in Boston in 1894. Both organizations warned of the “immigrant invasion” which threatened the American way of life. These opponents of open immigration argued that since 1880, most new arrivals had come from different areas of Europe from that of the pre-1880 immigrants, who came largely from Germany, England, Ireland, and Scandinavia. The “new” immigrants—mainly Slavs, Poles, Italians, and Jews—came from poorer and more culturally “backward” areas of Europe. Many of these immigrants advocated radicalism, anarchism, socialism, or communism, and were unfamiliar with ideas of democracy and progress. Furthermore, they preferred to live in ghettoes in cities, where they strengthened the power of political machines and corrupt bosses. Those who considered themselves guardians of traditional American values found support for their position among trade unionists in the American Federation of Labor (AFL), whose president, Samuel Gompers, argued that the new immigrants provided employers with an endless supply of cheap labor, leading to lower wages for everyone. Advocates of restriction found their chief congressional spokesperson in Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, a member of the Immigration Restriction League, who sponsored a bill calling for a literacy test. Such a law, which called upon immigrants to be able to read and write in their native language, was seen as an effective barrier to most “new” immigrants. Congress passed the bill in 1897, but President Grover Cleveland vetoed it, arguing that it was unnecessary and discriminatory. Cleveland believed that American borders should remain open to anyone who wanted to enter and that there 484

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were enough jobs and opportunities to allow anyone to fulfill a dream of economic success. Advocates of this vision of the American dream, however, were lessening in number over time. Dillingham Commission The assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 led to the exclusion of anarchists and those who advocated the violent overthrow of the government of the United States. A more important step to a quota system, however, came in 1907, when the House and Senate established the United States Immigration Commission, under the leadership of Senator William P. Dillingham. In 1910 and 1911, the commission issued a forty-two-volume report advocating a reduction in immigration because of the “racial inferiority” of new immigrant groups. Studies of immigrant populations, the commission concluded, showed that people from southern and eastern Europe had a higher potential for criminal activity, were more likely to end up poor and sick, and were less intelligent than other Americans. It called for passage of a literacy test to preserve American values. Congress passed legislation in 1912 calling for such a test, but President William Howard Taft vetoed it, saying that illiteracy resulted from lack of educational opportunity and had little to do with native intelligence. Open entrance to the United States was part of American history, and many of America’s wealthiest and hardest working citizens had come without knowing how to read and write. If the United States barred such people, Taft argued, America would become weaker and less wealthy. War, Immigration Policy, and Racism In 1915, Woodrow Wilson became the third president to veto a literacy bill, denouncing its violation of the American ideal of an open door. Two years later, in the wake of American entrance into World War I and growing hostility against foreigners, Congress overrode Wilson’s second veto and the literacy test became law in the Immigration Act of 1917. Along with establishing a reading test for anyone over age sixteen, the law also created a “barred zone” which excluded immigrants from most of Asia, including China, India, and Japan, regardless of whether they could read. As it turned out, the test that asked adults to read a few words in any recognized language did little to reduce immigration. Between 1918 and 1920, less than 1 percent of those who took it failed. Represen485

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tative Albert Johnson, chair of the House Committee on Immigration, had been a longtime advocate of closing the borders of the United States. In 1919, he called for the suspension of all immigration. Johnson’s proposal was defeated in the House of Representatives. In 1920, however, immigration increased dramatically, as did fears that millions of refugees from war-torn Europe were waiting to flood into the United States. Much of the argument for restriction was based on ideas associated with scientific racism. The Republican candidate for the presidency, Warren G. Harding, advocated restriction in several speeches, warning of the dangers inherent in allowing open admission. He called for legislation that would permit entrance to the United States only to people whose background and racial characteristics showed that they could adopt American values and principles. The next year, Vice President Calvin Coolidge authored a magazine article claiming that laws of biology proved that “Nordics,” the preferred type, deteriorated intellectually and physically when allowed to intermarry with other races. These views reflected the growing influence of eugenics, the science of improving the human race by discouraging the birth of the “unfit.” Madison Grant, a lawyer and secretary of the New York Zoological Society, and later an adviser to Albert Johnson’s Immigration Committee, wrote the most influential book advocating this racist way of thinking, The Passing of the Great Race in America (1916). In it, he described human society as a huge snake. Nordic races made up the head, while the inferior races formed the tail. It would be this type of scientific argument, more than any other, that would provide the major rationale for creation of the 1921 quota system. The tail could not be allowed to rule the head. Labor, Radicalism, Quotas Early in 1921, the House debated and passed Johnson’s bill calling for a two-year suspension of all immigration. The Senate Committee on Immigration, chaired by Senator LeBaron Colt, held hearings on a similar proposal but refused to support a total ban after hearing arguments from business groups fearful that complete exclusion would stop all access to European laborers. Representatives from the National Association of Manufacturers testified on the need to have access to inexpensive labor, even though some business leaders were beginning to fear that too many in the immi486

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gration pool were influenced by communism and socialism, especially after the communist victory in Russia in 1918. The possibility of thousands of radical workers with a greater tendency to strike coming into the country seemed too high a price to pay in return for lower wages. Unions, especially the AFL, continued to lobby for strict regulation of immigration. To keep wages high, Samuel Gompers told Congress, foreign workers had to be kept out. By 1921, the only widespread support for free and open immigration came from immigrant groups themselves. Although a few members of Congress supported their position, it was a distinctly minority view. Senator William Dillingham, whose report had renewed efforts to restrict immigration, offered a quota plan which he hoped would satisfy business and labor. He called for a policy in which each nation would receive a quota of immigrants equal to 5 percent of that country’s total population in the United States according to the 1910 census. Dillingham’s suggestion passed the Senate with little opposition and gained favor in the House. Before its final approval, however, Johnson and his supporters of total suspension reduced the quota to 3 percent and set 350,000 as the maximum number of legal immigrants in any one year. Woodrow Wilson vetoed the bill shortly before leaving office, but it was passed with only one dissenting vote in the Senate during a special session called by President Harding on May 19, 1921. The House approved the Emergency Quota Act the same day without a recorded vote. The only opposition came from representatives with large numbers of immigrants in their districts. Adolph Sabath, a Democratic congressperson from Chicago, led the dissenters, arguing that the act was based on a “pseudoscientific proposition” that falsely glorified the Nordic nations. His comments had little effect on the result. One of the most important changes in American immigration history went into effect in June of 1921. The Quota Act: Provisions The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 severely reduced immigration into the United States. In 1922, its first full year of operation, only 309,556 people legally entered the country, compared with 805,228 the previous year. Quotas for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand were generally filled quickly, although economic depressions in England, Ireland, and Germany kept many 487

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potential immigrants at home. Less than half the legal number of immigrants came to America the first year; the southern and eastern Europeans filled almost 99 percent of their limit. No limits existed for Canada, Mexico, and other nations of the Western Hemisphere. To keep an adequate supply of cheap agricultural labor available to farmers in Texas and California, Congress refused to place a quota on immigration from these areas of the world. Japan and China were the only countries with a quota of zero, as Congress continued its policy of exclusion for most areas of Asia. The 1921 act provided for “special preferences” for relatives of America citizens, including wives, children under eighteen, parents, brothers, and sisters. The commissioner of immigration was to make it a priority to maintain family unity; however, this was to be the only exception to the strict quota policy. Congress extended the “emergency” law in May, 1922, for two more years. This move, however, did not satisfy Representative Johnson and others supporting complete restriction. Johnson’s Immigration Committee continued to hold hearings and gather evidence supporting an end to all immigration. Johnson became increasingly interested in eugenics and remained in close contact with Madison Grant. In 1923, Johnson was elected president of the Eugenics Research Association of America, a group devoted to gathering statistics on the hereditary traits of Americans. He seemed especially interested in studies showing a large concentration of “new” immigrants in mental hospitals, prisons, and poorhouses. Such information led him to call for a change in the law. A reduction in the quota for “new” immigrants was necessary, he claimed, to save the United States from even larger numbers of paupers, mental patients, and criminals. The Immigration Committee voted to change the census base from 1910 to 1890, when there were far fewer southern and eastern Europeans in the country, and to reduce the quota from 3 percent to 2 percent. Congress would adopt those ideas in 1924. Under the 1921 law, boats filled with prospective immigrants were returned to their homelands. These actions, however, were only the beginning, and the guardians of racial purity in Congress were already moving toward even tighter controls. Restrictionists had gotten most of what they wanted. Leslie V. Tischauser 488

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Sources for Further Study Bennett, Marion T. American Immigration Policies. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1963. Divine, Robert. American Immigration Policy, 1924-1952. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957. Gains, Roy. Immigration Restriction. New York: Macmillan, 1928. Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. New York: Atheneum, 1975. Lipset, Seymour M., and Earl Raab. The Politics of Unreason: RightWing Extremism in America, 1790-1970. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Solomon, Barbara. Ancestors and Immigrants. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956. See also: Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907); Alien land laws (1913); Immigration Act of 1917 (1917); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943).

Sheppard-Towner Act Also known as: Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act; Ma-

ternity Act Date: November 23, 1921 U.S. Statutes at Large: 42 Stat. 224 Categories: Children’s Issues; Health and Welfare; Women’s Issues The first federal social welfare legislation authorized matching funds to the states for programs in maternal and child hygiene.

The Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act of 1921, commonly known as the Sheppard-Towner Act, linked a chain of ideas and actions about the proper role of government in the economy and society from the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt to that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The link began with the White House Conference on Child Welfare Standards in 1909 and ended with the Social Security Act of 1935. Aside from veterans’ pension appro489

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priations, the Sheppard-Towner Act was in many ways the first federal welfare legislation. It authorized matching funds to the states for programs in maternal and child hygiene. The act also broke with the legacy of mothers’ aid by providing non-means-tested assistance, although it retained social-control aspects whereby visiting nurses offered advice and help according to the Children’s Bureau’s norms of good child care (for example, against feeding or cuddling babies on demand), even if these norms went against a client’s customs. The Sheppard-Towner Act also represented the first major dividend of women’s national enfranchisement. Maternal and Infant Mortality The U.S. Children’s Bureau developed from the White House Conference of 1909, and the Bureau first investigated the causes of infant and maternal mortality. Studies revealed that the United States had high rates, showing, for example, that the nation ranked seventeenth in maternal and eleventh in infant mortality among world nations in 1918. Studies also linked poverty and mortality rates, revealing that 80 percent of America’s expectant mothers received no advice or trained care. To remedy this situation, Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to serve in Congress, introduced in 1918 a measure to provide public protection of maternity and infancy. Julia Lathrop, chief of the Children’s Bureau, sponsored the measure, and Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas and Representative Horace Towner of Iowa reintroduced the bill in the Sixty-sixth Congress. The bill made little progress until the full enfranchisement of women in 1920. Passage and Provisions The League of Women Voters urged the national parties to endorse the maternity bill in their 1920 platforms. The Democratic, Socialist, Prohibition, and Farmer-Labor parties did, while the Republican platform ignored it. President Warren G. Harding, however, supported the bill in his Social Justice Day speech on October 1, 1920. Sheppard and Towner resubmitted the bill in April, 1921, and it passed the Senate on July 22 by a vote of 63 to 7. Samuel Winslow, chair of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, which oversaw the bill, refused to hold hearings for months. President Harding prodded Winslow only after influential women such as Republican National Committee vice chair 490

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Harriet Upton warned him that delay alienated many women. The House finally passed the measure by a vote of 279 to 39, while the only woman in Congress, the anti-suffragist Alice Robertson, voted against it. Harding signed the bill on November 23, 1921. At the time of debate and passage, the inclinations of women voters were an unknown quantity. Suffragists had promised to clean house when they got the vote, and many politicians feared that women voters would vote en bloc or remain aloof from the main parties. Passage of the maternity bill was a goal of newly enfranchised women and took precedence over all other efforts. In 1920, the League of Women Voters helped to create the Women’s Joint Congressional Committee (WJCC), which coordinated the lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., for nearly two dozen women’s organizations. Florence Kelley, executive secretary of the National Consumers’ League, chaired the WJCC subcommittee responsible for enactment of the measure. Kelley’s successful lobbying efforts overcame powerful opponents who assailed the measure as a threat to the moral foundation of the nation. Such organizations as the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and the Woman Patriots equated feminism and woman suffrage with socialism and communism. Mary Kilbreth, a leading anti-suffragist, wrote Harding that many believed the bill was inspired by communism and backed by American radicals, thereby striking at the heart of American civilization. Organizations such as the Woman’s Municipal League of Boston, the American Constitutional League, the Constitutional Liberty League of Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Public Interest League concurred. Fearing state-run medicine, the American Medical Association (AMA) also targeted the Sheppard-Towner Act. State medical societies in Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana spearheaded the opposition. The Illinois Medical Journal, official organ of the Illinois State Medical Society, for example, attacked the act as a product of Bolshevist forces that sought to set up bureaucratic autocracy in the nation’s capital. The Journal of the American Medical Association campaigned against the Sheppard-Towner Act from February 5, 1921, until its repeal in June of 1929. In 1922, the AMA’s house of delegates condemned the legislation as a socialistic machination. Many women physicians, such as Josephine Baker, a constant ally of the National Consumers’ League and the League 491

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of Women Voters and president of the Medical Woman’s National Association in the early 1930’s, supported the Sheppard-Towner Act. The act authorized an appropriation of $1.48 million for fiscal 1921-1922 and $1.24 million for the next five years ending June 30, 1927. Of this sum, $5,000 would go to each state outright; $5,000 more would go to each state if matching funds were provided; and the remainder would be allocated on a population percentage and matching basis. The Children’s Bureau would channel the money through state child welfare or health divisions. States retained the right to reject aid. The act provided for instruction in hygiene of maternity and infancy through public health nurses, visiting nurses, consultation centers, child care conferences, and literature distribution. Forty-one states joined the program in 1922, whereas until the act’s repeal in 1929, only Connecticut, Illinois, and Massachusetts rejected Sheppard-Towner money. Response and Demise The attorney general of Massachusetts issued an opinion that the act would misuse the state’s tax money and that it was unconstitutional because it violated the rights of the states. Massachusetts filed a suit with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of its taxpayers to enjoin the law. Harriet Frothingham, president of the Woman Patriots, filed another suit in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia in the event that states were deemed ineligible to file a taxpayer’s suit. The District of Columbia court dismissed Frothingham’s case and the U.S. Court of Appeals concurred. She then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the interim, U.S. Solicitor General James Beck, who considered the Sheppard-Towner Act to be unconstitutional, encouraged Massachusetts to pursue its case. These suits threatened the range of federal programs which provided either direct aid or matching grants to states. On June 5, 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed both suits for want of jurisdiction and without ruling on the constitutionality of the act. Although the Sheppard-Towner Act was considered a permanent law, federal appropriations under the act’s provisions were scheduled to cease automatically on June 30, 1927. In 1926, proponents moved to have the authorization extended. The House of Representatives quickly approved a two-year extension by a vote of 218 to 44. The AMA, Woman Patriots, Daughters of the American 492

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Revolution, and other opponents, however, mobilized to stop the bill in the Senate. Opponents iterated many of the same themes that had been less persuasive in 1921: primarily that the SheppardTowner Act was part of a feminist-socialist-communist plot to sovietize the United States. In the end, proponents accepted a compromise which extended the appropriations for two more years but repealed the law itself automatically on June 30, 1929. Although progressive women still lobbied for the bill, President Herbert Hoover refused to press the matter and allowed the first federal social security law to lapse. The Great Depression precluded any revival of national provisions in the early 1930’s, and the loss of federal funds severely restricted many of the forty-five state programs that had continued to provide maternity and infancy aid on their own. Restoration, however, came with the Social Security Act of 1935. Title V of the 1935 act authorized appropriations for the Children’s Bureau of $5.82 million for maternity and infancy protection, in addition to $3.87 million for crippled children and $34.75 million for aid to dependent children. Richard K. Caputo Sources for Further Study Bremner, Robert H., ed. 1866-1932. Vol. 2 in Children and Youth in America: A Documentary History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. Caputo, Richard K., ed. Federal Responses to People in Need. Vol. 1, Welfare and Freedom American Style I: The Role of the Federal Government, 1900-1940. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991. Gordon, Linda. Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare 1890-1935. New York: Free Press, 1994. Lemons, J. Stanley. “The Sheppard-Towner Act: Progressivism in the 1920’s.” Journal of American History 55 (March, 1969): 776786. See also: Social Security Act (1935); Aid to Families with Depen-

dent Children (1935).

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Cable Act Date: September 22, 1922 U.S. Statutes at Large: 42 Stat. 1021 Public law: 346 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration; Women’s Is-

sues

The Cable Act reformed the rules by which women lost or obtained U.S. citizenship through marriage to foreigners. Representative John L. Cable of Ohio noted when introducing his bill that “the laws of our country should grant independent citizenship to women.” By this act, the United States took the lead among nations in the world in acknowledging the right of a woman to choose her citizenship rather than to lose or gain it upon marriage. In the early twentieth century, under the laws of virtually all nations, a woman automatically lost her citizenship and took that of her husband upon marriage to a foreigner. The Cable Act, supported by all major women’s groups at the time, was viewed as an important piece of reform legislation aimed at protecting a woman’s right to choose her citizenship. As Representative Cable noted upon the bill’s passage into law: “Justice and common sense dictate that the woman should have the same right as the man to choose the country of her allegiance.” The effects of the Cable Act were varied. Although aimed primarily at rectifying cases in which American women, under the 1907 Expropriation Act, automatically lost their U.S. citizenship upon marriage to an alien, it also revoked provisions of an 1885 act that automatically conferred U.S. citizenship on alien women who married Americans. Therefore, a foreign woman could not automatically become an American citizen upon marriage to an American, even if that were her desire. Instead, like any other alien, she would have to undergo an independent process of naturalization. One effect of this aspect of the law was to discourage Chinese American men from marrying immigrant women. For these reasons, the Cable Act has been considered anti-immigrant and antiwomen by some latter-day observers. However, although an alien woman who married a U.S. citizen or whose husband became natu494

Equal Rights Amendment

ralized would no longer automatically be granted citizenship, she was not excluded from seeking U.S. citizenship. The act made the process of becoming an American citizen a matter of deliberate choice rather than an automatic effect of marriage. The Cable Act did not revoke the citizenship of any woman who before its passage had received American citizenship automatically by marriage. The ultimate effect of the Cable Act was to treat women of all ethnic and racial backgrounds with complete equality insofar as the acquisition of U.S. citizenship was concerned. Modern human rights treaties generally follow this U.S. practice, recognizing that acquisition of citizenship should be a matter of free and independent consent. Robert F. Gorman Sources for Further Study Kansas, Sidney. Citizenship of the United States of America. New York: Washington Publishing, 1936. Von Glahn, Gerhard. Law Among Nations: An Introduction to Public International Law. New York: Macmillan, 1992. See also: War Brides Act (1945).

Equal Rights Amendment Date: Proposed 1923; defeated 1983 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Women’s Issues

A proposed amendment to the United States Constitution which would have guaranteed equality of rights regardless of sex. Though it did not secure enough states for its ratification, the Equal Rights Amendment focused debate on issues of gender equity. After the ratification in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment, which awarded women the vote, demand grew for legislation providing other rights for women. The first equal rights amendment, 495

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introduced in 1923, failed mainly because of the strong oppositionof organized labor. Labor opposed it because it would have invalidated protective legislation for women workers such as mandatory rest periods or limits on hours to be worked or weight to be lifted. Text and Congressional Passage The text of the Equal Rights Amendment was extremely simple: Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 3. The Amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

Through the efforts of two Democratic congresswomen, Martha Griffiths of Michigan and Edith Green of Oregon, the ERA passed the House of Representatives in 1970. Previous obstructions were bypassed through a discharge petition which received bipartisan support, especially from President Richard Nixon. When the ERA was reintroduced in 1971, it easily passed with overwhelmingly favorable votes in the House and in the Senate the following year. Some members of Congress proposed amendments that would have retained protective legislation or exempted women from the draft. Supporters of the ERA viewed these amendments as permitting inequalities in pay, hiring, and advancement. Although these amendments had been defeated, their arguments surfaced in later debates over ratification. Supporters of the ERA To become law, the amendment now need to be ratified by twothirds of the states. The principal rationale for the ERA was that it was a statement of principle that women were entitled to equal status with men. It would set a national standard to prevent discrimination on local or state levels. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, ERA supporters argued, were not designed to deal with sexrelated discrimination; moreover, stereotypes regarding gender 496

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roles were perpetuated in common law, and women were underrepresented in legislative bodies and courts. Groups of middle-class women such as the Business and Professional Women’s Clubs and League of Women Voters were among the earliest supporters of the ERA, and they were joined by the National Education Association and reform groups such as Common Cause. The National Organization for Women (NOW), founded in 1966, was a more militant group that sought to apply the tactics of civil rights groups to women’s causes and aggressively supported the ERA. Between 1970 and 1973 organized labor changed its position from opposition to support. Opponents of the ERA Several religious denominations opposed the ERA: Mormons because it could interfere with the traditional family, Catholics because it might require ordaining women despite the church’s insistence on a male priesthood, and fundamentalist Protestants because of biblical prohibitions against women clergy. Among other objections was the idea that the ERA was unnecessary because of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and such legislation as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (extending the same protection to sex as to race) and the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Under the ERA, its opponents feared, even women with small children could not only be drafted but also assigned to combat duty. Homosexuals would gain the right to marry and to adopt children. Abortion would be protected through the amendment, and state regulations thereof would be preempted. Unisex dormitories, prisons, and restrooms could not be prohibited. Philosophically, the ERA would shift state policy powers from the legislature to the judiciary, and from the states to the federal government. Some worried that the vague wording of the ERA could lead to unpredictable court decisions, and previous decisions on school integration, criminal rights, and abortion had led to a profound distrust of the federal courts, especially in the South. Failure of Ratification Twenty-two states ratified the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, and eight more did so in 1973. Yet only five more states ratified: The last, Indiana, did so in 1977. The holdout states were mainly in 497

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the South and West; Illinois was the only northern industrial state among them. The ERA failed for several reasons. Nixon was the only president to give it his personal support, whereas Ronald Reagan actively opposed it. The Republican Party platforms had included the ERA for several decades, but it did not in 1980 or thereafter. Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly became a highly articulate and effective opponent of the ERA, raising arguments that it would force women to support idle husbands and would deprive them of preference in divorce and child custody cases. Some members of minority groups perceived the ERA as providing gains for middle-class white women at the expense of men and women of color. Male government workers feared that the ERA would undermine laws that gave war veterans preference in employment. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 brought about draft registration for men in 1980 and raised concerns about women in combat. The ERA’s supporters were unprepared for the intensity of the debate which arose in the late 1970’s. Their last victory was getting Congress to vote a three-year extension of the ratification deadline in 1978, which proved fruitless: No additional states ratified despite boycotts, demonstrations, and even hunger strikes by the more radical ERA supporters. In 1983 the ERA was reintroduced in Congress, but it did not receive enough votes in the House to pass. R. M. Longyear Sources for Further Study Berry, Mary Frances. Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women’s Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Boles, Janet K. The Politics of the Equal Rights Amendment: Conflict and the Decision Process. New York: Longman, 1979. Gillmore, Inez Haynes. The Story of Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. Fairfax, Va.: Denlinger’s, 1977. First published in 1921 as The Story of the Woman’s Party. Hammer, Roger A. American Woman: Hidden in History, Forging the Future. 2d ed. Vol. 3 in Hidden America. Golden Valley, Minn.: The Place in the Woods, 1993. Hoff-Wilson, Joan, ed. Rights of Passage: The Past and Future of the ERA. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. 498

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Lee, Rex E. A Lawyer Looks at the Equal Rights Amendment. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1980. Lunardini, Christine A. From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights: Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, 1910-1928. New York: New York University Press, 1986. Mansbridge, Jane J. Why We Lost the ERA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Mathews, Donald G., and Jane Sherron De Hart. Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA: A State and the Nation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Pole, J. R. The Pursuit of Equality in American History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Steiner, Gilbert Yale. Constitutional Inequality: The Political Fortunes of the Equal Rights Amendment. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1985. Woodward, Carolyn. “The Growth of the Modern Women’s Movement.” In Changing Our Power: An Introduction to Women’s Studies, edited by Jo Whitehorse Cochran, Donna Lengston, and Carolyn Woodward. 2d ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1991. See also: Fifth Amendment (1789); Fourteenth Amendment

(1868); Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Nineteenth Amendment (1920); Sheppard-Towner Act (1921); Equal Pay Act (1963); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964).

World War Adjusted Compensation Act Also known as: Bonus Act Date: May 19, 1924 U.S. Statutes at Large: 43 Stat. 121 Public law: 68-120 U.S. Code: not available Categories: Health and Welfare 499

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In the wake of the Great Depression, the failure to pay veterans their full compensation under this act virtually assured the defeat of Herber Hoover in his second bid for the presidency. Answering their nation’s call to enter the armed forces, millions of Americans left their jobs to fight in World War I, which led to an economic disparity between those who fought and those who did not. While the military paid soldiers only a small salary per month, civilian wages grew tremendously and those who did not sacrifice for their country benefited while the soldiers who fought gained nothing. To rectify the situation, Congress in 1924 proposed a compensation act to reward World War I veterans with a monetary sum when the veteran neared retirement age. Veterans were to be compensated at a set fee for each day in military service ($1.25 for overseas duty, $1.00 for stateside duty) with the full sum to be paid in 1945. Concerned that the financial commitment would harm the economy, President Calvin Coolidge vetoed the legislation, but Congress overrode the veto and the Bonus Act became law on May 19, 1924. When the Great Depression began in 1929, however, most veterans could not wait until 1945. Unemployed, hungry, and desperate, approximately fifteen thousand veterans, the so-called Bonus Army, converged on Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1932 to demand early payment of their bonuses. Establishing squatter camps around Washington, the veterans waited to see what Congress would do. When Congress refused to pass the necessary legislation, most veteran camps dispersed and went home, leaving about five thousand diehards. Claiming that communists had influenced the remaining veterans, President Herbert Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to remove the veterans by force if necessary. Led by Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur, soldiers backed by tanks and machine guns burned the Bonus Army camps and forced the veterans from the city. Two soldiers and two policemen were killed in the clash. The dispersal of the Bonus Army, conducted in full view of the national media, virtually assured the defeat of Herbert Hoover in the 1932 presidential elections, leading to the victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1935, to alleviate the suffering of unemployed veterans, Congress voted to issue the soldiers their bonuses immediately, but Roosevelt vetoed the bill (introduced by a Republican rival) be500

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cause it was not part of his established New Deal plan for Depression relief. A year later, Congress again voted for immediate compensation, but this time it successfully overrode Roosevelt’s veto, and cash payments were issued in 1936. Steven J. Ramold Sources for Further Study Keene, Jennifer D. Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Lisio, Donald J. The President and Protest: Hoover, Conspiracy, and the Bonus Riot. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974. See also: Dependent Pension Act (1890); Social Security Act

(1935); G.I. Bill (1944); Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974).

Immigration Act of 1924 Also known as: Johnson-Reid Act; National Origins Act Date: May 26, 1924 U.S. Statutes at Large: 43 Stat. 153 Public law: 68-139 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration

Also known as the National Origins Act, this law restricted immigration by nationality using a quota system. There was no clearly defined official U.S. policy toward immigration until the late nineteenth century. The United States was still a relatively young country, and there was a need for settlers in the West and for workers to build industry. Chinese immigrants flowed into California in 1849 and the early 1850’s, searching for fortune and staying as laborers who worked the mines and helped to build the transcontinental railroad. 501

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Anti-Asian Prejudice The earliest immigration restriction focused on Asians. In 1875, the federal government restricted the number of Chinese and Japanese coming into the country. The push for restriction of Asian immigrants was led by U.S. workers. After the depression of 1877, Denis Kearney, an Irish-born labor organizer, helped found the Workingman’s Trade and Labor Union of San Francisco, an antiChinese and anticapitalist group. Kearney and others believed that lower-paid Chinese workers took jobs away from white workers, and they agitated for expulsion of the Chinese and legal restrictions on future immigrants. Their efforts were successful in 1882, when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. The act exempted teachers, students, merchants, and pleasure travelers, and remained in effect until 1943. With the act of 1882, the federal government had, for the first time, placed restrictions on the immigration of persons from a specific country. More specific policy toward European immigration began in the 1880’s. In 1882, the federal government excluded convicts, paupers, and mentally impaired persons. Organized labor’s efforts also were successful in 1882, with the prohibition of employers’ recruiting workers in Europe and paying their passage to the United States. Restrictive Changes Federal law became more aggressive by the early twentieth century, with the passage of the Act of 1903, which excluded epileptics, beggars, and anarchists. In 1907, the United States Immigration Commission was formed. This group, also known as the Dillingham Commission, published a forty-two-volume survey of the impact of immigration on American life and called for a literacy test and further immigration restriction. Although several presidential vetoes had prevented a literacy requirement, in 1917, the U.S. Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson’s veto and passed a law requiring a literacy test for newcomers. The test was designed to reduce the number of immigrants, particularly those from southeastern Europe, where the literacy rate was low. The marked change in official policy and in the view of a majority of people in the United States was caused by several factors. A strong nativist movement had begun after World War I with such groups as the American Protective Association, an organization that began in the Midwest in the 1880’s and was fueled by prejudice 502

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against aliens and Catholics. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge organized the Immigration Restriction League in Boston, indicating the addition of U.S. leaders and intellectuals to the restriction movement. Political and economic problems in Europe, including the war and a postwar economic depression, had led to rising immigration from Europe. Changes in the U.S. economy reduced the need for manual labor. Immigration in the Progressive Era The push for restriction coincided with the most intensive era of immigration in United States history. From the late 1880’s until the 1920’s, the nation experienced wave after wave of immigration, with millions of persons coming into the country each decade. The growth of new physical and social sciences that emphasized heredity as a factor in intelligence led many people to believe that persons such as Slavs or Italians were less intelligent than western Europeans such as the Norwegians or the English. The belief in genetic inferiority gave credence to the immigration restriction movement and helped sway the government. At the same time that millions of newcomers were entering the United States, a spirit of reform, the Progressive Era, had grown throughout the country. Americans who saw themselves as progressive and forward-looking pushed for change in politics, society, and education, particularly in the crowded urban areas of the Northeast. Europeans had emigrated in large numbers to the cities, and newer groups, such as Italians and Poles, were seen by many progressive-minded reformers as the root of urban problems. Thus it was with the help of progressive leaders that a push was made at the federal level to restrict the number of immigrants. In 1921, Congress passed a temporary measure that was the first U.S. law specifically restricting European immigration. The act established a quota system that held the number of immigrants to 3 percent of each admissible nationality living in the United States in 1910. Quotas were established for persons from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Although only a temporary measure, the Immigration Act of 1921 marked the beginning of a permanent policy of restricting European immigration. It began a bitter three-year controversy that led to the Immigration Act of 1924. 503

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The 1924 Act Congress amended the 1921 act with a more restrictive permanent measure in May of 1924, the Johnson-Reid Act. This act, which became known as the National Origins Act, took effect on July 1, 1924. It limited the annual immigration to the United States to 2 percent of a country’s U.S. population as of the census of 1890. With the large numbers of northern and western Europeans who had immigrated to the country throughout the nation’s history, the act effectively restricted southern and eastern European immigrants to approximately 12 percent of the total immigrant population. Asian immigration was completely prohibited, but there was no restriction on immigration from independent nations of the Western Hemisphere. The new law also changed the processing system for aliens by moving the immigration inspection process to U.S. consulates in foreign countries and requiring immigrants to obtain visas in the native country before emigrating to the United States. The number of visas was held to 10 percent in each country per month and thus reduced the number of people arriving at Ellis Island, leading to the eventual closing of the facility. The Immigration Act of 1924 reflects a change in the controversy that occurred in the three-year period after the act of 1921. By 1924, the major factor in immigration restriction was ethnic prejudice. By using the U.S. Census of 1890 as the basis for quotas, the government in effect sharply reduced the number of southern and eastern Europeans, who had not begun to arrive in large numbers until after that census year. The passage of the act codified an official policy of preventing further changes in the ethnic composition of U.S. society, and it was to remain in effect until passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Judith Boyce DeMark Sources for Further Study Bolino, August C. The Ellis Island Source Book. Washington, D.C.: Kensington Historical Press, 1985. Curran, Thomas J. Xenophobia and Immigration, 1820-1930. Boston: Twayne, 1975. Divine, Robert A. American Immigration Policy, 1924-1952. New Ha504

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ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957. Reprint. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. Reeves, Pamela. Ellis Island: Gateway to the American Dream. New York: Crescent Books, 1991. Seller, Maxine S. “Historical Perspectives on American Immigration Policy: Case Studies and Current Implications.” In U.S. Immigration Policy, edited by Richard R. Hofstetter. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1984. See also: Page Law (1875); Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); Gentle-

men’s Agreement (1907); Alien land laws (1913); Immigration Act of 1917 (1917); Immigration Act of 1921 (1921); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943).

Indian Citizenship Act Also known as: American Indian Citizenship Act Date: June 2, 1924 U.S. Statutes at Large: 43 Stat. 253 U.S. Code: 8 § 1401 Categories: Native Americans

The act conferred citizenship on all American Indians born within territorial limits of the United States, thus encouraging the dissolution of tribal nations. American Indians hold a unique position in U.S. society and law, so the question of their citizenship was complicated. By the time of the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), it was established practice for European colonial powers to negotiate treaties with American Indian tribes, as they were considered to be independent nations, and this policy was continued by the United States. The Constitution regards tribes as distinct political units separate and apart from the United States, although not foreign nations. As long as American Indians were members of tribes or nations that negotiated treaties with the United States government as independent 505

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political units, they could not be considered U.S. citizens. Two significant rulings made it clear that an act of Congress would be required in order to grant citizenship to American Indians. The Question of Citizenship The issue of whether American Indians were citizens came into question when the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1868. The amendment stated that “All persons born or naturalized within the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the State wherein they reside.” This amendment was intended to grant citizenship to newly emancipated slaves; however, there was a question as to whether it covered American Indians as well. In 1868, Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin led the opposition to the extension of citizenship to American Indians under the Fourteenth Amendment. Many tribes were not yet settled on reservations, there were ongoing tribal wars in the Great Plains, and Doolittle felt strongly that the natives were not yet prepared for citizenship. There was considerable confusion in the Senate as to whether Indians living with tribal connections were subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. It was decided that Fourteenth Amendment rights did not extend to American Indians, when the Senate Committee on the Judiciary ruled, in 1870, that tribal Indians were not granted citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment because they were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in the sense meant by the amendment. Once this matter was settled, issues arose over the status of American Indians who voluntarily severed relationships with their tribe. John Elk, an American Indian who terminated relations with his tribe and lived and worked in Omaha, Nebraska, sought to register to vote in a local election. Elk met all the requirements to vote in the state of Nebraska, but he was refused the right to vote because election officials, and later the courts, ruled that as an American Indian, he was not a United States citizen. In 1884, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lower court decisions; it ruled, in Elk v. Wilkins, that an Indian born as a member of a tribe, although he disassociated himself from that tribe and lived among whites, was not a citizen and therefore was ineligible to vote. This ruling indicated it would take a specific act of Congress to naturalize American Indians. 506

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Ending Tribal Sovereignty By the 1880’s, many persons in the United States sought to end tribal sovereignty, individualize Indians (end their status as tribal members), and grant citizenship to them so they eventually would be amalgamated into the general population. As a means toward this end, Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, a leader in reform legislation for American Indian issues, sponsored the General Allotment Act, which became law in 1887. This act carried provisions for citizenship as a reward for leaving the tribe and adopting “the habits of civilized life.” In part, this meant that American Indians had to accept small plots of land, successfully farm their lands, and learn the English language. Provisions in the General Allotment Act meant that eventually every American Indian could become a citizen, except members of tribes specifically excluded in legislation. Indians in Oklahoma were originally excluded from these provisions, but in 1901, a congressional act granted Indians in Oklahoma Territory citizenship. By 1917, through a variety of federal statutes, as many as two-thirds of all Native Americans were United States citizens. However, it was World War I that reopened the debate about citizenship for American Indians as a whole. American Indians actively supported the war effort through increased food production, purchase of war bonds, contributions to the Red Cross, and most dramatically, enlistment: Between six and ten thousand Indians, many of whom were not citizens, enlisted for military service. In return for their service to the country, Representative Homer P. Snyder of New York authored the Veterans Citizenship bill, which became law on November 6, 1919. This law granted any American Indian who had received an honorable discharge from military service during World War I the right to apply for citizenship with no restriction on the right to tribal property. Still, by 1920, some 125,000 American Indians were not citizens. Many people in the United States believed that all Indians should be rewarded for their patriotism in World War I. Therefore, Snyder introduced a bill in Congress proposing to declare all remaining noncitizen Indians born in the United States as citizens. Political maneuverings began at once. Citizenship with Sovereignty Many people favored citizenship as a way to sever the legal relationship between the tribes and the federal government, and many 507

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American Indians were aware that citizenship could alter their tribal governments and possibly dissolve the reservation land base. In particular, full-bloods in many tribes were fearful that citizenship would end tribal sovereignty, bring them under state jurisdiction, and ultimately destroy tribal life and values. Compromise was required to resolve these conflicting views. In January, 1924, Congressman Snyder introduced House Resolution 6355, authorizing the secretary of the interior to grant citizenship to all American Indians, but ensuring that “the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.” The bill was approved by Congress, and the American Indian Citizenship Act, signed into law on June 2, 1924, by President Calvin Coolidge, made Native Americans both citizens of the United States and persons with tribal relations. Ultimately, citizenship had little impact on American Indian life. The Bureau of Indian Affairs continued its policy of treating tribal members as wards of the government and administering affairs for American Indian citizens. The right to vote was denied to many American Indians until the 1960’s, because the states had the power to determine voter eligibility and did not consider tribal members living on reservations to reside in the state. With federal protections in place, American Indians have been granted the right to vote in federal, state, and local elections, and as members of tribes, they also can vote in tribal elections. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Cohen, Felix. Handbook of Federal Indian Law. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1942. Debo, Angie. A History of the Indians in the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Olson, James S., and Raymond Wilson. Native Americans in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984. Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Smith, Michael T. “The History of Indian Citizenship.” In The American Indian Past and Present. 2d ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1981. 508

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Washburn, Wilcomb, ed. Indian-White Relations. Vol. 4 in Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988. See also: Indian Appropriation Act (1871); General Allotment Act

(1887); Burke Act (1906); Indian Reorganization Act (1934).

Oil Pollution Act of 1924 Date: June 7, 1924 U.S. Statutes at Large: 43 Stat. 604-606 U.S. Code: 33 § 431 Categories: Environment and Conservation

The act established civil and criminal penalties for the grossly negligent or intentional discharge of oil from a vessel into U.S. waters. President Calvin Coolidge signed the Oil Pollution Act into law on June 7, 1924, as the first law to deal specifically with oil pollution of the navigable waters of the United States and its shorelines. The law imposed civil and criminal penalties for grossly negligent or willful discharge of oil into the sea from U.S. and foreign ships. The act made exceptions for unavoidable accidents and for cases in which oil was discharged to avoid danger to life or property. In the context of the law, “oil” is defined as petroleum hydrocarbons that are obtained from underground deposits and that may exist in the form of crude oil, fuel oil, heavy diesel oil, and lubricating oil. The law was limited to offshore pollution within fifty nautical miles of land. Dumping Oily Ballast In 1924, preventing the deliberate discharge of oil by transport tankers was impeded by the technical inability of ships to separate residue oil, called “clingage,” from water in their ballast tanks (ballast is the water used in a ship to balance it on heavy and stormy 509

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seas, especially when the ship is empty of cargo and is returning to its home port). The oily ballast water had to be discharged before the ship reached port in order to avoid polluting the harbor. To clean the tank, the entire contents were pumped overboard, and the tank was then refilled with seawater. If the journey was long enough and the seas were not too heavy, the oil would float to the top. This small amount of oil from each ship—0.3 percent of a tank—could have been saved, but a practical method to do so was not generally available. (Some British ports had barges in their harbors for pumping this clingage oil off the top layer of ballast.) Upon nearing a home port, most ships simply dumped the oily ballast water over the side and refilled the tank with more water. The oil that had been pumped out before arrival in port, however, eventually washed to shore along all the tanker routes of the world. In addition, harbors became intolerably polluted, because some oil was dumped from engines and pipelines in harbors and at docks. One of the worst examples of such pollution was in New York Harbor, where it was reported that, in 1921, the wharves and pilings on the harbor front were oil-saturated and the water was coated with a layer of oil. This oil saturation devastated marine life and posed a fire hazard. Destruction of Fish and Fowl Various organizations, such as the Audubon Society and the National Coast Anti-Pollution League, as well as newspaper editors speaking for local groups, began to urge congressional action. The Audubon Society reported that thousands of waterfowl were dying annually as a result of their plumage being covered with oil. The fishing industry was being affected to a serious extent. In 1880, the coastal waters of the United States produced 600,000 barrels of salt mackerel in one year; by 1921, the catch had dropped to 43,000 barrels. The destruction of spawning fish from the effects of oil pollution was a major factor. It was also estimated that oil pollution between 1918 and 1923 caused an 80 percent decrease in oyster production off the coast of Connecticut. In 1923, Los Angeles had become the world’s largest oil market. There, the editor of The Express reported that the damage to ships, port, fishermen’s income, and residents had become a paramount issue. The problem of oil dumping was reaching dramatic levels: The number of oil-burning and oil-carrying ships rose from 364 in 1911 510

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to 2,536 in 1921. In 1924, the U.S. exported 4,428,110,720 gallons of petroleum products. If 0.3 percent of this amount was clingage, then nearly 13 million gallons of oil products were dumped from that source alone. Previous Regulations Prior to the Oil Pollution Act of 1924, the only law that could be applied to tanker dumping was the Refuse Act of 1899. This law made it illegal to discard any detrimental substance into the sea in territorial waters to a three-mile limit. The law also applied to dumping from land locations. The law required violators to pay fines and removal costs, and it rewarded informants. In 1868, the Canadian government prohibited the discharge of ballast, coal, chemicals, and other polluting substances into waters where fishing was practiced, although the law did not mention oil specifically. In 1918, the United States and Canada signed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to protect migratory birds, but the act did not recognize damage to birds by oil pollution until 1948, when an addendum was written. Although it is one of the few treaties in North America that acknowledges that valuable resources cross political boundaries, this and other laws have not been consistently applied. Congressional Debate and Passage The debate in Congress that produced two bills leading to the Oil Pollution Act elicited strong opinions from the oil industry. The Willis Bill, written by Senator Frank Willis of Delaware on January 8, 1924, proposed to make it unlawful to dump any kind of oil product, crude or refined, from either ships or land-based refineries. The law would have continued to be administered by the War Department, because the problem was an issue of navigable waters. The Willis Bill also imposed fines and imprisonment at the option of the courts. The oil industry objected to the provisions of this bill and wanted to exempt controls on land operations. The Lineberger Bill, proposed by Walter F. Lineberger, a House representative from Long Beach, California, was different from the Willis Bill in several respects: It included regulation of oil from ships only, the law would be administered by the Department of Commerce, no prison penalties were imposed, and fines could be waived in some cases. The bill also provided for investigations of land industry. The oil industry, the secretary of the 511

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interior, and the deputy commissioner of fisheries supported this bill. The two houses of Congress reached a compromise on the two bills in order to protect the interests of the public and industry as quickly as possible. The law limited liability to vessels in coastal navigable waters. Violation of the act could result in fines and prison terms. The Coast Guard was given authority to revoke licenses of ship captains. Administration of the law was left with the War Department until 1966, when it was transferred to the secretary of the interior. A Beginning The Oil Pollution Act of 1924 was a starting point for the regulation of an industry that was growing so quickly that technology could not keep up with safety and pollution standards. Ship builders constructed tankers of such enormous size that, at first, the ships’ engines were not powerful enough to stop the giant ships in time to avert accidents. At the request of Congress, President Coolidge called an International Conference on Oil Pollution, which was held from June 8 to 17, 1926. The conference included the representatives of thirteen maritime nations that recognized that coastal oil pollution was a problem. The conference recommendations included extending the prohibition on dumping from 50 to 150 nautical miles in order to protect marine life and encouraging ships to install oil separators to conserve oil and protect natural resources. Traditionally, international laws concerning liability for accidents on the open sea have focused on damage to the beneficial uses of the sea, and prosecution has been vested in the government of the ship’s origin. Enforcement, if it conflicted with economic concerns, was therefore often lax. To the extent that oil pollution resulted in public protest and damage of domestic resources, the laws that were passed in each country called attention to the need for international action. This was the case with the Oil Pollution Act of 1924. In practice, the law proved difficult to enforce, because the high seas of international territory constitute a vast region. Adherence to a law that depended upon international commitment to an honor code was difficult to verify. The law of 1924 primarily relied on the Coast Guard to discipline domestic vessels polluting territorial waters and to control foreign ships that acted 512

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with negligence. Unless a ship was caught in the act of committing a violation, however, there was no way to prove responsibility for an infraction. Later Legislation and Improved Technologies The deficiencies in the 1924 law eventually set in motion legislation that culminated in the 1970 Water Quality Improvement Act, which amended the 1924 act. The 1970 law prohibits discharges of oil from offshore and onshore facilities. The president is allowed to order measures to prevent damage to the environment and to remove spilled oil. The 1970 law removed the need for criminal prosecution if the violation is reported by the ship owner. Any other domestic or foreign ship owned by the person operating the violating ship can be denied permission to gain access to a domestic port. Responsibility was thus placed on ship owners to keep all of their ships in good operating condition. In this way, Congress attempted to focus attention on prevention of oil spills rather than on after-the-fact punishment. The establishment of oil-pollution laws motivated the oil industry to develop the technology to prevent excess discharge of oil in the cleaning of tanks and in the handling of dirty ballast water. The new methods included load-on-top systems, by which oil and water are separated and the water is drawn out. The new load of oil is added on top of the remaining oil, and all of it is discharged at the port of destination. Another method, called crude-oil washing, uses the oil itself to disperse and clean the tank residues. Ballast water is taken onboard after the cleaning. These methods are cleaner than the methods of tank washing used in the 1920’s. The load-on-top method discharges only 25 percent of the oil of older methods, and the crude-oil washing method discharges only 10 percent of the oil of the load-on-top method. The Oil Pollution Act of 1924 set a precedent for action on a federal level to control oil pollution from domestic and foreign vessels. The deficiencies of the law encouraged stronger laws and public action, which eventually required industry to develop technology to prevent spills. Laura R. Broyles

513

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Sources for Further Study Abbott, Lawrence F. “Oil on Troubled Waters.” The Outlook 136 (April 16, 1924): 638. _______. “To Clean the Ocean of Oil.” The Outlook 143 (May 5, 1926): 16. Edwards, Max N. “Oil Pollution and the Law.” In Oil Pollution: Problems and Policies, edited by Stanley E. Degler. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1969. Ross, William M. Oil Pollution as an International Problem. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973. Wagnalls, Adam W. “The Oil Trouble on the Waters.” Literary Digest 79 (November 10, 1923): 14. Wardley-Smith, J. “Source of Oil Discharged into Water.” In The Control of Oil Pollution, edited by J. Wardley-Smith. London: Graham and Trotman, 1983. See also: Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918); Water Pollution Con-

trol Act (1948); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956); Coastal Zone Management Act (1972); Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972); Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978); Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990).

Halibut Treaty Date: October 21, 1924 Categories: Animals; Environment and Conservation; Foreign Re-

lations; Natural Resources; Treaties and Agreements

After five years of negotiation, an agreement was reached to save the fisheries of the North Pacific, displaying U.S.-Canadian cooperation. On March 21, 1919, a Canadian-American Fisheries Conference called for a closed season on halibut fishing in the North Pacific every year for the next ten years. The commission, made up of scientists and fisheries experts, reported that halibut would totally 514

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disappear from the seas unless fishing were prohibited for at least this period. In October of the same year, the Canadian government sent a draft treaty to the United States secretary of state calling for an end to halibut fishing from November 15, 1920, to February 15, 1921, and similar dates until 1930. Boats violating this season would be seized by either country’s navy and their owners suitably punished. The treaty also contained provisions concerning regulations on lobster fishing, tariffs on fish traded between the two nations, rules for port privileges for fishing boats, and a call for a scientific investigation into the life history of the Pacific halibut. The United States took no immediate action on the proposal. In February, 1921, however, another commission of fisheries experts issued another report predicting disaster unless halibut received protection. This conference report likened the troubles of the halibut industry to the terrible conditions faced by salmon fishermen on the Pacific coast. The value of salmon shipped from U.S. and Canadian canneries had dropped by more than 90 percent since 1913 (from $30 million to $3 million) and was heading quickly toward zero. The halibut industry faced similarly depressed conditions unless something was done quickly to save the fish. Senate Refuses Ratification Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover recognized the need for action on the treaty. President Warren G. Harding sent it to the Senate for ratification, a procedure requiring a two-thirds vote of approval. Senators began debating the various sections of the proposal but refused to ratify it after objections from the governor, members of Congress, and fisheries authorities in Washington State. They claimed the halibut question properly belonged in the hands of state officials, not the federal authorities in Washington, D.C.; thus, the province of British Columbia should be discussing limits with the state of Washington. Canadian authorities argued that the provinces had no jurisdiction over such international questions as fisheries. Therefore, direct negotiations with the state of Washington were not permitted. Another problem had to do with punishing violators of the closed season. Canada suggested that ships caught with halibut during the closed season could be tried in both countries if authorities desired. Several senators argued that this constituted double jeopardy, a violation of the U.S. Constitution. 515

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Violators should be tried only once and in only one court for the same crime. Because of these objections, the treaty was withdrawn from Senate consideration in late August. It seemed to have no chance of ratification. Canadian fisheries experts expressed outrage at the Senate’s failure to ratify the treaty and asked whether any modifications would change the results. Secretary Hughes replied that he knew of no modifications that would change the minds of those senators who were opposed. He did suggest a meeting between Washington State officials and Canadian experts in the Pacific Northwest, and both sides agreed to that proposal. In February, 1922, representatives from the Canadian Marine and Fisheries Department met with the Fisheries Board of the state of Washington. They reached no agreement on protecting halibut, although they did decide to stop sockeye salmon fishing totally for five years, so desperately low was the population of that species. Washington State officials refused to give assurance that they would help control halibut fishing. Revising the Treaty In August, 1922, the Canadian government, tired of waiting for action by the United States, sent the United States a new draft proposal asking for immediate action. On December 14, the United States agreed in principle to the new treaty, although it still needed Senate approval. The new treaty provided for a closed season on halibut. Violators would be turned over either to the U.S. Department of Commerce or to the Canadian Ministry of Marine and Fisheries of the Dominion of Canada, but not to both agencies. The United States representatives suggested that halibut taken accidentally during the closed season be used only to feed the crew of the detained vessel but not be sold. This provision was added to the final draft. A new complication arose when the revised treaty was sent back to Canada. In February, 1923, the British Colonial Office in London demanded that the treaty’s title be changed before it could be given final approval by the English government. Canada, at this time, was still officially part of the British Empire. The title was to be changed from “A Convention for the Regulation of Halibut Fisheries on the Pacific Coast of Canada and the United States” to “A Convention for the Regulation of Halibut Fisheries on the Pa516

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cific Coast of His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and Ireland and the British Dominions Beyond the Seas, Emperor of India and the United States.” The first version would signify that Canada had the right to negotiate its own treaties, something that had never happened before and that the British wished to ensure never would. Governor General Julian Byng of Canada suggested that, because the treaty concerned only the United States and Canada, the signature of a Canadian minister should be enough to make it official. The British refused to back down, however, and when the final document was signed in Washington, on March 2, 1923, it included the signature of the British colonial secretary. The closed season was established from November 16 to February 15; halibut taken during this season could be used only for food for the crew. Violators would have their boats seized and would be tried in the courts of the nation from which they came. The treaty also established an International Fisheries Commission of four members to study the life and environment of halibut and present recommendations for future regulations needed to save the fish. The treaty and ban would be in effect for five years and then renewed if both parties agreed. The Senate began debate on the treaty in March and voted to ratify it with only one change. It added a provision stating that none of the nationals and inhabitants of any other part of Great Britain should engage in halibut fishing. This prohibition included people from all parts of the British Empire. When Canada received this change, it raised an objection. This amendment put the Canadians in an embarrassing position. It seemed to champion the British cause, at the expense of Canada, by insisting that Canada had to secure the consent of the entire British Empire before the treaty could be agreed upon. Canada could not accept this demand; the document would not be presented to the parliament in Ottawa because it would face certain defeat. The government of William Lyon Mackenzie King wanted to make the point that it could sign treaties without British consent, and they would block passage of the Halibut Treaty if necessary. Final Ratification In October, the Harding administration agreed to resubmit the treaty without the offensive reservation. The Senate, however, was 517

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not scheduled to meet again until December, too late to approve a closed season for 1923-1924. Canada asked if the president could impose a ban on halibut fishing but was told that such action was beyond the powers of the chief executive of the United States. Halibut fishing had suffered greatly reduced supplies of fish since the first draft treaty had been proposed, more than four years earlier. Still, both sides reluctantly had to announce there would be no closed season that winter either. By January, 1924, Canadian authorities declared that since the waters off Washington State and southern British Columbia had almost been depleted of halibut, fishing vessels would have to move north to the coast of Alaska. Supplies in that region were more abundant. Still, the halibut industry faced serious trouble and possible bankruptcy if fishing was not halted quickly. Both sides eventually backed down from their positions. The British king, George V, signed the Halibut Treaty on July 31, and Canadian and U.S. officials added their signatures on October 21, 1924. A closed season began in November and continued into the 1990’s. Leslie V. Tischauser Sources for Further Study Clark, Lovell C., ed. 1919-1925. Vol. 3 in Documents on Canadian External Relations. Ottawa: Department of External Affairs, 1970. McInnis, Edgar. Canada: A Political and Social History. 4th ed. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1982. See also: Reciprocal Trade Act (1936).

Federal Corrupt Practices Act Also known as: Corrupt Practices Act Date: February 28, 1925 U.S. Statutes at Large: 43 Stat. 1070 Categories: Voting and Elections 518

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This law, inadequate except symbolically, remained the basic legislation regulating political financing until 1971. Political parties are generally credited with making America’s strivings toward its evolving democracy work. Democracy entails parties’ competition for an ever-increasing number of offices by selecting candidates and then aiding their campaigns. At no time in the American past, however, has the general electorate been prepared to pay for the privilege of nominally belonging to or voting for a political party. The competition for political offices, however, almost year by year has become more expensive for parties and their candidates. Consequently, combinations of ingenuity and loosely defined corruption persistently marked attempts by parties and politicians to pay for the very party mechanisms that made democracy a viable form of governance. Political Corruption and Earlier Legislation One price paid for this has been widespread public cynicism and periodic public condemnations of party and campaign financing. Until after the Civil War ended in 1865, political candidates usually were men of sufficient means to contribute in one fashion or another to their own and to their party’s struggles at the polls. By the 1930’s, as the “spoils system” increasingly characterized office seeking, officeholders, whether elected or appointed, were expected to have their salaries “taxed” by party leaders to finance party operations. America’s spectacular leap to world preeminence in industry in the half century after 1865 was marked by the rise of the corporation. Corporate influence quickly penetrated the realm of politics, where it served its interests by funding candidates and parties. On the local level, men such as New York City politician William Marcy “Boss” Tweed not only looted the treasuries with an entrepreneurial panache entirely their own but also allied themselves with business interests. The phenomenon was national. Pennsylvania’s Boies Penrose, the state’s political boss for years, was famous for encouraging business and corporate leaders to pay the toll for his party’s candidates and elections. Businessmen who did not cooperate faced “sandbag” legislation that would cost them heavily. Inevitably, the crude couplings of politics and business emerged as a factor in congressional and presidential 519

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elections. Ohio’s Marcus Alonzo Hanna, a wealthy industrialist in his own right, converted much of the corporate world into a money machine for an always money-hungry Republican Party. His fund-raising in William McKinley’s presidential campaign against William Jennings Bryan was a landmark in American political financing. A few years later President Theodore Roosevelt was accurately accused of receiving secret corporate funds to aid his election, although it ran contrary to his principles. By way of mitigation, Roosevelt called for the public funding of elections. In 1907, Congress passed the Tillman Act (which had been under consideration since 1902). The act made it unlawful for corporations or national banks to make political contributions to candidates for any federal office. With Progressive reformism in full flood, Congress enacted the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1910, requiring every political committee that in two or more states attempted to influence or influenced the results of elections to the House of Representatives to file names of contributors and recipients with the clerk of the House. In 1911, similar legislation was extended to Senate elections, and candidates for all congressional seats were obliged to file financial reports. In addition, limitations were placed on candidates’ spending for House and Senate seats. Passage and Provisions The scandals tainting the administration of President Warren G. Harding, Teapot Dome prominent among them, encouraged Congress to enact the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 (FCPA). Until passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971, the FCPA operated as the country’s basic statute on political financing. Seeking to regulate campaign spending and calling for disclosures of receipts and expenditures by congressional candidates, the FCPA also revised existing ceilings on expenditures. Bans on political contributions by national banks and by corporations, a major feature of the 1907 Tillman Act, were also embodied in the new legislation. So, too, were prohibitions against candidates or parties soliciting campaign funds from federal employees. Barring states prescribing lower ceilings, Senate candidates were allowed to spend $10,000 and House candidates $5,000 on their cam520

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paigns. Reports on campaign financing were required in addition, and giving or taking money for anyone’s vote was made illegal. Such restrictions were limited to general election campaigns, since congressional power to regulate the fairly new practice of primary elections had not yet been tested in the courts. Few historians, even of the 1920’s, mentioned the 1925 act, for good reason. As campaign costs were rising rapidly at all levels and just as the new medium of radio presented candidates with novel opportunities for campaigning, the costs of running parties and political campaigns had begun to soar. Law and political reality were thus starkly juxtaposed. Experts commenting on the FCPA have consistently drawn attention to its numerous deficiencies. On its face, the FCPA was a sop to public opinion rather than a serious attempt at the reform of party and campaign election expenditures. It was a Swiss cheese of loopholes. The act contained no enforcement provisions. It likewise left reportage of spending by candidates and by parties incomplete and indicative only. Finance reports did not have to be presented publicly, and there were no mandates for reviewing them for accuracy. Contributions or expenditures in the critical instances of presidential or congressional primary campaigns, as well as spending intended to fuel presidential nominations, did not fall within the act. Excluded by the act as well was money contributed to or spent by political committees, the activities of which were confined solely to one state and which were not literal affiliates of parties. Thus political committees were free to solicit and spend campaign contributions at will. These committees were relatively innocuous during the 1920’s and 1930’s, but after the 1940’s, in the form of political action committees or PACs, they became extremely important, even integral, parts of election financing. The activities of PACs allowed candidates to disavow “knowledge and consent” of committees’ fund-raising machinations in their behalf. Candidates evaded spending limitations imposed by the FCPA by having PACs spend for them. The Ford-Newberry Senatorial Race Because of the importance of primary elections, particularly after passage of the Seventeenth Amendment (1913) calling for popular election of U.S. senators, the exclusion of primaries from the FCPA 521

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proved to be a major deficiency. In this regard, the defect was attributable not to Congress but to the U.S. Supreme Court. The matter had come to issue in 1921 as the result of an election contest between one of America’s folk heroes and leading industrialists, Henry Ford, and Truman Handy Newberry. Ford lost to Republican Newberry in the general election for U.S. senator in 1918. Newberry proceeded to take his Senate seat. Ford, however, charged Newberry with having exceeded the $10,000 spending limit set by 1911 amendments to the Tillman Act. Initially, Newberry was convicted, but in 1921, on appeal, a divided Supreme Court ruled the primaries were not “elections” as construed by the Tillman Act. The decision obscured Congress’s right to regulate primary nominations and in fact was one of the factors that motivated Congress to enact the FCPA in 1925. Nevertheless, with the Court ruling in mind, Congress shied away from the regulation of primary financing by not requiring accounts either of receipts or of expenditures. In many states, however, a candidate’s victory in the primary was tantamount to election. Not surprisingly, no House or Senate candidate was ever prosecuted for violations of the FCPA, despite, as experts have noted, general knowledge that campaign contributions and expenditures wildly exceeded legal limits. The Vare and Smith Cases After review of their campaign finances by a special Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections, however, two senators-elect in 1927 were refused their Senate seats. In one instance, the Senate Committee discovered that proponents of Philadelphia’s political boss, William Vare, in seeking to win a Republican factional fight for nomination to a Senate seat, had spent $785,000, or $760,000 over the legal limit. In the other case, Republican William McKinley had expended $500,000 in a primary renomination effort, while his ultimately successful challenger, Republican Frank L. Smith, had spent $450,000 to win. Smith’s Democratic opponent, on the other hand, had not exceeded the $25,000 limit. Smith was not prosecuted, but his Democratic opponent was not declared a victor. The Vare and Smith cases were distinguished only by revealing the commonplace. Politicians faced rising campaign costs in all quadrants, and their hunger for funds was unslakable. Veteran po522

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litical reporters such as the Baltimore Sun’s Frank R. Kent recorded that no law effectively regulating campaign fund-raising or expenditures “has been enacted through which politicians cannot drive a four-horse team.” Implicit was the belief that such a law never would be enacted. Wealthy contributors along with Prohibition-enriched gangsters such as Al Capone ignored the FCPA. So, too, did special interests such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Methodist-backed Southern Anti-Smith Democrats, in company with hundreds of other cause-oriented groups. The Hatch Act and Later Legislation Several changes, some observers believed for the better, occurred during the 1930’s and 1940’s. The Supreme Court ruled in January, 1934, in Burroughs and Cannon v. United States that the FCPA did apply to elections of presidential electors, thereby implicitly acknowledging that federal regulation of the financing of congressional elections was also permissible. To that degree, the Court had overruled its 1927 decision in Newberry v. United States. Furthermore, in 1939, the Clean Politics Act, sponsored by New Mexico’s Senator Carl A. Hatch (frequently known as the Hatch Act) amended campaign finance laws with several new restrictions. The Hatch Act barred federal employees from participation in national politics and further prohibited the collection of political contributions from anyone receiving federal relief funds. Amendments to the Hatch Act in 1940 further barred federal contractors, whether individuals or companies, from contributing to any political committees, including PACs, or to any candidates. In addition, the amended act asserted Congress’s authority over regulation of primary elections of candidates for federal office, limiting financial contributions to federal candidates or political committees to $5,000 per year. A ceiling of $3 million, moreover, was placed on the annual expenditures of political committees operating in two or more states. Well-intentioned law, however, effected little positive change. In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, his own political career revealing countless examples of dubious and unlawful campaign financing, described the FCPA, the Hatch Act, and similar legislation as inadequate in scope, obsolete from the outset, and more loophole than law. Only in 1971, with congressional passage of the Federal 523

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Election Campaign Act, were serious attempts renewed to rectify the endemic and epidemic illegalities associated with political financing. As experts noted, although money did not invariably win elections, the costs of democracy were high and the morality involved was low. Clifton K. Yearley Sources for Further Study Alexander, Herbert E. Money in Politics. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1972. Drew, Elizabeth. Policies and Money. New York: Macmillan, 1983. Heard, Alexander. The Costs of Democracy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960. Malbin, Michael J., ed. Parties, Interest Groups, and Campaign Finance Laws. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1980. Mutch, Robert E. Campaigns, Congress, and Courts. New York: Praeger, 1988. Sorauf, Frank J. Money in American Elections. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman/Little, Brown College Division, 1988. Thayer, George. Who Shakes the Money Tree?. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. See also: Hatch Act (1939); Federal Election Campaign Act (1972); Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002).

Geneva Protocol Date: June 17, 1925 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

Representatives from several nations, including most of the great powers, signed a protocol banning the use of poison gas and bacteriological weapons in war. 524

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On June 17, 1925, representatives from several nations met in Geneva, Switzerland, and signed a protocol to prohibit “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices,” and further consented to extend this prohibition to bacteriological methods of warfare as well. This relatively brief document acknowledged that gas warfare had been condemned by civilized opinion and expressed the hope that the accord would one day become an accepted part of international law. The swiftness with which the agreement was reached was a tribute to the negotiating skills of the U.S. representative, Theodore E. Burton, and also to the strong support that President Calvin Coolidge gave to the project. Ban on Chemical Weapons The protocol was a response to the widespread use of poison gas in World War I. Poison gas was first used at the Battle of Ypres in April, 1915, when the Germans released clouds of chlorine gas against French positions. Other nations, including Great Britain, France, and eventually the United States, either conducted extensive research or actually used poison gas in battle. Each year of the war witnessed an increase in use of this nefarious weapon. There is no consensus on the actual number of people affected, but after the war, the figures of one million casualties and 100,000 deaths were frequently cited. Although these numbers were undoubtedly an exaggeration, they were readily accepted by the general public. When these statistics were combined with graphic accounts of gas attacks in antiwar poems and novels and with photographs depicting pathetic columns of soldiers with bandages covering their eyes or hideous blisters marring their bodies, the effect on public opinion was dramatic. A significant body of opinion soon began to call for an end to gas warfare. By the time that delegates gathered in Geneva in 1925, there were already three international agreements on the subject. Even before World War I, several nations had signed the 1899 Hague Declaration, promising to abstain from using “projectiles” to deliver poison gas. Advances in technology, however, later made it possible to disperse gas from cylinders or from aerial bombs. After the war, the victorious Allied governments inserted Clause 171 into the Treaty of Versailles, which prohibited Germany from possessing, manufacturing, or importing chemical weapons. A more 525

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extensive agreement was reached at the Washington Arms Limitation Conference in 1921 and 1922, when the Five Powers (the United States, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, and France) adopted Article 5, which banned the use of poison gas in war. All five countries signed the agreement, but it never came into force because France subsequently refused to ratify it over a dispute concerning submarines. Assessment The Geneva Protocol was in many respects an unexpected and unplanned success. Originally, the delegates had a rather narrow mandate: to regulate the international arms trade. Although the issue was not on the agenda, Theodore E. Burton suggested that chemical weapons be included in the discussions. Smaller nations did not like the idea of a ban on the export of chemical weapons, since such a ban would help to perpetuate the substantial gap that already existed between the arsenals of the great powers and those of the lesser ones. Moreover, enforcement of such a law would have been complicated by the difficulty of distinguishing between chemicals destined for legitimate use and those intended to be converted into poison gas; such uses often overlapped. Finally, some delegates feared that regulating the trade in poison gas would in effect legitimize gas as a weapon by placing it on the same level with conventional weapons. Responding to these concerns, Burton therefore proposed a total ban on the use of chemical weapons in war, not simply a ban on trade. About the same time, President Coolidge stated that if the delegates in Geneva failed to agree to a ban on use, he would invite them to Washington for a conference in order to achieve that objective. Burton’s proposal was warmly received, however, and the U.S. delegation readily accepted a friendly amendment from the Polish delegate that the prohibition be extended to bacteriological warfare. Initially, some two dozen nations signed the protocol, but several nations, including the United States, had to have their national legislatures ratify it to give it the force of law. Initial U.S. Failure to Ratify Ironically, the United States, the nation given credit for negotiating the agreement, failed to ratify it. Since the protocol was a treaty, it needed to be approved by two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate. 526

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The protocol had the support of Coolidge, the Navy, and the War Department and the personal backing of General John Pershing, who had been commander-in-chief of the U.S. forces in World War I. Nevertheless, the military establishments in many countries, including the United States, did not wish to give up the new weapon. Moreover, there were powerful voices that asserted that chemical weapons designed to incapacitate or immobilize were less horrible than other weaponry designed to kill or maim. A particularly telling statistic often quoted by opponents of the protocol was that 25 percent of the soldiers hit by artillery shells died, as compared to only 3 percent of gas casualties. In addition, influential organizations such as the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Association of Military Surgeons, and the prestigious American Chemical Society were opposed to ratification. The protocol was deliberated for only one day on the Senate floor before being withdrawn by its supporters, who feared certain defeat. Despite this failure, the protocol came into force in 1928. By the outbreak of World War II, more than thirty countries had ratified it, including all of the great powers save the United States and Japan. Limitations of the Protocol Over the decades, there has been a tendency for the public to expect too much of the protocol, mainly as a result of several misunderstandings. The agreement did not ban further research, manufacture, or importation of chemical weapons, only their use in war. Significantly, there were neither provisions for verification nor penalties for noncompliance. The wording of the protocol obligated the signees only with respect to those nations that also signed the pact; in other words, it was permissible for a signee to use poison gas against an enemy that was not a signatory. Furthermore, many nations that ratified the protocol did so with the reservation that they would be at liberty to retaliate if an enemy first employed chemical methods of warfare. Many observers have pointed out that this meant the protocol was tantamount to an agreement renouncing first use of chemical weapons, nothing more. Moreover, diplomats, scholars, and jurists skilled in international law have found some disturbing ambiguities in the agreement. It was unclear whether the protocol banned all chemical 527

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agents or only those that were clearly intended to kill, wound, or seriously maim. It was also unclear whether the agreement applied only to international wars or to all wars, including civil wars and undeclared wars such as the U.S. conflict in Vietnam. Some scientists wondered whether references to bacteria should be interpreted narrowly or broadly, since there are some highly toxic substances, such as viruses or fungi, that technically are not bacteria. Later Concerns: Chemical and Biological Weapons The Geneva Protocol did not stop the practice of chemical warfare. The first nation to breach the agreement was Italy, which unleashed poison gas against Ethiopia in 1935 and 1936. Japan used gas against China beginning in the late 1930’s. Chemical weapons were not employed in World War II. Most scholars believe that a universal fear of retaliation prevented such use, and most of the belligerents in the war were not adequately prepared, offensively or defensively, for chemical warfare. After World War II, fears of chemical warfare partially receded. The atomic bomb replaced poison gas as the “doomsday” weapon. However, during the later twentieth century, chemical weapons again became a concern: The United Arab Republic employed chemical weapons in Yemen’s civil war in 1967; the United States used nonlethal chemicals, such as riot-control agents, herbicides, and defoliants, in the Vietnam conflict during the late 1960’s; Iraq employed both mustard and nerve gas in the Gulf War with Iran in 1983 and later against the Kurds; the Soviet Union was suspected of using chemical weapons in Afghanistan during the 1980’s, and Vietnam was alleged to have used chemical agents in Laos and Kampuchea. In addition, the major powers shrouded much of their research into new biological and toxic agents in secrecy, thus temporarily allaying the public’s apprehension. The protocol, however, was not forgotten. In 1966, the United Nation’s General Assembly voted unanimously to observe the principles and objectives of the Geneva Protocol. By 1970, the number of signatories to the treaty had reached eighty-four; the United States remained a significant exception. On November 25, 1969, however, President Richard Nixon reaffirmed U.S. support for the Geneva Protocol and renounced first 528

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use of lethal chemical weapons. Nixon also renounced the use of all biological weapons, even in retaliation, and stated that the Department of Defense had been ordered to dispose of existing stocks of such weapons. The following year, Nixon submitted the Geneva Protocol to the Senate for ratification, where it ran into opposition from liberal senators. The Republican Nixon administration made it clear that it believed the protocol did not prohibit the use of nonlethal chemical agents. Democrats, however, were upset that the United States was using nonlethal herbicides, defoliants, and riot-control agents in Vietnam; many liberal senators argued that the protocol banned all chemical weapons, not only lethal chemicals. The stalemate was finally resolved during the presidency of Gerald R. Ford. Senate opposition was stilled when Fred Icke, the director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, promised that nonlethal chemicals would be used in the future only under stringent limitations. The Senate ratified the protocol by a vote of 90 to 0, and on January 22, 1975, President Ford signed the agreement, fifty years after it had been negotiated. On the day the Senate ratified the protocol, it also unanimously ratified the Convention on the Prohibition of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons (1972), or Biological Weapons Convention. This agreement banned development and production of biological toxins, and as of 2000 it had been signed by 143 nations. A similar agreement was reached for chemcial weapons in the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, to which 135 nations are parties. The importance of these agreements became clear when, not long after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 and a subsequent rise in world terrorism, such weapons were threatening nations worldwide. In 1998, President Bill Clinton addressed these issues in his state of the Union speech before Congress: On this seventy-fifth anniversary of the Geneva Protocol, I call on the countries of the world who have not yet done so to join the Geneva Protocol, CWC and BWC. I call on all parties to strictly adhere to these agreements and to work to strengthen them. It is more urgent than ever that, true to the words of the Geneva Protocol, their prohibitions shall be universally accepted . . . binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations. 529

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After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, the seriousness and unscrupulousness of the parties who promulgated the attacks made the future use of chemical and biological weapons appear likely. David C. Lukowitz, updated by Christina J. Moose Sources for Further Study Adams, Valerie. Chemical Warfare, Chemical Disarmament. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Friedman, Leon, ed. The Law of War: A Documentary History. Vol. 1. New York: Random House, 1972. Haber, L. F. The Poisonous Cloud: Chemical Warfare in the First World War. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1986. Spiers, Edward. Chemical Warfare. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. Thomas, Ann Van Wynen, and A. J. Thomas, Jr. Legal Limits on the Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1970. See also: Genocide Treaty (1948); USA Patriot Act (2001).

Air Commerce Act Date: May 20, 1926 U.S. Statutes at Large: 44 Stat. 568 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Transportation

The federal government moved to develop air commerce, the airways system, and air navigation. The U.S. Post Office Department, through its development of an airmail distribution system, was directly responsible for the development of commercial air transportation and, subsequently, the 530

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airline industry. Many credit the Post Office as the progenitor of the United States commercial air transportation system. Benjamin Franklin, by establishing the postal service at the birth of the nation, recognized the importance of such postal service and communication systems at large. His policy for the Post Office focused on its role in assisting and developing all new forms of transportation, which would in turn provide better mail delivery. Early subsidies were paid to stagecoach lines, and the Pony Express was established solely because of the lucrative mail payments given to the contractors involved. Likewise, federal policy provided government assistance to early railroads, including loans for equipment and land grants. Such a policy thrust also involved the Post Office in airmail service development. The Post Office’s Airmail Service By 1925, the Post Office had conducted airmail service long enough to prove the practicality of this commercial nonmilitary use of the airplane. Throughout the initial period of Post Office support for airmail operations, it was firmly understood that government investment and control would be temporary, with a move by the mid1920’s to involve private industry in airmail operations. Through the involvement of private firms in airmail, attention was given to the growth of the commercial airline industry. The last direct flight of the Post Office operation took place on September 9, 1927. Beginning in June of that year, Post Office pilots were released as newly formed airlines took over various airmail routes. There had been more than forty pilots involved in the postal airmail service and more than six hundred employees in ground jobs. These employees had contributed to the more than twelve million airmail miles flown. From the beginning of government’s airmail service in 1918 until the last flight in 1927, the entire cost totaled $17.5 million, with more than $5 million in airmail postage sold. The balance cannot be counted as a loss, since it led to the establishment of commercial air transportation and the entirety of the U.S. airline industry. It should instead be counted as an investment. Civilian Air Mail: The Kelly Act Civilian air transportation largely began in the United States with the passage of the Kelly Air Mail Act on February 2, 1925. The act 531

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made possible the awarding of contracts to private contractors for the transport of airmail and, hence, led to the development of private airmail contractors. The act held that the amount of compensation paid to an air carrier would not be more than 80 percent of the revenue derived from the sale of airmail postage for such mail. In the middle of 1925, the postmaster general advertised for bids on eight airmail routes. Only five routes were immediately awarded, but by the beginning of 1926 twelve contract airmail routes had been awarded. The awards went to entrepreneurs of various backgrounds, many of them pioneers in commercial operations in the United States. The routes all focused on feeder lines branching off into the main transcontinental routes. Bids were accepted on main routes beginning in 1927, and contracts were written for major as well as feeder routes throughout that year. Subsequent amendments to the Kelly Act abandoned difficult methods of apportioning payments for letters carried and, over time, reduced airmail postage, leading to a substantial increase in airmail traffic. The young airlines, entrepreneurs, and inventors involved in airline service benefited through the adjustments and the growth in the market, which led to substantial progress in the establishment of commercial aviation. The Air Commerce Act Although the Kelly Act and Post Office policy provided that airlines could carry airmail, it became clear that airlines were not financially stable or large enough to provide for the maintenance and operation of the airways system organized for Post Office operation. Therefore, Congress passed another major piece of legislation known as the Air Commerce Act of 1926, the purpose of which was to promote air commerce. The law charged the federal government with the development, operation, and maintenance of the airways system and all aids to air navigation. It also charged the federal government with providing safety in air commerce generally through a system of regulation. Air transportation presented new and serious safety issues for the federal government to consider. Unlike many forms of surface transportation, it involved such speed and distance from the surface of the earth that it pointed to potentially hazardous safety situations. Any failures in maintenance, construction, or operation could lead to seri532

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ous problems of efficiency and safety. The initiative of the 1925 act gave rise also to a complex, continuing structure of safety regulation. The act of 1926 was unlike other acts dealing with airmail, leaving no hesitancy or reluctance in the belief that the federal government was strongly in the picture of growth and development of aviation by way of its aid and encouragement. Safety regulation was to be carried out by the Department of Commerce, and that agency established a department of air commerce. Among the earliest safety regulations provided were requirements of registration and licensing of aircraft and the certification and medical examination of pilots. Civil penalties were allowed in the enforcement of these regulations. This structure was the foundation of what later became the Civil Aeronautics Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration. The Air Commerce Act of 1926, along with the Kelly Act, provided a firm foundation for the development of civilian air transportation in the United States. Impact of the 1926 Act The Air Commerce Act of 1926 has had several impacts. First, it reinforced the movement of aviation into the civilian or private sector, beginning with the handling of airmail operations. Secondly, it brought the firm recognition of a new and different role for the government by virtue of government provision of support for infrastructure development and operating assistance in that industry. From the act grew considerable investment in the development of a usable and progressive air traffic control system (largely federally funded and developed), considerable investment in airport expansion and maintenance, and subsidies for airlines. Finally, it established the precursors of regulation in the industry by focusing federal attention on safety mandates for craft and pilots. Theodore O. Wallin Sources for Further Study Davis, Grant M. Transportation Regulation: A Pragmatic Assessment. Danville, Ill.: Interstate Printers & Publishers, 1976. Fair, Marvin L., and John Guandolo. Transportation Regulation. 8th ed. Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown, 1979. 533

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Harper, Donald V. Transportation in America Users, Carriers, Government. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982. Hazard, John L. Transportation Management, Economics, Policy. Cambridge Maryland: Cornell Maritime Press, 1977. Kane, Robert M., and Allan D. Vose. Air Transportation. 8th ed. Dubuque Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1982. Locklin, D. Philip. Economics of Transportation. 7th ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1972. See also: Comstock Act (1873); Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Airline Deregulation Act (1978); Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001).

Railway Labor Act Date: May 20, 1926 U.S. Statutes at Large: 44 Stat. 577 U.S. Code: 45 § 151-188 Categories: Labor and Employment

This law established a mechanism for mediating labor disputes between organized labor and the railroad companies, in the process guaranteeing the right to collective bargaining for workers. The 1926 Railway Labor Act brought peace to an industry plagued by strikes and violence. It created machinery acceptable to the railroad carriers and labor to mediate their disputes while guaranteeing labor’s long-sought goal of collective bargaining. The carriers submitted to these terms in exchange for excluding specific bargaining agents (unions) for labor from the act. This enabled the railroads to maintain their company unions, despite the intent of the act. The Railroad Strike of 1922 The origins of the Railway Labor Act lie in a fiercely contested strike in 1922. That action stemmed from wage cuts ordered by the 534

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Railroad Labor Board (RLB), an agency charged by the 1920 Transportation Act with monitoring and regulating wages and rates in the railroad industry. Staffed by appointees of President Warren G. Harding, who held strong antilabor views, the RLB rescinded wage increases granted in 1920. This action hit hardest the shopcraft and other workers not directly included in operating the railroads. At the same time, the RLB tolerated the Pennsylvania Railroad’s defiance of the RLB’s orders that carriers restore union contracts that they had unilaterally abrogated and that the carriers also dismantle recently established company unions. Fearing for their long-term survival, the shopcraft and nonoperating unions struck the railroad carriers on July 1, 1922, primarily over the issues of wages and hours. Hurt least by the reductions and conciliated by the RLB’s promise of no further wage cuts, the operating employees remained on the job. Soon the strike look a new turn, as the carriers demanded an end to seniority rights, the very heart of union strength. In order to sustain operations, the companies recruited scores of strikebreakers to fill the positions held by striking workers. By eliminating seniority, the carriers eased their task of rehiring strikers and, as the unions asserted, created a massive surplus of railroad workers. By this measure, the railroad companies had raised the stakes from mere wages to union survival. The unions complained bitterly about the RLB’s decision to urge the carriers to try to break the strike and to allow the companies to broach the seniority issue. Working behind the scenes, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover proved unable to persuade the carriers to negotiate. The refusal angered Harding. By the fall of 1922, Harding had reversed his early stand. Frustrated by the unions’ continued rejection of the RLB demands for wage cuts, the president placed the blame for the prolonged strike squarely on the shoulders of organized labor. By the late summer, he had embraced Attorney General Harry Daugherty’s position of the strike’s illegality and agreed that only drastic action could prevent the country’s transportation system from grinding to a halt. With presidential backing, Daugherty used a sweeping injunction to end the strike action, forcing compliance with the RLB wage cuts. The injunction, issued by Judge James Wilkerson of the District Court of Chicago on September 1, 1922, exceeded past judicial orders by prohibiting picketing and even minimal communications among the strikers and their supporters. 535

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The measure outraged many moderate Republicans such as Hoover, who had advocated a cooperative rather than confrontational solution to the strike. Faced with a hostile government and determined carriers, the unions had no choice but to return to work. Most unions followed the Baltimore & Ohio plan suggested by Hoover ally Daniel Willard, president of that railroad. The plan entailed negotiating with the companies on a separate basis in exchange for salvaging their seniority rights. The Need for a Grievance Mechanism In the wake of this massive confrontation, union members and moderate Republicans agreed that the industry needed a new mechanism to cope with grievances and disputes. The Special Committee Representing Railroad Labor Organizations prepared an initial report that outlined labor’s objectives in its relationships with the carriers. Union representatives turned this document over to Donald Richberg, who had earned a reputation as the leading labor attorney for his work in the 1922 strike. Charged with resolving the problems inherent in the carrier-union relationship, Richberg integrated these recommendations into his proposed legislation aimed at establishing new negotiating procedures. Richberg’s early drafts inevitably sparked controversy. The original proposal, known as the Howell-Barkley Bill, contained a provision that the carriers found particularly objectionable. It designated sixteen railroad labor organizations as specific bargaining agents for the rail employees. Acceptance of this condition would acknowledge carrier recognition of the unions, a position the railroad companies fiercely resisted. The two parties worked out a compromise, which President Calvin Coolidge signed on May 20, 1926. Provisions of the Act The final version of the act disbanded the RLB and substituted new procedures for settling disputes. As a first step, these included conferences between the two parties to iron out differences on wages, hours, and other items in the contract. If the parties remained deadlocked, an adjustment board, which would handle disputes over interpretation of the terms of a contract, assumed jurisdic536

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tion. The act was vague as to whether a national board (favoring the unions) or a systemwide board (implicitly allowing for company unions) would hear the grievances. The carriers seized upon the ambiguity of the act to maintain their employee representation schemes and bring grievances to systemwide boards. As late as 1933, 147 of the 233 largest carriers still maintained company unions that predated the 1926 law. The law included neither the means to enforce decisions nor the power to inflict penalties on guilty parties, therefore emboldening the railroad carriers. The weaker shopcraft and nonoperating workers proved most vulnerable to the company union strategy. A National Mediation Board was to intervene in disputes involving changes in a contract. The act required either party to provide a thirty-day prior notice before such changes went into effect. Once that period elapsed, the board would step in to negotiate a settlement. Arbitration stood as the absolute last choice of the board and occurred only if both parties agreed. If the mediation board perceived that the dispute endangered the transportation system, it could so inform the president, who could appoint an emergency board to deal with the crisis. The emergency board lacked enforcement power. The National Mediation Board’s course of moderation and accommodation contrasted sharply with the aggressive and hostile character of the RLB. A Model for Management-Labor Reconciliation The Railway Labor Act of 1926 established peace throughout the railroad industry and acted as a model for other industries seeking accommodation between company owners and union advocates. Its recognition of collective bargaining as an employee right opened alternatives for workers throughout the economy who had no access to any form of bargaining procedure. The 1926 Railway Labor Act marked an important turning point in organized labor’s drive for recognition and the right to collecting bargaining. It drew on earlier legislation such as the Erdman and Newlands Acts and would play a critical role in the formulation of the 1933 Bankruptcy Act, the 1934 amendments to the Railway Labor Act, and the 1935 Wagner Act. The Erdman Act of 1898 attempted to restore equality to the bargaining process between the railroad carriers and organized labor. The act applied only to operating employees—specifically 537

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engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen—yet it moved toward establishing mediation procedures that dealt fairly with unions. It banned the “yellow dog” contract, which threatened workers engaged in union activity with dismissal. The act also outlawed blacklisting, which permanently barred union supporters from employment through a system of files that carriers maintained on dissidents. A court test struck down these last two provisions. The 1913 Newlands Act sought to keep alive the negotiation process by setting up the U.S Board of Mediation and Conciliation, which again dealt only with the operating workers. World War I created an atmosphere more favorable to union demands. The urgency of continued production, the need for industrial peace, and the government’s desire to placate unions sparked administrative and legislative decisions that favored organized labor. Even before the declaration of war, the railroad unions had won the eight-hour day with the passage of the Adamson Act in 1916. During the conflict, the federal government assumed control of the nation’s rail system. The government promoted standard wages and hours, long favored by the rail unions, and ensured that union members remained free of discriminatory practices by the carriers. The union found federal control far more in tune with their interests than was private ownership. The end of the war and the specter of company interests reclaiming their control worried the unions. Quickly, their representatives brought forth the Plumb plan, which outlined a scenario in which the unions, the bondholders, and the shippers exercised administrative control of the industry. Organized labor clearly wished to hold on to the gains made during the war and sustain what it perceived as favorable conditions. The war’s end proved disappointing to organized labor. Collective bargaining faced a sustained assault by carriers. Railroads pushed for open shops, in which workers did not have to belong to unions, and workers saw a resurgence of yellow dog contracts. The passage of the Railway Labor Act transformed the hostile environment that menaced the very existence of unions. The act salvaged the union goals first articulated in the Erdman Act and pursued through World War I. It revived collective bargaining and ended yellow dog contracts in the rail industry while guaranteeing the long-term survival of unions. Its success provided a model that 538

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greatly influenced subsequent legislation regarding labor relations through the mid-1930’s and acted as a beacon for pro-union forces in the economy. The revision of the 1890 Bankruptcy Law in June of 1933 demonstrated the continued influence of the Railway Labor Act. The Great Depression forced many railroads to the brink of ruin. Bankruptcy offered one alternative for troubled companies. It also opened the possibility of companies suspending all union contracts. To prevent such an action, the unions insisted on amendments that enabled the terms of the Railway Labor Act to prevail despite economic contingencies and secured the right to organization free from carrier intrusion. The Emergency Transportation Act of 1933, with a one-year life, reiterated these provisions. Designed to promote efficiencies and reduce waste in the industry, that act ensured that no workers would lose their jobs as a result of measures enacted under this law. In 1934, the unions sought permanent legislation to create a more stable workplace. Specifically, they intended to change the conditions that allowed company unions to persist in more than half the carriers. The 1934 amendments to the Railway Labor Act guaranteed employees the right to organize independent of carrier influence. The act also established a National Board of Adjustment, which acknowledged the unions as bargaining agents for the workers and created a new board of national mediation. The act gave the president the power to appoint members to this board, subject to congressional confirmation. The mediation board also exercised the authority to certify representatives from either side, a measure that preserved the autonomy of the unions. As important, workers had the right to select their representatives through secret ballots, which isolated them from company pressures. The success of the rail workers was illustrated most prominently in the formulation of the Wagner Act of 1935, which culminated a drive for collective bargaining throughout the economy. Already the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) had incorporated boards of mediation and arbitration that had assumed a central role in the rail industry. Donald Richberg, who oversaw the writing of the Railway Labor Act, participated in the preparation of the NIRA, leading to similarities between the 1926 measure and the NIRA. 539

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The Wagner Act, or National Labor Relations Act, replaced the NIRA, which was found to be unconstitutional. It repeated many of the staples of the Railway Labor Act and its 1934 revisions. Company unions and yellow dog contracts fell by the wayside, and the law recognized the right of workers to organize free of company interference throughout all industries. Collective bargaining assumed a central role in labor-company relations. The Wagner Act, unlike the Railway Labor Act, acknowledged closed shops, in which workers had to belong to the union before beginning work. By the mid-1930’s, the unions had achieved their long-sought autonomy. Edward J. Davies II Sources for Further Study Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1960. _______. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. Campbell, Michael H., and Edward C. Brewer, eds. Railway Labor Act of 1926: A Legislative History. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1988. Fleming, R. W., and Edwin Young. “The Significance of the Wagner Act.” In Labor and the New Deal, edited by Milton Derber. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States on the Eve of America’s Entrance into World War I, 1915-1916. Vol. 6. New York: International Publishers, 1982. Keller, Morton. Regulating a New Economy Public and Economic Change in America, 1900-1930. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. Locklin, Philip D. Economics of Transportation. 3d ed. Chicago: Richard D. Irwin, 1947. Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Tomlins, Christopher L. The State and the Unions Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1889-1930. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. 540

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Vadney, Thomas E. The Wayward Liberal: A Political Biography of Donald Richberg. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970. Zieger, Robert H. Republicans and Labor, 1919-1929. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1969. See also: Norris-La Guardia Act (1932); National Labor Relations

Act (1935); Fair Labor Standards Act (1938); Labor-Management Relations Act (1947).

McFadden Act Date: February 25, 1927 U.S. Statutes at Large: 44 Stat. 1224 Public law: 69-639 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

The McFadden Act granted national banks the right to open branches in their head-office cities in order to reduce the comparative disadvantages they had suffered and to retain government control over banking and monetary policies. The McFadden Act was passed on February 25, 1927. Its main provisions permitted branch banking by federally chartered banks (national banks) that were located in the states in which laws granted such authority to state-chartered banks (state banks). The act was intended to remove some of the handicaps under which national banks had been competing with state banks. State vs. Branch Banks The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 prohibited national banks from branching; they could operate from only one full-service office. State banks, however, were often allowed to branch within their head-office cities or counties, or even statewide. The purpose of this differential regulation was to protect small (state) banks from competition from branches of large (national) banks. This disad541

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vantage to national banks in competing with state banks caused many banks to convert to state charters. During the 1920’s, 127 large national banks (with total assets of $5 million or more at that time) converted to state charters. Unlike national banks, state banks were not required to be members of the Federal Reserve System and were not subject to the reserve requirements set by the Federal Reserve, under which banks had to keep certain percentages of deposits available as reserves to meet demands for withdrawals. Therefore, the Federal Reserve’s ability to maintain direct control over banking policies and the money supply was weakened as national banks converted to state charters. To alleviate this problem, Daniel Richard Crissinger, chairman of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), in 1921 authorized national banks (in states that permitted state banks to branch) to open teller windows that would only accept deposits and cash checks. These acted as limited-service branches. The problem of conversion to state charters nevertheless continued. Between 1924 and 1927, the issue of branch banking was extensively debated in the banking industry, in state governments, and in Congress. Preserving the National Banking System The McFadden Act allowed national banks to open full-service branches. Under the McFadden Act, national banks were allowed to branch within the cities or towns in which they were located, provided that state banks had the same privilege. State banks were permitted to retain all branches established prior to the McFadden Act but were forbidden to establish new branches outside their head-office cities. The purpose of the McFadden Act was to reduce the comparative disadvantage suffered by national banks, thereby reducing the incentive to abandon federal charters in favor of state charters. The bill was designed to slow defections from the national banking system. The disadvantage to national banks remained, however, in states in which state banks had already established branches outside their head-office cities, since the branching of national banks was limited to the cities in which they were located. According to Louis Thomas McFadden, it was not the purpose 542

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of his act to encourage branch banking in the broadest sense. The act was in fact an “anti-branch banking bill” that cut the number of bank branches per capita by about half between 1920 and 1930. The reduction came about because of the restrictions on branching by state banks. Glass-Steagall Act On June 16, 1933, Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act, amending the McFadden Act by extending the branching privilege of national banks to outside their head-office cities if state law permitted state banks this freedom. Under this bill, national banks and state banks had the same branching rights. Branching authority for both national and state banks was subject to state branching laws. Types of Branching Bank branching can be classified into three categories. First, unitbanking states permitted only single-office banks. Second, limitedbranching states allowed state banks to branch within a city, county, or portion of the state. Third, statewide-branching states allowed banks to open branches anywhere within the state. Branch banking began on a large scale after passage of the Glass-Steagall Act. National banks took advantage of the right to branch outside their head-office cities. For example, the number of branches of Bank of America increased to five hundred by 1946 and to more than a thousand by 1976, with at least one branch in every county in California. During the period from 1933 to 1951, three-fourths of new branches created were outside head-office cities. Guarding Against Monopolies Although banks were granted more freedom to branch intrastate, neither national nor state banks were allowed to branch across state lines. The purpose of this interstate branching restriction was to prevent monopolistic tendencies in the banking system. That is, the restriction was intended to prevent development of a bank that would have control over loan and deposit markets in the entire nation. In addition, the interstate branching restriction was intended to prevent banks from draining funds from one state to lend in an543

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other state. Local banks were believed to be more likely to commit to serving local businesses and investments within the state. In supporting this argument, president Herbert Hoover stated in 1929 that the American credit system should be subject to the restraint of local interest. Some banks were interested in branching beyond their intrastate branching rights. These banks evaded the interstate branching restriction by setting up holding company organizations to acquire banks in other states. Until the 1950’s, the multibank holding company was frequently used as a mechanism to expand across state lines. Forty-seven bank holding companies existed in 1960. The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 This loophole in the McFadden Act was closed on May 9, 1956, by the Douglas Amendment to the Bank Holding Company Act, which prohibited bank holding companies from acquiring banks in other states. Those bank holding companies that had already acquired bank subsidiaries in other states were allowed to keep them and operate them. The Douglas Amendment effectively prohibited banks from branching across state lines unless specifically authorized to do so by state authorities. The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 was amended in 1970 to define a bank as an institution that accepts deposits that can be withdrawn on demand and also makes commercial loans. A branch office that did not provide one of these services would not satisfy the definition of a full-service bank. These branch offices were called “nonbank banks” and were not regulated by the Federal Reserve System. Some banks evaded the interstate branching restriction by opening nonbank banks in other states as a way to expand across state lines. Competitive Banking Equality Act of 1987 The Competitive Banking Equality Act of 1987 closed this loophole by defining a bank as any institution insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), but it exempted nonbank banks established before March 5, 1986. Branch liberalization within states (intrastate branching) continued as more and more states converted from unit banking to statewide banking. For example, New Jersey and New York converted to statewide branch544

McFadden Act

ing in 1973 and 1975, respectively. Florida converted from unit banking to countywide branching in 1977, and then to statewide branching in 1980. By the end of 1990, forty-two states had statewide branching, and Colorado was the only unit-banking state in the nation. The Garn-St. German Act of 1982 More important than allowing national banks to branch within their head-office cities, the McFadden Act had imposed interstate branching restrictions for both national and state banks, one of the most important restrictions on the nation’s banking industry. All banks were prohibited from branching across state lines in order to prevent monopolistic tendencies in the banking system. This interstate branching law had an unintended effect. Besides tampering with the degree of competition in the banking industry, the law also imposed restrictions on banks’ ability to diversify geographically, since banks were not able to open branches in other states to diversify their loan and investment portfolios. The limitation on geographic diversification increased bank risks. An economic downturn in a state could have a disastrous effect on banks with business concentrated in the state and cause a chain of bank failures in that state. For example, First Republic Bank of Texas, the fourteenth largest bank in the nation at the time, went bankrupt in the late 1980’s, as did several other Texas banks. Problems in the oil industry and real estate in Texas caused the failures, which used up a large part of the FDIC insurance fund. As the number of bank failures increased dramatically in the 1980’s the FDIC attempted to minimize depositor losses and resulting communitywide or nationwide disruption by arranging for troubled banks to be merged with healthy ones, with FDIC financial assistance. This policy was applied particularly to large banks, which were considered by regulators to be too big to be allowed to fail because of the disruptions that would result from failure. The FDIC sometimes had a difficult time finding a healthy bank within the same state to acquire a troubled bank, since problems in a state tended to affect all the state’s banks. The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act was passed on October 15, 1982, to affirm the power of the FDIC to arrange interstate mergers if an acquirer from the same state was not found. 545

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For example, First Republic Bank of Texas was acquired by the North Carolina National Bank (NCNB) in July, 1988, under an FDIC emergency rescue program. The FDIC emergency rescue program helped to promote nationwide banking and improve geographic diversification in the U.S. banking system. In addition, starting in the early 1980’s, states began to pass laws that would allow out-of-state banks to enter under specified circumstances. Some states required a reciprocal arrangement that allowed banks and bank holding companies from other states to enter by acquiring existing banks within their borders only if the home state of an entering bank granted similar privileges to banks headquartered in the state being entered. A trend toward nationwide banking, which would help to reduce bank’s vulnerability to regional economic downturns, had begun. Julapa Jagtiani Sources for Further Study Burns, Helen M. The American Banking Community and New Deal Banking Reforms, 1933-1935. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974. Chapman, John M., and Ray Westerfield. Branch Banking. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942. Frieder, Larry A. Commercial Banking and Interstate Expansion Issues, Prospects, and Strategies. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1985. Johnson, Richard B., ed. The Bank Holding Company, 1973. Dallas, Tex.: Southern Methodist University Press, 1973. Klebaner, Benjamin J. American Commercial Banking: A History. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Ostrolenk, Bernhard. The Economics of Branch Banking. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930. See also: Federal Reserve Act (1913); Banking Act of 1933 (1933); Banking Act of 1935 (1935).

546

Kellogg-Briand Pact

Kellogg-Briand Pact Also known as: Pact of Paris Date: Signed August 27, 1928 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

This multilateral treaty pledged to renounce war as an instrument of national policy and to maintain peace by common action. The Kellogg-Briand Multilateral Pact, also known as the Pact of Paris, held out the promise of a new era of international harmony. It was signed on August 27, 1928. The chief architects of the treaty, Aristide Briand and Frank Kellogg, and the other member signatories took a formal pledge “not to have recourse to war as an instrument of national policy, and to settle all disputes arising between them by peaceful means.” The treaty was signed originally by fifteen countries and embraced the participation of sixty-four nations by 1934, the exceptions being Argentina, Brazil, and the tiny countries of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino. A Treaty to Renounce War The movement to outlaw war was initiated by Salmon Levinson in the United States in the aftermath of World War I and became a global movement in a few years. This movement was of great importance in bringing about the negotiation and general ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The idea of a definitive treaty was proposed by Briand on April 6, 1927, when he suggested the conclusion of a bilateral Pact of Perpetual Friendship between France and the United States for the renunciation of war. Briand’s aim was to bind the United States—which still remained outside existing international accords, such as the League of Nations’ Covenant and the Locarno Pact—to France through a separate bilateral pact, in an effort to reinforce the international movement toward world peace. Revising the French Proposal At the beginning, the French proposal was ignored completely by Kellogg and the Department of State. It was Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University, and Professors J. T. 547

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Shotwell and Joseph P. Chamberlain who developed the implications of Briand’s offer by drawing up a draft treaty celebrated as the “American Locarno.” The idea had an overwhelming impact on Americans, creating widespread support for the antiwar idea. Encouraged by these developments, Briand formally presented a “Draft Pact of Perpetual Friendship between France and the U.S.” to the Department of State on June 20, 1927. Levinson’s untiring campaign to make the United States the champion of the movement to outlaw war bore fruit. He persuaded William Borah to introduce a resolution in the Senate on December 27, 1927, calling for the outlawing of war. Kellogg, now responding to public enthusiasm, made a new proposition to the French minister: that “the two governments would make a more signal contribution to world peace by joining in an effort to obtain the adherence of all of the principal powers of the world to a declaration renouncing war as an instrument of national policy.” There ensued a long period of complex negotiations between France, the United States, the other great powers except Russia, and some lesser powers. The French did not immediately endorse the suggested alterations to their original proposal. They feared that a new multilateral agreement would conflict with the obligations and machinery of sanctions embodied in the League Covenant and the Locarno Pact. Because the United States was not a signatory to those international accords, France desired only a bilateral pact with the United States. In his reply of February 27, 1928, Kellogg allayed French fears by assuring that the multilateral pact would neither conflict with nor violate the specific obligations of the Covenant and the Locarno Pact. Rather, it would act as an effective instrument for strengthening the foundations of world peace. On March 30, 1928, the French accepted the revised United States proposal to universalize the treaty. It is historically accurate to say that the Briand offer formed the basis of the multilateral Kellogg-Briand Pact, and its wording, with slight modifications, became the wording of the final treaty. Inviting Other Nations On April 7, 1928, Kellogg secured an understanding with the French ambassador that both France and the United States would separately address the other four great powers—Great Britain, 548

Kellogg-Briand Pact

Germany, Italy, and Japan—inviting their opinions and participation. According to The New York Times of April 14, 1928, a copy of the U.S. draft treaty and a note were sent to those powers and to France. The U.S. note stated that the United States government “desires to see the institution of war abolished and stands ready to conclude with the French, British, German, Italian, and Japanese governments a single multilateral treaty open to subsequent adherence by any and all other governments binding the parties thereto not to resort to war with one another.” The draft treaty contained two articles calling for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy and peaceful settlement of all international disputes. The French sent their draft on April 20. The French draft contained six articles, adding other clauses concerning matters such as self-defense, violation and release of obligation by others, and ratification by all before the treaty would be enforced. The responses of the four great powers to both drafts were more than favorable. The only concern, expressed by the British minister, Sir Austen Chamberlain, was the restrictions that the treaty would place on British freedom of action over its far-flung empire. This fear was lessened by the sovereign right of self-defense implicit in the pact. Every sovereign state, Kellogg emphasized, possessed the inherent right to defend its territory, and wars fought to repulse aggression would be entirely legal and not a violation of the pact. On the suggestion of the British, other signatories of the Locarno Pact—Belgium, Poland, and Czechoslovakia—were included among the principal signatories, along with India and the five British Dominions of Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, and South Africa. The U.S. interpretation of the treaty was sent to fourteen governments. The vital element in the fourteen replies received in July was that all the governments had agreed to sign the treaty as proposed by Kellogg. The diplomatic exchanges thus came to a successful conclusion. This represented a personal triumph for Kellogg, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929. Since December 28, 1927, he had unremittingly pursued the aim of a global multilateral treaty for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy, and he had achieved his goal. The other great hero and the original inspiration, Briand, also was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He had accomplished everything that he deemed essential for France. 549

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Goals and Flaws The most important aim of the pact had been to prevent war. The treaty linked the United States to the League of Nations as the guardian of world peace and in turn strengthened the sanctions of the Covenant. It simultaneously enhanced the feeling of security in Europe and in the rest of the world, and abetted the motive for general disarmament. The practical influence of the pact lay in the mobilization of the moral and legal conscience of humankind against aggressive militarism. The treaty remained permanently flawed, however. Although it outlawed war, it did not codify this into a principle or rule of international law. Hence, a breach of the resolution—many of which happened in subsequent years—was not tantamount to a crime or a violation of international law. Italy’s attack on Ethiopia in 1935 and Japanese imperialism in China in the 1930’s could not be prevented, as the pact had neither moral sanctions nor any tribunals to enforce its provisions. Moreover, the blanket interpretation of self-defense allowed many a nation to justify its war of aggression. Nevertheless, the pact, although violated many times, was never officially repealed. It acted as the legal basis for the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes’ trials after World War II. Sudipta Das Sources for Further Study Ferrell, Robert H. Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the KelloggBriand Pact. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. Marks, Sally. The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe, 1918-1933. London: Macmillan, 1976. Miller, D. H. The Peace Pact of Paris: A Study of the Briand-Kellogg Treaty. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928. Shotwell, J. T. War as an Instrument of National Policy and Its Renunciation in the Pact of Paris. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1928. Vinson, John C. William E. Borah and the Outlawry of War. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1957. See also: Treaty of Versailles (1919); Geneva Protocol (1925);

Yalta Conference agreements (1945).

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MAGILL’S C H O I C E

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Volume 2 1929-1970

edited by

Timothy L. Hall University of Mississippi School of Law co-editor

Christina J. Moose

Salem Press, Inc.

Pasadena, California

Hackensack, New Jersey

Copyright © 2003, by Salem Press, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115. ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997). Parts of this publication previously appeared in the following publications, copyrighted by Salem Press, Inc.: Great Events from History: Human Rights (© 1992), Great Events from History: Business and Commerce (© 1994), Great Events from History: Ecology and the Environment (© 1995), Ready Reference: American Justice (c 1996), Great Events from History: Revised North American Series (c 1997), Ready Reference: Censorship (© 1997), Ready Reference: Women’s Issues (© 1997), Natural Resources (© 1998), Encyclopedia of Family Life (© 1999), Racial and Ethnic Relations in America (© 1999), The Sixties in America (© 1999), Aging (© 2000), Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues (© 2000), Encyclopedia of the U.S. Supreme Court (© 2001), Magill’s Choice: American Indian History (© 2002), and Magill’s Choice: The Bill of Rights (© 2002). New material has been added. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data U.S. laws, acts, and treaties / edited by Timothy L. Hall. p. cm. — (Magill’s choice) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58765-098-3 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-099-1 (vol. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-100-9 (vol. 2 : alk. paper)— ISBN 1-58765-101-7 (vol. 3 : alk. paper) 1. United States. Laws, etc. 2. Law—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations—Treaties. I. Title: US laws, acts, and treaties. II. Hall, Timothy L. III. Series. KF385.A4U152 2003 348.73′2—dc21 2002156063 First Printing printed in the united states of america

Contents Contents by Popular Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . li Agricultural Marketing Act (1929) . . . . . . . . . . Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930) . . . . . . . . . . . Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . Norris-La Guardia Act (1932) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twentieth Amendment (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . Hundred Days legislation (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . Good Neighbor Policy (1933-1945). . . . . . . . . . Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933) . . . . . . . . Banking Act of 1933 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) . . . . . . . Twenty-first Amendment (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934 . . . . . . . . . . . . Securities Exchange Act (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . National Firearms Act (1934) and Federal Firearms Act (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Indian Reorganization Act (1934) . . . . . . . . . . Communications Act (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Federal Credit Union Act (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . Taylor Grazing Act (1934) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . National Labor Relations Act (1935) . . . . . . . . . Social Security Act (1935) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935) . . Banking Act of 1935 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neutrality Acts (1935-1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936) . . Oklahoma Welfare Act (1936) . . . . . . . . . . . . Reciprocal Trade Act of 1936 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marihuana Tax Act (1937) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937) . . . . . . . . . Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937). Wheeler-Lea Act (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938) . . . . . . . xlvii

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Natural Gas Act (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938) . . . . . . . . . . Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hatch Act (1939). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Smith Act (1940) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ogdensburg Agreement (1940). . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lend-Lease Act (1941). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Executive Order 8802 (1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emergency Price Control Act (1942) . . . . . . . . . . . Immigration Act of 1943. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.I. Bill (1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bretton Woods Agreement (1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . Yalta Conference agreements (1945) . . . . . . . . . . . War Brides Act (1945) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Employment Act (1946) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hobbs Act (1946) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Federal Tort Claims Act (1946) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Truman Doctrine (1947) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Labor-Management Relations Act (1947) . . . . . . . . Presidential Succession Act of 1947. . . . . . . . . . . . National Security Act (1947) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948) . General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 . . . . Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 . . . . . . . . . . . Genocide Treaty (1948) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . North Atlantic Treaty (1949) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act (1950). . . . . . . . . . Internal Security Act (1950). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Celler-Kefauver Act (1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twenty-second Amendment (1951). . . . . . . . . . . . Tripartite Security Treaty (1952) . . . . . . . . . . . . . U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 . . . . . . . . Termination Resolution (1953) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Refugee Relief Act (1953) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Law 280 (1953) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Communist Control Act (1954) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Atomic Energy Act of 1954 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Formosa Resolution (1955) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Air Pollution Control Act (1955) . . . . . . . . . . . . . xlviii

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Contents

Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 . . Eisenhower Doctrine (1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Price-Anderson Act (1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Niagara Power Act (1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jencks Act (1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civil Rights Act of 1957 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . National Defense Education Act (1958) . . . . . . . . Food Additives Amendment (1958) . . . . . . . . . . Landrum-Griffin Act (1959) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civil Rights Act of 1960 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960) . . . . . . . . Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960) . . . . . . Communications Act Amendments (1960) . . . . . . Twenty-third Amendment (1961) . . . . . . . . . . . . Antarctic Treaty (1961) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Housing Act of 1961 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962) . . . . . . . . . . Equal Pay Act (1963). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963) . . . . . . Clean Air Act (1963) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . Executive Order 11141 (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . . . U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . Civil Rights Act of 1964 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . . . . . . . . Water Resources Research Act (1964) . . . . . . . . . Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Economic Opportunity Act (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . Interest Equalization Tax Act (1964) . . . . . . . . . . National Arts and Cultural Development Act (1964) . Wilderness Act (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Older Americans Act (1965) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965) . . . . . Highway Beautification Act (1965) . . . . . . . . . . . Voting Rights Act of 1965 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Housing and Urban Development Act (1965) . . . . . Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967) . . . Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.) . . . . . xlix

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921 926 928 929 931 933 937 939 942 944 946 952 954 956 959 966 970 976 980 981

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 985 Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965). . . . . . . . 989 Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992 Higher Education Act (1965) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995 Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 997 Freedom of Information Act (1966) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1002 Animal Welfare Act (1966). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966) . . . . 1014 Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966) . . . . . . . . 1016 Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1020 Outer Space Treaty (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1022 Public Broadcasting Act (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1024 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967) . . . . . . . 1026 Bilingual Education Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1029 Civil Rights Act of 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1032 Fair Housing Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035 Indian Civil Rights Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040 Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . 1044 Truth in Lending Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1050 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968) . . . . 1052 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . 1054 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1060 Architectural Barriers Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066 Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . 1071 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1077 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969) . . . . . . . . . 1082 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969) . . . . . . 1083 Child product safety laws (1970’s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1089 National Environmental Policy Act (1970) . . . . . . . . . . 1094 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970) . . . . . . . . . 1098 Organized Crime Control Act (1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1105 Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1108

l

Contents by Popular Name Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1474 Animal Welfare Act (1966), 1009 Antarctic Treaty (1961), 898 Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, 610 Anti-Racketeering Act of 1946. See Hobbs Act (1946) Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807), 153 Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974), 1248 Anzus Treaty. See Tripartite Security Treaty (1952) Architectural Barriers Act (1968), 1066 Army Reorganization Act. See National Defense Act (1916) Articles of Confederation (1781), 4 Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 828 Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001), 1560

Adams-Onís Treaty (1819), 169 Age Discrimination Act (1975), 1285 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), 1026 Agreed Framework of 1994. See North Korea Pact (1994) Agricultural College Act. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 551 Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935), 647 Air Commerce Act (1926), 530 Air Pollution Control Act (1955), 839 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act (1968), 1060 Airline Deregulation Act (1978), 1343 Alaska Lands Act. See Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980) Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), 1380 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), 1151 Alien Act (1798), 127 Alien land laws (1913), 421 Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988), 1462 Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987), 1448 American Indian Citizenship Act. See Indian Citizenship Act (1924) American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), 1333

Banking Act of 1933, 590 Banking Act of 1935, 651 Bilingual Education Act (1968), 1029 Bill of Rights (1789), 46 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002), 1562 Black Codes of 1804-1807, 143 Black Codes of 1865, 269 Bland-Allison Act (1878), 327 Bonus Act. See World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924) Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994), 1524 Bretton Woods Agreement (1944), 744 li

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), 1192 Coinage Act (1873), 316 Communications Act (1934), 625 Communications Act Amendments (1960), 891 Communications Decency Act (1996), 1546 Communist Control Act (1954), 826 Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984), 1418 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), 1117 Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973), 1213 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. See Superfund Act (1980) Compromise of 1850, 225 Comstock Act (1873), 320 Confiscation Acts (1861-1862), 244 Constitution: History (1787), 28 Constitution: Provisions (1787), 33 Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968), 1044 Consumer Product Safety Act (1972), 1196 Convention of 1800. See Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801) Convention of 1818, 167 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. See Genocide Treaty (1948) Copeland Act. See AntiRacketeering Act of 1934 Copyright Act of 1909, 397 Copyright Act of 1976, 1295

Buckley Amendment. See Privacy Act (1974) Burke Act (1906), 385 Burlingame Treaty (1868), 296 Cable Act (1922), 494 Celler-Kefauver Act (1950), 800 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974), 1218 Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990), 1486 Child product safety laws (1970’s), 1089 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969), 1082 Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984), 1415 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 331 Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966), 997 Civil Liberties Act (1988), 1456 Civil Rights Act of 1866, 278 Civil Rights Act of 1957, 863 Civil Rights Act of 1960, 875 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 933 Civil Rights Act of 1968, 1032 Civil Rights Act of 1991, 1500 Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988), 1452 Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), 432 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), 219 Clean Air Act (1963), 926 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, 1131 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, 1323 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, 1492 Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.), 981 lii

Contents by Popular Name Eighteenth Amendment (1919), 460 Eighth Amendment (1789), 91 Eisenhower Doctrine (1957), 849 Electoral Count Act (1887), 341 Eleventh Amendment (1798), 115 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 259 Embargo Acts (1806-1807), 151 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986), 1430 Emergency Price Control Act (1942), 728 Emergency Quota Act of 1921. See Immigration Act of 1921 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974), 1224 Employment Act (1946), 757 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1214 Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966), 1016 Endangered Species, Convention on International Trade in (1975), 1271 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975), 1288 Enforcement Acts. See Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871) Equal Access Act (1984), 1412 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), 1233 Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972), 1165 Equal Pay Act (1963), 909 Equal Rights Amendment (19231983), 495 Espionage Acts (1917-1918), 451 Ethics in Government Act (1978), 1349 Executive Order 8802 (1941), 723

Corrupt Practices Act. See Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925) Crime of 1873. See Coinage Act (1873) Currency Act (1900), 369 Dancing Rabbit Creek, Treaty of (1830), 192 Dawes Act. See General Allotment Act (1887) Declaration of Independence (1776), 1 Defense of Marriage Act (1996), 1551 Delaney Amendment. See Food Additives Amendment (1958) Department of Energy Organization Act (1977), 1319 Dependent Pension Act (1890), 351 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998), 1555 Dingley Tariff (1897), 363 Direct democracy laws (1913), 371 Disfranchisement laws (1890), 358 Duck Stamp Act. See Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934) Dyer Act. See Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919) Earned Income Tax Credit (1975), 1269 Eastern Wilderness Act (1975), 1254 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 944 Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1981), 1397 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), 1287 liii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976), 1300 Federal Power Act of 1920, 476 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 425 Federal Tort Claims Act (1946), 763 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 430 Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 302 Fifth Amendment (1789), 71 First Amendment (1789), 56 Food Additives Amendment (1958), 867 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938), 699 Food Security Act (1985), 1426 Force Act of 1833, 194 Force Acts. See Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871) Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938), 691 Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974), 1219 Formosa Resolution (1955), 834 Fort Atkinson Treaty (1853), 235 Fort Greenville Treaty (1795), 118 Fort Jackson Treaty. See Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814) Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, 228 Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, 300 Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784), 13 Fort Wayne Treaty (1809), 157 Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 291 Fourth Amendment (1789), 66 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 Freedom of Information Act (1966), 1002 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, 106 Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, 221

Executive Order 11141 (1964), 929 Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967), 980 Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970), 1108 Fair Housing Act (1968), 1035 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 704 Family and Medical Leave Act (1993), 1513 Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970), 1118 Family Support Act (1988), 1458 Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984), 1417 Farm Act of 1985. See Food Security Act (1985) Federal Aid in Wildlife Act. See Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937) Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act. See Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966) Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969), 1083 Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925), 518 Federal Credit Union Act (1934), 630 Federal Crimes Act (1790), 105 Federal Election Campaign Act (1972), 1155 Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972), 1182 Federal Firearms Act (1938), 619 Federal Food and Drugs Act. See Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906) Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. See Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938) liv

Contents by Popular Name Homestead Act of 1862, 245 Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932), 562 Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814), 159 Housing Act of 1961, 901 Housing and Urban Development Act (1965), 976 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573

G.I. Bill (1944), 740 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947, 780 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994, 1537 General Allotment Act (1887), 347 General Mining Act (1872), 314 Geneva Protocol (1925), 524 Genocide Treaty (1948), 790 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 391 Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 160 Glass-Owen Act. See Federal Reserve Act (1913) Gold Standard Act. See Currency Act (1900) Good Neighbor Policy (19331945), 578 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of (1848), 213

Immigration Act of 1917, 446 Immigration Act of 1921, 483 Immigration Act of 1924, 501 Immigration Act of 1943, 736 Immigration Act of 1990, 1498 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, 985 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 812 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 1435 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 209 Indian Appropriation Act (1871), 306 Indian Bill of Rights. See Indian Civil Rights Act (1968) Indian Child Welfare Act (1978), 1355 Indian Citizenship Act (1924), 505 Indian Civil Rights Act (1968), 1040 Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978), 1176 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), 1465 Indian General Allotment Act. See General Allotment Act (1887) Indian Offenses Act (1883), 335 Indian Removal Act (1830), 186

Halibut Treaty (1924), 514 Harrison Act. See Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914) Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914), 434 Hatch Act (1939), 709 Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990), 1471 Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. See Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act(1930) Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974), 1237 Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960), 886 Higher Education Act (1965), 995 Highway Beautification Act (1965), 966 Hobbs Act (1946), 761 Homeland Security Act (2002), 1566 lv

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 620 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975), 1262 INF Treaty (1987), 1444 Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984), 1420 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982), 1401 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948), 778 Interest Equalization Tax Act (1964), 946 Internal Security Act (1950), 799 Internet Tax Freedom Act (1998), 1553 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 343 Invalid Pension Act or Disability Pension Act. See Dependent Pension Act (1890)

Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962), 903 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 547 Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871), 305 Labor-Management Relations Act (1947), 769 Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. See Landrum-Griffin Act (1959) Lame-Duck Amendment. See Twentieth Amendment (1933) Land Act of 1820, 178 Land Grant Act of 1862. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 Land Grant Act of 1890. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), 874 Law of the Sea Treaty (1982), 1403 Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971), 1141 Lend-Lease Act (1941), 719 Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, Convention on (1979), 1374 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980), 1391

Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act. See Megan’s Law (1996) Jay’s Treaty (1794), 110 Jencks Act (1957), 861 Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954), 329 Johnson-Reid Act. See Immigration Act of 1924 Jones Act (1917), 448 Judiciary Act of 1789, 41 Judiciary Act of 1875. See Removal Act (1875) Judiciary Acts of 1801-1925, 136 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974), 1231

McCarran Act. See Internal Security Act (1950) McCarran-Walter Act. See Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 McFadden Act (1927), 541 McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987), 1440 Madison Amendment. See Twentyseventh Amendment (1992) Magnuson Act. See Immigration Act of 1943

Kanagawa, Treaty of (1854), 236 Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), 240 lvi

Contents by Popular Name Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975), 1263 Maine Indian Claims Act (1980), 1377 Major Crimes Act (1885), 340 Mann Act (1910), 409 Marihuana Tax Act (1937), 674 Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 1189 Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987), 1449 Maternity Act. See SheppardTowner Act (1921) Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965), 959 Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867), 287 Megan’s Law (1996), 1548 Menominee Restoration Act (1973), 1211 Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963), 921 Migratory Bird Act (1913), 415 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934), 603 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 454 Migratory Species of Wild Animals, Convention on the Conservation of (1979), 1372 Military Reconstruction Acts. See Reconstruction Acts (1867) Militia Act (1862), 254 Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937), 675 Mineral Leasing Act (1920), 470 Mining Act. See General Mining Act (1872) Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970), 1137

Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984), 1421 Missouri Compromise (1820), 173 Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801), 141 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 181 Montreal Protocol (1990), 1472 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, 249 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890, 362 Moscow Treaty. See U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002) Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965), 989 Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919), 469 Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act (1984), 1425 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879 Murray Act. See Employment Act (1946) National and Community Service Trust Act (1993), 1517 National Arts and Cultural Development Act (1964), 952 National Bank Acts (1863-1864), 261 National Civil Service Act. See Pendleton Act (1883) National Defense Act (1916), 435 National Defense Education Act (1958), 865 National Environmental Policy Act. See Clean Air Act (1963) National Environmental Policy Act (1970), 1094 National Firearms Act (1934), 619 National Forest Management Act (1976), 1311 National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), 596 lvii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties National Labor Relations Act (1935), 638 National Motor Vehicle Theft Act. See Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919) National Narcotics Act (1984), 1422 National Origins Act. See Immigration Act of 1924 National Park Service Organic Act (1916), 440 National Security Act (1947), 774 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 1014 National Trails System Act (1968), 1077 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), 1496 Natural Gas Act (1938), 693 Naturalization Act of 1790, 104 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (1974), 1249 Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act (1950), 797 Neutrality Acts (1935-1939), 657 Newlands Act. See Reclamation Act (1902) News Room Search Act. See Privacy Protection Act (1980) Niagara Power Act (1957), 859 Niagara Redevelopment Act. See Niagara Power Act (1957) Nineteenth Amendment (1920), 478 Ninth Amendment (1789), 92 Noise Control Act (1972), 1203 Nonimportation Acts. See Embargo Acts (1806-1807) Norris-La Guardia Act (1932), 565 North American Free Trade Agreement (1993), 1519 North Atlantic Treaty (1949), 792

North Korea Pact (1994), 1532 Northwest Ordinance (1787), 24 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968), 1054 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 913 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983), 1406 Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970), 1125 Ogdensburg Agreement (1940), 714 Oil Pollution Act of 1924, 509 Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 1480 Oklahoma Welfare Act (1936), 668 Older Americans Act (1965), 956 Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990), 1484 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968), 1052 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 396 Ordinance of 1785, 17 Ordinance of 1787. See Northwest Ordinance (1787) Oregon Act (1848), 217 Organized Crime Control Act (1970), 1103 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 1022 Pacific Railroad Survey Act (1853), 230 Pact of Paris. See Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) Page Law (1875), 322 Panama Canal Act (1912), 412 Panama Canal Treaties (1978), 1328 Panama Tolls Act. See Panama Canal Act (1912) Parens Patriae Act (1974), 1232

lviii

Contents by Popular Name Prohibition. See Eighteenth Amendment (1919) Public Broadcasting Act (1967), 1024 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970), 1098 Public Law 280 (1953), 824 Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act. See SheppardTowner Act (1921) Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978), 1356 Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act. See Jones Act (1917) Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), 387

Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980), 1396 Paris, Treaty of (1783), 9 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 367 Part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. See Fair Housing Act (1968) Part of the Permanent Reciprocity Treaty of 1903. See Platt Amendment (1903) Part of the Social Security Act. See Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935) Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909), 403 Pendleton Act (1883), 336 Perkins Act (1990), 1483 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996), 1549 Philippines Commonwealth Independence Act. See TydingsMcDuffie Act (1934) Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 123 Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937), 681 Platt Amendment (1903), 381 Political Activities Act. See Hatch Act (1939) Pollution Prevention Act (1990), 1487 Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978), 1337 Preemption Act (1841), 199 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), 1352 Presidential Succession Act of 1947, 772 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 853 Privacy Act (1974), 1252 Privacy Protection Act (1980), 1378

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970), 1105 Railway Labor Act (1926), 534 Reciprocal Trade Act of 1936, 670 Reclamation Act (1902), 375 Reconstruction Acts (1867), 280 Refugee Relief Act (1953), 820 Removal Act (1875), 326 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), 1306 Resource Recovery Act (1970), 1113 Rio Treaty. See Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948) Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936), 662 Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination Act. See Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936) Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 165 lix

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), 1242 SALT I Treaty (1972), 1171 SALT II Treaty (1979), 1367 Seabed Treaty (1972), 1157 Second Amendment (1789), 61 Second Morrill Act. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Securities Exchange Act (1934), 612 Sedition Act (1918 act). See Espionage Acts (1917-1918) Sedition Act of 1798, 131 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act. See G.I. Bill (1944) Seventeenth Amendment (1913), 419 Seventh Amendment (1789), 90 Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Bill. See Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002) Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 489 Sherman Act. See Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 353 Sixteenth Amendment (1913), 414 Sixth Amendment (1789), 85 Sky Marshals Bill. See Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001) Smith Act (1940), 711 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act(1930), 556 Social Security Act (1935), 642 Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965, 992 Southeast Asia Resolution. See Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) Speedy Trial Act (1975), 1260 START II Treaty (1993), 1509

Stimson Doctrine. See HooverStimson Doctrine (1932) Superfund Act (1980), 1386 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977), 1317 Taft-Hartley Act. See LaborManagement Relations Act (1947) Taiwan Relations Act (1979), 1363 Takings clause (1789), 77 Tariff Act of 1909. See PayneAldrich Tariff Act (1909) Tariff Act of 1924. See Dingley Tariff (1897) Tariff Act of 1930. See SmootHawley Tariff Act(1930) Tax Reform Act of 1986, 1434 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 636 Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933), 582 Tenth Amendment (1789), 98 Termination Resolution (1953), 815 Third Amendment (1789), 64 Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 273 Three-fifths compromise (1787), 39 Title I of the Consumer Credit Protection Act. See Truth in Lending Act (1968) Title III of Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act. See Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 937 Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 1178 lx

Contents by Popular Name Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), 1147 Twenty-third Amendment (1961), 896 Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), 606

Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act. See Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970) Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964), 942 Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), 1290 Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790-1834), 102 Trademark Act. See Trademark Law Revision Act (1988) Trademark Law Revision Act (1988), 1469 Transcontinental Treaty. See Adams-Onís Treaty (1819) Treaty of Monfontaine. See Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801) Treaty of San Lorenzo. See Pinckney’s Treaty (1795) Tripartite Security Treaty (1952), 808 Truman Doctrine (1947), 764 Truth in Lending Act (1968), 1050 Tunney Act. See Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974) Twelfth Amendment (1804), 147 Twentieth Amendment (1933), 571 Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967), 1020 Twenty-first Amendment (1933), 601 Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), 928 Twenty-second Amendment (1951), 806 Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), 1505

United States recognition of Vietnam (1995), 1541 Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. See USA Patriot Act (2001) U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952), 810 U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002), 1564 U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty (1967), 931 USA Patriot Act (2001), 1558 Versailles, Treaty of (1919), 464 Victims of Crime Act (1984), 1424 Violence Against Women Act (1994), 1530 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994), 1529 Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty (1786), 21 Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act. See Perkins Act (1990) Voting Rights Act of 1965, 970 Voting Rights Act of 1975, 1274 Wagner-Connery Act. See National Labor Relations Act (1935) Wang Hiya, Treaty of (1844), 207 War Brides Act (1945), 753 War Powers Resolution (1973), 1208 Washington, Treaty of (1871), 310 lxi

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Water Pollution Control Act. See Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.) Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956, 844 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, 1159 Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, 785 Water Power Act. See Federal Power Act of 1920 Water Resources Research Act (1964), 939 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 202 Weeks-McLean Act. See Migratory Bird Act (1913) Welfare Reform Act. See Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996) Wheeler-Lea Act (1938), 685

Wheeler-Howard Act. See Indian Reorganization Act (1934) White-Slave Traffic Act. See Mann Act (1910) Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968), 1071 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), 1077 Wilderness Act (1964), 954 Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992), 1507 Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975), 1280 Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978), 1354 World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924), 499 Yalta Conference agreements (1945), 750

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Agricultural Marketing Act

Agricultural Marketing Act Date: June 15, 1929 U.S. Statutes at Large: 46 Stat. 11 U.S. Code: 12 § 1141 Categories: Agriculture; Banking, Money, and Finance; Business,

Commerce, and Trade

This act established the Federal Farm Board to make loans to farm cooperatives and to control surpluses of farm commodities. In order to understand the impact of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, it is necessary to understand what happened to the American farm sector early in the twentieth century. The second decade of the twentieth century was a good one for farmers. The world had experienced rapid industrial expansion, causing incomes and spending to rise. Demand for agricultural commodities had expanded, giving farmers high prices for their crops. Farmers in the United States were producing large crops and exporting large parts of them to foreign markets. A fixed quantity of good agricultural land caused land prices to go up, making farmers feel wealthier. There was no end in sight to the prosperity. Things began to change in 1919. European farmers were producing more as they recovered from World War I, and prices started to fall. In 1921, wheat and cotton were selling for half their prices of 1920, and farmers realized that hard times had returned. By 1923, agricultural commodity prices had started to rise slowly, and farm conditions began to improve. Things were getting better, but conditions for farmers still were unfavorable. Mechanization of farm work promised to help farmers by cutting production costs but was soon to contribute to problems of overproduction. Early Attempts to Help Farmers Agriculture was an important sector in the United States economy in the early 1920’s, and Congress believed that help was needed for farmers, even though farm prices were edging up after the drastic drop in the early 1920’s. A major attempt to help was embodied in the five McNary-Haugen bills introduced in Congress from 1924 to 1928. These bills called for an export corporation, which would 551

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

purchase agricultural crops in large enough amounts to keep their prices at acceptably high levels. These purchases were not to be sold domestically but were to be sold in foreign markets. The bills also called for an import tariff to discourage foreign farmers from sending agricultural goods to the United States to compete with domestic products. The first three McNary-Haugen bills did not pass Congress. The last two bills passed Congress but were vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge. Herbert Hoover, Coolidge’s secretary of commerce, was influential in advising Coolidge to veto the bills. The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 differed from these bills in that it focused on improved marketing as a means of aiding farmers. The government, under this act, would encourage formation of national cooperative marketing organizations but would not run them. As director of the Food Administration and as secretary of commerce, Hoover had participated in the many agricultural policy debates of the late 1910’s and the 1920’s. In 1928, he campaigned for president, promising to call a special session of Congress to deal with farm problems. Hoover had grown up on an Iowa farm and believed that an improved marketing process was the solution to the farm problem. Despite his strong feelings about the issue, once in the office of president he sent no specific legislation of his own to Congress, not wanting to interfere with Congress’s legislative prerogative. Even so, Congress knew what Hoover wanted. It passed the Agricultural Marketing Act, which became law on June 15, 1929. Provisions of the Act The overall goal of the act was to put agriculture on an equal footing with other business sectors in the country. The objectives specified to carry this out were to decrease agricultural surpluses, stabilize prices for agricultural commodities and thereby cut down on speculation, and provide help in marketing agricultural commodities. The act called for the establishment of the Federal Farm Board, which was to have a budget of $500 million. The Federal Farm Board The Federal Farm Board was directed to set up national farmer cooperatives as a means of achieving its goals. These cooperatives were to be controlled by farmers and were to be used primarily to 552

Agricultural Marketing Act

improve the marketing of crops. It was believed that the coming together of farmers into a comprehensive organization that could bargain on behalf of farmers would give farmers the power to prevent drastic price declines. The Federal Farm Board was authorized to make loans to the cooperatives to increase their size and efficiency. These loans could be used to build new facilities or for expenses of marketing agricultural crops. Farmers could obtain loans at low rates of interest. President Hoover persuaded Alexander Legge to leave his $100,000-per-year job as chairman of International Harvester to become the first chairman of the Federal Farm Board. Seven other board members were appointed, representing the major farm commodities. Arthur M. Hyde, as Hoover’s secretary of agriculture, was an ex officio member. By October of 1929, the Federal Farm Board had succeeded in setting up the Farmers National Grain Associations, which were stock companies in each of the major commodities. Stock in the associations was owned by the larger local grain cooperatives. The goal of each of these corporations was to become a large, centralized organization to facilitate marketing for the particular commodity it represented. It was hoped that their sheer size and the coordination of the marketing process they offered would increase the efficiency of marketing agricultural crops, thus stabilizing prices at the desired high levels. The National Grain Associations were also supposed to control agricultural surpluses. Unfortunately, the government also had in place county extension agents, whose job was to help increase production. Getting farmers to control production was difficult, and the Federal Farm Board never succeeded in this task. The government thus, to some extent, operated at cross purposes, trying to keep prices high while also encouraging production. The Great Depression In 1930, the Federal Farm Board decided that its efforts were not succeeding. A surplus of major commodities kept agricultural prices low. Several factors contributed to the surpluses. The United States and Europe had had a few years of abundant harvests, and other countries were restricting imports from the United States and imposing tariffs in retaliation for the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. Farmers were particularly hurt by these retaliatory tariffs be553

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cause they had long used exports as a means for eliminating agricultural surpluses. Finally, the Great Depression caused everyone to suffer. Low incomes meant that people were buying less of everything, including farm products. The surplus in wheat was particularly troubling. Wheat prices fell dramatically, and in response the Federal Farm Board set up Grain Stabilization Boards in February of 1930. The Grain Stabilization Boards hoped to control grain prices by encouraging farmers to reduce their output. Chairperson Legge of the Federal Farm Board and Secretary of Agriculture Hyde toured the country trying to get farmers to participate in the production control process. They were unsuccessful in getting farmers to cooperate with these programs, so the Grain Stabilization Boards, started buying surplus wheat. The purchase program was intended to be temporary, as no one recognized that the Great Depression was going to last for many years. Grain prices continued to fall, and by 1931 farm incomes were at the lowest levels of the century. The Federal Farm Board decided that it could no longer afford to buy grain or to store the grain it had already purchased. Fearing that the grain already purchased would rot in storage, the Federal Farm Board began to sell the grain it owned. This had a further dampening effect on prices and enraged farmers. The public outcry against the sale was so large that Legge eventually resigned as chair of the Federal Farm Board. Inevitable Failures The national cooperatives never emerged as the force that Hoover had hoped they would be. They were poorly managed and suffered from the same inefficiencies as the rest of the agricultural sector. They had little lasting effect on American agriculture, and most of them did not survive to the end of the 1930’s. The price stabilization portion of the Federal Farm Board’s efforts fared no better than did the national cooperatives. The Federal Farm Board found that it could not stop the slide in agricultural prices by buying surplus grains, as illustrated by the case of wheat. Not only did it fail to keep prices from going down, it spent $400 million in taxpayers’ money and disrupted commodity markets. Stabilization was a relatively new idea that was to be used in later legislation; some credit needs to be given to the Federal Farm Board for innovative thinking. 554

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Hoover did not recognize immediately that his farm plans were not working, so no adjustments to the plans were made during his presidential administration. His top farm advisers shared Hoover’s vision of how to help the farmers and so did not offer alternative plans. In Hoover’s defense, it is likely that the McNary-Haugen plans introduced in the 1920’s would not have fared much better. The onset of the Great Depression, coinciding with increased production made possible by the mechanization of farm production, made the Federal Farm Board’s goals nearly impossible to achieve. Hoover had high hopes for solving farm problems with voluntary participation by farmers. He had seen what had happened to farmers in the Soviet Union and did not want the government to intervene on such a large scale. Farmers did not choose to participate in Hoover’s plans, however, and even if they had, the low budgets available to the Federal Farm Board doomed the stabilization plans to failure. New Legislation Congress became disenchanted with the Federal Farm Board and cut its 1932-1933 budget by 60 percent. Hoover lost the 1932 election, in which Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president. Roosevelt had his own ideas about what should happen in the farm sector. He abolished the Federal Farm Board in 1933, effectively ending the influence of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929. In 1933, Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was the New Deal’s attempt to help farmers. By 1935, farm income was 50 percent higher than it had been in 1932. Key elements of the 1933 act were declared unconstitutional in January of 1936. Later that year, new farm legislation was passed. As was suggested by the Federal Farm Board, production controls were a key element in the new plans. Eric Elder Sources for Further Study Benedict, Murray. Farm Policies of the United States, 1790-1950. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1953. Davis, Joseph S. On Agricultural Policy, 1926-1938. Stanford, Calif.: Food Research Institute, 1939. 555

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Hamilton, David. From New Day to New Deal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Kirkendall, Richard. Social Scientists and Farm Politics in the Age of Roosevelt. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1982. Nourse, Edwin G. Marketing Agreements Under the AAA. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1935. Rasmussen, Wayne, and Gladys Baker. “A Short History of Price Support and Adjustment Legislation and Programs for Agriculture, 1933-65.” Agriculture Economics Research 18 (1966): 68-79. Tweeten, Luther. Foundations of Farm Policy. 2d rev. ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979. See also: Hundred Days legislation (1933); Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933); Taylor Grazing Act (1934).

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act Also known as: Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act; Tariff Act of 1930 Date: June 17, 1930 U.S. Statutes at Large: 46 Stat. 741 U.S. Code: 19 § 1202-1527 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Tariffs and Taxation

By signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, Herbert Hoover sparked foreign retaliation against American products, which precipitated a temporary collapse of the international trading system. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff raised average U.S. tariff rates by approximately 18 percent. The largest increases were on agricultural products, on which average tariff rates increased by about 57 percent. President Herbert Hoover’s signing of the tariff bill on June 17, 1930, climaxed a political struggle that had lasted more than a year. Proponents of higher tariff rates had hoped in particular to give relief to farmers, whose incomes generally had lagged during the prosperity of the 1920’s. More generally, they hoped that protection from foreign competition would allow U.S. pro556

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ducers to avoid production cutbacks and layoffs as the Great Depression began to unfold. Tariffs: Pros and Cons Opponents of higher tariffs had three main concerns. First, they feared that higher tariffs would end up protecting inefficient domestic producers and thereby result in higher prices for consumers. Second, they were afraid that an increase in U.S. tariffs would spark foreign retaliation, hurting the U.S. export sector. Finally, opponents were afraid that if the United States reduced its purchases of goods from other countries (particularly in Europe) that were heavily indebted to the United States, then it would become difficult for those countries to continue to make payments on their debt. The result might be the undermining of the international financial system. While serving as secretary of commerce during the Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge administrations, Hoover had become known as a strong proponent of protective tariffs. The 1928 Republican Party platform called for increased duties on agricultural products, and Hoover made this promise a central part of his presidential campaign. Although Hoover did not come out in favor of a general increase in tariff rates, he did state during the campaign that the United States should largely confine its imports to those products that could not be produced domestically. This position makes more understandable Hoover’s eventual willingness to accept a general increase in tariff rates. Passage and Provisions Shortly after assuming office, Hoover called a special session of Congress to convene on April 15, 1929, for the express purpose of raising tariff duties on agricultural products. The House of Representatives quickly passed a new tariff bill. As a result of political trading during the legislative process, it contained substantial increases in duties on nonagricultural products as well. Because it was a revenue measure, the bill originated in the House and was known formally as the Hawley-Smoot bill. Willis Hawley of Oregon was the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The legislation is more popularly known as the Smoot-Hawley bill because of the greater political prominence of Reed Smoot of Utah, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate was 557

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much slower to act, and the special session of Congress concluded in November without passage of a new tariff bill. When Congress reconvened in April, 1930, a compromise was worked out. The final version of the bill was passed on June 14. The bill achieved final passage in the House fairly easily, by a vote of 222 to 153. It was largely a party line vote, with 208 Republicans voting for the bill and only 20 against it; 133 Democrats voted against the bill and only 14 for it. The vote in the Senate was much closer, 44-42 for passage, as a group of eleven so-called “insurgent” Republicans led by senators William Borah, George W. Norris, and Robert La Follette voted against passage. Because the increase in tariff rates embodied in the bill went well beyond Hoover’s initial call for an increase in agricultural duties, there was some hope among the bill’s opponents that the president might veto it. Among those arguing in favor of a veto were prominent members of the banking and financial community, some leading industrialists including Henry Ford, the editors of many prominent newspapers including The New York Times, and perhaps most famously, a group of more than a thousand economists who signed a petition urging a veto. Prominent among those arguing in favor of signing the bill were most farm organizations and the American Federation of Labor. Hoover’s decision to sign the bill was probably most dependent on three considerations. First, as his statements during the 1928 presidential campaign had made clear, he had a strongly protectionist philosophy. Second, he doubted that a better bill could be procured from Congress, and he believed that the failure to pass any tariff bill would be seen, particularly by farmers, as his having failed to carry through on an important campaign promise. Finally, he managed to get included in the bill a provision allowing the United States Tariff Commission to modify tariff duties in the future. Hoover expected that this provision would put an effective end to congressional tariff making. With Hoover’s signature on June 17, the bill went into effect with the new fiscal year that began on July 1, 1930. Canadian Retaliation The hope of proponents of Smoot-Hawley that the act would lead to increased income and employment in the United States was dependent upon its not leading to excessive foreign retaliation 558

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against American products. Most of the United States’ major trading partners did increase tariffs following the passage of SmootHawley; but whether these increases were mainly in response to the U.S. action is difficult to know with certainty. In some cases, including that of Canada, at that time the largest trading partner of the United States, it seems reasonably clear that tariff increases were enacted in large part as retaliation for Smoot-Hawley. In other cases, the role of retaliation is less clear. This is true of Great Britain, at that time the second largest trading partner of the United States. At the time Hoover took office, the Canadian government, under Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, was committed to lower tariffs. There is some reason to believe that King might have planned to include tariff reductions in his budget announcement of March, 1929, but this possibility was foreclosed by anticipation of Hoover’s announcement of the special session of Congress to consider tariff increases. As time passed and the likelihood of general tariff increases in the United States grew, King came under pressure from Conservative Party leader Richard Bedford Bennett. Bennett argued in favor of using tariffs to shift Canada’s economic relations away from the United States and toward the British Empire. In a widely publicized speech in November, 1929, King warned that if tariff increases adversely affecting Canada were passed by the U.S. Congress, some reaction would surely follow. King still had hopes that either no new tariff bill would make it through Congress or that if one did pass, Hoover would somehow manage to shield Canada from its worst effects. By the spring of 1930, King felt obliged to include in his budget tariff adjustments that reflected the changing political realities. The duties on 270 goods imported from within the British Empire were reduced, and there were small increases in duties on certain imports from the United States. The budget included countervailing duties on sixteen products, under which the Canadian duty would be raised to match any increase in duties on those products levied by other countries. Perhaps buoyed by the initially favorable domestic response to the new budget, King announced that a general election would be held in July. Most observers believed the key issue in the campaign to be the proper Canadian response to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff 559

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Act. Bennett accused the United States of attempting to steal the jobs of Canadian workers through tariff increases and reiterated his view that Canada should adjust its tariff structure so as to encourage trade with other countries in the British Empire at the expense of the United States. On the defensive, King attempted to play up what he claimed was the alarm in the United States over the mild tariff increases enacted by Canada in May. Although many expected the election to be close, the Conservatives won a large victory, securing their only majority in the Canadian parliament in any election between 1911 and 1958. The key to the size of the Conservative victory was their unexpectedly strong showing in Quebec, where resentment against increased U.S. duties on dairy products was very strong, and the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, where increased U.S. duties on wheat led to a strong political reaction. Once in power, Bennett fulfilled his promise to increase duties on U.S. products and reorient Canadian trade toward the British Empire. The tariff war with Canada cost U.S. exporters dearly. In 1929, 18 percent of U.S. merchandise exports had gone to Canada, and the United States had enjoyed a $445 million merchandise trade surplus with Canada. By 1933, only 13 percent of U.S. merchandise exports were going to Canada, and the United States ran a surplus of only $26 million with Canada. British Response The reaction of the British government and public to the SmootHawley bill is somewhat difficult to disentangle from general developments in British politics at the time. From the middle of the nineteenth century, Britain had been strongly committed to free trade. As the Great Depression began, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s Labor government attempted to maintain this commitment to free trade. Rising unemployment, however, helped to reinforce those calling for a turn toward protectionism. The passage of Smoot-Hawley further undermined support for free trade, particularly within the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party had been home to a substantial protectionist wing dating back at least to Joseph Chamberlain’s campaign in 1903 to raise British tariffs and to negotiate reciprocal tariff preferences with members of the British Empire. The majority view within the party, probably reflecting the majority view of the British 560

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public, remained in favor of free trade. The Conservative defeat in the 1929 general election was attributed by some to the party’s failure to adopt an aggressive protectionist policy as an offset to the Labor Party’s natural appeal during a time of rising unemployment. It was only following the passage of Smoot-Hawley and increases in tariffs in several British dominions, notably Canada, that Stanley Baldwin, the leader of the Conservative Party, came out in favor of increased British tariffs. Baldwin argued that although he remained opposed to protectionism, he had become convinced that only by raising its own tariffs would Britain obtain the bargaining power necessary to successfully negotiate a multilateral reduction in tariff rates. In September, 1931, Ramsay MacDonald, having lost much of the support of his own party, formed a coalition government, relying heavily on Conservative support. Running on a platform that included pledges of higher tariffs, the government won a large victory in October, 1931. A general increase in tariffs was then passed by the House of Commons in February, 1932. This was followed by further tariff increases following the Ottawa conference of July, 1932, at which Britain and its dominions and colonies agreed to further tariff increases on non-Empire imports and reductions in tariffs on imports from within the British Empire. The net negative impact on the U.S. economy from the unraveling of the world trade system in the face of retaliatory tariff increases was considerable. Measured in today’s dollars, the United States had a surplus of exports of goods and services over imports of goods and services of approximately 5 billion. By 1933, this had become a deficit of nearly 2 billion. The League of Nations estimated that the volume of world trade declined in real terms by more than 65 percent between 1929 and 1933. Not until the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was successfully negotiated in 1947 was the world trading system restored to a sound footing. Willis Hawley and Reed Smoot were both defeated in the 1932 elections. Anthony Patrick O’Brien Sources for Further Study Ball, Stuart. Baldwin and the Conservative Party: The Crisis of 19291931. New Haven Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1988. 561

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Eichengreen, Barry, and Roger Ransom, eds. “The Political Economy of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.” In Research in Economic History. Vol. 12. Westport, Conn.: JAI Press, 1989. Hoover, Herbert. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920-1933. New York: Macmillan, 1952. Jones, Joseph M., Jr. Tariff Retaliation Repercussions of the HawleySmoot Bill. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1934. Kindleberger, Charles P. The World in Depression, 1929-1939. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Pastor, Robert A. Congress and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy, 19291976. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Schattschneider, E. E. Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff. New York: Prentice Hall, 1935. See also: Dingley Tariff (1897); Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947).

Hoover-Stimson Doctrine Also known as: Stimson Doctrine Date: Issued January 7, 1932 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations

The United States expressed its moral disapproval of the Japanese aggression against China but failed to deter that aggression. In the late 1920’s, some Japanese leaders, especially junior officers of the Kwantung Army stationed in Manchuria, favored expansion. They viewed China’s growing nationalism and its progress toward unification under the Nationalist (Kuomintang) government with fear. Their solution was to seize Chinese territory before China became sufficiently strong to defend itself. This policy was especially favored by officers of the Kwantung Army, a unit of the Japanese army created in 1905 to safeguard Japanese imperialist interests in its leased territories and railroads in China’s northeastern provinces, known in the West as Manchuria. Officers of the Kwantung 562

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Army were prominent in the Black Dragon Society, an ultranationalist officers’ organization dedicated to expansion on the Asian mainland. Capitalizing on the devastating floods along the Yangtze River Valley, the communist revolt, and other domestic problems in 1931, Kwantung Army officers, defying an order from the Japanese cabinet to desist, attacked a dozen cities in Manchuria simultaneously on the night of September 18, 1931. Called the September 18, or Manchurian, incident, this was the first shot that culminated in World War II in Asia. Calls for Ending Japanese Aggression Militarily unready, the Chinese government felt that resistance would have given Japan an excuse to widen its aggression and therefore would have been suicidal. Instead, it appealed to the League of Nations, and to the United States under the 1928 KelloggBriand Pact. This pact, cosponsored by then-U.S. secretary of state Frank Kellogg and signed by the United States, China, Japan, and sixty-one other nations, renounced aggressive war as an instrument of national policy. Repeated League of Nations resolutions ordering Japan to halt its advances, agreed to by the Japanese cabinet, were ignored by the Kwantung Army, which completed conquering Manchuria early in 1932. U.S. Response In response, the United States secretary of state Henry Stimson announced on January 7, 1932, a nonrecognition doctrine, which stated that the United States would not recognize territorial changes created by means contrary to the Kellogg-Briand Pact: [T]he American Government . . . cannot admit the legality of any situation de facto nor does it intend to recognize any treaty or agreement entered into between [the Japanese and the Chinese governments] . . . which may impair the treaty rights of the United States [or] which may be brought about by means contrary to the covenants and obligations of the Pact of Paris of August 27, 1928 [the Kellogg-Briand Pact].

This Hoover-Stimson Doctrine, also known simply as the Stimson Doctrine, became the cornerstone of U.S. policy in Asia in response to Japanese aggression. In 1932 the League of Nations cre563

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ated a special commission headed by British diplomat Lord Lytton to study the Manchurian incident. The ensuing Lytton Report (1933) charged Japan with aggression, declared the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo a sham, and demanded that Japan restore Manchuria to China. The report was unanimously endorsed by the League Assembly, and Japan immediately resigned from the league. Beset by the effects of the Great Depression and by isolationism, the United States did not attempt to force Japan to give up its conquests and lent no more than moral support to China. Burdened by neither military threat nor economic sanctions, Japan ignored international condemnation and continued its aggressions against China and other nations. No nation, except Japan’s later Axis allies Germany and Italy, recognized Japan’s conquests, and the situation eventually resulted in World War II. Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur Sources for Further Study Christopher, James W. Conflict in the Far East: American Diplomacy in China from 1928-33. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1950. Morison, Elting E. Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. Stimson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960. Rappaport, Armin. Henry L. Stimson and Japan, 1931-1933. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Smith, Sara R. The Manchurian Crisis, 1931-1932: A Tragedy in International Relations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1948. Stimson, Henry L. The Far Eastern Crisis: Recollections and Observations. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1936. Yoshihashi, Takehiko. Conspiracy at Mukden: The Rise of the Japanese Military. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963. See also: Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928).

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Norris-La Guardia Act Date: March 23, 1932 U.S. Statutes at Large: 47 Stat. 70 U.S. Code: 29 § 101 Categories: Labor and Employment

By curbing the use of injunctions in labor disputes, extending unions’ exemption from antitrust laws, and prohibiting “yellow dog” contracts, the Norris-La Guardia Act made it easier to organize and operate labor unions. As industry developed rapidly in the United States in the late nineteenth century, widespread efforts were undertaken to organize labor unions and to engage employers in collective bargaining. Many employers resisted these efforts. The Norris-La Guardia Act of March 23, 1932, was passed in order to free labor unions from antiunion actions involving three related elements: the Sherman Antitrust Act, the injunction, and the “yellow dog” contract. Antiunion Strategies One instrument for such resistance was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which outlawed “every contract . . . or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce. . . .” Union actions such as strikes and boycotts could be penalized through employer lawsuits for triple damages, as in the Danbury Hatters’ (Loewe v. Lawlor) case of 1908. Antiunion employers often were able to obtain court injunctions against union actions. An injunction is a court order primarily intended to forbid someone from taking actions that could cause severe injury to another. Courts had wide latitude in issuing injunctions. Violating an injunction could bring the offender under severe penalties for contempt of court, again with wide discretion for the court. Another antiunion instrument was the so-called “yellow dog” contract, whereby a worker was required, as a condition of employment, to explicitly agree not to join a union and to renounce any current union membership. Efforts by legislatures to outlaw such contracts had been overruled by the United States Supreme Court. A company whose workers had signed such contracts could seek an 565

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injunction against any union organizer who might try to persuade workers to breach their contracts. The Clayton Act The Clayton Act of 1914 ostensibly established the principle that the existence and operation of labor unions were not illegal under the Sherman Act. Further, the law forbade the federal courts to issue injunctions against a long list of union activities, vaguely worded but clearly referring to strikes and boycotts. Union jubilation that the Clayton Act would expand labor’s scope of organized activity was short-lived, however. In 1917, the Supreme Court held in the Hitchman Coal Company v. Mitchell case that issuing an injunction was an appropriate remedy against a union organizer trying to persuade workers to breach their “yellow dog” contracts. Even more striking was the Duplex Printing Company v. Deering case of 1921. The Duplex company had attempted to obtain court action against a system of union boycotts intended to force it to become unionized. Federal district and appeals courts refused to uphold the Duplex claim, but the Supreme Court overruled them in 1921. The decision held that the union’s actions could be in violation of the Sherman Act and did not constitute a “labor dispute” protected by the specific terms of the Clayton Act. Furthermore, issuing an injunction was appropriate to prevent harm to the employer. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Louis D. Brandeis pointed out that the majority opinion appeared to deny the intent of the Clayton Act. A strong antiunion trend persisted in Supreme Court decisions during the 1920’s. In 1921, the Court upheld use of an injunction against picketing when there were elements of intimidation and when “outsiders” to the direct dispute were involved, in American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council. Also in 1921, the Court held unconstitutional an Arizona statute establishing the right to peaceful picketing in Truax v. Corrigan. The case of Bedford Cut Stone Company v. Journeymen Stone Cutters’ Association (1927) involved concerted refusal by union stonecutters to work on the products of a nonunion firm. The Court held that this action could be considered a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and that an injunction was an appropriate form of relief. In a vigorous dissent, Justice Brandeis pointed out the lack of parallel between the union 566

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activities and the business monopoly actions against which the antitrust laws were directed. Depression Years The prosperous conditions of the 1920’s did not produce much union militancy; in fact, union membership showed a declining trend. After 1929, the economy headed into severe depression. As workers faced wage reductions, layoffs, or reduced hours, many perceived an increased need for the protection of union members and collective bargaining. Workers brought increasing political pressure to overrule the antiunion legal doctrines. In Congress, their cause was taken up by Senator George W. Norris, a Republican progressive from Nebraska. With the aid of a panel of distinguished labor law experts, including Felix Frankfurter of Harvard Law School, Norris drafted a bill to achieve the intent of the Clayton Act. Fiorello Henry La Guardia of New York, also a progressive, introduced the bill into the House of Representatives. As the worsening depression created a sense of panic among many legislators who became eager to show concern for workers, the Norris-La Guardia Act passed both houses of Congress by overwhelming margins and became law on March 23, 1932. Provisions of La Guardia Sections 3 and 4 of the law stated that contracts whereby workers agreed not to join a union were not to be enforced and could not be the basis for injunctions. Section 4 directed federal courts not to issue injunctions against concerted refusals to work (that is, strikes), joining or remaining in a union, giving financial or other aid to a union or strike, publicizing a labor dispute by picketing or other methods, or assembling peaceably to organize or promote a labor dispute. Further, such actions were not to be held to constitute violations of the antitrust laws. Section 13 gave a broad definition of a labor dispute, allowing disputes to involve persons other than an employer and his or her workers, thus broadening the range of union activities protected by the law. Section 6 provided that no union officer or member could be held liable for financial damages for the separate and independent actions of other union members or officers. The Norris-La Guardia Act removed obstacles to the formation of unions and to their activities, particularly organizing, striking, 567

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and boycotting. The law did not commit the government directly to the promotion of unions. Such promotion, however, was soon forthcoming. After the election of 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal swept aside the Republican administration and many Republican members of Congress, including La Guardia. One of the first acts of the New Deal was passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933. Its section 7a guaranteed workers the right to form and join unions of their own choosing and obliged employers to bargain with those unions. Similar provisions were contained in the Railway Labor Act of 1934. When the NIRA was held unconstitutional in 1935, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) of 1935. This affirmed a “right” to unionize and created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to make this right effective. Whereas the Norris-La Guardia Act merely protected union activities from damage suits and injunctions, the Wagner Act protected unions from a long list of “unfair” labor practices. These included employer interference with union organizing activities or union operations, discrimination against union members, and refusal to bargain collectively “in good faith” with certified unions. The NLRB was authorized to conduct elections to determine if a group of workers should be represented by a union. Effect on Labor Relations As a consequence of this legislation, much of the focus in labor relations shifted away from the private lawsuits with which the NorrisLa Guardia Act was concerned. Union organizers undertook vigorous campaigns for new members, sparked by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) under the leadership of John L. Lewis. Union membership, which had fallen below three million in 1933, passed ten million in 1941. Organizing efforts continued to meet with strong opposition, and employers still tried to enlist the courts to assist them, without much success. In 1938, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Norris-La Guardia Act in the case of Lauf v. E. G. Shinner and Company. The Court affirmed the legality of union picketing activities directed against a nonunion employer. In the case of Apex Hosiery Company v. Leader, the Supreme Court in 1940 refused to consider a union sitdown strike to be a violation of the antitrust laws. The case arose from a violent incident in 1937 when 568

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union members broke into the company’s plant and physically took possession of it. The Court noted that the union’s actions were clearly unlawful but argued that the appropriate remedies lay in channels other than the antitrust laws. In the case of United States v. Hutcheson (1941), the Supreme Court again refused to permit antitrust prosecution to be brought against union officials. The carpenters’ union that was the target of the lawsuit was trying to use a boycott to induce Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company to reverse a decision that certain work should be performed by machinists. It was a no-win situation for the company, since it could be similarly attacked by the machinists if it reversed its decision. The Supreme Court simply affirmed that the union actions should not be viewed as a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The great spread of unionization in the late 1930’s helps explain why hourly wage rates in manufacturing increased about 30 percent between 1935 and 1941 at a time when more than 10 percent of workers remained unemployed. Some economists noted that while union workers were benefiting, their gains were raising business costs and thus slowing the rise of job openings for the unemployed. Union membership continued to increase during World War II, but developments led many observers to believe that unions held too much power. Strikes by coal miners led by John L. Lewis during the war were particularly damaging to the image of unions. In November, 1946, Lewis provoked a confrontation with the government, which was then nominally operating the mines under wartime legislation. A federal court issued an injunction against a work stoppage by the union and then imposed heavy fines on Lewis and the union when they did not comply. In March, 1947, the Supreme Court upheld the injunction, ruling that the NorrisLa Guardia Act did not apply when the government was in the role of employer. In 1945, the Supreme Court established that some labor union actions could be considered to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, if the union acted in collusion with employers in a manner that promoted monopoly conditions in markets for business products. The belief that unions had gained too much power ultimately led to adoption of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. That act prohibited a long list of “unfair” practices by unions. By that time, many of the issues confronted by the Norris-La Guardia Act had faded from significance. Under the protection of the Wagner Act, unions had 569

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been organized and certified in most of the areas in which workers wanted them. “Yellow dog” contracts had disappeared, and harassment of union organizers had diminished. A major consequence of the Norris-La Guardia Act was to shift the bulk of litigation involving labor union activities to state courts. Picketing and related activities associated with strikes and other labor disputes often primarily involved state laws, local ordinances, and local police. Private business firms largely lost the opportunity to bring civil lawsuits to halt or penalize nonviolent strikes and other labor union activities. Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960 _______. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. Dougherty, Carroll R. Labor Problems in American Industry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941. Gregory, Charles O., and Harold A. Katz. Labor and the Law. 3d ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. Kintner, Earl W., ed. Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes: A Legislative History. 11 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978, 1982-1985. Lieberman, Elias. Unions Before the Bar. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950. Limpus, Lowell M., and Burr Leyson. This Man La Guardia. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1938. Mason, Alpheus T. Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life. New York: Viking Press, 1946. Norris, George W. Fighting Liberal. New York: Macmillan, 1945. See also: Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Railway Labor Act (1926); National Labor Relations Act (1935); Fair Labor Standards Act (1938); Labor-Management Relations Act (1947).

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Twentieth Amendment Also known as: Lame-Duck Amendment Date: Ratified January 23, 1933; certified February 6, 1933 U.S. Statutes at Large: 47 Stat. 745 Categories: Constitutional Law; Government Procedure and Or-

ganization

The Twentieth Amendment addressed an outdated provision of the Constitution that had led, in modern times, to “lame-duck” congressional sessions. Under the original Constitution, Congress was to meet on the first Monday in December; newly elected members did not take office until the following March. Consequently, unless a special session were called, new members of Congress did not normally begin their service until the next December session—thirteen months after their election. These dates were undoubtedly originally established to meet transportation and communication problems of the late eighteenth century. The result was that every two years there was a “lame-duck” session of Congress in which members who had been defeated for reelection in November continued their service until March. Outrageous pork-barrel legislation was commonly passed during these lame-duck sessions: Having nothing to lose, defeated representatives would exercise their power during the year following an election to ensure appropriations for their favorite projects. Congress’s work during the session was frequently characterized by “logrolling” (vote trading) and, in the Senate, prolonged filibusters. The amendment was the last of the great constitutional reforms promoted by the Progressive movement, the Sixteenth through Twentieth Amendments. It was introduced by Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska. Congress proposed it to the state legislatures in March, 1932; eventually it was ratified by all the states, but it achieved the constitutionally required three-fourths early in 1933 and was proclaimed as the Twentieth Amendment by the secretary of state on February 6, 1933.

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Provisions The main thrust of the Amendment is found in its first two sections, which adjust the dates of the terms of the president, senators, and representatives. The first section changes the dates of the terms. Inauguration of a new president and vice president was moved from March to January 20, thus limiting the amount of time to be served by an outgoing administration. The terms of senators and representatives were set to begin or end at noon on January 3. The second section of the amendment does away with the December session of Congress altogether. Under its terms Congress is required to meet at least once a year beginning on January 3. Sections 3 and 4 of the amendment provide for the case of the death of a president-elect and give Congress the power to decide what will happen should neither the president-elect nor the vicepresident-elect have qualified by the beginning of the next presidential term. These sections also authorize Congress to establish by law the presidential succession in the event of the deaths of both the president and vice president. Except under the most extraordinary, and perhaps dangerous, conditions, the later provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which allow the president to nominate a new vice president should the latter office become vacant, diminish the importance of this part of the Twentieth Amendment. The Twentieth Amendment successfully did away with the evils of the prolonged lame-duck session of Congress. The service of defeated members of Congress lasts from election day until adjournment at the end of the session in December. It is further shortened by the Thanksgiving and Christmas recesses. As a practical matter, more than 90 percent of congressional incumbents are returned every election day anyway, so the lame-duck session has now become largely a phenomenon of the past. Robert Jacobs Sources for Further Study Corwin, Edward S., ed. Constitution of the United States of America. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1953. Farber, Daniel A., and Suzanna Sherry. History of the American Constitution. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1999. 572

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Peltason, J. W. Corwin and Peltason’s Understanding the Constitution. 14th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Twelfth Amendment (1804); Presidential Succession Act

(1947); Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967).

Hundred Days legislation Date: March-June, 1933 Categories: Agriculture; Banking, Money, and Finance; Business,

Commerce, and Trade; Energy; Health and Welfare; Housing; Labor and Employment Fifteen major laws were passed during the hundred days following Franklin Roosevelt’s rise to the presidency as legislators negotiated compromises to address the economic and social emergency created by the Great Depression.

On November 8, 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president of the United States. Few people knew what to expect from Roosevelt, a consummate politician who once described himself as “a Christian and a Democrat.” One thing, however, was clear: Immediate action of some kind was imperative to stop the nation from slipping further into economic chaos. Perhaps out of desperation, the people were impressed with the expressions of confidence embodied in Roosevelt’s inaugural address and his promise of action. The problem facing the new administration was how to sustain this sense of movement and confidence in a new order. Emergency Compromise On March 9, 1933, a special session of Congress met and sat until June 16. During that period, later to be known as the Hundred 573

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Days, fifteen major resolutions became law and the United States underwent a revolutionary change. The legislation was the product of no single person or particular group. The essence of the program was emergency compromise, with Roosevelt standing above the various interests and masterminding them. Banking Legislation The immediate problem was to do something about the paralyzed banking system and to restore business confidence. As a preliminary measure, Roosevelt issued an executive order on March 5, proclaiming a national bank holiday. During the holiday, cash from the Federal Reserve replenished bank vaults. The closing of the banks had the therapeutic effect of convincing many people that, having reached rock-bottom, the situation had to improve. Roosevelt submitted to Congress on March 9, 1933, an Emergency Banking Relief Act, which was passed immediately. The act gave the president power over gold transactions, outlawed hoarding, and provided for the gradual reopening of the banks under the supervision of the secretary of the Treasury. This was followed the next day by the Economy Act, which, despite threatened congressional revolt, reduced federal expenditures drastically by cutting government salaries and veterans’ payments. On March 12, Roosevelt gave his first radio address in a series that came to be known as “fireside chats.” He emphasized that most of the banks were sound and would reopen in a few days. When the banks did reopen, people rushed to deposit money rather than to make withdrawals. The banking crisis subsided. Roosevelt next attempted to eradicate some abuses in the nation’s banking and financial practices. The Securities Act of May 27, 1933, called for close supervision by the Federal Trade Commission of the issue of new stock, and held stock sellers liable if they provided false information. A complementary measure was the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of June 16, 1933, which differentiated between commercial banking and investment banking. An important corollary of this act was the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to insure individual bank deposits up to five thousand dollars. The insurance on deposits was a significant step in restoring public confidence and bringing currency back into the banks. 574

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Agricultural Legislation Another pressing problem was agriculture. In preparing his legislation, Roosevelt relied heavily upon the advice of his secretary of agriculture, Henry A. Wallace. A former farm editor and horticulturist, Wallace advocated a domestic allotment plan designed to combat overproduction and declining prices by restricting acreage and leasing to the government land left idle. The scale of payments was aimed at establishing parity between farm prices and the cost of manufactured goods, based on figures for the years 1909 to 1914. Not all farming interests accepted this idea of production control; many demanded cheap money as a remedy. When the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was finally signed into law on May 12, 1933, it provided for various other options to control production besides government leasing of idle land. Additional New Deal legislation provided for loans through the Farm Credit Administration, aid to very poor farmers with the Resettlement Administration, and a means for all rural areas to receive power through the Rural Electrification Administration. The New Deal The unemployed and the middle class also received benefits under the new legislation, which later became known collectively as the New Deal. The unemployed were helped through the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), one of Roosevelt’s most popular measures. The act, passed on March 29, 1933, provided for a civilian army of young men to work in reforestation and conservation projects. In the nine-year life span of the CCC, a total of 250,000 jobless men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five were given an opportunity to move forward in life. Enactment of the Federal Emergency Relief Act on May 12, 1933, and the subsequent creation of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) provided for direct federal grants to states for purposes of relief and brought about a cooperative effort between federal and state agencies. FERA, headed by Harry Hopkins, promoted the idea of work relief instead of the “dole” (as welfare was often called at the time) and stipulated that there would be no discrimination of any kind concerning recipients. To meet the problems of the middle-class homeowners facing mortgage foreclosures, the Home Owners Refinancing Act, passed 575

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in June, 1933, provided for the exchange of defaulted mortgages for guaranteed government bonds, but it appeared to give more assistance to mortgage companies than to hard-pressed homeowners. Homeowners benefited later, when it became government policy to refinance loans where possible instead of taking possession of homes. One of the most successful programs of the Roosevelt administration was the enactment of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act (TVA) on May 18, 1933. The act provided for a regional authority that would build dams designed to control disastrous flooding in the states of the Tennessee River basin, bring electricity to rural areas, and replant forests. Eventually, the TVA became the largest utility company in the United States. Labor Legislation When organized labor demanded action to relieve unemployment, Senator Hugo L. Black of Alabama proposed a thirty-hour work week, and his proposal received considerable support from labor interests. Roosevelt regarded the bill proposed by Black to be both unconstitutional and unworkable, but he had to meet the growing demand for relief by industry and industrial workers. He therefore ordered his advisers to prepare an omnibus labor and industry measure to attack the root causes of depression in those fields. A draft was prepared under the direction of Raymond Moley, economist and assistant secretary of state. The passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) on June 16, 1933, provided for industrial self-government through the use of universal codes regulating production, wages, and hours, but negated enforcement of the antitrust laws. Although the program was short-lived, these codes benefited nearly four million women workers through wage and hour provisions. The program did not, however, set up codes for agricultural or domestic laborers, three-fourths of whom were African American. The Roosevelt administration hoped that the act would eliminate inefficiency and raise prices. The provision that all codes must be submitted for government approval pleased advocates of government control, such as Rexford Guy Tugwell, a member of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust—a group of distinguished individuals serving as advisers to the president. Organized labor received legal guarantees that all codes would have to provide for collective bargaining 576

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before they could be recognized. Finally, the unemployed were assured of aid from a vast program of public works connected with the NIRA and financed from additional money through increased federal spending. Unprecedented Achievement On June 16, 1933, Congress adjourned after its historic session. Never in the nation’s history had so much new legislation been enacted in so short a time. With Roosevelt’s support from both houses, bills originating from the president’s White House office were passed nearly every day in order to give the country help during the emergency of the Depression. The hasty legislation that was adopted during the Hundred Days helps to explain why so many measures subsequently had to be drastically amended or abandoned altogether. George Q. Flynn, updated by Marilyn Elizabeth Perry Sources for Further Study Davis, Kenneth S. FDR: The New Deal Years, 1933-1937. New York: Random House, 1986. Freidel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990. Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Morgan, Ted. FDR: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. The Coming of the New Deal. Vol. 2 in The Age of Roosevelt. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959. Sitkoff, Harvard, ed. Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1985. See also: Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933); Banking Act of

1933 (1933); National Industrial Recovery Act (1933).

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Good Neighbor Policy Date: Issued March 4, 1933 Categories: Foreign Relations

A new articulation of U.S. relations with Latin American nations replaced military interventionism with mutual respect and cooperation. In his first inaugural address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised that the United States would conduct itself in international relations as a good neighbor. After he applied the term specifically to relations with Latin America and pledged his opposition to armed intervention, the phrase “good neighbor” came to be identified with his Latin American foreign policy. Following the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States intervened militarily in Central America and the Caribbean. Asserting its right to exercise a police power in the Americas under the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, U.S. presidents sent troops into Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Panama to stabilize conditions, prevent European intervention, and protect U.S. lives and property. After a brief incursion in 1909, a contingent of U.S. Marines was stationed in Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Latin Americans Seek a Nonintervention Resolution Seeking to prevent future interventions, several Latin American jurists proposed the adoption of doctrines against intervention or the use of force or diplomatic recognition to protect the interests of foreign nations in Latin America or to change Latin American governments. At the Sixth Inter-American Conference, held in Havana, Cuba, in 1928, the Latin American representatives tried, but failed, to obtain U.S. support for a nonintervention resolution. There was also increasing opposition in the United States to the policy of sending troops to protect U.S. interests in Central America and the Caribbean. In 1928, president-elect Herbert Hoover made a series of goodwill trips to Latin America, and in 1930 he repudiated the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Resisting pressure to inter578

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vene to protect U.S. investors, Hoover prepared to withdraw troops from Haiti and removed the marines from Nicaragua. His goodwill gestures were undermined, however, by the Great Depression and the high duties imposed by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Roosevelt Issues the Policy On March 4, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his inaugural address, declared that in foreign policy he wished to “dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor . . . who respects himself and . . . the rights of others.” After his inauguration, Roosevelt undertook specific measures to improve relations with Latin America and stimulate economic recovery. In 1933, at the Seventh International Conference of American States, in Montevideo, Uruguay, Secretary of State Cordell Hull accepted the principle of nonintervention and signed a convention declaring that no state had the right to intervene in the internal and external affairs of other countries, with a vague reservation. Hull also proposed the reduction of tariffs and trade agreements to stimulate trade. In 1936, at an interAmerican conference in Buenos Aires, the United States signed an expanded resolution renouncing intervention and agreed to the principle of consultation in the event of a war between American nations or an external threat to the peace of the Americas. Cuba In 1933, Roosevelt had also dispatched Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles to a revolutionary Cuba, where Welles orchestrated the resignation of dictator Gerardo Machado. When Welles’s personally designated successor was overthrown by a sergeant’s revolt, however, Welles persuaded Roosevelt to withhold recognition from the nationalistic government of Ramón Grau San Martín. With U.S. naval vessels offshore, this policy of nonrecognition encouraged a second revolt, bringing to office a series of presidents controlled by Colonel Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar. Despite clear interference in Cuban politics, President Roosevelt had refrained from using armed force in Cuba, and in 1934 the United States and Cuba agreed to the removal of the Platt Amendment (1903), which, following the Spanish-American War, asserted the U.S. right both to intervene in Cuba to protect Cuban independence and to maintain a military base on the island. Similar agreements were concluded with Panama and the Dominican Republic. 579

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The United States and Cuba also signed reciprocal trade agreements that lowered duties on Cuban sugar, guaranteed access to the U.S. market for Cuban agricultural exports, and reduced duties on hundreds of U.S.-manufactured goods exported to Cuba. Oil Interests When Bolivia, Mexico, and Venezuela threatened to nationalize U.S. oil companies in 1937 and 1938, the Good Neighbor Policy faced a direct challenge. President Roosevelt not only resisted the pressure to intervene but also accepted the right of these countries to seize the assets of the companies or increase government revenues from their operations, as long as they made immediate and just compensation. Concerned about the war in Europe, Roosevelt also continued economic assistance and signed new trade agreements with Bolivia and Mexico after a brief suspension. By refusing to intervene to protect the oil companies, Roosevelt demonstrated his adherence to the principle of nonintervention and the concept of the Good Neighbor. In addition to renouncing the use of military force in the Caribbean and Central America, the United States provided credits to struggling countries through the newly created Export-Import Bank and negotiated a series of reciprocal trade agreements to lower barriers to trade between the United States and Latin America. Long-Range Impact Because of its renunciation of intervention and the withdrawal of troops, the Good Neighbor Policy fostered an era of good relations and cooperation between Latin America and the United States on the eve of World War II. In a series of agreements drawn up at prewar conferences, nations of Latin America and the United States agreed to cooperate and form an alliance of mutual protection. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, all Latin American countries but Argentina joined the Allied war effort, cracking down on Axis sympathizers and supplying strategic materials, airbases, and troops for the Allies. Although Argentina was eventually pressured to declare war on the Axis, the public efforts by the U.S. ambassador to influence or change the government in Buenos Aires not only backfired but also raised the specter of past interventions. While the unity and cooperation between the United States and Latin America survived the war, the death of Roosevelt on April 12, 580

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1945, and the departure of the architects of the Good Neighbor Policy from the State Department contributed to its demise. Differences between Latin America and the United States had already surfaced at wartime and postwar conferences, and with the advent of the Cold War the United States turned its attention to the economic recovery of Europe and the defense of the West. After 1945, therefore, Latin American requests for economic cooperation and assistance were ignored until the triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution in Cuba in 1959. When the Central Intelligence Agency conducted a covert action to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954, it appeared that the United States had abandoned nonintervention in favor of military intervention to protect the interests of a U.S. company, thereby ending the era of the good neighbor. Subsequent attempts to overthrow Castro, U.S. invasions of the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama, the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, and the support of military forces in Central America also violated the principle of nonintervention and the Good Neighbor Policy. The Good Neighbor Policy did not promote freedom and democracy. After the removal of U.S. troops, the commanders of the national guards trained by the United States seized power and established long-term dictatorships. Since these regimes guaranteed stability, protected foreign investments, and were anticommunist, they received U.S. economic and military aid. Although the reciprocal trade agreements stimulated trade, they also reinforced a dependency on the U.S. market and prevented economic development through diversification. Nevertheless, the Good Neighbor Policy fostered a period of goodwill among the nations of the Western Hemisphere, as well as a sense of political hegemony against potential aggressors. The United States demonstrated its growing role in world affairs and safeguarded its long-range interests in both the economic well-being and political autonomy of its Latin American neighbors. D. Anthony White Sources for Further Study Aguilar Monteverde, Alonso. Pan-Americanism from Monroe to the Present: A View from the Other Side. Translated by Asa Zatz. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968. 581

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Blasier, Cole. The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America, 1910-1985. Rev. ed. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985. Gellman, Irwin F. Good Neighbor Diplomacy: United States Policies in Latin America, 1933-1945. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. LaFeber, Walter. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. New York: W. W. Norton, 1984. Wood, Bryce. The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985. _______. The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961. See also: Treaty of Paris (1898); Platt Amendment (1903); Panama

Canal Act (1912); Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930); Bretton Woods Agreement (1944); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947); Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948); Panama Canal Treaties (1978); North American Free Trade Agreement (1993); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994).

Tennessee Valley Authority Act Date: May 18, 1933 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 58 U.S. Code: 16 § 831 Categories: Agriculture; Energy; Environment and Conservation

After decades of debate over government versus private ownership of electric power, Congress created the Tennessee Valley Authority, demonstrating the critical relationship between economic and environmental decisions. On May 18, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as the first public regional development agency in the nation. The history of the 582

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founding of the TVA is also the history of an enduring national debate over the appropriateness of publicly versus privately owned electric power generation. This controversy illustrates the critical links among economic development, environmental use, and the role of the federal government in economic and environmental decisions. Hydroelectric Power, Progressivism, and Pinchot The debate originated in the nineteenth century and pitted conservationists and Progressive politicians against the electric power industry. Unregulated capitalist ventures in the 1880’s and 1890’s had caused widespread environmental destruction for economic gain. The conservation movement emerged, urging that natural resources be regulated by the federal government, that is, that resources be protected and carefully used. Conservation meant controlled economic development in the first half of the twentieth century. Pioneering conservationist Gifford Pinchot developed the concept of multiple-use management first for the conservation of forest resources, then extended the idea to water resources. He argued that private power companies’ exploitation of only the hydroelectric power of rivers would waste the rivers’ potential for flood control and increased navigation. Conservationists were also motivated by changes in technology. Steam-electric power generated by burning coal or oil had been the main source of power since the 1880’s. For the first time, power transmission technology made possible the transport of electric power from remote rivers to cities. Ownership and control of electric power generation was a critical issue because of the enormous amounts of power needed to run the production processes on which the economy depended. Progressive politicians supported the regulation of industry for environmental and social purposes. Progressives such as Republican senator George W. Norris of Nebraska accepted the utility of the multipurpose use of natural resources. More important, the Progressive politicians feared that if private utilities monopolized hydroelectric resources, they would soon control all industry and, ultimately, the country. Believing that regulatory policy would not be enough, Progressives emphasized the need for competition from public power. 583

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Muscle Shoals An important focal point for the controversy over public versus private power was the development of the federally owned Muscle Shoals site on the Tennessee River. Near Florence, Alabama, the Tennessee River falls 137 feet in thirty-seven miles. Known as Muscle Shoals, this series of rapids, pools, and rocks constituted an obstruction to navigation. Near the end of the century, the water power potential of the shoals was recognized. In 1906, the Muscle Shoals Hydroelectric Power Company began a ten-year attempt to secure congressional approval for a joint navigation and power project at Muscle Shoals in which the government was to bear a substantial portion of the cost. The company failed. Other private developers also tried and failed to purchase the site from the government. In 1916, the passage of the National Defense Act mandated that Muscle Shoals was to be used by the government to produce the nitrates needed for explosives in the anticipated war effort. Muscle Shoals was chosen primarily because it was both technically plausible and politically desirable. Additionally, the nitrate plants could be used in peacetime to produce the nitrates required for cheap fertilizer needed by southern farmers. The Army Corps of Engineers constructed a steam-electric plant to provide power for the nitrate facilities because it was important to begin nitrate production sooner than the time needed to construct a hydroelectric dam would allow. President Woodrow Wilson ordered the dam—eventually named Wilson Dam—built in addition to the steam plants. The nitrate plants never worked, however, and the dam was not completed until 1925. For ten years, little use was made of Wilson Dam’s power-producing capacity. After the war, President Wilson attempted to carry out the mandate of the National Defense Act of 1916 to produce peacetime nitrates for fertilizer, but his plan became enmeshed in the dispute over public versus private operation of hydroelectric plants. The electric power industry expanded rapidly in the decade after the war, and companies were eager to buy Muscle Shoals. In 1921, Henry Ford offered to purchase the site. Several other companies made bids to buy it, but their efforts were consistently foiled by Senator Norris. 584

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Power Goes Public In 1926, Norris proposed his first bill for the multipurpose development of the Tennessee River watershed. Congress passed the bill in 1928, but President Calvin Coolidge pocket-vetoed it. Congress passed Norris’s second bill in 1930, but President Herbert Hoover vetoed it amid charges that it was socialist. The Democratic Party’s 1932 platform reflected the publicversus-private-power debate by advocating the conservation, development, and use of the nation’s water power in the public interest. Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March, 1933, with 15 million people unemployed and the banks closed by executive order to prevent collapse. As governor of New York, Roosevelt had taken a strong position on the power question, attempting to increase the effectiveness of state regulation. Soon after taking office, he called Congress into special session and asked for legislation similar to Norris’s to create the TVA. He signed the bill as part of his New Deal legislation to bolster economic development and appointed Arthur E. Morgan, a renowned engineer, as the first chairman of the TVA Board of Directors. The TVA was administered by the chairman and two directors who answered to Congress. The TVA was created as the first public regional development agency charged with planning regional economic development while protecting natural resources in order to create wealth for the people from the resources of the valley. The act defines the TVA region as the area drained by the Tennessee River, which includes parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The agency was granted three major powers: to construct dams for flood control and hydroelectric power, to deepen the river channel to aid navigation, and to produce and distribute electricity and fertilizer. Long-Term Trends It has been said that the seeds for the TVA were planted in World War I and fertilized by World War II, but that the agency mushroomed in the Cold War. In the late 1980’s, however, many of the TVA’s nuclear power plants were idled by technical problems or by protest. The agency’s impact has nevertheless been significant in the history of environmental policy in both immediate effects and long-term trends. 585

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The most important immediate effect of the creation of the TVA was the agency’s control over the 650-mile-long Tennessee River. Dams constructed for flood control and for hydroelectric power to electrify the rural hinterlands also created large lakes for recreation that brought land developers and tourist dollars to the region. At least three important long-term trends emanated from the creation of the TVA. The first is that, although the TVA’s establishment did not stop the public-versus-private-power debate, it gave it form and served as a concrete symbol of the continuing debate. Private-power advocates lost the battle for the Tennessee Valley but won a qualified victory in the war against public power. The continuing debate is apparent in court cases in which private utility companies challenge the constitutionality of the TVA’s selling power. It is also apparent in various presidential actions. President Dwight Eisenhower wanted to sell the TVA but believed it politically unfeasible. He tried to limit the agency’s freedom of operation but failed. In Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign, he vowed to sell the TVA. Ronald Reagan’s administration also wanted to sell the TVA but settled for the appointment of noted businessman Marvin Runyon as TVA chairman. A second important long-term trend concerns the exposure of the fundamental relationship between economic growth and environmental use. The TVA represents an organizational effort to promote economic growth and conserve resources. Conflicts have been generated by the TVA’s attempts to carry out these seemingly contradictory tasks. The most notable clash concerned the building of Tellico Dam and the protection of the snail darter from extinction. In 1963, the TVA announced plans to build the Tellico Dam to create a 16,500-acre reservoir for recreation and industrial development and to deliver forty thousand jobs. The TVA bought or had condemned thirty-eight thousand acres of land, more than twice that needed for the reservoir itself, much of it fertile farm land taken from families under threat of eminent domain. Construction was halted when an endangered species of fish, the snail darter, was discovered in the Tennessee River. The TVA’s fight to build Tellico Dam became a cause célèbre. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed a congressional bill exempting the Tellico Dam project from all federal laws and mandating its completion. It was a 586

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hollow victory for the TVA: Conceding that industrial development was unlikely, the agency sold the land to a county agency that sold it at auction to prospective homeowners. The TVA’s experiences have been paralleled in conflicts between lumber mills and protectors of the spotted owl in the northwest United States and also in Brazil, where thousands of acres of rain forest are destroyed each day, along with unknown species of plants and animals, in the service of economic growth and development. A third important long-term impact of the TVA is the precedent the agency set for government intervention in power technology. With the government’s participation in the development of hydroelectric power and its emphasis on electric power as important to national defense, the way was paved for federal direction of nuclear technology. The government’s Manhattan Project was designed to research and develop the atomic bomb for use in World War II. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was chosen as one of three secret sites constructed for working on the bomb, in part because of its proximity to an enormous source of electric power: the TVA. In its postwar bid to control the development of nuclear technology, the federal government again turned to the TVA. In 1946, Director David Lilienthal left the TVA to become the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the federal regulatory agency for nuclear technology. TVA was complicit in creating the Cold War nuclear arms race, buying coalfields, increasing their stripmining operations, and building a vast coal-fired power system to power the federal nuclear operations. Building on the TVA as its instrument in promoting nuclear technology in the name of national defense, the government in the 1960’s proceeded to build nuclear-fueled electric power plants. Instead of fighting private enterprise, the government this time subsidized the construction and operation of nuclear power plants for private industry and legislatively limited industry’s liabilities in the event of a nuclear accident. This close alliance between government and private forces in the development of commercial nuclear power became a contentious issue in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident, and in the 1980’s (as a result of the energy crises of the late 1970’s as well as environmental concerns), nuclear development was curtailed in favor of efficiency measures. 587

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Current Status TVA’s effects have been varied, both in their consequences and in their capacity for social progress. The agency set an important precedent, however, in becoming the first organization to seek the protection of public resources as defined by regional, rather than legal, boundaries, resulting in planned efforts toward coastal management, wetlands management, and the protection of the Everglades. After managing to survive the deregulation of the electric utilities industry during the 1990’s, the TVA imposed efficiency measures, ending its nuclear plant building program and responding to environmental concerns in 1998 with a new clean-air strategy to reduce the pollutants that cause ozone and smog. Sherry Cable and Thomas E. Shriver Sources for Further Study Chandler, William U. The Myth of TVA: Conservation and Development in the Tennessee Valley, 1933-1983. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984. Creese, Walter L. TVA’s Public Planning: The Vision, the Reality. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. Grant, Nancy L. TVA and Black Americans: Planning for the Status Quo. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. A scholarly examination of TVA’s policies toward black people as employees and residents of the Tennessee Valley. Concludes that TVA’s reform impulse effectively was stifled by the need to work within the political establishment. Hargrove, Erwin C. Prisoners of Myth: The Leadership of the Tennessee Valley Authority, 1933-1990. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. Examines the mentality of TVA’s upper management, their concept of the role TVA should play in the development of the region, and the limitations of that role. Hubbard, Preston J. Origins of the TVA: The Muscle Shoals Controversy, 1920-1932. Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 1961. Documents the various attempts to deal with the Army Corps of Engineers project at Muscle Shoals. Useful for understanding the roots of TVA in the Progressive ideology of the early twentieth century. 588

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Lilienthal, David E. Democracy on the March. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944. A charter member of the TVA’s Board of Directors and first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, the author presents his own vision of what the TVA should be. Important historical document that illuminates the author’s feud with TVA Chairman Arthur E. Morgan. McCraw, Thomas K. Morgan vs. Lilienthal: The Feud Within the TVA. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1970. Detailed analysis of the feud between TVA Chairman Arthur E. Morgan and TVA Director David E. Lilienthal. The feud and its outcome determined the shape that the agency would take. _______. TVA and the Power Fight, 1933-1939. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1971. Good, nuanced study of the continuation of the debate over publicly versus privately owned electric power after the TVA was founded, and the role of the TVA in that debate. Particular emphasis on the lawsuits brought against the TVA. McDonald, Michael J., and John Muldowny. TVA and the Dispossessed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982. Examines resettlement of the population in Norris after construction of Norris Dam. Good analysis of how the TVA used the power of eminent domain as a threat to force residents to sell their land. Selznick, Philip. TVA and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966. Classic sociological work that analyzes the TVA’s operations as a formal organization, particularly its failure to use democratic decision making in questions of economic development in the valley. Wheeler, William Bruce. TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979: A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-Industrial America. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986. The story of the big dam and the little fish: Tellico Dam and the snail darter. Good historical analysis of the conflict. See also: National Defense Act (1916); Federal Power Act (1920);

Natural Gas Act (1938); Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (1954); Niagara Power Act (1957); Price-Anderson Act (1957); Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975); Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978).

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Banking Act of 1933 Date: June 16, 1933 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 162 Public law: 73-66 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

The Banking Act established deposit insurance, regulated interest paid on deposits, prohibited underwriting of corporate securities by commercial banks, and restricted loans to buy securities. Failure of hundreds of American banks each year in the 1920’s, and then thousands of them at the beginning of the Great Depression in the period 1930-1933, dramatized the inadequacies of the existing banking and financial oversight system. Senator Carter Glass began pushing for reform of the system in 1931. The Senate Banking Committee, when it reported out the bill that became the Banking Act of 1933, explained that “a completely comprehensive measure for the reconstruction of our banking system” had been deferred. The purposes of the committee’s emergency bill were more modest: “to correct manifest immediate abuses, and to bring our banking system into a stronger condition.” The new law significantly amended the Federal Reserve Act (1913) and the National Bank Act of 1864 and added the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to those agencies already regulating and monitoring the banking system. Countering Speculation The collapse of the stock market, with share prices on average falling to one-sixth of their 1929 value by 1932, was blamed in large part on excessive loans to stockbrokers and, through them, to stock speculators. Generous credit to stock speculators had fueled the Wall Street boom in the late 1920’s. A major purpose of the Banking Act of 1933, signed into law on June 16 of that year, was to prevent the “undue diversion of funds into speculative operations.” Banks belonging to the Federal Reserve System (member banks) were forbidden to act as agents to brokers and dealers on behalf of nonbank lenders. The Federal Reserve Board, a presidentially appointed group that governed the Federal Reserve System, was to 590

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ascertain whether bank credit was being used unduly for speculative purposes. It could limit the amount of member banks’ loans that could be secured by stock and bond collateral. Member banks fostering speculation through their lending policies would be denied the privilege of borrowing from the Federal Reserve Bank of their district. Congress was concerned that businesses engaged in agriculture, industry, and commerce would be deprived of adequate credit. Most of the loans financing speculation in stocks and bonds had been made by banks in financial centers; there is no evidence that these banks turned down requests by business firms for short-term loans. Moreover, corporations could finance expansion through the sale of new securities. Commercial banks in the 1920’s began large-scale development of affiliates that dealt in securities. By 1930, these affiliates brought more than half of all new securities issues to market, in successful competition with established investment banks. Extensive hearings on affiliates’ practices conducted by Ferdinand Pecora, counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, generated negative publicity regarding abuses. One section of the Banking Act of 1933, often referred to as the Glass-Steagall Act (although this name was originally attached to the entire Banking Act of 1933), ordered the separation of deposit taking from investment banking activities within a year. Financial institutions had to choose to be either commercial banks or investment houses; investment banks could no longer accept deposit accounts and member banks could no longer underwrite securities issues of business corporations. Banks with national charters were, however, permitted to underwrite and deal in securities issued by all levels of government in the United States for resale to the investing public. Separation of commercial banking and investment banking was expected to contribute to the soundness of commercial banks and to increase the overall stability of the economy. There is little evidence to support the idea, which prevailed in 1933, that many bank failures were the result of the securities activities of affiliates. Many failures of small banks were blamed on the poor results of their securities portfolios, purchased on the advice of larger “correspondent” banks eager to promote issues held by their affiliates. As a result of this perception of blame, member banks were forbidden to invest in corporate stock. They could continue to buy corporate bonds for their investment portfolios, provided that those bonds were of investment, rather than speculative, quality. 591

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Provisions of Glass-Steagall Senator Glass was convinced that banks should confine their activities to short-term lending to businesses. His belief in short-term lending stemmed from the fact that the deposits of banks were largely payable on demand. He believed that banks should not lock themselves into long-term loans when their deposits, the source of funding for loans, could be withdrawn quickly. Banks were believed to have taken on riskier loans and investments than in the past so that they could offer higher interest rates to their depositors (a situation believed to have recurred in the 1970’s and 1980’s). To encourage safer portfolios, Congress resorted to regulating interest rates. For deposits payable on demand, no explicit interest was allowed. The ban on interest was also intended to discourage interbank deposits with correspondent banks, with the funds going instead to local borrowers. Small banks, however, continued to hold deposits with correspondent banks. Rather than paying interest, the correspondent banks offered various services free of charge. The Federal Reserve Board set ceilings on the rates that member banks were permitted to pay on time and savings deposits. In 1935, the FDIC was empowered to do the same for all other insured banks. Regulation Q, issued by the Federal Reserve Board, established a ceiling of 3 percent as of November 1, 1933. The rate was well above what most banks paid. Congressman Henry Bascom Steagall was responsible for the deposit insurance provisions of the Banking Act of 1933. For fifteen years he had battled for the reform, which he saw as benefiting community banking, as it allowed the banking public to have confidence in the safety of deposits made in local banks. Senator Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg pushed for deposit insurance to take effect immediately, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt was opposed. As a compromise, a temporary plan covering the first $2,500 in insured accounts went into effect on January 1, 1934. In the meantime, infusions of capital strengthened the banks that were permitted to reopen after Roosevelt’s banking holiday from March 6 to March 13, 1933. Between 1920 and 1933, thousands of minuscule small-town banks failed. The Banking Act of 1933 imposed a $50,000 minimum capital requirement to open a national bank; the minimum had been $25,000. Capital for each branch of a national bank had 592

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to at least match that required for a one-office bank in the same location. To prevent unhealthy competition resulting from bank proliferation, the Banking Act of 1935 later tightened the requirements for a bank to obtain a charter. The FDIC stood ready to deny insurance if excessive competition threatened. Banks in the United States were overwhelmingly undiversified institutions doing business at a single location, and their fates were thus tied to the fortunes of local economies. To provide some banking services to localities in which banks had closed, states began to ease restrictions on branch banking in the early 1930’s. The battle for permission to operate branches was fought hard in state legislatures and in Congress. Federally chartered national banks were authorized in 1927 to branch in the same community as their head offices if the state in which they were located did not prohibit branching. The Banking Act of 1933 permitted branches beyond the headquarters community, so that national banks could branch to the same extent as allowed for state banks. Interstate branches remained forbidden. In 1922, the Federal Reserve Banks began to coordinate their purchases and sales of government securities (known as open market operations). The 1933 act placed open market operations under Federal Reserve Board regulation; the board could now disapprove policies recommended by the Federal Open Market Committee. Further, all relationships and transactions of the Federal Reserve Banks with foreign institutions were placed under control of the Federal Reserve Board. Both measures diminished the policy roles previously played by the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, particularly the powerful one in New York City. The 1933 act also, for the first time, gave the Federal Reserve System some authority over bank holding companies that owned shares in member banks. A bank holding company could avoid this supervision if control over a member bank was exerted without the need to vote shares. Involvement of the Federal Reserve System with bank holding companies remained limited. Exercise of authority over banking by individual states had led to a “competition in laxity” with federal regulators. Over the years, restrictions on national banks, under federal jurisdiction, had been eased in order to prevent them from switching to state charters and to encourage state banks to convert to national charters. Many states had weak or inadequate banking supervision. State banks failed at 593

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a much higher rate than national banks between 1920 and 1933. Supporters of states’ rights had succeeded in preventing a federal takeover of chartering, supervision, and regulation of all commercial banks. After the Banking Act of 1933, however, states had to share jurisdiction with the FDIC for nonmember banks covered by that agency’s insurance. States retained the power to decide policy on branch banking. Some persisted in prohibiting all branches, but more broadened the territory in which branching was authorized. In no case was interstate branching permitted. Deposit Insurance Deposit insurance, fiercely opposed by some bankers in 1933, became permanent with the Banking Act of 1935. Advocates hoped that deposit insurance would stimulate bank lending to the private sector as deposits increased. Bank deposits increased by more than 46 percent between 1934 and 1939, surpassing the record 1930 total by more than $2.6 billion. Total loans, however, failed to increase significantly, reflecting the weak recovery of business investment spending and the timidity of bank lending officers. The FDIC had been organized in September, 1933. All member banks were required to join; solvent nonmember banks were also eligible. Banks paid an initial premium of 0.25 percent of insurable deposits. By the beginning of 1934, 87 percent of all commercial banks had joined the FDIC, and more than 96 percent of all deposits were covered. By the end of that year, 93 percent of commercial banks had joined, and 98 percent of deposits were covered. All but about 1 percent of applicant banks qualified for deposit insurance. To remain insured, nonmember banks were expected to become member banks by mid-1936. This deadline was first extended and then abandoned in 1939. A majority of American banks continued to be nonmembers, enjoying the lower minimum capital and lower reserve requirements demanded by many state charters as opposed to the requirements imposed by the Federal Reserve Board. The FDIC later proved successful in one of its goals, that of preventing a new wave of bank failures triggered by depositors’ fears. Even as hundreds of banks were forced to close in the 1980’s, depositors did not panic and rush to remove their funds. Ceilings on interest rates did not hamper the gathering of deposits by banks until the 1950’s. Thereafter, competition with other 594

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investment outlets that offered returns higher than those permitted under Regulation Q caused some hardships for banks. Interest rate regulations for time and savings deposits were eliminated in 1986. The separation of commercial from investment banking called for in the Banking Act of 1933 had already begun before the act was passed. The two leading American banks, Chase National Bank and National City Bank, announced plans to eliminate their affiliates in March, 1933. The Morgan investment banking business, sharply reduced by the Depression, was continued by several partners who left to form Morgan, Stanley & Company. The historic name of J. P. Morgan & Company now belonged to a commercial bank that became Morgan Guaranty Trust Company in 1959. Other large investment banks chose to eliminate their deposittaking activities. The 1933 act began the process of diminishing the autonomy of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks and centralizing power in the Federal Reserve Board in Washington. The Banking Act of 1935 completed that shift. In many significant ways, however, the American banking system was unchanged by New Deal legislation. Major problems left unresolved involved the dual banking system of state and national banks, the division of responsibilities among federal agencies, and limited ability of banks to branch and thus to diversify their lending and deposit bases. The 1933 act also created some problems by failing to make deposit insurance premiums related to risk and by banning interest on demand deposits, making it more difficult for banks to get those deposits. Benjamin J. Klebaner Sources for Further Study Benston, George J. The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Glass-Steagall Act Revisited and Reconsidered. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Burns, Helen M. The American Banking Community and New Deal Banking Reforms, 1933-1935. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974. Chandler, Lester Vernon. America’s Greatest Depression, 1922-1941. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. _______. American Monetary Policy, 1928-1941. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. 595

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Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Kennedy, Susan Estabrook. The Banking Crisis of 1933. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1973. Klebaner, Benjamin J. “Banking Reform in the New Deal Era.” Quarterly Review (Banca Nazionale de Lavoro) 178, no. 9 (1991): 319-341. Krooss, Herman Edward. Documentary History of Banking and Currency in the United States. 4 vols. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1969. Studenski, Paul, and Herman Edward Krooss. Financial History of the United States. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963. Westerfield, Ray B. Money, Credit, and Banking. New York: Ronald Press, 1938. See also: National Bank Acts (1863-1864); Federal Reserve Act

(1913); McFadden Act (1927); Hundred Days legislation (1933); Securities Exchange Act (1934); Banking Act of 1935 (1935).

National Industrial Recovery Act Date: June 16, 1933 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 200 U.S. Code: 40 § 401 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade

The act encouraged firms in industrial sectors to develop codes of fair competition to “do their part” for economic recovery during the Great Depression. Between 1929 and 1933, the U.S. economy descended into its worst economic depression in history. By 1932, one-fourth of the nation’s workers were unemployed. Drastic decline in farm prices reduced farm incomes and led to widespread mortgage foreclosures. Banks and other businesses failed by the thousands. 596

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In response, the voters overwhelmingly defeated the efforts of President Herbert Hoover to win reelection and brought into the presidency Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt had a few specific campaign promises: He would do a better job of balancing the budget, but he favored direct transfer payments for the relief of the unemployed and others suffering hardship. He offered the public a New Deal without giving much detail. After his inauguration, March 4, 1933, Roosevelt’s administration began a whirlwind of activity that came to be known as the Hundred Days. A bank holiday was declared, and the dollar was taken off the gold standard. Representatives of business were called upon to help formulate a program for industrial recovery. From this emerged the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), approved June 16, 1933. It was to be administered by a National Recovery Administration (NRA). Roosevelt quickly appointed General Hugh Johnson to head the NRA. The program began in an explosion of public relations. A dramatic symbol—the Blue Eagle— was adopted, and business firms were encouraged to qualify to display in their windows a blue eagle poster bearing the words “We Do Our Part.” Provisions The law encouraged firms in each individual trade and industry sector to join together to draw up a code of fair competition. The assumption was that intense competition was a cause of declining prices, wages, and incomes, and if the intensity of competition were reduced, firms could profit more, produce more, and pay more. Each code was to submitted to the NRA administrator and, if approved, would have the force of law. Codes were exempted from antitrust prosecution. Many of the codes contained provisions intended to prevent price cutting and to curtail output. The first code issued was for cotton textiles. It limited machinery operation to two forty-hour shifts per week. It was soon followed by codes for shipbuilding and electrical manufacturing that forbade selling below specified minimum prices. Other codes forbade prices below “cost,” where formulas were provided for determining cost. Often firms were required to file price changes so competitors would know about them, a provision intended to deter such changes. Many of the practices forbidden in the codes were genuinely undesirable: mis597

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representation, design piracy, commercial bribery, deceptive advertising, false branding, imitation of trademarks or designs. The NIRA also contained important labor provisions. If businesses were to get higher prices, workers were to get higher wages. Section 7 of the NIRA required that every code contain certain labor provisions. One was “that employees shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. . . .” Employers were forbidden to interfere with worker decisions about joining a union. Codes were to provide standards for minimum wages and maximum hours of work. The majority of codes called for a forty-hour work week. Efforts to spread work by reducing hours were somewhat successful; in industries surveyed by the Labor Department, average hours fell from 43.3 to 37.8 per week between June and October, 1933, and the number employed increased by about 7 percent. Minimum-wage provisions generally applied to plant workers but not office workers. Most codes provided for a minimum wage of at least forty cents an hour. Each industry formulated its own wage and hour standards, under pressure from the NRA authorities and sometimes from labor unions. Many codes forbade employment of children less than sixteen years of age. Business Reacts Even before the codes were put into effect, business firms reacted favorably to the prospect of higher prices. A large increase in inventory purchases helped to stimulate the economy during the summer and autumn of 1933. However, problems and contradictions soon emerged. Many codes were dominated by large firms and were drawn to put small or new competitors at a disadvantage. Each industry was pleased by the prospect of gaining higher selling prices, but displeased by having to pay higher wages and higher prices for inputs. The inventory boom died out by the end of 1933. The NIRA did not end the desire of individual firms to gain more business by offering a lower price. Code enforcement was often slow and difficult. By the beginning of 1934, NRA codes covered about 90 percent of the industrial labor force. Ultimately, more than 550 codes were adopted. The code approach was based on the false premise that the Depression was caused by overproduction and excessive competition. The real cause was the drastic decline in total spending 598

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for goods and services. Another section of the NIRA dealt more directly with this problem. It authorized the creation of a Public Works Administration, which came under the direction of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, to undertake construction projects. Ickes was primarily concerned that projects be useful and that they be constructed efficiently. This often meant they were slow to get under way, and that they did not offer many jobs for which the unemployed could qualify. Between 1933 and 1941, the Public Works Administration spent about $2.5 billion; the highest number of workers employed on its projects was 740,000 in mid1936. Other government programs, such as the Civil Works Administration and Works Progress Administration, embodied more of a make-work orientation and provided more jobs. Criticisms and Court Cases In 1934, a National Recovery Review Board, headed by lawyer Clarence Darrow, strongly criticized the NRA codes as helping large firms oppress smaller firms and consumers. Hugh Johnson was forced to resign from the NRA in October, 1934, under fire for heavy drinking and an undiplomatic personality. He was replaced by a five-man board. In May, 1935, the Supreme Court held the code sections of NIRA to be unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States. The Court ruled that the regulation of industry went beyond the scope of interstate commerce, and the delegation of authority by Congress to the president and NRA administrators was excessive. Many of the elements of the NRA program were reenacted by Congress in separate pieces of legislation. These included the National Labor Relations Act of 1935; the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938; regulatory legislation for coal, petroleum, motor transport, and airlines; and laws restricting false and misleading advertising and price discrimination. After momentarily weakening antitrust with NIRA, after 1937, the government shifted to vigorous enforcement, blaming business concentration and inflexible prices for the severity of the Depression. Assessment As a measure to stimulate recovery from the Depression, the NIRA was not very effective, except for the demand stimulation resulting from Public Works Administration activities. Raising prices and 599

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wages would tend to reduce output and employment, unless something were done to increase demand. Most economists have been critical of the tendency in the codes to reduce competition and encourage collusion and monopolistic practices. Although consumers were nominally represented in the code-making process, their interests were not protected. However, NIRA began a radical transformation of the work environment by encouraging the spread of labor unions, a process that was continued even more strongly by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. NIRA also contributed to the reduction of the standard workweek and the extent of child labor. Politically, the measure probably helped to reassure the public that something was being done, and that radical transformation of the political system was not needed. Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Fine, Sidney. The Automobile Under the Blue Eagle: Labor, Management and the Automobile Manufacturing Code. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963. Hawley, Ellis W. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. Johnson, Hugh S. The Blue Eagle from Egg to Earth. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Doran, 1935. Lyon, Leverett S., ed. The National Recovery Administration: An Analysis and Appraisal. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1935. Ohl, John Kennedy. Hugh S. Johnson and the New Deal. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1985. Roos, Charles F. NRA Economic Planning. Bloomington, Ind.: Principia Press, 1937. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. Wilcox, Clair, Herbert F. Froser, and Patrick Murphy Malin, eds. America’s Recovery Program. New York: Oxford University Press, 1934. See also: Hundred Days legislation (1933); National Labor Relations Act (1935); Fair Labor Standards Act (1938). 600

Twenty-first Amendment

Twenty-first Amendment Date: Ratified and certified December 5, 1933 U.S. Statutes at Large: 47 Stat. 1625 Categories: Constitutional Law; Food and Drugs

This amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, which had prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating beverages. The Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, ending the thirteen-year period from 1920 to 1933 known as the Prohibition era. The Eighteenth Amendment, also known as the Prohibition amendment, prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating beverages. The Supreme Court and Prohibition During the Prohibition era, in cases such as United States v. Lanza (1922), Carroll v. United States (1925), Olmstead v. United States (1928), and United States v. Sprague (1931), the Supreme Court strengthened the means for enforcing and upholding the Eighteenth Amendment. These decisions made some Americans aware that the constitutional prohibition of alcoholic beverages would have far-reaching ramifications for legal rights and influenced them to support the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, repealing the Prohibition amendment. In Lanza, the Court held that while the Eighteenth Amendment established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages as a national policy, both the state and federal governments possessed independent authority to punish Prohibition infractions. This Court ruling meant that Prohibition offenders could be indicted and punished twice for nearly every violation. In Carroll, the Court stated that because an automobile transporting liquor could depart before a warrant could be attained, officers having reasonable grounds could lawfully search it without a warrant. This decision extended the search and seizure powers of agents enforcing Prohibition and police officers dealing with automobiles. In Olmstead, the Court upheld the use of wiretapping by law enforcement agencies in enforcing the constitutional prohibition of alcoholic beverages as well as other laws. The Court ruled that wiretapping by law enforcement agencies 601

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was lawful search and seizure. In Sprague, the Court indicated that Congress has an apparent right to choose the procedure of ratification of an amendment to the constitution. It declared that because Congress submitted the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to state legislatures, the amendment had been legally sanctioned. Ratification of Repeal The restrictions on legal rights created by these Prohibition-era Court decisions influenced some Americans to become active in organizations campaigning for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. Such organizations included the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment and the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform. Partly in response to this campaigning, in 1933 Congress, which had been given the choice of ratification methods by Sprague, proposed that the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment be submitted to state conventions instead of state legislatures for a vote. Between April and November, 1933, thirty-seven states held elections on whether to retain or repeal the Eighteenth Amendment. Nearly twenty-one million Americans voted, and 73 percent favored repeal. On December 5, 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment was ratified. It was the first amendment to be ratified by voters rather than legislators. Louis Gesualdi Sources for Further Study Brown, Everett Somerville. Ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: State Convention Records and Laws. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1938. Cashman, Sean Dennis. Prohibition, the Lie of the Land. New York: Free Press, 1981. Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. Vile, John R. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. 3d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. _______. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABCCLIO, 1996. See also: Eighteenth Amendment (1919). 602

Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act

Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act Also known as: Duck Stamp Act Date: March 16, 1934 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 452 U.S. Code: 16 § 718 Categories: Animals; Environment and Conservation

Enactment of this act provided the first regular federal funding for waterfowl management in the United States. On March 16, 1934, the U.S. Congress enacted the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, often known as the Duck Stamp Act, to provide critical funds for wetlands and waterfowl conservation programs. Until this action, no stable funding source was available for this conservation work. As with many conservation programs, a long, twisting journey was taken over many years to enact this far-reaching legislation. Decline of Wetlands and Waterfowl Waterfowl populations declined sharply in number in the early 1900’s. Extensive habitat loss caused by the long drought of the 1930’s, overharvest by market hunting, and the Great Depression created both ecological and financial crises for resource-management programs. Water from prairie potholes, ponds, and marshes had disappeared, and with it the nesting and rearing habitat for waterfowl. Dust storms raged, and the Dust Bowl created a biological crisis. Waterfowl numbers in North America reached their lowest point in history. Many conservationists predicted the extinction of ducks and geese in the United States. In January, 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a special waterfowl committee of Jay N. (“Ding”) Darling, Thomas Beck, and Aldo Leopold to determine the needs of waterfowl management and outline a plan for saving this disappearing resource. They estimated that $50 million was needed for the purchase and restoration of wetlands for wildlife, with special emphasis on migratory waterfowl. Finding such an immense sum during the Depression was improbable. 603

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Funding Lost Habitat The new director of the Bureau of Biological Survey (which would later be renamed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), Darling revived the idea of a duck stamp as a funding measure for restoring lost waterfowl habitat. Congress had passed legislation in 1929 to buy land for waterfowl refuges, but it did not provide any stable funding provisions in the legislation. Without funds, waterfowl refuge was only a paper program. Under Darling’s lobbying, Congress passed the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, which required all waterfowl hunters sixteen years of age and older to buy stamps, sign them, and paste them to the back of their state hunting license. Sold at local U.S. Post Offices, this stamp was required only for hunting ducks and geese, not for other migratory game birds. Darling, an astute political cartoonist and outstanding artist, designed the first duck stamp in 1934; it sold for one dollar. All funds from the sale of this stamp were to be used for waterfowl management and the acquisition of wetland habitat essential for restoring waterfowl numbers. The Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act of 1934 was the first major federal statute to establish a special fund to be used exclusively for wildlife conservation purposes. Beginnings of the Duck Stamp The idea of issuing a federal waterfowl stamp to provide funds for the acquisition of public hunting grounds originated with George A. Lawyer, chief U.S. game warden, shortly after the end of World War I. Such a bill was debated several times in Congress but failed to pass four times between 1921 and 1926. Dr. William T. Hornaday led the formidable opposition against the Game Refuge-Public Shooting Grounds Bill. Hornaday believed that liberal bag limits and the use of semiautomatic shotguns was causing the slaughter of too many ducks and geese, and he argued that the creation of game refuges was simply a method of concentrating waterfowl for more killing by hunters. He called supporters of this bill “game hogs” and “butchers.” Senator Peter Norbeck reintroduced the Game Refuge-Public Shooting Grounds Bill in the opening days of the Seventieth Congress. After bitter debate, the federal licensing and public hunting grounds features were removed from it, and the Norbeck bill passed the Senate. Congressman August H. Andresen of Minne604

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sota authored a new bill identical to the amended Norbeck bill on January 23, 1929. Without provision for congressional monies, this bill quickly passed the House. After eight years of disagreement and acrimonious charges, on February 8, 1929, the NorbeckAndresen Act established a feasible waterfowl refuge law. The idea of a federal hunting license for waterfowl, which died with the passage of the Norbeck-Andresen Act, sprang to life during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. In early 1927, drought, drainage of wetlands, and expanding hunting and poaching pressure caused waterfowl numbers to decline sharply. In the fall of 1929, drought-stricken populations of waterfowl began to plummet sharply. On December 31, 1929, the bag limit was reduced from twenty-five to fifteen ducks a day, but the waterfowl crash continued. Frederick C. Walcott, a Connecticut senator and an avid duck hunter, viewed the waterfowl crash with alarm. His great desire for wildlife conservation led him to establish the Senate Special Committee on the Conservation of Wildlife Resources. As its first chairman, he proposed a greatly intensified waterfowl management program in 1931. The funding of this management effort revived the American Game Association’s idea of a federal hunting stamp. On April 4, 1932, more than one hundred witnesses were heard by Walcott’s committee. Most of the witnesses favored the hunting stamp proposal. Progress toward enactment of a duck stamp act was rapid, with the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act becoming law on March 16, 1934. Impact and Later Amendments Before the crash of waterfowl populations in the 1920’s, the U.S. government had set aside about 744,000 acres of habitat for all wildlife. By 1942, almost three million acres had been set aside for the preservation of waterfowl alone. Much of the money for this land acquisition came from the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act of 1934. Over the years, increases in the duck stamp fee have been instituted to cover the acquisition and management of wildlife areas, although inadequate funding for acquisition of lands for wildlife, especially waterfowl, is a continuing problem for wildlife conservationists. In 1961, the Wetland Loan Act was enacted to supplement duck stamp dollars. Reauthorized in 1986 as the Emergency Wetlands Resources Act, it provided additional dollars for land acquisition. In 2001, the 605

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Electronic Duck Stamp Act allowed for digital duck stamps. Since the inception of the duck stamp, more than 3.5 million acres of waterfowl habitat have been preserved since the 1930’s through the duck stamp program. Because of the success of the U.S. government in raising monies through the sale of duck stamps for waterfowl conservation, many states in the United States also issue stamps to fund their conservation needs. Stamps for upland game birds, trout, turkeys, and nongame animals raise several million dollars each year for important conservation activities. Such programs are thus legacies of a time when it seemed that waterfowl, one of the nation’s priceless resources, might disappear forever from North America. David L. Chesemore Sources for Further Study Farley, John L. Duck Stamps and Wildlife Refuges. Circular 37. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1959. Gilmore, Jene C. Art for Conservation: The Federal Duck Stamps. Barre, Mass.: Barre, 1971. Linduska, Joseph P. Waterfowl Tomorrow. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1964. McBride, David P. The Federal Duck Stamps: A Complete Guide. Piscataway, N.J.: Winchester Press, 1984. See also: Migratory Bird Act (1913); Migratory Bird Treaty Act

(1918); Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Endangered Species Act (1973); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979).

Tydings-McDuffie Act Also known as: Philippines Commonwealth Independence Act Date: March 24, 1934 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 456 Public law: 73-127 Categories: Foreign Relations; Land Management 606

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Promising Philippine independence from the United States by 1944, the act paved the way for expansion of U.S. economic interests in the islands. On March 24, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Philippines Commonwealth Independence Act, popularly known as the Tydings-McDuffie Act. The law promised independence to the Philippines by 1944, following a ten-year transition period of “commonwealth status.” During that time, the islands were to be governed by their own national legislature and executive branches; policy-making power, however, would continue to remain in the United States. This commonwealth system was in place when the Philippines were invaded and occupied by the Japanese in 1942, an event that delayed Philippine independence for two years, until 1946. The Hawes-Cutting-Hare Act Initial support for the Philippine legislation came from particular special interest groups both in the United States and in the Philippines. Striving for their own nationhood, many native Filipino lobbying groups pushed hard for the act’s passage. A more economically based pressure came from American beet sugar producers, who sought to eliminate competition from island goods, and from trade union leaders, who wanted to prevent the influx of Filipino workers into the Hawaiian islands and the U.S. mainland. These groups had earlier lent similar support to the legislative predecessor of the Tydings-McDuffie Act, the Hawes-Cutting-Hare Act of 1932. The earlier act’s attempt to curb competitive imports from the Philippines was rejected by the U.S. Senate in a close vote. After the defeat of the Hawes-Cutting-Hare legislation, a new contingent of Filipino supporters of independence traveled to Washington, D.C., where they were joined by those groups of politically influential Americans who supported Philippine autonomy. Sergio Osmena led the Philippine delegation but his call for immediate independence was too drastic for many in the American support group. He was subsequently recalled to Manila. His replacement, Manuel Quezón took a less politically offensive position, emphasizing a gradualist approach to independence for the islands. Thus, he was able to enlist the support of American politicians who favored a more moderate approach to Philippine inde607

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pendence. The resulting coalition influenced the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act. Effects of Tydings-McDuffie Following enactment of the Tydings-McDuffie legislation, the Filipino delegation returned home to draft a constitution and to elect officials who would oversee the gradual transition to Philippine autonomy. Manuel Quezón and Sergio Osmena were elected president and vice president, respectively, of the new Philippines Commonwealth. Although steps were taken to create a Filipino-based political structure, most of the political decision-making authority still rested with the United States. Filipinos did, however, retain limited control over internal political affairs, but all foreign policy, defense, and monetary matters were defined and implemented in Washington. This political arrangement clearly benefited the United States at the expense of the Filipinos. The commonwealth was prohibited from legislating most of its own economic policies. In particular, legislation was passed which imposed duties on Philippine exports to America. Under the new commonwealth system the cliental politics and economics of the old colonial structure were perfected. Key provisions of the Tydings-McDuffie Act and of its amendments saw to this. Increasingly, the Philippine presidency came to resemble the office of an American state governor. Quezón was accorded certain discretionary powers, but only where American interests were not affected. He could organize an army but could not deploy it without the consent of President Roosevelt. Travel to foreign lands and discussion of trade agreements with foreign officials could take place but Quezón was powerless to conclude any formal agreement. The enactment of any official Philippine trade agreements remained under the authority of the U.S. high commissioner of the Philippines. This position, strengthened by the provisions of the Tydings-McDuffie Act, protected the interests of the United States in all foreign relations and established official relationships between the Philippines and all other nations. Looking after American interests abroad required the centralization of political authority in Manila. As a result, domestic policies were often delegated from the top level of Philippine government. It was under such an arrangement that President Quezón increasingly took advantage of his position. As long as his policy 608

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initiatives did not conflict with American interests, he wielded immense power, especially toward those who opposed his policies. Quezón often crushed his opposition with American blessings. The elimination of domestic competition greatly increased Quezón’s confidence. He began to challenge some of the policies of American commonwealth administrators and even, at times, those of the high commissioner. Chastised at this level, he boldly began to take his conflicts to the American president. While he was successful in protesting the directives of the high commissioner on some occasions, his appeals to President Roosevelt most often produced results that reinforced American hegemony in the Philippines. Under the structure authorized by the Tydings-McDuffie Act, the goal of true Philippine independence was increasingly circumvented. In the name of independence, American sovereignty over the Philippines continued. American suzerainty was magnified by a commonwealth political system that furthered American economic interests at the expense of the islands’ competing in the world market. In the end, the Philippines became increasingly dependent on American economic interests. Commonwealth status destroyed that which the Philippines needed in order to compete economically on a global scale: revenue from the export of dutyfree goods to the United States. Without trade revenues the Philippines became increasingly dependent on the United States for loans and investment, made, of course, with the understanding that United States interests came first. As the Philippine treasury emptied, the commonwealth thus became more indebted to its patron, the United States. The implementation of the TydingsMcDuffie Act both initiated and reinforced this condition. The new relationship between the Philippines and the United States established by the Tydings-McDuffie Act produced a paradox: The closer the Philippines came to political independence from the United States, the more economically dependent upon America it became. In the end, the Tydings-McDuffie Act reinforced the idea that the only kind of independence that would be granted to the Filipinos was the kind that the United States could not grant. Thomas J. Edward Walker, Cynthia Gwynne Yaudes, and Ruby L. Stoner 609

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Sources for Further Study Constantino, Renato. A History of the Philippines. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975. Gallego, Manuel. The Price of Philippine Independence Under the Tydings-McDuffie Act: An Anti-View of the So-Called Independence Law. Manila: Barristers Book Company, 1939. Grunder, Garel A., and William E. Lively. The Philippines and the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951. Hayden, John Ralston. The Philippines: A Study in National Development. New York: Macmillan, 1942. Karnow, Stanley. In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. New York: Random House, 1989. Paredes, Ruby R., ed. Philippine Colonial Democracy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988. See also: Treaty of Paris (1898).

Anti-Racketeering Act Also known as: Copeland Act Date: May 18, 1934 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 979 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Crimes and Criminal

Procedure

This legislation protected trade and commerce from interference by criminal threats of violence or coercion; it was the first federal law to fight the control that organized crime held over local communities. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, there was a significant increase in gangster activity and organized crime in the United States. Groups of criminals used bribery, extortion, threats, and violence to manipulate and control political officials, judges, and policemen and to harass local businesses. These groups were suspected of controlling gambling, prostitution, and the illegal sale of alcohol. Local authorities felt helpless in their fight to end criminally controlled rackets. The 1934 Anti-Racketeering Act was proposed by Assistant Attorney General Joseph B. Keenan. Keenan, testifying before the 610

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Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on March 2, 1934, asserted that federal authorities needed an antiracketeering law to help fight organized crime. Racketeers were debilitating legitimate businesses and communities. To fight back, local authorities needed assistance from the federal government. The Anti-Racketeering Act was one of six changes in the criminal justice code recommended by Keenan to aid the Department of Justice in its goal of putting every gangster, racketeer, and kidnapper out of business and into jail. The Anti-Racketeering Act was one of several crime-fighting bills submitted to Congress by Senator Hy Ashurst of Arizona and Senator Royal Copeland of New York. Reflecting the recommendations made by Keenan, these bills aimed to reduce crime in the United States by increasing the powers of the federal government to assist local communities. The crime bills were vigorously supported by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The House of Representatives quickly approved all six bills on May 5, 1934, and the Senate passed them on May 15. Numerous criminals were subsequently arrested and convicted under the Anti-Racketeering Act. Provisions and Impact Under the Anti-Racketeering Act, racketeering was defined as any act or threat of violence committed to divert or interfere with interstate commerce and any actual or intended attempts at extortion in connection with interstate commerce transactions. Racketeering included any acts or coercions used to force an individual or business to join or not to join any organization or to buy or not to buy goods. It included any acts of violence to individuals in connection with such activities. Those convicted of racketeering would receive a maximum of ninety-nine years in prison and a fine commensurate with the profits derived from racketeering transactions. The Anti-Racketeering Act remained unchanged until 1946, when Congress passed the Hobbs Act. The Hobbs Act placed previously exempted illegal labor-union activity within the reach of federal prosecutors. In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which increased penalties for those convicted of racketeering and permitted the seizure of assets acquired or used at the time of the criminal activity. Leslie Stricker 611

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Sources for Further Study Philcox, Norman W. An Introduction to Organized Crime. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1978. U.S. Department of Justice. Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO): A Manual for Federal Prosecutors. 2d rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988. Wallance, Gregory J. “Criminal Justice: Outgunning the Mob.” American Bar Association Journal 80 (March 1, 1994). Welling, Sarah N., Pamela H. Bucy, and Sara Sun Beale. Federal Criminal Law and Related Actions: Crimes, Forfeiture, the False Claims Act, and RICO. Eagan, Minn.: West Group, 1998. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Hobbs Act (1946); Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970).

Securities Exchange Act Date: June 6, 1934 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 881 Public law: 73-291 U.S. Code: 15 § 78a et seq. Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance; Business, Commerce,

and Trade; Government Procedure and Organization

The law created a quasi-judicial administrative body, the Securities and Exchange Commission, with broad powers to regulate the securities markets and protect the public interest. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 solidified the expanding role of the federal government in protecting the investing public. Passed in the aftermath of the greatest stock market collapse in history, this legislation established a new administrative agency with broad powers to ensure that many of the financial abuses and deceptive practices of the past would not recur. 612

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Need to Protect Investors Historically, as economic activity increases in volume, complexity, and sophistication, the corporation emerges as the dominant form of business organization. Corporate entities thrive because of the continued and expanding capital investment of people willing to accept the risks and rewards of ownership but unwilling or unable to actually participate in management of the business operation. Through the issuance of securities by corporations, ownership can be spread over a broad base of individuals, thus maximizing the potential for invested resources. In order to facilitate this capital exchange process, organized marketplaces have developed throughout the world. These capital markets provide the mechanism for the corporate distribution of debt and equity securities as well as the subsequent transfer of these securities between individuals. Because of the inherent separation of corporate management from ownership, current and potential investors operate under a distinct informational disadvantage. Capital contributors are at the mercy of claims made by the “insiders.” Exploitation of unwary investors inevitably occurs, and securities markets merely serve to provide an organized forum within which to execute such schemes on a broad scale. Early State Legislation Government, concerned with ensuring an adequate supply of available capital in order to sustain economic growth, has a natural interest in protecting investors and maintaining public confidence in these securities markets. In the United States, attempts at regulation of securities were first made at the state level. In response to widespread fraudulent activities of stock promoters, Kansas enacted a statute in 1911 to protect the public interest. In the first year following enactment of this law, approximately fifteen hundred applications to sell securities in Kansas were filed. Only 14 percent were accepted, the rest being judged fraudulent (75 percent) or too highly speculative (11 percent). Other legislatures followed Kansas’s lead, and by 1913, twentytwo other states had passed laws similar in intent but widely varying in approach. These state securities laws are often called blue-sky laws, since the speculative schemes they attempted to foil often in613

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volved little more than selling “pieces of the sky,” or worthless securities. For various reasons, the individual state attempts to regulate securities markets were not very effective. Perhaps the greatest problem arose from the tactic of “interstate escape.” Individuals or companies could continue deceptive and fraudulent practices merely by moving across state lines (physically or through the mails) to another jurisdiction where regulations were inadequate, poorly enforced, or perhaps even nonexistent. To limit such evasion, some form of federal intervention was needed. The Roaring 1920’s During the 1920’s, there was a veritable explosion in securities market activity. Small investors entered the market in numbers larger than ever before. National brokerage firms doubled the number of their branch offices and reported phenomenal increases in business. Despite the vigorous trading and investing activity, the strength of the market was quickly eroding as a result of a number of prevailing traditions. First, stock price manipulation was common. This was often executed by means of a manipulation pool, in which a syndicate of corporate officials and market operators join forces and, through a succession of equally matched buying and selling orders (“wash sales”) among themselves, create the false impression of feverish activity, thus driving up the price of the stock. At the height of this artificial activity, the stock is sold, huge profits are reaped by the syndicate, and the stock price then subsequently plummets. As an example of the success of this gambit, a pool formed in March, 1929, to trade in Radio Corporation of America stock operated for only a seven-day period and netted a profit of almost $5 million. The excessive use of credit to finance speculative stock transactions (that is, buying stocks “on margin”) was another tradition that undermined the stability of the market. An investment as small as $100 could purchase $1,000 in securities (with a 10 percent margin), and there were no limits to the level of credit a broker could extend to a customer. This practice effectively lured potential capital away from productive economic investment and toward mere market speculation. A third practice that hindered the efficient operation of the securities market relates to the misuse of corporate information by 614

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insiders. Corporate officials could withhold information, either positive or negative. By timing its release after they had already positioned themselves in the market, they could benefit from the price fluctuation when the news finally became public. The weight of these traditions finally culminated in the stock market crash of October, 1929. This was a financial earthquake of dramatic proportions. The aggregate value of all stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange (the largest capital market in the United States, handling 90 percent of all stock transactions on a dollar basis) declined from $89 billion before the crash to only $15 billion by 1932. The economic depression that rapidly deepened following the crash was the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. Securities Act of 1933 In March, 1932, the Senate Banking and Currency Committee was empowered to investigate the securities industry. This inquiry was continued and greatly expanded in scope after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as president in November, 1932. Roosevelt had been on record since his tenure as governor of New York as being highly critical of various stock market activities. The 1932 Democratic national platform on which he ran explicitly called for federal supervision of securities transactions. Ferdinand Pecora served as legal counsel to this committee during its extensive investigations in 1933 and 1934. He compiled an impressive body of evidence concerning financial corruption and malpractice. Pecora personally elicited much of the damaging evidence from the most prestigious financial leaders of the time and was invaluable in documenting the need for securities regulation. For example, his investigation disclosed that of the $50 billion of new securities issued during the decade after World War I, half had proved to be worthless. With the passage of the Securities Act in 1933 (signed into law on May 5, 1933, soon after Roosevelt’s inauguration, the federal government finally entered the arena of securities regulation. This bill was championed in Congress by Representative Sam Rayburn of Texas and Senator Duncan Fletcher of Florida. The 1933 act was primarily a disclosure statute, concerned only with the initial distribution of a security. Although it was an important first step and forerunner to more ambitious efforts in securities regulation, this legislation failed to adequately address many of the 615

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practices in the capital market that contributed to the 1929 collapse. Fletcher and Rayburn once again introduced bills in Congress, based in large part on drafts written by investigator Pecora. At the time, there was significant and widespread opposition to stock market regulation. Government interference, it was argued, would likely upset the delicate workings of Wall Street. Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), was at the vanguard of this resistance. Whitney organized a well-financed protest campaign and mobilized forces to defeat the proposed legislation. Overt threats were even made to relocate the NYSE to Montreal, Canada, which offered a less obtrusive regulatory environment. Intense lobbying efforts did result in some modifications of the original bills, but finally, on June 6, 1934, Roosevelt signed the Securities Exchange Act. Provisions of the 1934 Act The major provisions of the Securities Exchange Act deal with three broad areas of regulation in an attempt to prevent the abuses previously cited and thereby protect the public interest: full and fair disclosure, supervision of capital market practices, and administration of credit requirements. This act requires that all national securities exchanges register with and be subject to the regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an administrative agency with quasi-judicial powers that was created by this legislation. The immediate result was the closing of nine stock exchanges that could not meet the new requirements, including a one-man exchange operating out of an Indiana poolroom. All corporations with securities listed on a national exchange must file detailed registration statements with the SEC and are required to disclose financial information on a periodic basis, in a form that meets standards. The SEC retains discretionary power over the form and detail of such disclosures. SEC also requires periodic audits of these firms by independent accountants. This last requirement has had a dramatic impact on the growth and development of the accounting profession. Certified public accountants were effectively granted a franchise to audit corporations with publicly traded securities. There was a substantial cost involved in terms of increased risk exposure. By expressing an opinion on the veracity of financial statements filed with the SEC, the 616

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auditor becomes legally liable to third parties (including investors) who may subsequently be harmed by reliance on that information. In the area of actual market practices, the SEC had immediate and far-reaching impact. Because of the relative informational advantage that market participants have over the public, the SEC now closely scrutinizes their activities. Exchanges, brokers, and dealers must all register with the SEC and file periodic disclosure reports. Corporate insiders are subject to especially strict rules designed to prevent unfair profit-taking. Certain stock market manipulation schemes (for example, wash sales) are prohibited. In fact, any fraudulent, manipulative, or deceptive securities dealings, whether specified by the act or not, are prohibited for all market participants. The penalties for infraction include fines, imprisonment, or both. Finally, in the area of credit, the 1934 act authorizes the Federal Reserve System to administer the extension of margin credit in securities trading, with the SEC as ultimate enforcer. This important component of government economic and monetary policy was no longer to be left in the hands of individual brokers. Early Commissions The first commission was composed of a presidentially appointed five-member bipartisan panel that included Ferdinand Pecora. (Ironically, Pecora was passed over as chairman in favor of Joseph Kennedy, who the year before had participated in a pool syndicate operation.) Since its inception, the SEC has progressed through a number of different phases. The first decade of operation was an innovative period in which the permanent machinery and procedures necessary to carry out the functions and responsibilities of the SEC were established. This period was also marked by a concerted effort on the part of the early commissioners to promote the agency to both the public and the business community as a powerful partner in the quest for honest financial activity, not as a mere enforcement arm of the government. It was during this early period that a philosophy of operation began to evolve. Rather than merely coercing compliance through enforcement actions, the SEC often adopted the policy of encouraging self-regulation within a framework of governmental constraints. By inspiring confidence in the laws that it administered, the SEC hoped to foster a heightened sense of social responsibility 617

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and ethics among the private sector, leading to development of self-monitoring systems. This pragmatic approach was perhaps most evident in the area of establishing accounting and reporting standards. Although the SEC had been empowered to develop and maintain standards and principles of accounting practice, it generally deferred to the accounting profession. Such concession did not occur automatically. The SEC first had to satisfy itself that the private sector’s system of establishing accounting and auditing standards had progressed to an acceptable level. The next twenty-year period was characterized by very little significant legislation or innovation. Investor confidence in the capital markets was generally high, and the SEC routinely carried on the mission that had been developed. Revitalization of the SEC came in the early 1960’s, after a rash of litigation related to the civil and criminal liability issues involved in inaccurate financial disclosures. Various amendments to legislation administered by the SEC followed. In the 1970’s, major legislation was passed to combat corporate bribery and other illegal business practices. During the 1980’s, the SEC was guided by a doctrine of facilitation. Major efforts to expand full and fair disclosure and to streamline and standardize reporting requirements demonstrated the SEC’s commitment to improving the efficiency of the flow of information and ultimately the flow of capital investment in the economy. A decade of unprecedented economic prosperity followed during the 1990’s. Then, in 2001, with disclosures by companies such as Enron and Worldcom that revealed questionable accounting practices that had inflated these companies’ appearance of profitability, the SEC came under scrutiny for what some perceived as inadequate oversight of corporate business practices. The SEC required that all chief executive officers and chief financial officers of major companies file sworn statements backing up the claims made in their reports to investors and made these statements available for public scrutiny on its Web site. Jon R. Carpenter Sources for Further Study Chatov, Robert. Corporate Financial Reporting. New York: Free Press, 1975. 618

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De Bedts, Ralph F. The New Deal’s SEC. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Ellenberger, Jack S., and Ellen P. Mahar, comps. Legislative History of the Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934. South Hackensack, N.J.: F. B. Rothman, 1973. Pointer, Larry Gene, and Richard G. Schroeder. An Introduction to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Plano Texas: Business Publications, 1986. Rappaport, Louis H. SEC Accounting Practice and Procedure. 3d ed. New York: Ronald Press, 1972. Tyler, Poyntz, ed. Securities, Exchanges, and the SEC. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1965. See also: Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909); Hundred Days legislation (1933); Banking Act of 1933 (1933); Banking Act of 1935 (1935).

National Firearms Act and Federal Firearms Act Date: June 6, 1934 (NFA); June 30, 1938 (FFA) U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 1236 (NFA); 52 Stat. 1252 (FFA) U.S. Code: 26 § 5845 (NFA); 15 § 901 (FFA) Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Tariffs and Taxation

The first federal statutes that restricted the keeping and bearing of arms, the 1934 and 1938 firearms acts represented the first significant federal involvement in taxing and controlling firearm possession and established the struggle between the federal government and the National Rifle Association. The 1934 National Firearms Act required a license for the interstate transfer of machine guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles and shotguns. The licensing procedure involved a two-hundreddollar transfer tax and the use of a tax stamp. Although the law’s initiator, Attorney General Homer Cummings, wanted the act to 619

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apply to all concealable firearms, records of congressional hearings show that it was concealable automatic weapons with which lawmakers were primarily concerned. As a compromise between the bill’s advocates and opponents, handguns were removed from the law. Major opposition to the bill came from the National Rifle Association. The 1938 Federal Firearms Act established a general licensing and record-keeping procedure for manufacturers and dealers shipping or receiving any firearms or ammunition across state lines. Restrictions included forbidding the interstate sale of guns by unlicensed dealers. The act prohibited the interstate sale of guns to fugitives and to people who had been convicted of violent crimes; also prohibited was transporting stolen firearms across state lines. These two acts were to be the only federal firearms legislation until the government again became interested in firearm legislation in the late 1960’s. Maria A. Hernandez Source for Further Study United States. Internal Revenue Service. National Firearms Act and Federal Firearms Act. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966. See also: Second Amendment (1789); Pittman-Robertson Wildlife

Restoration Act (1937); Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994); Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994).

Indian Reorganization Act Also known as: Wheeler-Howard Act Date: June 18, 1934 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 984 U.S. Code: 25 § 461 Categories: Native Americans 620

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One of the most important pieces of legislation affecting Native Americans reversed policies of forced assimilation and promoted tribal selfgovernment. The New Deal policy toward American Indians in the 1930’s and early 1940’s and its centerpiece, the Indian Reorganization Act, were a reaction to the controversies generated by previous federal policies toward American Indians. From the 1870’s through the 1920’s, tribal peoples were confined to government-controlled reservations and subjected to a policy aimed at bringing them into the dominant society’s mainstream through forced assimilation. Government and church-run schools attempted to eradicate native languages and religion, customs and dress, tribalism and group loyalty, and replace them with Christian values, traditions, and institutions. To foster individualism and undermine tribalism, congressional legislation allotted the tribal communal domain to small individual holdings and opened surplus land for public sale. This ambitious social experiment did not work as its original reform-minded advocates had intended. Under allotment, American Indians lost most of their lands to whites, while the educational experience undermined or destroyed indigenous peoples’ heritage and culture without providing a viable substitute. The common results were demoralization, loss of identity, abject poverty, poor health, and defective education. These conditions, documented by independent studies, sparked a high-level, decade-long debate in the 1920’s about American Indian policy. Congress, the Department of the Interior, and the authoritarian management style of the department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) came under sharp criticism. John Collier and the BIA The political upheaval wrought by the Great Depression and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 provided reformers with an opportunity to reshape American Indian policy. In 1933, John Collier, a persistent critic of the BIA, became commissioner of Indian Affairs and directed the bureau until 1945. Collier, a former social worker in New York City, had been introduced to the Pueblo cultures of the Southwest in 1920. Collier had experienced a native society that had maintained its communal and group traditions. Collier believed that he had discovered a 621

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“Red Atlantis,” whose communal life and harmonious relationship with the natural world contained lessons and hope for the regeneration of Western society through a cooperative commonwealth. After taking office, Collier began to reverse past government policy by initiating the Indian New Deal through executive orders and lobbying activities. In January, 1934, he forbade interference with traditional Native Americans’ religious practices, declared their culture equal to all others, and encouraged the revival of native languages. Next, Collier ended forced attendance at Christian religious exercises by American Indian children at boarding schools. The commissioner persuaded Congress to repeal espionage and gag rules that restricted free speech and other civil liberties on reservations. Collier also decreased BIA controls and interference with tribal courts and tribal law. Finally, he placed a moratorium on the further sale of tribal lands. Collier then sought to implement his goals of American Indian cultural freedom and political self-determination through legislation. He and his associates drew up a forty-eight-page document containing four sections aimed at replacing the agency’s authoritarian approach with a new bilateral relationship between the tribes and the federal government. Title I dealt with the restoration of tribal self-government and economic revitalization to make tribal society viable. Tribes would petition for home-rule elections, adopt constitutions, and charter a tax-exempt corporation to set up businesses, manage property, and borrow from a federal revolving loan program. Title II, which focused on education, promoted the study of American Indian civilization and traditional arts and crafts, provided scholarships, and appropriated funds for primary and secondary education. Title III, which concerned Indian lands, ended allotments, returned previously allotted lands to tribal ownership, and restored unsold surplus reservation lands to tribal control. The federal government also was authorized to provide tribes with funds to rebuild their lost land base. Title IV proposed setting up a federal Court of Indian Affairs that would have original jurisdiction in cases involving Native Americans. In Congress, Representative Edgar Howard of Nebraska and Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana agreed to sponsor this initial version of what was to become the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA). The proposed legislation immediately encountered opposition from both Indian and non-Indian sources. Few American Indians 622

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were consulted when the proposal was drawn up, which gave rise to suspicion and concern about some provisions. Those Native Americans who were most affected by assimilation policies over the last half century saw the act’s provisions as taking a step backward. Some who held private allotments were concerned about losing them. Tribal leaders who viewed their sovereignty as inherent and some groups that already had constitutions or intact traditional political structures argued that the proposed BIA constitutional guidelines provided no new rights and, in fact, restricted tribal sovereignty. BIA constitutions resembled U.S. governmental bodies rather than traditional forms of tribal government. Some clergy and missionaries denounced the promotion of traditional culture as anti-Christian and pagan. A growing conservative coalition in Congress did not share Collier’s radically progressive views on the restoration of traditional tribal cultures and the establishment of politically independent tribal nations. Compromise In the end, Collier had to compromise. Getting the legislation out of the congressional committee in which it was stalled required the strong support of both President Roosevelt and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. In the bill’s final version, which passed on June 18, 1934, Title II, concerning Native American culture, and Title IV, which provided for an American Indian court, were deleted. The amount of funding to assist the establishment of tribal governments was cut back significantly. Other modifications greatly reduced the number of tribal peoples to be covered under the act. Senator Wheeler insisted on subjecting tribal self-government to the approval of the secretary of the interior and excluded from the act American Indians who were not members of tribes, as well as those tribes located in Oklahoma and Alaska. Another amendment by Howard required that each tribe hold a referendum to accept or reject the IRA. In referenda held between 1933 and 1945, 174 tribes accepted the act while 73 voted against ratification, including the largest American Indian nation, the Navajo. However, only 92 of the tribes that voted in favor adopted IRA constitutions, and 71 took the next step of incorporating for the purpose of obtaining federal economic development loans. American Indians living in Oklahoma and Alaska were placed under the IRA by legislation passed in 1936. 623

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Collier reluctantly accepted these changes, emphasizing the breakthrough represented by those parts of his original proposal that were retained. The commissioner also attempted to implement many of his goals through administrative actions and orders. The failure of Congress to appropriate the full amounts authorized in the IRA, continuing opposition to some of Collier’s goals, and the commissioner’s own misjudgments and administrative shortcomings were some of the factors that prevented his dream of a Red Atlantis from becoming reality. In the decade following the New Deal era, federal American Indian policy again adopted an assimilationist and antitribal orientation. Nevertheless, the IRA was a landmark in federal American Indian policy, with some noteworthy results. Many scholars consider it the single most important piece of federal American Indian legislation. Accomplishments of the IRA and the Indian New Deal included halting the disappearance of the tribal land base and restoring several million acres to various reservations. The act permitted many tribes to assume a degree of economic and political control over their affairs. The restoration of religious freedom and traditional ceremonies were also important measures. With few exceptions, those tribes that received government loans used them to improve economic conditions on reservations and made repayment. American Indians were given preference for positions in the BIA. Many tribes have taken advantage of IRA provisions to defend sovereignty and survive. Most important, the reversal of past policies awakened hope and pride in being American Indian. David A. Crain Sources for Further Study Deloria, Vine, ed. The Indian Reorganization Act: Congresses and Bills. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. Fey, Harold E., and D’Arcy McNickle. Indians and Other Americans: Two Ways of Life Meet. Rev. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Kelly, Lawrence C. “The Indian Reorganization Act: The Dream and the Reality.” Pacific Historical Review 44 (August, 1975): 291312. Kelly, William H., ed. Indian Affairs and the Indian Reorganization Act: The Twenty Year Record. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1954. 624

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Parman, Donald L. The Navajos and the New Deal. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976. Philp, Kenneth R. John Collier’s Crusade for Indian Reform, 19201954. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977. administrator. Taylor, Graham D. The New Deal and American Indian Tribalism: The Administration of the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934-1945. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980. See also: Indian Appropriation Act (1871); General Allotment Act

(1887); Indian Citizenship Act (1924); Termination Resolution (1953); Public Law 280 (1953).

Communications Act Date: June 19, 1934 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 1034 U.S. Code: 47 § 151 Categories: Communications and Media

This law broadened the federal government’s regulatory powers beyond radio broadcasting to encompass all areas of telecommunications. Through passage of this law in 1934, Congress replaced the sevenyear-old Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The new law was predicated on the belief that the broadcast spectrum was a public resource that must be owned and retained by the people. This theory held that the broadcast industry must be regulated by the federal government to ensure that a diversity of viewpoints are aired. The act broadened the government’s authority beyond radio, giving it the power to regulate all telecommunications. Regulation or Censorship? Section 326 of the Communications Act specifically prohibited censorship by stating that nothing in the law should “be under625

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stood or construed to give the commission the power of censorship” over radio broadcasting and that no regulations or conditions should be promulgated that would “interfere with the right of free speech by means of radio communication.” Although the law forbade the FCC from forcing stations to air—or to stop airing—specific programs, the law simultaneously directed the commission to regulate broadcasting so that it would be “in the public interest.” This directive gave the FCC the power to revoke, or not renew, broadcast licenses in cases of flagrant disregard of broadcasters’ responsibility. Under the act, the FCC could determine who should broadcast, on which wavelengths, with what power, and when. Since the FCC was authorized to grant broadcast licenses for limited numbers of years at a time, license renewal proceedings gave the FCC the power to influence station policies, ranging from their advertising techniques to the amounts of time they devoted to news and public service programming. However, the FCC rarely used this power to cancel or refuse renewal of licenses. Instead, it has typically used indirect pressure to influence the content of broadcasts. Equal Time Rule There has been widespread disagreement on how far the FCC should go in forcing licensees to serve the public interest. Section 315 of the Communications Act required broadcasters providing news coverage of political campaigns to cover candidates of every party seeking the same political offices equally. Some people have argued that this “equal time rule” amounts to a form of reverse censorship that violates broadcasters’ First Amendment rights. In 1959 the equal time rule was tested when members of the FCC voted 4-3 that a Chicago television station had to offer a candidate twenty-two seconds on its news program in order to balance the time it had devoted to showing Mayor Richard Daly greeting a foreign official. Both men were candidates in the Chicago mayoral election. Congress responded by amending the law to exempt noncampaign news coverage of an incumbent. The following year Congress temporarily suspended section 315 to allow television networks to broadcast the debates between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon without having to include third-party candidates. In 1975 the FCC made this exception a permanent rule by declaring that stations 626

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could carry debates among pairs of major party candidates without the participation of minor party candidates. The equal time rule required that stations offering broadcast time outside of their regular news programs to political candidates must offer equal time to the candidates’ opponents. However, the rule also permitted stations to cover news events in which candidates appear without having to offer equal time to their opponents. The equal time rule does not apply to appearances of candidates on regular “bona fide” newscasts, news interviews, and news documentaries in which candidates appear incidentally. The difficulty for broadcasters has lain in deciding what constitutes real news. Political Advertising Section 315 of the Communications Act has been most often applied to situations involving political advertising. The equal time rule states that if a licensee permits a legally qualified candidate for public office to use its station, it also must “afford equal opportunity to all other such candidates for that office.” Broadcast stations that sell advertising time to political candidates thus cannot refuse to sell equal numbers of spots in the same time periods—and at the same prices—to candidates of other parties seeking the same offices. The FCC has refined its rules on political advertising in order fully to implement section 315’s requirements. These guarantee access to broadcast advertising for all candidates for federal office, ensure equal broadcast advertising opportunities to rival candidates for public office, require the lowest-unit rate charges for political advertising, and forbid censorship of the content of political advertisements—even if such content violates other FCC regulations, such as those pertaining to indecent language or broadcasts. Fairness Questions Some of the problems of adhering to the equal time principle in political news coverage disappeared after Congress’s 1959 ruling. However, the root issue of ensuring “fairness” in access to the airwaves and in presenting various sides of controversial issues remained. The FCC’s so-called fairness doctrine, which was enforced until 1985, was based on the argument that because the airwaves are public property the FCC should direct licensed broadcasters to 627

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operate “in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” The belief is that the public interest is best served when the airwaves are accessible to differing viewpoints. The difficulty of attempting to legislate “fairness” led the FCC to abandon the fairness doctrine. Broadcasters had long argued that extreme efforts to include opposing viewpoints in coverage and interpretation of controversial issues led to less, rather than better, coverage of important social issues. They argued that if stations had to seek out other viewpoints to air on every issue they wished to address, they would tend to avoid covering controversial issues. Broadcasters argued that this likelihood was increased by the fear that groups or individuals dissatisfied with a station’s coverage might have grounds to oppose the station’s license at renewal time. Cynics claimed that broadcasters protesting the fairness doctrine really wanted to be free from pressure from minorities, women, senior citizens, and others demanding balanced coverage. This led to an unusual alliance of advocates for minority causes and big business, who had long felt discriminated against by network coverage of national issues, particularly since the social unrest of the 1960’s and the Watergate era of the early 1970’s heightened mistrust of established authority. The commission sided with broadcasters, whose voices included leading journalists usually sympathetic to minority viewpoints. Walter Cronkite and Eric Severeid, for example, argued that average citizens have so many ways to obtain differing viewpoints on social issues that it was no longer necessary to require broadcasters to seek out diverse perspectives themselves. Although the FCC concluded that the fairness doctrine did not serve the public interest, it left intact the general requirement that broadcasters present issue-responsive programming. When a station’s license renewal is challenged, this issue-responsive programming can become a major ingredient in a its ability to show that it has operated in the public interest. Thus the obligation that broadcasters provide balanced coverage of important public issues remained even though details on how they should do this were deregulated. The Future The strongest argument against continuing the regulations imposed by the Communications Act of 1934 has been the erosion of 628

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a central part of the philosophical basis for which the law was originally enacted. The argument that the airwaves belong to the public was based largely on their presumed scarcity—the notion that because the number of broadcast frequencies is finite, the federal government had to ensure that radio and television broadcasting was not dominated by those with the most money and power. Since the act was passed, however, there has been a steady growth in the number of licensed frequencies in the United States. By the mid1990’s there were more than eleven thousand radio stations and more than fifteen hundred television stations. There has also been a great expansion of cable television. These and other technological advances have mitigated against the old scarcity argument. The 1994 election of the first Republican-controlled Congress in the telemedia age prompted many advocates of deregulation to favor a major overhaul of the Communications Act of 1934. Although many deregulatory changes were instituted through the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the rules pertaining to equal time, political advertising, and balanced news coverage of controversial issues remained. Gerard Donnelly Sources for Further Study Edwards, Verne E., Jr. Journalism in a Free Society. Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown, 1970. Emery, Edwin, and Michael Emery. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984. Gelman, Morrie, “Seventy-five Years of Pioneers: A Personalized History of the Fifth Estate from Frank Conrad to Rupert Murdoch.” Broadcasting and Cable 125, no. 45 (November 6, 1995). Krasnow, Erwin G., and Lawrence D. Longley. The Politics of Broadcast Regulation. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973. Lichty, Lawrence W., and Malachi C. Topping. American Broadcasting: A Source Book on the History of Radio and Television. New York: Hastings House, 1975. Stephens, Mitchell. Broadcast News: Radio Journalism and an Introduction to Television. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. 629

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ments (1960); Public Broadcasting Act (1967); Communications Decency Act (1996).

Federal Credit Union Act Date: June 26, 1934 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 1216 U.S. Code: 12 § 1751 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

By establishing a federal credit union system, the act encouraged savings and made credit more available to people of limited means. A federal credit union is a nonprofit, member-owned cooperative organized to encourage its members to put money into savings and to use these accumulated savings to make loans to members. It also has the function of educating members on how to manage their own finances. The federal government, through the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), charters credit unions as corporations as well as supervising and insuring them. Federal Credit Unions In order to generate and maintain a feeling of mutual responsibility, members of a federal credit union must have a common bond of employment, association, or residence. The members, with one vote each, elect a volunteer board of directors from the membership at an annual meeting. The board has authority to determine the maximum limits on loans and the interest rates to be charged. Interest rates tend to be favorable in comparison to those offered by other lenders because of the lower labor costs in volunteer organizations, lower losses on defaulted loans, and lower marketing costs. In addition to an unpaid board of directors, credit unions have officers who are generally unpaid or receive nominal salaries. The ratio of delinquent to outstanding loans in the early 1990’s stood at half that of federally insured commercial banks. Personal 630

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contact and personal credit judgments play a large role in keeping this ratio low. Two major marketing advantages are the bond of clients to the credit union through membership and the close proximity of clients, with the credit union often located at an employee’s place of work. Loans can be designed to meet the needs of individual members. Federal credit unions must comply with all federal consumer protection laws, such as the Truth in Lending Act (1980) and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1975). Deposits by members are in the form of shares in the credit union and are frequently made through payroll deductions. Each account as of the early 1990’s was insured up to $100,000 by the NCUA. Profits from lending money and other sources may be distributed to the members as dividends. Origin of Credit Unions The development of credit unions resulted from the needs of lower income groups. Prior to the existence of credit unions, there were a limited number of outlets for small savings or loans. In 1948, the first credit union was organized in Belgium. At the same time in Germany, F. Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch organized cooperative credit societies and developed the principle that the funds to be loaned to members would come from the savings of members. By 1880, about three thousand cooperative credit societies had been organized in Germany. Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen also organized cooperative credit societies in Germany but put greater emphasis on unselfish service to the organization. By 1920, his model for the earliest credit unions was being used in most countries in the world. The credit union movement spread to the North American continent with the help of Alphonse Desjardins, a legislative journalist who was studying economic conditions in Europe in the late 1890’s. In 1900, Desjardins used ideas from the Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen financial cooperatives to establish the first cooperative bank, La Caisse Populaire (the people’s bank), in the city of Levis in the province of Quebec, Canada. Edward A. Filene, a wealthy Boston merchant and philanthropist, was influential in bringing credit unions to the United States. His interest in the subject resulted from extensive travel throughout the world. He convinced Pierre Jay, commissioner of banking 631

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for Massachusetts, to work toward establishing a cooperative credit society in that state. Jay asked Desjardins to assist in passing a credit union act in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Credit Union Act, the first complete credit union act in the United States, was enacted in 1909. In the same year, in Manchester, New Hampshire, Desjardins helped to organize the first legally chartered cooperative credit society in the United States. Growth in the credit union movement was slow during the decade after passage of the Massachusetts act. By 1919, however, Filene believed that there was a sufficient number of credit unions to justify an organized move toward national legislation. He organized the National Committee on People’s Banks to spearhead this task. The development of credit unions was aided by favorable conditions during the 1920’s. General prosperity and development of new consumer goods resulted in higher savings by workers and greater demand for consumer credit. Three factors were necessary to expand the movement: legislation allowing the chartering (incorporation) of credit unions, education of the general public regarding the movement, and voluntary associations of credit unions at the state level to further expand the movement. To facilitate each of these, the Credit Union National Extension Bureau (which became the Credit Union National Association in 1934) was created and financed by Filene. He hired Roy F. Bergengren as manager and Thomas W. Doig as assistant manager. Bergengren had started as the managing director of the Massachusetts Credit Union Association in 1920. He used the extension bureau to promote enabling legislation authorizing credit unions and helped organize individual credit unions. The Great Depression had a favorable impact on the movement. In 1932, Congress authorized credit unions in the District of Columbia and allowed them to borrow from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. By 1934, thirty-eight states had enacted credit union laws and more than twenty-four hundred credit unions were in operation. Bergengren became increasingly convinced that national legislation was necessary. He argued that a federal law would permit the organization of credit unions in states that had refused to pass such legislation; that there was some possibility that other states might repeal their credit union laws, as West Virginia had done in 1931; 632

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that a federal statute would be useful as a basis of organization in those states that had weak or defective laws; and that federal legislation should be complete before credit unions formed a national association. Passage of the Act The culmination of the legislative efforts of the Credit Union National Extension Bureau came on June 26, 1934, when Congress enacted the Federal Credit Union Act. The act provided for the chartering, supervision, and examination of federal credit unions by the United States government. The writers of the act tried to incorporate the best ideas from state laws. In the same year, Congress chose the Farm Credit Administration (FCA) to supervise credit unions because of its expertise in examining other types of financial cooperatives chartered by the U.S. government. Claude R. Orchard was appointed the first director of the Credit Union Section, FCA. More than eighty-seven hundred federal credit unions were chartered during the nineteen years he served as director. Also in 1934, Bergengren and Filene held a national meeting of credit union delegates that led to the development of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA). Impact The most important impact of the Federal Credit Union Act of 1934 was the confidence it inspired in the American public regarding credit unions. Involvement by the federal government played a major role in the growth of credit unions, from almost 2,500 credit unions when the act was passed to 3,372 by the end of 1935. In 1937, Congress passed legislation prohibiting the taxation of federal credit unions except on the basis of real or personal property. This legislation further supported growth in the number of entities, which approached 8,000 by 1939. Individual credit unions were also growing at an impressive rate. By March, 1936, Armour and Company employee credit unions had more than 22,000 members, had $1.25 million in assets, and had made loans up to that date of almost $7 million. There were twenty-four credit unions among Sears, Roebuck and Company employees, with 7,982 members, and credit unions associated with the U.S. Steel Corporation had almost 23,000 members. A credit union served employees of the United States Senate. Another 633

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credit union at the studios of Twentieth Century-Fox had more than one thousand members. Many employers considered a credit union to be an important fringe benefit, with the advantage of involving no necessary cost to them. Space for the credit union offices often was provided on the premises, perhaps at reduced cost. Payroll withholdings both for regular savings and for installment collection of loans was another common service by employers. In 1935, CUNA’s national board of directors agreed to establish the CUNA Mutual Insurance Society. The society provided only borrowers’ protection insurance to credit unions at first, adding life insurance for officers and families associated with CUNA in August, 1936. At the same time, the society considered writing automobile insurance but took no action. By the end of 1936, 437 credit unions in thirty states were members of the society. A total of twenty-three thousand loans were insured, with a total coverage of $2,425,000. The reserves of the society for payment of claims amounted to $11,000. Deposit insurance did not begin until 1970. Subsequent Legislation The Credit Union Modernization Act of 1977 and 1978 revised much of the Federal Credit Union Act of 1934. The new legislation extended loan maturities, expanded real estate and home improvement loans, authorized self-replenishing credit lines to borrowers, and standardized participation loans with other credit unions. It also made many other changes in the technical operation of credit unions that expanded lending and investment authority. The Financial Institutions Reform Act of 1978, as part of the Modernization Act, established the Central Liquidity Facility as part of the National Credit Union Administration. This organization added safety to credit union lending by providing liquidity for emergency needs. It was not intended to provide permanent financing. This legislation also restructured the National Credit Union Administration and set up a new administration board with increased supervisory functions. The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act was passed in 1980. This law affected credit unions directly by increasing deposit insurance coverage. It affected them indirectly by legalizing share drafts for banks and savings and loans, increasing competition for the credit union industry, which already 634

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offered share drafts. The act also required that depository institutions maintain some level of reserves with the Federal Reserve System. Most credit unions did not maintain these reserves because the requirement was not implemented for any institution with deposits of less than $2 million. The Garn-St. Germain Act of 1982 suspended the monetary reserve requirement for the first $2 million in reservable accounts. This act also gave credit unions more flexibility and authority to handle their own affairs, including greater freedom in mortgage markets. In general, all this legislation, combined with favorable regulatory changes, made credit unions more competitive with banks and savings and loans. The industry was permitted to use a greater variety of sources for both assets and liabilities, and a greater range of financial activities was allowed. The interest rates that credit unions could pay on savings and charge for loans were relatively free from government control. Finally, credit unions still enjoyed the political and economic benefits of being nonprofit organizations. Richard Goedde Sources for Further Study Bergengren, Roy F. Crusade: The Fight for Economic Democracy in North America, 1921-1945. New York: Exposition Press, 1952. _______. CUNA Emerges. Madison, Wis.: Credit Union National Association, 1935. Croteau, John T. The Economics of the Credit Union. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963. _______. The Federal Credit Union Policy and Practice. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. Moody, J. Carroll, and Gilbert C. Fite. The Credit Union Movement Origins and Development, 1850-1970. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1850-1970. Pugh, Olin S., and F. Gerry Ingram. Credit Unions: A Movement Becomes an Industry. Reston: Reston Publishing Company, 1984. U.S. National Credit Union Administration. Development of Federal Credit Unions. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1972. See also: McFadden Act (1927); Consumer Credit Protection Act

(1968); Truth in Lending Act (1968); Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970); Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974).

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Taylor Grazing Act Date: June 28, 1934 U.S. Statutes at Large: 48 Stat. 1269 U.S. Code: 43 § 315 Categories: Agriculture; Animals; Environment and Conserva-

tion; Land Management; Natural Resources

In the early 1930’s, with much of the federal land in the West suffering from overgrazing and drought, the Taylor Grazing Act imposed regulations on the use of the remaining public domain of the American West. With the United States in the throes of the Great Depression, the public lands of the American West suffered from severe drought and overgrazing. As Congressman Edward Taylor of Colorado warned his colleagues, “We are rapidly permitting the creations of small Sahara Deserts in every one of the Western states today.” Until 1934, western stockmen grazed animals on federal lands without the need of permission and regulation. In the laissez-faire economic atmosphere of the late 1920’s, President Herbert Hoover’s Commission on the Conservation and Administration of the Public Domain had recommended that the remaining public domain be turned over to the states with the federal government retaining title to mineral lands. Soon the Depression intervened, however, and concerned westerners channeled their energies into working with federal bureaucrats to shape an acceptable plan for managing those millions of acres of federal lands outside the purveyance of the National Park Service, National Forest Service, and other federal agencies. An End to Homesteading The plan was named after Taylor (a Colorado Democrat), whose home district in western Colorado contained a high percentage of federal land. If a veteran congressman such as Taylor could see the benefit of federal regulation, most westerners could also. Even old stockmen who had previously opposed the federal presence as a matter of principle gave grudging approval to Taylor’s legislation. The bill ended the free use of the public domain. Homesteading would no longer be permitted. Eighty million acres of western land 636

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would be given to a new federal agency, the U.S. Grazing Service, under the Department of the Interior. Local grazing districts were established, and policies would be set by the ranchers themselves. Users would pay a nominal fee to rent the land for ten-year periods, with a portion of the proceeds going to support conservation projects. The Taylor Grazing Act firmly upheld the economic status quo in the public-land West by ordering that “preference” be given in the issuance of grazing permits to “landowners engaged in the livestock business” and those living near or in the grazing district. In 1936 the act was amended, increasing the total acreage under its domain to 142 million acres. Criticisms and Outfalls Because it was founded and administered by westerners during an era of economic duress, the implementation of the Taylor Grazing Act was relatively free of controversy, but several critics of its authority soon appeared. Senator Pat McCarran (a Nevada Democrat) tried to challenge the system of uniform grazing fees. In 1946 Wyoming Republican senator Edward V. Robertson harked back to the old Hoover Commission by calling for a “return” of all federal lands to the states, a strategy echoed in the late 1970’s by the socalled Sagebrush Rebellion. McCarran and other western critics of the Grazing Service succeeded in trimming its budget during World War II and forcing its merger with the General Land Office in 1946. The new agency, the Bureau of Land Management, would administer the public domain in the years ahead. Steven C. Schulte Sources for Further Study Barnes, Will C. The Story of the Range. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926. Foss, Phillip O. Politics and Grass. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960. Hays, Samuel P. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. Muhn, James, and Hanson R. Stuart. Opportunity and Challenge: The Story of the BLM. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Land Management, 1988. Peffer, E. Louise. The Closing of the Public Domain. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1951. 637

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U.S. Congress. Senate. The Western Range. 74th Congress, 2d. session, 1936. Senate Document 199. U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Land Management. Fifty Years of Public Land Management: 1934-1984. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1984. See also: Homestead Act (1862); General Mining Act (1872); Rec-

lamation Act (1902); National Park Service Organic Act (1916); Mineral Leasing Act (1920); Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960); Wilderness Act (1964); Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974).

National Labor Relations Act Also known as: Wagner-Connery Act Date: July 5, 1935 U.S. Statutes at Large: 49 Stat. 449 U.S. Code: 29 § 151 Categories: Labor and Employment

Through this law, the federal government accepted the right of labor to use collective bargaining, marking the birth of “big labor.” A commonly repeated fallacy relative to the New Deal is that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, almost immediately after his inauguration in 1933, turned his back on the nation’s business interests and instead cultivated and indulged those of labor. This misleading bit of fiction would have one believe that the president gave organized labor immense power in exchange for its support at the polls. The weakness of this interpretation becomes apparent when one studies the creation of what is described as the “Magna Carta of modern unionism.” The National Labor Relations Act (Wagner-Connery Act), mainly the work of Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York. Its adoption must be credited more to Wagner’s perseverance than to any support received from the president or his administration. 638

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Labor Legislation When the New Deal started, organized labor was in serious retreat. During the 1920’s, a combination of general prosperity, vigorous business attacks, and weak leadership had seriously depleted the ranks of trade unions. The Depression was merely an additional burden. The union movement achieved a small victory on March 23, 1932, when Congress passed the Norris-La Guardia Act, which prohibited courts from granting management injunctions against union activities. The law, interpreted as disallowing employers from proscribing workers from becoming involved in union activities, had no teeth, however. In 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) included a provision requiring all industries submitting codes to the government to pledge themselves to the recognition of labor’s right to collective bargaining. In practice, however, this section proved worthless, because of the promotion of company unions and the plurality of bargaining units in any one industry. The main difficulty in reforming NIRA’s labor policy was the attitude of the Roosevelt administration. General Hugh S. Johnson, administrator of the National Recovery Administration (NRA), looked upon strikes in a code industry as similar to treason. Both Johnson and Roosevelt believed that business recovery had first priority. The president hardly could be described as pro-union but rather as reflecting a paternalistic approach. He sympathized with the worker, but he apparently had no desire to use the federal government to build up the strength of unions. Labor grew increasingly restive under this situation, and during 1934, a number of serious strikes broke out. Senator Wagner, a leading union supporter, recognized the ineffectiveness of the NIRA’s labor provision and took steps to remedy this condition. he succeeded in establishing a National Labor Board to hear grievances of workers and was named by Johnson to head the body. However, this board had no power to execute its decisions. Wagner believed that the situation was critical, because in his mind, economic recovery and stability could come only when the U.S. worker shared extensively in the benefits of increased productivity. The only hope for the survival of capitalism, in his opinion, was a complete redistribution of wealth. Wagner was convinced that this redistribution would come about only when the worker had gained the power of collective bargaining, and that this level of trade 639

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unionism could develop only with the assistance of the federal government. National Labor Relations Board In March, 1934, Wagner introduced a bill into Congress to prevent unfair labor practices and to put teeth into the labor provisions of the NIRA. The president, however, was not inclined to support such a measure. Instead, on June 29, 1934, he established the National Labor Relations Board to replace the NRA’s National Labor Board. Lloyd K. Garrison, dean of the Wisconsin Law School, was appointed chairman. Designed to hear workers’ grievances, the board depended upon the cooperation of the NRA and the Department of Justice for its effectiveness. By November, 1934, most people realized that the board was useless. Neither General Johnson nor his successor, Donald R. Richberg, indicated any intention of cooperating with the board. Recovery was still most important, and the administration theme was cooperation with business. The congressional election of 1934 swept away the right wing of the Republican Party. With the failure of the temporary National Labor Relations Board, the American Federation of Labor, finally recognizing the importance of Wagner’s efforts in Congress, began a gigantic lobbying campaign. Finally, the Supreme Court appeared to be no longer hostile to New Deal legislation. Provisions and Passage Senator Wagner now moved to resubmit his original bill. With the support of both Francis Biddle and Garrison, and aided by the effective lobby of the American Federation of Labor, Wagner introduced a measure in the Senate in February, 1935. It had a number of important provisions. First, all workers employed in industries that were engaged in interstate commerce were to be granted the right to join a union of their own choice and to bargain collectively. Second, the union that won majority support in a secret ballot election was to be granted sole bargaining privileges in that industry. Third, employers would be required to reorganize this union and to bargain in good faith. Fourth, the existing National Labor Relations Board was to be reestablished as an independent agency with the power to conduct elections to determine bargaining units and to prevent certain unfair labor practices by means of subpoenas, cease and desist orders, and court action. Fifth, to implement pro640

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visions of the act, management was asked to engage in affirmative action, a new term that was understood to mean that the burden of voluntary compliance was on management, such as reinstating workers with back pay who had been discharged from engaging in union activity, now protected by the law. The term next appeared in the text of Executive Order 10925, which President John F. Kennedy issued in 1961, requiring contractors to desegregate voluntarily as a condition of doing business with the federal government. The bill had a stormy but quick passage through Congress. A number of Southern senators attempted to persuade Roosevelt to intervene against the bill, but Wagner succeeded in keeping the White House neutral. Business interests insisted that the bill threatened U.S. recovery. Violent opposition also came from the American Communist Party. Despite this opposition and the lack of backing from the Roosevelt administration, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 63 to 12. Court Cases One week later, on May 24, 1935, Roosevelt belatedly announced his support for the Wagner Bill. Three days after that, the Supreme Court declared the NIRA unconstitutional. It is still not clear why Roosevelt decided to come to the support of Wagner at that time. Perhaps he was impressed by the wide margin by which the bill passed the Senate. On June 27, 1935, with backing from the administration, the bill easily passed the House by voice vote, and on July 5, 1935, Roosevelt signed it. The Wagner Act meant that the federal government was now behind the drive for the unionization of U.S. labor. Coming at the same time that labor itself was undergoing the internal revolution that spawned the militant Congress of Industrial Organizations, the National Labor Relations Act symbolized the birth of “big labor.” Soon after the Wagner Act passed, a challenge appeared in federal court. In National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation (1937), parts of the act were declared unconstitutional. Guarantees in the National Labor Relations Act have been whittled down by two major amendments—the Labor-Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley Act) of 1947 and the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Landrum-Griffin Act) of 1959. With the decline in union membership in the late twentieth century, the heyday of the National Labor Relations Act seems in 641

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the distant past. Formed primarily to protect workers with limited educational backgrounds, whose employment alternatives were limited, the union movement since has been diminished because many workers have enough education to shift jobs, and work requiring less educational preparation either is being replaced by machines or is being exported by multinational corporations to less developed countries at significantly lower wages. George Q. Flynn, updated by Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Bernstein, Irving. The New Deal Collective Bargaining Policy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950. Derber, Milton, and Edwin Young, eds. Labor and the New Deal. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957. Hardin, Patrick, ed. The Developing Labor Law. 3d ed. Chicago: Bureau of National Affairs, 1992. Millis, Harry A., and Emily C. Brown. From the Wagner Act to TaftHartley: A Study of National Labor Policy and Labor Relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. Smolen, Joseph S., ed. The National Labor Relations Act: As Amended by the Taft-Hartley Act and the Landrum-Griffin Act. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1962. See also: Norris-La Guardia Act (1932); National Industrial Recovery Act (1933); Labor-Management Relations Act (1947).

Social Security Act Date: August 14, 1935 U.S. Statutes at Large: 49 Stat. 620 U.S. Code: 42 § 301 et seq. Categories: Health and Welfare

Among the most far-reaching laws of the twentieth century, the Social Security Act authorized the United States’ first national program of economic protection during retirement, unemployment, and disability. 642

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Although Social Security in the United States is most often associated with a program for older, retired persons, the creators of the 1935 legislation viewed old-age dependency in the larger context of major changes in the economy and in family structure. They tended to believe that if economic security could be assured to the oldest members of society, such security could also be made a reality for other citizens. The original legislation did not profess to solve deep structural problems of unemployment and poverty—it was designed to provide the first links in the safety net that would protect U.S. citizens from future economic disasters. From the beginning, social welfare programs reflected an uncertainty of purpose between adequacy—a concept that benefits should be based on the needs of the recipients, and equity—a notion that benefits should reflect contributions made by the participants. Precedents and Rationales By the 1930’s, most of the nations of Western Europe had enacted some kind of social insurance legislation providing for old-age care and unemployment compensation. For a number of reasons, however, the United States had lagged behind in such efforts. It was not until the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that the United States adopted an effective social security measure. The general economic depression of the decade undoubtedly contributed to the momentum needed to pass social security legislation, for during the Great Depression, many people in the United States came to see economic insecurity as a social problem, not merely a matter of individual virtue and responsibility. By 1934, considerable support had developed for utopian schemes, such as that developed by Dr. Francis E. Townsend, whose Old-Age Revolving Pension Club was lobbying for a monthly grant of two hundred dollars for every citizen over sixty years of age. There was nothing radical about a plan for old-age pensions. Both private pensions and veterans’ benefits existed long before the New Deal. Partly because such plans proved inadequate during the Depression, the Democratic platform of 1932 called for public retirement pensions and for unemployment compensation. By the 1930’s, almost half the states had some kind of old-age pension, but these were generally limited in scope. Only Wisconsin had a working unemployment compensation plan. In 1932, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York and Representative David J. Lewis of Mary643

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land introduced bills in Congress calling for a federal unemployment plan patterned after that of Wisconsin. The same year, Senator Clarence C. Dill of Washington and Representative William P. Connery of Massachusetts introduced a bill providing for federal grants to those states establishing old-age pensions. Frances Perkins It was not until 1934 that President Roosevelt decided to take the initiative in the field of social insurance legislation. He asked Congress to delay action on the existing bills while he appointed a special committee to look into all aspects of social security, with the aim of presenting a comprehensive measure at the 1935 congressional session. In June, 1934, he established the Committee on Economic Security, with Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins as chair. Perkins took a broad view of her job and aimed to bring U.S. social insurance up to that of advanced European countries. She soon discovered, however, that there were divergent opinions, especially on the subject of how unemployment compensation should be handled. The debate centered on whether the compensation should be strictly a national operation. On one side of the question stood a group of Wisconsin social workers, such as Paul Rauschenbush and his wife Elizabeth Brandeis Rauschenbush. They advocated a joint state-national plan that would allow for greater experimentation and variety. They also pointed out that a joint approach would be more likely to meet constitutional objections. Others, such as Rexford G. Tugwell, Abraham Epstein, former secretary of the American Association of Old-Age Security, and Professor Paul Douglas of the University of Chicago recommended a solely national system to avoid unequal coverage and protect the highly mobile U.S. worker. Perkins sided with the Wisconsin group, and the final recommendation of the committee followed the decentralized approach: unemployment compensation would be financed by a federal tax on total payrolls, with 90 percent of the tax going to the states to implement the program. The report also advocated a contributory national program of old-age pensions. Roosevelt accepted the committee’s report. Passage, Provisions, and Impact The Social Security bill was submitted to Congress in January, 1935, by Senator Wagner and Congressman Lewis. The air was 644

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filled with warnings that the act would destroy individual responsibility and the principles of self-help, but it was passed in the Senate by 76 votes to 6, and in the House by 371 votes to 33. On August 14, 1935, Roosevelt signed the measure. Money to fund the old-age insurance plan was to come from a tax to be levied on employees’ wages and employers’ payrolls. Benefits would be payable at sixty-five years of age. The unemployment compensation provisions followed the recommendations of the Perkins Committee. In addition, the federal government would extend grants to the states for the care of the destitute elderly not covered by Social Security, and provide aid on a matching basis to states for the care of dependent mothers, children, and the blind, and for public health services. A Social Security Board was set up to administer the various provisions of the act. While clearly innovative for its time, the Social Security Act was considered inadequate by many of its planners. The idea that a worker should pay one-half the cost of his own retirement stopped far short of most of the European plans. As Tugwell pointed out in 1934, the worker would already be paying a disproportionate share as a consumer, because the employer’s payroll tax in the program would immediately be passed on in the form of higher prices. Roosevelt defended the payroll tax by pointing to the political strength it gave the program. Because workers contributed to the pension fund, they built up equity in it. The sense that workers had earned a right to future benefits would make it difficult, if not impossible, for subsequent administrations to deny coverage or to dismantle the program. A weak feature of the law was its limited scope: It omitted farmworkers and domestics from unemployment compensation and contained no health insurance provisions of any kind. The law also reflected the assumptions of its framers that men were the principal wage earners and that women were economically dependent. Nevertheless, the act represented the beginning of a growing belief that the federal government had a responsibility to ensure certain benefits to its citizens. It provided a floor of basic economic protection and a greater level of uniformity of assistance among the states. Long-Term Problems, Potential Solutions By the end of the twentieth century, a number of problems in the Social Security system demanded attention. Since the system began, a large workforce contributed payroll taxes to support pay645

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ments to a relatively small number of retirees. As the large number of “baby boomers”—those born in the two decades following World War II—reached retirement age, however, the proportion of citizens eligible for benefits increased more rapidly than the workforce. Amendments to the Social Security Act passed in 1983 anticipated the situation and raised taxes to create a surplus of funds in the system, but the program was still foreseen to be depleted by the year 2030. Younger workers feared that the social security system would be bankrupt before they became eligible for benefits. Although most politicians were reluctant to propose major changes in the popular program, several types of reforms were suggested, including privatization of the system by allowing workers to invest in their own retirement accounts, thereby abolishing the social security trust fund. Others advocated a series of more modest changes: diverting some of the payroll taxes into savings accounts, increasing payroll taxes in small increments, raising the retirement age, limiting cost-of-living adjustments, or a combination of these. George Q. Flynn, updated by Mary Welek Atwell Sources for Further Study Achenbaum, W. Andrew. Social Security: Visions and Revisions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Berkowitz, Edward D. America’s Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Haber, Carole, and Brian Gratton. Old Age and the Search for Security: An American Social History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Louchheim, Katie, ed. The Making of the New Deal: The Insiders Speak. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Miller, Dorothy C. Women and Social Welfare: A Feminist Analysis. New York: Praeger, 1990. Perkins, Frances. The Roosevelt I Knew. New York: Viking Press, 1946. See also: Dependent Pension Act (1890); Sheppard-Towner Act

(1921); World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924); Hundred Days legislation (1933); Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935); Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996). 646

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Aid to Families with Dependent Children Also known as: part of the Social Security Act Date: August 14, 1935 U.S. Statutes at Large: 49 Stat. 620 U.S. Code: 42 § 301 et seq. Categories: Children’s Issues; Health and Welfare; Women’s Issues

Aid to Families with Dependent Children was established to provide minimum income support to impoverished families, especially women and their children. Originally titled Aid to Dependent Children (ADC), Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was established in 1935 as one provision of the Social Security Act, a key piece of legislation during the New Deal era. The purpose of AFDC is to provide cash public assistance to needy families with children. It is a combined federal and state-administered program, with states defining the definition of “need” and the level of payments. In 1993 approximately 5,050,000 families, or 9,598,000 children and 4,659,000 adults, received AFDC payments. The typical AFDC family included a mother and one child who remained on welfare for less than two years. The average monthly payment per family was $377, with payments varying greatly from state to state. In 1993 New England and some West Coast states granted the highest average benefits of more than $500 per month, while the eastern and western South Central states granted the lowest, with family benefits averaging slightly more than $160 per month. The state with the highest average monthly benefits was Alaska ($748), and the state with the lowest was Mississippi ($120). Eligibility States must comply with federal guidelines in order to qualify for financial grants. However, states were free to decide whom they would assist, how much assistance they would grant, and how assistance would be administered. In all states, adult recipients had to register for employment and training. Each state also computed a “needs standard,” which took into account the cost of food, shelter, 647

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utilities, clothing, health care, and other necessities. If families’ needs exceed their income and assets, they may qualify for the program, but the federal government did not require that states provide the full amount of the difference between needs and income if they chose not to do so. In many states, the standard of need was set below the official poverty level. Thousands of poor families were ineligible for benefits. In addition to demonstrating financial need, children receiving benefits generally had to be under the age of eighteen. Eligible families usually were headed by single mothers, but in some states the AFDC-UP program provided coverage for dual-parent families with unemployed fathers. History As a minimum income support system, ADC was modeled after mother’s aid legislation passed by many states in the early 1900’s, which established widow’s pensions. These entitlements were designed to help working-class widows keep their children out of orphanages. When ADC was created in 1935, Congress’s intention was to cushion poverty and to enable mothers to stay home with their children. Early relief was based on the assumption that only certain categories of people qualified. Those who did qualify were closely monitored in terms of need, resources, and sexual behavior. Unwed mothers were denied assistance. The 1930’s program was established in the face of great opposition from conservative business and government officials throughout the United States, who argued that government intervention on behalf of the poor would undermine their desire to work. Southern legislators also felt that generous assistance would erode the low-wage structure of employment. They were particularly opposed to ADC and other programs that provided aid for the poor. Fearing that federal officials would be more sympathetic, especially to impoverished African Americans, they fought to ensure local control over the administration of ADC. Regional Differences Despite fierce opposition, ADC provided cash to assist children who had been left without a parent because of disability, death, or continued absence. Because ADC was administered at the state and local levels, there were vast differences in payment levels. Regional 648

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differences in ideologies concerning the poor as well as differences in local economies resulted in unequal entitlements. For example, in 1939 Arkansas provided an average of $8.10 monthly, while Massachusetts provided $61.07. History of Implementation For fifteen years ADC provided funds for dependent children only. It contained “man in the house” rules, which prohibited against benefits when a male resided in the household and discriminated against African American mothers and against unmarried women, who were thought unsuitable. In some states recipients were also expected to work low-wage jobs in return for their benefits. In 1950, when the program was renamed AFDC, Congress passed a provision that included a caretaker grant to help pay for mothers’ essential expenses. In 1964 the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the War on Poverty, increasing federal matching funds so that state and county welfare departments could accept more applicants. Throughout the late 1960’s, as pressure from the National Welfare Rights Organization and the Civil Rights movement mounted, the Supreme Court continued to remove barriers to eligibility. Relief was expanded, and reform permitted states to extend aid to families with an unemployed father at home. Welfare Reform Despite expansion during the 1960’s, politicians continued to fuel anti-welfare sentiment. By the 1980’s the “privatization” initiatives of the administration of President Ronald Reagan reduced services in the public sector, resulting in a dramatic decrease in the number of poor families receiving aid. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 marked a commitment by the federal government to cut funding for AFDC further. This act was comparable to earlier battles over welfare control that pitted states against the federal government. With this act, states have more individual control over the nation’s neediest citizens. With grants from the federal government, states will run their own welfare programs. To qualify for money, all states must comply with certain broad provisions, including a lifetime family benefit limit of five years. After receiving aid, recipients must also find work 649

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within two years. Other provisions include cuts in food stamps and aid to immigrants and disabled children. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act replaced AFDC with a program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This act represented a clear break with the New Deal policies begun in the 1930’s. It was based on the assumption that the poor remain poor because they lack motivation to succeed and that government assistance encourages an unproductive life. It was argued that if aid is denied, poverty will be made more brutal and people will no longer choose to remain on welfare because they will have to work. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, few people denied that the AFDC system needed to be moved forward and improved. As in earlier times, however, analysts disagreed about how to accomplish this. While some advocated minor changes, others sought to change the system completely or to abolish aid altogether. The 1990’s initiatives were criticized for failing to address the root causes of poverty in the United States, for ignoring the work done by welfare mothers in the home, and for failing to acknowledge that half of all single mothers who spend any time on AFDC are also employed during that period. Eleanor A. LaPointe Bibliography Abramovitz, Mimi. Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present. Boston: South End Press, 1988. Cozic, Charles P., and Paul A. Winters, eds. Welfare: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997. Feagin, Joe R. Subordinating the Poor: Welfare and American Beliefs. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1975. Gordon, Linda. Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare. New York: Free Press, 1994. Komisar, Lucy. Down and Out in the USA: A History of Public Welfare. Rev. ed. New York: Franklin Watts, 1977. Quadagno, Jill S. The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Rank, Mark Robert. Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Sidel, Ruth. Women and Children Last: The Plight of Poor Women in Affluent America. New York: Penguin, 1992. 650

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Tarantino, Thomas Howard, and Dismas Becker, eds. Welfare Mothers Speak Out: We Ain’t Gonna Shuffle Anymore. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972. Teghtsoonian, Katherine. “Promises, Promises: ‘Choices for Women’ in Canadian and American Child Care Policy Debates.” Feminist Studies 22 (Spring, 1996). Trattner, Walter I. From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America. 5th ed. New York: Free Press, 1994. See also: Sheppard-Towner Act (1921); Social Security Act (1935);

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996).

Banking Act of 1935 Date: August 23, 1935 U.S. Statutes at Large: 49 Stat. 684 Public law: 74-305 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

By centralizing monetary control, the Banking Act of 1935 assured businesspeople of a more stable and predictable economic environment and allowed long-range planning. The Banking Act of 1935 reorganized control of the U.S. monetary system, centralizing power in the hands of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee. Pre-1935 Conditions Prior to the act, each of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks that had been established by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 had been freer to pursue policies of their own choosing. This lack of central control had the potential to create chaotic business conditions. Businesspeople could not be sure what credit policies the Federal Reserve Banks would implement. As a result, an entrepreneur could 651

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not predict confidently whether his or her customers would face an economic upturn and easy credit in upcoming months or instead be discouraged from purchasing because of an economic downturn that might be allowed or encouraged by the local Federal Reserve Bank. Furthermore, a business could unexpectedly find itself at a competitive disadvantage in relation to a rival in another city if Federal Reserve Banks differed in their monetary policies. These types of uncertainties made business planning and forecasting difficult. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 had represented a desire to put knowledge of the economy and its monetary system to work. Its passage marked the first systematic attempt to influence the U.S. economy through monetary policy (governmental control of the national money supply and credit conditions). A committee of experts with specialized knowledge not commonly held by politicians would guide monetary policy. Concern about how to balance potential control of the monetary system for political purposes against domination of it by private banking interests led to a splitting of power between private bankers and the presidentially appointed Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board could indirectly change interest rates charged by banks or change the amount of money available to lend, by recommending to the twelve Federal Reserve Banks that they change the interest rate on loans they made to banks or by recommending purchases or sales of government bonds and bills. The Federal Reserve Board made few recommendations of either type during its first twenty years. Instead, the chief executive officers, or “governors,” of the twelve Reserve Banks took independent control of monetary policy through the Governors Conference. That group made its own policy choices, then offered them to the Federal Reserve Board for ratification. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 did not provide for this conference; its unauthorized action was indicative of private banks’ reluctance to yield to central control. In addition, the individual Federal Reserve Banks were free to ignore recommendations of the Federal Reserve Board. The New York Reserve Bank in particular acted independently. Its governor, Benjamin Strong, also acted as a powerful leader among the officials who set monetary policy for the system as a whole. Strong’s death in 1928 left the system without commanding leadership. Fol652

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lowing the 1929 stock market crash, the New York Reserve Bank favored buying government bonds from banks to provide purchasing power to the economy. It acted on this policy, but Strong’s successor was unable to persuade the rest of the Federal Reserve System to follow along. The Great Depression might have been far less severe if he had. Between the stock market crash and the banking holiday declared by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, the Federal Reserve Banks operated essentially independently, according to the beliefs of their own boards of directors. The Federal Reserve Board was weak and divided in opinion. The Open Market Investment Committee (an authorized body that replaced the Governors Conference in 1923), with one member from each Federal Reserve Bank, was similarly powerless. Each bank’s representative came to meetings with directions from the bank’s board of directors, and those banks rarely were unified in their goals. The decentralized control in the period from 1929 to 1933 led to monetary policy that has been described as inept and possibly as worsening the Depression. Banking Act of 1933 The Banking Act of 1933 set up the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), as successor to the Open Market Investment Committee, to determine appropriate bond sales or purchases for the Federal Reserve System. The FOMC also had one member from each Reserve Bank. It instituted all policy actions, and the Federal Reserve Board had only the power to approve or disapprove. Reserve Banks remained free not to participate in any open market operations recommended by the FOMC. System officials blamed inadequate powers, rather than misuse of powers, for their inability to stop the Depression’s economic contraction and to prevent bank panics and failures. Furthermore, many system officials were willing to tolerate the bank failures, seeing them as proper punishment for poor management or excessive earlier speculation in financial markets. The failures were concentrated among smaller banks and those that were not members of the Federal Reserve System, so they were of relatively little interest to the larger banks with the most influence in the system. The larger banks, in fact, saw the failures as a way of shaking their small competitors out of the market. 653

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The 1935 Act In response to the behavior of the Federal Reserve System in the 1920’s and early 1930’s, Marriner Eccles, a banker and Treasury Department official, devised a plan to correct what he saw as flaws in the monetary control system. He and many others believed that better use of monetary policy could be a powerful tool to end the Depression. Some argued that improper use of monetary policy had exaggerated the economic downturn and that, therefore, less rather than more central control was indicated. Eccles, however, wanted to implement the powers of the Federal Reserve System more broadly and to establish conscious centralized control of the monetary system. Eccles’s proposals formed the basis for Title II of the Banking Act of 1935, which stirred strong debate in Congress. Senator Carter Glass, who had helped develop the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and had coauthored the Glass-Steagall Act, particularly opposed changing the nature of the system. It was argued that a stronger Federal Reserve Board would become an arm of the political administration rather than provide independent judgment. These debates led to rewording the act to reduce control by the executive branch. The act reorganized the central bodies of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Board was renamed the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the secretary of the treasury and comptroller of the currency were dropped from membership. Each of the board’s seven members was to be appointed by the president, but their fourteen-year terms would overlap, so that no single presidential administration could appoint a majority. The FOMC was reconstituted to include all members of the Board of Governors and five presidents of Federal Reserve Banks. Those five positions would be filled by the twelve Reserve Bank presidents on a rotating basis. They were to give independent policy recommendations rather than be guided by their banks’ boards of directors as in the past. Most important, each Reserve Bank was required to follow the policies recommended by the FOMC and not operate on its own. The Board of Governors also gained the power to set reserve requirements, or the percentage of deposits that private banks in the system had to keep available to meet demands for withdrawals. The act left election of Reserve Bank presidents and vice presidents up 654

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to the banks’ boards of directors but made those choices subject to approval by the Board of Governors. These main provisions of the Banking Act of 1935 took power from the individual Reserve Banks and centralized it within the Board of Governors and FOMC. Eccles, who had been made chair of the Federal Reserve Board late in November, 1934, was chosen to chair the new Board of Governors that replaced it. Impact of the 1935 Act The most important impact of the Banking Act of 1935 was its message: In the future, there would be a centralized guiding hand behind U.S. monetary policy. Along with other New Deal reforms such as the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (which the Banking Act of 1935 amended), the act helped to persuade the American business community that there would not be another Great Depression. Businesspeople could predict a more stable American economy in which the government promoted a steady course of growth, with neither excessive unemployment nor the opposite problem, high rates of inflation. Businesspeople became relatively certain of being able to obtain bank credit for promising projects. Previously, they sometimes had faced bank loan officers who were unwilling to lend because they were uncertain about future national financial conditions and the availability of funds to their banks. Centralized and planned monetary control greatly reduced these uncertainties. Although individual banks would still fail, depositors and borrowers could rely on the Federal Reserve System to prevent largescale bank failures. Banks themselves could count on a steadier, more predictable monetary policy environment in which to conduct business. Centralization of power made it possible and profitable for businesses and especially financial speculators to monitor the FOMC and try to guess its policy decisions, which were kept secret for several weeks to avoid any disruptive effects on financial markets. A new job function of “Fed watcher” thus was created. Formal centralization of control did not end debates concerning independence of the Federal Reserve System. Individual bankers still wanted influence within the system, and the Treasury Department was unwilling to relinquish control of the system completely. The Board of Governors agreed at first to cooperate with the Treasury by buying government bonds, as a means of keeping 655

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bond prices high to aid the financing of government operations. In 1936, the Board of Governors also exercised its new power to raise the required reserve rate. This acted to reduce the amount of money available to the financial system, more than offsetting the effects of bond purchases. The combined policy contributed to a minor recession in 1936 and 1937. Congress then proposed very specific guidelines for establishing monetary policy, leaving little room for discretion on the part of Federal Reserve System officials. The proposal was not made law, but system officials heeded the implicit warning to coordinate plans with other government agencies. The Board of Governors and FOMC chose not to exercise their powers to any great degree during the 1930’s, generally letting recovery from the Depression run its course. During World War II, the Reserve Banks agreed to cooperate with the Treasury’s borrowing, buying Treasury bonds to maintain their price and keep interest rates low. As the war neared its end, however, the Treasury’s desire to keep interest rates low conflicted with the FOMC’s wish to restrain the growth of the money supply as a means of preventing inflation. The Employment Act of 1946 stated that the government had a responsibility to use all of its tools in a coordinated fashion to maximize employment, production, and purchasing power. Implicitly, the act recognized that neither fiscal policy (use of government powers to tax and spend) nor monetary policy alone was powerful enough to control the U.S. economy. The FOMC continued to buy Treasury bond issues, but Federal Reserve System officials argued more strongly against the constraint that this cooperation imposed on their decisions. In March, 1951, an agreement was reached under which the FOMC was no longer responsible for supporting the price of Treasury bonds. That left the system without a clear and specific policy objective. The public had begun to believe in the power of monetary policy, so Federal Reserve System officials wanted to state clearly how that policy would be used. An appropriate growth rate of the money supply was chosen as one objective. The FOMC would provide enough money to finance business expansion without causing inflation. The second objective was to vary credit conditions countercyclically, reducing credit availability during business expansions and allowing easier credit during contractions, as a means of offsetting business cycles. The 656

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Board of Governors and the FOMC began to exercise their powers of central control in a manner basically independent of political or private business interests. A. J. Sobczak Sources for Further Study Broaddus, Alfred. A Primer on the Fed. Richmond, Va.: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 1988. Clifford, Albert Jerome. The Independence of the Federal Reserve System. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965. Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. Krooss, Herman E., ed. Documentary History of Banking and Currency in the United States. New York: Chelsea House, 1969. Moore, Carl H. The Federal Reserve System: A History of the First Seventyfive Years. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1990. Patman, Wright. The Federal Reserve System: A Study Prepared for the Use of the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976. Saint-Phalle, Thibaut de. The Federal Reserve An Intentional Mystery. New York: Praeger, 1985. See also: Federal Reserve Act (1913); McFadden Act (1927); Banking Act of 1933 (1933); Employment Act (1946).

Neutrality Acts Date: August 31, 1935; February 29, 1936; May 1, 1937; Novem-

ber 4, 1939

U.S. Statutes at Large: 49 Stat. 1081 (1935); 49 Stat. 1153 (1936);

50 Stat. 121 (1937); 54 Stat. 4 (1939) Categories: Foreign Relations

Strong isolationist sentiment during the 1930’s prompted this legislation to prevent foreign entanglements. 657

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Foreign policy was of secondary importance in the estimation of most people in the United States during the early 1930’s, as the nation was preoccupied with the struggle to recover from the Great Depression. By 1935, however, a congressional movement had been initiated to formulate legislative safeguards that would prevent the United States from becoming involved in foreign entanglements. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull supported such safeguards, so long as the chief executive retained discretionary power in their application. Ignoring the president’s wishes, Congress passed a series of neutrality acts in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939, limiting presidential options. Although these acts demonstrated the strength of isolationist sentiment, they could not keep the United States out of a second world war. Need for Neutrality The neutrality acts stemmed, in large part, from a reevaluation of the reasons for the United States’ entry into World War I. Noteworthy in this regard was Senator Gerald P. Nye, a North Dakota Republican, who chaired the committee investigating the munitions industry and seeking evidence of possible economic pressures leading to the nation’s involvement in World War I. Supported by a vigorous peace lobby in 1934, Nye dramatically publicized the thesis that the United States had been duped into entering World War I to assist unscrupulous armaments producers and bankers, so-called merchants of death, who stood to profit financially by an Allied victory. This conclusion strengthened an existing feeling that some kind of neutrality legislation, which included an arms embargo, was needed to prevent such a catastrophe in the future. In March, 1935, with public opinion staunchly against involvement in any future war, Roosevelt asked the Nye Committee to study the neutrality question and formulate appropriate legislation. Entrusted with this new task, Nye and his colleagues proposed several resolutions, one of which prohibited the export of arms and ammunition to all belligerents. Because Nye’s resolutions did not give the president the authority to distinguish between aggressors and victims or to embargo the sale of arms to aggressors exclusively, Roosevelt had the Department of State draft legislation that did so. The State Department measure was lost when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dominated by two isolationist sena658

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tors, William E. Borah of Idaho and Hiram W. Johnson of California, produced its own bill. First Neutrality Act The Foreign Relations Committee measure, approved by both the Senate and the House, was to last six months. It provided for an impartial arms embargo of nations engaged in a conflict recognized by the president, prohibited U.S. ships from carrying war matériel to belligerents, and recommended that U.S. citizens be warned against traveling on belligerent ships. Roosevelt opposed the mandatory embargo and regretted that the act did not apply to nonmunitions war materials. Nevertheless, he accepted the bill on August 31, fearing that a failure to do so would adversely affect domestic reforms then under consideration in Congress and believing that he could persuade the legislators to revise the act by the time it expired on February 29, 1936. Second Neutrality Act Unfortunately for Roosevelt, a State Department neutrality resolution of January 3, 1936, which gave the president discretionary authority to limit the sale of raw materials to belligerents, ran into serious opposition from Nye, Borah, Johnson, and other isolationists. With the expiration date of the 1935 measure fast approaching, Congress, in mid-February, passed a new act slightly more stringent than the first. Extending the basic provisions of the first act, the Second Neutrality Act also required the president to extend the arms embargo to any third party that became involved in a conflict and forbade loans by U.S. citizens to belligerents. Recognizing that there was no chance for the State Department measure and wary of creating an antiadministration issue in an election year, Roosevelt signed the Second Neutrality Act on February 29, 1936. Third Neutrality Act Like its predecessor, the Second Neutrality Act carried an expiration date: May 1, 1937. When Congress began to debate a new measure in early 1937, neither the wisdom of the basic principle of keeping the United States out of war nor the implementation of this goal through an arms embargo was questioned. As the nation emerged from the Depression, however, pressure mounted for 659

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some kind of compromise that would permit business as usual with Europe, even in wartime. Bernard M. Baruch, a noted financier, suggested that a practical solution would be a cash-and-carry formula. He reasoned that if U.S. businesses could sell goods, with the exception of arms, on the basis of immediate delivery and payment by the buyer, the risk of U.S. involvement in war would be minimized. Both Roosevelt and the advocates of strict neutrality favored the cash-and-carry plan, the president believing it would favor Great Britain, the European state controlling the sea. The new, permanent neutrality bill that emerged in April retained the mandatory embargo on arms, the ban on loans, and the prohibition on travel; but it gave the president discretion, until May 1, 1939, to place all belligerent trade except arms under the cash-and-carry formula. On May 1, the Third Neutrality Act, having passed both the House and the Senate, was signed by Roosevelt. Two months later, in the first test of this act, the futility of legislating for unforeseen diplomatic contingencies was revealed. In July, 1937, without a declaration of war, Japan launched a full-scale attack against China. Adherence to the neutrality act would work to the advantage of the aggressor, Japan, whose powerful navy dominated the seas off the coast of China. Therefore, Roosevelt made no official recognition of the conflict, and the neutrality act was not implemented in East Asia. In the months that followed, Roosevelt had little reason to suspect that isolationism was losing strength. Public reaction to his call for collective security, given in his Chicago “Quarantine Speech” of October 5, 1937, was mixed. The Ludlow Amendment, requiring a favorable national referendum before a declaration of war, was only narrowly defeated in the House on January 10, 1938. Alarm in the United States at the ominous trend of events in Europe and the Far East must be attributed to the nation’s relaxation of its policy of strict neutrality. In March, 1938, Adolf Hitler’s Germany annexed Austria and began to make demands on Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, the Japanese extended their aggression in China. Fourth Neutrality Act By the beginning of 1939, Roosevelt had concluded that the neutrality act of 1937 needed revision. On January 4, in his state of the union address, the president warned of increasing threats to peace and pointed out that U.S. neutrality laws could operate unfairly, 660

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giving aid to aggressors and denying it to victims. Although he knew that Congress would not agree to a discretionary arms embargo, Roosevelt hoped it might agree to modify the law allowing for the sale of arms on a cash-and-carry basis. While Germany and other aggressors would be eligible, the administration anticipated that Great Britain and France would benefit most, because of their control of the sea. In April, with the president’s approval, Senator Key Pittman of Nevada introduced a resolution providing for the repeal of the arms embargo and the placing of all trade with belligerents on a cash-and-carry basis. Congress, under the influence of Borah, Johnson, and Nye, who were adamant in their opposition, rejected the proposal. Congress’s attitude toward a revision of the 1937 law changed after Germany’s assault on Poland on September 1, 1939. Learning from discussions with a number of legislators that a repeal of the arms embargo might be possible, Roosevelt called Congress into special session on September 23. Reiterating his belief that the existing law aided aggression, the president requested that the sale of all goods, including arms, be placed on a cash-and-carry basis. By shrewdly courting Southern conservatives, dispensing patronage, and securing indefatigable public relations work by internationalists, the president succeeded in pushing his revision through Congress by a close vote. On November 4, 1939, Roosevelt signed the Fourth Neutrality Act, and the United States took its first step toward becoming the arsenal of democracy. George Q. Flynn, updated by Bruce J. DeHart Sources for Further Study Cole, Wayne S. Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932-1945. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Davis, Kenneth S. FDR: The New Deal Years, 1933-1937 and FDR: Into the Storm, 1937-1940. New York: Random House, 1986, 1993. Divine, Robert A. The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965. See also: Ogdensburg Agreement (1940); Lend-Lease Act (1941). 661

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Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act Also known as: Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination Act Date: June 19, 1936 U.S. Statutes at Large: 49 Stat. 1526 U.S. Code: 15 § 13 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade

The Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act amended the Clayton Act of 1914 to make it more difficult for firms to charge different prices to different buyers, particularly if the buyers were businesses buying to resell. The Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act was passed in order to strengthen the provisions of the Clayton Act (1914) with regard to price discrimination. Price Discrimination Price discrimination occurs when a seller charges different prices to different buyers for the same product or service when there are no comparable differences in the cost of serving the different customers. For example, barbershops and film theaters commonly charge children less than adults; electricity rates are often higher for residential customers than for businesses. Charging different prices to different buyers can often increase profits for the sellers, provided that the seller can separate the markets so favored buyers do not resell to the less favored ones, and provided that demand is significantly less sensitive to price in one market than in another. During the notorious “trust movement” of the late nineteenth century, it was often asserted that aggressive and predatory firms such as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company used price discrimination as a means of harassing rivals. The big trust might offer its product for sale at a very low price in the area served by the smaller and weaker rival, thereby “persuading” the rival firm to enter into collusion with the trust or to sell out to it on favorable terms. At the same time, the trust might be selling at a much higher price in other localities, with the price limited by people’s ability to 662

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buy cheaply in one area and ship for resale into an area with higher prices. Because of the ill repute of price discrimination, it was explicitly outlawed by section 2 of the Clayton Act of 1914, in situations in which its effect “may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce.” If price differences reflected differences in grade, quality, quantity, costs of selling, or costs of transportation, they were not discriminatory. Furthermore, a discriminatory price offered “in good faith to meet competition” would not be illegal. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), created in 1914, was given the principal responsibility for enforcing the act, responding mainly to complaints from injured parties. Not many cases were brought by the FTC, and its efforts to prevent price discrimination met with a number of rebuffs from the courts. Chain Stores Strong pressure to amend the Clayton Act reflected a shift in focus. During the 1920’s, the United States economy experienced a large increase in the activity of chain stores such as the A&P grocery chain and mass marketers such as Sears Roebuck. Because of their size, these firms were often able to gain price concessions from their suppliers, price concessions that worked to the competitive disadvantage of smaller wholesalers and retailers trying to compete with such large operations as A&P or Sears. The FTC completed an exhaustive report on chain stores in 1934 and provided examples of the preferential treatment of large buyers. The FTC also issued a complaint against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company alleging that unlawful price discrimination was involved in its contract to sell tires to Sears at cost plus 6 percent. The commission alleged that Sears was gaining an advantage of 29 to 40 percent over its retail competitors by this discriminatory pricing arrangement. Political efforts to limit chain store activities were undertaken by independent wholesalers and retailers on a number of fronts. A number of states, for example, levied special taxes on chain stores. The lobbying efforts intensified when the depression following 1929 drove many small firms out of business. The legal counsel for the United States Wholesale Grocers Association drafted a bill to amend the price discrimination law to make it a stronger protection for smaller firms against mass distributors. Senator Joseph T. 663

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Robinson of Arkansas and Representative Wright Patman of Texas introduced the bill in Congress, where it was commonly known as the “Anti-Chain-Store” Act. In Senate debate, Senator Marvel Mills Logan of Kentucky presented the major arguments for the bill. Amending the Clayton Act The Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act was approved on June 19, 1936. The test criterion of illegal discrimination was broadened: Discrimination was now illegal if its effect might be “to injure, destroy, or prevent competition with any person who either grants or knowingly receives the benefit of such discrimination, or with customers of either of them.” The thrust of this change was that price discrimination might be illegal if it simply caused injury to some competitor, even if the vigor of competition itself was not impaired and no monopoly was created. The law was also amended to justify quantity discounts only if they made “due allowance” for cost differences; thus firms accused of illegal price discrimination might be required to present data on the costs of handling orders and shipments of different sizes. Whereas the Clayton Act permitted discriminatory pricing “to meet competition,” the Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act restricted this provision; firms could make price cuts “to meet the equally low price of a competitor” but presumably not to undercut that price. The FTC was given authority to set limits on quantity discounts if it found that “available purchasers in greater quantities are so few as to render differentials on account thereof unjustly discriminatory or promotive of monopoly.” In other words, a price reduction might be illegal even if it could be shown to reflect proportionately lower costs, if it appeared to give monopoly power to one or two very large buyers, such as Sears or A&P. The FTC has never invoked such restrictions. Large purchasers were often able to dispense with the services of brokers in dealing with suppliers. They would sometimes pressure their suppliers to give them price concessions in lieu of the brokerage charges those suppliers might have paid under different conditions. The 1936 law prohibited such brokerage allowances when no independent broker was involved. Special provisions such as promotional allowances, advertising allowances, and services or facilities provided by sellers were required to be available to all businesses that bought a company’s products, on “proportionally 664

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equal” terms. If Coca-Cola Company, for example, were willing to subsidize Kroger’s advertising of Coke, it had to make similar subsidies available to smaller retail firms, proportional perhaps to their purchases of Coke during the previous year. Enforcement Enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act, like that of the original Clayton Act, was primarily through the FTC, which was authorized to issue orders to “cease and desist” when it found evidence of illegal price discrimination. These orders carried no direct penalty, and if the firms continued their violations, the FTC had to go to court to make its orders hold up. The 1936 law also provided that injured parties could sue for damages. Criminal prosecutions could be brought by the Justice Department, but this had not happened by 1990. In the first twelve years following the Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act, the FTC issued 186 cease-and-desist orders involving price discrimination. Of these, 104 were based on the prohibitions against paying brokerage allowances where no brokers’ services were involved. Immediately after passage of the act, the A&P grocery chain began to insist that its suppliers provide price concessions equal to former brokerage allowances, those concessions now to take the form of quantity discounts. The FTC moved quickly to block this and was upheld in the courts. In some other brokerage allowance cases, prohibitions appear to have been directed unfairly against independent purchasing agencies and cooperative buying agencies serving small firms. The next most frequent type of complaint concerned promotional allowances, subsidies and services made available to large buyers on a discriminatory basis. The FTC issued fifty-four such cease-and-desist orders up to the beginning of 1948. For example, Corn Products Refining Company was ordered to stop paying to advertise products of the Curtiss Candy Company, since it was not comparably advertising for smaller customers. The Elizabeth Arden cosmetics firm was ordered to stop its policy of supplying demonstrators to help its large retail customers sell its products, since smaller retailers were not offered similar opportunities. The FTC also dealt with a number of cases involving quantity discounts. Firms offering discounts on individual orders sometimes successfully showed cost justifications, but price concessions based 665

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on cumulative orders over a sustained period were usually banned. Morton Salt, for example, was permitted to sell more cheaply for carload shipments than for less-than-carload shipments but not to offer further discounts based on the number of cases purchased over a twelve-month period. Ironically, there have been very few cases of local price cutting such as those attributed to the old predatory trusts. Some such considerations were involved in a case involving the Utah Pie Company, a small local enterprise that lost significant sales in its home territory when major national firms made discriminatory price reductions for sales in Salt Lake City. The Supreme Court found the discrimination illegal in Utah Pie Company v. Continental Baking Company (1967) even though Utah Pie continued to be profitable during the price war. The FTC was able to use the Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act as the basis for an attack on systems of delivered pricing for certain heavy products such as steel, cement, and corn syrup. These involved the so-called “basing point” system, under which customers in a given locality would find all suppliers quoting identical delivered prices, regardless of how close the supplier might be. A seller shipping from a longer distance would realize a smaller net price after paying shipping charges. The pricing system was employed as a way for sellers to avoid direct price competition with one another. A series of cases in 1945 and 1948 found that such pricing systems violated the Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act. Assessment The Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act has not been well regarded by economists studying antitrust policy. Firms competing actively for business may often charge different prices to different customers, and such practices need not lead to oppressive monopoly. Wholesale and retail trade, on which much of the litigation has focused, is generally characterized by easy entry for new firms and absence of sizable economies of large-scale operation. Those characteristics make it unlikely that dangerous monopoly will arise. The A&P grocery chain, which was a primary target of the law, has faded into insignificance so apparently did not benefit greatly from any monopoly power. A large proportion of FTC orders relating to price discrimination have involved the food products indus666

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try, which is highly competitive. Critics of the law hold that it had the purpose and effect of reducing the vigor of competition. They argue that the test of illegality has often been whether some competitor was injured by a low price, rather than whether the vigor of competition itself was impaired. Competition potentially injures competitors but is desirable (according to economists) as a way of improving efficiency and securing high-quality products at low prices for consumers. Defenders of the law argue that large firms have strategic advantages that do not reflect superior quality or efficiency and that it is appropriate to counterbalance these. For example, large firms may be in a better position to lobby for preferential treatment by government units or to engage in costly lawsuits against smaller rivals. Only about 6 percent of the FTC complaints involving price discrimination issued between 1961 and 1974, however, involved firms with more than $100 million in annual sales. Many relatively small firms face the possibility of being cited for violations, and the law has given rise to a large and confusing body of litigation. The consensus among economists is that the RobinsonPatman Antidiscrimination Act is one of many well-intentioned pieces of economic micromanagement that has ended up generating more costs than benefits. Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Adelman, Morris A. A&P: A Study in Price-Cost Behavior and Public Policy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959. Benson, Bruce L., and M. L. Greenhut. “Special Interests, Bureaucrats, and Antitrust: An Explanation of the Antitrust Paradox.” In Antitrust and Regulation, edited by Ronald E. Grieson. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1986. Blackburn, John D., and Elliot I. Klayman. The Legal Environment of Business, edited by Martin H. Malin. 4th ed. Homewood, Ill.: Irwin, 1991. Blair, Roger D., and David L. Kaserman. Antitrust Economics. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1985. Dirlam, Joel B., and Alfred E. Kahn. Fair Competition: The Law and Economics of Antitrust Policy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1954. 667

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Kintner, Earl W., ed. Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes: A Legislative History. 11 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978, 1982-1985. Patman, Wright. Complete Guide to the Robinson-Patman Act. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963. Purdy, Harry L., Martin L. Lindahl, and William A. Carter. Corporate Concentration and Public Policy. 2d ed. New York: PrenticeHall, 1950. Scherer, Frederic M. Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980. Seplaki, Les. Antitrust and the Economics of the Market. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. See also: Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Federal Trade Commission

Act (1914); Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937).

Oklahoma Welfare Act Date: June 26, 1936 U.S. Statutes at Large: 49 Stat. 1967 U.S. Code: 25 § 501 Categories: Native Americans

This act made provision for all Indian tribes, bands, or groups in Oklahoma to adopt a constitution allowing for self-government; the act also allowed the secretary of the interior to purchase land to be held in trust for all Oklahoma Indians, and allowed small groups of Indians to form a local cooperative association and receive interest-free loans from the Revolving Loan Fund for Indians. A major reform of U.S. policy toward American Indians resulted in the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA, or Wheeler-Howard Act), enacted by Congress on June 18, 1934. With this act, further allotment of tribal lands to individual Indians was prohibited, purchase of additional lands for Indians by the secretary of the interior was authorized, and a fund (the Revolving Loan Fund for Indians) was 668

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established that could be used for tribal enterprises. The IRA allowed and encouraged the tribes or groups to adopt written constitutions allowing for self-government, gave Indians applying for positions in the Bureau of Indian Affairs preference over other applicants, and called for very strict conservation practices on Indian lands. Oklahoma, however, was excluded from the IRA because the IRA was essentially a system of reservation government, and it was deemed inappropriate for Oklahoma because, at the time of statehood, the Five Civilized Tribes had given up their autonomy. In 1936, the benefits of the IRA were extended to Oklahoma by way of a separate statute, the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act. This act authorized the secretary of the interior to purchase, at his discretion, good agricultural and grazing land, from within or without reservations, to hold in trust for the tribe, band, group, or individual Indian for whose benefit the land was acquired. Title to all lands was to be taken in the name of the United States and held by the United States. All land was exempt from any and all federal taxes, but the state of Oklahoma could levy and collect a gross production tax upon all oil and gas produced from the land. The secretary of the interior was responsible for overseeing the payment of these taxes to Oklahoma. Any tribe or band in the state of Oklahoma was given the right to organize for its common welfare and could adopt a constitution and bylaws; these had to follow the rules and regulations set forth by the secretary of the interior. Any ten or more Indians, as determined by the official tribe rolls, or Indian descendants of such enrolled members, in convenient proximity to each other, could be chartered as a local cooperative association for the following purposes: credit administration, production, marketing, consumers’ protection, or land management. Funds from the Revolving Loan Fund for Indians could be used to provide interest-free loans to these groups. Lynn M. Mason Sources for Further Study Deloria, Vine, ed. The Indian Reorganization Act: Congresses and Bills. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002. Kelly, Lawrence C. “The Indian Reorganization Act: The Dream and the Reality.” Pacific Historical Review 44 (August, 1975): 291312. 669

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Kelly, William H., ed. Indian Affairs and the Indian Reorganization Act: The Twenty Year Record. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1954. Philp, Kenneth R. John Collier’s Crusade for Indian Reform, 19201954. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977. Taylor, Graham D. The New Deal and American Indian Tribalism: The Administration of the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934-1945. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980. See also: General Allotment Act (1887); Burke Act (1906); Indian Citizenship Act (1924); Indian Reorganization Act (1934).

Reciprocal Trade Act Date: November 11, 1936 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Foreign Relations;

Treaties and Agreements

The treaty was the first reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and Canada since 1854. A reciprocal trade agreement between two nations provides for both countries to reduce tariffs on trade goods. Such agreements between the United States and Canada date to 1854. Canadian-U.S. Trade Agreements: Nineteenth Century British diplomats had begun negotiations with Washington two years earlier. They were unable to reach a conclusion at the time, however, because of a dispute over fishing rights off the eastern coast of Canada. Negotiations continued until the fisheries dispute was resolved and a reciprocity treaty was signed on June 6, 1854. This treaty allowed fishermen from the United States the right to catch fish in the Atlantic coastal fisheries off Newfoundland, which were then the richest fishing grounds in the world. British fishing boats were granted permission to operate in U.S. coastal waters off Maine. The agreement also created a list of free goods, such as timber, wheat, and corn, that both countries would not tax. Trade increased rapidly after ratification of this treaty. 670

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In 1866, because of complaints from U.S. farmers, the United States repealed its part of the agreement. The Civil War had ended a year earlier, which enabled many veterans to resume farming; they protested loudly against free importation of Canadian grain, so reciprocity was ended. The Canadians wanted a new agreement, however, and in 1871 sent a delegation to Washington, D.C., to open trade talks. Nothing came of the talks, and the 1871 Treaty of Washington barely mentioned reciprocity. Early Twentieth Century The issue was not raised again until 1911. Canada’s finance minister, William S. Fielding, told the House of Commons that negotiations with the United States would begin immediately. The goal was to obtain as much free trade as possible, and Fielding suggested that once that was accomplished, the Canadian economy would flourish and unemployment would decline rapidly. A loud protest from workers and industrialists in Ontario indicated that many Canadians did not agree. These protesters argued that reciprocity and free trade would be a tremendous advantage for powerful industries in the United States, such as steel and textile companies, who would flood Canada with huge amounts of goods, driving Canadian industries into bankruptcy and costing thousands of jobs. Trade became the major issue in the election of that year. Conservatives denounced reciprocity in the campaign and won the election, bringing an end to discussions of free trade with the United States. In 1924, both nations signed a treaty limiting halibut fishing off the coast of Washington and British Columbia, but reciprocity talks continued to falter. Republican administrations in the United States wanted only one thing from the Canadians, an agreement to construct the St. Lawrence Seaway linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. This massive project would make it easier to ship grain from the Midwest to Europe and, it was hoped, greatly improve the prosperity of farmers in the region. By 1932, it seemed as if negotiations on this project were about completed. President Herbert Hoover signed an agreement in July with the Canadians, but the Senate was unable to get the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution for ratification. The major opposition came from senators opposed to the seaway’s projected high costs. The seaway would not be constructed for another twenty-five years. 671

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Roosevelt Administration Canadian-U.S. relations improved greatly after the inauguration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. He promoted a Good Neighbor Policy with all nations in the Western Hemisphere, which included support for reciprocal trade agreements. Talks with Canada began in 1934 but were not concluded until two years later. Roosevelt had signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, significantly lowering tariffs on many items. This bilateral agreement was not satisfactory, however, to the newly elected Liberal government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. King, a fervent advocate of reciprocal trade agreements, led a delegation to Washington to discuss such an agreement with representatives of the Department of State. Secretary of State Cordell Hull headed the U.S. negotiating team. Hull favored reducing trade restrictions with as many nations as possible, but he faced considerable criticism for his position within his own Democratic Party and especially from conservatives in the Republican Party. He knew it would be difficult to win the twothirds majority vote in the Senate for approval of any bill reducing tariffs. Many conservatives in both parties thought higher tariffs rather than lower presented the best opportunity for protecting jobs. The Great Depression, they argued, made it necessary for countries to protect themselves from competition from outside states by building a high tariff wall. The U.S. secretary of state wanted Canada and the United States to reach an agreement quickly. This, he explained to the Canadians, would demonstrate to the rest of the world, especially the Europeans, that persons of goodwill could still sit down and negotiate peacefully. The Germans, Italians, and Japanese seemed to prefer war or economic suicide to any attempt to discuss seriously the mutual sacrifices required by reciprocal trade treaties. The United States and Canada could show world leaders an alternate course for resolving economic problems. Friendly nations had to show that talking still could produce results. The fact that the King government recently had signed a bilateral agreement with the German Nazis angered Hull, but he indicated that it would not stand in the way of the current discussions. It was hoped that reciprocal trade agreements could reduce conflict in the world and provide an alternative to cut-throat methods of bilateral trading, with each nation looking out only for its own narrow self-interest. 672

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The Need for Free Trade Hull believed that unless freer world trade was provided for, the nations of Europe and the Far East would face continued economic strife and chaos. Economic disaster would affect all countries and bring about an even worse financial collapse than the Great Depression. Only a broad program to remove excessive trade barriers, he told the Canadian delegation, could save the situation. The world needed a policy of equal treatment for all nations and a method to promote and protect fair trade methods and practices. If nations such as the United States and Canada refused to take the first steps in this direction, catastrophic consequences awaited the peoples of the world. Such warnings of the terrible consequences of failure encouraged a quick end to negotiations. The final result, the Reciprocal Trade Act of 1936, produced far fewer reductions in trade barriers than had been gained in 1854, but it proved satisfactory to both sides. The United States agreed to admit limited amounts of cream, cattle, lumber, and potatoes with significantly reduced rates. In return, Canada accepted more manufactured goods from the United States. Liberals hoped that this trade would produce higher incomes for Canadian farmers, loggers, and ranchers. They also predicted it would reduce Canada’s economic dependence on the United States. As it turned out, it made little difference. Both policies, the high tariffs favored by Conservatives in the 1920’s and the Liberal support for freer trade, had the same result: They increased Canadian economic dependence on the United States. From 1923 to 1935, the period of the highest tariffs on U.S. manufactured goods, the number of U.S.-owned factories and businesses in Canada increased from 524 to 816. U.S. goods were kept out, but corporations bought the factories or built new ones in Canada rather than pay the increased rates. As one Canadian economist expressed the situation, it made little difference whether Canadians were buried by U.S. exports or U.S. branch plants—they would lose control of their economy either way. The 1936 agreement remained in effect until 1947, when both nations signed a general agreement that superseded prior trade treaties. Leslie V. Tischauser 673

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Sources for Further Study Corbett, Percy E. The Settlement of Canadian-American Disputes: A Critical Study of Meetings and Results. New Haven: Conn.: Yale University Press, 1937. McInnis, Edgar. Canada: A Political and Social History. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1990. U.S. Department of State. British Dominions and Canada. Vol. 1 in Papers Relating to the Foreign Policy of the United States, 1936. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1951. Welles, Sumner. Seven Decisions That Shaped History. New York: Harper, 1951. See also: Treaty of Washington (1871); Halibut Treaty (1924);

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930); Good Neighbor Policy (1933); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947).

Marihuana Tax Act Date: August 2, 1937 U.S. Statutes at Large: 50 Stat. 551 Public law: 75-238 Categories: Agriculture; Food and Drugs; Tariffs and Taxation

The law created an occupational excise tax imposed on everyone involved with producing, processing, trading, or using the various products of the hemp plant. With the Marihuana Tax Act, the federal government set out to suppress illicit uses of the hemp plant while not disrupting its industrial or medicinal uses. Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of narcotics of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics of the U.S. Treasury Department, drafted the proposal for the Marihuana Tax Act. On April 14, 1937, Representative Robert L. Doughton (North Carolina) introduced the bill, which was designed to control the trade in marijuana and suppress illicit use of the substance. Anybody involved with handling the plant or its products was to obtain a license and register with the Internal Revenue Service. Taxes on the 674

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handling of marijuana would range from one to twenty-four dollars. In response to criticism from hemp producers, their tax was reduced from five dollars in the original bill to one dollar in the final act. Hemp producers believed that the higher tax would have forced small growers out of business. Thomas Winter Source for Further Study Solomon, David, ed. The Marihuana Papers. New York: New American Library, 1968. See also: Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906); Opium Exclusion Act

(1909); Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914); Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938); Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970); National Narcotics Act (1984).

Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act Date: August 17, 1937 U.S. Statutes at Large: 50 Stat. 693 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Copyrights, Patents,

and Trademarks

By allowing manufacturers to maintain minimum prices, the MillerTydings Act promised small retailers protection from chain-store competition, but adverse court decisions and changing economic circumstances diminished the impact of the law. The Miller-Tydings Act of 1937 amended the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 so as to legalize retail price maintenance, thus allowing manufacturers to maintain minimum prices for the sale of their goods. Manufacturers used retail price maintenance to protect their goodwill, hoping that high prices would keep retailers from cutting services to customers. Independent retailers hoped that retail price maintenance would eliminate price competition from 675

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chain stores. Prior to the act, the courts had held retail price maintenance to be in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. Anti-Chain Store Movement The Miller-Tydings Act embodied the anti-chain store sentiment prevalent in the 1920’s and 1930’s. During the early twentieth century, independent retailers had confronted new types of competition as department stores appeared in large cities and mail-order houses began to sell goods throughout the nation. The rapid rise of chain stores in the 1920’s further eroded the market share of small businesses. Chain stores attracted customers by offering prices lower than those of their single-store competitors. This form of mass marketing spread rapidly as the automobile connected small towns to larger urban markets. Chain stores sales continued to increase during the cost-conscious Depression years, and by 1935 the chains handled nearly one-fourth of all retail sales. Independent retailers responded by sponsoring advertising campaigns encouraging Americans to “trade at home” and by boycotting those manufacturers that sold to chain stores. Ambitious politicians also seized upon anti-chain store sentiment to attract the votes of independent merchants and others critical of big business. The anti-chain store movement gained additional momentum in the South and West, where politicians played on the populist fear of “outside” corporations controlling local economies. This movement found expression in state laws that discriminated against chain stores. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, almost every state imposed punitive taxes upon chain stores. The Drive for Fair Trade During the early twentieth century, organized merchants had tried to overcome the competitive advantage of mass marketers by urging manufacturers to fix minimum retail prices, a practice known as retail price maintenance or “fair trade.” The Supreme Court, however, ruled against retail price fixing. Manufacturers and retailers interested in retail price maintenance then sought to secure the passage of laws legalizing fair trade. The American Fair Trade League (AFTL) and the National Association of Retail Druggists (NARD) led this drive for fair trade. The AFTL represented manufacturers of trademarked goods that wished to use fair trade as a 676

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means to protect their goodwill. By maintaining minimum prices, manufacturers hoped to attract those retailers interested in emphasizing quality and service rather than price. As chain stores increased their market share, however, many manufacturers sought higher sales volume and abandoned retail price maintenance. The druggists hoped to increase their profit margins and reduce chain store competition. The NARD, widely considered to be one of the most powerful trade associations in the country, conducted intense, well-organized campaigns in support of fair trade legislation. In 1931, California enacted a fair trade law drafted by the NARD, and several other states quickly followed suit. In 1936, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of these laws. Thereafter, fair trade advocates met with virtually no opposition on the state level. In 1937 alone, twenty-eight states passed fair trade laws, and by 1940, a total of forty-four had enacted some form of this legislation. At the federal level, however, proponents of fair trade met resistance from within the executive and legislative branches of the government. The Federal Trade Commission had always opposed fair trade legislation on the grounds that it lessened competition and violated the spirit of antitrust legislation. Since 1914, Congress had also rejected bills aimed at legalizing retail price maintenance. Thus, the impact of state fair trade laws remained limited because products sold in interstate commerce, under federal law, could not be subject to fair trade agreements. Drafting and Passage Having failed to secure a national fair trade law, the proponents of retail price maintenance sought the passage of permissive legislation allowing states to settle the issue. In 1935, the NARD enhanced its influence by hiring Herbert Levy, a law partner of Senator Millard Tydings (Democrat from Maryland). Levy persuaded Tydings to sponsor a bill drafted by the NARD. Representative John E. Miller (Democrat from Arkansas) introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives. Tydings’s bill met with opposition from Representative Emanuel Celler (Democrat from New York), who feared it would reduce price competition. President Franklin D. Roosevelt also expressed his belief that the bill would increase the cost of living and slow recovery by removing purchasing power from the economy. Congressional supporters, 677

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however, played on sentiments in favor of states’ rights by emphasizing that the law merely gave the states the right to determine their position on fair trade. In July, 1937, Tydings hoped to avoid a presidential veto by attaching his bill as a rider to a bill granting appropriations to the District of Columbia. Despite the opposition of consumer groups and nearly all economists, Congress passed this legislation by an overwhelming margin. President Roosevelt criticized the use of this evasive tactic but signed the bill into law on August 17, 1937. Provisions and Impact By amending the Sherman Act, this law granted an antitrust exemption for retail price maintenance agreements. Manufacturers of trademarked or brand-name goods could now prohibit retailers from selling their product below a minimum price. Tydings neglected to incorporate a nonsigner clause that would make retail price maintenance agreements binding on all merchants within a state. This defect would later allow the Supreme Court effectively to nullify the law. Although technically an antitrust law, the MillerTydings Act did not authorize the Federal Trade Commission to police resale price agreements; instead, Congress left it to manufacturers to enforce their own fair trade contracts. The Miller-Tydings Act of 1937 expanded the marketing options of manufacturers by allowing them to emphasize quality and service rather than price. The act also reflected congressional concern with the fate of small business. Along with other legislation such as the Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act of 1936 (which limited the quantity discounts available to chain stores), this law aimed to reduce the competitive advantage of discounters. Independent retailers hoped that the elimination of price competition would enable them to compete more successfully with mass marketers. The impact of the Miller-Tydings Act varied from trade to trade. Retail price maintenance flourished in oligopolistic industries with trade associations strong enough to enforce compliance with fair trade agreements. Manufacturers found that they could maintain minimum prices on luxury goods that already sold at a high profit margin. Thus, retail price maintenance spread most rapidly in drugs, cosmetics, jewelry, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, books, electrical appliances, cameras, and hardware. In 1950, the number 678

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of manufacturers engaged in retail price maintenance peaked at approximately sixteen hundred. Despite the success of retail price maintenance in these fields, less than 10 percent of all goods were sold under fair trade contracts. Several factors limited the appeal of retail price maintenance. First, manufacturers using this tactic still faced price competition from other manufacturers, so the minimum prices set could not be too high. In addition, mass marketers responded to retail price maintenance by adopting an increasing number of private brands, especially in the grocery trade. Discounters also offered rebates and accepted trade-ins as a way to evade retail price agreements. Many price cutters simply flouted the law, confident that manufacturers could not afford to enforce their fair trade contracts. Indeed, several leading consumer goods manufacturers, including General Electric and the Sheaffer Pen Company, initially pursued a policy of price maintenance but abandoned this marketing strategy because the costs of enforcement were too high. Other manufacturers paid lip service to fair trade while at the same time seeking high sales volume through chain stores. The Decline of “Fair Trade” The Miller-Tydings Act failed to satisfy the demands of independent retailers hungry for higher margins. Ironically, the high margins on fair trade products attracted mass marketers, thus intensifying competition. Although the price of fair trade products increased after passage of this act, the NARD and other trade associations still criticized manufacturers for setting their minimum prices too low. These associations also found it difficult to persuade many manufacturers to abandon volume sales and adopt fair trade. As a result, several of these organizations decided to engage in coercive practices prohibited by the Miller-Tydings Act. The act allowed manufacturers to voluntarily set minimum prices, but retailers could not legally conspire to force manufacturers into fair trade. Nevertheless, the NARD proceeded to boycott and blacklist manufacturers that did not maintain minimum prices. The rise of new types of competition also limited the impact of fair trade. During the 1950’s, discount chains spread rapidly, and department stores responded by carrying a greater number of private brands. R. H. Macy & Company, for example, carried more than fourteen hundred products under its own name. By 1954, 679

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fewer than nine hundred manufacturers sold fair trade products, and the number continued to dwindle through the end of the decade. In 1956, a Senate Small Business Committee survey of retailers revealed widespread pessimism about the future of retail price maintenance. During the late 1930’s and 1940’s, the courts upheld the constitutionality of the Miller-Tydings Act, but this favorable treatment did not last into the 1950’s. In 1951, the Supreme Court ruled that fair trade agreements could not be enforced against nonsigners in interstate commerce. Congress overrode the Court by passing the McGuire Act (1952), but the Court’s strongly worded indictment of fair trade continued to influence the thinking of lower courts. Critical studies by economists and the Federal Trade Commission also fostered a judicial climate of opinion hostile to fair trade. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, state courts throughout the United States invalidated all or part of their fair trade laws, and by 1975 only eleven states had fair trade laws on the books. Repeal The Miller-Tydings Act finally fell victim to the inflationary climate of the 1970’s. In 1937, the sponsors of the act had hoped to raise prices in a deflationary period, but policymakers in the inflationary postwar years became more concerned with reducing prices. Economists estimated that fair trade raised the nation’s cost of living by several billion dollars per year. In 1975, President Gerald Ford urged repeal of fair trade legislation as part of his WIN (“Whip Inflation Now”) program. Senator Edward W. Brooke (Republican of Massachusetts) introduced legislation to repeal the Miller-Tydings Act. His bill gathered overwhelming support from both liberals and conservatives. The resulting Consumer Goods Pricing Act repealed the Miller-Tydings Act and ended the experiment with retail price maintenance. Jonathan Bean Sources for Further Study Blackford, Mansel G. A History of Small Business in America. New York: Twayne, 1991. Bork, Robert H. The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself. New York: Basic Books, 1978. 680

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Hawley, Ellis W. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly: A Study in Economic Ambivalence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. Kintner, Earl W., ed. Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes: A Legislative History. 11 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978, 1982-1985. Palamountain, Joseph Cornwall, Jr. The Politics of Distribution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955. Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed The Making of the American Mass Market. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989. Yamey, B. C., ed. Resale Price Maintenance. Chicago: Aldine, 1966. See also: Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936).

Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act Also known as: Federal Aid in Wildlife Act Date: September 2, 1937 U.S. Statutes at Large: 50 Stat. 917 U.S. Code: 16 § 669 et seq. Categories: Animals; Environment and Conservation; Tariffs and

Taxation

The act authorized funding of state wildlife agencies through federal excise taxes on sporting guns and ammunition used in hunting. On September 2, 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the PittmanRobertson Act, which authorized the federal government to collect manufacturers’ excise taxes on sporting guns and ammunition and to transfer the money to state wildlife agencies. This law originated through the cooperation of conservationists, primarily hunters, and manufacturers of sporting arms and ammunition. The revenues collected have been used to support wildlife management, 681

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including purchase of critical habitat, management of existing refuges, hunter training, and wildlife restoration. Many species whose survival had once been threatened have thereby been able to thrive. The law, also called the Federal Aid in Wildlife Act, was initiated by Carl Shoemaker, a conservationist, and was sponsored through Congress in less than three months by Senator Key Pittman and Representative A. Willis Robertson. Background In the early years of the twentieth century, as sport hunting became increasingly popular and wildlife habitat and wildlife itself became increasingly scarce, leading conservationists tried to develop and fund a refuge system to benefit wildlife and sportsmen. Several laws were passed as a result. The Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1929 set up a refuge system to be financed by congressional appropriations. In 1934, largely through the efforts of Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling as chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey, the Duck Stamp and Fish Wildlife Coordination Acts, which provided funding for wetland conservation, were passed. With Darling, Shoemaker—as special investigator of the Senate Special Committee on Conservation and Wildlife Resources— helped to organize the first North American Wildlife Conference in 1936, which created the National Wildlife Federation. At the second North American Wildlife Conference in 1937, Shoemaker and others started to develop what would become the PittmanRobertson law by modifying suggestions made by John B. Burnham and T. Gilbert Pearson in 1925. Burnham and Pearson had suggested that the 10 percent excise tax on sporting arms and ammunition be used to finance refuges instead of being considered part of general moneys, but the proposed financing did not go through because Congress repealed all excise taxes, although they were reinstated in 1932. Taxing Sporting Guns In 1937, Shoemaker suggested that the current 11 percent manufacturers’ excise tax on sporting guns and ammunition be allocated to the states equitably. In order to apportion funding equitably and to balance the small populations of the Western states with the high populations of the East, his formula included the number of paid license holders as well as the area of the states. This 682

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approach would balance the Western states with their relatively small populations but large land area with the larger number of licensed hunters in the more populous, but smaller eastern states. The draft bill was supported by the Bureau of Biological Survey, state wildlife agencies, and conservation organizations. The firearms industry supported it as well after Shoemaker agreed to the suggestion of Charles L. Horn of the Federal Cartridge Company to lower the percentage of tax collections used for administrative costs by the Biological Survey from his proposed 10 percent to 8 percent. Shoemaker enlisted the support of Senator Key Pittman of Nevada, chairman of the Special Committee on Wildlife, and Representative A. Willis Robertson of Virginia, chairman of the House Select Committee on Conservation of Wildlife Resources. Robertson had been a member of the Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries Commission and knew that state legislatures sometimes used funds from license receipts for state programs other than those of the wildlife agencies. He therefore added to Shoemaker’s bill the prohibition of the diversion of funds for purposes other than the administration of the state fish and game department. The modified bill moved through the Senate very quickly. In the House, however, the Agriculture Committee, not the Wildlife Committee, had jurisdiction over the bill. In order to entice Representative Scott Lucas from Illinois, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, to move the bill through the House more quickly, Shoemaker encouraged Illinois women’s groups and garden clubs to contact Lucas. The bill passed the House on August 17 and was signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 2, 1937. Implementation Ira N. Gabrielson, chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey, and his assistant, Albert M. Day, implemented the Pittman-Robertson Act. Day determined that the funds were to be used for three types of state projects: to purchase land to rehabilitate wildlife, to develop and improve land’s suitability for birds and mammals, and to research ways to solve problems of wildlife restoration. In order to ensure that management of state wildlife programs was performed by professionals and not political appointees, Gabrielson and Day also required that management personnel hired through PittmanRobertson funds be trained and competent. 683

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Despite excise tax revenues of around $3 million in 1938, Congress allocated only $1 million that first year and continued to refuse to allocate the funds to the state wildlife agencies until the 1950’s. In 1939, the Bureau of Biological Survey was removed from the Department of Agriculture and placed in the Department of the Interior, where it was combined with the Bureau of Fisheries of the Department of Commerce. This new agency was called the Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1951, as part of the Appropriations Act, Congress agreed to transfer all the tax collections to the state wildlife agencies. In 1956, Congress agreed to release $13 million of back tax revenues. Thus excise tax revenues collected from hunters have been used to replenish wildlife and their habitat throughout the United States. Long-Range Impact The Pittman-Robertson Act was enacted to reverse the decline of wildlife in the United States. Over the years, as its influence has grown, it has financed scientific research of particular species and their habitats, habitat restoration, hunter education, and wildlife research in general. As a result, the decline of many species has been reversed, habitat has been restored, and hunting accidents and fatalities in many states have declined. Among the species helped by the act are the wild turkey, white-tailed deer, the bighorn sheep, and the black bear, the prairie chicken, the mountain lion, the Canada goose, the pronghorn antelope, the elk, the caribou, the beaver, the sea otter, the gray and fox squirrels, the mule deer, the wood duck, the chukar partridge, the bobcat, and the ringnecked pheasant. The law has also increased the professionalism of wildlife research and management by setting professional standards for management personnel as well as requiring that projects meet national standards. It also has served as a dependable source of money so that states may engage in long-term programs. It has provided professionals with a means of exchanging information to ensure that managers were aware of projects in different states. Funds have also been used to support cooperative programs with nongovernment organizations. Margaret F. Boorstein 684

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Sources for Further Study National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. Land Use and Wildlife Resources. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1970. Owen, A. L. Riesch. Conservation Under F. D. R. New York: Praeger, 1983. _______. “Wildlife Aid from Gun Taxes.” Nature Magazine 30 (December, 1937): 361-362. Sheldon, H. P. “Game Restoration.” Country Life and the Sportsman 74 (June, 1938): 28, 90. U.S. Department of the Interior. Fish and Wildlife Service. Restoring America’s Wildlife: 1937-1987: The First Fifty Years of the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration (Pittman-Robertson) Act. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1987. See also: Migratory Bird Act (1913); Migratory Bird Treaty Act

(1918); Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934); Wilderness Act (1964); Animal Welfare Act (1966); Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Endangered Species Act (1973); Eastern Wilderness Act (1975).

Wheeler-Lea Act Date: March 21, 1938 U.S. Statutes at Large: 52 Stat. 111 U.S. Code: 15 § 41 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade

By adding jurisdiction over “unfair and deceptive acts or practices in commerce” to section 5 of the 1914 Federal Trade Commission Act, the Wheeler-Lea Act broadened the FTC’s power over unfair competition. The first decade of the twentieth century witnessed numerous investigations by the U.S. Department of Commerce into alleged monopolistic business practices in the farm equipment, petroleum, steel, and tobacco industries, among others. Two schools of thought had evolved concerning antimonopoly and antitrust legis685

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lation. One group believed that all trusts should be abolished, whereas the other group thought that Congress should instead establish mechanisms to regulate monopolistic practices. The latter thinking prevailed and led Congress to enact the Federal Trade Commission Act in 1914. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was activated the following year. Regulating Advertising Many analysts trace the origins of the Federal Trade Commission to the advertising industry association currently known as the American Advertising Federation (AAF). In 1905, several local advertising clubs (primarily in Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, and St. Louis) formed what became the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, with one of its goals being elimination of false and deceptive advertising practices common at the time. This association’s 1912 truth-in-advertising campaign is generally credited as being the first, and its lobbying efforts eventually led to President Woodrow Wilson’s recommendations in 1914 that the Federal Trade Commission be formed. The vigilance committees set up by member clubs in many cities also resulted in establishment of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. The Federal Trade Commission Act focused on protecting competitors from unfair trade practices of other businesses. The act did not specifically define unfair competition, leaving that determination up to the FTC on a case-by-case basis. Legislators may not have intended the FTC to have strong punitive powers, but rather to serve as a barrier to protect weaker businesses from the predatory behavior of monopolies. The FTC grew to police the activities of business in general, not simply monopolistic practices, and developed strong punitive capabilities. The power to regulate advertising was given to the FTC under section 5 of the 1914 act. The wording of this section originally prohibited only unfair methods of “competition.” This led to a 1931 Supreme Court decision that held that the commission was without jurisdiction unless actual injury to competitors could be proved. The decision involved a questionable weight-reduction product that could have been dangerous for some consumers. The Court’s decision seriously limited the FTC’s power to intervene in cases in which consumers, but not competitors, were injured. Congress subsequently amended the FTC Act in 1938, thereby closing the 686

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loophole opened by this decision. This amending legislation is commonly known as the Wheeler-Lea Act. The Amendment At the federal level, the Wheeler-Lea Act gave the government its most important control over false and deceptive advertising. Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act was amended to read, “Unfair methods of competition in commerce and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce are hereby declared unlawful.” The intent behind the Wheeler-Lea Act was twofold. First, Congress wanted to expand the FTC’s jurisdiction over unfair competition by extending it into commerce as well as industry. Second, Congress intended to give the commission more power to regulate false and deceptive advertising of food, drugs, therapeutic devices, and cosmetics. The first objective was accomplished by modifying section 5 as previously discussed. The second goal was reached through section 12(a) of the amended act, which made it illegal to disseminate false information concerning foods, drugs, therapeutic devices, or cosmetics for the purpose of inducing their purchase. No matter how incidental a marketer’s behavior seems, the FTC has the authority to act if a false advertisement is sent through the U.S. mail or is concerned with commerce. False advertising that violates section 12(a) is by default unfair and deceptive under section 5. The definition of false advertising in section 15 of the WheelerLea Act was designed to be very inclusive. The intent to be false or deceptive was not specified as a necessary element; legislators wanted any materially misleading advertising to be subject to or cause for FTC action, regardless of the advertiser’s intent. Media and advertising agencies were exempted from liability if they cooperated with the agency’s investigation. Aggrieved competitors who have, for example, been directly named in what they consider to be a false or deceptive comparative advertising campaign have several options for resolution of the problem. They can complain to industry arbitration organizations such as the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) and appeal an NAD decision to the National Advertising Review Board (NARB). They can ask for assistance from the media in which the questionable ads are disseminated or take the issue directly to court under section 43(a) of the Lanham Act. They can re687

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sort to local and state regulatory bodies (such as the state attorney general) or file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. The commission is also capable of issuing its own complaint under section 5, even if no business or individual has lodged a complaint. Advertisers usually consent to stop running advertisements disputed by the FTC. If the FTC believes that an advertisement is false or deceptive but the sponsor refuses to sign a consent decree and stop using the ad, the commission can issue a cease-and-desist order requiring the advertiser to stop running the questionable campaign. Under section 5, cease-and-desist orders become final in sixty days unless the advertiser requests a court review. If the advertiser requests a hearing, the cease-and-desist order cannot become final until an administrative law judge has reviewed the case. If the order is upheld by the judge, the sponsor can appeal to the full commission. Advertisers who violate final cease-and-desist orders are subject to substantial fines. The FTC can seek court remedies under sections 13 and 14 of the amended act. These include injunctions to stop the campaign in question as well as fines or imprisonment for sponsors of the advertisement in severe cases that involve blatant intent to defraud or reckless endangerment of consumers. In some cases, even though the FTC believed that section 12 had been violated, the courts have disagreed with the commission and denied requests for injunctions to stop ad campaigns. The FTC’s Mission Largely because of the Wheeler-Lea Act, the core of the FTC’s regulatory mission has become its efforts to end deceptive advertising, although antitrust concerns still influence FTC policy. The aggressiveness with which the FTC is able to carry out its mission depends heavily on the philosophy of the FTC chairperson as well as the presidential administration’s relationship with business. There have been periods during which the agency was perceived as weak and ineffective, such as the late 1960’s. With the Wheeler-Lea Act as a foundation, the FTC underwent major reorganizations and staffing changes during the 1970’s, resulting in a more powerful and effective regulatory force. The Reagan administration sought to disarm the FTC during the 1980’s, but during the administration of George H. W. Bush the agency aggressively addressed alcohol and tobacco advertising directed at underage persons. 688

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In spite of these inconsistencies, the FTC developed into a more powerful regulator of advertising after the implementation of the Wheeler-Lea Act in 1938. Two areas in which this trend has become most apparent are the commission’s requirement for substantiation of claims made in ads and its use of forced corrective advertising to help counter false advertising claims. Particularly since 1970, the FTC has asked that sponsors of numerous disputed claims offer proof that the claims they made are true. Product claims that are literally untrue (that is, cannot be proven in laboratory tests) are considered to be inherently deceptive. Claims are also judged according to how the average “rational” consumer will perceive them. Consumer Surveys The FTC often admits as evidence consumer survey results designed to determine the perceptions of average consumers to the claims in question. Thomas J. Maronick, formerly with the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, analyzed cases handled by the FTC from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. His analysis suggests that the FTC used the following guidelines in assessing consumer surveys designed to evaluate claims of deceptive advertising: the experience and competence of the marketing research firm or individual conducting the survey; whether the methodology is “generally accepted” and interviewers are properly trained to reduce respondent bias; the representativeness of the sample in relation to the appropriate group of consumers; and the use of control groups (consumers not exposed to the claims, subsequently used to compare with those who were exposed) to produce more valid research; the relationships between the attorneys involved and the researcher (close relationships were not viewed favorably); whether the study was conducted before the advertisement was challenged (if so, it was given more credibility); whether the study used leading questions (especially open-ended versus closed-ended questions) to suggest desired answers; and finally, whether the conditions under which the study was conducted represented a natural viewing state for consumers, such as their homes. Corrective Advertising In a move considered to be much more drastic than requiring claim substantiation, the FTC also began to force sponsors of de689

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ceptive advertising to pay for corrective advertising disclaiming previously made false statements. In one of the first corrective advertising cases, the FTC required the makers of Listerine to include in a ten-million-dollar advertising campaign a disclaimer that the mouthwash did not kill germs that cause the common cold, as the brand had previously claimed. The commission thought that the false Listerine claim of common cold prevention was a major reason that consumers selected the brand, and that the corrective advertising campaign was the best method for eliminating misperceptions. At first, sponsors were required to disclose that their original campaign had been ruled false and deceptive by the FTC. This generated criticism from those who thought that the requirement was beyond the FTC’s scope of remedial authority. The FTC took heed and later only required sponsors to disclose that, contrary to what their previous advertising had stated, the claim in question was not true. In addition, the agency’s original requirement that 25 percent of the advertisement’s space or time be devoted to the corrective message was changed to 25 percent of advertising expenditures during the same time period that other advertisements were run. The FTC’s call for corrective advertising is probably the single most controversial activity ultimately derived from the expanded power given to the agency through the Wheeler-Lea Act. Had the language of the original act not been modified, the commission would not have obtained the authority to require sponsors to run corrective advertising for the sake of consumers who had acquired false information. William T. Neese Sources for Further Study Digges, Isaac W. The Modern Law of Advertising and Marketing. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1948. Dillon, Tom. “What Is Deceptive Advertising?” Journal of Advertising Research 13, no. 10 (1973): 9-12. Garon, Philip A., ed. Advertising Law Anthology. National Law Anthology Series 2. Washington, D.C.: International Library, 1974. Kintner, Earl W. A Primer on the Law of Deceptive Practices: A Guide for the Businessman. New York: Macmillan, 1971. 690

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_______, ed. Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes: A Legislative History. 11 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978, 1982-1985. Maronick, Thomas J. “Copy Tests in FTC Deception Cases: Guidelines for Researchers.” Journal of Advertising Research 31, no. 12 (1991): 9-17. Muris, Timothy J., ed. The Federal Trade Commission Since 1970 Economic Regulation and Bureaucratic Behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Russell, J. Thomas, and W. Ronald Lane. Kleppner’s Advertising Procedure. 12th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1993. Ulanoff, Stanley M. Advertising in America. New York: Hastings House, 1977. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Sherman Antitrust Act

(1890); Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Celler-Kefauver Act (1950); Truth in Lending Act (1968); Parens Patriae Act (1974); Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974).

Foreign Agents Registration Act Date: June 8, 1938 U.S. Statutes at Large: 52 Stat. 631 U.S. Code: 22 § 611 Categories: Communications and Media; Military and National

Security; Speech and Expression

This federal law authorized the U.S. government to restrict importation of any foreign films and publications that it classified as “propaganda.” The 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was designed to restrict distribution of foreign films and publications in the United States. It required that any film produced in a foreign country that could be considered political propaganda had to be so labeled. During the 1980’s the law was given an expansive interpretation 691

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under the Reagan administration. In 1982 the Department of Justice sought to require three films produced by the National Film Board of Canada to be labeled as propaganda. Political Propaganda and Censorship Two of the Canadian films were about acid rain—a sensitive subject in U.S.-Canadian relations; the third, If You Love This Planet won an Academy Award. The Justice Department summarized the message of this film as: “Unless we shake off our indifference and work to prevent nuclear war, we stand a slim chance of surviving the twentieth century.” The Justice Department ordered the Film Board of Canada to include a message with the films that the U.S. government did not necessarily approve of its content and that the films contained “political propaganda.” Under U.S. law, the Film Board of Canada was also required to provide the Justice Department with the names of the persons and organizations in the United States who ordered the films. Challenges to the Law’s Constitutionality The following year, in Washington, D.C., and California respectively, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and California state senator Barry Keene—who had planned to sponsor showings of these Canadian films to support his own views—filed separate suits against the Justice Department, claiming that FARA was unconstitutional. The ACLU argued that labeling the Canadian films as propaganda might prejudice potential viewers and might even deter people from viewing the films at all, because the label “denigrates the films’ messages.” Furthermore, the ACLU argued that requiring a listing of the names of the exhibitors might injure exhibitors’ reputations because they would be stigmatized as exhibitors of “un-American” or “unpatriotic materials.” In 1984, in Block v. Smith, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the ACLU suit, ruling that the term “political propaganda” did not in itself necessarily have negative connotations. An appeals court reversed part of this decision by holding that Block, the distributor of the Canadian films, had proven “concrete harm”; however, it simultaneously affirmed the lower court’s ruling that the “propaganda” label was acceptable, and that Block must still report the names of the persons who ordered his films. Meanwhile, California’s Senator Keene, objecting to being la692

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beled a disseminator of political propaganda, advanced similar arguments. The U.S. District Court in San Bernardino, California, enjoined application of FARA to the three Canadian films; this was affirmed at the appellate level. In 1987 the U.S. Supreme Court, in Meese v. Keene, held that the label of “political propaganda,” when used in a “neutral and even-handed manner,” is not intended as censorship, and “has no pejorative connotation.” Writing for a 5-3 majority, Justice John Paul Stevens conceded there was “a risk that a partially informed audience might believe that a film that must be registered with the Department of Justice is suspect. But there is no evidence that this suspicion . . . has had the effect of government censorship.” The Supreme Court thus upheld the decision to label the three Canadian films as “propaganda” under FARA. Juliet Dee Sources for Further Study Pattison, Joseph E., and John L. Taylor, eds. The Registration of Foreign Agents in the United States: A Practical and Legal Guide. Washington, D.C.: District of Columbia Bar, 1981. United States. General Accounting Office. Foreign Agent Registration: Former Federal Officials Representing Foreign Interests Before the U.S. Government. Report to Congressional Requesters. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1992. See also: First Amendment (1789); Sedition Act of 1798 (1798);

Comstock Act (1873); Espionage Acts (1917-1918); Communications Act (1934); Communications Decency Act (1996).

Natural Gas Act Date: June 21, 1938 U.S. Statutes at Large: 52 Stat. 821 U.S. Code: 15 § 717 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Energy; Natural Re-

sources

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The Natural Gas Act mandated the Federal Power Commission to control gas prices in interstate commerce and to decide which pipelines may enter the interstate market. On June 21, 1938, Congress passed the Natural Gas Act (NGA), and seven days later, President Franklin Roosevelt signed it into law. The NGA provided the Federal Power Commission (FPC) much discretion in determining “just and reasonable” rates for the sale of natural gas in interstate commerce. The findings of the commission were to be “conclusive” so long as “supported by substantial evidence,” but these findings could be challenged in court. The regulation of prices was not to apply to local sales or to intrastate deliveries; the state public-service commissions would continue to regulate these services. The FPC was given additional powers to regulate interstate pipelines and to award certificates of public convenience and necessity, meaning that no new pipeline could enter the interstate market without FPC approval. The major purpose of the law was to protect consumers from excessive prices, while public safety and conservation of a scarce resource were secondary considerations. Earlier Gas Regulations Since the late nineteenth century, the federal government had been regulating interstate business that was monopolistic or “affected with a public interest.” Until the late 1920’s, however, natural gas was generally an intrastate business, and it had been regulated by the state public-service commissions since the turn of the century. The business changed as improvements in metals and welding made it possible for long seamless pipelines to cross state borders between areas of production and large urban centers in the North, and by 1936, thirty-five states had access to supplies of natural gas. The Supreme Court in Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas (1924) interrupted the status quo by ruling that the states could no longer regulate the prices of natural gas transported from one state to another, because the Constitution gave Congress exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce. After the Court’s decision, those suspicious of the large energy companies wanted the Congress to “fill in the gap” in the regulation of natural gas. In 1928, the Senate instructed the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the matter, and the commission’s 694

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one-hundred-volume study recommended federal regulation of both electricity and natural gas. With the support of this study, the New Deal Congress passed the Federal Power Act of 1935, which enlarged the scope of the FPC and authorized it to regulate electricity sold between states. The FPC had both quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions, so that it could formulate rules with the force of law and interpret these rules in specific cases, subject to appeals in the federal courts. Drafting the 1938 Law After the passage of the Federal Power Act, Representative Samuel Rayburn, one of the strongest proponents of New Deal regulations in the House, instructed legislative drafters to take the law and to use it as a model for similar legislation authorizing controls of natural gas sales. As Rayburn introduced the bill into the House, Burton Wheeler introduced the same bill into the Senate. Natural gas companies and state regulators, however, objected to some of the features of the Rayburn bill, and it failed to become law. The next year, Representative Clarence Lea, chairman of the appropriate commerce subcommittee, revised the bill with the assistance of Clyde Seavey, one of the members of the FPC. Lea introduced the new bill into the House that year, and although there was little opposition, there was not enough interest to get it to the floor for a vote. Lea then turned to the natural gas companies for their views; after making some changes, he introduced the bill a second time in April, 1937. The companies had decided that regulation was in their interest. At this time, the companies’ major problem was that oversupplies were driving down costs, and they were now happy to accept regulation in exchange for a guaranteed profit margin. In spite of a consensus in favor of regulation, the Senate was slower than the House to vote in favor of the bill, and the differences between the two chambers were not worked out until June 21, 1938. Ambiguities Compared with many innovative laws of the New Deal, the NGA was considered rather unexceptional, and the press at the time almost ignored the issue. The NGA was vague and ambiguous in several key areas, and thus the implications of the law would evolve with judicial challenges. 695

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The most uncertain portion of the NGA was the statement that FPC regulation would not extend to “the production and gathering of natural gas.” It was clear that the FPC would not have authority over the physical production of gas. Since the term “production and gathering” was not defined, however, it was unclear whether the FPC was authorized to regulate the sale of gas in the fields if the gas was destined for the interstate markets, or whether FPC regulations would apply only after the gas had been sold. This particular ambiguity would be the most controversial aspect of the history of the NGA. Over the years, interpreting this and similar provisions of the NGA would give employment to a large number of lawyers. Court Battles The first major court battle of the NGA had to do with the method that the FPC was to use in determining “just and reasonable” rates. When the act was passed, regulatory bodies generally were following the fair-value standard that a pro-business Supreme Court had articulated in its 1897 Smythe v. Ames decision. According to this standard, regulated businesses were entitled to a rate of return based on the value of their capital investment. Beginning in 1942, a more aggressive FPC changed its standard to one of production investment costs, which meant a lower rate of return for gas businesses. The issue was tested in court in Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas (1944), in which the Supreme Court supported the FPC’s position and overruled the Smythe precedent. The Court enunciated the principle that government regulators were no longer required to use the investment-value standard, but they could use any reasonable method or formula. A more long-standing controversy was whether the FPC was authorized to regulate the price charged for natural gas in the fields (at the wellheads). The issue was complex, because while large companies were involved in both the production and the transmission of natural gas, there were some four thousand independent producers who were not involved in interstate transmission. At first, the FPC did not regulate any sales in the fields, but in 1942, the FPC began to regulate the large companies that both produced gas and controlled pipelines. The FPC decided against the regulation of the independent producers, but in the surprising landmark case Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin (1954), the Supreme Court ruled that the intent of Congress in 1938 had been to regulate the 696

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sale of natural gas in the fields when its destination was interstate commerce. Since the Phillips decision required the FPC to regulate the sale of thousands of independents, the work of the FPC became much more extensive and complex. Lawyers and economists tended to look upon the Phillips decision as almost of equal importance to the NGA itself. Until 1960, the FPC made individual price determinations through a case-by-case approach. After a study pointed to the FPC as an example of the “breakdown of the administrative process,” the commission changed to the area rate method, which was a determination of the reasonable requirements within each of twenty-three geographic regions. In the 1970’s, the FPC changed to one standard rate to be used nationwide. The 1970’s “Energy Crises” Until about 1968, large supplies of natural gas kept prices low, but by 1972, the FPC acknowledged that there actually were shortages in parts of the country. Because oil and gas are often substituted for each other, the increase in oil prices after the embargo of 1973 had a great impact on the market for natural gas. By about 1975, gas prices in the intrastate markets were about twice as high as those in the interstate market, and it was becoming apparent that price regulations were contributing to gas shortages in the interstate market. The situation became critical in the cold winter of 1976 and 1977, when a lack of supplies forced four thousand manufacturing plants to close and resulted in 1,200,000 workers temporarily losing their jobs. Hundreds of schools had to close their doors in order to protect gas supplies for residential consumers. President Jimmy Carter and his administration concluded that the only answer was to move to the deregulation of natural gas at the wellheads, and the result was the Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA) of 1978. The NGPA was complex because it made a distinction among about twenty different categories of natural gas. The schedules provided that price controls for new gas and hard-to-get gas from deep wells would end by 1985, while the lifting of controls on old gas and gas in shallow wells would not end until 1987. President Ronald Reagan and his administration were committed to competitive markets, and they generally supported the principles of the NGPA of 1978. After the beginning of decontrols, prices did increase significantly by 1982, but adequate supplies ceased to be a 697

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problem. Thereafter, new discoveries of natural gas appeared to produce a satisfactory equilibrium and the public lost interest in the issue. Legacy By the 1990’s, the controversies of the Natural Gas Act of 1938 were a memory. Most economists tended to conclude that the NGPA of 1982 was a positive step, and few people wanted to return to the field regulations that began with the Phillips decision. It was not clear whether the Natural Gas Act had actually operated in the interest of the consumer, because evidence indicated that the realities of supply and demand had always influenced prices more than had price regulations. With the growing concern for the environment, there was a new complexity about the implications of the term “conservation” in regard to the natural gas industry. Since the passage of the NGA in 1938, the justification for conserving natural gas had been to place a limit on how much gas was consumed so that supplies would last longer. Natural gas, however, is a clean-burning, environmentally friendly fuel, and efforts to decrease its use result in an increased use of other forms of energy that do more ecological damage. The limits of the obtainable reserves of this wonderful resource are as yet unknown. Thomas T. Lewis Sources for Further Study Baum, Robert. The Federal Power Commission and State Utility Regulation. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Public Affairs, 1942. Bryer, Stephen, and Paul MacAvoy. Energy Regulation by the Federal Power Commission. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1974. DeVane, Dozier. “Highlights of Legislative History of the Federal Power Act of 1935 and the Natural Gas Act of 1938.” George Washington Law Review 14 (December, 1945): 30-41. Hawkins, Claud. The Field Price Regulation of Natural Gas. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1969. Kohlmeier, Louis, Jr. The Regulators: Watchdog Agencies and the Public Interest. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. 698

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Sanders, M. Elizabeth. The Regulation of Natural Gas: Policy and Politics, 1938-1978. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981. Yale Law Journal. “Federal Price Control of Natural Gas Sold to Interstate Pipelines.” 59 (1950): 1468-1515. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Federal Power Act

(1920); Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (1954); Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975); Department of Energy Organization Act (1977); Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978).

Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Also known as: Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Date: June 24, 1938 U.S. Statutes at Large: 52 Stat. 1040 U.S. Code: 21 § 301 Categories: Agriculture; Food and Drugs; Health and Welfare

Congress authorized the inspection of the food-manufacturing process by government officials and required that new food and drug products meet government-approved standards before being marketed. Federal involvement in the regulation of foods, drugs, and cosmetics began with the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. Safety in the food supply was the initial emphasis of that legislation, despite its full title: “An Act for preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes.” The Pure Food and Drug Act Beginning in the 1890’s, pure-food bills were often submitted to Congress but were never passed. The public did not seem concerned about the problem. Harvey W. Wiley, chief of the division of chemistry in the Department of Agriculture, stimulated some interest with his famous “poison squad” experiments with several 699

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food additives, such as salicylic acid and formaldehyde, in 1902. Articles by muckrakers added to the growing interest, and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) dramatized the need for pure-food legislation. The bill became law in June, 1906. The law made misrepresentation of a product illegal, but it did not require the manufacturer to inform the buyer of the contents of the product. If the manufacturer did list a product’s ingredients, the government would monitor the accuracy of what was printed on the package. Several cases involving the 1906 law reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Following the arguments of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Court agreed that the law required that labels relate accurately to contents. The Court, however, sided with the defendants that the government had no constitutional authority to determine false therapeutic claims where there was conflicting medical testimony. Congress could write laws, but it could not cross the boundary between fact and opinion. The regulatory part of the Bureau of Chemistry became the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration in 1927 and, in 1931, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). By then, the office had a budget of more than $1.5 million and five hundred employees. Still, the FDA was mainly concerned with pure food, not drugs. Ensuring accurate information was the primary function of the FDA. Given correct information, it was the inherent responsibility of the consumer to make decisions regarding personal health and wellbeing. The FDA was restrained by the Supreme Court from extending its control over the sale of drugs. A Need for New Food and Drugs Legislation Prior to the New Deal, there was little public support for government regulation of the marketplace. People wanted unrestrained freedom to buy their own food and medicine as they saw fit. The Great Depression, however, ushered in a liberal and sympathetic Congress, which cooperated in the New Deal activism by passing many of the bills sought by the Franklin Roosevelt administration. In spite of this liberal political climate, there was not enough political interest in new food and drugs legislation until 1938, following another health catastrophe. Sulfanilamide had proved itself a wonder drug in the fight against infections. When the Massengill Company produced the drug in liquid form, however, it used 700

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diethylene glycol as a solvent. The result was toxic, and 107 people died as a result. The pharmaceutical company, which had not tested the drug for toxicity, was fined $26,100. This tragedy provided the impetus to bring about the passage of the new law under the guidance of the respected director of the FDA, Walter Campbell, and Rexford Tugwell, the undersecretary of agriculture. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 passed the House without a dissenting vote, despite the sharp changes it brought in regulatory philosophy. Provisions and a New Philosophy New drugs would not be legally marketable until they were shown to be safe by tests acceptable to the FDA. The law authorized power of seizure and criminal sanctions and authorized the inspection of factories during the manufacturing process. The House report stated, “The bill is not intended to restrict in any way the availability of drugs for self-medication. On the contrary, it is intended to make self-medication safer and more effective.” Within six months, however, the FDA was sharply curtailing the availability of drugs by requiring a doctor’s prescription to purchase medicinal drugs that had hitherto been freely available. This event changed the philosophy of the relationship between government regulators and consumers. The FDA would establish food standards, seek to control harmful foods, and require more informative labeling. Cosmetics and therapeutic devices came under government control for the first time, and the FDA began making factory inspections. The FDA had to be convinced of a new drug’s safety before the drug could be marketed in the United States. Determination of safety was made chiefly by the FDA’s Office of New Drug Evaluation (ONDE), which consisted of six divisions, each in charge of specific drug categories. If a drug was approved after the involved process, the company was obligated to notify the FDA of any information it received that indicated unexpected adverse reactions. The FDA could then remove a drug from the market or require changes in labeling, such as adding a warning, listing an additional side effect, or removing an approved use. The FDA also would monitor the advertising used to promote the drug to ensure that the information given conformed to government requirements. 701

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Long-Range Impact The 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was supplemented with other legislation, such as the Drug Amendments Act of 1962, but would remain the basic tool for ensuring pure foods, drugs, and cosmetics for years to come. Prior to 1938, American consumers could purchase from a pharmacist almost any nonnarcotic drug they thought they needed. In fact, as late as 1929 only about 25 percent of drug sales were ordered by prescriptions, and in most of those purchases the prescription was merely a convenience, not a requirement. Pharmacists were independent of the control of doctors, and consumers could use their own judgment in deciding the best choice in medicines. The responsibility was in the hands of each individual, not in the hands of the government or the medical profession. With the passage of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, there was a stunning difference in the availability of drugs to the consumer. The FDA in effect considered consumers incapable of making their own medicinal drug choices; rather, a professional guide to that decision-making process was deemed necessary. Another effect of the 1938 law was a profound change in drugrelated marketing and advertising. For example, doctors were soon inundated with advertisements and promotional schemes from pharmaceutical companies. Prior to 1938, manufacturers generally did not feel the need to advertise to doctors. The decision to buy was the consumer’s and did not depend upon brokering by the medical profession or the government, a fact that was reflected in the advertising strategy. Later Amendments Many laws since the 1938 act have amended or otherwise addressed the regulation of food and drugs in the United States, including, among others, the Pesticide Amendments of 1954, the Food Additives Amendment of 1958, the Color Additive Amendments of 1960, the Drug Amendments of 1962, the Medical Device Amendments of 1976, the Animal Drug Amendments of 1986, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, the Generic Animal Drug and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1988, the Prescription Drug Marketing Act of 1988, the Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992, the Dietary 702

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Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 (FDAMA). Of these, two in particular are worth noting: The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 removed dietary supplements from the FDA’s regulatory oversight. Previously, under the Food Additives Amendment of 1958, the FDA treated food supplements as foods and therefore evaluated the safety of such ingredients as stringently as it did other foods. The 1994 law amended the 1938 law, adding sections on supplements per se. Therefore dietary supplements were no longer subject to the premarket safety evaluations imposed on other new food ingredients (or new uses of old ingredients), although they still had to meet other safety requirements. The result was a flooding of the marketplace with a wide variety of supplements, from those medically acknowledged as healthful to others whose benefits were more questionable, and a degree of return to the pre-1938 consumer decisions about selfmedication. The other major law, the 1997 FDAMA, was the most far-reaching set of amendments since the 1938 law itself, provided for the fasttrack review of medical devices, regulated advertising of unapproved uses of approved drugs and devices, and imposed rules for health claims for foods; it also reactivated the 1992 Prescription Drug User Fee Act. This sweeping set of revisions had an immediately visible impact in the sudden appearance of television advertisements for prescription drugs, since the law had relaxed restrictions on such commercials. The effect was a sevenfold increase between 1996 and 2002 on drug companies’ advertising expenditures, as well as new pressures on physicians to prescribe drugs— for nasal congestion, gastrointestinal distress, hormone-related syndromes, and a variety of other conditions—to patients who had seen these drugs advertised on television with the recommendation that viewers “ask their doctor.” William H. Burnside, updated by Christina J. Moose Sources for Further Study Anderson, Oscar E. The Health of a Nation: Harvey W. Wiley and the Fight for Pure Food. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. 703

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Hinich, Melvin J., and Richard Staelin. Consumer Protection Legislation and the U.S. Food Industry. New York: Pergamon Press, 1980. Quirk, Paul J. “Food and Drug Administration.” In The Politics of Regulation, edited by James Q. Wilson. New York: Basic Books, 1980. Temin, Peter. Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. Young, James Harvey. “Food and Drug Administration.” In Government Agencies, edited by Donald R. Whitnah. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. See also: Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906); Food Additives Amend-

ment (1958); Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968); Food Security Act (1985).

Fair Labor Standards Act Date: June 25, 1938 U.S. Statutes at Large: 52 Stat. 1060 U.S. Code: 29 § 201 Categories: Children’s Issues; Labor and Employment

This law established the federal minimum wage, created a compulsory overtime system, and prohibited most child labor. Beginning with Massachusetts in 1912, seventeen U.S. states had adopted minimum-wage laws by 1923. For constitutional reasons, their coverage was limited to women (and perhaps children), excluding adult men. However, the Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional in Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923). Wage-Hour Measures The disastrous Great Depression that followed 1929 brought radical economic changes under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Drastic deflation had induced a substantial decline in wage rates and a great increase in unemployment. Presidents Her704

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bert Hoover and Roosevelt both favored higher wages to try to increase workers’ purchasing power. There was widespread support for measures to shorten hours of work, in order to spread the work around. Bills to reduce work hours were introduced into Congress in 1933 by Senator Hugo Black and Congressman William Connery. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins favored efforts to support or raise wages by industry boards. All of these ideas were reflected in the administration of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933. Each of the 585 codes of fair competition adopted under NIRA contained minimum-wage provisions; although varying from one industry to another, they generally were thirty cents per hour or more and applied to men as well as women. In about one-fourth of the codes, lower minimums were provided for women. However, the NIRA was ruled unconstitutional in 1935. A number of states enacted new minimums and were aided by a Supreme Court decision in 1937 that largely reversed the Adkins doctrine (West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish). Of the twenty-nine state laws in force by 1941, all but two applied only to women. An administration wage-hour bill developed by Secretary Perkins was introduced in Congress in May, 1937. Traditional opposition by organized labor to minimum-wage legislation had been reduced by the formation of an independent Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1935. The wage-hour bill, also sponsored by Senator Black and Congressman Connery, proposed a labor standards board to set industry-specific provisions relating to wages, hours, and child labor. A new bill in 1938 provided for more uniform statutory provisions, but with some discretionary authority to be lodged in the Wage-Hour Division of the Department of Labor. Wage Provisions As finally adopted, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) contained two types of minimum-wage provisions. In section 6, statutory minimum rates were set at twenty-five cents per hour for the first year, thirty cents per hour for the following six years, and forty cents per hour beginning in 1945. Sections 5 and 8 authorized the “wagehour administrator” to establish industry wage committees that could recommend minimum hourly rates to be at least twenty-five cents in the first year and thirty cents thereafter, but not to exceed 705

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forty cents. The committees, composed of representatives of employers, workers, and government officials, would make recommendations to the administrator. Through 1940, such committees had made recommendations for a dozen industries, mainly involving clothing and textiles. However, the rapid rise in wages during World War II rendered them obsolete, and they were abolished in 1949. The minimum-wage provisions applied generally to employees “engaged in commerce or in production of goods for commerce.” Many sectors were exempted, notably agriculture and local retailing and service trades. Partial coverage applied to construction, wholesale trade, and agricultural processing. The administrator was empowered to permit subminimum wages for learners, apprentices, messengers, and workers with disabilities. No differentials were permitted between men and women. However, a large proportion of female workers were excluded by the exemption of trade and services. Actions to enforce the law against employers paying low wages could be initiated either by the affected worker (or a union representing him or her) or by the government. Workers could sue employers for the amount they should have been paid and could collect damages of an equal amount, totaling to double damages. The Wage-Hour Division of the Department of Labor could initiate actions against employers, seeking either civil or criminal penalties. It is estimated that in 1941, more than fourteen million workers were covered, about one-fourth of the labor force. An estimated 350,000 covered workers were paid less than the twenty-five-cent minimum in 1938 and about 900,000 received less than the thirtycent minimum in 1939. Hours Provisions One goal of the law was to shorten the number of hours worked by individual workers, so that work could be spread more widely to help reduce unemployment. The law provided that employers had to pay one and a half times the basic hourly rate for hours worked by an individual in excess of forty-four per week in the first year, forty-two per week the second, and forty per week beginning in 1940. However, many categories of administrative and professional workers were excluded from these provisions. Industries with pro706

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nounced seasonal patterns of operation could obtain from the administrator permission to have individuals work as much as fifty-six hours per week and twelve hours per day for as much as fourteen weeks without paying overtime. Child Labor Provisions The law also brought to completion a long effort to secure federal legislation limiting child labor. Most states had some restrictions on the employment of children, particularly in night work or hazardous industries. A federal law in 1916 had prohibited shipment in interstate commerce of goods produced in violation of detailed child labor conditions regarding age, employment sector, and hours worked. The Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional in 1918 (Hammer v. Dagenhart). Congress responded by reenacting similar provisions to be enforced by a tax, but this also was struck down by the Supreme Court (Bailey v. Drexel Furniture, 1922). Congress then passed a constitutional amendment authorizing federal regulation of child labor, but by 1941, only twenty-eight states had ratified it. Encouraged by the changed tone of Supreme Court rulings in 1937, Congress enacted section 12 of the FLSA to forbid interstate shipment of goods produced using workers under sixteen years of age, with the exception of children working for their parents or working in sectors designated by the administrator as acceptable. Supreme Court approval came in U.S. v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941). Minimum Wage Increases The inflation of the 1940’s carried actual wages well above the minimum. Many workers benefited from the premium pay for overtime, as wartime prosperity increased employment and work hours. Congress raised the minimum wage in 1949 and numerous times thereafter, bringing the level to $4.35, beginning in 1989. In 1996, Congress voted to increase the level to $5.25. For most of its history to that time, the minimum wage was 40 to 50 percent of average wages. Large increases in coverage were mandated in 1961 and 1967. Coverage of private, nonfarm employment rose from about 61 percent in 1950 to 69 percent in 1961, 83 percent in 1967, and 86 percent in 1978. Most sectors with concentrated female employment were covered by then. 707

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By 1977, coverage of domestic service reached 64 percent of workers, other services 74 percent, and retail trade 79 percent. State laws extended coverage still further. However, enforcement against small firms was loose, and employers of waitpersons were permitted to claim anticipated tips as part of their compliance. In addition, the mid-1980’s saw a decline of an annual minimum-wage income to below the poverty level as defined by the U.S. government. In 1989, amendments to the FLSA eliminated minimumwage and overtime exemptions for small businesses and raised the minimum wage to $3.80 per hour. The minimum wage went up to 4.25 per hour in 1991, $4.75 in 1996, and $5.15 in September of 1997. The basic minimum wage typically varies by age, type of occupation, and type of compensation. Arguments Pro and Con Arguments in favor of increasing the minimum wage typically revolve around the expected increase in buying power among consumers and therefore a positive impact on economic growth. Other arguments in favor of increase point to social equity and the discrepancies between “minimum” and “living” wages, particularly the concern over the wage dipping below the poverty line. Some economists believe that the statutory minimum wage tends to raise wage levels slightly but to decrease employment opportunities. The requirement to pay higher wages can drive some firms out of business, cause others to decrease output and employment, and encourage others to find labor-saving procedures. Wages in uncovered sectors can be reduced by workers displaced from the covered sector. Thus, women’s wages may have been adversely affected prior to the late 1970’s. Studies in the 1990’s suggested impacts only on teenage workers of both genders. Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Bernstein, Irving. A Caring Society: The New Deal, the Worker, and the Great Depression. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. Card, David, and Alan B. Krueger. Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. 708

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Levin-Waldman, Oren M. The Case of the Minimum Wage: Competing Policy Models. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Norlund, Willis J. The Quest for a Living Wage: The History of the Federal Minimum Wage Program. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Peterson, John M. Minimum Wages: Measures and Industry Effects. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise institute, 1981. Rottenberg, Simon, ed. The Economics of Legal Minimum Wages. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1981. See also: National Industrial Recovery Act (1933); National Labor

Relations Act (1935); Social Security Act (1935); Labor-Management Relations Act (1947); Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970).

Hatch Act Also known as: Political Activities Act Date: August 2, 1939 U.S. Statutes at Large: 53 Stat. 1147 Public law: 76-252 Categories: Voting and Elections

This law restricted the political activities of federal employees by prohibiting them from using their official authority to affect an election or to engage in political management or campaigns. The Hatch Act was enacted in response to a special Senate investigation showing that government officials had coerced federal workers to contribute to the reelection campaign of a U.S. senator in 1938. A second, and possibly more important reason for its passage was a fear that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would use the growing number of federal workers as a formidable political machine. In March of 1939, Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico introduced legislation incorporating the recommendations of the special Senate committee prohibiting the involvement of federal 709

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employees in any political organization. They retained the right to vote and could privately express their political opinions. Political appointees and policy-making employees were not included in the act. By restricting the political activity of federal workers, the act addressed three objectives: It precluded the use of the federal workforce for political purposes; it prevented the bureaucracy from becoming a powerful political actor; and it reduced the influence of partisan politics in the hiring, promotion, and firing of federal employees. The Hatch Act was amended in 1993 to allow federal employees, acting as private citizens, to engage in any legal political activity while not on the job. W. David Patton Sources for Further Study Eccles, James R. Hatch Act and the American Bureaucracy. New York: Vantage Press, 1981. Kohout, Martin D. “House Panel Proposes Revising Hatch Act.” PA Times 10, no. 19 (October 23, 1987): 1. Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. The Hatch Act Proscription Against Participation by State and Federal Employees in Political Management and Political Campaigns: A Legislative History. Hein’s Federal Legislative Histories Collection 055. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1975. Linsley, Clyde. “Unhatched? Unions Want to Unhatch the Hatch Act and This Time May Succeed.” Government Executive 19, no. 9 (September, 1987): 70-72. Willen, Mark. “House Passes Bill Overhauling 1939 Hatch Act.” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 45, no. 47 (November 21, 1987): 2885-2886. Yadlosky, Elizabeth. The Hatch Act Proscription Against Participation by State and Federal Employees in Political Management and Political Campaigns: A Legislative History. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 1973. See also: Hatch Act (1939); Federal Election Campaign Act (1972); Ethics in Government Act (1978); Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992); Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002).

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Smith Act Date: June 28, 1940 U.S. Statutes at Large: 54 Stat. 670-671 U.S. Code: 18 § 2385 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Speech and Expres-

sion

The Smith Act made it a crime to advocate, or to conspire to advocate, the violent overthrow of the government. The Smith Act was a product of American anxieties during the late 1930’s. As the world moved toward war, Americans grew more suspicious of foreigners and their ideologies. By 1939 opinion surveys revealed broad public support for new restrictions on aliens and for the hearings of the new House Committee on Un-American Activities, which had been created to investigate anti-American propaganda activities. Reflecting this suspicion, Congress considered forty different measures aimed at aliens and subversive propaganda. Representative Howard W. Smith of Virginia drew from several of those proposals to create an omnibus antiradical bill that he introduced in March, 1939. Smith’s bill contained new requirements for aliens, criminalized efforts to interfere with military recruitment and discipline, and sought to punish anyone advocating the violent overthrow of the government. The House of Representatives approved Smith’s measure by a vote of 272 to 40 in late June, 1939, but Congress adjourned before the Senate could consider the bill. A year later the Senate passed a slightly modified version without a roll call vote, and on June 28, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the measure into law. Sedition Clauses The most controversial provisions of the Smith Act were contained in its sedition sections, which made it unlawful knowingly to advocate, advise, or teach the violent overthrow of any government in the United States. The act also provided penalties of up to five years in jail and fines of up to ten thousand dollars for anyone who published, distributed or displayed printed materials advocating the violent overthrow of the government or who organized or who 711

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knowingly joined any society advocating such a goal. The measure also contained a conspiracy section that carried the same penalties for any person who conspired with anyone else to commit the aforementioned acts. The Smith Act was aimed principally at the purveyors of subversive propaganda. Since existing law already prohibited conspiracies to overthrow the government, the Smith Act added only the element of advocacy. Earlier proposals in Congress had called for restrictions on propaganda stemming from Nazi and communist sources, and Smith drew heavily on these proposals in drafting his measure. His law was designed to eliminate one category of expression from the American marketplace of ideas. Enforcement of the Act Under President Roosevelt, the Justice Department proved reluctant to enforce the advocacy sections of the Smith Act. In 1941 eighteen members of the Socialist Workers Party were convicted of violating the act’s provisions outlawing attempts to promote disloyalty among the armed services, and in 1944 twenty-eight alleged pro-Nazis were indicted on similar charges. However, their case was dropped after the death of the trial judge. After World War II the Cold War gave the Smith Act new life. Mounting frustrations over Soviet expansion abroad and growing public concerns over communist subversion at home convinced the Truman administration to use the Smith Act against American communists. In July, 1948, the Justice Department brought charges against eleven members of the central committee of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). Lacking proof of direct incitement or actual revolutionary deeds by the accused, the federal prosecutors sought conviction under the conspiracy section of the act. Members of the party’s central committee were charged with conspiring to teach and advocate the overthrow of the government and with conspiring to form the CPUSA to achieve those ends. The stormy nine-month trial ended in October, 1949, with a guilty verdict. Each defendant was fined ten thousand dollars and sentenced to five years in jail. The Dennis Case In 1951 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, by a vote of 6 to 2, the constitutionality of the Smith Act in Dennis v. United States. Chief 712

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Justice Fred M. Vinson’s majority opinion paid homage to the American tradition of freedom of speech, noting that it rested on the “hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.” However, Vinson went on to declare that free speech “must, on occasion, be subordinated to other values and considerations,” in this case, to the right of the government to protect itself. In his effort to balance the value of free speech against the authority of the government, Vinson relied on the Court’s long-standing “clear and present danger” test. Prior rulings using this test had suggested that before the government could limit speech, it had to establish the existence of a serious danger that was both obvious and imminent. But Vinson concluded that the words “clear and present” did not require the government to “wait until the putsch is about to be executed.” Even though a communist coup was unlikely to succeed, the “gravity of the evil” was sufficient to justify this “invasion of free speech.” Vinson’s opinion elicited two vigorous dissents. Justice William O. Douglas denied that American communists represented any “clear and present danger to the republic.” To him, they were the “miserable merchants of unwanted ideas,” whose conviction should be set aside. Justice Hugo Black went further. He noted that the members of the CPUSA had not been charged with overt acts against the government, or even with saying or writing anything subversive. Instead they were charged with conspiracy to form a political party that might use speech and other forms of communication to advocate certain ideas in the future. Black found their conviction “a virulent form of prior censorship of speech and press” that was forbidden by the First Amendment. He would have declared the Smith Act unconstitutional. Later Prosecutions With the Smith Act affirmed, the Department of Justice began prosecuting minor CPUSA leaders. By the spring of 1956, when the Supreme Court agreed to hear a second Smith Act case, 102 party functionaries had been convicted and twenty-eight other cases were still pending. In Yates v. United States, decided in June, 1957, the Court narrowed the implications of the Dennis ruling and made prosecution under the Smith Act more difficult. Justice John Marshall Harlan’s majority opinion drew a distinction between ad713

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vocacy of abstract doctrines, such as those contained in Marxist theory, and advocacy of illegal acts. Harlan concluded that the Smith Act had never been intended to prohibit advocacy and teaching of forcible overthrow as abstract principles, divorced from actions. Consequently, the government’s prosecutions were flawed. Faced with this stricter standard, the Justice Department ceased all further actions under the advocacy section of the law. Charges were dropped, or the convictions reversed, in cases involving ninety CPUSA members. The Smith Act was dead. Nevertheless, the government’s efforts to use the act to destroy the Communist Party had largely succeeded. By 1958 the party’s leadership was in disarray and its membership had largely vanished. Jerold L. Simmons Sources for Further Study Belknap, Michael R. Cold War Political Justice: The Smith Act, the Communist Party, and American Civil Liberties. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977. Emerson, Thomas I., David Haber, and Norman Dorsen, eds. Political and Civil Rights in the United States. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Steinberg, Peter. The Great “Red Menace”: United States Prosecution of American Communists, 1947-1952. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. See also: First Amendment (1789); Sedition Act of 1798 (1798);

Espionage Acts (1917-1918); Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938).

Ogdensburg Agreement Date: August 16, 1940 Categories: Foreign Relations; Military and National Security;

Treaties and Agreements

The United States and Canada came to an agreement on hemispheric defense. 714

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After only slight hesitation, Canada had followed the mother country, Great Britain, in going to war against Germany in 1939. Canada’s southern neighbor, the United States, was sympathetic to Great Britain and her allies but avowed to remain neutral. The situation changed drastically after the Germans conquered France in June, 1940. The German armies seemed invincible, and there was a real threat that they might cross the English Channel and conquer Great Britain. The United States, realizing the gravity of the world situation, became more concerned about its security and that of the Western Hemisphere. The British prime minister, Winston Churchill, developed a contingency plan to have the royal family, in the event of a German takeover, flee Britain and take sanctuary in Canada. Clearly, the Atlantic Ocean was no longer a barrier to world conflict. Lend-Lease Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president of the United States, was worried about both Western Hemisphere security and Great Britain’s ability to stay in the war. He wanted to help Great Britain and prepare his own country for the war he knew it would one day enter, but he believed that the U.S. public was not ready for full-fledged participation. Roosevelt therefore conceived the lend-lease policy to address both issues. Under lend-lease, Great Britain would lease certain military bases in the Western Hemisphere (in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and elsewhere) to the United States for ninetynine years. In return, the United States would lend surplus aircraft and other military equipment to Great Britain. Thus, the British military would be strengthened, and the United States would gain control of bases that would help it defend the Western Hemisphere against potential German aggression. Canada was not consulted under this agreement. Although a close ally and associate of Great Britain, since the Statute of Westminster in 1931 Canada had been a sovereign nation. The Canadian prime minster, William Lyon Mackenzie King, had been slow to recognize the threat posed by Nazi Germany. King, indeed, was ambivalent about his country’s entry into the European war until the very last moment. There were many political pressures on King not to enter the war, ranging from Francophones in Quebec, whose fierce opposition to Britain made them reluctant to enter the war even though their own mother country, France, was on the 715

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British side, to isolationist farmers in the prairie provinces, who saw no apparent need to intervene in foreign disputes. Most Canadians, however, supported King when he decided to commit Canada to the war effort at the side of Great Britain. Canada in the War Once engaged in the war, King shared the concerns of Roosevelt and Churchill regarding Western Hemisphere security and was heartened by the lend-lease agreement. Nevertheless, he was concerned about Canadian national sovereignty as affected by the accord, especially in the case of Newfoundland. Newfoundland’s close geographical proximity to Canada put it in the natural Canadian sphere of influence. Newfoundland had been an independent, self-governing dominion for sixty years, until the 1930’s, when, because of its inability to handle the economic depression of that era, it had been taken over by Great Britain. King and the majority of the Canadian public expected that one day Newfoundland would join the rest of Canada (as, in fact, it did in 1949). He thus was unwilling to accept the permanent transfer of bases in Newfoundland to U.S. sovereignty. Roosevelt was friendly toward Canada and knew the country well from his summer visits to the Canadian island of Campobello. Recognizing King’s concern over the situation, Roosevelt advised the Canadian leader that he would be reviewing troops in the town of Ogdensburg, located in northern New York State close to the Canadian border, on August 16. King decided that it would be to Canada’s advantage for him to meet Roosevelt at Ogdensburg. In deference to Canadian public opinion, he made no public announcement of the visit, fearing that it would be seen as an act of submission or surrender to the United States. King and Roosevelt Meet at Ogdensburg King did his best to keep the meeting a secret. Even J. L. Ralston, the Canadian minister of defense, whose responsibilities were vitally concerned with the situation, learned of the meeting only through reading the next day’s newspapers. On the morning of August 16, Roosevelt arrived in Ogdensburg, accompanied by the U.S. ambassador to Canada, J. Pierrepont Moffat. Roosevelt met King, and the two men together reviewed U.S. troops. Roosevelt 716

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and King then repaired to a railway carriage, where the substantive discussions were held. The two men were very different. King was a mystic who regularly held séances in order to communicate with the spirit of his dead mother. Roosevelt, on the other hand, was regarded by many as the ultimate political opportunist, although his fierce commitment to democracy and liberalism never wavered. Nevertheless, the two men, who knew each other from previous meetings, had established a good working rapport, and they quickly reached a broad consensus. The Continental System The centerpiece of this consensus was the so-called Continental System. The Continental System provided that Canada and the United States would regularly consult each other about military conditions. It also stipulated that the two countries would prepare themselves to mount a common defense of the Western Hemisphere. It even allowed for the possibility of temporary U.S. bases being established on Canadian soil. This was the aspect of the Continental System most disagreeable to Canadian nationalists. The U.S. bases, however, were only in the context of Canadian involvement in the lend-lease policy. Although King and Canada had not been involved in the formulation of this policy, Roosevelt’s briefing apprised the Canadian prime minister of the lend-lease initiative, of which King wholeheartedly approved. King and Roosevelt also reached agreement on the status of Newfoundland. Roosevelt abjured any possible U.S. intent to control or annex Newfoundland permanently and stated that the future status of Newfoundland was up to the inhabitants of the island themselves, in consultation with the Canadian and British governments. Impact on Canadian-U.S. Relations The most important achievements of the Ogdensburg meeting were not in the precise terms hammered out between Roosevelt and King but in the general spirit of understanding and mutual support built between the two men. Canada and the United States had been friends for many years, but the two countries had never really been allies. The Ogdensburg Agreement prepared Canada and the United States for the alliance that would exist between 717

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them when the United States entered World War II in 1941 and that would continue through the postwar years. The Ogdensburg Agreement also represented a shift on the part of Canadian military and defense policy from a primary orientation toward Great Britain to a similar orientation toward the United States. By 1940, Canadian independence had been fully achieved. Canada, large in area but small in population, would inevitably have to engage in cooperation and alliance with another, more powerful country. Canada previously had been wary of the United States, since the latter country was so much larger in population. The dominance of the United States on the North American continent had caused observers periodically to wonder if Canada might eventually be annexed by the United States. Although the Ogdensburg Agreement might have seemed to subordinate Canada to U.S. defense policy, it had the countervailing effect of firmly enshrining the interests of an independent Canada within a North American defense context. This reaffirmation of Canadian independence substantially assisted U.S.-Canadian cooperation after the United States entered the war. It also smoothed the way for eventual Canadian participation in two postwar defense alliances led by the United States: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the North American Air Defense Pact (NORAD). Predictably, King faced considerable outcry in the Canadian nationalist press once he returned to Ottawa and his meeting with Roosevelt was revealed to the public. However, his achievement in the Ogdensburg meeting was considerable, helping cement Allied cooperation in the long and determined struggle against Nazi Germany and its threat to democracy and freedom. Nicholas Birns Sources for Further Study Gibson, Frederick, and Jonathan G. Rossie, eds. The Road to Ogdensburg. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993. Kimball, W. F. The Most Unsordid Act: Lend-Lease, 1939-1941. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969. Pickersgill, J. W. The Mackenzie King Record. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960. Stacey, C. P. Arms, Men, and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939-1945. Ottawa: Queen’s Printers, 1970. 718

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Teatero, William. Mackenzie King: Man of Mission. Don Mills, Ont.: Nelson, 1979. See also: Monroe Doctrine (1823); Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act

(1930); Good Neighbor Policy (1933); Neutrality Acts (19351939); Lend-Lease Act (1941); North Atlantic Treaty (1949).

Lend-Lease Act Date: March 11, 1941 U.S. Statutes at Large: 55 Stat. 31 U.S. Code: 22 § 411 Categories: Foreign Relations; Military and National Security

The Lend-Lease Act enabled the United States to provide aid and support to Great Britain during World War II while maintaining official neutrality. Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, plunged Europe into a second major war within twenty-five years—a war that would prove to be the worst in human history. As in the beginning of World War I, the United States hoped to remain neutral, although popular sentiment weighed heavily toward Great Britain and France. With memories of World War I still fresh in the minds of most Americans, isolationist views prevailed. Growth of Nazi Germany For six years prior to Germany’s move against Poland, the United States watched developments in Europe with concern. Adolf Hitler, whose Nazi Party governed Germany, made no attempt to conceal his intentions to break with the Treaty of Versailles, rearm Germany, and expand Nazi control throughout Europe. At the same time, Italy’s Benito Mussolini advanced aggressively against Ethiopia, and Japan continued military operations in China. Keenly aware of these developments, Congress in 1935 legislated the first in a series of neutrality laws. A six-month renewable 719

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act, the legislation prohibited the United States from selling arms or transporting munitions to belligerent nations. When it was renewed, a ban against making loans to warring nations was included. Congress and the president believed such a foreign policy would prevent the United States from slipping into another European war, should one arise. The following year, developments in Europe proved peace to be but an illusion. Hitler’s forces moved unopposed into the Rhineland, a French territory. In 1937, Germany involved itself in the Spanish Civil War and sealed the Rome-Berlin alliance. The United States responded with the Neutrality Act of 1937, which retained the principal features of the 1935 act but, at Roosevelt’s urging, allowed presidential discretion to sell military goods to belligerents on a “cash and carry” basis, provided the material was not transported on U.S. ships. The altered policy pleased manufacturers who wanted to profit while the nation remained officially neutral and apart from the European crisis. The new policy also pleased those in the United States who thought it essential to aid the country’s traditional allies. The United States Abandons Neutrality Germany’s expansion continued, and in his state of the union address, on January 4, 1939, President Roosevelt announced his dismay over the course of European affairs and his dissatisfaction with existing neutrality laws. He believed that the 1937 act benefited Hitler more than it did France or Great Britain. If Hitler’s enemies were unable to acquire sufficient material for defense, Germany would find the Western nations unable to halt Nazi aggression. Surely, the president hinted, the United States could devise methods short of war to aid British and French military defense preparations. Early that summer, the British government made a direct appeal to Roosevelt for military supplies, and in June, the president suggested revision of the Neutrality Act of 1937 to broaden the cash-and-carry provision. Fearful that such a program of support for Great Britain would cast the United States in an image of cobelligerent, isolationists in Congress blocked Roosevelt’s efforts. Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, and the BritishFrench declaration of war that followed, changed the congres720

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sional mood. By year’s end, revisions to the 1937 act were sanctioned, making it easier for Britain to obtain needed supplies. Arsenal of Democracy France fell to the Nazis in June, 1940. Great Britain was the sole surviving power in Europe. Many thought that the United States should provide direct military aid to the British, the United States’ front line against Germany. If Britain collapsed, the United States would become Hitler’s next target. Others contended that the United States needed to strengthen its own defenses in preparation for Nazi actions in the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt chose to follow both courses. He gained approval from Congress to appropriate funds for U.S. rearmament and for a peacetime compulsory military training law. In June, using executive authority, Roosevelt authorized the supply of outdated aircraft and rifles to Great Britain; in September, he arranged with Britain the exchange of fifty U.S. naval destroyers for leases of British naval bases. Great Britain’s financial reserves dwindled as autumn faded. In December, Prime Minister Winston Churchill informed Roosevelt that the cash-and-carry system needed modification. Roosevelt understood that Great Britain could not withstand further Nazi attacks without direct U.S. aid and that the United States’ own security was largely dependent on British resistance to Hitler. In midDecember, Roosevelt conceived the idea of lend-lease: War goods would be provided Allied nations and either returned or paid for at war’s end. In both a press conference and a radio “fireside chat,” Roosevelt stated that the best defense for the United States was a strong Great Britain. Every step short of war should be taken to help the British Empire defend itself. Great Britain’s inability to pay cash for U.S. supplies should not relegate the empire to Nazi conquest. To lend or lease the necessary goods would provide for Great Britain’s immediate war needs and indirectly benefit the United States by making Great Britain the United States’ front line of defense. Roosevelt presented an analogy to clarify the proposal: “Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four hundred or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire.” If the hose survived the fire, it would be returned. Should it be damaged, the neighbor would replace it. Military aid would be treated in the same way. The United States must 721

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become the “arsenal of democracy” and provide the goods necessary to halt Nazi expansion. Passage of Lend-Lease To secure permission and funding to aid Great Britain, Roosevelt introduced into the House of Representatives the Lend-Lease bill. The bill generated intense debate. Opponents said the measure would move the United States from neutrality to the status of active nonbelligerent and risk war with Germany. They believed that it would be more logical to plan to build the United States’ own defenses. Supporters argued that Hitler posed a real, direct threat to the United States, and that aiding Great Britain would make U.S. entry into the war less likely. Public opinion favored the president. Although 82 percent of Americans believed war was inevitable, nearly 80 percent opposed entry unless the nation were directly attacked. After two months of congressional debate, the Lend-Lease Act was passed on March 11, 1941. It permitted the president to lend or lease war materiel to any nation whose defense was deemed critical to the United States, and it authorized an immediate appropriation of seven billion dollars for Great Britain. In June, following Germany’s invasion of Russia, Roosevelt extended lend-lease to the Soviet Union. The Lend-Lease Act retained official U.S. neutrality, but the measure also placed the United States more squarely in opposition to Nazi Germany. In March, 1941, the United States teetered on the brink of war. By war’s end, in 1945, the United States had appropriated slightly more than fifty billion dollars under the lend-lease program. Great Britain received twenty-seven billion dollars of aid, the Soviet Union was provided ten billion dollars, and the remaining funds supplied goods to other Allied nations. Historial Assessment Roosevelt’s contemporaries and postwar scholars have questioned the president’s prewar direction of U.S. policy, particularly with regard to lend-lease. Some have argued that Roosevelt desperately wanted U.S. entry into the war long before Pearl Harbor but was restrained by popular opinion and political realities. Therefore, they argue, Roosevelt worked within the system to place the United States on an ever-advancing course toward war by molding public 722

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opinion, relaxing neutrality laws, and securing lend-lease. Others contend the president hoped to avoid intervention in Europe’s war. Lend-lease thus was a practical method for the United States to aid the Allies while remaining a nonbelligerent. Regardless of Roosevelt’s motives, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, sealed the United States’ fate. War came to the United States. Kenneth William Townsend Sources for Further Study Dobson, Alan P. U.S. Wartime Aid to Britain, 1940-1946. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Herring, George C., Jr. Aid to Russia, 1941-1946: Strategy, Diplomacy, the Origins of the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973. Jones, Robert Huhn. The Roads to Russia: United States Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969. Kimball, Warren F. The Most Unsordid Act: Lend-Lease, 1939-1941. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969. Langer, William L., and S. Everett Gleason. The Undeclared War, 1940-1941. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1968. Van Tuyll, Hubert P. Feeding the Bear: American Aid to the Soviet Union, 1941-1945. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989. See also: Neutrality Acts (1935-1939); Ogdensburg Agreement

(1940).

Executive Order 8802 Date: Issued June 25, 1941 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Military

and National Security

A major step in the advancement of African American civil rights, this executive order prohibited discrimination in the military. 723

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Ever since the Revolutionary War, the United States had experienced difficulty in bringing African Americans into its military. Although one of the victims of the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks, was an African American, and black soldiers were with George Washington when he made his famous 1776 Christmas crossing of the Delaware to attack the Hessians at Trenton and Princeton, it was not until the Civil War that African American troops were officially recruited into the United States Army. Even then, however, a rigid policy of segregation was maintained. In the two wars that followed, the Spanish-American War and World War I, both the Army and Navy had black troops, but largely in supporting roles, and always as separate, segregated units. In addition, black troop strength was kept deliberately low, partly to avoid offending white soldiers and partly because the military establishment had a low opinion of the abilities of African American troops. The Age of Jim Crow During the 1930’s, however, under the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, these prejudiced attitudes began to change. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which had been put into place to fight the ravages of the Great Depression, also addressed a number of social conditions, including civil rights. Although civil rights were never at the forefront of Roosevelt’s agenda, his administration was more committed to them than any previous presidency had been, and his wife, the redoubtable Eleanor Roosevelt, was an especially strong and capable advocate for racial equality and justice. In addition, the shrewdly realistic president, who foresaw the coming struggle with Nazi Germany, realized that the U.S. military needed every capable citizen, of whatever color or background. The policy of “Jim Crowism,” or rigid segregation of blacks and whites, remained largely in place, however. Slow Progress Correctly estimating the extent and depth of prejudice against African American participation in the military, especially in positions of responsibility, Roosevelt moved cautiously. He had been assistant secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson during World War I; now, Roosevelt prodded and encouraged the Navy high command to enlist additional African Americans and to place 724

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them in positions of greater responsibility than stewards or mess servers. Gradually and slowly, the Navy responded. A similar broadening took place in the Army in 1935, when the president insisted that African American medical officers and chaplains be called up from the reserves. On October 9, 1940, Roosevelt announced a revised racial policy for the armed forces; its intent was to bring more African Americans into the military and to place them in positions of trust and responsibility. At a slow but perceptible pace, the United States military was becoming more receptive to African Americans. The progress was not sufficiently rapid for many African Americans, among them A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the strongest and most effective African American unions in the country. Randolph, who well understood that black voters had become an essential part of the Democratic Party’s electoral base, calculated that Roosevelt would need to respond to African American demands, especially as the 1940 presidential elections approached. Randolph’s logic and timing were correct. Desegregating the Military In 1940, Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third term as president. Randolph, along with former Republican city councilman Grant Reynolds of New York City, began a campaign against the Jim Crow practices still prevalent in the United States military. Randolph and Reynolds also called for greater opportunities for African American workers in the rapidly growing defense industries, which had arisen as the United States rearmed against the threat from Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan. As the campaign intensified, Roosevelt faced a difficult situation that threatened his Southern, conservative support at the same time that it endangered his urban, liberal allies. When Randolph announced plans for a march on Washington, scheduled for July 1, 1941, Roosevelt knew he must act. His determination was steeled by the resolve of his wife Eleanor, who had long been a champion of equal rights for African Americans, and whose contacts with the black community were strong and deep. On June 25, 1941, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which enunciated a broad policy of racial equality in the armed forces and the defense industry. The order was clear and sweeping in its intent: 725

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties In offering the policy of full participation in the defense program by all persons regardless of color, race, creed, or national origin, and directing certain action in furtherance of said policy . . . all departments of the government, including the Armed Forces, shall lead the way in erasing discrimination over color or race.

President Roosevelt backed up the policy by establishing the Fair Employment Practices Commission, which was charged with monitoring and enforcing compliance among civilian contractors. It is estimated that Roosevelt’s executive order, combined with the work of the commission, helped to bring fifty-three thousand African American civilians into defense industry jobs they otherwise would not have held. Slow Progress The timing of the policy was impeccable. Randolph and the other campaign leaders, satisfied that the Roosevelt administration was sincere in its commitment to civil rights, called off the march on Washington. Political conservatives, who otherwise might have challenged the president’s order, had to admit that it would not be proper to expect African Americans to serve in the military without allowing them to hold responsible positions and achieve corresponding rank. Black voters responded enthusiastically to the Roosevelt reelection campaign, helping him to sweep to victory in the November balloting. Inevitably, there were racial tensions and outbreaks of violence, especially in lower- and middle-class Northern neighborhoods. In 1943, for example, tension between black and white workers led to open violence at a park on Belle Isle near Detroit; in the end, federal troops had to be called in to restore order, and twenty-five African Americans and nine whites had been killed. Similar, if less bloody, events took place in other cities. Still, the transition to a more equitable situation continued in both civilian and military life. However, the traditional segregation remained. During World War II, black units still were kept separate and apart from white troops, and generally reserved for support and logistical duties rather than combat. When the difficulties and emergencies of battle required it, African American units were brought into the fighting line; generally, they acquitted themselves well. By the end of the war, African Americans had distinguished themselves as ground sol726

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diers, sailors, and pilots in both combat and noncombat situations. After the surrender of the Axis powers in 1945, there was a sense of inevitable change ahead for the United States military. The question of whether it would be a peaceful, productive change remained. Truman and Executive Order 9981 Harry S. Truman, who assumed the presidency in 1945 after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, was determined to make the change in a proper fashion. He assembled a special Civil Rights Committee which, on October 30, 1947, issued its report, To Secure These Rights. Clearly and unhesitatingly, the report called for the elimination of segregation in the United States military. As the 1948 presidential elections approached, the issue of African Americans in the military affected the political atmosphere. Truman and the national Democratic Party, as heirs of the Roosevelt New Deal, had strong connections with the Civil Rights movement and its leaders; at the same time, much of the traditional Democratic strength was in the South, where civil rights issues were strongly opposed by the entrenched establishment. Southern politicians, such as Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, threatened to bolt the party if the Democrats adopted a strong civil rights platform at their convention; however, inspired by the passionate appeal of Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey of Minneapolis, the Democrats did indeed adopt a positive plank on civil rights. The Southerners stormed out, nominating Thurmond to run on the “Dixiecrat” ticket, and Truman went on to win a come-from-behind victory in November. One element of that victory was his own Executive Order 9981, issued on July 26, 1948, just after the Democratic Party convention. Truman’s order was similar to but stronger than Roosevelt’s: It required equal opportunity in the armed forces of the United States, regardless of race, and called upon the military services to move immediately to implement the directive. The Air Force reacted promptly and soon achieved remarkable integration of black and white troops; the Navy and Marines were more hesitant in their acceptance. In the end, however, all branches of the armed forces responded, making them among the most egalitarian and equitable of U.S. institutions. Michael Witkoski 727

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Sources for Further Study Dalifiume, Richard. Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1969. Nalty, Bernard C. Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military. New York: Free Press, 1986. Stillman, Richard J. Integration of the Negro in the U.S. Armed Forces. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968. U.S. Department of Defense. Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel Policy/Equal Opportunity. Black Americans in Defense of Our Nation. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991. Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. 2d rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. See also: Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954); Disfranchisement laws

(1890); Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964).

Emergency Price Control Act Date: January 30, 1942 U.S. Statutes at Large: 56 Stat. 23 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Military and Na-

tional Security

Adoption of the Emergency Price Control Act gave the Office of Price Administration the power to control prices of civilian goods and rents during World War II. As the American military buildup in the face of the threat from the Axis Powers accelerated in the spring of 1940, the United States began to face shortages of critical materials. Shortages raised difficult and politically sensitive questions concerning the proportion of the nation’s resources to reserve for civilian use and how to allocate the available supplies fairly. The problem was aggravated because government spending on defense was placing large amounts 728

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of cash into the hands of consumers. The United States spent an estimated $288 billion to fight World War II, compared to the $9 billion annual federal budget in 1940. Disposable personal income (income after taxes) rose from $92 billion to $151 billion during the war, while the supply of civilian goods and services (measured in constant dollars) increased only from $77.6 billion to $95.4 billion. With so much money pursuing a limited supply of goods, the government became concerned with preventing runaway inflation that could wreck the economy. Controlling Inflation The federal government followed a complex of strategies to keep inflation under control. Higher taxes imposed by the Revenue Act of 1942 soaked up part of the increased consumer purchasing power. Expanded sales of Series E government savings bonds to individuals similarly took out of circulation money that otherwise would have gone to purchase goods and services. Another weapon was the wage stabilization program administered by the National War Labor Board, which was established in January, 1942, to settle labor disputes in war industries. The Office of Price Administration, however, constituted the linchpin in the battle against inflation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPACS) by executive order on April 11, 1941. The OPACS was given a dual responsibility. It was to prevent inflationary price increases and to stimulate provision of the necessary supply of materials and commodities required for civilian use, in such a manner as not to conflict with military defense needs. Concurrently, it was to ensure the “equitable distribution” of that supply among competing civilian demands. Roosevelt appointed as OPACS administrator Leon Henderson, an economist who had risen from director of the Research and Planning Division of the National Recovery Administration to become one of the most influential New Deal leaders. In 1939, Roosevelt had appointed Henderson to the Securities and Exchange Commission. An outspoken champion of competition, opponent of monopoly, and defender of consumers, Henderson was temperamentally and ideologically at odds with the business executives who were brought to Washington, D.C., to mobilize the economy for the impending war. Roosevelt aggravated the situation by his typical prac729

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tice of dividing responsibility and leaving blurred the lines of authority among different officials. Henderson perceived a duty to act as spokesman for civilian needs. He accordingly came into bitter conflict with William S. Knudsen in the spring of 1941 over control of the priority system for the allocation of scarce materials. Knudsen, a former General Motors executive, as director-general of the Office of Production Management (OPM) was responsible for expanding military production. Roosevelt’s establishment of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB) in August, 1941, under former Sears, Roebuck and Company executive Donald M. Nelson placed that control in the hands of those giving military demands top priority. With the establishment of the SPAB, the functions of the OPACS in the allocation of materials among competing civilian users was transferred to the OPM. The result was the administrative separation of price control from production control. The OPACS was renamed the Office of Price Administration (OPA). A Law for Price Stabilization Rising prices accompanying the defense buildup shifted the focus of Henderson’s attention to the problem of inflation. The OPA lacked effective power to halt the spiral of rising prices, and the inflation rate reached 2 percent per month by the end of 1941. Although Roosevelt asked Congress in July, 1941, for prompt action on price stabilization, the lawmakers dragged their feet until after Pearl Harbor. The Emergency Price Control Act, which Roosevelt signed into law on January 30, 1942, authorized the OPA to set maximum prices and to establish rent controls in areas in which defense activity had affected rent levels. Because Henderson thought some price increases to be necessary as incentives to expand production, he delayed acting under this new authority until late April. The OPA then issued its first General Maximum Price Regulation, requiring that sellers charge no more than the highest price charged in March, 1942. This move slowed down, but failed to halt, the rise in the cost of living. The regulation worked satisfactorily for standardized articles but did not do so for products such as clothing, for which manufacturers and sellers could hide price increases through changes in style, quality, or packaging. The biggest loophole, however, was the provision that the congressional farm bloc wrote into the Emer730

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gency Price Control Act barring the imposition of price ceilings on farm products until their price reached 110 percent of “parity,” a level that would put product prices where farmers believed they ought to be. With most farm products thus excluded from price controls, food prices increased 11 percent during 1942. Military vs. Civilian Needs The conflict over allocation of resources between military and civilian needs resurfaced in the so-called “feasibility” dispute that reached its climax in the fall of 1942. Henderson took the lead in attacking the armed services for exaggerating their supply needs at the expense of the civilian economy. The immediate dispute was resolved by a compromise whereby the military program was cut back through extending scheduled delivery dates farther into the future. The military won the larger battle. In October, 1942, Roosevelt established the Office of Economic Stabilization under James F. Byrnes, formerly a senator from South Carolina and Supreme Court justice, to take charge of wage and price stabilization. Because of his political skills, his contacts in Congress, and Roosevelt’s confidence, Byrnes was able to expand his control over all matters relating to the economy. That control was formalized by the creation in May, 1943, of the new Office of War Mobilization, which was to coordinate the activities of the different war agencies. With Byrnes in charge, the armed services had the upper hand when questions arose about military versus civilian needs. At the same time, the military services successfully resisted the imposition of OPA price ceilings on the purchase of military supplies. In the fall of 1942, Henderson had to agree to exempt “strictly military goods” from maximum price controls in return for a promise by the services to try to hold down prices and the profits of suppliers. Although this exemption did not apply to materials going into military end products, approximately two-thirds of the War Department’s prime contracts were outside OPA control. Wage-Salary Freezes The OPA was more successful in maintaining price ceilings on consumer goods. Faced with a continued rise in the cost of living resulting from exemption of most farm products from the Emergency Maximum Price Regulation, Roosevelt in September, 1942, warned Congress that unless the lawmakers voted to rectify the sit731

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uation, he would act himself on the basis of his war powers. After a bitter struggle, Congress approved the Anti-Inflation Act of October, 1942, giving Roosevelt most of what he wanted. The legislation authorized the president to freeze wages and salaries, prices (including those of agricultural products), and rents at their levels on September 15. Roosevelt proceeded immediately to institute freezes. The cost of living, however, continued to rise. By April, 1943, prices were on average 6.2 percent above the September 15 level, with food prices rising even more. The OPA came under increasing pressure from producer groups and their congressional allies to relax price controls, and from labor unions for higher wages. The turning point in the battle against inflation came on April 8, 1943, when Roosevelt ordered the economic stabilization agencies to “hold the line” against further price and wage increases. He followed this order with governmental seizure of coal mines to break a miners’ strike for higher wages. The OPA simultaneously launched an aggressive campaign to roll back food prices. That campaign culminated in a 10 percent reduction in the retail prices of meat, coffee, and butter. Wartime Rationing Along with price and rent controls, the OPA adopted a system of rationing for particularly scarce commodities. The purposes of rationing were to combat inflation by preventing a bidding war for scarce goods, to ensure equitable distribution, and to give priority to military needs by restricting consumer demand. Rationing began at the end of December, 1941, with automobile tires as the first rationed good. A severe rubber shortage had resulted from the Japanese seizure of Southeast Asia. Rationing was extended to sugar, coffee, and gasoline in 1942. Rationing was instituted in 1943 for meats, fats and oils, butter, cheese, and processed foods. Shoes were added later. At the peak of rationing, the OPA administered thirteen rationing programs. Rationed goods still represented only one-seventh of total consumer expenditures. There were two types of rationing. One—applied, for example, to gasoline and rubber tires—involved a priority system under which different quotas were allotted on the basis of need. Equal rations for all were the rule, with few exceptions. The second type of rationing, the point system, was a scheme whereby a whole family 732

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of items (such as meats, fish, cheese, and butter) was lumped together, with each item in the family given a point value. Consumers were allotted a certain number of points per month and were free to spend those points as wished. The OPA exercised control at the final stage of the distribution chain. Retailers would collect ration coupons or stamps from their customers and had to give them to their suppliers before they could get a new supply of the article. Administration at the consumer level was delegated to approximately fifty-six hundred local rationing boards. This arrangement had important political advantages, as the boards were made up of respected and influential members of the local community. The accompanying price was lack of uniformity across the country. Administrative Infighting From the first, the OPA was a center of political infighting. As was the norm under Roosevelt, rival bureaucrats maneuvered to expand their empires. Thus Henderson clashed with Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, the petroleum administrator, over gasoline rationing, and with War Food Administrator Chester C. Davis over food rationing. Patronage-hungry politicians strove to control appointments to OPA positions. A host of rival interests jockeyed for favored treatment. Henderson’s vocal championship of consumers against pressure groups from business, agriculture, and labor antagonized producer groups and the conservative coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans in Congress. In December, 1942, Henderson resigned, officially for reasons of health; he appears to have been pushed out by Roosevelt because he had become too much of a political liability. Roosevelt replaced Henderson as OPA administrator in January, 1943, with Prentiss M. Brown, a Democratic senator from Michigan who had just been defeated for reelection partly because of his support for agricultural price controls. Brown was succeeded in October, 1943, by former advertising executive Chester Bowles. In February, 1946, New Deal lawyer and Federal Communications Commission chairman Paul Porter became the last OPA administrator. OPA: Successes, Failures, Final Days The OPA did not work perfectly. There were numerous cases of evasion of price controls and rationing. Landlords in areas where housing was scarce, for example, often demanded an under-the733

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table payoff before renting an apartment. There was a large black market in such goods as coffee and soap. Because of the time and difficulties involved, the OPA rarely instituted criminal prosecutions of violators; its major enforcement tool was a court injunction to prevent further illegal sales. Mistakes in the handling of rationing were a major contributor to the OPA’s unpopularity. The introduction of rationing for sugar and coffee was accompanied by what many thought was excessively restrictive and pointless bureaucracy and regulation. Even worse, the OPA had by 1944 issued food rationing coupons far in excess of available supplies. A survey in late fall showed that consumers had an average of 2.8 months of unused food coupons. When the temporarily successful German counterattack in the Battle of the Bulge at the end of 1944 threatened to further cut supplies, authorities canceled the unused coupons despite their previous pledge that no such action would be taken. The OPA was largely successful in keeping consumer prices under control. Living costs had increased by almost two-thirds from 1914 to the end of World War I. In contrast, the cost of living rose only by approximately 28 percent from 1940 to the end of World War II. Most of that increase came before adoption of the AntiInflation Act of October, 1942. Living costs increased less than 2 percent during the last two years of the war. Perhaps most important, most Americans enjoyed a higher standard of living at the war’s end than they had before it began. The end of the war led to a bitter struggle over continuation of the OPA. The new president, Harry S. Truman, backed Bowles in his plan for a gradual relaxation of wartime controls over prices, wages, and scarce commodities to smooth the transition to a peacetime economy. On the day after the surrender of Japan, the OPA ended rationing of gasoline, fuel oil, and processed foods. By the end of 1945, only sugar remained under rationing. During late 1945 and early 1946, the OPA was able to control price increases, but inflationary pressures were gaining momentum. Consumers were buying in black markets, labor unions were pushing for wage hikes, and manufacturers and farmers had joined with Republican leaders in Congress to demand an end to all controls. A battle raged through the spring of 1946 over extension of the OPA. In late June, 1946, a conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats passed a price control bill extending the OPA for one year but drastically cutting its powers and commanding it to 734

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decontrol prices “as rapidly as possible.” Instead of acquiescing, Truman vetoed the bill on June 29 and allowed price controls to expire on July 1. Prices rose sharply, while shortages continued of meat, sugar, electrical appliances, housing, and automobiles. In late July, Congress approved a second bill extending price and rent controls for one year. Truman reluctantly accepted it, but the damage had been done. The new measure was even weaker and more confusing than the one that Truman had vetoed. Republican speakers and advertisements during the election campaign in the fall of 1946 made the confusion and failure in the price control program a major theme. One incident was particularly damaging to the Truman administration and the Democrats. When the OPA restored price ceilings on meat in August, 1946, farmers withdrew their cattle from the market to force a change in policy. While shoppers waited in vain for meat, Republicans seized on the shortage as a campaign issue. After the Republicans won control of both houses of Congress, Truman gave up the fight. He ended all wage and price controls, except those on rents, sugar, and rice, on November 9, 1946. The OPA began to wind up its affairs a month later. John Braeman Sources for Further Study Bowles, Chester. Promises to Keep: My Years in Public Life, 1941-1969. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Chandler, Lester V. Inflation in the United States, 1940-1948. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951. Chandler, Lester V., and Donald H. Wallace, eds. Economic Mobilization and Stabilization: Selected Materials on the Economics of War and Defense. New York: Henry Holt, 1951. Harris, Seymour. Price and Related Controls in the United States. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1945. Mansfield, Harvey C. A Short History of OPA. Washington, D.C.: Office of Temporary Controls, OPA, 1948. Polenberg, Richard. War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1972. An excellent survey of all aspects of the American home front during World War II. Includes a brief but perceptive account of the struggle for economic stabilization. 735

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Rockoff, Hugh. Drastic Measures: A History of Wage and Price Controls in the United States. Cambridge England: Cambridge University Press, 1984. A comprehensive history of efforts to control wages and prices. Compares the United States’ experiences in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. Somers, Herman M. Presidential Agency OWMR, the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950. An excellent account of James F. Byrnes’s coordination and direction of the wartime government management of the economy. U.S. Bureau of the Budget. The United States at War. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1946. This official history is a comprehensive survey of the wartime government management of the economy. See also: Neutrality Acts (1935-1939); Lend-Lease Act (1941); G.I.

Bill (1944); Employment Act (1946).

Immigration Act of 1943 Also known as: Magnuson Act Date: December 17, 1943 U.S. Statutes at Large: 57 Stat. 600 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration

The Immigration Act of 1943 repealed Asian exclusion laws, opening the way for further immigration reforms. The passage by Congress of the Immigration Act of 1943, also known as the Magnuson Act, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing it into law ended the era of legal exclusion of Chinese immigrants to the United States and began an era during which sizable numbers of Chinese and other Asian immigrants came to the country. It helped bring about significant changes in race relations in the United States. 736

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The first wave of Chinese immigrants came from the Pearl River delta region in southern China. They began coming to California in 1848 during the gold rush and continued to come to the western states as miners, railroad builders, farmers, fishermen, and factory workers. Most were men. Many came as contract laborers and intended to return to China. Anti-Chinese feelings, begun during the gold rush and expressed in mob actions and local discriminatory laws, culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, barring the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. The act was renewed in 1892, applied to Hawaii when those islands were annexed by the United States in 1898, and made permanent in 1904. Another bill, passed in 1924, made Asians ineligible for U.S. citizenship and disallowed Chinese wives of U.S. citizens to immigrate to the United States. As a result, the Chinese population in the United States declined from a peak of 107,475 in 1880 to 77,504 in 1940. New Attitudes Toward China The passage of the Magnuson Act of 1943, which repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, inaugurated profound changes in the status of ethnic Chinese who were citizens or residents of the United States. It made Chinese immigrants, many of whom had lived in the United States for years, eligible for citizenship. It also allotted a minuscule quota of 105 Chinese persons per year who could enter the United States as immigrants. The 1943 bill was a result of recognition of China’s growing international status after 1928 under the Nationalist government and growing U.S. sympathy for China’s heroic resistance to Japanese aggression after 1937. It also was intended to counter Japanese wartime propaganda aimed at discrediting the United States among Asians by portraying it as a racist nation. World War II was a turning point for Chinese-U.S. relations. After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, China and the United States became allies against the Axis powers. Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of China’s wartime leader, won widespread respect and sympathy for China during her visit to the United States; she was the second female foreign leader to address a joint session of Congress. In 1943, the United States and Great Britain also signed new equal treaties with China that ended a century of international inequality for China. These events and the 737

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contributions of Chinese Americans in the war favorably affected the position and status of Chinese Americans. The 1943 act also opened the door for other legislation that allowed more Chinese to immigrate to the United States. In the long run, these laws had a major impact on the formation of Chinese families in the United States. Related Legislation The War Brides Act of 1945, for example, permitted foreign-born wives of U.S. soldiers to enter the United States and become naturalized. Approximately six thousand Chinese women entered the United States during the next several years as wives of U.S. servicemen. An amendment to this act, passed in 1946, put the Chinese wives and children of U.S. citizens outside the quota, resulting in the reunion of many separated families and allowing ten thousand Chinese, mostly wives, and also children of U.S. citizens of Chinese ethnicity, to enter the country during the next eight years. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 granted permanent resident status, and eventually the right of citizenship, to 3,465 Chinese students, scholars, and others stranded in the United States by the widespread civil war that erupted between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists after the end of World War II. The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 allowed an additional 2,777 refugees to remain in the United States after the civil war ended in a Communist victory and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Some Chinese students from the Republic of China on Taiwan, who came to study in the United States after 1950 and found employment and sponsors after the end of their studies, were also permitted to remain and were eligible for naturalization. The four immigration acts passed between 1943 and 1953 can be viewed as a result of the alliance between the United States and the Republic of China in World War II and U.S. involvement in the Chinese civil war that followed. In a wider context, they were also the result of changing views on race and race relations that World War II and related events brought about. Finally, they heralded the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, which revolutionized U.S. immigration policy in ending racial quotas. Its most dramatic consequence was the significant increase of Asian immigrants in general, and Chinese immigrants in particular, into the United States. 738

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The New Immigrants The new immigrants changed the makeup of Chinese American society and caused a change in the way the Chinese were perceived by the majority groups in the United States. Whereas most of the earlier immigrants tended to live in ghettoized Chinatowns, were poorly educated, and overwhelmingly worked in low-status jobs as laundrymen, miners, or railroad workers, the new immigrants were highly educated, cosmopolitan, and professional. They came from the middle class, traced their roots to all parts of China, had little difficulty acculturating and assimilating into the academic and professional milieu of peoples of European ethnicity in the United States, and tended not to live in Chinatowns. The latter group was mainly responsible for revolutionizing the way Chinese Americans were perceived in the United States. Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur Sources for Further Study Chan, Sucheng, ed. Entry Denied, Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Chen, Jack. The Chinese of America. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980. Min, Pyong Gap, ed. Asian Americans Contemporary Trends and Issues. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1995. Riggs, Fred W. Pressure on Congress: A Study of the Repeal of Chinese Exclusion. 1950. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. Steiner, Stanley. Fusang, the Chinese Who Built America. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Sung, Betty Lee. Mountain of Gold: The Story of the Chinese in America. New York: I Company, 1967. Tung, William L. The Chinese in America, 1870-1973: Chronology and a Fact Book. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1974. See also: Page Law (1875); Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); Alien land laws (1913); Immigration Act of 1917 (1917); Immigration Act of 1921 (1921); Cable Act (1922); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); War Brides Act (1945); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952); Refugee Relief Act (1953); Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (1965). 739

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G.I. Bill Also known as: Servicemen’s Readjustment Act Date: June 22, 1944 U.S. Statutes at Large: 58 Stat. 284 Public law: 78-346 U.S. Code: 38 § 694 Categories: Education; Health and Welfare

Federal subsidies for the education of veterans boosted reintegration of military personnel into the U.S. economy after World War II. World War II had a twofold effect on education in the United States. In the short run, the existence of many colleges and universities was seriously jeopardized. Both students and faculty members were removed by the selective service draft and by patriotic volunteering. Small private colleges, often perilously close to financial ruin, were among the institutions most severely affected. In the long run, however, the war served as a tremendous impetus in convincing people that the national government had a role to play in assuring that all citizens were given an opportunity to pursue formal education to the limit of their natural ability. The first tangible sign of this new concern was the passage in 1944 of the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, familiarly known as the G.I. Bill of Rights, which was concerned with the federal financing of educational opportunities for returning veterans. While this particular act undoubtedly was affected by wartime sentiments, the concept of federal responsibility in education soon enjoyed wide support. The Need to Fund Massive Education President Franklin D. Roosevelt and others began thinking about the interrupted education of many U.S. soldiers and sailors soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. In 1942, a report entitled Statement of Principles Relating to the Educational Problems of Returning Soldiers, Sailors, and Displaced War Industry Workers was published by the Institute of Adult Education of Teachers College, Columbia University. The report emphasized the need for some sort of postwar vocational and educational program for veter740

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ans, financed by the national government. In July, 1942, Roosevelt discussed the matter with President George F. Zook and other officials of the American Council on Education. Convinced of the federal responsibility in this area, Roosevelt initiated a Conference on Postwar Readjustment of Civilian and Military Personnel, which in June, 1942, submitted a recommendation for action. This “Demobilization and Reconversion” report indicated that the following action was needed: the development of a vocational training program for returning veterans; the establishment of special courses at regular colleges and universities for returnees; the financing of such educational services by the federal government; and the cooperation of local and state agencies with the federal government in the execution of this program. Roosevelt charged the War and Navy departments with establishing precise guidelines and recommendations for the implementation of these goals. The report that the War and Navy departments issued on October 27, 1943, became the basis for the G.I. Bill. Roosevelt’s legislative proposal to Congress was assisted by a number of factors. Of primary concern was the patriotic sentiment engendered by persons such as newspaper columnist Ernie Pyle, who insisted that the country owed its veterans something. The American Legion also lobbied in support of the bill. In addition, a number of government planners saw problems in the demobilization of an estimated fifteen million service people into the civilian economy. It seemed reasonable to spread the returning veterans among educational institutions of many different kinds—vocational schools and especially colleges. Draft statistics that indicated that U.S. education had been failing significantly in the prewar years were another important factor. The selective service studies provided a unique opportunity to measure the educational progress of a vast segment of the American public. To the chagrin of professional educators, the government announced that more than 676,000 men were disqualified from military service because they lacked the minimum of four years of formal schooling. Furthermore, it became clear that U.S. education also had failed to produce enough qualified mathematicians, scientists, and foreign-language experts. The problems of too few schools, too few competent teachers, and too few course offerings all pointed to one conclusion in the eyes of many educators and politicians: Only a major injection of federal funds could enable U.S. education to meet the idealistic goals 741

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established for it. The first hesitant steps in this direction were taken during World War II. On March 24, 1943, President Roosevelt signed into law the Vocational Rehabilitation Bill, which provided federal funds for the retraining and rehabilitation of disabled veterans and workers in the civilian defense industry. This was followed on June 22, 1944, by the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act. Provisions and Implications Under the provisions of the G.I. Bill, veterans were defined as those individuals with more than ninety days of active service after September 16, 1940, who possessed an honorable discharge. These persons were to receive an opportunity to further their education on a full- or part-time basis at any approved educational or training institution of their selection. The course of study could range from graduate work to elementary courses and had to be completed within a four-year period. The university or college was free to pass on the veteran’s eligibility to enroll in any of its programs, and normal standards were to be considered in force. The federal government would pay all tuition and fees required by the university. In addition, the veteran was entitled to a subsistence check each month. The amount of the check varied with the number of dependents and was increased to keep pace with inflation. By 1947, a veteran with one or more dependents was entitled to ninety dollars per month. A single veteran received sixty-five dollars per month. The act also provided money for new veterans’ hospitals and guaranteed unemployment compensation of twenty dollars per week for a period of one year after separation. Finally, low-interest loans were made available to veterans interested in purchasing a home or farm or establishing a new business. The implications of this act were tremendous. The national government was guaranteeing the educational opportunity of more than fifteen million citizens. The responsibility for this education was to be shared by the individual, the institution, and the national government. The flood of returnees soon swamped both public and private institutions in the United States. Schools that had been facing bankruptcy soon found themselves engaged in building programs. Special married-student dormitories sprang into existence to accommodate this new type of student. Altogether, the veterans caused a revolution in the techniques and status of U.S. higher education. At its crest in 1947, the flood of veterans repre742

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sented more than one million students out of a total student population of two and one-half million. In 1952, a new G.I. Bill was passed for veterans of the Korean War; later, the Vietnam War became the occasion for a further extension. A New Type of Student The original G.I. Bill of 1944 brought a different type of student to college campuses. Some had had their education interrupted by the war. Others never had envisioned receiving a college education, because of the cost. Thus, the campuses swelled with so-called nontraditional students, that is, students older than the usual eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds. Their maturity and experiences added markedly to the academic activity. The sheer numbers of students also strained the college facilities and the stamina of faculty and staff. Year-round programs, night classes, and academic counseling became necessary. Much to the dismay of conservative academics, the schools provided program acceleration and credit for experiential learning. Many of these changes became standard parts of the educational experience at most institutions of higher learning. Continuing education (adult learning) for either credit or educational enrichment became commonplace at both secondary and higher-education institutions. The G.I. Bill is also credited with providing African Americans with greater opportunities for higher education, as well as helping to improve the quality of education at traditionally African American institutions. George Q. Flynn, updated by Albert C. Jensen Sources for Further Study Hyman, Harold M. American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the 1862 Homestead and Morrill Acts, and the 1944 G.I. Bill. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986. Kandel, Issac L. The Impact of the War upon American Education. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948. Kiester, Edwin, Jr. “Uncle Sam Wants You . . . to Go to College,” Smithsonian 25 (November 1, 1994). Montgomery, G. V. “The Montgomery G.I. Bill: Development, Implementation, and Impact.” Education Record 75, no. 4 (Fall, 1994): 49-54. 743

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Rose, Amy D. “Significant and Unintended Consequences: The G.I. Bill and Adult Education.” Education Record 75, no. 4 (Fall, 1994): 47-48. Tiedt, Sidney W. The Role of the Federal Government in Education. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. Wilson, Reginald. “G.I. Bill Expands Access for African Americans.” Education Record 75, no. 4 (Fall, 1994): 32-39. Zook, Jim. “As G.I. Bill Marks Its Fiftieth Year, Use of Educational Benefits Rises.” Chronicle of Higher Education 40, no. 41 (June 15, 1994): A27. See also: Executive Order 8802 (1941); Employment Act (1946); National Defense Education Act (1958); Economic Opportunity Act (1964); Higher Education Act (1965).

Bretton Woods Agreement Date: Concluded July 31, 1944 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 188 Public law: 90-349 U.S. Code: 22 § 286 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance; Foreign Relations;

Treaties and Agreements

The Bretton Woods Agreement provided the basis for the postwar fixed exchange rate system and the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In July of 1944, about seven hundred delegates, representing fortyfour countries, met at the first United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, held at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The purpose of the conference was to develop an agreement to deal with the organization of the post-World War II international economy, more specifically the promotion of exchange rate stability and the restoration of international trade. 744

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The Bretton Woods Conference In a message he read in the conference’s keynote speech, President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned the delegates of the importance and necessity of cooperating in peacetime as they had in war. He expressed his utmost confidence in their ability to work out their differences. He indicated further that this conference marked the beginning of a broad effort to bring about international cooperation with the aim of developing a sound, dynamic, expanding world economy, with rising living standards for all, in the postwar period. The conference ran from July 1 to July 22, 1944. The immediate purpose of the conference was the development of a stabilization fund and a vehicle to finance postwar reconstruction. The agreements made were not binding on any of the nations at the conference. They were to be referred to the various national governments, which could either accept or reject them. Secretary of the Treasury Henry J. Morgenthau, Jr., headed the U.S. delegation and was elected president of the conference. Harry Dexter White acted as his monetary adviser and developed the American proposals. The British team was headed by John Maynard Keynes, an adviser to the British Treasury who developed a proposal that was far more visionary and radical than the American proposal. The Bretton Woods conference produced the basis for the two major post-World War II international financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, more commonly known as the World Bank. Both of these institutions were formally established on December 27, 1945, when the representatives of thirty nations met in Washington, D.C., for a signing ceremony. By the end of 1946, membership had reached thirty-five nations. International Monetary Fund The function of the International Monetary Fund was to promote stability in the exchange rates of currencies and to assist nations suffering from short-term balance of payments problems, or imbalances in their imports and exports or financial transactions with the rest of the world. The function of the World Bank was to finance postwar reconstruction and economic development in less developed nations. 745

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The basic goals of the International Monetary Fund—the promotion of exchange rate stability and assistance with balance of payments deficits—were aimed at rectifying problems created by common practices that restricted trade during the 1930’s. Many nations during that period used deficits in their balance of payments as a rationale for restricting trade. The manipulation of currency values was a common practice. The underlying purpose of both institutions was to foster international cooperation in the restoration of international trade and the development of a healthy world economy. The level of cooperation of the Allied nations during World War II was unprecedented, and the spirit of international cooperation prevailing at the end of World War II was different from the economic nationalism and political chaos that prevailed during the 1930’s. The lesson had been learned: Extreme economic nationalism and political chaos in the prewar period were major reasons for the war. The Bretton Woods System The exchange rate system envisioned by this agreement, known as the Bretton Woods System, was an exchange rate regime of stable but adjustable foreign exchange parities. Essentially it was a compromise between the fixed exchange rates of the nineteenth century gold standard and floating exchange rates. The system was often characterized as an “adjustable peg.” Day-to-day fluctuations in the prices of currencies, measured in terms of other currencies of gold, were to be limited to a band of 1 percent above or below the agreed-upon price, or par value. Each nation was responsible for limiting the fluctuations of the value of its currency. The narrow band of fluctuations around the par value was similar to that which prevailed under the nineteenth century gold standard, with the important exception that the Bretton Woods System specifically provided for periodic changes in exchange rates. The Bretton Woods System was a compromise in another important sense. It was an attempt to capture the automatic adjustment process under the gold standard while removing some of the harshness of this process by allowing a discretionary change in exchange rates in the face of a “fundamental disequilibrium” in a nation’s balance of payments. The Bretton Woods System provided two basic mechanisms of adjustment: inflating (deflating) the domestic economy for na746

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tions with surpluses (deficits) in their balance of payments, or altering the par value of a nation’s currency. The latter course of action, changing a currency par value, was only to be used when the nation suffered from a “fundamental disequilibrium” in its balance of payments. Deficits and surpluses continuing over some period of time were supposed to be equally undesirable. In practice, however, more pressure for adjustment was placed on the deficit nations, the result of mercantilistic bias, which looked down upon net importers of goods. Essentially, adjustment under the Bretton Woods System was a zero-sum game. Any devaluation was matched by a revaluation. The existence of persistent surpluses made it more difficult for deficit nations to adjust. Even though nations’ tolerance for unemployment and inflation vary over time and from nation to nation, at any point in time, it is probably more difficult from the perspective of domestic politics for a deficit nation to deflate its economy than it is for a surplus nation to inflate its economy. Deflating a nation’s economy usually means more unemployment, slower growth, and reduced profits, each of which represents a political disaster for a modern democracy. Consequently, deflation of the domestic economy by nations with deficits in their balance of payments was rarely accomplished. The alternative mechanism of adjustment was a change in the par value of the currency of a nation facing a “fundamental disequilibrium” in its balance of payments. More pressure to adjust was placed, once again, on the deficit nations. Consequently, this mechanism became currency devaluations for those nations suffering from persistent deficits in their balance of payments. Many nations could not or would not embrace this policy for either domestic or international political reasons. The “adjustable peg” seemed to move only in one direction, if it moved at all, and that direction was downward, with devaluations of currencies. In practice, the compromise between fixed and adjustable exchange rates did not work. There was a tendency to delay adjustment. When the inevitable adjustment came, it was large and disruptive. A fundamental shortcoming of the Bretton Woods System was the failure to provide for an orderly addition to international liquidity—a central source for borrowing—needed to support growth in world trade. 747

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The U.S. Dollar and the Smithsonian Agreement The United States took on the role of supplying additional liquidity to the world by running balance of payment deficits on a continuous basis. The U.S. dollar rapidly became the world’s major vehicle for payment and reserve currency, or currency used to support the value of the domestic currency. Through these continuous balance of payments deficits, U.S. dollars sent abroad to buy goods and services and for investment purposes did not return. The rest of the world used additional U.S. dollar holdings for monetary reserves and to supplement world liquidity. Deficits in the United States balance of payments became chronic and persistent, leading to a weakening of the U.S. dollar. Monetary crises followed, and confidence in the dollar waned. The ability of the U.S. Treasury to convert U.S. dollars into gold became questionable as these balance of payments deficits grew, and eventually the Bretton Woods System collapsed. In 1971, an unprecedented deficit in the U.S. balance of payments developed as a result of a flight from the U.S. dollar and a substantial trade deficit. President Richard M. Nixon suspended the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold and imposed a 10 percent surtax on all imports. These actions had the effect of a unilateral devaluation of the U.S. dollar, pulling out the linchpin from the Bretton Woods System. An attempt was made to rescue the Bretton Woods System at the Smithsonian Conference, convened in Washington, D.C., on December 18, 1971. The U.S. dollar, which was clearly overvalued at the time, was devalued by about 8 percent through an increase in the price of gold from $35 to $38 per ounce. The band in which a currency’s value could fluctuate around the par value also was widened, from 1 percent to 2.25 percent above or below par. What the Smithsonian Agreement proposed to do, ironically, was to introduce stability through adjustable rates. This “reform,” in fact, attempted to implement the very essence of what the Bretton Woods System was supposed to be, short-term fixed exchange rates with periodic adjustability and long-term stability. On its very first test, in June of 1972, the reformed regime established only six months earlier began to collapse. By the second quarter of 1973, floating exchange rates, with the values of currencies determined by daily transactions in free markets, were a reality, and the Bretton Woods System had passed into history. 748

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Historial Assessment The Bretton Woods era encompassed not only the most rapid and widely distributed period of world economic growth in history but also a period of notable economic stability, including price stability. Conventional wisdom among economists at one time seems to have been that the rules and strictures of the Bretton Woods System played little or no role in the impressive world economic growth of the period. Economists are beginning to question this conventional wisdom as they reexamine the Bretton Woods era. The growth of both gross domestic product and international trade slowed significantly after 1973. A growing number of economists attribute this slower growth to the increased volatility of exchange rates that prevailed after the collapse of the Bretton Woods System. The stable, fixed foreign exchange rates of the Bretton Woods System acted to reduce both the risks and the costs of international trade and investment, encouraging more of these activities. Daniel C. Falkowski Sources for Further Study Bilson, John F. O. “Macroeconomic Stability and Flexible Rates.” American Economic Review 75, no. 5 (1985): 62-67. Murphy, Carter J. “Reflections on the Exchange Rate System.” American Economic Review 75, no. 5 (1985): 68-73. Scammell, W. M. International Monetary Policy: Bretton Woods and After. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975. Solomon, Robert. The International Monetary System: 1945-1981. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. Williamson, John. “On the System in Bretton Woods.” American Economic Review 75, no. 5 (1985): 74-79. Yeager, Leland B. International Monetary, Relations Theory, History and Policy. 2d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. See also: Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930); Reciprocal Trade Act

(1936); Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947).

749

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Yalta Conference agreements Date: Concluded February 4-11, 1945 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

At the end of World War II, the leaders of the “Big Three” powers—the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union—met in Yalta to determine the future of Germany, the future of Poland, and the nature of a world organization to replace the discredited League of Nations. In February, 1945, the armies of the Soviet Union moved rapidly toward Berlin with the Nazis in full retreat. In the West, British and U.S. forces, commanded by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, prepared to invade Germany. The unconditional surrender of Germany was expected in a matter of weeks. In the Far East, U.S. forces moved steadily from island to island across the Pacific toward a final invasion of the Japanese home islands. The possibility of using an atomic bomb to end the war remained questionable. Military experts did not believe the bomb could be made ready before the end of the year. With the defeats of Germany and Japan a certainty, the Big Three Allied leaders—Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain, Communist Party secretary Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States— met to plan the postwar world. It was the last time the three would see one another, for Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, just two months after the conference ended and less than a month before Germany surrendered. At Stalin’s request, the Allies gathered at Livadia Palace (once a summer home of Czar Nicholas II) at Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula of the Black Sea. The conference lasted from February 4 to February 11, 1945. Postwar Europe Yalta represented the height of Allied cooperation. The Big Three spoke happily of the end of the fighting, but conflicting aims and conflicting personalities led to compromises in the spirit of cooperation that failed to satisfy any of them. Four major issues were discussed, and in spite of much talk of cooperation, no comprehen750

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sive settlement proved possible. The future of Germany, the future of Poland, the nature of a world organization to replace the discredited League of Nations, and the Soviet Union’s formal entrance into the war against Japan were all highly controversial issues that needed to be settled by the Big Three. Upon the defeat of Germany, Stalin wanted to divide that country into permanent zones of occupation; and he wanted reparations in kind (food and industry) to compensate for the nearly twenty million Russian dead and the Nazi destruction of one thousand Russian towns and cities. Stalin demanded a harsh policy to prevent Germany from ever making war again. Churchill agreed to divide Germany, but not permanently. He insisted that a healthy Europe depended upon a prosperous Germany. Roosevelt’s position was somewhere between these two views. Stalin’s reparations demands were incorporated into the conference’s final protocol, and the three powers called for Germany’s “dismemberment” into occupation zones during the period following surrender. A U.S. proposal granting France the status of an occupying power gained Stalin’s reluctant approval. The details of Allied occupation policy, however, as well as the precise amount of reparations, were deferred to a later meeting. In addition to a neutralized Germany, Stalin wanted the security of a friendly Polish government. He sought boundaries giving Russia territory from eastern Poland, while compensating the Poles with part of eastern Germany. The Soviet Union recognized the provisional Polish government in Warsaw (the so-called Lublin Poles), but both Great Britain and the United States insisted that the Polish government-in-exile in London also participate in the political rebuilding of Poland after the war. The Big Three agreed on a formula calling for the reorganization of the Lublin government with open elections, worded in such a way that both sides could see their respective interests maintained. The question of Poland’s postwar boundaries also found a compromise solution. Ignoring the protests of the London Poles, the Big Three set the Curzon Line as the basis for Poland’s eastern border, thereby sanctioning Russian reacquisition of areas lost in the fighting during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1921. As compensation, the Poles would receive substantial accessions of territory in the north and west, but the precise delineation of the new German frontier was left to the peace conference. 751

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The United Nations Primarily at U.S. insistence, discussion of a world organization to maintain the postwar peace enjoyed a high priority at Yalta. The Big Three planned an international conference to be held in San Francisco in April, at which the United Nations would be formed. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill reached agreements on several points concerning membership and voting in the new body. Churchill resented U.S. proposals for United Nations trusteeships of colonial territories, which the British prime minister interpreted as an attempt by Roosevelt to dismantle the British Empire. Stalin exploited the disagreement over trusteeships between the Western Allies to gain Churchill’s support for his own plan to have two Soviet republics recognized as independent voting members of the new United Nations. The atomic bomb was still a somewhat vague conception at Yalta, and so it was assumed that the Soviets would be needed to defeat Japan. Stalin promised that in return for Russian territory ceded to Japan under Russia’s czarist imperial government, he would declare war on Japan within three months of Germany’s surrender. The agreement on the Far East was not made public in February, 1945. The agreements at Yalta could have become the basis for an amicable peace, for the spirit of the conference was one of hope and trust. In the spring and summer, however, charges of bad faith and double-dealing began to replace the spirit of compromise. Serious disagreements that heralded the Cold War to come were soon in evidence, and within a short time, the good will that marked the Yalta Conference had vanished. Burton Kaufman, updated by William Allison Sources for Further Study Buhite, Russell D. Decisions at Yalta: An Appraisal of Summit Diplomacy. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1986. Clemens, Diane Shaver. Yalta. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. Gardner, Lloyd C. Spheres of Influence: The Great Powers Partition Europe, from Munich to Yalta. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1991. Snell, John L., ed. The Meaning of Yalta: Big Three Diplomacy and the New Balance of Power. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1956. 752

War Brides Act

Theoharis, Athan G. The Yalta Myths: An Issue in U.S. Politics, 19451955. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1970. See also: Treaty of Versailles (1919); Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928);

Good Neighbor Policy (1933); Bretton Woods Agreement (1944); Truman Doctrine (1947); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947); Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948); North Atlantic Treaty (1949); Tripartite Security Treaty (1952); U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952).

War Brides Act Date: December 28, 1945 U.S. Statutes at Large: 59 Stat. 659 U.S. Code: 8 § 232 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration; Women’s Is-

sues

The War Brides Act relaxed immigration regulations to allow foreignborn spouses and children of U.S. military personnel to settle in the United States. Between 1939 and 1946, more than sixteen million U.S. servicemen, primarily single and between eighteen and thirty years of age, were deployed to war theaters in foreign lands. Although the U.S. government discouraged servicemen from marrying—believing the single soldier, without distractions, would be of more value to the war effort—one million marriages to foreign nationals occurred during and shortly after the war. Aware of the potential for these liaisons, the U.S. War Department had issued a regulation requiring personnel on duty in any foreign country or possession of the United States to notify their commanding officer of any intention to marry at least two months in advance. Enacted in June, 1942, the regulation demanded strict adherence, and the waiting period was waived rarely, with a possible exception for the pregnancy of the bride-to-be. Usually, permission to marry was granted; however, certain couples, for example U.S.-German, U.S.-Japanese, 753

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and those of different races, either encountered longer waiting periods or were denied permission completely. Passage of the Act Many of those couples who had been granted permission and had married were separated for two to three years. In October, 1945, the Married Women’s Association picketed for transport to allow their families to reunite. Evidently, the three thousand members’ voices were heard; on December 28, 1945, the Seventy-ninth Congress passed an act to expedite the admission to the United States of alien spouses and alien minor children of U.S. citizens who had served in or were honorably discharged from the armed forces during World War II. These spouses had to meet the criteria for admission under the current immigration laws, including a thorough medical examination, and the application had to be filed within three years of the date of the act. The War Bride Ships Following passage of the War Brides Act, thirty vessels, primarily hospital ships and army troopships, were selected to transport the women, children, and a few men (“male war brides”) to the United States. Even the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary were recruited for the task, because of their capacity to carry large groups of people. Transportation requests were prioritized by the military as follows: dependents of personnel above the fourth enlisted grade, dependents of personnel already placed on orders to the United States, wives of prisoners of war, wives of men wounded in action, and wives of men hospitalized in the United States. At the bottom of the priority pool were fiancées and spouses in interracial marriages. Before debarking, the spouse (usually a woman) had to present her passport and visa, her sworn affidavit from her husband that he could and would support her upon arrival, two copies of her birth certificate, two copies of any police record she might have, any military discharge papers she might have, and a railroad ticket to her destination from New York. The families who saw them off knew they might never see their children and grandchildren again. The American Red Cross was officially requested by the War Department to function as a clearinghouse for the brides, and many Red Cross volunteers served as “trainers” for the women in how to become American wives. Since many did not speak English, the 754

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Red Cross also offered classes to aid in practical communication skills. On January 26, 1946, the first war bride ship, the SS Argentina, left Southampton, England, with 452 brides, 173 children, and 1 groom on board. Lauded as the “Pilgrim Mothers” voyage or the “Diaper Run,” the voyage was highly publicized. Many of the brides, upon arriving in the United States on February 4, were greeted by the U.S. press. In Germany and Japan, permission to marry had not easily been attained and often was not granted at all. The ban on marriage to Germans was lifted on December 11, 1946, with twenty-five hundred applications submitted by the end of the year; in Japan, the ban lingered much longer. During the first months of occupation during the war, approximately one-half million U.S. soldiers had been stationed in or near Yokohama. Many young women, fearing for their lives, hid from these “barbarians,” but since the U.S. military was often the only source of employment, the women were forced to venture out. The country was in a cultural flux, resulting from economic deprivation, matriarchal predominance and female enfranchisement, and the abjuration of divinity by Emperor Hirohito. As the U.S. soldiers and Japanese women worked together, romantic relationships often developed, and because official permission to marry could not be obtained, many such couples were wed in secret in traditional Japanese ceremonies. Although as many as one hundred thousand Japanese brides were deserted, others sought immigration to the United States. However, one proviso of the War Brides Act was that émigrés could not be excluded under any other provision of immigration law. The Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924 was still in place, and although Public Law 199 had overridden the act to allow Chinese immigration, the Japanese were still excluded. Many were not allowed admission to the United States until July, 1947, when President Harry Truman signed the Soldier Brides Act, a thirty-day reprieve on race inadmissibility. Life in America In many cases, life for the war brides in the United States was not what they had expected. Many were treated poorly by isolationists who placed personal blame on all foreigners for U.S. involvement 755

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in the war. Because of the influx of soldiers returning to the civilian population, available housing and jobs were limited. Often the brides found themselves in the middle of a family-run farm, with some as sharecroppers. Frequently, when adjustment to civilian life was difficult for the former military man, he would rejoin his outfit, leaving the bride behind with his family—strangers who were sometimes hostile to the foreigner in their midst. Many of the marriages made in haste soured just as quickly through homesickness, promises unkept, or abuse. War brides who were unhappy or abused often stayed in their marriages, however, from fear of losing their children or of being deported. Marriage did not confer automatic citizenship on foreign brides. They were required to pass exams to be naturalized, and many were still incapable of communicating in any but their native tongue. Public assistance was unavailable for these women. Within one year of the mass exodus from Europe and Asia, one out of three of the war marriages had ended in divorce, and it was predicted that by 1950, the statistics would be two out of three. This prediction proved incorrect, however. Many of the war brides not only preserved their marriages but also became valuable members of their communities and contributors to American culture. In April, 1985, several hundred of these women, men, and children journeyed to Long Beach, California, for a reunion, appropriately held aboard the dry-docked Queen Mary. Joyce Duncan Sources for Further Study Hibbert, Joyce. The War Brides. Toronto: PMA Books, 1978. Kubat, Daniel, et al. The Politics of Migration Policies. New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1979. Michener, James. Sayonara. New York: Ballantine, 1954. Moravia, Alberto. Two Women. New York: Playboy, 1981. Shukert, Elfrieda Berthiaume, and Barbara Smith Scibetta. War Brides of World War II. Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988. See also: Cable Act (1922); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Immi-

gration Act of 1943 (1943); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952); Refugee Relief Act (1953); Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (1965); Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (1986); Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987). 756

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Employment Act Also known as: Murray Act Date: February 20, 1946 U.S. Statutes at Large: 60 Stat. 23 Public law: 79-304 U.S. Code: 15 § 1021 Categories: Labor and Employment

Congress passed this legislation to stimulate the economy following World War II, creating agencies in Congress and the executive branch to focus on problems of depression and inflation. During the last months of World War II (1941-1945), people in the United States looked ahead anxiously to the nation’s postwar economy. Their gravest worry was the possibility of a catastrophic depression. When the war ended, the nation would face the immediate task of demobilizing eleven million members of the armed forces and reconverting the economy to a peacetime basis. As soon as possible, a war-weary nation hoped to scrap price controls and rationing, cut taxes, and turn industry back to the production of consumer goods, such as automobiles. Still, the memory lingered of the Great Depression of the 1930’s, with its mass unemployment, farm foreclosures, bank failures, and idle factories. Perhaps the sudden end of wartime spending would again plunge the nation back into depression. By early 1945, many economists were predicting eight to ten million unemployed when the returning troops were released from service. However, the levels of production, income, and employment reached during the war had given the United States a taste of a full-production economy. After the sacrifices of war, people were determined to settle for nothing less. In 1944, the Democratic platform pledged to guarantee full employment after the war, and the Republicans made virtually the same promise. Passage of the Act Only a month after the atomic bombs had been dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as hostilities ceased, the new president, Harry S. Truman, urged the passage of full-employment legislation then pending before Congress. The outcome was the Employ757

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ment Act of 1946. On January 22, 1945, Senator James E. Murray had introduced a full-employment bill. The bill asserted that “all Americans able to work and seeking work have the right to useful, remunerative, regular, and full-time employment. . . .” Furthermore, it was the government’s responsibility “to provide such a volume of Federal investment and expenditure as may be needed to assure continuing full employment. . . .” The president was directed to present a forecast of aggregate demand for goods and services throughout the economy, compare it with the level needed for full employment, and recommend changes in federal spending to remedy any shortfall or excess. Murray’s Full Employment Bill passed the Senate (with amendments) on September 28, 1945, by a vote of 71 to 10, and was endorsed by President Truman. Over the next year, however, the Murray bill underwent a drastic metamorphosis. Congressional conservatives cut out any federal guarantee of the right to a job or of full employment. They also reduced the force of the government’s commitment to forecasting and eliminated specific mention of public works and other kinds of compensatory spending. The ultimate result was the Employment Act, signed into law by President Truman February 20, 1946. Two Main Provisions The final law contained two main provisions. The first committed the government “to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.” In practice, this strange wording came to be seen as a mandate to avoid significant depression or inflation. Second, two agencies were established to carry out the commitment. Congress set up a Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), consisting of three economists, to assist the president in drawing up an annual report on the state of the economy. In Congress, a Joint Committee on the Economic Report (later renamed the Joint Economic Committee—JEC) was to review the president’s report and make recommendations of its own. President Truman soon appointed Edwin Nourse, Leon Keyserling, and John D. Clark as the first Council of Economic Advisors. Keynesian Economic Theory The Employment Act was a statutory expression of what the United States had learned during the Great Depression and World War II. 758

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The act’s spiritual father was British economist John Maynard Keynes. In 1936, Keynes had published his landmark work The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Keynes did not endorse fashionable proposals for nationalization or economic planning of specific industries. Rather, he argued that government could help a free market to work well if it used monetary and fiscal measures to help stabilize the aggregate demand for goods and services. A nation, Keynes argued, could actually pull itself out of a depression if the government stimulated the economy through deficit spending for public works and other purposes. As supporting evidence, many people pointed to the rapidity with which the U.S. economy was restored to full employment when federal defense spending skyrocketed from 1940 on. The ambitious provisions of the original Full Employment Bill assumed that government economists could accurately forecast undesirable declines or increases in aggregate demand, and that government could easily offset these with fiscal measures, such as spending increases or tax-rate changes. Well-founded skepticism about both of these propositions lay behind the scaling down of the bill’s scope. From the end of World War II through the end of the twentieth century, every president has used the philosophy and machinery of the Employment Act to keep the economy from falling into a dangerous boom-and-bust cycle. In the immediate postwar years, Truman faced a confusing economic situation that was just the reverse of what experts had predicted—shortages instead of surplus and inflation instead of depression and deflation. These problems became acute during the Korean War, and both the CEA and the JEC contributed significantly to research on managing the economy under renewed war conditions. Their influence helped persuade Congress to increase tax rates so that the war did not lead to large federal deficits. The Council of Economic Advisors Experience soon demonstrated some problems inherent in the workings of the Employment Act. The first chairman, Edwin Nourse, visualized the CEA as a relatively nonpolitical body reflecting the technical expertise of professional economists. Realistically, however, the CEA had no clientele or constituency of its own, and therefore no real political power, except in relation to 759

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the president; therefore, CEA members have been chosen for conformity with the outlook of the president. This has meant that the likelihood that the CEA will shape the president’s economic views is not great. A second issue arises because the Federal Reserve System, which has potentially a large influence on demand management policies, is relatively independent of the president and therefore of the CEA. The CEA has involved many prominent professional economists, such as James Tobin, Herbert Stein, Walter Heller, Martin Feldstein, and Alan Blinder. The agency has produced significant research and commentary, but has not been a major policy influence. Nor has the JEC, which does not initiate legislation in its own right. Subsequent Legislation In 1978, the Employment Act was significantly extended by the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act (Humphrey-Hawkins Act), which established nonbinding targets of 4 percent for unemployment and 3 percent for inflation, to be achieved by 1983. The unemployment target generally was recognized as unrealistic. Good economic performance in the 1980’s and 1990’s usually involved getting unemployment below 6 percent. However, the inflation target was eventually fulfilled in the early 1990’s. The HumphreyHawkins Act directly addressed the issue of Federal Reserve Board policy, instructing the Federal Reserve to report directly to Congress concerning the relationship between its policy targets and the goals articulated by the act. Donald Holley, updated by Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Bailey, Stephen K. Congress Makes a Law: The Story Behind the Employment Act of 1946. New York: Columbia University Press, 1950. Canterbury, E. Ray. The President’s Council of Economic Advisors: A Study of Its Functions and Its Influence on the Chief Executive’s Decisions. New York: Exposition Press, 1961. Carlson, Keith M. “Federal Fiscal Policy Since the Employment Act of 1946.” Review (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) 69, no. 10 (December, 1987): 14-25. 760

Hobbs Act

Colm, Gerhard, ed. The Employment Act, Past and Future: A Tenth Anniversary Symposium. Special Report by the NPA Board of Trustees and Standing Committees 41. Washington, D.C.: National Planning Association, 1956. DeLong, J. Bradford. Keynesianism, Pennsylvania Avenue Style: Some Economic Consequences of the Employment Act of 1946. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1996. Flash, Edward S. Economic Advice and Presidential Leadership: The Council of Economic Advisors. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965. Nourse, Edwin G. Economics in the Public Service: Administrative Aspects of the Employment Act. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1953. Stein, Herbert. The Fiscal Revolution in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. See also: Banking Act of 1935 (1935); G.I. Bill (1944); Federal Tort Claims Act (1946); Labor-Management Relations Act (1947); Landrum-Griffin Act (1959); Equal Pay Act (1963); Economic Opportunity Act (1964); Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967); Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972); Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973); Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974); Age Discrimination Act (1975).

Hobbs Act Also known as: Anti-Racketeering Act of 1946 Date: July 3, 1946 U.S. Statutes at Large: 60 Stat. 420 U.S. Code: 18 § 1951 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Crimes and Criminal

Procedure; Labor and Employment

This act made it unlawful to interfere with interstate commerce by robbery or extortion and reined labor unions’ ability to enforce the interests of their constituencies within the boundaries of the law. 761

The bill that became the Hobbs Act (or Anti-Racketeering Act of 1946) was introduced by Congressman Carl Hobbs from Alabama on January 3, 1945, in response to a 1942 Supreme Court decision in favor of Local 807 of the Teamsters Union of New York. The Court decision had essentially nullified the Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, and the purpose of the Hobbs Act was to put new antiracketeering legislation on the books by amending the 1934 act. Title I, section 2 of the Hobbs Act stated that it was a felony to obstruct, delay, or affect interstate commerce “in any way or degree” through robbery or extortion. To make the act effective, it redefined the key terms “commerce,” “robbery,” and “extortion.” Debate over the bill centered on its effect on workers and organized labor. Supporters of the bill argued that it protected farmers from harassment by the Teamsters Union and pointed out that Title II of the bill upheld previous laws guaranteeing labor’s rights. Foes of the bill nevertheless questioned whether the bill was merely an antiracketeering measure or was also intended to be antilabor. They pointed out that the Hobbs Act would make it difficult for a union to picket a company effectively during a strike. Thomas Winter Sources for Further Study Philcox, Norman W. An Introduction to Organized Crime. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1978. An overview of RICO and its applications Wallance, Gregory J. “Criminal Justice: Outgunning the Mob.” American Bar Association Journal 80 (March 1, 1994). Welling, Sarah N., Pamela H. Bucy, and Sara Sun Beale. Federal Criminal Law and Related Actions: Crimes, Forfeiture, the False Claims Act, and Rico. Eagan, Minn.: West Group, 1998. See also: Anti-Racketeering Act (1934); Organized Crime Control Act (1970); Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970).

762

Federal Tort Claims Act

Federal Tort Claims Act Date: August 2, 1946 U.S. Statutes at Large: 60 Stat. 842 Public law: 15 § 41 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties

The statute enabled private citizens to sue the government when a federal employee harms a third party or private property by committing an intentional tort or by negligence. The Supreme Court later barred military personnel from suing the federal government for injuries suffered while performing their jobs. The Federal Tort Claims Act was passed in 1946 to protect third parties injured by the actions of federal government employees. If a federal employee, acting within the scope of his or her employment, injures a third party, then the federal government can be held liable for the employee’s actions. Historically, the federal government was protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which prevented a lawsuit’s being filed against a government authority without the government’s consent. The 1946 act limits the protection of the doctrine and allows third parties to seek compensation. However, when the lawsuit arises out of injury to military personnel acting within the scope of their service, the Supreme Court held that the government cannot be sued under the act. Vietnam veterans exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange filed a class action suit against the federal government and the herbicide’s manufacturers. In one case, In re “Agent Orange” Product Liability Litigation (1980), the manufacturers reached a pretrial settlement with several of the veterans and their families. The suit against the federal government was dismissed by the lower court, and the Court refused to hear the appeals by the veterans. The Court continued to maintain that the act does not extend to suits filed by military personnel. In Hercules v. United States (1996), the Court stated that this exclusion is still viable. Additionally, the Court refuses to impose liability when a private business contracting with the federal government attempts to hold the government responsible for negligent acts performed by the 763

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business. The injured third party can seek compensation from the business but not from the government. However, when the federal government is liable, the Court has enforced the provisions of the act. In Molzof v. United States (1992), a veteran suffered irreversible brain damage because of negligence at a Veterans Administration hospital. The lower court granted damages under the act but refused to award damages for future medical expenses and for loss of enjoyment of life. The lower court held that awarding such damages would be providing punitive damages, which the act expressly prohibits; the act prohibits awarding damages solely for the purpose of punishing the government for its actions. The Court reversed the decision, finding that although the award of such damages may have a punitive effect, it should be considered compensatory. Patricia Jackson Source for Further Study Ball, Howard. “The U.S. Supreme Court’s Glossing of the Federal Tort Claims Act: Statutory Construction and Veterans’ Tort.” The Western Political Quarterly 41, no. 3 (September, 1988): 529552. See also: Eleventh Amendment (1798).

Truman Doctrine Date: Issued March 12, 1947 Categories: Foreign Relations

Following World War II, the president articulated the cornerstone of forty years of subsequent U.S. foreign policy. Soon after the conclusion of World War II, the United States was faced with the necessity of finding a new approach to the problem of peaceful stabilization in international affairs. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s concept of a postwar peace based on cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union proved to be ineffective. 764

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The Soviet army occupied most of Eastern and Central Europe, and it was made clear that the Soviet Union would not tolerate independent regimes there. Despite the agreements made at the Yalta Conference, Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, unilaterally imposed communist regimes on Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. The protests of the United States and Great Britain did not alter this policy of Soviet control. Furthermore, the Soviet government attempted to expand into areas where it had no military control, including Greece, Turkey, and Iran. Beginnings of the Cold War In confronting these emergencies, the United States at first tried ad hoc measures which, although essentially successful in achieving their immediate objectives, failed to establish policy guidelines for the postwar world. In Iran, the Soviet Union refused to withdraw its occupation forces and made demands through diplomatic channels for exclusive oil and mineral rights. The United States and Great Britain joined in a strong protest, which implied the threat of Western military assistance to counter Soviet pressure. In March, 1946, Soviet troops began a complete withdrawal, and the Iranian government succeeded in stabilizing its rule. In the case of Turkey, the Soviet Union sent several diplomatic notes in 1945 and 1946 that demanded the cession of border territory and a joint administration of the Dardanelles. These demands were to be ratified in a treaty that also would provide for the leasing of navy and army bases in the Dardanelles to the Soviets to implement joint control. Following a second Soviet note, the United States sent a strong naval fleet into the Mediterranean, the first U.S. warships to be sent into those waters during peacetime since 1803. A week later, Great Britain joined the United States in rejecting Soviet demands on Turkey. Meanwhile, in Greece, only extensive British military and economic aid prevented a complete collapse of the war-torn country and a coup d’état by communist guerrillas. Following extensive domestic debate, the United States formally abandoned its traditional peacetime isolationist approach to world affairs and adopted a long-range policy intended to deal with Soviet expansionism. One position in the debate was dramatized by Winston Churchill, the former prime minister of Great Britain, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, in early 1946. There, with President Truman on the platform, Churchill characterized the Soviet 765

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Union as an expansionist state that would react only to a strong counterforce. Soviet expansion, Churchill believed, could be prevented only by a collaboration between the United States and Great Britain to preserve the independence of Europe and to prevent the extension of what came to be called the Iron Curtain. A contrasting attitude was expressed by Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace, who declared that only American-Soviet cooperation could prevent another war. He pointed out that the Soviet desire for control of areas on its borders was understandable and reasonable, and that the United States had long acted to secure its own hemispheric security. Substantial segments of U.S. public opinion supported either Churchill or Wallace. However, the State Department sought a middle ground. Rejecting both the Soviet-expansion position of Churchill and the sphere-of-influence concept of Wallace, Secretary of State James F. Byrnes urged the Soviet Union to adopt a more cooperative diplomatic policy. The United States, he said, should pursue a policy of firmness and patience and wait for the Soviets to see the reasonableness of negotiation. It appeared to many, including President Truman, that the United States was the one that was always being reasonable, not the Soviet Union. By 1947, the administration had adopted the position that the revolutionary postulates of the Soviet regime made traditional diplomacy impossible. Truman Articulates His Policy The first step in the development of the new policy toward the Soviet Union appeared in response to the continuing Soviet threat to Greece and Turkey. In February, 1947, Great Britain informed the State Department that His Majesty’s Government could no longer continue to support the regime in Greece. Great Britain, like all Western Europe, was suffering from grave economic problems. As the British Empire retreated, the United States stepped forward. Within the next few weeks, President Truman decided that the independence of Greece and the recovery of Europe were crucial for the security of the United States. On March 12, 1947, the president appeared before a joint session of Congress and presented what became known as the Truman Doctrine. He outlined the desperate situation in both Greece and Turkey and called upon the American people to “help free peoples to maintain their free institutions 766

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and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes.” Most important, he pointed out, was the fact that such totalitarian aggression was a direct threat to the security of the United States. In response, Congress appropriated four hundred million dollars for economic aid to both Greece and Turkey. Additionally, the president was authorized to dispatch civilian and military advisers to help both nations defend their sovereignty. The Marshall Plan The next step in this new policy was to bring the same consideration to bear upon Western Europe, an even more critical area. There is debate over the degree to which the Marshall Plan was motivated by the desire to contain Soviet influence in Western Europe; nevertheless, to proponents of this new internationalism in U.S. foreign policy, it clearly seemed axiomatic that if aid to Greece and Turkey could be justified because of their strategic importance, the United States must aid other European countries where the situation was equally desperate. Great Britain was suffering from the wartime destruction of its factories and the loss of its capability to export manufactured goods. Germany was in ruins and virtually incapable of feeding its population. In France and Italy, the Communist Party had wide support within the industrial laboring class and was working by both overt and covert means for a radical change in the government of both countries. A further difficulty was that the winter of 1946-1947 was the most severe experienced by Europeans for generations. From a military viewpoint, new weaponry made it essential that European control of the Atlantic gateways be in friendly hands. In terms of trained technicians, industrial capacity, and raw materials, Western Europe was a potential giant worth keeping in the U.S. camp. These factors led to an announcement by the new secretary of state, George C. Marshall, at Harvard University in June, 1947, of what came to be known as the Marshall Plan. Assuming that the European countries could develop a cooperative approach to their economic problems, the United States, said Marshall, would assist in their recovery. Congress eventually authorized a grant of seventeen billion dollars to the Organization for European Economic Cooperation over a four-year period. A total of about twelve billion dollars was actually spent. Although aid was offered to all Euro767

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pean nations, including the Soviet Union, the Soviet-dominated areas were not permitted to cooperate because that would have meant revealing Soviet economic secrets and sacrificing Soviet economic control. Success of the Marshall Plan emerged quickly; in 1952, Europe exceeded its prewar production figures by some 200 percent. Kennan and Containment A discussion of the theory behind the policy embodied in the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan appeared in an unsigned article on the subject of containment in the July, 1947, issue of Foreign Affairs. The author, it was later disclosed, was George F. Kennan, a high-ranking member of the State Department. Kennan’s essay proposed that the antagonism that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union was merely the logical extension of certain basic Soviet assumptions. The United States, Kennan maintained, could count on Soviet hostility because the rhetoric of the Bolshevik Revolution demanded war against capitalist states. World War II had submerged this antagonism only temporarily. “These characteristics of Soviet policy,” he wrote, “like the postulates from which they flow, are basic to the internal nature of Soviet power, and will be with us . . . until the nature of Soviet power is changed.” The immediate question, Kennan insisted, was how the United States should counter this new ideological crusade and power drive that threatened to engulf Europe. In Kennan’s view, the United States should adopt a policy of “long-term, patient, but firm and vigilant containment.” To counter the Soviet policy, the United States should adopt a long-range course of diplomacy toward the Soviet Union and pursue it consistently. This containment, or the counterapplication of force wherever Soviet expansion threatened, had a negative aspect, because it put a tremendous burden on U.S. consistency and steadfastness. On the positive side, through containment, the United States could help to work changes within the Soviet system and help modify the revolutionary zeal of the regime. If expansionist dynamics were constantly frustrated, Kennan reasoned, the forces must be expended within the system itself, and this would mean some modification of totalitarian control. Although many persons in the United States remained vocally critical of it, containment became the official Cold War policy of 768

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the United States until the Soviet Union began its public collapse in the summer of 1991. In the words of former national security adviser and secretary of state Henry Kissinger, history has shown that “Kennan came closest, and earliest, in his predicting of the fate that would befall Soviet power.” George Q. Flynn, updated by Joseph R. Rudolph, Jr. Sources for Further Study Acheson, Dean. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. New York: Norton, 1969. Jones, Howard. “A New Kind of War”: America’s Global Strategy and the Truman Doctrine in Greece. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Jones, Joseph M. The Fifteen Weeks (February 21-June 5, 1947). New York: Viking Press, 1955. Lieberman, Sanford R., et al., eds. The Soviet Empire Reconsidered. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994. McGhee, George Crews. The U.S.-Turkish-NATO Middle East Connection: How the Truman Doctrine Contained the Soviets in the Middle East. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. Rees, David. The Age of Containment: The Cold War, 1945-1965. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967. See also: Bretton Woods Agreement (1944); Yalta Conference

agreements (1945); National Security Act (1947); Eisenhower Doctrine (1957).

Labor-Management Relations Act Also known as: Taft-Hartley Act Date: June 23, 1947 U.S. Statutes at Large: 61 Stat. 136 U.S. Code: 29 § 141 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Labor and Employ-

ment

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By specifically limiting unions’ powers, this legislation addressed the public perception of excessive union power in the workplace and was hotly contested by pro-labor constituencies. In the decade between passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, also called the Wagner Act) and the end of World War II, union membership tripled. By 1947, there were approximately fifteen million union members in the United States. In 1935, the NLRA had recognized the right of workers to organize and act collectively. World War II was a period of labor-management harmony. The National War Labor Board, on which both labor and management were represented, controlled wage increases and minimized work stoppages and strikes in the national interest. With the end of the war in 1945, however, overtime pay ended and real income fell with rising inflation. As a result, union leaders came under pressure from the rank and file to secure wage increases which would help restore purchasing power. In 1945-1946, hours lost to work stoppages and strikes hit a historic high. Employers and the public perceived a growing imbalance in labor-management relations, as unions seemed to be abusing their new-found powers. With the election of a Republican Congress in 1946, legislators were prompt in framing a bill that substantially amended the Wagner Act. The intent of the Labor-Management Relations Act was to “rein in” the unions in the general public interest. The bill outlawed the “closed shop,” which required union membership as a precondition of employment. It also enabled individual states to pass “right to work” legislation allowing a worker not to join a union, even though it represents him. The law itemized a list of “unfair labor practices” that included jurisdictional strikes between workercompeting unions, excessive union initiation fees, refusal to bargain in good faith with employers, and “featherbedding,” or forcing employers to hire unessential workers. The act required unions to file financial reports with the Department of Labor and forbade coercion of workers regarding their rights to join or not join a union. It also declared that striking a third party to force that employer to cease doing business with the primary employer—a tactic known as a secondary boycott—is illegal. The most important aspect of the Taft-Hartley Act was the 770

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eighty-day “cooling off” period, which the president, having declared a national emergency, can seek via court injunction. During this period, labor returns to work while union and management continue to seek an agreement. Labor railed against the enactment of the Labor-Management Relations Act, calling it a suppression of the labor movement by a malevolent Congress. Membership in unions continued to grow until 1954. The eighty-day cooling off clause was invoked seventeen times by Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. The reality of a harsher environment for the labor movement was supplemental in the uniting of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1953. In October, 2002, a lockout by the managers of the West Coast ports resulted in a work stoppage that deadlocked when managers and dock workers could not agree on workers’ participation in the inevitable job restructuring that would follow from the introduction of new technologies in inventory-taking and similar tasks. After two weeks during which incoming goods, including products such as produce and meat, piled up in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle ports, President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act to impose the eighty-day cooling-off period. This was only the thirty-fifth time the law had been invoked during a lockout (imposed by managers) as opposed to a strike. John A. Sondey, updated by Christina J. Moose Sources for Further Study Lee, R. Alton. Truman and Taft-Hartley: A Question of Mandate. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Sloan, Irving J., ed. and comp. The Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1984. Smolen, Joseph S., ed. The National Labor Relations Act: As Amended by the Taft-Hartley Act and the Landrum-Griffin Act. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1962. See also: Norris-La Guardia Act (1932); National Labor Relations

Act (1935); Fair Labor Standards Act (1938); Communist Control Act (1954); Jencks Act (1957); Landrum-Griffin Act (1959). 771

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Presidential Succession Act Date: July 18, 1947 U.S. Statutes at Large: 61 Stat. 380 U.S. Code: 3 § 19 Categories: Government Procedure and Organization

This amendment corrected weaknesses in the line of presidential succession as outlined in the original Constitution. The Constitution empowers the Congress to designate which officer shall act as president in case of vacancy of both the president and vice president. The first presidential succession law was written in 1792, making the president pro tempore of the Senate, followed by the Speaker of the House, successors to the president and vice president of the United States. Concerns about presidential succession grew, however, as a series of events highlighted weaknesses in the current provisions. The possibility of the president pro tempore acting with self-interest was accentuated by the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868. In addition, if both high posts became vacant during a recess of Congress, there would be neither a Speaker of the House nor a president pro tempore of the Senate to fill the vacancy. Furthermore, party politics made the possibility of a successor of an opposing party an unworkable solution. As a result, the Presidential Succession Act of 1886 designated the secretary of state to exercise presidential power in case both the president and vice president were unable to serve. The 1886 provisions were in effect at the time that Harry Truman ascended to the White House upon the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. Truman suggested to Congress and eventually secured what were considered more democratic provisions of succession. The 1947 provisions state that in the case of death, resignation, removal, incapacitation, or failure to qualify the president and vice president, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, upon resigning as Speaker, will act as president. If the Speaker is unable to serve or there is no Speaker, the president pro tempore of the Senate, upon resigning as president pro tempore, shall act as presi772

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dent. Under these circumstances, a person serving utilizes the current presidential power, except when (1) the service is due to the lack of qualifying of the president or vice president, in which case the individual serves only until one of them qualifies, or (2) the service is due to the inability of the president or vice president, in which case the individual serves only until the inability is removed. If there are no presiding legislative officers or those officers lack the qualifications to act as president, Cabinet members in order of their succession will serve, beginning with the secretary of state. The power to act as president exists only until a presiding legislative officer is qualified. There is ongoing criticism of the Presidential Succession Act. The primary question is that the two presiding legislative officials in the line of succession are not constitutionally designated “officials” and therefore cannot meet the mandate established in Article II for president. Another criticism is that the act declares that someone is president rather than that he or she is to assume those duties only temporarily as acting president. Amendments have been proposed that would alter the current provisions, particularly eliminating the president pro tempore from the line of succession, since the post is largely ceremonial. As Cabinet departments have been created and eliminated, Congress has passed corresponding amendments to the Presidential Succession Act to reflect the change. Priscilla H. Zotti Sources for Further Study Manning, John F. “Not Proved: Some Lingering Questions About Legislative Succession to the Presidency.” Stanford Law Review 48, no. 141 (1995). Silva, Ruth C. “The Presidential Succession Act of 1947.” Michigan Law Review 47, no. 451 (1949). See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Twelfth Amend-

ment (1804); Electoral Count Act (1887); Twentieth Amendment (1933); Twenty-second Amendment (1951); Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967).

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National Security Act Date: July 26, 1947 U.S. Statutes at Large: 61 Stat. 496 U.S. Code: 50 § 401 Categories: Military and National Security

A new U.S. defense policy avoids costly duplication of effort and allows for flexibility in times of national emergency. As steps were taken to strengthen the U.S. commitment to European security by means of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, it became increasingly clear that measures were needed at home to increase the efficiency of the United States military establishment. A major impetus to the reorganization of the U.S. defense system had come from the obvious weaknesses revealed during World War II. One prime example of such weaknesses was the military disaster at Pearl Harbor. The war also had revealed numerous cases of duplication of effort among the various services. Another new factor that needed to be considered was that Cold War diplomacy required close collaboration between military and diplomatic elements, a condition that had hardly existed during the war. Therefore, many officials, including President Harry S. Truman, thought that the need for a more efficient system of defense was obvious. Disputes Among the Three Service Branches On July 26, 1947, the Truman administration accomplished one of its more outstanding contributions, the passage of the National Security Act, but reaching an agreement on the exact details of the reorganization and centralization of the military establishment had not been an easy task. As early as 1945, President Truman had submitted a plan for reorganization to Congress, but it took two years to settle the differences of opinion among the three branches of the armed forces. The Navy was especially reluctant to sacrifice its independence to what it feared would be a defense establishment dominated by the Army. In particular, the Navy feared that the new system might mean the abolishment of the Marines, or at least their transferral to the Army. Another sensitive area of dispute centered on the Navy’s newly acquired air capability. Having 774

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become firmly convinced of the value of aircraft carriers during World War II, the Navy wanted to expand its air arm, which would include the construction of super-carriers able to accommodate the newly designed jet planes. Many admirals feared that an Armydominated defense system might mean an emphasis of land-based, long-distance bombers. During 1946 and 1947, President Truman worked to bring together the Army, represented by Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, and the Navy, represented by Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal. In this campaign, Truman was assisted especially by Forrestal, who, although entirely sympathetic to the Navy’s point of view, did work for a reasonable compromise. A New Defense Structure As a result of these meetings, agreements were reached that culminated in the National Security Act of 1947. The act created a Department of Defense (called the National Military Establishment until 1949) with a secretary holding cabinet rank. The Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and a new Department of the Air Force were made into separate subcabinet agencies in the Department of Defense. The act also gave legal recognition to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with a rotating chairman. Each of the three services would be represented on this committee, which was to be responsible for providing close military coordination, preparing defense plans, and making strategy recommendations to another new agency, the National Security Council, which was to be chaired by the president of the United States. The other members of the National Security Council were to include the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the secretaries of the three services, and the chairman of the board of another new agency, the National Security Resources Board. The president could designate additional persons to serve on the Security Council; under Truman, the council had twenty members. Critics labeled the council “Mr. Truman’s Politburo,” because it attempted to blend diplomatic and military considerations at the highest level of national interest. Finally, the act created the Central Intelligence Agency as an independent source of security information. More Interservice Rivalry This impressive reorganization plan had barely gotten under way when serious problems arose. In some instances, these problems 775

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were merely carryovers from the traditional competition between the Army and the Navy; the new system did little to eliminate interservice rivalry, despite the outstanding work of Forrestal as first secretary of defense. Some opponents pointed out that the new system merely created one more contending party, the Air Force. The three services soon were engaged in conducting separate, elaborate publicity and congressional lobbying campaigns to gain increased shares of money for defense purposes. The Navy championed the merits of its super-carrier program, while the Air Force pointed to the new B-36 bomber as the best defense investment. Secretary Forrestal tried to mediate this struggle, but the issues seemed to be beyond the capacity of any one person to control. In failing health, the secretary resigned on March 3, 1949. Although interservice rivalry still existed, Forrestal had reported prior to his resignation that the new defense system had already saved the U.S. taxpayer more than $56 million. The new secretary of defense appointed by President Truman was Louis A. Johnson of West Virginia, who approached his job with a pugnacious attitude that may have been a result of his lack of administrative experience at a comparably high level of government employment. He soon plunged into the interservice rivalry by favoring the Air Force. The building of new naval aircraft carriers was suspended, and considerable amounts of money went into expanding the strength of the Air Force. Although this executive policy saved money, some critics claimed that it weakened national defense. The State Department joined in the growing criticism of Johnson because it resented the new secretary’s unilateral approach to national security. Apparently it was not long before Truman had reason to regret his appointment of Johnson, and in September, 1950, he turned to General George C. Marshall, former secretary of state, to take over the Department of Defense. The simultaneous appointment of Marshall’s service colleague, General Omar N. Bradley, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff helped to make operations smoother within the Defense Department. The Battle of the Pentagon Equally important were congressional modifications of the original system. In 1949, the Hoover Commission, appointed by President Truman to investigate government administration and effi776

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ciency, reported that changes were needed in the Department of Defense. In August, 1949, a new bill was passed that gave the secretary of defense more power in dealing with the individual services. In July, 1958, the “Battle of the Pentagon” was further resolved with the passage of the Defense Department Reorganization Act. The full implications of the new diplomatic and military structures created by the National Security Act became evident during the administration of Richard Nixon. Nixon’s national security adviser and secretary of state, Henry A. Kissinger, established the supremacy of those two positions over the rest of the foreign-policymaking apparatus. Although efforts were made to decentralize foreign-policy decision making after Kissinger’s departure, his legacy continued into subsequent administrations. The overall result of the National Security Act was to create a U.S. foreign-policymaking system that fit the country’s new and unprecedented role as a global superpower. The demise of the Cold War at the end of the 1980’s helped to spur a reexamination of that system, including the budgetary priority accorded the Department of Defense and the powers and effectiveness of the Central Intelligence Agency. George Q. Flynn, updated by Steve D. Boilard Sources for Further Study Destler, I. M. “National Security Advice to U.S. Presidents: Some Lessons from Thirty Years.” World Politics 29, no. 2 (January, 1977): 143-176. Hoxie, R. Gordon. “James V. Forrestal and the National Security Act of 1947.” In Command Decision and the Presidency: A Study in National Security Policy and Organization. New York: Readers Digest Press, 1977. Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992. Rosati, Jerel A. “Presidential Management and the NSC Process.” In Politics of United States Foreign Policy. Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993. Theoharis, Athan G., ed. The Truman Presidency: The Origins of the Imperial Presidency and the National Security State. Stanfordville, N.Y.: Earl M. Coleman Enterprises, 1979. 777

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: National Defense Act (1916); North Atlantic Treaty (1949); Internal Security Act (1950); War Powers Resolution (1973); USA Patriot Act (2001).

Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance Also known as: Rio Treaty Date: Signed September 2, 1947; U.S. ratification December 19,

1947; in force December 2, 1948

Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

A defensive alliance of Western Hemisphere nations, this agreement was a move toward a multilateral approach to the Monroe Doctrine and the most important inter-American agreement in its day. As World War II approached, hemispheric defense became a matter of concern. The reality of war heightened these feelings and led to the creation of a security mechanism for dealing with a perceived threat to the Americas. From February 21 to March 6, 1945, the Inter-American Conference on War and Peace met in Mexico City and adopted the Act of Chapultepec, which endorsed joint action in repelling any aggression against an American state. Because the agreement was primarily a wartime measure, new conditions of the early postwar era, notably the onset of the Cold War, underscored a need to update the Chapultepec act with a permanent pact. A Cold War Alliance Foreign ministers of the American republics met from August 15 to September 2, 1947, in Rio de Janeiro. The result was the InterAmerican Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, commonly known as the Rio Treaty. The agreement was a move toward a multilateral approach to the Monroe Doctrine and the most important interAmerican agreement up to that time. Signed by participants on September 2, 1947, the Rio Treaty took force on December 12, 778

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1948, in accord with Treaty Article 22, which required ratification by two-thirds of the signatory states. The treaty’s key statement, found in Article 3, states that “an armed attack by any State against an American State shall be considered an attack against all of the American states. . . .” Consultations on matters to which the treaty refers are to be carried out through meetings of foreign ministers of the signatory American republics. This provision was later inserted in the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS). Finally, efforts were made to coordinate the Rio Treaty with the United Nations Charter, which allowed this type of regional defense organization. Therefore, the U.N. Security Council is recognized as a higher authority. Use of the Treaty Since the treaty took force in December, 1948, it has been invoked approximately twenty times. One notable occasion was the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the OAS council authorized use of force for first time under the treaty to halt shipments of military equipment to Cuba from the Soviet bloc. In 1982, OAS members sided with Argentina against Britain in the Falklands War while the United States abstained. On September 19, 2001, the treaty was again invoked in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Under the treaty, force cannot be used against a member state without unanimous consent. However, other measures may be approved by a two-thirds majority. The Rio Treaty may be seen as a facet of Pan-Americanism, the movement toward economic, military, political, and social cooperation in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. State Department has described the treaty as “a pillar of collective hemispheric . . . defense architecture.” Most, although not all, OAS members are parties to the Rio Treaty. It should also be noted that this pact served as a model for an alliance founded in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. David A. Crain Sources for Further Study A Decade of American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1941-1949. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. 779

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Inman, Samuel G. Inter-American Conferences, 1826-1954: History and Problems. St. Louis: Washington University Press, 1965. See also: Monroe Doctrine (1823); Platt Amendment (1903);

Good Neighbor Policy (1933); North Atlantic Treaty (1949).

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 Date: Signed October 30, 1947 Categories: Agriculture; Business, Commerce, and Trade; Foreign

Relations; Tariffs and Taxation; Treaties and Agreements

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade set basic rules under which open and nondiscriminatory trade can take place. On October 30, 1947, representatives of twenty-three countries, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to reduce trade barriers among signatory nations. GATT was an attempt to combat the rise of worldwide protectionism that had preceded World War II. By providing a set of rules for open and nondiscriminatory trade and a mechanism to implement these rules, GATT sought to create an institutional framework within which international trade could be conducted as stably and predictably as possible. The Depression Years When the Great Depression set in, Congress passed the highly protective Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930, raising average tariff rates on imports almost 60 percent. Great Britain passed the Import Duties Act in 1932, abandoning its traditional free trade policy. Other countries responded with restrictive import policies in selfdefense. The result was a downward spiral in international trade, with the volume of trade in manufactured goods declining by 40 percent by the end of 1932. 780

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The U.S. view on international trade began to change after the Democratic victory in the presidential election in 1932. The new secretary of state, Cordell Hull, strongly favored U.S. leadership in arresting the worldwide protectionist wave. He was convinced that the elimination of trade barriers was the best means of reversing the downward spiral in international trade, which would in turn allow higher standards of living for all countries and promote lasting peace. After several years of his intensive lobbying, the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTA Act), an amendment of the SmootHawley Act, was passed in 1934. The RTA Act empowered the president, for a period of three years, to initiate trade agreements on the basis of reciprocal tariff reductions. Reductions of U.S. tariffs were limited to 50 percent. The RTA Act was extended several times. The United States concluded agreements with twenty-nine countries on the basis of most-favored-nation treatment before the outbreak of World War II. The idea of negotiating reciprocal tariff reductions, embodied in the RTA Act, was the conceptual basis for GATT. Bretton Woods Soon after the United States entered World War II, the Allied nations, particularly the United States and Great Britain, started discussion on postwar trade and monetary issues. The discussion led to the Bretton Woods Conference in July, 1944, at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. This conference established the charters of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (commonly known as the World Bank) to deal with international monetary issues. It also recognized the need for a comparable institution focusing on trade to complement the monetary institutions. The International Trade Organization Negotiations on the form and functions of an International Trade Organization (ITO) were first held on a bilateral basis between the United States and Great Britain. The United States pressed for nondiscrimination, whereby no country is favored over others, Great Britain insisted on continuation of its Imperial Preference, under which British goods receive preferential access to the markets of its former colonies and vice versa. A compromise was reached, and the results of those bilateral negotiations were pub781

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lished in November, 1945, in the Proposals for Expansion of World Trade and Employment. The United States expanded those proposals into a draft charter for the ITO in 1946. The charter was amended in successive conferences from 1946 to 1948 in London, New York, Geneva, and Havana. The final version of the ITO charter, known as the Havana Charter, was drawn up in Havana on March 4, 1948. The charter, which represented a series of agreements among fifty-three countries, never came into effect because most countries, including the United States, failed to ratify it. The Birth of GATT At the same time that the United States published the proposals, it invited several countries to participate in negotiations to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers on the basis of principles laid out in the proposals. The United States proposed to embody all individual treaties into a multilateral treaty. GATT was thus drawn up as a general framework for rights and obligations of tariff reductions for twenty-three participating nations. GATT came into being before the Havana Conference but in accordance with the draft charter for the ITO that was currently under discussion. It was originally envisaged as the first of a number of agreements that were to be negotiated under the auspices of the ITO. It was supposed to be a provisional agency that would go out of existence once the ITO was established. The power and the bureaucratic size of the proposed ITO faced strong opposition in the U.S. Congress. Consequently, the Havana Charter was not put before the U.S. Senate for ratification for fear of its defeat. When it was clear that the United States would not ratify the Havana Charter, GATT became by default the underpinning of an international institution, assuming part of the commercial policy role that had been assigned to the ITO. Provisions of GATT Technically speaking, GATT is not an organization of which countries become members but a treaty among contracting parties. As a multilateral agreement, GATT has no binding authority over its signatories. When countries agree to GATT, they are expected to commit to three fundamental principles: nondiscrimination, as embodied in the most-favored-nation clause (all countries should be treated equally); a general prohibition of export subsidies (ex782

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947

cept for agriculture) and import quotas, from which developing countries are exempted; and a requirement that any new tariff be offset by a reduction in other tariffs. The agreement itself was without precedent. No agreement had ever been completed before GATT that included more countries, covered more trade, involved more extensive actions, or represented a wider consensus on commercial policy. It provided a promising contrast to the record of failures to liberalize trade that had characterized the years between the two world wars. Among the twenty-three participating countries, 123 bilateral negotiations occurred. The United States was a party to 22 of them, and the remaining 101 took place among the other members of the group. The signatory nations accounted for more than threefourths of world trade, and negotiations covered two-thirds of trade among member nations. Tariff was reduced on about fifty thousand items, accounting for about half of world trade. Average tariff rates were cut by about one-third in the United States. By 1950, average tariffs on dutiable imports into the United States had fallen by about 75 percent as compared to Smoot-Hawley levels. Assessment and Later Agreements GATT is a remarkable success story of an international organization. Over the years, it has provided the framework for an open trade system and a set of rules for nondiscrimination and settlement of international trade disputes. From 1947 to 1979, seven “rounds” of trade negotiations were completed under GATT auspices: in 1947 (Geneva), 1949 (Annecy, France), 1951 (Torquay, the United Kingdom), 1956 (Geneva), 1960-1961 (Geneva, the “Dillion Round”), 1962-1967 (Geneva, the “Kennedy Round”), and 1973-1979 (Tokyo). An eighth session began in 1986 (the “Uruguay Round”) and ended in December, 1993. The tariff reductions in rounds two through five were minimal. The volumes of trade covered by the fourth and fifth rounds were only $2.5 and $4.9 billion. The Kennedy Round and the Tokyo Round resulted in significant economic benefits to all major trading nations. Significant progress toward free trade among market economy (nonsocialist) countries in manufactured and semimanufactured goods was accomplished in the Kennedy Round. The value of trade covered in these negotiations among forty-eight countries was $40 billion. Duties were cut on average by 35 percent spreading over 783

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the broadest set of products (sixty thousand) to date, with some cuts made on almost 80 percent of all dutiable imports. By the conclusion of this round, the weighted average tariff rate of the United States was 8.3 percent, that of the original six European Economic Community (EEC) countries was 8.3 percent, that of the United Kingdom was 10.2 percent, and that of Japan was 10.9 percent. Post-Kennedy Round tariffs in industrial countries averaged 8.7 percent. For the first time, an agreement was reached to resolve conflicts over nontariff barriers, particularly elimination of import quotas on almost all nonagricultural products. In some cases, tariffs were completely eliminated, as for tropical food products from developing countries. Developing countries played a minor role in negotiations and were not subject to significant tariff reductions. The Tokyo Round was negotiated by ninety-nine countries and covered $155 billion in trade. The average tariff cut was about 34 percent. By the conclusion of this round, the weighted average tariff rates on finished and semifinished manufactures of the United States was 4.9 percent, that of EEC countries was 6.0 percent, and that of Japan was 5.4 percent. Post-Tokyo Round tariffs among industrial countries stood at an average of 4.7 percent. The Tokyo Round negotiations resulted in the first comprehensive agreement on reducing nontariff barriers such as quotas. The Tokyo Round failed to reach an agreement on a safeguard code and on eliminating heavy restrictions on trade on agricultural products. The most complex and ambitious round, the Uruguay Round, was launched by ninety countries on September 20, 1986, in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Originally scheduled to be completed by the end of 1990, the Uruguay Round was aimed at the further liberalization and expansion of trade. It sought to extend GATT principles to new sectors (agriculture, services), improve their application to old sectors (textiles, garments), reexamine old issues (safeguard protections), and embrace new issues such as intellectual property, with discussion of copyrights, computer software, and patent protection. By early 1993, no agreement had been reached because of disputes between the European Community and the United States regarding agricultural subsidies. Various compromises resulted in an agreement in December. Baban Hasnat 784

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Sources for Further Study Bhagwati, Jagdish. The World Trading System at Risk. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. Dam, Kenneth W. The GATT Law and International Economic Organization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Gardner, Richard N. Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy The Origins and the Prospects of Our International Economic Order. Expanded ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969. Jackson, John H. Restructuring the GATT System. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1990. _______. The World Trading System Law and Policy of International Economic Relations. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989. Kock, Karin. International Trade Policy and the Gatt 1947-1967. Stockholm, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1969. Tussie, Diana. The Less Developed Countries and the World Trading System: A Challenge to the GATT. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Wilcox, Clair. A Charter for World Trade. New York: Macmillan, 1949. See also: Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930); Good Neighbor Policy (1933); Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937); Bretton Woods Agreement (1944); North American Free Trade Agreement (1993); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994).

Water Pollution Control Act Date: June 30, 1948 U.S. Statutes at Large: 62 Stat. 1155 Public law: 80-845 U.S. Code: 33 § 1251 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

The Water Pollution Control Act extended the reach of the federal government by establishing cooperative arrangements with the states for grants, research, and technical assistance. On June 30, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed the Water Pollution Control Act (WPCA). The act addressed the nation’s 785

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water-quality problems by attempting to establish a cooperative relationship between the federal and state governments. It resulted from decades of debate over the appropriate role of the national government in what was long considered a state concern. Amended several times by Congress, the 1948 legislation was the model for future federal clean-water statutes. Prior Legislation and Policy Prior to 1948, Congress had considered nearly one hundred measures dealing with water pollution but had passed only three. The Refuse Act (1886) prohibited dumping of refuse that obstructed navigation in New York Harbor. The Rivers and Harbors Act (1899) broadened the refuse regulations to any navigable water in the United States. The Oil Pollution Act (1924) prohibited discharging petroleum in coastal waters. Aside from these three regulations, the federal government offered research and technical assistance to the states through the Public Health Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bureau of Mines. The management of pollution in the first half of the twentieth century was considered a state responsibility. Most states had created health departments to act on water-quality issues, especially as they related to waterborne diseases such as typhoid that produce high death rates. Local governments had made meaningful progress in supplying potable water supplies. Population growth and the expansion of manufacturing, however, inundated the nation’s waters with sewage and industrial wastes. The Need for National Regulation In the twentieth century, water-quality problems became so acute and difficult to manage that state governments put pressure on Congress to provide additional assistance. The problem was especially severe in rivers that flowed through several states. Congressional action resulted in increased research support that tended to illustrate the magnitude of the problem, increase public concern, and clarify the need for federal involvement. Water Pollution in the United States (1934), the most meaningful survey during the period, was undertaken by the National Resources Committee to inform Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the status of the nation’s rivers and to offer recom786

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mendations. The committee, chaired by the renowned sanitary engineer Abel Wolman, compiled its report using the science and technical skills of some of the leading engineering and sanitation experts in the United States. Produced with the assistance of the U.S. Public Health Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and representatives from the states and industry, the report recognized stream pollution as a growing threat to the nation. It focused on dangers for the populated Northeast, where rivers were drinking sources as well as sinks for domestic and industrial wastes. The advisory committee’s recommendation recognized the role of the federal government as a cooperative party to the states, and made recommendations that would enlarge the national government’s role. Many of these recommendations are found in the 1948 legislation. In 1935, Senator Augustine Lonergan of Connecticut, encouraged by conservation groups such as the Izaak Walton League of America, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and state governments, proposed federal water-pollution control legislation. After a series of debates and revisions, a bill was passed in 1939, only to be vetoed by President Roosevelt because of technical errors relating to grant allocations. In 1940, Congress considered a revised bill, but it died, and Congress then became distracted by the demands of World War II. Passage and Provisions The Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, sponsored by senators Alben Barkley of Kentucky and Robert A. Taft of Ohio, authorized federal grants to state and municipal governments and interstate agencies to help finance engineering studies and construction of water-treatment works. The act provided $1 million a year for the studies (limited to $20,000 each or one-third of actual cost), $1 million a year for examination of industrial waste problems, and $22 million a year for treatment-plant construction loans (limited to $250,000 each or one-third estimated cost), with total expenditures of $216 million over eight years. The WPCA authorized the Public Health Service to enhance its existing research functions and produce extensive programs with the states and interstate agencies to seek solutions to all aspects of water pollution, to support uniform water standards, and to promulgate interstate agreements. The Division of Water Pollution Control, created as a department of the Public Health Service, was 787

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designated to administer the legislation. It established ten field units in the United States, with a base of operations and main research facility, the Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The act provided for federal enforcement, but only at state request. With the WPCA, Congress attempted to promote state and federal cooperation—a sharing of responsibility. The states maintained control but received technical and financial assistance. Implementation and Impact Conflicts within Congress and the White House over funding, authority of the federal government, and reluctance by some states that feared federal domination and defended “states’ rights” restrained the full implementation of the WPCA. Because of budget and political constraints, the construction-loan program was never funded. Only about $11 million was appropriated, mostly devoted to Public Health Services projects. Thus, although the WPCA proved ineffective in providing meaningful solutions to the nation’s pollution problems, it opened the door for greater federal involvement in the decades ahead. Amendments to the WPCA in 1956, 1961, 1965, and 1966 expanded federal participation. As a matter of public-policy philosophy, Congress justified the act by stating that the nation’s health and welfare depended on water-pollution control. Although the WPCA established in Congress some jurisdiction over pollution control in the nation’s waters, it reaffirmed the states’ primary responsibility and authority. With subsequent amendments, this authority would shift toward a national policy. The significance of the Water Pollution Control Act was in expanding the existing research and technical role of the federal government and, at the same time, establishing a rationale for future expansion and domination of water-quality issues. Though the act itself had little immediate impact, it constituted a shift in responsibility away from the states to the national government. Funding for water-treatment and sewage facilities became entwined with state acceptance of federally approved water standards, research techniques, and statutes. Congress expanded the role of the U.S. Public Health Service to facilitate the gathering of information. As the research revealed the extent of harm done, and as the states realized that many of 788

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these problems were beyond their control, pressure mounted on Congress to broaden its responsibility. Thus federalism, centralization, and science transformed water-control legislation during an era when regulatory authority shifted from the states to the national government. The WPCA represents a crucial point in that shift. The broadening of federal authority in 1948 also established a rationale for closer examination of another environmental problem—air pollution. Four months after the WPCA passage, Donora, Pennsylvania, experienced a heavy smog that killed twenty people and sickened 43 percent of the population. The Donora event prompted an investigation by the U.S. Public Health Service and led to the passage of the Air Pollution Control Act (1955), which was approximately modeled on the WPCA. Nicholas A. Casner Sources for Further Study Davies, J. Clarence, and Barbara S. Davies. The Politics of Pollution. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975. Dworsky, Leonard B. “Analysis of Federal Water Pollution Control Legislation, 1948-1966.” Journal of the American Water Works Association 59 (June, 1967): 651-668. _______. Conservation in the United States: Documentary History— Pollution. Edgemont, Pa.: Chelsea House, 1971. Melosi, Martin V. Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870-1930. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980. Murphy, Earl Finbar. Water Purity: A Study in Legal Control of Natural Resources. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961. Tarr, Joel A. “The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Air, Land, and Water Pollution in Historical Perspective.” Records of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 51 (1984): 1-29. U.S. Congress. House, National Resource Committee. Water Pollution in the United States. Third Report of the Special Advisory Committee. House Document No. 155. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1939. U.S. Treasury Department. Stream Pollution: A Digest of Judicial Decisions and Compilation of Legislation Relating to the Subject. Public Health Service Bulletin No. 87. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918. 789

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924); Air Pollution Control Act (1955); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956); Water Resources Research Act (1964); Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972); Safe Drinking Water Act (1974); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990).

Genocide Treaty Also known as: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of

the Crime of Genocide Date: Signed December 12, 1948; in force 1951; U.S. ratification November 23, 1988 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements Although it took the United States four decades to ratify the treaty, this international agreement made genocide an international crime during both war and peace.

Horrified by the extermination of six million Jews during World War II, Polish professor of international law Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide,” which combined the Greek word for race or nation, genos, with the Latin-derived root for killing, cide. After the Nuremberg Trials revealed the extent of Nazi atrocities, human rights lawyers in the United Nations hoped that a treaty would prevent, or at least minimize, such acts in the future. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, receiving U.N. endorsement in 1948 and entering into force in 1951, recognized genocide as a crime under international law in times of either war or peace. The treaty defined genocide as any of five acts: (1) killing members of a particular “national, ethnic, racial, or religious group,” (2) causing them “serious bodily or mental harm,” (3) deliberately creating conditions calculated to bring about a group’s full or partial destruction, (4) 790

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imposing measures to prevent births in a group, and (5) forcibly removing children from a group. Those nations ratifying the treaty have the obligation of enforcing its provisions with appropriate legislation. Any party to the treaty has the right to call on U.N. bodies to take action suppressing or preventing genocidal acts. Prosecution for genocidal acts may be conducted by either domestic or international courts. Disagreements between governments about applications of the treaty are to be arbitrated by the International Court of Justice. Although President Harry S. Truman signed the treaty in 1948, the U.S. Senate did not ratify it until forty years later. Even then, the Senate specified a number of “reservations” and “understandings” for its enforcement. The most significant reservation was that no dispute in which the United States was a party could be submitted to the International Court of Justice without U.S. consent. The most noteworthy understanding was that the treaty would require no action prohibited by the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the United States. These conditions mean that the U.S. government reserves the right to decide whether and how the treaty might be applied to itself. Other countries have adopted similar restrictions. Despite numerous instances of genocide, the punishment of violators by international courts did not take place until the 1990’s, when the United Nations authorized prosecutions for crimes against humanity in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. In 1998, a Rwandan mayor was the first person to be convicted of genocide, and the conviction of a Bosnian Serb was handed down in 2001. A more important step toward enforcement of the Genocide Treaty was the establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC) with jurisdiction over cases of genocide and other crimes against humanity. When it entered into force in July, 2002, the effectiveness of the ICC was uncertain, because loopholes allowed countries to shield their citizens from ICC prosecution for war crimes and because several countries, including the United States, refused to ratify the ICC treaty. Thomas T. Lewis Sources for Further Study Ball, Howard. Prosecuting War Crimes and Genocide: The TwentiethCentury Experience. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999. 791

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LeBlanc, Lawrence. The United States and the Genocide Convention. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991. Power, Samantha. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Basic Books, 2002. See also: Geneva Protocol (1925); Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928);

Yalta Conference agreements (1945).

North Atlantic Treaty Date: Signed April 4, 1949 Categories: Foreign Relations; Military and National Security;

Treaties and Agreements

Twelve democracies, including the United States and Canada, established an association for mutual defense against the Soviet Union. On April 4, 1949, the United States and eleven other nations (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal) signed a treaty of alliance establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), committing the signatories to the principle of common security on a regional basis. By joining, the United States under President Harry S. Truman took a precedent-shattering step; it had never before concluded a military alliance in peacetime with any European state. Participation in NATO meant that the United States had modified one of its oldest principles, which stemmed from the advice of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson: to avoid entangling alliances. Cold War Policies The genesis for such an alliance emerged from the Truman administration’s containment policy, with the fundamental objective of opposing Soviet expansionist efforts in Europe after World War II. The United States had committed itself in the 1947 Truman Doctrine to assisting European nations facing civil war or external 792

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threats from the Soviet Union. The United States extended military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey that year (April 23) to counter Soviet ambitions in the region, as those countries were too weak to be self-sustaining. Also in 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall proposed the more ambitious European Recovery Program. Economic aid through this costly effort, often called the Marshall Plan, greatly assisted the European economy after the program began in 1948. There was widespread belief in the United States, however, that Europe’s full economic and psychological recovery would not be possible until Europeans believed themselves safe from the threat of the Red Army. Thus, military security was essential for continued economic recovery. Several major events in 1948 revealed the widening Cold War in Europe. A communist coup d’état in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet blockade of Berlin (lasting into 1949), and other Soviet actions convinced the Truman administration of the need for more extensive, long-term U.S. involvement in Europe. Despite appeals from European leaders for the creation of a common front, however, Truman was not sufficiently confident of public and congressional support to move directly toward an alliance. In June, 1948, the Senate approved the Vandenberg Resolution by a vote of 64 to 4, which declared support for U.S. participation in regional arrangements for “continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid.” This pronouncement was interpreted by some as an attempt to limit presidential power in foreign affairs rather than as a sincere expression of support for collective security. Only after the presidential election of 1948 and cautious discussions with the principal European nations did the Truman administration act to move the United States away from its traditional isolationism. Looking for Security in Europe In March, 1948, five European nations—Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg—signed the Brussels Pact, a fifty-year defensive alliance. Its terms obligated the signatories to come to the aid of any member attacked by an aggressor. The Brussels Pact nations invited the United States to participate, but there were numerous obstacles to concerted action at that time, even though the Vandenberg Resolution showed U.S. interest in a mutual security system. In January, 1949, more positive sup793

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port was expressed in Truman’s inaugural address, which promised that the United States would contribute to the defense of friendly nations. The United States began negotiations with a number of European states, with the aim of creating a cooperative system of military security against the presumed Soviet threat to Western Europe. These discussions were criticized by some people in the United States and especially by communist authorities in Moscow. They accused the United States of undercutting the United Nations and jeopardizing world peace by forming a bloc of states for aggressive purposes. The United States answered this accusation by pointing out that Article 51 of the U.N. Charter allowed for regional defense pacts, and that the proposed alliance clearly was defensive in character. Dean Acheson, who succeeded Marshall as secretary of state in early 1949, believed that the United States should look to military and diplomatic arrangements to meet the communist challenge rather than rely upon the institutional procedures of the United Nations, which could be blocked by a Soviet veto. Negotiations achieved the desired objective of an expanded association of democratic states. In ceremonies in Washington, D.C., on April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by representatives of twelve nations—Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United States, and the United Kingdom. They reaffirmed their support of the United Nations, vowed to cooperate in the maintenance of the stability and well-being of the North Atlantic region, and promised to work together for collective defense and the preservation of peace and general security. Treaty Provisions Although the pact bound its members to settle international disputes by peaceful means, Article 5 stated that “the Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” Any attack would be met by armed force, if necessary. Each member state was permitted to adopt its own response to aggression after consultation with its allies. The treaty provided for the establishment of the NATO council, on which each of the signatory states was to be represented. The council created a defense committee 794

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and other departments to develop measures for the nations’ common defense. No signatory was committed absolutely to go to war, but the treaty was a powerful moral commitment to aid members threatened by aggression. The treaty was to be in effect for at least twenty years, and could be renewed. Senate hearings on the North Atlantic Treaty, while not endangering its chances of ratification by the United States, resulted in sometimes bitter debate concerning the wisdom of U.S. involvement. Prominent national political figures, such as Senator Robert Taft, warned against the United States assuming major long-term responsibilities. These discussions revealed that the Truman administration could not anticipate all the military implications of the new alliance. Nevertheless, on July 21, 1949, the Senate approved the North Atlantic Treaty by a vote of 82 to 13. Eleven of the thirteen who voted “no” were Republicans, but both Republicans and Democrats supported the treaty. By late August, following ratification by member governments, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization officially went into effect. The next two years saw the creation of the alliance’s administrative structure and the planning for military cooperation under the NATO system. Long-Range Significance The adoption of the pact demonstrated the signatories’ willingness to make military commitments for their common security. Although NATO was never used in actual combat with the Soviet Union, its formation illustrated the unity of spirit and dedication of its Western democracies. Members who entered NATO later included Greece and Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955), and Spain (1981). NATO succeeded in fulfilling its primary purpose of creating a viable military counterweight to Soviet power. With the collapse of communist systems in the states of Eastern Europe in 1989, followed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the relevance and functions of NATO had to be considered. Despite the apparent ending of the Cold War, all member governments agreed that the organization still served the primary objective of promoting stability within Europe, even as new problems (such as the Yugoslav civil war) appeared on the horizon. Several East European states formerly associated with the Soviet Union applied during the 1990’s for NATO membership, fearful of the possibility of a resurgence of Russian expansionism. Moscow 795

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initially opposed those overtures, providing renewed credibility of the need for this defensive alliance system to exist against potential Russian aggression in the twenty-first century. Ironically, only a decade later, Russia and the United States had formed a closer relationship in response to terrorist actions in the late 1990’s and culminating in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in September, 2001. The deaths of more than three thousand citizens from scores of nations when terrorist flew passenger jets into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon forced world nations to reassess old alliances. Theodore A. Wilson, updated by Taylor Stults Sources for Further Study Acheson, Dean. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. Feis, Herbert. From Trust to Terror: The Onset of the Cold War, 19451950. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970. Kaplan, Lawrence S. NATO and the United States: The Enduring Alliance. New York: Twayne, 1988. Rose, Clive. Campaigns Against Western Defence: NATO’s Adversaries and Critics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. Sherwen, Nicholas, ed. NATO’s Anxious Birth: The Prophetic Vision of the 1940’s. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. Truman, Harry. Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope, 1946-1952. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956. Vandenberg, Arthur H. The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952. See also: Monroe Doctrine (1823); Neutrality Acts (1935-1939);

Lend-Lease Act (1941); Bretton Woods Agreement (1944); Yalta Conference agreements (1945); Truman Doctrine (1947); Eisenhower Doctrine (1957); Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963); Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968); SALT I Treaty (1972); SALT II Treaty (1979); INF Treaty (1987); START II Treaty (1993); U.S.Russia Arms Agreement (2002).

796

Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act

Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act Date: April 19, 1950 U.S. Statutes at Large: 64 Stat. 44 Public law: 81-474 U.S. Code: 25 § 631 Categories: Native Americans

In an attempt to improve conditions in one of the most impoverished areas of the United States, this act funded the construction of roads, schools, and other developments on the Navajo and Hopi reservations. The Navajo-Hopi Long Range Rehabilitation Act of 1950 was passed by Congress to construct basic facilities on the Navajo and Hopi reservations. Passed in response to more than twenty years of deteriorating economic conditions on the Navajo Reservation, the act authorized funding for school construction, roads, and other projects. In the 1930’s the federal government had initiated a rangemanagement program on the Navajo and Hopi reservations. Central to the program was reducing the amount of livestock on the range. This devastated the Navajo sheep-based pastoral economy. The full effects of stock reduction were partially obscured during World War II, when thousands of Navajos joined the service or worked in war-related industries. When these people returned home, however, livestock regulations and insufficient resources prevented a renewal of the pastoral economy. Unusually harsh winters added to the distress and drew national attention to the impoverished conditions among the more than sixty thousand Navajos residing in Navajo country. Reservation schools could accommodate only about 25 percent of the student-age population. All-weather roads were practically nonexistent on the reservations. Inadequate roads contributed to health, education, and economic problems. Infant mortality was high and school enrollments low. After passing minor emergency relief measures, Congress considered a more comprehensive approach. A 1949 bill to fund improvements on the Navajo and Hopi reservations, reflecting a resurgent congressional interest in limit797

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ing tribal sovereignty, also included a provision that extended the jurisdiction of state law over the two reservations. Citing this provision, President Harry Truman vetoed the bill. In 1950 the president signed the Navajo Rehabilitation Act, which emerged from Congress without the offending jurisdictional provision. This version also provided expanded opportunities for Hopi participation in projects. The act appropriated $88,570,000. The largest portion, $25 million, was for school construction, followed by $20 million for roads and $19 million for rangelands and irrigation projects. Lesser amounts were appropriated for health and water facilities, industrial development, and other projects. More than $9 million was allocated for relocating and resettling individuals away from the two reservations. There were also provisions for loans and leases. Finally, one provision (ignored for more than thirty years) authorized the Navajo tribe to adopt a tribal constitution. In 1958, Public Law 85-740 provided an additional $20 million to complete road construction. By 1962, more than 80 percent of the total appropriation had been expended, including nearly all the dollars targeted for roads and schools. The major benefit of the act was the substantial improvement in roads and schools on the reservation. All-weather roads have provided greater access to job locations and markets. School attendance increased dramatically through the 1950’s and 1960’s, as did the overall educational attainment of the population. Eric Henderson Source for Further Study Parman, Donald L. The Navajos and the New Deal. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976. See also: Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (1974).

798

Internal Security Act

Internal Security Act Also known as: McCarran Act Date: September 23, 1950 U.S. Statutes at Large: 64 Stat. 987 U.S. Code: 50 § 831 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Military and National Secu-

rity

This statute, which established the Subversive Activities Control Board, aimed at stopping communist subversion in the United States, calling for the registration of all known communist organizations and individuals in the United States. The Internal Security Act, sponsored by Senator Patrick A. McCarran of Nevada, attacked the alleged communist threat. It created a Subversive Activities Control Board that could, with approval of the U.S. attorney general, order an organization that it found to be communist to register with the Justice Department and submit information concerning its membership, activities, and finances. Furthermore, the act prohibited known communists from being employed by the federal government, denied them the right to use U.S. passports, and made it a felony for anyone to attempt to establish a totalitarian dictatorship in the United States. Another provision arranged for emergency arrest and detention of any person likely to commit espionage or sabotage. President Harry S. Truman vetoed the act on the grounds that it violated the Bill of Rights, but his veto was overridden by an 89 percent majority vote. McCarran’s newly formed Senate Internal Security Subcommittee worked closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and conducted hearings for the next twenty-seven years in an attempt to enforce the act. In Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board (1961), the Supreme Court upheld the legality of registration but would not rule on the constitutionality of the 1950 act until it was enforced. In Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that registration, which could have negative repercussions, was self-incrimination and therefore violated the Fifth Amendment. In 1968 Congress 799

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amended the 1950 act to eliminate the self-registration requirements, and the act’s provisions were dismantled piece by piece during the 1970’s. Alvin K. Benson Source for Further Study Library of Congress. Legislative Reference Service. Internal Security Act of 1950, as Amended, and Communist Control Act of 1954. 91st Congress, 1st session. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969. See also: Fifth Amendment (1789); Espionage Acts (1917-1918);

Smith Act (1940); Communist Control Act (1954).

Celler-Kefauver Act Date: December 29, 1950 U.S. Statutes at Large: 64 Stat. 1125 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade

By prohibiting certain types of mergers between firms in the same industry, the Celler-Kefauver Act led companies to form conglomerates made up of companies in unrelated industries. The Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950 amended the Clayton Act by closing a loophole that had allowed companies to avoid antitrust suits by acquiring the assets (rather than the stock) of another company. Government enforcement of the Celler-Kefauver Act encouraged companies to seek growth through a strategy of diversification. Thus, the Celler-Kefauver Act contributed to the conglomerate movement of the 1960’s. The Clayton Act The roots of the Celler-Kefauver Act can be traced to passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914. Section 2 of this law prohibited business firms from acquiring the stock of another company if the re800

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sulting merger lessened competition. The Clayton Act, however, made no mention of mergers based on the purchase of another company’s assets. During the 1920’s, American companies took advantage of this loophole to form mergers based on the acquisition of assets. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) prosecuted the companies involved in these mergers but, in 1926, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clayton Act did not apply to acquisition of corporate assets. The Court’s interpretation made the Clayton Act an ineffective weapon against monopoly. In 1927, the FTC asked Congress to amend the Clayton Act to close the loophole, but during this prosperous decade Congress lost interest in strict enforcement of the antitrust laws. During the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, the government downplayed antitrust policy as President Herbert Hoover encouraged corporations to cooperate in a wide range of activities. President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted antitrust exemptions to those companies cooperating with the National Recovery Administration (1933-1935). NRA officials hoped that cooperation in the form of mergers and price controls would lift the nation out of the Great Depression. During the late 1930’s, Roosevelt reversed direction and attempted to silence his critics in big business by supporting a renewed antitrust campaign led by Thurman Arnold, head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. Roosevelt also called for the creation of a Temporary National Economic Committee (TNEC) to study the effects of monopoly on the American economy. In its final report, in 1941, the TNEC recommended passage of legislation designed to close the asset loophole. Along with officials in the FTC and the Justice Department, the members of the TNEC formed an activist community committed to strengthening the nation’s antimonopoly legislation. Although World War II brought a temporary halt to their activity, this antitrust community pledged to resume its antimonopoly crusade once the war ended. Renewed Calls for Antitrust Measures Several factors sparked a renewed interest in antitrust enforcement in the immediate postwar period. First, a growing number of observers worried that the wartime placement of military contracts with big business had increased the overall level of economic concentration. In December, 1946, the House Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Monopoly (chaired by Estes Kefauver, a lib801

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eral Democrat from Tennessee) issued a report concluding that big business had benefited disporportionately from the wartime boom. The Kefauver report criticized the lackluster wartime performance of the government’s antitrust agencies and called for an amendment to the Clayton Act that would close the asset loophole. Meanwhile, the FTC tried to justify its existence by securing passage of stronger antitrust legislation. The FTC described the weak merger movement of the late 1940’s as a grave threat to competition. The FTC enjoyed the support of President Harry S. Truman, a longtime advocate of antitrust enforcement. During his presidency, Truman appointed ardent antitrusters to the FTC and secured additional appropriations for the enforcement of antitrust legislation. At the conclusion of World War II, congressional antitrusters introduced a flurry of bills designed to strengthen the Clayton Antitrust Act. In 1945, Senator Joseph O’Mahoney (Democrat of Wyoming) and Representative Kefauver introduced legislation that would close the asset loophole. Their bills remained in committee, however, and for the next several years they failed in efforts to push their legislation through a Republican-controlled Congress. In 1948, the Democrats secured control of both houses of Congress, thus increasing the likelihood that a major piece of antitrust legislation would become law. During the presidential campaign, Truman had supported legislation to close the assets loophole. He interpreted his victory in the election as a mandate to go forward with strict enforcement of the antitrust law. In 1949, Truman encouraged the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Emanuel Celler (Democrat of New York) to go forward with an investigation of monopolies. Celler used his committee hearings as a forum to promote his bill to amend the Clayton Act. As a newly elected senator, Estes Kefauver introduced a companion bill in the Senate. The Celler-Kefauver bills prohibited companies from acquiring the assets of other companies if the resulting mergers substantially lessened competition. Fears of Big Business Celler and Kefauver broke with antitrust tradition by emphasizing the alleged evils of bigness per se. In the past, the government had been concerned with the intent behind mergers and their actual effect on competition. The Supreme Court had established a “rule 802

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of reason” to govern antitrust cases. According to the Court, antitrust law applied only to unreasonable restraints upon trade. Celler and Kefauver believed that bigness automatically reduced efficiency, dampened innovation, and diminished opportunities for small business. They also argued that big business had given rise to big labor and big government. Ultimately, big business threatened the foundations of American democracy, since an all-powerful state would be required to regulate the nation’s monopolies. Celler and Kefauver resorted to Cold War rhetoric, arguing that their legislation would prevent the emergence of a totalitarian state. Passage, Provisions, and Weak Enforcement The business press feared that the legislation would radically restructure the American economy. Critics of the legislation, led by the United States Chamber of Commerce, believed that existing antitrust laws could prevent the development of monopolies. These opponents also criticized the FTC for exaggerating the extent of the postwar merger movement and for failing to show that mergers actually had lessened competition. Republican conservatives, however, failed to block passage of this legislation. On August 15, the House passed Celler’s bill (H.R. 2734) by a vote of 223 to 92. The Senate subsequently passed Kefauver’s bill and, on December 29, 1950, President Truman signed it into law. The Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950 sent a message to the business community that the federal government would closely examine the effects of any mergers between companies in the same industry. The act also gave the nation’s antitrust agencies a powerful new weapon in their campaign against monopoly. The act did not apply, however, to mergers between companies in unrelated industries. Consequently, numerous articles appeared in the business press encouraging companies to seek growth through diversification. Despite its active role in the passage of the Celler-Kefauver Act, the Truman administration failed to enforce the law, in large part because the government reduced its antitrust activity in order to secure the cooperation of business during the Korean War. A budget-conscious Congress also reduced funding for the antitrust agencies. Corporate executives nevertheless remained cautious about acquiring competitors, and the number of mergers dropped off in the early 1950’s. 803

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The 1950’s and 1960’s: Strict Enforcement Under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower (19531961), the Justice Department and the FTC responded to renewed merger activity by acting more aggressively in their prosecution of antitrust cases. In 1955, the attorney general’s National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws issued a report calling for stricter enforcement of antitrust legislation. The report also outlined the government’s interpretation of the Celler-Kefauver Act. According to the committee, the government need not prove that a company had intended to lessen competition by acquiring a rival; instead, the government could simply use market share as a measure of competition in an industry. The committee’s report did not address the question of conglomerate mergers. The FTC and the Justice Department followed the guidelines set forth by the attorney general’s committee. During the Eisenhower administration, the two agencies prosecuted more than fifty cases involving alleged violations of the Celler-Kefauver Act. In one important case, brought against the Pillsbury Company, the FTC ruled that the Celler-Kefauver Act allowed the agency to prohibit mergers that lessened competition in regional or local, as opposed to national, markets. The government also brought cases against a number of the nation’s largest companies, including Bethlehem Steel, Lever Brothers, Crown Zellerbach, Minute Maid, and Anheuser-Busch. Nearly all of these cases involved mergers within the same industry. President John F. Kennedy’s attorney general continued to charge many companies with violations of the Celler-Kefauver Act. The U.S. Supreme Court approved of the government’s strict enforcement of the law. In the landmark Brown Shoe case (1962), the Court ruled that the government could halt a merger if there was a chance that it might lessen competition in any region of the country. During the 1960’s, the Court continued to consider mergers a threat to competition and, between 1962 and 1970, the nation’s highest court decided in favor of the government in all but one of the merger cases. The hostile environment led companies to avoid mergers within the same industry. Corporate executives began to pursue a strategy of diversification, forming mergers with companies in unrelated fields. Government enforcement of the Celler-Kefauver Act thus indirectly facilitated the massive conglomerate movement of the 804

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1950’s and 1960’s. In 1969, President Richard Nixon’s attorney general brought antitrust suits against several conglomerates. These companies eventually settled out of court, but the suits brought against them led many businesspeople to fear prosecution, and the merger movement finally slowed. A New Merger Movement In the early 1970’s, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Warren Burger began deciding against the government in antitrust cases. During this same period, economists and legal scholars also attacked the long-held assumption that mergers necessarily resulted in lessened competition. Led by Robert H. Bork, these scholars argued that mergers often increased efficiency and lowered costs. These critics of the Celler-Kefauver Act preferred to rely upon the market to police mergers. This intellectual climate of opinion influenced policymakers, and the government stopped enforcing the Celler-Kefauver Act. With the threat of government prosecution diminished, the United States witnessed yet another merger movement in the late 1970’s and the 1980’s. Jonathan Bean Sources for Further Study Bork, Robert H. “The Crash of Merger Policy: The Brown Shoe Decision.” In The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself. New York: Basic Books, 1978. Celler, Emanuel. You Never Leave Brooklyn: The Autobiography of Emanuel Celler. New York: J. Day, 1953. Fligstein, Neil. The Transformation of Corporation Control. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Universtiy Press, 1990. Fontenay, Charles L. Estes Kefauver: A Biography. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1980. Kintner, Earl W., ed. Federal Antitrust Laws and Related Statutes: A Legislative History. 11 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978, 1982-1985. Kovaleff, Theodore Philip. Business and Government During the Eisenhower Administration: A Study of the Antitrust Policy of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1980. 805

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Wheeler-Lea Act (1938); Truth in Lending Act (1968); Parens Patriae Act (1974); Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974).

Twenty-second Amendment Date: Ratified February 27, 1951; certified March 1, 1951 U.S. Statutes at Large: 61 Stat. 959 Categories: Constitutional Law; Government Procedure and Or-

ganization

Shortly after Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented fourth term as president, the Twenty-second Amendment was adopted to establish presidential term limits. The office of the presidency was the most original political office created by the Framers of the Constitution. George Washington, for whom the office was created, largely set its parameters by his actions. By practice, he established the custom of an informal twoterm limit on the presidency. With the possible exception of Ulysses S. Grant, who favored a third nonconsecutive term for himself in 1880, and Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 Bull Moose campaign for another term, the tradition was upheld until Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a third term in 1940 and a fourth term in 1944. The unprecedented fourth term was in large part a result of the nation’s involvement in World War II. However, the two-term tradition had not just been broken, it had been shattered, and a predictable backlash occurred after Roosevelt’s death in 1945. Presidential term limits had been rejected at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Similarly, some 270 such resolutions introduced in the Congress prior to 1947 were also rejected. However, immediately after Republicans captured both chambers of Congress in the 1946 election, a term-limit resolution passed quickly the following year. Republicans supported it overwhelmingly; Dem806

Twenty-second Amendment

ocrats, except for Southerners, opposed it. Despite its quick passage in the Congress, ratification of the amendment by the states was much slower. Even though Republican-controlled states ratified the amendment easily in 1947 and most southern states concurred soon afterward, ratification by three-fourths of the states took until February 27, 1951. As a result of the Twenty-second Amendment, a president is limited to serving two full terms, or no more than ten years in the case of a vice president who replaces a president. The Twenty-second Amendment, the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution to limit voter suffrage, was driven by partisan vengeance fueled by Franklin Roosevelt’s unprecedented multiple terms of office. Subsequent presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan considered the amendment undemocratic and urged repeal without success. Nonetheless, with the shift in the balance of power during the twentieth century from the legislative to the executive branch, the American public seems comfortable with retaining this added constitutional check on presidential power, even if it effectively makes a second-term president a “lame duck.” William D. Pederson Sources for Further Study Bernstein, Richard B. Amending America: If We Love the Constitution So Much, Why Do We Keep Trying to Change It? New York: Random House, 1993. Grimes, Alan P. Democracy and the Amendments to the Constitution. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1978. Reagan, Ronald W., Joseph M. Bessette, and Bruce Buchanan. Restoring the Presidency: Reconsidering the Twenty-second Amendment. Washington, D.C.: National Legal Center for the Public Interest, 1990. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Twelfth Amend-

ment (1804); Presidential Succession Act (1947); Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967).

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Tripartite Security Treaty Also known as: Anzus Treaty Date: Signed September 1, 1951; in force April 29, 1952 Categories: Foreign Relations; Military and National Security;

Treaties and Agreements

This treaty, signed a few years after World War II, was designed to send a signal to China and the Soviet Union that Western-oriented countries were determined to stop new aggressive moves in the Pacific. Immediately after World War II, Australia pressed for a regional security arrangement, but the United States demurred. Soon, several events gave greater urgency to the idea. In 1949, communists won the civil war in China. In February, 1950, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance was signed, and in June, 1950, North Korea’s army entered South Korea. Australia and New Zealand were the first countries to join the United States in sending troops for the United Nations (U.N.) Command in Korea. John Foster Dulles, foreign policy adviser to the U.S. secretary of state, believed that a power vacuum existed because demilitarized Japan was still under Allied occupation, so communist countries were moving to fill the void. Accordingly, he considered a peace treaty with Japan to be a top priority. Australia and New Zealand, however, said that they would be interested in signing a Japanese peace treaty only if they were included in a formal defensive arrangement involving the United States. Dulles then went to Canberra in February, 1951, to meet Australian external affairs minister Percy Spender and New Zealand minister for foreign affairs Frederick Doidge in order to discuss proposals for a defensive arrangement among the three countries. Promising military aid to both countries, Dulles then prepared a draft treaty, which was signed during the first day of the Japanese peace conference in San Francisco. The treaty came into force exactly one day after the Japanese Peace Treaty went into effect. The aim was to send a signal to Beijing and Moscow that Western-oriented countries were determined to stop new aggressive moves in the Pacific. To avoid the impression that the treaty dealt with the entire Pacific area, the acro808

Tripartite Security Treaty

nym “Anzus” (referring to Australia, New Zealand, and the United States) was accepted in August, 1952, at the inaugural meeting of the Council, the principal organ established by the treaty. Articles IV-V, which as of 2002 had never been utilized, provide that armed attacks “on the metropolitan territory of any of the Parties, or on the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific” should be reported immediately to the U.N. Security Council. Until the Security Council acts, Anzus countries are authorized to coordinate their own actions to meet aggression, but there is no guarantee that the countries will come to one another’s aid in response to such attacks. In 1962 the “treaty area” was clarified to include the many Pacific island territories then under the jurisdiction of the Anzus powers. Today, only the Tokelau Islands, under New Zealand rule, appear to be covered. In late 1984, New Zealand’s newly elected prime minister David Lange announced that no American naval ships could dock in New Zealand unless advance assurances were given that no nuclear weapons were on board. Washington then refused to meet any New Zealand representative and canceled the next scheduled Council meeting; the Anzus Council ceased to exist. Australia and the United States have continued to cooperate within the framework of the treaty, holding meetings known as “Ausmins,” though the tripartite treaty is technically still in force. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Bercovitch, Jacob, ed. Anzus in Crisis: Alliance Management in International Affairs. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. Holdich, Roger, et al., eds. The Anzus Treaty 1951. Canberra, Australia: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2001. See also: U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1951).

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U.S.-Japanese Treaty Date: Signed September 8, 1951; in force April 28, 1952 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations; Military

and National Security; Treaties and Agreements

In this post-World War II treaty, the United States agreed to assume primary responsibility for the conventional defense of a disarmed Japan and an exclusive role in providing nuclear deterrence. After Japan surrendered in August, 1945, to end World War II, the Allied powers set up a military occupation to restructure the country so that militaristic ventures would never again emerge and Japan could regain economic prosperity. Nevertheless, unexpected developments soon changed the balance of power in Asia. Communist forces triumphed in China in 1949. The Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance was concluded in February, 1950, and the Korean peninsula was engulfed in war from June, 1950. Some observers argued that there was a power vacuum in Asia, so communist countries were seeking to fill the void. Accordingly, the United States convened a peace conference in San Francisco, resulting in a treaty signed by forty-eight countries (excluding the Soviet Union) on September 8, 1951, which served to end the Allied occupation. That same day, Japan and the United States signed a bilateral “mutual assistance” treaty, something permitted by the peace treaty. The U.S.-Japanese security treaty was one-sided, not “mutual.” The American-drafted Japanese constitution left a pacifist and disarmed country, so the United States agreed in the treaty to assume primary responsibility for Japan’s conventional defense and an exclusive role in providing nuclear deterrence. Tokyo was not asked to assist in defending the United States. Japan agreed to assist in responding to conventional attacks on its territory, so the National Police Reserve was upgraded to the Self-Defense Force, ultimately to consist of 275,000 persons, to which the United States pledged in 1954 to provide economic assistance. Article I provided that U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel could be stationed at 810

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U.S.-operated bases throughout the country. Article II banned that right to any third country. In 1960, the security treaty was renegotiated, replacing the earlier document, to provide Japan a firmer guarantee of American support in case of attack. Thus, Japan was later called a full-fledged “ally” of the United States, although the basic relationship remained unchanged. Japan, in short, was a military protectorate of the United States, an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.” Between 1951 and 2002, the United States spent more than $1 trillion on Japan’s defense, thereby enabling Japan to spend government funds to boost its economy. In the 1950’s Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, accordingly, articulated principles of a foreign policy that have guided policy ever since. Through the Yoshida Doctrine, Japan agreed that reliance on the American security guarantee meant abandoning an independent role in international security matters, slowly developing the capabilities of the Self-Defense Force, pursuing national and later regional economic prosperity, and advancing Japan’s interests abroad by nonmilitary means. As the twenty-first century dawned, the premises for the treaty had eroded. The Cold War was over, and although nuclear threats from China and North Korea remained, they seemed likely to target Japan only because of the presence of the American military. Japan had the resources to defend itself, and Japanese press reports of misconduct by American soldiers in Japan exposed the unpopularity of what some observers perceived as continued military occupation. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Osius, Ted. The U.S.-Japan Security Alliance: Why It Matters and How to Strengthen It. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002. Satoh, Yukio. The Evolution of Japanese Security Policy. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1982. See also: Truman Doctrine (1947); Tripartite Security Treaty

(1951); Eisenhower Doctrine (1957).

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Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 Also known as: McCarran-Walter Act Date: June 27, 1952 U.S. Statutes at Large: 66 Stat. 166 Public law: 82-414 U.S. Code: 8 § 1101 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 removed restrictions on Asian immigration. In the early 1950’s, as it had periodically throughout the twentieth century, immigration again became the subject of intense national debate, and a movement arose to reform immigration law. At the time, there were more than two hundred federal laws dealing with immigration, with little coordination among them. Reform Efforts The movement toward immigration reform actually began in 1947, with a U.S. Senate committee investigation on immigration laws, resulting in a voluminous report in 1950 and a proposed bill. The ensuing debate was divided between those who wanted to abandon the quota system and increase the numbers of immigrants admitted and those who hoped to shape immigration law to enforce the status quo. Leaders of the latter camp were the architects of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952: Patrick McCarran, senator from Nevada, Francis Walter, congressman from Pennsylvania, and Richard Arens, staff director of the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Immigration and Naturalization. McCarran was the author of the Internal Security Act of 1951, which provided for registration of communist organizations and the internment of communists during national emergencies. Walter was an immigration specialist who had backed legislation to admit Europeans from camps for displaced persons. Arens had been staff director for the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Each looked upon immigration control as an extension of his work to defend the United States against foreign and domestic enemies. 812

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McCarran was most outspoken in defending the concept of restrictions on the basis of national origin, stating in the Senate: There are hard-core indigestible blocs who have not become integrated into the American way of life, but who, on the contrary, are its deadly enemy. . . . this Nation is the last hope of western civilization; and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated, or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished.

Arens branded critics of the proposed act as communists, misguided liberals enraptured by communist propaganda, apologists for specific immigrant groups, or “professional vote solicitors who fawn on nationality groups, appealing to them not as Americans but as hyphenated Americans.” Among the bill’s critics, however, were Harry S. Truman, the U.S. president in 1952, and Hubert H. Humphrey, senator from Minnesota and future Democratic presidential nominee. One liberal senator, Herbert Lehman, attacked the national origins provisions of the existing immigration code as a racist measure that smacked of the ethnic purity policies of the recently defeated German Nazis. Truman vetoed the bill, but his veto was overridden, 278 to 113 in the House, and 57 to 26 in the Senate. Provisions of the Act In several areas, the 1952 law made no significant changes: Quotas for European immigrants were little changed, no quotas were instituted for immigrants from North and South American countries, and the issue of illegal immigration was given scant attention. There were significant changes in some areas, however: reversal of the ban on Asian immigration, extension of naturalization to persons regardless of race or sex, and the first provision for refugees as a special class of immigrants. The Asiatic Barred Zone, established in 1917, was eliminated by providing for twenty-five hundred entries from the area—a minuscule number for the region, but the first recognition of Asian immigration rights in decades. This small concession for Asians was offset partially by the fact that anyone whose ancestry was at least half Asian would be counted under the quota for the Asian country of ancestry, even if the person was a resident of another country. This provision, which was unlike the system of counting quotas for 813

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European countries, was specifically and openly designed to prevent Asians living in North and South American countries, which had no quota restrictions, from flooding into the United States. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, or McCarranWalter Act, also ensured for the first time that the “right of a person to become a naturalized citizen of the United States shall not be denied or abridged because of race or sex.” The provision of not denying citizenship based on sex addressed the issue of women who had lost their U.S. citizenship by marrying foreign men of certain categories; men who had married women from those categories had never lost their citizenship. The issue of refugees was a new concern resulting from World War II. More than seven million persons had lost their homelands in the aftermath of the war, as a result of the conquering and reorganization of countries primarily in Eastern Europe. The 1952 act did not present a comprehensive solution to the problem of refugees but did give the attorney general special power, subject to congressional overview, to admit refugees into the United States under a special status. Although this was expected to be a seldom-used provision of the law, regular upheavals throughout the world later made it an important avenue of immigration into the United States. Finally, the Immigration and Nationality Act also included stringent security procedures designed to prevent communist subversives from infiltrating the United States through immigration. Some of these harsh measures were specifically mentioned by Truman in his veto message, but the anticommunist Cold War climate made such measures hard to defeat. Criticism of the Act Over the objections of Congress, President Truman appointed a special commission to examine immigration in September, 1952. After hearings in several cities, it issued the report Whom Shall We Welcome?, which was critical of the McCarran-Walter Act. Some liberal Democrats attempted to make the 1952 presidential election a forum on immigration policy, but without success. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the victorious Republican nominee for president, made few specific statements on immigration policy during the campaign. After his election, however, he proposed a special provision for allowing almost a quarter of a million refugees from commu814

Termination Resolution

nism to immigrate to the United States over a two-year period, couching his proposal in terms of humanitarianism and foreign policy. The resulting Refugee Relief Act of 1953 allowed the admission of 214,000 refugees, but only if they had assurance of jobs and housing or were close relatives of U.S. citizens and could pass extensive screening procedures designed to deter subversives. Several similar exceptions in the following years managed to undercut the McCarran-Walter Act, which its many critics had been unable to overturn outright. Irene Struthers Sources for Further Study Dimmitt, Marius A. The Enactment of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Ph.D. dissertation. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1971. LeMay, Michael C. From Open Door to Dutch Door: An Analysis of U.S. Immigration Policy Since 1820. New York: Praeger, 1987. _______, ed. The Gatekeepers: Comparative Immigration Policy. New York: Praeger, 1989. Reimers, David M. “Recent Immigration Policy: An Analysis.” In The Gateway: U.S. Immigration Issues and Policies, edited by Barry R. Chiswick. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1982. See also: Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907); Alien land laws (1913); Immigration Act of 1917 (1917); Immigration Act of 1921 (1921); Cable Act (1922); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943); War Brides Act (1945); Refugee Relief Act (1953); Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (1965).

Termination Resolution Date: Issued August 1, 1953 Categories: Native Americans

Congress ended its policy of special treatment of Native Americans. 815

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Termination was viewed by its advocates as freeing American Indians from special laws and regulations, making them equal to other citizens, and by opponents as precipitously withdrawing federal responsibility and programs. The term used for the federal policy came to be applied to the people themselves: “terminated” tribes. Termination actions included repealing laws setting American Indians apart, ending Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) services by transferring them to other federal agencies or to the states, and terminating recognition of the sovereign status of specific tribes. Termination, many have observed, did not deviate from the norm of federal policy. Its emphasis on breaking up American Indian land holdings is often compared to the General Allotment Act of 1887 (the Dawes Act). The latter required the allocation of a certain number of acres to each person and, during its forty-seven years in force, reduced tribal lands by nearly ninety-one million acres. Pros and Cons In public debate, opponents of termination argued that the United States had a special obligation to American Indians because they had been conquered and deprived of their customary way of life. All people in the United States, opponents said, have the right to be different and to live in the groupings they prefer. Any changes in federal supervision of American Indians should be implemented slowly and with the involvement of the affected tribes; rather than dissolving tribal communities, federal policy should continue meeting tribes’ special needs until those needs no longer exist. Opponents also pointed to American Indian culture, tribal lands, and tribal government—their form of community—as their source of strength. Advocates of termination asserted that all U.S. citizens should be similar, and there should be no communities with special legal rights. Dissolving separate American Indian communities would expedite the integration of these people into the mainstream. American Indians, according to Senator Arthur V. Wakens, would be freed from wardship or federal restrictions and would become selfreliant, with no diminution of their tribal culture. Wakens saw termination as liberation of American Indians and compared it to the Emancipation Proclamation. Non-natives objected to the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, the prior federal policy, and were swayed toward termination by a variety of arguments: American In816

Termination Resolution

dian communal property ownership and their form of government resembled communism; the IRA’s promotion of American Indian traditions amounted to condoning heathenism; developers wanted tribal lands made available; and Congress perceived that the resignation of Indian Commissioner John Collier (the IRA’s chief advocate) and severe BIA budget cuts had diminished its effectiveness, necessitating a stepped-up program of assimilation. Zimmerman’s Formula After Collier’s resignation, Senator William Langer asked Acting Commissioner William Zimmerman for a formula for evaluating tribal readiness for termination. On February 8, 1947, Zimmerman presented, in a congressional hearing, three categories of tribes—those who could be terminated immediately, those who could function with little federal supervision within ten years, and those who needed more than ten years to prepare. He discussed the four criteria used in his lists and presented three specimen termination bills. This testimony was embraced by termination supporters and, Zimmerman believed, frequently misquoted. In 1950, Dillon Myer, a staunch advocate of immediate termination, became Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Although he claimed to be streamlining the BIA, it seemed to some that he was moving to dissolve both the bureau and all IRA programs. Myer was asked to write a legislative proposal for expeditious termination of federal supervision of American Indians. The result was House Concurrent Resolution 108 (August 1, 1953), which passed with little debate. The resolution directed Congress to make American Indians subject to the same laws, privileges, and responsibilities as other citizens; to end their wardship status; and to free specific tribes from federal control as soon as possible. Once the named tribes were terminated, the BIA offices serving them would be abolished. PL 83-280 (August 15, 1953) also advanced termination. It transferred to the states, without tribal consent, jurisdiction over civil and criminal offenses on reservations in California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin. It provided that, by legislative action, any other state could assume similar jurisdiction. Termination Bills of 1954-1962 A rush of termination bills was introduced in 1954. As problems with the termination process became known and the membership 817

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of congressional committees changed (after 1956), legislation slowed. These acts caused several changes: Tribal lands were either appraised or put under a corporation’s management; the federal government no longer protected the land for the tribe; state legislative and judicial authority replaced tribal government; tribe members no longer received a state tax exemption; and tribes lost the benefits of special federal health, education, and other social programs. Fifteen termination acts were passed between 1954 and 1962, affecting 110 tribes or bands in eight states: the Menominee, Klamath, Western Oregon (sixty-one tribes and bands), AlabamaCoushatta, Mixed-Blood Ute, Southern Paiute, Lower Lake Rancheria, Wyandotte, Peoria, Ottawa, Coyote Valley Ranch, California Rancheria (37 rancherias), Catawba, and Ponca. Termination of the Menominee of Wisconsin received the most attention. The tribe was specifically targeted in House Concurrent Resolution 108, and their termination act was passed on June 17, 1954. They appeared to be the healthiest tribe economically, as a result of their lumbering and forestry operations, but were not as ready for termination as they seemed. In 1951, the Menominee won a fifteen-year legal battle against the federal government, awarding them $8.5 million in damages for mismanagement of their tribal forest. They could not obtain the award, however, until Congress passed an act appropriating it. The tribe asked that part of the money be released—amounting to fifteen hundred dollars per capita. Senator Wakens’s Subcommittee on Indian Affairs told the tribe that if they could manage fifteen hundred dollars per person, they were ready for freedom from federal wardship. Termination, he suggested, was inevitable, and the tribe would not receive the money unless they moved to accept a termination amendment to the per-capita payment bill. The election was not a true tribal referendum, as only 174 members voted; many of these later said that they had not understood what they were voting for. Final termination of the Menominee did not go into effect until 1961. The tribe had to decide how to set up municipalities, establish a tax system, provide law and order, and sell their tribal assets. There were complications concerning the payment of estimated taxes on Menominee forests. Federal officials saw the tribe’s reluctance as procrastination. State agencies could provide only limited assistance, because the tribe was still under federal control. 818

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As a result of these experiences and others, both American Indians and non-Indians became critical of termination. BIA expenditures spiraled in the late 1950’s. Many terminated tribe members felt uncomfortable living in the mainstream and often were not accepted socially by non-Indians. Relocated Indians often suffered poverty in the cities and often became dependent on social programs. Some terminated tribes later applied for federal recognition. During its short span (the last act was passed in 1962), termination affected 13,263 of a total population of 400,000, or 3 percent of the federally recognized American Indians. The acts withdrew 1,365,801 acres of trust land, or 3 percent of the approximately 43,000,000 acres held in 1953. The end of federal endorsement of the termination policy was seen in 1969, when President Richard Nixon, in a message to Congress, called for promotion of selfdetermination and the strengthening of American Indian autonomy without threatening community. Glenn Ellen Starr Sources for Further Study Fixico, Donald L. Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945-1960. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986. La Farge, Oliver. “Termination of Federal Supervision: Disintegration and the American Indians.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 311 (May, 1957): 41-46. Philip, Kenneth R. Termination Revisited: American Indians on the Trail to Self-Determination, 1933-1953. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indian. Vol. 2. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. St. Germain, Jill. Indian Treaty-Making Policy in the United States and Canada, 1867-1877. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Stefon, Frederick J. “The Irony of Termination: 1943-1958.” The Indian Historian 11, no. 3 (Summer, 1978): 3-14. Walch, Michael C. “Terminating the Indian Termination Policy.” Stanford Law Review 35, no. 6 (July, 1983): 1181-1215. See also: General Allotment Act (1887); Burke Act (1906); Indian

Citizenship Act (1924); Indian Reorganization Act (1934); Public Law 280 (1953).

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Refugee Relief Act Date: August 7, 1953 U.S. Statutes at Large: 67 Stat. 400 Public law: 83-203 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration

The act created a means of admitting into the United States those displaced persons outside the national quota system requiring admission on an emergency basis. The events of World War II and its immediate aftermath left millions of people displaced from their homelands. Included among those who had been made homeless by the destruction were Jewish survivors of the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust and increasing numbers of political refugees who fled their homelands as communist governments took control in Eastern Europe. In the United States, from the close of World War II well into the 1950’s, a debate raged about how restrictive or generous U.S. immigration and asylum law should be in view of the nation’s own interests and the larger humanitarian imperatives. Quotas and War Refugees Since 1924, U.S. immigration law had been based on a quota system, which was viewed as highly discriminatory against various countries and peoples. Under the pressures of war, however, Congress had allowed temporary immigration to help labor-starved industry. With China as one of the main U.S. allies in the Pacific war, Congress revoked the ban on Chinese immigration in 1943; in 1945, it approved the War Brides Act, which permitted the entry of the alien spouses and children of members of the U.S. armed forces. President Harry S. Truman approved the admission of about forty thousand wartime refugees after the war and urged Congress to adopt less restrictive legislation that would permit the resettlement of larger numbers of displaced persons (DPs). Congress felt pressure to act, not only from the president but also from private charitable agencies that sought to liberalize admission policies in favor of DPs in Europe and elsewhere. Two Jewish aid agencies, the American Council on Judaism (ACJ) and the 820

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American Jewish Committee (AJC), joined forces with numerous Christian and other non-Jewish agencies to form the Citizens’ Committee on Displaced Persons. This new group was headed by Earl G. Harrison and included on its board of directors many prominent U.S. citizens, among them Eleanor Roosevelt. The committee heavily lobbied the predominantly restrictionist Congress and supported legislation calling for the admission of 400,000 DPs. A long and rancorous debate followed, which produced a substantially watered-down bill known as the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. This act permitted 202,000 admission slots for DPs in Europe who feared to return to communist-held countries. While retaining the immigration quotas of previous years, the act allowed countries to borrow against future years’ quotas to accommodate DPs with immediate needs. It only permitted entry of people displaced prior to April 21, 1947, in the Allied occupied zones of Germany and Austria who were registered with the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and who were not communists. It required that the DPs be guaranteed employment by U.S. charitable agencies or other sponsors, and it gave preference to DPs with professional skills. While criticizing its discriminatory features, Truman signed the legislation, which also established the Displaced Persons Commission. Efforts by the Citizens’ Committee on Displaced Persons and others to liberalize the Displaced Persons Act continued, as events in Europe and the deepening of the Cold War led to a climate more supportive of DP resettlement. Although delayed by Senator Patrick A. McCarran of Nevada, amendments eventually passed by Congress expanded the numbers of admission slots to 341,000 and relaxed the cutoff dates for eligibility and entry into the United States. When the Displaced Persons Act expired on December 31, 1951, President Truman relied on the regular immigration quotas and on the U.S. Escapee Program, established under the authority of the 1951 Mutual Security Act, to provide asylum in the United States to political refugees from communism. Truman also established a Commission on Immigration and Naturalization, which held hearings that demonstrated considerable support for liberalized admission of refugees from communism. Even as the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, sponsored by Senator McCarran (and often called the McCarran-Walter Act), reemphasized the restrictive quota system for regular immigration, consensus was build821

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ing to place emergency refugee admissions outside the regular immigration quota system. The Refugee Relief Act of 1953, also sometimes referred to as the Church bill because of the strong support it received from religious refugee assistance agencies, was the result of this ongoing debate about how to restructure U.S. immigration and refugee policy. Beyond Quotas The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 made 209,000 special immigrant visas available to refugees and other special categories of persons. These were not tied in any way to the regular immigration quotas for countries under the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act. This was seen as a major reform by private humanitarian organizations. In the years that followed, the 1958 act enabled the emergency entry of refugees from communism. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, for example, invoked the act just before it was to expire, to provide emergency resettlement opportunities for Hungarian refugees in the waning months of 1956. Eisenhower also took advantage of his parole power, as acknowledged in the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act and earlier immigration legislation, to provide asylum opportunities for Hungarian refugees. The United States eventually accepted more than thirty-two thousand Hungarians. Thus, through the provisions of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, subsequent ad hoc emergency refugee legislation, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the U.S. government coped with refugee admissions until 1980, when Congress passed the more comprehensive and progressive Migration and Refugee Act. Impact and Assessment The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 was one brief but essential mechanism by which the U.S. government sought to fulfill humanitarian and political objectives relating to refugees. It represented an improvement on the Displaced Persons Act, although that muchmaligned piece of legislation eventually led to the resettlement of about four hundred thousand persons to the United States, by far the single largest number of European refugees resettled by any country in the immediate postwar era. The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 also represented a bridge to later legislation, such as the Migration and Refugee Act of 1980, by treating emergency refugee 822

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admission outside the context of regular immigration quotas. It also represented the mistaken belief in the early 1950’s that refugee situations were temporary and amendable to ad hoc solutions. Still, the United States and other Western nations during the early 1950’s established the groundwork for more stable legal and institutional mechanisms for dealing with refugee situations. The United States supported the creation of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in 1943 and the IRO in 1947 to cope with the needs of displaced persons and refugees in postwar Europe. Both were viewed as temporary agencies, as were the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), which began operations in 1952. In time, however, these bodies developed into permanent features of the international humanitarian landscape with the support of later U.S. administrations. The building of both legal and institutional mechanisms for coping with humanitarian problems was often highly controversial, heavily steeped in political motivation, and shortsighted. As measured in the huge numbers of persons assisted and protected over the years, however, the efforts are viewed by many as precious if difficult ones, of which the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 were imperfect but necessary components. Robert F. Gorman Sources for Further Study Carlin, James L. The Refugee Connection: A Lifetime of Running a Lifeline. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Fuchs, Lawrence H. “Immigration, Pluralism, and Public Policy: The Challenge of the Pluribus to the Unum.” In U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy: Global and Domestic Issues, edited by Mary M. Kritz. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1982. Loescher, Gil, and John A. Scanlan. Calculated Kindness: Refugees and America’s Half-Open Door, 1945 to Present. New York: Free Press, 1986. Nichols, J. Bruce. The Uneasy Alliance: Religion, Refugee Work, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1989. 823

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Sanders, Ronald. Shores of Refuge: A Hundred Years of Jewish Immigration. New York: Schocken Books, 1988. Zucker, Norman L., and Naomi Flink Zucker. The Guarded Gate: The Reality of American Refugee Policy. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987. See also: Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Immigration Act of

1943 (1943); War Brides Act (1945); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952); Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987).

Public Law 280 Date: August 15, 1953 U.S. Statutes at Large: 67 Stat. 588 Public law: 83-280 U.S. Code: 18 § 1161-1162, 25 § 1321-1322, 28 § 1360 Categories: Native Americans

This law limited tribal sovereignty by allowing courts in some states to have jurisdiction over Indian reservations. During the early 1950’s, federal Indian policy returned to the goal of promoting the assimilation of Indians into American society. Tribes were considered to be major barriers to this end, and a number of policies were developed to reduce their influence. One of these measures was Public Law 280, which sought to place tribal Indians under the jurisdiction of the laws of the states in which they resided. This marked a significant change in the legal status of Native Americans, for while Indians had long been subject to federal law, they had usually been considered to be subject to their own tribal courts when on reservations. Like other measures of the 1950’s, Public Law 280 sought to undermine those aspects of Indians’ legal status that set them apart from other Americans. Provisions Passed by Congress in August, 1953, Public Law 280 authorized state courts to assume civil and criminal jurisdiction of all Indian lands in the states of California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, 824

Public Law 280

and Wisconsin. (Three reservations were excluded by name in the act.) Furthermore, other states were allowed to extend jurisdiction over reservations if they desired by making the necessary changes in their laws or constitutions. A few limits were placed on state powers: States could not levy property taxes on reservations or exercise jurisdiction with regard to Indian water rights. By 1968 nine additional states had extended jurisdiction over Indian lands within their borders. Native American Response Public Law 280 was very unpopular with American Indians, who saw it as a drastic limitation on the tribal right of self-government that had been enacted without their consent. (President Dwight D. Eisenhower had objected to the lack of a provision for tribal consent but had signed the act when Congress refused to amend it.) Indian resentment of the act helped to persuade Congress to amend its provisions in the changed atmosphere of later years. The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 included provisions (known collectively as the Indian Bill of Rights) that were intended to safeguard Native American rights. One section altered Public Law 280 to require Indian consent before future extensions of state jurisdiction. States were also allowed to return jurisdiction to tribes. Public Law 280 was further limited in its impact by the Indian Child Welfare Act (1978), which gave tribal courts exclusive jurisdiction over child custody cases on reservations. Though initially seen as a major threat to tribal self-government, modification of Public Law 280 lessened its potential for restricting tribal authority. Some states found that they preferred to avoid the expense involved in extending legal jurisdiction, while some tribes found it useful to ask the states to provide law and order. By the late twentieth century, the law was being used in a somewhat more cooperative manner that took Indian opinions into account. William C. Lowe Sources for Further Study Ackerman, David M. Background Report on Public Law 280. Prepared at the Request of Henry M. Jackson, Chairman, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, United States Senate. 94th Congress, 1st session. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975. 825

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Goldberg-Ambrose, Carole, and Timothy Carr Seward. Planting Tail Feathers: Tribal Survival and Public Law 280. Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, University of California, 1997. See also: Termination Resolution (1953); Indian Civil Rights Act

(1968); Indian Child Welfare Act (1978).

Communist Control Act Date: August 24, 1954 U.S. Statutes at Large: 68 Stat. 775 Public law: 83-637 U.S. Code: 50 § 841-844 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties

This legislation, by outlawing the Communist Party, made it more difficult for Communist organizations to operate in the United States and imposed legal, political, and economic penalties on party members. In the 1940’s and 1950’s Congress passed three major pieces of legislation designed to limit and then eliminate the Communist Party of the United States. The Smith Act of 1940 made it a criminal offense willfully to advocate the overthrow of the government of the United States or any state by force or violence or to organize any association which promoted such an overthrow. The 1950 Internal Security Act required Communist-action organizations and Communist-front organizations to register and provide for public inspection membership lists, their sources of funding and expenditures, and listings of all printing presses and duplicating machines. Members of organizations that failed to register were required to register, and members were subject to comprehensive restrictions and criminal sanctions. Finally, in 1954 Congress passed the Communist Control Act. This legislation, by outlawing the Communist Party, made it more difficult for Communist organizations to operate in the United 826

Communist Control Act

States. The Communist Party lost all its legal rights, including its right to sue in court, to make contracts, to publish newspapers, and to conduct other activities that all legal organizations were entitled to conduct. Labor organizations found to be Communist-controlled were to be stripped of their rights under the Taft-Hartley law (the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947). They could not get their names on a ballot to win or protect representation rights, and they could not bring complaints against employers. While the act did not make Communist Party membership a crime, it did impose legal, political, and economic penalties on party members. For example, party members were required to register with the Justice Department under the terms of the Internal Security Act if not already registered by the party itself. Failure to do so could result in fines up to $10,000 and prison terms as long as five years. Once registered, the Communist Party member was prohibited from government employment, from working in a defense plant, and from obtaining a passport. There were several legal challenges to the Communist Control Act. In 1954, section 3 of the act was upheld in a New Jersey court case, Salwen v. Rees, as the basis for denying a candidate the right to appear on the ballot under the Communist Party label. In 1957, New York denied the claim of a Communist Party member to unemployment insurance and suspended the registration of the Communist Party as an employer. The New York courts reversed the denial of the individual’s claim but upheld the suspension of the party as an employer. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision in 1961 in Communist Party vs. Catherwood, concerning the party suspension; however, it did not rule on broader constitutional issues. The Communist Control Act raised constitutional questions under the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the ban against bills of attainder; however, the Justice Department did not push for a general test of its provisions in court. By the early 1960’s, the legislative acts passed in the 1940’s and 1950’s were, in general, constitutionally rejected. William V. Moore

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Sources for Further Study Emerson, Thomas I., David Haber, and Norman Dorsen. Political and Civil Rights in the United States. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Library of Congress. Legislative Reference Service. Internal Security Act of 1950, as Amended, and Communist Control Act of 1954. 91st Congress, 1st session. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969. See also: Espionage Acts (1917-1918); Smith Act (1940); LaborManagement Relations Act (1947); Internal Security Act (1950); Jencks Act (1957).

Atomic Energy Act of 1954 Date: August 30, 1954 U.S. Statutes at Large: 68 Stat. 921 Public law: 102-486 U.S. Code: 42 § 2011 Categories: Energy; Natural Resources

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law a bill designed to promote the peacetime uses of nuclear energy. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 provided for the establishment of a civilian group, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), whose specified tasks included not only stewardship of all fissionable materials but also the exercise of broad controls over every aspect, military as well as civilian, of atomic energy development in the United States. As custodian and delegated promoter of the peaceful atom, however, the AEC was handicapped, since much information on nuclear technology was classified and therefore unavailable to private industry. Since the formation of a civilian nuclear industry was deemed highly desirable by all parties, including the president, Congress, and private industry, the revised Atomic Energy Act of 1954 was specifically designed to grant the right to private corporations to own and operate nuclear power plants. The AEC became both licenser and regulator. 828

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Atomic Energy The first actual generation of electricity from a nuclear reactor took place in 1953 at a national laboratory in Idaho and promised a welcome gift of nuclear power for peacetime uses for an increasingly energy-dependent industrial society, especially in light of the steady depletion of the world’s conventional energy supplies. However, the by-products of the fissioning process are highly radioactive chemical elements whose potential for harm to living organisms has been well documented. There was concern not only about the possibility for the accidental release of these substances but also about the issue of the ultimate disposal of the highly radioactive residues of the spent fuels. In a speech, called “Atoms for Peace,” delivered to the General Assembly of the United Nations in December, 1953, President Eisenhower gave impetus to the movement toward civilian atomic energy development. By proposing the establishment of an international commission that would supervise a stockpile of fissionable materials contributed by U.N. members, Eisenhower was taking the first step in a plan that could help to relieve worldwide tensions concerning nuclear energy and its attendant problems. His speech concluded with the pledge that the United States would ensure that “the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.” While the hope offered in that speech was welcomed enthusiastically by an audience nevertheless concerned about the potential for disaster, it took three years before the International Atomic Energy Agency was founded, and its subsequent functions turned more on standards for radiation protection than on the dissemination of knowledge about power production. As a direct consequence of Eisenhower’s faith in the potential of the atom, however, the government passed an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. The 1954 Act Under the revised act of 1954, the federal government would license private industry to construct and operate domestic nuclear power plants. At the same time, while limiting the AEC’s direct involvement in the manufacture and distribution of nuclear power, it was hoped that the private sector would be encouraged to take it on. People believed that private industry would be more efficient 829

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in managing the development of this new and important industry. The AEC would, however, subsidize research in the field of nuclear power so that private industry would be free of the burdensome costs that further development would entail. One key provision of the act was the requirement that public hearings be held in each case where a construction permit was sought. It was expected that the AEC would reach agreement with the potential permittee on the details of the plans, so that the public hearing would not simply provide a forum for those who believed that the dangers of nuclear power outweighed any advantages it might bring. Under the rules, however, any person or group to challenge an application on grounds of safety was to be denied access to any AEC files that might reveal concerns about safety. In 1973, the National Science Foundation characterized these procedures as a charade whose sole purpose was to advance quickly the establishment of the nuclear power industry in the United States. Debates over Nuclear Power In the climate of the times, there was widespread controversy about nuclear power issues. Many of the principal scientists who had been involved in the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb, including the head of the group, J. Robert Oppenheimer, had considerable doubts about the prognosis for domestic uses. Others, such as presidential science adviser and discoverer of the fissionable element plutonium Glenn Seaborg, foresaw a future in which cheap atomic power would provide inexhaustible quantities of electricity sufficient to power the world’s needs indefinitely. AEC chairman and investment banker Lewis L. Strauss was equally optimistic when he asserted that the promise of nuclear power was such that it would soon prove to be “too cheap to meter.” The establishment by act of Congress of a plan in which the AEC would become the promoter, custodian, and administrator for the domestic nuclear power industry posed a number of challenges. The first private company to oversee a civilian project was the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Westinghouse collaborated with a Pittsburgh utility company in the construction of a pressurized water reactor, similar in type to the one under way for the U.S. Navy. 830

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Nuclear Submarines Under the supervision of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the Navy project entailed the construction of the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. At that time, conventional power sources for submarines were of two kinds: diesel engines for surface use, since they required air intake and exhaust, and batteries for underwater travel. Rickover’s plan was to construct a small, powerful nuclear reactor that would meet a submarine’s energy needs under any conditions. Working from a company-sponsored laboratory on a project that remained under his close supervision, Rickover was able to oversee an effective working relationship among the Navy, private industry, and the AEC. After solving many practical engineering problems, the project finally succeeded in launching the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered vessel. That event spurred the enthusiasm of nuclear power’s supporters, since it demonstrated the feasibility of a cooperative project of the kind envisioned by the 1954 act. Nuclear Power Plants In the years immediately following the building of the Nautilus, several companies and consortia became actively engaged in the planning process for new nuclear power plants. Concerns emerged, however, about where to build them. Remote locations were unacceptable to the private utilities, who preferred to have their operations closer to the power grids that they would supply. The first generation of nuclear power reactors therefore were placed in close proximity to large urban areas. Within a span of twenty-five years, eighteen functioning plants were built in the United States, and in the next five years the total exceeded fifty. Many more were in the planning stage. Increasing concerns about the potential for a nuclear accident that might result in the release of radioactive particles began to slow the building process. The public’s concern continued to grow, in spite of the assurances contained in an AEC-sponsored report, the Brookhaven Report, which placed the casualty rate in a “maximum credible accident” at a vanishingly low level. The report also stated, however, that potential contamination of the surrounding land might extend as far as fifteen miles from the plant site and could cover extremely large land areas, with consequent loss of life and property perhaps reaching billions of dollars in value. These 831

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continuing fears, together with doubts expressed by groups of professionals such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, helped to slow the exploitation of nuclear power. The Windscale Accident Then, in October, 1957, a reactor in Great Britain, Windscale, designed to create nuclear fuels, suffered a severe accident resulting in widespread contamination of nearly four hundred square miles of the surrounding area, necessitating the government’s seizure of all crops growing within it. One prominent scientist concluded that, following the complete failure of the reactor’s containment vessel, more fission products were released into the atmosphere than had been set free in the weapon exploded over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. Clean Air Act In 1963, the National Environmental Policy Act, also known as the Clean Air Act, coupled with widening public concerns about atmospheric contaminants that had become the principal focus of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of the same year, gave rise to increased pressures to contain the growth of the nuclear power industry. In addition, the Clean Air Act required that assessments be made of the total impact of any proposed plant, including a cost-benefit analysis encompassing all aspects that might affect the local community. By the mid-1970’s, these additional constraints, together with escalating costs that resulted from consequent delays, effectively served to bring to a halt any new construction. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl The catastrophic accident at Three Mile Island, unit 2, located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, provided compelling evidence of the fragility and potential lethality of nuclear power plants in the United States. Working in a critical area of the plant with the main reactor generating close to full capacity, a maintenance crew accidentally closed off one of the reactor’s sources of coolant. In spite of the mechanisms that were in place to prevent damage and hazard from such an occurrence, a pressurerelief valve stuck in the open position, causing the main-reactor coolant to escape. Control room personnel had no warning of the problem and further compounded it by shutting off the pumps 832

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that controlled emergency cooling water. Thus, the reactor core began to overheat, coming within what was estimated to be thirty minutes of a complete meltdown—a potential catastrophe of the first magnitude. Such an accident did in fact occur in April, 1986, when the first acknowledged case of a reactor meltdown was reported at the Chernobyl nuclear complex in the Soviet Union. The resulting cloud of radioactive debris was swept up into the atmosphere and dispersed not only over the Soviet Union, but also over a significant area of Northern Europe. Approximately one million times more radiation was released into the atmosphere than was released during the Three Mile Island incident. Legacy of the AEA While there are still more than one hundred active nuclear power stations in the United States—about one-quarter of the worldwide total—the dream envisioned in the act of 1954, that the peaceful capture of the power of the atom would provide a virtually endless, free source of energy, was not achieved in the twentieth century. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, ongoing controversies about the disposal of nuclear wastes, fears of terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland, and a presidential administration that did not seem to prioritize alternatives to petrochemical forms of energy suggested that a safe nuclear “utopia” was not within sight. David G. Fenton Sources for Further Study Balogh, Brian. Chain Reaction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Cohen, Bernard L. The Nuclear Energy Option. New York: Plenum Press, 1990. Ford, Daniel. The Cult of the Atom. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. Losee, Madeleine, comp. Legislative History of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954, Publi Law 703, 83rd Congress. 3 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1955. Robinson, Marilynne. Mother Country. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989. Wolfson, Richard. Nuclear Choices. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991. 833

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Price-Anderson Act (1957); Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963); Clean Air Act (1963); Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968); Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980); Superfund Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983).

Formosa Resolution Date: January 29, 1955 U.S. Statutes at Large: 69 Stat. 7 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations

Passage of a joint resolution affirmed presidential power to defend Taiwan and demonstrated the willingness of the United States to wage an active Cold War. In 1949, as the communists took over mainland China at the end of the Chinese civil war, Chiang Kai-shek, president of the Republic of China, or Nationalist China, withdrew with part of his government and army to the island of Formosa and the nearby Pescadores Islands. Formosa, a Portuguese name meaning “beautiful,” was still used in the 1950’s to describe the island in the West; as Asian nomenclature began to replace colonial-era names, the island’s Chinese name, Taiwan, was used exclusively and the name Formosa passed into history. Formosa and the Pescadores had been held by the Japanese from 1895 until their return to China in 1945, at the end of World War II. Chiang claimed that his was still the legitimate government of China and announced his intention to return to the mainland and to power. His troops also held other islands off the China coast, notably Quemoy, a short distance from the port of Amoy; Matsu, off Foochow; and the Tachens, located about two hundred miles to the north of Matsu. The Conflict over Formosa (Taiwan) Both Chiang and the Chinese communists held that Formosa was a province of China, and Quemoy and Matsu were part of the mainland province of Fukien. Though Quemoy and Matsu were small, 834

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both sides saw them as stepping-stones. In Chiang’s view, they were strategic for a return to the mainland; to the communists, they were a step toward the inclusion of Formosa in their regime. The islands were staging points for occasional raids on the mainland and came under air attack from the communists. The United States had supported Chiang in the civil war and recognized his regime as the legitimate government for all China. The Korean War (1950-1953), and the Chinese communist role in it, strengthened U.S. antipathy toward the communists. Military and economic aid went to Formosa, and the Seventh Fleet patrolled the Formosa Strait to prevent invasion. Chiang increased the armament and garrisons on Quemoy and Matsu against the advice of many individuals in the U.S. military establishment. The mainland regime placed even larger forces on the shore facing the islands. In August and September, 1954, the communists began a bombardment of the islands, killing two U.S. military advisers. Throughout the autumn, debate over policy continued, both within the United States and between the United States and its allies. Some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and some members of Congress (such as Senator William F. Knowland of California) were willing to encourage Chiang in a return to the mainland and to give U.S. support to his forces on Quemoy and Matsu. This policy was popularly known as “unleashing Chiang Kai-shek.” Others saw in such steps either continued defeat for Chiang or involvement in a major Asian war (World War III in some predictions), or both. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles viewed the question of Formosa and the offshore islands within the context of the Cold War, then at its height. To him, the maintenance of a strong Nationalist presence off the coast of mainland China would keep the Chinese communist regime off balance, while offering some hope to those who wanted it overthrown. A Mutual Defense Treaty As a result of these debates within the government, a somewhat more definite policy toward Nationalist China began to emerge. On December 2, 1954, the United States and Nationalist China concluded a mutual defense treaty. No specific mention was made in the treaty about offshore islands, however. Consequently, a month later, the Chinese communists launched bombardment and air attacks on these islands. On January 24, 1955, as the attacks 835

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continued, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a special message to Congress in which he asked for authority to use the armed forces of the United States to protect Formosa, the Pescadores, and what he vaguely referred to as certain “closely related localities.” This authority, like the mutual defense treaty, would not commit the United States in advance to the defense of the offshore islands, nor would it limit United States action in advance. President Eisenhower pointed out that the measure was not a constitutional necessity; he already had the requisite authority both as commander in chief and under the terms of the mutual security treaty already signed but not as yet ratified by the Senate. He wanted a demonstration of the unity of the United States and its resolve, while making thoroughly clear the authority of the president. In communist China, Premier Zhou Enlai called the message a war message. The Resolution Passes Congress The message went to the new Eighty-fourth Congress, which had Democratic majority in both houses. In response, the chairmen of the respective committees, Democrats Walter George in the Senate and James P. Richards in the House, introduced the joint resolution that became known as the Formosa Resolution. The resolution took as its premise the vital interest of the United States in peace in the western Pacific and the danger to peace from communist attacks in the area. It took note of the statement of mutual interest in the treaty submitted to the Senate. It therefore resolved: That the President of the United States . . . is authorized to employ the Armed Forces of the United States as he deems necessary for the specific purpose of securing and protecting Formosa and the Pescadores against armed attack, this authority to include the securing and protection of such related positions and territories of that area now in friendly hands and the taking of such other measures as he judges to be required or appropriate in assuring the defense of Formosa and the Pescadores.

There was strong bipartisan support among U.S. politicians for aggressive anticommunist positions. The House passed the resolution on January 25, 1955, by a vote of 410 to 3. In the Senate committee, an amendment to turn Formosa and the Pescadores over to 836

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the authority of the United Nations, and giving authorization to the president only until the United Nations acted, was defeated. Another amendment to limit the authority to Formosa and the Pescadores also lost. A similar amendment to draw a line back of Quemoy and Matsu, limiting the president’s authority to Formosa and the Pescadores, was introduced on the Senate floor by Senator Herbert Lehman of New York. It was defeated 74 to 13. The Senate passed the resolution 85 to 3, on January 28, 1955, and President Eisenhower signed it the next day. Immediate Impact The mutual security treaty with Nationalist China was ratified in February. Efforts to persuade Chiang Kai-shek to reduce his forces on Quemoy and Matsu and make them mere outposts failed. That same month, however, Chiang did evacuate the Tachen Islands, which the communists promptly occupied. Communist Premier Zhou Enlai, in an attempt to strike a conciliatory note, told the Afro-Asian Conference meeting in Bandung, Indonesia, in April, that his country did not want war with the United States. He further expressed his willingness to negotiate on Far Eastern issues, including that of Formosa. As a result, by May, without formal statement or agreement, there was an effective cease-fire in the Formosa Straits. In the wake of the passage of the Formosa Resolution and the ratification of the mutual defense treaty with Nationalist China, President Eisenhower addressed a letter to British prime minister Winston Churchill on February 9, 1955, in which he set forth his ideas on the importance of defending Formosa and the offshore islands. The United States depended on an island (Formosa) and a peninsula (Korea) as its defense line in Southeast Asia. The loss of Formosa would be a serious break in that line. The weakening of Chiang Kai-shek’s forces could mean the loss of Formosa. The denial of their expectation to return to mainland China would be destructive of their morale. Therefore, it was important to the United States not only to aid in the defense of Formosa but also not to accept, or seem to accept, the loss of the offshore islands, which were of strategic importance in launching a return to the mainland. These ideas helped set the posture of U.S. policy in the Far East for some time to come. 837

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Historical Perspective Judgments of the Formosa Resolution at the time of its passage and in historical perspective must depend greatly on attitudes toward the larger question of policy toward China. The overwhelming vote in Congress in favor of the Formosa Resolution may be taken as clear evidence of opinion there, and presumably of opinion throughout the country, that communist expansion must be resisted, but the United States ought not be involved in further war. From another, but related, perspective, the Formosa Resolution was a reflection of the Cold War mentality that saw no possibility for diplomatic recognition of the communist regime on the Chinese mainland. Even after this Cold War mentality had waned, the legacy of the Formosa Resolution ensured that the United States maintained residual ties with the nationalist regime in Taiwan even after it afforded diplomatic recognition to mainland China in 1979. As U.S.China tensions began to increase in the mid-1990’s, the consensus among U.S. policymakers was that something should be done if China were to invade Taiwan. Thus, the impact of the Formosa Resolution was not confined to its immediate aftermath. George J. Fleming, updated by Nicholas Birns Sources for Further Study Bueler, William M. U.S. China Policy and the Problem of Taiwan. Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1971. Copper, John Franklin. China Diplomacy: The Washington-TaipeiBeijing Triangle. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992. Eisenhower, Dwight D. Mandate for Change, 1953-1956. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963. Hickey, Dennis Van Vranken. United States-Taiwan Security Ties: From Cold War to Beyond Containment. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994. Hsieh, Chiao Chiao. Strategy for Survival: The Foreign Policy and External Relations of the Republic of China on Taiwan, 1949-1979. London: Sherwood Press, 1985. See also: Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844); Burlingame Treaty (1868); Tripartite Security Treaty (1952); U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952); Eisenhower Doctrine (1957); Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964); War Powers Resolution (1973); Taiwan Relations Act (1979). 838

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Air Pollution Control Act Date: July 14, 1955 U.S. Statutes at Large: 69 Stat. 322 Public law: 84-159 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

Congress passed the first U.S. legislation to help control and prevent air pollution. On July 14, 1955, the U.S. Congress enacted the first federal legislation to control air pollution, the Air Pollution Control Act. The objectives of this act included protecting national air resources so as to promote public health and welfare, providing technical and financial assistance to state and local governments by the federal government for air pollution prevention and control programs, initiating a national research program to prevent and control air pollution, and assisting in the development and operation of air pollution control programs. This act recognized that, although sources of air pollution were local problems, federal assistance was necessary to develop cooperative air pollution control programs between state and local governments. In 1955, it was necessary to identify pollution sources, analyze effects of air pollution, and initiate effective legislation and enforcement by government regulatory agencies. Air Pollution Crises Enactment of the Air Pollution Control Act was in response to serious health-threatening crises that occurred in the years preceding 1955. These air pollution crises were the result of increasing urban and industrial development in the United States. In 1860, the United States was a nation of 31.5 million people, 20 percent of whom lived in urban areas. By 1900, the urban population in the United States had risen to more than 30 million, 40 percent of the total population. The trend of increasing urban population coincided with rapid industrial development and its production of smoke and sulfur dioxide. Industrial development spawned development of the chemical industry, which increased the amount and type of pollutants emitted from factory stacks. Industrial activities in the United States increased to meet military needs during World 839

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War II; however, this caused increased air pollution, which was especially critical in cities such as Los Angeles, California. In February, 1945, Los Angeles created the position of director of air pollution control to enforce laws pertaining to control of air pollution, to solicit public cooperation through education, and to obtain technical support to carry out the director’s duties. In 1947, Los Angeles County, which included forty-five separate cities, was designated as an Air Pollution Control District by the California state legislature. This allowed for enforcement of laws and a permit system within the district. Dr. Louis C. McCabe was the initial director of the Air Pollution Control District. Between 1947 and 1955, several incidents occurred that directed attention to the serious effects of air pollution. One of the most critical events occurred in October, 1948, at Donora, Pennsylvania, a suburb twenty-five miles south of Pittsburgh. Atmospheric conditions were such that a stable air mass settled for several days over Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio. A temperature inversion and fog trapped pollutants, primarily from the zinc works at the American Steel and Wire Company, and created a heavy smog. After four days, twenty people were dead and nearly six thousand had become ill with symptoms of gasping and chest pains. Hospitals were filled to capacity. This incident made it clear that air pollution was a health hazard that demanded attention. Problems at Donora were followed by similar episodes of dangerous smog in London, England, during December, 1952. More than four thousand people died as the result of air filled with soot, smoke, and factory emissions. In the following months, more than eight thousand people died of respiratory-related causes that were blamed on the December smog. During October, 1954, a heavy smog that hung over Los Angeles for nine consecutive days resulted in widespread eye irritation. The smog was blamed on excessive motor-vehicle exhaust; in response, police set up roadblocks to check vehicles for excessive emissions of fumes. The Need for Federal Action These serious air pollution events ignited efforts by Congress to establish the first air pollution control legislation. Senators Thomas Kuchel of California and Homer Capehart of Indiana wrote an important letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower on August 5, 1954, that implored the president to establish an interdepartmen840

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tal committee of federal agencies from health, housing, agriculture, transportation, economy, industry, and research to control smog. This letter was referred to Oveta Culp Hobby, secretary of health, education, and welfare. Hobby responded with a statement of her support for the proposed committee, and she began soliciting representatives from the Departments of Agriculture, the Interior, Commerce, and Defense, in addition to the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Science Foundation. Another important letter from Kuchel to Eisenhower was written on October 21, 1954. In his letter, Kuchel called the president’s attention to the current serious smog emergency in Los Angeles and outlined his ideas on how the U.S. Public Health Service, Bureau of Standards, and Bureau of Mines could contribute their energies to avert a national health problem related to air pollution. As a consequence of such activism, the Interdepartment Ad Hoc Committee on Community Air Pollution was formed and met initially on November 16, 1954. The committee discussed prospective legislation and the principles upon which it would be based. A report, “The Federal Role in Community Air Pollution Problems,” was produced by the committee in April, 1955. Work by this committee resulted in meetings between key federal officials and congressional personnel, which concluded in a bill (S. 928) sponsored by Senator Kuchel to amend the Water Pollution Control Act in order to provide for air pollution control. In late April, 1955, Secretary Hobby answered a request for comments on bill S. 928 with a letter to Senator Dennis Chavez, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Works. Hobby justified a five-year duration of work and appropriations from this bill, from July 1, 1955, to June 30, 1960, of $5 million per year. The bill called for an Air Pollution Control Advisory Board that Hobby believed could be better fulfilled by using the ad hoc committee already organized. Bill S. 928 received exclusively favorable testimony for enactment during hearings held by the Senate Committee on Public Works. On July 14, 1955, bill S. 928 was enacted as Public Law 159 and was known as the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955. A New Public Attitude In the two years following enactment of the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955, significant changes took place in response to air pollution. These were summarized during an address on the review of 841

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progress made under the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 by U.S. surgeon general Leroy Burneyk to the National Conference on Air Pollution in November, 1958. Across the United States, people became aware that air pollution was indeed a problem that demanded attention. Clean air could no longer be taken for granted. Eleven states passed initial laws or strengthened existing laws regarding air pollution control. Statewide air pollution control statutes were developed for Oregon, Washington, Delaware, New York, and Florida to maintain reasonable air purity. A National Air Sampling Network expanded to include 181 cities and fifty-one nonurban environments where airborne solid particles and liquid droplet concentrations were monitored. Gas sampling was identified as a necessary and important addition to the network. Research collaboration on air pollution control and on the health effects of specific pollutants increased dramatically. The Public Health Service worked with the Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Weather Bureau to analyze air pollution from motor vehicles. Education on air pollution control increased. Subsequent Legislation Over the years immediately following 1958, evidence of the first air pollution legislation resulted in additional emphasis through amendments to the 1955 act and through new legislation. The Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 was amended in 1959 to extend appropriations for four additional years, through June, 1964. Congress mandated cooperation between federal agencies and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for air pollution prevention and control. Another amendment in 1960 included a required report from the surgeon general to Congress with respect to the growing problem of pollution from motor-vehicle exhaust. The 1962 amendment to the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 extended appropriations an additional two years through June, 1966. This amendment required permanent studies on the air pollution discharged from motor vehicles. During 1963, the Air Pollution Control Act was replaced by the Clean Air Act of 1963. This new act directed that new training programs and research commence, new financial grants to states and municipalities be made, and federal intervention stop interstate air pollution. More explicit authority for air pollution control was given to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. By 842

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1963, most local governments were in favor of and had instituted air pollution control laws. Since then, the act has been amended many times. In 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was founded by President Richard M. Nixon. Its purpose was to monitor and enforce environmental laws, including laws on air pollution. In 1993, the EPA reported a decline in the levels of six major air pollutants from 1982 to 1991. The EPA attributed this successful control to federal restrictions in the Clean Air Act and to favorable weather patterns. Oil companies agreed in 1992 to provide cleaner-burning gasoline to the U.S. cities with poorest air quality by 1995. The Automobile There are problems resulting from air pollution that remain to be solved. Many cities in the United States still fail to meet air quality standards mandated by the Clean Air Act and its amendments. There are enough airborne poisons to deliver several pounds of poisons to every U.S. citizen. The main cause of air pollution remains the motor vehicle, which was identified as a problem as early as 1955. Although individual automobiles are producing less pollution than they were in 1970, there were significantly more automobiles on the road by the end of the century, and many of these were fuel-inefficient gas-guzzlers, despite both federal and state emissions regulations. Aside from air quality, the emissions from these vehicles are directly related to such serious and daunting environmental problems as global warming, climate change, increases in frequency and intensity of storm activity, and acid rain. Acid rain, a precipitation containing high levels of sulfuric or nitric acids, has steadily become a more serious contaminant, damaging vegetation, drinking water, and aquatic life and even damaging buildings and monuments. Air pollution from automobiles and sulfur-burning industrial plants are the main sources of such acidic pollution. The Clean Air Act of 1990 was the first legislation that attempted to regulate emissions that cause acid rain. Acid rain is especially difficult to control with restrictions, because pollution sources are frequently in one state while the rain falls in a different state; the problem thus requires federal intervention. Garrett L. Van Wicklen 843

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Sources for Further Study Chanlett, E. T. “Our Air Environment in the Workplace and the Community.” In Environmental Protection. New York: McGrawHill, 1973. Degler, Stanley E., and Sandra C. Bloom. Federal Pollution Control Programs: Water, Air and Solid Wastes. Washington, D.C.: BNA Books, 1969. Dworsky, Leonard B., comp. Pollution. New York: Chelsea House, 1971. Tomany, J. P. “Air Pollution Control Regulations.” In Air Pollution: The Emissions, the Regulations, and the Controls. New York: American Elsevier, 1975. Wark, K., and Cecil F. Warner. “Federal Legislation and Regulatory Trends.” In Air Pollution: Its Origins and Control. New York: IEP, 1976. See also: Clean Air Act (1963); Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977); Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990).

Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 Date: July 9, 1956 U.S. Statutes at Large: 70 Stat. 498 Public law: 84-660 U.S. Code: 33 § 1251 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

The Water Pollution Control Act of 1956 amended the 1948 Water Pollution Control Act, increasing federal funds for pollution-control programs and water-treatment plants as well as strengthening federal powers. 844

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The U.S. Congress passed the amended Water Pollution Control Act on June 27, 1956, three days before the 1948 version of the act was due to expire, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law on July 9, 1956. It was thought that the act would enable the nation to produce the huge quantities of clean, fresh water needed by the ever-increasing national population and its giant industrial complex. Early Legislation Federal legislation concerning water-pollution control first began with the limited Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which was administered by the secretary of the Army and which protected navigation by prohibiting discharge of most refuse into U.S. waters. That law was followed in 1912 by the first federal legislation on healthrelated aspects of water pollution, the Public Health Service Act; this important act mandated the investigation of the relationship between water pollution and human health. In 1924, the Oil Pollution Act, also administered by the secretary of the Army, attempted to diminish the discharge into U.S. waters of petroleum “that endangers ocean life, as well as our harbors and recreational facilities.” These three acts defined the early federal role in exploring problems associated with the regulation of water quality. Provisions of the 1956 Law Over the years, the federal government acquired strong regulatory and enforcement powers, beginning with the five-year Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, which was extended until 1956 (Public Laws 80-845 and 82-579) and then in 1956 replaced with Public Law 84-660. The responsibility of administering Public Law 84-660 was vested in the surgeon general of the Public Health Service, who was under the supervision and direction of the secretary of health, education, and welfare. Public Law 84-660 addressed some of the shortcomings of the 1948 act. The new law eliminated a provision in the 1948 act that allowed states to override federal authority in certain cases. In addition, the 1956 legislation addressed the fact that funds authorized by the earlier act for the construction of water-treatment plants had not been made available as expected. Governmental efforts to deal with water pollution have focused mainly on visible natural bodies of water such as rivers and lakes, 845

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where pollutants include myriad substances found in farm runoff, municipal sewage, and industrial effluents. These substances include inorganic chemicals such as salts and agricultural fertilizers, organic chemicals dumped in the course of food processing, insecticides and other pesticides, by-products vented in chemical company effluents, and radioisotopes. The provisions of Public Law 84-660 included the authorization of $500 million in matching funds over ten years for the construction of community water-treatment facilities. Funding was limited to $250,000 or 30 percent of the total cost of a project (whichever was less), and half of all funds was allocated for communities with populations of 125,000 or fewer. Some funds were allocated for research on water pollution, its treatment, and its control, to be carried out at universities and other nongovernmental agencies. The surgeon general was made responsible for overseeing state preparations of comprehensive water-pollution control programs and research projects. It was hoped that more uniform laws concerning the prevention, handling, and control of water pollution would result. The federal government planned to spend $3 million annually between 1957 and 1961 for state aid, with allocations made on the basis of state population, the extent of the pollution observed, and the extent of the need envisioned. The federal contributions were not to exceed two-thirds of the total costs for any program, and all projects needed the approval of the surgeon general. The act also established a nine-member Water Pollution Control Board, to be named by the president, and specified procedures for the surgeon general to initiate antipollution measures in states where pollution was occurring. If, after a conference called by the surgeon general, a state did not within six months comply with recommendations for cleanup, the secretary of health, education, and welfare was authorized to call a public hearing and issue further recommendations. The state would then be given a further six months in which to take action; if it did not do so, the U.S. attorney general could override the state and initiate a federal suit. Sources of Water Pollution A major reason for the Water Pollution Control Act was the evergrowing demand for fresh, clean water, a demand that required the cleanup of interstate waters at as many points as possible. In 1955, 846

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the Public Health Service observed that since 1935 the amount of dumped municipal waste had risen by 10 percent and that of industrial waste had almost doubled. In 1956, the service estimated that municipalities and industry would each need to spend $500 million or more annually for ten years to maintain an adequate supply of clean water. It was further estimated that municipal expenditure would be nearly equally divided among replacing worn-out watertreatment facilities, meeting increasing water demands, and completing construction of new water-treatment plants. Such a forecast made the need for the new Water Pollution Control Act clear. The two main sources of water pollution in the United States are industry and municipalities. The development and passage of the Water Pollution Control Act of 1956 helped to reduce both types of pollution. A problem associated with the act was that its main enforcement tools—the conferences called by the surgeon general— relied heavily, like those of the preceding law, upon negotiated agreements, state agency pressures, and the force of local public opinion. On the other hand, the “reasonable” time period for a state’s compliance had been codified not to exceed six months. Response and Subsequent Legislation The responses to the Water Pollution Control Act ranged from appreciation, as expressed by the American Municipal Association, which believed that extensive federal aid was essential in solving the water-pollution problem, to disappointment that the federal government was not doing enough and that the law’s provisions were too limited. Industrial organizations such as the National Association of Manufacturers, which argued that state and local controls were sufficient to deal with pollution problems, strongly disliked the idea of strengthened federal control. The manufacturers’ association asserted that it was inappropriate for state and local funds to be enhanced by federal contributions. Business interests therefore generally opposed federal controls, proposing that more would be accomplished by cooperation than by compulsion. Between 1956 and 1965, water pollution continued to be a serious problem. In part, this was because many municipalities and industrial corporations failed to comply with the law in their handling of wastes. State and federal action under the Water Pollution Control Act of 1956 was not tough enough, and this action was limited to interstate waters. The Public Health Service, too, reacted 847

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slowly and leniently, initiating action on only seven of 125 interstate rivers that had been reported to be polluted. As a result, various private and public interest groups believed that further legislative action was needed for effective intervention. From 1965 on, a number of water quality acts were passed to strengthen protection of U.S. water resources and establish a national policy for the prevention, control, and abatement of water pollution. Stronger policies for enforcement of federal decisions were also eventually developed. Yet to come was realization by corporate executives that informed public opinion could make or break their companies. In light of the general public’s relative ignorance of environmental issues in the 1950’s, there was substantial resistance to water cleanup by many companies. Not all industry was insensitive to the issue, however; in fact, many companies rallied sensibly to demands for pollution cleanup. Nevertheless, more complete compliance would later be found to require greatly enhanced federal enforcement, the creation of a much sterner control agency than the Public Health Service, and the development of a concerned and wellinformed public. Sanford S. Singer Sources for Further Study Business Week. “Billions to Clean Up the Rivers.” April 24, 1965, 5058. _______. “New Weapons Against Pollution.” August 13, 1955, 136137. Farb, Peter. “Let’s Clean Up All Our Polluted Rivers.” Reader’s Digest, October, 1957, 133-137. Lapedes, Daniel N., et al., eds. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974. Miller, G. Tyler, Jr., and David G. Lygre. Chemistry: A Contemporary Approach. 3d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1987. Stein, Murray. “Legislation on Water Pollution Control.” Public Health Reports 79 (August 8, 1964): 699-706. See also: Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924); Air Pollution Control Act (1955); Water Resources Research Act (1964); Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National 848

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Trails System Act (1968); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972); Safe Drinking Water Act (1974); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990).

Eisenhower Doctrine Date: Issued January 5, 1957 Categories: Foreign Relations

A bipartisan foreign policy initiative articulated the U.S. effort to combat “international communism” in the Middle East. In the aftermath of the Suez crisis of October, 1956, which created a power vacuum in the Middle East as a result of Great Britain’s and France’s invasion of Egypt, the United States reconsidered its position and policies in the Middle East. Acting through the United Nations, and for once in agreement with the Soviet Union, the United States had brought about the withdrawal of British and French forces from Egypt. The entire episode seemed not only to have weakened Western unity but also to have strengthened the position of the Soviet Union in the Arab countries and that of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president, as the leading spokesman of Arab nationalist feeling. Nasser envisioned himself to be the “voice of the Arabs,” and his resisting the West and allying himself increasingly with the Soviet Union caused the United States to fear instability in the oil-rich and strategically located region. The Eisenhower administration saw a vacuum in the Middle East, which it feared would be filled by Soviet influence. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, therefore, offered a statement of policy, which became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine. The Doctrine Issued as a message to Congress on January 5, 1957, after consultation with congressional leaders and with Dag Hammarskjöld, the secretary general of the United Nations, the doctrine proposed that the United States fill the vacuum with economic and military aid. Eisenhower asked the new Eighty-fifth Congress to appropri849

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ate four hundred million dollars for two years for economic and military assistance to the nations of the Middle East, and to authorize the use of U.S. forces upon the request of any nation in the region threatened by communist aggression. Eisenhower appointed James P. Richards, the recently retired Democratic chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to be his personal envoy to the Middle East. Richards’s mission was clear: He was to explain the evils of international communism, solicit support from the region’s leaders, and dispense aid to countries that publicly announced their loyalty to the West. Besides the provision of assistance, one purpose of the presidential request to Congress was to give the Soviet Union warning of U.S. intentions to prevent Soviet expansion in the Middle East and to make clear and public the national support for those intentions. In some respects, the Eisenhower Doctrine followed the precedents of the Truman Doctrine of 1947 and the Formosa Resolution passed by Congress in 1955. It differed, however, from the Truman Doctrine in its application to a particular area; the Truman Doctrine, although occasioned by problems of Greece and Turkey, was a promise of U.S. support for any peoples resisting aggression. Moreover, neither earlier proposal carried the proviso that armed forces be sent only on the request of the other nation. The House resolution on behalf of the president’s request, introduced the same day, was approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee by a vote of 24 to 2 on January 24, and by the entire House on January 31 by a vote of 355 to 61. Senate action was slower. In debates in early March, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia proposed an amendment that would have deleted the military and economic assistance, but the amendment lost. A proposal by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas for a white paper from the State Department detailing U.S. relations with the region also failed. The Senate passed the resolution, with some limiting changes, on March 5, by a vote of 72 to 19; the House accepted the Senate version on March 7, by 350 to 60; the president signed it on March 9, 1957. Reaction The announcement of the doctrine met mixed reactions. The votes in the Congress were probably indicative of general support; they are notable because the Democratic Party had majorities in both houses. The public trust in President Eisenhower, so recently 850

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reelected, was one factor; the general mood of the Cold War was another. Additionally, the selection of Richards to go to the Middle East as the administration’s chief envoy helped solidify bipartisan support for the initiative. Reactions abroad were less favorable. Denunciations from Moscow and Peking were expected. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India thought the dangers of aggression were exaggerated and believed that the interests of peace were not forwarded by the U.S. action. The Arab states, led by Egypt, also reacted unfavorably. A mission led by Richards in the spring of 1957 did not even visit Egypt, Syria, or Jordan. Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Iran endorsed the policy, but other Middle Eastern countries, such as Libya, were lukewarm. Richards was briefly held hostage in Yemen when he refused to award that country enough economic assistance to persuade the small nation to oppose agents of international communism. Lebanon’s history and situation explain both its acceptance and its later application of the Eisenhower Doctrine to that country. Crises in Lebanon and Iraq Alone among the Arab countries, which were overwhelmingly Muslim, Lebanon had a large Christian population; in the absence of accurate statistics, estimates place it near a majority. The ties to Rome of the majority of these (Maronites and other Catholics of non-Latin rites), the U.S. Protestant missionary and educational effort since the early nineteenth century, and the experience of French rule or mandate, gave Lebanon a view of the West and a relation to it different from that of the other Arab nations. Independent Lebanon had developed political and social traditions of its own to deal with religious differences. The most notable example was the tradition that the president be a Christian, the prime minister a Muslim. Under the surface, however, religious and regional hostilities were often bitter. These international strains were increased and intensified by Arab feeling inflamed against Israel and by Nasserism—the extreme Arab movement toward unity and belligerence intimately associated with Egypt’s leader. The immediate occasion of trouble in Lebanon was the possibility that President Camille Chamoun intended to have his term extended, contrary to the Lebanese constitution. Opposition forces organized against this move—some religious, some political opponents of Chamoun, some supported by 851

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Syrian and Egyptian interests. Civil strife on this issue broke out in May, 1958. Just as this turmoil in Lebanon seemed to be subsiding, an unexpected crisis erupted in Iraq. On July 14, 1958, a bloody revolution overthrew the pro-Western Iraqi government. President Chamoun appealed to the United States out of fear that the coup in Iraq was the result of a Soviet-Nasserite plot that would soon be reenacted in Lebanon. On July 15, on the orders of President Eisenhower, units of the Sixth Fleet landed U.S. Marines in Lebanon to preserve order. With the aid of Robert McClintock, the United States ambassador, the U.S. troops were kept in positions where they did not affect the local political situation. Robert Murphy, U.S. deputy undersecretary of state and an experienced diplomat, worked with the differing Lebanese forces to achieve settlement. Whatever ambition he had entertained, Chamoun now gave up any intention of another term. With some difficulty, the negotiators persuaded General Fuad Shehab to accept the Lebanese presidency, to which he was elected by Lebanon’s parliament on July 31. As commander of the army, Shehab had tried to maintain an impartial position, and he was one of the few people acceptable to almost all factions. The exercise of the Eisenhower Doctrine thus resulted in accommodation. The Marines were withdrawn on October 25, 1958. This diplomatic effort represents the United States’ Cold War approach to foreign policy. Egypt’s coziness with the Soviet Union and Nasser’s nationalistic rhetoric alarmed the United States and led to Richards’s mission and the United States’ later presence in Lebanon. George J. Fleming, updated by Joseph Edward Lee Sources for Further Study Ambrose, Stephen. Eisenhower. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. Hooper, Townshend. The Devil and John Foster Dulles. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. Nutting, Anthony. Nasser. New York: Random House, 1972. Paterson, Thomas G., et al. American Foreign Policy: A History. Lexington, Mass.: McGraw-Hill, 1977. See also: Truman Doctrine (1947); Formosa Resolution (1955). 852

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Price-Anderson Act Date: August 16, 1957 U.S. Statutes at Large: 71 Stat. 576 Public law: 85-256 Categories: Energy; Environment and Conservation

Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act to limit how much money private producers of nuclear power would have to pay for damages caused by a catastrophic nuclear accident. On July 1 and August 16, 1957, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate passed, with little controversy or discussion, the Price-Anderson Act, which amended the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The bill required builders of nuclear reactors to maintain a limited amount of private insurance, about $65 million, while the government would provide the remainder of the insurance, up to a maximum of $500 million for damages from any single accident, at no cost to the nuclear power industry. Encouraging Nuclear Energy The amendment’s purpose was to encourage the power industry to invest in nuclear plants at a time when private companies had not yet built such a plant. Nuclear plants cost too much, industry leaders explained, and a major cost was insurance in case of an incident. Power producers cited a 1957 Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) report estimating that, in a worst-case accident in a plant near a major city, the radioactive release of a core meltdown would immediately kill 3,400 people, cause serious injury to 43,000, and destroy about $7 billion in property in a region covering 150,000 square miles. Fear of such an accident and the costs involved prevented any company from constructing a nuclear power plant. Congress hoped the Price-Anderson Act would help promote the growth of a private nuclear power industry by requiring the government to assume the insurance costs and the costs of any civilian damages. From 1945, when the government had begun studying uses of atomic power for peaceful purposes, the major research and experiments had been done in government laboratories. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 mandated that control, pro853

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duction, and ownership of nuclear energy should be under the control of the Atomic Energy Commission. Beginning in 1948, the commission authorized a special program to develop a reactor for the production of electricity, but not until 1951 was any electricity produced, and then only a very small amount. Production of electricity from nuclear reaction proved to be very expensive and failed to convince any private electric company that nuclear energy was the wave of the future. Cold War Power Race In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked Congress to create a program that would help beat the Soviets in the atomic power race. The president had first proposed “atoms for peace” in a speech to the United Nations the previous year. He asked Congress to set aside the 1946 law restricting nuclear development to Atomic Energy Commission projects and pressed for private development of nuclear energy plants. Congress debated the proposal vigorously and bitterly for several weeks. Advocates of public ownership of power plants argued that, since the federal government had already spent billions of dollars on research, it should not simply give away the information it had gathered to private companies without some control over prices these producers would charge for their product. The Eisenhower administration opposed any government controls. The dispute ended in a victory for private power interests. Congress rejected arguments that, since taxpayers had paid for all development costs, they should benefit from low-cost governmentowned power plants. The private companies, represented by the Edison Electric Institute, explained that it would be better for electricity to be marketed through private companies at commercially competitive rates. Cheap government prices would destroy the whole industry. The final bill met the demands of the industry by forbidding the AEC to produce or sell atomic power. The only regulation would come from the Federal Power Commission, but it could regulate rates only on electricity sold across state lines. The AEC was required to issue licenses for any nuclear plant that could demonstrate a “practical value for industrial or commercial purposes.” Still, there was no interest among the private firms. Even after the addition of the Price-Anderson amendment in 1957, private electric companies believed that costs for building were too high. 854

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In 1958, the AEC announced a five-year plan for construction of the nation’s first nuclear-generating plant at Shippingport, Pennsylvania. After its construction, the plant was operated by the privately owned Duquesne Light Company. By 1964, only thirteen plants were in operation nationwide, and they sold less than 1 percent of the total electrical production in the United States. Congress then authorized the AEC to provide research and development work for all proposed plants, waived charges for leasing nuclear fuels from the AEC, and helped pay for construction costs. Only then did the industry begin to participate on a wider scale, though it still needed and received government assistance for its insurance obligations. Safety Concerns and the Rasmussen Report Congress created a new program for insurance coverage, however, that made the producers pay more than they had been required to pay under the 1957 law. Under provisions adopted in 1965, electric companies licensed to build nuclear plants by the AEC would have to carry as much insurance as was available through private sources, a figure Congress estimated to be about $60 million per facility. After the maximum of this insurance had been purchased, the government would provide extra coverage limited to the difference between that amount and $560 million. When this bill became law, that difference stood at about $500 million, but as more private insurance became available, it was expected that federal obligations would decline. Most experts still agreed that the possibility of any nuclear accident was very small, so that the government had little reason to fear financial obligation. Concern over the safety of nuclear plants led to hearings by the Joint Energy Committee in 1973 and 1974. The committee heard AEC officials testify that nuclear reactors were safer than any other means of generating power. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader then took the stand and called nuclear power a dangerous form of “technological suicide.” Antinuclear testimony also came from a scientist affiliated with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He cited a recent radioactive leak of 115,000 gallons of wastewater at the Hanford, Washington, plant as a sign of growing danger, and he predicted a major accident in the future. The danger was so great, he believed, that all nuclear construction had to be stopped immediately. A committee member who had worked at Hanford, 855

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however, labeled such fears irresponsible and advised his colleagues to ignore such fear-mongering. These comments reassured the other senators and congresspeople, and they concluded that a major accident was highly unlikely. In order to reassure doubters, the joint committee established a committee of experts, headed by Norman C. Rasmussen, dean of the engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to study in more detail the risks of nuclear reactors. That report was to be completed by the end of 1974. While waiting for the report, Congress debated the insurance program once again. By this time, private insurance had been increased to nearly $110 million; the government’s obligation had declined since 1965. The law still limited the total amount of disaster insurance that would be available in case of an accident to $560 million. Critics of this limit pointed out that three dozen new plants had been built since the limit had been established, and two hundred more were being planned. Each new plant increased the probability of a disaster, and it was believed that one serious accident could result in $7 billion in damages. Defenders of the lower limit pointed out that the government had actually never paid any claims under the Price-Anderson Act, there had been no major accidents, and many scientists believed there never would be a serious accident. After a lengthy debate in the Senate and the House, Congress voted for a five-year extension of the insurance program, with a provision allowing cancellation of the provisions if the Rasmussen Report concluded that reactors were unstable and dangerous. Because of the latter provision, President Gerald Ford vetoed the bill, arguing that it took away his executive power. He would not sign legislation extending the insurance program if Congress insisted that it alone could cancel that program after publication of the Rasmussen Report. When Congress passed the same legislation in 1975 without the offending provision, the president quickly signed it into law. A few weeks later, Professor Rasmussen presented his report, Reactor Safety Study, to Congress. He concluded that the consequences of an accident were much smaller than were previously believed. The $560 million limit could adequately cover any “credible accident which might occur.” The risk of an accident was nothing to be concerned about. A disaster at a nuclear plant, the study announced, was as likely as a meteorite crashing into a city, and the chances of such an event occurring were about one 856

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every million years. With such reassurance, there seemed to be little to fear and little to lose from an expanded government-sponsored insurance program. Republican John Anderson from Illinois argued that, without such financing, the private power industry would be put out of business because of high insurance costs. The House easily defeated an amendment seeking to eliminate the $560 million limit. The final bill extended coverage to 1987 and kept in place the liability law. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl The nuclear power industry suffered a major shock on March 28, 1979, when the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania nearly melted down. The cost of decontaminating the reactor alone reached more than $1 billion. Still, Congress took no action to expand insurance coverage at that time. Fearing that increasing coverage would set a precedent for future bailouts, Congress responded by telling the owners of Three Mile Island that they would have to pay their own damages by raising their customers’ rates. The House and Senate did not take up the issue of insurance again until 1986. After considering several proposals to increase the $560 million ceiling, the House voted to set the limit paid to victims of a nuclear accident at $6.5 billion. The Senate disagreed, however, and on August 23, adopted a $2.4 billion limit. Two days later, a major nuclear accident occurred at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union. This incident, perhaps the worst disaster in the history of peaceful nuclear energy production, contributed to the adoption of higher limits by the Senate Energy Committee. The final bill did not come before the full Congress for debate until late in 1987. It raised the total insurance available for any single disaster to nearly $7 billion. The major debate involved who would pay for this increased coverage and who should be held responsible for accidents caused by deliberate violations of safety rules. The House Energy Committee rejected an amendment that would make power companies responsible for accidents caused by negligence or safety violations. Republicans in the Senate and House opposed all amendments that sought to increase the electric industry’s responsibility for paying for accident insurance. Senator Howard Metzenbaum, a Democrat from Ohio, led an effort to make private producers pay a penalty of at least $100 million after an accident caused by their negligence. Industry spokes857

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people opposed this measure and won a major victory when the Senate set more lenient penalties for safety violations. The Senate mandated a maximum fine of $100,000 per day for knowingly violating government safety rules. The top criminal penalties for deliberately breaking such rules were set at two years in prison and a $25,000 fine, no matter how much damage was caused. Even these penalties were left up to the discretion of the secretary of energy and could be appealed in court. The final bill with the weakened penalties reached the president’s desk on August 5, 1988. It extended the provisions of the Price-Anderson Act for fifteen more years but increased the total amount of government-financed insurance to $7 billion. If damages exceeded that amount, the president was required to send Congress a plan to find other sources of revenue to compensate victims of the nuclear accident. With these provisions, President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law on August 20, and the private nuclear power industry was again insured against most damage claims, even if private producers had caused the accident by violations of safety rules. The federal government would thus continue to pay for damages caused by the private nuclear power industry. Leslie V. Tischauser Sources for Further Study Browne, Corinne, and Robert Munroe. Time Bomb: Understanding the Threat of Nuclear Power. New York: William Morrow, 1981. Fuller, John G. We Almost Lost Detroit. New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1975. Martin, Daniel. Three Mile Island: Prologue or Epilogue? Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1980. Pringle, Peter, and James Spigelman. The Nuclear Barons. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981. Williams, Robert C., and Philip L. Cantelon, eds. The American Atom. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984. See also: Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (1954); Low-Level Radioac-

tive Waste Policy Act (1980); Superfund Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983).

858

Niagara Power Act

Niagara Power Act Also known as: Niagara Redevelopment Act Date: August 21, 1957 U.S. Statutes at Large: 71 Stat. 401 U.S. Code: 16 § 836 Public law: 85-159 Categories: Energy; Natural Resources

The act allowed the New York Power Authority to build a dam at Niagara Falls, New York, and develop hydroelectric power for fifty years, providing low-cost energy to thousands of businesses and residents in the western New York area. In 1881, the first hydroelectric power generating station was built on the Niagara River. The electricity that was produced powered the machinery of local mills and lit up village streets. During 1896, some of the electricity from Niagara Falls was transmitted to Buffalo, New York, about twenty-six miles away. Eventually, many hydropower plants were built along the Niagara River. An agreement between Canada and the United States in 1950 made more of the river’s water available for the production of electricity. On June 7, 1956, a massive landslide partially destroyed the largest hydropower station along the river. With numerous manufacturing jobs threatened by the loss of low-cost electrical power in the region, a heated debate developed over the power-generating rights along the Niagara River. On August 21, 1957, Congress passed the Niagara Power Act, allowing the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to build a dam at Niagara Falls, New York. It granted the NYPA a fifty-year federal license to develop the hydroelectric power potential of the Niagara River that fell under the jurisdiction of the United States. Under the direction of Robert Moses, the “Master Builder” of New York, the NYPA began construction of a hydropower plant about 4.5 miles downstream from the falls in March, 1958. The $532 million Niagara project was completed in January, 1961. By 1963, the 2.4million-kilowatt facility was the second largest hydroelectric generating plant in the United States. Only the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River produced more hydropower. 859

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The Niagara complex consists of two main plants: the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant (thirteen turbines) and the Lewiston Pump-Generating Plant (twelve pump-turbines). During times when the demand for electricity is low, the Lewiston turbines operate as pumps that transport water up to the plant’s reservoir. When there is a high demand for electricity, these turbines act as generators. Combined with the power output of the Moses plant, the generated electricity is then doubled. Since it began production, the Niagara Power Project has consistently met its federal mandate to supply low-cost electricity to the residents and businesses of western New York. The power generated by this complex costs about 60 percent less than the U.S. average rate for electricity. The facility has stimulated the economy of New York by providing thousands of jobs. The NYPA license for operating the Niagara complex will expire on August 21, 2007. As a result, the NYPA filed a formal request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March, 2002, allowing for public participation in the Niagara relicensing process. The proposal was approved by the FERC on July 15, 2002. In seeking its new license, the NYPA plans to solicit the participation and financial support of interested groups and individuals. Alvin K. Benson Sources for Further Study Berton, Pierre. Niagara: A History of the Falls. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1992. Greenhill, Ralph, and Thomas D. Mahoney. Niagara. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969. McKinsey, Elizabeth R. Niagara Falls: Icon of the American Sublime. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. See also: Federal Power Act (1920).

860

Jencks Act

Jencks Act Date: September 2, 1957 U.S. Statutes at Large: 71 Stat. 595 Public law: 85-269 U.S. Code: 18 § 3500 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Crimes and Criminal Proce-

dure

This law provides that, in any federal criminal prosecution, no statement or report in the possession of the government “which was made by a Government witness or a prospective Government witness (other than the defendant) to an agent of the Government shall be the subject of subpoena, discovery, or inspection unless said witness has testified on direct examination in the trial of the case.” A 1957 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court involved access by defendants to government files bearing on their trial. On the basis of statements by two paid informants of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the government prosecuted Clinton Jencks, a labor union official, for failing to state that he was a member of the Communist Party. Jencks requested that the FBI reports be handed over to the trial judge for examination to determine whether they had value in impeaching the statements of the two informants. This request was refused. On June 3, 1957, the Supreme Court went beyond Jencks’s request by ordering the government to produce for Jencks’s personal inspection all FBI reports “touching the events and activities” at issue in the trial (Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657 [1957]). For the Court, Justice William Brennan held that since the testimony of the informants was crucial, its impeachment was of the utmost importance to the defendant. Brennan observed that unless the witness himself admits conflict between his reports and his court testimony, the defendant cannot prove it without inspecting the reports. The reports that the government was ordered to produce would have to go first to the accused, and only after that to the judge to determine admissibility. In their concurrences, Justices Harold Burton and John Harlan disagreed with this part of the decision, 861

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contending that Jencks was only entitled to have the records submitted to the trial judge. Justice Tom Clark dissented, asserting that unless the Congress changes the rule announced by the Court today, those intelligence agencies of our Government engaged in law enforcement may as well close up shop for the Court has opened their files to the criminal and thus afforded him a Roman holiday for rummaging through confidential information as well as vital national secrets.

Congress took up this cry in its attacks on the decision. Both houses of Congress quickly passed the Jencks Bill with huge majorities, and the bill became law on September 2, 1957. The statute provides that in any federal criminal prosecution, no statement or report in the possession of the government “which was made by a Government witness or a prospective Government witness (other than the defendant) to an agent of the Government shall be the subject of subpoena, discovery, or inspection unless said witness has testified on direct examination in the trial of the case.” If a witness testifies, statements may be delivered to the defendant for examination and used unless the government claims that the statement contains irrelevant matter, in which case the statement shall be inspected by the court in private. The judge then may exclude irrelevant portions of the statement before submitting it to the defendant. Under the Jencks decision implemented by the Jencks Act, when the government used informants in communist prosecutions, it had to be willing to have their relevant reports to the FBI made available to the defense. If the government thought it was important to have communists in jail, this was part of the price it had to pay. The Court affirmed the principle that all Americans, including communists, are entitled to due process of law before they go to jail. Theodore M. Vestal Sources for Further Study Murphy, Walter F. Congress and the Court. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962. 862

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Pritchett, C. Herman. Congress Versus the Supreme Court: 1957-1960. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1961. Vestal, Theodore M. The Eisenhower Court and Civil Liberties. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002. See also: Labor-Management Relations Act (1947); Internal Secu-

rity Act (1950); Communist Control Act (1954).

Civil Rights Act of 1957 Date: September 9, 1957 U.S. Statutes at Large: 71 Stat. 637 Public law: 85-315 U.S. Code: 42 § 1971 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Voting

and Elections

The first civil rights legislation in three-quarters of a century created the Civil Rights Commission to investigate civil rights violations and made harassment of those attempting to vote a federal crime. During the mid-1950’s, the Civil Rights movement gathered momentum as it challenged racial segregation and discrimination in many areas of American life. One area where progress proved slow was voting rights. Intimidation and irregular registration procedures limited electoral participation by African Americans. By 1957, support for legislation to protect voting rights was growing among Northern Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Yet Congress had not passed a civil rights bill since 1875, and there was strong southern opposition to any change in the status quo. It was, however, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, the Senate majority leader, who took the lead. Not known at this point in his career as an advocate of civil rights, Johnson used his considerable legislative ability to shepherd the new bill through Congress. It passed just as the Little Rock school integration crisis was breaking. 863

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The bill had several major provisions. It created a new body, the Civil Rights Commission, to investigate complaints of violations of civil rights. It raised the Civil Rights Section of the Department of Justice to the status of a division, to be headed by an assistant attorney general. It also made it a federal crime to harass those attempting to vote and allowed the attorney general to initiate proceedings against those violating the law. The law’s short-term effects were modest. Though the number of African American voters did grow, many impediments to voting remained, especially in the rural South. Many criticized the act’s weak enforcement procedures: The Civil Rights Commission could gather information and investigate complaints, but it could take no action to protect those trying to vote. Not until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would effective machinery for ensuring voting rights be established. On the other hand, in the early 1960’s, the administration of President John F. Kennedy did use the act’s provisions (which were strengthened by the 1960 Civil Rights Act) to proceed against some of the worst cases of harassment. Also the act broke a psychological barrier by putting the first national civil rights law in eighty-two years on the books. It also highlighted the importance of voting rights to the overall civil rights struggle. William C. Lowe Sources for Further Study Belknap, Michael R., ed. Civil Rights, the White House, and the Justice Department, 1945-1968: Securing the Enactment of Civil Rights Legislation. Vol. 13, Civil Rights Act of 1964. New York: Garland, 1991. Casper, Jonathan D. Lawyers Before the Warren Court: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, 1957-66. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972. Ware, Gilbert. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Civil Rights Act of 1957. 1 35mm reel. Film Thesis, Princeton University. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1962. See also: Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Twenty-fourth Amend-

ment (1964); Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975).

864

National Defense Education Act

National Defense Education Act Date: September 2, 1958 U.S. Statutes at Large: 72 Stat. 1583 Public law: 85-864 U.S. Code: 20 § 426 Categories: Education; Health and Welfare

The first omnibus education bill represented a great leap forward in the size and scope of federal activity in higher education, providing for student loans and fellowships. The National Defense Education Act (NDEA) passed by a Democratic Congress during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Republican administration in 1958 (the act being shepherded through the legislature by Senators Carl Elliott, Democrat of Alabama, and Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat of Texas) was a landmark in federal higher education policy. The NDEA was in response to the Soviets’ launch of Sputnik 1, which shocked American into a reevaluation of the state of education in the United States. The act forged a partnership between the government and colleges and universities to regain international leadership in graduate programs not only in science and math but also in foreign languages and area studies. Provisions Title IV of the act provided college loans at low interest to students. President Eisenhower proposed a grants program, and the Democratic Congress rejoined that a loan program was preferred with students paying their own way. Title VI and its subsequent amendments supported fellowships in international fields and created Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) programs. Administered by HEW, the NDEA provided the most direct assistance to universities for continuing work in international studies. Although it was conceived as a temporary, emergency program aimed at producing scientific manpower, it became a permanent and broader program well before its initial four-year authorization expired. The NDEA represented a great leap forward in the size and scope of federal activity in higher education. It was also the first 865

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omnibus education bill, combining a variety of loosely related titles that could have been separate bills. The act was launched with excellence as the objective and standard. In 1980, most of the provisions of the NDEA were encompassed in amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965 and eventually were administered by the Department of Education. NDEA loans became National Direct Education Loans and, after amendments in the 1990’s, Federal Direct Student Loans. Substantial numbers of student and parent borrowers have benefited from the program since its inception. Impact Since 1958, federal contribution through Title VII to colleges and universities has been a catalyst that has provided the prestige, the margin of excellence, and the drawing power for other funding. NDEA grants have assisted in funding some one hundred campusbased graduate centers, most of which focus on geographic area studies. The has also provided about thirty thousand grants to graduate students, most of whom would go on to teach in colleges and universities. There also have been more than two hundred awards to advance undergraduate international education at a variety of institutions. These accomplishments have come about with a very modest investment of federal funds. Federal support (in constant dollars) for international studies reached a high point in the late 1960’s, when funding of the NDEA was at its apex. Federal funding for international education has been passed most successfully when brigaded with practical and strategic concerns such as national defense. NDEA centers constitute an unprecedented national pool of competence in language and area teaching and research. The United States is instructing more students and producing more research concerning the lands and peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern and Central Europe than is any other nation, but the area approach is limited in scope to basically a small portion of U.S. education, primarily at the graduate level in humanities and social science disciplines. Theodore M. Vestal

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Sources for Further Study Clowse, Barbara B. Brainpower for the Cold War: The Sputnik Crisis and National Defense Education Act of 1958. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981. Lindquist, Clarence B. NDEA Fellowships for College Teaching, 195868: Title IV, NDEA of 1958. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Heath, Education, and Welfare, 1971. Vestal, Theodore M. International Education: Its History and Promise for Today. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994. See also: G.I. Bill (1944); Higher Education Act (1965).

Food Additives Amendment Also known as: Delaney Amendment Date: September 6, 1958 U.S. Statutes at Large: 72 Stat. 1784 Public law: 85-929 Categories: Food and Drugs

Following extensive debate about the long-term impact of food additives on public health, this amendment to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act required safety clearance for food additives. The use of chemical additives in food products as flavoring, as preservatives, or as part of packaging grew rapidly during the 1940’s. The long-term impact of these chemicals on public health, however, remained largely unknown. This period also witnessed a substantial increase in the agricultural use of commercial pesticides such as DDT; again, it was unclear whether the pesticides used in production of raw agricultural goods caused any harm. Given the enormous public health implications of these issues, the U.S. House of Representatives formed a select committee to investigate the use of chemicals in foods in June, 1950. Until March, 1952, this committee (also known as the Delaney Committee, headed by James J. Delaney, representative from New York) held 867

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extensive hearings on the impact of chemical additives and pesticides in products intended for human consumption. Findings from these hearings were published later in four volumes focused on fertilizers, cosmetics, food, and fluoridation. The volume devoted to food recommended that chemicals intended to be used with foods should be tested carefully before such use to ensure safety. Although this recommendation was not acted upon by Congress immediately, it provided a basis for the Food Additives Amendment of 1958. Chemical Food Additives Chemical food additives can perform a wide variety of functions. Depending on the specific food product considered, additives serve to increase the acidity or alkalinity levels, preserve or age, increase or decrease water retention characteristics, enhance color or flavor appeal, and prevent spattering of cooking fats. Preservatives have been used widely to avoid or minimize the growth of microbes in foods over time. Antimycotic agents such as acetic acid and calcium propionate are employed to fight the growth of mold and other bacteria in bread; similarly, benzoic acid inhibits bacterial growth in pickles and fruit juices. Sulfur dioxide is a popular preservative for dried fruits. Antioxidants are often used in lard, crackers, and soup bases. Another class of additives, called sequestrants, is used to retain the color, flavor, or texture of many products. Emulsifiers (such as lecithin, monoglycerides, diglycerides, and dioctyl sodium sulfosucinate) are added to food products to improve their texture or other physical characteristics: for example, enhancing the whipping attribute in frozen desserts or facilitating the dissolution of hot chocolate in cold milk. Finally, other chemicals known as stabilizers, thickeners, buffers, and neutralizers are added to food products for a variety of purposes. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, enacted in 1938, prohibited the presence of harmful or poisonous substances in food products. This provision was largely ineffective in practice because it did not require premarket clearance of food additives; it mandated premarket clearance only for new drugs and coal tar dyes. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had to bear the burden of proof to show that a given chemical food additive was harmful after it had been introduced in a product. Establishing such proof was difficult and time consuming. A major flaw in the regulatory framework 868

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during the 1950’s was that as long as such proof was not established, even suspect food additives could be used legally in products available to the public. Provisions of the Amendment The Delaney Amendment of 1958 corrected this flaw by mandating premarket clearance of chemical additives that were not generally recognized as safe (GRAS). That is, if qualified scientists and experts believed that a given substance could be added safely to food products, the substance could be classified under the GRAS category and thereby exempted from the premarket clearance requirement. The inclusion of a new food additive under GRAS could be justified on the basis of scientific data; for food additives already in use before January 1, 1958, such justification could stem from prior safe-use experience in food products. The Delaney Amendment mandated the submission to the FDA of certain details concerning any new food additive—the formula depicting its chemical composition, a description of proposed usage characteristics, the procedure used for its manufacture, and the manner in which its presence in food products could be detected accurately at the expected levels of use. In addition, the prospective user of the new additive was required to furnish evidence that the additive accomplished the intended effects on food and that the degree of additive usage was not higher than necessary to achieve these effects. More important, the user had to provide data documenting the safety of the proposed food additive. This evidence took the form of studies in which varying amounts of the additive were included in the intakes of at least two species of animals. Finally, even if the FDA approved the usage of a newly proposed food additive, it could limit the additive’s usage by specifying tolerances. Tolerances are commonly determined through animal feeding tests. These tests of an additive may show, for example, that a 1 percent residue of the chemical has no adverse effect. A pharmacologist in charge then may arbitrarily divide by one hundred and say that 0.01 percent is safe for humans. Tolerances rest on the tenuous assumption that small doses of poisonous chemicals are harmless even if ingested over a long period of time; therefore, it is possible that tolerances lend acceptability to additives that are inherently dangerous to public health. 869

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Debates over Anticancer and Grandfather Clauses During the congressional hearings on the Delaney Amendment, two issues caused significant debate. The first controversy centered on the “Delaney anticancer clause,” which declared that no food additive could be considered safe if it was found to induce cancer in humans or animals. This clause was opposed by several experts and even by the FDA, on the grounds that it was not in line with scientific judgment. For example, several individuals called into question the wisdom of banning the limited human consumption of food additives merely because they induced cancer in some animals. Others thought that it was inappropriate to focus on a specific disease (cancer) while establishing legislative standards. These objectives notwithstanding, the Delaney anticancer clause was incorporated into the 1958 amendment as signed into law. The second issue involved sustained lobbying efforts by the food and chemical industries for the inclusion of a “grandfather clause,” a provision specifically exempting all chemical additives in use at that time from the mandatory testing requirement. Delaney strongly objected to this plea because the grandfather clause would render almost 150 chemical additives automatically acceptable without any rigorous scientific evidence on their safety. Although industry representatives argued that the food additives in use qualified for exemption because of their past record of safety during prolonged use, it was unclear what constituted an acceptable definition of prolonged use for each additive. Some chemical food additives may require as long as twenty years before their cumulative health impact can be assessed. Furthermore, several chemical additives had been declared as unsafe only after they were used in food products for several years. For example, Anton Julius Carson, a medical expert from the University of Chicago, had testified before the Delaney Committee about the harmful effects of hydrofluoric acid and mineral oil, food additives that had been added routinely to beer and popcorn, respectively, for several years. Delaney also questioned the value of mandating public protection against new food additives through elaborate testing when “old” additives that were untested for safety were permitted in food products consumed by the public. The grandfather clause was not incorporated into the 1958 amendment despite sustained efforts from the food and chemical industries. These industries, however, won other notable conces870

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sions. First, through a series of legislative measures, Congress gave the industry substantial time (until December, 1965) to finish safety evaluations of specific chemicals already in use. Second, the amendment did not incorporate the FDA viewpoint that chemical food additives should not only be harmless to humans but also must possess some functional value; the motivation was to discourage the use of additives that, while not considered unsafe, did not serve any useful purpose to consumers. Both Delaney and George P. Larrick, the FDA commissioner, vehemently argued for the functional value provision. Larrick defined functional value as stemming from any characteristic of the food additive that directly benefited consumers by enhancing convenience or indirectly benefited consumers during the process of product distribution. Further, he provided several examples in which chemical additives had been added to food products only because it was profitable or convenient for the industry to do so, and not because they served any consumer interest: the use of boric acid to preserve codfish and whole eggs in an attempt to conceal poor manufacturing or storage practices; the reliance on fluorine chemicals in alcoholic beverages such as wine and beer to curb fermentation, a result better accomplished through pasteurization; the inclusion of monochloracetic acid in carbonated beverages as a substitute for proper sanitation practices; and the addition of salicylates in shrimp sauce to inhibit decomposition processes triggered by poor manufacturing or holding practices. Larrick argued in vain that the safe but unnecessary use of chemical additives should not be a prerogative of the food industry. The 1958 amendment played a major role in promoting longterm public health primarily because of two features. It extended the premarket clearance requirement to food additives and prohibited the addition to foods of any chemicals shown to be animal carcinogens (substances that cause cancer in animals). Impact To appreciate the impact of the Food Additives Amendment, it is useful to study its interpretation and enforcement over the years. The anticancer clause applies to both direct and indirect food additives. The latter comprise chemicals that migrate into food from food packaging material. In addition, more than one hundred drugs used in food-producing animals are subject to the clause. 871

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Three important practical issues arise from the clause. First, although it appears to categorically prohibit the addition of carcinogenic chemicals to foods, there appears to be considerable leeway in deciding whether a substance is carcinogenic. As one example, there was an intense debate as to whether saccharin is carcinogenic. Other fairly common additives are the subject of the same question. Second, a proviso in the clause specifically exempts carcinogenic food and animal drugs that are added to the feed of foodproducing animals. That is, if chemical additives in animal feed do not harm the animal and do not leave any residue on the edible parts of the animal (intended for human consumption), such additives are exempt from the scope of the clause. Finally, no chemical food additive is strictly free from all carcinogens. Certain carcinogens such as lead and halogenated compounds contaminate all chemicals, including food additives, at minute levels. Moreover, subsequent to the 1958 amendment, it has become technologically feasible to analyze chemical substances at extremely low trace levels, measurable in parts per million or parts per billion. For these reasons, the FDA developed a constituent policy in March, 1982, that states that a food additive can include carcinogens as long as the degree of risk associated with the extent of the carcinogenic presence is acceptably low. This is in keeping with the spirit of the 1958 amendment, although it is a reversal of the letter of the Delaney clause. In defining what constitutes an acceptably low standard, the FDA has used an upper limit of one case of cancer following the exposure of a million people to a food additive. Subsequent Legislation In the early 1980’s, several bills introduced in Congress contained language that called for revisions of the Delaney clause to avoid the ban of a carcinogenic additive if scientific evidence suggests that the human risks involved under intended conditions of use are negligible. None of the bills passed. However, in 1994 Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, which effectively amended the 1958 law. Prior to the 1994, food additives in dietery supplements (traditionally, vitamin and mineral preparations) were evaluated for safety. The 1994 law redefined “dietary supplement” to include substances such as ginseng, garlic, fish oils, psyllium, enzymes, 872

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glandulars, and combinations of these substances. Furthermore, the 1994 law contained provisions that then applied only to these dietary supplements and their ingredients. The effect of the new law was to make ingredients used in dietary supplements no longer subject to the premarket safety evaluations required of other new food ingredients or old food ingredients used for new purposes. They still, however, needed to meet the requirements of other safety provisions. Siva Balasubramanian Sources for Further Study Flamm, W. G. “Food-Borne Carcinogens.” In Chemical Safety Regulation and Compliance, edited by Freddy Homburger and Judith K. Marquis. Basel, Switzerland: S. Karger, 1985. Kleinfeld, Vincent A., and Alan H. Kaplan. Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Judicial and Adminstrative Record 1961-1964. Chicago: Commerce Clearing House, 1965. Kokoski, C. J. “Regulatory Food Additive Toxicology.” In Chemical Safety Regulation and Compliance, edited by Freddy Homburger and Judith K. Marquis. Basel, Switzerland: S. Karger, 1985. Basel Switzerland: S. Karger, 1985. Mooney, Booth. The Hidden Assassins. Chicago: Follett, 1966. Skinner, K. “Scientific Change and the Evolution of Regulation.” In Chemical Safety Regulation and Compliance, edited by Freddy Homburger and Judith K. Marquis. Basel, Switzerland: S. Karger, 1985. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Subcommittee on Public Health and Environment. A Brief Legislative History of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974. See also: Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906); Food, Drug, and Cos-

metic Act (1938).

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Landrum-Griffin Act Also known as: Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act Date: September 14, 1959 U.S. Statutes at Large: 73 Stat. 519 Public law: 86-257 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Labor and Employ-

ment

This law served as a bill of rights for union members and a curb on union misconduct, cracking down on criminal activity in unions and restoring lost rights of union members. The Landrum-Griffin Act had its genesis in the hearings of the McClellan Committee from 1957 to 1959, which focused on crime within the labor movement. The Landrum-Griffin Act amended the National Labor Relations Act (or Wagner Act, 1935) and included a bill of rights for union members. It made explicit union members’ right to assemble, speak out, vote, and attend meetings. The bill also required both national unions and local affiliates to file annual financial disclosure statements as a matter of public record. The Landrum-Griffin Act limited the instances in which a national union could place a local under trusteeship. In some cases, the McClellan Committee had found, a trusteeship proviso had been misused by the national in order to obtain access to local funds or to silence dissent. The bill also required national and local unions to schedule regular elections. The Landrum-Griffin Act sought to close loopholes in the 1947 Labor-Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley Act). It tightened restrictions on secondary boycotts, outlawed “hot cargo” agreements, and limited organizational and recognition picketing. John A. Sondey Sources for Further Study Bellace, Janice R. The Landrum-Griffin Act: Twenty Years of Federal Protection of Union Members’ Rights. Philadelphia: Industrial Research Unit, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 1979. 874

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McLaughlin, Doris B., and Anita L. Schoomaker, eds. The LandrumGriffin Act and Union Democracy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979. Smolen, Joseph S., ed. The National Labor Relations Act: As Amended by the Taft-Hartley Act and the Landrum-Griffin Act. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1962. See also: National Labor Relations Act (1935); Labor-Management

Relations Act (1947).

Civil Rights Act of 1960 Date: Passed May 6, 1960; first invoked May 9, 1960 U.S. Statutes at Large: 74 Stat. 90 Public law: 86-449 U.S. Code: 42 § 1971 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Voting

and Elections

Additional protections for voting rights presaged a stronger Voting Rights Act five years later. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1870, was designed to protect the right of African Americans to vote. The amendment simply says: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Officials in the Southern states, however, found numerous ways to disfranchise black voters without violating the Fifteenth Amendment, such as the literacy test, poll tax, grandfather clause, and white primary. As a result of these voting barriers, most African Americans were eliminated as voters, in spite of what the Fifteenth Amendment was designed to do. Enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment The civil rights bills of the late 1950’s and the 1960’s were designed to make the Fifteenth Amendment enforceable. Since the end of 875

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Reconstruction, Congress had passed only one civil rights bill, in 1957. The 1957 law sought to empower the federal government to protect voting rights by seeking injunctions against voting rights violations. In reality, the 1957 law was so weak that only a few suits were brought by the Department of Justice against the illegal practices of voting officials. The 1957 Civil Rights Act established the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which was given the authority to investigate civil rights abuses. The commission could draw national attention to civil rights problems and recommend legislation to Congress, but it had no enforcement powers. African Americans and civil rights supporters realized that something substantial was needed to protect black voting rights. In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced a sevenpoint civil rights program. Three parts of the bill dealt with education and school desegregation, the most significant provision being the attempt to make it a crime to interfere with court-ordered desegregation. The bill requested a two-year extension of the Civil Rights Commission and contained several other provisions to combat economic discrimination. The only section of the law that involved voting rights was the provision that states must preserve voting records for three years. This provision was needed to prove whether there was a pattern or practice of discrimination in voting. Flaws of the Bill Conspicuously missing from the Eisenhower bill was a request that Congress authorize the attorney general to bring civil proceedings to protect voting rights. This provision, known as Title III, had been the heart of the administration’s 1957 Civil Rights Act. Title III would have allowed the federal government to prevent interference with civil rights instead of only being able to punish such interference after the fact. Intense Southern opposition to Title III forced the administration to abandon the provision in the 1957 Civil Rights Act, as Eisenhower believed that Congress was not ready to incorporate Title III in the administration’s new bill. The House judiciary subcommittee, comprising mostly Northern civil rights supporters, strengthened the Eisenhower bill and restored Title III. The full Judiciary Committee, containing many Southern opponents of civil rights, quickly gutted most of the stronger sections passed by the subcommittee. The weakened bill was passed by the Judiciary Committee and forwarded to the im876

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portant Rules Committee. The Rules Committee, chaired by Howard Smith, a Virginia segregationist, did not act on the bill until civil rights supporters threatened to discharge the bill from the Rules Committee’s jurisdiction. The Democratic Study Group, a newly formed organization consisting of liberal Democrats, led the movement to free the bill from the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee finally sent the civil rights bill to the floor of the House for consideration by the entire House. A Fight in Congress Southern Democrats led much of the opposition to the bill. Opponents contended that the bill went too far in protecting voting rights and encroached on the rights of states to control the election process. Representative William Colmer, a Democrat from Mississippi, said that “even in the darkest days of Reconstruction, the Congress never went as far as the proponents of this legislation, in this 1960 election year, propose to go.” After defeating numerous Southern amendments to weaken an already weak bill, the House voted 311 to 109 to approve the civil rights bill and send it to the Senate. The United States Senate has often been the burial ground of civil rights laws, especially during the 1940’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s. This was primarily the result of two factors. First, Southern Democrats, by virtue of their seniority, controlled many key committees, including the Judiciary Committee, to which civil rights legislation, by jurisdiction, must be referred. Second, Southern senators were skillful in the use of legislative tactics, such as the filibuster, to kill legislation. The Eisenhower bill was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Democratic senator James Eastland of Mississippi. Eastland, a staunch segregationist, refused to act on the bill. Only as a result of a parliamentary maneuver undertaken by Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson and Minority Leader Everett Dirksen was the bill brought to the floor of the Senate for debate. Southern senators, led by Democrat Richard Russell of Georgia, organized a filibuster. All Southern senators participated in the filibuster, with the exception of the two senators from Tennessee and the two senators from Texas. Supporters of the civil rights bill attempted to end the lengthy filibuster by invoking cloture, which required two-thirds of the Senate to vote to stop the filibuster. When 877

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the cloture vote took place, only forty-two of the one hundred senators voted to stop the filibuster. The civil rights supporters not only failed to get the two-thirds vote required but also failed to muster a simple majority. A Weak Instrument The defeat of cloture meant that the Southern Democratic senators had won and could dictate the terms of the final bill. The final, watered-down version of the bill contained little that would protect the voting rights of African Americans. The most significant provision authorized federal judges to appoint federal referees to assist African Americans in registering and voting if a pattern or practice of discrimination was found. The Senate passed the weakened bill by seventy-one to eighteen, and President Eisenhower signed the bill into law on May 6, 1960. The fact that only two other individuals were present when Eisenhower signed the bill into law testifies to its legislative insignificance. Perhaps the weakness of the 1960 Civil Rights Act was its main legacy. The law proved to be unable to cope with many problems confronting African Americans in the South. Many blacks who attempted to register or vote lost their jobs, were subjected to violence, or were victimized by double standards or outright fraud on the part of voting officials. The impotence of the 1960 Civil Rights Act to deal with these issues, combined with the lack of progress in increasing the number of African American voters in the South, forced Congress to pass the powerful Voting Rights Act in 1965. This legislation would forever transform the political landscape of the South, and its consequences have continued to be felt. Darryl Paulson Sources for Further Study Abernathy, Charles F. Civil Rights and Constitutional Litigation: Cases and Materials. 2d ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West, 1992. Belknap, Michael R., ed. Civil Rights, the White House, and the Justice Department, 1945-1968: Securing the Enactment of Civil Rights Legislation. Vol. 13, Civil Rights Act of 1964. New York: Garland, 1991. Berman, Daniel M. A Bill Becomes a Law: Congress Enacts Civil Rights Legislation. New York: Macmillan, 1966. 878

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Black, Earl, and Merle Black. The Vital South: How Presidents Are Elected. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. Casper, Jonathan D. Lawyers Before the Warren Court: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, 1957-66. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972. Grofman, Bernard, ed. Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000. Lawson, Steven F. In Pursuit of Power: Southern Blacks and Electoral Politics, 1965-1982. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Loevy, Robert D. To End All Segregation: The Politics of the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1990. Tate, Katherine. From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994. Whalen, Charles, and Barbara Whalen. The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Washington, D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1985. See also: Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954); Disfranchisement laws

(1890); Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957); Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964); Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975).

Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act Date: June 12, 1960 U.S. Statutes at Large: 74 Stat. 215 Public law: 86-517 U.S. Code: 16 § 528 Categories: Agriculture; Animals; Environment and Conserva-

tion; Land Management; Natural Resources

Congress passed this act to codify a history of tradition and policy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service. When the Organic Act was passed in 1897, mandating the protection of timber and water resources for forest reserves, it remained 879

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the only significant legislation concerning national forest management for sixty-three years. Despite the constraints imposed by the act, the Forest Service did not restrict national forest-management practices to timber and water; range, wildlife, recreation, and minerals also were considered viable uses. Although improvements in timber-growing and logging methods had emerged, national forest management before World War II was oriented toward fire protection for the maintenance of forest reserves. Tapping Public Lands for Timber During the war, national forests contributed a significant proportion of the six billion board feet of timber harvested for American military purposes. Wood, was required for housing, ships, wharves, airplanes, trucks, crates, paper products, and explosives, among other items, and the chief of the Army Corps of Engineers Materials and Equipment Section maintained that because lumber was vital to the war effort, the lumber industry was “the most important industry in the country.” Congress, convinced of timber’s importance and believing that it would foster economic stability in logging communities dependent on federal sales, passed the Sustained-Yield Forest Management Act in 1944, authorizing the secretaries of agriculture and the interior to set aside federal forest lands for timber sales that otherwise would not be allowed. The Forest Service, heretofore unaccustomed to commercial silviculture (to avoid competition with struggling private timber companies), consequently reoriented operations toward production forestry. After the war, Forest Service Chief Lyle Watts sought a reappraisal of U.S. forestry and advocated nationwide logging regulation. The country’s timber supply was diminishing at a rate of 18.6 billion board feet a year, largely as a result of the civilian demand for lumber for home building and demands in reconstructing postwar Europe. Supply problems were compounded by poor timber management on private lands. Throughout the postwar years, however, controversy over regulation erupted between private and public forestry concerns. With the appointment of Richard E. McArdle as forest service chief in 1952, the debate eased when cooperation among private and public interests, not regulation, became viewed as a more feasible means of serving the public good. 880

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Need for a New Forest Management Policy Although forests were principally considered reserves held by the Forest Service to be tapped when private supplies were depleted, the pace of logging on federal lands quickened after the war and into the 1950’s because a large proportion of private lands were exhausted of timber, and the need for a national inventory of timber resources became more apparent. The Forest Service, pressured to alter its management policies, proposed a major plan, and Timber Resources for America’s Future was released in 1958, detailing forestry projection and timber demands until the year 2000. The report indicated that surplus forest land in the United States no longer existed, and for wood shortages to be avoided, timber lands must be used optimally. For decades, Forest Service propaganda had fashioned the image of the forest ranger who protected the forests from rapacious lumbermen. When a strong dollar and affordable transportation enabled the American public to venture into the national forests after the war to hike, fish, and camp, they were dismayed to see logging activity and felt deceived by the Forest Service’s public relations campaign; consequently, the American public and special interest groups demanded protection of recreation areas. In the meantime, as recreational use of national forests was escalating in addition to other demands such as mining and grazing, McArdle sought to bring a balance among these diverse and often conflicting activities by implementing the National Forest Development Program in 1959. The program called for a forty-year plan designed to accommodate the needs of multiple-use groups that relied on national forests. Only with federal legislation, however, could such a plan be effective. By 1960, fifty-three bills suggesting multiple-use and sustained-yield management had been introduced in Congress, and on June 12, 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (MUSYA), which had been passed by Congress four days earlier. Provisions of the Act MUSYA stated that “the national forests are established and shall be administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes.” Although the Forest Service had engaged in multiple use throughout its history, the passage of MUSYA marked a highlight in U.S. forestry because multiple use 881

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became law. The law defined multiple use as the management of all the various renewable surface resources of the combination that will best meet the needs of the American people; making the most judicious use of the land for some or all of these resources or related services over areas large enough to provide sufficient latitude for periodic adjustments in use to conform to changing needs and conditions; that some land will be used less than all of the various resources, each with the other, without impairment of the productivity of the land, with consideration being given to the relative values of the various resources, and not necessarily the combination of uses that will give the greatest dollar return or the greatest unit output. Thus, economic profit would not be considered to be a constraint in all national forest management activities. Reaction and Impact Because much of the country’s forest land had been harvested without reforestation, a timber shortage was perceived by many conservationists to be imminent, and the concept of sustained yield was included in the legislation. More than a decade passed, however, before sustained yield became a significant issue. Sustained yield refers to a concept that restricts periodic harvest (annually or every few years) to no more than the ultimate timber growth in the same period. If harvest exceeds growth, timber inventory is reduced. Thus, sustained yield is a notion that suggests maintaining in perpetuity the same quantity of the national forests’ timber. The Forest Service maintained that all specified uses—outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes—were accorded equal status under the new law, but scholars Samuel Dana and Sally Fairfax have noted that “the agency strained to have recreation mentioned first when the multiple uses were listed,” in order to establish priorities. Although the agency claimed that the list was purely alphabetical, the Forest Service was concerned with losing land to the National Park Service, particularly lands designated for recreation use. Their diligent support of MUSYA was believed to be partially a response to that concern. With MUSYA’s passage, the Forest Service was considered a legitimate steward of federal recreation lands, and that concern was alleviated. Livestock ranchers also were pleased with the bill’s passage. Although national forests had served their interests since the nine882

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teenth century, only with MUSYA were they elevated to equality with other interest groups. In contrast, user groups devoted to timber and water resources reluctantly accepted their demotion to a status equal with that of other interest groups. It was this lack of prioritization that elicited criticism of the bill because, although Congress passed MUSYA nearly unanimously, the act was not without controversy. The Sierra Club failed to support it because MUSYA lacked statutory management standards, and the club’s executive director, David Brower, fought to ensure protection for recreational use, particularly wilderness recreation. Furthermore, the Sierra Club argued that foresters, predisposed to timber production, were not qualified to make value decisions concerning acreage that was to remain unmanaged. Only because a statement was incorporated into the act designating wilderness as consistent with MUSYA’s provisions did the Sierra Club not actively oppose it. Sierra Club Campaign Despite the truce inaugurated between the Sierra Club and the Forest Service concerning MUSYA, the club mounted a campaign in opposition to multiple use after the bill’s passage, belying McArdle’s prediction that MUSYA “undoubtedly will be looked upon in years to come as the basic charter for the administration of national forests.” Public controversy erupted at the Fifth World Forestry Congress in late summer, 1960, when pamphlets opposing multiple use were distributed at the conference by the Sierra Club. During the 1960’s, the environmental movement gained strength, and the Forest Service was challenged. After decades of public disinterest, the Forest Service was perceived to be an enemy of the environment. The Sierra Club was not alone in demonstrating a lack of confidence in the government’s multiple-use agenda. Along with other special-interest groups, the Wilderness Society lobbied intensively for federal wilderness sanctions, which resulted in the Wilderness Act of 1964. Although mining interests were allowed to continue their activities for twenty years after its passage, this legislation was significant because it showed how powerful recreational users were becoming—a potency that increased throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. 883

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During this time, recreationists and environmental-action groups were disturbed by the increased timber sales in national forests as well as by the visual blight resulting from clear-cutting. The need for development of U.S. forest policy was recognized when the public achieved this greater ecological awareness. This served as an impetus for post-MUSYA legislation relating to forest planning, which included the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. Subsequent Legislation Congress was prompted to enact new forest legislation partly because of a sharp rise in timber prices in 1969. In 1972, Senator Hubert Humphrey, a longtime wilderness advocate, presented legislation for greater congressional control in national forest management. In 1974, the Forest Service issued the Environmental Program for the Future, a prospectus on national forest management for the next ten years. Information provided by this project enabled Congress to develop the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA), which was signed by President Gerald Ford on August 17, 1974. The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act authorized the preparation of national forest decennial management plans, which included an assessment of projected renewable resources supply and demand, a renewable resources inventory, an outline of Forest Service obligations and programs, and forest management policies. RPA also required the Forest Service to investigate alternatives for meeting U.S. forest resource requirements. Critics have claimed that RPA “was an answer to a bureaucrat’s prayer” because it generated much paperwork and enabled the Forest Service to develop “impossibly expensive” forest management plans. Congress responded by maintaining the agency’s budget at reasonable levels, thus restricting the realization of true multiple-use plans. Subsequent negotiations between Congress and the Forest Service, with intensive lobbying from environmental action groups and the timber industry, led to the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976, compromise legislation that amended RPA. Whereas RPA directed the secretary of agriculture to formulate national forest management plans, it did not indicate precisely what the plans were to include nor how the plans were to be prepared. The National Forest Management Act offered direction in these ar884

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eas, particularly regarding timber removal, but also proposing guidance on a number of environmental issues such as species diversity and marginal lands. For example, NFMA mandated stricter regulation of clear-cutting, however throughout the 1980’s, the Forest Service continued to rely on clear-cutting, which resulted in significant public opposition. Clear-cutting also fell into disfavor among many Forest Service foresters and by 1992, the agency adopted a policy of avoiding clear-cutting as a timber harvest method whenever possible. Michael S. DeVivo Sources for Further Study Cubbage, Frederic W., Jay O’Laughlin, and Charles S. Bullock. Forest Resource Policy. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993. Dana, Samuel T., and Sally K. Fairfax. Forest and Range Policy: Its Development in the United States. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. Ellefson, Paul V. Forest Resources Policy: Process, Participants, and Programs. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992. O’Toole, Randall. Reforming the Forest Service. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1988. Robbins, William G. American Forestry. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985. Steen, Harold K. The U.S. Forest Service: A History. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976. U.S. Department of Agriculture. Timber Resources for America’s Future. Forest Resource Report 14. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1958. See also: Taylor Grazing Act (1934); Pittman-Robertson Wildlife

Restoration Act (1937); Wilderness Act (1964); Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Endangered Species Act (1973); Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974); Eastern Wilderness Act (1975); National Forest Management Act (1976).

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Hazardous Substances Labeling Act Date: July 12, 1960 U.S. Statutes at Large: 74 Stat. 362 Public law: 86-613 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Environment and

Conservation; Food and Drugs; Health and Welfare

The act required hazardous and potentially dangerous substances packaged for home use to have warning labels. The Hazardous Substances Labeling Act authorized the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to require labeling on packaged household substances that were toxic, corrosive, flammable, irritating, strongly sensitizing, or pressure-generating. Such substances had not been covered by previous legislation, including the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and its amendments and the 1947 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. The HSLA was the first legislation in a decade-long push to regulate consumer protection that included, in 1966, major amendments to the act itself. These amendments drastically expanded the scope of the HSLA and changed its name to the Hazardous Substances Act. Earlier Legislation Throughout most of U.S. history, evaluating product safety had been the buyer’s responsibility, not the government’s. In a largely agrarian society, in which most household products were made either at home or locally, such an approach was, for the most part, workable. At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, as American society became more industrialized and urban, and as previously unknown chemical additives and preservatives were being developed and more widely used, the approach became problematic. In part because of public reaction to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) and scandals involving the food industry and dangerous drugs and chemicals, the federal government began, for the first time, to assume limited responsibility for protecting the public from dangerous foods, drugs, and other products. Major legisla886

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tion passed before World War II included the Biologics Control Act of 1902, the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, the Insecticide Act of 1910, and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 (FDCA). After World War II, a number of factors combined to cause legislators to question the adequacy of these laws. Perhaps most important were the countless new chemical compounds and atomic substances discovered by wartime researchers. Legislation current at the time could not begin to regulate these potentially dangerous materials. Further developments underscoring the need to evaluate existing product safety included a large increase in processed foods, several health scares involving chemicals and drugs, and an awareness, after years of experience with the legislation in force, of gaps and weaknesses in existing controls. Immediate action resulted in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1947 and a number of amendments to the FDCA. Passage and Provisions In 1950, Congress convened the House Select Committee to Investigate the Use of Chemicals in Foods and Cosmetics. Headed by the Democrat James J. Delaney of New York, the committee issued its findings and recommendations in 1952. These recommendations, combined with cancer scares of the 1950’s, contributed to public awareness of dangerous products and created an environment sympathetic to additional protective legislation. Introduced to Congress on March 5, 1959, the HSLA supplemented the Caustic Poison Act of 1927, which had required warning labels on only twelve hazardous substances. By 1960, however, an estimated three hundred thousand common household products existed that contained dangerous substances but did not require such labels. In the face of Senate committee estimates that five thousand children were dying yearly after ingesting unmarked household products, the bill received strong backing from many influential organizations, including the American Medical Association, the Manufacturing Chemists’ Association, and the Public Health Service. The Senate passed the bill on March 28, 1960, and the House passed an amended version on June 24, 1960. After approving the House amendments on June 24, 1960, the Senate forwarded the bill to President Eisenhower for his signature. 887

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The law, which was administered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the auspices of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, banned from interstate commerce all unlabeled household products it defined as hazardous. It further required that prominent warning labels on all such hazardous products include the following: the name of the manufacturer; the common name of each toxic component; the signal word “danger” on products defined as flammable, corrosive, or highly toxic, and the word “warning” or “caution” as signals on all other hazardous materials; a specific descriptive warning such as “flammable,” or “causes burns”; the word “poison” on all highly toxic substances; first-aid and storage and handling instructions; and the statement “keep out of reach of children.” Although the law became effective immediately, manufacturers had until February, 1961, to comply. After that date, products not adequately labeled could be declared “misbranded” and were liable to seizure. Penalties for manufacturers who failed to comply included up to $3,000 in fines and prison terms of up to one year. Reaction Critics pointed out that the law did not provide for a centralized agency to test products to determine if they were hazardous, nor were manufacturers required to submit products and their accompanying labels to the FDA before marketing them. This oversight, they warned, would allow unscrupulous or underinformed manufacturers to sell dangerous products to the unsuspecting public. Only if the FDA learned of the product after it was on the market and then proved it was dangerous enough to be covered by the HSLA, could it move to force the manufacturer to add proper labeling or withdraw the product. Furthermore, no matter how dangerous a product was, a substance covered by the HSLA could not be banned from the market if it was properly labeled. Despite these weaknesses, most consumer protection advocates applauded the HSLA as a step in the right direction and used it as a springboard for more comprehensive legislation. In his 1964 consumer interest message, President Lyndon B. Johnson claimed that consumer rights should include the right to safety, information, and choice, as well as the right to be heard. Johnson believed that these rights should be established by legislation and protected by the courts. He was not alone in these beliefs. 888

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In part because of precedents set by legislation such as the HSLA and in part because of consumer demand, lawmakers were becoming advocates for the consumer. Government officials dedicated to consumer protection included Estes Kefauver, who chaired the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly subcommittee; Arthur Flemming, secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, who championed consumer rights; and senators Philip Hart, Paul Douglas, Gaylord Nelson, and Warren Magnuson, and congressman Kenneth Roberts, all of whom sponsored some version of consumer-protection legislation, ranging from truth in lending to tire safety. President Johnson continued to champion consumer rights in a second message delivered on March 21, 1966. Several of his recommendations addressed the weaknesses of the HSLA. Johnson called for legislation that would broaden the HSLA to include all hazardous substances, ban household substances so dangerous that warning labels would not provide adequate safeguards, and forbid sale of hazardous toys and other dangerous items marketed for children. Johnson also endorsed legislation that would require warning labels on pressurized containers, decrease amounts of children’s aspirin in packages intended for home use, and mandate safety caps on certain patent drugs. Further Legislation Largely in response to the president’s message, Congress enacted the Child Protection Act, which amended the HSLA in a number of ways. The bill, which was signed into law in November, 1966, included many of the president’s recommendations. It amended the 1960 HSLA by allowing the FDA to ban from interstate commerce substances that it deemed so dangerous that, despite the presence of a warning label, public health and safety could not be protected. The amendments also expanded coverage of the law by requiring that unpackaged hazardous substances have warning labels attached in some way to the article in question and by redefining items covered to include toys or other articles intended for children. Upon passage, the new law (Public Law 89-756) became the Hazardous Substances Act (HSA); the word “labeling” was deleted to reflect the revised law’s broader scope. While the new law addressed many of the weaknesses exposed by critics of the HSLA, it excluded President Johnson’s recommenda889

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tions dealing with children’s aspirin, safety caps on drugs, and pressurized cans. The drug industry, strongly opposed to these requests, had asked Congress for time to deal voluntarily with the problems they posed. In November, 1966, the same month the Hazardous Substances Act became law, the FDA reached an agreement with drug-industry representatives on the children’s aspirin question. Beginning June 1, 1967, packages of children’s aspirin intended for home use could contain no more than thirty-six tablets, and each individual tablet was limited to 1.25 grains of aspirin. This agreement was not part of the amendments to the HSLA, but it was reached largely because of the precedent the 1960 law had set and the pressure it and similar laws had brought to bear on the drug industry. Because of the HSLA, the HSA, the aspirin-packaging agreement, and subsequent related legislation (including the 1973 requirement that all drugs and medications have childproof packaging), consumer prices rose in response to the more stringent packaging requirements. The legislation did, however, save lives. After 1960, for example, poisoning deaths among children under five years of age decreased dramatically. In 1960, the year the HSLA was passed, 2.2 children per 100,000 had died from poisoning in the United States. By 1988, that rate had dropped to 0.2 per 100,000. Banning dangerous toys such as those with small parts that could cause choking or suffocation also helped prevent injury and death among children. Consumer legislation passed in the 1960’s and 1970’s formed the bedrock of consumer protection in the United States. Beginning with the HSLA in 1960, this legislation included the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966, the Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970, the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972, and the Consumer Product Warranty Act of 1975. In 1972, as a result of the focus on consumer issues, Congress established the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Made up of five members appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, the commission was charged with protecting the public from potentially dangerous products. Such legislation, combined with strong public sentiment in its favor, helped keep consumerism a strong force in U.S. politics. Jane M. Gilliland 890

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Sources for Further Study Asch, Peter. Consumer Safety Regulation: Putting a Price on Life and Limb. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Congress and the Nation. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1965. Evans, Joel R., ed. Consumerism in the United States. New York: Praeger, 1980. Morganstern, Stanley. Legal Protection for the Consumer. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1978. Pertschuk, Michael. Revolt Against Regulation: The Rise and Pause of the Consumer Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. See also: Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906); Food, Drug, and Cos-

metic Act (1938); Food Additives Amendment (1958); KefauverHarris Amendment (1962); Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966); Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968); Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969); Child product safety laws (1970’s); Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971); Consumer Product Safety Act (1972); Food Security Act (1985).

Communications Act Amendments Date: September 13, 1960 U.S. Statutes at Large: 74 Stat. 889 Public law: 86-752 Categories: Communications and Media; Crimes and Criminal

Procedure

This law outlawed the practice of “payola,” or payments to disc jockeys from record manufacturers in exchange for broadcasting certain records. A key provision in the Communications Act Amendments of 1960 (S. 1898) rendered illegal a prevalent practice in the radio broadcasting industry. Few listeners were aware that some record compa891

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nies directly or indirectly paid disc jockeys for favoring certain records during radio broadcasts. This practice was called “payola.” The law against payola practices came about as a result of an extensive series of congressional hearings inspired by an inquiry into the rigging of television quiz shows. That inquiry shed some light on the prevalence of payola practices. In particular, during November, 1959, the Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight of the Congressional Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce learned from Max Hess, owner of a department store in Allentown, Pennsylvania, about several payments made in exchange for plugs about the store and its products in radio and television broadcasts. The congressional committee soon discovered that this form of bribery and other closely related forms were common, especially in the recorded music industry. Record producers regularly gave cash or products to disc jockeys in exchange for playing certain records on the air. Congressional Hearings Congressional hearings on payola began in 1960. Several disc jockeys who testified admitted having received money from various recording companies but claimed or implied that the payments were not in exchange for playing specific records during radio broadcasts. For example, David Maynard, a disc jockey for station WBZ in Boston, acknowledged having received more than $6,800 during the period from 1957 to 1959. He claimed that the payments were for his services in promoting records at “record hops” (dance events at which records were played) that were not broadcast. Similarly, Joseph Finan, formerly a disc jockey for station KYW in Cleveland, testified that he was regularly paid by record companies but that payments were not made in exchange for a commitment to broadcast specific records from these companies. Finan stressed that most radio stations received large numbers of records each week and that most disc jockeys found it impractical to listen to all these records. Such lack of attention could be a barrier to the sales potential of any specific record, since the amount of broadcast “exposure” on radio stations was believed to be a crucial determinant of sales success. Several companies therefore were willing to pay disc jockeys to listen to their records. The implication was that disc jockeys were asked only to give the records a fair hearing, not necessarily to broadcast them. 892

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Other testimony, by record distributors, suggested that payola payments were fairly common in the record industry. Common justifications for payments to disc jockeys emerged from these hearings. First, disc jockeys often spent their time outside work listening to records at the request of distributors. Second, disc jockeys were often perceived as experts in evaluating records and in identifying those with promising sales potential, an expertise that individuals in the record industry apparently considered to be valuable. Third, because disc jockeys were often popular personalities, they could be employed to successfully promote specific records at nonbroadcast events such as record hops. Fourth, interested parties in the record industry (manufacturers, distributors, and promoters of records) often believed that payola was an acceptable means of establishing and maintaining business goodwill. Also testifying were Earl W. Kintner, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and John C. Doerfer, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Kintner reiterated the FTC view that the nondisclosure of payola payments during broadcasts constituted a deceptive act under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, because radio audiences were wrongly led to believe that the records broadcast were chosen objectively for their merit or popularity. Further, he stated that the FTC had initiated or docketed several payola cases, and he offered insights into payola practices. First, although the principal form of payola payments was cash or check, sometimes they were “in kind” in the form of gifts such as jewelry, automobiles, or clothing. Second, payola was sometimes linked to “washout” practices in the recording industry; that is, payments made by disc jockeys to other artists who appeared during record hops or radio programs would be reimbursed by record companies. Third, record manufacturers in some cases arranged for disc jockeys to own an interest in their companies or the record labels they distributed. Several illustrations of this emerged during the testimony of Dick Clark, a disc jockey whom earlier testimonies had identified as seriously involved in payola practices. Payola also took the form of a record manufacturer or distributor assuming the mortgage payments for a disc jockey’s home. Finally, Kintner suggested that one source of payola was free records furnished to distributors by record manufacturers. The distributors in some cases sold the free records at list prices and used the proceeds to finance payola payments. Kintner 893

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also shed light on a related set of practices called “plugola,” which involved plugging products on television programs in return for surreptitious payments. This practice of “sneaked-in” advertising was similar to payola in that it involved deception in the broadcasting industry, as payments were made surreptitiously, without public knowledge. In later testimony, Doerfer mentioned that the FCC had conducted a survey of more than five thousand broadcast licensees. He indicated that legitimate record industry practices potentially related to payola fell into four categories: supplying free records to broadcast stations (more than half of the licensees surveyed acknowledged receiving such free records); promoting record hops; providing junkets in exchange for exposure of records during broadcasts, or providing transportation to performers on broadcast programs in exchange for product plugs; and donating prizes to be awarded to listeners in exchange for plugs for the donor. Doerfer noted that the law prevalent at that time failed to allow direct jurisdiction of the FCC over the employees of a broadcast station in regard to payola practices. To remedy this, the FCC recommended an amendment to the law that would impose a criminal penalty for payola. Other recommendations included developing new rules to prohibit broadcasts of rigged quiz and other contest programs, checking for evidence of payola before renewing or transferring broadcast licenses, and requiring licensees to institute procedures designed to prevent payola among their employees. Passage and Provisions Following the congressional hearings, the subcommittee chaired by Oren Harris presented a report recommending more legislative control to deter payola in the broadcasting field. The House version of the amended bill that followed held that the Communications Act of 1934 focused the responsibility for sponsorship identification exclusively on broadcasting licensees. Because the licensees frequently delegated the responsibilities for programming to employees, there was a need to extend the responsibility for sponsorship identification to broadcast station personnel. The bill suggested penalties for violations of the new rules. The FCC was authorized to suspend licenses for ten days, in addition to imposing a fine of one thousand dollars per day indefinitely for intentional violations. The suggested penalties were modified later. As 894

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signed into law on September 13, 1960, the Communications Act Amendments provided maximum penalties of ten thousand dollars and one year of imprisonment for violations regarding sponsorship identification. Impact on Broadcasting and Record Industries The congressional hearings on payola had a substantial impact on the broadcasting and record industries. Many broadcast stations were unaware of the nature and prevalence of payola practices. Several disc jockeys were fired for having accepted payola in the past. Some stations started exercising considerable control over the list of records that any disc jockey could choose for broadcast. A few stations even required that disc jockeys sign legal statements that they would desist from payola practices in the future. Disc jockeys who refused to sign these statements, among them Alan Freed, were fired. The newly amended law prohibiting payola had a salutary effect. One isolated payola case did emerge following an investigation in 1976. In 1985, there was a new round of payola charges, focusing on independent promoters employed by record manufacturers. The promoters were accused of payola practices with respect to several Top 40 stations. In an effort to settle this controversy, six major record firms suspended several independent promoters in 1986. In 1988, the Justice Department investigated payola allegations, with payments to disc jockeys taking the form of cocaine and cash. In 1989, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned a fifty-sevencount indictment against record promoters Joseph Isgro, Raymond Anderson, and Jeffrey Monka. Reacting to these indictments, FCC Chairman Alfred Sikes stated that if the combination of drugs and payola was shown to exist among broadcast licensees, an intolerable consequence could be the violation of public trust in broadcasting. He emphasized that the FCC would maintain a vigilant posture in this regard. These developments provoked House Telecommunications Subcommittee member Jack Fields to write to the FCC expressing fear about the resurgence of payola practices. In response, the FCC unanimously voted to warn broadcasters about provisions of the Communications Act that outlaw payola. In a statement, the FCC highlighted several aspects of current law. First, section 507 of the Communications Act prohibited any offer or acceptance of pay895

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ment in consideration for broadcasts without the knowledge of the broadcast licensee; violations could be punished by up to a year in jail and up to ten thousand dollars in fines. Second, section 317 of the Communications Act required the disclosure of payments received in exchange for any broadcast. Violators of this provision could face fines and revocation of broadcast licenses. Finally, section 317 required broadcast licensees to exercise diligence to prevent payola. Siva Balasubramanian Sources for Further Study Biagi, Shirley. Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1988. Grover, Ronald. “Here’s a Not-So-Golden Oldie: Payola.” Business Week 8, no. 15 (1989): 90. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Responsibilities of Broadcasting Licensees and Station Personnel. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960. _______. Songplugging and the Airwaves: A Functional Outline of the Popular Music Business. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960. Weinberg, Meyer. TV in America: The Morality of Hard Cash. New York: Ballantine Books, 1962. See also: Communications Act (1934).

Twenty-third Amendment Date: Ratified March 29, 1961; certified April 3, 1961 U.S. Statutes at Large: 74 Stat. 1057 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Constitutional Law; Voting

and Elections

Thus the Twenty-third Amendment became the first and only means by which residents of the District of Columbia could participate in national elections. 896

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The District of Columbia was created in 1800, encompassing land contributed by the states of Maryland and Virginia. Residents of the District, however, were effectively disfranchised, because the Constitution provided for the electoral process for the president and Congress to take place only in states. As early as 1883, an amendment was proposed in Congress to grant the District representation in the electoral college. More than a dozen proposals were introduced between 1915 and 1923 to do the same, but they did not pass. In 1959, Senator Estes Kefauver proposed an amendment to provide for the emergency functioning of Congress by granting state governors the right to fill mass vacancies. After the Senate Judiciary Committee approved this proposal, it went to the floor of the Senate, where Senator Spessard Holland of Florida proposed an amendment to abolish the poll tax and New York senator Kenneth B. Keating introduced an amendment to give the District of Columbia the right to select presidential electors as well as the right to representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. All three proposals were passed by the Senate and sent to the House. In the House, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, Emanuel Celler of New York, modified the Kefauver-Holland-Keating proposal because he believed that the three-part Senate amendment would not pass in either the Judiciary Committee or the full House of Representatives. Celler proposed a narrower substitute, H.J. Res. 757, which granted the District of Columbia three electoral votes, no more than the number of the least populous state, even though the population of the District was greater than that of thirteen states. While there was opposition to the amendment from some Southerners and some Republicans, the proposal passed each house by the necessary two-thirds vote on June 16, 1960. In order for the amendment to be ratified, three-fourths of the state legislatures had to approve the proposal. This was accomplished on March 29, 1961, when Kansas became the thirty-eighth state to ratify the amendment. The ratification process took only 286 days. Of the forty states to which the amendment had been submitted, only Arkansas rejected it. The only southern state that had ratified it was Tennessee. Once the amendment was ratified, Congress passed legislation establishing local voting laws defining age and residency requirements for the District. In 1964, residents of the District of Columbia voted in the presidential election for the first time. 897

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In 1978, Congress proposed a new constitutional amendment that would have given the District representation in both houses of Congress; however, only ten states ratified this amendment within its seven-year time limit. Thus the Twenty-third Amendment remains the only means by which District residents can participate in national elections. William V. Moore Sources for Further Study Palmer, Kris E. Constitutional Amendments 1789 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. Vile, John R. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. 3d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. _______. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. Vose, Clement E. “When District of Columbia Representation Collides with the Constitutional Amendment Institution.” Publius 9, no. 1 (Winter, 1979): 105-126. See also: Direct democracy laws (1913); Voting Rights Act of 1965

(1965); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975).

Antarctic Treaty Date: Ratified June 23, 1961 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The 1961 Antarctic Treaty is an international agreement in which signatory nations have agreed to set aside the Antarctic region for scientific and peaceful pursuits. Antarctica, the large body of land and ice that surrounds the South Pole, is among the earth’s most unique and wild places. The only continent with no indigenous human population, Antarctica exceeds 12 million square kilometers (5 million square miles) in size, 898

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almost 1.5 times larger than the continental United States. An ice layer averaging more than 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) in thickness covers approximately 95 percent of the land area. Although very few terrestrial species are found on the continent, the surrounding waters are rich in marine life and support large populations of marine mammals, birds, fish, and smaller creatures, some of which are found nowhere else on earth. Antarctica and its surrounding waters play a key but not yet fully understood role in the planet’s weather and climate cycles. In the early twentieth century seven nations asserted territorial claims on Antarctica, which persisted unresolved for decades. International scientific cooperation among twelve countries during the 1957 International Geophysical Year (IGY) led to the establishment of sixty research stations on the continent. As the IGY drew to a close, the scientific community argued that Antarctica should remain open for continuing scientific investigation and should be unfettered by national rivalries over territory. Treaty Provisions This led to the negotiation of the Antarctic Treaty, which entered into force in 1961. Article 1 of the Antarctic Treaty requires that Antarctica be used only for peaceful purposes, and prohibits weapons testing on the continent. Article 2 establishes the freedom of scientific investigation in the Antarctic. Article 3 provides for the free international exchange of personnel and scientific results. Article 4 states that the treaty does not recognize or establish territorial claims, and provides that no new claims shall be made while the treaty is in force. Article 5 prohibits nuclear explosions or the dispersal of radioactive waste in Antarctica. Article 6 defines the region covered as all land and ice shelves below sixty degrees south latitude, but excludes the high seas from coverage. Article 7 provides that observers from all signatory nations shall have free access for inspection of all stations and equipment in the Antarctic. Other provisions of the treaty require periodic meetings of the signatory nations to exchange information and discuss treaty objectives, including the preservation and conservation of living resources in the Antarctic. Initially, twelve nations signed and became consultative parties, agreeing to hold regular consultative meetings to discuss implementation of the treaty. Fifteen countries have since been granted 899

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consultative party status. Seventeen additional nations have acceded to the treaty but are not full parties and participate as observers only. The Antarctic Treaty was also the first major arms control agreement among the nuclear weapons states and provided a model for several subsequent agreements, including the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963). The treaty specifically prohibits nuclear test explosions in Antarctica. Consultative meetings have resulted in more than 150 implementation recommendations to national governments and have led to two additional treaties: the 1978 Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals and the 1982 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which addresses fishery management. An unusual feature of the latter is that the applicable territory is defined by ecosystem criteria rather than by political boundaries. The Antarctic Treaty, related agreements, and recommendations form what is known as the Antarctic Treaty System. Mineral Resources and Environmental Issues Mineral discoveries in the 1970’s led some nations and private companies to contemplate plans to exploit mineral resources. Environmental advocates and the scientific community, sharing a concern about potential impacts, led a long fight to prevent such activities. In 1991 the historic Antarctic Environmental Protocol was finally adopted, which banned mineral and oil exploration for a minimum of fifty years. Annexes to the protocol contain legally binding provisions regarding environmental assessments, protection of indigenous plants and animals, waste disposal, marine pollution, and designation of protected areas. The protocol entered into force in January, 1998, after ratification by all consultative parties. Environmental issues that still posed challenges to the protection of Antarctica in the late 1990’s included threats of overexploitation of Antarctic fisheries, impacts of expanding tourism, and the need for an agreement among the treaty parties regarding liability for environmental damages. In 1977 environmental organizations interested in Antarctica formed the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), which by 1998 included 230 member organizations from fifty countries. The ASOC has been accorded status as an expert observer to 900

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the Antarctic Treaty System and represents member group interests. Environmentalists who have endorsed the concept of Antarctica as a “world park” lobbied for and strongly support the environmental protocol. Phillip Greenberg Sources for Further Study Auburn, F. M. Antarctic Law and Politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Daniels, P. C. “The Antarctic Treaty.” Science and Public Affairs 26 (December, 1970): 11-15. Parsons, Sir Anthony. Antarctica: The Next Decade. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Shapley, Deborah. The Seventh Continent: Antarctica in a Resource Age. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1985. See also: Outer Space Treaty (1967); Seabed Treaty (1972); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975); Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979); Law of the Sea Treaty (1982).

Housing Act Date: June 30, 1961 U.S. Statutes at Large: 75 Stat. 149 Public law: 87-70 Categories: Health and Welfare; Housing

The Housing Act’s objective was to facilitate “a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family.” It and subsequent housing laws established public housing, slum clearance, urban renewal, and fair housing programs and policies. President John F. Kennedy inherited from his predecessors a legacy of federal involvement in the housing market. The Housing Act of 1934, part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, was the corner901

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stone of all federal housing programs because it established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and federal mortgage insurance for single-family and multifamily homes. Two additional laws—the Housing Acts of 1937 and 1949—created the basic framework of low-rent public housing, slum clearance, and urban renewal, and the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, known as the G.I. Bill of Rights, guaranteed home mortgage loans for veterans. The construction of homes for Americans able to afford private housing benefited from federal involvement. Pent-up demand generated during the Great Depression and World War II drove housing starts to record levels by the end of the 1940’s. Despite the Korean War (1950-1953), which produced temporary shortages of building materials, housing starts averaged 1.5 million per year during the 1950’s. In contrast, federal performance in the field of public housing and urban renewal was relatively feeble. Although the Housing Act of 1949 had proclaimed the ambitious goal “of a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family,” public housing and urban renewal efforts had fallen far short of that objective. When he took office in January, 1961, President Kennedy made a new housing law part of his legislative agenda. The result was the Housing Act, which attempted to enhance and supplement the private housing market. Among other provisions, the Housing Act reduced down payments for FHA mortgage loans and extended the loan period to thirty-five years, furnished federal aid for repair of dilapidated housing in urban areas, and increased funds for lowcost veterans mortgages. The most controversial section of the 1961 law was that creating a costly below-market-rate FHA insurance program for subsidized middle-income rental housing. Praising the 1961 law as “a giant step toward better cities and improved housing,” Kennedy appointed Robert C. Weaver, an impressively credentialed African American, to take charge of federal housing policy as head of the Housing and Home Finance Agency. The president also urged Congress to create a cabinet-level department to deal with the problems of America’s cities. He failed, however, to overcome Republican and conservative Democratic opposition to his urban affairs bill. Blocked by the conservative coalition, Kennedy, on November 20, 1962, issued Executive Order 11063 on Equal Opportunity in Housing, which prohibited racial 902

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discrimination in new housing built with federal assistance. The executive order, though limited in scope and widely ignored by builders and lenders, marked the beginnings of federal fair housing policy. It fulfilled a promise that Kennedy had made during the 1960 election campaign to wipe out discrimination in federal housing programs with “a stroke of the pen.” Richard N. Chapman Sources for Further Study Bratt, Rachel G., Chester Hartman, and Ann Meyerson, eds. Critical Perspectives on Housing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986. Mason, Joseph B. History of Housing in the U.S., 1930-1980. Mayer, Martin. The Builders: Houses, People, Neighborhoods, Governments, Money. New York: Norton, 1978. Weicher, John C. Housing: Federal Policies and Programs. Washington, D.C. : American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1980. Wolman, Harold. The Politics of Federal Housing. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1971. See also: Hundred Days legislation (1933); Housing Act (1961); Housing and Urban Development Act (1965); Fair Housing Act (1968).

Kefauver-Harris Amendment Date: October 10, 1962 U.S. Statutes at Large: 76 Stat. 788 Public law: 87-781 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Food and Drugs;

Health and Welfare

As a result of public outcry over the effects of the drug thalidomide, the Kefauver-Harris Amendment gave the Food and Drug Administration new powers to regulate drug testing, marketing, and advertising. 903

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The passage in 1962 of a major addition to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, the Kefauver-Harris Amendment, broadened the powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to license new drugs and to oversee their marketing and manufacture. The leading sponsor of the bill, Senator Estes Kefauver, had campaigned in Congress for several years for tighter regulations on American pharmaceutical producers. His efforts were given a high profile and a sense of urgency when, in 1962, controversy about the devastating effects on unborn children of the sedative thalidomide became public knowledge. Under great public pressure, Congress (which earlier had seemed ready to block drug reforms or to allow only mild new regulatory measures) passed and President John F. Kennedy signed the Kefauver bill, mandating stricter controls over new drugs by federal authorities. The Thalidomide Tragedy The development and worldwide marketing of the drug thalidomide was directed by a German company, Chemie Grünenthal. Grünenthal was one of several firms in Western Europe that flourished as a result of an “antibiotics boom” after World War II. Grünenthal had been in the pharmaceutical industry for a relatively short time. Like several other antibiotics manufacturers at the time, it did not begin as a chemical producer, as had the older drug manufacturers, but instead had its roots in brewing and distilling. Grünenthal tested thalidomide on humans in West Germany, offering it to physicians and collecting data from them about the drug’s effects. As a part of its communications with physicians participating in trials from 1955 through 1957, Grünenthal emphasized its belief that the drug was a nontoxic, barbiturate-free (thus nonaddictive) substance, suitable for widespread use as a sleepinducing medication, even by children and pregnant women. The results Grünenthal gathered from human trials were mixed, yet the company pursued what it regarded as an extremely lucrative market, with assurances that the drug was completely safe—an almost unprecedented claim for a sedative. Grünenthal began offering thalidomide as an over-the-counter drug (but one that it encouraged physicians to recommend) under a variety of trade names, such as Distaval in Australia. The parent company worked through several subsidiaries and li904

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censees (such as Distillers Company Biochemicals Limited of Britain, or DCBL), but it controlled almost every aspect of the drug’s distribution and advertising in dozens of countries. At least one company (Smith, Kline, and French Pharmaceuticals) that Grünenthal approached in the mid-1950’s as a possible licensee for the United States market conducted its own tests of thalidomide. Because its testing found thalidomide to be ineffective in inducing sleep in animals, Smith, Kline and French declined to join with Grünenthal. It was not until the late 1950’s that another American drug producer, Richardson-Merrell, decided to link with Grünenthal. It embarked on the process of gaining FDA approval for thalidomide. By 1959, thalidomide had become a great success in Europe for Grünenthal, with sales of tens of thousands of packets per month. By then, however, the company also was receiving a number of complaints from pharmacists and physicians about the drug’s side effects, which ranged from sleeplessness to dizziness and constipation. Such effects mirrored reports from the earlier clinical trials. After 1959, as it sought FDA approval for the drug, RichardsonMerrell followed the practice of other Grünenthal licensees such as DCBL of relying on Grünenthal’s data from its human trials in West Germany when it informed U.S. physicians of the potential effects of thalidomide. Human testing in the United States, through clinical trials on consenting patients, was a necessary step in securing FDA approval for any drug newly marketed in America. Richardson-Merrell considered thalidomide a potential goldmine, which it would market in the United States under the name Kevadon. The company sent samples of thalidomide to more than twelve hundred physicians for widespread experimental use in more than twenty thousand patients of all ages. Patients received the drug in containers that most often were unlabeled except for dosage instructions. No previous drug in the United States had ever been distributed to more than two hundred physicians, nor had any experimental drug been administered to more than five thousand patients. As it conducted human testing, Richardson-Merrell carried out its own animal tests of thalidomide. Although it did not test the drug on pregnant animals, the company implied to physicians participating in the trials that thalidomide could be prescribed safely to pregnant women and to children, in spite of the fact that 905

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Grünenthal had little evidence that the drug would not permeate the placenta. Comparatively few pregnant women in the United States took thalidomide as a part of the trials. Such was not the case, however, in other parts of the world. Physicians in the largest women’s hospital in Sydney, Australia, administered thalidomide as a sedative for pregnant women at about the same time as human trials in the United States began. What at first seemed a routine application for FDA approval for Richardson-Merrell to market Kevadon in the United States proved upon closer scrutiny by one FDA official to be anything but usual. Frances Kelsey, a pharmacologist and new FDA medical officer, came across the Kevadon application. As Kelsey reviewed Richardson-Merrell’s request, she raised questions about the company’s animal-testing procedures, its unsophisticated descriptions of thalidomide’s chemical properties, the absence of follow-up in the human trials, an emphasis on sales rather than testing in the literature distributed to physicians, and the company’s failure to disclose to the FDA certain side effects that Kelsey had seen under discussion in European medical journals. Deformed Infants and Drug Recalls In the summer of 1961, physicians and public health authorities in both West Germany and Australia sounded an alarm in the medical community about thalidomide’s potentially grave effects on early fetal development. Physicians had noted a significant jump in the number of babies born with a previously rare set of physical deformities, particularly the absence of normal limbs and their replacement by flipperlike appendages, a condition known as phocomelia. Widukind Lenz, a pediatrician who headed Hamburg’s Children’s Clinic, pushed for an investigation by public authorities into the possible link between the babies’ birth defects and their mothers’ taking of Contergan (the West German trade name for thalidomide) during pregnancy. Confronted with the results of that inquiry, Grünenthal agreed to remove thalidomide from West German markets in November, 1961, and from any other markets shortly afterward. DCBL recalled thalidomide within weeks, and Richardson-Merrell withdrew its own FDA application in March, 1962. The distribution of thalidomide had been so widespread, however, and its application (even in clinical trials in the United States) so poorly monitored by drug companies that no one— 906

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physicians, companies, or patients—could be certain to whom thalidomide had been given. Concern about thalidomide led to the quick passage of the Kefauver-Harris Amendment. Kefauver Curbs Drug Industry Senator Estes Kefauver, a respected congressional figure and leader within the Democratic Party since his vice-presidential bid in 1956, long had envisioned reform of the pharmaceutical industry in the United States. Kefauver had been instrumental in hearings on drug development and marketing as chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly. He had heard testimony since 1959 that convinced him of the need for curbs on advertising by drug companies, stricter federal regulations on drug pricing, and more authority for the FDA to test drugs prior to their approval. Kefauver faced potent opposition from senatorial colleagues known to have close ties to pharmaceutical manufacturers when he sponsored legislation to achieve his goals, through an amendment to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which had given the FDA many of its powers. Kefauver’s case was bolstered by the testimony of several convincing witnesses before his and other committees. These witnesses included Helen Taussig, a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital who had observed the devastating effects of thalidomide in Europe and noted that marketing of the drug was continuing in less developed countries. A Kefauver proposal for drug industry reform and regulation was before Congress when the scope of the worldwide thalidomide tragedy and the story of Kelsey’s timely intervention at the FDA were made public in national newspapers on July 15, 1962. The public furor was immediate. Americans believed themselves to have had a narrow escape and called for action by Congress to prevent disasters on the scale of the thalidomide tragedy in other countries. In West Germany, more than five thousand children had been born with thalidomide-induced deformities; Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and Japan each had several hundred victims. In other nations, reporting procedures were so flawed that the number of babies affected could not be determined. Thorny issues were raised in the United States by even the limited exposure of the public to thalidomide. When the few pregnant women in America who had taken the drug just prior to its effects being publicized 907

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tried to obtain abortions, they faced strict state regulations on abortions. In many other areas of the world where thalidomide had been distributed, abortions in cases of fetal deformity were easier to obtain. Kefauver suddenly found himself with substantial support in Congress for his proposals, which were much more stringent than the Kennedy administration had recommended only months earlier. Editorial praise for the Kefauver-Harris bill was overwhelming and Kefauver himself was pleased with the measure. The law was described as a great victory for consumers and a victory for the kind of administrative oversight of drug manufacturers that the FDA could provide. Provisions of the Amendment The new law stated that FDA approval for drugs new to the United States was to be given only after pharmaceutical manufacturers had demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of the substances. Companies could not rely on the trials of drugs by foreign associates or parent companies; trials had to be performed in the United States. Federal authorities were granted greater scope to inspect plants where drugs were made. The FDA gained increased ability to withdraw from the market drugs that it deemed to be an immediate hazard. The bill mandated not only extensive animal testing, but also well-monitored human clinical trials. The FDA application process was lengthened, drug companies had to supply physicians with much more extensive information about side effects of medication, and generic names had to be clearly visible on drug product labels. The Kefauver-Harris Amendment did not provide for tracking of the effects of drugs once FDA approval was gained. Plans for following drugs after initial approval were developed in Great Britain after the thalidomide tragedy there. Drug surveillance was recommended by the World Health Organization as well. The bid did not approach the comprehensive reforms in West Germany after its thalidomide experience. There, insurance laws provided for compensation from the state if state licensing or monitoring failed and patients were harmed by drugs. The comprehensive nature of other nations’ responses to the thalidomide tragedy was related to the much higher number of birth defects caused by the drug in those nations, where it was sold 908

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openly. In Great Britain, the episode changed the nation’s responses to drug testing and monitoring and altered longstanding British legal traditions. An investigative newspaper series on protracted litigation against DCBL was censored by British courts for interfering with the fair trial of the cases brought by thalidomide victims. In an important decision by the European Court of Human Rights, Great Britain’s contempt-of-court law (which seemed to forbid such “pretrial” publicity in spite of the fact that the litigation was at least ten years old) was ruled to be an unacceptable limitation on free speech. Elisabeth A. Cawthon Sources for Further Study European Court of Human Rights. The Sunday Times Case. Strasbourg, France: Greffe de la Cœur, Conseil de l’Europe, 1979. Gorman, Joseph Bruce. Estes Kefauver: A Political Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Knightley, Phillip. Suffer the Children: The Story of Thalidomide. New York: Viking Press, 1979. Mintz, Morton. The Therapeutic Nightmare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972. Roskies, Ethel. Abnormality and Normality: The Mothering of Thalidomide Children. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1965. See also: Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906); Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938); Food Additives Amendment (1958).

Equal Pay Act Date: June 10, 1963 U.S. Statutes at Large: 77 Stat. 56 Public law: 88-38 U.S. Code: 29 § 201 et seq. Categories: Labor and Employment; Women’s Issues 909

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The act barred the practice of paying women less than men for doing the same job under equal conditions and inaugurated a series of court decisions that increasingly guaranteed women equal pay in employment. The Equal Pay Act of 1963—the first federal legislation designed to promote equal employment opportunity for women—began its development as a national policy during the Kennedy administration. On December 14, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10980, establishing the President’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW). From 1961 to 1963, the PCSW investigated women’s position in U.S. society and drew up an agenda of reforms. Kennedy delegated responsibility for women’s affairs to Esther Peterson, a labor unionist who supported labor legislation and opposed the Equal Rights Amendment. Peterson’s appointment as director of the Women’s Bureau and assistant secretary of the Department of Labor in charge of women’s affairs made her the highest-ranking woman in the administration. At Peterson’s bidding, Kennedy appointed former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt as chair of the PCSW. The PCSW legitimized discussion of government policy for women, and at its first meeting it endorsed equal pay legislation. Securing passage of the Equal Pay Act (EPA), however, fell primarily to Peterson. Earlier Equal Pay Laws Previously, the Women’s Bureau had secured clauses requiring equal pay in some of the regulatory orders issued by the War Labor Boards during World Wars I and II, and in various National Recovery Administration codes during the New Deal in the 1930’s. The first federal legislation relating specifically to equal pay was introduced in 1945, in partial acknowledgment of women’s contribution to the war effort. In 1946, the Women’s Equal Pay Bill passed the Senate, but it failed in the House. In 1952, the Women’s Bureau brought together a coalition of women’s organizations, trade unions, employer associations, and civic groups to organize the National Committee for Equal Pay, which lobbied for a bill. By 1953, only fifteen states had passed equal pay laws, nine having done so after 1946. Although equal pay bills were introduced in every session of Congress, no hearing had been held since 1950. A study of 510 union contracts in 1956 showed that 195 (38 percent) had 910

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equal pay clauses. By 1962, twenty states had enacted equal pay laws, virtually all in the North. Provisions and Impact The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was the first legislative recognition of federal responsibility toward working women. It required employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) to pay equal wages for equal work, regardless of the sex of the worker. The bill was similar to equal pay proposals that had come before Congress to no avail since 1945. Peterson’s strategy for passing an equal pay bill involved gathering data proving a need for the bill and refuting arguments against it, then using that information to educate Congress. She had persuaded Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg to approve a bill prohibiting wage differentials because of sex, which was introduced early in 1962. An employer in commerce would be forbidden to “discriminate . . . on the basis of sex by paying wages to any employee at a rate less than the rate he pays to any employee of the opposite sex for work of comparable character on jobs the performance of which requires comparable skills.” There was one exception: unequal wages paid “pursuant to a seniority or merit increase system which does not discriminate on the basis of sex.” The bill raised the question of whether the principle of nondiscrimination would apply to “equal” work or to “comparable” work, and its coverage concerned many businesses and manufacturers engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, or which produced goods for commerce. The act was amended, however: “Comparable” was changed to “equal,” and “equal work” was defined as jobs of “equal skill, effort, and responsibility and . . . performed under similar working conditions.” In effect, the courts came to interpret the law to mean virtually identical work. For example, a female social worker who could show that she was paid less for the same work done by a male social worker could win a case under the Equal Pay Act. However, if she were paid less than a male legal aid lawyer whose job was rated equally with hers in their employer’s job evaluation plan, she would have no recourse. Most of the opposition to the bill came from business and manufacturing interests. They argued that federal legislation was unnecessary, since market forces, backed by state equal pay laws, were already correcting inequities in pay. Another, contradictory, ar911

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gument was that women had to be paid less because their higher turnover and absentee rates made them more costly to employ. By extension, opponents argued, an equal pay law might cause employers to cease hiring women altogether, or force employers to segregate jobs still further so that men and women would not be doing the same work. The legislative history of the EPA was a steady retreat from the Department of Labor positions on comparable work and coverage. The first major concession occurred in the House Committee on Labor, which limited coverage by exempting employers with fewer than twenty-five employees. On the House floor, equal work replaced the comparable work standard. Coverage was further limited to single plants or establishments, making it legal for a firm with several plants to pay a higher rate to a man in plant A than to a woman in plant B doing the same work. The Senate insisted that EPA be part of FLSA, accept the same coverage (exempting women in agriculture, hotels, restaurants, laundries, smaller retail establishments, and administrative and managerial positions), and combine enforcement in the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department. In the end, the House bill resembled the Senate’s version. Representative Charles Goodell (Republican, New York) had proposed making the Equal Pay Act an amendment to the FLSA. Representative Edith Green (Democrat, Oregon), who sat on the House Committee on Education and Labor, which held hearings on the bill, incorporated Goodell’s idea into her own bill. Senator Pat McNamara (Democrat, Michigan) presented a similar bill to the Senate. On May 23, 1963, the House adopted its own bill, and on May 28, the Senate went along. Kennedy signed the bill on June 10. Richard K. Caputo Sources for Further Study Bergmann, Barbara R. The Economic Emergence of Women. New York: Basic Books, 1985. Bernstein, Irving. Promises Kept: John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Caputo, Richard K. Welfare and Freedom American Style II: The Role of the Federal Government, 1941-1980. Vol. 2. Federal Responses to People in Need. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994. 912

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Evans, Sara M., and Barbara J. Nelson. Wage Justice: Comparable Worth and the Paradox of Technocratic Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Fogel, Walter. The Equal Pay Act: Implications for Comparable Worth (1984). Graham, Hugh Davis. The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Murphy, Thomas E. “Female Wage Discrimination: A Study of the Equal Pay Act, 1963-1970.” Cincinnati Law Review 39 (Fall, 1970): 615-649. United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and Labor. Legislative History of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (Amending Section Six of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as Amended). 88th Congress, 1st session. Washington, D.C.: General Printing Office. 1963. Zelman, Patricia G. Women, Work, and National Policy: The KennedyJohnson Years. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982. See also: Equal Rights Amendment (1923); Title VII of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978); Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992).

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Date: Senate ratified September 24, 1963 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was a major step in prohibiting the testing of nuclear weapons. The story of the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has its origins in the last year of World War II. On July 16, 1945, the United States exploded an atomic bomb, at Alamogordo, New Mexico. On August 6 913

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and 9, the United States dropped the only atomic bombs ever used in wartime—on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The end of the war came very shortly thereafter, but so did the realization that the United States had developed the most dreadful weapon ever devised by humans. Thus, from the end of World War II, people and governments began to seek a way to outlaw or control this newly developed power. Cold War Tensions Contributing greatly to the urgency of these efforts was the development of a so-called Cold War, an ideological struggle for power and influence that aligned the Soviet Union against its former wartime allies in the West, which were led by the United States. Although the Cold War was not a physical conflict, it was dangerous because of the possibility that the tension, hostility, suspicion, and fears that it generated could evolve into a shooting war. If that occurred and nuclear weapons were used, it would, some contended, destroy civilization. Despite strenuous efforts, particularly by the United States government and its allies, nothing in the area of nuclear arms control was achieved for several years. During that period, nuclear weapons were developed further, becoming more sophisticated and destructive. The need for controls became more and more urgent. Early Proposals The initial proposals for controlling nuclear energy came from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. On November 15, 1945, a Three Power Declaration called on the United Nations to establish a commission to deal with issues of atomic energy. The following month, foreign ministers from the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met in Moscow and endorsed the creation of a United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. On June 14, 1946, the United States delegation presented to the first meeting of the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission the Baruch Plan, named after its drafter, Bernard Baruch. The Baruch Plan called for the creation of an International Atomic Development Authority that would supervise all atomic development and see to it that the manufacture of all atomic weapons would cease and that 914

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all existing bombs would be disposed of. Soviet rejection of this proposal became clear a few days later, when Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko offered an alternative proposal that called for a voluntary commitment to destroy existing bombs and not produce any others. The Soviet proposal called for control to come after disarmament, while the U.S. delegation proposed that controls be established first. This fundamental difference would complicate all subsequent negotiations for disarmament and arms control. For several years thereafter, discussions continued in various United Nations committees and subcommittees without any agreement being recorded. A deadlock between the U.S. and Soviet positions constantly blocked progress. In September, 1949, the Soviet Union joined the United States as a nuclear power, by successfully exploding an atomic bomb. Following this, no significant new proposals in the area of nuclear arms control emerged for several years. Instead, each side reacted to the other’s advances in nuclear technology. In October, 1952, the British exploded their first bomb; in November of the same year, the United States successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb; and in August, 1953, the Soviet Union exploded its first hydrogen bomb. While work proceeded on the peaceful uses of atomic energy, the United States and the Soviet Union embarked on a nuclear arms race that continued virtually without interruption for years, even after the two superpowers had achieved a capacity for overkill. The pressure of world opinion to find some way to reduce the threat of nuclear conflict mounted. On March 1, 1954, a U.S. nuclear test conducted in Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean produced worldwide reaction, because of the extent of the radioactive fallout. Protests came from the Japanese government and others. On April 2, the prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, proposed a halt to further nuclear testing. In the U.N. General Assembly, Burma soon called for an end to all further testing. A year later, in the General Assembly, both India and the Soviet Union proposed a test ban without supervision or inspection, on the grounds that no significant testing could go on undetected anyway. The Western powers balked, arguing against any proposal that did not entail effective inspection and verification. No agreements were concluded. 915

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The Geneva Meetings The year 1955 brought some relaxation in the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, partly because of the socalled Spirit of Geneva that emerged from the Geneva Summit Conference in July of that year. This spirit did not produce any immediate progress in disarmament or arms control, but it did improve the atmosphere in which negotiations could proceed. In April, 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote to President Dwight D. Eisenhower that the Soviet Union had decided unilaterally to halt its testing, and he called on the Western powers to do the same. Testing continued by both sides until October, but the Soviets, the United States, and Great Britain agreed to begin a new round of meetings in Geneva on October 31, 1958, aimed at a nuclear test ban treaty. Testing would be suspended for the next year. This voluntary moratorium on testing went into effect on November 3, 1958, and lasted until broken by the Soviet Union in September, 1961. In the meantime, France had joined the nuclear circle by exploding a bomb on February 13, 1960. The Geneva meetings, properly called the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests, began on schedule at the end of October, 1958, and lasted for several years. In March, 1962, the work of the conference was transferred to a subcommittee of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Conference. At first, there was some real progress, and agreement on a number of articles of a draft treaty was achieved. In May, 1960, following the much-publicized U-2 incident, the proposed Paris Summit Conference collapsed, and East-West tensions mounted again. The Soviet position hardened: The Soviets insisted that a test ban be considered as part of a larger treaty for general and complete disarmament. That relations had deteriorated drastically was evidenced by the Soviet announcement on August 30, 1961, that the Soviets intended to resume nuclear testing, which they did two days later. The United States and Great Britain responded on September 3 with a proposal for a ban on all atmospheric testing without international supervision; when no positive reply came from the Soviet Union, the United States resumed underground tests. On October 30, the Soviet Union exploded the largest bomb ever tested. Immediately, there were new outcries in the United Nations demanding an end to nuclear testing. The General Assembly adopted two reso916

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lutions to this effect, including one submitted by the United States and Great Britain. Eighteen Nation Disarmament Conference The next major push for a test ban came from the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Conference in March, 1962. At that time, a joint resolution from the eight nonaligned nations in attendance proposed a test ban agreement to be supervised by an international committee of experts that could conduct on-site investigations of unusual seismic disturbances at the invitation of the nation on whose territory the event occurred. The Soviet Union accepted the resolution as a basis for further discussion, but the Western powers accepted it as only one of the bases of discussion. The resolution was, in the Western view, too vague as to whether the on-site inspections would be mandatory or optional. The issue of international inspection and verification continued to stand in the way of agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States. However, efforts to find a common ground did not cease. In August, the United States and Great Britain submitted jointly two proposals to the Test Ban Sub-Committee of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Conference. One provided for a comprehensive test ban with an unspecified quota of on-site inspections; the other provided for a partial test ban with underground testing not included and with no international control of verification required. The Soviet delegation, while informally expressing interest, officially rejected both proposals. The potential for continued negotiations lifted hopes for an eventual agreement, but such hopes were shattered by the Cuban Missile Crisis in October. Kennedy and Khrushchev The Cuban crisis marked another turning point in Soviet-U.S. relations. For the first time, the prospect of a nuclear confrontation became very real and frightening. As a result, talks between U.S. and Soviet negotiators resumed, and the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States, Premier Khrushchev and President John F. Kennedy, became increasingly involved in the formulation of policies and strategy. Kennedy was especially anxious to persuade the Soviets of the United States’ sincere desire to reach some kind of agreement that would both ease the tensions and curtail the dan917

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gers from radioactive contamination of the environment. Discussion through the winter months of 1962-1963 indicated clearly that the principal obstacle to agreement was the issue of on-site inspection of unexplained seismic disturbances. Parts of the Soviet Union experience numerous earthquakes each year, which produce seismic effects similar to those of low-yield underground nuclear tests. The United States, therefore, insisted that a comprehensive test ban treaty must permit at least eight to ten on-site inspections to verify the causes of such occurrences. The most that the Soviet Council of Ministers would agree to was three inspections a year. By the spring of 1963, it appeared that another impasse had been reached. President Kennedy was determined, however, not to miss any opportunity for agreement, and there were indications that Khrushchev was not averse to some kind of compromise. Consequently, on April 24, 1963, Kennedy and British prime minister Harold Macmillan issued a public appeal to Khrushchev to resume negotiations for a test ban treaty, to be conducted in Moscow by high-level representatives of the three powers. By June 9, Khrushchev had sent word to Washington, D.C., and London of his willingness to host the resumed talks in the Soviet capital. The following day, when Kennedy delivered the commencement address at American University, he not only announced the resumption of talks in Moscow but also declared that the United States had decided, as a sign of its sincere concern for peace, to bring to a halt its nuclear testing in the atmosphere. Such tests, he declared, would never be resumed unless other powers continued their own testing. Kennedy’s speech had the desired effect on Khrushchev. On July 2, in a speech delivered in East Berlin, Khrushchev responded by announcing that the Soviet Union was ready to agree to a limited or partial test ban treaty. On July 15, 1963, a U.S. delegation led by Averell Harriman, a British delegation led by Lord Laisham, and a Soviet delegation led by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko sat down in Moscow. In the next ten days, they hammered out the final treaty, which they initialed on July 25. On August 5, the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under Water was formally signed in Moscow by U.S. secretary of state Dean Rusk, British foreign secretary Alec Douglas-Home, and Gromyko. On September 24, by a vote of 80 to 19, it was ratified by the U.S. Senate. 918

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Provisions The treaty as finally signed was concise and clearly stated, consisting of only five articles. The first article contained the statement of intent—that the signatories agreed to cease all nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water, and also underground, in the event that such tests caused radioactive debris to fall outside the territory of the testing nation. The second article concerned the procedure for amending the treaty; the third invited the adherence of other nations; the fourth defined the treaty’s duration as unlimited; and the fifth pertained to the depositing of the treaty, in both English and Russian, with the governments concerned. Kennedy and Khrushchev each considered this treaty a significant achievement that could pave the way for other agreements and contribute to a reduction in international tension. It was hoped that the Western powers could persuade France to sign the treaty, while the Soviet Union urged the Chinese Communists to adhere as well. Such hopes were unfulfilled: The French were determined to develop their nuclear capacity independently, and the Chinese were soon to become the fifth nuclear power, by exploding an atomic bomb on October, 1964. However, more than a hundred other nations subsequently added their pledges to those of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. A major first step had been taken toward creating a more peaceful world, as the treaty demonstrated that confrontation need not be the prevailing characteristic of East-West relations. Subsequently, both China and France acceded to the treaty. Later Efforts Negotiations continued throughout the Cold War to end underground nuclear tests, which were permitted under the original treaty. A step in that direction was made on July 3, 1974, when Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed the Threshold Test Ban Treaty in Moscow. This treaty prohibited nuclear weapons tests that had a yield exceeding 150 kilotons. Serious efforts to prohibit all nuclear weapons tests had to await the end of the Cold War, in 1990. In December, 1994, the U.N. General Assembly resolved that adoption of a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty should be a priority objective. The issues that had to be resolved were whether to permit a limited number of under919

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ground tests, what methods of verification would be used, and whether the International Atomic Energy Agency should be the implementing organization. These issues were debated by the Conference on Disarmament, a thirty-eight-member disarmament body created by the United Nations. Tyler Deierhoi, updated by Joseph L. Nogee Sources for Further Study Bloomfield, Lincoln P., W. C. Clemens, Jr., and Franklyn Griffiths. Khrushchev and the Arms Race: Soviet Interests in Arms Control and Disarmament, 1954-1964. Boston: MIT Press, 1966. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival, Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years. New York: Random House, 1988. Carnesale, Albert, and Richard N. Haass, eds. Superpower Arms Control, Setting the Record Straight. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1987. Dean, Arthur H. Test Ban and Disarmament: The Path of Negotiations. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Epstein, William. The Last Chance: Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control. New York: Free Press, 1976. Graham, Thomas. Disarmament Sketches: Three Decades of Arms Control and International Law. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001. Lepper, Mary Milling. Foreign Policy Formulation. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill, 1971. Mandelbaum, Michael, ed. The Other Side of the Table: The Soviet Approach to Arms Control. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1990. Ranger, Robin. Arms and Politics 1958-1978: Arms Control in a Changing Political Context. Toronto, Canada: Gage, 1979. Seaborg, Glenn T. Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. See also: Outer Space Treaty (1967); Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968); SALT I Treaty (1972); SALT II Treaty (1979); INF Treaty (1987); START II Treaty (1993).

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Mental Retardation Facilities Construction Act

Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act Date: October 31, 1963 U.S. Statutes at Large: 77 Stat. 282 Public law: 88-164 Categories: Disability Issues; Health and Welfare

This legislation extended grants to aid for construction of facilities for research on and treatment of the mentally ill and retarded. Relatively little attention was given to the problems and needs of the mentally ill until the 1960’s. During that time, there were an estimated 5.4 million people in the United States who were mentally ill in varying degrees. Social Conditions of the Mentally Ill Developmentally disabled individuals for many years were not assured the basic rights afforded nondisabled people. Mentally ill people were relegated to the status of second-class citizens, and therefore few services were provided to aid in improving their daily lives. Children who were mentally ill were assigned to “special” schools because they were identified as being unable to learn. Their only hope was that they could be “trained,” rather than educated, to become functioning adults. They were also presumed to need teaching in morals and ethics, since this was not considered inherent in their natural abilities. Many special schools were located far from children’s homes, thus removing them from concerned family and friends. Usually, the mentally ill and retarded adults were involuntarily placed in institutions, where they could be hidden from public view. These institutions on the whole had very poor conditions. Most were overcrowded, unsanitary, and extremely unpleasant. There was little in the way of education or training for the residents. School programs designed to teach turned into rote exercises administered by drill masters; the training programs, which focused on farm and garden activities and laundry and kitchen skills, became unpaid institutional maintenance assignments in921

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stead of programs teaching skills to help patients integrate into the community. Many residents of these institutions spent their days on a variety of drugs intended to calm them and keep them from causing trouble. Some states spent as little as two dollars per person per day on the care of the mentally ill; the average was only four dollars. Charges of mistreatment and neglect of the residents of these institutions became more and more frequent. Part of the problem was that the specific causes of mental illness and retardation were unknown. Often, the mentally ill were neglected because their illnesses were misunderstood and clouded by superstitions and irrational fears. Developmentally disabled people were stereotyped as unstable, temperamental, and morally deficient. Further, because mental illness was an inherent defect, it was thought that medicine probably would not help its victims. The only “cure” was to perform surgery. Research and Recognition of the Mentally Ill During the 1950’s and 1960’s, the plight of the mentally ill in the United States began to get more recognition. As more scientific research was completed in the area of mental illness, people began to realize that mental disease was often the result of chemical imbalances rather than of uncontrollable factors. As more of the causes of mental illness began to come to light, the population of needy people received more attention. It was recognized that, in many ways, these people simply needed more help than others throughout their entire lives. Their needs included special education, health maintenance, legal protection, daily care, and sometimes community services. It was also recognized that their needs, to a great extent, depended on age and degree of mental illness. Individual states began to recognize the needs of this special population. For example, New York passed the first state-county mental health law, which provided state financing to county programs. The law’s goal was to spend as much money outside state hospitals as inside. The federal government also began to get involved. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Mental Health Study Act of 1955, through which the federal government provided $0.25 million, to be matched in private funds, to invest in a national study. The study was set up to investigate the human and economic problems associated with mental illness, to assess current methods for dealing with 922

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them, and to recommend improvements and new programs. The final report was given to then-President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy recognized that the problems of mentally ill Americans were a “most urgent need in the area of health improvement.” He appointed a special panel to study the mentally retarded. The panel found, among other things, that only a small percentage of the mentally ill people in the United States were so severely afflicted that they required constant care or supervision. This finding and specific recommendations formed the primary basis of Kennedy’s message to Congress, which in turn formed the basis of the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act. On February 5, 1963, Kennedy gave a speech to Congress on mental illness and mental retardation. In it, he called for a “bold new approach” to the problem by federal, state, and local governments. In the message, he requested that federal funds be transmitted to states so that they could detect, treat, and rehabilitate those identified as mentally ill. He said he wanted to get away from simply institutionalizing those who were mentally ill, a practice that was a burden on both the government and the individual families involved. Kennedy recommended that a matching-grant program be instituted to allow states to build community health centers. He requested federal grants for maternity and child health services to combat the problem of mental retardation. He supported special education programs for retarded children and increased teacher training, including improved vocational training. Finally, Kennedy supported federally financed research into the causes and prevention of mental illnesses. After the message of February 5, hearings were held in the Senate on two separate bills directly relating to the recommendations proposed by Kennedy. Such a law had tremendous support in both the House and the Senate. Supporters believed that the concept of community health centers could lead to the treatment of many mental patients in their homes and decrease the populations of state mental hospitals. A bill was passed, and on October 31, 1963, Kennedy signed it into law. A few weeks later, he was assassinated, and Lyndon Johnson became president. Provisions The Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act authorized construction of research cen923

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ters. Between 1965 and 1967, $27 million was expended to establish twelve centers. A Mental Retardation Branch and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development were developed to administer the research centers’ policies. University Affiliated Facilities, or UAFs, were built as part of the act. Between 1965 and 1971, $38.5 million was allocated to eighteen UAF sites. A Community Facilities Construction Program was also part of the act. This helped individual states build specially designed facilities for the diagnosis, treatment, education, training, and personal care of mentally ill people. The program received $90.2 million between 1965 and 1970. The centers were small, centrally located buildings that provided a wide range of psychiatric programs. These included inpatient and outpatient facilities, day and night care services, emergency services, precare, aftercare follow up, rehabilitation clinics, halfway houses, and foster care. There were facilities for training and research and for the evaluation of programs. These programs were located within communities, thereby increasing the availability of psychiatric services to community residents. In this way, mental illness could be detected and treated before hospitalization was necessary. If hospitalization became necessary, separation from family and community would be minimized. Impact The Johnson administration continued to fund research programs associated with the new law. Money was allocated for many research grants to qualified personnel to investigate the causes and treatments of mental illness. Other groups also became involved in seeking appropriate solutions to the issues surrounding mental health. For example, the American Medical Association held a series of conferences to seek ways to speed up the attack on mental illness. Mental health institutions changed as well. They began to include private institutions with cottages containing social rooms, classrooms, extensive playgrounds, and arts and crafts centers built to meet current recommended standards in the field. The goal was to encourage students to participate actively in the community. The goal no longer was to hide these people from society, but 924

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rather to prepare those with mental illness to lead productive lives with little help from others, if possible. On a broader level, the law changed the way Americans thought about and treated mentally ill people. Until this attention was given, most Americans were uninformed about the problems the mentally ill faced. The act helped remove a large number of mentally ill persons from institutions and helped to integrate them into society, where they were no longer a financial burden on their families or the nation. Nancy E. Marion Sources for Further Study Birenbaum, Arnold, and Herbert J. Cohen. Community Services for the Mentally Retarded. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1985. Crissey, Marie S., and Marvin Rosen. Institutions for the Mentally Retarded. Austin, Tex.: PRO-ED, 1986. Evans, Daryl P. The Lives of Mentally Retarded People. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983. Krishef, Curtis H. An Introduction to Mental Retardation. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1983. Ludlow, Barbara L., Ann P. Turnbull, and Ruth Luckasson. Transitions to Adult Life for People with Mental Retardation: Principles and Practices. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 1988. Stroud, Marion, and Evelyn Sutton. Expanding Options for Older Adults with Developmental Disabilities. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 1988. Summers, J. A. The Right to Grow Up. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 1986. See also: Architectural Barriers Act (1968); Family Planning Ser-

vices and Population Research Act (1970); Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974); Age Discrimination Act (1975); McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987); Americans with Disabilities Act (1990).

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Clean Air Act Also known as: National Environmental Policy Act Date: December 17, 1963 U.S. Statutes at Large: 77 Stat. 392 Public law: 88-206 U.S. Code: 42 § 7401 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

The Clean Air Act was the first law to grant the federal government enforcement authority to regulate air pollution. The 1963 Clean Air Act (CAA) and its 1965 amendments attempted to improve air quality in the United States through federal support of air pollution research and aid to the states in establishing air pollution control agencies. Provisions The 1970 CAA provided for national air quality standards by specifying maximum permissible ambient air concentrations for pollutants deemed harmful to human health and the environment. The deadline for the enforcement of the primary standards was set for 1982, but the deadline was extended; significant enforcement had yet to occur in the mid-1990’s. The CAA also provided that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), established in 1970, was to set pollution standards for new plants and that states were to create state implementation plans for enforcement. The country was divided into 247 Air Quality Control Regions for enforcement purposes. Finally, the CAA mandated pollution standards for automobiles and trucks with specified deadlines for achievement; Congress, however, has repeatedly waived the deadlines. Impact and Subsequent Legislation The 1970 CAA and the 1977 amendments were successful in reducing several ambient air pollutants, most notably carbon monoxide, lead, and suspended particulates. However, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and sulfur dioxide would remain at high levels in many areas. The 1990 amendments to the CAA are so far-ranging as to constitute a rewriting of the act. The 1990 amendments display an 926

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awareness of developing problems such as acid deposition and stratospheric ozone (Titles IV and VI). Title I provided a new enforcement scheme with specific categories for cities (Los Angeles is in a category by itself) for reaching pollution standards for ozone, carbon monoxide, and particulates, with a twenty-year deadline for compliance. Title II provided specific standards for mobile source pollution with deadlines for compliance. Title III established emission limits for hazardous or toxic air pollutants with numerous deadlines for enforcement. An innovative aspect of Title IV was the establishment of a process of emissions trading whereby the most polluting utilities could acquire the excess pollution capacity of less polluting utilities. The goal was to reduce progressively the total amount of sulfur dioxide emitted in the United States through the operation of market forces. The CAA has been explicitly directed toward improving human health. Implicit in the CAA is a concern for the environment and the impact of air pollution on natural resources. Efforts to deal with acid deposition, for example, display a concern with the impact of sulfur dioxide on water and forest products. The implementation of automobile emission standards has had a positive effect on oil consumption. The overall thrust of the Clean Air Act has been “technologyforcing”; in other words, industries are being forced to develop improved technologies to meet mandated standards. The results of this approach have been mixed in urban areas. Some improvement in air quality has certainly occurred. Nonetheless, costs are escalating for full achievement of the various standards of the CAA. As of 1995 only Vermont, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Hawaii were in full compliance with federal standards. John M. Theilmann Sources for Further Study Davies, J. Clarence, III. The Politics of Pollution. New York: Pegasus, 1970. Godish, Thad. Air Quality. 2d ed. Chelsea, Mich.: Lewis, 1991. Havighurst, Clark C. Air Pollution Control. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1969. Hurley, William D. Environmental Legislation. Springfield, Ill.: Thomas Books, 1971. 927

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Miller, E. Willard, and Ruby M. Miller. Environmental Hazards: Air Pollution. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1989. Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn. Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. See also: Air Pollution Control Act (1955); National Environmen-

tal Policy Act (1970); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977); Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990).

Twenty-fourth Amendment Date: Ratified January 23, 1964; certified February 4, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 76 Stat. 1259 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Consti-

tutional Law; Voting and Elections

Although the incidence of poll taxes was declining by the time of its enactment, the Twenty-fourth Amendment banned such taxes in primaries and federal elections and gave Congress power to enforce the amendment through legislation. The Twenty-fourth Amendment, which eliminated the poll tax as a qualification for voting in federal elections, reads as follows: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Poll taxes, taxes that had to be paid before a person could vote, had been used to disenfranchise African Americans in the South since the mid-1800’s. In Breedlove v. Suttles (1937), the Supreme 928

Executive Order 11141

Court upheld a Georgia poll tax despite a challenge based on the equal protection and privileges and immunities clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Through the enactment of the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964, Congress prohibited the use of poll taxes in federal elections. Virginia passed a statute that sought to circumvent the new amendment by offering voters the choice of either paying the tax or filing a certificate of residence six months before the election; however, the Court struck down this law in Harman v. Forssenius (1965) because it penalized those who chose to exercise a right already guaranteed by the amendment. In Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966), the Court outlawed the poll tax as a voting requirement in state and local elections. Justice Hugo L. Black, the only remaining member of the Court that had rendered the 1937 decision, dissented. Robert P. Ellis Source for Further Study Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Black Codes of 1865 (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954); Disfranchisement laws (1890); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965).

Executive Order 11141 Date: Issued February 12, 1964 Categories: Aging Issues; Civil Rights and Liberties

This executive order established the first formal federal prohibition on certain kinds of age discrimination and set the political and legal stage for further governmental support for equal opportunity for aging persons. 929

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In March, 1963, as part of the struggle to achieve civil rights legislation, President John F. Kennedy issued a memorandum reaffirming the federal government’s policy of hiring and promoting employees on the basis of merit alone and assuring that older people are not discriminated against on the basis of age. After President Kennedy’s death, President Lyndon B. Johnson continued the civil rights struggle. On February 12, 1964, just three months after becoming president, Johnson issued Executive Order 11141, Declaring a Public Policy Against Discrimination on the Basis of Age. The order prohibited age discrimination in employment by federal contractors and subcontractors. Firms performing contract work for the United States government were prohibited from discriminating in hiring, promoting, or discharging employees on the basis of age unless pursuant to a statutory requirement or retirement plan. Although limited in scope to federal contractors (at that time there was no statutory authority for a more extensive order) President Johnson’s order was significant because it ensured that the moral and political power of the government would work against age discrimination. There was an immense amount of federal contracting, and many older people were promoted, hired, or retained in their jobs longer than they would have been without the order. Many remained employed on projects other than those contracted by the federal government. The order and its associated regulations also provided Congress with a model for dealing with age discrimination when civil rights acts were later passed. Age discrimination prohibitions were later applied to all public and private employment that the federal government had the power to reach. Robert Jacobs Sources for Further Study Gregory, Raymond F. Age Discrimination in the American Workplace: Old at a Young Age. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Hushbeck, Judith C. Old and Obsolete: Age Discrimination and the American Worker, 1860-1920. New York: Garland, 1989. Kalet, Joseph E. Age Discrimination in Employment Law. Washington, D.C.: BNA Books, 1990. 930

U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty

O’Meara, Daniel P. Protecting the Growing Number of Older Workers: The Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Center for Human Resources, 1989. Segrave, Kerry. Age Discrimination by Employers. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Press, 2002. See also: Older Americans Act (1965); Age Discrimination in Em-

ployment Act (1967); Age Discrimination Act (1975); Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990).

U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty Date: Signed June 1, 1964; Senate ratified March 16, 1967 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

Developed to allow for foreign consulates in the Soviet Union and the United States, this treaty was one of the first to work toward normalization of diplomatic relations between the two superpowers. The 1967 U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty represents one of the first major diplomatic efforts between the two superpowers in the Cold War era. Provisions The treaty is divided into thirty separate articles that stipulate the conditions of establishing a foreign mission and the permissible functions each mission is allowed to undertake in the host nation. Of particular note are Articles 4 and 29, specifying that all diplomatic officers and staff are provided diplomatic immunity and that designated consuls are permitted to travel freely within their respective geographic regions. The treaty also specifies that the head consulate official be charged with protecting the rights and interests, including any commercial interests, of foreign nationals residing in the host country. The treaty goes on to state that the consulate is also designated to offer necessary diplomatic services, such as passport management, child custody issues and documentation of marriages, births, and deaths of its citizens. 931

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Ratification The original treaty was signed on June 1, 1964, by the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Foy D. Kohler, and the Soviet minister of foreign affairs, Andrei Gromyko. The agreement was presented to the U.S. Senate for ratification in 1967. This three-year delay in presenting the treaty to the American legislative body was motivated partly by the 1964 presidential election and partly by the desire for most incumbents to illustrate an anti-Soviet stance in an attempt to gain popular support from the electorate. The treaty was introduced to the Senate in the spring of 1967, despite continued opposition from conservative Republicans. Several senators viewed the treaty as too moderate toward the Soviet Union and hoped for an agreement that would take a firm stance against the Soviet Union and the continuing expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence. Several senators attempted to amend the treaty with a provision condemning the Soviets for their position and disapproving foreign involvement in Vietnam. Federal Bureau of Investigation head J. Edgar Hoover also opposed the treaty, believing that it would present new opportunities for Soviet espionage in the United States. Additional issues regarding diplomatic immunity for all Soviet consular officials and their diplomatic staffs were considered problematic for the U.S. Department of Justice. Eventually, opposition to the treaty was withdrawn at the request of the Johnson administration, which actively lobbied for the treaty’s ratification. On March 16, 1967, the Soviet-U.S. Consular Treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on a vote of 66 to 28, three more than the two-thirds majority required for ratification. The Soviet Union, in turn, ratified the agreement the following year on April 26, 1968. The treaty has since been modified to include consulates of the Russian Federation and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Robert Mitchell Sources for Further Study Stebbins, Richard P. The United States in World Affairs, 1967. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. United States Treaties and Other International Agreements. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968. 932

Civil Rights Act of 1964 See also: Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963); Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968); Seabed Treaty (1972); SALT I Treaty (1972); SALT II Treaty (1979); Law of the Sea Treaty (1982); INF Treaty (1987); START II Treaty (1993); U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002).

Civil Rights Act of 1964 Date: July 2, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 78 Stat. 241 Public law: 88-352 U.S. Code: 42 § 1971 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed the exclusion of African Americans from hotels, theaters, restaurants, and other public accommodations; barred federal funds to any activity that involved racial discrimination; warranted the Justice Department to initiate school desegregation suits; and forbade racial discrimination in employment and union membership policies. The road to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was long and tortuous. Its passage was largely in response to protests and demonstrations initiated by civil rights activists and African American leaders. In the 1950’s, African Americans had mobilized a social movement, which spanned several decades, to eradicate the social injustices they faced throughout the United States. The mass effort to end legal segregation in public accommodations in the South had been sparked by Rosa Parks, an African American woman who, in 1955, had disobeyed the law by refusing to relinquish her seat to a white man on a crowded bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The subsequent Montgomery bus boycott heralded a new Civil Rights movement, which ended the Jim Crow laws that had forbidden African Americans from using the same public accommodations— transportation, hotels, restaurants, schools, and other public facilities—along with whites. Leaders such as Malcolm X—who encouraged African Americans to challenge unfair practices and laws by 933

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teaching black nationalism and racial pride—also played a major role in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Proposal and Passage The legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy on June 19, 1963, following a confrontation with Alabama governor George Wallace over the admission of black students to the University of Alabama. Kennedy declared that the bill should be passed “not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquility—but above all because it is right.” Kennedy would not see the bill’s passage; he was assassinated on November 22 of that year. The act was forcefully advocated by his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson. Passage was facilitated both by pressure from civil rights advocates and by segregationist responses to those pressures. Events that helped rouse the public to support civil rights included the March on Washington in August, 1963, the bombing of black churches, the “battle of Oxford” that ensued when James Meredith sought to enter the University of Mississippi, the mistreatment of freedom marchers and freedom riders, and the murder in Mississippi of three civil rights workers. Passage of the act came only after senators voted to end a filibuster on June 19, 1964, exactly one year after Kennedy had proposed the bill. Republican senator Everett Dirksen, the Senate minority leader, shared credit for passage of the act. Traditionally an opponent of civil rights legislation, Dirksen implored Republicans to support the bill as “an idea whose time has come.” Provisions Unlike the first two civil rights acts of the modern period—those of 1957 and 1960, which were limited principally to ensuring the right to vote—the 1964 act attacked segregation on a broad front. The final bill was stronger than Kennedy’s proposal to Congress. Its main provisions are found in the first seven of the act’s ten titles. Title I, concerned with voting, was intended to create more effective enforcement of the right to vote in federal elections without consideration of color or race. It expedites the procedure for settling voting rights suits and mandates that uniform standards be applied to all individuals seeking to register and vote. To diminish 934

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the discriminatory use of literacy and comprehension tests, it equates completion of the sixth grade with literacy. Finally, it empowers the U.S. attorney general to bring suit if there is a “pattern or practice” of voting discrimination. Title II forbids discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation. Privately owned or operated facilities, such as country clubs, are exempted from the Title II prohibition. Title III deals with public facilities such as municipally owned or state-owned or operated hospitals, libraries, and parks. It authorizes the attorney general to bring a civil suit to order desegregation of any such facility whenever the attorney general receives a written complaint of discrimination from an individual or individuals unable to take the necessary legal actions themselves. Title IV’s concern is public education. Its main provision authorizes the U.S. Office of Education to organize training institutes to prepare school personnel to deal with desegregation; to assist school districts, states, and other political subdivisions in implementing school desegregation plans; and to offer financial assistance to school boards to facilitate their hiring of specialists for inservice training. Title V reauthorized the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, for four years and gave it the additional responsibilities of serving as a national clearinghouse for civil rights information and investigating allegations of fraud in voting. Under Title VI, any federal body that offers contracts, grants, or loans is required to bar discrimination on the grounds of race, color, or national origin from programs it supports financially. Title VII established a federal right to equal opportunity in employment and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to assist in implementing this right. Under Title VII, employers, employment agencies, and labor unions are required to treat all persons without regard to their color, race, religion, sex, or national origin. Equality or nondiscrimination was mandated in all phases of employment, including hiring, firing, promotion, job assignments, and apprenticeship and training. Gender was inserted into the bill at the insistence of Senator James Eastland, a Democrat from Mississippi, in the vain hope that its inclusion would weaken support for the entire bill. 935

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The final three sections of the act confer no rights. They provide structures within which federal authorities are to operate while mitigating possible conflicts with communities under pressure to comply with other provisions of the act. Assessment The act, at the time revolutionary in its coverage, would nevertheless encounter obstacles to its effectiveness. These limitations included the large caseloads of enforcement agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, delaying timely investigations; the great length of time required to litigate cases; difficulty in retaining attorneys; the high costs of litigation; problems in identifying coworkers willing to be witnesses; and reverse discrimination lawsuits arguing that employer policies to ensure the civil rights of protected classes violate the civil rights of others. Many of these conditions would hinder the effectiveness of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, its provisions, and enforcement agencies. Thus, although the 1964 Civil Rights Act has remained the foundation of a series of civil rights acts passed since the 1960’s, the goal of equal opportunity for all citizens of the United States has continued to be a worthwhile and necessary pursuit. Doris F. Pierce and K. Sue Jewell (“Proposal and Passage,” “Assessment”), Ashton Wesley Welch (“Provisions”) Sources for Further Study Abraham, Henry J. Freedom and the Court: Civil Rights and Liberties in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. Belknap, Michael R., ed. Civil Rights Act of 1964. Vol. 13 in Civil Rights, the White House, and the Justice Department, 1945-1968: Securing the Enactment of Civil Rights Legislation. New York: Garland, 1991. Bell, Derrick. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York: Basic Books, 1992. _______. Race, Racism, and American Law. 2d ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1977. Bullock, Charles S., III, and Charles M. Lamb. Implementation of Civil Rights Policy. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks-Cole, 1984. 936

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Celada, Raymond J. Desegregation of Public Schools: Legislative History of Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, Legislative Reference Service, 1967. Graham, Hugh Davis. The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Grofman, Bernard, ed. Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000. Harvey, James C. Black Civil Rights During the Johnson Administration. Jackson: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1973. Loevy, Robert D. To End All Segregation: The Politics of the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1990. _______, ed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Passage of the Law That Ended Racial Segregation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. Watson, Denton L. Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell, Jr.’s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Legislation. New York: Morrow, 1990. Whalen, Charles, and Barbara Whalen. The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Washington, D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1985. See also: Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Twentyfourth Amendment (1964); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965); Civil Rights Act of 1968 (1968); Fair Housing Act (1968); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975); Civil Rights Act of 1991 (1991).

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Date: July 2, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 78 Stat. 241 Public law: 88-352 U.S. Code: 42 § 3045 937

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Labor and Employment;

Women’s Issues

This legislation was one of the first attempts to address the issue of employment discrimination based on gender. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, or sex in all terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. Originally, the Civil Rights Act was geared toward easing racial discrimination. The inclusion of the sex prohibition was tacked onto the bill by a Southern member of Congress to make a joke of the bill, divide its supporters, and ultimately lead to its defeat. The enactment of this major piece of antidiscrimination legislation is interesting because no organized women’s group spoke on its behalf, although Democrat Martha W. Griffiths and other women legislators solidly supported its passage. It was decided that the best strategy to ensure the success of the initiative was to downplay the gender issue, and the strategy worked. Title VII included an important exception: Discrimination based on sex, religion, or national origin (but not race) is permissible if it is a “bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business enterprise.” To enforce the act’s provisions, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was established. From the beginning, EEOC officials refused to take the sex provision seriously. It was the EEOC’s nonenforcement of the act that served as the catalyst for the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. Susan Grover Source for Further Study U.S. National Labor Relations Board. Titles VII and XI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978. See also: Equal Rights Amendment (1923); Equal Pay Act (1963);

Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978); Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992).

938

Water Resources Research Act

Water Resources Research Act Date: July 17, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 78 Stat. 329 Public law: 88-379 U.S. Code: 42 § 1961 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

Responding to a number of studies on the uncertainty about the future availability of unpolluted water, Congress authorized federal support of water research in every state. The Water Resources Research Act was one of several laws passed by Congress in the mid-1960’s in response to growing concern about the availability of adequate water supplies for the nation. The passage of these laws marked the culmination of a legislative process that had begun with several reports: a report in 1961 by the Senate Select Subcommittee on Water Resources, chaired by Senator Robert S. Kerr, which had addressed the need for a comprehensive program on water research; a report by the National Academy of Sciences (NSA) that identified priority areas for future research; and a report issued in February, 1963, by the Task Group on Coordinated Water Resources Research of the Federal Council for Science and Technology, which suggested that research centers be set up at universities in different parts of the country to conduct research and provide training for scientists and engineers. This latter report drew an obvious parallel between centers for waterresources research and the agricultural experiment stations that had been set up under the Hatch Act at the nation’s land-grant institutions, which were generally credited with having increased agricultural productivity. Provisions As passed by Congress and signed into law, the Water Resources Research Act provided for the establishment of water-resource research centers in each of the states and in Puerto Rico. A federal Office of Water Resources Research was to guide and support the state centers. The act further provided three different types of funding: an annual allocation that would eventually reach $100,000 to each state’s water-resources research center; additional funds to 939

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match state contributions for water-resources research, rising from $1 million to $5 million over a five-year period; and additional funds to support water-resources research by other universities, private foundations, companies, individuals, or other government agencies. To implement the act, Congress authorized allocations of $75,000 to each of fourteen state water-resources research centers in October, 1964. The centers were to be located at the landgrant institutions in each state. In May, 1965, Congress provided funding of $52,000 to the remaining thirty-seven centers. By the end of the 1965 federal fiscal year on September 30, centers in all fifty states and Puerto Rico had received funds. That first year, funds were used to support 316 different water-research projects. Related Legislation The Water Resources Research Act was only one of several laws enacted at about that time to protect the nation’s water supply. In July, 1965, Congress passed the Water Resources Planning Act, which established a Water Resources Council, consisting of the heads of a number of major federal agencies, to conduct a continuing study of the nation’s water needs. The act also gave the president authority to appoint commissions as needed to oversee the development of certain river basins. The National Water Commission Act of 1968 provided $5 million for a National Water Commission, which was allowed a five-year period to conduct a comprehensive examination of water-resource problems throughout the nation and to recommend appropriate management and conservation practices. The report of this commission led to the passage of the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. In 1971, Congress created the Office of Saline Water and, in 1974, combined it with the Office of Water Resources Research to form the Office of Water Research and Technology. The new office was assigned additional responsibilities under the Water Research and Conversion Act of 1977 and the Water Research and Development Act of 1978. In 1982, the functions of the Office of Water Research and Technology, including oversight of the water-resource research centers, were transferred to the U.S. Geological Survey. Impact Compared to other developments in water-resources research at the time, the Water Resources Research Act of 1964 could be 940

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viewed as an attempt to add impetus to an ongoing process and to broaden participation in water-resources research to every state in the nation. The Universities Council on Water Resources was established at about the same time and was expected to play a significant role in the initiation of the water-resources research centers. A new scientific journal, Water Resources Research, was inaugurated in the same year by the American Geophysical Union. The United Nations Economic Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared an International Hydrological Decade, which began in 1965. Water resources gained in stature as an academic discipline as a result of the Water Resource Research Act and other initiatives. The vast program of water-resources research envisioned in the reports leading up to the passage of the Water Resources Research Act was never fully realized. Subsequent sessions of Congress failed to authorize the required funds, and the nation’s attention was diverted to the rising cost of energy and the Vietnam conflict. The water-resources research centers nevertheless continued to operate and to provide leadership for university efforts to develop research and educational programs. Donald R. Franceschetti Sources for Further Study Black, Peter E. Conservation of Water and Related Land Resources. 2d ed. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1987. Hirshleifer, Jack, James C. DeHaven, and Jerome W. Milliman. Water Supply: Economics, Technology, and Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Hufschmidt, Maynard M. “The Harvard Program: A Summing Up.” In Water Research, edited by Allen V. Kneese and Stephen C. Smith. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966. Kneese, Allen V. “Introduction: New Directions in Water Resources Research.” In Water Research, edited by Allen V. Kneese and Stephen C. Smith. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966. Renne, Roland R. “A Co-operative Water Research Program and the Nation’s Future.” In Water Research, edited by Allen V. Kneese and Stephen C. Smith. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966. 941

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Schwartz, A. Truman, et al. Chemistry in Context: Applying Chemistry to Society. Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown, 1994. Smith, Stephen C., and Emery N. Castle. Economics and Public Policy in Water Resource Development. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1994. See also: Water Pollution Control Act (1948); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956); Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972); Safe Drinking Water Act (1974).

Tonkin Gulf Resolution Also known as: Southeast Asia Resolution Date: August 10, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 78 Stat. 384 Public law: 88-408 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations; Military

and National Security

This resolution authorized the president “to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom,” effectively launching U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. During the 1950’s, the United States became increasingly committed to the independence and survival of the Republic of South Vietnam, which was engaged in a struggle with the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). When Lyndon B. Johnson became president of the United States, the instability of the government of South Vietnam led to an increasing role for American advisers. By 1964, administration officials believed that only direct American involvement in the war, including air strikes and possibly ground troops, could save South Vietnam. 942

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Noting that the Constitution gave Congress the authority to declare war, the Johnson administration sought congressional support for military action against North Vietnam that would not entail the political controversy that a formal declaration of war might entail. Johnson wanted a congressional resolution similar to that given President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1955 authorizing him to use force if necessary during a crisis with Communist China. Aides to Johnson crafted the resolution in the spring of 1964, but congressional support for the resolution was noticeably lacking. The opportunity Johnson sought came on the night of August 3, 1964, in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. North Vietnamese torpedo boats unsuccessfully attacked the USS Maddox in what the United States considered international waters. Although doubts appeared almost immediately regarding a possible second attack the following night, Johnson used the two alleged attacks to rally support for the resolution, which both houses of Congress approved on August 10. Citing the alleged attacks of American vessels in international waters, the resolution authorized the president “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” The resolution further authorized the president “to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.” The president could decide when the peace of the region allowed him to terminate the resolution. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution served as the de facto declaration of war by the United States against North Vietnam in that it gave congressional permission for the president to use military force against it. With the resolution, Johnson had solid bipartisan congressional support for waging war in Southeast Asia. Senator Wayne Morse (Democrat of Oregon), one of only two senators who voted against the resolution, introduced repealing legislation but was soundly defeated on March 1, 1966. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution remained in force until Johnson repudiated it on August 18, 1967. Congress repealed the resolution on December 31, 1970, although American ground troops remained in Vietnam until 1973. Barry M. Stentiford 943

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Sources for Further Study Galloway, John. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970. Moise, Edwin E. Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Siff, Ezra Y., and Anthony B. Herbert. Why the Senate Slept: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Beginning of America’s Vietnam War. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999. See also: Formosa Resolution (1955); War Powers Resolution

(1973).

Economic Opportunity Act Date: August 20, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 78 Stat. 508 Public law: 88-452 U.S. Code: 42 § 2701 Categories: Education; Health and Welfare; Labor and Employ-

ment

This law, part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, was designed to combat poverty in the United States by mobilizing human and financial resources. The Economic Opportunity Act (EOA) of 1964 was the result of various proposals and ideas that dated back to the social welfare initiatives of the New Deal in the 1930’s. The EOA established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in the executive office of the president, which launched several programs in the War on Poverty, a domestic “war” that was necessary, according to President Lyndon B. Johnson, “so as to eliminate the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty.” Focus on Opportunity The various programs had, as their feature value, a focus on opportunity. The EOA’s declaration of purpose, in part, is to provide “the opportunity for education and training, the opportunity to work, 944

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and the opportunity to live in decency and dignity.” The EOA provided the funds for vocational training, created the Job Corps to train youths in conservation camps and urban centers and the Head Start program to help preschoolers from low-income families, encouraged Community Action Programs, extended loans to small-business owners willing to hire the unemployed, gave grants to farmers, set up a work-study program for college students, and established Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), the domestic counterpart of the popular Peace Corps created by President John F. Kennedy. New Deal Roots President Johnson’s dream of the Great Society and his attitude that government should use its powers for great accomplishments came, in part, from his political mentor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Like Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation and Kennedy’s New Frontier plans and policies, Johnson’s vision included the hope of socially and politically engineering a better country for everyone. The concept and rationale of the many programs created by the EOA were quite controversial during their formative stages. Eventually, as with almost any piece of legislation, what finally got enacted reflected compromises and trade-offs among the various lobbies, administrative agencies, and congressional power blocs. Possibly the most controversial program established by the EOA was the Job Corps. It was one of the first government efforts directed at the problem of hard-core, unemployable youth. The EOA was supported by New Deal Democrats (including Senator Hubert Humphrey, who later became Johnson’s vice president) who envisioned a transformation of poverty-stricken individuals into well-adjusted, motivated, and upwardly mobile people. The act was opposed primarily by conservative Republicans who were against government intervention in domestic affairs, especially where it concerned social welfare legislation, and were concerned about the high costs of running these programs. Johnson was successful in passing the EOA partly because of the favorable pro-Democrat atmosphere created after Kennedy’s assassination. Programs The programs enacted by the EOA under the auspices of the OEO ranged from well-known programs such as Head Start and the Job 945

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Corps to less well known projects such as Senior Opportunities and Services, Legal Services, and Community Economic Development. All had the goal of helping the poor break the cycle of poverty and advance to live a better, fuller, more productive life. Some of the programs, such as Head Start, are generally regarded as successful; others remain controversial or have vanished. However, between 1964 and 1969, poverty rates decreased from 19 percent to 12 percent of the population. The OEO was abolished by the Head Start, Economic Opportunity, and Community Partnership Act of 1975, which created the Community Services Administration. The EOA was repealed except for titles VIII and X by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981. Joseph E. Bauer Sources for Further Study Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1971. United States. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson. 10 vols. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1965-1970. See also: Hundred Days legislation (1933); Social Security Act (1935); Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935); Housing and Urban Development Act (1965); Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965); Older Americans Act (1965); Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967); Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967); Fair Housing Act (1968).

Interest Equalization Tax Act Date: September 2, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 78 Stat. 843 Public law: 88-563 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Tariffs and Taxation 946

Interest Equalization Tax Act

The act closed U.S. capital markets to foreign borrowing in response to a balance of payments deficit. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Interest Equalization Tax into law on September 2, 1964. This legislation was a response to a continuous deficit in the Official Reserve Transactions Account of the United States’ balance of payments and to a drain on U.S. gold reserves. The Official Reserve Transactions Account was a summary account used at the time to measure the overall impact of the balance of payments, a measure of the balance between money sent abroad and money brought into the country. The Interest Equalization Tax was retroactive to July 19, 1963, the date that President John F. Kennedy requested that Congress act on this matter. The tax was the first in a series of actions undertaken by the U.S. government to restrict the outflow of funds from the United States. Temporary Provision, Long-Term Trade Problem The Senate Finance Committee approved the Interest Equalization Tax by a vote of 11 to 5, with Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (Republican of Illinois) voting with the Democratic majority. Senator Jacob Javits (Republican of New York) had unsuccessfully attempted to substitute a voluntary capital issues committee for the legislation. Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon characterized the legislation as temporary, noting that it would expire at the end of the following year, 1965. The administration, moreover, would not seek to extend the law, according to Dillon. The Interest Equalization Tax was characterized as temporary for two reasons. First, policymakers did not appreciate the fundamental, significant structural changes that were taking place in the world economy. The large trade surplus (exports exceeding imports) that the United States enjoyed in the first decade after World War II was fading rapidly. The balance of payments problem, they perceived, was a transitory problem needing only a temporary solution. Second, one of the strongest arguments against the enactment of the tax was offered by Wall Street analysts. The long-term cost of restricting capital markets, they argued, would be too great. The New York financial markets, considered to be the center of world finance after supplanting the London markets following World War II, would be in danger of losing their heavily international flavor if the tax stayed in place too long. 947

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During the 1950-1959 period, the deficit in the Official Reserve Transactions Account of the United States’ balance of payments averaged $0.9 billion. That average figure increased to $1.7 billion in the 1958-1968 period. By 1962, when the balance of payments deficit problem was beginning to be recognized and acknowledged, the United States still held the largest supply of monetary gold in the world, even though its gold reserves had been shrinking since 1959 at a compound annual rate of 6.5 percent per year. United States monetary gold reserves stood at $16.4 billion, of which only $4.6 billion were “free reserves,” the rest required by law to be held to back Federal Reserve notes and reserve deposits from members of the Federal Reserve System. In 1962, U.S. gold reserves stood at their lowest level since 1939. Economic Context To put the situation into perspective, the United States accumulated balance of payments deficits totaling approximately $24 billion between 1950 and 1961. Gold conversions (redemptions of dollars in exchange for gold) had accounted for almost one-third of this total and represented a loss of about one-third of the United States’ monetary gold reserves. In June of 1967, foreign U.S. dollar claims against the United States stood at 226 percent of the total U.S. holdings of gold reserves. The deficits in the Official Reserve Transactions Account of the U.S. balance of payments were met by an outflow of U.S. monetary gold reserves and an increase in shortterm liabilities to foreign holders of U.S. dollars. These short-term liabilities could be used to finance a run on the dollar whenever confidence in the dollar waned. Under the Bretton Woods system, the international monetary system that operated from 1944 to 1972, the U.S. dollar and the British pound sterling were “reserve currencies.” Nations subscribing to the system could keep their monetary reserves, which were used in international financial transactions, in the form of a reserve currency or gold. After the 1967 devaluation of the British pound sterling, the U.S. dollar became the world’s premier reserve currency and vehicle for international transactions. The value of the U.S. dollar under the Bretton Woods system was defined in terms of gold. One ounce of monetary gold was equal to $35.00. All other nations defined the par value of their currency in terms of the U.S. dollar, and thus in terms of gold. The Bretton 948

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Woods system required that the United States run a continuous balance of payments deficit in order to supply the world with liquidity and monetary reserves. At some point, however, the U.S. balance of payments deficit became a problem. The U.S. government looked to the U.S. capital markets, used to finance the international activities of foreign corporations and the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinational corporations, as one place to begin to stem the outflow of dollars. That outflow caused or at least allowed the balance of payments deficit. Dollars sent abroad eventually found their way back as a claim on the U.S. gold stock. Government officials feared that those claims would be realized. The U.S. stock of gold was insufficient to meet all the claims. The Interest Equalization Tax was enacted to increase the interest rate in U.S. capital markets. At the time, interest rates in most foreign capital markets were at least 1 percent higher than the prevailing rate on comparable securities in the U.S. capital markets. Higher interest rates would increase the cost of borrowing and make U.S. capital markets less attractive. Foreigners would therefore borrow less and take fewer dollars out of the United States. The Interest Equalization Tax effectively closed U.S. capital markets to foreign corporations and the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinational corporations. The legislation exempted international agencies, such as the World Bank and the Interamerican Development Bank, and foreign governments in developing nations. Foreign stocks sold in the United States would be taxed at a rate of 15 percent of their purchase price, while foreign bonds would be taxed at a rate ranging from 2.75 percent of their purchase price, for securities maturing in less than three years, up to 15 percent of their purchase price, for securities maturing in twenty-eight and a half years or more. Impact On its very first test, the Interest Equalization Tax worked perfectly. In September of 1963, the city of Oslo, Norway, offered $15 million in bonds paying an interest rate of 5.6 percent. The Interest Equalization Tax effectively reduced this rate to 4.9 percent for U.S. citizens. This relatively low rate proved unattractive to U.S. investors, and most of these securities were purchased by Europeans. Because the Interest Equalization Tax was expected to be retroactive if passed, uncertainty over whether the tax would be passed 949

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created an atmosphere that acted to dramatically reduce the volume of foreign securities issued in U.S. capital markets. The total volume of foreign issues sold in U.S. markets in all of 1962 was $1.2 billion. In the first half of 1963, before the Interest Equalization Tax was proposed, the total volume was $1.3 billion. In the second half of 1963, the volume of foreign securities sold in U.S. capital markets fell to $315 million. The U.S. dollar had a unique role and responsibility under the Bretton Woods system. To the extent that other nations were willing to hold additional U.S. dollars as monetary reserves and that their citizens were willing to hold additional U.S. dollar assets as investments, the United States could continue to run a deficit in its balance of payments with impunity and collect a seigniorage, consuming and investing more than it produced. This consumption and investment would be financed by the creation of additional U.S. dollars. At some point, the U.S. balance of payments deficits became chronic and persistent. These deficits developed very rapidly after the de facto convertibility of the major European currencies was achieved. When the deficits began, policymakers and those concerned with the international monetary system were still focusing on the U.S. dollar shortage, the idea that there was a longterm, fundamental imbalance in the international payments system in favor of the United States. Very suddenly and to the surprise of many, a dollar glut developed. The U.S. balance of payments deficits developed because the outflow of U.S. dollars was too large for the rest of the world to absorb as additional monetary reserves and increased dollar asset holdings. These deficits were caused by several factors: rapid growth in the United States’ overseas military expenditures, an increased flow of private overseas investment, extensive use of the U.S. capital markets to raise financing for projects undertaken by foreign subsidiaries of domestic international corporations as well as by foreign corporations, and an increase in official foreign aid grants. Surpluses on the balance of trade account, a measure of the balance between imports and exports of goods, did not grow fast enough to offset the increased overseas military expenditures, the flow of private investment, the use of the U.S. capital markets as a source of international finance, and official foreign aid grants. A critical factor in the development of the U.S. balance of payments deficit was the failure of the U.S. trade surplus to grow. Had 950

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this surplus grown more rapidly than it did, the deficit problem might never have developed. The growth of the trade surplus would have absorbed some of the redundant dollars that were finding their way back to the United States to claim U.S. monetary gold reserves. Solving the dollar shortage would have required larger and larger U.S. balance of payments deficits. A permanent dollar shortage would have meant, had it actually existed, much slower economic growth, a worse allocation of world resources, and a slowing of the trend toward international economic and financial integration in the post-World War II period. A dollar glut, on the other hand, would prove to be much more dangerous. It would ultimately result in the collapse of the fixed exchange rate system established by the Bretton Woods Agreement, under which currencies were traded for each other at known, fixed rates of exchange. A dollar glut would make the fixed price of dollars appear too high, and other countries would become unwilling to hold them, trading them for gold. The ability of foreign holders of U.S. dollars to convert their dollar holdings into gold was a central element of the Bretton Woods system and essential to support the claim that the U.S. dollar was “as good as gold.” The U.S. Treasury’s ability to convert U.S. dollars into gold became more and more problematic as the nation’s balance of payments deficits grew. Monetary crises followed, confidence in the dollar waned, and eventually the Bretton Woods system collapsed. The U.S. dollar played a unique role in the Bretton Woods system. When the U.S. dollar became overvalued relative to other major currencies of the world, the United States government could not unilaterally devalue the U.S. dollar. Because the dollar acted as a reserve currency, it could not be devalued. This was the price the United States paid for the special role of the U.S. dollar and the seigniorage collected when nations would freely accept dollars. The Interest Equalization Tax did not solve the U.S. balance of payments problem, essentially because the world economy was undergoing significant structural changes and the balance of payments problem faced by the United States was misperceived as temporary in nature. By the late 1950’s, the huge trade surpluses that the United States had enjoyed in the early postwar period were shrinking, both absolutely and relatively. The Interest Equalization Tax, moreover, only focused on one element of the problem, the use of U.S. capital markets as a source of international finance. 951

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The closing of the U.S. capital markets to foreign borrowers was not a full solution to the United States’ balance of payments problem. The Interest Equalization Tax was the first in a series of unsuccessful actions undertaken by the U.S. government to attempt to solve problems that would ultimately result in the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. Daniel C. Falkowski Sources for Further Study Kindleberger, Charles P. International Economics. 4th ed. Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1968. Scammell, W. M. International Monetary Policy: Bretton Woods and After. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975. Solomon, Robert. The International Monetary System 1945-1981. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. U.S. Congress. Vol. 78 of Statutes at Large. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1964. Yeager, Leland B. International Monetary Relations: Theory, History, and Policy. 2d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. See also: Bretton Woods Agreement (1944); General Agreement

on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947).

National Arts and Cultural Development Act Date: September 3, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 78 Stat. 905 Categories: Education; Health and Welfare; Speech and Expression

In 1965, Congress elected to support the arts by creating the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, which subsumed the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. These endowments could provide grants to states, nonprofit organizations, and individuals to promote the arts and humanities. 952

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In 1948, leaders of twelve national arts organizations formed the Committee on Government and Art to secure federal support for the arts. They investigated the feasibility of federal support, but legislative commitment was minimal. In 1955, Senator Nelson A. Rockefeller, a proponent of the cause, supported an arts bill that passed in the Senate but failed in the House. In 1960, Rockefeller helped form the New York State Council on the Arts, and the same year Michigan created a state arts agency. In 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy supported an advisory committee on art. He endorsed the development of an advisory council in 1962 and appointed August Heckscher consultant on the arts. Heckscher wrote a report outlining why and how the federal government should support the arts and helped increase governmental and popular support for an arts bill. In 1963, Kennedy issued an executive order creating an arts commission. Kennedy considered Michael Straight for chair of the commission, but scandal erupted when Straight admitted to knowledge of Soviet espionage activities. Kennedy selected Richard Goodwin as commission chair but was assassinated before he could announce his selection. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Roger Stevens adviser for the bill in 1964. The National Arts and Cultural Development Act of 1964 passed in the House and Senate and was approved by Johnson, who named Stevens chair. The bill established a national council of the arts and a national arts foundation, and in 1965, the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities was created. Although the 1964 act authorized annual appropriations of ten million dollars and a five-million-dollar treasury fund, authorized monies did not match the appropriation and the foundation received only half that amount. Impact Although the establishment of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities sent a positive message—that the federal government would support the arts—many other issues still had to be addressed. For example, the financial backing provisions were weak and the foundation’s responsibilities were greater than it could conceivably accomplish. In addition, the act allowed money to be allotted to a variety of causes including the visual arts, theater, music, architecture, museums, and art education, but the foundation had the difficult task of deciding who would get how much. In 953

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1969, President Richard M. Nixon asked Congress to double the appropriations of the endowments, which helped the foundation meet more of its goals. Throughout the 1970’s, the foundation’s monetary allotment increased. Improvements in the system, such as establishing a panel to judge requests for money and setting specific goals and criteria, helped the foundation function. Since the 1960’s, questions have arisen regarding whether the federal government should support the arts, how anyone can determine the value of one kind of art over another, and whether welfare or the public interest should take priority. Andrea Donovan Source for Further Study Larson, Gary O. The Reluctant Patron: The United States Government and the Arts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. See also: Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938); Public Broadcasting Act (1967).

Wilderness Act Date: September 3, 1964 U.S. Statutes at Large: 78 Stat. 890 Public law: 88-577 U.S. Code: 16 § 1131 et seq. Categories: Agriculture; Environment and Conservation; Land

Management; Natural Resources

This act created the National Wilderness Preservation System, designated its first components, provided management direction for designated areas, and established a procedure by which new areas might be added to the system over time. The first national parks, national forests, national monuments, and national wildlife refuges were all established prior to World 954

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War I. Each set aside substantial areas of federal lands for conservation purposes, but those purposes differed from one system to the next. National forests emphasized scientific management of forest resources for economic purposes, national parks the preservation of scenic wonders and accommodation of tourists, national monuments the preservation of archaeological resources, and wildlife refuges the preservation of habitat for game species. Each of these systems contained significant de facto wilderness, but it was poorly protected and, after World War II, increasingly threatened by development. Fearing for the wilderness that remained, conservation organizations, led by Howard Zahniser of the Wilderness Society, proposed legislation to establish a National Wilderness Preservation System. The proposed system was to be composed of undeveloped federal lands already managed for conservation purposes. Areas designated as wilderness were to remain within their respective conservation systems, but managing agencies would be required to preserve the wilderness character of areas under their jurisdiction. Efforts to pass a wilderness bill spanned a decade, but the essential elements of this proposal were enacted in 1964. The Wilderness Act defined wilderness as “an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.” The act prohibited roads, structures, commercial activity, and motor use, but significant exceptions were made to benefit mining, grazing, and reclamation users of national forest lands. The Wilderness Act designated wilderness areas comprising 3.7 million hectares, selecting from lands that had already been classified as wilderness by the Forest Service, and it directed the secretary of agriculture and secretary of the interior to survey undeveloped areas of the national forest, national park, and national wildlife refuge systems and to propose additional wilderness areas for designation by Congress. Wilderness designation remains controversial, especially on national forest lands where protecting the wilderness resource means forgoing the economic benefits of timber harvest and most mining and water resource development. In the national parks these economic uses are generally prohibited regardless of wilderness status. Despite the controversy, the amount of wilderness protected 955

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continues to grow. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 added Bureau of Land Management lands to those that are to be considered for wilderness designation. In 1980 the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act more than doubled the area designated as wilderness, adding 22 million hectares. In 1997 the total area of federal land protected as wilderness exceeded 40 million hectares, and an additional 8 to 20 million hectares were expected to be added eventually. Craig W. Allin Sources for Further Study Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Frome, Michael. Battle for the Wilderness. New York: Praeger, 1974. Hendee, John C., et al. Wilderness Management. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Forest Service, 1978. Irland, Lloyd C. Wilderness Economics and Policy. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1979. Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 3d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986. See also: National Park Service Organic Act (1916); Multiple UseSustained Yield Act (1960); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Eastern Wilderness Act (1975); National Forest Management Act (1976); Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980).

Older Americans Act Date: July 14, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 219 Public law: 89-73 U.S. Code: 42 § 3001 Categories: Aging Issues; Health and Welfare 956

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This law provided funds for services for needy persons aged sixty and over, supplementing Social Security benefits. Prior to 1965, research indicated that many senior citizens in the United States lacked adequate retirement income, health care, affordable housing, gainful employment, and meaningful civil, cultural, and recreational opportunities. In addition, as persons grew older, they were spending increasing percentages of their fixed incomes on medical care. Accordingly, as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs, Congress passed the Older Americans Act on July 14, 1965. Several amendments have been made to the act, including the Age Discrimination Act of 1975. The act created the Administration on Aging (AoA), headed by a commissioner of aging within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The Advisory Committee on Older Americans, consisting of the commissioner and fifteen people with relevant experience, was also established to provide expertise in designing new programs. In 1978, AoA was transferred to the new Department of Health and Human Services. Acting on recommendations of the 1992 White House Conference on Aging, Congress in 1993 amended the act by upgrading the commissioner to assistant secretary for aging; in addition, the Advisory Committee on Older Americans became the Federal Council on Aging. The AoA provides grants to states. To obtain funds, each state must designate a state unit on aging (SUA), which must design a program to utilize the funds. SUAs then identify area agencies throughout each state, which form advisory councils to develop the area plan, hold hearings, represent older people, and review and comment on community programs. SUAs by law must have a full-time ombudsman to handle complaints. The AoA awards two types of grants: for research and development projects (which make needs assessments, develop new approaches—including clinics to provide legal assistance to poorer senior citizens and multipurpose activity centers—develop new methods to coordinate programs and services, and evaluate the various programs) and for training projects for personnel to run the programs. Each state receives at least 1 percent of the total funding, and American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands each receive 0.5 percent. The remaining 49.5 percent is allocated on the basis of 957

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the relative size of the state’s population. No more than 10 percent of each state’s allotment can support SUA administrative expenses. The AoA also provides consultants, technical assistance, training personnel, research, and informational materials to the states. Priority program recipients are those who are homebound because of disability or illness. Meals-on-wheels services provide hot meals directly to their homes, and they are eligible for in-home support services, including home health aides. Low-income minorities are especially targeted. Programs operating under the act have been criticized largely because, although the quality of services is much better in some states than others, the AoA has neither developed nor enforced minimum standards. In 1991, Congress held up renewal of the act while it developed a means test to ensure that only needy older persons would take advantage. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Lee, Jik-Joen. Development, Delivery, and Utilization of Services Under the Older Americans Act: A Perspective of Asian-American Elderly. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992. O’Shaughnessy, Carol. Older Americans Act: Brief History of Legislation and Funding. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 1993. United States. Senate. Subcommittee on Aging of the Committee on Human Resources. Older Americans Amendment of 1975 (A Compilation of Public Law 94-135, Accompanying Reports, and Related Acts). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1978. See also: Executive Order 11141 (1964); Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965); Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967); Age Discrimination Act (1975); Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990).

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Medicare and Medicaid Amendments Date: July 30, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 286 Public law: 89-97 U.S. Code: 42 § 1395 et seq. Categories: Aging Issues; Health and Welfare

The passage of the Medicare and Medicaid amendments to the Social Security Act opened medical care to the elderly and the indigent. The notion of governmental funding for the medical needs of United States citizens was not new in the 1960’s. The road to Medicare and Medicaid began during the Depression, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal administration set up programs to help those unable to provide for themselves. The Great Society administration of Lyndon B. Johnson finally saw passage of governmental medical insurance for the elderly and poor. Private medical insurance had been available to consumers since the 1930’s, when the nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield programs began. During World War II, the War Stabilization Board exempted “fringe benefits,” including health care and insurance, from its ban on wage increases. This gave employers an opportunity to place more value on their employees’ work without violating the ban on pay increases and resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of Americans covered by medical insurance. Coverage, however, was largely limited to those in an employer or union plan and left the retired elderly and unemployed without coverage. An Aging Population Postwar medical advances made health care more expensive. Advances in technology made for medical miracles but came at a cost. In 1945, President Harry S. Truman recognized the financial burden of medical care on the elderly and called for the American Medical Association (AMA) and other groups to look into funding alternatives. The 1950’s brought more attention to the medical needs of the poor and elderly, as health care costs more than doubled during 959

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the decade. A program sponsored by Senator Robert Kerr (Democrat of Oklahoma) and Congressman Wilbur Mills (Democrat of Arkansas) that set up federal-state sharing of medical expenses for the “medically needy” helped lessen the cost burden. The program set up a vendor payments system whereby state agencies made direct payments to physicians and other medical providers. Aime Forand (Republican of Rhode Island) proposed a plan in 1959 that would provide hospitalization coverage for Social Security recipients and be funded through an additional Social Security tax. By 1960, more than 17.5 million Americans had reached the age of sixty-five, and the proportion of elderly Americans was growing. Improved technologies had resulted in better medical care, which in turn meant longer lives. Studies showed that 15 percent of the average elderly person’s income was spent on medical care, and concerns arose that this income (in most cases fixed) could not keep in step with rising medical costs. That same year, Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Arthur Flemming proposed plans for medical insurance, using the term “medicare” for the first time. A year later, congressmen Cecil King and Clinton Anderson introduced an official proposal for a medicare plan. This program was similar to the Forand legislation but added an annual deductible and coverage of retirees from the railroads. Medical Opposition Opposition to this proposal came from an unexpected source, the AMA. The organization lobbied heavily against governmental involvement in the medical industry, fearing a loss of control over patient care. Doctors’ groups publicly stated their intention not to treat patients under the program and spread fears within the American public of socialized medicine. The AMA’s alternative solution was a program called “Eldercare,” introduced in the House of Representatives by some Republican members. This stateadministered private health insurance plan would be funded by a premium based on the purchaser’s income, with federal subsidies for the needy. The plan soon died, after Republican Party leadership did not lend support. Committee hearings reached gridlock on the issue. The KingAnderson proposal was tabled so that Congress could concentrate on tax and civil rights legislation during 1963 and 1964. The 1964 election reopened the door for health insurance. President Lyn960

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don Johnson called for immediate attention to the issue of medical care for the elderly and the poor. In addition, the election put Democratic majorities into both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The AMA realized that some type of insurance plan was coming, and in 1965, James Appel, the president of the AMA, called for a compromise and encouraged doctors to participate in shaping new regulations governing health care. Passage and Provisions: Medicare The Eighty-ninth Congress passed the Medicare and Medicaid bills in 1965 as amendments to the Social Security Act. Signed by President Johnson at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, on July 30, 1965, the new programs went into effect on July 1, 1966. The first Medicare cards were given to former president Harry S. Truman and his wife. Administered by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and the Social Security Administration, Title XVIII of the Social Security Act (Health Insurance for the Aged), or Medicare, was divided into two programs. Part A, hospitalization, was an automatic program for those aged sixty-five and over and eligible for Social Security or railroad retirement benefits. People under the age of sixty-five could receive Medicare if they had been receiving Social Security for more two years as a result of a disability. The program was funded through a percentage of the Social Security taxes paid by all workers. It provided for sixty days of hospital care with a $40 deductible to be paid by the patient and an additional thirty days of coverage at a cost to the patient of $10 per day. Other provisions included one hundred days of nursing home care for treatment of certain medical conditions, with a $5 charge for each day after the first twenty, and up to one hundred home health-care visits after a hospitalization. The program did not cover long-term nursing home costs. Payments to medical providers were based on “usual, customary, and reasonable” charges. The second program, Part B, had been an add-on amendment to the King-Anderson proposal in 1965. It offered medical benefits based on a voluntary enrollment; more than 90 percent of those eligible enrolled in the program. Enrollees had a monthly premium deducted from their Social Security payments ($3 per month in early years) which was then matched by the federal government 961

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from the general treasury. Once an annual $50 deductible was met, the plan paid for 80 percent of physicians’ fees and supplies and an additional one hundred home nursing visits beyond those covered under Part A. Medicaid A second amendment, Title XIX, Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs, set up Medicaid. Medicaid was a cooperative program with responsibility shared by state and federal governments. Consolidating the Kerr-Mills programs to include the poor regardless of age, Medicaid increased annual federal grants to the states and called for additional medical care and screening for children in impoverished families. The program required states to cover all persons receiving cash assistance, although criteria for assistance and funding levels were to be determined on a state-by-state basis. Generally, those receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) or public assistance were eligible. Medicaid also set limits on the amounts to be paid for various services. In 1966, California became the first state to establish a program, called Medi-Cal. New York followed in the same year. By 1968, forty-eight states had started Medicaid programs. Impact on Patients and the Medical Profession Both critics and proponents of the medical care programs hoped for better health care for elderly and poor Americans as a result of the passage of Medicare and Medicaid. Whether that goal was achieved depends on one’s perspective. The almost 19.5 million elderly people who enrolled in the program during 1968 alone received more care, but that care came at an additional cost. Costs for prescription drugs and medical appliances such as walkers and braces, in addition to deductibles, kept medical costs at 15 percent or more of an elderly person’s income. Medicaid recipients, especially children, received basic health care, but millions of small children still went without immunizations. Despite these problems, Medicare and Medicaid helped to encourage patients to play more active roles in their own health care. Patients began to question doctors about their options concerning treatment and providers. Patients and their families became a powerful consumer base as the medical industry became more of a business, with hospitals advertising to compete for patients in the early 1980’s. 962

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The Medicare and Medicaid programs underwent several revisions and amendments. Early changes brought about an extension in hospitalization from 90 to 120 days (1967) and gave certain patients with chronic kidney disease Medicare coverage (1972). Early Medicaid changes involved restrictions on funding and placed payments on a scale based on the Consumer Price Index (1970). As costs increased, the federal government sought to control payments. In 1972, limits were placed on “reasonable costs,” but it was not until the 1980’s that major changes were made in the Medicare program. Beginning in 1983, Congress implemented the concept of Diagnosis Related Groups. This revision sought to level discrepancies between geographical areas by setting flat-fee payments for certain medical conditions instead of paying a percentage of fees and costs. Six years later, in 1989, Congress further limited funds paid by Medicare when it decreased payments to specialists by 11 percent while increasing payments to primary care physicians by 20 percent, effective in 1992. In addition, a ResourceBased Relative Value Scale was implemented in an attempt to balance unequal charges. The same year, a cap was placed on Medicare patient charges. For 1992, doctors could charge 20 percent more than Medicare covered; for 1993, the figure was 15 percent. Gaps, Loopholes, and Supplemental Insurance Despite numerous revisions and amendments, the Medicare and Medicaid programs retained several loopholes and gaps that raised costs either to the government or to consumers. Medicare did not cover long-term nursing home care or prescription drugs unless they were given in a hospital. The Medicaid program covered longterm care, but only once a patient was eligible for the program. This meant that elderly persons virtually were forced to deplete their life savings to qualify for Medicaid-covered nursing home care. Several books and lecture series appeared to help elderly persons and their families learn to “hide” assets in order to keep them from going toward medical costs. Another alternative was the growing popularity of home health agencies, which Medicare did cover. These agencies provided home nurse visits for those still able to care for themselves at a basic level. To help combat the shortcomings of Medicare, private insurance companies developed supplemental policies. These “Medigap” plans helped with costs of prescription drugs as well as deductibles 963

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and charges above what was covered by Medicare. For example, a doctor visit might cost $40, even though Medicare set the prevailing charge for the area at $35. Once the deductible was met, Medicare would then pay 80 percent of the prevailing charge, or $28. If the doctor did not accept assignment (Medicare payment accepted as payment in full), the patient would then be responsible for the remaining $12. Supplemental policies often paid 80 percent of the remaining balance. Rising Costs Congressional investigations into Medicare problems resulted in the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, which attempted to close the gap between actual and covered costs through expanding benefits. The program increased coverage of hospital benefits, added coverage for prescription drugs, and put a limit on out-ofpocket expenses. The plan was designed to be financed by an increased premium and a surtax on the incomes of wealthier Social Security recipients, Complaints flooded into Washington that the elderly, whom the act meant to help, were actually hurt by increased costs. Public opposition became so strong that the act was repealed in 1989. Medicaid was not without its own problems. To be eligible, a person had to be receiving cash assistance. In most states, these programs left out men and women without children. Most recipients of aid under Medicaid were children, and a high proportion of expenditures went for nursing home care for the elderly. Medicaid also placed a tremendous burden on states’ budgets, with a 583 percent increase in spending in the first ten years of the program. The state programs sought to decrease this burden through spending limits on a variety of medical areas, including drugs and physicians’ fees. New payment limits often fell so far below the prevailing charges in an area that some doctors refused to participate in the program, resulting in a reduction of primary care physicians. Those who did participate under the Medicaid and Medicare programs often found themselves forced to increase charges to other patients to make up for the low payments from those covered by Medicare and Medicaid, creating a cycle of increased costs. The rising costs of medical care fueled a constant debate over funding. States found themselves overburdened by the costs of 964

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Medicaid programs, and both Medicaid and Medicare placed everincreasing strains on federal funds. Five years into the programs, expenditures on Medicare had increased by 300 percent and those on Medicaid by 400 percent. By 1975, annual U.S. medical costs had reached $133 billion; by 1984, a billion dollars a day were spent on health care. By 1993, medical care costs were more than $700 billion a year and represented more than 12 percent of federal spending. Administrative costs were often blamed for the rising costs, but a study conducted during the 1980’s estimated administrative costs for Medicare and Medicaid at 3 to 5 percent of total costs, while private insurance plans had administrative costs ranging from 14 to 24 percent of the total bill. One administrative area that did promote problems was billing, in particular overcharging by hospitals and doctors. Numerous doctors and hospitals faced fraud charges for padding the bills of patients in order to make up the difference between program payments and actual costs or to make up for those patients who could not pay. Funding the Medicare and Medicaid programs has been a struggle since their passage. The initial plans for funding proved unable to keep up with growing costs. More Americans were reaching the eligibility age for Medicare, and economic problems resulted in dramatic increases in the number of people receiving state assistance and Medicaid. Even so, many Americans were left with no medical coverage. The programs had opened medical coverage to more Americans and transformed the medical profession, but to remain effective they needed to keep pace with rising medical costs by finding new sources of funding. Jennifer Davis Sources for Further Study Budish, Armond D. Avoiding the Medicaid Trap: How to Beat the Catastrophic Costs of Nursing Home Care. Rev. ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1989. Enthoven, Alain C. Health Plan The Only Practical Solution to the Soaring Cost of Medical Care. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1980. Feingold, Eugene, ed. Medicare Policy and Politics. San Francisco: Chandler, 1966. 965

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Grannemann, Thomas W., and Mark V. Pauly. Controlling Medicaid Costs Federalism, Competition, and Choice. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1983. Witkin, Erwin. The Impact of Medicare. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1971. See also: Sheppard-Towner Act (1921); Social Security Act (1935);

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935); Older Americans Act (1965).

Highway Beautification Act Date: August, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 1028 Public law: 89-285 Categories: Environment and Conservation

The act banned billboards within 660 feet of interstate or primary highways except in industrial or commercial areas. In August of 1965, the Highway Beautification Act was passed into law, largely as a result of the persistence of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, and Laurance Spelman Rockefeller. Phillip Tocker, chairman of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), supported the bill as long as commercial and industrial zones were exempt and if people who were no longer allowed to rent land for billboards were compensated. The act stated that all signs within 660 feet of interstate and primary highways were banned, except for official direction signs and on-premise advertising. Commercial and industrial areas were exempt. States that did not enforce removal of all offending signs by 1970 could lose up to 20 percent of their federal highway funds. Before the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was passed, there was only one federal law specifically concerning billboards. It was passed in 1958 and stated that a bonus would be given to any state that controlled billboards within 660 feet of the federal interstate 966

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highway system. Only seven states qualified for bonuses: Kentucky, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Virginia. The Movement Against Billboards The billboard industry had grown so rapidly that in most cities there were more billboards than it was possible for a driver, or perhaps even a passenger, to read. The movement against billboards started in citizens’ roadside councils and garden clubs throughout the United States. These groups disliked billboards for two reasons. First, they thought billboards were ugly and blocked out landscape. Second, there were numerous reports linking increased numbers of accidents to prevalence of billboards. Some studies showed that there were three times as many accidents in areas with billboards as compared to similar areas without billboards. Billboard opponents reasoned that drivers were distracted by the advertisements. A growing interest in removing billboards initiated the Highway Beautification Act. In May of 1965, President Johnson held a conference at the White House to discuss the bill. Mrs. Cyril Fox, chair of the Pennsylvania Roadside Council and a representative of various roadside councils and garden clubs, attended this meeting. The bill that she and most beautification activists wanted to pass prohibited billboards within one thousand feet of interstate and primary highways, with no exempt areas. Her version of the bill also addressed other areas, including junkyards, landscaped areas, and scenic roads. New junkyards would be prohibited within one thousand feet of interstate and primary highways, and existing junkyards would either be removed or be screened by a fence of shrubbery within five years. States were to use 3 percent of their federal highway aid for landscaping and beautifying roadsides. States also would have to use one-third of their federal highway aid for secondary roads and access roads to recreational and scenic areas. Phillip Tocker was invited to this May conference. His suggestions outraged the beautification activists. He would support the bill only if the distance restriction were changed to 660 feet, commercial and industrial areas were exempt, and the federal government would compensate for losses. Mrs. Cyril Fox, the roadside councils, and the garden clubs were displeased not only with Tocker but also with Laurance Rockefeller and his staff. The roadside councils and the garden clubs believed that since they had 967

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been fighting for years against billboards, they should have a more powerful position, the one that Rockefeller and his staff were fulfilling. At the end of the conference, Tocker’s version of the bill was read to President Johnson. Fox, the roadside councils, and the garden clubs were disillusioned. After that conference, they no longer supported the bill, which they thought did not solve the problem. This lack of support made it difficult to pass the bill. Passage and Provisions President Johnson’s advisers were convinced that the bill had no chance of passing unless it exempted commercial and industrial areas, largely because of the influence of the OAAA. The OAAA was a strong organization with six hundred companies throughout the nation as members. They accounted for nearly 90 percent of all standardized outdoor advertising. Even after the compromises made at the White House conference in May the bill was held up in Congress. Some supporters thought that it would be best to wait until 1966 and try to get a stronger bill passed. In August, President Johnson sent out an urgent message that he wanted the bill passed that year. The bill that eventually passed had even more compromises than the one read to President Johnson in May. The Treasury Department was to compensate billboard owners and farmers who had rented out their land for billboards if their business was affected by the new law. The federal government would pay threefourths the cost of the bill, with states paying the remaining onefourth. Junkyards were exempt from screening or removal in commercial and industrial areas. The bill also authorized the use of federal funds for landscaping roadsides and for building scenic and recreational areas. These funds could be used for landscaping in right-of-way areas, work that states were supposed to be doing. The areas of commercial and industrial exemptions would be determined by the states, with the approval of the secretary of commerce. Secretary of Commerce John Connor assured Congress that a state’s decision would rarely be overturned. Although the bill that was passed was not nearly as strong as the original proposal, its passage proved difficult. Even though 83 percent of existing billboards were located in exempt areas and more could be added in those areas, the potential loss of even 15 percent of a $200 million a year industry caused opposition to the bill. 968

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Decline of Outdoor Advertising The Highway Beautification Act did not have a major direct effect on the decline of billboards. The first removal of a billboard as a result of the law did not occur until April 27, 1971. The main reason that offending billboards were not removed sooner was that the law stated that the owner of the billboard must be compensated. Because the federal government did not authorize a significant amount of funds until 1970, the states could not afford to compensate billboard owners. Many offending billboards existed long after the law passed. Some states even inquired if they could remove offending billboards and then compensate owners later, when federal funds came through. The answer was no, since the law clearly stated that there must be compensation for every billboard removed. The OAAA thought that it had preserved the heart of its business through the compromises in the bill. Only 15 percent of its business would be cut, and the cuts would not take their full effect for five years. Losses would be compensated by the government. In addition, advertisers could put up larger signs beyond the restricted 660 feet, thus reaching essentially the same audience, and they could put up more signs on exempt roads. Even with these opportunities, billboard use steadily declined after 1965. There are several reasons for the decline in billboard advertising. First, billboard advertising was not as effective as most other advertising media, particularly television advertising. Second, many cities were inundated with billboards. Many people became immune to them and stopped reading them. Some cities also enforced sign laws that were more strict than the federal law. Finally, beautification activists encouraged boycotts on products and services advertised on billboards. Such efforts did not make an enormous difference, but they did have some effect. Dan Kennedy Sources for Further Study Califano, Joseph E., Jr. The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Drew, Elizabeth Brenner. “Lady Bird’s Beauty Bill.” The Atlantic Monthly 216 (December, 1965): 68-72. 969

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Gotfryd, Bernard. “Signs of the Times.” Newsweek 65 (March 8, 1965): 89-90. Gould, Lewis. Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988. The New Republic. “Beauty and the Billboards.” 154 (April 23, 1966): 8-9. Newsweek. “The Sign Busters.” 77 (June 7, 1971): 116-117. Pell, Robert. “Escalating Ugliness.” America 122 (June 12, 1965): 848-849. See also: Aircraft Noise Abatement Act (1968); Wild and Scenic

Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Noise Control Act (1972).

Voting Rights Act of 1965 Date: August 6, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 445 Public law: 89-110 U.S. Code: 42 § 1971 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Voting

and Elections

This statute permitted the federal government to expand its power and authority in order to increase black voter registration and participation in states where African Americans had been subject to discrimination. At the turn of the twentieth century, southern states adopted numerous devices designed to disenfranchise African Americans and poor whites. The most common device was the literacy test, which required prospective voters to read, write, and interpret any part of the U.S. Constitution or state constitution. The inclusion of an interpretation requirement meant that registrars could reject literate African Americans by deeming their interpretations incorrect. Other devices included the white primary, which excluded 970

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African Americans from voting in the Democratic Party primary, and poll taxes, which excluded many poor people, both black and white. Voter Registration and the Civil Rights Movement Because of these devices, only about 3 percent of African Americans were registered to vote in the South in 1940. By 1956 the percentage had increased to 25 percent of the black voting-age population. In contrast, 60 percent of the white voting-age population was registered. Efforts by African Americans to register intensified during the Civil Rights movement, and by November, 1964, approximately 43 percent of voting-age blacks in the South were registered. This registration, however, was uneven. In the Deep South, especially in the rural areas, black registration was significantly lower. For example, the average black registration rate in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina was approximately 22 percent while in Mississippi the figure was less than 7 percent. Efforts to increase the registration of African Americans in the southern states involved a variety of organizations, including the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The most important campaign occurred in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. In the fall of 1964 only 335 out of more than 15,000 African Americans of voting age were registered in Dallas County, Alabama. In Dallas County, registration was allowed only two days a month. Applicants had to fill in more than fifty blanks on a form, write a part of the Constitution from dictation, read four parts of the Constitution and answer four questions about what they had read, answer four questions on the working of government, and swear loyalty to both the state of Alabama and the United States. Following several months of demonstrations and efforts, civil rights activists held a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. State troopers and sheriff’s posse men attacked marchers when they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and approximately one hundred marchers were injured. National outrage over the attacks led to approval of the Voting Rights Act in August, 1965, by a vote of 328 to 74 in the House of Representatives and by a 79 to 18 vote in the Senate. On August 6, 1965, President 971

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Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill into law, referring to it as “one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom.” Provisions Upon the request of President Johnson, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach designed an exceptionally strong act. Its purpose was to enforce section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited states or political subdivisions from applying a voter prerequisite to deny or abridge on account of race or color the right of any citizen of the United States to vote. The previous Civil Rights Acts passed in 1957, 1960, and 1964 contained provisions designed to end voter discrimination; however, their impact was limited because they required a case-by-case approach in seeking remedies. In addition, these acts did not allow the federal government to intervene on behalf of those subject to discrimination. The 1965 Voting Rights Act included several provisions designed to overcome the shortcomings of the previous acts. First, section 4 of the act included a formula that targeted areas where discrimination was greatest and where federal government intervention in voter registration could be of the most help. The targeted areas were those that required a literacy test or similar test for registration prior to November 1, 1964, and where fewer than 50 percent of the eligible voters were either registered to vote or had actually voted in the 1964 presidential election. This provision affected the entire states of Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia as well as twenty-six counties in North Carolina and one county in Arizona. In these areas, the Voting Rights Act eliminated for five years the use of literacy tests and other such devices as a prerequisite for registration. On August 7, 1965, Attorney General Katzenbach suspended the tests in these places. Later, in 1965 and 1966, additional counties in North Carolina and Arizona as well as one county each in Hawaii and Idaho were also targeted. Section 5 of the act included a preclearance provision that required state and local governments covered by the triggering formula to submit any proposed changes in voting laws or practices that had not been in force on November 1, 1964, to the Justice Department or the federal district court in Washington, D.C. This was designed to prevent these governments from developing 972

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new techniques designed to limit African American participation in voting. Under provisions in sections 6 and 7 of the act, the attorney general could send federal voter examiners in to gather names of eligible voters and present them to local officials, who were required to register them. Under section 8 of the law, the attorney general could also send observers or poll watchers to oversee elections to ensure that African Americans were permitted to vote and their votes were counted. During the first ten years of the act, examiners were sent to approximately sixty counties in the South, most of which were in Mississippi or Alabama. An estimated 15 percent of the African Americans who registered in this period were registered by these examiners. The federal government also assigned more than 6,500 poll watchers during the same period. Section 3 gave the courts the authority to send federal registrars and poll watchers to locales outside covered jurisdictions if the attorney general or private parties brought suits. Section 10 instructed the attorney general to challenge the constitutionality of the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting in state and local elections. Section 11 prohibited anyone “acting under color of law” from preventing qualified voters from voting or intimidating, threatening, or coercing voters; it also prohibited voting fraud in federal elections. Section 12 stipulated punishment for violation of someone’s voting rights. Finally, section 14 provided a detailed definition of voting. Court Cases South Carolina sued to test the legality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966), the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the major provisions of the law. In its decision, the Court recognized that the act represented an uncommon extension of federal power; however, it justified these powers by noting that exceptional conditions could justify legislative measures that might otherwise be deemed inappropriate. Other court cases followed concerning provisions of the act. Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966), the Court declared the poll tax for state and local elections unconstitutional. This overturned the court’s 1937 decision in Breedlove v. Suttles, which stated that a poll tax did not violate the Constitution. 973

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Although African American registration increased significantly, some southern locales used a variety of more subtle techniques to limit the impact of black voters. These included withholding information from black voters, failing to provide assistance to illiterate voters, purging voting rolls, disqualifying voters on technical grounds, requiring separate registration for different types of elections, moving polling places, and failing to provide adequate voting facilities in black precincts. Efforts were also made to dilute the impact of African American voters, which resulted in more court cases. In Allen v. Board of Elections (1969), the Court examined the issue of dilution of black voters in Mississippi when the state moved from single-member districts to at-large elections. The Court held that the Voting Rights Act gave a broad interpretation to the right to vote and stated that voting included all actions necessary to make a vote effective. This greatly increased the importance of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and resulted in many more challenges to proposed changes in election procedures in covered jurisdictions. For example, between 1965 and 1969 the Justice Department objected to only six proposed changes. By the end of 1989, 2,335 changes had been objected to under section 5. In White v. Regester (1973), the Court unanimously agreed that multimember districts in the Texas counties of Bexar and Dallas were unconstitutional based on the totality of the circumstances, which included the cultural and economic realities of African Americans and Mexicans as well as the multimember districts. In general, this decision resulted in multimember districts being replaced by single-member districts. In 1980, however, in Mobile v. Bolden, the Court held that the Fifteenth Amendment applied only to access to the ballot, not vote dilution, and that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments required a showing of purpose to discriminate. This decision was a setback for voting rights. However, in 1986 the Court gave explicit guidelines for dilution in Thornburg v. Gingles. In this North Carolina case, the Court provided a three-part test for determining if multimember districts resulted in dilution: The minority group had to be sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in at least one single-member district; the minority group had to tend to vote as a bloc; and the majority group had to vote sufficiently as a bloc to enable it to normally defeat the minority’s preferred candidate. 974

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Increased Registration Overall, despite manipulation and court challenges, the Voting Rights Act had a significant impact on the South. Within one month of its passage, more than 27,000 new African American voters were registered by federal examiners in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi alone. By 1968 black registration in the South increased from 2 million to 3.3 million. In the seven states originally covered by the act, African American registration increased from 29.3 percent in March, 1965, to 56.6 percent by 1972. By 1988 black registration in the eleven states of the South stood at 63.7 percent; in the five Deep South states, it was 65.2 percent. Increased registration made African Americans important actors in the political process in many parts of the South and resulted in a significant rise in the number of black elected officials. In 1968 there were only 248 black elected officials in the South, but this number rose to 2,601 in 1982 and to 4,924 in 1993. The Voting Rights Act was renewed several times following its original passage. Each time it was expanded, and it is now applicable to the entire United States. Some of the major additions to the act included extending the franchise to eighteen-year-olds, adding bilingual provisions that required voting information and ballots to be printed not only in English but also in other languages appropriate for local citizens, and creating a provision for minority access and influence districts. Therefore, the Voting Rights Act not only increased the federal government’s role in voting but also resulted in significant increases in participation in the political process. William V. Moore Sources for Further Study Davidson, Chandler, ed. Minority Vote Dilution. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1984. Elliott, Ward E. The Rise of Guardian Democracy: The Supreme Court’s Role in Voting Rights Disputes, 1845-1969. Cambridge, Mass.: Howard University Press, 1974. Garrow, David J. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978. 975

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Grofman, Bernard, and Chandler Davidson, eds. Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1992. Hanus, Jerome J. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as Amended: History, Effects, and Alternatives. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976. See also: Black Codes of 1865 (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Jim Crow laws (1880’s1954); Disfranchisement laws (1890); Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975); Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971).

Housing and Urban Development Act Date: September 9, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 670 Public law: 89-174 U.S. Code: 42 § 3536 Categories: Health and Welfare; Housing

Part of the Johnson administration’s Great Society program, this law created a cabinet-level department of urban affairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to aid in securing decent housing for American citizens. Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson capitalized on the nation’s sombre mood and urged Congress to adopt Kennedy’s legislative agenda as a memorial to the slain president. Johnson’s landslide victory in the 1964 presidential election increased Democratic majorities in Congress and made possible a deluge of Great Society legislation, including the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965. 976

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Provisions As Kennedy had earlier proposed, the new law created a cabinetlevel department of urban affairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The core of the new cabinet department was the Housing and Home Finance Agency, which included the Federal Housing Administration, Urban Renewal Administration, and Public Housing Administration. Johnson chose Weaver to fill the secretary of HUD position, making Weaver the first African American cabinet officer in U.S. history. In calling for passage of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, Johnson had declared that “the ultimate goal in our free enterprise system must be a decent home for every American family.” Like most other Great Society programs, the law failed to achieve Johnson’s purpose, but it did create new “leased housing” and rent-supplement plans to assist the poor. Other features of the 1965 housing act included FHA loans without down payments for veterans, lower down payments on other FHA mortgage loans, and low-interest loans for rural housing. The following year, Congress passed the Model Cities Act of 1966. To improve the quality of urban life, the federal government funded comprehensive model cities projects that included construction of low- and middle-income housing. Soon, however, the model cities program bogged down in squabbling between federal and local agencies. It had scant effect on urban housing. Undismayed by the troubles afflicting model cities, in 1968, Johnson submitted another sweeping bill to Congress. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, called the most ambitious housing program in U.S. history, was designed to eradicate substandard housing within ten years through the construction of twenty-six million new homes and apartments. The law extended interest-rate subsidy and rent-supplement programs to increase the construction and repair of low-rent housing and to expand home ownership by low-income Americans. It also created the Government National Mortgage Association to purchase mortgage loans written at below-market rates and allowed the privatization of the Federal National Mortgage Association, formed during the 1930’s by the Federal Housing Administration to provide a secondary market for home mortgage loans. Finally, the housing law of 1968 contrived an assortment of other programs, including “new communities,” neighborhood development, housing rehabilita977

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tion, and “national housing partnerships” intended to facilitate the investment of corporate money in low-income housing in blighted urban areas. Impact Taken together, the various provisions of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 constituted a heightened federal commitment to public housing. The effects of the 1968 law would not be felt until after President Richard M. Nixon took office in 1969. Despite abuses and scandals that plagued the public housing program, by 1972, 1.3 million low- and moderate-income housing units had been completed. Although the 1968 housing act did not lift many Americans out of poverty, it did allow some moderateincome families to become home owners. Additionally, as was the case with earlier housing legislation dating back to the 1930’s, the 1968 law provided not only profits for lenders, developers, and builders but also jobs for workers. Civil rights legislation also affected housing in the United States during the 1960’s. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 moved in the direction of fair housing policy by prohibiting racial discrimination in federally subsidized housing programs. The private, nonfederally assisted housing market remained largely untouched, and in January, 1966, President Johnson urged Congress to adopt a fair housing law to eliminate racial discrimination. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Congress in April, 1968, adopted the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included Title VIII, a fair housing statute that outlawed racial discrimination in virtually all public and private housing. Subsequent Events The 1960’s were a decade of strong housing growth, with more than fourteen million homes constructed. Of those homes, 97.5 percent were produced by the private sector. That astonishing statistic furnished ammunition for critics of public housing who complained that federal housing policy continued to be skewed in favor of the affluent, especially by the federal income tax deduction for home mortgage interest, which was much more advantageous for the wealthy. Critics claimed that federal policy had aided lenders, developers, and builders in their profit-making endeavors and had promoted suburbanization for the largely white middle and 978

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upper classes, while public housing programs for the poor remained underfunded and wholly inadequate. According to leftist critics, urban renewal meant removal of slum housing and displacement of racial minorities without replacement of the housing units that were demolished. Conservative critics were equally harsh in their evaluation of Great Society housing laws and programs. In the conservative view, public housing and urban renewal were expensive and wasteful, ran contrary to the logic of the private marketplace, and probably made conditions in urban areas worse instead of better. Conservatives concluded that the federal government should cease its messy, meddlesome intervention and allow the private market to function. In January, 1973, partly in response to the conservative critique and alarmed about multiplying scandals, President Nixon suspended all federally subsidized public housing programs. The public housing and urban renewal programs of the 1960’s, enacted with such great expectations, proved disappointing in operation and, for many Americans, had come to symbolize the failure of the Great Society. Richard N. Chapman Sources for Further Study Bratt, Rachel G., Chester Hartman, and Ann Meyerson, eds. Critical Perspectives on Housing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986. Mason, Joseph B. History of Housing in the U.S., 1930-1980. Houston, Tex.: Gulf Publishing, 1982. Mayer, Martin. The Builders: Houses, People, Neighborhoods, Governments, Money. New York: Norton, 1978. Weicher, John C. Housing: Federal Policies and Programs. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1980. Wolman, Harold. The Politics of Federal Housing. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1971. See also: Housing Act (1961); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Civil

Rights Act of 1968 (1968); Fair Housing Act (1968).

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Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 Date: Issued September 24, 1965; October 13, 1967 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Labor

and Employment; Women’s Issues

These executive orders broadened the scope of affirmative action beyond racial desegregation to a wide range of employment issues. In issuing Executive Order 8802 in 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first in a line of presidents who charged federal contractors not to discriminate against employees on the basis of race, creed, or color. In 1961, John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, the first to use the term “affirmative action,” was understood as a requirement for Southern contractors to desegregate. After Congress outlawed employment discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lyndon Johnson issued Executive Order 11246, on September 24, 1965, to supersede 10925. Part 1 of the order dealt with nondiscrimination in federal government employment. The main innovation was in part 2, in which contractors doing business with the federal government were required to root out employment discrimination, in advance of complaints based on race, creed, color, or national origin, by changing personnel policies, practices, and procedures in regard to such matters as hiring, promotion, transfer, recruitment, layoff, rates of pay, and selection for training. The secretary of labor was to enforce the order, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs became the monitoring agency for 11246. On October 13, 1967, Johnson amended 11246 with Executive Order 11375 to add gender to the list of protected classes. The record reveals that white women have gained more from 11246, as amended by 11375, than have members of minority groups. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Bullock, Charles S., III, and Charles M. Lamb. Implementation of Civil Rights Policy. Monterey, Calif.: Brooks-Cole, 1984. 980

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Graham, Hugh Davis. The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960-1972. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Loevy, Robert D. To End All Segregation: The Politics of the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1990. _______, ed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Passage of the Law That Ended Racial Segregation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. See also: Equal Pay Act (1963); Economic Opportunity Act

(1964); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964); Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972).

Clean Water Act and Amendments Also known as: Water Pollution Control Act Date: Original act passed October 2, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 903 (1965 act) Public law: 89-234 (1965 act) Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

The legislation now called the Clean Water Act was largely shaped by the 1972 amendments to the original act of 1965 and was strengthened by later amendments. The Environmental Protection Agency, in cooperation with other federal, state, and local agencies, administers the numerous programs established by the legislation. Before the mid-1960’s, the regulation of water pollution was mostly left up to the states. The earliest federal law was the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which prohibited the dumping of debris into navigable waters. Although the purpose of the law was to protect interstate navigation, it became an instrument for regulating water quality sixty years after its passage. The Oil Pollution Act of 1924 prohibited the discharge of oil into interstate waterways, with criminal sanctions for violations. The first Federal Water Pollution Con981

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trol Act, (FWPCA), passed in 1948, authorized the preparation of federal pollution abatement plans, which the states could either accept or reject, and provided some financial assistance for state projects. Although the FWPCA was amended in 1956 and 1961, it still contained no effective mechanisms for the federal enforcement of standards. Provisions By this period, however, many Americans were recognizing water pollution as a national problem that required a national solution. The Clean Water Act of 1965 introduced the policy of minimum water quality standards that could be enforced in federal courts. The standards applied regardless of whether discharges could be proven to harm human health. The act also significantly increased federal funds for sewage plant construction. A 1966 amendment required the reporting of discharges into waterways, with civil penalties for failure to comply. Amendments in 1970 established federal licensing for the discharge of pollutants into navigable rivers and provided plans and funding for the detection and removal of oil spills. 1972 Amendments Congress and President Richard Nixon agreed that existing programs were ineffective in controlling water pollution, and the resulting 1972 amendments established the basic framework for the Clean Water Act. The centerpiece of the landmark amendments was the national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES), which utilized the command-and-control methods earlier enacted in the Clean Air Act (1963). The premise of the legislation was that polluting surface water is an unlawful activity, except for those exemptions specifically allowed in the act. The announced goal was to eliminate all pollutants discharged into U.S. surface waters by 1985. In addition to standards of quality for ambient water, the amendments also included technology-based standards. Industrial dischargers were given until 1977 to make use of the “best practicable technology” in that industry, and the standard was be increased to the “best technology available” by 1982. The 1972 act also included stringent limitations on the release of toxic chemicals judged harmful to human health. For members of Congress, the 982

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most popular part of the act was the grant program for the construction of publicly owned treatment works (POTWs). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created just two years earlier, was assigned the primary responsibility of regulating and enforcing the legislation. The agency could issue five-year permits for the discharge of pollutants, and any discharge without a license or contrary to the terms of a license was punishable by either civil or criminal sanctions. When faced with a discharge of oil or other hazardous substances, the EPA could go to court and seek a penalty of up to $50,000 per violation and up to $250,000 in the case of willful misconduct. In addition, a discharger might be assessed the costs of removal, up to $50 million. Because of the technical complexity of the law, the EPA for many years relied more on civil penalties than criminal prosecutions. The 1972 amendments prohibit the discharge of dredged or fill materials into navigable waters unless authorized by a permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers. Based on the literal wording of the statute, the corps at first regulated only actually, potentially, and historically navigable waters. In 1975, however, the corps revised its regulations to include jurisdiction over all coastal and freshwater wetlands, provided they were inundated often enough to support vegetation adapted for saturated soils. The Supreme Court endorsed the corp’s broad construction of the law. 1977 Amendments The Clean Water Act amendments of 1977, giving the legislation its present name, focused on a large variety of technical issues. They required industry to use the best available technology to remove toxic pollutants within six years. For conventional pollutants, businesses could seek a waiver from the technology requirements if the removal of the pollutant was not worth the cost. The act further required an environmental impact statement for any federal project involving wetlands, and it extended liability for oil-spill cleanups from 12 miles to 200 miles offshore. 1987 Amendments The amendments of 1987, entitled the Water Quality Act, were passed over President Ronald Reagan’s veto. In addition to increasing the powers of the EPA, the act significantly raised the criminal penalties for acts of pollution. Individuals who knowingly dis983

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charge certain dangerous pollutants can receive a fine of up to $250,000 and imprisonment for up to fifteen years. The maximum prison term for making false statements or tampering with monitoring equipment was increased from six months to two years. The most controversial part of the act was authorization of $18 billion for the construction of wastewater treatment plants. In 1990 Congress further amended the Clean Water Act with the Oil Pollution Act, which strengthened cleanup requirements and penalties for discharges. Related Legislation In addition to the Clean Water Act, several closely related federal laws also deal with water pollution. In 1972 Congress passed the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act to regulate ocean dumping, and an amendment of 1988 prohibited ocean dumping of all wastes other than dredge spoil. The Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) authorized the EPA to regulate contaminants in tap water as well as injections into underground sources of drinking water. Amendments of 1986 required the EPA to regulate eighty-three contaminants within three years and authorized the EPA to issue new administrative orders and take enforcement action. Impact Some of the worst instances of water pollution have been curtailed in the years since the Clean Water Act was overhauled in 1972, even though the act has manifestly failed to achieve its stated goals. It is probably inevitable that economic prosperity and population growth will mean that water in the United States will never be completely free of pollutants. Since 1972, nevertheless, the American public has become increasingly intolerant of dirty and unhealthful water, and Congress, reflecting public sentiment, has continued to strengthen the Clean Water Act. Thomas T. Lewis Sources for Further Study Adler, Robert, and Jessica Landman. The Clean Water Act Twenty Years Later, Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993. Vanderver, Timothy, Jr., Environmental Law Handbook. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1994. 984

Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 See also: Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924); Water Pollution Con-

trol Act (1948); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956); Water Resources Research Act (1964); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972); Safe Drinking Water Act (1974); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990).

Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 Date: October 3, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 911 Public law: 89-236 U.S. Code: 8 § 1101 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration; Latinos

The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 removed restrictions on non-European immigration, significantly altering the ethnic makeup of U.S. immigrants. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 codified legislation that had developed haphazardly over the past century. Although it liberalized some areas, it was discriminatory in that quotas were allotted according to national origins. This resulted in western and northern European nations receiving no less than 85 percent of the total allotment. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 allowed non-Europeans to enter the United States on an equal basis with Europeans. Before the 1965 legislation, U.S. immigration policies favored northern and western Europeans. Reform Begins With the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, circumstances for meaningful immigration reform came into being: Kennedy believed that immigration was a source of national strength, the Civil Rights movement had promoted an ideology to eliminate racist policies, and the U.S. position during the Cold War necessitated that immigration policies be just. Thus, Kennedy had Abba Schwartz, 985

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an expert on refugee and immigration matters, develop a plan to revise immigration policy. In July of 1963, Kennedy sent his proposal for immigration reform to Congress. His recommendations had three major provisions: the quota system should be phased out over a five-year period; no natives of any one country should receive more than 10 percent of the newly authorized quota numbers; and a sevenperson immigration board should be set up to advise the president. Kennedy also advocated that family reunification remain a priority; the Asiatic Barred Zone be eliminated; and nonquota status be granted to residents of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, as it was to other Western Hemisphere residents. Last, the preference structure was to be altered to liberalize requirements for skilled people. After the assassination of President Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson took up the cause of immigration. Although immigration was not a major issue during the 1964 campaign, both sides had courted diverse ethnic communities, whose will now had to be considered. The Democratic Party’s landslide victory gave Johnson a strong mandate for his Great Society programs, of which immigration reform was a component. Secretary of State Dean Rusk argued the need for immigration reform to bolster U.S. foreign policy. Rusk, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and others criticized the current system for being discriminatory and argued that the proposed changes would be economically advantageous to the United States. Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy held hearings and concluded that “all recognized the unworkability of the national origins quota system.” Outside Congress, ethnic, voluntary, and religious organizations lobbied and provided testimony before Congress. They echoed the administration’s arguments about discrimination. A few Southerners in Congress argued that the national origins concept was not discriminatory—it was a mirror reflecting the U.S. population, so those who would best assimilate into U.S. society would enter. However, the focus of the congressional debate was on how to alter the national origins system, not on whether it should be changed. The most disputed provisions concerned whether emphasis should be on needed skills, family reunification, or limits set on Western Hemisphere immigration. Family unification prevailed. 986

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Provisions The new law replaced the national origins system with hemispheric caps, 170,000 from the Old World and 120,000 from the New. Spouses, unmarried minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens were exempt from numerical quotas. Preferences were granted first to unmarried adult children of U.S. citizens (20 percent); next, to spouses and unmarried adult children of permanent resident aliens (20 percent). Professionals, scientists, and artists of exceptional ability were awarded third preference (10 percent) but required certification from the U.S. Department of Labor. Married children of U.S. citizens had fourth preference (10 percent). Next were those brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens who were older than twenty-one years of age (24 percent), followed by skilled and unskilled workers in occupations for which labor was in short supply (10 percent). Refugees from communist or communist-dominated countries or the Middle East were seventh (6 percent). Nonpreference status was assigned to anyone not eligible under any of the above categories; there have been more preference applicants than can be accommodated, so nonpreference status has not been used. Unintended Consequences The law had unexpected consequences. The framers of the legislation expected that the Old World slots would be filled by Europeans. They assumed that family reunification would favor Europeans, because they dominated the U.S. population. However, those from Europe who wanted to come were in the lower preference categories, while well-trained Asians had been coming to the United States since 1943 and were well qualified for preference positions. Once they, or anyone else, became a permanent resident, a whole group of people became eligible to enter the country under the third preference category. After a five-year wait—the residential requirement for citizenship—more persons became eligible under the second preference category. As a result, many individual immigrants were directly or indirectly responsible for twenty-five to fifty additional new immigrants. The law set forth a global ceiling of 290,000, but actual totals ranged from 398,089 in 1977 to 904,292 in 1993. Refugees and those exempt from numerical limitations were the two major categories that caused these variations. The refugee count had varied according to situations such as that of the “boat people” from Cuba 987

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in 1981. In 1991, refugees and asylees totaled 139,079; in 1993, they totaled 127,343. Persons in nonpreference categories increased from 113,083 in 1976 to 255,059 in 1993. Total immigration for 1991 was 827,167 and for 1993 was 904,292—well above the global ceiling. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 enabled some of the most able medical, scientific, engineering, skilled, and other professional talent to enter the United States. The medical profession illustrates this trend. In the ten years after the enactment of the 1965 act, seventy-five thousand foreign physicians entered the United States. By 1974, immigrant physicians made up one-fifth of the total number of physicians and one-third of the interns and residents in the United States. Each immigrant doctor represented more than a million dollars in education costs. In addition, they often took positions in the inner-city and rural areas, which prevented the collapse of the delivery of medical services to those locations. Arthur W. Helweg Sources for Further Study Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Glazer, Nathan, ed. Clamor at the Gates: The New American Immigration. San Francisco: ICS Press, 1985. _______. Ethnic Dilemmas 1964-1982. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983. Helweg, Arthur W., and Usha M. Helweg. An Immigrant Success Story: East Indians in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. Papademetriou, Demetrios G., and Mark J. Miller, eds. The Unavoidable Issue: U.S. Immigration Policy in the 1980’s. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1983. Reimers, David M. Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America. 2d ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. See also: Immigration Act of 1917 (1917); Immigration Act of

1921 (1921); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943); War Brides Act (1945); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952); Refugee Relief Act (1953); Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (1986); Immigration Act of 1990 (1990).

988

Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act

Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act Date: October 20, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 992 Public law: 89-272 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Transportation

The act, an early effort to control automobile emissions, addressed both air pollution and solid waste. The Motor Vehicle Air Pollution and Control Act was one in a series of pollution-control acts that included the Clean Air Act of 1965 and the Clean Air Amendment of 1977. The act complemented a series of regulations, ranging from safety standards to fuel-efficiency standards that changed the face of the American automobile industry. The effort to clean up air affected by automobile emissions involved an after-the-fact strategy that relied on the establishment of government standards and a mandate to force industry to meet those standards. Provisions In 1965, two essentially separate pieces of legislation, one dealing with air pollution and a second dealing with solid waste material, were merged and passed by the U.S. Congress as the Vehicle Air Pollution and Control Act. The act, principally an effort to control air pollution caused by automotive exhaust, also authorized a national research program to dispose of solid waste. The new law authorized the secretary of health, education, and welfare to establish standards that limited the amount of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, or other air pollutants emitted from gasoline or diesel fuels in automobiles, trucks, and buses. Specifically, that section of the law only affected new motor vehicles or engines and prohibited the domestic sale, manufacture for domestic sale, or importation of any vehicle not in conformity with the limits. Fines of up to $1,000 per automobile or per engine could be levied against manufacturers who did not comply. Manufacturers had to submit sample vehicles to the HEW secretary, who 989

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oversaw tests for compliance. Other sections of the legislation made provisions for action against U.S. companies by foreign nations for air pollution. Finally, a provision of the act authorized funds for federal research to reduce emissions of sulfur oxide from heating plants and electric power plants. Elements of the solid waste disposal act initiated federal research into waste disposal, established authority over disposal problems, defined solid waste, and authorized grants for surveys and for education or training of individuals to deal with solid waste. Background In 1964, the Senate Public Works Committee Special Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution released a report entitled “Steps Toward Cleaner Air.” It recommended legislation to deal with automobile exhaust, including minimum national standards for limiting exhaust emissions, similar limits for diesel exhaust, grants for solid waste disposal, and establishment of a technical committee to investigate ways to reduce sulfur oxide. The full committee estimated that approximately 82.5 million automobiles, trucks, and buses in the United States emitted more than 14 million tons of hydrocarbons, 4 million tons of nitrogen oxides, and 75 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. Concluding that automobile emissions “constitute a major proportion of the community air pollution problem in all large cities” and that the technological skills and equipment needed to reduce pollution had passed the research stage, the committee found no reason to delay more serious control measures. Various pollution tax schemes were considered but were not put into effect. Impact The overall effectiveness of the measures, however, remains a matter of debate. Regression analyses of particulate and sulfur emissions by industry have indicated that regulations had little impact on usage levels or pollutant outputs. Environmental activists have maintained that such studies merely show that the results of the legislation had not been fully realized at the time of the studies. Yet studies comparing emission levels for states in compliance with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations with those not in compliance revealed no difference in the levels of emissions. 990

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Furthermore, in developing regulations, the federal government often simply followed the lead of states such as California, which had already established emissions limitations effective with the 1968 automobile model year. Certainly, there were successes directly attributable to the Clean Air Act. From 1967 to 1976, hydrocarbon emissions in the San Francisco area were reduced 25 percent, and daily observed oxidant levels fell by a comparable amount. Carbon monoxide levels in New York dropped more quickly than projected. Moreover, a major effect of the legislation was to expand the role of the federal government in supervising and mandating air quality improvement. Amendments to the Clean Air Act of 1977, for example, required the federal government to provide information to states to control motor-vehicle emissions, and the imposition of catalytic converters in 1974 shifted the nation away from the use of leaded gasoline. Larry Schweikart Sources for Further Study Bruce-Briggs, B. The War Against the Automobile. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977. Esposito, John C., and Larry Silverman. Vanishing Air: The Ralph Nader Study Group Report on Air Pollution. New York: Grossman, 1970. MacAvoy, Paul. Industry Regulation and the Performance of the American Economy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Nader, Ralph. Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile. New York: Grossman, 1965. Rae, John B. The American Automobile Industry. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984. See also: Air Pollution Control Act (1955); Clean Air Act (1963);

Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977); Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990).

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Solid Waste Disposal Act Date: October 20, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 997 Public law: 89-272 U.S. Code: 42 § 3251 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

The act marked the first federal attempt to address inadequate solid waste disposal methods. The Solid Waste Disposal Act, which was passed on October 20, 1965, was the first federal law on solid waste management. In its opening statement, the act noted “an ever mounting increase” in discarded materials from population and economic growth—an increase that, coupled with the concentration of population in metropolitan areas, was creating serious financial, management, intergovernmental, and technical problems in the disposal of solid waste. Although the responsibility for solid waste disposal lay with state and local governments, the matter was of national concern. Previous Garbage Management At the time the Solid Waste Disposal Act was passed, the methods of dealing with garbage had not evolved much since early in the century, when local governments had assumed the responsibility for collecting and disposing of garbage. Collection methods had improved somewhat with the development of compression technology, which led to such innovations as the packer truck and the transfer station. Disposal methods had remained largely landbased and tended to use open dumps, which were coming into conflict with evolving pollution-reduction programs. The incinerators in use at the time were a mixture of plain-burner and waste-toenergy facilities; they too were beginning to be affected by pollution initiatives. Only a small amount of garbage was being recycled through source separation, but that approach was being reevaluated as compaction and other procedures, which were easier to implement, became more widespread. In a time of economic prosperity, 992

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it was easier to start with new materials than bother with sourceseparated ones. A major survey conducted by the Public Health Service found that the existing system of collecting and disposing of solid waste in the United States was primarily administered by local governments. Collection was usually weekly and under the authority of the local government. Land-based ground disposal, which was less expensive than other options, was still the more common method. Incineration was used in the disposal of paper, food, and yard waste. The survey also revealed that 94 percent of land-disposal systems and 75 percent of incinerators were inadequate. Incinerators, though they reduced the volume of waste, produced air pollution. The land sites were not sanitary landfills but dumps, where materials were left exposed and could lead to serious environmental and health problems. Nearly 90 percent of the dumps did not cover the materials daily; three-quarters were judged to be unsightly, and those that burned materials to reduce the volume thereby released air pollution. The survey indicated that what was needed were sanitary landfills that were covered with earth daily and where no burning would occur; unsightliness and odors, as well as insects and vermin, would thus be minimized. Provisions of the Act The act recommended that the federal government provide financial and technical assistance to local agencies for the solution of solid waste problems. The new law also set goals for the reduction of unsalvaged materials and for the implementation of proper and economical solid waste disposal practices. The research and development program included conservation of natural resources and reduction of waste. The act also urged the cooperation of various governmental units in this effort. The secretary of health, education, and welfare was to be allowed as much as $20 million to use in such efforts, and smaller amounts were allotted for the secretary of the interior. In its legislative history of the act, the Public Works Committee reported that a slightly smaller amount of money was actually expended. In 1967, when $14 million had been authorized and $12.4 million requested and appropriated by Congress, $12.3 million was actually expended. Later, such underexpenditures became common. 993

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The act funded the gathering of basic information, scientific research, and demonstration projects. A publication summarizing the projects between 1965 and 1970 indicated the early focus on information gathering. There were many small grants on training and research, which ranged from a health-hazard study to a model code and even a mathematical model of waste flows. Of this group of forty-five expenditures, a few involved basic science, but most were geared to applications. A small number of moderately funded projects studied the disposal management in specific industries; some specific technical projects received larger grants. Often, the research results and grant reports were later published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), thus guaranteeing wide, inexpensive circulation subsidized by the taxpayers. This was ideal for disseminating the information and implementing changes. More important, such basic information was the foundation for later initiatives at the local government level. Impact After passage of the 1965 act, new disposal systems were financed by users and local governments. Improved higher-compaction trucks were added to the collection system, and all waste, even that which had formerly been source-separated, began to be collected together, compacted, and taken to central, rural sites, where it was covered with earth at the end of each day. The development of these sanitary landfills came relatively quickly; often swamp lands were reclaimed for the purpose. Source separation and centralized recycling efforts became obsolete. These developments changed everyday life in the United States. Nancy R. Bain Sources for Further Study Melosi, Martin V. Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment, 1880-1980. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1981. Packard, Vance. The Waste Makers. New York: David McKay, 1960. Rathje, William, and Cullen Murphy. Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Small, William E. Third Pollution: The National Problem of Solid Waste Disposal. New York: Praeger, 1971. 994

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Udall, Stewart L. The Quiet Crisis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. See also: Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Resource

Recovery Act (1970); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976); LowLevel Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980); Pollution Prevention Act (1990).

Higher Education Act Date: November 8, 1965 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 1219 Public law: 89-329 U.S. Code: 20 § 1001 Categories: Education

This landmark legislation greatly increased the federal role in higher education as a keystone to the Great Society and War on Poverty programs. In 1960, the federal government supported about 9 percent of U.S. higher education funding, mostly through the G.I. Bill, the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA), and various social security programs. One billion dollars went to support land-grant universities, veterans, science education, libraries, and college housing in 1961. That year, President John F. Kennedy introduced a bill to support $2.8 billion in faculty loans and $892 million in meritand need-based loans to students at four-year institutions; it was defeated. By 1965, the climate had changed. Both President Lyndon B. Johnson (a former teacher) and the heavily Democratic Congress considered education key to their antipoverty and Great Society programs. The bill passed the House by 368 to 22 and the Senate by 79 to 3. Johnson signed the Higher Education Act at his old college in San Marcos, Texas, on November 9, 1965, to “strengthen the educational resources of our colleges and universities and to provide financial assistance for students in post-secondary and higher education.” 995

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Provisions The act’s fifty-two pages are divided into eight titles. The first title allotted $25 million to establish “urban land-grant” programs of community service, including continuing education. The second appropriated $50 million for building up library and media collections and training specialists. Title III set aside $55 million to help “developing institutions”—largely southern African American schools—that were “struggling for survival and are isolated from the main currents of academic life.” Potential faculty were to be encouraged with special fellowships, and “cooperative” partnerships with stronger northern schools were also envisaged. Title IV was revolutionary in its restructuring of federal aid to students. NDEA needs-tested loans were extended and complemented by an additional $70 million in aid to schools for Educational Opportunity Grants to undergraduates “of exceptional financial need,” insurance for $700 million in commercial loans (to be doubled two years hence), and $129 million for work-study programs, an extension of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Title V sought to improve the preparation of teachers and established the National Teacher Corps, an analog to President Kennedy’s Peace Corps, “to strengthen the educational opportunities available to children in areas having concentrations of low-income families.” Experienced teachers and inexperienced teacher-interns were to be enrolled and sent to these areas to augment teaching staffs. The title also approved $40 million for forty-five hundred fellowships to support training for school teachers. Title VI authorized $40 million for classroom televisions and training of media specialists. Title VII expanded the funding of the Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, while Title VIII prohibited “federal control of education.” Impact General aid increased tenfold between 1964 and 1971, and by 1970, two million students, or one in four, were receiving federal aid. The triad of grants, loans, and work-study—all enormously expanded—formed the basis for federal aid to students. Though they had played an insignificant role in 1965, education lobbyists soon became a powerful force behind the ever-increasing flow of funds, and Congress eagerly took over where the president had left off. Through rules for student funding, the federal government could 996

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now gain compliance with antidiscrimination policies, even from private schools. The 1968 amendments added six new programs— including aid to “disadvantaged students” and the Law School Clinical Experience Program—and appropriations of $2.46 billion, more than twice the amount Johnson requested. Joseph P. Byrne Source for Further Study Graham, Hugh Davis. The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years. Graham. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. See also: G.I. Bill (1944); National Defense Education Act (1958); Economic Opportunity Act (1964); Higher Education Act (1965); Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (1972); Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978); Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978); Perkins Act (1990).

Cigarette Warning Label Act Also known as: Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act Date: January 1, 1966 U.S. Statutes at Large: 79 Stat. 282 Public law: 89-92 U.S. Code: 15 § 1331 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Food and Drugs;

Health and Welfare

This law required health warning labels on cigarette packages. From the time it emerged as the economic salvation of the Virginia colony in the early seventeenth century until the latter half of the twentieth century, tobacco prompted arguments over the possibility of harmful health effects and its capacity to addict its users. Because of the popularity of tobacco generally, and cigarettes specifically, little governmental action was proposed to limit smoking 997

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until the middle of the 1960’s. At that time, a broad coalition capitalized upon a landmark governmental report and succeeded in passing the first piece of legislation designed to decrease the use of tobacco products by making smokers aware of the potential health risks they faced. The Link Between Smoking and Health By the beginning of the 1960’s, the rate of cigarette consumption among all Americans over eighteen years of age had hit its peak. In 1963, the average American smoked 4,345 cigarettes. At about this time, an increase in the number of cases of several serious diseases, most particularly lung cancer, was reported by statisticians. In March, 1962, Senator Maurine B. Neuberger (Democrat of Oregon) introduced legislation calling for the formation of a presidential commission to study the relationship between smoking and health. In June of that year, U.S. Surgeon General Luther L. Terry announced the formation of a group of experts who would study the existing scientific literature to determine whether a link did, in fact, exist between tobacco and various health problems. In fairness to those who supported smoking, one-half of the panel did smoke, and the Tobacco Institute, the industry’s umbrella organization, was allowed to veto any committee members it found objectionable. In spite of the balance of the committee, its conclusions were unanimous and striking. In a two-volume report that was released on a Saturday (when the stock markets were closed, so that the potential for a negative reaction against the stocks of the tobacco companies would be limited), the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee concluded that cigarette smoking constituted a health hazard of proportions significant enough to warrant direct governmental action. The reaction to the report by various groups reflected their varied attitudes toward smoking in general. The Tobacco Institute disputed the existence of any causal link between smoking and cancer, while the American Cancer Society declared that the reduction of cigarette smoking represented the greatest possibility for the prevention of cancer, other serious illnesses, and premature death. In the House of Representatives, thirty-one separate bills were introduced in response to the report. Most of them called for further study of the supposed link between smoking and ill health. 998

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The Warning Label Debate While Congress considered its next step, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) prepared new regulations and scheduled public hearings on the proposal to require all cigarette packages to carry a specific health warning. By January, 1965, the FTC had two separate warnings under consideration: Caution: Cigarette smoking is a health hazard: The Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health has found that cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.

and a more direct one: Caution: Cigarette smoking is dangerous to health. It may cause death from cancer and other diseases.

Prior to the announcement of the FTC’s plan to require the warning labels, the tobacco industry prepared its own strategy to minimize the negative impact of any governmental action. The most important aspect of the plan was the employment of Earle C. Clements as a registered lobbyist on behalf of the industry. In addition to all of his contacts as a former Senate majority whip in the late 1950’s, Clements had been one of Lyndon Johnson’s most trusted aides while both served in the Senate. Clements developed the successful strategy that the tobacco interests pursued to limit the damage to their business. Realizing that a warning label was unavoidable, Clements urged the corporate leaders of the six major cigarette manufacturers to ask Congress for legislation requiring labels, rather than allow the FTC to control the issue. Clements’s logic rested on the knowledge that the tobacco interests could lobby for the least intrusive labeling requirements possible by dealing with an elected body, Congress, rather than an appointed one, the FTC. Stronger Measures Clements’s plans directly conflicted with the proposals of Senator Neuberger, whose husband had died of cancer. A devoted opponent of smoking, she had carried on her husband’s crusade against the tobacco companies after his death, when she was elected to fill his unexpired Senate term. She proposed a strict warning on ciga999

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rette package labels in addition to a requirement that all cigarette advertising carry the health warning. She also suggested barring advertising of cigarettes and other tobacco products from radio and television. The battle between these two positions was fought principally in the Senate Commerce Committee, where Warren Magnuson worked to achieve the most fair bill possible. Although not as devoted to the antismoking cause as Maurine Neuberger, Magnuson was committed to reducing the number of tobacco-related deaths in the United States. The Commerce Committee first debated the possibility of a total ban on the advertisement of cigarettes and other tobacco-related products. After a long fight, the Senate committee settled on a four-year moratorium on any actions by the FTC to ban advertising. Although this disappointed many health advocates, the tobacco interests had been pushing hard for a moratorium in perpetuity. The Final Wording The Commerce Committee then turned its attention to the wording, size, and other specific requirements for the package warning. After much debate, the compromise called for a statement that read: Caution: Cigarette Smoking may be Hazardous to Your Health.

After minimal debate, the full Senate approved the bill by a vote of 72 to 5 in July, 1965. Attention then turned to the White House and the question of how President Johnson would respond to the bill. A former three-pack-a-day smoker before a severe heart attack forced him to give up the practice, Johnson understood the hazards of smoking as well as the difficulty many experienced when they tried to quit the habit. Although there was a small movement within his administration to veto the bill because the warning was not as explicit as it could have been, Johnson signed Senate Bill 559 into law on July 27, 1965. As Public Law 89-92, it took effect on January 1, 1966. Impact of the Labeling Law The consequences of the first cigarette labeling law were many and far-reaching. On one hand, the bill represented another in a long string of victories for the tobacco companies. The warning on the 1000

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packages was significantly less severe than it could have been, given the findings in the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee report. A complete medical consensus did not exist, however, on the connection between smoking and illness. The prestigious American Medical Association did not endorse the conclusions of the original report, and many members of Congress used that lack of an endorsement to bolster their calls for further study of the problem. Over time, the FTC’s and Neuberger’s original recommendations became law. One of the clauses of Public Law 89-92, included as a result of the Senate Commerce Committee’s deliberations, was the requirement that both the FTC and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare submit annual reports to Congress evaluating the effectiveness of the law and the current nature of cigarette advertising. These reports discussed current themes in print, radio, and television ads such as brand loyalty and never failed to mention that any negative aspects of smoking or tobacco addiction were absent from the ads. As the four-year moratorium on action against cigarette advertising passed, the FTC and then Congress held hearings on tougher warning labels, the inclusion of these new warnings in all print advertising, and a total ban on any radio or television advertising. On April 1, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, which barred television and radio ads for cigarettes. Cigarette advertising appeared in the electronic media for the final time on January 1, 1971. Perhaps the most important aspect of Public Law 89-92 was that its evolution marked the first time that cigarette manufacturers acknowledged that a relationship between smoking and ill health did exist. In spite of its protests to the contrary, the Tobacco Institute’s lobbying for the passage of this bill signified an acceptance of the validity of the growing medical evidence documenting the link. As time has passed, the bulk of this evidence has increased. Each time the surgeon general releases a report examining the relationship between smoking and health, the conclusion becomes less ambiguous. These later reports have become the basis for more recent legislation restricting smoking in public facilities and have lent considerable support to the nonsmokers’ rights and antismoking movements in the United States and elsewhere. E. A. Reed 1001

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Sources for Further Study Diehl, Harold S. Tobacco and Your Health: The Smoking Controversy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969. Drew, Elizabeth B. “The Quiet Victory of the Cigarette Lobby: How It Found the Best Filter Yet—Congress.” Atlantic Monthly 216 (September, 1965): 75-79. Patterson, James T. “Smoking and Cancer.” In The Dread Disease: Cancer and Modern American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. Price, David E. “The Commerce Committee in Action.” In Who Makes the Laws? Creativity and Power in Senate Committees. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1972. Troyer, Ronald J., and Gerald E. Markle. Cigarettes: The Battle over Smoking. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983. See also: Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970).

Freedom of Information Act Date: July 4, 1966 U.S. Statutes at Large: 80 Stat. 250 Public law: 89-487 U.S. Code: 5 § 552 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties

The act reversed long-standing government policies and practices regarding public access to information by establishing the right of access to government information and agency records as essential to a free and open society. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) grew out of many years of reform effort. Its original passage in 1966 was the result of a tenyear congressional campaign, in which media representatives played a leading role. It was drafted as a revision of the public information section of the Administrative Procedures Act (1946), which contained such expansive exceptions that most agencies could 1002

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effectively avoid disclosing to the public almost anything they wished. Until FOIA went into effect in 1967, public access to federal government records and documents was governed by a “need to know” policy. Persons requesting information had to demonstrate why it should be made available. Before 1966, the old Administrative Procedures Act (APA) permitted individual government agencies not to disclose any functions that the agencies themselves claimed either should be kept secret in the public interest, or were matters relating solely to their internal management. The APA mandated that all agency records be made available to persons who were properly and directly concerned, except information censored for good cause. Once an agency censored information, citizens had no right of appeal. Provisions and Purpose FOIA was enacted to give the public increased access to federal government records. On the day that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law, he declared that the principle upon which the legislation was based was that “a democracy works best when people have all the information that the security of the Nation permits.” FOIA’s purpose was to establish a general philosophy of full agency disclosure—except in clearly delineated cases—and to provide legal procedures by which citizens and the press could obtain information wrongfully withheld. It was believed that full public disclosure would further democracy by enabling better informed citizens to scrutinize government actions and thereby discourage corruption and waste. FOIA’s original wording granted the public access only to government paper “files.” In 1974 the law was amended to apply to “records”—a term that the courts have interpreted to apply to a much broader range of material, making it more difficult for agencies to censor entire files. “Records” include not only the papers constituting files, but also films—including X rays—and computer media. Other physical objects, however, such as the rifle believed to have been used to kill President John F. Kennedy, are not considered records, principally because they are not reproducible. Federal Agencies Subject to FOIA Government entities are considered to be “agencies” when they have authority to perform specific government functions. FOIA 1003

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itself defines as agencies all government bodies other than those directly connected to the U.S. Congress, federal courts, the governments of U.S. territories and possessions, and the District of Columbia. The law specifically includes all federal executive and military departments, government-controlled corporations, federal government corporations, and other establishments in the executive branch of the federal government, including the Executive Office of the President, and independent regulatory agencies. (State and municipal government bodies are not subject to FOIA.) Exemptions to FOIA The law lists nine categories of government records that federal agencies need not disclose to the public. These exemptions recognize the fact that censorship of some types of information may be necessary to safeguard certain legitimate government and private interests. However, agencies claiming any of these exemptions bear the burden of showing that the information should be protected under the law. The first exemption covers information relating to national defense and foreign policy. An executive order must be issued to classify and protect this information pursuant to established standards and procedures, including submission of affidavits showing how the release of such information might damage national security. However, the language of this exemption does not provide any substantive standard for withholding information. A specific executive order must be reviewed to give the exemption meaning. In 1982, Executive Order 12356 was issued; as amended, it lists ten categories of information to be considered for classification. These include information on military plans, weapons, or operations; the capabilities and vulnerabilities of systems, installations, projects, or plans relating to the national security; information on foreign governments; intelligence-gathering activities; foreign relations; scientific, technological, or economic matters relating to national security; federal programs for safeguarding nuclear materials and facilities; cryptology; confidential sources; and any information relating to national security that the president or other officials determine should be protected from unauthorized disclosure. Some national security information, even when it falls within one or more of these categories, may nevertheless not be classified. The key question is whether disclosure—by itself or in the context 1004

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of other information—can reasonably be expected to damage national security. Information cannot be classified simply for the purpose of concealing violations of the law, inefficiency, or administrative errors; to prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency; to restrain competition; or to delay release of information not requiring protection in the interest of national security. Further, basic scientific research not clearly related to national security is not classifiable. Executive Order 12356 provides that information should be declassified or downgraded as soon as national security considerations permit. Further, if the director of the Information Security Oversight Office determines that any information is classified in violation of this executive order, the director may mandate declassification. The director’s decisions are appealable to the National Security Council, with the information remaining classified pending appeal. Other Exemptions The second exemption concerns records relating solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency. Its purpose is to relieve government agencies of the burden of assembling and maintaining for public review records in which the public is unlikely to be interested. It also covers internal agency procedures, such as instructions to investigators, inspectors, and auditors, disclosure of which could damage agency operations. The third exemption incorporates by reference various federal information nondisclosure statutes and precludes disclosure of certain information protected by other statutes. Nondisclosure is authorized when other statutes either prohibit disclosure outright, or confer to an agency discretionary power to withhold material, while providing guidelines for exercising such discretion or specifying the types of material to which discretion applies. Citizens wishing to examine agency documents that are withheld under the terms of this exemption can legally appeal to have them released under the terms of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The fourth exemption protects confidential business information. Its purpose is to protect the interests of persons, corporations, and other entities who disclose trade secrets and other confidential information to government agencies and to protect the government. Two tests have been defined to determine whether 1005

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information can be classified as confidential business information. The so-called “competitive advantage test” asks whether release of the information in question is likely to cause substantial competitive injury to the entity that provided it. The “chilling effect test” questions how much the agency needs the information, and whether voluntary cooperation is required for the agency to obtain the information and whether its disclosure will impair the government’s ability to collect similar information in the future. Any information that qualifies under any of these tests is exempted. The fifth exemption encompasses the executive branch’s interagency or intra-agency memoranda or letters, if they are deliberative, consultative, or within the attorney-client or attorney work product privileges. This exemption from public disclosure allows for full, frank, and uninhibited written exchange of ideas and opinions among government policymakers and advisers. Such writings may be censored if their disclosure would discourage intra-agency discussion and thereby impede the ability of an agency to perform its functions. The sixth exemption prevents disclosure of information that would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Examples of such information might include personal medical records. However, this exemption does not apply in cases in which it is judged that public need for release of the information outweighs any possible injury to a person’s privacy. The seventh exemption protects certain investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes. To qualify for this exemption it must be shown that release of such records might interfere with enforcement proceedings; deprive someone of his or her right to a fair trial or impartial adjudication; constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; disclose the identities of confidential sources, including state, local, or foreign agencies or authorities, or private institutions that have furnished information confidentially; disclose techniques, procedures, or guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, and thereby possibly assist someone to circumvent the law; or endanger someone’s life or physical safety. The eighth exemption protects from disclosure reports prepared by or for agencies that regulate or supervise financial institutions. Its purpose is to enhance the security and integrity of financial institutions. Government reports on financial institutions 1006

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often contain frank evaluations of institutions such as banks; indiscriminate disclosure of such information might, for example, lead to a harmful rush on a bank. The final exemption allows nondisclosure of ecological and geophysical information and data concerning wells, including maps. Geological explorations by private oil companies were not previously protected by the trade secrets provisions of disclosure laws. It was believed that disclosure of seismic reports and other exploratory findings generated by oil companies could provide speculators unfair advantage over those companies which incurred the exploration costs. FOIA’s enumerated exemptions are not mandatory bars to disclosure. An agency may, at its own discretion, voluntarily disclose exempt information as it deems fit. However, when an agency elects to release exempt materials, it may limit access to such information to certain individuals. Release of Partially Exempt Information FOIA also addresses requests for information some parts of which are exempt and other parts are not. In such instances the agencies must release “segregable portions” that remain after the material that is exempt from release has been deleted. An agency must release any remaining material that is at all intelligible after deletions have been made. If there are any doubts about the intelligibility or responsiveness of the remaining nonexempt material, those doubts are to be resolved in favor of release. How the Public Receives Documents FOIA requests must typically be in writing; agencies often provide prepared forms for this purpose. Submission of written requests trigger the running of set time limits for agencies to respond. Agencies are only required to act on requests that “reasonably describe” identifiable nonexempt records. Although one test is whether requested records can be located with reasonable efforts, the size of a request alone cannot be the measure of whether it reasonably describes an identifiable record. In contrast, a request for “all” information pertaining to a certain type of record would not be sufficiently descriptive to meet the requirement. The government cannot consider the interests of parties requesting information before determining whether to release or 1007

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censor it. Courts have consistently held that a requester’s needs, purposes, or motivation do not affect the requester’s right to inspect agency records. Recourse for Agency Noncompliance Any agency denial of a request—for any reason—for information can be appealed under FOIA. The most common reason for appeals has been the failure of agencies to respond to requests within the law’s statutory time limits. Agencies commonly deny requests by citing backlogs of requests, and inadequate staffing to perform record searches. Public requests can be frustrated by long delays and expense incurred while denials are appealed. Furthermore, even if an appeal is granted and a court directs an agency to comply with the request, the agency can assert—for the first time—that the requested records are exempt. This will start the appeal process all over again. Effect of FOIA As drafted, FOIA has been generally regarded as a substantial improvement over the APA. In practice, however, FOIA has often proved to be an inadequate means by which to obtain government information. The law’s enumerated exemptions afford government agencies many ways in which to censor documents, in whole or in part. Many cases have been reported wherein citizens have filed FOIA requests and not received their denial letters until five years after the original filing. Many court battles have been fought to determine whether certain government entities are even subject to FOIA. Each time that a court has ruled a government entity to be an agency subject to FOIA, the agency has been ordered to draft guidelines for preserving and releasing its records. Through such court battles, citizens have been granted additional rights to obtain government documents pursuant to FOIA. Furthermore, FOIA has allowed certain plaintiffs in civil court cases against the United States government, or its agencies, to obtain documents implicating the U.S. government or its agencies, which has lead to judgments or settlements against the U.S. government which could not have been obtained before the enactment of FOIA. David R. Sobel 1008

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Sources for Further Study Adler, Allan. Using the Freedom of Information Act: A Step by Step Guide. Washington, D.C.: American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, 1990. Holsinger, Ralph L. Media Law. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991. Marwick, Christine M. Your Right to Government Information. New York: Bantam, 1985. Tedford, Thomas L. Freedom of Speech in the United States. 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. U.S. Congress. House. Citizen’s Guide to the Freedom of Information Act. Chicago: Commerce Clearing House, 1987. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Government Operations. Foreign Operations and Government Information Subcommittee. U.S. Government Information Policies and Practices: Administration and Operation of the Freedom of Information Act (Part Four). Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives. 92d Congress. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1972. U.S. Department of Justice. Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute. The Freedom of Information Act for Attorneys and Access Professionals. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1989. U.S. General Services Administration. Your Right to Federal Records: Questions and Answers on the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1984. Weaver, Maureen, ed. The Freedom of Information Act: Why It’s Important and How to Use It. Washington, D.C.: Campaign for Political Rights, in cooperation with the Center for National Security Studies, 1982. See also: Privacy Act (1974); Privacy Protection Act (1980).

Animal Welfare Act Date: August 24, 1966 U.S. Statutes at Large: 80 Stat. 350 Public law: 89-544 U.S. Code: 7 § 2131-2155 1009

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Categories: Agriculture; Animals; Business, Commerce, and Trade;

Environment and Conservation

The Animal Welfare Act represents the first U.S. statute on the use of animals in research. Over the years, research using animals has resulted in substantial and undeniable benefits to humans. Once some people recognized that animals have a capacity to feel pain comparable to their own, however, the practice began to be questioned on ethical, moral, and philosophical grounds. As a result of the development of the pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries in the 1930’s, there was a dramatic increase of research using animals. At that time, animals also began to be used more in the testing of nonmedical products, such as cosmetics, and in weapons and space research. Eventually, a reaction began, and a spate of animal-welfare acts were introduced and debated in both houses of Congress between 1960 and 1966. Inhumane Treatment Two events had raised public awareness of the need for some protection for animals: the fate of a missing pet dog suspected of having been stolen by a dealer, and a photo essay in Life magazine that depicted the inhumane treatment of dogs by dealers. The fate of the pet was never ascertained, but the fact that it had been impossible for the family and public officials to investigate the dealer convinced people that legislation was needed. The first step was taken when congressmen Warren Magnuson and Joseph Y. Resnick introduced a bill to regulate trade in dogs. The Animal Welfare Act of 1966 grew out of the ensuing six-year debate in Congress, which focused on many of the issues of using animals for teaching and research, in exhibitions, and as pets. Much of the credit for the act’s passage went to a grassroots effort led by Christine Stevens, an activist and founder of the Animal Welfare Institute. Stevens was given special recognition in the congressional record of the Eighty-ninth Congress for her contribution. Provisions for Some Animals The 1966 act regulated the sale, transport, and handling of dogs, cats, monkeys, guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits. The secretary of 1010

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agriculture was made responsible for establishing standards for humane treatment and transportation of those animals, but no specific standards were set in the act itself, nor did it include provisions for enforcing the regulations. The legislation had other serious weaknesses: It did not empower the Department of Agriculture to interfere in research designs or specific experiments; it addressed only the supply and care of animals, not the kind of procedures to which they were subjected; it covered only those institutions that receive federal funding; and it did not extend to rats and mice, which account for nearly 80 percent of all laboratory animals. Amendments and Other Legislation The debate over animal use continued after the Animal Welfare Act of 1966, and a number of amendments were added to the 1966 bill that significantly strengthened its provisions. The first amendment, in 1970, directed the secretary of agriculture to set standards for treatment and transportation of research animals and charged the Department of Agriculture with inspecting all official animal facilities and removing or humanely destroying suffering animals. A 1976 amendment mandated additional protection for animals being transported and tried to ensure humane care and treatment of animals; the amendment also prohibited the sale or use of stolen animals. Between 1979 and 1982, the Ninety-sixth and Ninety-seventh Congresses debated a Research Modernization Act, which proposed reallocating 30 to 50 percent of all federal research funds that involved animals in order to establish an institute for the development of alternatives to animal testing. This debate was fueled by a widespread public letter-writing campaign, as a result of which public hearings were held in the House of Representatives. The Research Modernization Act was not passed, but debate over a subsequent bill, introduced in 1982, eventually led to a strong 1985 amendment to the 1966 Animal Welfare Act. The 1985 amendment directed researchers to use specific standards of humane treatment and to design experiments so as to minimize pain and distress. Institutions that carry out animal research were required to establish a committee (one member of which had to be from outside the institution) to review research procedures and inspect facilities; these committees were responsi1011

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ble for filing reports with the Department of Agriculture and federal funding agencies. A related statute, the Health Research Extension Act of 1985, directed the secretary of health and human services, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to establish guidelines at NIHfunded facilities for the care and treatment of research animals and the training of laboratory personnel in the humane treatment of animals. The director of the NIH was empowered to revoke grants to institutions that failed to meet the provisions outlined in the act. A separate piece of legislation, the Consumer Products Safe Testing Act of 1989, specifically prohibited the use of LD toxicity testing on live animals for determining product safety. In LD testing, animals were treated with increasing concentrations of a potentially toxic substance in order to determine the amount needed to kill 50 percent of the animals within fourteen days. Such testing was found to be inaccurate, misleading, and unnecessary. The act also mandated that each federal department or agency head review requirements or recommendations for the use of any type of animal toxicity tests for premarket evaluation of a product; departments and agencies were directed to order nonanimal toxicity testing whenever that would be as valid as using live animals. Federal departments and agencies were told to review their toxicity testing regulations at least every two years. The 1990 amendment to the Animal Welfare Act authorized the secretary of agriculture to investigate anyone suspected of violating provisions of the act and gave the secretary authority to direct the attorney general to issue temporary restraining orders or injunctions for the protection of animals. 50

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Animal Rights Movement Even as amendments were added, the debate over animal use continued, driven by activists who believed the use of vertebrate animals in research to be unnecessary and often to involve excessive animal suffering resulting from improper techniques and inadequate standards of humane treatment. The animal rights movement gained strength throughout the 1980’s as groups began to work together toward common goals. Academic debate on the moral status of animals helped legitimize the movement. Militancy also increased: Some activists believed they were justified in vandalizing research laboratories and “liberating” research animals. Sci1012

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entists themselves became increasingly willing to criticize aspects of animal research. This willingness was in part the result of public sentiment, which convinced the scientific community that additional regulations were not only inevitable but also necessary to defuse some of the criticism. The number of animals used for research decreased significantly after the 1970’s as a result, at least in part, of scientists developing alternative research methods such as physical and chemical analytic techniques, use of biologically active products, and computer modeling and mathematical analysis. Systems using microorganisms were found to be effective substitutes for animals in the testing of cancer-causing chemicals. Cell-culture techniques carried out in vitro (in a test tube or laboratory flask) almost entirely replaced the controversial Draize rabbit eye-irritation toxicity text, which had been used for determining the safety of cosmetics. In some cases, human clinical and epidemiological studies were implemented directly following in vitro tests. Moreover, as a result of heightened public scrutiny, scientists who continued to experiment on animals refined their techniques to reduce stress and pain to the animals. The series of amendments and related legislation strengthened the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 but did not end the debate between animal rights proponents and scientific communities over the use of animals for research. In June, 1994, the U.S. district court of appeals in Washington, D.C., overturned a 1992 district court order that had charged the Department of Agriculture with monitoring the treatment at universities of research rats, mice, and birds, none of which were covered by the 1966 act or its amendments. In July, 1994, a 1991 court order was overturned that had mandated exercise for research dogs and provisions for the psychological wellbeing of nonhuman primates. Both rulings were made on the basis that the individuals and groups who had brought the suits had no legal standing to challenge existing regulations. That convinced animal-welfare advocates that the way to strengthen the Animal Welfare Act further was not through the courts but through Congress. Linda E. Fisher

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Sources for Further Study Fox, Michael Allen. The Case for Animal Experimentation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Friedman, Ruth. Animal Experimentation and Animal Rights. Oryx Science Bibliographies 9. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1987. Garner, Robert. Animals, Politics, and Morality. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1993. Moss, Thomas H. “The Modern Politics of Laboratory Animal Use.” BioScience 34 (November, 1984): 621-625. Rowan, Andrew N. Of Mice, Models, and Men: A Critical Evaluation of Animal Research. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984. See also: Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Endan-

gered Species Act (1973); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979).

National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act Date: September 9, 1966 U.S. Statutes at Large: 80 Stat. 730 Public law: 89-563 U.S. Code: 49 § 30101-30169 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Health and Welfare;

Transportation

Spurred by activist Ralph Nader, this act for the first time mandated vehicle safety standards. On September 9, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson approved the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The legislation marked the first time the federal government acted to regulate the automobile industry. It required the federal government to develop a program to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by auto accidents. Prior to this legislation, the federal government allowed the automobile industry to regulate itself. The 1014

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lack of government regulation was leading to a large number of deaths and injuries caused by car accidents, a fact brought to the public’s attention by consumer advocate Ralph Nader in his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed. The act passed unanimously in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Safety Provisions and Response The new law led to the creation of a federal agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which was given the task of developing standards for vehicle safety. The standards were to be based on the standards established in the mid-1960’s for cars purchased by the federal government. These twenty-six standards included seat belts, backup lights, impact-absorbing steering columns, front-seat headrests, interior padding (especially on the dashboard), rearview mirrors, four-way flashers or hazard lights to signal a disabled or stopped vehicle, and rear-window defogging devices. The standards were to take effect on all 1968 model vehicles. Although the early standards developed by the NHTSA were minor modifications of those established by the federal government for its own cars, the automobile industry opposed them at every step in the rule-making process. Supporters of increased automobile safety, including Nader, criticized the new agency for not issuing stricter standards. The federal court system usually sided with the automobile manufacturers. In one of the first rulings on automobile safety standards, a federal appeals court decided that the agency could not use findings from crash tests using dummies to support a standard requiring passive restraints. Because of legal challenges, the agency worked fourteen years, until 1984, to issue a standard requiring air bags in American automobiles. Amendments In 1974, Congress amended the act to give the NHTSA the power to enforce recall decisions on defective vehicles. If an equipment failure led to a safety risk in a significant number of vehicles, the agency could order the manufacturer to issue a recall notice and fix the defect in consumers’ vehicles. The federal courts allowed the agency to keep this power. Congress enacted another significant amendment in 2000. This amendment, the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability, and Documentation (TREAD) Act, was in response to a 1015

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large number of accidents involving Ford vehicles with Firestone tires. Ford and Firestone were accused of not informing the government and the public of the problems with tire treads separating, which had caused drivers to lose control of their vehicles. The TREAD act strengthened the defect notification process by requiring car and tire manufacturers to disclose problems with the reporting of a safety recall conducted in a foreign country. John David Rausch, Jr. Sources for Further Study Hansen, Brian. “Auto Safety.” CQ Researcher, October 26, 2001. Mashaw, Jerry L., and David L. Harfst. The Struggle for Auto Safety. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. See also: Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919); Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965); Child product safety laws (1970’s); Consumer Product Safety Act (1972); Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act (1984); Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988).

Endangered Species Preservation Act Date: October 15, 1966 U.S. Statutes at Large: 80 Stat. 926 Public law: 89-669 Categories: Animals; Environment and Conservation; Natural Re-

sources

The law was designed for the conservation, protection, restoration, and propagation of native species of wildlife threatened with extinction. The Endangered Species Preservation Act in 1966 was the first legislation in the United States specifically concerned with the protection and conservation of species threatened with extinction. It was the culmination of a long history of wildlife management and wild1016

Endangered Species Preservation Act

life protection legislation, the earliest of which had been passed in the colonial period. Early Legislation and Oversight In 1900, however, the federal government took its first cautious step toward national regulation of wildlife with the Lacey Act. Using the federal government’s constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce, the Lacey Act prohibited the interstate transportation of any wild bird or mammal killed in violation of state law. The act also authorized the government to preserve, distribute, introduce, and restore wild bird populations where and when necessary. This was in response to the decline of birds such as the passenger pigeon, which became extinct in 1914, and the Carolina parakeet, which became extinct in 1918. Another step was taken in 1918 with the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Based on the government’s authority to enter into treaties with other nations, the act ratified a treaty between the United States and Great Britain (on behalf of Canada) that determined federal authority for the custody and protection of migratory birds. The role of the federal government in protecting wildlife continued to expand through many subsequent laws, but none of them addressed the problem of species with seriously declining populations. Early federal wildlife protection efforts emanated from the Department of Agriculture and Department of Commerce until, in 1939, wildlife management and protection was transferred to the Department of the Interior. In 1964, the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, which was part of the Department of the Interior, inaugurated the Committee on Rare and Endangered Wildlife Species, which issued the first federal list of rare and endangered species, identifying sixty-three vertebrate species. The Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of that year authorized the department to purchase habitat for the preservation of species threatened with extinction. Congress refused to fund these programs without clarification of the department’s legislative authority, so the legislation had negligible impact. Passage and Provisions In 1965, the staff of the Department of the Interior drafted legislation for a comprehensive program to protect, conserve, and re1017

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store wild populations of endangered species. The resulting bills, one in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate, were uncontroversial and passed easily, because almost everyone supported the concept, the scope of the legislation seemed limited, and no one realized the eventual impact. Among the seven conservation bills President Johnson signed into law in 1966 was the Endangered Species Preservation Act, the first significant measure to conserve wildlife species in danger of extinction. Previous acts had provided various kinds of protection for wildlife; the Endangered Species Preservation Act specifically protected species in danger of becoming extinct. The act represented further expansion of federal authority; this was, in fact, the only aspect of the law to undergo debate, because some considered it to conflict with states’ rights over wildlife. The consensus was, however, that the act addressed an area of wildlife management that game-oriented state agencies had been neglecting. Because of heightened environmental awareness on the part of both the public and Congress, the Department of the Interior was able to get the endangered species program funded and implemented. The most significant effect of the 1966 act was the bridge it provided between the pre-1966 acts regarding federal wildlife management and post-1966 acts concerning endangered species. Before 1966, most wildlife management legislation was passed and enforced by state wildlife agencies, which concentrated on game species—mostly mammals, birds, and fish. The state agencies were funded primarily by state revenues from hunting and fishing licenses, and by the Pittman-Robertson and the Dingell-Johnson acts, which imposed federal excise taxes on hunting and fishing equipment. State wildlife management basically benefited hunters and fishers, while federal legislation before 1966 was cautious and primarily concerned with agricultural pests and species of commercial interest. The 1966 act was also a significant first step in extending existing federal wildlife management authority to the protection of endangered species, and it prepared the way for the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which was the most comprehensive endangered species legislation of its time anywhere in the world. The 1966 act provided for the conservation, protection, restoration, and propagation of selected species of native wildlife threatened with extinction. The 1018

Endangered Species Preservation Act

primary method for accomplishing this was habitat acquisition, which was authorized and funded through the existing Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1964, among other laws. The 1966 act also encouraged federal agencies to assist the Department of the Interior in protecting endangered wildlife. The determination that a species was threatened with extinction was made by the secretary of the interior on the basis of a set of vague criteria. Although the 1966 act did not define wildlife, it did prohibit the removal or possession of protected fish, birds, mammals, other wild vertebrates and invertebrates, nests, and eggs. Only about seventy-eight species were defined as endangered, most of them large, popular species that could be easily protected by the existing park and refuge system. Impact There was little immediate impact beyond the public exposure of the endangered species issue. Moreover, given the quickly maturing conservation movement of the late 1960’s, it soon became apparent that the 1966 act had serious limitations. Only native species were covered—there was no protection for foreign species— and in practice only birds and mammals were seriously considered. Enforcement of prohibitions against the taking of protected animals was weak and pertained only to federal lands, nor did the act restrict interstate commerce. The habitat protection effort, too, was weak, because once land was acquired for or designated as a protected habitat, the act had no provisions for actual protection beyond calling for cooperation with other federal agencies. The short-term effect of the 1966 act was therefore minimal, but its long-term importance was demonstrated by the passage of the more authoritative 1969 and the even stronger 1973 endangered species acts. Several other acts and treaties also came into force, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Animal Welfare Act, African Elephant Conservation Act, Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere, and Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. The 1966 act also gave impetus to the concept of listing and thereby increasing public awareness of endangered species. In 1019

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contrast to the seventy-eight species listed in 1966, by the year 2000 there were well over one thousand species listed as either endangered or threatened, with more being considered for inclusion. Vernon N. Kisling, Jr. Sources for Further Study Bean, Michael J. The Evolution of National Wildlife Law. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1983. Clepper, Henry, ed. Origins of American Conservation. New York: Ronald Press, 1966. Littel, Richard. Endangered and Other Protected Species: Federal Law and Regulation. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1992. Lund, Thomas A. American Wildlife Law. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Environmental and Public Works. A Legislative History of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as Amended in 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1982. Yaffee, Steven L. Prohibitive Policy: Implementing the Federal Endangered Species Act. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982. See also: Migratory Bird Act (1913); Migratory Bird Treaty Act

(1918); Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934); Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937); Animal Welfare Act (1966); Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972); Endangered Species Act (1973); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979).

Twenty-fifth Amendment Date: Ratified February 23, 1967 Categories: Constitutional Law; Government Procedure and Or-

ganization

The Twenty-fifth Amendment provides clear procedures for fulfilling the duties of the presidency should the president be unable to discharge 1020

Twenty-fifth Amendment

the duties of the office, or in the event of the death, removal from office, or resignation of the president. It also provides for the prompt filling of the office of vice president should a vacancy occur. The Twenty-fifth Amendment was formally signed and proclaimed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in a White House ceremony on February 23, 1967. The four-section amendment specifically addresses issues related to presidential disability and succession. These concerns date back to the forming of the nation and would come to a head during the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard M. Nixon from office. Earlier Cases of Presidential Death While in Office The first succession law was signed by President George Washington in 1792, declaring that the vice president would succeed the president, followed by the president pro tempore of the Senate, and then the Speaker of the House. On June 19, 1886, the succession law was revised, in part because of concerns raised when Chester A. Arthur ascended to the office of president following the assassination of James Garfield. No president pro tempore or Speaker was in office at the time. This law put the secretary of state in line behind the vice president, followed by cabinet heads. Following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in office, President Harry S. Truman questioned the fitness of unelected cabinet members to hold the office. A bill placing the Speaker and the president pro tempore in line after the vice president was challenged. The Supreme Court’s decision in Lamar v. United States (1916) and the Constitution were used to declare the proposal’s legality. The legislation was passed into law on July 18, 1947. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 rekindled the succession debate, as the Speaker of the House was quite elderly. Applications of the Amendment Six years after ratification, the amendment would be tested. Spiro Agnew resigned the vice presidency amid legal difficulties, and Gerald R. Ford assumed the office in 1973. Shortly thereafter, the Court ordered President Nixon to turn over audiotapes as possible evidence in the Watergate hearings. He announced his resignation on August 8, 1974, and Ford assumed the presidency the next day. Using the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, Nelson A. 1021

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Rockefeller was later confirmed to the office of vice president. The application of the Twenty-fifth Amendment therefore resulted in two unelected officials holding the highest offices in the nation. The disability provisions were employed by Ronald Reagan and subsequent presidents. The amendment ensures that the duties of the presidency will continually be carried out in a timely manner. Kathleen Schongar Sources for Further Study Feerick, John D. The Twenty-fifth Amendment. New York: Fordham University Press, 1976. Vile, John R. A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments. 3d ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. _______. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Twelfth Amend-

ment (1804); Electoral Count Act (1887); Presidential Succession Act (1947); Twenty-second Amendment (1951).

Outer Space Treaty Date: Ratified April 25, 1967; in force October 10, 1967 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Foreign Relations;

Natural Resources; Treaties and Agreements

This agreement, made at the height of the Cold War, mandated the peaceful use of outer space by all nations. After the end of World War II, the Cold War between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union, was the principal global rivalry. Throughout the next few decades this rivalry took many forms. The development of rockets, with the 1022

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related goals of space exploration and development of weapons delivery systems, constituted a prime area of competition. With the launching of Sputnik 1 in October, 1957, the “space race”—which had been under way for a decade—was apparent to everyone. From 1959 to 1963, the number of outer-space-related proposals made by the United States and the Soviet Union greatly increased. The United States’ proposals tended to focus on banning the placement of weapons of mass destruction in orbit around Earth, while the Soviet Union sought a comprehensive disarmament treaty, which would include provisions for outer space. In September, 1963, the Soviet Union stated that a separate treaty regarding outer space would be acceptable. This statement was quickly followed by a general statement of agreement by the United States. During October, 1963, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution supporting the statements made by both countries. However, not until 1966 were substantive proposals for a treaty were put forward by the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States’ proposal dealt only with the area close to Earth, while the Soviet proposal dealt with all of outer space. The United States accepted the broader vision for cooperation, and by the end of the year agreement on the details of the treaty had been reached. Since 1967, about 120 national governments have acted on it in some official manner. As an arms control agreement, there were two major points. The first was that no nuclear weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction, could be placed in orbit around Earth or stationed elsewhere in outer space. The second (Article IV) was agreement that the “Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes.” Military bases, maneuvers, and weapons testing were also prohibited in outer space, although members of the military can participate in peaceful exploration. These broad provisions mean that any national rivalries should not extend militarily into outer space. However, the treaty contains no provisions for verification of compliance, with the exception that all facilities located on the Moon or another celestial body shall be open to visits by members of other countries. Other major provisions include a statement that the Moon and other celestial bodies cannot be claimed as the property of any nation. While each nation is responsible for the activities it or its citizens undertake, exploration and the related scientific study is to be 1023

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undertaken for the good of all people. To facilitate this exploration, there are provisions to assist astronauts who are in trouble or who make an emergency landing outside their home country. Donald A. Watt Sources for Further Study McCain, Morris. Understanding Arms Control: The Options. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. Wainhouse, David W., et al. Arms Control Agreements: Designs for Verification and Organization. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968. See also: North Atlantic Treaty (1949); Eisenhower Doctrine

(1957); Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963); U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty (1967); Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968); Seabed Treaty (1972); SALT I Treaty (1972); SALT II Treaty (1979); Law of the Sea Treaty (1982); INF Treaty (1987); START II Treaty (1993).

Public Broadcasting Act Date: November 7, 1967 U.S. Statutes at Large: 81 Stat. 365 Public law: 90-129 U.S. Code: 47 § 390 Categories: Communications and Media; Speech and Expression

This law was designed to develop public broadcasting, although its content restrictions limited public broadcasting’s expressive freedom. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 has been credited with helping what had been known as educational radio and television evolve into a mature source of news, entertainment, and education. However, because some legislators were concerned that federal involvement in broadcasting might lead to an “Orwellian” government network used for propaganda purposes, the law also included two important content restrictions. Section 399 prevented public broadcasters from editorializing or supporting political candidates. Although it allowed individual 1024

Public Broadcasting Act

commentators to express opinions, this section constrained station managements from broadcasting their own opinions. Some congressional advocates of the provision contended that it would help insulate stations from political pressure to support particular issues or candidates. Other supporters acknowledged that they had been the targets of commercial press editorials in the past and welcomed the ability to restrain public broadcasting from editorializing. More than a decade later a consortium of groups challenged the constitutionality of section 399. In 1984 the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn the provision as a violation of public broadcasters’ First Amendment rights in Federal Communications Commission v. League of Women Voters. The Court’s majority opinion stated that the value of editorial contributions to the marketplace of ideas outweighed any harm that public broadcasters might suffer if their editorials angered politicians. Another restrictive provision of the Public Broadcasting Act required all programs or series funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)—which had been created by the act to channel federal dollars to public stations—to maintain objectivity and balance. Demanding such balance was viewed as a means of ensuring that public stations would not serve as propaganda voices for those supporting one side of controversial issues. In 1975 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), responding to a complaint over two allegedly biased public television programs, held that it could enforce no stronger requirement than the fairness doctrine—an FCC regulation calling for balanced coverage of issues over a station’s overall programming. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld that decision, ruling that requiring the FCC to demand balance within individual programs or series would threaten broadcasters’ expressive freedom. That case did not end congressional attempts to mandate greater objectivity within public broadcasting. In 1992 Congress attached an amendment to the CPB funding bill, requiring the CPB to ensure that public television programming was balanced and objective, and to report annually to Congress on its progress toward achieving such balance. Congress’s action illustrates the Public Broadcasting Act’s greatest threat to public broadcasters’ freedom of speech: its failure to provide for any source of dedicated federal funding. Requiring public broadcasters to depend on congressional appropriations for a significant 1025

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part of their operating budgets meant that legislators unhappy with public broadcasting programming could manifest their displeasure by reducing the system’s funding. This power was exemplified in 1972 when President Richard M. Nixon, angered by what he perceived as public television’s liberal bias, vetoed CPB’s appropriations bill. Howard M. Kleiman Sources for Further Study Emery, Edwin, and Michael Emery. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984. Krasnow, Erwin G., and Lawrence D. Longley. The Politics of Broadcast Regulation. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973. Lichty, Lawrence W., and Malachi C. Topping. American Broadcasting: A Source Book on the History of Radio and Television. New York: Hastings House, 1975. See also: First Amendment (1789); Communications Act (1934);

Communications Act Amendments (1960); Communications Decency Act (1996); Internet Tax Freedom Act (1998).

Age Discrimination in Employment Act Date: December 15, 1967 U.S. Statutes at Large: 81 Stat. 602 Public law: 90-202 U.S. Code: 29 § 621 Categories: Aging Issues; Civil Rights and Liberties; Health and

Welfare; Labor and Employment

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) promotes employment of older persons based on their ability rather than age, prohibits arbitrary age discrimination in employment, and helps employers and employees to resolve problems arising from the effects of age on employment. 1026

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The enactment of the ADEA by Congress was deemed necessary to protect the civil rights of workers between the ages of forty and sixty-five, many of whom who found themselves disadvantaged in retaining employment or in regaining employment following displacement from a job. The law prohibits age discrimination, or ageism, in hiring, discharge, pay, promotion, and other terms and conditions of employment. Through the ADEA, Congress intended to bar employers from setting arbitrary age limits that disregarded workers’ potential for job performance. Congress recognized that the incidence of unemployment—especially long-term unemployment with resultant deterioration of skill, morale, and employer acceptability—was high among older workers and that the existence of arbitrary age discrimination in industries burdened commerce and impeded the flow of goods. The U.S. secretary of labor administers and enforces the ADEA through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The act applies to employers with more than twenty employees, to employment agencies, and to unions. The ADEA’s protections apply to both employees and applicants for a job. Most states have enacted laws parallel to the federal law. The ADEA provides for exceptions. Any action that may otherwise be unlawful under the ADEA is legal if age is related to a bona fide occupational qualification that is reasonably necessary for the normal operation of the particular business. In some jobs, an employee must meet certain physical qualifications that an older person cannot satisfy; for example, public safety concerns may validly affect age-related employment decisions regarding the piloting of aircraft, fire fighting, or law enforcement, whereas valid commercial considerations may affect hiring decisions regarding the modeling of clothes for teenagers. The law stipulates that an employer is not required to hire anyone who is unqualified to do a job, regardless of age, and that it is legal to discharge an older employee for good cause. Employees or applicants may agree to waive their rights under the ADEA. For a waiver to be considered voluntary and valid, minimum standards must be met. The waiver must be in writing and be understandable, it must specifically refer to ADEA rights, it may not waive rights or claims that may arise in the future, it must be in exchange for valuable consideration, it must advise the individual in writing to consult an attorney before signing the waiver, and it 1027

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must provide the individual at least twenty-one days to consider the agreement and at least seven days to revoke it after signing it. In 1978, an amendment of the ADEA extended protection to employees up to seventy years of age. On October 7, 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, which allowed colleges and universities to offer age-based early retirement programs to tenured college and university faculty without violating the ADEA. Thus, tenured faculty may be offered “supplemental benefits upon voluntary retirement that are reduced or eliminated on the basis of age,” as long as the benefits are in addition to any retirement or severance benefits generally offered to tenured faculty. Manjit S. Kang Sources for Further Study Gregory, Raymond F. Age Discrimination in the American Workplace: Old at a Young Age. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Hushbeck, Judith C. Old and Obsolete: Age Discrimination and the American Worker, 1860-1920. New York: Garland, 1989. Kalet, Joseph E. Age Discrimination in Employment Law. Washington, D.C.: BNA Books, 1990. O’Meara, Daniel P. Protecting the Growing Number of Older Workers: The Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Center for Human Resources, 1989. Segrave, Kerry. Age Discrimination by Employers. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Press, 2002. See also: Executive Order 11141 (1964); National Arts and Cultural Development Act (1964); Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965); Older Americans Act (1965); Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967); Age Discrimination Act (1975); Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990).

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Bilingual Education Act Date: January 2, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: Older Workers Benefit Protection Act

(1990)81 Stat. 816 Public law: 89-10 U.S. Code: 20 § 7401 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Education; Latinos

The act sought to prevent economic and social discrimination against students with limited English proficiency by increasing the students’ English-language skills while maintaining their access to learning through their native language. Bilingual education was thrust into the forefront of public attention in the 1960’s, when Dade County, Florida, announced a successful experiment with a bilingual program for newly arrived Cuban refugees, most of whom were non-English proficient (NEP) or limited-English proficient (LEP). Citing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in school districts receiving federal funds, Mexican American advocacy groups supported the concept of bilingual instruction as a programmatic remedy for unequal educational attainments by Mexican Americans. The advocacy groups argued that without the ability to speak English, Mexican Americans could participate in neither the economic nor the political mainstream of the country. Passage of the Bill Responding to pressure from his constituents, Texas senator Ralph W. Yarborough championed the cause of bilingual education by introducing a bill in early 1967 that sought to assist schools with a high percentage of low-income Latinos. In the House of Representatives, the bill ultimately gained forty-nine cosponsors, notably George E. Brown, Jr., and Edward R. Roybal of California and James H. Scheuer of New York. As the bill received bipartisan support, attention broadened to consider the plight of LEP/NEP students of American Indian, Asian, French Canadian, French Creole, and Portuguese ancestries. During the debate, statistics were presented showing that 11 percent of U.S. residents had a mother tongue other than English, and 3 million school-age chil1029

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dren spoke a language other than English, 1.75 million of whom spoke Spanish. Public hearings on the proposed legislation were held in Los Angeles, New York City, and three cities in Texas (Corpus Christi, Edinburg, and San Antonio). In addition to Hispanic advocacy groups, support for the bill came from the National Education Association. Since professional educators had no consensus on which teaching strategy worked best in boosting achievement levels for LEP and NEP students, they lobbied Congress to provide funding for research. Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 as an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and $400 million was authorized to be spent for research from 1968 to 1973, although much less actually was appropriated. Funds were to be used to remedy LEP/NEP problems in languages other than English spoken by a substantial number of students. Subsequent Developments On January 21, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled in Lau v. Nichols that failure to use special methods to enable language-minority students to enter mainstream English classes was impermissible. The court, however, refused to rule on what pedagogical method would be best for mainstreaming LEP and NEP students into English-only classes, leaving the choice of method to local school districts. Subsequent to Lau, Congress held hearings to assess the impact, which was determined to affect five million schoolchildren. One result was the Equal Educational Opportunities Act in 1974, a provision of which requires “appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation.” A second statute was the Bilingual Education Act of 1974, which provided federal funds to finance efforts at compliance with Lau for all affected students, not just for low-income students. In 1978, when the law was extended, objections to experiments in bilingual education mounted, and Congress restricted funding to educational projects in which no more than 40 percent of the students were native English speakers. Several alternative methods of language instruction were studied. Submersion, which entailed placing LEP/NEP students into English-only classes on a sink-or-swim basis, was the method outlawed by Lau. Teaching English to Students of Other Languages (TESOL) was designed to remove LEP/NEP students from the 1030

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mainstream to take special instruction in English. Immersion involved employing bilingual instructors who could teach in either language. Transitional bilingual education, the most popular program, involved fast-track English instruction aimed at rapid mainstreaming. Bilingual maintenance programs were designed to enable LEP/NEP students to retain language proficiency in the native language while learning English. Bilingual/bicultural programs went beyond bilingual maintenance to provide instruction in aspects of both the root and U.S. cultures. Culturally pluralistic programs, as adopted later at Texas border towns, were designed to integrate LEP/NEP and English-speaking students into multilingual/multicultural classrooms, so that both majority and minority children could learn together. When objective studies demonstrated that the various bilingual instructional programs did not improve achievement levels for Mexican Americans, Congress passed new legislation, providing funds for capacity building, that is, to train teachers from language minority groups and to develop instructional materials for use in the classroom. The first such law, the Bilingual Education Amendments of 1981, was followed by the Bilingual Education Improvement Act of 1983 and the Bilingual Education Acts of 1984 and 1988. During the eight years that Ronald Reagan was president, civil rights compliance reviews on language and other forms of educational discrimination decreased by 90 percent. In 1991, after Congress held hearings on the matter, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights set equal educational opportunities for national-origin minority and Native American students as its top priority. Although the battle to recognize Spanish and other languages as legitimate languages of instruction succeeded in the 1960’s and 1970’s, efforts to abolish bilingual education gained momentum in the 1980’s and 1990’s. In the late 1990’s, Californians passed an initiative ending bilingual education in the schools. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Bull, Barry L., Royal T. Fruehling, and Virgie Chattergy. The Ethics of Multicultural and Bilingual Education. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. 1031

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Crawford, James. Language Loyalties: A Source Book on the Official English Controversy. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1992. Leibowitz, Arnold. The Bilingual Education Act: A Legislative Analysis. Rosslyn, Va.: InterAmerica Research Associates, National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, 1980. Moran, Rachel F. “Of Democracy, Devaluation, and Bilingual Education.” Creighton Law Review 26 (February, 1993): 255-319. Porter, Rosalie P. Forked Tongue: The Politics of Bilingual Education. New York: Basic Books, 1990. Rossell, Christine H., and J. Michael Ross. “The Social Science Evidence on Bilingual Education.” Journal of Law & Education 15 (Fall, 1986): 385-419. Wagner, Stephen T. “The Historical Background of Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the United States.” In The New Bilingualism: An American Dilemma, edited by Martin Ridge. Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, 1981. See also: Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972); Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975); Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978).

Civil Rights Act of 1968 Date: April 11, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 81 Public law: 90-284 U.S. Code: 25 § 1301 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Housing

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 banned racial discrimination in the sale or rental of most types of housing; it also extended most of the protections of the Bill of Rights to Native Americans. After 1965, the Civil Rights movement devoted increasing attention to conditions in the North. It found much segregation there, a condition that was rooted in residential patterns rather than in Jim Crow laws. The prevalence of segregated housing determined the 1032

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composition of schools and other aspects of urban life. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Chicago campaign in 1966 focused national attention on the housing issue. His lack of success showed that white resistance to opening neighborhoods to minority residents was strong and would be difficult to overcome. Urban riots in northern and western cities provoked a “white backlash,” as many northern whites ceased their support for further civil rights reform. In 1966 and 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson tried and failed to persuade Congress to pass civil rights bills outlawing discrimination in housing. Passing the Act In 1968, liberal Democrats in the Senate brought forward a new civil rights bill containing a fair housing provision. Heavy lobbying by Clarence Mitchell, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped to marshal a majority of senators in support of the bill. As with earlier civil rights measures, southern senators attempted to talk the bill to death with a filibuster. However, in return for some relatively minor modifications in the bill, the leader of the Republican minority, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, agreed to support an attempt to cut off the filibuster. This succeeded, and the bill passed the Senate on March 11, 1968. In the House of Representatives, passage was far from sure. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, however, shocked the country and dramatically altered the political landscape. Support for the bill grew; it passed easily and was signed by President Johnson on April 11. Fair Housing The main thrust of the 1968 Civil Rights Act was to outlaw discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or national origin in the sale and rental of most forms of housing in the United States, as well as in the advertising, listing, and financing of housing. Exempted from the act’s coverage were single-family houses not listed with real estate agents and small apartment buildings lived in by the owner. (About a month after the act became law, the Supreme Court ruled, in the case of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company, that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited racial discrimination in housing and other property transactions.) Two other provisions of the 1033

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act also grew out of the racial turmoil of the 1960’s. One enumerated specific civil rights whose violations were punishable under federal law. Another sought to make the act more acceptable to the growing number of Americans concerned about urban riots by specifying stiff penalties for inciting or engaging in riots. As a housing measure, the act proved disappointing. Its enforcement provisions were weak. Those with complaints of discrimination were directed to file them with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which would then attempt to negotiate a voluntary settlement. If this failed, complainants would have to file their own lawsuits; the federal government would intervene only in cases where there was a clear pattern of past discrimination. In addition, white resentment at attempts to integrate neighborhoods remained high. Banks often found ways to avoid the law’s provisions, making it difficult for many African American families to secure necessary financing. By the late twentieth century, it was clear that the act had not ended the country’s dominant pattern of racial segregation in housing. Indian Bill of Rights The Civil Rights Act of 1968 contained another provision unrelated to concerns over fair housing: the Indian Bill of Rights, also known as the Indian Civil Rights Act. This was grounded in the fact that Indians on reservations, as members of tribal communities, were not considered to be covered by the Bill of Rights. In 1896, the Supreme Court had ruled, in the case of Talton v. Mayes, that the Bill of Rights did not apply to Indian tribes or to their courts. In 1961, Senator Sam Ervin, a North Carolina Democrat, was surprised to discover the fact. Over the next several years, he held hearings on the subject. In 1968, he was able to amend the civil rights bill moving through the Senate to include coverage of Indian rights. The Indian Bill of Rights extended a variety of constitutional protections to Native Americans with regard to the authority of their tribal governments. Among these were freedom of speech and religion, as well as protections for those suspected or accused of crimes. In fact, all or part of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Six, and Eighth Amendments were held to apply to reservation Indians, as was the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process. Some parts of the Bill of Rights were not included, however; the First 1034

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Amendment’s ban of religious establishments was not included, in deference to tribal customs, nor were the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms or the Third’s prohibition against the quartering of troops. Most important to most Indians was a provision that required tribal permission before states could further extend jurisdiction over tribal land. William C. Lowe Sources for Further Study Johnson, Lyndon B. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency 1963-1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. Kushner, James A. Fair Housing: Discrimination in Real Estate, Community Development, and Revitalization. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983. Nieman, Donald G. Promises to Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Smolla, Rodney A., and Chester James Antieau. Federal Civil Rights Acts 2 vols. 3rd ed. Deerfield, Ill.: Clark Boardman Callaghan, 1994. Wunder, John R. “Retained by the People”: A History of the American Indians and the Bill of Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. See also: Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Fourteenth Amendment

(1868); Housing Act (1961); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Housing and Urban Development Act (1965); Fair Housing Act (1968); Indian Civil Rights Act (1968).

Fair Housing Act Also known as: Part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 Date: April 11, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 81 Public law: 90-284 U.S. Code: 42 § 3601 Categories: African Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties; Health

and Welfare; Housing

1035

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The act prohibited discrimination in housing, helping to break racial enclaves in residential neighborhoods and promoting upward mobility for minorities. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 provided that all citizens should have the same rights “to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property,” but the law was never enforced. Instead, such federal agencies as the Farmers Home Administration, the Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans Administration financially supported segregated housing until 1962, when President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 11063 to stop the practice. California passed a general nondiscrimination law in 1959 and an explicit fair housing law in 1963. In 1964, voters enacted Proposition 14, an initiative to repeal the 1963 statute and the applicability of the 1959 law to housing. When a landlord in Santa Ana refused to rent to an African American in 1963, the latter sued, thus challenging Proposition 14. The California Supreme Court, which heard the case in 1966, ruled that Proposition 14 was contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, because it was not neutral on the matter of housing discrimination; instead, based on the context in which it was adopted, Proposition 14 served to legitimate and promote discrimination. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court let the California Supreme Court decision stand in Reitman v. Mulkey (1967). Johnson’s Efforts President Lyndon B. Johnson had hoped to include housing discrimination as a provision in the comprehensive Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he demurred when southern senators threatened to block the nomination of Robert Weaver as the first African American cabinet appointee. After 1964, southern members of Congress were adamantly opposed to any expansion of civil rights. Although Johnson urged passage of a federal law against housing discrimination in requests to Congress in 1966 and 1967, there was no mention of the idea during his State of the Union address in 1968. Liberal members of Congress pressed the issue regardless, and southern senators responded by threatening a filibuster. This threat emboldened Senators Edward W. Brooke and Walter F. Mondale, a moderate Republican and a liberal Democrat, respectively, to 1036

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cosponsor fair housing legislation, but they needed the support of conservative midwestern Republicans to break a filibuster. Illinois Republican senator Everett Dirksen arranged a compromise whereby housing discrimination would be declared illegal, but federal enforcement power would be minimal. In the wake of Reitman v. Mulkey, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, and subsequent urban riots, Congress established fair housing as a national priority on April 10 by adopting Titles VIII and IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act or Open Housing Act. Signed by Johnson on the following day, the law originally prohibited discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin. In 1974, an amendment expanded the coverage to include sex (gender) discrimination; in 1988, the law was extended to protect persons with disabilities and families with children younger than eighteen years of age. Title VIII Provisions Title VIII prohibits discrimination in the sale or rental of dwellings, in the financing of housing, in advertising, in the use of a multiple listing service, and in practices that “otherwise make unavailable or deny” housing, a phrase that some courts have interpreted to outlaw exclusionary zoning, mortgage redlining, and racial steering. Blockbusting, the practice of inducing a white homeowner to sell to a minority buyer in order to frighten others on the block to sell their houses at a loss, is also prohibited. It is not necessary to show intent in order to prove discrimination; policies, practices, and procedures that have the effect of excluding minorities, women, handicapped persons, and children are illegal, unless otherwise deemed reasonable. Title VIII, as amended in 1988, covers persons who believe that they are adversely affected by a discriminatory policy, practice, or procedure, even before they incur damages. The law applies to about 80 percent of all housing in the United States. One exception to the statute is a single-family house sold or rented without the use of a broker and without discriminatory advertising, when the owner owns no more than three such houses and sells only one house in a two-year period. Neither does the statute apply to a four-unit dwelling if the owner lives in one of the units, the so-called Mrs.-Murphy’s-rooming-house exception. Dwellings owned by private clubs or religious organizations that 1037

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rent to their own members on a noncommercial basis are also exempt. Enforcement Enforcement of the statute was left to the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Complaints originally had to be filed within 180 days of the offending act, but in 1988, this period was amended to one year. HUD has estimated that there are about two million instances of housing discrimination each year, although formal complaints have averaged only forty thousand per year. The U.S. attorney general can bring a civil suit against a flagrant violator of the law. According to the law, HUD automatically refers complaints to local agencies that administer “substantially equivalent” fair housing laws. HUD can act if the local agencies fail to do so, but initially was expected only to use conference, conciliation, and persuasion to bring about voluntary compliance. The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 authorized an administrative law tribunal to hear cases that cannot be settled by persuasion. The administrative law judges have the power to issue cease and desist orders to offending parties. HUD has used “testers” to show discrimination. For example, a team of blacks and whites might arrange to have an African American apply for a rental; if turned down, the black tester would contact a white tester to ascertain whether the landlord were willing to rent to a white instead. That testers have standing to sue was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Havens v. Coleman (1982). Under the administrative law procedure, penalties are up to $10,000 for the first offense, $25,000 for the second offense, and $50,000 for each offense thereafter. Attorneys’ fees and court costs can be recovered by the prevailing party. In 1988, civil penalties in a suit filed by the U.S. attorney general were established as up to $50,000 for the first offense and $100,000 for each offense thereafter. Title IX Provisions Title IX of the law prohibits intimidation or attempted injury of anyone filing a housing discrimination complaint. A violator can be assessed a criminal penalty of $1,000 and/or sentenced to one year in jail. If a complainant is actually injured, the penalty can in1038

Fair Housing Act

crease to $10,000 and/or ten years of imprisonment. If a complainant is killed, the penalty is life imprisonment. Under the laws of some states, a complainant filing with a state agency must waive the right to pursue a remedy under federal law. In 1965, a couple sought to purchase a home in a St. Louis suburban housing development, only to be told by the realtor that the home was not available because one of the spouses was African American. Invoking the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the couple sued the real estate developer, and the case went to the Supreme Court. In Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company (1968), the Court decided that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 did permit a remedy against housing discrimination by private parties. The effect of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, however, has been minimal. Without a larger supply of affordable housing, many African Americans in particular have nowhere to move in order to enjoy integrated housing. Federal subsidies for low-cost housing, under such legislation as the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 and the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, have declined significantly since the 1980’s. Conscientious private developers are confronted with the text of a law that aims to provide integrated housing but proscribes achieving integration by establishing quotas to ensure a mixed racial composition among those who seek to buy or rent dwelling units. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Kushner, James A. Fair Housing: Discrimination in Real Estate, Community Development, and Revitalization. Colorado Springs: McGrawHill, 1983. Metcalf, George R. Fair Housing Comes of Age. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Schwemm, Robert G., ed. The Fair Housing Act After Twenty Years. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Law School, 1989. See also: Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Fourteenth Amendment

(1868); Housing Act (1961); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Housing and Urban Development Act (1965); Civil Rights Act of 1968; Indian Civil Rights Act (1968). 1039

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Indian Civil Rights Act Also known as: Indian Bill of Rights Date: April 11, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 77 Public law: 90-284 U.S. Code: 25 § 1301 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Native Americans

This controversial but important measure was designed to guarantee Indians living under tribal governments the same rights as those of other U.S. citizens. A significant but controversial piece of legislation designed to guarantee the rights of individual American Indians came about in special Indian titles of the Civil Rights Act signed into law on April 11, 1968. Tribal Governments The existence of tribal governments and tribal courts had raised the issue of protection of the individual rights of American Indians living in a tribal context. Tribal governments have been considered to be inherently sovereign, because they predate the Constitution and do not derive their power to exist or to govern from either federal or state governments. Federal recognition or regulation of tribes does not make them part of the United States government or guarantee constitutional protection for tribal members. An 1896 Supreme Court case, Talton v. Mayes, determined that the Bill of Rights of the Constitution does not apply to tribes, because tribes derive and retain their sovereignty from their aboriginal selfgoverning status. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which gave American Indians dual citizenship in their tribes and the United States, did not make the Bill of Rights applicable to situations involving tribal government. There was little interest in the lack of individual rights for American Indians living a tribal existence until the 1960’s, when national attention turned to civil rights. When the United States Senate began to investigate civil rights abuses throughout the nation, some attention was directed at tribal governments. In 1961, the Senate held hearings on civil rights issues on reservations, and in1040

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vestigators heard many examples of infringement on individual liberties and the lack of any way to redress grievances. Contributing to the problem was the fact that tribal societies emphasized the good of the group and were inclined to consider the good of the people as a whole more important than the preservation of individual rights. An 1886 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Kagama determined that Congress has authority to govern the internal affairs of tribes and to make laws that directly affect American Indians. Therefore, Congress could impose restrictions on tribal governments and move toward granting greater individual protections to American Indians living on reservations. Civil Rights Act of 1968: Tribal Inclusion In 1968, when civil rights legislation was proposed to remedy the unequal protection of some groups in the United States, Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina proposed bringing tribal governments under the constitutional framework of the United States. After a good deal of political maneuvering, Congressman Ben Reifel of South Dakota, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, rallied support for the bill, and Public Law 90-284, the Indian Bill of Rights, or Indian Civil Rights Act, became law. This act was a set of special titles within the Civil Rights Act. It was intended to protect the rights of individual American Indians; however, it was controversial for its emphasis on individuals rather than the tribal group. The act was intended to preserve tribal autonomy while protecting the rights of individual tribal members. Largely as a result of tribal protests that the full Bill of Rights would severely upset traditional governing practices, a blanket imposition of the Bill of Rights on tribal governments was replaced by a more selective and specific list of individual rights that were to be protected. Those parts of the Bill of Rights that seemed to infringe on the special character of tribal government were omitted. Indian Bill of Rights The Indian Civil Rights Act prohibits tribal governments from interfering with freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition for redress of grievances. It specifically authorizes a writ of habeas corpus for anyone detained by the tribe, and it grants due process. This bill also protects the right of privacy against search 1041

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and seizure, using language identical to that of the Bill of Rights. The Indian Civil Rights Act does not guarantee persons free counsel in criminal proceedings nor the right of indictment by grand jury. In addition to protecting individual freedoms, the Indian Civil Rights Act contains some provisions that impact tribal governments directly. The Indian Civil Rights Act permits tribal governments to establish an official tribal religion in order to allow the continuation of the quasi theocracies that form the basis of government in some American Indian communities. However, the act does require that individual freedom of religion be protected. The secretary of the interior is charged with the responsibility of drawing up codes of justice to be used in courts trying American Indian offenders. Assault resulting in serious bodily injury was added to the offenses on reservations that are subject to federal jurisdiction under the Major Crimes Act. In an important victory for tribal autonomy, section 7 of Public Law 83-280 was repealed. Public Law 83-280, passed by Congress in 1953 in an attempt to abridge the rights of tribal courts, had given states the authority to extend civil and criminal jurisdiction over reservations. The passage of the Indian Civil Rights Act authorized the retrocession of jurisdiction already assumed by a state. A provision in the bill guaranteed the automatic approval of tribal contracts if the secretary of the interior did not act on a tribal request within ninety days. Controversies and Challenges The Indian Civil Rights Act was controversial when it was proposed and has remained so. Many American Indians view it as an attempt to impose non-Indian values on tribal societies and regard it as a violation of tribal sovereignty, because Congress unilaterally imposed the bill on tribal governments and people. This raised many questions regarding the meaning of “consent.” Tribes do not seek to be protected from misuse of power, but there are questions about both the legality and cultural implications of the Indian Civil Rights Act. The fact that Congress intended to bring tribal governments more within the constitutional framework of the United States caused a good deal of controversy. Tribes have questioned the legality of permitting Congress, which basically represents states, to have a direct role in the formulation and passage of a law for tribes. No mechanism was afforded for tribes to accept or reject 1042

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this legislation, although tribal cultures and customs are directly impacted by this law because it emphasizes individualism. Many tribal leaders feel the Indian Civil Rights Act restricts tribes in the exercise of their inherent sovereignty. Since passage of the bill, numerous individual challenges to tribal authority have been litigated in federal courts, and many court decisions have favored the individual and weakened the concept of tribal sovereignty. More recent court decisions have tended to use tribal customs and traditions in interpreting the act. A landmark 1978 decision, Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, supported a tribe’s right to extend membership only to the children of male tribal members, as this was in keeping with tribal custom. The court ruled that it did not violate laws against sexual discrimination, because the Indian Civil Rights Act had a dual purpose of protecting individual rights as well as tribal autonomy. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Clarkin, Thomas. Federal Indian Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, 1961-1969. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001. Deloria, Vine, Jr., ed. American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. Deloria, Vine, Jr., and Clifford M. Lytle. The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Olson, James S., and Raymond Wilson. Native Americans in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984. Prucha, Francis Paul. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Wunder, John R. “Retained by the People”: A History of American Indians and the Bill of the Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. See also: Indian Citizenship Act (1924); Indian Reorganization

Act (1934); Oklahoma Welfare Act (1936); Termination Resolution (1953); Public Law 280 (1953); Housing Act (1961); Housing and Urban Development Act (1965); Civil Rights Act of 1968 (1968); Fair Housing Act (1968). 1043

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Consumer Credit Protection Act Date: May 29, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 146 Public law: 90-321 U.S. Code: 15 § 1601 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

The act required creditors to provide clear and adequate information about the cost of borrowing and enacted protections regarding wage garnishment and loan sharking. The Consumer Credit Protection Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on May 29, 1968. The law had the longest legislative history of any consumer bill. It was introduced each year in the Senate beginning in 1960 but failed to receive committee approval for eight years. Despite the long struggle to get it passed, the final legislation was stronger than the original version. Background Consumer protection began early in the history of the United States, primarily as governmental regulation of economic activities. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was the first federal legislation that regulated an industry. It resulted in the creation of the first regulatory commission, which produced rules that were models for later legislation designed to ensure consumer protection. Legislation in the early twentieth century focused on the safety, purity, and advertising claims of foods, drugs, and cosmetics. The Federal Trade Commission was set up in 1914 to maintain free and fair competition and to protect consumers against unfair or misleading business practices. After World War II, Americans were eager to buy new products. Because they had come to trust producers and believed themselves to be protected by government oversight, they had little concern about the quality or safety of products. Goods were produced as quickly as possible to satisfy demand. Advertising gained a new level of sophistication by playing to the psychological needs of individuals. In 1957, these tactics were exposed in a book called The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard, and the buying public became indignant. The consumer movement began to take shape. 1044

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The idea of truth in lending originated with Senator Paul Douglas, who believed that lenders deceived borrowers about the true annual rate of interest. The practice of charging interest on the original amount of the loan, rather than on the declining balance as an installment loan was paid off, resulted in a true annual rate that was sometimes as high as twice the stated rate. Consumers, who generally were not knowledgeable in financial matters and were unaware of the methods of interest calculation, were paying a high cost for credit. They were unable to compare the costs of borrowing from various lenders because there was no requirement of standard, accurate, and understandable disclosures of the actual cost of borrowing. In 1960, Douglas introduced a truth in lending bill in the Senate. In addition to requiring disclosure of the dollar amounts of the loan, the down payment, charges not related to the financing, and the total financing charges, the bill also required finance costs to be disclosed as an annual interest rate, based on the unpaid balance of the loan. Retailers, banks, and loan companies objected to the annual percentage rate (APR) disclosure requirement. First, it was argued that consumers were accustomed to the monthly rates currently reported and would find the change confusing. Second, many sellers believed that the reporting of a much higher true annual rate of interest would result in reduced consumer purchases. Some argued that this would seriously hurt the economy. Other objections included the contention that the law would not do any good, since the cost of merchandise could simply be increased to hide the cost of credit, and that regulations in this area were the responsibility of the states, not of the federal government. In addition, it was feared that it would be costly and difficult to train retail personnel in the new credit procedures necessary to comply with the requirements. Consumer protection supporters and activists were primarily liberal Democrats, and consumer protection bills were initially seen as part of a liberal agenda. Voting in committees was mostly partisan. This slowed consumer legislation in Congress. Business organizations also lobbied against most consumer legislation. Interference from the federal government was considered to be unnecessary and an infringement on their rights. In 1960, John F. Kennedy campaigned for election as president as an advocate of consumer protection. Once elected, he proposed 1045

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a “Consumer Bill of Rights,” to include the right to safety (protection against dangerous products), the right to be informed (protection against fraud and misinformation), the right to choose (adequate competition), and the right to be heard (government responsiveness to consumer issues). Kennedy asked Congress to enact new food and drug regulations, strengthen antitrust laws, and pass truth in lending legislation. Passage Through Congress In the version of the bill proposed in 1964, revolving credit arrangements, such as retail store credit accounts, were exempted from the annual percentage rate disclosure. The bill gained more acceptance, but it died because of strong opposition by the chair of the Committee on Banking and Currency, Senator A. Willis Robertson. In the 1966 election, senators Douglas and Robertson lost their bids for reelection so were no longer on that committee in 1967 when Senator William Proxmire reintroduced the bill. Senator Proxmire was more willing than Senator Douglas had been to bargain and compromise. The bill was debated in the Financial Institutions Subcommittee of the Committee on Banking and Currency. The bill cleared the subcommittee and the committee, then was passed by the Senate by a 92-0 vote. Congress’s attitude toward consumer bills was changing dramatically as a tide of consumer activism grow in the United States. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 had proved to be a popular bill. Media coverage played an important role in the passage of that bill and helped gain attention for other pending consumer legislation. Leonor Sullivan, an eight-term Democratic congresswoman on the Consumer Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, authored the House version of the truth in lending bill. After battling unsuccessfully to strengthen the bill in the committee, she fought vigorously on the House floor, where several amendments were added, making the bill stronger than the Senate version. The APR disclosure exemption for revolving credit was dropped. Restrictions were included on wage garnishment, whereby an individual’s earnings are withheld from his or her paycheck for repayment of debt. Loan sharking was made a federal offense, with severe penalties when interest rates were charged in excess of the usury levels in each state. The bill also established a 1046

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Consumer Finance Commission to study the consumer finance industry. Publicity and strong public support for the bill resulted in the stronger House version clearing the conference committee. Truth in Lending Act The main section of the bill is Title I, the Truth in Lending Act, which requires, before credit is extended, disclosure of the APR and all finance charges, as dollar amounts, along with other loan terms and conditions. Advertisements that included certain financing terms required further elaboration. Specifically, any advertisement that included the down payment, the amount of each payment, the number of payments, the period of repayment, the dollar amount of any finance charge, or a statement that there was no charge for credit also had to disclose the cash price or the amount of the loan; the amount of down payment or a statement that none was required; the number, amount, and frequency of payments; the annual percentage rate; and the deferred payment price or the total dollar amount of the payments. Additionally, the bill provided for the right of the consumer to cancel a consumer credit agreement within three days if a second mortgage was taken on the consumer’s residence. The Federal Reserve Board was required to draft regulations that implemented the law. Regulation Z was issued on February 10, 1969. Regulations were to be enforced by nine different federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Credit Union Administration, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Civil Aeronautics Board, and the Agriculture Department. Nader and Consumer Activism In 1960, when Senator Douglas first introduced truth in lending legislation, there was little support for consumer issues in Congress. The powerful business community and the credit industry were opposed to the bill. Politics, partisanship, and special interests stalled the bill for many years. The refusal of Senator Douglas to publicly question the ethics of members of Congress with special interests or to question banks’ opposition to the bill helped enable the fight to go on for years without much publicity. Growing consumer support for protective legislation was in part the result of the consumer pro1047

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tection activities of Ralph Nader. Nader’s investigation of shortcomings in automobile safety resulted in General Motors (GM) having him followed and investigated. The public was outraged at GM’s attempts to discredit Nader. Media coverage further fueled consumer demands for protection from unscrupulous business practices. The Ninetieth Congress, which finally passed the Consumer Credit Protection Act, was described by President Johnson in his 1968 State of the Union message as “the Consumer Congress.” Significance The Consumer Credit Protection Act was intended to protect unsophisticated consumers from the hidden costs of borrowing or buying on credit. The concern of business that customers would buy fewer goods and borrow smaller amounts when they became aware of the true annual cost of borrowing apparently was unfounded, although it is impossible to say what consumer behavior would have been in the absence of the law. Continued use of credit in the early 1980’s, with its high inflation and high interest rates, seemed to indicate that consumers were willing to use credit at almost any cost. When inflation was high, consumers learned that delaying their purchases resulted in a higher cost of goods, leading them to purchase immediately even at high interest rates. They continued to use credit even when the APR rose above 20 percent. Interest rates generally dropped in the later 1980’s, but credit card interest rates remained high. Consumers, however, continued to increase their credit card debt. The original truth in lending bill of Senator Douglas was intended to introduce competition to the area of consumer credit. Douglas had hoped that with comparable APR information, consumers would be able to shop for the best rates. One of the results of the legislation appeared to be that some businesses ceased to advertise their credit terms and rates. Whether this was a result of the truth in lending act or the tight supply of money soon after the law was enacted is difficult to ascertain. The main purpose of the bill would not have been realized if creditors gave little or no information in attempts to avoid violating the law. Businesses were concerned about the cost of implementing the regulations. Costs arose from training employees, redesigning credit agreement forms to comply with required standards, educating customers about the information being provided to them, and 1048

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calculation of complex APRs. In general, businesses found that these costs were not as high as had been anticipated. The government provided rate tables to figure APRs, and training and education did not require much time for most businesses. Subsequent Legislation In 1971, the act was expanded to include a restriction on credit card issuers that they could not send unsolicited credit cards to consumers. A fifty-dollar limit was put on a credit cardholder’s liability if there was unauthorized use of the card (for example, in case of a lost or stolen card). If the issuer was notified before any unauthorized use occurred, the cardholder was not liable for any charges. The Truth in Lending Simplification and Reform Act of 1982 was passed with a revised Regulation Z that corrected several weaknesses and ambiguities in the original law. Further legislation covered other areas of concern. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970) dealt with credit reporting agencies, their practices, and consumers’ rights regarding information in their credit files. The Fair Credit Billing Act (1974) dealt with billing errors and procedures to handle them. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1975 and 1977) prohibited discrimination in the granting of credit and provided for prompt responses to consumers regarding the acceptance or rejection of their credit applications. This act especially benefited women, who had previously had difficulties obtaining credit. The law required that credit decisions be made on the basis of qualifications regarding financial status rather than characteristics such as sex, marital status, race, age, religion, or national origin. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (1978) protected consumers from deceptive and abusive debt collectors and established procedures for debt collection. The Electronic Funds Transfer Act (1978) established the rights and responsibilities of users of electronic funds transfers. Rajiv Kalra Sources for Further Study Blackburn, John D., Elliot I. Klayman, and Martin H. Malin. The Legal Environment of Business. 3d ed. Homewood, Ill.: Irwin, 1988. Eiler, Andrew. The Consumer Protection Manual. New York: Facts On File, 1984. 1049

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Faber, Doris. Enough! The Revolt of the American Consumer. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972. Nadel, Mark V. The Politics of Consumer Protection. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Securities Exchange

Act (1934); Truth in Lending Act (1968); Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970); Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974).

Truth in Lending Act Also known as: Title I of the Consumer Credit Protection Act Date: May 29, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 146 Public law: 90-321 U.S. Code: 15 § 1601 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

This law required lenders to provide customers with standardized credit information regarding finance charges and annual percentage rates. In the late 1960’s, Congress became concerned that consumers were confused by the many ways credit costs were charged. Rather than legislate the method for imposing credit charges, Congress proposed that credit terms be disclosed in a uniform manner. Ideally, uniform disclosure would provide consumers with the information needed to compare credit terms and make informed decisions on the use of credit. The Truth in Lending Act was introduced in 1960 by Senator Paul H. Douglas. Eight years of discussion and disagreement ensued concerning the need for such disclosure information. The credit industry voiced much concern over the difficulty in computing an annual rate. The average sales clerk, they agreed, would be unable to compute it without substantially increasing the cost of extending credit. They further stated that consumers did not really care about annual rates and would be confused by the information. 1050

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In fact, they might be shocked and reduce drastically the volume of credit purchases made. These concerns were dispelled in 1966 when the state of Massachusetts passed a truth in lending law and none of these problems materialized; however, debate concerning the method of computing and when these computations would be required continued. Finally, in 1968, the Truth in Lending Act was passed, establishing standard disclosures for consumer credit nationwide. Federal Reserve Regulation Z implements the disclosure laws laid out in this act and requires lenders to (1) provide borrowers with meaningful, written information on essential credit terms (2) respond to consumer complaints of billing errors (3) identify credit transactions on statements of accounts (4) provide certain credit card rights (5) provide estimates of disclosure information before consummation of mortgage transactions (6) provide disclosure of credit terms in adjustable rate mortgages and home equity lines of credit, and (7) comply with special advertising rules.

Under these rules, the dollar cost of credit must be disclosed as the “finance charge,” and the cost must be calculated as a percentage of the amount being loaned, according to a uniform method for computing the “annual percentage rate.” The Truth in Lending Act is primarily a disclosure law. Some people mistakenly believe it is the law responsible for governing such things as usury rates, late payment charges, and methods of rebating unearned finance charges. While this act requires disclosure regarding these practices, it does not regulate the practices themselves. Because of the complexity of the Truth in Lending Act, ten years after its enactment more than 80 percent of banks were not in full compliance. This situation led to the passage in 1980 of the Truth in Lending Simplification and Reform Act. This act was designed to make compliance easier, provide simpler disclosures to consumers, and significantly reduce the number of lawsuits that were being filed for technical violation of the law. Patricia C. Matthews 1051

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Sources for Further Study Brandel, Roland E., Barry A. Abbott, and Joseph E. Terraciano. Truth in Lending: A Comprehensive Guide. 2d ed. New York: Aspen Law and Business, 1991. National Consumer Law Center. Truth in Lending. Washington, D.C.: National Consumer Law Center, 1995. Rohner, Ralph J., et al. Rohner and Miller on Truth in Lending. Chicago, Ill.: American Bar Association, 2000. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Securities Exchange

Act (1934); Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968); Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970); Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974).

Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act Date: June 19, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 197 Public law: 90-351 U.S. Code: 42 § 3711 et seq. Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

This legislation marked the beginning of a major federal effort to help states and cities in the control of crime. In his 1967 State of the Union Address, President Lyndon B. Johnson first suggested the adoption of legislation that would become the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Increasing crime rates and the riots in U.S. inner cities in the mid1960’s had generated widespread public concern over crime. In its original form, the proposed act reflected many suggestions of the Katzenbach Commission, which Johnson had appointed in July, 1965. The proposed bill provided for categorical grants to state and local governments. These grants would provide funds for police training, for innovative criminal rehabilitation programs, and for increased restrictions on guns and on electronic surveillance. 1052

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Legislation The bill that finally emerged for Johnson’s signature was considerably different from that originally proposed—sufficiently different that Johnson delayed signing the bill for several days and considered a veto. Legislative support for the bill (which was approved by margins of 72 to 4 in the Senate and 368 to 7 in the House), combined with the upcoming Democratic National Convention, served to pressure the president into signing the bill. The revised legislation provided for block grants to states and eliminated any direct aid to cities; it also banned wiretaps and electronic surveillance by private individuals. Nevertheless, the bill sanctioned the issuance of warrants for electronic surveillance by cities, states, and the national government, and it eased restrictions on gun licensing. Administration Congress took the administration of the program out of the hands of the Justice Department and placed it in the hands of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), a new agency designed with a three-person leadership. In an attempt to avoid partisanship, no two members of the leadership could be members of the same political party; moreover, all three top administrators had to form a consensus before taking any action. This design slowed the implementation of the program, however, and the leadership structure was revised. Operation Over a period of twelve years, the LEAA provided more than $8 billion to state and local governments. States and cities used these funds for modernizing equipment, communication improvement, criminal-identification facilities, and laboratories. Funding was also available for police patrols in high-crime areas, for training and recruitment of police, for criminal-rehabilitation efforts, and for crime-prevention programs. For several reasons, the largest portion of the funding usually went to equipment rather than personnel. A provision of the initial act limited funding for personnel to one-third of the total. States and cities were also often wary about using federal funds for personnel, because if a cutback in federal funds occurred, reductions in personnel would be more difficult than reductions in equipment expenditures. By the end of Jimmy Carter’s administration, budget requests exceeded $400 1053

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million a year, and Congress essentially stopped the funding. In the early part of President Ronald Reagan’s first term, Attorney General Edwin Meese presided over the final days of the LEAA. Jerry A. Murtagh Source for Further Study Legislative History of the 1971 Amendments to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1972. See also: Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970); Organized Crime Control Act (1970); Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970); Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974); Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984); Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994).

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Date: Signed July 1, 1968; in force, March 5, 1970 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The treaty, signed by ninety-seven nations, mandated on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. Anxiety about the proliferation of nuclear weapons was the focus of a speech given by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 in which he said, I ask you to stop and think for a moment what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament.

Thirty years later, in 1993, President Bill Clinton addressed the United Nations with a similar appeal: 1054

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty We simply have got to find ways to control these weapons and to reduce the number of states that possess them by supporting and strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency. . . . I have made nonproliferation one of our nation’s highest priorities.

After World War II: Cold War The atomic bomb was developed by the United States during World War II. Enriched uranium was separated at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, plutonium was produced at Hanford, Washington, and the bomb detonation mechanism was designed at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The first successful test explosion was carried out in July, 1945, in the desert of New Mexico. Less than one month later, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs, causing many casualties but also ending the war. Once it had been shown that uranium and plutonium could be made into powerful explosives, several other countries soon developed their own bomb technology. The Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb in 1949; Great Britain followed in 1952, France in 1960, and China in 1964. The hazards of radioactive fallout and radiation sickness had been dramatically demonstrated at Hiroshima. Nevertheless, the United States and the Soviet Union both embarked on military programs to build up huge arsenals with many bomb types and sizes. In 1954, the United States detonated a hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. Its enormous explosive power was two hundred times greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. A Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, was contaminated by radioactive fallout when the wind shifted unexpectedly. The twenty-three sailors aboard suffered radiation poisoning, leading to worldwide protests against further testing. A group of Nobel Prize recipients, including Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer, wrote an appeal to the United Nations asking all countries to halt their bomb tests. Large antinuclear rallies mobilized public opinion against the escalating arms race. Although the initial exploitation of nuclear energy was focused on producing weapons, there were found to be many nonmilitary applications for medicine, agriculture, industrial processes, and electric-power production. President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched an Atoms for Peace program in 1953 through the United Nations to publicize and advance peaceful uses of nuclear energy. 1055

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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was created by the United Nations in 1957 with the dual mission of promoting civilian nuclear technology while restraining the arms race. In 1958, President Eisenhower and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere. It lasted for almost three years. Renewed tension between the two superpowers arose in 1960 when an American U2 spy plane was shot down while flying over the Soviet Union. The Berlin crisis of 1961 further worsened political relations, and both countries resumed nuclear testing. The most powerful bomb in history was a 58-megaton device detonated by the Soviet Union in October, 1961. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. President Kennedy threatened to seize several Soviet ships that were headed for Cuba carrying nuclear missiles. After several tense days, Khrushchev backed down and ordered the ships to return to Russia. The aftermath of this confrontation was the shared realization that the nuclear arms race could escalate into annihilation for both sides. Subsequent negotiations between the superpowers led to a diplomatic breakthrough with the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty (or Nuclear Test Ban Treaty) of 1963, which prohibited nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, under the ocean, and in outer space. The 1963 treaty, however, still permitted underground explosions. The Treaty Further negotiations between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union resulted in another major diplomatic accomplishment in 1968, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT stated that signatory countries possessing nuclear weapons would not transfer technology or materials to any other nation, while nonnuclear signatories pledged to refrain from trying to acquire nuclear weapons. When the treaty went into effect in 1970, ninety-seven countries had signed it. Many smaller countries accepted the NPT because it was in their national self-interest to do so. They were spared the financial burden of acquiring a nuclear arsenal and could avoid the environmental hazards of testing. Furthermore, they hoped to reduce the danger that a regional border dispute might escalate from conven1056

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tional to nuclear weapons. Countries that refused to accept the NPT in 1970 included France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, Argentina, and Brazil. They objected to the fact that the treaty allowed nuclear states to continue building up their arsenals without limit, while nonnuclear states were permanently excluded from joining the nuclear fraternity. Signing the NPT was a voluntary commitment and could be revoked at will. By 1993, there were 161 signatories, including France and China, and no nation had withdrawn from the treaty, which was reaffirmed in 1995. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty made a sharp distinction between military and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. To provide an incentive for nonnuclear countries to support the NPT, the nuclear countries offered to share information about peaceful applications, including the technology of nuclear power plants. In return, the countries that received such aid agreed to allow on-site inspections of their facilities by the IAEA to verify that no weapons development was being done. Many nonnuclear weapons states considered the IAEA inspection process an infringement of their national sovereignty. According to the 1970 treaty, states that already had nuclear weapons were not required to undergo inspections. Therefore, the original treaty was viewed as discriminatory, favoring the “haves” over the “have-nots.” It was hoped that a broadened inspection policy, acceptable to both nuclear and nonnuclear states, would be negotiated in 1995. Post-Cold War Applications After the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War, the Security Council of the United Nations ordered a thorough inspection of all Iraq’s nuclear facilities. Even though Iraq had signed the NPT and had been inspected twice a year, it had managed to establish two plutoniumproduction facilities. The IAEA board of governors strongly condemned Iraq’s blatant violation of their NPT safeguards agreement, and the laboratories were dismantled. The incident demonstrated, however, that stricter inspection procedures needed to be developed. The director-general of the IAEA, Hans Blix, recommended that satellite and other intelligence data should be collected and used to identify suspicious sites; that inspectors should be autho1057

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rized to make unannounced site visits, without being subject to local visa requirements; that additional funding for personnel was needed, since the two hundred IAEA inspectors then engaged were inadequate for monitoring the more than one thousand nuclear facilities worldwide; and that the unified backing of the U.N. Security Council was needed to enforce the right of entry for investigators and possibly sanctions against violators. In contrast to the experience in Iraq, the situation in South Africa provided grounds for optimism about the NPT’s effectiveness. South Africa possessed deposits of uranium ore and was able to build facilities for producing enriched weapons-grade uranium in the 1970’s. The country never conducted a nuclear test explosion but was thought to have accumulated a stockpile of six atomic bombs of the Hiroshima type. By 1991, when it became apparent that the widely condemned apartheid system soon would be dismantled, the South African government decided to join the NPT; it did so primarily to place its nuclear facilities under international control and out of the hands of the African National Congress. Shortly thereafter, the six bombs were dismantled, and the uranium fuel was converted back to its unenriched form. South Africa thus became a nuclear-armed country that relinquished its weapons voluntarily. An unexpected form of nuclear proliferation occurred after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1990, when Ukraine became an independent state. Ukraine returned all tactical nuclear weapons that had been stationed there to Russia but retained the remaining 1,650 strategic warheads with long-range missiles. Ukraine thus became an instant nuclear power with the third-largest arsenal in the world. It was hoped that an offer of international economic aid to Ukraine for industrial development would help in negotiating the dismantling of weapons. When long-standing border disputes between neighboring nations remain unresolved, the incentive to acquire nuclear weapons increase. This was the case with Israel and the Arab states, with India and Pakistan, and with North and South Korea. In general, the nuclear nations restricted exports of nuclear materials and technology to these sensitive regions. Political and economic pressure from the world community, and even threats of military intervention, could also be brought to bear to maintain regional stability. 1058

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Noncompliance and the Nuclear Legacy Nuclear proliferation normally is defined in terms of nonnuclear nations acquiring nuclear weapons. There is another side to this issue. From the perspective of nonnuclear countries, the United States and the Soviet Union had engaged in a world-threatening proliferation for forty years. Although the NPT in 1970 had called for “cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date . . . under strict and effective international control,” this did not happen. A comprehensive test-ban agreement by the nuclear states—an extension of the 1963 treaty to apply the ban on nuclear explosions to underground explosions as well—would greatly have strengthened international support for the continuation of the NPT. By the mid-1990’s, the United States had conducted more than seven hundred underground tests and the Soviet Union about five hundred. A voluntary moratorium on underground explosions went into effect in 1992, although it was quickly broken by China. It was hoped that a comprehensive test-ban treaty would eventually be agreed upon that would symbolize a formal end to the nuclear arms race. The mass production of nuclear weapons left a legacy of radioactive contamination of the environment. Tanks of radioactive liquid at Hanford, Washington, plutonium contamination at Rocky Flats, Colorado, and residual radioactivity at the Nevada test site required costly cleanup. In the mid-1990’s, Congress began to address the problem of compensation for armed forces veterans who had been exposed to excessive radiation. Similar situations existed in the Soviet Union and France. The disposition and safe storage of plutonium recovered from dismantled warheads also presented a difficult technical problem. An ongoing danger was the possibility that plutonium could fall into the hands of a dictator through theft. The best defense against the spread of nuclear weapons continued to be a community of nations strongly committed to nuclear disarmament. Hans G. Graetzer Sources for Further Study Barrillot, Bruno. “French Finesse Nuclear Future.” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September, 1992, 23-36. Blix, Hans. “The A-Bomb Squad.” World Monitor, November, 1991, 18-21. 1059

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Boskey, Bennett, and Mason Willrich, eds. Nuclear Proliferation: Prospects for Control. New York: Dunellen, 1970. Epstein, William. “The Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.” Scientific American, April, 1975, 18-33. Gray, Peter. Briefing Book on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Washington, D.C.: Council for a Livable World, 1993. Rathjens, George W., and Marvin M. Miller. “Nuclear Proliferation After the Cold War.” Technology Review, August/September, 1991, 25-32. Spector, Leonard S. Nuclear Proliferation Today. New York: Random House, 1984. See also: Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963); Seabed Treaty (1972); SALT I Treaty (1972); SALT II Treaty (1979); INF Treaty (1987); START II Treaty (1993); North Korea Pact (1994); U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002).

Aircraft Noise Abatement Act Date: July 21, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 395 Public law: 90-411 U.S. Code: 49 § 44715 Categories: Environment and Conservation

This amendment to the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 added a section titled “Control and Abatement of Aircraft Noise and Sonic Boom.” The tremendous growth of commercial jet aircraft traffic during the 1960’s led to citizen complaints and lawsuits related to the noise pollution created by aircraft during takeoff and landing. Roaring Jets, Sonic Booms The problem was particularly acute over Long Island, New York, which was the confluence of flight paths for both Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, and over Washington, D.C., as a result of the proximity of National Airport to the center of the city. The introduction of commuter jets at National Airport in April, 1966, made 1060

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the noise problem considerably worse. Opponents had suggested using the new Dulles Airport, located twenty-six miles west of the city, for short-haul flights, and more than three dozen citizens’ groups opposed allowing commuter jets to operate from National Airport. Nevertheless, approval for commuter jets was granted, perhaps because the principal users of this new service were people who preferred the convenience of arriving and departing a mere fifteen minutes from downtown Washington, D.C. As a result, during 1966, the modern, well-planned Dulles Airport served only 863,000 passengers, while pre-World War II National Airport accommodated 6,500,000 passengers. By 1967, however, the complaints to congressional representatives became so severe that the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Subcommittee on Transportation and Aeronautics began hearings with the aim of authorizing the transportation secretary to set aircraft noise regulations. Transportation Secretary Alan Boyd, chief administrative witness at these hearings, told the committee members that of all the subjects within the responsibility of the Transportation Department, noise abatement had become one of the most pressing. The secretary established study panels to investigate various aspects of aircraft noise such as aircraft noise research, aircraft operations, sonic boom research, airport and land use, and human response to noise. Although there are special noise problems associated with jet aircraft takeoff and landing, the even more problematic noise known as sonic boom occurs whenever an airplane flies at a speed greater than the speed of sound (approximately 760 miles per hour at low altitudes). A sonic boom is a pressure-transient of short duration (about .25 seconds), analogous to the bow wave of a boat moving rapidly through the water. When the pressure waves from a supersonic aircraft are received on the ground, a double sonic boom is produced. The shock wave from the bow of the plane produces a large positive pressure increase, followed by a large negative pressure from the trailing edge. Since the pressure shock waves are produced during the entire time an airplane is in supersonic transit, not just at the moment it exceeds the speed of sound, the problem is severe over the entire flight path. Studies of sonic booms indicate that they can be quite destructive in occupied areas. They break windows, and cause structural damage and are extremely annoying to people. 1061

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During the late 1960’s, the issue of sonic booms became prominent. Supersonic flight by military planes had been commonplace for more than a decade, but commercial airplanes that would routinely travel at speeds exceeding the speed of sound began to be developed. Three versions of the supersonic transport plane (SST) had been designed. Although none of these was operational yet, Anglo-French and Soviet versions existed as prototypes by 1968. A U.S. version of the SST designed by the Boeing Company was the most ambitious of these projects, having the largest capacity, the highest cruising speed (1,800 miles per hour), and the greatest estimated cost. Although the SST would be in competition with nonsupersonic jumbo jets such as the Boeing B-747 then being developed and tested, the only clear advantage to the SST would be its faster speed. Jumbo jets, which would be capable of carrying more passengers a greater distance for less money than the SST, were being financed entirely by the aviation industry, while the development of the American SST would require a massive government subsidy. In anticipation of the issues and problems that might occur when commercial supersonic transportation become a reality, the subject of nonmilitary sonic booms was addressed in the Aircraft Noise Abatement Act. Setting Standards for Aircraft Noise On May 23, 1968, the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, chaired by Harley O. Staggers, introduced H.R. 3400, to provide for nonmilitary aircraft noise abatement. It gave the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) the power to set aircraft noise and sonic boom standards as part of its authority to certify aircraft for use. In their supporting report, the committee said the bill was intended to reduce all undesirable aircraft noise to the lowest possible level of disturbance consonant with the public interest and to afford the public present and future relief and protection from all unnecessary aircraft noise, including sonic booms. On July 10, the House unanimously passed H.R. 3400 and sent it to the Senate. In reporting on this action, Congressman Staggers stated that this was a simple but important amendment to the Federal Aviation Act because, although the FAA had a program to reduce aircraft noise, it had no specific authority to set standards, rules, or regulations. H.R. 3400 provided this authority by charg1062

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ing the FAA with the responsibility of actively carrying forward a noise-reduction effort. On July 1, the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Warren G. Magnuson, reported H.R. 3400 without amendments. The committee believed that aircraft noise had become such a serious problem in so many locales that the problem must be alleviated. It reported that the first order of business was to stop the escalation of aircraft noise by imposing noise reduction standards. These standards required the full application of noise reduction technology, since a completely quiet airplane was not likely in the foreseeable future. After receiving the final version of the bill from the House, the Senate passed H.R. 3400 and sent it to President Lyndon B. Johnson for his signature. The action came after rejection of an amendment that proposed that the FAA embark upon a two-year scientific investigation of sonic booms and their effects. It further banned all nonmilitary flights at supersonic speeds within U.S. territory except those conducted as part of the study. This ban would remain effective until Congress could review the results and determine whether the prohibition against supersonic flights should be continued. Provisions As enacted, H.R. 3400 became an amendment to the Federal Aviation Act of 1958. The provisions of this amendment require the administrator of the FAA, after consultation with the secretary of transportation, to prescribe standards for the measurement of aircraft noise and sonic boom, and to prescribe rules and regulations to control and abate these noise levels. The act also directed the FAA administrator, in prescribing the standards and regulations, to consider all relevant available data, including the results of research, development, and testing and to consult with the appropriate federal and state agencies. Finally, the administrator was charged with considering whether proposed regulations were consistent with the highest degree of air safety as well as economically feasible and technically practical. Effectiveness and Subsequent Legislation Although the Aircraft Noise Abatement Act was an attempt to reduce aircraft noise by government regulation, and technological advances were required to meet mandated requirements, the re1063

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strictions were rapidly offset by the increase in the number of flights at almost all airports. Thus, aircraft noise continued to be a major environmental problem. Prior to the passage of the Aircraft Noise Abatement Act, several congressional representatives, despairing of ever persuading the FAA to impose a ban of SST supersonic flight over land, introduced bills to ban such flights. In 1968, Senator Clifford P. Case introduced a bill that would have banned SST supersonic flight over any U.S. territory, but the bill was not passed. That same year, Congressmen T. R. Kuperfman, R. L. Ottinger, and ten colleagues introduced a resolution termed the “National Conservation Bill of Rights” that would have banned harassing booms. In February, 1969, Senator Case unsuccessfully reintroduced his antiboom bill, and in September of the same year, a nearly equivalent bill was voted down by the House. Although H.R. 3400, the Aircraft Noise Abatement Act, addressed the issue of sonic booms by authorizing the FAA to set limits on SST booms, the FAA declined to set such limits. It is useful to remember that the FAA had an interest in seeing the SST developed, and was therefore reluctant to establish limits on sonic boom noise, or even other aircraft noise. Senator Case likened this situation to “setting the fox to guard the chickens.” Because of the apparent reluctance of the FAA to set noise control standards, an attempt was made by Congressman John W. Wydler to add an amendment to the Noise Control Act of 1972 during debate of this act on the House floor. Charging that the FAA had not used its authority to set noise limits during the four-year interim since the Aircraft Noise Reduction Act became law, his amendment would place primary regulatory power with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Congressman Staggers felt that the lack of aviation expertise in the EPA would ultimately endanger public safety. Consequently, this amendment was defeated by voice vote. Nevertheless, the final version of the Noise Control Act required the FAA, after consulting with the EPA, to set standards for the measurement, control, and abatement of aircraft noise and sonic booms. The EPA was directed to submit proposed control regulations to the FAA. The FAA, in turn, was required to begin proposed rule-making procedures within thirty days, and to hold hearings within sixty days. The FAA was further required to either approve, modify, or reject, the EPA’s proposed rules. If any 1064

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EPA rules were rejected, however, the FAA was obligated to publicly explain the reasons in detail. During the same House debate, an amendment to prohibit sonic booms over U.S. territory by commercial jets was once again introduced and defeated. This time, Congress was assured that work was in progress and that an FAA regulation of sonic booms would be issued soon. Officials believed that sonic boom prohibition should be done by FAA regulation rather than by act of Congress, because regulations are more flexible than laws. The long-term result of the Aircraft Noise Abatement Act and the additional pressure put on the FAA by the section of the Noise Abatement Act that dealt with aircraft noise was that the U.S. development of a civilian SST was cancelled. The Russian and the AngloFrench versions have been operational since the 1970’s. The cancellation resulted from an increased public awareness of the problems, combined with the untenable cost of the U.S. development program. The resulting FAA regulations, titled Federal Aviation Regulation 36 (FAR-36), forbade sonic booms over U.S. territory by civilian aircraft. Military craft are allowed to continue a limited number of supersonic operations over land areas. FAR-36 also imposed rather strict noise limits, during takeoff and during landings, on aircraft certified for flight after 1969. Existing jet engines were consequently retrofitted to meet the FAR-36 standard, although airlines were initially reluctant to invest large sums of money on a retrofitting program. Nevertheless, a considerable proportion of the existing fleet was thus quieted. These craft were given promotional names such as “whisperjet” or “whisperliner” to alert the public to the fact that aircraft noise was being reduced. Additional noise reduction was effected by moving flight patterns away from residential areas where possible, adding sound barriers around airport ramps, and using zoning laws to create buffer regions near new airports. George R. Plitnik Sources for Further Study Shurcliff, W. A. SST and Sonic Boom Handbook. New York: Ballantine, 1970. Strong, W. J., and G. R. Plitnik. Music, Speech, and Audio. Provo, Utah: Soundprint, 1992. 1065

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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Report on Aircraft-Airport Noise. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Noise Abatement and Control. Manufacturing and Transportation Noise. Vol. 2 in Public Hearings on Noise Abatement and Control. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1972. U.S. Federal Council for Science and Technology. Committee on Environmental Quality. Noise: Sound Without Value. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968. See also: Noise Control Act (1972).

Architectural Barriers Act Date: August 12, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 718 Public law: 90-480 U.S. Code: 42 § 4151 Categories: Disability Issues; Health and Welfare

The act represented the first federal legislation calling for the removal of barriers that prevented the access of people with disabilities to publicly owned buildings. In 1957, Hugo Deffner, a disabled man from Oklahoma City, was named the Handicapped American of the Year for his one-man crusade against unnecessary barriers that physically bar the access of disabled people to post offices, museums, houses of worship, concert halls, and other public buildings. ANSI Standards for Accessibility Four years later, the American National Standards Institute, in cooperation with the National Easter Seal Society for Crippled Children and Adults, issued American National Standards Specifications for making buildings and facilities accessible to and usable by the physically handicapped (the A117.1 ANSI standards). These 1066

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set forth minimal requirements for sixteen aspects of building design, including grading, parking lots, walks, entrances, doors, doorways, and rest rooms. These standards, although groundbreaking, are generally considered to have been incomplete and minimal because they contained few descriptive drawings, were nonspecific, and did not cover residential buildings. These standards were distributed to all the offices of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and incorporated into the construction manual of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), which made the standards applicable to all new construction under its responsibility. A national education program was also undertaken to ensure that state and local governments adopted the standard. As a result of public education, a small number of important structures, such as New York City’s Philharmonic Hall and LaGuardia Airport and University of California campuses at Davis and Riverside, were built to accommodate the physically disabled. Studies on Removing Barriers By 1965, thirty-four states had some legislation describing the removal of barriers, but most laws were not comprehensive and lacked enforcement provisions. Few buildings were built in compliance with these laws. In November of that year, the first federal law designed to further the removal of architectural barriers was passed. Congress amended the Vocational Rehabilitation Act (Public Law 89-933), establishing a National Commission on Architectural Barriers. The commission’s objective was to determine the extent to which architectural barriers impeded the access of handicapped people to public buildings, to determine what was being done by public and nonprofit organizations to remove these barriers, and to prepare a proposal for further action. After two years of study, the National Commission on Architectural Barriers presented its findings to Wilbur J. Cohen, the secretary of HEW. The commission, headed by Leon Chatelain, Jr., who was also president of the National Society for Crippled Children and Adults, found that the single greatest obstacle to the employment of the handicapped was the design of the buildings in which they would work. The commission also presented evidence that the public was generally unaware of and unconcerned with the problem of architectural barriers, despite the education programs. 1067

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Sixty-four percent of Americans polled did not even realize that architectural barriers were a problem because they had not thought about the issue. Of 709 architects surveyed, 251 were not even aware of the ANSI standards. Only three of seven national building materials suppliers were familiar with the ANSI standards, and none had any policies to meet them. There were still no standard specifications for accessible transportation. The problems of inaccessibility mostly involved curbs and steps; inaccessible elevators; steep and narrow walks; gratings in walkways; doors that were too narrow, revolved, or were hard to open; lack of parking spaces for the handicapped; lack of accommodations for wheelchairs; aisles that were too narrow; public toilet stalls and telephone booths that were too small; and telephones, drinking fountains, vending machines, light switches, and fire alarms that were too high. Among the worst offenders were, ironically, Social Security offices in small towns, often located on the second floor of a building without an elevator. In light of the lack of public concern, the commission recommended that federal legislation be enacted requiring all new public buildings funded by the government to be designed for accessibility to the elderly and handicapped, that all federal agencies plan and budget for architectural changes to existing buildings to improve accessibility, that similar laws be passed on the state level, that building codes be revised, and that a government agency be established to administer this new legislation. Passage and Provisions These recommendations substantially were adopted by the House of Representatives as legislation H.R. 6589 in the summer of 1968. A committee then set out to resolve the slight differences between this bill and a similar one passed in the Senate (S. 222). An agreement was reached, and the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-480) was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 12. 1968. Sections authorized the head of the General Services Administration (GSA) and the secretaries of the departments of HUD and Defense, in consultation with the secretary of HEW, to issue standards for public buildings. The heads of these agencies were given authority to waive the standards on a case-by-case basis and authorized to undertake surveys and investigations to determine general compliance. The jurisdiction of the 1068

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law included buildings and facilities constructed or altered by, or on behalf of, the United States government; buildings leased after alterations in accordance with the law; and buildings funded by government grants and loans. The act was amended in 1970 as Public Law 91-205, making it applicable to the District of Columbia metro facilities but not to the trains themselves. Implementation The month before the Architectural Barriers Act was passed, William A. Schmidt, commissioner of the Public Buildings Service of the General Services Administration, had warned building owners and operators that unless they provided for easy access for physically handicapped people they would risk losing government agencies as tenants. Schmidt noted that this was no small matter. At the time, government agencies as a group were one of the nation’s biggest tenants, occupying 6.5 percent of the space in buildings owned and managed by members of the National Association of Building Owners and Managers. Schmidt said that more than 10 percent of the people in the United States, or twenty-two million, were handicapped, including those in wheelchairs and the elderly. He demanded that these people be given equal opportunity for gainful employment and other normal activities from which they had been barred, literally, by the design and construction of government buildings. Noting the lack of a program to ensure compliance with the Architectural Barriers Act, Congress enacted the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Public Law 93-112). This law created the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (A&TBCB), which was conceived to be the primary force to ensure the full implementation of the earlier laws. Modified by an amendment to the 1973 law, the A&TBCB was made up of the heads of the departments of HEW, Transportation, HUD, Labor, the Interior, and Defense and the heads of the GSA, Postal Service, and Veterans Administration. In 1975, the General Accounting Office (GAO), responding to a request from Congress, determined the effectiveness of the Architectural Barriers Act. The GAO inspected 314 federally financed buildings and architectural plans for buildings, all of which were built, altered, leased, or designed after the 1968 act was implemented. None of them fully complied with the law, and most buildings showed halfhearted compliance. For example, wheelchair 1069

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ramps were constructed, but they were too long, slick, or steep; doors were built wide enough for wheelchairs but were blocked by ledges. The GAO’s report also cited inconvenient elevator controls and controls for heat, air conditioning, and lighting in bathrooms; high curbs; and water fountains that were too high. Although the government, private contractors, and building designers all agreed that the cost of incorporating accessibility features into new buildings was as low as one-tenth of 1 percent of total construction costs, little was being done. It was clear that the 1968 act had fallen short of its goals: It delegated authority too much, allowing different government agencies the discretion of implementing proper action, performing surveys, and waiving standards case by case. It also did not cover privately owned residential structures leased for public housing. David R. Williamson, executive director of National Paraplegia, noted that when the Post Office was reorganized in 1970 and taken out of government surveillance, it was also (perhaps inadvertently) exempted from the 1968 law. When Williamson went to his local post office in Chicago, he could get into the front door but no further, because steps blocked his path to the main area of business. Usually, he had to request that a passerby go to a window to get an employee’s attention for him. If no passersby were around, he would yell. The longer he waited, the louder he would yell. The entire process was frustrating and demeaning. Legacy of the Act Progress since 1975 has been slow but visible. The Center for Independent Living, established in 1972 as a workshop and growth center for the disabled in the San Francisco area, became a model for changing the environment to meet the needs of disabled people. After much time and effort was spent, the ANSI standards were revised in 1980. Descriptions of curb ramps, bathrooms, and kitchens were added, as were more figures and mandatory specifications. These additions corrected earlier deficiencies of this standard. Many reports, studies, and books have been published, so public awareness has increased. Many physical barriers have been removed. State legislation has improved, and the United Nations even had a special year to highlight the problem. Frank Wu 1070

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Sources for Further Study Bednar, Michael J., ed. Barrier-Free Environments. Stroudsburg, Pa: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, 1977. Lifchez, Raymond, and Barbara Winslow. Design for Independent Living. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Robinette, Gary O., ed. Barrier-Free Exterior Design: Anyone Can Go Anywhere. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1985. Speck, Benjamin. Caring for Your Disabled Child. New York: Macmillan, 1965. U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. Resource Guide to Literature on Barrier-Free Environments. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980. U.S. Congress. Committee on Public Works and Transportation. Effectiveness of the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976. See also: Americans with Disabilities Act (1990).

Wholesome Poultry Products Act Date: August 18, 1968 U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 791 Public law: 90-492 U.S. Code: 21 § 451 Categories: Agriculture; Animals; Food and Drugs

This law required uniform standards for poultry inspection and extended requirements to establishments not previously covered. The Wholesome Poultry Products Act stipulates that poultry and poultry products must meet federal inspection standards. Prior to passage of this act, poultry processing plants were regulated by states or not at all. Poultry inspection processes therefore varied among states, resulting in some plants having modern equipment and sanitary conditions and other plants being less well equipped. 1071

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Need for Federal Poultry Regulation The Wholesome Poultry Products Act requires that processors who prepare poultry and producers of foods containing poultry that are transported for sale across a state line meet federal inspection standards under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture. Establishments that prepare or produce poultry for intrastate transport fall under the jurisdiction of state inspection. This act extended coverage of federal poultry inspection standards to establishments that had not previously been covered and provided a model for establishing inspection programs at the state level. The objective of the Wholesome Poultry Products Act was to ensure uniform inspection across all states in the United States to increase consumer protection. Most poultry and poultry products produced in the United States move across state lines or through foreign commerce, so uniform standards among states are warranted. The act stipulates that “it is essential in the public interest that the health and welfare of consumers be protected by assuring that poultry products distributed to them are wholesome, not adulterated, and properly marked, labeled, and packaged.” History and Previous Legislation The Wholesome Poultry Products Act followed the Wholesome Meat Act, passed in 1967. A consumer-protection movement had increased Americans’ awareness of potential health and safety risks of meat-based food products. Consumer advocates and President Lyndon B. Johnson publicly supported improvements in inspection standards for food products in the United States. Once the Wholesome Meat Act was passed, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters joined with some members of Congress in requesting the poultry act. The meat cutters acted in part because they did not want to face regulation stricter than that applied to poultry processors. Later, a seafood act was introduced to complete consumer protection from animal foods. Attention has been given to the safety of the practices of the meat processing industry since publication of Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle (1906). That book alerted consumers to concerns about the safety of meat processing. The first law governing meat inspection, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, was implemented in 1907 as a direct result of Sinclair’s book. Criticism of inspection practices of the 1960’s may have led consumers to believe that con1072

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ditions were still similar to those in the early 1900’s. A resurgence in interest in food safety by policymakers led to the 1960’s revisions of the meat act and the introduction of related acts, including the Wholesome Poultry Products Act. Widespread consumer concern about the safety of the meat and poultry products available at supermarkets, commissaries, and delicatessens had the potential to substantially affect consumption. Because of the potential negative impact from consumer uneasiness, it was important to implement the new poultry inspection standards to restore consumer confidence in poultry products and to avoid substantial losses to producers of poultry and related foods. Poultry products include, in addition to fresh and frozen poultry carcasses and pieces, canned and frozen foods containing poultry. The frozen foods industry had expanded by the 1960’s to include prepared casseroles, dinners, entrées, hors d’oeuvres, pizzas, pot pies, and sauces. Also included in the 1968 Wholesome Poultry Products Act, and not previously included in standard inspections, were vending commissaries that prepare poultry products for offpremise sale. A commissary preparing such food items as casseroles, entrées, platters, and salads containing poultry was required to meet federally approved inspection guidelines throughout the facility. The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966 was primarily targeted at nonfood items typically sold in grocery stores, but food and beverage packaging was affected by regulations for product weights or measures and manufacturer address requirements on packages. The Wholesome Poultry Products Act in some respects is an extension of the packaging and labeling act. The Wholesome Poultry Products Act requires that packaging be safe and free of contamination and that the poultry products being sold be represented accurately on the packaging. Specifically, labeling must not be false or misleading in terms of the origin of the poultry product, the quantity of the poultry product, or any additional ingredients to poultry offered in the package. Ingredients must be listed in order of quantity. Additionally, poultry packaging must disclose the name and address of the manufacturer, packer, or distributor. All required information must be placed on the package in a prominent place where the consumer is likely to read it. 1073

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The inherent nature of poultry is such that bacteria are easily bred when processing conditions are less than optimal. Under the act, inspections must be set up to detect disease or other types of contamination in poultry. When poultry products are condemned because of contamination or disease, the specific reason for condemnation must be scientifically presented. Provisions The act states that adulterated poultry, which cannot be legally sold, is defined as containing additives that are unsafe as defined by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; containing any poisonous substances; consisting of decomposed, unhealthful, or unwholesome substances; or having been exposed to radiation. Further, poultry processed under unsanitary conditions that may cause contamination is considered to be adulterated. To reduce the chance of adulteration to poultry, federal standards were mandated for buildings that house meat and poultry packers, including preparers of frozen foods containing meats and poultry. The standards include specifications for plumbing and sewers, water quality, water temperatures, detergents for washing utensils, ceiling and floor surfaces, room sizes, lighting, and worker uniforms. These specifications were created primarily to increase the cleanliness of processing plants. The secretary of agriculture or his or her delegate is authorized to enforce the Wholesome Poultry Products Act. As a result of the act, the Consumer Marketing Service of the Department of Agriculture provided training programs for state inspectors so that they would become familiar with federal standards and be able to implement uniform inspections. Each state was given two years after passage of the act to establish inspection programs. An additional one-year grace period could be granted to states making progress toward implementation. Penalties for noncompliance include an exclusion of the state from interstate commerce of poultry and poultry products as well as monetary fines. Impact In response to the inclusion of commissaries under the jurisdiction of the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967, the National Automatic Merchandising Association formed a Meat Inspection Committee. This committee worked with state agencies and the United States 1074

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Department of Agriculture to establish standard guidelines that would logically apply to commissaries, which differ substantially from slaughterhouses. The Meat Inspection Committee continued to work as the Wholesome Poultry Products Act was implemented. Because most consumers in the United States obtain their poultry and poultry products from supermarkets or other retail establishments, the Wholesome Poultry Products Act of 1968 affects the purchasing confidence of many people. Exempted from the act are people who raise and slaughter poultry exclusively for their own use or who custom slaughter for people who have delivered poultry and will retrieve it for their own use. It would be virtually impossible to routinely inspect all small slaughterhouses such as these. Because inspections are not required and standards equal to those for commercial distribution need not be met, there is a greater chance that poultry processed in these slaughterhouses will not be safe. Labeling requirements are waived for deliveries to certain consumers. For example, wholesale distribution directly to restaurants and hotels for use in their dining rooms is exempted, with the provision that the poultry is sound and healthy. The labeling exemptions eliminate burdens from industries that would not present packaging to the ultimate consumer for examination. The cost of the Wholesome Poultry Products Act to the federal government is substantial. According to the act, the federal government provides half of the costs for establishing inspection training programs for the states. The states are individually responsible for the other half of training expenses. Traditionally, the federal government has provided inspectors free of cost to plants, a practice that is being continued by states. Although the initial costs of implementation of the act were substantial, the tradeoff in consumer confidence has the potential to offset the costs. As a result of the act, consumers are provided with more information about sanitary plant conditions, poultry quality, and specific product contents. This increased confidence in proper information and healthy conditions often leads to increased purchases and feelings of goodwill toward retailers of poultry. Uniformity among poultry producers, processors, and retailers was expected to be achieved as inspection standards from state to state were homogenized. Implementation, however, proved to be a monumental task. Even though it would appear to be economically 1075

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beneficial to leave the inspection process to federal representatives, the autonomous nature of states and industries provided motivation for them to become involved in the training of inspectors and the implementation of the act. By the original deadline for state implementation of federally approved poultry inspectors, forty-nine states had been granted a one-year extension, as they were making good progress toward meeting designated standards. North Dakota, the only state not to be given an extension, was notified by the Department of Agriculture that its progress toward an inspection program was not well enough under way, and federal inspectors were given jurisdiction to take over the regulation process there. In actions related to the Wholesome Poultry Products Act, engineers were hired to redesign plants, plumbing and sewage facilities were updated and improved, and water treatment and purification systems were designed. All these changes have resulted in cleaner plants, safer poultry treatment, and better working conditions in poultry houses. One of the biggest challenges after enactment of the Wholesome Poultry Products Act was to set into practice the authority of the Department of Agriculture to regulate the conditions of the act. Largely because poultry consumers receive access to information about the origins of the products they purchase, poultry houses were eager to comply with regulations and maintain positive public images. Although inspection processes are not foolproof, there are established practices to be followed by inspectors and plant operators so that safe poultry and poultry products will be delivered to supermarkets and served in commissaries. Virginia Ann Paulins Sources for Further Study Hartley, David E. “NAMA Meat Inspection Guidelines: Commissaries, Labeling, and the Law.” Vend 24 (1970): 23-26. _______. “Status Report: State-Federal Meat and Poultry Inspection.” Vend 23 (1969): 39-40. Quick Frozen Foods. “Frozen Prepared Foods Must Meet Federal Inspection Standards.” Vol. 32, 1972: 125-126. Semling, Harold V., Jr. “Congress Seeks Stronger Poultry Inspection Law.” Food Processing-Marketing 29 (1968): 85. 1076

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Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Viking Press, 1906. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Agricultural and Forestry. Subcommittee on Agricultural Research and General Legislation, 1968 90th Congress. Wholesome Poultry Products Act. See also: Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906); Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938); Food Additives Amendment (1958); Food Security Act (1985).

Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act Date: Both passed October 2, 1968 (both acts) U.S. Statutes at Large: 82 Stat. 906 (WSRA), 82 Stat. 919 (NTSA) Public law: 90-542 (WSRA); 90-543 (NTSA) U.S. Code: 16 § 1271 (WSRA), 16 § 1241 (NTSA) Categories: Environment and Conservation; Land Management;

Natural Resources

A system of national trails and a system of wild and scenic rivers was developed to preserve wilderness environments and to create places for public recreation and enjoyment. In 1962, the Outdoor Recreation Resource Review Commission issued the final report of its congressionally mandated three-year comprehensive study of U.S. environmental resources. The report recommended that certain areas of the country be set aside and preserved in their natural state so that people of the future could enjoy pure and clean environmental beauty. Based on this report, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed policy papers directing federal agencies to initiate preservation of public lands. He also delivered a message to Congress on February 8, 1965, stating that he would submit a bill to establish a National Wild Rivers System so that free-flowing, undammed rivers would be more than just a memory. He also requested that the secretary of the interior recommend a plan for a National System of Trails. 1077

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Wild Rivers: Proposals and Debates In September, 1965, Senator Frank Church and thirty-one cosponsors introduced a bill for the Wild Rivers Act. Four months later, the Senate passed its version of the bill and sent it to the House of Representatives for passage into law. When the Eighty-ninth Congress adjourned in the fall of 1966, however, the House had not heard the bill, which left the issue dead. In January, 1967, the Ninetieth Congress began its session with Senator Church and Senator Henry Jackson reintroducing the Wild Rivers bill. This bill was unanimously passed by the Senate in August and forwarded to the House of Representatives. The House, which had been working on plans of its own, found that there were four different bills, each of which contained a plan for using and protecting wild rivers. In March, 1968, hearings were scheduled on these four bills. Politicians, farm owners, electric companies, and organizations such as the National Audubon Society, the Wilderness Society, and the Boy Scouts of America participated in the hearings, offering suggestions and registering requests for action about certain rivers. Although there was some opposition to the concept, most people were in favor of the creation of a Wild and Scenic River System. Following these hearings, a new bill was written to incorporate the best points of all the plans. The new bill was introduced by Representatives John Saylor and Wayne Aspinall in July, and a vote was requested. The governor of Pennsylvania did not want one of Pennsylvania’s rivers in the system, and he encouraged many members of Congress to vote against the bill. The vote was taken and the bill did not pass. In September, 1968, Saylor and Aspinall reintroduced the bill with the river in Pennsylvania removed from the list of protected rivers. This time, the Wild and Scenic Rivers bill won its three-year battle through Congress and passed. National Trails: Proposals and Debates In October, 1965, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin showed his interest in developing a national system of hiking trails, and he introduced his trails plan to the Senate. Six months later, Senator Nelson submitted President Johnson’s plan for a national trails system to the Senate, and seven other senators signed in support of this second bill. In the House of Representatives, seven different bills were introduced to develop trails. None of these bills had the 1078

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support needed for a vote, however, and they died when the Eightyninth Congress adjourned. When the Ninetieth Congress convened in 1967, Senator Nelson and Senator Jackson proposed a new plan for a national trails system. Their plan was presented in February and was debated in the Senate that July. The debate was a long one, centering on such issues as which trails were to be included, whether or not it was important for trails to be continuous rather than segmented, and the meanings of such terms as “wild,” “scenic,” “pristine,” and “natural.” After several amendments were made, the Senate passed the bill and sent it to the House to consider for a vote. The House had been working on nine similar bills in 1967 and had passed one of them by the time the bill passed by the Senate was received. In July, House members decided they preferred their own version of a national trail system. Keeping the number of the Senate bill (S.827), the House substituted the text of the bill it had passed for the original text, changed the title, voted, and passed the bill. It then sent the bill back to the Senate for approval of the changes. The Senate was not happy with the changes that had been made and requested that a special conference committee resolve the differences. In September, the Senate and the House were able to work out their differences and sent the bill to the president for his signature. Provisions of the Wild Rivers Act On October 2, 1968, President Johnson signed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the National Trails System Act into law. Eight rivers with ribbons of land were to be permanently protected by the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System Act, and twenty-seven rivers would be protected until they could be considered for addition into the system. The Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail were protected by the National Trails System Act, with fourteen other trail segments designated for study for possible inclusion to the system. The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act tried to accommodate as many diverse interests as possible by classifying rivers into three categories: Wild River Areas, Scenic River Areas, and Recreational River Areas. Wild areas are kept in their natural, wild state, and have very limited access points, typically footpaths. Scenic areas have limited road-access, and permit limited recreational facilities to be devel1079

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oped. Recreational areas are easily accessible to people and vehicles, and may have developed recreational facilities serving a variety of interests. These categories limit the use of different rivers in different ways, thus making the law more amenable to those people with interests in using land and water in ways that change the environment from the wilderness state. As time progressed, the passage of this law allowed for many more rivers to be protected. From the original eight rivers listed in legislation, the list had grown to more than 151 rivers in 1992. Rivers would continue to be studied for inclusion in the system. Provisions of the National Trails Act The National Trails System at first had three trail classifications: National Recreation Trails, Scenic Trails, Side and Connecting Trails; in 1978, a new category was added, Historic Trails. National Recreation Trails are readily accessible to urban areas. They may make use of utility rights of way, abandoned railways, stream valleys, and easements. They may be short or long, and may be used for one or more purposes, such as hiking, horseback riding, snowmobiling, bicycling, or skiing. Local governments or groups ask for their trails to be recognized in this category, and must guarantee that the trail will be maintained and accessible to the public for a minimum of ten years. Scenic Trails are primarily off-road trails for hikers. Although one would not expect to see motorized vehicles on Scenic Trails, campsites or shelters may be found along these long, continuous trails, and other activities deemed compatible with the trail’s use may be allowed. Connecting or Side Trails provide additional points of access between Scenic or Recreational Trails. Historic Trails commonly follow routes of travel of a historic group of people, and often have points of significance linked by roadways. The original legislation cleared the way for other trails to be added to these classifications. The National Trails System grew to include more than eight hundred Recreational Trails, eight Scenic Trails, two Connecting or Side Trails, and eleven Historic Trails by 1994. Impact of the Acts The passage of the Wild and Scenic Rivers and National Trails System acts was a significant event for all Americans. By the 1950’s, Americans were finding it difficult to find the great outdoors they 1080

Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act

were hoping to enjoy because of rapid rates of land development. The designation of trails and rivers provided for access and availability of a high-quality environment and experience for U.S. citizens and visitors. A significant element of these acts has been the designation of different uses of protected areas. Environmentalists have argued that, as a result of limited development or small borders of protected land, only certain elements of entire ecosystems have been protected. The compatible-use concept, however, has allowed enough support to be developed for bills to be passed that have enhanced conservation efforts. Another significant result of these acts is the provision for public access to designated lands or waterways. Without protection, these areas would be developed as private property. Because of such laws as the Wild and Scenic Rivers and National Trails System acts, however, the opportunity to experience the environment in natural and semideveloped conditions is available to citizens of the United States. Karen L. Barak Sources for Further Study Callison, Charles. “The 90th Congress and Conservation—Much Good, Some Failures.” Audubon 70 (November/December, 1968): 80-81. National Park Service. National Trails System Map and Guide. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1993. National Trails Agenda Project. Trails for America: Report of the National Trails Agenda Project, Summer 1990. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of theInterior National Park Service, 1990. National Wildlife. “The Wild Rivers: How Can We ‘Save’ a River?” 4 (February/March, 1966): 4-9. Palmer, Tim. The Wild and Scenic Rivers of America. Covelo, Calif.: Island Press, 1994. U.S. Department of the Interior. National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, December, 1992. Denver: U.S. Geological Survey, 1993. _______. Register of National Recreation Trails. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service Recreation Resources Assistance Division, 1993. _______. Trails for America: Report on the Nationwide Trails Study. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1966. 1081

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: National Park Service Organic Act (1916); PittmanRobertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937); Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960); Wilderness Act (1964); Highway Beautification Act (1965); Eastern Wilderness Act (1975); National Forest Management Act (1976).

Child Protection and Toy Safety Act Date: November 6, 1969 U.S. Statutes at Large: 83 Stat. 187 Public law: 91-113 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Children’s Issues;

Health and Welfare

This act defines substances as hazardous if they pose the unreasonable risk of injury or illness, bans certain products if they are deemed dangerous, and requires special labeling for others that may cause harm or injury. The Child Protection and Toy Safety Act is the title of an amendment to the Federal Hazardous Substances Act of 1969. Under the authority of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, this act defines substances as hazardous if they present an unreasonable risk of personal injury or illness during any normal or reasonably anticipated use or abuse. Hazardous substances for children include toys or products that may present mechanical, electrical, or thermal hazards. Mechanical hazards are found in easily broken or disassembled toys. Such toys may have sharp edges that cut, sharp points that puncture, or small parts that could be swallowed or lodged in the respiratory tract. Other mechanical hazards include exposed moving parts capable of causing amputations, crushing, fractures, or bruises to parts of the body, including fingers and toes. Electric shock hazards may be found in electrically powered toys or toys that could conduct electricity, such as kites, which may be1082

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come entangled in electrical power lines. Thermal hazards may be present from heated parts, substances, or toy surfaces. Toys or products that present unreasonable risk of personal injury are banned from sale. However, certain inherently hazardous toys, such as chemistry sets, may be sold if product labeling gives adequate directions and warnings for safe use. Even with government and industry monitoring of toy safety, parents and caregivers have an important role to play in child protection. Adequate adult supervision ensures that children learn safe play habits and the responsible use of toys. Cherilyn Nelson Source for Further Study Heffron, Howard A. Federal Consumer Safety Legislation: A Study of the Scope and Adequacy of the Automobile Safety, Flammable Fabrics, Toys, and Hazardous Substances Programs. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970. See also: Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Child prod-

uct safety laws (1970’s); Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971); Consumer Product Safety Act (1972); Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976).

Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act Date: December 30, 1969 U.S. Statutes at Large: 83 Stat. 742 Public law: 91-173 Categories: Health and Welfare; Labor and Employment

This act closely regulated the health and safety of coal miners; a 1977 amendment extended the act to include research on health and safety of miners, including those engaged in the mining of materials other than coal. 1083

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In the final days of 1969, the U.S. Congress enacted the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act. The act grew out of concern for the miner as the most precious resource and first priority in mining. Deaths and injuries were a serious concern, and the legislation attempted to enforce more effective measures to improve working conditions for coal miners. Unsafe conditions were also a serious impediment to the growth of the mining industry, and mine accidents and diseases were an undue burden on commerce. The act made the mine operators primarily responsible for mine practices and conditions, and it directed the appropriate agencies to promulgate and enforce appropriate standards. Definitions and Oversight The secretary of health, education, and welfare and the secretary of the interior were made responsible for enforcing the improved standards. The Department of the Interior’s Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA), an expansion of the previous inspection arm of the Bureau of Mines, was formed to enforce the act. In addition, coal mine operators and miners were made responsible for complying with the standards. Agencies were to work with the states to develop and enforce state coal-mine health and safety programs. Finally, the act authorized expanding research toward preventing coal-mine accidents and diseases. The 1969 act pertained to all coal mines, both underground and surface, and to the mining of all grades of coal, from bituminous to ignite and anthracite. Any individual working in a coal mine was considered a miner. An interim compliance panel was established with representatives from the Departments of Labor, Commerce, the Interior, and Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and the National Science Foundation. The panel was empowered to appoint examiners for hearings; the panel’s decisions could be appealed by either operators or miners. The panel also had to make annual progress reports to Congress. Promulgation of health and safety standards was mandated to the HEW secretary, although consultation with the Labor Department and other agencies was also thought to be necessary. Mandatory health and safety standards that were developed or revised had to be published in the Federal Register for a thirty-day comment period. If objections were filed and a public hearing was requested, additional time was allowed for that hearing. The final 1084

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regulations were also published in the Federal Register. Only one year was allotted for developing the health and safety standards for surface mines and for the surface work areas of underground mines. When finalized and published in the Federal Register, every standard and regulation had to be sent to every coal mine operator and to the representative of coal miners at each mine; a copy was also to be posted on each mine site. The act also called for the formation of an advisory committee from the Office of Science and Technology, the National Bureau of Standards, National Science Foundation, and coal-mine experts. This committee was to direct the development of research into coal mines and to approve grants and research contracts. Inspections Representatives of the HEW secretary were also authorized to make inspections and investigations to obtain or disseminate information on health and safety conditions and accidents; gather information on mandatory standards; determine if an imminent danger existed; and establish compliance with regulations. The act specifically stated that no advance notice of inspections would be given and that inspections would be carried out at least four times a year. Investigators were given subpoena power and the right to hold public hearings with proper notice. Mine operators were required to report accidents and to prevent destruction of evidence. Provisions were made for confidentiality in the case of miners who informed the agency of violations and requested immediate inspections. If an inspection revealed an imminent danger, a mine could be shut down immediately. Most violations, however, resulted in a notice that allowed time to address the problem. In cases where a mine operator refused to allow inspection, failed to comply with orders or decisions, or withheld information, the secretary could institute a civil action, secure a temporary or permanent injunction, or seek a restraining order. Operators could be assessed civil penalties of between $10,000 and $50,000 for various convictions of having knowingly violated and refused to comply with health and safety standards. Miners who willfully violated standards with actions such as smoking or carrying matches, could receive a civil penalty of $250 per violation. Fines and imprisonment were also possible for selling nonstandard mining equipment required by the regulations. Once a mine operation was shut down in conse1085

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quence of orders under the act, the miners were entitled to their regular pay. Miners who reported violations or testified in hearings could not be discharged or discriminated against for this reason. Dust Levels and Medical Monitoring Unlike safety standards that were usually in place and easy to assess, health standards that would allow a miner to work underground for his adult life, without contracting pneumoconiosis (black lung disease) or other related diseases, were in a continual process of being refined. From the beginning, the HEW secretary was directed to post dust levels and the methodology for measuring those levels in the Federal Register. The act established an original level of 3.0 milligrams of respirable dust per cubic meter of air, which was to drop to 2.0 milligrams three years later. In cases where the operator, using available technology, could not achieve these levels, a permit for noncompliance was issued for a limited time of not more than eighteen months. The act directed the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to provide coal miners with periodic chest X-ray examinations, to begin within eighteen months after the law went into effect. The exams were to be provided to the miners at no cost to them by the mine operators. A second X ray was required three years after the first exam; if there were signs of pneumoconiosis, additional X rays were to be given two years later. Otherwise X rays were to be given at intervals not to exceed five years. Because of the high numbers of miners involved, X rays were given in groups and often scheduled for the workers in an entire mine. From 1973 to 1978, NIOSH interpreted X rays for more than 118,000 miners. Of these, less than 6,700 miners (less than 6 percent) had some stage of pneumoconiosis; 2,300, or less than 2 percent, were eligible to transfer to less dusty mining jobs. These low rates reflected the fact that many miners were new to coal mining. NIOSH established a two-tier system of reading X rays and maintaining quality control. NIOSH was required to notify the Department of Labor Mine Safety and Health Administration of findings and to notify miners of any benefits due them under the act. Miners who showed evidence of various levels of simple pneumoconiosis were permitted to transfer to mining duties in areas with lower levels of coal dust; the specific levels and the procedures were well defined. 1086

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The 1969 act provides for autopsies for underground coal miners, regardless of whether they were active coal miners at the time of death. The procedures for the autopsies of coal miners required by the act were likewise well defined: Pathologists who submitted reports and tissue specimens were reimbursed $200 per autopsy, the cost of which was borne by the coal company. Generally, NIOSH conducted approximately three hundred autopsies per year. An important portion of the act addressed claims for black lung benefits before and after December 31, 1972. The concluding portion of the act detailed efforts to be made in research, allocating grants, training inspectors, providing assistance to states, and making reports. Safe Mine Conditions Specific regulations were made for mines being managed with maximum safety of the miners. These regulations addressed criteria for roof support, ventilation, methane tests, daily reports, the presence of combustible material and rock dust, management of electrical equipment and cables, fire protection, blasting and explosives, haulage equipment, and many aspects of training programs, sanitary facilities, drinking water, and the like. Among the regulations for underground coal-mine workplaces were prescribed levels of illumination within a miner’s normal field of view of at least 0.06 footlamberts, a measure of reflectance, not candlepower. A new photometer developed for MESA to measure this light intensity provided a simple indication of whether light levels met regulations. The increased lighting requirements in turn increased the need to be careful with the added power cords necessary to feed the additional lighting equipment. By 1977, MESA had altered some light standards after recognizing that a drastic contrast in lighting intensity could be as dangerous as too little light. The first extensive survey of noise levels in underground coal mines in the United States was made in 1970. NIOSH concluded that miners—who were exposed to pneumatic drills, heavy mining machines, and loading machines—generally had worse hearing than workers not subjected to excessive job-related noise. The 1969 act directed the secretary to establish maximum noise standards and to require a certified assessment of noise level in mines every six months. 1087

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In cases of underground mine fires or explosions, self-rescue equipment, which resembled a large gas mask in appearance and was intended to convert toxic carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide, was required. New MESA regulations required that miners be trained in the use of one-hour oxygen supplies and oxygen-generating units. It was permissible to carry a ten-minute device that would allow a miner to reach the one-hour canisters, located at various strategic places in the mine. These oxygen supplies improved on the previously used filter systems, which had not protected against oxygen-deficient air, carbon dioxide, high temperatures, and toxic gases produced by the increased use of plastics. MESA also developed a point system for rating coal mines. Underground and surface mines were rated on different scales, which evolved into an intricate matrix of standards. MESA inspectors investigated dust levels, health and safety training, equipment and the management of it, accident and injury records, job-safety analyses by the company, employee supervision, protection equipment, maintenance schedules, health examinations, and enforcement of rules. Under its education and training mandate, MESA produced a series of films, some of which won industrial film awards. Subsequent Legislation In 1977, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act amended the 1969 act by extending its range beyond coal mining and calling for research to protect the health and safety of miners in all metal and nonmetal mines. In addition, two new mining programs were established: The Mining Industries Surveillance Program was to document the hazardous physical agents used in mining and to determine the toxicity levels for common levels of usage; the Health Hazard Evaluation Program was to conduct research on possible new health hazards in mining and to conduct scientific evaluations on specific hazards within 120 days. John Richard Schrock Sources for Further Study Dennen, W. H. Mineral Resources: Geology, Exploration, and Development. New York: Taylor and Francis, 1989. Hoppe, R., ed. E/MJ Operating Handbook of Mineral Surface Mining and Exploration. New York: E/MJ Mining Informational Services, 1978. 1088

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Nelkin, Dorothy, and Michael S. Brown. Workers at Risk: Voices from the Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. U.S. Congress. Public Law 91-173: Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. 91st Congress, 1st session, 1969. See also: General Mining Act (1872); Occupational Safety and

Health Act (1970); Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970); Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977).

Child product safety laws Date: 1970’s Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Children’s Issues;

Health and Welfare

Federal legislation prevented the marketing of potentially harmful children’s products. During the 1970’s, the federal government of the United States undertook a concerted effort to improve the safety of toys and other products used by children. This effort was presaged by passage of the Child Protection Act of 1966, which prohibited sale of any hazardous substance that might cause harm to children, if it failed to display a warning label on either the product or its package. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was responsible for enforcing this act, which amended the Hazardous Substances Labeling Act of 1960. Prior to this act, signed into law on November 3, 1966, toy manufacturers were not held accountable for product safety or for reducing the risk of injuries sustained by children using their products. Child Protection and Toy Safety Act On November 6, 1969, the Child Protection and Toy Safety Act was passed, extending the requirements of manufacturers by prohibiting any toxic, corrosive, or flammable toy or article that could cause personal injury or illness in children. In addition, if a product could cause an electrical, fire, or mechanical hazard to chil1089

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dren, a label was to be displayed on the product or its package warning of its potential danger. The law gave the secretary of health, education, and welfare the authority to ban what the FDA classified as a hazardous substance. Flammable Fabrics Act The FDA was also responsible for carrying out the 1953 Flammable Fabrics Act, passed to ban nightgowns and children’s clothing that would burst into flame when exposed to open flames. Unfortunately, the standards were not stringent. For example, if a six-inch sample of a material was held at a 45 degree angle from a flame for one second and did not catch fire, it passed the test. If the material burned at a rate of five inches or less in three and one-half seconds, it passed the test. Consumer Product Safety Act On October 27, 1972, the Consumer Product Safety Act established the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which was empowered to develop safety standards for most consumer products other than food, drugs, and automobiles. The CPSC was charged with protecting the public against unreasonable risks of injury from consumer products, assisting consumers in evaluating the relative safety of competing product brands, reducing the conflicts between state and local regulations, and promoting research and investigation into the causes and prevention of productrelated death, illness, and injury. Toy Dangers Prior to the establishment of the CPSC, the toy industry regulated itself. In 1968, the National Commission on Product Safety (NCPS) found in its final report to Congress that self-regulation by trade associations such as the Toy Manufacturers of America (TMA) and organizations that give seals of approval, such as Good Housekeeping, were ineffective. The TMA did not force its members to comply with its standards, and organizations such as Good Housekeeping were more concerned that advertising claims were truthful than with testing and certifying products’ safety to children. One toy safety advocate who testified before the NCPS was Edward M. Swartz, an attorney who represented several clients in court to obtain compensation for injuries suffered by their chil1090

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dren as a result of playing with hazardous toys. At the 1968 NCPS hearings, Swartz demonstrated how dangerous toys could be to their child users. Swartz became an advocate on toy safety issues and wrote several books, including Toys That Don’t Care (1971) and Toys That Kill (1986). Swartz’s research uncovered several unsafe products that were marketed in the 1970’s having not been found to be dangerous by the CPSC. One product was the Wham-O Manufacturing Company’s boomerang. Another unsafe product, marketed by PBI Incorporated, was a projectile toy that was advertised to the wholesale trade as a safe, flexible plastic toy, even though it had sharp edges and was potentially blinding. F. A. O. Schwartz marketed a fiberglass bow and wooden arrow set. The wooden arrows had rubber tips, but they were removable. The toy was advertised as being harmless. During the 1970’s, the Ideal Toy Corporation made a “Kookie Kamera” that was marketed as nontoxic and not intended for internal consumption. The product caused several cases of nausea, which may have led to vomiting and even asphyxiation as a result of blockage of the trachea in small children. Another product, the Newman Company’s “Loonie Straw,” was designed to be reusable. The problem was that instructions called for the straw not to be washed in hot water. It was intended to be used to drink milk, making it probable that bacterial germs would be bred in the unsanitary straw. From 1973 to 1977, the CPSC received more than one hundred death certificates related to the ingestion of small objects. Fortyfive of these deaths were related to toys and nursery products. In 1976, it was estimated by a CPSC study that 46,500 children under the age of ten were treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to small parts. Twenty-five of forty-five deaths involving children’s products were of children less than three years old. During 1978, the CPSC received more than 180 oral and written comments from businesses, trade associations, and consumer groups regarding the safety of consumer products. In response, on August 7, 1978, the Consumer Product Safety Act tightened up safety regulations and required every manufacturer, distributor, or retailer who obtained information that a product either was unsafe or did not comply with the CPSC regulations to immediately inform the CPSC. 1091

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Impact on Toy Manufacture The effects of regulation on how toys were manufactured and marketed were mixed. In 1980, the CPSC banned the sale of toys with small parts intended for children under the age of three if the parts could accidentally be swallowed or become dangerously lodged in their throats. By 1989, however, the CPSC still had not clearly defined what constituted a small part and if small-part toys should be banned in general. Toymakers still claimed that accidents being researched were isolated incidents; the CPSC concurred in most cases. On the other hand, many products were banned because of the CPSC’s enforcement of the Child Protection Act and Child Protection and Toy Safety Act. In the 1970’s, products called crackerballs were categorized as hazardous substances. Crackerballs consisted of small quantities of gunpowder and particles of sand or flint in papier-mâché coatings. When thrown against any hard surface, they would explode with a loud noise. Lawn dart sets were required to carry warning labels, and they could not be sold at toy stores. In 1977, the CPSC required bicycles to have capped brake wires, treads on the pedals to prevent foot slippage, and reflectors for night riding. One area of concern for product safety advocates was that under product safety laws, toy manufacturers were permitted to market products with labels recommending the age group for which the toy would be most suitable. The labels did not indicate that the toy would be hazardous to any child younger than the recommended age. As a result, many adults believed that the recommended age group was based on intellectual capacity or dexterity, not on safety standards. In 1977, Parker Brothers marketed a product called Rivitron, a plastic construction toy for children aged six to twelve. After an eight-year-old boy died from ingesting a small part of the toy, the CPSC found the death to be an isolated case. Parker Brothers added chemicals to the toy rivets, giving them a bad taste so that children would be deterred from putting the parts in their mouths. In 1987, the CPSC under Commissioner Terrence Scanlon seized goods valued at almost $4 million during spot checks. Seizures represented 1.5 million units of toys. James Florio, chairman of the House Reauthorization Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Competitiveness, criticized the CPSC for being relatively weak during the 1980’s. Florio and his committee be1092

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lieved that confiscating $4 million worth of products from a $12 billion industry showed ineffectiveness as a safety commission. Many critics of toy manufacturers believed that the public was unaware of the dangers that children faced when playing with toys that were not being stringently monitored by the CPSC. On the other hand, toy manufacturers believed that regulations were too stringent and the public too demanding. They argued that many injuries to children were not caused by the children and their toys but by the lack of parental supervision. Television Advertising and Long-Range Impact In 1968, Peggy Charren had founded Action for Children’s Television (ACT). Charren was a critic of toy-based programs, which she believed were exploiting children and should have been scrutinized by the television industry and the Federal Communications Commission. In 1987, when Mattel announced a line of gun toys to be used in interaction with a television show, she unsuccessfully tried to stop the marketing of these products, claiming that simulating the shooting of a television figure would give children the wrong impression of real shooting. Charren’s movement gave a new interpretation to product safety, expanding beyond physical features and taking into consideration the potential danger of marketing products that could lead to an unsafe situation or foster dangerous behavior. Toy manufacturers were faced with other criticisms that may have led to decreased sales. In 1987, consumer advocate and attorney Ralph Nader found that television advertising manipulated child viewers to buy toy products that were not safe. For example, Nader found that plastic toy parts were more hazardous than were wood products, but that television advertising focused on plastic toys. Toy manufacturers responded that critics were more concerned with an antibusiness philosophy than with objections to the actual safety of toys. Although the CPSC generally supported consumer advocates, in 1991 Toys “R” Us was permitted to sell wind-up dolls, even though children under three years of age could be injured by choking on some of the parts. Sale of the dolls was allowed because they were not intended for children of that age. Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, attorney Edward Swartz compiled lists of dangerous toys. Although many legal battles were won by the toy manufacturing in1093

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dustry, advocates such as Swartz, Nader, and Charren influenced the CPSC and the toy manufacturers to ensure that toys were safe. Toy manufacturers became more cognizant of their market and of the pressure that consumer advocates placed by lobbying legislators to strengthen product safety rules for children. Martin J. Lecker Sources for Further Study Dadd, Debra Lynn. Non-Toxic and Natural How to Avoid Dangerous Everyday Products and Buy or Make Safe Ones. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1984. Heffron, Howard A. Federal Consumer Safety Legislation: A Study of the Scope and Adequacy of the Automobile Safety, Flammable Fabrics, Toys, and Hazardous Substances Programs. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970. Oppenheim, Joanne. Buy Me! Buy Me!. New York: Pantheon Books, 1987. Stern, Sydney Ladensohn, and Ted Schoenhaus. Toyland The High Stakes Game of the Toy Industry. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1990. Swartz, Edward M. Toys That Don’t Care. Boston: Gambit, 1971. _______. Toys That Kill. New York: Vintage Books, 1986. See also: Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Hazardous

Substances Labeling Act (1960); Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969); Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971); Consumer Product Safety Act (1972); Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976).

National Environmental Policy Act Date: January 1, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 83 Stat. 852 Public law: 91-190 U.S. Code: 42 § 4321 Categories: Environment and Conservation 1094

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The law established national policies and objectives for the protection and maintenance of the environment in the United States. Sometimes referred to as the environmental Magna Carta of the United States, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was the first law of its kind to require a comprehensive and coordinated national environmental policy that embraced public review of environmental impacts associated with the actions of federal agencies. Oversight of NEPA compliance was facilitated through the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), created through a provision of the act. In response to widespread public interest in environmental quality during the late 1960’s, Congress held separate House and Senate committee hearings to identify the best method for legislating a national policy on environmental protection. Among the problems discussed was the tendency of mission-oriented federal agencies involved in development to overlook environmentally preferable alternatives in their decision-making processes. Draft versions of House and Senate environmental bills were later integrated and approved by Congress as NEPA. Signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on January 1, 1970, NEPA (PL 91-190) recognized the profound impact of human activity on the interrelations of all components of the natural environment, particularly the influences of population growth, high-density urbanization, resource exploration, and new and expanding technological advances. Language used in the bill embraced many of the philosophies of the conservation movement of the early twentieth century and later environmentalism of the 1960’s. Provisions Although other U.S. environmental statutes provide robust protection for the environment, such laws focus only on specific categories of resources. In contrast, NEPA serves as an umbrella statute that outlines a set of procedures and embraces the importance of public participation in federal decision making when the quality of the environment is at stake. NEPA does not demand explicit results such as limits on pollution emissions or specific actions to protect endangered species, nor does it serve as a substitute for other federal planning activities or regulatory processes. Rather, the act in1095

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structs that decisions be made on the basis of thoughtful analysis of the direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impacts of proposed actions. NEPA prescribes the completion of a series of steps for all actions involving federal participation that may affect the environment, emphasizing in spirit and intent the importance of public participation in safeguarding the environment. The first step in federal project review is completion of an environmental assessment (EA) with input from local governments, American Indians, the public, and other federal agencies. An EA documents influences on the environment associated with a proposed federal action, including the type and level of significant impacts. Following completion of the EA, NEPA requires that a second document be prepared for all actions going forward. A finding of no significant impact (FONSI) provides documentation in cases were actions have been determined to have no significant effect on the quality of the human environment. Federal actions that may significantly alter the quality of the human environment, including possible degradation to threatened or endangered species or their habitats, must be evaluated in greater detail. An environmental impact statement (EIS) involves additional analysis of pertinent social, demographic, economic, and ecological information and consideration of alternative courses of action. NEPA requires that the EIS process be carried out using a framework involving public input through a variety of mechanisms, including individual or group responses to proposed alternatives. Implementation Initially, NEPA implementation was difficult within agencies struggling to establish guidelines. Within the act’s first two years, federal agencies had completed more than 3,600 EISs but were also involved in nearly 150 associated lawsuits. Although the number of EISs submitted each year has fallen, more than 26,000 have been written since 1970. These reports document actions ranging from the construction of highways to the development of facilities for holding toxic wastes. About 80 percent of EISs have been produced by a small number of federal agencies, including the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Although there is no 1096

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formal tracking process, a much large number of EAs have been prepared for other federal projects and activities. Critics argue that the EIS process is not cost effective in terms of human resources or dollars spent and that NEPA guidelines are often inconsistently applied. As an overarching policy, NEPA cannot prevent agencies from implementing unwise actions or even from concluding that other values are more important than environmental considerations. Despite ambiguity in its language, however, the act has been credited with significantly modifying the actions of both government agencies and private industry by preventing hundreds of activities with potentially severe environmental effects. NEPA has raised awareness of the concept of environmental impact, highlighting the need for governments and citizens to be aware of the unintended consequences of federally supported actions that affect the human environment. NEPA has also assisted in creating pathways for other federal statutes that consider environmental issues in decision making, such as the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund. Having withstood consecutive regulatory reform commissions of the presidential administrations of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, NEPA stands out for its brevity and simplicity. Perhaps the best evidence of the act’s success can be seen by the fact that it has been emulated by one-half of the state governments in the United States and by more than eighty national governments throughout the world. Thomas A. Wikle Sources for Further Study Andrews, R. N. L. Environmental Policy and Administrative Change: Implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1976. Burchell, R. W., and David Listokin. The Environmental Impact Handbook. New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, 1975. Caldwell, Lynton. Science and the National Environmental Policy Act. University: University of Alabama Press, 1982. Clark, Ray, and Larry Canter. Environmental Policy and NEPA. Boca Raton, Fla.: St. Lucie Press, 1997. 1097

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Creighton, J. L. The Public Involvement Manual. Washington, D.C.: Information Resources Press, 1979. Eckstein, Otto. Water-resource Development: The Economics of Project Evaluation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958. Lake, L. M. ed. Environmental Mediation: The Search for Consensus. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980. Munn, R. E., ed. Environmental Impact Assessment: Principles and Procedures. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, 1979. Ortolano, Leonard. Environmental Planning and Decision Making. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1984. See also: Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960); Clean Air Act (1963); Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965); Safe Drinking Water Act (1974); National Forest Management Act (1976); Department of Energy Organization Act (1977); Superfund Act (1980); Pollution Prevention Act (1990).

Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act Date: April 1, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 87 Public law: 91-222 U.S. Code: 15 § 1331 Categories: Food and Drugs; Health and Welfare

Cigarette advertising was banned from the American broadcast media. The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 banned cigarette advertising from American radio and television beginning January 1, 1971. It also allowed the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to consider warnings in printed advertising after July 1, 1971. Warnings on cigarette packages were changed, and under the act, the FTC was required to give Congress six months notice of any pending changes in rules concerning cigarettes. The legislation was signed by President Richard Nixon on April 1, 1970. After passage of the act, two voluntary agreements were reached between the 1098

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FTC and cigarette manufacturers. The companies agreed to list tar and nicotine content in their advertising and also agreed to feature the health warning label in print advertising. The agreement was prompted by the pending expiration on July 1, 1969, of the Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966). The Federal Communications Commission unexpectedly announced in February, 1969, that if Congress allowed the 1965 act to expire, the FCC would propose a rule that would ban cigarette advertising from the airwaves. Several options were available. If Congress did not act and allowed the 1965 legislation to expire, the FCC could enact its proposed restrictions. Alternatively, Congress could have extended the 1965 ban or could have taken action on the health warning label, making it more or less stringent. The Battle in Congress Antismoking forces hoped that Congress would not act, thereby allowing for the more encompassing regulations proposed by the FCC. Instead, the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee held thirteen days of hearings two months before the ban was to expire. The arguments and many of the witnesses were the same as those heard in the 1965 hearings. In testimony before the committee, Warren Braren, former manager of the New York office of the Code Authority, made it clear that the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) deliberately misled Congress and the public into believing that voluntary industry self-regulation in reducing youth appeal was meaningful. He revealed that television networks and advertising agencies regularly overruled Code Authority staff members in interpretation of standards. The Code Authority operated entirely on voluntary submissions by advertising agencies. Some tobacco sponsors simply had not subscribed to the code, and those that did made their own judgments on whether their commercials needed to be reviewed. The bill that passed the House of Representatives on June 18, 1969, however, appeared to represent a victory for the cigarette industry. It prohibited the states permanently, and the federal agencies for six more years, from enacting regulations on cigarette advertising, in exchange for a strengthened package warning label. The House bill, however, sparked a severe backlash in the Senate and at the state level as well as in the private sector. The New York Times, for example, announced that it would require a health warn1099

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ing in any cigarette advertisement appearing in that newspaper. The Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Frank E. Moss, held a one-day hearing, with only five witnesses appearing. Speaking for the tobacco manufacturers in July, 1969, Joseph Cullman III, chairman of Philip Morris, told the Senate Consumer Subcommittee that the industry was ready to end all advertising on television and radio on December 31, 1969, if the broadcasters would cooperate, and in any event would agree to cease advertising by September, 1970, when existing agreements expired. The announcement by Cullman caught many broadcasters by surprise. They had proposed to phase out cigarette ads over a three-year period beginning in January, 1970. Cigarette advertising accounted for $225 million a year in revenue to broadcasters, and they had hoped that a gradual reduction would help in the development of contingency plans to recover a portion of the lost revenue. Broadcasters Volunteer a Ban Meanwhile, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Television and Radio Code Review Boards announced a plan on July 8, 1969, to stop advertising on radio and television beginning January 1, 1970. In addition, cigarette manufacturers were required to continue carrying warning labels on their packages. The agreement stipulated that member stations of the NAB would phase out cigarette commercials on the air beginning January 1, 1970. The Review Boards also said that they would prohibit cigarette commercials during or adjacent to any program that was primarily directed at young people and would further study ways to reduce the appeal of cigarettes to minors. The announcement amounted to a victory for critics of tobacco, most notably the FCC, which had threatened to ban all cigarette commercials from the airwaves. The tobacco industry, in presenting its proposal, showed concern that broadcasters might sue for antitrust violations, on the grounds that the cigarette companies had acted in collusion. The industry included a request for antitrust protection in presenting its proposal. A New Warning Label The bill that emerged from Congress on March 19, 1970, called the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969, banned cigarette advertising from radio and television beginning January 1, 1971. It 1100

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also agreed to allow the FTC to consider warnings in printed advertising after July 1, 1971. Cigarette package warning labels were changed to: Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health.

Attitudes within the tobacco industry regarding the ban were mixed. It is commonly assumed in the industry that advertising does not increase the size of the overall cigarette market. Instead, it affects the competitive position of the various brands. The primary effect of the advertising ban, therefore, would be to freeze the market shares currently held by each of the brands. Print ads could still affect market share but were not believed to be as powerful. The money saved by not producing and placing advertising in the broadcast media would be substantial. As a bonus, the industry hoped that a cessation of cigarette advertising would yield a respite in the growing volume of antismoking advertising. Tobacco Industry Response The tobacco industry’s initial response to the broadcast advertising ban was to find alternative means to get its message to the public. Liggett & Myers, Philip Morris, and R. J. Reynolds all signed contracts with automobile racing organizations as a way to keep their brands on television, announcing that the races would be named after popular brands, for example the “L&M Continental Championship,” the “Marlboro Championship,” and the “Winston 500.” Some industry observers saw this as an attempt at a “rear door” reentry by cigarette makers into the television market. Advertisers also positioned displays strategically at racetracks so that they would be captured by television cameras covering the events. Publishers, unlike broadcasters, were not federally licensed and were not, therefore, limited by FCC regulations. Within one month of the imposed ban on broadcast media advertising, the number of pages of cigarette advertising in consumer magazines more than doubled as compared to the same period of the previous year. Although some increase was anticipated, its magnitude caught the magazine industry by surprise and created a controversy. This stemmed from the impression that the increase in cigarette advertising might convey in the light of the magazine industry’s somewhat delicate position regarding health warnings. Congress had barred 1101

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the Federal Trade Commission from requiring health hazard warnings in cigarette print ads before July 1, 1971, but not after. Antismoking Campaigns Twenty months after the broadcast advertising ban went into effect, the FTC urged the government to buy broadcast time for antismoking advertising. Smoking had hit record high levels since the ads left the airwaves. In 1972, a total of 554 billion cigarettes were smoked, 3 percent more than in the preceding year. The tobacco industry apparently had survived the controversy that began with the 1964 surgeon general’s report. Analysts correctly predicted that the industry would witness at least a decade of strong, steady growth. Some attributed this growth to the increase in the 25-to-44 age bracket, a group that accounted for a large proportion of cigarette consumption. Others argued that the ban had not yet had its full effect, since most young consumers had seen cigarette ads for most of their lives. John F. Banzhaf III, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, an antismoking public interest group, stated that to date the greatest impact of the ruling was that antismoking messages were appearing far less frequently, since broadcasters no longer had to air them for free to balance cigarette ads. The effects of cigarette advertising were seen to be long-term, while the antismoking ads seemed to have an effect for a shorter period. In the 1970’s, public and medical research interest turned to the effects of smoking on nonsmokers. In 1972, the surgeon general issued the first report suggesting that secondhand smoke was dangerous to nonsmokers. In 1975, Minnesota passed the first state law requiring businesses, restaurants, and other institutions to establish non-smoking areas. The concern regarding secondhand smoke continued, with an increasing number of local governments and businesses restricting smoking in public areas. The cigarette industry, in the meantime, continued to target new generations of smokers through print and billboard advertising, sales promotions, public relations, giveaways, and strategically place story displays. In 1988, tobacco companies spent more than one billion dollars on advertising and more than two billion dollars on promotion. The restriction on broadcast advertising and the required warning labels on packages and advertisements appear to have had a limited impact in the face of advertising that promises 1102

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smokers increased status, social acceptance, and glamour. The cigarette industry has defended itself against charges of irresponsibility by claiming that individuals are free to decide whether to smoke and that it simply is meeting an existing consumer demand. The industry is particularly defensive regarding charges that ads are targeted toward children. It argues that ads do not encourage people to start smoking, but rather to switch brands. Elaine Sherman and Andrew M. Forman Sources for Further Study Doron, Gideon. The Smoking Paradox: Public Regulation in the Cigarette Industry. Cambridge, Mass.: Abt Books, 1979. Fritschler, A. Lee. Smoking and Politics: Policymaking and the Federal Bureaucracy. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983. Sobel, Robert. They Satisfy: The Cigarette in American Life. New York: Anchor Press, 1978. Tollison, Robert D., ed. Smoking and Society: Toward a More Balanced Assessment. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1986. White, Larry C. Merchants of Death: The American Tobacco Industry. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1988. See also: Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966).

Organized Crime Control Act Date: October 15, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 933 Public law: 91-452 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

A set of amendments to existing law and authorizations of new law enforcement entities to combat organized crime, the Organized Crime Control Act was a key element of the Nixon administration’s “war on crime.” 1103

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The 1960’s were seen by many at the time as an era of increasing crime, disrespect for authority, and corruption. Richard M. Nixon’s election as president in 1968 marked the beginning of a series of conservative policies designed to address those problems under the rubric of a “war on crime.” The Organized Crime Control Act was a key element of that program. In general, the act strengthened the ability of law enforcement authorities to gather evidence against organized crime, provided for the protection of government witnesses, revised explosives regulations, and increased penalties for “dangerous special offenders.” The act also established a commission to investigate criminal involvement in gambling. Title IX of the act, known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), identified various illegal activities and specified penalties. The legislation encountered some resistance from those who argued that it provided the government with unconstitutional powers, violating individual rights. The final version of the act included a provision establishing a commission to review federal laws and practices for potential infringements of individual rights. Steve D. Boilard Sources for Further Study Philcox, Norman W. An Introduction to Organized Crime. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1978. U.S. Department of Justice. Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO): A Manual for Federal Prosecutors. 2d rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988. Wallance, Gregory J. “Criminal Justice: Outgunning the Mob.” American Bar Association Journal 80 (March 1, 1994). See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Anti-Racketeering Act (1934); Hobbs Act (1946); Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968); Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970); Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970); Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974); Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984); Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994); Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994). 1104

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Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Also known as: Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act Date: October 15, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 941 Public law: 91-452 U.S. Code: 18 § 1961 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

Commonly known by its acronym RICO, this law provided both criminal and civil remedies against persons who commit a variety of statutory and common-law crimes, and it became the primary statutory weapon used by federal prosecutors against organized crime. After twenty years of study and debate, Congress enacted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) as part of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. The statute’s primary purpose is to provide an effective means for government prosecutors to act against organized crime. RICO lay dormant for a decade, however, until its architect, G. Robert Blakey of Notre Dame Law School, convinced federal prosecutors to use it against the Mafia. Porvisions: Four Prohibited Activities The general scheme of RICO is relatively simple. It applies to a defendant who, through a pattern of racketeering activity, has indirectly or directly participated in an enterprise whose activities affect interstate commerce. The critical phrases “person,” “enterprise,” and “pattern of racketeering activity” are broadly defined in RICO, reflecting a congressional intent to provide for the widest application of the statute in combating organized crime. The Supreme Court recognized that RICO was to be liberally construed. The term “enterprise” thereby includes “legitimate enterprises” which have committed the requisite illegal acts. RICO prohibits four specific activities: using income derived from a pattern of racketeering activity to acquire an interest in an enterprise, acquiring or maintaining an interest in an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity, conducting the affairs of an enter1105

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prise through a pattern of racketeering activity, and conspiring to commit any of these offenses. A “person,” defined to include any individual or entity capable of holding a legal or beneficial interest in property, must conduct or participate in the conduct of a RICO enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity, which requires at least two predicate acts within a ten-year period. The statute is thereby directed at conduct (the predicate acts) rather than status (organized crime). RICO therefore applies to anyone who engages in the proscribed conduct, regardless of who the perpetrator is. Federal prosecutors have generally exercised discretion in limiting RICO prosecutions to cases involving organized crime and securities violations. The critical phrase “racketeering activity” is defined to include specific state and federal felonies. A veritable laundry list of predicate offenses includes murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, and dealing in narcotics or other dangerous drugs. Also included as predicate acts are a number of federal crimes, including mail fraud, wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and securities fraud. In 1984 Congress added the distribution of obscene materials to the list of predicate offenses. Several other predicate acts reflect common perceptions of organized crime, such as bribery and sports bribery, unlawful transactions with pension or welfare funds, loan-sharking, interstate transportation of wagering paraphernalia, federal bankruptcy fraud, and violation of any law of the United States concerning drug transactions. RICO is partially intended to strike at illegal activity that operates through formal, legitimate enterprises. An enterprise is defined to include any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact even though they do not constitute a legal entity. One of the most significant features of RICO is that members of an unlawful enterprise can be prosecuted for being part of an enterprise that commits a series of predicate offenses. It is no longer necessary to prosecute individual defendants for a specific crime, such as homicide, which may be difficult to prove. RICO is distinguished from other criminal statutes because it includes in its penalties the forfeiture of illegally acquired gains and the economic bases of misused power. RICO forfeiture can be of any property that is traceable, directly or indirectly, to the RICO violation. Forfeiture is in addition to any other fine or imprisonment 1106

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imposed. Criminal forfeiture was common in England, but it is not generally incorporated into the criminal laws of the United States. A freeze on a defendant’s assets can also be imposed upon the filing of a RICO complaint by the federal prosecutor. Civil RICO Without much thought on the floor of Congress, an amendment to the proposed RICO statute was adopted, adding a civil remedy to the statute. RICO’s civil remedy provision is the most commonly utilized provision of the statute. Its popularity rests on the fact that a victim may recover treble (triple) damages and costs of litigation, including attorneys’ fees. In addition, the statute can be applied against any defendant who has committed the requisite two predicate acts within a ten-year period. It is widely used in cases of securities fraud, consumer fraud, and real estate development fraud. RICO has also become a standard pleading in business disputes. In January, 1994, the Supreme Court held in National Organization for Women v. Scheidler that RICO can be applied against antiabortion protesters. The Court held that RICO is not limited to crimes with an economic motive. Courts frequently use the civil and criminal RICO case-law interpretations interchangeably. RICO’s Effects RICO has been effective in the government’s steady war of attrition against traditional organized crime; its record in prosecuting white-collar criminals has been mixed. Both the civil suit provision and the allowability of freezing assets have proved controversial. Plaintiffs seeking relief under RICO pursue its remedies and application to the fullest. They do not exercise the discretion and self-restraint characteristic of governmental prosecutors. Postconviction forfeitures are also receiving detailed scrutiny, although usually in state cases because of abuses in the use of the forfeited property. One final note is that roughly half the states have enacted “little RICO” laws modeled after the federal statute. Denis Binder Sources for Further Study Abrams, Douglas R. The Law of Civil RICO. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991. 1107

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Floyd, John E. Rico State by State: A Guide to Litigation Under the State. Chicago: American Bar Association, 1998. Joseph, Gregory P. Civil RICO: A Definitive Guide. Chicago: American Bar Association, 1992. Philcox, Norman W. An Introduction to Organized Crime. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1978. U.S. Department of Justice. Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO): A Manual for Federal Prosecutors. 2d rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988. Wallance, Gregory J. “Criminal Justice: Outgunning the Mob.” American Bar Association Journal 80 (March 1, 1994). Welling, Sarah N., Pamela H. Bucy, and Sara Sun Beale. Federal Criminal Law and Related Actions: Crimes, Forfeiture, the False Claims Act, and Rico. Eagan, Minn.: West Group, 1998. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Anti-Racketeering Act (1934); Hobbs Act (1946); Organized Crime Control Act (1970).

Fair Credit Reporting Act Date: October 26, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 1128 Public law: 90-321; 91-508 U.S. Code: 15 § 1681 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance

This act caused policies to be implemented to ensure the proper maintenance and disclosure of credit information. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (an amendment to the Consumer Credit Protection Act of 1968), was passed by Congress on October 26, 1970, and became law in April of 1971. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin was instrumental in the passage of this legislation. Need for the Law Section 602 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) outlined the need for this law. First, the banking system is dependent upon fair 1108

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and accurate credit reporting. Inaccurate credit reports directly impair the efficiency of the banking system, and unfair credit reporting methods undermine the public confidence essential to the continued functioning of the banking system. Second, elaborate mechanisms exist to investigate and evaluate creditworthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character, and general reputation of consumers. Consumer reporting agencies have assumed a vital role in assembling and evaluating consumer credit and other information on consumers. There is a need to ensure that consumer reporting agencies exercise their responsibilities with fairness, impartiality, and a respect for consumers’ right to privacy. Objectives and Provisions The FCRA had four primary objectives. They were to establish acceptable purposes for which a consumer credit report may be obtained; to define the consumer’s rights regarding credit reports, with particular emphasis on giving consumers access to their reports and procedures for correcting inaccurate information; to establish requirements for handling an adverse credit decision that resulted in whole or in part from information contained in a credit report; and to define the responsibilities of credit reporting agencies. In general, it was the realization by Congress that consumer credit has had major impacts on economic activity as a whole that spurred the legislation. Consumers’ inability to obtain credit for expensive items such as automobiles and large appliances negatively affected economic factors such as employment, production, and income, ultimately magnifying the business cycle, particularly in downturns. Financial institutions, as the grantors of consumer credit and the users of information supplied by credit reporting agencies, weighted their credit decisions heavily on the information supplied. Timely, accurate, and intelligible information was necessary for proper credit decisions. Consumers also needed to be protected from ramifications resulting from inaccurate, untimely, or improper credit information. Consumers by far were the most heavily affected by the passage of this legislation. Consumers rely heavily upon consumer credit as a means of purchasing expensive items and raising their standards of living by purchasing goods for current use with future income. Reporting agencies faced higher costs as a result of the legislation but gained a greater reputation for accuracy and usefulness. 1109

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Credit Information and Consumer Access The following information is usually contained within a consumer credit file: name; address; previous address; Social Security number; date of birth; employer; length of employment; previous employment; credit history including creditors, balances, and payment patterns; and public filings such as mortgages, chattels, marriages, divorces, collections suits, and bankruptcies. The FCRA made all information within a consumer’s credit report accessible to the consumer. Consumers can get access to their credit files in several ways. If a consumer is denied credit on a credit application, the lending institution is required to mail a detailed letter outlining the reasons for denial and including the name, address, and telephone number of any reporting agency consulted. The consumer may take this letter to the reporting agency within thirty days of the date of the letter to discuss and obtain a free copy of the report. A consumer who has not been denied credit may obtain a copy of his or her file from the local reporting service for a nominal fee. A consumer must provide proper identification in order to obtain a copy of his or her credit file. The FCRA identifies the type of material available to the consumer. The consumer has the right to know all the information in the file, with the exception of medical records. This includes names of people or companies that have obtained the report within the past six months and the names of those who received the report for employment purposes within the past two years. Provisions for Correcting Errors The FCRA greatly benefits consumers by allowing them to dispute information contained within their files. Erroneous or inaccurate information can be contested and asked to be verified by the reporting agency. The consumer has the right to place within the credit file a consumer statement outlining his or her interpretation of negative information. This statement is then part of the file and is presented to future users. The consumer statement is usually limited to one hundred words. The FCRA limits the amount of time that unfavorable information can be reported on a consumer. Seven years is the maximum, with the exception of bankruptcies, which are reported for ten years. In some instances, an investigative credit report may be compiled on an individual. It includes all the information mentioned 1110

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above. In addition, it includes information on the character, reputation, and living style of the consumer. This information is obtained from interviews with friends, associates, and neighbors. The consumer has the same rights of access to this report as to an ordinary credit file. Right to Privacy The final major area that the FCRA addresses is consumers’ right to privacy. Credit information is basically for use by the consumer, the reporting agency, authorized credit grantors, employers, and insurance companies. To restrict dissemination to proper users, those who request credit information must prove their identity and their reason for wanting access to a consumer’s credit file. For users who obtain information under false pretenses, the law provides for fines of up to $5,000, prison sentences up to one year, or both. The same penalties apply to officers and employees of reporting agencies who misuse information. Consumers are allowed to pursue civil litigation against reporting agencies and are entitled to compensation for any financial injury, extra penalties imposed by the court, court costs, and attorney fees. Consumers can discuss complaints with credit reporting agencies by contacting the Federal Trade Commission. Impact on Reporting Agencies and Lendors Consumers were not the only parties affected by the FCRA. Reporting agencies assumed a more clearly defined fiduciary responsibility to act in good faith and trust. Their goals are to maintain timely and accurate files on consumers, handle disputes in a timely manner, and investigate complaints and inaccurate information on consumers. They must also ensure the confidentiality of their information while still making it available to the proper users. Failure to follow proper procedures and guidelines can result not only in consumer complaints but also in lawsuits, fines, or even imprisonment for employees of reporting agencies. Consumer credit grantors also were affected by the FCRA. Lenders need to be careful when disclosing credit information. It must be both timely and accurate. Letters denying credit must be sent out on time, and procedures need to be in place to handle direct requests made to the organization. Lenders need to be careful with outside requests so as to not be viewed as credit reporting 1111

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agencies. The final area lenders must address is the use of information for decision-making purposes. Many lenders place great weight in consumer credit decisions on the information obtained from credit files. It is essential that lenders have reliable information in order to make proper credit decisions. Lenders also use credit reporting agencies to screen borrowers. This works in two ways for lenders. It improves their credit quality by eliminating marginal borrowers and also gives them access to potential new customers. Lenders are bound by privacy laws and are forbidden to give copies of reports to consumers or other lenders. Concerns for Privacy and Accuracy In the years since passage of the law, many hearings have been held by Congress on concerns regarding the FCRA, such as privacy concerns, complaints about the difficulty of getting inaccurate information removed from credit files, the length of time to get disputed information reinvestigated, name mix-ups, and denials of credit based on the number of inquiries in a credit report. By 1991, consumer credit had increased sixfold since the act was first introduced, and the number of reports had increased fivefold. A revolution in computer technology had changed not only the shape of the credit reporting industry but also methods of record keeping and dissemination of consumer data. As a result of such hearings, the FCRA was later amended to enhance the proper maintenance and use of consumer information for credit, employment, and other related purposes. William C. Ward III Sources for Further Study Beares, Paul. “Regulation of Consumer Credit.” In Consumer Lending. Washington, D.C.: American Bankers Association, 1987. Cole, Robert H. “Regulation of Consumer Credit.” In Consumer and Commercial Credit Management. 8th ed. Homewood, Ill.: Irwin, 1988. See also: Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968); Truth in Lend-

ing Act (1968); Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974); Privacy Act (1974); Privacy Protection Act (1980). 1112

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MAGILL’S C H O I C E

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Volume 3 1970-2002

edited by

Timothy L. Hall University of Mississippi School of Law co-editor

Christina J. Moose

Salem Press, Inc.

Pasadena, California

Hackensack, New Jersey

Copyright © 2003, by Salem Press, Inc. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address the publisher, Salem Press, Inc., P.O. Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115. ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997). Parts of this publication previously appeared in the following publications, copyrighted by Salem Press, Inc.: Great Events from History: Human Rights (© 1992), Great Events from History: Business and Commerce (© 1994), Great Events from History: Ecology and the Environment (© 1995), Ready Reference: American Justice (c 1996), Great Events from History: Revised North American Series (c 1997), Ready Reference: Censorship (© 1997), Ready Reference: Women’s Issues (© 1997), Natural Resources (© 1998), Encyclopedia of Family Life (© 1999), Racial and Ethnic Relations in America (© 1999), The Sixties in America (© 1999), Aging (© 2000), Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues (© 2000), Encyclopedia of the U.S. Supreme Court (© 2001), Magill’s Choice: American Indian History (© 2002), and Magill’s Choice: The Bill of Rights (© 2002). New material has been added. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data U.S. laws, acts, and treaties / edited by Timothy L. Hall. p. cm. — (Magill’s choice) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58765-098-3 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-099-1 (vol. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58765-100-9 (vol. 2 : alk. paper)— ISBN 1-58765-101-7 (vol. 3 : alk. paper) 1. United States. Laws, etc. 2. Law—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations—Treaties. I. Title: US laws, acts, and treaties. II. Hall, Timothy L. III. Series. KF385.A4U152 2003 348.73′2—dc21 2002156063 First Printing printed in the united states of america

Contents Contents by Popular Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lxxiii Resource Recovery Act (1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970) . . . . . Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 . . . . . . . . . . Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970) . . . . . . . . Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971) . Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) . . . . . . . . . . . Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971) . . . . . Federal Election Campaign Act (1972) . . . . . . . . Seabed Treaty (1972) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 . Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972) . . . . . SALT I Treaty (1972) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978). . . . . . . . . . Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 . . . Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972) Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972) . . . . . . . . Coastal Zone Management Act (1972) . . . . . . . . Consumer Product Safety Act (1972) . . . . . . . . . Noise Control Act (1972) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . War Powers Resolution (1973). . . . . . . . . . . . . Menominee Restoration Act (1973) . . . . . . . . . . Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973) . . Endangered Species Act (1973) . . . . . . . . . . . . Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974) . Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974) . Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parens Patriae Act (1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974) . . . . . . . . . Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974) . . . Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . lxix

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1231 1232 1233 1237 1242

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974) . . . . . Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (1974) . . . . . . . Privacy Act (1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eastern Wilderness Act (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Speedy Trial Act (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975) . . . . . . . . . . Earned Income Tax Credit (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Voting Rights Act of 1975 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975) . . . Age Discrimination Act (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975) . Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975) . . . . . . Toxic Substances Control Act (1976) . . . . . . . . . . Copyright Act of 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976) . . . Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976) . . . National Forest Management Act (1976) . . . . . . . . Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977) . Department of Energy Organization Act (1977) . . . . Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 . . . . . . . . . . . Panama Canal Treaties (1978) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978) . . . . Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978) . . . . . . . . . . . Airline Deregulation Act (1978) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethics in Government Act (1978) . . . . . . . . . . . . Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978) . . . . . . . . . . Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978) . . . . . . . . Indian Child Welfare Act (1978) . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978) . . . . . . Taiwan Relations Act (1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SALT II Treaty (1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maine Indian Claims Act (1980). . . . . . . . . . . . . Privacy Protection Act (1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lxx

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1248 1249 1252 1254 1260

. . . 1262 . . . 1263 . . . 1269 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1271 1274 1280 1285 1287 1288 1290 1295 1300 1306 1311 1317 1319 1323 1328 1333 1337 1343 1349 1352 1354 1355 1356 1363 1367

. . . 1372 . . . 1374 . . . 1377 . . . 1378

Contents

Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Superfund Act (1980) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980) . . . Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980) . . . . . Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1981) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982). . . . . Law of the Sea Treaty (1982) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983). . . . . . . . . . . . Equal Access Act (1984) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984) . . Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984) Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984) . . . . . . Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984) . . . . . . . . . Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984) . . . . . . . National Narcotics Act (1984) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Victims of Crime Act (1984) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act (1984) . Food Security Act (1985). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tax Reform Act of 1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 . . . . McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987) . . . . . . INF Treaty (1987). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987) . . . . . . . . . Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988) . . . . . . . . . . Civil Liberties Act (1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Family Support Act (1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988) . . . . . . . . . . Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988) . . . . . . . . Trademark Law Revision Act (1988) . . . . . . . . . Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990). . . . . . . . . . . . Montreal Protocol (1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) . . . . . . . . Oil Pollution Act of 1990. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Perkins Act (1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990) . . . . lxxi

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. . . .

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. . . .

1380 1386 1391 1396

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1397 1401 1403 1406 1412 1415 1417 1418 1420 1421 1422 1424 1425 1426

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1430 1434 1435 1440 1444 1448

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

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. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

1449 1452 1456 1458 1462 1465 1469 1471 1472 1474 1480 1483 1484

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990). Pollution Prevention Act (1990). . . . . . . . . . . . . Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Immigration Act of 1990 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civil Rights Act of 1991. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992). . . . . . . . . . . Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . START II Treaty (1993) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Family and Medical Leave Act (1993) . . . . . . . . . . National and Community Service Trust Act (1993) . . North American Free Trade Agreement (1993) . . . . Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994) . . . . Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Violence Against Women Act (1994) . . . . . . . . . . North Korea Pact (1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 . . . United States recognition of Vietnam (1995) . . . . . Communications Decency Act (1996). . . . . . . . . . Megan’s Law (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defense of Marriage Act (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Internet Tax Freedom Act (1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998). . . . . . . . USA Patriot Act (2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001) . . . Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002) . . . . . . . . U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002) . . . . . . . . . . Homeland Security Act (2002) . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . 1486 . . . 1487 . . . 1492

Declaration of Independence . . . . . . The Constitution of the United States of Amendments to the Constitution . . . . Legal Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . America . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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. . . .

1496 1498 1500 1505

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1507 1509 1513 1517 1519 1524

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1529 1530 1532 1537 1541 1546 1548

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1549 1551 1553 1555 1558 1560 1562 1564 1566

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1569 1573 1585 1596

Categorized Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1615 Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1632 lxxii

Contents by Popular Name Adams-Onís Treaty (1819), 169 Age Discrimination Act (1975), 1285 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), 1026 Agreed Framework of 1994. See North Korea Pact (1994) Agricultural College Act. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 551 Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935), 647 Air Commerce Act (1926), 530 Air Pollution Control Act (1955), 839 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act (1968), 1060 Airline Deregulation Act (1978), 1343 Alaska Lands Act. See Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980) Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), 1380 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), 1151 Alien Act (1798), 127 Alien land laws (1913), 421 Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988), 1462 Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987), 1448 American Indian Citizenship Act. See Indian Citizenship Act (1924) American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), 1333

Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1474 Animal Welfare Act (1966), 1009 Antarctic Treaty (1961), 898 Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, 610 Anti-Racketeering Act of 1946. See Hobbs Act (1946) Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807), 153 Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974), 1248 Anzus Treaty. See Tripartite Security Treaty (1952) Architectural Barriers Act (1968), 1066 Army Reorganization Act. See National Defense Act (1916) Articles of Confederation (1781), 4 Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 828 Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001), 1560 Banking Act of 1933, 590 Banking Act of 1935, 651 Bilingual Education Act (1968), 1029 Bill of Rights (1789), 46 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002), 1562 Black Codes of 1804-1807, 143 Black Codes of 1865, 269 Bland-Allison Act (1878), 327 Bonus Act. See World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924) Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994), 1524 Bretton Woods Agreement (1944), 744 lxxiii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Buckley Amendment. See Privacy Act (1974) Burke Act (1906), 385 Burlingame Treaty (1868), 296 Cable Act (1922), 494 Celler-Kefauver Act (1950), 800 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974), 1218 Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990), 1486 Child product safety laws (1970’s), 1089 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969), 1082 Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984), 1415 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 331 Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966), 997 Civil Liberties Act (1988), 1456 Civil Rights Act of 1866, 278 Civil Rights Act of 1957, 863 Civil Rights Act of 1960, 875 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 933 Civil Rights Act of 1968, 1032 Civil Rights Act of 1991, 1500 Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988), 1452 Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), 432 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), 219 Clean Air Act (1963), 926 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, 1131 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, 1323 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, 1492 Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.), 981

Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), 1192 Coinage Act (1873), 316 Communications Act (1934), 625 Communications Act Amendments (1960), 891 Communications Decency Act (1996), 1546 Communist Control Act (1954), 826 Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984), 1418 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), 1117 Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973), 1213 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. See Superfund Act (1980) Compromise of 1850, 225 Comstock Act (1873), 320 Confiscation Acts (1861-1862), 244 Constitution: History (1787), 28 Constitution: Provisions (1787), 33 Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968), 1044 Consumer Product Safety Act (1972), 1196 Convention of 1800. See Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801) Convention of 1818, 167 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. See Genocide Treaty (1948) Copeland Act. See AntiRacketeering Act of 1934 Copyright Act of 1909, 397 Copyright Act of 1976, 1295

lxxiv

Contents by Popular Name Corrupt Practices Act. See Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925) Crime of 1873. See Coinage Act (1873) Currency Act (1900), 369 Dancing Rabbit Creek, Treaty of (1830), 192 Dawes Act. See General Allotment Act (1887) Declaration of Independence (1776), 1 Defense of Marriage Act (1996), 1551 Delaney Amendment. See Food Additives Amendment (1958) Department of Energy Organization Act (1977), 1319 Dependent Pension Act (1890), 351 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998), 1555 Dingley Tariff (1897), 363 Direct democracy laws (1913), 371 Disfranchisement laws (1890), 358 Duck Stamp Act. See Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934) Dyer Act. See Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919) Earned Income Tax Credit (1975), 1269 Eastern Wilderness Act (1975), 1254 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 944 Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1981), 1397 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), 1287

Eighteenth Amendment (1919), 460 Eighth Amendment (1789), 91 Eisenhower Doctrine (1957), 849 Electoral Count Act (1887), 341 Eleventh Amendment (1798), 115 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 259 Embargo Acts (1806-1807), 151 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986), 1430 Emergency Price Control Act (1942), 728 Emergency Quota Act of 1921. See Immigration Act of 1921 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974), 1224 Employment Act (1946), 757 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1214 Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966), 1016 Endangered Species, Convention on International Trade in (1975), 1271 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975), 1288 Enforcement Acts. See Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871) Equal Access Act (1984), 1412 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), 1233 Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972), 1165 Equal Pay Act (1963), 909 Equal Rights Amendment (19231983), 495 Espionage Acts (1917-1918), 451 Ethics in Government Act (1978), 1349 Executive Order 8802 (1941), 723

lxxv

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Executive Order 11141 (1964), 929 Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967), 980 Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970), 1108 Fair Housing Act (1968), 1035 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 704 Family and Medical Leave Act (1993), 1513 Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970), 1118 Family Support Act (1988), 1458 Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984), 1417 Farm Act of 1985. See Food Security Act (1985) Federal Aid in Wildlife Act. See Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937) Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act. See Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966) Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969), 1083 Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925), 518 Federal Credit Union Act (1934), 630 Federal Crimes Act (1790), 105 Federal Election Campaign Act (1972), 1155 Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972), 1182 Federal Firearms Act (1938), 619 Federal Food and Drugs Act. See Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906) Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. See Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938)

Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976), 1300 Federal Power Act of 1920, 476 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 425 Federal Tort Claims Act (1946), 763 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 430 Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 302 Fifth Amendment (1789), 71 First Amendment (1789), 56 Food Additives Amendment (1958), 867 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938), 699 Food Security Act (1985), 1426 Force Act of 1833, 194 Force Acts. See Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871) Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938), 691 Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974), 1219 Formosa Resolution (1955), 834 Fort Atkinson Treaty (1853), 235 Fort Greenville Treaty (1795), 118 Fort Jackson Treaty. See Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814) Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, 228 Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, 300 Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784), 13 Fort Wayne Treaty (1809), 157 Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 291 Fourth Amendment (1789), 66 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 Freedom of Information Act (1966), 1002 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, 106 Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, 221

lxxvi

Contents by Popular Name G.I. Bill (1944), 740 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947, 780 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994, 1537 General Allotment Act (1887), 347 General Mining Act (1872), 314 Geneva Protocol (1925), 524 Genocide Treaty (1948), 790 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 391 Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 160 Glass-Owen Act. See Federal Reserve Act (1913) Gold Standard Act. See Currency Act (1900) Good Neighbor Policy (19331945), 578 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of (1848), 213 Halibut Treaty (1924), 514 Harrison Act. See Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914) Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914), 434 Hatch Act (1939), 709 Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990), 1471 Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. See Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act(1930) Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974), 1237 Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960), 886 Higher Education Act (1965), 995 Highway Beautification Act (1965), 966 Hobbs Act (1946), 761 Homeland Security Act (2002), 1566

Homestead Act of 1862, 245 Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932), 562 Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814), 159 Housing Act of 1961, 901 Housing and Urban Development Act (1965), 976 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 Immigration Act of 1917, 446 Immigration Act of 1921, 483 Immigration Act of 1924, 501 Immigration Act of 1943, 736 Immigration Act of 1990, 1498 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, 985 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 812 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 1435 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 209 Indian Appropriation Act (1871), 306 Indian Bill of Rights. See Indian Civil Rights Act (1968) Indian Child Welfare Act (1978), 1355 Indian Citizenship Act (1924), 505 Indian Civil Rights Act (1968), 1040 Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978), 1176 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), 1465 Indian General Allotment Act. See General Allotment Act (1887) Indian Offenses Act (1883), 335 Indian Removal Act (1830), 186

lxxvii

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 620 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975), 1262 INF Treaty (1987), 1444 Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984), 1420 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982), 1401 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948), 778 Interest Equalization Tax Act (1964), 946 Internal Security Act (1950), 799 Internet Tax Freedom Act (1998), 1553 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 343 Invalid Pension Act or Disability Pension Act. See Dependent Pension Act (1890) Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act. See Megan’s Law (1996) Jay’s Treaty (1794), 110 Jencks Act (1957), 861 Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954), 329 Johnson-Reid Act. See Immigration Act of 1924 Jones Act (1917), 448 Judiciary Act of 1789, 41 Judiciary Act of 1875. See Removal Act (1875) Judiciary Acts of 1801-1925, 136 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974), 1231 Kanagawa, Treaty of (1854), 236 Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), 240

Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962), 903 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 547 Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871), 305 Labor-Management Relations Act (1947), 769 Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. See Landrum-Griffin Act (1959) Lame-Duck Amendment. See Twentieth Amendment (1933) Land Act of 1820, 178 Land Grant Act of 1862. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 Land Grant Act of 1890. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), 874 Law of the Sea Treaty (1982), 1403 Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971), 1141 Lend-Lease Act (1941), 719 Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, Convention on (1979), 1374 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980), 1391 McCarran Act. See Internal Security Act (1950) McCarran-Walter Act. See Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 McFadden Act (1927), 541 McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987), 1440 Madison Amendment. See Twentyseventh Amendment (1992) Magnuson Act. See Immigration Act of 1943

lxxviii

Contents by Popular Name Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975), 1263 Maine Indian Claims Act (1980), 1377 Major Crimes Act (1885), 340 Mann Act (1910), 409 Marihuana Tax Act (1937), 674 Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 1189 Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987), 1449 Maternity Act. See SheppardTowner Act (1921) Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965), 959 Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867), 287 Megan’s Law (1996), 1548 Menominee Restoration Act (1973), 1211 Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963), 921 Migratory Bird Act (1913), 415 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934), 603 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 454 Migratory Species of Wild Animals, Convention on the Conservation of (1979), 1372 Military Reconstruction Acts. See Reconstruction Acts (1867) Militia Act (1862), 254 Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937), 675 Mineral Leasing Act (1920), 470 Mining Act. See General Mining Act (1872) Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970), 1137

Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984), 1421 Missouri Compromise (1820), 173 Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801), 141 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 181 Montreal Protocol (1990), 1472 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, 249 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890, 362 Moscow Treaty. See U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002) Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965), 989 Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919), 469 Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act (1984), 1425 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879 Murray Act. See Employment Act (1946) National and Community Service Trust Act (1993), 1517 National Arts and Cultural Development Act (1964), 952 National Bank Acts (1863-1864), 261 National Civil Service Act. See Pendleton Act (1883) National Defense Act (1916), 435 National Defense Education Act (1958), 865 National Environmental Policy Act. See Clean Air Act (1963) National Environmental Policy Act (1970), 1094 National Firearms Act (1934), 619 National Forest Management Act (1976), 1311 National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), 596

lxxix

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties National Labor Relations Act (1935), 638 National Motor Vehicle Theft Act. See Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919) National Narcotics Act (1984), 1422 National Origins Act. See Immigration Act of 1924 National Park Service Organic Act (1916), 440 National Security Act (1947), 774 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 1014 National Trails System Act (1968), 1077 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), 1496 Natural Gas Act (1938), 693 Naturalization Act of 1790, 104 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (1974), 1249 Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act (1950), 797 Neutrality Acts (1935-1939), 657 Newlands Act. See Reclamation Act (1902) News Room Search Act. See Privacy Protection Act (1980) Niagara Power Act (1957), 859 Niagara Redevelopment Act. See Niagara Power Act (1957) Nineteenth Amendment (1920), 478 Ninth Amendment (1789), 92 Noise Control Act (1972), 1203 Nonimportation Acts. See Embargo Acts (1806-1807) Norris-La Guardia Act (1932), 565 North American Free Trade Agreement (1993), 1519 North Atlantic Treaty (1949), 792

North Korea Pact (1994), 1532 Northwest Ordinance (1787), 24 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968), 1054 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 913 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983), 1406 Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970), 1125 Ogdensburg Agreement (1940), 714 Oil Pollution Act of 1924, 509 Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 1480 Oklahoma Welfare Act (1936), 668 Older Americans Act (1965), 956 Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990), 1484 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968), 1052 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 396 Ordinance of 1785, 17 Ordinance of 1787. See Northwest Ordinance (1787) Oregon Act (1848), 217 Organized Crime Control Act (1970), 1103 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 1022 Pacific Railroad Survey Act (1853), 230 Pact of Paris. See Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) Page Law (1875), 322 Panama Canal Act (1912), 412 Panama Canal Treaties (1978), 1328 Panama Tolls Act. See Panama Canal Act (1912) Parens Patriae Act (1974), 1232

lxxx

Contents by Popular Name Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980), 1396 Paris, Treaty of (1783), 9 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 367 Part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. See Fair Housing Act (1968) Part of the Permanent Reciprocity Treaty of 1903. See Platt Amendment (1903) Part of the Social Security Act. See Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935) Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909), 403 Pendleton Act (1883), 336 Perkins Act (1990), 1483 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996), 1549 Philippines Commonwealth Independence Act. See TydingsMcDuffie Act (1934) Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 123 Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937), 681 Platt Amendment (1903), 381 Political Activities Act. See Hatch Act (1939) Pollution Prevention Act (1990), 1487 Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978), 1337 Preemption Act (1841), 199 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), 1352 Presidential Succession Act of 1947, 772 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 853 Privacy Act (1974), 1252 Privacy Protection Act (1980), 1378

Prohibition. See Eighteenth Amendment (1919) Public Broadcasting Act (1967), 1024 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970), 1098 Public Law 280 (1953), 824 Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act. See SheppardTowner Act (1921) Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978), 1356 Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act. See Jones Act (1917) Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), 387 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970), 1105 Railway Labor Act (1926), 534 Reciprocal Trade Act of 1936, 670 Reclamation Act (1902), 375 Reconstruction Acts (1867), 280 Refugee Relief Act (1953), 820 Removal Act (1875), 326 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), 1306 Resource Recovery Act (1970), 1113 Rio Treaty. See Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948) Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936), 662 Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination Act. See Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936) Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 165

lxxxi

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), 1242 SALT I Treaty (1972), 1171 SALT II Treaty (1979), 1367 Seabed Treaty (1972), 1157 Second Amendment (1789), 61 Second Morrill Act. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Securities Exchange Act (1934), 612 Sedition Act (1918 act). See Espionage Acts (1917-1918) Sedition Act of 1798, 131 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act. See G.I. Bill (1944) Seventeenth Amendment (1913), 419 Seventh Amendment (1789), 90 Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Bill. See Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002) Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 489 Sherman Act. See Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 353 Sixteenth Amendment (1913), 414 Sixth Amendment (1789), 85 Sky Marshals Bill. See Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001) Smith Act (1940), 711 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act(1930), 556 Social Security Act (1935), 642 Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965, 992 Southeast Asia Resolution. See Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) Speedy Trial Act (1975), 1260 START II Treaty (1993), 1509

Stimson Doctrine. See HooverStimson Doctrine (1932) Superfund Act (1980), 1386 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977), 1317 Taft-Hartley Act. See LaborManagement Relations Act (1947) Taiwan Relations Act (1979), 1363 Takings clause (1789), 77 Tariff Act of 1909. See PayneAldrich Tariff Act (1909) Tariff Act of 1924. See Dingley Tariff (1897) Tariff Act of 1930. See SmootHawley Tariff Act(1930) Tax Reform Act of 1986, 1434 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 636 Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933), 582 Tenth Amendment (1789), 98 Termination Resolution (1953), 815 Third Amendment (1789), 64 Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 273 Three-fifths compromise (1787), 39 Title I of the Consumer Credit Protection Act. See Truth in Lending Act (1968) Title III of Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act. See Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 937 Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 1178

lxxxii

Contents by Popular Name Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act. See Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970) Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964), 942 Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), 1290 Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790-1834), 102 Trademark Act. See Trademark Law Revision Act (1988) Trademark Law Revision Act (1988), 1469 Transcontinental Treaty. See Adams-Onís Treaty (1819) Treaty of Monfontaine. See Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801) Treaty of San Lorenzo. See Pinckney’s Treaty (1795) Tripartite Security Treaty (1952), 808 Truman Doctrine (1947), 764 Truth in Lending Act (1968), 1050 Tunney Act. See Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974) Twelfth Amendment (1804), 147 Twentieth Amendment (1933), 571 Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967), 1020 Twenty-first Amendment (1933), 601 Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), 928 Twenty-second Amendment (1951), 806 Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), 1505

Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), 1147 Twenty-third Amendment (1961), 896 Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), 606 United States recognition of Vietnam (1995), 1541 Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. See USA Patriot Act (2001) U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952), 810 U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002), 1564 U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty (1967), 931 USA Patriot Act (2001), 1558 Versailles, Treaty of (1919), 464 Victims of Crime Act (1984), 1424 Violence Against Women Act (1994), 1530 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994), 1529 Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty (1786), 21 Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act. See Perkins Act (1990) Voting Rights Act of 1965, 970 Voting Rights Act of 1975, 1274 Wagner-Connery Act. See National Labor Relations Act (1935) Wang Hiya, Treaty of (1844), 207 War Brides Act (1945), 753 War Powers Resolution (1973), 1208 Washington, Treaty of (1871), 310

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U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Water Pollution Control Act. See Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.) Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956, 844 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, 1159 Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, 785 Water Power Act. See Federal Power Act of 1920 Water Resources Research Act (1964), 939 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 202 Weeks-McLean Act. See Migratory Bird Act (1913) Welfare Reform Act. See Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996) Wheeler-Lea Act (1938), 685

Wheeler-Howard Act. See Indian Reorganization Act (1934) White-Slave Traffic Act. See Mann Act (1910) Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968), 1071 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), 1077 Wilderness Act (1964), 954 Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992), 1507 Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975), 1280 Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978), 1354 World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924), 499 Yalta Conference agreements (1945), 750

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Resource Recovery Act

Resource Recovery Act Date: October 26, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 1227 Public law: 91-512 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

An amendment to the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965, this law funded recycling programs and mandated extensive reassessment of solid waste practices. On October 26, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed the Resource Recovery Act, which amended the 1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act. The amendment was a bipartisan effort emerging from the Senate, particularly the subcommittee on air and water pollution. By redefining solid waste disposal as “resource recovery,” the legislation indicated a shift in federal policy on how to manage garbage, refuse, rubbish, solid waste, and hazardous waste. The act also shifted emphasis from simple regulation of interstate commerce to the regulation of individual businesses. The initial Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 had supported the demonstration, construction, and applications of solid waste management and resource-recovery systems that preserved the other environmental resources. That act had underwritten technical and financial assistance for the planning and development of the necessary facilities, and it had established a national research and development program for safe treatment and disposal of nonrecoverable residues and for the collection, separation, and recovery of recyclable solid waste. The emphasis was on organization and management rather than on the actual processes. Provisions The new act gave the secretary of health, education, and welfare broad powers to carry out research and demonstration projects on recovering solid wastes and on deriving energy from such materials. An important aspect of the act was the assessment of resourcerecovery methods. Other policy shifts included trying to improve recovery means and identifying potential markets for the recovered materials; gauging the impact of increased recovery; and encouraging a reduction of packaging, a truly revolutionary concept. 1113

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The secretary was made responsible for studying the effects of existing public policies and of the incentives proposed in the legislation to change some of those policies. Government agencies were encouraged to apply for grants to study existing practices, make plans and propose new initiatives. Grants were also made available for demonstration projects for resource-recovery systems in which the federal share was to range between 50 and 75 percent of the cost. The act also gave the secretary authority to fund research, an activity that was especially important given the state of the solid waste management system at the time. A 1968 survey by the U.S. Public Health Service had reported that the nation’s collection system was largely controlled by local government or its contractors and that disposal was likewise under local control. All methods of disposal had associated problems; the vast majority of landfills were frighteningly inadequate, as were the incinerators. With the 1970 Resource Recovery Act, the federal contribution to solid waste management shifted to a new emphasis on recycling, resource recovery, and energy conversion of wastes. The baseline data on which the legislation was based had been gathered by a 1968 Public Health Service survey summarized in a 1971 report entitled The Third Pollution: The National Problem of Solid Waste Disposal. That publication reported political problems with the efforts to control solid waste pollution; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had suggested a broader approach to the issue, with greater emphasis on resource issues. Implementation of the act was, however, delayed. The act had given the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare the means and authority to revolutionize solid waste management systems, but designated funds were not expended, and the various innovations and provisions for technical assistance to local governments fell behind schedule. The Nixon administration did not favor funding construction of demonstration facilities, instead proposing to tax products that were harmful to the environment. The Boggs Amendment proposed a national policy to continue the program of trying to reduce waste rather than to develop new ways of disposing of it. Sanitary Landfills At about the time the act was passed, combined garbage-collection systems were beginning to come into use, in which both rubbish 1114

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and garbage—both puetrescible and nonpuetrescible materials— were removed weekly by local authorities and disposed of in publicly owned facilities. The increasing amount of trash was a serious problem. Although hydraulic compaction was an important technological advance, the amount of trash—fast-food detritus, disposable baby diapers, combined and single-serve packaging— increased more rapidly than could be dealt with by even this new technique. The problems associated with disposal in open dumps, still a common practice at the time, were brought to public attention by the death of a child, Kevin Mock, in a dump fire. This resulted in a major innovation, the sanitary landfill, which reduced the health problems as well as the burning and scavenging associated with the open dumps. A ban on open burning emerged as a component of air pollution laws. The development of stronger compaction equipment led to less loose material. Individual households invested in trash compaction devices and garbage grinders in the sink, and some effort was made to encourage diversion of solid waste into the sanitary sewage. Daily coverage of the dumps with dirt reduced visual pollution and eliminated some of the vermin associated with open dumping. Subsequent analyses of sanitary landfills—such as William Rathje’s Garbage Project excavations— revealed that materials disposed of this way remained close to their original state for decades because the new conditions retarded decomposition. Incinerators and Pyrolysis At the time the act was passed, there were nearly two hundred incinerators in the United States, half of them located in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states. The 1970 act subsidized major trash-burning projects in Menlo Park, California; Franklin, Ohio; and St. Louis, Missouri. The act also funded two important demonstration projects that involved pyrolysis of solid waste in San Diego and Baltimore; pyrolysis uses heat without oxygen to decompose solid waste to produce a fuel-like substance. The federal and local or state governments invested millions to study and demonstrate new technologies. According to the EPA, these grant-funded facilities were a small number of the nearly four dozen incinerators that came into use during this period. 1115

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Recycling Interest in recycling, other than industrial recycling, developed in a grassroots fashion. Early, informal recycling efforts were followed by more serious efforts, often handled by the Boy Scouts, CampFire Girls, or religious organizations, which interested individuals in the reuse and recycling of materials. The results of research funded by the 1970 amendment were published by the federal government and circulated widely. Some ideas—such as how to organize rural collection systems—were inexpensive and practical, others were more costly and highly technical, such as information about how to use refuse in power plants or recover material in new ways. Impact and Later Legislation The 1970 act continued the tradition of circulating information and requesting responses. The EPA eventually issued reports to Congress on the state of resource recovery and waste reduction. Eventually, the 1965 and 1970 acts were modified by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. The earlier acts also initiated surveys of public and private solid waste management efforts (one publication even summarized possible methods for dealing with abandoned cars). Information on state-of-the-art efforts and equipment came from the National Center for Resource Recovery, Inc., which was funded by federal grants. All this information would not have been available without the initiatives of the 1970 act. Nancy R. Bain Sources for Further Study Melosi, Martin V. Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment, 1880-1980. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1981. Rathje, William, and Cullen Murphy. Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Small, William E. The Third Pollution: The National Problem of Solid Waste Disposal. New York: Praeger, 1971. Udall, Stewart L. The Quiet Crisis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963. 1116

Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act See also: Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965); Hazardous Materials

Transportation Act (1974); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976); Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976); Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980); Superfund Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983).

Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act Date: October 27, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 1242 Public law: 91-513 U.S. Code: 21 § 801 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Food and Drugs;

Health and Welfare

This law consolidated previous drug-control legislation and enlarged the scope of federal jurisdiction over drug laws; it was “comprehensive” in that it contained provisions for treatment, control, and enforcement in a single law. Legislation to control the use of drugs has existed in various forms throughout the twentieth century. By 1970, public opinion polls indicated that the American public cited use of illegal drugs as one of the most important public concerns. The federal government estimated that between 800,000 and 1.2 million Americans were using marijuana on a daily basis. The availability of other drugs, particularly heroin, had increased public anxiety about drug use. Federal law enforcement officials and the Nixon administration sought to strengthen and clarify the large number of federal laws that governed controlled substances. The 1970 act distinguished among several categories of drugs based on the potential for abuse and medicinal uses. Heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and other hallucinogens, and marijuana were outlawed, and any medicinal uses were subject to ap1117

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proval by federal officials. Title I of the act clarified the definition of a “drug dependent person” and provided structures for rehabilitation treatment. The main effect of the act on the structure of law enforcement was the expansion of federal jurisdiction over drug laws. Prior to the 1970 act, the federal role had been confined primarily to enforcing prohibitions of the interstate transport of drugs, enforcing laws against tax violations, and prohibiting illegal imports. The act granted federal officials greater search powers and permitted the attorney general to utilize paid informants. Many states have used the 1970 federal act as a model for state drug laws. Lawrence Clark III Sources for Further Study U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Milestones in U.S. Food and Drug Law History. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1985. Temin, Peter. Taking Your Medicine: Drug Regulation in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. See also: Opium Exclusion Act (1909); Harrison Narcotic Drug

Act (1914); Eighteenth Amendment (1919); Marihuana Tax Act (1937); Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962); National Narcotics Act (1984).

Family Planning Services and Population Research Act Date: December 28, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 1504 Public law: 91-572 U.S. Code: 42 § 201 Categories: Children’s Issues; Health and Welfare; Women’s Issues 1118

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Birth control proponents, feminists, and social planners, after decades of advocacy, effected federal legislation making family planning services available to all American women. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, when the modern birth control movement emerged under the leadership of Margaret Sanger, feminists, social planners, and health care professionals have campaigned for public policy that would first acknowledge and then advance the legitimacy and importance of contraception and its practice. The Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970 brought this effort to fruition by legislating a central agency to direct “population affairs” and by designating monies to support and extend family planning services to all Americans regardless of their ability to pay. The act made it possible for considerable numbers of American women, especially poor women, to have access to birth control information and reproductive health care. Viewed by supporters as a legislative watershed in advancing enlightened health care for women, as well as affording poor women the same opportunities or rights as the wealthy, the bill’s most controversial elements, such as abortion, continued to be debated thirty years after its passage and implementation. Birth Control: History and Attitudes During the late nineteenth century and for the greater portion of the twentieth, information about contraception as well as contraceptive aids and procedures, including abortion, were banned in various ways on both the state and federal levels. Feminists, beginning with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, advocated a woman’s right to control the frequency of conception. This thencontroversial position contributed to divisions in the women’s rights movement and was eventually abandoned by the mainstream of female suffrage reformers at the turn of the century. The cause of legal contraception was revived in the twentieth century by the personality and activism of Margaret Sanger. A trained nurse and avowed socialist, Sanger educated herself about “birth control,” as she was the first to call it, and then turned to the task of educating American society. She spoke of what she saw daily in New York City’s lower East Side, of the women who worked in the sweatshop industries, and their ill health, fatigue, and desperate dread of frequent pregnancies. Sanger’s graphic descriptions of 1119

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these conditions and circumstances, especially the common resort to self-induced and often fatal abortion, awakened a growing number of Americans to the importance of legal birth control. For Sanger and her movement, which grew in size and effectiveness during the first half of the twentieth century, making legal the availability of birth control information, aids, and practice was more than a woman’s right: It was essential to ensuring sound public health policy for women and children specifically, and for the American family generally. During the 1930’s, the courts’ lifting of the federal ban on birth control combined with the actualities of the Depression to encourage policies that incorporated birth control counseling and reproductive health care into national and federally subsidized state programs. By the end of the decade, two pieces of legislation, Title V of the Social Security Act amendments of 1938 and the Venereal Disease Control Act of 1939, designated several million dollars for maternal and child health services as well as the prevention of sexually transmitted disease. As administered by the Children’s Bureau and the United States Public Health Service, these programs offered, to married women only, public health programs that recognized and advanced the legitimacy of birth control practice. Earlier Legislative Efforts Attitudes about birth control and family planning shifted after World War II. During this period of peace and prosperity, concerns about population growth diminished and the ethos of traditional family values prevailed, despite the ever-increasing number of women entering the labor market. Although the presidential administrations of Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower rhetorically endorsed family planning research and reproductive health services, little actual progress was made until the 1960’s, when Congress turned national attention once again to issues of poverty and social welfare. In 1963, Senators Ernest Gruening and Joseph Clark introduced legislation calling on the president to increase family planning research programs within the National Institutes of Health and to make widely available the results of such efforts. Two years of extensive hearings followed, heightening public awareness and concern regarding reproductive health care, population growth, and declining resources. Committed to making war on poverty, President Lyndon B. 1120

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Johnson promoted federally financed family planning services, and in his 1966 “Message on Domestic Health and Education” endorsed the idea of each American’s “freedom to choose the number and spacing of their children within the dictates of individual conscience.” In 1967, he appointed a Presidential Committee on Population and Family Planning led by John D. Rockefeller III and Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) Wilbur Cohen. In the same year, as part of the Johnson legislative agenda, Congress passed amendments to the Social Security Act and the Economic Opportunity Act, extending reproductive health care programs. Under Social Security, more monies were to be directed specifically to family planning, and all states were required to extend family planning services to any recipient of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) who requested such services. At the Office of Econommic Opportunity (OEO), project grants for family planning became a special priority. The report of the presidential committee recommended an expenditure of $150 million by 1973 for family planning to reach all women who wanted but could not afford services, a consolidated Center for Population Research, and appropriations of an additional $130 million for research in 1970 and 1971. Proposal and Passage President Richard M. Nixon endorsed, in principle, the recommendations of the Rockefeller Commission, and in 1969, Senator Joseph Tydings and twenty-three cosponsors introduced the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (S. 2108). The Tydings bill primarily sought to consolidate all extant family planning and population-related programs scattered throughout HEW in a National Center for Population and Family Planning which would also coordinate comparable programs of in OEO and other departments, and report to Congress. In this regard, the bill responded to what many believed had been the slowness of HEW to implement the 1967 amendments. Testimony in hearings on the bill emphasized the persistent inadequacy of reproductive health care for poor and near-poor women in the United States. HEW’s own surveys estimated that fewer than 800,000 of an eligible 5.4 million women were receiving family planning assistance, and Tydings argued that as of late 1969 “it was unlikely that any woman 1121

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had yet received family planning services through Title V.” The bill also specified monies, $89 million more than that recommended by the commission, to be spent in various project grants for family planning services, research, and training. The Nixon administration introduced its own bill (S.3219), which avoided any administrative reorganization, but also proposed various project grants as amendments to the Public Health Services Act, although no appropriations were specified. For most who supported the bill, the issue of federal family planning services was a matter of equal opportunity. They strongly believed that poor women should have the same “fundamental individual rights” as already enjoyed by the affluent. Allowing poor women to exercise their reproductive rights was understood as a way of attacking the poverty cycle as well. The bill was also designed to address the larger issue of unwanted births, especially those resulting from ineffective contraception, which most agreed contributed to family instability for rich and poor alike. Not only did the bill encourage more aggressive research in the field of safe and effective contraception, but it tacitly responded to the arguments of a small group of feminists who held that women had an absolute right to control all phases of reproduction, including the option of abortion. Representative Shirley Chisholm calling the laws prohibiting abortion “compulsory pregnancy laws,” argued for the legalization of abortion and that it be recognized in the proposed legislation as an acceptable method of family planning. Neither Senate bill mentioned abortion, leaving the option open for its recognition. The House received the Senate bills and, although enthusiastically supporting the Tydings version in principle, found reason to propose alternative legislation. The modifications concerned the authorization for the project grants, stipulating these as amendments to the Public Health Services Act at a significantly smaller doller amount, and the provision that no federal monies used in the context of family planning be expended on abortion. Although the preponderant testimony before the House endorsed all aspects of the Tydings bill, the National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion organization making its public debut, joined the traditional Catholic opposition and argued against any federal acknowledgment of abortion as legitimate. The House clearly did not want to have to defend the expenditure of tax money on this 1122

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controversial and still illegal practice of birth control. Nor did the Senate, which, after conferees met, agreed to the House version. On December 28, 1970, President Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act making contraception, excluding abortion, available to all American women as a vital means for improving the quality of life for all. With the passage of the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act considerable amounts of money were directed to reproductive health care for the first time. In 1973, when Congress considered extending the bill for three more years, close to three million American women were receiving comprehensive family planning services under its provisions, although it was estimated that close to seven million women still remained to be served. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, women’s groups, public health leaders, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America lobbied for increased appropriations, with minimal success. In 1991, federal grants to clinics, administered by the Public Health Service’s Office of Population Affairs, amounted to $144 million. Twenty years after the bill’s passage, various family planning programs were conducted in four thousand voluntary clinics, community health centers, county health departments, and hospitals around the country, serving more than four million women. Most of the women served by these programs were poor or had low income; one-third were adolescents. As a result of the 1970 law, poor and unmarried women had access to the same reproductive health care available to the affluent and married. Abortion Controversy From its inception, the most controversial aspect of the legislation was the role abortion should play in federally subsidized family planning services. After the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, the issue became particularly vexing for policymakers whose intent was to extend to poor women the same reproductive health care available to the nonpoor. As long as state law and court dicta recognized the legality of abortion as defined by the guidelines of Roe, poor women not served by public programs or whose contraception failed had little recourse in terminating unwanted pregnancies. In 1975, the Hyde amendment was passed, denying Medicaid reimbursements for elective abortions, and in 1977, Congress liberalized this restriction somewhat by allowing for Medicaid re1123

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imbursements only in cases of rape, incest, or endangerment of the woman’s life. These restrictions left millions of poor women the choice of forced motherhood or “back-alley” abortion. After 1973, pro-life groups, primarily from the religious right, proliferated and increasingly put pressure on Congress and the courts to undermine and overturn the Roe decision. Public clinics often were targeted for protest demonstrations. By the 1980’s, violent confrontation of this type was a common occurrence. Despite this activity and the modified Hyde amendment, the family planning programs operated during the first seventeen years under regulations that allowed clinic employees to provide information about abortion as well as about childbirth. Title X of the law was interpreted as referring only to abortions themselves, not to advice or information about abortion. In 1988, the Reagan administration openly embraced the rightwing agenda on reproduction and issued new regulations prohibiting federally financed family planning clinics from all discussion of abortion with their patients, even if the patient so inquired. Although never implemented because of various court challenges, on May 24, 1991, the Supreme Court upheld the regulatory prohibition in Rust v. Sullivan on the grounds that federal and state governments were not constitutionally required to pay for abortions, even if they chose to subsidize childbirth. Soon after the Rust decision, legislation was introduced in Congress to remove the restrictions of Title X. With the Rust decision and the conservative bent of the Supreme Court, family planning advocates and feminists expressed fear that the progress made since the 1960’s on the front of women’s and reproductive rights might be eroded seriously. Such fears were renewed in the year 2000 when, after the hotly contested election narrowly won by the conservative George W. Bush, questions of Supreme Court succession and inroads by social conservatives seemed more likely than ever. Nancy A. White Sources for Further Study Baer, Judith A., ed. Historical and Multicultural Encyclopedia of Women’s Reproductive Rights in the United States. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. 1124

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Gordon, Linda. Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: Birth Control in America. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Leavitt, Judith Walzer. Women and Health in America: Historical Readings. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. Rengel, Marian. Encyclopedia of Birth Control. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 2000. Rothman, Barbara Katz. Encyclopedia of Childbearing: Critical Perspectives. Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1993. Tobin, Kathleen A. The American Religious Debate over Birth Control. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. See also: Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978); Child Support En-

forcement Amendments (1984); Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984); Family Support Act (1988); Family and Medical Leave Act (1993).

Occupational Safety and Health Act Date: December 29, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 1590 Public law: 91-596 U.S. Code: 29 § 651 Categories: Health and Welfare; Labor and Employment

Commonly known by its acronym OSHA, this law required employers to furnish their employees with workplaces that are safe from recognized life-threatening hazards and work-related diseases. The Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for approximately 57 million workers employed in businesses affecting interstate commerce at the time the act became effective. Immediate responsibility for ensuring compliance with the act’s provisions fell upon more than 4.1 million employers nationwide. 1125

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Provisions and Enforcment Establishment and enforcement of the act’s safety and health standards were charged to the U.S. secretary of labor. Standards were numerous and complex, covering more than eight hundred pages in the Code of Federal Regulations and numbering about forty-four hundred; twenty-one hundred of these regulations applied to all industries nationwide, including agriculture, and the remaining twenty-three hundred regulations applied specifically to the construction and maritime industries. State, local, and federal governments, although they represented major employers themselves, were exempted from the act. Established federal standards such as those previously imposed by the government on federal contractors and suppliers under the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act of 1936 initially provided partial guidelines for preliminary standards established under the act. Other extant standards originated from prevalent consensus standards, which derived from rules defined by the American National Standards Institute and the National Fire Protection Association. One authority estimated that 45 percent of the first forty-four hundred standards established under the act were copied from the standards of these two organizations; later standards were drawn from those created by federal legislation such as the Walsh-Healey Act, the Construction Safety Act of 1962, and the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Worker’s Compensation Act of 1953. After setting preliminary safety and health rules in place, the act allowed additional standards to be issued by the secretary of labor. This could be done after a careful review, a process that allowed the secretary to request recommendations from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH); the agency had been set up within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to conduct research on occupational safety and health. The labor secretary could also propose standards after consulting with an advisory committee about the feasibility of a proposed new standard, any fresh scientific information about it, and consideration of experience gained under other relevant laws. In instances in which the labor secretary found that employees were in grave danger and required immediate protection, he or she could issue temporary standards pending procedures for the design of permanent ones. Such initiatives were granted to the labor secretary, but the act was routinely administered by the Occu1126

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pational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) within the Department of Labor. The entire burden of compliance with new procedures and standards fell upon employers, who were required to furnish their employees with jobs that were “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.” Employers could secure a variance from the law if, after hearings and investigation, they demonstrated that their workplaces were as safe and healthy as they would be if they complied with federal standards. In cases in which employers were doing their best to comply with the act but were unable to do so immediately for economic reasons, temporary variances of up to two years could be granted. The act’s administrators were nevertheless barred from considering the economic impact of OSHA standards upon employers. Earlier Legislation The first federal efforts to affect occupational safety and health began in the 1890’s with legislation that addressed the safety of railroads and coal mines. In 1910, a Bureau of Mines was established within the Interior Department, followed in 1914 by creation of an Office of Industrial Safety and Hygiene under the Public Health Service. In 1916, injured federal workers were covered by a Federal Employees’ Compensation Act. Until passage of the Walsh-Healey Act of 1936, however, little more was accomplished, and the beginning of World War II aborted most congressional health and safety bills. During the 1950’s, liberal senators such as Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Jacob Javits of New York unsuccessfully sought extensions of federal health and safety regulations. A new series of federal regulations occurred in the 1960’s, marked by the passage of the McNamara-O’Hara Public Service Contract Act and new federal safety regulations that applied to coal mining. As part of his Great Society campaign, President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed the nation’s first comprehensive occupational safety and health legislation in 1968. Despite support from congressmen such as James O’Hara of Michigan, senators such as Ralph Yarborough of Texas, and consumer advocate Ralph Nader, opposition from national business associations and the indifference of trade-union leaders defeated Johnson’s proposals. 1127

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An increasing number of public and private studies, reports, and publications indicated that between the 1950’s and 1970 a health and safety crisis had developed in the American workplace. The Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 1972 that between 1956 and 1970 the industrial accident rate rose 29 percent. Approximately 3 percent of the civilian work force, or 2.2 million workers, were disabled every year, and work-related deaths were estimated to average fourteen thousand per year. In addition, despite less information on worker health than on safety, authorities during these same years annually recorded 390,000 fresh cases of occupational disease, noting that only one-fourth of workers exposed to occupational health hazards were protected. Costs to America’s overall economic performance were calculated at over 100,000 person years of labor lost annually, equivalent to $25 billion lost to the economy. Many official and unofficial observers perceived that this trend toward occupational disease and injury worsened during those years. Occupational Safety and Health Administration Created during more than a decade of tumultuous public and private campaigns for social and related environmental reform, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began operations with considerable vigor. It did so amid persistent public conflicts over the authorizing act’s necessity and significance. Criticism focused on the effectiveness of the act’s authority and methods. By 1977, OSHA had a budget of $125 million (or $160 million if the NIOSH budget is factored in) and employed 1,250 safety and health inspectors to cover the nation’s 4.1 million employers. To this force, 900 additional inspectors were added by the twentythree states that operated their own OSHA-approved safety and health programs. Within the first four years of its operations, OSHA conducted 213,400 inspections, in the course of which it cited 145,300 employers for a total of 750,700 violations. More than three-quarters of these inspections and subsequent citations concentrated on safety hazards such as danger of fire, explosion, and electrocution, as well as danger from stationary machinery and from industrial operations that produced excessive noise, heat, vibration, and stress to workers’ sight. OSHA further sought to locate and reduce ergonomic hazards, that is, workplace situations that caused em1128

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ployee discomfort and fatigue and increased the likelihood of accidents. Because of the broad legislative scope of the act’s provisions, OSHA launched a target industry program designed not only to make inspections more specific and thus more effective but also to increase the pressure on other businesses to begin implementing safety procedures. Target industries were deemed to be those in which injury frequency rates exceeded the national average of 14.8 disabling injuries per million employee hours worked. In descending order, these workplace dangers occurred in longshoring, roofing and sheet metal work, the meat industry, work involving mobile homes and other transportation equipment, and the lumber and wood products industries. OSHA’s target industry program (which was directed solely at industries with more than twenty employees) emphasized collaborative efforts on the part of labor, management, and the National Safety Council. Nearly all industries targeted were also subject to OSHA inspections. Nearly three-fourths of OSHA’s efforts were concentrated on ensuring remedial safety measures; all other efforts were aimed at discovering the causes of work-related disease. Many experts believed that the country’s workplaces generated many more dangerous diseases than industrial accidents. Health standards were often hard to define precisely, but OSHA instituted about four hundred standards aimed at minimizing occupational health hazards. Many industrial diseases were caused by high-decibel noises that triggered serious heart, glandular, and nervous disorders. Other serious diseases stemmed from the inhaling of harmful dusts such as coal, asbestos, cotton, and beryllium. Still other health hazards were associated with workers’ proximity to toxic gases, poisonous metals, some of the approximately sixty thousand chemicals used by industry, and cancer-causing agents (carcinogens), among them coal tar, aniline dyes, X rays, radioactivity, arsenic, asbestos, paraffin, and hydrocarbon derivatives such as vinyl chloride. Ongoing Criticism of OSHA OSHA continued to be controversial into the mid-1990’s. Experts noted, for example, that between 1972 and 1974, OSHA’s target industries program cut injuries by 3 percent; thereafter, however, the decline slowed to 1 percent, that is, to a statistically meaningless level. Some observers estimated that strict enforcement of OSHA 1129

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safety standards might have reduced injuries by as much as 22 percent. Congress had, however, given OSHA weak enforcement powers. Twenty years after its creation, several respected authorities concluded that OSHA’s overall impact had been nil. Some critics opposed OSHA on more fundamental grounds. They did not oppose the principle of improving workers’ safety and health (as long as the concepts safety and health could be precisely defined), but they argued that OSHA represented a misguided attempt by the federal government to solve problems that would otherwise have been solved far more effectively and cheaply by private initiative. These critics suggested replacing the costly federal intervention with simpler laws allowing workers to sue employers when they suspected they were being exposed to undue safety hazards and health risks. The threat of lawsuits, these critics believed, would be more likely to encourage employers to improve the workplace than a 10 percent chance that their businesses would be inspected or fined an insignificant sum. Other experts declared that it was the prerogative of employees—and the general public—to determine whether they preferred to accept higher wages in risky workplaces or take lower wages in less hazardous ones. OSHA was condemned by many critics for requiring industries to accept detailed, highly specific standards for equipment and facilities rather than allowing performance standards to prevail. As a result of the objections and criticisms, more than one hundred bills were introduced in the Ninety-second Congress and thirty more in the opening days of the Ninety-fourth Congress to repeal, amend, or otherwise modify the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Clifton K. Yearley Sources for Further Study Ashford, Nicolas A. Crisis in the Workplace. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976. Nelkin, Dorothy, and Michael S. Brown. Workers at Risk: Voices from the Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Noble, Charles. Liberalism at Work: The Rise and Fall of OSHA. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986. 1130

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Northrup, Herbert R., et al. The Impact of OSHA. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978. Smith, Robert Stewart. The Occupational Safety and Health Act. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1976. United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. Subcommittee on Labor. Legislative History of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. 92d Congress, 1st session. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971. See also: Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969); Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972); Noise Control Act (1972); Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973); Age Discrimination Act (1975); Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978); Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992).

Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 Date: December 31, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 1707 Public law: 91-604 U.S. Code: 42 § 7401 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

The 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments were enacted to abate the ambient air pollution problem in the United States. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 were signed into law on December 31, 1970. Before this legislation, U.S. air quality control efforts were largely decentralized. Various federal and state agencies reacted to situations addressing local concerns. This legislation was the federal government’s first effort to protect air quality in a comprehensive way, and enforcing this policy was the Environmental Protection Agency’s first major responsibility. 1131

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Earlier Legislation The federal government’s role in protecting air quality became more prevalent with the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955. This act assigned research, technical assistance, and training programs to the Public Health Service division of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Five years later, the Public Health Service established an air pollution division that dealt with legal, administrative, economic, and social concerns. In 1963, the Public Health Service was given authority over interstate air pollution problems and federal sources of air pollution under the Clean Air Act. Pollution control and abatement were emphasized. The federal government became progressively more assertive in protecting the nation’s ambient air quality in the 1960’s. The 1963 Clean Air Act received its impetus from the notion that the nation’s population had become more concentrated in expanding metropolitan and urban areas. In formulating this policy, it was asserted that air pollutants had increased in complexity and posed a greater danger to the public health and welfare. It was further asserted that the prevention and control of air pollution at its source were primary responsibilities of states and local governments. Two years later, however, with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1965, the federal government began setting emission standards and controlling more categories of sources. In 1967, the Air Quality Control Act was passed. Its major purpose was to prevent individual states from establishing their own standards for new motor vehicles. It also expanded air pollution research programs, provided for planning and controlling programs on a regional basis, and required states to set air quality standards conforming to criteria set by HEW. Authorization was given to the secretary of HEW to designate air quality control regions throughout the country, even though states were still given primary responsibility for enforcing air pollution standards within their geographic areas. The unsatisfactory progress under this approach, coupled with Earth Day activities in April, 1970, provided the impetus for the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970. Environmental Protection Agency The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 paralleled the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA was given the authority to establish standards and to require states to 1132

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develop implementation plans to meet those standards. The EPA was also given control over emissions from new stationary sources in an attempt to prevent polluting industries from migrating to less polluted states where standards might not be as stringent as in the more industrialized states. Prior to this legislation, federal air pollution legislation had always viewed state and local governments as having the primary responsibility for dealing with air pollution problems. Under the 1970 amendments, this power was limited to implementation plans to meet the national ambient (outdoor) air quality standards. Initially, the EPA resisted drawing up regulations to preserve air quality until it was ordered to do so by the courts following a suit initiated by the Sierra Club. Each state was given responsibility for ensuring that air quality standards would be met within its geographic area. State Implementation Plans (SIPs) specified the manner in which ambient air quality standards would be achieved and maintained. The EPA administrator was given the responsibility for approving the SIPs. Public input into SIPs was required. If a state did not hold public hearings on the SIPs in compliance with the legislation, the administrator was instructed to provide an opportunity for a hearing within the state. Emissions Standards An important feature of the 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments dealt with emissions standards for automobiles. It specified that 1975 model cars had to satisfy carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon standards by emitting no more than 10 percent of the emissions allowable for 1970 models, and that 1976 model cars had to have nitrogen-oxide emissions no more than 10 percent of those actually measured in 1971. The administrator of the EPA was empowered to permit a suspension of the standards for one year if necessary. After public hearings in 1973 at which the U.S. automobile manufacturers claimed they would be unable to meet the 1975-1976 standards, the EPA postponed compliance for one year even though three foreign manufacturers had vehicles that would meet the standards. Still another one-year postponement was obtained in 1974, to 1977-1978 models, by a section of the Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act; this provided for the nitrogen-oxide standard to be lowered. In 1975, Russell E. Train, the EPA administrator, postponed the standards yet another year, to 1978-1979 1133

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models. Train requested that Congress legislate postponement to 1982 models and recommended that the 1975-1976 interim standards apply to models through 1979. In return, the automobile industry would increase the fuel efficiency for models from 1974 to 1980. To achieve the national ambient air quality standards, in 1974 the EPA divided air areas into three classes: class 1, in which very little air quality deterioration would be allowed; class 2, in which only moderate air quality deterioration would be allowed; and class 3, in which more significant deterioration would be allowed as long as ambient standards were not exceeded. Mandatory class 1 areas were international parks, natural wilderness areas, national memorial parks that exceeded five thousand acres, and national parks that exceeded six thousand acres. The 1970 amendments also had geographic implications. Increments and ceilings for pollutant concentrations over baseline air quality levels were established for particulate matter and sulfur dioxide. In class 3 areas where baseline levels were low, the pollutant increments could be sustained, allowing growth to occur. Additional growth would be difficult in class 3 areas close to the national standards, as in older industrialized urban centers. No provision was made to allow construction of new sources or substantial expansion of old sources in nonattainment areas, areas that exceeded ambient air quality standards, after 1975. The lack of such a provision would have impeded economic development in some areas. An emission-offset policy to deal with the problem of new or expanded sources proposed by the EPA was not adopted until 1975. Impact on Air Quality In response to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, the EPA set national standards for the six most prevalent air pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, hydrocarbons, and lead. According to a report by the National Council on Environmental Quality, annual emissions of lead declined by 96 percent between the 1960’s and the 1990’s, mainly because of the phaseout of leaded gasoline. Progress was also made in reducing sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide. Although emissions of sulfur dioxide and particulate matter had been increasing rapidly before 1970, the total national 1134

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annual emissions of sulfur dioxide declined by 28 percent, and the emissions of particulate matter declined by 61 percent. Furthermore, total national hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emissions declined by 28 percent and 38 percent, respectively. This prog-ress in controlling air pollution is especially noteworthy because the motor-vehicle population has grown faster than the human population—between 1970 and the mid-1990’s, the number of vehicle miles traveled doubled from one trillion to two trillion miles. The 1970 amendments also helped change the national attitude toward the environment and the federal government’s role in protecting the environment. This new attitude suggested that environmental protection and economic development could be accomplished concurrently. The law changed the way government does business with the private sector. The 1970 act allowed indirect enforcement power by prohibiting federal agencies from obtaining goods, materials, or services from a source convicted of intentional violation of emission standards. In 1971, President Richard Nixon issued a presidential order prohibiting federal assistance to facilities not complying with the standards. Agencies such as Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Highway Administration required that construction be compatible with the 1970 Clean Air Act. With the responsibility for reaching the air quality standards resting largely with each state, the states slowly assumed more control over local municipalities and governments in an effort to meet those standards. States may prevent the construction or modification of sources the emissions of which are incompatible with attainment or maintenance of national ambient air quality standards. This is accomplished through a permit-letting process. Major air-polluting industries have changed their location strategies. These industries are required to make relatively large investments in pollution-control equipment and maintenance. This is sometimes an important cost factor in the industrial site-selection process. For some firms, pollution-control requirements have resulted in the decision to close a plant or build a new facility, frequently at a different location. This is especially true in heavily industrialized nonattainment areas. The 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments evolved from many earlier attempts to solve a national problem, the declining quality of the 1135

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nation’s air resources. Because the 1970 act was the first national effort to control and, when necessary, enforce air quality standards, there was some apprehension about the policy’s success, but air quality monitoring data indicate that the nation’s air quality has been improving since the enactment of the 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments. Jasper L. Harris Sources for Further Study Berry, Brian, and Frank E. Horton. “Managing Air Resources.” In Urban Environmental Management: Planning for Pollution Control. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1974. Council on Environmental Quality. Fourth Annual Report on Environmental Quality. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973. Greenberg, Michael J., et al. “Air Resources.” In A Primer on Industrial Environmental Impact. Piscataway, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, 1979. Library of Congress. Environmental Policy Division. A Legislative History of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970. 93d Congress, 2d session. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 19741980. Paul, John A. “Urban Air Quality: The Problem.” EPA Journal 17 (January/February, 1991): 24-26. Rogers, Paul G. “The Clean Air Act of 1970.” EPA Journal 16 (January/February, 1990): 21-23. Thierman, Alan. “Air Pollution and the Expanding Consumption of Fuels in Internal Combustion Engines.” In Environmental Side Effects of Rising Industrial Outputs, edited by Alfred J. Van Tassel. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Health, 1970. See also: Air Pollution Control Act (1955); Clean Air Act (1963);

Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990); Pollution Prevention Act (1990).

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Mining and Minerals Policy Act Date: December 31, 1970 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 1876 Public law: 91-631 U.S. Code: 30 § 21 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Land Management;

Natural Resources

Congress approved a short, clear policy statement “to foster and encourage private enterprise” in the mining of minerals and metals while ensuring appropriate reclamation. On the last day of 1970, Congress established the Mining and Minerals Act. It reaffirmed several concepts, including the United States’ reliance on private enterprise to develop economically sound and stable mining industries as well as the need to consider reclamation and recycling. It did not essentially amend previous U.S. mining laws. Previous Mining Laws: Favoring Private Industry The General Mining Act of 1872 had stated that mineral reserves on public land were open to exploration and purchase by private individuals. This early law established guidelines for persons to stake out and acquire a claim. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 recognized that some deposits were impossible to work as small claims and allowed the federal government to lease public lands to developers. This promoted the mining of coal, oil, gas, oil shale, sodium, phosphate, potash, sand, clay, gravel, and sulfur on public lands. As a result of these early laws, mining in the United States remained a private industry. Transfer of property rights remained a matter of negotiation and mutual agreement. States provided additional regulations concerning mineral rights, right of access, and similar issues. Provisions of the 1970 Law The 1970 act confirmed that private enterprise was to continue to mine and reclaim minerals and metals. The rationale for further development was to serve the needs of industry, national security, 1137

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and the environment. The act also encouraged the private sector to continue research in these fields, including research on recycling, disposal, control, reclamation of waste products and mined land, and other adverse impacts from mining on the environment. After asserting this policy position, the short act concluded by giving the secretary of the interior the responsibility for reporting to Congress on the state of domestic mining in a regular annual report. By keeping the costs for mineral exploration, mine development, and eventually reclamation in the private sector, the Mining and Minerals Act kept the government from becoming deeply involved in an expensive and risky business. Regulatory agencies with inspectors, however, and research on health and safety unrelated to the development of mineral resources fell outside the private sector and required a funding source. Many of the acts that followed the 1970 Mining and Minerals Act therefore relied on general tax funds, although some expenses were charged to companies where appropriate. Some states levied property taxes, severance taxes, or production royalties. Because taxes were, however, often based on assessed value, companies could limit their exploration to minimize payments, which led to an underestimation of proven reserves. Another aspect of keeping mining private was international economics. Private companies generally managed to produce and trade in a fluid and sometimes volatile international market, regardless of revolutions and diplomatic disputes. Occasionally, mineral-producing countries banded together to form consortia to control the supply and thereby the price of various commodities; this was done by the oil-producing countries of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and the diamond-trading companies of deBeers. Although the United States desired to maintain mineral mining under private enterprise and free trade, many other nations preferred to run nationalized industries or to establish subsidies. Therefore, private-sector management of mining continued to be a very complex matter with both positive and negative effects. Environmental Concerns, Economic Realities Although the 1970 policy statement was fairly clear in expressing the congressional intention to keep development of mining, recla1138

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mation, and recycling in the private sector, a substantial number of other acts and executive orders placed restrictions on the purchase of public lands and the disposition of certain permitted activities. Developers had to follow provisions of the Reclamation Act of 1902, the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968, the National Trails System Act of 1968, the Coastal Zone Protection Act of 1972, a Protection of Wetlands order, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966, the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, the Antiquities Act, the Archeological and Historical Preservation Act, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, and others. For example, with the implementation of the Wilderness Act of 1964, more than two-thirds of public lands were eventually closed or in some way restricted from mineral exploration and development. This was particularly true in Alaska, where public lands were a major portion of the land’s purchase from Russia in 1867. Across the United States, mineral policy was altered. Private enterprise was still responsible for developing mineral resources, but the private sector had to supply minerals from an ever-shrinking portion of available public land. In addition, more than one dozen environmental laws were enacted between 1970 and 1980 that restricted some mining activities to protect air and water quality. These included the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, the Noise Control Act of 1972, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, and the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978. Acts that required disposal of wastes or discharges from mining operations included the Refuse Act of 1899, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and the very important Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. Nevertheless, any good environmental intentions that could be read into the Mining and Minerals Policy Act were far less important than the day-to-day economic considerations. The volatile international energy market of the 1970’s played havoc with any policies that lacked provisions for implementation. The price of coal, for example, fluctuated dramatically with the price of oil; in 1974, coal prices averaged $15 per ton but ranged from $7 to as high as 1139

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$70 per ton. When oil prices soared, the Federal Energy Administration required seventy-four power plants in operation to convert to coal fuel, and forty-seven plants under construction were required to incorporate coal-burning units that would meet Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pollution controls. Consideration was also given to developing the technology to extract fluid fuels from coal. When, within a decade, oil prices dropped and coal prices fell as well, conversion systems were no longer cost-effective and the need for coal decreased. The only regulations that could survive in this era were those that recognized such economic realities. Later Legislation Standards for effective reclamation of surface coal mines were established in 1977 by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which was in agreement with the policy of the 1970 Mining and Minerals Act. An average of twelve units of waste overburden was generated for every unit of coal removed, and the 1977 act required that all surface mining wastes, including the highwall and drainage patterns, be reclaimed. Acid drainage from abandoned underground mines was a major environmental problem; in Pennsylvania, however, surface mining of some of those areas effectively controlled much of that acid drainage. The real costs of reclaiming surface mines were difficult to assess but could range from $500 to $2,000 for regrading and from $300 to $1,000 for seeding and fertilizer. Over time, it became apparent that in some regions, particularly those where agriculture was not practiced, areas reclaimed from surface mining often become more valuable than adjacent nonmined areas. Noncoal minerals usually generated far more than the twelve units of waste per unit of product, but most wastes were generated at smelters and mills where it could be more easily handled. Mineral wastes were generally “fluffed” in the extraction process to take up a larger volume of space, so a reclamation process that merely required backfilling often left huge amounts of wastes or spoils to be moved and disposed somewhere else. Many minerals generated toxic materials in the waste tailings that required special care in reclamation of mined areas; the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 addressed this problem. John Richard Schrock 1140

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Sources for Further Study Dennen, W. H. Mineral Resources: Geology, Exploration, and Development. New York: Taylor and Francis, 1989. Fung, R., ed. Surface Coal Mining Technology: Engineering and Environmental Aspects. Park Ridge, N.J.: Noyes Data, 1981. Hoppe, R., ed. E/MJ Operating Handbook of Mineral Surface Mining and Exploration. New York: E/MJ Mining Informational Services, 1978. Rowe, James E. Coal Surface Mining: Impacts of Reclamation. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1979. Schaller, F. W., and P. Sutton, eds. Reclamation of Drastically Disturbed Lands. Madison, Wis.: American Society of Agronomy, 1978. Wali, M. K., ed. Ecology and Coal Resource Development. Vols. 1 and 2. New York: Pergamon Press, 1979. See also: General Mining Act (1872); Mineral Leasing Act (1920); Wilderness Act (1964); Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977).

Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act Date: January 13, 1971 U.S. Statutes at Large: 84 Stat. 2078 Public law: 91-695 U.S. Code: 42 § 4801 Categories: Children’s Issues; Health and Welfare

Alarmed by the widespread incidence of lead poisoning, particularly among children, Congress passed legislation limiting lead content in paint and authorized funds for cleanup. The Lead Paint Poisoning Prevention Act authorized $30 million for the fiscal years 1971 to 1973, to be spent in three specific areas. The secretary of housing and urban development would receive 1141

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approximately $5 million to determine the extent of lead-paint poisoning and evaluate methods by which lead-based paint might be removed from residential housing; $15 million would go to local governments for elimination of lead-paint hazards; and approximately $10 million would be provided for local governments to detect and treat lead-paint poisoning. The events that led up to the bill’s passage were complex, and the aftermath of the bill’s passage was disheartening for supporters. The Dangers of Lead The dangers of lead have been known since ancient times: The Roman scholar Pliny, for example, warned against using lead pots for winemaking. An outbreak of adult colic in Devonshire in the eighteenth century was traced to the use of lead vats for cider. The same ailment, exhibited in chronic form in tinkers and printers, was described by Benjamin Franklin. Painter’s colic was widespread as late as the 1940’s, when lead-based paint pigments began to be replaced by titanium oxide. Other adult manifestations of lead poisoning are high blood pressure, nephropathy (a condition in which the blood vessels of the kidneys are weakened), and at high lead levels permanent kidney damage. Acute lead poisoning can cause vomiting, cramps, dizziness and confusion, coma, and death. Sources of lead exposure for adults are drinking and cooking water from lead plumbing or even copper plumbing, if joints have been carelessly soldered; canned foods, if cans are lead-soldered; air (less significant since alkyl lead antiknock additives have been banned from gasoline); upper layers of soil, which in some locations can still show the results of past use of lead arsenate as a pesticide; and paint, in both application and, more important, removal. Lead is present in paint as white lead, the basic carbonate, which was used for a century or more for its covering power and ease of tinting, and red lead, widely used in steel construction for its rustproofing properties. Many acute poisonings, in fact, are reported from the shipbreaking and building-wrecking industries, in which cutting of structures with welding torches vaporizes red lead into the atmosphere. Without effective protection, worker exposure is immediate and considerable. Lead is also found in paint, in relatively minor quantities, as the lead salts of certain organic acids, which are used as driers in oil-based paint. 1142

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Risks to Children For children, the single most important source of lead is paint— old paint, from pretitanium years. Such paint is found on walls and woodwork, furniture, handles of tools and cooking utensils, and floors, and even in the dirt at foundation edges, where rain has washed chalking paint from exterior walls. Children are uniquely at risk from these things, particularly young children up to about the age of five years, because they chew things, put things into their mouths, or in the case of those with a disorder called pica, ingest various nonfood materials such as dirt or paint chips. A welllayered paint chip can contain many milligrams of lead. Intestinal absorption is not complete, averaging about 20 percent, the rest being excreted; ingestion of many chips by an organism the size of a two-year-old, however, can raise blood-lead levels to the range of 40 micrograms per deciliter, where poisoning effects are noted in a matter of weeks or even days. The earliest and mildest symptoms in childhood lead poisoning are, unfortunately, all too easily mistaken for many typical childhood diseases: vomiting and stomach pains, headaches, listlessness, or irritability. A physician who is not familiar with lead poisoning may diagnose a virus or anemia. Only when neurological symptoms, such as loss of muscle movement, begin to manifest does it become clear that something more is wrong. Blood tests at this point can show lead levels in excess of eighty micrograms per deciliter, and hospitalization for lead-lowering treatment is indicated. Such treatment can mean simply a period in the lead-free hospital environment or treatment of blood with chelating agents to remove lead. Beyond this level, coma and an extended hospital stay are likely. Of the children who have recovered from lead poisoning, most return to the environment that they came from, and second and third bouts of poisoning are not uncommon. As one physician sourly noted, this cycle in effect puts the children in the position of being test instruments to diagnose a problem that is not medical but environmental: The house or apartment is lead-poisoned and should be treated. The only effective treatment is removal of paint down to the underlying structural surface. New paint or wallpaper does not suffice because the child often chews right through it. The immediate effects of lead poisoning are not its only consequences. The majority of lead-poisoned children show long-term neurological damage that includes attention-deficit disorder, im1143

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pulsive or disruptive behavior, lowering of academic performance, and sometimes deterioration of vision. Hearing loss has been demonstrated at blood-lead levels that show no threshold, only a progressive loss at greater levels. One carefully controlled study showed a statistically significant drop in intelligence quotient (IQ) at blood levels as low as eleven micrograms per deciliter. In very severe circumstances of loss of intellectual capacity, children must be committed to public institutions—a final irony, because many such facilities are housed in ancient buildings with decades of lead-paint buildup on the walls, thus presenting the children with the means to exacerbate their problems. Passage and Implement of the Law All these factors were known or suspected at the time the Lead Paint Poisoning Prevention Act was passed. For this reason, it proceeded handily through both houses of Congress and was signed into law two weeks later by President Richard Nixon. With the passage of the act, the scientific input effectively ceased, and the political and economic issues surfaced. The first roadblock to enforcement of the act was Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Eliot Richardson’s refusal to ask Congress to appropriate any of the authorized $30 million. He was categorically opposed to giving targeted funds to states, preferring block grants that could be used according to local priorities, thus avoiding construction of a new bureaucracy with the targeted funds. It was not made clear how lead-clearance money administered through local health and housing authorities would lead to a separate bureaucracy, but Richardson held up appropriations until fiscal 1973. For that year, he proposed an appropriation of only $2 million; the eventual appropriation was only $7.5 million, or one-half of the original provision of the act. As a side issue at the time, Representative William Ryan, one of the lead-paint bill’s sponsors, and a number of interested private citizens filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration asking it to invoke its existing authority under the Hazardous Substances Act to limit amounts of lead in new paint to trace quantities, a proposal eventually adopted. Community Action and State Laws Meanwhile, many states were beginning to enact their own leadcontrol legislation, particularly eastern states with old, crowded cit1144

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ies such as Boston, New York, Detroit, and Chicago (although it should be pointed out that lead-paint poisoning was never confined to inner-city tenements; children in reasonably affluent suburbs suffered as well). The experience of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts serves as an example. As early as the 1960’s, Boston newspapers uncovered hospital records showing the extent of leadpaint poisoning among children. Testing and lead-removal programs were called for, but the Housing Inspection Department refused to do more than provide educational leaflets, thus shifting the burden of protection to relatively powerless individual citizens. Pressure on the department eventually resulted in its bringing a number of landlords to court for sanitary-code violations, but they were released with minuscule fines and no requirement to remove the lead found in their properties. Citizen groups and the Boston Department of Health began to call for state legislation to correct the problem. A screening program on children’s blood-lead levels had been conducted using funds from the National Institutes of Health and the City of Boston, and it was agreed that this was a good if minimal start to a state program. When it became clear in 1971 that the federal government would offer little, if any, help, the Lead Poisoning Prevention and Control Act was pushed through the Massachusetts legislature by the end of that year. This did not solve the problem. It was more than a year before a director of the prevention program was appointed; the entire program sagged from administrative inaction, and in the second year its budget was cut by nearly one-fifth. A combination of refusal by landlords to spend large amounts of money for complete lead removal and the unwillingness of local authorities to take the time and money to take violators to court slowed the program to a near halt. Over the years, the situation has improved somewhat, with landlords cooperating voluntarily or with a minimum of prodding from the slowly strengthening local health and housing administrations. Children, however, are still being poisoned in large numbers by lead paint. Long-Term Effects The Massachusetts pattern has been repeated, with variations, in many other states, and it is reflected at the national level. Textbooks on the hazards of lead in the 1980’s and 1990’s still cite lead 1145

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paint as the main source of childhood lead poisoning. When, during his first administration, President Bill Clinton’s health reform bill was being formulated and debated, medical authorities said that any bill that was enacted should provide funds for routine screening of children’s blood-lead levels. Federally mandated programs were proposed for that purpose, but the only related action appears to have been a computer tracking system to correlate existing data. An entire industry has grown up that specializes in the removal of lead paint in housing of all kinds. The fact that a large-scale commercial operation exists suggests that the demand for such services is fairly widespread. A new source for childhood lead poisoning has been discovered, however: paint dust from removal activities. A number of verified cases have been reported, and in early 1994 a Milwaukee child won a settlement of $1.5 million for his poisoning as the result of paint removal. Lead paint and its removal pose threats to health and must be monitored to ensure ongoing progress in the battle against contaminants. Robert M. Hawthorne, Jr. Sources for Further Study Craig, Paul P. “Lead, the Inexcusable Pollutant.” Saturday Review 54 (October 2, 1971): 68-70, 75. Featherstone, Joseph. “The ‘Silent Epidemic.’” New Republic, November 8, 1969, 13-14. Jones, Hubert E., ed. State of Danger: Childhood Lead Paint Poisoning in Massachusetts. Boston: Massachusetts Advocacy Center, 1974. Lansdown, Richard, and William Yule. Lead Toxicity: History and Environmental Impact. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Needleman, Herbert L., ed. Human Lead Exposure. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 1992. Oskarsson, Agneta. Exposure of Infants and Children to Lead. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1989. See also: Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Consumer Product Safety Act (1972); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976). 1146

Twenty-sixth Amendment

Twenty-sixth Amendment Date: Ratified July 1, 1971; certified July 5, 1971 U.S. Statutes at Large: 85 Stat. 825 Public law: 91-285 Categories: Constitutional Law; Voting and Elections

The Twenty-sixth Amendment awarded voting rights to those aged eighteen and older, infusing a powerful new constituency into the U.S. electorate. In the colonial America, most colonies adopted the English practice specifying twenty-one years of age as the minimum voting age. A lower age was allowed only for men voting on militia officers. A uniform lowering of the voting age was debated as early as the New York Constitutional Convention of 1897. By 1942, when the U.S. Congress discussed it in relation to lowering the draft age to eighteen years of age, the notion had acquired significant public support. Between 1925 and 1964, nearly sixty proposals had been introduced in Congress. Pros and Cons The argument most often advanced for lowering the voting age— and the principal argument during the first period (1941 to 1952) of the thirty-year movement—was youth’s forced military participation. In 1942, the Selective Service and Training Act lowered the draft age to eighteen years. Between fall, 1942, and October, 1944, several joint resolutions were introduced in Congress to lower the voting age by amending the Constitution, and forty resolutions were introduced in thirty states. The 1944 Democratic National Convention included voting age as a plank in the party platform, and the issue was the 1943-1944 national school debate topic. Interest escalated; from 1945 to 1952, nearly one hundred bills were introduced in the legislatures of more than forty states. President Dwight D. Eisenhower endorsed the measure in his January, 1954, state of the union message. In 1956, he again urged a constitutional amendment. During this period, youth’s military service was still a major argument. In Senate debate on the issue, in April, 1943, it was argued that because the nation had inter1147

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rupted the careers and jeopardized the lives of eighteen-year-olds, it should honor their sacrifices by extending them the vote. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey argued that the measure would get youth to participate in politics at a point when they were interested in and enthusiastic about government, lessen voter apathy, and broaden the base of democracy by adding a large number of voters. Several widely varying arguments against lowering the voting age were advanced in 1953: Youth younger than twenty-one years of age did not have the wisdom and experience to evaluate political issues and would espouse the views of their parents; youth should obtain both schooling and experience before exercising the vote, rather than learning from the experience of voting; the parallel between military service and voting is false, because soldiers need only uncritical obedience and physical, not intellectual, maturity; youth do not have enough knowledge of the country’s history and are susceptible to the appeal of radicalism; since the U.S. government is representative, the voice of youth could be heard through their elders, who elect legislators; and the argument “old enough to fight, old enough to vote” does not enfranchise women and suggests that those too old to fight should lose the right to vote. During the second phase of the movement (1953 to 1960), arguments generally related to youths’ cognizance of their political place in society. In 1954, a quiz was conducted by the American Institute of Public Opinion. On seven questions testing basic political knowledge, persons between eighteen and twenty-one years of age did much better than adults. The 1960’s Youth Vote Movement In 1967, Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia introduced his eighth joint resolution for a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to eighteen years; his first had been in 1942. That same year, more than one hundred measures were introduced in thirty-six state legislatures, and a Gallup poll showed support at an all-time high: 64 percent of adults and youth. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson proposed that Congress submit a constitutional amendment for ratification by the states—the second such proposal from a president. Richard Nixon, in his 1968 campaign for president, promised youth “a piece of the action.” Late that same year, a youth movement called Let Us Vote (LUV) was founded by Dennis Warren, a student at the University of the Pa1148

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cific in Stockton, California. In six weeks, the sophisticated, widely publicized campaign expanded to more than three thousand high schools and four hundred colleges in all states. The Youth Franchise Coalition (of which LUV was a member) was organized on February 5, 1969. It used the multiple strategies of working through state legislation, a constitutional amendment, and separate campaigns mounted by member organizations. In 1968, the Republican Party called for state action to lower the voting age, while the Democratic platform endorsed a constitutional amendment. In April, 1969, a survey found that 93 percent of U.S. representatives favored the cause, as well as most federal and state senators. In this final phase of the movement, youth’s strategy of active insistence on being enfranchised was making a difference. Additional rationales for the measure surfaced during this period. Those who defended the existing age restrictions, it was argued, should prove that eighteen-year-olds, as a group, lacked the knowledge and maturity to vote responsibly and that allowing them to vote would damage the system of responsible government. Others argued that the real objective of the states should not be to limit the vote to those best informed but to see that all voters were reasonably well informed. Statistics and surveys showed that, as a result of improvements in education and mass communication, eighteen-year-olds were at least as well informed as twenty-oneyear-olds had been when that minimum age was established. Voting rights cases had argued that all who have a stake in an election should be allowed to vote. This point added relevance to the “old enough to fight, old enough to vote” rhetoric. Men between eighteen and twenty years of age were the most vulnerable to conscription and to career disruption, injury, and death in wars; and elections arguably have an impact on war and peace. Public Law 91-285 and the Amendment On March 11, 1970, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield introduced Amendment 545 to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The amendment, cosponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy, would lower the voting age to eighteen years in all elections. Kennedy’s support was buttressed by the opinions of several esteemed constitutional lawyers—in particular, Archibald Cox, whose 1966 article in the Harvard Law Review suggested a statutory amendment, as opposed to the cumbersome constitutional amendment process. 1149

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The bill passed, and President Nixon signed Public Law 91-285 into law on June 22, 1970. A test case against the law was filed in district court that same day. In 1970, seventeen states, three jurisdictions, and the U.S. Supreme Court assessed youth’s suitability for the vote. On December 21, 1970, the latter upheld in law in respect to presidential and congressional elections, but found it unconstitutional for state and local elections. Nevertheless, on January 1, 1971, millions of youth gained the right to vote in national elections when they turned eighteen years of age. On January 25, 1971, Senator Jennings Randolph introduced a joint resolution to amend the Constitution to allow eighteen-yearolds to vote. On March 10, the Senate passed the resolution unanimously. The House passed it on March 23, by a vote of 400 to 19. In eight days, ten states had ratified the amendment. On June 30, 1971, Ohio became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment; thus the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution became law. Glenn Ellen Starr Sources for Further Study Congressional Digest. “The Question of Lowering the Voting Age to Eighteen.” 33, no. 3 (March, 1954): 67-95. Cultice, Wendell W. Youth’s Battle for the Ballot: A History of Voting Age in America. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992. Johnson, Julia E., comp. Lowering the Voting Age. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1944. Roth, Robert. “A Rapid Change of Sentiment.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 397 (September, 1971): 83-87. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787); Direct democracy laws (1913); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965).

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Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Date: December 18, 1971 U.S. Statutes at Large: 85 Stat. 688 Public law: 92-203 U.S. Code: 43 § 1601 Categories: Land Management; Native Americans

Native Alaskans received compensation in return for relinquishing their claims to lands they had historically occupied. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on December 18, 1971. It represented the culmination of a long struggle over native land claims that was compounded by the immediate need to construct a pipeline to carry oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez through lands claimed by Native Alaskans. Native Rights In 1960, Native Alaskans constituted roughly 20 percent of the Alaskan population. For those living in native communities or villages, life consisted of subsistence hunting and fishing, which necessitated access to large amounts of land. Many were seasonally employed and lived in poverty. Seventy percent had less than an elementary education, and only ten percent had received a secondary education. Owing to disease, alcoholism, and impoverished conditions, the life span of Native Alaskans was about thirty-five years of age, half the national average. Many Native Alaskans believed that existing laws, rather than protecting them, stripped them of rights to lands that they claimed. They generally did not consider either the state or the federal government to be supportive of their concerns. Land claims had long been a disputed issue between Native Alaskans and the U.S. government. A Supreme Court ruling in 1955 declared that the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution did not protect native land rights. When Alaska became the forty-ninth state of the Union in 1959, it was granted the right to select 103.3 million acres of land over the next twenty-five years without any acknowl1151

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edgment of claims by Native Alaskans. Between 1959 and 1969, the state claimed nineteen million acres. By comparison, Native Alaskans owned only five hundred acres and had restricted title to another fifteen thousand acres. Since the state claimed nearly 28 percent of Alaskan territory, fears arose that there would be little valuable land remaining to satisfy native claims, and native opposition to state land claims intensified. Some Native Alaskans believed that proposed use of their lands by the state or federal government would violate traditional rights enjoyed by the native inhabitants. The Atomic Energy Commission, for example, sought to use Cape Thompson as a nuclear testing site; it was situated near an Eskimo village, with a population of three hundred, at Point Hope and the ancestral lands the villagers used for hunting. Another issue under dispute was the proposed Rampart Dam, a hydroelectric project that was to be built on the Yukon River in the north-central region of the state. Opponents of the dam argued that it would damage wildlife breeding grounds, displace twelve hundred natives from seven small villages, and endanger the livelihood of five thousand to six thousand others who depended on salmon in that area. Finally, the state was beginning to legislate hunting restrictions on state-owned land, which natives believed would threaten their traditional way of life. In the early 1960’s, native groups began to take action to protect their interests. Between 1961 and 1968, Alaskan natives filed claims protesting the state’s use of 337 million acres of Alaskan territory. Fisheries, Canneries, and Oil Fields Two other groups who entered the contest over land claims were developers and environmentalists. Developers desired the construction of more fisheries and canneries, as well as highways and industries that would enable Alaska’s natural resources to be fully developed. Environmentalists sought protection of certain lands as parks, natural wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges. By 1966, land disputes had become so hotly contested that Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall ordered a freeze on all transfers of land claimed by the natives until a mutually acceptable agreement could be reached. Following the discovery at Prudhoe Bay, on the North Slope of Alaska, of one of the largest oil fields ever found, the federal gov1152

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ernment proposed that a pipeline be constructed across the state to transport the oil to Valdez, a city easily accessible for loading petroleum because of its position as a year-round ice-free port on Prince William Sound. The proposed route of the eight-hundredmile Trans-Alaska Pipeline included twenty miles of land that was claimed by Native Alaskans, who feared that construction of the pipeline would likely lead to other infringements of their land claims. By this time, however, the Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Alaska Federation of Natives, among other native groups, were well organized to press for their interests. It became evident that the land issue would have to be resolved before the pipeline was built. Walter Hickel, Udall’s successor as secretary of the interior, extended the land-freeze in 1970. A federal restraining order halted the project until a settlement could be reached. Because developers and oil companies were anxious to get the project under way, pressure was applied to settle the issue quickly. Other interested parties anticipated benefits from the construction of the pipeline, which promised lower petroleum prices to the federal government, revenue to the state, land preservation to environmentalists, and previously denied rights to natives, particularly title to land that they believed was theirs. British Petroleum, one of the interested parties, agreed to lobby for a bill that would protect native land interests. A joint Senate-House conference committee drew up the final bill, which gained widespread support. It passed Congress and was signed into law by Nixon on December 18, 1971. Provisions and Implementation of ANCSA ANCSA granted forty-four million acres of land and $962.5 million to Native Alaskans in exchange for the relinquishment of their claims to the remaining nine-tenths of the land in Alaska. The law provided for an equitable distribution of funds among the three primary native groups (the Aleuts, Inuits, and Eskimos) and allowed first village corporations and then the regional native corporations, formed by the ANCSA, to select their lands. The Alaska Federation of Natives, speaking for the Alaskan native groups, accepted the settlement by a vote of 511 to 56, despite concerns about how it would affect traditional native patterns of hunting and fishing. 1153

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Twelve regional corporations were established between 1972 and 1974 (to which a thirteenth was added for natives not living in Alaska) in order to manage the funds and organize land selection. Every Alaskan native became a member of a regional corporation, in which he or she was given one hundred shares of stock. In addition, about 220 village corporations were formed to oversee the distribution of land at the local level. Native reservations were abolished, and sixteen million acres of land were set aside for selection by the village corporations. The village corporations were allowed to select their land over a three-year period and the regional corporations over four years. Beneficiaries of the land claims were required to be one-quarter native Alaskan (either Inuit, Aleut, or Eskimo) and had to be born on or before December 18, 1971. While the land selection involved a lengthy process, native corporations eventually selected 102 million acres instead of the allotted 44 million. For twenty years after the passage of the act, Native Alaskans were not permitted to sell their stock to non-natives, and their undeveloped land was not to be taxed. In 1987, Congress passed the “1991 amendments,” which preserved the tax-exemption benefits on undeveloped lands indefinitely and allowed new stock to be issued to Native Alaskans born after December 18, 1971. Impact ANCSA was, in many respects, a watershed in the history of Native Alaskans that promised to change their way of life permanently. The act began the transformation of Alaskan native cultures from a subsistence economy based on traditional hunting and fishing patterns to one based on ownership of modern business-for-profit ventures. Many Native Alaskans embarked on a difficult transition from life on reservations to membership in native corporations that undertook a variety of commercial enterprises. These corporations invested in banking, hotels, fisheries, real estate, and mineral exploration. Some were successful and some were not. Nevertheless, the acquisition of land and income gave Native Alaskans a position of influence in state politics that they had never had before. Anne-Marie E. Ferngren 1154

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Sources for Further Study Anders, Gary C. “Social and Economic Consequences of Federal Indian Policy.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 37, no. 2 (January, 1989): 285-303. Arnold, Robert D., et al. Alaska Native Land Claims. Anchorage: Alaska Native Foundation, 1978. Berger, Thomas R. Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission. New York: Hill & Wang, 1985. Berry, Mary Clay. The Alaska Pipeline: The Politics of Oil and Native Land Claims. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975. Case, David S. Alaska Natives and American Laws. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1984. Flanders, Nicholas E. “The ANCSA Amendments of 1987 and Land Management in Alaska.” The Polar Record 25, no. 155 (October, 1989): 315-322. Strohmeyer, John. Extreme Conditions: Big Oil and the Transformation of Alaska. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. See also: Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980).

Federal Election Campaign Act Date: February 7, 1972 U.S. Statues at Large: 86 Stat. 3 Public law: 92-225 Categories: Voting and Elections

This act regulated the financing of campaigns, primaries, general elections, and political conventions, placing limits on advertising and contributions that were nevertheless circumvented later. The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) replaced and consolidated earlier federal law related to elections, especially the 1925 Federal Corrupt Practices Act, which included provisions for public disclosure of all campaign spending and contributions of more than fifty dollars, limitations on total campaign spending, and pro1155

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hibitions of offers of patronage and government contracts to supporters. The 1925 act, which was enacted because of the Teapot Dome scandal, also prohibited all corporate contributions to political candidates. FECA was proposed in 1971 and passed on February 7, 1972. This followed a decade of discussion of the issue following President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 Commission on Campaign Costs, which urged full campaign disclosure to a new agency that would enforce violations. Later in the 1960’s, President Lyndon Johnson recommended tax incentives for small contributions, and some proposed limited public financing of campaigns. The 1971 act created a comprehensive framework of regulation of campaign financing of primaries, runoffs, general elections, and conventions. It required full and periodic disclosure of campaign contributions and spending to be filed with the House clerk and the Senate secretary. Presidential candidates and national parties were required to file with the comptroller-general. The act established limits on media advertising; established limits on contributions from candidates and their families; permitted unions and corporations to solicit voluntary contributions from members, employees, and stockholders; and allowed union and corporate treasury funds to be used to operated political action committees (PACs). Related to the FECA was the Revenue Act of 1971. This act created limited public funding for presidential campaigns and allowed individuals a fifty-dollar tax deduction for contributions to political campaigns (eliminated in 1978). The 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments substantially changed the 1972 act. With these changes, brought about by the Watergate scandal, the law now limited how much a campaign could spend as a whole as well as how much as individual or organization working independently of a candidate could spend on a particular race. Individuals could only give one thousand dollars per election per candidate and a total of twenty-five thousand dollars in federal elections. The 1974 amendments also established the Federal Election Commission. In 1976 a divided Supreme Court ruled in Buckley v. Valeo that limits on campaign spending (but not limits on campaign contributions) were unconstitutional. This ended the limits imposed on candidates and family members in the 1972 act. The Court ruled 1156

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that limits on spending could reduce “the number of issues discussed, the depth of their explanation, and the size of the audience reached.” There were amendments to the FECA in 1976 and 1979. The amount of money spent on political campaigns and the source of contributions continues to generate political controversy. This led the House and Senate to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which limited large contributions by individual donors to political parties. Michael L. Coulter Sources for Further Study Adamany, David, and George Agree. “Election Campaign Financing: The 1974 Reforms.” Political Science Quarterly 90, no. 2 (Summer, 1975): 201-220. Levit, Kenneth J. “Campaign Finance Reform (Case Note).” Yale Law Journal 103, no. 2 (November, 1993): 469-503. See also: Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925); Bipartisan Cam-

paign Reform Act (2002).

Seabed Treaty Date: Ratified February 15, 1972; in force May 18, 1972 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Foreign Relations;

Treaties and Agreements

The treaty prohibited nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction on the seabeds of oceans and other bodies of water not within the twelve-mile territorial limits of a country. Throughout the 1960’s the two main rivals in the Cold War, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (or Soviet Union), negotiated a series of treaties and agreements that were believed to be mutually beneficial and conducive to more 1157

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peaceful relations. One type of treaty sought to limit the competition from expanding into new areas. In 1967, the Outer Space Treaty was ratified to keep countries from using outer space for military purposes. Also in that year, a proposal was put forward by Malta to do the same for the ocean floor. The General Assembly of the United Nations established a committee to examine this proposal. The committee, originally composed of eighteen members, was expanded in 1969. Although it was a multilateral committee, progress was dependent upon negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union. As was typical of treaty proposals during this era, the initial proposal by the Soviet Union was for a broader and more comprehensive treaty, while the United States proposed a more specific, limited treaty. Once the initial statements were on the table, progress between the two countries was made fairly quickly, and a joint proposal was made in October, 1969, less than seven months after the initial Soviet proposal. However, as this was not to be a bilateral treaty, the needs and desires of the other members of the committee had to be considered in the final treaty. It took another year to settle the concerns of the other countries. These dealt with how far out on the seabed territorial claims should be allowed (twelve miles) and how smaller countries could verify that the treaty was being observed without disregarding the rights of other countries to make legitimate use of the seabed (countries may request the assistance of other countries or international bodies to assist in the verification process). In December, 1970, a draft of the treaty was approved by the General Assembly. A process was established for the treaty to enter into force when more than twenty-five countries had ratified it. As of 2002, more than 110 countries had taken official action on this treaty. The treaty was developed to prohibit the stationing of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction on the seabeds of oceans and other bodies of water not within the territorial limits of a country. Within the twelve-mile limit defined in the treaty, countries may place any type of facility or weapons system desired. Beyond that limit, however, all facilities are subject to observation to determine if weapons of mass destruction are being placed. Mechanisms for reviewing the treaty and for coming into compliance with the 1158

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treaty were established. The first meeting to make these determinations was scheduled five years after the treaty went into force, and meetings have been held periodically since that time. Donald A. Watt Sources for Further Study Keesing’s Research Report. Disarmament: Negotiations and Treaties 1946-1971. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972. Larson, Thomas B. Soviet-American Rivalry: An Expert Analysis of the Economic, Political, and Military Competition Which Dominates Foreign Relations. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978. See also: Outer Space Treaty (1967); Law of the Sea Treaty (1982).

Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 Date: March 1, 1972 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 47 Public law: 92-240 U.S. Code: 33 § 1251 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

These amendments to the original 1948 act (as amended in 1956) demonstrated Congress’s willingness to continue to expand its protection of the national water supply. Water-quality standards were initially established to control waterborne diseases, such as typhoid fever and cholera, and contamination of public water resulting from the careless use of chemicals and the heedless disposal of wastes. To combat these problems, early water-quality acts focused on the need to help local governments build water-treatment plants to filter out some pollutants and chemically neutralize others. The laws also allowed the federal government to take action against companies and local governments whose wastewater adversely affected other areas. 1159

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Earlier Legislation The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, which was first amended in 1956, was implemented to protect public health and welfare and to improve the quality of the nation’s water. The act increased the amount of federal money allocated to local governments to build water-treatment plants, and during the 1960’s and 1970’s many new sewer systems were funded by the federal government. The states had the primary responsibility for setting waterquality standards, which had to be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The state standards could be stricter than those of the EPA; conversely, the EPA could set a state’s standards if they were not consistent with the act. Provisions of the 1972 Amendments The Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 were passed to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.” The amendments focused mainly on the control of surface water and the pollutants dumped therein, but they also included provisions to halt local development in wetlands. The amendments had three declared aims: to eliminate pollutant discharge by 1985; to restore water quality to the point that would enable safe fishing, swimming, and recreation by 1983; and to ensure that toxic pollutants were no longer dumped in large amounts. The amendments set limits for pollutants from a single source and standards for overall water quality, as well as inaugurating pollution records through National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits. The 1972 amendments had five principal provisions that covered research and demonstration projects; grants for sewage-treatment plants; processes for implementing standards, inspections, and enforcement; establishment of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES); and judicial terms and actions. Permits for Dumping of Effluents The most effective provision of the 1972 law was the establishment of NPDES permits for dumping effluents into the water supply; dumping of pollutants without a permit was prohibited altogether. The permits, which were administered by state environmental agencies and intended for direct point-source dischargers only, 1160

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limited the amounts of pollutant to be dumped and enforced terms and conditions depending on the type of pollutant and the measures needed to restore water quality according to FWPCAA standards. The NPDES permit process unfortunately had a significant loophole that allowed relaxed restrictions on renewed or modified permits. The relaxed standard went into effect if, for example, a plant’s design changed or even simply if a polluter was unable to meet the original standard. A company could also seek a variance in the NPDES permits by arguing that potential cleanup costs would be too high. The 1972 law defined several important concepts. The first was that a single source of pollution, also called a point source, is a specific and confined object that dumps pollutants into a stream or river; a point source could be a pipe, ditch, feedlot, boat, landfill, or other specific source. The second definition was that pollutants are any change in the water quality brought about by humans, whether harmful or not. Pollutants could be soil, sewage, garbage, chemicals, wrecked equipment, rock, sand, or even heat. Sewage and oil from ships were not included, nor were the chemicals injected into oil and gas wells to help the production process, or water from oil and gas production that was disposed legally in wells. Discharged pollutants were defined as one of two types of effluent: those dumped directly into streams and rivers and those dumped into publicly owned treatment plants. The amendment established national standards for effluents considered unsuitable for normal treatment at water plants. The 1972 amendments awarded grants to statewide waste-treatment and water-quality management plans. These grants ended in 1990, but new upgrading programs were started in 1989 in which local governments received loans for the construction of publicly owned treatment plants. The loans could also be used to control urban and agricultural runoff and to protect estuaries. Public water-treatment plants were required to meet secondary treatment levels of effluent by mid-1977; an extension of one year was possible if the plants were still under construction or if no federal money had been used for the treatment plant. After the end of 1981, no further permits were issued for dumping sludge into the ocean. Public treatment plants could, however, 1161

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get a variance from the regulation and dump sludge if the materials did not interfere with water-quality standards. The EPA had begun to set national standards for industrial-effluent discharges, but it had done so without considering the quality of the water that received the discharge. During one of its periods of understaffing, the EPA also omitted to regulate industrial discharge according to type of industry. Effluent discharge was regulated nationwide in one of two ways. The less restrictive method, usually for the removal of conventional pollutants, was by the so-called “best practicable technology,” or BPT. The standard set by the BPT was the average of the best technology in use at the time the law took effect. Before mid1977, all effluents, except those from publicly owned water-treatment plants, had to be treated with that technology before being dumped. The more restrictive method was to remove toxic and nonconventional pollutants from wastewater by the “best available technology” or BAT. BAT standards were designed to raise the level of pollutant removal using the best current technology, and after 1983, BAT was the standard for all pollutant removal. Later Legislation Passage of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 marked a turning point for increased federal involvement in national water-quality protection. The act was succeeded and strengthened by amendments in 1977, 1981, and 1987 as well as by a related law that targeted drinking water. Additional amendments were proposed but not passed in 1994. In the 1987 Water Quality Act, Congress turned its attention to lakes, bays, and estuaries where fresh water meets the ocean. The act established the National Estuary Program, which called for comprehensive plans to protect certain estuaries, and various other programs to clean the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. The 1987 act also addressed the problem of waters polluted with toxic chemicals and heavy metals, which despite BAT requirements had remained polluted. The act made states responsible for developing programs for dealing with toxic “hot spots,” including specialized control strategies for individual areas. Each state was required to send the EPA a list of its problematic waters, as well as a plan for pollution control that included public water-treatment plants, river basins, and an overall water-quality inventory. The plans were 1162

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to show the locations of the point sources that continued to contaminate. A similar program was established for cleanup of polluted water from chemicals caught in runoff from rain. Large areas that contribute to water pollution, so-called nonpoint sources, include large mining and construction facilities, farms, and urban streets. Nonpoint-source pollution can account for between 45 and 75 percent of all water pollution. An aspect of pollution that had not been addressed sufficiently in the original 1948 Clean Water Act was the problem of urban stormwater runoff. Because some city stormwater systems were connected to the general sewer systems, the sudden accumulation of water after heavy rains could result in untreated household wastes contaminating drinking water supplies. After the 1987 act, large and medium-sized cities were required to apply for stormwater permits. Cities with populations of more than 250,000 had to establish control plans and apply for the permit by early 1990; cities with populations between 100,000 and 250,000 were given until 1992 to design their plans and apply for the permit. In addition, most heavy industries were from then on required to have stormwater permits. The revisions proposed to the Clean Water Act in 1994 included requiring smaller cities of 50,000 to 100,000 to obtain stormwater permits. The proposed amendment also expanded the definition of a body of water so as to include all wetlands, mudflats, wet meadows, and generally any water that could be used for recreation, fishing, or industrial use. Another proposed modification focused on controlling almost all excavations, no matter how small or temporary. A federal law closely related to the Clean Water Act was the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, in which the EPA established standards for drinking water from any source that served more than twenty-five people or had more than fifteen connections to one water source. The drinking-water standards also limit the injection of chemicals into groundwater sources. It was possible for local governments to request a variance to the Safe Drinking Water Act on the grounds that a listed contaminant in the water did not pose a health risk, the water required no treatment, the city was using alternative treatment techniques with equally good results, or the city was unable to pay the costs. The EPA set up regulations for the 1163

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entire nation, but the individual states developed their own plans for implementing and enforcing the regulations. They were also required to protect aquifers and the area around wells. Because of the EPA’s cumbersome process of implementation, most of the Safe Drinking Water Act’s new standards for contaminants did not become effective until after the passage of amendments in 1986 that streamlined the process of implementation. The strengthened law also required that all chemicals known or expected to occur in drinking water be listed and that the water-treatment methods employed be the best affordable technology. Elise M. Bright Sources for Further Study Bonine, John E., and Thomas O. McGarity. The Law of Environmental Protection: Cases—Legislation—Policies. St. Paul, Minn.: West, 1984. Freeman, Warren. Federal Statutes on Environmental Protection—Regulation in the Public Interest. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1987. Library of Congress. Environmental Policy Division. A Legislative History of the Water Pollution Control Act Amendment of 1972. 4 vols. 93d Congress, 1st session. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973-1978. Ortolano, Leonard. Environmental Planning and Decision Making. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1984. Tabb, William Murray, and Linda A. Malone. Environmental Law— Cases and Materials. Charlottesville, Va.: Michie, 1992. See also: Water Pollution Control Act (1948); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956); Water Resources Research Act (1964); Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Safe Drinking Water Act (1974); Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987).

1164

Equal Employment Opportunity Act

Equal Employment Opportunity Act Date: March 24, 1972 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 103 Public law: 92-261 U.S. Code: 42 § 2000e Categories: Education; Labor and Employment;

The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 was an omnibus bill appended to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which had been enacted on July 2, 1964, to meet a need for federal legislation dealing with job discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” The 1964 Civil Rights Act was charged to enforce the constitutional right to vote, to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, and to establish an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Title VII did not, however, give comprehensive jurisdiction to the EEOC. Previous Legislation A series of laws and executive orders had built up over the years to add to the momentum against discrimination in all areas of American life. With enactment of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875, and a series of laws passed in the mid- and late 1880’s, the government and the president, in theory at least, gained sufficient authority to eradicate racial discrimination, including employment bias. No president, however, used his constitutional power in this regard. With the peaking of the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960’s, the pace of progress toward equal opportunity accelerated. President John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925 established the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, the predecessor of the EEOC. Numerous other executive orders by succeeding presidents followed, each chipping away at discrimination in employment. The first modern federal legislation to deal specifically with employment discrimination, however, was the Equal Pay Act of 1963. 1165

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As a result of this act, more than $37.5 million was subsequently found to be due to 91,661 employees, almost all of them women, for the years between 1963 and 1972. Then followed the momentous Civil Rights Act of 1964, which contained the provision for equal employment opportunity that would be expanded with the 1972 law. Discrimination in the Workplace The push for the Equal Employment Opportunity Act was a natural result of many forces in the early 1970’s: The economic disparity between white men, on one hand, and minorities and women, on the other, had become more apparent and disturbing. Women and minorities were generally last hired and first fired, with little chance for promotion. Yet, one-third of the U.S. workforce were women. Although most women worked in order to support themselves and their families, many people still considered their employment to be expendable and marginal. This was especially true for poor women, minority women, and female heads of households. Female college graduates earned only slightly more per year than the average white man with an eighth-grade education. In the 1960’s, female heads of households were largely black women with one thousand dollars less than their white counterparts in annual median income. The median annual income for white women in 1971 was slightly more than five thousand dollars, and for nonwhite women, four thousand dollars. Blacks in general suffered more from lower salary and lower job security and benefits because, in part, they either were discouraged from joining or, in many cases, were not permitted to join labor or professional unions. In 1972, some 88 percent of unionists—about 15 million— were white, while only 2.1 million were from minority groups. Response to Unemployment Another motivation to push for the act was unemployment. In 1971, the general unemployment rate was close to 6 percent as compared to 3.4 percent as recently as 1969. Rates of joblessness were highest among the veterans returning from Vietnam (12.4 percent), and in cities with high minority populations such as Jersey City (9 to 11.9 percent) and Detroit (6 to 8.9 percent). The U.S. Department of Labor reported in 1972 that one-fifth of all wage and salary earners were unionized and males outnumbered fe1166

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males four to one. The unemployment issue had plagued government and business ever since Congress passed the Employment Act of 1946, which declared, among other things, that it was federal policy to promote “maximum employment.” Passage and Provisions On March 13, 1972, the act was passed by Congress, and on March 24, it was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. Primary responsibility for eliminating employment discrimination was entrusted to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Congress increased EEOC’s authority dramatically by giving it power to issue cease-and-desist orders, to receive and investigate charges, and to engage in mediation and conciliation regarding discriminatory practices. Jurisdiction of the EEOC was extended to cover all companies and unions of fifteen or more employees, private educational institutions, and state and local governments. The EEOC found broad patterns of discrimination. It resolved most of them and referred unresolved cases to the attorney general, who had authority to file federal lawsuits. Affirmative action became one means to promote equal employment opportunity. It was a controversial measure from the start. Opponents of affirmative action viewed it as preferential treatment or “reverse discrimination,” often invoking the decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), in which the Supreme Court noted that Congress did not intend to prefer the less qualified over the better qualified simply because of minority origin. Proponents of affirmative action believed that when properly implemented, the policy did not do away with competition but, rather, leveled the playing field to create equal opportunity for jobs in hiring, onthe-job treatment, and firing policies. Affirmative action, according to proponents, meant a conscious effort to root out all types of inequality of employment opportunity, such as unrealistic job requirements, non-job-related selection instruments and procedures, insufficient opportunity for upward mobility, and inadequate publicity about job openings. The U.S. Civil Service Commission provided technical assistance to state and local governments in developing affirmative action plans and provided training manuals for the purpose. The thrust of the act’s guidelines, however, was that gender, racial, ethnic, national origin, or religious status alone should be avoided as 1167

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an employment consideration. Women and minorities had taken the lead in getting the equal employment opportunity proposal through Congress, thus making it a women’s and minority issue. The act dealt with areas where discrimination had been blatant, such as hiring and promotion by small businesses and by police and fire departments, as well as admission to local unions such as branches of the longshoremen in the Northeast and Southeast. Discrimination in some areas was so blatant that the federal appeals courts actually had to order hiring of minorities to rectify the situation. For example, after the passage of the EEO, Minneapolis hired its first minority-group fireman in twenty-five years. The act also dealt with various forms of discrimination against women, such as denying employment because there were no toilet facilities for women. The act required that women receive equal opportunities for sick leave, vacation, insurance, and pensions. It also became illegal to refuse to hire or to dismiss an unmarried mother as long as unwed fathers were holding jobs. Newspaper classified sections were no longer permitted to segregate helpwanted listings under male and female headings. Only a few jobs, such as that of actor, could be proved to have a bona fide occupational qualification on the basis of sex. Response and Impact Opposition forces focused on the confusion created by the passage of the act. Many of the existing labor laws protecting women and minorities seemed to become invalid in the context of the act. For example, the classic prohibition on work that would require a woman to lift more than a specified maximum weight could not stand. Qualification for employment would have to be based on ability to meet physical demands, regardless of gender. Banning women from certain jobs because of the possibility of pregnancy appeared to be impermissible. Leaves or special arrangements for the rearing of children would have to be available to the father, if the couple decided he was to take over domestic duties. In fact, “Men’s Lib” became a new trend in the 1970’s. Women’s campaigns for full equality prompted men to reassess their own situation. The result was that “liberation” was becoming an issue for both men and women. Men began moving into jobs once reserved for women, seeking alimony from wives, and demanding paternity leaves. The Su1168

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preme Court ruled that airlines could not limit flight attendant jobs to women, and most airlines began hiring some male stewards. AT&T had filled 25 percent of its clerical positions and 10 percent of its telephone operator positions with men by 1974. More men enrolled in nursing schools. On the other hand, by the time the law was enacted in 1972, the fastest-growing type of family was that headed by a black woman. One decade later, in 1982, this figure had grown to 45 percent as compared to 14 percent for the white families headed by women in the same year. The act worked in tandem with or initiated investigations into other areas of discrimination, such as education. For example, by the late 1960’s, more than a decade after the Court struck down “separate but equal” laws, more than 75 percent of the school districts in the South remained segregated. This meant markedly disproportionate employment opportunities for blacks. Armed with its new authority, field investigators, and two hundred newly hired lawyers, the EEOC was able to respond effectively to complaints of discrimination. Within a few weeks of assuming its new, authoritative position, the EEOC had filed suits against many big companies. The actionable charges of sex discrimination surged from 2,003 cases in 1967 to 10,436 by June of 1972. Sex discrimination cases, in only three years from 1970 through 1972, increased by nearly 300 percent. By June 30, 1972, however, only 22 percent of cases involved sex discrimination and 58 percent racial and ethnic discrimination, with 11 percent involving national origin and 2.5 percent religious discrimination. In 1972, the EEOC forced employers to give raises to some twenty-nine thousand workers, mainly women, after finding violations of the law. The total underpayment of wages amounted to about fourteen million dollars. Much of the business sector objected to the EEOC’s efforts, contending that the new law would permit employees to file classaction suits without the employer’s being given fair notice of the identity of its accusers. Such criticism protested that as many as eight different laws gave employees an unfair advantage in pressing charges. Nevertheless, companies—including many large corporations that did work for the government—were forced to change their employment policies to comply, and the composition of the workforce began to change. The Equal Employment Opportunity Act, along with subsequent follow-on legislation, opened the door 1169

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for many women, African Americans, and ethnic minorities to rise out of poverty and begin a movement toward middle- and uppermiddle-class status that later would begin to change the power structure in the United States. Chogollah Maroufi Sources for Further Study Belknap, Michal R., ed. Equal Employment Opportunity. New York: Garland, 1991. Buckley, John F. Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance Guide: 2002 Edition. New York: Aspen Publishers, 2002. Bureau of National Affairs. Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs Books, 1973. Burstein, Paul. Discrimination, Jobs, and Politics: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity in the United States Since the New Deal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Downing, Paul M. The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972: Legislative History. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, 1977. Sedmark, Nancy J., and Chrissie Vidas. Primer on Equal Employment Opportunity. 6th ed. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs Books, 1994. Shulman, Stephen N., and Charles F. Abernathy. The Law of Equal Employment Opportunity. Boston: Warren, Gorham & Lamont, 1990. U.S. National Labor Relations Board. Titles VII and XI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1978. See also: Equal Pay Act (1963); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Economic Opportunity Act (1964); Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978); Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992).

1170

SALT I Treaty

SALT I Treaty Date: Signed May 26, 1972 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The negotiation of SALT I marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. When détente (literally, “relaxation”) became the prevailing framework of Soviet-U.S. relations in the early 1970’s, neither its meaning nor its implications were clear. On the surface, its most important result was a series of nuclear arms agreements—with corollaries in trade, education, space research, and more—between the United States and the Soviet Union, beginning with the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) Treaty signed by President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev in Moscow in May, 1972. At a deeper level, it reflected a new and more pragmatic turn in the long history of the Cold War: Among European and Middle Eastern peoples, détente aggravated fears that the two superpowers would freeze their strategic options, thus precluding genuinely credible deterrence to protect them. By its very nature, détente, as manifested in SALT I, was encouraging to some and troublesome to others. Two other SALT treaties followed, culminating in the SALT III pact. SALT III was signed by President Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev in 1979 but never ratified by the U.S. Senate because of Soviet suppression of Jews and dissidents. Historical Perspective From the beginning, the SALT treaties, and even the notion of détente between the vastly different nuclear age superpowers, appeared contradictory and one-sided to those who considered it another ruse by the communists to lull the United States into dangerous passivity. Others, notably Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson and exiled Soviet dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, believed that détente lowered the Soviet Union’s risks of conflict while allowing it to continue building up its military and suppressing all political and ideological opposition at home. That the Soviet Union signed the 1975 Helsinki Accords, thus ostensibly endorsing the section called Basket III, which theoretically guaranteed basic human and 1171

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civil rights in the contracting countries, did not convince those who did not trust Soviet sincerity. Détente was a significant chapter in the history of global politics. Fundamental changes have marked the world of diplomacy in the twentieth century, including a steady and dramatic reduction in the number of true world powers. In 1900, the power bases in world politics were multipolar: Germany, Austria-Hungary, czarist Russia, Great Britain, France, and the United States all were engaged in empire-building. Similarly, between the two world wars, Nazi Germany, Japan, Great Britain, and the temporarily isolationist United States occupied prominent positions as world powers. World War II, however, narrowed the field effectively to two major world powers—the United States and the Soviet Union— thus marking the advent of a bipolar world after 1945. Bipolarism dominated the diplomacy of the Cold War years following World War II. Although the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin’s regime had been allied with the United States and Great Britain during the war, it was clear to most contemporaries of the war years that the alliance was one of convenience. At war’s end, the world split into two basic camps, one allied with the Soviet Union, one with the United States. Tension increased markedly as the Communist Bloc was expanded by force in Eastern Europe and China. By the 1950’s, the Cold War had erupted into a real conflict in Korea (1950-1953) and in the military alliances of Western nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Eastern nations in the Warsaw Pact. Both sides ultimately were backed by the awesome power of nuclear weapons. The Cold War, with its periodic military outbursts (the Bay of Pigs, Laos, Vietnam), had been characterized by military expenditures on both sides of the conflict throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. This arms race had been the most massive in all of human history. The Soviet Union had given top social and economic priorities to military spending during these decades, at the obvious expense of civilian, consumer-oriented production. At the same time, the United States had given top priority to its defense expenditures, at the expense of its own social needs. This had led since the late 1960’s to attempts by both Soviet and U.S. leaders to effect a rapprochement, or détente. The primary aim of this policy was to reduce the arms race and military tension in the world between the United States and the Soviet Union. In general, mistrust 1172

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prevailed and worked against thorough cooperation. As long as the Soviet Union was ruled by an oppressive communist political structure, the United States and other supporters of détente had serious reservations, as did the Soviet leadership. Any concessions by one side or the other were viewed from the framework of national rather than mutual interest. Therein lay the greatest weakness of détente. Nixon, Kissinger, and Linkage The first active application of the détente policy originated during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. Although Nixon clearly initiated the policy, detailed negotiations were the work of Henry A. Kissinger, the key diplomatic figure of the Nixon presidency. Kissinger came to the administration from an academic background. A German-Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, Kissinger had fully assimilated himself through the United States Army and as a student and faculty member at Harvard, where he gradually developed into an activist scholar who sought to influence foreign policy with his theory. He came to the public limelight through his friendship with Nelson Rockefeller. Based on his loyalty to Richard Nixon, once he entered Nixon’s administration, Kissinger came to dominate the foreign policy of the Nixon years, both as national security adviser and as secretary of state. Nixon and Kissinger both had excellent credentials for redirecting United States policy toward the Soviet Union. Both were conservatives and arch-foes of communism. If a liberal Democratic administration had proposed détente in earlier decades, it likely would have faced a massive Cold War backlash in public opinion. Liberals, in effect, could not push for Soviet-U.S. agreements without suffering politically. A conservative such as Nixon, on the other hand, could strike up negotiations with the Russians without fanning domestic fears that he was “soft on communism.” The key concept launched by Kissinger and carried through in the presidency of Jimmy Carter was the insistence of the United States on linkage in any agreements with the Soviet Union. “Linkage” meant that any trade agreement, exchange program, credit— in effect, any concession—must be accompanied by (linked to) changes in Soviet policy. During the Kissinger years, the United States insisted on the elimination of ideology from Soviet foreign 1173

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policy decisions. In negotiating the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALTs I and II), the United States used its improved relations with Chairman Mao Zedong’s China as leverage with Brezhnev’s negotiators. In addition, the United States obtained Soviet aid in ending the Vietnam War through negotiations by tying the negotiations to SALT’s prospects. Ford and Carter After SALT I, the United States linked ties with the Soviets to human rights for people in the Soviet sphere, but this effort bore little fruit until the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader in 1985. Official commitment to détente waned after Nixon was forced to resign in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal. His successor, Gerald Ford, visited the Soviet Union and continued the SALT negotiating process, but with less success than Nixon and Kissinger. President Carter’s policy of upholding and reaffirming human rights had few tangible results in the short run, which contributed to the Senate’s refusal to ratify SALT II. The Soviet Union further eroded détente by deploying large numbers of its new, mobile SS20 missiles targeted on all major European cities. That, more than the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, 1979, disillusioned Carter and prompted him to cancel U.S. participation in the Olympics in Moscow in 1980. Reagan, Gorbachev, and START Linkage, the cornerstone of détente, seemed to have reached its limits. The Soviet Union would not eliminate ideological considerations in either its domestic or foreign policies until the advent of Gorbachev as Soviet leader in March, 1985, and even then, only on a limited basis. Despite the 1975 Helsinki Accords, Soviet suppression of dissidents continued almost unabated until Gorbachev’s perestroika (restructuring) opened the door to glasnost (publicity or openness), which invited public discussion and criticism of government policies. Under Gorbachev, détente took new turns, notably a more intense U.S. and Soviet interest in arms reduction. President Ronald Reagan, an old-style Cold Warrior, moved from his first term’s blistering rhetoric, such as calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” to a more accommodating position. This was reinforced by his projected Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, popularly known as “Star Wars”), which aimed to protect the world from nu1174

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clear weapons through an elaborate system of space and landbased lasers that would provide a shield against incoming missiles. Reagan proposed START (the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) to replace the faltering SALT agreements, but a series of ReaganGorbachev summits in the middle 1980’s foundered on Soviet fears that SDI would neutralize their nuclear deterrence and violate earlier SALT agreements. Nevertheless, the détente process continued as Gorbachev and his popular foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, pursued arms reductions, and the subsequent administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush remained open to credible, adequately guaranteed and equitable reductions. The most important tangible products were the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Force) Treaty of late 1987, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons; the START Treaty of July, 1991; and the START II Treaty (January, 1993), negotiated by Bush and implemented early in the administration of President Bill Clinton. The Soviet Union was officially dissolved on December 26, 1991, with its East European Warsaw Pact allies already in disarray as communist regimes crumbled in that region. Détente outlived the Soviet Union, and the vision of a world safe from nuclear war again gained ground. More than a declining Soviet system and U.S. vigilance, however, contributed to this radically new and unexpected twist of history. In retrospect, it is clearly important that Gorbachev and Shevardnadze made substantive changes of a scope that few would have believed possible in the early days of détente. The role that détente played in the overall process is not easy to estimate. What is clearer is that the long détente process contributed to new thinking about world peace and the national interests of the Soviet Union, the United States, and their allies. If the future of arms control has been uncertain in the post-Soviet period, there is little doubt that it will remain a pivotal concern of most nations, because of the continuing existence of thousands of nuclear weapons and the possibility that they might fall into the hands of states or individuals less restrained by Cold War considerations than the United States and the Soviet Union were for decades. Edward A. Zivich, updated by Thomas R. Peake 1175

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Sources for Further Study Gorbachev, Mikhail. Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World. Updated ed. New York: Perennial Library, 1988. Kissinger, Henry A. American Foreign Policy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. _______. Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Landau, David. Kissinger: The Uses of Power. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972. Nixon, Richard M. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978. Ulam, Adam B. “Forty Years of Troubled Coexistence.” Foreign Affairs 64, no. 1 (Fall, 1985): 12-32. See also: SALT II Treaty (1979); INF Treaty (1987); START II

Treaty (1993); U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002).

Indian Education Acts Date: June 23, 1972; November 1, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 343 (1972), 92 Stat. 2329 (1978) Public law: 92-318 (1972), 95-561 (1978) Categories: Education; Native Americans

These acts represent the first legislative victories for Native American peoples under the policy of Indian self-determination. The Indian Education Act of 1972 was an attempt to remedy some of the problems in Indian education identified in the National Study of American Indian Education (carried out from 1967 to 1971) and in the hearings of the Special Senate Subcommittee on Indian Education that summarized its findings in 1969 under the title Indian Education: A National Tragedy, a National Challenge (also known as the Kennedy Report). Both studies found that Indian people wanted a better education for their children, wanted schools to pay more attention to Indian heritage, and wanted more to say in how their children’s schools were run. 1176

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The 1972 act pertained to public schools on and off reservations and provided supplemental funding for schools with ten or more Indian students in order to meet their special needs. All public schools with Indian students could get this quasi-entitlement funding and were required to involve Indian parents and communities in designing the supplemental programs. Grant money was also provided. Part A of the act required parental and community participation in impact-aid programs (programs that provided federal money to local school districts to make up for tax-exempt federal lands such as Indian reservations). Part B authorized a series of grant programs to stress culturally relevant and bilingual curriculum materials. Part C provided money for adult-education projects. Part D established an Office of Indian Education within the U.S. Office of Education (now the Department of Education). Part E provided funds for training teachers for Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools, with preference to be given to Indians. The act also established the National Advisory Council on Indian Education. The Indian Education Amendments of 1978 established standards for BIA schools, institutionalized BIA school boards, required formula funding of BIA schools, and provided for increased Indian involvement in the spending of impact-aid funds. Jon Reyhner Sources for Further Study Cleary, Linda Miller. Collected Wisdom: American Indian Education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1998. Dejong, David H. Promises of the Past: A History of Indian Education. Golden, Colo.: North American Press, 1993. Deloria, Vine, and Daniel Wildcat. Power and Place: Indian Education in America. Golden, Colo.: American Indian Graduate Center, Fulcrum Resources, 2001. Stein, Wayne J., ed. Renaissance of American Indian Higher Education: Capturing the Dream. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002. Szasz, Margaret Connell. Education and the American Indian: The Road to Self-Determination. 1928. Rev. ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999. 1177

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Higher Education Act (1965); Bilingual Education Act (1968); Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972); Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973); Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975); Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975).

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 Date: June 23, 1972 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 373 Public law: 92-318 U.S. Code: 20 § 1681 Categories: Education; Women’s Issues

This law was the first federal legislation in the United States to prohibit sexual discrimination in educational institutions and agencies. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Male and female students must be given equal opportunity and treatment in admissions, curricular and extracurricular programs and activities, student benefits and services, and employment. Why Title IX? Testimony at congressional hearings before the passage of Title IX documented the pervasiveness of direct and indirect sexual discrimination in educational institutions For example, secondary vocational schools were often completely segregated on the basis of gender. Financial assistance was distributed unevenly, with women less likely to receive awards. At 1178

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some colleges, rules required female students to live on campus while male students could live off campus. Discriminatory policies affected hiring and promotions so that women with advanced degrees were not working in jobs that matched their qualifications. Men’s and women’s athletic programs were not equal in size or quality, availability of coaching, equipment, or facilities. Objectives The regulations to implement Title IX, which became effective on July 21, 1975, specified five tasks for educational institutions: first, to state the policy of sexual nondiscrimination in all school and employment documents; second, to appoint an employee to coordinate compliance efforts; third, to develop a grievance procedure for student and employee complaints; fourth, to conduct an institutional self-evaluation to assess current practices and institute new policies; and, fifth, to submit an assurance form of the Office for Civil Rights with all applications for federal financial assistance. Institutions were required to take both remedial and affirmative action if sexual discrimination was determined to exist. Exemptions applied to schools that were traditionally single-sex or that held religious tenets that prevented compliance. Impact Title IX has eliminated the most blatant discriminatory practices in education, especially in admissions. Colleges can no longer set higher admission standards for women than for men, and graduate schools cannot use the “equal rejection rate” system that ensured acceptance of equal numbers of men and women even when women might be more highly qualified. Placement in courses in all subjects, including vocational, technical, and advanced courses, cannot be determined by sex, and institutions are required to take remedial action through recruiting and course revisions to ensure that access is open. Title IX was especially felt in athletics. There was a tremendous increase in the number of women participating in school sports. The percentage of female high school athletes increased from 7 percent to 35 percent between 1972 and 1982, and girls’ teams were included in local, state, and national high school organizations. In 1971, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was formed as an independent organization; eventually, 1179

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membership grew from 278 to 973 institutions by 1979-1980. Between 1971 and 1980, the percentage of female college athletes increased from 15 percent to 30 percent. Many institutions voluntarily expanded their women’s athletic programs prior to the passage of Title IX or following the self-studies required for implementation in 1975-1976. Teams were created, schedules were expanded, and more money was budgeted for travel and equipment. State, regional, and national championships were added. Coaches of female teams began to be compensated at a higher level, although they were usually required to also fill teaching and administrative roles. Perhaps most significant, there was a general change in attitude about the importance of sports activities for girls and young women. Limited Success Beyond admissions and athletics, Title IX has had limited impact on other sources of gender bias: curriculum, classroom procedures, the interaction between male and female students, and faculty support. Assumptions that female students are gifted verbally and male students are gifted in science and mathematics prevail, and most young women are not encouraged to take courses that provide entry to scientific and technical fields. Many vocational programs are still segregated by sex, with change stymied by the virtual lack of role models for women or men outside of a narrow range of occupations. Moreover, although sexual harassment is prohibited under Title IX, schools often do little to prevent such behavior. By the mid-1990’s, women still did not have equal opportunity in sports programs and may have actually lost ground. While women generally formed 50 percent of the student body at various institutions, they made up only 33 percent of college athletes. At the high school level, women accounted for 39 percent of athletes. The number of female coaches had declined significantly. With improved salaries, men applied for jobs coaching female teams. In 1972, more than 90 percent of the coaches for women’s college teams were women; in 1990, only 47.3 percent were women. Traditional female sports such as volleyball or field hockey were being coached by men or eliminated from the schedule. The two fastest growing sports between 1977 and the 1990’s were soccer and crosscountry running, but the percentage of female coaches in these 1180

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sports continued to decline. Women had not moved into jobs coaching male teams; in the 1995, 99 percent of male college teams were coached by men. Women also lost leadership roles: When men’s and women’s athletic departments were combined, often the head of the men’s department became the chief administrator. The same was true for sports officials. As the payment for officiating at an athletic contest increased for women, the number of female officials decreased, especially in women’s basketball, softball, and volleyball. In sports media, women have a limited, usually insignificant role. Women are writing about and broadcasting women’s sports, but they have made little progress in covering male sports, often because they lack access to the locker room. Women’s Reaction Despite the opening of opportunities by Title IX, many women believe that real progress can only be made by changing the practices that limit women and men to traditionally accepted areas of study, work, and play, which requires effective monitoring of programs and strong enforcement of Title IX. Women are calling for a renewed commitment to this law in order to improve the quality of public education for everyone. Schools and teachers need to use methods that promote gender equity and include the experiences of women in the curriculum. National boards and professional organizations should include women as part of reform efforts. Female athletes must continue to work to overcome the same problems that existed in 1972. Reformers call for compliance with Title IX as a precondition for membership in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). They also seek more scholarships for women and the appointment of female athletic administrators to regulate and evaluate women’s athletic programs. Jeanne M. McGlinn Sources for Further Study Durrant, Sue M. “Title IX: Its Power and Its Limitations.” Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance 63 (March, 1992): 60-64. Hoepner, Barbara J., ed. Women’s Athletics: Coping with Controversy. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, 1974. 1181

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National Foundation for the Improvement of Education. Title IX: Selected Resources. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1977. Wellesley College. Center for Research on Women. How Schools Shortchange Girls: A Study of Major Findings on Girls and Education. Washington, D.C.: AAUW Educational Foundation and National Education Association, 1992. Westervelt, Esther Manning. Barriers to Women’s Participation in Postsecondary Education: A Review of Research and Commentary as of 1973-74. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975. See also: Economic Opportunity Act (1964); Higher Education

Act (1965); Bilingual Education Act (1968); Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972); Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973); Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975); Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978).

Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act Date: October 21, 1972 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 975 Public law: 92-516 U.S. Code: 7 § 136 Categories: Environment and Conservation

This law was passed to protect the environment from the effects of toxic chemicals. The prosperity and the relative good health of the U.S. population are based in part on the nation’s ability not only to grow an abundance of basic crops but also to store harvests effectively. Crop losses resulting from insect activity, fungal infections, and rodent invasion are often as devastating to the human population as is a lack of productivity. Insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides have been critical to the maintenance of the quantity and quality of 1182

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grains, fruits, and vegetables produced, stored, and transported in the United States. In addition, pesticides are vital to the protection of wooden homes from termites, clothing from clothes moths, and museum artifacts from a wide array of fungal and insect agents. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1947 (FIFRA) established basic requirements for the labeling of pesticide products. This act was an attempt to ensure that pesticides were effective as claimed and to protect users, mainly farmers, by requiring that specific safety instructions be posted on product labels. At the time that FIFRA was enacted, the use of dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) had prevented repetition of the World War I-era deaths from louse-born typhus and had offered some hope of dramatically reducing malaria worldwide. Increasing numbers of chemical agents, particularly chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides, were becoming available for farm use. Using chemicals to reduce crop losses was viewed by the general public hardly different from the use of penicillin to overcome infections. The 1947 act was thus primarily intended to protect the safety of farmers, who were the main applicators of pesticides, and to provide some degree of truth in labeling. The long-term environmental effects of some pesticides that persist in the environment was not well understood until much later, following the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Provisions of the 1972 Law In 1972, the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (FEPCA) made substantial revisions in FIFRA that gave it an environmental dimension. The critical change was the provision that the pesticide, “when used in accordance with widespread and commonly recognized practice will not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.” Such “unreasonable adverse effects” were further defined in the act as “any unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide.” FIFRA was no longer viewed as an act to protect farmers from harm; adverse effects on humans became simply one of many environmental effects. 1183

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The 1972 FEPCA revision continued to control pesticide sales by way of label requirements and required the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), formed two years earlier, to consider the environmental impact of the use of pesticides for the uses proposed on the label. This addition expanded FIFRA from an act regulating pesticide use to an environmental protection act by way of controlling the labeling and registration process. In 1972, Congress directed that each pesticide be classified as either “restricted” or “general use.” In addition, specific uses of pesticides could be classified as either “general” or “restricted.” General vs. Restricted Use If used according to the label instructions, general-use pesticides can be applied by anyone, and no additional training or certification is required of the user. A general-use pesticide, however, is often restricted in the sites where it can be used. For example, paradichlorobenzene moth balls are registered for home use, in which a few moth balls are usually isolated in closets and drawers away from people; however, the same chemical is not legal for use in museums, where employees would constantly be working around higher concentrations built up in often-used specimen cabinets. Restricted-use pesticides may be applied only by certified applicators or persons working under their direct supervision. Pesticides that are highly toxic require specially trained applicators. A pesticide may also be restricted, however, if it persists in the environment for a long period. Common insecticides thus disappeared from store counters because they were too persistent in the environment, because they were found to have adverse health effects, or because they required specialized application gear. Definition of “Pest” According to FIFRA, the term “pest” encompasses not only insects, rodents, and fungi but also roundworms, weeds, and any other aquatic or terrestrial animal, plant, or microorganism declared by the EPA administrator to be a pest because of its effects on health or the environment. Viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms on or in humans or other animals are not considered pests. A pesticide is thus defined as any substance that prevents, repels, or destroys such pests. Pesticides may be chemical or biological substances; a pesticide may be merely considered as active ingredient 1184

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or may consist of a complex formulation. Attractants, repellents, defoliants, and plant regulators are all pesticides. Labeling Requirements The pesticide registrant has specific duties to label the product after it is produced. It is a violation to remove or deface the usage instructions that are required on a pesticide container. If pesticides are purchased in large quantity, the label is to be copied and transferred to the containers to be used in application. Because the major leverage for regulating pesticides centers on labeling, the contents of the label are set by regulation. The nine items that must appear on the label include the product name, the name of the producer, the net contents, the product registration number, the producer-identifying number, the ingredient statement, exact warning statements, directions for use, and use classifications. The ingredient statement lists active and inert ingredients of the pesticide, similar to the ingredient labels often seen on food packaging in grocery stores. The warning statement is considerably more complex than the ingredient statement, because a chemical can pose different levels of damage if exposed to skin or eyes, or if inhaled or ingested. Pesticides, therefore, must be extensively evaluated in animal tests to establish levels of 50 percent lethal dosage for skin contact or ingestion (a level known as LD ) or lethal concentration if inhaled (known as LC ). With four levels of toxicity for each of five hazards, a pesticide must be labeled with warnings indicating the highest hazard. The large signal words used to flag the level of danger range from the most dangerous, “poison,” to the least alarming, “caution.” All pesticides rated category 1 poisons must also provide a statement of practical treatment or first aid on the front panel of the product label; products in other categories may print the treatment elsewhere on the label. Warnings of potential hazard to humans and domestic animals must also be included on labels, as must a notice stating if other nontarget organisms are particularly endangered. Because some pesticides are petroleum-based or pressurized, warnings about flammability and danger from explosion may also be required. The directions for use must include legible and simple instructions that protect the public from injury and fraud and that avoid 50

50

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adverse effects on the environment. Such directions include site of application, target pests, dosage or rate of application, method of application, frequency of application, and limitations on re-entry to the area where the pesticide has been applied. Storage and disposal instructions are particularly critical for preventing environmental contamination. The statement of use classification advertises boldly whether the pesticide is classified for general use or restricted use. This last designation requires a follow-up statement that clearly states that the pesticide is for retail sale only to certified applicators. Storage-facility criteria are provided for the most toxic pesticides. Mobile equipment must follow general procedures for decontamination, maintenance, and inspection. Safety precautions are mandated, including both accident-prevention measures and ongoing safety measures for persons working in the distribution and handling of pesticides. For specific highly toxic pesticides, periodic physical examinations, including cholinesterase tests, are required of persons working with pesticides. Fires involving pesticides can present particularly dangerous scenarios, and storage of large quantities of pesticides require the notification of local firefighting personnel to ensure preparedness. Exemptions Exemptions from the complex FIFRA regulations are allowed when a pest outbreak occurs posing dramatic economic or health threats and when there is not enough time to seek registration of an appropriate pesticide. With the increasing availability of fast international travel and the rise in pesticide resistance, such problems seem more likely to arise in the future. Certification Standards Most important, FIFRA established standards for certification of commercial applicators for the use of restricted pesticides. The testing of an applicator’s competency is based on problems and situations relevant to the applicator’s certification. In addition to the use of the pesticide in various formulations, certified applicators must be knowledgeable about the label data, safety procedures, environmental concerns, and laws and regulations relating to the pesticide being used. There are provisions for experimental-use permits for the purpose of gathering data on new pesticide formulations and applications. 1186

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Subsequent Legislation Minor amendments to the act were made in 1975, but in 1978 the Federal Pesticide Act changed FIFRA considerably, establishing a generic registration procedure that required a standardized evaluation of the benefits and risks of active ingredients of pesticide products. The prior act had required registration of each chemical based on its brand name; however, the same chemical is often marketed under many brand names. Additional extensive amendments in 1988 fine-tuned procedures for registration of pesticides and for canceling or removing pesticide registrations. The 1988 amendments empowered the EPA to set deadlines for manufacturers to reregister pesticides containing newly regulated ingredients. A fee based on market factors was also assessed pesticide applicants to help underwrite a portion of the cost of reviewing pesticide reapplications. Congress authorized the use of a scientific advisory panel to assist the EPA in evaluating and regulating pesticides. Subpanels of this group review major scientific studies relevant to pesticides and consult in the reclassification of pesticides. It is sometimes necessary to take immediate action when new research reveals that a pesticide has unexpected harmful effects. The EPA administrator can promptly suspend or change registration on a pesticide; this is called an emergency suspension action. Any emergency suspension, however, requires an immediate peer review. In cases in which such an action leaves a registrant holding a large quantity of pesticide, the administrator is authorized to compensate the registrant for the loss. Procedures exist for the recall of pesticides determined by the EPA to be more hazardous than first recognized. In such cases, producers must notify the EPA administrator of the location and the amount of the canceled or suspended pesticide. Pesticide containers and rinsing agents are also regulated, and penalties for falsifying records or data submitted in support of applications are defined in the act. Impact FIFRA, FEPCA, and their amendments provided uniform criteria for pesticide regulation on a nationwide scale. The responsibility for registering a pesticide is with the manufacturer, not with the 1187

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user. No person in any state may sell, ship, or receive any pesticide that is not registered with the EPA, regardless of whether the activity is carried out within a state or across state lines. (There are provisions allowing a manufacturer to transport a nonregistered pesticide for disposal when it has been canceled or while it is in an experimental stage of development.) States retain the right to register pesticides in each state, and a state may impose more stringent restrictions. States may not, however, allow sale or use of a pesticide if the pesticide is prohibited under the law. The act directs enforcement power to the EPA. For those states that hold a cooperative agreement with the EPA, the state assumes primary enforcement responsibility. Provisions of these acts allow the administering government agency to seek both criminal and civil sanctions against companies, individuals, and organizations that violate provisions of the law. The EPA may inspect for violations, issue orders to require compliance, and seek court injunctions to require compliance. Knowingly violating provisions of the law is a misdemeanor. Examples of violations include failure to submit required information, falsification of records, and failure to observe the various orders canceling or suspending pesticide use. Individuals who advise pesticide applicators to use illegal pesticides are considered to be in violation of the law. It is also unlawful to use any registered pesticide in a manner inconsistent with its label, although it is legal to dilute pesticides to lower concentrations or to use them against alternative pests or by other methods of applications if such uses are not specifically prohibited. As with any system that must deal with the complexity of the environment and the limitations in scientific knowledge, however, the enforcement of these laws is open to considerable prosecutorial discretion. Passage of FIFRA and its amendments was a response to the real need for effective insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides as well as to the need to protect the populace and the environment from the damaging effects of toxic and long-lasting chemicals. The law mandates the use of the current expertise of the scientific community to maintain a fair and reliable system of regulation for the pesticide industry. John Richard Schrock 1188

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Sources for Further Study Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Edwards, Clive A. Persistent Pesticides in the Environment. 2d ed. Cleveland, Ohio: CRC Press, 1973. McGregor, Gregor I. Environmental Law and Enforcement. Boca Raton, Fla.: Lewis, 1994. Russell, Irma S. “Federal Statutes and Regulations Governing the Use of Pesticides and an Annotation of Federal Pesticide Regulations.” In A Guide to Museum Pest Control, edited by John R. Schrock and Lynda A. Zycherman. Washington, D.C.: Association of Systematics Collections and Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 1988. Ware, George W. Pesticides: An Auto-tutorial Approach. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1975. See also: Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976).

Marine Mammal Protection Act Date: October 21, 1972 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 1027 Public law: 92-522 U.S. Code: 16 § 1361-1421h Categories: Animals; Environment and Conservation; Natural Re-

sources

This legislation provided safe environments for marine mammals. The United States Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) prohibits ownership or importation of any marine mammal or any of their products. However, it does allow a limited catch by Eskimos, American Indians, and Aleuts for purposes of material survival or cultural heritage. An amendment was added in 1994 to restructure 1189

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jurisdiction and enforcement of laws and to establish guidelines for transportation of marine mammals. Controversies exist among fishing interests, environmentalists, and cultural societies as to the interpretation and effects of the MMPA. When the MMPA became law in 1972, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which is part of the Department of the Interior, became responsible for manatees, dugongs, polar bears, walruses, and sea otters. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a division of the Department of Commerce, was assigned management of whales, dolphins, sea lions, fur seals, elephant seals, monk seals, true northern seals, and southern fur seals. Amendments The 1994 amendment stipulated stronger fishing regulations, especially the use of improved equipment to reduce the number of accidental killings of marine mammals and to exclude the by-catch of turtles, nontarget fish, and undersized fish of the targeted species. Before the amendment, jurisdiction over care and transport of captive marine mammals was jointly shared by the NMFS and the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). The amendment eliminated the NMFS’s part of the administration and enforcement, which has caused concern in the environmental community because the Department of Agriculture officials do not have much experience working with marine mammals. The Humane Society of the United States appealed for reinstatement of the NMFS as a joint authority, but APHIS was delegated as sole authority. Zoos and aquariums supported APHIS control, since that agency made it easier for marine mammals to be captured and transported. Public facilities that already own a marine mammal need only to send a notice to APHIS after acquiring additional mammals, whereas previously it was necessary to obtain a permit. Other changes brought about by the amendment ease regulations on scientists and researchers, who no longer need permits unless there is the potential of harm to a marine mammal. Ecologists also approve of the amendment because it places emphasis on maintaining healthy ecosystems, particularly in the northwestern and northeastern coasts of the United States where the seal and sea lion populations are declining at an alarming rate. 1190

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Impact on Sea Life Many of the human activities that threatened marine mammals in the past are now violations of the MMPA. Sea otters were overhunted for their skins, but government protection has allowed their populations to recover around Prince William Sound and off the California coast. Whales are completely protected by the MMPA and the International Whaling Commission (IWC). However, the natural renewable resources on which the whales feed may be endangered since some countries are harvesting large quantities of krill, which is the mainstay of many whales’ diets and is an important link in the marine food chain. As human populations increase worldwide and become more industrialized, demands on the oceans as a food source and a place to dump chemicals also increase. Noise disturbances come from sonic testing and boat traffic. Continued publicity and pressure from environmental advocates such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have led wildlife managers, fishers, animal rights supporters, and scientists to work together under the terms of the 1994 MMPA amendment. Dale F. Burnside with Aubyn C. Burnside Sources for Further Study Reinke, Danny C., and Lucinda Low Swartz, eds. Endangered Species: Legal Requirements and Policy Guidance. Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Press, 2001. Rodgers, William H. Environmental Law. 2d ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1994. Twiss, John R., Jr., and Randall R. Reeves, eds. Conservation and Management of Marine Mammals. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999. See also: Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924); Animal Welfare Act (1966); Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Coastal Zone Management Act (1972); Endangered Species Act (1973); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979); Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980); Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987). 1191

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Coastal Zone Management Act Date: October 27, 1972 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 1280 Public law: 89-454 U.S. Code: 16 § 1451 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Land Management

This act, along with the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (1968), involved the federal government in environmental protection that had previously been considered an issue of local land use. In response to the increasing environmental awareness of the 1960’s, Congress began to consider land-use issues that earlier would have been local decisions. By the close of the twentieth century, more than 75 percent of the U.S. population lived within one hour’s drive of a coast. Over time, development had destroyed various aspects of the coastal environment through toxic contamination and an intrusion of saltwater into bodies of fresh water. In 1972, Congress passed the Coastal Zone Management Act to protect the nation’s valuable but threatened coastal areas. Congress cited several reasons for its decision to implement federal management, protection, and development of the coastal zones, including that the continued survival of the coastal areas was in the national interest; that the areas’ rich resources would be valuable to future generations for natural, recreational, aesthetic, commercial, and industrial purposes; and that population growth and economic expansion had caused the disappearance of natural habitats for fish, wildlife, and plants, as well as permanent and adverse ecological changes. Coastal zone ecosystems are fragile and extremely vulnerable to human activities, and poorly planned developments and land-use regulations then in place had been inadequate to protect the coastal ecological systems from competing demands. Regions of Jurisdiction and Provisions The act covered the coasts along the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Is1192

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lands, Guam, and American Samoa; the three-mile territorial waters also fall under the jurisdiction of the act, as well as parts of the Continental Shelf, which in some areas extends more than two hundred miles into the ocean. Coastal zones were broadly defined to include shoreland in areas where the land may have a direct impact on the coastal waters; the individual states were authorized to determine how much area to include in this category. In addition, the act allowed estuarine sanctuaries to be developed for research in areas where the rivers flow into the ocean. The act established restrictive zoning—extremely intensive land uses, such as industrial uses, were, for example, generally prohibited—and it allocated federal grants to establish and administer programs in the individual states. States were made responsible for developing plans for the effective use of their coastal land. Congress mandated that the states were to implement conservation laws with unified policies and defined standards and methods, and that they were to work together with federal, local, and private interests in the protection of coastal lands and water. Grants for Coastal Management Federal grants to states for establishing coastal management programs had a three-year limit; annual grant renewal required that the state identify the boundaries of the coastal zone in question; define the land and water uses permitted in the zone; develop an inventory and zone the critical areas; control the land and water use through relevant laws; indicate land uses in order of priority; and describe the interrelationships among local, regional, and state agencies responsible for the coastal zone. A second federal grant to cover operating costs was to become available once a state’s coastal management program was approved by the secretary of commerce. Both grants had certain rules about when and how much money could be spent in the state programs. States were required to hold public hearings, to be announced thirty days in advance; at the time of the announcement, all information on the coastal zone management program had to be made available to the public. The secretary of commerce was made responsible for reviewing the individual state programs, and he was empowered to terminate the grant of a noncompliant state. 1193

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Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act The Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act was passed by Congress in the same year as the Coastal Zone Management Act in response to the routine and continuous dumping of sewage sludge and industrial waste in offshore waters near major U.S. cities. To combat dumping and control pollution in waters within the United States, Congress had in 1899 enacted the Rivers and Harbors Act, and in 1948 the Water Pollution Control Act. These laws did not, however, directly address the problems resulting from dumping into the oceans, which was harmful to both human health and the marine ecosystems. The Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act specifically protected the ocean and some of the coastline areas, and it limited ocean dumping of any materials transported from the United States or transported in a U.S. ship or plane. The act defined “ocean” as the area beyond the three-mile territorial water surrounding the United States, Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal, and the U.S. Pacific Islands held in trust. Proscribed material included oil taken on by a ship or plane for the sole purpose of dumping and included, but was not limited to, garbage, sewage, industrial waste, military ammunition (including biological and chemical warfare agents), discarded equipment, chemicals, and excavation debris. Oil and sewage that ships or planes normally carry were excluded, as were radioactive materials regulated by the Atomic Energy Act and fish wastes resulting from commercial fishing. The act required that anyone transporting materials for the purpose of dumping them in the ocean apply to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the Corps of Engineers for a permit; the two agencies were authorized to issue permits only for materials that do not harm the environment and only after holding public hearings on the application. The act made provisions for different categories of permits, and for different times and places for allowing dumping. The agencies were given a list of criteria to observe, including consideration of the possible effects on human health, marine life, and various ecosystems. If the secretary of the Corps of Engineers should disagree with the EPA administrator on the effects of proposed dumping, the EPA decision would go into effect. Individual permits were required to include precise information as to the nature and amount of the material to be dumped, 1194

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and the dumping site. Violation of any of the specified guidelines carried stiff criminal and civil fines and penalties, including prison sentences. The Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act revoked all previous permits, unless the permit was under the 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act. The act also made provisions for research of the short- and long-term effects of ocean dumping, pollution, overfishing, and changes to the ocean’s ecosystems. In the last section of the act, the secretary of commerce was empowered to preserve parts of the marine environment as sanctuaries so as to conserve or restore them for their recreational, ecological, or aesthetic values. Impact and Court Decisions The Coastal Zone Management Act had an enormous impact in protecting U.S. coastlines. Although participation in the state programs was entirely voluntary, all states to which the act applied except Illinois developed coastal zone management plans and restrictions on coastal development. In some cases the federal legislation prompted state legislation with similar environmental protection. The California Coastal Act of 1972, for example, established a coastal commission with the authority to make land-use decisions in coastal areas even if the local government opposed the decisions. The funds provided by the Marine Protection, Sanctuaries, and Research Act for the establishment of sanctuaries led to the designation of twelve new sanctuaries, with other areas expected to be considered for sanctuary status at a later time. The act also established centers for marine conservation; every year, center volunteers spent one day clearing tons of debris from the coastlines. The Coastal Zone Management Act withstood a number of court challenges in the first dozen years. In the late 1980’s, however, several legal decisions placed limits on the act’s ability to restrict development. In the 1987 case Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a building permit could not be denied simply because the landowner refused to grant public access across his beach; by requiring that the landowner be paid for the access easement, the Court laid the foundation for future challenges. In the 1993 case Lucas v. the South Carolina Coastal Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that a beachfront landowner must be paid when a new regulation is passed that pro1195

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hibits the landowner from building. Although both of these cases limited the extent of protection provided by the act, it was expected that over time the federal legislation would save millions of acres of vulnerable marine life and shoreline lands. Elise M. Bright Sources for Further Study Bureau of National Affairs. U.S. Environmental Laws. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1988. Fulton, William. Guide to California Planning. Point Arena, Calif.: Solano Press Books, 1991. Gray, Oscar. Cases and Materials on Environmental Law. 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1973. Mandelker, Daniel R., and Roger A. Cunningham. Planning and Control of Land Development: Cases and Materials. Charlottesville, Va.: Michie, 1990. Tabb, William Murray, and Linda A. Malone. Environmental Law— Cases and Materials. Charlottesville, Va.: Michie, 1992. Weinberg, Philip. Environmental Law: Cases and Materials. Port Washington, N.Y.: Associated Faculty Press, 1985. See also: Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924); Water Pollution Control Act (1948); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956); Seabed Treaty (1972); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972); Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978); Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990).

Consumer Product Safety Act Date: October 27, 1972 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 1207 Public law: 92-573 U.S. Code: 15 § 2051 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Health and Welfare 1196

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The Consumer Product Safety Act established an independent agency of the federal government to investigate the causes of product-related injuries and to develop regulations to control their occurrence. The Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972 (CPSA) established the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as an independent agency of the federal government. The CPSC was given authority to identify unsafe products, establish standards for labeling and product safety, recall defective products, and ban products that posed unreasonable risks to consumers. In order to ensure compliance with its directives, the CPSC was given authority to impose civil and criminal penalties, including fines and jail sentences. Prior Standards, Accidents Prior to the enactment of the CPSA, attempts to reduce hazards associated with consumer products were fragmented and produced uneven results. Federal, state, and local laws addressed safety issues in a limited, piecemeal manner. Industry self-regulation was occasionally attempted by trade associations, testing laboratories, or other standards-making groups. Competitive economic forces often delayed or weakened the establishment of standards, and the inability of the industry legally to enforce standards once they were set often made these attempts little more than window dressing. In 1967, members of Congress decided that there had to be a consistent approach to the problems of injuries resulting from the use of consumer products. The House of Representatives and the Senate enacted Public Law 90-146 in June, 1967, creating the National Commission on Public Safety (NCPS). The commission was given the responsibility of identifying products presenting unreasonable hazards to consumers, examining existing means of protecting consumers from these hazards, and recommending appropriate legislative action. In June, 1970, the commission reported the magnitude of the problem: 20 million people were injured each year because of incidents related to consumer products; 110,000 people were permanently disabled from such accidents; and 30,000 deaths resulted each year. The cost to the country was estimated to be more than $5.5 billion a year. The commission suggested that consumers were in more dangerous environments in their own homes than when driving on the highway. 1197

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The commission outlined sixteen categories of products as providing unreasonably hazardous risks to the consumer. Architectural glass used for sliding doors in homes caused approximately 150,000 injuries a year; the commission recommended that safetyglazed materials be required for this use. Hot-water vaporizers that were capable of heating water to 180 degrees repeatedly caused second- and third-degree burns to young children. High-rise bicycles with “banana” seats, high handlebars, and small front wheels encouraged stunt riding and frequently resulted in injuries. Furniture polish with 95 percent petroleum distillates were packaged in screw-cap bottles, colored to resemble soft drinks, and attractively scented; many children who drank these suffered fatal chemical pneumonia. Power rotary lawn mowers sliced through fingers and toes and sent objects hurtling toward bystanders. Other products that the commission identified as posing unreasonable potential hazards to consumers included color television sets, fireworks, floor furnaces, glass bottles, household chemicals, infant furniture, ladders, power tools, protective headgear (especially football helmets), unvented gas heaters, and wringer washing machines. Whose Responsibility? The commission maintained that it was not entirely the responsibility of consumers to protect themselves, because they could reasonably be expected neither to understand all the existing hazards nor to know how to deal effectively with the hazards. Although consumers were becoming increasingly successful at receiving compensation for injuries through common law, manufacturers in general had not responded by taking preventive measures. The commission suggested that a national program was needed to prevent further accidents and injuries. At hearings before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce on June 24, 1970, the National Commission on Public Safety recommended that an independent agency, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, be formed. Hearings were held between May of 1971 and February of 1972. These hearings allowed individuals representing both businesses and organizations concerned with health and safety issues to testify. Competing legislation included proposals to give the responsibility for oversight to the existing secretary of health, education, and welfare rather than to an independent agency. One pro1198

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posal would have permitted the adoption of an existing private standard as a federal safety standard; this proposal, however, was criticized on the grounds that it might result in the acceptance of private standards that were inadequate or anticompetitive. Witnesses at the hearings testified on the problems of hazardous household products, the function and effectiveness of state and local laws, and the role of advertising and the need for public education and debated whether the American economy would reward or punish producers of safe consumer products, which were likely to carry higher prices. Manufacturers, legislators, college professors, attorneys, publishers, representatives of trade and professional associations, engineers, and physicians provided information and opinions on the proposed legislation. Passage and Provisions The process brought about intense lobbying and heated debates. Companies saw the CPSC as a potential source of harassment, with government decisions affecting their industries. Sponsors of the legislation complained that regular government agencies listened too closely to the very industries that they were directed to regulate and ignored the voice of the consumer. Long filibustering sessions and angry accusations nearly killed the legislation. Observers claimed that key sponsors could have brought the issue to a vote sooner but were not present when votes on stopping the filibustering were taken. The administration of President Richard M. Nixon publicly supported the legislation, but key aides supported the filibustering. The Grocery Manufacturers of America, a business lobby, distributed information kits on how to fight the bill in Congress, calling the legislation a threat to free enterprise. Opponents warned of the authority the agency could have, claiming that it had the potential to turn against the consumer, side with big business, and increase the costs of products to consumers. As it was passed in 1972, the Consumer Product Safety Act charged the CPSC with four main tasks: to protect the public from unreasonable risks of injury associated with the use of consumer products; to be of assistance to consumers in evaluating and comparing the safety of consumer products; to develop uniform safety standards for consumer products; and to encourage research and investigation into the causes and prevention of product-related deaths, illnesses, and injuries. “Consumer products” were defined 1199

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both as things sold to customers as well as things distributed for the use of customers (such as component parts). Specifically excluded were tobacco and tobacco products, motor vehicles and equipment, pesticides, firearms and ammunition, aircraft, boats and equipment, drugs, cosmetics, and foods, as these fell under the jurisdiction of other existing agencies. Responsibility for a product was extended to include producers, importers, and, basically, anyone who handled the product in the stream of commerce. Implementation and Impact The CPSC established a National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) in order to collect and investigate information on injuries and deaths related to consumer products. NEISS was a computer-based system tied into more than one hundred hospital emergency rooms that allowed the commission to compute a product “hazard index.” Products with the highest hazard indices— such as cleaning agents, swings and slides, liquid fuels, snowmobiles, and all-terrain vehicles—were targeted for further studies and possible regulation. The CPSC was authorized to perform in-depth studies on accidents and to investigate the effects and costs of these injuries to individuals and the country as a whole. If the CPSC believes there to be significant cause, it is empowered to investigate the industry and product in question with the goal of encouraging voluntary industry safety standards or initiate mandatory safety standards of its own. If CPSC investigators believe that safety standards are required, they research the product, develop test methods if necessary, and propose an appropriate safety standard. Proposals for appropriate standards are also solicited from the affected industry. Interested organizations, individuals, and industry representatives testify during open hearings on the proposed standards. After the hearings, the standards may be modified or enacted as proposed. Products that fail to meet the standards within a set period of time (from one to six months) may be pulled from store shelves, and manufacturers may face fines as well as jail sentences. If adequate safety standards cannot be designed, court action may be taken to have the products banned. So that unreasonable demands are not placed on a small company, fines for violations may be limited, or establishments of particular sizes may be given extensions of time in which to comply with regulations. 1200

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The establishment of specific standards is a process that is frequently viewed with concern by the manufacturers involved. When changes in manufacturing, product design, or labeling are suggested, manufacturers’ associations respond with proposals, which include estimates of the additional costs necessary to implement the changes. Cost/benefit criteria are considered to determine if the benefits of a proposed action can be justified by the attendant costs. This not an easy issue to revolve. For example, the changes that were contemplated in the design of power lawn mowers included locating pull cords away from chokes and throttles, installing footguards, redesigning exhaust systems, and installing automatic cutoffs. The enacted changes increased the price of the power lawn mower to the consumer by an average of twenty-two dollars. Manufacturers, legislators, and administrative figures all were aware of the potential power of CPSC. The establishment and enforcement of standards had the potential to raise the costs of manufacturing and, consequently, increase prices to consumers. Regulations had the potential to limit the types and quality of consumer products on the market. Passing the Consumer Product Safety Act did not bring an end to the debate. The CPSC’s first action was to establish flammability standards for mattresses. As soon as the new regulations were established, the CPSC was promptly taken to court both by manufacturers’ associations and by consumer groups unhappy with the standards. Manufacturers claimed that they were being unfairly asked to absorb the costs of switching materials and conducting new testing procedures; the problem, the manufacturers alleged, was really caused by careless cigarette smokers. Consumer groups claimed that the standards were not strict enough, since small manufacturers were given additional time during which they could sell mattresses that did not meet the flammability standards if such mattresses were prominently so labeled. Consumer groups wanted only safe mattresses on the market, without a time delay. In spite of the potential for unlimited power claimed by opponents, the CPSC—a watchdog agency—soon became the watched. Critics of regulatory agencies argue that solutions to safety problems cost money and that these costs will be passed along to consumers. Direct costs, such as those involved in retooling, testing, labeling, and changes in personnel and material, are relatively easy 1201

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to determine. Trade associations and manufacturers argue that government standards actually limit consumers’ freedom of choice, increase costs, put people out of work, and lead to excessive governmental control. Many associations advocate self-regulation in order to preempt government involvement. Consumer-protection advocates contend that if self-regulation could solve the problem, there would not be any problem. They also argue that costs are inevitable when safety is concerned. Indirect costs, including hospital and doctors’ fees, time lost from work, and pain and suffering from injuries, must be paid, whether by injured consumers, insurance companies, or manufacturers. Regardless of who pays directly, the ultimate cost is passed on, whether to the consumer or to the public as a whole. Sharon C. Wagner Sources for Further Study Evans, Joel R., ed. Consumerism in the United States An Inter-Industry Analysis. New York: Praeger, 1980. Heffron, Howard A. Federal Consumer Safety Legislation: A Study of the Scope and Adequacy of the Automobile Safety, Flammable Fabrics, Toys, and Hazardous Substances Programs. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970. Katz, Robert N., ed. Protecting the Consumer Interests. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1976. Mayer, Robert N. The Consumer Movement Guardians of the Marketplace. Boston: Twayne, 1989. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Regulatory Responsibilities of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Study Guide. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976. See also: Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906); Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938); Food Additives Amendment (1958); Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966); Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969); Child product safety laws (1970’s); Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975).

1202

Noise Control Act

Noise Control Act Date: October 27, 1972 U.S. Statutes at Large: 86 Stat. 1234 Public law: 92-574 U.S. Code: 42 § 4901-4918, 49 § 44715 Categories: Environment and Conservation

The first major piece of federal legislation in the area of noise control, this act directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify major noise sources and to define permissible levels. The Noise Control Act sets noise-emission standards for commercial products, as well as aircraft, railroads, and motor vehicles. It also specifies that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is empowered to coordinate all federal programs regarding noise research and noise control, as well as to act as a federal clearinghouse for noise regulations. The EPA was also given the authority to require environmental noise impact studies for new highways and industrial manufacturing plants. If deemed that the resulting environmental noise would be too great, project approval could be denied until the potential problem was addressed satisfactorily. Need for the Law Although the detrimental effects of noise had been discussed for many years, the only measures passed by Congress prior to the Noise Control Act of 1972 were the Aircraft Noise Abatement Act of 1968 and a section of the Clean Air Act of 1970. This section required the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a study of noise, hold public hearings, and report its results and recommendations to Congress. The EPA report was duly submitted on January 26, 1972. The gist of this report was that noise had a significant negative impact on U.S. citizens, causing both physiological and psychological disturbances such as hearing impairment, interference with sleep, and stress reactions. Research also suggested that repeated exposure to high intensity noise would cause permanent hearing loss, while less intense noises could produce irritation and annoyance. The report concluded that noise adversely affected approximately 1203

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eighty million U.S. citizens (40 percent of the population), and was costing $4 billion annually as a result of noise-induced accidents, absenteeism, inefficiency, and compensation claims for hearing loss. Proposal and Passage The Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee reported out H.R. 11021, the Noise Control Act, drafted by Florida congressman Paul G. Rogers, on February 19, 1972. This legislation was based on the EPA report and upon hearings held by Rogers’s Subcommittee on Public Health and Environment during the previous summer. The testimony received indicated that most major sources of noise pollution affecting the population of the U.S. could be reduced using the available technology. The major sources of noise to be addressed by the bill were transportation, machinery, appliances, and other commercial products. Additionally, H.R. 11021 would coordinate federal research and activities, establish federal noiseemission standards for commercial products, and provide the noise characteristics of these products to the public. H.R. 11021 was passed by the House on February 29 after several amendments attempting to regulate aircraft noise and sonic booms were rejected. On April 12 and 13, the Senate Public Works Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution held hearings on a Senate noise-control bill (S. 3342) cosponsored by Senators John V. Tunney and Edmund S. Muskie. The three important provisions of this bill were regulation of aircraft noise emissions by the EPA, rather than the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); development of criteria that indicate levels of noise that adversely affect public health and welfare; and a provision that federal regulation for new-product noise-emission standards not prohibit cities or states from enacting more stringent standards, if deemed necessary. On September 19, the full Public Works Committee reported out a revised bill S. 3342, which was a combination of the original S. 3342 and the House-passed bill H.R. 11021. Although endorsed by eight environmental organizations, the modified bill left the final setting of aircraft noise standards with the FAA, but the EPA could provide input. The Senate passed S. 3342 on October 13, after two days of debate and after adopting four amendments. They then passed H.R. 11021, which was modified by the insertion of the lan1204

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guage of S. 3342. The House agreed to the Senate amendments on October 18. The Noise Control Act of 1972 became the first major piece of legislation aimed specifically at reducing most forms of environmental noise detrimental to humans. Provisions and Enforcement The Noise Control Act of 1972 was designed to help alleviate four major sources of noise: transportation, construction, engines and motors, and electrical and electronic equipment. This was to be accomplished by requiring manufacturers to produce quieter products by legislating maximum allowable noise levels. Also, in addition to requiring environmental impact studies, the EPA was empowered to conduct and finance research, to develop and publish information on hazardous noise levels, to disseminate public information on noise control, to identify major noise sources, and to define permissible noise levels for each source. As a direct result of the act, the EPA prepared model noise ordinances which specified a sound level that was not to be exceeded. These sound levels depended upon the zoned use of the area (residential, commercial, or industrial), and the time of day. The actual values depended on the particular community and usually take into account typical background noise levels. Even so, in some regions, the levels were initially set so low that local crickets were in violation. The EPA is also directed to coordinate all federal noise research, to control programs, and to provide technical assistance to state and local governments. Among the major sources of noise that have been targeted by the EPA are portable air compressors, medium and heavy trucks, motorcycles, buses, garbage trucks, jackhammers, railroad cars, snowmobiles, and lawnmowers. The EPA strategy for abating noise from these sources has included writing noise-emission standards that encourage proper maintenance or encourage the modification of existing devices, and the setting of more stringent requirements for new equipment so that noise levels will be reduced as the older models are replaced. Although the EPA has the primary responsibility for most federal efforts to control noise, other agencies are now concerned with special areas of noise control. The FAA sets criteria and standards for aircraft noise, with the EPA providing technical information and pertinent advice. Most of the research and testing are 1205

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performed for the FAA by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Air Force. The Federal Highway Administration has legislated noise-control standards for motor vehicles, and the Bureau of Motor Vehicle Safety shares the responsibility for enforcement with state and local agencies. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sets and enforces regulations to protect workers’ hearing for all companies engaged in interstate commerce. OSHA standards set the limits of permissible noise exposure on a sliding scale so that the maximum allowable time of exposure is reduced as the sound intensity level increases. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has enacted sound-insulation standards for the walls and floors of multifamily residences that qualify for HUD mortgage insurance. HUD also sets guidelines for maximum permissible noise levels at housing construction sites. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has mandated that workers in underground mines be provided with hearing protection devices. These rules are enforced by the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration. The National Bureau of Standards continues to be actively engaged in a program of research and testing to help control noise in factories and commercial work areas, as well as in homes and offices. Their basic recommendations for quieting are available in a published handbook. While the Noise Control Act of 1972 leaves the primary responsibility for controlling noise with state and local governments, noise guidelines and regulations for interstate road transportation fall under the jurisdiction of the EPA. The EPA also requires that protective measures such as walls or buffer zones be used wherever interstate highway noise would be above seventy decibels on adjoining residential property more than 10 percent of the time. Even stricter standards apply where highways pass schools, hospitals, and libraries. Impact Many cities have now adopted noise regulations, and there is a nationwide trend to include noise standards in building codes. Although noise regulation is important, the wise planning of land use is perhaps more basic. By zoning residential areas to be well separated from industrial areas, airports, railroad rights-of-ways 1206

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and highways, expensive noise-protecting walls are rendered unnecessary. Also, commercial zones can be utilized as buffer zones between residential regions and industrial zones or airports. Since many consumers prefer to buy quieter products, and because it is very difficult to compare the noise output of different brands, the EPA has proposed requiring noise labels on all appliances. The acoustic basis for this labeling procedure already exists. Known as the Product Noise Rating (PNR), it is expected to allow the careful consumer to accurately compare products without the misleading hype that usually accompanies appliance advertising. The Noise Control Act has done much to ensure auditory comfort and to protect the hearing of the general population as well as to guard against auditory hazards in the workplace. As the twentyfirst century begins to unfold, and as new methods of transportation and communication, heavy machinery, and domestic laborsaving devices make their debut, the Noise Control Act will continue to be employed to safeguard the auditory environment. George R. Plitnik Sources for Further Study Baron, R. A. The Tyranny of Noise. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970. Berendt, R. D., E. L. R. Corliss, and M. S. Oljavo. Quieting: A Practical Guide to Noise Control. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976. Kryter, K. D. The Effects of Noise on Man. 2d ed. New York: Academic Press, 1985. Miller, R. K. Handbook of Industrial Noise Management. Atlanta: Fairmont Press, 1976. Still, H. In Quest of Quiet: Meeting the Menace of Noise Pollution. Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1970. Strong, W. J., and G. R. Plitnik. Music, Speech, and Audio. Provo, Utah: Soundprint, 1992. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Noise Abatement and Control. Public Hearings on Noise Abatement and Control. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971. See also: Aircraft Noise Abatement Act (1968).

1207

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

War Powers Resolution Date: November 7, 1973 U.S. Statutes at Large: 87 Stat. 555 Public law: 93-148 U.S. Code: 50 § 1541 Categories: Military and National Security

This congressional joint resolution placed certain restrictions and reporting requirements on the president’s deployment of military forces during hostilities. Article I, section 8, of the Constitutions stipulates, “The Congress shall have Power . . . to declare War. . . .” Article II, section 2, designates the president as “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” As the United States’ commander in chief, the president has played a major role in the declaration as well as the conduct of war. War Powers: Congress or the President? The War Powers Resolution was an effort by Congress to regain lost influence in U.S. military policy. Specifically, the act, passed on November 7, 1973, over a veto by President Richard M. Nixon, established certain requirements for the president to meet and follow when acting to deploy military forces in a hostile environment. No president has ever accepted the act as a legitimate constraint on the presidential war powers. Still, presidents in most circumstances have followed the form, if not the spirit, of the act’s reporting requirements. Despite protracted political and academic debates as to the law’s constitutionality, the Supreme Court has never ruled directly on that issue. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution The War Powers Act can be viewed as a congressional reversal of its Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1964. That resolution, which marked the full commitment of the U.S. military to aiding South Vietnam, came in direct response to a plea by President Lyndon B. Johnson after an attack on U.S. ships by North Vietnamese planes. Through 1208

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the resolution, Congress expressed that it “approves and supports the determination of the president, as commander in chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was viewed as the functional equivalent of transferring to the president Congress’s constitutional power to declare war. Although the United States never formally declared war against North Vietnam, the ensuing decade saw an enormous, escalating commitment of U.S. troops, aircraft, and other military material to fighting the North Vietnamese. The mounting numbers of U.S. casualties and the dwindling hope of military or political success made the Vietnam War a source of heated political battles in the United States, as well as popular demonstrations, civil unrest, and other attacks on the political establishment. As public sentiment increasingly turned against the war in the late 1960’s, members of Congress felt more and more frustrated by their relative powerlessness to call a halt to a war Congress never formally declared. Out of this growing frustration emerged the 1973 War Powers Act. Coming near the beginning and end of major U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and the War Powers Act serve as bookmarks to the era of Congress’s near-delegation of its war powers. Provisions of the 1973 Act The War Powers Act includes four major provisions limiting the president’s power to deploy forces into hostilities: First, the president shall consult with Congress “in every possible instance” prior to introducing forces into actual or imminent hostile situations; second, the president must report to the Congress in writing within forty-eight hours after introducing forces in such situations; third, the president must withdraw those forces within sixty days of that report, unless the president judges that the troops’ safety requires a thirty-day extension or Congress specifically authorizes their continued deployment; and fourth, Congress may, with a concurrent resolution, direct the president to withdraw those forces earlier than the sixty to ninety days provided in the third provision. President Nixon vetoed the act, deeming it an unconstitutional intrusion in the president’s role as commander in chief. However, Congress overrode the president’s veto, and the act became law. 1209

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Constitutional Challenges Congress and the president have repeatedly clashed over the constitutionality and interpretation of the act since its passage. Members of Congress in particular have charged that presidents have failed to abide by the various provisions, most particularly the “consultation” provision. Although presidential notification of Congress only hours before an attack might be difficult to define as “consultation,” the law gives little direction as to the amount of advance notice that is required to make “consultation” meaningful. In addition, the “in every possible instance” clause seems to allow for circumstances when consultation is not possible. The forty-eight-hour reporting requirement is less vague but also imposes little congressional control over presidential war powers. Even when notifying Congress of military deployments into hostile situations, presidents have been careful not to directly link the notification to the War Powers Act in order to avoid a tacit endorsement of the alleged constitutionality of the law. The fourth provision of the act, permitting Congress to force the president to withdraw military forces, has drawn the most significant constitutional objections. Congressional action on this provision is claimed to amount to a legislative veto. Court Cases Elements of the War Powers Act have been examined by federal courts, including, for example, a district court’s consideration of the act’s definition of “hostilities” and other matters. In that case, Crockett v. Reagan (1982), the court found the “hostilities” question to be a matter for congressional, and not judicial, investigation. It also avoided a direct judgment of the sixty-day withdrawal requirement. Courts all the way up to the Supreme Court have been reluctant to address the various aspects of the act that many consider to be political questions. However, the Court’s decisions on other cases have been subsequently considered by scholars in the context of the act. For example, in the Prize Cases of 1863, the Court declared that determining whether national security considerations justify a president’s military response is a matter “to be decided by him.” More recently, the Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha decision of 1983, which concerns legislative vetoes, has been con1210

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sidered by some to signal the unconstitutionality of the War Powers Act’s provision permitting Congress to demand the withdrawal of troops. Steve D. Boilard Sources for Further Study Fisher, Louis. Constitutional Conflicts Between Congress and the President. 4th ed. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. _______. The Politics of Shared Power: Congress and the Executive. 4th ed. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1998. Hall, David Locke. “The War Powers Resolution.” In The Reagan Wars: A Constitutional Perspective on War Powers and the Presidency. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991. U.S. Congress. The War Powers Resolution: Relevant Documents, Reports, Correspondence. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994. See also: Formosa Resolution (1955); Tonkin Gulf Resolution

(1964).

Menominee Restoration Act Date: December 22, 1973 U.S. Statutes at Large: 87 Stat. 770 Public law: 93-197 U.S. Code: 25 § 903 Categories: Native Americans

The federal policy of termination, which sought to dissolve the government’s special legal relationship with tribes, was effectively destroyed when the Menominee tribe was restored to full federal status. In June, 1954, the United States terminated its relationship with the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin, in part because the tribe was so successful in managing its resources. The Menominee owned 1211

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their own sawmill and operated a hospital and utility company on their reservation. The government decided the Menominee could be self-sufficient. Termination caused an abrupt change of fortune for the tribe. The reservation became Menominee County. Property taxes were high, unemployment rose, and the hospital and utility companies closed. Most devastating, while the tribal lands, assets, and sawmill were formed into a corporation composed of all former tribal members, non-Indian shareholders, who managed the shares of minors and incompetents, dominated the corporation. The corporation began to sell valuable Menominee lakefront property and mismanaged the sawmill operation, and soon Menominee County became the poorest county in Wisconsin. In 1969, Menominee activists organized DRUMS, Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Shareholders, to prevent further land sales and to seek restoration of federal recognition. Both the State of Wisconsin and Congress supported restoration. In 1973, Congress passed Public Law 93-197, which repealed termination, granted federal status to the Menominee, and returned their lands to full trust status. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Davis, Thomas. Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. Ourada, Patricia K. The Menominee Indians: A History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979. Peroff, Nicholas C. Menominee Drums: Tribal Termination and Restoration, 1954-1974. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. Wilkinson, Charles F. The Menominee Restoration Act. 93rd Congress, 1st session. Boulder, Colo.: Native American Rights Fund, 1973. See also: Termination Resolution (1953); Public Law 280 (1953); Indian Civil Rights Act (1968).

1212

Comprehensive Employment Training Act

Comprehensive Employment Training Act Date: December 28, 1973 U.S. Statutes at Large: 87 Stat. 879 Public law: 93-203 Categories: Education; Labor and Employment

This legislation provided opportunities for economically disadvantaged people who were unemployed or underemployed to secure job training and employment opportunities. In response to the growing concern with civil rights and equal opportunity in the United States in the early 1970’s, Congress passed the CETA legislation. Its goal was to increase the income of the entire spectrum of disadvantaged, unemployed, and underemployed: youth, older workers, minority groups, and others, including those receiving public assistance. Under CETA, the secretary of labor made block grants to state and local governments, which in turn identified employment needs in their areas and operated the necessary training centers. The act also authorized national programs for special groups such as American Indians and established the Job Corps for disadvantaged youth. Funds were used for jobrelated skills as well as for such supportive services as medical and child care. Although these support services should have given women equal access to training, administration of the act depended largely on the quality of state and local participation. Wide variances in services occurred between urban areas and small towns in both northern and southern regions of the country. The act was amended numerous times, completely revised in 1978, and repealed on October 13, 1982, when its funding ran out and its programs incorporated into statutes such as Title I that have similar objectives. Louise M. Stone Source for Further Study Franklin, Paul L. Comprehensive Employment Training Act. New York: Henry Holt, 1979. 1213

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Employment Act (1946); Equal Pay Act (1963); Eco-

nomic Opportunity Act (1964); Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967); Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972).

Endangered Species Act Date: December 28, 1973 U.S. Statutes at Large: 87 Stat. 884 Public law: 93-205 U.S. Code: 16 § 1531 Categories: Animals; Environment and Conservation; Natural Re-

sources

This act provided for conservation of threatened and endangered species of animals and plants by outlining a process for the listing of protected species, identifying appropriate regulations surrounding such species, and providing state subsidies and funding for habitat acquisition. Congress first demonstrated concern for the conservation of species in the Lacey Act of 1900, which prohibited the transportation in interstate commerce of any fish or wildlife taken in violation of national, state, or foreign laws. Following the extinction of passenger pigeons, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 authorized the secretary of the interior to adopt regulations for the protection of migratory birds. In the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, Congress declared that the preservation of species was a national policy. The statute authorized the secretary to identify native fish and wildlife threatened with extinction and to purchase land for the protection and restoration of such species. The Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969 further empowered the secretary to list species threatened with “worldwide extinction” and prohibited the importation of any listed species into the United States. The only species eligible for the list were those threatened with 1214

Endangered Species Act

complete extinction. Although the 1966 and 1969 statutes did not include any penalties for destroying species on the list, at the time the legislation was the most comprehensive of its kind enacted by any nation. In legislative hearings of 1973, it was reported that species were being lost at the rate of about one per year and that the pace of disappearance seemed to be accelerating, with potential damage to the total ecosystem. The majority of Congress concluded that it was necessary to stop a further decline in biodiversity, and President Richard Nixon signed the ESA into law on December 28, 1973. Endangered vs. Threatened The Endangered Species Act (ESA) provides that any species of wild animals or plants may receive federal protection whenever the species has been listed as “endangered” or “threatened.” The statute defines “endangered” to mean that the species is currently in danger of becoming extinct within a significant geographical region. The term “threatened” means that the species probably will become endangered within the foreseeable future. The definition of a “species” includes any subspecies or any distinct population that interbreeds within a specific region. Species found only in other parts of the world are eligible for inclusion on the U.S. list. The only creatures not eligible for inclusion are those insects that are determined to pose an extreme risk to human welfare. The act makes it a federal offense to take, buy, sell, or transport any portion of a threatened or endangered species. Listed animals, however, may be taken in defense of human life, and Alaskan natives are allowed to use listed animals for subsistence purposes. Additional exemptions may be granted for special cases involving economic hardship, scientific research, or projects aimed at the propagation of a species. Individuals may be fined thousands of dollars for each violation of the law committed knowingly and lower amounts for a violation committed unknowingly. Harsher criminal penalties are available in extreme cases. Enforcement The ESA assigned most enforcement and regulatory powers to the heads of two executive departments. The secretary of commerce, through the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), has responsibility over threatened and endangered marine species. The 1215

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secretary of the interior exercises formal responsibility for the protection of other species, but the secretary delegates most of the work to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which is assisted by the Office of Endangered Species (OES). As of 1994, the regulations under the act took up 350 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations. The Process of Listing Species In order to benefit from the ESA, the species must be officially designated as either endangered or threatened. The courts have consistently ruled that the act cannot be used to protect an unlisted species. Species may be proposed for listing by the NMFS, the FWS, private organizations, or citizens. Species are listed only after comprehensive investigations, open hearings, and opportunities for public involvement in the decision. The first list of endangered species, published in 1967, included 72 species. By 1976 the list had grown to 634 species. As of 1995, 1,526 species of plants and animals were listed, including more than 500 that were foreign, and there were almost 4,000 candidate species awaiting a listing determination. Although the FWS is required to prepare a recovery plan for each listed species, only a few have recovered sufficiently to be taken off the list. The act requires that critical habitat for threatened or endangered species be designated whenever possible. All federal agencies have special obligations to determine whether their projects or actions jeopardize the continued existence of a species. Following the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, Congress passed the amendments of 1978, which allow consideration for economic factors in the designation of critical habitat. Especially controversial is the section of the act requiring the FWS to formulate and enforce regulations on private lands that provide habitat for listed species. The government must compensate owners in those rare cases when regulations eliminate almost all productive and economic uses of their property, but not when landowners continue to have partial productive use of their land. Attitudes and Impact Many people in western and rural states are highly critical of the ESA, and they charge that it causes a significant loss of jobs to pro1216

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tect minor subspecies, such as the northern spotted owl. In 19951996, a conservative coalition of Republican congressmen tried to pass the Young-Plombo bill, which would have weakened the ESA. The controversy demonstrated, however, that the existing law enjoyed considerable support, and the proposed bill was never passed. Most experts argue that the economic impact of the ESA is minimal on the national economy but that it does cause hardship for small landowners in some instances. Many environmentalists would support revisions of the law that would give less emphasis to particular species and place more concern on the need for sufficient habitat to support a healthy biodiversity, but others fear that such complexity would make the law ineffective. Thomas T. Lewis Sources for Further Study Bean, Michael J. The Evolution of National Wildlife Law. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1983. Clepper, Henry, ed. Origins of American Conservation. New York: Ronald Press, 1966. Galen, Mark. There’s Still Time: The Success of the Endangered Species Act. Hanover, Pa.: National Geographic Society, 2001. Kohm, Kathryn, ed. Balancing on the Brink of Extinction: The Endangered Species Act and Lessons for the Future, 1991. Littel, Richard. Endangered and Other Protected Species: Federal Law and Regulation. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1992. Lund, Thomas A. American Wildlife Law. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Mann, Charles, and Mark Plummer. Noah’s Choice: The Future of Endangered Species, 1995. Noss, Reed. Michael O’Connell, and Dennis Murphy. Habitat Conservation Under the Endangered Species Act, 1997. Regenstein, Lewis. The Politics of Extinction, 1975. Rohlf, Daniel. The Endangered Species Act: Protection and Implementation, 1989. Stanford Environmental Law Society. The Endangered Species Act. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000. 1217

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Migratory Bird Act (1913); Migratory Bird Treaty Act

(1918); Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934); Animal Welfare Act (1966); Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979).

Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act Date: January 31, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 5 Public law: 93-247 U.S. Code: 42 § 5101 Categories: Children’s Issues; Health and Welfare

This law brought child maltreatment to national attention and mandated that states report cases of child abuse and neglect. Sponsored by Senator Walter Mondale, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act provided small grants to states for research and demonstration projects to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect. States were required to mandate the reporting of known or suspected cases of child abuse and neglect, provide immunity for reporting, provide guardian ad litem representation for children, ensure confidentiality of records, provide public education on abuse and neglect, develop tracking, and investigate systems. The act created the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, which established regulatory standards for prevention and treatment programs, including twenty-four-hour response services. This act led to the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, which mandated that the special needs of children with disabilities, sibling groups, and older-aged children be met. The impact of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 produced services to preserve, strengthen, and reunite families. Its 1218

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passage resulted in states establishing reporting and tracking systems and coordinated information systems that are essential to permanency and placement procedures. Karen V. Harper Sources for Further Study Briere, John, et al., eds. The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1996. The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect. The Continuing Child Protection Emergency: A Challenge to the Nation. Washington, D.C.: Department of Health and Human Services, 1993. See also: Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984); Fam-

ily Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984); Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984); Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990); Megan’s Law (1996).

Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act Date: August 17, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 476 Public law: 93-378 U.S. Code: 16 § 1601 Categories: Agriculture; Land Management; Natural Resources

The law directed the Forest Service to assess resource needs and capabilities, define alternatives, and recommend a program of management and investment. On August 17, 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) into law. The RPA resulted in the first complete legislative revision of the Forest 1219

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Service’s mission since the early 1900’s. The act addressed the need for an assessment of forest inventories and of the demands for products and services of forests and rangelands. Timber Management Although the public supported the measure once it was enacted, it started as one of the most controversial issues in land management. Industry pressure for more attention to timber management was amplified by increasing criticism from economists about the inefficient allocation of public resources in national forest management. Timber prices rose to extreme heights in 1969, resulting in public concern. The timber industry used the price increases as an opportunity to call congressional attention to the fact that a steady supply of timber was needed and that the issue of timber management needed to be placed on the legislative agenda. In 1973, President Richard Nixon appointed the President’s Advisory Panel on Timber and the Environment (PAPTE), an advisory board, to make recommendations concerning timbermanagement problems as they related to environmental concerns. The PAPTE called for a comprehensive forest development plan. The RPA, incorporating a complex planning process, resulted from the congressional attempt to balance industry needs with environmentalists’ concerns about the Forest Service. Provisions Under the RPA, the Forest Service is required to prepare and publish a revised program every five years and a revised assessment every ten years, both of which must be responsive to changes anticipated in the years ahead. The assessment explains the agencies and the regulations involved in forest resource activities. It presents an evaluation of the opportunities available to improve the yield of goods and services produced from forest resources. The goal of the assessment is to provide a factual basis from which to formulate future renewable resource management programs. In order to do this, the assessment provides information on projected population and income levels; forest and rangeland area; location and type of vegetative cover; supply and demand conditions of forest resources; social, economic, and environmental implications of projected demands and supplies; and opportunities for responding to the implications of such projections. 1220

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The program component of the RPA is similar to an Environmental Impact Statement. It provides a physical inventory and a description of the overall resource situation, including the problems and opportunities, potential supply and probable demand, prices at various output levels, and anticipated impacts. With the assessment as a foundation, the secretary of agriculture recommends a program of action for the Forest Service to employ in order to solve the problems and to take advantage of the opportunities identified in the assessment. The Resources Planning Act requires the president to submit the program and a statement of the national forest-management policy to Congress. In doing so, he declares his budget request and provides justification. Congress will then either accept or amend the president’s program in the consideration of funding. This structural process allows for checks and balances between Congress and the president. In the past, the Forest Service had failed to receive increased funding from the government’s executive branch. The RPA legislation was viewed as an opportunity for the Forest Service to submit its funding proposals directly to Congress and the public. The public was invited to examine these reports and to recommend changes or additions. The chief forester, John McGuire, lauded for his ability to negotiate, achieved his first significant accomplishment with the passage of the RPA. The new legislation provided an opportunity for the chief forester to employ his mediation skills with the public. Response While the RPA did appeal to the public, it did not eliminate all public disapproval of Forest Service activities. The caustic debates during the late 1960’s and 1970’s over the Forest Service program of clear-cutting timber in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia resulted in a judicial decision to halt all clear-cutting, ruling that new national forest management legislation would be needed. As a result, the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) was passed by Congress in 1976. The act demanded that clear-cuts be reduced and resource management guidelines be set up for controversial management practices. With the passage of the National Forest Management Act in 1976 came changes in the RPA. The NFMA made significant amend1221

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ments to the RPA, resulting in a restructuring of the planning process. It set new standards for national forest resource planning. The function of the RPA was expanded beyond that of a mere budget-setting device. A comprehensive plan would be developed and used for a whole forest and would not include separate plans for land and timber use. The Forest Service adopted planning rules that required the RPA program to define regional objectives for forest-range grazing, minerals, timber, water, and other resources. In turn, these objectives would be applied to each individual forest by the regional plans. The NFMA also called for an economic classification of specifically recorded alternative management strategies for each land area, with a balanced consideration of the potential combination of all goods and services produced from the land. It essentially mandated multiple-use planning for all forests. Significance and Impact The 1974 RPA and the 1976 NFMA were passed at a time when the Forest Service was concerned about the inconsistencies in the forest-planning process. These acts gave the agency a legislative mandate to administer the forest in ways that maximized the advantages from sustained-yield multiple-use production, while still considering the potential production of the land. The RPA became a pivotal policy in the history of U.S. forestry legislation, along with the NFMA the primary law governing U.S. forest policy. This legislative achievement is important, but the ultimate meaning is unclear, because Congress did not identify priorities. The RPA is considered to be consistent with most congressional legislation, because it promotes compromise rather than radical change. The fact that the initial act defines procedures rather than specific goals is a major characteristic of 1970’s legislation. It directs landmanaging agencies to consider all factors, but it does not provide a framework for prioritizing them. Since 1974, there have been several assessments conducted under the RPA. According to the Forest Service, figures concerning demand and supply of renewable resources depend primarily upon population growth, income levels, economic activities, changes in technology and institutions, the cost of energy, availability of capital, and the investment levels in resource management and utilization. 1222

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The long-term trend of the U.S. economy has been continued growth; the population and the economy are expected to continue to grow in the future. Renewable resources in the United States meet the needs of nearly fifty million more people than when the RPA was first instituted, and overall increases in demand are greater than the levels that are supplied using 1990’s management methods. As the country continues to grow, society’s view of renewable resources is likely to change to reflect the problems, opportunities, and management of these resources. Sandra Harrison and Ruth Bamberger Sources for Further Study Bowes, Michael D., and John V. Krutilla. Multiple-Use Management: The Economics of Public Forestlands. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1989. Clary, David A. Timber and the Forest Service. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986. Cubbage, Frederick W., Jay O’Laughlin, and Charles S. Bullock III. Forest Resource Policy. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993. Ellefson, Paul V. Forest Resources Policy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991. President’s Advisory Panel on Timber and the Environment. Report. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973. See also: National Park Service Organic Act (1916); Multiple UseSustained Yield Act (1960); Wilderness Act (1964); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Eastern Wilderness Act (1975); Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976); National Forest Management Act (1976).

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Employee Retirement Income Security Act Date: September 2, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 832 Public law: 93-406 U.S. Code: 29 § 1001 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Labor and Employ-

ment

By establishing fiduciary, funding, vesting, and disclosure rules and plan termination insurance, ERISA attempted to protect employees’ rights to retirement and other benefits. On September 2 (Labor Day), 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) into law. ERISA established complex rules concerning employee benefit plan disclosure, fiduciary responsibility, funding, and vesting. Vesting refers to an employee’s nonforfeitable right to a pension, a right earned, for example, after a fixed number of years of service. The law also established pension plan termination insurance and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. ERISA was the culmination of eight years of investigations, hearings, and legislative proposals that responded to reports of abuse in the private pension and group insurance system, particularly with respect to the absence of vesting and funding standards in some plans. ERISA mandated practices that had become increasingly common among large corporate plans. The law’s supporters thus included a wide range of interests, such as the American Bankers’ Association and the United Auto Workers union. ERISA was moderate in scope and did not include certain reforms, such as the mandating of private employee benefit coverage for everyone in the workforce, that were advocated at the time by Ralph Nader and other public interest advocates. History and Previous Legislation The American Express Company adopted the first pension plan in the United States in 1875. By 1940, more than four million American employees were covered by private pensions. The Revenue Act 1224

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of 1942 allowed a company to receive a guarantee that pension contributions would be tax-deductible, and this provision encouraged growth in coverage. The War Labor Board also encouraged growth during World War II by exempting employee benefit plans from wage freezes. A similar provision was made during the Korean War. Furthermore, in 1948 the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling in a case involving the Inland Steel Company that pensions are mandatory subjects of collective bargaining. This decision opened the door to collective bargaining by unions for employee benefits. Pension assets rose from $2.4 billion in 1940 to $52 billion in 1960. By 1970, more than twenty-six million American employees were covered by private pensions. In 1958, the Welfare and Pension Plan Disclosure Act (WPPDA) established disclosure requirements for employee benefit plans. The WPPDA was amended in 1962 to establish criminal sanctions. The WPPDA’s disclosure requirements, however, were limited in scope. In 1963 and 1964, pension plans gained public attention when Studebaker’s factory in South Bend, Indiana, closed. About fortyfive hundred Studebaker employees under the age of sixty received only 15 percent of the retirement benefits they had earned, and many received no benefits at all. President John F. Kennedy had appointed a Committee on Corporate Pension Funds in 1962, and in 1965 the committee recommended stricter standards for plan funding and vesting of employees’ pension benefits. This recommendation led to a 1968 House bill that would have established fiduciary standards for administrators of employee benefit plans, but the bill died. Passage Through Congress In a message to Congress on December 8, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon proposed legislation to establish vesting and fiduciary standards and to permit individual retirement accounts (IRAs). A House Banking and Currency Committee task force investigated pension reform that year as well. In 1972, the National Broadcasting Company encouraged popular support for pension reform legislation by airing a television news documentary, Pensions: The Broken Promise, that depicted abuses in the pension system. The House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Wilbur Mills, held hearings in 1972 on H.R. 12272, the Nixon administra1225

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tion’s bill. H.R. 12272 included provisions on disclosure, fiduciary responsibility, and vesting, but not on funding and plan termination insurance. The most controversial part of the bill was its proposal for increasing the limits on the tax deductibility of pension benefits for self-employed individuals and their employees (Keogh or HR 10 plans) and IRAs. More than twenty national and local bar associations and the American Medical Association testified in favor of the Keogh plans and IRAs. The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) strongly opposed the Nixon bill because of these provisions. The bill died in the House. In September, 1972, the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee, chaired by Harrison Williams, reported out a bill that would have regulated pension plans, but the bill died when Senator Russell Long argued that it was primarily tax legislation and so was the province of his Senate Finance Committee. The Senate Finance Committee reported the bill out only after removing its provisions concerning vesting, funding, and termination insurance. By early 1973, public support for pension reform was widespread, and jurisdictional disputes were to be swept aside. Congressman Carl Perkins, chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, testified that he had received several thousand letters in support of pension reform. Later that year, Ralph Nader and Kate Blackwell published You and Your Pension, a book that encouraged popular support for pension reform by providing examples of insufficiently funded plans, the absence of vesting rules, and excessively complex plan provisions. In September, 1973, the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee reported out a bill cosponsored by Jacob Javits and chairman Harrison Williams. At the same time, the Senate Finance Committee sponsored a complementary bill. The two bills were merged into S. 4, which passed the Senate. The bill set minimum fiduciary, funding, portability, and vesting standards, established plan termination insurance, established IRAs, and extended limits on Keogh plans. (Portability refers to allowing employees to transfer pension assets to a new employer or to a centralized trust fund when they change jobs). Weeks later, in October, 1973, the House Education and Labor Committee reported H.R. 2, which omitted S. 4’s provisions on portability, Keogh plans, and IRAs but was similar to it in other respects. 1226

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During 1972 and 1973, the House Ways and Means Committee held hearings concerning H.R. 12272; the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee held hearings concerning S. 4; and the General Subcommittee on Labor, chaired by John H. Dent, held hearings concerning H.R. 2. In the course of these hearings, organized labor gave only mixed support to pension reform legislation. For example, a representative of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union testified that jointly sponsored labor-management trusts should be exempt from retirement legislation. In fact, industry groups such as the national Chamber of Commerce and the American Bankers’ Association, along with Towers, Perrin, Foster, and Crosby, a consulting firm, gave stronger support to the proposed vesting, disclosure, and fiduciary rules than did the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO did not testify during the S. 4 and H.R. 2 hearings. The United Steelworkers, the United Auto Workers, and other industrial unions, along with some craft unions, did not support the proposed legislation, especially its termination insurance provisions, probably because pension funds in the steel and auto industries were underfunded. In testimony concerning H.R. 2, Ralph Nader excoriated the labor movement for its weak support of pension legislation. In February, 1974, the House Ways and Means Committee passed a revised H.R. 2 bill that included improvements to Keogh plans and established IRAs. The House-Senate conference committee reported a final compromise version of H.R. 2 and S. 4 in August, 1974. The conference committee’s bill passed the Senate unanimously, 85-0. In the House, only two representatives voted against ERISA. President Ford signed the bill on September 2, 1974. Provisions of ERISA ERISA established new rules on disclosure, vesting, eligibility, funding, and fiduciary responsibility. It established individual retirement accounts and increased the amount that self-employed individuals could contribute to their own pension plans. It established limits on contributions and benefits to highly paid individuals and restated the Internal Revenue Code’s rules on integration of pensions with Social Security benefits. It also established the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and a $1 per participant tax on single-employer plans to cover the newly created plan termination insurance. 1227

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With respect to disclosure, ERISA required that plan sponsors (both single employers and multiemployer trusts that sponsor benefit plans) provide participants with a summary of the formal, relatively technical, plan document that governs their pension plan. The summary, called a summary plan description, was required to be written in a manner calculated to be understood by the average plan participant. ERISA required that each plan administrator produce a detailed annual report that, in the case of pension and profit sharing plans, was required to be audited by a certified public accountant. It also required plan administrators to provide each plan participant with a summary of this annual report. Furthermore, the law required that the plan administrator provide an estimate of a participant’s benefit upon request. With respect to eligibility, ERISA required that plans could not require more stringent eligibility requirements than participants being twenty-five years of age or older, with at least one year of service, although with full immediate vesting, plans could require three years of service. Plans could no longer exclude employees because they were too old unless those employees began work within five years of the normal retirement age for the plan. With respect to vesting, ERISA allowed plan participants to vest according to one of three rules: full vesting at ten years, the five to fifteen rule (25 percent vesting at five years of service increasing by 5 percent in the following five years and by 10 percent for five more years) and the rule of forty-five (50 percent vesting when the sum of age and years of service equals forty-five, increasing 10 percent per year thereafter). It also required that pension plans’ normal form of benefit be a 50 percent joint and survivor benefit, that is, a pension amount at normal retirement age that has been actuarially reduced to provide a 50 percent benefit to the participant’s spouse in the event of the participant’s death. With respect to funding, ERISA required that plans fully fund the cost accruing each year and that unfunded past service liabilities be funded over thirty years, with the exception of pre-existing past service liabilities, which could be funded over forty years. With respect to fiduciary standards, ERISA required that plans name a fiduciary and that the named fiduciary and any cofiduciaries must act exclusively for the benefit of plan participants. The law required that fiduciaries act as would a prudent person in like capacity. The law also required that fiduciaries diversify assets and pro1228

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hibited the exchange of property or lending of money between a plan and a party-in-interest, defined as a fiduciary or the relative of a fiduciary, a person providing services to a plan, an employer, or a related union. With respect to Keogh plans and IRAs, ERISA raised the taxdeductible amounts that a self-employed person could contribute to $7,500, or 15 percent of earnings if less. It also allowed individuals not otherwise covered by a pension plan to establish an IRA. With respect to limitations on contributions and benefits, it limited contributions to profit-sharing plans (such as 401k’s) to $25,000 or 25 percent of compensation, whichever was less, and limited benefits under pension plans to $75,000 or 100 percent of final average earnings, whichever was less. Both limits were indexed for inflation and were intended to prevent highly paid individuals from taking undue advantage of tax deductions for qualified pension plans. Rules on these amounts have been adjusted with passing years. Criticisms Several writers, including Nader and Blackwell, raised important concerns about ERISA’s efficacy. One characteristic of America’s private system of pension and other benefits is that coverage is skewed toward higher-paid employees and employees of large firms. For example, in 1978, those whose preretirement income was more than 43 percent in excess of the median worker’s had pensions worth 93 percent more than the median amount, as pointed out by Teresa Ghilarducci. Similarly, according to another study, in 1988, 65 percent of workers in firms with more than five hundred employees were covered by pension plans, while only about 12 percent of workers in firms with fewer than twenty-five employees were covered. By failing to mandate benefits and doing little to tighten restrictions on offsetting Social Security benefits from pension benefits (called integration), ERISA did little to alleviate the skew in coverage toward higher-paid workers. The additional disclosures and plan termination insurance that ERISA required were costly, and administrative costs associated with compliance with ERISA may have had a depressing effect on plan adoption rates, especially among small firms. Although coverage rates of private pension plans grew from 15 percent of the work force in 1940 to 45 percent in 1970, the coverage rate remained constant at about 45 percent from 1970 to 1987. In particular, cov1229

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erage among firms with fewer than twenty-five employees declined by about 15 percent from 1979 to 1988. Subsequent Regulation ERISA opened a floodgate for regulation of employee benefit plans. From 1974 through 1992, fifteen laws regulating employee benefit programs were passed. For example, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 reduced the limitations on contributions and benefits, the Retirement Equity Act mandated further spousal benefits, and the Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced the minimum years of service for vesting to five. The premium required for plan termination insurance increased dramatically, twentyfold for some plans. As of 1993, approximately half of the American workforce lacked private pension coverage, and much of the remainder expected only modest benefits from the private pension system. Mitchell Langbert Sources for Further Study Ghilarducci, Teresa. Labor’s Capital: The Economics and Politics of Private Pensions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992. Ippolito, Richard. Pensions, Economics, and Public Policy. Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1986. Mamorsky, Jeffrey D. Employee Benefit Law: ERISA and Beyond. New York: Law Journal Seminars Press, 1992. Nader, Ralph, and Kate Blackwell. You and Your Pension. New York: Grossman, 1973. Rosenbloom, Jerry S., ed. The Handbook of Employee Benefits. Homewood, Ill.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1984. Turner, J. A., and D. J. Beller, eds. Trends in Pensions 1992. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1992. Ziesenheim, Ken. Understanding ERISA: A Compact Guide to the Landmark Act. Columbia, Md.: Traders’ Library, 2002. See also: Dependent Pension Act (1890); Social Security Act (1935); Emergency Price Control Act (1942); G.I. Bill (1944); Tax Reform Act of 1986 (1986).

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Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act Date: September 7, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 1109 Public law: 93-415 U.S. Code: 42 § 5601 et seq. Categories: Children’s Issues; Crimes and Criminal Procedure

This law attempted to reduce juvenile delinquency through prevention programs and reforms to the existing juvenile justice system. It emphasized education and counseling over punishment. Stating its finding that juveniles accounted for about half of the arrests for serious crimes, Congress enacted the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act as a broad attack on juvenile delinquency. The main provisions of the act provided federal block grants to states. The grants were intended for reforming juvenile justice procedures and for providing resources such as counseling and school programs to prevent delinquency. The act sought to decriminalize youth “status offenders,” whose offenses would not be considered crimes if they were adults. Alternative sentences such as placement in a halfway house would be offered. The act also coordinated research on juvenile delinquency and established the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention within the Department of Justice. This legislation was complemented by another measure from 1974, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. The act was amended and authorization extended in 1974, 1980, and 1984. Steve D. Boilard Source for Further Study United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and the Workforce. Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth, and Families. Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth, and Families of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, House of Representatives. 1231

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105th Congress, 1st session. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1997. See also: Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974); Pa-

rental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980); Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984); Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984); Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984); Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984); McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987).

Parens Patriae Act Date: September 30, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 90 Stat. 1394 Public law: 94-435 U.S. Code: 15 § 15x Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade

This law authorizes state attorneys general to sue violators of antitrust laws on behalf of citizens of their states. The Latin phrase parens patriae means “the state as parent” and is more commonly used to described the powers of government in relation to juveniles in its custody. The assumption underlying this term is that anything the state does to a juvenile is done on the juvenile’s behalf. In the context of antitrust legislation, this act authorizes the attorneys general of individual states to sue violators of antitrust laws on behalf of citizens of their states and request reasonable attorney fees as well as triple damages for consumers. The Hart-ScottRodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976 expanded this authority of state attorneys general, although this 1976 law is much better known for establishing in law a “prenotification” requirement that large firms give the Department of Justice advance notice of planned mergers. Gayle Avant 1232

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Source for Further Study Business Week. “The First Big Test of a New Antitrust Law.” September 12, 1977. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Wheeler-Lea Act (1938); Celler-Kefauver Act (1950); Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974).

Equal Credit Opportunity Act Date: October 28, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 1521 Public law: 93-495 U.S. Code: 15 § 1691 Categories: Banking, Money, and Finance; Women’s Issues

This law requires financial institutions to make credit available without discrimination on the basis of sex or marital status. In 1968, Congress passed the Consumer Credit Protection Act. One provision of the law created the National Commission on Consumer Finance. In 1972, as a member of the commission, Congresswoman Leonor K. Sullivan persuaded the commission to investigate discrimination against women in the consumer credit industry. During commission hearings on the subject, testimony was presented about instances in which married women were denied credit cards and charge accounts except in their husbands’ names, and about the fact that widows and divorced and separated women often were denied any sort of credit. Widows often continued to use their dead husband’s name in order to continue to have credit, as if a live widow had less credit than a dead spouse. As a result, many women could buy neither cars nor houses on credit, even if they had been the bill payers in their families before the departure of their husbands. 1233

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Passage The commission’s report galvanized Congresswoman Bella S. Abzug to introduce a series of bills in 1972 to make credit discrimination illegal. Hearings were held in 1973, when a related bill, sponsored by Senator William E. Brock, passed the Senate, but more hearings in 1974 did not bear fruit in the House of Representatives. The issue was overshadowed by rampant inflation and developments in electronic bank transfers, which required a congressional reexamination of regulations in the banking and finance industry. Congress was then working on the Depository Institutions Amendments of 1974, the most important provision of which was to raise the amount of federally guaranteed bank deposits from twenty thousand dollars to forty thousand dollars. On May 14, 1974, Brock and several cosponsors (Wallace F. Bennett, Edward W. Brooke, Alan Cranston, Robert W. Packwood, William Proxmire, and John G. Tower) attached to the larger bill a provision known as Title V, which amended the Consumer Credit Protection Act by adding a new section, known as the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. When the larger bill was adopted overwhelmingly, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 passed as well, going into effect on October 28, 1975. Provisions and Oversight The law prohibited any creditor from discriminating against any applicant on the basis of sex or marital status with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction. Although the Federal Reserve Board was empowered to issue implementing regulations, administrative enforcement by way of complaint investigation was assigned to many agencies. For national banks, enforcement is by the Comptroller of the Currency. The Federal Reserve Board handles all of its member banks, other than national banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation enforces the law for all banks that it ensures, other than members of the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board, acting directly or through the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, has jurisdiction over financial institutions subject to provisions of the Home Owners’ Loan Act, the National Housing Act, and the Federal Home Loan Bank. The administrator of the National Credit Union enforces the law for any federal credit union. The Interstate Com1234

Equal Credit Opportunity Act

merce Commission regulates any common carrier under its jurisdiction. The Civil Aeronautics Board monitors any air carrier subject to the Federal Aviation Act of 1958. The secretary of agriculture handles complaints regarding activities subject to the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921. The Farm Credit Administration plays a similar role for any federal land bank, federal land bank association, federal intermediate credit bank, and production credit association. The Securities and Exchange Commission has jurisdiction over brokers and dealers. The Small Business Administration looks after small business investment companies. For all other matters, the Federal Trade Commission has responsibility under the law. In all cases, agencies can respond to complaints by initiating investigations; alternatively, they can monitor statistical patterns of reported loans for evidence that certain groups are disproportionately denied credit. If discrimination is documented, the agency can refer a case to the Department of Justice for legal action against the offending financial institution. The bill put a cap on the amount to be obtained by victims of discrimination. Individuals could sue only up to $10,000, and class complaints were limited to $100,000 or 1 percent of net worth for willful violations. According to Sullivan, this provision made the law less effective, even diluting the force of the Truth in Lending Act by reducing the penalty for infractions. Amendments Passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was an easy victory: There were no public hearings and no opposition in Congress. After the law was signed by President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., on October 28, 1975, Sullivan urged Congress to amend the bill to remove the monetary caps and to broaden coverage so that credit discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, and age also would be illegal. She soon introduced an expanded bill. Senators Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and William Proxmire assumed leadership on the bill in the Senate, modifying its text somewhat. On March 23, 1976, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act Amendments of 1976 passed, expanding coverage as Sullivan had recommended, with a new cap of $500,000 for class-action suits; the statute of limitations for infractions was extended from one to two years. The purpose of the law, as amended, is to require financial institutions to determine creditworthiness on the basis of finances, 1235

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rather than on such nonfinancial grounds as age, sex, marital status, race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also protects recipients of public assistance funds from credit discrimination. The law immediately enabled millions of women to obtain credit cards, charge accounts, car loans, and home loans from financial institutions. However, the law had no effect on policies of insurance companies, and serious systemic credit discrimination has continued, especially based on race. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Burns, James A., Jr. “An Empirical Analysis of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.” University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 13 (Fall, 1979): 102-142. Cronin, Lisa. “Equal Credit Opportunity Act: Some Good News, Some Not So Good.” Ms. 5 (March, 1977): 95-97. Matheson, John H. “The Equal Credit Opportunity Act: A Functional Failure.” Harvard Journal of Legislation 21 (Summer, 1984): 371-403. Rogers, Laura L., and John L. Culhane, Jr. “Developments Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B.” The Business Lawyer 43 (August, 1988): 1571-1583. Schafer, Robert T., and Helen F. Ladd. Discrimination in Mortgage Lending. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981. Smith, Dolores S. “Revision of the Board’s Equal Credit Regulation: An Overview.” Federal Reserve Bulletin 71 (December, 1985): 913-923. Taibi, Anthony D. “Banking, Finance, and Community Empowerment: Structural Economic Theory, Procedural Civil Rights, and Substantive Racial Justice.” Harvard Law Review 107 (May, 1994): 1463-1545. See also: Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968); Truth in

Lending Act (1968); Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970).

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Hazardous Materials Transportation Act Date: November 21, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 2156 Public law: 93-633 U.S. Code: 5 § 552a Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Environment and

Conservation

This law regulated commerce by improving the protection afforded the public against risks connected with the transportation of hazardous materials by air, sea, rail, and road. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Transportation Safety Act of 1974, which was designed to overcome long-standing problems in transportation safety statutes. The law represented a declaration of congressional discontent over inadequate coverage provided by existing regulations; this discontent had been heightened by increased hazardous materials movements and accidents in the early 1970’s and by a corresponding lack of enforcement of such regulations then in place as the Hazardous Materials Control Act of 1970 and the Railroad Safety Act of 1970. Prior Hazardous Materials Regulation The history of hazardous materials regulation dates back to the Civil War. In 1866, the first federal law was passed regulating explosives and flammable materials. It was not until the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887 that the federal government began a concerted effort to impose some degree of regulatory uniformity on all modes of transportation. The first real regulatory attempt was the Explosives and Combustibles Act of 1908, which addressed safety on railroads, the most popular domestic mode of transportation of the time. In 1966, authority to regulate the transportation of hazardous materials was transferred to the newly formed Department of Transportation. The secretary appointed to head the department held a cabinet-level position and had responsibility for all transportation safety standards, including those governing hazardous mate1237

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rials. Under this system, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Railroad Administration, and the U.S. Coast Guard were each allowed to promulgate its own independent regulations, which were published in different parts of the Code of Federal Regulations. The National Transportation Safety Board was also created to determine and report causes of transportation accidents and to conduct research into accident prevention. The Department of Transportation secretary formed the Hazardous Materials Regulations Board, which was staffed by the Office of Hazardous Materials to coordinate hazardous materials activities within the department. Even with the passage of the Hazardous Material Control Act in 1970, persistent departmental, administrative, and organizational difficulties prevented the enforcement of the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act. Accidents during the early 1970’s convinced Congress that Department of Transportation mismanagement and poor allocation of resources were contributing to the failure. In spite of the Railroad Safety Act of 1970, rail safety did not improve, largely because the rail industry was unwilling or unable to repair substandard tracks and structures. Economic insolvency and reorganization of rail carriers, inflation, and lack of tax incentives prevented capitalization for significant rail-line infrastructure repair. The energy crisis also contributed to the problem by necessitating greater dependence on train traffic along decaying and neglected rail beds and tracks. Provisions: Three Titles In an effort to consolidate regulatory activities and to give the secretary authority over all modes of transportation, Congress passed the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act of 1974. The final House of Representatives bill, as amended by Senate conference action, consisted of three major sections, or “Titles.” Title I, the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, was perhaps the most important of the three sections. Title II was essentially designed to amend and improve the Railroad Safety Act of 1970. Title III, which was designed to divorce the National Transportation Safety Board from any political influence, made that investigative body separate from the Department of Transportation and answerable only to Congress. The major provisions of the Hazardous Materials Transporta1238

Hazardous Materials Transportation Act

tion Act expanded the Department of Transportation’s jurisdiction to include all interstate or foreign trade, traffic, and commerce. (The act has been interpreted so that intrastate movements also fall within the department’s regulatory sphere.) The act also authorized the classification and designation of “hazardous materials”—a term that had not been legally defined before—as materials in quantities and forms that the secretary of transportation determines may pose an “unreasonable risk” to health, safety, or property when transported in commerce. (These materials explicitly included, but were not limited to, explosives, radioactive materials, etiologic agents, flammable liquids or solids, combustible liquids or solids, poisons, oxidizing or corrosive materials, and compressed gases.) In addition, the act prohibited transportation of radioactive materials on passenger aircraft, except for medical and research isotopes. The Department of Transportation was also authorized to issue regulations related to packing, handling, labeling, and routing of hazardous materials; this provision significantly expanded the definition of “transportation community” to include those who manufacture, test, maintain, and recondition containers or packages used to transport hazardous materials. The act also provided for registration of shippers, carriers, and container manufacturers and reconditioners and spelled out procedures for regulatory exemptions. The Department of Transportation was empowered to conduct surveillance activities, conduct inspections, establish record-keeping requirements, and assess civil and criminal penalties for violations. Lastly, the act defined the relationship between federal regulations and those of state and local governments, preempting local rules found to be inconsistent with the federal programs. Implementation One of the first implementations of the act was in the form of regulatory rule-making. A major provision of the act was the empowerment of the Department of Transportation to make rules and regulations in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act. This has led to a plethora of “dockets” dealing specifically with hazardous materials transportation as technology and circumstances warranted. In 1976, one year after the passage of the act, the process produced Docket No. HM-112, a massive new regulatory framework for the transportation of hazardous materials. 1239

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Shortly after the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act was enacted, the secretary of transportation created the Materials Transportation Bureau within the Research and Special Programs Administration of the Department of Transportation, replacing the old Office of Hazardous Materials of the Hazardous Materials Board. This bureau became the lead agency for hazardous materials regulations, while the various administrations continued to be responsible for their individual safety regulations. The inspection and enforcement authority, however, was divided between the bureau and the administrations. The exception to this new organization is the carriage of hazardous materials in bulk by water, which is completely regulated by the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1985, the Materials Transportation Bureau was abolished, and its responsibilities were transferred to the Office of Pipeline Safety and the Office of Hazardous Materials Transportation. The latter office became the major entity in establishing both national hazardous materials regulations and safety and training programs that reach state and local governments. The impact of this organization over the years has been to create huge industries in training programs, safety equipment manufacturers, database and information companies, and other safety-related activities. In response to increased international, interstate, and intrastate movements of hazardous materials, state and local governments have taken greater regulatory roles in the effort to protect their respective publics. Although the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act authorized the Department of Transportation to regulate intrastate movements, the department has been hesitant to do so, and this reluctance has motivated the states to enact their own regulations. The Department of Transportation was also empowered to begin a national registration but elected to leave this up to the states. The regulatory role for state and local governments is preserved under the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act section 112, as long as local regulations do not conflict with federal standards. It is clear that Congress intended to preclude a multiplicity of state and local regulations when enacting this provision, but the preemption of federal standards and uniformity has frequently occurred. There has been no comprehensive effort by the Department of Transportation to resolve these inconsistencies and interjurisdictional differences. 1240

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Impact The Hazardous Materials Transportation Act is considered the grandfather of modern hazardous materials regulation. The act consolidated several earlier, fragmented regulations, and it authorized Department of Transportation officials to define a “hazardous material.” This regulatory basis constituted the foundation of many future regulations and was referenced in several subsequent statutes. The law, however, has resulted in state and local governments creating a huge regulatory environment that requires licensing, registration, permits, routing, and emergency-response programs and organizations. Many of these regulations are inconsistent with the spirit of the act and vary from state to state, and the lack of uniformity in state laws has contributed to an insurance crisis. Transportation frequently involves multiple jurisdictions, making insurance for movement of hazardous materials sometimes impossible to obtain. The empowerment of the Department of Transportation to enforce its own regulations through civil and criminal penalties was a major provision of the act. Rather than have infraction citations adjudicated and engage in lengthy and costly criminal litigation, however, the department in practice usually elects to mete out civil penalties. The Hazardous Materials Transportation Act produced a new regulatory climate. It created vast new federal, state, and local infrastructures and industries and helped to bridge the gap to international intermodal shipments. Its effect on environmental protection, moreover, can only be estimated. Safety is difficult to quantify, and cost-benefit analyses seem inappropriate in regard to human life or ecological disaster. Clearly, however, the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act in many ways improved public and environmental well-being in a growing chemical-industrial society. Paul Leyda Sources for Further Study Bierlein, Lawrence. Red Book on Transportation of Hazardous Materials. 2d ed. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988. Congressional Quarterly Almanac. “Transportation Safety.” 30 (1975): 698-703. 1241

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Keller, J. J., and Associates. Hazardous Materials Guide: Shipping, Materials Handling, and Transportation. Neenah, Wis.: J. J. Keller, 1977. U.S. Congress. Statutes at Large. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976. U.S. Congress. House. United States Code—Congressional and Administrative News. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1974. U.S. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment. Transportation of Hazardous Materials. OTA-SET-304. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1986. U.S. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment. Transportation of Hazardous Materials: State and Local Activities. OTA-SET-301. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1986. University of Texas at Austin. Highway Safety Policy Research Project. Hazardous Materials Transportation in Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs Policy Research Project Report 82. Austin, Tex.: The Project, 1987. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Hazardous Substances

Labeling Act (1960); Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976); Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980); Superfund Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983); Emergency Planning and Community Right-toKnow Act (1986); Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987).

Safe Drinking Water Act Date: December 16, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 1660 Public law: 93-523 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was given authority to establish minimum safety requirements for pollutants such as arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, fluoride, lead, mercury, nitrates, pesticides, radioactivity, and silver. 1242

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On December 16, 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the Safe Drinking Water Act, which empowered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to control the quality of drinking water by establishment of standard regulations and other techniques. Precipitating Events Prior to the law’s passage, a trend toward increasing discharges of agricultural, industrial, and domestic wastewater from a growing population and economy, which in some cases exceeds natural replenishment, caused a “mining” of water, which can have a deteriorating effect on water purity. In addition, the increasing complexity of chemicals used in industry that potentially can make their way into the water supply posed new challenges for pollution abatement. On November 7, 1974, a study by Dr. Robert Harris was released by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which claimed that cancer deaths were associated with chemicals in New Orleans drinking water. Suspicion was directed toward chlorinated organics, which were either added from chlorination of the water supply system or by chlorinating upstream sewage. Chlorination had been employed for about seventy years as a protective antibacterial measure. Robert B. Hilbert, president of the American Water Works Association (AWWA), denied there was a crisis regarding water supplies and believed the federal role should involve training and research, not enforcement and surveillance. Despite such objections, the SDWA was eventually passed, 296 votes to 84 votes. Provisions The primary intent of the SDWA was to establish uniform drinkingwater quality in all parts of the United States. Its regulations mainly apply to water after it has been treated, as opposed to surface water or groundwater. The SDWA required the EPA to develop two types of standards for water consumed by humans: recommended maximum contaminant levels (RMCLs) and maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). An RMCL quantifies a maximum contaminant concentration based only on scientific and health-related concerns. This is an informational standard and a long-term goal. In contrast, an MCL is a legal limit which, if exceeded, will require action to lower the pollutant concentration to the compliance value. 1243

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The SDWA gives the EPA the power to regulate injection of wastes underground and to protect vulnerable and essential aquifers that are a community’s sole source of drinking water. Also, the SDWA requires research on economic, technical, and healthrelated aspects of drinking water, a rural water supply survey, and funding to enhance the quality of state drinking-water programs. The SDWA created a three-stage process to develop comprehensive drinking-water quality standards. National Interim Primary Drinking Water regulations were promulgated based on generally available technology at the time, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was empowered to conduct a survey of health effects stemming from exposure to drinking water pollutants, and Revised Primary Drinking Water Regulations based upon NAS findings were to be established. The SDWA provides uniform, stringent standards for pollutants in water which apply to several hundred thousand water supplies. After the law’s passage, starting with interim standards in 1975, the EPA established MCLs for twenty-two pollutants by 1987, and more were added later. The development of standards was guided by the NAS report completed in 1977 and later updated. Close to one thousand chemicals were identified in the nation’s water supplies, and some believed that this number represented only a fraction of those present. The implementation of the SDWA therefore has not proceeded without controversy. The EDF has sued the EPA for foot dragging, the AWWA has sued the agency for being overzealous, and attempts have been made in Congress to weaken the law. In the early 1980’s, the AWWA suit was settled. The EPA backed off from requiring installation of activated charcoal filters to lower TTHM levels and instead agreed to deal with TTHM MCL compliance on an individual water-utility basis. MCLs for Inorganic and Organic Chemicals Inorganic chemicals regulated are arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nitrate, selenium, silver, and fluoride. For all the inorganics except fluoride, the MCLs are straightforward limits ranging from 2 (for mercury) to 10,000 (for nitrate) parts per billion depending upon the pollutant in question. Fluoride is a water additive for dental caries prevention. Fluoride MCLs depend upon water temperature. Since people drink more water in hotter climates, the fluoride limits attempt to maintain a uni1244

Safe Drinking Water Act

form dose of fluoride throughout the nation. Organic chemicals regulated are: Endrin; Lindane; Methoxychlor; 2,4-D; 2,4,5-TP (Silvex); Toxaphene; and total Trihalomethanes (TTHM), none of which are naturally occurring substances. The first four are insecticides; the next two are herbicides, typically employed to limit aquatic growth. Organic chemicals can enter the water supply from industrial discharge during manufacture or from rain water runoff. Inorganic chemicals can enter the water supply from industrial activity or from natural action such as soil leaching. Trihalomethanes are water disinfection by-products consequent to chlorine, iodine, or bromine additions. Additional standards were promulgated for turbidity, microbiological contaminants, and radioactivity. Not all water comes under SDWA purview. Public drinking-water supplies serving twenty-five or fewer individuals are exempt, as is tap water used for purposes other than drinking, such as irrigation and industrial process water. RMCLs for “Nuisance” Substances The RMCLs, also sometimes called secondary maximum contaminant levels (SMCLs), have been established for substances that are nuisances to the consumer. These substances degrade the aesthetic qualities of water, such as color and odor, and may interfere with water uses such as washing of clothes. At high concentrations, such substances can have health implications. RMCLs have been established for chloride, color, copper, corrosivity, foaming agents, iron, manganese, odor, pH (a measure of water acidity), sulfate, total dissolved solids, and zinc. Monitoring for sodium is mandatory. Corrosive action, mainly a function of pH, must be checked, since corrosive action can leach hazardous materials from the distribution system. Water utilities must examine their distribution systems for components such as lead-soldered pipes and asbestos cement pipes. Also, the EPA has published no adverse response levels (SNARLs) for a variety of organics. These are not legal standards, but some municipalities and states have adopted them for well closures. Implementation and Enforcement The SDWA’s provisions are implemented by the EPA, the states, and local water facilities in partnership. The EPA provides overall 1245

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national guidance. Section 1446 of the SDWA provided for an advisory council, including representatives from private organizations, state and local government, and the general public, to advise the EPA administrator on matters related to the act. The states have primary SDWA enforcement responsibility within their borders, and the regulations were crafted to be nonduplicative and administratively compatible with existing state activities. This was deemed necessary because of many differences among states in the use and availability of water, geological conditions, underground injection practices, among other things. By 1988, fifty out of fifty-seven states and territories had been granted primacy, or full control, over their water programs. The EPA can intervene, however, if a state’s regulations are not as stringent as federal law or if the regulations are not being enforced. This was a major departure from previous practice. Prior to the act, the U.S. government only regulated water on interstate carriers such as trains, although the U.S. Public Health Service provided water-quality guidelines. State programs went into effect in June, 1977. The activity levels in states vary widely. Between 1977 and 1983, for example, Ohio officials estimated that $35,000 was spent on groundwater protection efforts, while California’s expenditures were $5,160,000 and Texas spent $22,969,700. The 1985 SDWA reauthorization required each state to formulate a groundwater drinking-water source protection plan including land-use pattern and aquifer mapping. The first aquifer granted sole source protection was the Edwards underground reservoir near San Antonio, Texas, which achieved this status on December 16, 1975, one year after passage of the SDWA. Nearly fifty principal sole source aquifers have been designated; about half are located in the Northeast. Impact The SDWA has resulted in a decline in drinking-water pollution in many localities, although problems remain. For example, a National Research Council study reported in 1980 that thirty to forty states, including almost all states east of the Mississippi River, had serious drinking-water problems. Problems occur mostly in water systems serving fewer than 10,000 people, since larger systems can afford better water-treatment technology and better-trained personnel. In 1981, for example, more than five years after the law’s 1246

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passage, 4,430 people became ill from polluted drinking water in thirty-two different disease outbreaks. Most outbreaks were caused by bacterial contamination. A 1982 survey of rural America revealed that one-third of households, most of which used well water, had bacterial contamination in their water. High lead, mercury, selenium, and cadmium concentrations also were noted. The SDWA, which originally exempted well water, was amended in 1986. A unique groundwater protection measure was introduced, the Wellhead Protection Program, the first congressionally mandated environmental protection tool to comprehensively deal with groundwater resources. Later provisions have called for an EPA evaluation of other drinking-water pollutants, including many synthetic organic chemicals. Kirk J. Bundy Sources for Further Study Cheremisinoff, Paul N. Water Management and Supply. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1993. Cotruvo, Joseph A. “Implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.” In Drinking Water Quality Enhancement Through Source Protection, edited by Robert B. Pojasek. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ann Arbor Science Publishers, 1977. Faust, Samuel D., and Osman M. Aly. Chemistry of Water Treatment. Boston: Butterworths, 1983. National Research Council. Committee on Ground Water Quality Protection. Ground Water Quality Protection: State and Local Strategies. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1986. Re Velle, Penelope, and Charles Re Velle. The Environment: Issues and Choices for Society. 3d ed. Boston: Jones and Bartlett, 1988. Sheaffer, John R., and Leonard A. Stevens. Future Water: An Exciting Solution to America’s Most Serious Resource Crisis. New York: William Morrow, 1983. Smith, V. Kerry, and William H. Desvousges. Measuring Water Quality Benefits. Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff, 1986. Speidel, David R., Lon C. Ruedisili, and Allen F. Agnew, eds. Perspectives on Water Uses and Abuses. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Viessman, W., and Mark J. Hammer. Water Supply and Pollution Control. 4th ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. 1247

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Williams, Robert B., and G. L. Culp. “Criteria and Standards for Improved Potable Water Qualities.” In Handbook of Public Water Systems. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986. See also: Water Pollution Control Act (1948); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956); Water Resources Research Act (1964); Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965); Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972).

Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act Also known as: Tunney Act Date: December 21, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 1708 Public law: 93-528 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade

Although this act had little effect on the way the Department of Justice prosecutes antitrust actions, it did require that consent decrees issued in such actions be in the public interest and be publicly disclosed. In the early 1970’s the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice settled several important cases with consent decrees. Rather than taking a case to court, the Department of Justice negotiated a settlement with the firm accused of violating antitrust laws. Some decrees, notably the 1971 International Telephone & Telegraph decree (IT&T), were criticized for not requiring the accused firm to make sufficient changes to its business practices. Some antitrust violators, such as IT&T, are major firms wielding considerable economic influence and political power in Washington, D.C. Senator John Tunney claimed that added opportunity for the public to comment on proposed consent decrees would lessen the political pressure these companies might bring on elected officials favoring “pro-business” consent decrees. 1248

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Seeking to make the negotiation process more open to the public and stiffen the resolve of the Department of Justice to apply the law vigorously, the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act required (1) determination by a court that the proposed consent decree was in the public interest, (2) preliminary publication for public comment on the proposed decree, and (3) disclosure of the firm’s lobbying efforts, culminating in a proposal for a consent decree. A study conducted in 1981 showed that this act had relatively little effect on the operation of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. Although a consent decree is no longer a private matter between the Department of Justice and the accused company, as of 1978 approximately 80 percent of the antitrust lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice were settled by consent decrees. Opting for a consent decree saves the government and the accused time and money in the same sense that a guilty plea by a criminal defendant saves both parties to the criminal suit time and money. Gayle Avant Sources for Further Study Branfman, Eric J. “Antitrust Consent Decrees.” Antitrust Bulletin 27, no. 2 (Summer, 1982): 303-355. Kalodner, Andrea. “Consent Decrees as an Antitrust Enforcement Device.” Antitrust Bulletin 23, no. 2 (Summer, 1978): 277-301. See also: Interstate Commerce Act (1887); Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); Federal Trade Commission Act (1914); Clayton Antitrust Act (1914); Wheeler-Lea Act (1938); Celler-Kefauver Act (1950); Parens Patriae Act (1974).

Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act Date: December 22, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 1723 Public law: 93-531 U.S. Code: 25 § 640 Categories: Land Management; Native Americans 1249

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This act was designed to settle land disputes between the Hopi and Navajo; it triggered tremendous controversy surrounding the removal and relocation of several thousand Navajos. The Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act was enacted by Congress in 1974 primarily to clarify rights of the Navajo and Hopi tribes in the 1882 “Executive Order Reservation” established by President Chester A. Arthur. This executive order set aside 2,472,095 acres “for the use and occupancy of the Moqui [Hopi] and such other Indians as the Secretary of the Interior may see fit to settle thereon.” At the time, both Hopis and Navajos were living in the set-aside area. Disputes increased as the Navajo population in the area expanded. Land Disputes In 1934 Congress consolidated the boundaries of the Navajo Reservation without altering the 1882 Executive Order Reservation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs then established grazing districts on both reservations. District 6, exclusively for Hopi use, consisted of about 25 percent of the 1882 reservation. The remainder was occupied largely by Navajo stock raisers. Disputes between members of the two tribes continued. In 1958 Congress authorized a lawsuit to settle conflicting claims to the 1882 reservation. In 1962 a federal court, in Healing v. Jones, held that for the area outside District 6, the Hopi and Navajo had “joint, undivided and equal interests.” Because the Navajos occupied most of the area, however, they controlled the most surface resources in the Joint Use Area (JUA). Negotiations between the two tribes concerning management of the JUA were unsuccessful. In the early 1970’s the Hopis sought and obtained a court order for livestock reduction in the area. The continuing controversy stimulated congressional interest, and the Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act was enacted in 1974. Provisions and Amendments The act was comprehensive. It directed that a mediator make recommendations to the district court, which would then partition the surface rights of the JUA. In 1977 each tribe received half of the JUA. Money was appropriated for livestock reduction and 1250

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boundary fencing. The act, and a 1980 amendment, allowed for the transfer of some federal lands to the Navajos to help offset lost JUA land. In 1983 about 370,000 acres of “new lands” along the southern edge of the Navajo Reservation were selected. The act required the removal of members of one tribe living on lands transferred to the other tribe. This involved a relatively small number of Hopis but thousands of Navajos. An independent commission was created to administer the relocation program, but it was inept, contributing to the hardships of relocatees. The $52,000,000 initial appropriation was inadequate. Congress belatedly responded in the 1980’s, amending the act to restructure the commission and authorizing hundreds of millions of additional dollars for relocation. As a final touch of irony, one section of this legislation, designed to resolve controversy over the 1882 reservation, allowed the tribes the right to sue to settle rights in lands within the 1934 Navajo Reservation. In 1992 a federal district court decided that the Hopis and San Juan Southern Paiutes (who had intervened in the lawsuit) had rights in portions of the Navajo Reservation long used by tribal members. Eric Henderson Sources for Further Study Benedek, Emily. The Wind Won’t Know Me: A History of the NavajoHopi Land Dispute. New York: Knopf, 1992. Brugge, David M. The Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute: An American Tragedy. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994. Clemmer, Richard O. Roads in the Sky: The Hopi Indians in a Century of Change. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995. See also: Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act (1950).

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Privacy Act Also known as: Buckley Amendment Date: December 31, 1974 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 1896 Public law: 93-579 U.S. Code: 5 § 552a Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Privacy

The Privacy Act required the federal government to open to individuals their government records, to correct inaccurate records, and allowed citizens to sue the federal government for violations of the act. The right to privacy is not specifically contained in the U.S. Constitution, so in the past an individual had limited abilities to know that a violation of his or her privacy had occurred. Government conducted its business in secret, and citizens knew only what government wanted them to know. The Freedom of Information Act of 1966, of which the Privacy Act later became a part, changed the manner in which government operated. The Privacy Act reflects the need to balance individual privacy concerns with the institutional practice of storing information. The act does not prevent the government from gathering information about people and thereby invading their privacy. Instead it allows a citizen to learn what the government knows about his or her private life. Provisions The act guarantees three basic rights: (1) the individual’s right to review his or her records; (2) the individual’s right to amend inaccurate records; and (3) the individual’s right to file a federal lawsuit against the government for violations of the act. Disclosure of any record contained in the system of a federal agency to any other person or agency without the written request or consent of the individual is prohibited. Information gathered for one purpose cannot be used for another purpose absent the individual’s consent. Under the act, federal agencies are obliged to store only such personal information as is relevant and necessary. Other restrictions include a requirement to maintain accurate and complete records and to establish appropriate administrative and technical safe1252

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guards that assure the security of the records. To confirm compliance with these limitations, the Privacy Act allows an individual access to, and an opportunity to amend, government records of which he or she is the subject. An individual may request correction of information which is not timely, accurate, or complete. Should the agency fail to comply with the request, a review of the agency decision is available. The act provides for civil remedies against federal agencies, including (1) an order instructing the agency to amend the record, (2) reasonable costs and attorneys fees, (3) an injunction from withholding records from an individual, and (4) actual damages sustained by an individual in cases of willful or intentional agency action. State Legislation The Privacy Act applies only to the federal government; most states have similar legislation. Where federal statutes are lacking, citizens are left with the protections at the state level, which lack uniformity and are generally inconsistent with overlaps and critical gaps. Generally speaking, however, privacy law is not well developed and has generated relatively little litigation. It has emerged in a sector-bysector manner; that is, specific laws exist to protect specific types of records (banking), but in some areas (such as health care records), specific protections either do not exist or are inadequate. Marcia J. Weiss Sources for Further Study Privacy Protection Study Commission. Personal Privacy in an Information Society. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1977. Regan, Priscilla M. Legislating Privacy: Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Schwartz, Paul. “Privacy and Participation: Personal Information and Public Sector Regulation in the United States.” Iowa Law Review 80 (1995), 553-618. See also: Ninth Amendment (1789); Freedom of Information Act (1966); Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968); Privacy Protection Act (1980). 1253

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Eastern Wilderness Act Date: January 3, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 2096 Public law: 93-622 Categories: Agriculture; Environment and Conservation; Land

Management

The Eastern Wilderness Act significantly increased the area preserved as wilderness in Eastern national forests and confirmed that areas no longer pristine might be added to the wilderness system and allowed to recover their wilderness character. On January 3, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 93-622, which is known informally as the Eastern Wilderness Act. The law established sixteen new wilderness areas in the Eastern United States and designated seventeen others for further study and possible later inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System. It represented a victory for conservation organizations interested in enlarging the wilderness system and a defeat for the U.S. Forest Service, which had championed strict standards of naturalness for admission to the wilderness system. Previous Legislation Although the term “wilderness” logically applies to any area that is wild and undeveloped, in the United States the term is generally applied to an area of reasonably undisturbed natural land owned by the government and specifically set aside and protected against development. Before 1964, some wilderness areas in the national forests were protected by administrative rules of the U.S. Forest Service. Many other areas of wild land were within the boundaries of national parks, national monuments, and national wildlife refuges and enjoyed the degree of protection available to the park, monument, or refuge of which they were a part. These areas all had some level of legal protection against development, but none was protected by law as wilderness until Congress passed and President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act of 1964. The Wilderness Act defined wilderness in law and designated national forest wilderness areas comprising 9.1 million acres, in1254

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cluding four east of the one hundredth meridian. It established a process under which the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service would review undeveloped lands within their respective jurisdictions and recommend those that might in the future be added to the National Wilderness Preservation System. In the process of studying undeveloped areas and making recommendations, the Forest Service evolved what came to be called its “purity policy.” Under this policy, the Forest Service declined to recommend areas for wilderness status unless they were very nearly pristine. The purity policy was based on a controversial interpretation of the Wilderness Act. Congress had written relatively flexible admissions standards into the Wilderness Act but required relatively strict management of areas once admitted. In an apparent effort to limit the impact of the wilderness review process on its commodity programs, Associated Chief John R. McGuire articulated the Forest Service’s conclusion that the Wilderness Act’s strict management standards applied to admission as well. Insistence that wilderness areas must be pure to be considered for inclusion in the system reduced the potential for growth in the wilderness system nationwide. In the East, the impact of the policy was most dramatic. McGuire asserted that there were no areas east of the Rockies that could qualify for inclusion in the wilderness system. Yet the Forest Service was not unmindful of the growing demand for primitive recreation in national forests near centers of population. To meet the demand without comprising its view that no areas in the East met the standards of the Wilderness Act, the Forest Service developed a proposal for a new system of wild areas. The proposal originated with the regional foresters in Atlanta and Milwaukee. These wild areas were to be primarily recreational. Mining and grazing would be prohibited, but otherwise the Forest Service would have broad latitude in administration. The proposal became public in the fall of 1971, when Associate Chief McGuire addressed the Sierra Club’s Biennial Wilderness Conference. McGuire recognized the need for primitive recreational opportunities in the East but asserted that this need would have to be met through some alternative to the Wilderness Act. Virtually all candidate areas in the East had at some time been logged, roaded, or farmed. They did 1255

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not qualify under the Wilderness Act as areas of “undeveloped Federal land retaining [their] primeval character.” McGuire’s speech precipitated extended discussions involving the Forest Service and the national conservation organizations. At first, influential members of the Izaak Walton League and the Sierra Club were disposed to favor the Forest Service proposal. It seemed a practical way to preserve the areas they favored. The Wilderness Society and most of the other national conservation organizations were opposed to the proposal. To accept the plan would be to accept the Forest Service’s interpretation of the Wilderness Act: To be admitted to the wilderness system an area must be—and must always have been—pristine. Acceptance of this interpretation would sharply limit the possibility of future wilderness designations all over the country. Pressure to act was building. In February, 1972, President Nixon delivered an environmental message to Congress bemoaning the lack of wilderness areas in the East and ordering the secretary of agriculture to accelerate efforts to identify candidate areas. Senators George Aiken and Herman Talmadge, members of the Senate Agriculture Committee and political allies of the Forest Service, introduced legislation to implement a wild area system of the sort the agency was promoting. Several wild area bills were directed to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, which Talmadge chaired. One was reported from the committee and passed by the Senate, catching the national conservation organizations off guard. Doug Scott of the Wilderness Society quickly drafted an alternative bill based on the Wilderness Act and convinced Senators James Buckley and Henry Jackson to sponsor it. The battle lines were clearly drawn. The Forest Service preferred Aiken-Talmadge, which was based on its own proposal. The bill created only one instant wilderness. It was being handled by the committee on agriculture and forestry, on which the Forest Service had considerable influence, and it would write the purity policy into law. The national conservation organizations were by now reasonably united in their support for Buckley-Jackson. As eventually approved by the interior committee, it would have created nineteen wilderness areas and an additional thirty-nine wilderness study areas under the authority of the Wilderness Act. It would reassert the interior committee’s dominant role in wil1256

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derness legislation and the environmental community’s more flexible interpretation of admissions standards under the Wilderness Act. Congress adjourned without passing any Eastern wilderness bill. In 1973, both the Aiken-Talmadge and Buckley-Jackson proposals were reintroduced with the understanding that the competing committees would share jurisdiction. After each committee had finished its work, negotiations began to produce a compromise bill. The differences were deep, and the negotiations might well have broken down. Those involved credited Senator Aiken for making sure they did not. The compromise bill created nineteen wilderness areas and forty wilderness study areas. It was approved by the Senate on May 31, 1974. Consideration in the House was anticlimactic. National attention was focused on the Watergate investigations. The House interior committee deleted wilderness areas that appeared controversial and reported a bill that created sixteen wilderness areas and seventeen wilderness study areas. The House passed it on December 18, 1974, and the Senate agreed to the House version. President Ford signed the Eastern Wilderness Act on January 3, 1975. The Eastern Wilderness Act designated sixteen new wilderness areas covering about 207,000 acres in thirteen Eastern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The largest was the 34,500-acre Cohutta Wilderness, which spans the border between Georgia and Tennessee in the Appalachian Mountains and protects a land of rocky gorges, plunging waterfalls, and virgin forest. Other significant additions to the wilderness system ranged from the 20,380acre, near-arctic Presidential Range-Dry River Wilderness in New Hampshire to the 22,000-acre swamp-forest of Bradwell Bay Wilderness in the panhandle of Florida. The smallest of the sixteen new wilderness areas was the 2,570-acre Gee Creek Wilderness in Tennessee’s southern Appalachian Mountains. The act designated seventeen additional areas for study and potential designation at a later date. By March, 1994, twelve of those seventeen areas had been approved by Congress, adding another 122,000 acres to the national forest wilderness system. The importance of the designation of the additional wilderness areas may be overshadowed by the Eastern Wilderness Act’s im1257

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plicit policy conclusion about wilderness admissions standards. The legislative battle over Eastern wilderness ended the Forest Service’s purity policy. If the purity policy had been left unchecked, it might have curtailed the growth of national forest wilderness nationwide and could have ended it altogether east of the Rocky Mountains. Congress declared, in effect, that areas will be added to the National Wilderness Preservation System when the national interest is better served by the area’s protection as wilderness than by its development for other uses. Old roads, buildings, and other evidences of past development may be overlooked in areas being considered for designation as national forest wilderness areas. As if to underscore its repudiation of the purity policy, in the final days of 1974 Congress passed Public Law 93-632, establishing eleven wilderness areas totaling nearly 85,000 acres of national wildlife refuge lands in eight Eastern states. These lands were administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service, which did not share the Forest Service’s purity policy, but few of these areas could have been admitted to the wilderness system if Congress had adopted the strict admissions requirements advocated by the Forest Service. Public Law 93-632 became law contemporaneously with the Eastern Wilderness Act on January 3, 1975. Congressional repudiation of the purity policy was a landmark in the history of wilderness law, but it was not a change in policy. An examination of the initial national forest areas approved in the Wilderness Act of 1964 reveals many deviations from pristine wilderness. In passing the Eastern Wilderness Act, the Congress simply declined to accept the view advocated by the Forest Service that an area must be pristine to be admitted to the wilderness system. Congress’s rejection of purity preserved its own freedom of action on wilderness admissions and preserved the possibility that many more areas in the Eastern national forests might eventually be given wilderness status. The precedent established by the Eastern Wilderness Act has dramatically altered federal land-management practices in the East. It has encouraged advocates to study relatively undeveloped tracts and to propose wilderness designations. Since passage of the Eastern Wilderness Act, the efforts of wilderness advocates have produced remarkable results. At the close of 1984, a decade after the passage of the Wilderness Act, Congress had added thirteen wilderness areas in the East, 1258

Eastern Wilderness Act

all on national wildlife refuge lands and five encompassing less than thirty acres each. In the national forests of the East there remained only the four original wilderness areas: Linville Gorge and Shining Rock in North Carolina, Great Gulf in New Hampshire, and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota. In the decade after the Eastern Wilderness Act, the number of Eastern wilderness areas grew rapidly, and national forest lands constituted most of the addition. The process continues, albeit at a diminishing pace. By mid-1994, there were 173 wilderness areas in national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. Together, these wilderness areas protected 4.2 million acres in 31 of the 37 states east of the Rockies. Most of these wilderness areas are less than pristine, but they provide an increasingly valuable resource for history, science, and recreation. Craig W. Allin Sources for Further Study Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982. Costley, Richard J. “Wilderness: An Enduring Resource.” American Forests 78 (June, 1972): 7-11, 54-56. Frome, Michael. Battle for the Wilderness. New York: Praeger, 1974. Hendee, John C., George H. Stankey, and Robert C. Lucas. Wilderness Management. Rev. ed. Golden, Colo.: North American Press, 1990. Kulhavy, David L., and Richard N. Conner, eds. Wilderness and Natural Areas in the Eastern United States: A Management Challenge. Nacogdoches, Tex.: Center for Applied Studies, School of Forestry, Stephen F. Austin University, 1986. Roth, Dennis M. The Wilderness Movement and the National Forests. College Station, Tex.: Intaglio Press, 1988. See also: National Park Service Organic Act (1916); Wilderness Act (1964)

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Speedy Trial Act Date: January 3, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 2076 Public law: 93-619 U.S. Code: 18 § 3161 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Judiciary and Judicial Pro-

cedure; Crimes and Criminal Procedure

To put teeth into the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of speedy trials for accused persons, this act, which applies only to federal courts, sets specific time limits for indictment, arraignment, and trial. It is believed that the speedy trial concept had its source in the Magna Carta (1215), the “Great Charter” of England that set forth, among other principles, the right of a man to a trial by his peers. Contained in the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the speedy trial clause was made to apply to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Prior to the 1960’s the notion of a speedy trial was rarely discussed, because courts generally proceeded in a timely manner. In 1970, however, a backlog of cases began to appear, and lawyers questioned the constitutionality of lengthy delays. There was disagreement and debate over when the clock started ticking— from the time of commission of the offense or the time of indictment when formal charges were filed. While prosecutors could publicly announce that indictments were forthcoming, they could take years to file charges. This delay compromised the rights of accused individuals by making them wait sometimes as long as two or three years for formal charges to be filed. In Barker v. Wingo (1972) the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of long delays in bringing someone to trial. Ruling that the right to a speedy trial is relative rather than absolute, the justices refused to interpret the Sixth Amendment as requiring any specific length of time, but instead formulated a balancing test for determining unreasonable delay, assessing the conduct of both the prosecution and the defense in regard to the following: (1) the length of the delay, (2) the reasons for the delay, (3) the point at 1260

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which defendants assert their right, and (4) whether the delay prejudices the defendant because, for example, a favorable witness has died or memories have blurred. In the uproar that followed that vague decision, Congress passed legislation called the Speedy Trial Act of 1974 (amended in 1979) in order to put teeth into the guarantee. Applying only to federal courts, it sets specific time limits, requiring indictment within thirty days of arrest, arraignment within ten days after indictment, and trial sixty days after arraignment. Time periods such as those associated with pretrial motions and mental competency are excluded. The right to a speedy trial is a safeguard to prevent undue and oppressive pretrial incarceration, minimize anxiety and concern accompanying public accusation, and ensure that the defendants maintain the ability to defend themselves. It is also supposed to satisfy the societal interest in minimizing the necessity to support persons in jail at public expense as well as upholding the deterrent and rehabilitative effects of criminal law. Speedy trial statutes exist in all fifty states. If the time limits are not respected, the case is to be dismissed. Realistically, however, only in extraordinary circumstances have criminal charges been dismissed for lack of timely trial, and most states as well as the federal government have enacted exceptions to their Speedy Trial Acts. Efforts to mandate speedy trials lack specifics and are not based on the reasons for the delay in question. They do not provide for additional personnel to aid the courts in complying, and conflicts in the court calendar often occur. Enforcement can also be a problem. Marcia J. Weiss Sources for Further Study Misner, Robert. Speedy Trial: Federal and State Practice. Charlottesville, Va.: Michie, 1983. Neubauer, David W. America’s Courts and the Criminal Justice System. 6th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1999. See also: Sixth Amendment (1789).

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U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act Date: January 4, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 2203 Public law: 93-638 U.S. Code: 25 § 450 Categories: Education; Native Americans

This act marked a significant swing away from the overt assimilationist policies of the federal government and supported the basic concepts of tribalism and Native American sovereignty. The 1970’s were marked by support of federal officials for broadening Indian participation in programs that affected them and to lessen the paternalism that had guided federal Indian policy for so long. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 marked a radical change in federal policy—the assimilationist philosophy of the federal government was replaced by policies favoring tribalism and Native American sovereignty. This law enabled and encouraged tribes to take over and run their own programs. The act clearly endorsed Indian decision making, and the preamble declared that the United States recognized its obligation “to respond to the strong expression of the Indian people for selfdetermination by assuring maximum participation in the direction of educational as well as other federal services to Indian communities so as to render such services more responsive to the needs and desires of those communities.” It also stated that Congress confirms its commitment to maintain “the Federal Government’s unique and continuing relationship with and responsibility to the Indian people through the establishment of a meaningful Indian self-determination policy.” The Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act consists of three major sections. In the first part, Congress outlines the basic federal policy toward native people, denounces federal paternalism, and affirms tribal rights to control their own affairs. Second, Congress asserts it will work for Indian self-determination 1262

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particularly in education, while maintaining and preserving the trust relationship. Third, Indians will receive hiring preference in all federal government contracts affecting Indian tribes. The most significant drawback to the act is that, even though decision making and administrative authority seemed to pass to tribal councils, the Bureau of Indian Affairs maintained the power to decide which tribal contracts it would accept. This reserved power included determining budget allocations provided to tribes who seek to run their own programs. Yet despite limitations placed on tribal authority, many tribes throughout the United States contract and run many programs that were formerly run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The most dramatic impact of the act has been in the area of education. A majority of former Bureau of Indian Affairs schools are now run by tribes, and many higher education scholarship programs are tribally run. The act is important in that it supports the basic concept of tribal self-determination. Carole A. Barrett Source for Further Study Castile, George Pierre. To Show Heart: Native American Self-Determination and Federal Indian Policy, 1960-1975. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998. See also: General Allotment Act (1887); Burke Act (1906); Indian

Citizenship Act (1924); Indian Reorganization Act (1934); Termination Resolution (1953); Public Law 280 (1953).

Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act Date: January 4, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 88 Stat. 2193 Public law: 93-637 U.S. Code: 15 § 45 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade 1263

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act imposed important requirements on manufacturers and sellers that offer written warranties to consumers. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 imposed important disclosure requirements upon sellers that provide written product warranties to consumers, addressed and sought to simplify the procedures for enforcing such warranties, and limited or proscribed certain common practices of product warrantors. This act, the first major federal effort to reform warranty law, represented the culmination of several years of federally prescribed studies of consumerdirected written warranties. The Uniform Commercial Code Prior to 1975, state law, in the form of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), governed the creation, interpretation, and enforcement of product warranties. The UCC was the law in virtually all states and, in Article 2, included several provisions governing warranties. For example, the UCC governed express warranties or oral or written statements by sellers that they will stand behind the goods they sell. It also governed implied warranties, warranties arising because of the sales contract and existing regardless of the presence of an express warranty. The two most important implied warranties are the implied warranty of merchantability and the implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. The implied warranty of merchantability arises in sales by merchants or dealers in a particular type of good. It requires that the goods be fit for their ordinary use or purpose. For example, under the UCC, merchant sellers by implication warrant that automobiles are generally safe to drive and that washing machines are capable of washing clothes. In both cases, the sellers are warranting that their product meets general industry standards. The implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose requires that sellers select appropriate goods in those cases in which buyers rely on the sellers’ expertise to do so. For example, a contractor needing a certain type of exterior paint to complete a project might inform the seller that he or she is relying on the seller’s expertise in identifying suitable paint. The implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose would arise in that sale. If the paint is 1264

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unfit for the stated purpose, then the seller has breached the implied warranty. Limitations to UCC Warranties Although the UCC’s regime of express and implied warranties represented the most comprehensive product warranty rules ever adopted, a number of federal studies in the 1960’s and 1970’s revealed the UCC’s shortcomings, particularly in its rules related to written warranties. These studies suggested that some written warranties were so general that they communicated nothing about product quality, were often misleading, and were usually imposed by the product seller or manufacturer rather than being the result of bargaining between the seller and buyer. The studies’ more specific observations identified some of the key problems with written warranties. For example, it became evident that in many sales of durable goods such as automobiles and large appliances, sellers were not communicating their warranties to buyers. Instead, buyers would often learn of a warranty after having received the product. The warranty in those cases was largely unimportant in the sale because the buyer knew nothing of it until after agreeing to purchase the product. In those cases in which the buyer knew of a written warranty, the seller often would include a disclaimer of implied warranties and/or a limitation of consequential damages (damages other than the reduced worth of a defective product; for example, the damages from a basement flood caused by a defective valve on a hot water heater). The net result of such a warranty was that the buyer would lack the benefits of the implied warranties and consequential damages. Buyers often were confronted with conditions of qualification for warranty protection. These conditions might include a requirement to send a warranty card to a manufacturer to ensure coverage, a provision that the defective product be sent to a distant manufacturer for service, or a requirement that the buyer take the product to a local retailer for service despite the manufacturer’s unwillingness to compensate the retailer adequately for the services provided. Another conclusion of the federal studies was that many purchasers who enjoyed rights under the UCC’s warranty provisions were unwilling to litigate because the amount of the claim, often only the difference between the actual and warranted value of the product, would not 1265

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justify pursuing an action against the manufacturer or seller of the product. Provisions of Magnuson-Moss On January 4, 1975, Congress’s effort to correct these problems, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, became law. In general, the act requires manufacturers and sellers who use written product warranties to disclose to purchasers the scope, effect, and limitations, if any, of a warranty; requires warrantors to establish informal dispute resolution programs for consumers who have claims based on written warranties; and prohibits warrantors from using a written warranty to disclaim the UCC’s implied warranties. It is important to note that the act does not require that product sellers make written warranties; it applies only to those sellers that elect to use such warranties. Disclosure Provisions The disclosure provisions of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act were likely its most significant provisions. These provisions were intended to respond to the less-than-clear language often used by sellers in their written warranties and to provide consumers with more information, with which they could make better choices. The most important disclosure requirement is that warrantors clearly label written warranties as either “full” or “limited.” A full warranty requires the warrantor or its designated representative to repair the defective product at no cost to the consumer, and, if repair is not possible, to replace the product at no cost. If the warrantor or its representative is unable to repair or replace the product, then the warrantor must refund the purchase price. The warrantor may specify the duration of the full warranty. The act classifies all warranties that fall short of the coverage of full warranties as limited warranties and requires that the warrantors label them as such. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act requires that all consumerdirected written warranties be stated in clear and unambiguous language. Consumers should know the following information after reading the written warranty: which parts and repairs are covered by the warranty, whether any expenses are excluded from coverage, how long the warranty lasts, the necessary steps in obtaining 1266

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repairs, what the company will do if the product fails, whether the warranty covers consequential damages, and any conditions or limitations on the warranty. The act also includes some important requirements and prohibitions. It requires that consumers be apprised of their written warranty options before the sale, compels warrantors that want to limit or avoid consequential damages to include conspicuous language to that effect in the written warranty, and proscribes the use of warranty cards and other devices that may pose obstacles to purchasers unless the written warranty itself includes such requirements. The act also prohibits a warrantor that makes a written full or limited warranty from disclaiming any implied warranties. Dispute Resolution To encourage the resolution of consumer warranty claims, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act requires all product warrantors to establish internal means of informal dispute resolution for these claims. Although the act does not require resort to informal resolution, it encourages consumers to use this method. If a consumer makes reasonable efforts to comply with the warrantor’s wishes and if the warrantor is unable to remedy the consumer’s claim adequately, then the consumer has the right, if he or she prevails in a later lawsuit against the warrantor, to recover from the warrantor the reasonable value of attorney fees and court costs arising from the litigation. Impact on Consumers and Warrantors The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act has had a varied but generally positive effect on consumer-directed warranty transactions. For example, the act’s disclosure provisions appear to have had their intended effect of providing consumers with information so that they can make better purchasing decisions. After passage of the act, the federal government commissioned several studies to examine its effect. In general, the findings suggested that consumers were pleased with the warranty information required by MagnusonMoss and used this information to make informed choices among comparable products. Additional studies sought to determine whether and to what extent the act influenced potential warrantors. The findings sug1267

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gested that product manufacturers and sellers were not more reluctant to make written warranties after the act. In fact, it appeared that many product marketers sought to use the act’s requirements to their advantage by offering full warranties to consumers. The studies also suggested that warranties appearing after passage of the act were more readable and included more product information than did their predecessors. Finally, the studies revealed that virtually all warrantors were complying with the act’s prohibition against implied warranty disclaimers but warrantors were more inclined to include conspicuous limitations of consequential damages in their written warranties. The act’s provision prohibiting warrantors from using their written warranties to disclaim implied warranties has had a significant influence on both warrantors and consumers. Perhaps the single most deceptive practice before the adoption of MagnusonMoss was a warrantor’s assertion of product quality through a written warranty coupled with an almost contradictory provision disclaiming the UCC’s implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The written warranty would suggest to most reasonable consumers that the product was of good quality, would include language that often restricted the consumer’s options in case the product was less than advertised, and then would eliminate resort to implied warranties, which provided the only other recourse should the written warranty fail for some reason. Despite the act’s attempt to simplify the dispute process, dispute resolution remained the biggest problem for consumers wishing to pursue warranty actions against product warrantors. Whether the product deviates from a written warranty or is of poor quality continued to be a key issue in warranty disputes. Although the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act improved the dispute process and encouraged warrantors to cure the problem, the act did not, and likely could not, eliminate frivolous consumer claims, unreasonable warrantor reactions to legitimate claims, and high litigation costs for those cases in which both sides strongly support their positions and are therefore unwilling to resolve their dispute in an informal manner. A final and largely unanswered question raised by the act concerns the effects of federal intervention in an area such as warranty law that historically had been governed by states’ laws. This ques1268

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tion becomes more important when examined within the context of congressional efforts to reform another area reserved to states’ laws, product liability. Magnuson-Moss received wide support in Congress, but throughout the 1980’s proposed product liability reform legislation did not succeed. Nim Razook Sources for Further Study Arthur Young & Company. Warranties Rules Consumer Baseline Study. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979. Reitz, Curtis R. Consumer Protection Under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Philadelphia Pennsylvania: American Law InstituteAmerican Bar Association Committee on Continuing Professional Education, 1978. Schmitt, Jacqueline, Lawrence Kanter, and Rachel Miller. Impact Report on the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980. U.S. Federal Trade Commission. A Businessperson’s Guide to Federal Warranty Law. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1987. See also: Child product safety laws (1970’s); Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969); Consumer Product Safety Act (1972).

Earned Income Tax Credit Date: February 18, 1975, as part of the Tax Reduction Act of 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 89 Stat. 26 (Tax Reduction Act) Public law: 94-12 (Tax Reduction Act) Categories: Tariffs and Taxation

The earned income tax credit, an attempt to use the tax system as a method of social policy, provided for government cash payments to lower-income families with children. 1269

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The earned income tax credit is traceable to the early attempts to reform the nation’s welfare system. In 1969 President Richard M. Nixon proposed a guaranteed annual income as part of his Family Assistance Plan. Under this plan, the government was to establish a minimum income level, and Americans, whether employed or not, would have been eligible for coverage. No American family would have been permitted, under Nixon’s proposal, to fall below a certain income level. Nixon’s Family Assistance Plan was controversial and was opposed by both Democrats and Republicans. Although it was passed by the House of Representatives, it was defeated in the Senate. Nevertheless, the concept, in a much-revised format, became the earned income tax credit. The earned income tax credit became part of American public policy in 1975, when Congress passed a new tax law. One component of this law provided for government cash payments to lowerincome families with children. While not as far-reaching in scope as Nixon’s plan, the earned income tax credit has become an important part of American social welfare policy. During the 1980’s the administration of President Ronald Reagan supported increases in the program, and in 1993 the administration of President Bill Clinton supported an expansion of the program. Michael E. Meagher Sources for Further Study Drake, Susan L. The Tax Reduction Act of 1975 Public Law 94-12 (H.R. 2166): The Legislative Development of Each Provision, Including Those Items Not Adopted. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 1975. Meyer, Bruce D., and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, eds. Making Work Pay: The Earned Income Tax Credit and Its Impact on America’s Families. New York: Russell Sage, 2002. See also: Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Rec-

onciliation Act (1981); Tax Reform Act of 1986 (1986).

1270

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species Date: July 1, 1975 Categories: Animals; Business, Commerce, and Trade; Environ-

ment and Conservation; Treaties and Agreements

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species resulted from an international conference on endangered species held in Washington, D.C., in 1973. The 144 signatories made legal commitments to conserve endangered animal and plant species. Until the 1970’s the international agreements that dealt with preservation of species did not include a binding legal commitment on the part of the countries signing them. They were ineffectual in protecting the species that they were written to protect. In 1969, however, the United States passed the Endangered Species Conservation Act (ESA), which contained a provision that gave the secretaries of interior and commerce until June 30, 1971, to call for an international conference on endangered species. Although it went beyond the ESA’s time limit, the international conference was held in Washington, D.C., in March, 1973, resulting in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The United States was the first country to ratify the convention, which entered into effect on July 1, 1975; more than 140 other countries have also ratified. Provisions of the Agreement CITES is intended to conserve species and does this by managing international trade in those species. It was the first international convention on the conservation of wildlife that constituted a legal commitment by the parties to the convention and also included a means of enforcing its provisions. This enforcement includes a system of trade sanctions and an international reporting network to stop trade in endangered species. However, the system established by CITES does contain loopholes through which states with a special interest in a particular species can opt out of the global control for that species. The major aspect of CITES is its creation of three levels of vulnerability of spe1271

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cies. Appendix I includes all species that are threatened with extinction and whose status may be affected by international trade. Appendix II includes species that are not yet threatened but might become endangered if trade in them is not regulated. It also includes other species that, if traded, might affect the vulnerability of the first group. Appendix III lists species that a signatory party identifies as subject to regulation in order to restrict exploitation of that species. The parties to the treaty agree not to allow any trade in the species on the three lists unless an exception is allowed in CITES. The species listed in the appendices may be moved from one list to another as their vulnerability increases or decreases. According to the convention, states may implement stricter measures of conservation than those specified in the convention or may ban trade in species not included in the appendices. CITES also established a series of import and export trade permits within each of the categories. Each nation designates a management authority and a scientific authority to implement CITES. Exceptions to the ban on trade are made for scientific and museum specimens, exhibitions, and movement of a species under permit by a national management authority. Obligations of the Signatories The parties to CITES maintain records of trade in specimens of species that are listed in the appendices and prepare periodic reports on their compliance with the convention. These reports are sent to the CITES secretariat in Switzerland, administered by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which issues notifications to all parties of state actions and bans. The secretariat’s functions are established by the convention and include interpreting the provisions of CITES and advising countries on implementing those provisions by providing assistance in writing their national legislation and organizing training seminars. The secretariat also studies the status of species being traded in order to assure that the exploitation of such species is within sustainable limits. The CITES Conference of Parties meets every two or three years in order to review implementation of the convention. The meetings are also attended by nonparty states, intergovernmental agencies of the United Nations, and nongovernmental organizations considered “technically qualified in protection, conservation or 1272

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management of wild fauna and flora.” The meetings are held in different signatories’ countries: The first took place in Berne, Switzerland, on November 2-6, 1976. At the conference, the parties may adopt amendments to the convention and make recommendations to improve the effectiveness of CITES. CITES has been incorporated into Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living. The strategy was launched in 1991 by UNEP, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Other nongovernmental groups working to support CITES are Fauna and Flora International (FFI), Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce (TRAFFIC International), and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC). Later Agreements Some of the species protected by CITES have received additional protection under later agreements. In certain cases, however, states have allowed trade in listed species to continue for economic purposes or have refused to sign CITES because of the extent to which they trade in a species or species part, such as ivory. Others have signed because they needed help in stopping illegal trade and poaching of species within their borders. Whales have proven to be a difficult species to protect. Whales were given protection under CITES according to the status of the specific whale species. The moratorium on commercial whaling by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was intended to strengthen the CITES protection by species, but the whaling states have disagreed on the numbers of whale populations, and some have withdrawn from the IWC and resumed their whaling activities. Colleen M. Driscoll Sources for Further Study Ehrlich, Paul, and Anne Ehrlich. Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species. New York: Random House, 1981. McNeely, Jeffrey A., et al. Conserving the World’s Biological Diversity. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1990. See also: Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Endan-

gered Species Act (1973).

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Voting Rights Act of 1975 Date: August 6, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 89 Stat. 402 Public law: 94-73 U.S. Code: 42 § 1973 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties;

Voting and Elections

The Voting Rights Act of 1975 formally ended use of literacy tests designed to deny voting rights to language minorities in the United States. Civil rights became a central concern of American politics in the 1960’s. Numerous civil rights acts were passed during that decade, and none was more important for the extension of voting rights in particular than the Voting Rights Act 1965. The 1975 extension of this act included a ban on literacy tests for minorities. Many consider these acts to be the most important extensions of rights ever granted by Congress. In American history, the only actions that surpass the 1965 and 1975 voting rights acts in importance for extending voting rights are the Fifteenth (1870) and Nineteenth (1920) amendments to the U.S. Constitution, respectively prohibiting denial of voting rights on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude and granting the vote to women. Twenty-fourth Amendment By the mid-1960’s, the number of demonstrations by civil rights groups had increased considerably. Violence surrounding even the “peaceful” demonstrations had intensified their impact. President Lyndon B. Johnson had hoped that the states would address voting rights problems within their own borders. The federal government attempted to assist states by removing some of the obstacles to voting rights. One clear example was President Johnson’s leadership in securing the passage of the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964, outlawing the use of poll taxes as a necessary prerequisite to voting in federal elections. This was a major step in encouraging minorities to exercise their voting rights. 1274

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Although the Twenty-fourth Amendment was a major electoral breakthrough, it had the same shortcoming as the civil rights acts Congress approved in 1957, 1960, and 1964: It left the federal government in a passive role in the crucial area of voter registration. The voting rights acts of 1965, 1970, and 1975 overcame this critical shortcoming. Voting Rights Act of 1965 The history of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is also the history of the Voting Rights Act of 1975, since the later action was an extension of the earlier act. The 1965 act largely was forced on President Johnson and others who hoped that the federal government could avoid direct intervention in what historically had been a local prerogative. Public opinion grew intolerant and impatient after a series of bloody demonstrations. By most accounts, the decisive event that led to congressional action in 1965 was the Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., organized this march to protest the registration process in Dallas County. Like other marches during this period, it drew marchers from the entire nation. What distinguished this particular march was the violence that erupted when Governor George Wallace called out state troopers to stop the march. The clash between marchers and troopers resulted in the deaths of two marchers and severe injuries to scores of others. This conflict produced an outburst of demonstrations and protest across the nation. The cries for an end to this violence forced President Johnson to introduce a comprehensive voting rights bill to the U.S. Congress. The final version of this bill, which Johnson signed into law on August 6, ended literacy tests in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia and in thirty-nine counties in North Carolina. The other key provision of this law was the authorization of federal examiners to conduct registration and federal observers to oversee elections. The states and counties within the affected jurisdictions also had to submit any changes in their election laws and procedures to federal examiners for clearance. The literacy provision affected Southern states primarily, but the broader jurisdiction of the act affected states in every region of the nation. 1275

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Voting Rights Act of 1970 The voting rights act was due for renewal in 1970. In June of that year, Congress extended the act and made some significant changes. The major changes in the 1970 amendments were a ban on literacy tests in all states, prohibition of long-term residency requirements for voting in presidential elections, and establishment of eighteen as the legal age for voting in national elections. Like the 1965 act, this legislation had a five-year life. The 1970 act created two distinct legal categories, general and special. The general provisions dealt with literacy tests, voting age, residency requirements, and penalties for interfering with voting rights. The general provisions were permanent laws that were applied nationally. The special provisions, like the 1965 act, were selectively applied to areas where such provisions were deemed necessary. States or counties were subjected to the special provisions if they had any test or device established as a prerequisite to either registration or voting and had less than half of the registered voters participate in the presidential elections of 1964 or 1968. The courts could also apply the special provisions to other electoral districts if the attorney general successfully brought suit against them for violating the Fifteenth Amendment. Areas subjected to the special provisions were placed under additional federal controls. There was a provision for the suspension of literacy and other test devices beyond the ban. Federal examiners were assigned to these areas to conduct registration drives, and federal observers were sent into these areas to monitor elections. In addition, similar to the 1965 act, these areas had to submit any changes in voting laws or procedures to the federal government for clearance. The special provisions could be lifted from a state or county if it successfully filed suit in a three-judge federal district court in Washington, D.C. Such suits had to convince the court that the voter tests or devices in use were not discriminatory. Voting Act of 1975: Passage Through Congress Like the 1965 act, the 1970 amendments required reconsideration and renewal after five years. In preparation for this renewal, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights prepared an extensive report for the president and Congress in January of 1975. The report, The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After, set the tone for the congressional 1276

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debate that was to follow. In general, the report found that minority participation in the electoral process had increased significantly since 1965. Discriminatory practices, however, were still hampering minority registration and voting. The report suggested a number of changes, the most controversial of which were its recommendation of a ten-year extension of the act and its call for greater attention to language minorities, or those who did not speak English. In February, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights began hearings on extending the Voting Rights Act. Although many different bills were introduced in both the House and the Senate, the one that worked its way successfully through both chambers was H.R. 6219. After swift movement through the committee system, this bill passed the House of Representatives on June 4 by a 341-70 vote. Efforts to stall this bill when it was sent to the Senate proved unsuccessful. Senator James O. Eastland, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a strong opponent of the bill, put off action until mid-July. The tactics used by Senator Eastland proved unsuccessful when the Senate leadership under Mike Mansfield managed to bring the House bill directly to the Senate floor. When it appeared that the bill’s opponents would stall it on the Senate floor. Majority Leader Mansfield and Majority Whip Robert Byrd skillfully passed two cloture motions (limiting debate) to get the bill passed. After considerable parliamentary maneuvering, the Senate leadership managed to get seventeen proposed amendments rejected or tabled. The one area where the bill’s opponents succeeded was an amendment that limited the extension to seven years instead of ten. Once this issue was settled, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 77 to 12. The House quickly made some expedient rules changes that allowed it to accept the Senate version of the bill without going to a conference committee. The House then voted 346-56 to accept the Senate version and sent the bill to President Gerald Ford. President Ford signed the voting rights extension (PL 9473) on August 6. Provisions of the 1975 Act The passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1975 extended the rights secured by the initial 1965 act through August 6, 1982. This portion of the act, Title I, added little to the previous legislation. The 1277

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most significant changes were the result of Titles II and III of the 1975 act. Title II of the new act expanded the basic protection of the old legislation to certain language minorities: persons of Spanish heritage, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Alaskan natives. Federal observers could be sent into areas if more than five percent of the voting-age population was identified by the Census Bureau as a single language minority, election material for the 1972 presidential election was printed in English only, or less than half of the voting-age citizens had voted in the 1974 presidential election. As with the earlier acts, areas could be removed from Title II jurisdiction by appealing their case successfully to the federal district court in Washington, D.C. They had to prove that their election laws had posed no barrier to voting over the past ten years. The provisions in Title III of the act required certain jurisdictions, those with at least five percent non-English-speaking populations, to conduct bilingual elections. The interesting twist to this provision was that areas could drop the bilingual elections if they could prove that the illiteracy rate among their language minority had dropped below the national illiteracy rate. States and their subdivisions could free themselves from these federal regulations by improving the educational opportunities of their language minorities. Impact Many people believe the 1975 Voting Rights Act to be the most significant expansion of suffrage rights outside the South since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. It was clearly the most significant ever for language minorities. The legislation gave access to the electoral process to a significant number of language minorities and expanded voting rights enforcement to numerous jurisdictions outside the South. The Justice Department identified 513 political jurisdictions in thirty states that provided bilingual elections in 1976. All of these bilingual elections were a direct result of the Voting Rights Act of 1975. The number of electoral districts required to seek clearance for changes in their election laws increased by 279 after this enactment. Donald V. Weatherman 1278

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Sources for Further Study Congress and the Nation. “Voting Rights, Bilingual Elections.” 12 (1977): 671-678. Congressional Digest. “Controversy over Extension of the Federal Voting Rights Act.” 54 (June/July, 1975): 163-192. Grebler, Leo, Joan W. Moore, and Ralph Guzman. The MexicanAmerican People. New York: Free Press, 1970. Hanus, Jerome J. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as Amended: History, Effects, and Alternatives. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976. Lawson, Steven. Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1969. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. McCloskey, Clifton, and Bruce Merrill. “Mexican-American Political Behavior in Texas.” Social Science Quarterly 53 (March, 1973): 785-798. Matthews, Donald, and James W. Prothro. Negroes and the New Southern Politics. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966. Pachon, Harry P. “Political Mobilization in the Mexican-American Community.” In Mexican-Americans in Comparative Perspective, edited by Walker Conner. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1970. Stanley, Harold W. Voter Mobilization and the Politics of Race: The South and Universal Suffrage, 1952-1984. New York: Praeger, 1987. Thernstrom, Abigail M. Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1975. See also: Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965).

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Women in Armed Services Academies Act Date: October 7, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 89 Stat. 538 Public law: 94-106 Categories: Education; Military and National Security; Women’s

Issues

The armed forces of the United States reflected the rapidly changing role of women in American society by allowing women to become professionally trained officers. As the war in Vietnam came to an end with the withdrawal of United States forces and the Viet Cong take-over of that country in 1975, the nature of the armed forces of the United States also changed. During the war, the armed forces had utilized the draft to maintain a sufficient level of personnel, and to many people the draft had become a symbol of what was wrong and unfair about the war in Vietnam. Draft evaders and draft resisters numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Following the end of the war, the armed forces decided to depend on an all-volunteer force. This decision came at a time when the national economy was relatively weak and many young people were unable to find jobs. As a result, service in the armed forces looked attractive. Women Enlist in the Armed Forces The volunteer emphasis meant women could find careers in the services as well. By 1974, more than ninety thousand women were enlisted in the armed forces of the United States. Tradition and law directed many of these women into nursing, but an increasing number found their way into other non-combat roles. The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program on college campuses also trained female officers. These programs were glad to accept women because enrollment in the ROTC had declined drastically during the years of the Vietnam War. An increasing dependence on advanced technology in military affairs also meant that fewer military roles called for face-to-face, hand-to-hand confrontation with an enemy. 1280

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The movement of women into the armed forces was part of the overall movement of women out of the home during the postwar women’s movement. It seemed logical for women to enroll in the service academies as well. As the defense appropriations bill for fiscal 1976 began to be debated, two of them, Representative Samuel Stratton of New York and Senator William Hathaway of Maine, sponsored amendments to the bill that would require the service academies to open enrollment to women. The U.S. Service Academies The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, is the nation’s oldest service academy, followed in age by the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, the Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut, and the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Of these, the Coast Guard had already decided to admit women and so was exempt from the bill. The Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, is not an armed service school, as it is operated by the Department of Transportation, but it too had admitted women voluntarily. In many ways the experience of the Merchant Marine Academy paved the way for the armed services. Fifteen women entered Kings Point in 1974 and ten completed the first year, taking the same classes and participating in the same physical activities as the men. The dropout rate in that class was the lowest in the history of the school. One school spokesperson expressed the theory that the male students were reluctant to quit while women were “sticking it out.” Resistance, Debate, and Passage Despite this positive model, there was a considerable amount of resistance to change on the part of some members of the military and from some women. The secretary of the Navy, J. William Middendorf, expressed a determination not to accept women at Annapolis voluntarily. He indicated that an acceptance of the ERA would change that policy but that he was opposed to any “unilateral” action. General William C. Westmoreland, former commander of United States forces in Vietnam, was more blunt in his views. During a Memorial Day celebration at Middle-town, Ohio, the general said it would be “silly” to permit women to enroll at West Point: 1281

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties It’s depriving young men of the limited places that are there. . . . The purpose of West Point is to train combat officers and women are not physically able to lead in combat. . . . Maybe you could find one woman in ten thousand who could lead in combat, but she would be a freak and we’re not running the military academy for freaks. . . . I don’t believe women can carry a pack, live in a foxhole or go a week without taking a bath.

Former commandant of West Point General Maxwell Taylor agreed with those sentiments by commenting on the limited space available in the schools and saying that a woman enrolled might take up the place of “another Grant or Lee, Pershing or MacArthur.” A letter from a woman published in The New York Times expressed the opinion that the “great colleges and universities” of the United States had diluted their moral and educational standards when they became coeducational. She feared the same would happen at the service academies. These views were challenged by other writers to the newspaper who saw such views as nothing more than traditional prejudices based on sex-role stereotypes. As one writer pointed out, the military leadership needed change, as the current group of leaders had produced only stalemates in Korea and Vietnam. Debate in the Congress mirrored discussion in the society at large. The debate over Representative Stratton’s amendment was especially raucous in the House of Representatives. One member of the House even raised the specter of female combat officers leaving their troops under fire so they could go to the rear to breastfeed babies. In the end, however, the House on May 21, 1975, voted 303 to 96 to allow women into the service academies. A few days later the Senate, with much less debate, unanimously passed the amendment sponsored by Senator Hathaway. President Gerald Ford signed the bill into law on October 8, 1975. Adjustments at the Academies The major adjustment to be made at the academies was in their view that they existed to train combat leaders. Commander Robert Lewis of the Naval Academy feared that a two-track curriculum would have to be developed, one for combat and one for noncombat commanders. Colonel Nancy Hopfenspirger, the highest1282

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ranking woman Army officer, agreed, saying she also viewed Army officers as leading combat troops. These arguments were undercut by the curricula of the academies, which emphasized not strategy and tactics but math, science, and engineering. The views of many were summed up by an exchange between an unnamed West Point cadet and Carol Barkalow, a member of the first West Point class to include women. At lunch during her pre-enrollment visit, a male cadet asked, “Excuse me, Miss, but why do you want to come here?” She replied, “Because I want to be the best Army officer I can be.” He answered, “That’s fine, but couldn’t you do it someplace else?” The first female cadets at all the academies began to enroll in the summer of 1976. They knew the eyes of America were on them. Sonya Nitibuls, one of the top high school female athletes in the nation, said of her enrollment at West Point, “If I can make it through this, I can make it through anything.” Donna Smart may have voiced what many of these first female cadets in all the academies were thinking when she observed that one could either follow an established path or one could blaze a new trail. At the service academies, certain physical changes had to be made. Toilet facilities had to be provided and other arrangements made to assure a degree of privacy. New uniforms had to be designed, especially formal dress uniforms. Since women would be sharing the same barracks as men, both sexes were required to wear robes to and from their separate bathrooms. Also, the women would be taught karate instead of boxing and would be issued modified rifles that were slightly shorter and lighter. A few of the physical drills would be modified to compensate for the lower upperbody strength of the women. The major factor at all the academies was the requirement, established by law, that women not be assigned to combat roles. This meant that certain kinds of training, such as for fighter pilots at the Air Force Academy, would not be offered to women. Of all the service academies, the Air Force was the most enthusiastic about the presence of women. It was the only academy to recruit women and the only one to assign female officers to special duty at the academy. Thirteen special air training officers, all first and second lieutenants, were assigned to act as guidance counselors and role models for the female cadets. Despite this degree of preparation, there was some complaining that the basic training 1283

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session had been weakened to accommodate women cadets, although the academy commander denied this was the case. The female cadets faced similar first-year experiences. There was some overt harassment from male cadets who resented their presence and who believed women had no place in the armed forces. Naturally, some problems of a sexual nature arose. The Naval Academy policy called for any cadet “responsible for a pregnancy” to resign. If a female cadet became pregnant the “responsibility” was obvious. At the Merchant Marine Academy a male and female cadet were found together in bed. The female was expelled, but the male was allowed to graduate. The Air Force Academy, the most accepting of women of all the academies, ruled that a cadet who became pregnant could take “excess leave” until after the child was born and then return to class to catch up on her work. The women’s dropout rate was about the same as or lower than that for men. Women won some West Point cadet leadership positions, and at Annapolis, midshipman Stephanie McManus was chosen to carry the flag for the honor company at graduation. The first women graduated from the academies in 1980. During the 19901991 Persian Gulf War, women proved their ability to make positive contributions to the military under wartime conditions. Michael R. Bradley Sources for Further Study Ambrose, Stephen E., and James A. Barber, Jr. The Military and American Society. New York: Free Press, 1972. Barkalow, Carol. In the Men’s House. New York: Poseidon Press, 1990. Galloway, K. Bruce, and Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr. West Point: America’s Power Fraternity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. Janowitz, Morris, and Stephen D. Wesbrook. The Political Education of Soldiers. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1983. Millis, Walter. American Military Thought. Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1966. See also: Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (1972);

Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978).

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Age Discrimination Act

Age Discrimination Act Date: November 28, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 89 Stat. 728 Public law: 94-135 U.S. Code: 42 § 6101 Categories: Aging Issues; Health and Welfare; Labor and Employ-

ment

Though limited in both scope and application, this law provided safeguards against bias-based abuse and served as a statutory foundation for antidiscrimination policies that followed. In its basic premises, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 originated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI, section 715 of this law mandated that the U.S. secretary of labor formulate a special report on the extent of age discrimination practices in employment. In 1965, the secretary’s office completed the report, which documented widespread discrimination against senior citizens. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) went so far as to prohibit discrimination in employment directed against workers aged from forty to seventy. Provisions and Exemptions Though the format of the Age Discrimination Act (ADA) of 1975 follows that of Title III to the Education Amendments of 1972 and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, without their respective prohibitions against discrimination based upon gender and disability, it is most closely modeled on the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The ADA itself is not a blanket prohibition against age-based discrimination but much more narrowly affects “programs or activities receiving Federal financial assistance”; it states that no one can be “excluded from participation, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under” such programs. The act’s provisions are further limited by significant exceptions outlined in two subsections, 6103-b and 6103-c. The exemptive provisions apply to cases in which age is a factor necessary to “the normal operation or the achievement of any statutory objective”; in which “differentiation” occurs based on “reasonable factors other than age”; and in which programs provide benefits based 1285

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upon age (such as Social Security and Medicare) or establish “criteria for participation in age-related terms.” The ADEA is set apart as being outside the provisions of the ADA; with the exception of programs “receiving financial assistance under the Job Training Partnership Act,” the ADA is denied the authority to extend the enforcement of its provisions to the private sector of the economy. Implementation and Enforcement The lead time given for compliance was gradual; no provision of the act was to take effect until July 1, 1979. The Commission on Civil Rights was empowered to make a study determining the possible existence of instances of unreasonable age discrimination within the affected programs and agencies and to identify the alleged violators. The resulting report was to be submitted to the president and Congress no later than November 28, 1977. The U.S. secretary of health and human services was then required, beginning in 1980, to make an annual report to Congress by March 31 describing the degree of compliance with the provisions of the act by the relevant agencies, departments, and programs. Enforcement methods include termination of federal assistance to violators and “any other means authorized by law.” Raymond Pierre Hylton Sources for Further Study Gregory, Raymond F. Age Discrimination in the American Workplace: Old at a Young Age. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Hushbeck, Judith C. Old and Obsolete: Age Discrimination and the American Worker, 1860-1920. New York: Garland, 1989. Kalet, Joseph E. Age Discrimination in Employment Law. Washington, D.C.: BNA Books, 1990. O’Meara, Daniel P. Protecting the Growing Number of Older Workers: The Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Center for Human Resources, 1989. Segrave, Kerry. Age Discrimination by Employers. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Press, 2002. See also: Executive Order 11141 (1964); Older Americans Act

(1965); Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967); Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990).

1286

Education for All Handicapped Children Act

Education for All Handicapped Children Act Date: November 29, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 89 Stat. 773 Public law: 94-142 U.S. Code: 20 § 1400 Categories: Children’s Issues; Disability Issues; Education

This legislation ensured all handicapped children in the United States access to “free appropriate public education” that would meet their individual needs. Several years of congressional hearings revealed that the educational needs of millions of disabled children were not being met. Often families of students with special needs had to educate their children at their own expense. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which became effective in 1977, reshaped American education. All handicapped students were ensured an appropriate educational setting. Specific learning disabilities and related services were clearly defined under the law. States were required to submit plans and procedures designed to meet the needs of handicapped persons between the ages of three and twenty-one. When necessary, the act allowed for the provision of services in private educational settings at public expense. It stated that students should receive special education and related services in the “least restrictive environment commensurate with their needs.” Safeguards were established to protect the rights of all concerned. These included provisions for assessment, detailed individualized education programs, and timetables for achievement of stated goals. Parental involvement in the educational process was strongly supported. Annual reviews of students’ progress were mandated. A procedure for fair hearings was established to resolve disputes concerning educational placement. Failure to comply with the law would result in denial of federal funding. Kathleen Schongar 1287

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Sources for Further Study Jones, Clarence, and Ted F. Rabold. Public Law 94-142: A Guide for the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. State College, Pa.: Penns Valley, 1978. Turnbull, H. Rutherford, and Craig R. Fielder. Judicial Interpretation of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Arlington, Va.: Council for Exceptional Children, 1984. See also: Bilingual Education Act (1968); Juvenile Justice and De-

linquency Prevention Act (1974); Indian Child Welfare Act (1978); Americans with Disabilities Act (1990); Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990).

Energy Policy and Conservation Act Date: December 22, 1975 U.S. Statutes at Large: 89 Stat. 871 Public law: 94-163 Categories: Energy

The Energy Act was aimed at reducing gasoline consumption and increasing domestic production by increasing gasoline prices. Congress had been reexamining its energy policy since the 19731974 embargo imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had dramatically raised prices for oil. OPEC states imposed the embargo after the United States supported Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War (the Yom Kippur War). Imports provided more than one-third of the oil used in the United States. The embargo caused shortages throughout the country, and Congress responded by taking up legislation aimed at reducing American reliance on imported oil. After two years of debate Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1976 and sent it to President Gerald Ford, who signed it into law. 1288

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Provisions The bill’s major provisions gave the Federal Energy Administration (the FEA, which became the Department of Energy in 1978) authority to order major power plants to switch to using coal in place of oil or natural gas in the production of electricity. This would free more gasoline for automobile use. Another provision gave the president authority to control energy supplies in a number of ways. He could order refineries to increase production of fuel oil to meet increased demand, and he could order oil companies to maintain certain levels of oil and petroleum inventories in storage so that supplies would be available in case of another embargo. The president could also create a strategic petroleum reserve of one billion barrels of oil. This reserve would provide enough gasoline and fuel oil to last three months, another protection against any future boycott. The chief executive also was given the power to mandate energy conservation measures (which were not spelled out) across the nation if another oil emergency struck, and he could even limit the amount of gas anyone could buy if the crisis continued. This rationing provision was strongly opposed by the oil industry but managed to win narrow approval in the House and Senate. For the first time, fuel economy standards for new automobiles were mandated for cars built after 1977. All cars were expected to reach an average fuel economy level of at least 26 miles per gallon by 1985—a great improvement, because the average in 1974 models had been only 14 miles per gallon. The automobile and oil industries fought bitterly against this measure, but it too passed by a slim margin. It was expected that this provision alone would save millions of gallons of gasoline a year. The FEA was also empowered to establish an energy testing and labeling program for major consumer products, from refrigerators to television sets. Consumers would be able to tell which producers used the least energy and thus could buy the most efficient items if they so desired. Federal price controls on domestic oil were continued until 1979 so that the oil industry could not make excessive profits during the oil crisis. President Ford signed these provisions into law despite wide opposition from the petroleum industry. Leslie V. Tischauser 1289

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Source for Further Study United States. General Accounting Office. GAO Work Involving Title V of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975: Report to the Congress. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1978. See also: Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); Department

of Energy Organization Act (1977); Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988).

Toxic Substances Control Act Date: October 11, 1976 U.S. Statutes at Large: 90 Stat. 2003 Public law: 94-469 U.S. Code: 15 § 2601 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Health and Welfare

This act permitted the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate toxic chemicals that pose a threat to the environment or to human health. There are seven million known chemical compounds, sixty thousand of which are used commercially. About one thousand new chemicals are put into production every year and introduced into the environment. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was enacted in order to give the government the authority to regulate the use of a substance that can harm human health or the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with reviewing risk information on all new chemicals before they are manufactured or imported and with deciding whether they should be admitted, controlled, or banned. Carcinogens and Other Toxic Chemicals In the 1970’s, a considerable number of newspaper accounts reported that some commonly used chemicals were associated with such problems as cancer, birth defects, and sterility. A milestone 1290

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in the regulation of environmental hazards was the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act, which represented the federal response to a growing awareness of and concern over the existence of hazardous chemicals in the environment that were not subject to regulation or testing under any of the other environmental laws. The act was preceded by the Clean Air Act and its amendments, which regulated discharges and emissions into the air and water; the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which established safety standards for the workplace; and the Consumer Product Safety Act, which authorized standards for consumer products. None of these laws had allowed the government to explore the potentially adverse effects of chemicals on health and the environment. The TSCA was enacted to fill the gap in the existing statutory framework by giving the EPA the authority to acquire information about the nature of the vast number of chemical substances before they were introduced into the marketplace, as well as the authority to regulate those found to be hazardous. Enactment of the TSCA had been considered for several years by Congress, which recognized that the technological revolution in the chemical industry had led to a tremendous increase in the number and development of toxic chemicals. Congress responded to chemical pollution controversies, such as those regarding polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), vinyl chloride, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), by establishing that the control of toxic chemicals was a priority health requirement. The Senate commerce report estimated that at the time the TSCA was passed between 60 and 90 percent of all human cancers were the result of exposure to environmental contaminants. Congress concluded that a preclearance regulatory system was necessary. Ideally, a safety system should be in place before the introduction of a proposed chemical into the commercial marketplace. Provisions and Implementation The TSCA gave the EPA four tools to use in regulating toxic chemicals: the authority to require that chemicals suspected of posing risks be tested; a procedure to screen all new chemicals for possible risks; a framework for gathering information on existing chemicals; and the authority to regulate those chemicals found to be hazardous. The TSCA regulated an estimated sixty thousand chemi1291

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cals manufactured for commercial purposes and several million chemicals used in research and development. For the first time, the entire chemical industry was put under comprehensive regulation. The law applied to almost every facet of the industry, including product development, testing, manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal. In addition, importers of chemical substances were treated the same as domestic manufacturers, which extended the EPA’s control to certain aspects of international trade. There were two parts to the TSCA. One part involved the gathering of information about chemicals, the other involved the control of chemicals. A large portion of the TSCA addressed the gathering of information to enable the EPA to decide whether certain substances should be controlled. Companies were required to keep records about the chemicals they used; some records were made available to the EPA when it conducted inspections, while other records needed to be reported to the EPA on a regular basis. The most stringent regulations designated by the TSCA were those that affected PCBs, which were singled out by Congress because of their high toxicity, widespread use, and longevity. One of the primary functions of the TSCA was to regulate the manufacture, use, and distribution of PCBs. Section 7 of the TSCA granted the EPA the authority to use judicial means against an imminently hazardous substance or mixture. This provision could be used to require PCB and dioxin cleanups, although the EPA could also use the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976, or the Clean Water Act to order such cleanups. The TSCA also gave the government the right to bring suits for noncompliance, and to pursue both civil and criminal penalties. Citizen suits were also made possible, cases in which private citizens can bring a civil action against someone who may be in violation of the TSCA; alternatively, a citizen could sue the EPA administrator to compel the performance of a nondiscretionary duty. Implementation and Enforcement The first act of the EPA under the TSCA was to make an inventory of all chemicals manufactured, imported, or processed in the United States. The inventory was based on reports from manufacturers, importers, processors, and users of chemical substances, 1292

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which they were required to submit to the agency. The TSCA defined a chemical substance as any organic or inorganic substance of a particular molecular identity, as well as any combination of such substances occurring in whole or in part as a result of a chemical reaction or in nature. The administrator of the EPA was obliged to compile and keep a current list of all such substances manufactured or imported in the United States. After the inventory was taken, the premanufacture provisions of the TSCA went into effect. Subject to certain exemptions and time requirements, no new chemical substances or significant new chemical use could be introduced without a notice of intention filed with the EPA at least ninety days before the intended manufacture or use. The notice included information on all known data on health or environmental effects. The notice requirement was essential because it provided the administrator with an opportunity to evaluate the information and determine whether the manufacture or use should be permitted, limited, or delayed. The Toxic Substances Control Act was an enabling act. As such, it conferred authority from Congress to an administrative agency to regulate the manufacture, use, and disposal of toxic substances. Congress mandated comprehensive regulation of chemicals through the TSCA. Manufacturers and processors were made subject to regulation if they emitted chemicals into air, water, or land. The TSCA recognized that disposing of many human-made chemicals could involve risks to natural resources (such as groundwater, the source of much of the drinking water) and to humans. The TSCA gave the EPA broad powers to regulate the disposal of all toxic organic chemicals. The EPA had the authority to regulate certain chemicals from their development to manufacture and finally to disposal. The TSCA required the EPA to inventory the approximately fifty-five thousand chemicals involved in interstate commerce, and it required chemical manufacturers to notify the EPA of all new chemicals produced, so that the EPA could keep a current inventory. This requirement was called the Premanufacture Notice (PMN). Once the EPA had all the information it needed about a toxic chemical that presented an unreasonable danger to people or the environment, it was authorized under the TSCA to stop the manufacture. This authority implied great regulatory power over the chemical industry, but it applied only to toxic chemicals. 1293

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Criticism The Toxic Substances Control Act was a compromise between a rigid preclearance regulatory scheme, such as that contained in pesticide and drug laws, and a system of notice and selective interdiction. As such, the act became the object of frequent criticism from proregulation environmental groups as well as from the chemical industry, which was opposed to government regulation. The industry complained about red tape, the cost of compliance, and the potential for losing trade secrets as a result of the reporting requirements. The environmental groups complained that the EPA was slow to regulate. By 1986, only five chemical classes had been regulated: PCBs, CFCs, phthalate esters, chlorinated benzenes, and chloromethane. Even the EPA complained about the TSCA. Most of the EPA’s complaints were in response to delayed regulation as a result of a lack of staff and foot-dragging by private industry in supplying information on whether a chemical is toxic. Amy Bloom Sources for Further Study Freedman, Warren. Federal Statutes of Environmental Protection. New York: Quorum Books, 1987. Grad, Frank. Treatise on Environmental Law. New York: Matthew Bender, 1994. O’Leary, Rosemary. Environmental Change: Federal Courts and the EPA. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. The Toxic Substances Control Act. Executive Legal Summary 98. Chesterland, Ohio: Business Laws, 1989. Worobec, Mary Devine. Toxic Substance Control Primer. Washington, D.C.: BNA Books, 1984. See also: Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Federal En-

vironmental Pesticide Control Act (1972); Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974).

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Copyright Act of 1976 Date: October 19, 1976 U.S. Statutes at Large: 90 Stat. 2541 Public law: 94-553 U.S. Code: 17 § 101 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Copyrights, Patents,

and Trademarks

These amendments to the 1909 act corrected imbalances between the competing rights of copyright owners and users that had developed as a result of technological changes. Prior to enactment of the 1976 Copyright Act, which became effective on January 1, 1978, the last wholesale revision of U.S. copyright law had been made in 1909. In the intervening decades, technological advances in communications rendered many provisions of the 1909 act ineffective. A number of efforts to amend the copyright law in piecemeal fashion were introduced, but it was not until an appropriations act in 1955 provided funds for research by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress that a more general effort to revise the copyright law was undertaken. The Challenge of Cable Television Congressional hearings on proposed revisions began on May 26, 1965, before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice, which ultimately voted favorably on the proposed legislation. Prior to approving the bill, however, the subcommittee jettisoned an entire section devoted to copyright issues raised by cable television’s secondary transmission of broadcast signals. This would prove to be the issue upon which the legislation would founder for some time. Senator John L. McClellan, chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights, which had begun its hearings on August 18, 1965, insisted that any copyright legislation that passed must address the status of the cable industry. His concern grew out of the Federal Communications Commission’s failure to adopt a new cable regulatory scheme that would relax restrictions on the carriage of signals. It was only after the FCC approved such 1295

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regulations in 1972 that McClellan resumed his efforts to push through a new copyright bill. Passage and Basic Provisions Active debate on the copyright bill resumed in 1974 with the Ninety-third Congress. The bill finally passed in the Senate on February 19, 1976, and in the House of Representatives on September 22, 1976. President Gerald R. Ford signed the bill into law on October 19, 1976. The new copyright statute was divided into eight chapters. The first chapter defined the subject matter of copyright, stated what rights copyright affords, and outlined the limitations on those rights. Chapter 2 was concerned with the ownership and transfer of copyrights. The third chapter dealt with the duration of copyrights. Chapter 4 dealt with formalities such as the form and placement of copyright notice and the details of depositing and registering a copyrighted work. Chapter 5 addressed copyright infringement and its remedies. Chapter 6 concerned the manufacture, importation, and public distribution of copies. Chapter 7 dealt with the organization and responsibilities of the Copyright Office. Finally, chapter 8 established the Copyright Royalty Tribunal. Perhaps the most conspicuous change in U.S. copyright law had to do with the utilization, in the 1976 act, of compulsory licenses— such as the annual fees levied on jukeboxes—to balance the competing interests of copyright owners and users. Analogously, several sections of the new act established statutory royalty rates, such as those connected with secondary transmission by cable television, the collection of which was to be overseen by the Copyright Royalty Tribunal, itself created by the 1976 act. Less conspicuously, but more profoundly, the statute amended U.S. copyright law by making four major changes: abolishing common law copyright; changing the concept of copyright by clarifying what it protects; creating an electronic copyright to supplement the print copyright; and codifying the doctrine of fair use. In addition, the statute marked, as noted by Barbara Ringer, then the register of copyrights, a shift in the philosophical underpinnings of copyright, resolving a centuries-old debate whether copyright was a natural law property right or only a statutory grant of limited monopoly, in favor of the latter. Chapter 1 of the act opens with a proc1296

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lamation of the exclusive rights of copyright owners, which are five: the right to reproduce a work; the right to prepare derivative works, such as abridgments; the right to distribute copies of a work to the public; the right to perform a work in public; and the right to display a work in public. Common Law Copyright Eliminated Prior to the 1976 act, copyright had been governed by two systems of law: federal statutory copyright and common law copyright, which was largely the province of individual states. By decreeing that a work was copyrighted the moment it was fixed in a tangible medium of expression, the new statute did away with the concept of common law copyright, which previously had governed works prior to publication, when statutory law took over. Redefining Intellectual Property The elimination of common law copyright clarified the concept of copyright protection by making it clear that what was being protected was an original work of authorship, which must fall into one of three categories: an imaginative work, such as a novel; a derivative work, such as a film based on the novel; or a compilation of previously existing materials, such as an anthology. In the latter two cases, copyright now protected only the original aspects of the work: that is, in the case of a derivative work, only the new elements added to the underlying work, and in the case of a compilation, only the collection as a whole (although copying an individual short story in a collection, for example, might violate the copyright of that story). Thus, the impact of this reconceptualization of copyright protection was to do away with earlier confusion of the original work of authorship with the material object embodying it, such as a compilation or film. Under the 1976 act, the two must be merged in order for copyright protection to attach. Electronic Copyright Common law copyright lived on, however, in a new copyright created by the 1976 statute: the electronic copyright. The electronic copyright was meant to cover television and also apply to computers and software. It differed fundamentally from print copyright in that the subject matter consisted of works that are performed rather than published. These performances—for example, a live 1297

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telecast of a National Football League game—may or may not be based on writing of some kind and may have no author per se. The statute gets around these requirements by making performance equivalent to publication if any fixation (even simultaneous transmission and recording) takes place and making the employer of those creating the work its “author.” The electronic copyright is thus equivalent to common law copyright protection of an improvised stage performance. Fair Use Doctrine The fourth, and potentially the most far-reaching, major change introduced by the 1976 act was the codification of what had always been a judicially determined doctrine limiting the powers of copyright holders, the doctrine of fair use. United States copyright law originated with the Constitution, which, in article I, section 8, clause 8, empowers Congress “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” The original idea was to provide creators with the incentive of a limited monopoly while at the same time allowing those who followed to build on ideas that already had been formulated and disseminated. This is clearly a delicate balance to maintain, requiring constant adjustment. American law traditionally responded by allowing fair use to remain a rule of reason developed and applied by the judiciary. Even when codified, the fair use doctrine consisted of a number of significantly nonexclusive factors that are reconfigured with each new infringement case that arises. Section 107, the fair use section of the 1976 act, was not intended to change previous judicial interpretations of the doctrine. Section 107 was loosely formulated, refraining from formally defining “fair use” and including a list of exemptions from the restrictions of copyright, such as criticism and research. The section also included a list of four factors to be considered by judges when weighing fair use defenses raised against claims of copyright infringement. First was the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes. Second was the nature of the copyrighted work. Third was the amount and substantially of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole. The fourth consideration was the effect of the use on the potential market for or 1298

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value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished was not to bar a finding of fair use. Supreme Court Decisions The final proviso, indicating that even unpublished work is subject to fair use, was an addition to the act, adopted by Congress in 1992 largely in response to constriction of the fair use doctrine resulting from several Supreme Court decisions. Harper & Row Publishers v. Nation Enterprises (1985) revolved around the unauthorized publication by the magazine The Nation of excerpts, concerning the pardon of President Richard M. Nixon, from President Ford’s forthcoming memoir. The most notorious of similar cases is Salinger v. Random House (1987). In both the Nation and Salinger cases, the courts refused to acknowledge as fair use what might in an earlier time have been seen as minimal borrowing. One of the pivotal issues in both cases was the unpublished nature of the infringed works. As the Supreme Court reasoned in the Nation case, perhaps because the fair use doctrine was based on the author’s implied consent to reasonable use of his or her work upon publication, fair use was not traditionally recognized as a defense to charges of copying works not yet released for public consumption. Arguably, the fair use doctrine was intended to protect copyright owners from competitors, not consumers. In the Salinger case, however, fair use was pressed into service as a rationale for censorship. In this case, the writer J. D. Salinger brought suit seeking an injunction against publication of an unauthorized biography that included quotations and paraphrases from his correspondence with various persons who had deposited these letters with archives, seeking to protect personal interests. In view of the purpose of federal copyright laws, that type of deposit is a misuse of what is fundamentally a property right. When the fair use proviso regarding unpublished works was proposed, largely in reaction to demands made by reporters, historians, biographers, and book publishers, it was vigorously opposed by the computer software industry, which feared that such a change in the copyright law would legitimize already rampant piracy of programs. These copyright owners argued that fair use of their products, unlike books, would of necessity involve extensive copying. The battle between these interest groups was reflected in 1299

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congressional debate over the proviso, which raged for two years. Finally, a compromise was reached late in 1992, with the Senate adopting the seemingly restrictive language of the House bill but adding, in the legislative history attached to the bill, that its intent was “to clearly and indisputably reject the view that the unpublished nature of the work triggers a virtual per se ruling against a finding of fair use.” Lisa Paddock Sources for Further Study Grossman, George S. Omnibus Copyright Revision Legislative History. Reprint. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 2001. Miller, Jerome K. U.S. Copyright Documents An Annotated Collection for Use by Educators and Librarians. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1981. Patterson, L. Ray, and Stanley W. Lindberg. The Nature of Copyright: A Law of Users’ Rights. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991. Strong, William S. The Copyright Book: A Practical Guide. 4th ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993. White, Herbert S., ed. The Copyright Dilemma. Chicago: American Library Association, 1978. See also: Copyright Act of 1909 (1909); Trademark Law Revision

Act (1988); North American Free Trade Agreement (1993); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994); Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998).

Federal Land Policy and Management Act Date: October 21, 1976 U.S. Statutes at Large: 90 Stat. 2743 Public law: 94-579 U.S. Code: 43 § 1701 Categories: Land Management; Natural Resources 1300

Federal Land Policy and Management Act

The act declared the intent of Congress to retain permanently the remaining public domain and legislatively established the Bureau of Land Management. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) provided congressional recognition of the authority of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in managing the public lands. The law also officially established a policy of permanently retaining the remaining public domain lands. Passage of the act was marked by considerable negotiation between conservation, livestock grazing, and mining interest groups. Until the act passed, the BLM had rarely had the support or interest of conservation groups. Need for Modernization Because of the circumstances of its creation from the ruins of the Grazing Service in 1946, the BLM lacked a strong legislative mandate. Over the years, Congress had passed more than thirty-five hundred individual laws dealing with the public lands, and there was no coherent management policy to guide the bureau. Early in the administration of John F. Kennedy, the BLM began to seek a series of laws that would modernize the agency’s legislative mandates. The bureau began to draft laws to reform procedures for sale of nonmineral lands. In 1961, the Department of the Interior submitted a legislative proposal to Congress that would reform the land-sale laws, provide basic authority to the BLM to manage the public lands under a multiple-use and sustained-yield philosophy, reform rights-of-way policy, reform mineral policy, and repeal some of the many outdated public domain statutes still on the books. Additional bills were contemplated, but the department’s efforts were halted when it became apparent that Representative Wayne Aspinall’s efforts to establish a comprehensive public-lands review commission were likely to succeed. Aspinall had begun to urge establishment of such a commission in the late 1950’s, but his efforts were opposed by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. In September, 1964, Congress passed the Public Land Law Review Commission Act, the Classification and Multiple Use Act, and the Public Land Sales Act. All three were temporary measures. 1301

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When the Public Land Law Review Commission (PLLRC) finished its work in 1970, it was apparent that there was little political support for many of its recommendations. Nevertheless, commission and House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee chairman Aspinall began the process of drafting a broad law that would enact the commission’s recommendations and apply to all federal multiple-use lands. At the same time, the BLM began to draft an organic act for itself and submitted it to the Senate in 1971. It was not considered by the full Senate and was reintroduced in the ninetythird Congress. The Senate declined to consider the BLM’s own bill and instead passed a similar bill introduced by Senator Henry Jackson. The House took no action on either bill. Contentious Passage Jackson’s bill offered multiple-use, sustained-yield, and fair marketvalue pricing for commodities as a basis for management of the public lands. It also included language on advisory boards, law enforcement authority, reform of the 1920 mineral-leasing act, and development of a land management plan for BLM lands in the California desert. The Jackson bill passed the Senate by a large margin in February, 1976. The House bill was quite different from the Senate version. Aspinall had been defeated in a primary challenge and Representative John Melcher of Montana had redrafted the House bill after an extensive series of hearings in the Western states. The Melcher bill also included language on grazing fees for BLM and U.S. Forest Service lands and the wild horse and burro issue. Representative John Seiberling also introduced a version of the bill that contained many provisions favored by conservation interests. There were considerable differences within the House Subcommittee on Public Lands over grazing fees, law enforcement authority, and local government influence on federal-land planning. By late 1975, the House efforts had bogged down and passage of a bill by the full House appeared unlikely. Following passage of the Senate bill in 1976, the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs again took up the bill. The committee passed the bill twenty votes to sixteen votes, with seven members not voting, reflecting the deeply divided positions of the members and the conservation and development interests. Livestock interests supported the bill because it contained a favorable grazing fee formula, and environ1302

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mentalists supported the bill because they believed they could later eliminate the fee language and preserve the other elements of the bill. The bill passed the full House by about twenty votes with weak support from the Department of the Interior and conservation interests. In the conference committee, the House members were still divided over the bill, with representatives Morris Udall and John Seiberling favoring the Senate version. Four issues were the subject of critical compromises. Unlike other federal land-management agencies, the BLM had no authority to enforce federal laws on its own lands. In the remote deserts of the West, the bureau was forced to rely on county sheriffs who were often far from the scene of the violations. The compromise version of the FLPMA provided for full law enforcement authority for the BLM but also required maximum feasible reliance upon local law enforcement. In addition, the FLPMA authorized a uniformed desert ranger force for the California Desert Conservation Area. Many provisions of the House bill pertained to the U.S. Forest Service as a result of Aspinall’s views and the PLLRC report. Most provisions in the law pertaining to the Forest Service were deleted in the conference committee except for the grazing fee language. A third area of contention was congressional limitation on the executive branch to withdraw land for special purposes. Grazing Debates The most contentious issues were related to grazing management, including the grazing fee formula, the length of grazing permits and leases, and the structure of grazing advisory boards. Senator Lee Metcalf of Montana offered a compromise, which included the elimination of the grazing fee formula, the establishment of a tenyear term for permits and leases, and the limitation of the functions of the advisory boards. The Senate conferees supported the compromise, but the House conferees split five votes to five votes. A majority of both sides is required to pass a bill. Many observers believed the bill was dead. At the behest of the bureau, Senator Metcalf called the conferees back together and offered a one-year moratorium on grazing fee increases and a one-year-long comprehensive study of the grazing fee situation. The suggestion broke the deadlock. The final version of the FLPMA is more than fifty pages long and contains provi1303

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sions for land-use planning, recording mineral claims, naming the director as a presidential appointee subject to Senate confirmation, law enforcement authority, grazing management, rights-ofway, creation of two national conservation areas, provisions for a wilderness review program, and the deletion of many outdated public land statutes. President Gerald Ford signed the bill on October 21, 1976. A New Role for the BLM: Competing Constituencies The contentious passage of the FLPMA indicates an important turn of events for the Bureau of Land Management. From the time that the Taylor Grazing Act passed in 1934 until the mid-1970’s, the Grazing Service and its successor agency, the BLM, were forced to rely on commodity-oriented interest groups such as livestock producers and miners for their political support. As that support ebbed and flowed, the fortunes of the agency rose and fell. It was not until the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that environmental interests devoted enough time and energy to influence effectively public policy regarding the BLM. With adoption of a multiple-use mandate, the BLM was subject to many of the same multidirectional pressures that affected the U.S. Forest Service. Conservation interest groups routinely criticize the bureau for its close ties to commodity interests, and the commodity interests often berate the agency because it has come to represent environmental interests. The BLM is no longer captured by a single interest group but it frequently finds itself in a struggle between conflicting interests and values. Passage of the FLPMA coincided with the election of President Jimmy Carter and a philosophical change among administration officials who were openly supportive of environmental interests. Implementation of the new law fell to Frank Gregg, who became the bureau’s director in 1977. Gregg had held staff positions in the Department of the Interior under Stewart Udall and with conservation groups such as the Izaak Walton League. He was familiar with the bureau’s operations and the tension between commodity and amenity interests as they squared off over control of the public lands. Many in the bureau hoped that passage of the FLPMA would lead to a period of growth and stability for the agency. Instead, Gregg and the bureau were often the subject of much controversy. The increased influence of environmental interests as well as court 1304

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challenges to existing mining, timber, and grazing programs polarized the bureau’s constituencies. The Sagebrush Rebellion A lawsuit initiated by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in October, 1973, had challenged the adequacy of a single, nationwide, BLM environmental impact statement (EIS) reviewing livestock grazing. In April, 1975, the bureau and the NRDC reached a court-supervised settlement in which the BLM agreed to prepare more than 200 (later reduced to 142) site-specific grazing impact statements. The impact of the court’s ruling was immense. As the BLM tried to implement the requirements of the FLPMA, it was simultaneously forced to expand its grazing- and mineralsmanagement planning capabilities. Many in the BLM looked upon the problem of EIS production as an opportunity for making new decisions about allocating rangeland resources for multiple use under the FLPMA. The bureau rapidly set out to conduct intensive rangeland inventories and set livestock carrying capacities. As a result of the early EIS’s, about onehalf of the grazing allotments were scheduled for reductions, averaging about 10 percent from their current use levels. Politically astute grazing interests countered with court challenges, legislation limiting the levels of reductions, and scientific challenges to the bureau’s use of single-year forage inventory rather than a rangeland monitoring approach to carrying capacity. Western commodity interests were already angered by President Carter’s list of water resource development projects targeted for deletion in the appropriations process. A prodevelopment backlash seemed inevitable. Eventually, three Nevada BLM grazing permittees who were also state legislators developed a legal strategy that asserted that the federal lands in the West ought to belong to the states as a matter of constitutional law. This Sagebrush Rebellion soon attracted political support throughout the region. It had many similarities to earlier antifederal land management movements during late 1940’s and early 1950’s. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and an ensuing ideological shift in the Interior Department under Secretary James Watt, political opposition shifted from the commodity interests to the environmental interests. The wholesale changes advocated by Watt and other sagebrush rebels, however, were moderated by 1305

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Western governors and the balanced multiple-use mandate of the FLPMA itself. Eventually, the rebellion lost momentum and ended without significant structural changes in the law or in the relationship between the bureau and its constituency groups. Donald W. Floyd Sources for Further Study Dana, Samuel T., and Sally K. Fairfax. Forest and Range Policy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. Foss, Phillip O. Politics and Grass. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960. Muhn, James, and Hanson R. Stuart. Opportunity and Challenge: The Story of the BLM. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, 1988. Peffer, E. Louise. The Closing of the Public Domain. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1951. Senzel, Irving. “Genesis of a Law.” American Forests 84 (January, 1978): 30-32, 62-64. U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Land Management. Public Land Statistics—1992. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993. See also: Mineral Leasing Act (1920); Taylor Grazing Act (1934); Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960); Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970); Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974); National Forest Management Act (1976).

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Date: October 21, 1976 U.S. Statutes at Large: 90 Stat. 2796 Public law: 94-580 U.S. Code: 42 § 6901 Categories: Environment and Conservation 1306

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This law provided for the “cradle-to-grave” management of hazardous wastes in the United States. In 1976, the Ninety-fourth Congress enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which proved to be the benchmark piece of legislation for the management of hazardous wastes. In June of that year, the Senate enacted its version, after which the House held hearings on the legislation. The House version eventually integrated the Senate’s version, and the bill passed by a vote of 367 to 8 and was signed by President Gerald R. Ford. The bill had a relatively short legislative history, and because of the limited time for debate and conference, the legislation was ambiguously formulated in many aspects. As a result, the bill would continue to be interpreted years after its passage. Amendments The first amendments to the RCRA—the Quiet Communities Act of 1978 and the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1980—did little to interpret the myriad aspects of the complex legislation. The Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 added many provisions that directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop new rules. The EPA was directed to develop regulations for waste generators and transporters and for facilities for treatment, storage, and disposal (TSD) that managed less than 1,000 kilograms (kg) of hazardous waste per month. The 1984 amendments added approximately seventy major provisions, of which fifty required the EPA to undertake studies and take actions in 1985 and 1986. The result of the 1984 amendments was a substantially revamped and expanded version of the RCRA that provided for more effective management, tracking, and regulation of hazardous wastes in the United States. Through required permitting, monitoring, and enforcement programs, the RCRA would affect an estimated 500,000 companies and individuals. The rate of hazardous waste generation in the United States has been estimated at several hundred million tons per year. The RCRA provided the basis for controlling these materials through its regulatory structure and through management requirements imposed upon companies and individuals that generate, transport, treat, store, and dispose of hazardous wastes. The act did not address the management of abandoned or closed facili1307

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ties. Wastes at these sites were later made subject to the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), better known as Superfund. Provisions The RCRA, which is managed by the EPA, was originally divided into subtitles A through J. Subtitle C remained the most routinely cited and best known, since it provided guidance for the national hazardous waste management program. In subtitle C, the EPA was required to develop regulations for the identification of hazardous wastes either listing them specifically or by identifying them by their characteristics. A company that disagreed with the listing of its waste could submit a delisting petition to have the waste exempted from coverage by the RCRA; the EPA had to act on a delisting petition within two years of its submission. A waste not listed by the EPA could still be covered by the RCRA if it exhibited one or more of the following characteristics: ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, or toxicity. There were specific and detailed guidelines for determining the characteristics of a waste to ascertain whether it met any of the criteria. There were additional guidelines for mixed wastes and for those that were derived from hazardous wastes. In addition to the inherent regulatory powers provided to the EPA by the RCRA, the act provided the administrator of the EPA with the power to bring suit to remedy hazardous waste situations that represented an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment. Suit could be brought in district court against any person or company, and it could be brought for past infractions as well. Impact and Effects The RCRA, which provided for criminal penalties, fines, and imprisonment, was the mechanism by which many corporate officers and employees were prosecuted for improper management of hazardous wastes. The record-keeping aspects of the RCRA were the basis for effective control of hazardous wastes in the United States. Since many disposal sites received wastes from all over the country, it was imperative that accurate records be maintained. The system called for in the act allowed hazardous wastes to be tracked from initial 1308

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generation to disposal. Generators and transporters, as well as all TSD facilities, were required to keep records of every stage of the process. One of the most beneficial aspects of the RCRA and its many amendments was the shift of focus on the part of industry away from hazardous waste production toward pollution prevention, waste minimization, and recycling. These efforts helped not only to preserve and protect the environment but also to reduce cost and enhance profitability. Incentives and other mechanisms to encourage efforts to minimize waste and prevent pollution appeared throughout the United States. Although levels of hazardous wastes continued to increase, the rate of increase was thought to slow. Significance Until the RCRA, no federal legislation addressed hazardous waste management. As a result, billions of dollars needed to be spent for the cleanup of abandoned and historical hazardous waste problems. The focus of the RCRA was to avoid making this aspect of the problem even worse. To that end, waste minimization was thought to be the most desirable approach, since it reduced the amount of waste and therefore the associated risks. Many companies began to change their approach to manufacturing, production, and fabrication and actively sought alternatives to hazardous materials and to activities that led to the production of hazardous wastes. Choosing wisely among the options for minimizing wastes was imperative. This was particularly true because of the difficulty of finding sites for new, permitted facilities. Public opposition to new RCRA facilities proved high, a response called the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) syndrome. This response from the public was frequently accompanied by its political equivalent, not-in-my-term-of-office. The lack of disposal capacity led to large volumes of hazardous wastes being shipped long distances, which in turn led to expensive liability and risk issues. Thus the cost for transport and disposal, along with local opposition to hazardous waste production and disposal, played a significant role in developing the wasteminimization programs that many companies pursued to avoid RCRA fines. The number of facilities available for managing hazardous wastes shrank steadily. Many facilities that no longer had the financial resources and technical means to ensure safe management, as 1309

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mandated by law, had to close. Their closing was desirable from a health and environmental standpoint, but there was the danger that too many facilities might close and result in inadequate capacity for managing and disposing of hazardous wastes. Although the EPA and the states would share the responsibility for regulating commercial hazardous wastes, the act did not address one of the major sources for hazardous wastes: the typical American household. Drain openers, oven cleaners, wood and metal polishes and cleaners, paint thinners, oil and fuel additives, herbicides, pesticides, adhesives, fungicides, wood preservatives, grease and rust solvents, and many other household items in common use were often sent to municipal landfills and other disposal facilities, with little control or monitoring. The RCRA set the stage for managing large- and small-scale commercial sources of hazardous wastes. RCRA also made management of these wastes more costly and increased the liabilities associated with their production. By doing so, the act set in motion the shift seen in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s that moved industry toward innovative and alternative actions to minimize the volumes of hazardous wastes produced, stored, transported, treated, and disposed. The act also led to a significantly higher level of understanding and involvement of the American public in the debate about hazardous waste management. Daniel T. Boatright Sources for Further Study Arbuckle, J. Gordon, et al. Environmental Law Handbook. 12th ed. Rockville, Md.: Government Institutes, 1993. Environmental Progress and Challenges: EPA’s Update. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1988. Findlay, Roger W., and Daniel A. Farber. St. Paul, Minn.: Environmental Law in a Nutshell. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1992. See also: Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960); Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965); Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972); Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976); Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977); Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980); Superfund Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983); 1310

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Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986); Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990).

National Forest Management Act Date: October 22, 1976 U.S. Statutes at Large: 90 Stat. 2949 Public law: 94-588 Categories: Agriculture; Environment and Conservation; Land

Management; Natural Resources

An amendment to the 1974 Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act, this law further regulated national forest management. After U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service tradition and policy were formalized through the passage of the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (MUSYA) in 1960, public debate continued over national forest management. Significant controversy circulated around clear-cutting in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia and the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, and forest management became a much-publicized political issue. Arnold Bolle, the dean of forestry at the University of Montana, was asked by U.S. senator Lee Metcalf to investigate Forest Service practices. In 1970, Bolle issued a report stating that clear-cuts were too extensive and that other harvesting methods were more appropriate. Moreover, reforestation costs exceeded economic return, and given the abundance of land, timber removal without replanting was considered preferable to costly reforestation. Generally, the press and the public viewed the report as an indictment of clear-cutting, and the Forest Service fell under greater scrutiny. Clear-Cutting and the Courts In 1971, U.S. senator Frank Church of Idaho conducted hearings on clear-cutting policies in national forests, and testimony was 1311

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given by forest scientists and concerned citizens. It was decided that no new legislation was required, but nonbinding recommendations concerning environmental protection and care in clearcut planning and applications—the Church guidelines—were agreed to be followed by the Forest Service. In 1971, the Sierra Club published Nancy Wood’s Clearcut: The Deforestation of America, which examined the Monongahela situation and proposed new forest management procedures. In 1973, the Izaak Walton League and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy filed suit against Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz to stop timber cutting in the Monongahela. The plaintiffs claimed that Forest Service practices exceeded the authority granted by the Organic Act of 1897, which allowed only marked and designated mature timber to be cut and removed from the forest. Because the judges found the Forest Service in violation of the Organic Act (the agency’s harvesting agenda included immature and unmarked timber, which often was not removed from the forest), the court prohibited the Forest Service from further commercial harvesting until their management activities conformed to the law or Congress changed the law. The agency argued that a literal reading of the Organic Act was outdated and impractical and subsequently filed an appeal in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1975, the appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling and directed the Forest Service to halt clear-cutting in all states in the Fourth Circuit (West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina). The Monongahela decision influenced litigation elsewhere in the country; cases were presented in Alaska, Georgia, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, and injunctions prohibiting timber harvesting were issued in Texas and Alaska. Passage of the Act As a result, Congress was forced to reexamine national forestmanagement issues. U.S. senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia proposed legislation limiting the authority of the Forest Service in national forest management. It was argued that the agency emphasized timber production, not multiple use as mandated. In contrast, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, endorsed by the timber industry, presented a bill that advocated repeal of the Organic Act section upon which the Monongahela decision was founded, and he argued for the Forest Service’s discretionary au1312

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thority in national forest management. A variation of Humphrey’s bill passed through Congress as the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) of 1976. Previous Legislation The NFMA came about in an era of great environmental awareness among Americans fostered by the press and environmental activism and characterized by increased congressional environmental legislation. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, significant legislation that directly affected forest management and preceded NFMA included the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, (NEPA) the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, and the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) of 1974. The NEPA established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and required the research and design of an environmental impact statement (EIS) for all forest management plans. The EIS was to be prepared by implementing an interdisciplinary approach across the social and natural sciences, and remarks were to be solicited from people or organizations interested in or affected by the plan. The ESA was devoted to the conservation of threatened and endangered species and their habitats. This legislation was to have a farreaching impact on national forest management because entire ecosystems would be affected. In response to conflicts between the timber industry and conservation groups over national forest management, the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act was signed by President Gerald Ford on August 17, 1974. This act mandated the preparation of national forest-management plans every ten years. The plans were to include an estimate of projected renewable resources supply-and-demand, a renewable resources inventory, an outline of Forest Service commitments and programs, and forest-management policies. Furthermore, the RPA directed the Forest Service to examine alternative ways for meeting U.S. forest-resource requirements. Although the 1974 act directed the secretary of agriculture to formulate national forest-management plans, the act lacked guidelines on plan preparation and content. Moreover, the RPA was viewed as inadequate, especially given the Monongahela decision. The NFMA, which was amended to RPA, provided the direction the RPA lacked. 1313

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Provisions of NFMA With intensive lobbying from the Forest Service, Congress, conservation groups, and timber interests, the NFMA developed as compromise legislation that blended the NEPA with Forest Service tradition, policy, and authority. The 1976 act revolved principally around regulating timber harvesting in national forests; however, the Forest Service also was affected by other NFMA requirements. For example, the agency was called to invite the public to participate in planning, and disciplines other than forestry and engineering were consulted for the development of natural resource management agendas. Environmental issues such as clear-cutting, species diversity, marginal lands, rotation age, and nondeclining even flow were addressed. Congress authorized clear-cutting only in situations in which it was the optimal timber-harvesting method; however, the Forest Service maintained much discretionary authority in determining the suitability of clear-cutting. Concerning biodiversity, the agency was pressured to maintain feasible populations of native and desirable non-native vertebrate species, the diversity of tree species existent at the beginning of the management plan, the ecosystems necessary for the survival of endangered species, and biodiversity within managed areas. Marginal lands largely were determined unsuitable for timber production, and the past Forest Service policy of harvesting timber on every acre of land was considered to be not in the public’s interest. The NFMA also called for the establishment of standards relating to rotation age, which ensured that generally mature stands of timber would be harvested. The agency, however, was allowed ample discretion to determine rotation age, and exceptions were permitted after the multiple uses of the forests were considered. Nondeclining Even Flow (NDEF) One of the most controversial issues addressed during the NFMA congressional debate related to NDEF. This concept refers to the basic forestry philosophy that annual yield is sustainable in perpetuity. Essentially, it was a regional issue restricted to forest management in the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest, where old growth stands of timber remained. The Forest Service and preservationists supported NDEF, whereas wood-products industry representatives and economists opposed it. In the end, Con1314

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gress appeared to support the Forest Service position in maintaining NDEF. Salvage cuts and sanitation cuts were exempted from NDEF requirements, as was harvesting necessary to meet multipleuse goals. Moreover, variable amounts of timber could be harvested from year to year as long as the decennial average was maintained. Although the forest management guidelines became more explicit under the NFMA, and the legislation included directives that were notable departures from Forest Service practices, the Forest Service still maintained significant discretionary authority, and dispute over federal forest management continued. Defining Wilderness Significant controversy was ongoing concerning Forest Service efforts to determine wilderness areas—the Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE) plans. The Sierra Club filed suit in San Francisco over the first RARE plan, which designated 56 million acres of wilderness, and the case was settled out of court in 1972, when the Forest Service consented to conform to the NEPA’s guidelines before allowing development in roadless areas. In 1978, during the administration of Jimmy Carter, the second RARE study was completed, which designated 66 million acres of wilderness (10 million acres in addition to the land identified by RARE I). Five years later, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the Forest Service had not followed the EIS requirements established by the NEPA in the California RARE II study. From Timber Production to Ecosystem Management Although the NFMA mandated stricter regulation of clear-cutting, the Forest Service continued to depend upon this method throughout the 1980’s and spurred much public controversy. By 1992, clear-cutting had fallen into disfavor among many Forest Service foresters, and the agency adopted a policy of avoiding clear-cutting as a timber harvest method whenever possible. This exemplified a shift in the Forest Service mission—from timber production to ecosystem management—that also was characterized by the appointment during Bill Clinton’s administration of wildlife biologist Jack Ward Thomas as forest service chief. Foresters became less dominant, and landscape architects, botanists, environmental planners, archaeologists, and environmental planners greatly diversified the agency. 1315

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In 1989, the Conservation Foundation and the Purdue University Department of Forestry performed an assessment of Forest Service planning. Although their report determined that some improvements were desirable—such as the implementation of plans, the agency’s attitude toward public involvement, and appropriations and forest plans—it was largely favorable in its evaluation of the NFMA planning process. The report declared that the plans developed by the agency were the best ever developed and that “citizens’ awareness of national forests is higher than ever before.” Michael S. DeVivo Sources for Further Study Aplet, Gregory H., Nels Johnson, Jeffrey T. Olson, and V. Alaric Sample, eds. Defining Sustainable Forestry. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993. Bowes, Michael D., and John V. Krutilla. Multiple-Use Management: The Economics of Public Forestlands. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1989. Clawson, Marion. The Economics of National Forest Management. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1976. Cubbage, Frederick W., Jay O’Laughlin, and Charles S. Bullock. Forest Resource Policy. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993. Dana, Samuel T., and Sally K. Fairfax. Forest and Range Policy: Its Development in the United States. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. Ellefson, Paul V. Forest Resources Policy: Process, Participants, and Programs. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992. O’Toole, Randall. Reforming the Forest Service. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1988. Robbins, William G. American Forestry. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985. Robinson, Gordon. The Forest and the Trees. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1988. See also: National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Endangered

Species Act (1973); Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974); Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976).

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Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act Date: August 3, 1977 U.S. Statutes at Large: 91 Stat. 447 Public law: 95-87 U.S. Code: 30 § 1201 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Land Management;

Natural Resources

This law regulates surface coal-mining operations and provides for the reclamation of contaminated surface coal-mining sites. Surface coal-mining operations provide a valuable energy resource but can adversely impact commerce, public welfare, and the environment by destroying or diminishing the use of land for nonmining purposes; by causing erosion, groundwater and surfacewater pollution, landslides, and land subsidence; by contributing to flood conditions; by destroying fish and wildlife habitats; and by marring the natural beauty of the land. The Surface Mining and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 in an effort to strike a balance between the United States’ need for coal as an energy source and the protection of the environment. Under SMCRA, land affected by surface coal-mining activities must be restored to beneficial use following mining. SMCRA establishes minimum federal standards for surface-mining operations and the surface effects of underground coal mining; under this law, states and Native American tribes may have “primacy”—that is, they may develop and implement their own surface-mining programs, provided they are consistent with SMCRA. Most of the major coal-producing states have achieved primacy. SMCRA requires permits for surface coal-mining operations and provides for public participation in the process of granting permits. Permit applicants must submit reclamation plans and bonds to guarantee that reclamation is properly conducted. SMCRA establishes extensive environmental protection performance standards for the operation and reclamation of permitted mining operations. It regulates the aboveground effects of under1317

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ground coal mines and authorizes citizen suits to enforce the act. Under SMCRA, some areas may be designated unsuitable for surface mining if it would irreparably damage the environment. SMCRA also provides for the identification and reclamation of abandoned mine sites. In exchange for the implementation of conservation and reclamation measures, owners of abandoned mine sites receive grants from the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund, created from a per-ton reclamation fee imposed on coal-mine operators. Correction of those conditions that threaten public health, safety, and the general welfare is given priority. In addition, SMCRA includes provisions for university coal research laboratories and energy resource graduate fellowships to promote research and train professionals in surface mining. Provisions for State Mining and Mineral Resources and Research Institutes, originally part of SMCRA, became a separate law with the Mining and Mineral Institute Act of 1984. The Strategic and Critical Minerals Act of 1990 amended SMCRA to include the establishment of a Strategic Resources Mineral Technical Center. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, was created by SMCRA to implement the requirements of the act. OSM publishes rules as necessary to carry out the purposes of SMCRA. Where state primacy programs are in effect, OSM provides oversight rather than direct regulation. OSM, in cooperation with the states and Native American tribes, is responsible for ensuring that coal-mining operations and subsequent reclamation are conducted in a manner that protects citizens and the environment and for ensuring that surface-mining operations abandoned before 1977 are reclaimed. Karen Kähler Sources for Further Study Caudill, Harry M. Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963. Chilson, Peter. “Coal Miners’ Story.” Audubon 96 (March-April, 1994): 51-62, 118-119. Desai, Uday, ed. Moving the Earth: Cooperative Federalism and Implementation of the Surface Mining Act. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. 1318

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Plotkin, Steven E. “From Surface Mine to Cropland.” Environment 28 (January/February, 1986): 17-43. Vietor, Richard H. K. Environmental Politics and the Coal Coalition. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1980. See also: General Mining Act (1872); Mineral Leasing Act (1920);

Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970).

Department of Energy Organization Act Date: August 4, 1977 U.S. Statutes at Large: 91 Stat. 593 Public law: 95-91 U.S. Code: 42 § 7101 Categories: Energy; Government Procedure and Organization

This act created the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to administer the responsibilities formerly assigned to the Federal Power Commission. In August of 1977, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was created by the Department of Energy Organization Act. Its mission was to regulate the electric power and natural gas industries. The agency was associated with the Department of Energy (DOE), which had been created to replace the Federal Power Commission (FPC). Where federal regulation of utilities did not apply, state regulatory commissions were created. The FERC began its operations on October 1, 1977. FERC’s Structure and Functions The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), an independent five-member commission within the Department of Energy, was responsible for setting rates and charges for the transportation and sale of electricity and for the licensing of hydroelectric power projects. Members were to serve four-year terms and could be removed by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or 1319

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malfeasance in office. No more than three of the members could be of the same political party. The president appointed the members of the commission. FERC was given most of the powers of the former Federal Power Commission. FERC was intended to be a separate entity within the Department of Energy and to retain a measure of autonomy. The specifics of the working relationship between the DOE and the FERC were left undefined; questions of authority on issues such as price regulations were left open. The FERC was responsible for establishing limits on the rates and charges of natural-gas producers and gatherers; setting limits on rates and charges for the interstate transmission and sale of natural gas; issuing certificates for the abandonment and establishment of connections, for natural gas sales, for transportation of gas by pipeline, and for construction of natural gas pipelines and facilities; ruling on curtailment of natural gas service; limiting rates and charges for electric energy transmission and sale; issuing licenses and permits for hydroelectric plants; approving mergers between power and gas companies; supervising the issuance and acquisition of all regulated electric-power company securities; limiting interlocking directorates among electric-power industries; setting limits on oil-pipeline rates, charges, and valuations; and requiring a uniform system of accounts, accounting rules, and procedures for regulated industries. The commission also made the final decisions on DOE actions that required a formal hearing, and it reviewed DOE proposals. The chair of the FERC was made responsible for the executive and administrative operation of the commission. The chair’s duties included such functions as appointing administrative law judges; selecting, appointing, and fixing the compensation of personnel; and procuring the services of experts and consultants. One of the main functions of the FERC was the regulation of the natural-gas industry, which consisted of producers, pipeline companies (which transport gas from producing areas to consuming markets), and local distribution companies (which sell gas to consumers). The FERC certified the status of gas wells and established, reviewed, and enforced rates and charges for the transportation and sale of natural gas by producers and local distribution companies. The commission also set the rates that interstate pipeline companies could charge for the transmission and sale of natural 1320

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gas. (Local distribution companies that bought gas from pipeline facilities and sold it to homes and industries were generally regulated by state public utility commissions.) The FERC was also made responsible for the construction of interstate pipeline facilities. In acting on a proposal to build a major pipeline facility, the commission had to take a number of factors into account, including the market for the gas and the facility’s safety, environmental impact, and financial viability. The FERC also approved the siting, construction, and operation of liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as terminals to receive and regasify imported LNG. Impact In the 1970’s, demand for natural gas exceeded supply in the interstate market, which caused pipeline companies to curtail deliveries of gas to some of their customers. The interstate natural gas supply improved greatly after the implementation of the 1978 Natural Gas Policy Act. By 1983, there were surpluses. The commission approved a number of programs for producers and pipelines that were aimed at lowering gas costs and increasing sales to industrial customers with fuel switching capabilities. FERC also reviewed proposals by interstate pipeline companies to provide service to new customers or to modify or abandon pipeline facilities. Sales of electricity between utilities, or by a utility to a municipality, made up approximately 15 percent of the total amount of electricity sales in the United States in the 1970’s. Retail sales of electricity, such as those to homeowners and businesses, were regulated by state public utility commissions. The commission ensured that rates for wholesale transactions in interstate commerce were fair and not unduly discriminatory. The commission also reviewed agreements for the interconnection of utility systems and the transfer of power between utilities, with the aim of achieving reliable service at reasonable rates. During the fiscal year 1981, the commission adopted a new rule for the filing of changes in the electric rate schedules of public utilities under the Federal Power Act. Under the new rule, the commission could provide a full cost-of-service analysis to all parties involved in a dispute about rates. It was hoped that this would discourage trivial litigation and encourage more settlements. In addition to the review of rates and service standards, the FERC had authority over the mergers of regulated utilities, certain issuances 1321

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of utility stock, and the existence of certain interlocking relationships between top officials in utilities and major firms doing business in utilities. FERC was responsible for administering the Federal Power Act of 1920, which had established its predecessor, the Federal Power Commission, and had authorized it to grant preliminary licenses, study potential sites, and issue licenses for the development of hydroelectric power plants. This act subsequently became part of the Federal Power Act of 1935, which gave the FPC the added responsibility of regulating interstate transmission and wholesale sale of electric energy. The 1935 act also gave the commission authority to prescribe a system of accounts and to inspect the books and records of licensees and public utilities. FERC became responsible for administering the Natural Gas Act of 1938, which had given the FPC jurisdiction over interstate transportation of natural gas, the wholesale price of natural gas in interstate commerce, and the accounting systems used by natural gas companies. FERC helped assist in administering compliance with the Clean Air Act and its amendments, which expanded federal responsibility for air pollution control. FERC handled the National Environmental Policy Act, which established the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, which set up a program of grants to states for construction of sewage treatment plants and established permit programs for industrial and municipal pollutant discharges. Deregulation The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission served for many years to help set the nation’s energy policy, performing effectively under presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton in setting policy, giving permits, and administering prices for more effective uses of the nation’s natural resources. During the 1990’s, many states passed laws that deregulated their public utilites systems, and the public utilities industry underwent a restructuring and resultant economic stresses that were passed on to consumers. The most notorious case occurred in California, where deregulation in 1996 under Governor Pete Wilson was hampered by requirements placed on the industry to maintain certain rate charges, as well as a large bureaucracy that made capi1322

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tal improvements such as power stations extremely difficult and time-consuming for the state to approve. In 2001, the role of the FERC became a matter of news when the agency refused to step in after energy brokers, such as Enron, allegedly manipulated the electric power market in California and other states for electric power. Under the Republican administration of George W. Bush, this foot-dragging on the part of FERC was seen by some as shirking its duties to guard the public interest. Nevertheless, the need for a strong agency to fill that role proved more apparent than ever in the wake of the utilities’ deregulation. Amy Bloom, updated by Christina J. Moose Sources for Further Study Crowley, Maureen. Energy. New York: Neal Schuman, 1980. Ih-Fei Lie, Paul. Energy and the Environment. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993. U.S. Department of Energy. Energy and Solid and Hazardous Waste. Washington, D.C.: System Consultants, 1981. Victor, Richard H. K. Energy Policy in America Since 1945: A Study of Business-Government Regulations. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Witnah, Donald. Government Agencies. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. See also: Federal Power Act (1920); Natural Gas Act (1938); En-

ergy Policy and Conservation Act (1975); Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978).

Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 Date: August 7, 1977 U.S. Statutes at Large: 91 Stat. 685 Public law: 95-95 U.S. Code: 42 § 7401 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources 1323

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These amendments tightened regulatory controls to bring states into compliance with the standards set forth in the 1970 Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 attempted to deal with increasingly complex and serious air pollution problems in the United States. At the time of its passage, the law was viewed as one of the most detailed, comprehensive, and complex environmental laws ever passed. Previous Legislation The amendments were preceded by the Clean Air Act of 1963, which was designed to prevent and reduce air pollution but was a weak statute. Amendments were passed in 1965, when nationwide emissions standards for motor vehicles were established (including the required use of pollution-control devices), and in 1967, when air quality control regions were designated and quality control criteria were set forth. The 1970 amendments established an enduring regulatory framework for air pollution control and became the basis for the changes made in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977. The 1970 act replaced state-set air quality standards with provisions for the establishment of national, uniform federal standards for air quality. While the law left the regulation of existing stationary pollution sources to the states, states were required to establish plans, called State Implementation Plans (SIPs), for each air quality region. These SIPs were subject to approval by the federal government. At the same time, the amendments also imposed stricter antipollution standards on automobile manufacturers. Problems of Noncompliance Evidence accumulated showing that the Clean Air Act was not functioning as it was originally envisioned. There were indications of widespread noncompliance with the SIPs, and many regions did not meet their air quality deadlines; the deadlines for meeting automobile tailpipe emission standards were extended on several occasions. In addition, while the Clean Air Act had provided for criminal penalties for noncompliance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the agency responsible for ensuring compliance with the Clean Air Act, almost always opted for less severe civil actions when it found violations. 1324

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Part of the problem with noncompliance was that most states initially were in no position to implement the federal regulations. States had neither the technological capacity nor the resources to deal with the large number of violations. States were also dealing from a weak position, because the hastily adopted SIPs from the early 1970’s were widely regarded as technically flawed and overly ambitious. Furthermore, many states were reluctant to risk the political repercussions of closing down economically profitable plants in order to meet the federal mandates on clean air. Provisions of the 1977 Amendments To deal with the states’ lack of compliance with the law, the 1977 amendments were written to address several problems. The 1977 amendments specifically forbade the EPA to agree to compliance dates beyond 1982; in addition, any administrative orders inconsistent with a state’s SIP had to be treated as an SIP revision and had to go through the extensive state and federal approval process. This made revisions much more difficult and forced states to comply with their original SIPs. Another area addressed was the policy that centered on the prevention of deterioration of relatively clean air. Prior to the 1977 amendments, the EPA had divided clean-air regions into three categories based on how clean the air was in those particular areas. The 1977 amendments formalized these categories and established maximum allowable increases of air pollution for each category. The cleanest areas (national parks and national wilderness areas) were allowed variances of up to eighteen days a year. Areas that previously had not been able to meet the federal standards were given until the end of 1982 to meet those standards. Cities with severe ozone and carbon-monoxide problems were given an extension to 1987. All areas were required to demonstrate regular and consistent emission reductions until compliance was achieved. Penalties for noncompliance by stationary sources were increased in an attempt to make the cost of noncompliance exceed the expenditures required to achieve compliance. For example, civil penalties of up to $25,000 a day were authorized for violation of the act, and criminal sanctions were imposed on those who knowingly violated the act. States were also required to collect permit fees from major stationary sources. 1325

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Finally, the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments focused heavily on coal-burning power plants. While these plants contributed approximately half of all electrical power in the United States, they were also the major source of sulfur dioxide, one of the most substantial contributors to acid rain. The amendments required that all new coal-fired power plants utilize the best technological system of continuous emission reductions, essentially requiring the use of sophisticated pollution-reducing equipment on all new power plants that used coal for their primary source of fuel. This single requirement not only mandated what some scientists called the most costly of possible clean-air solutions, but also brought about a highly controversial and divisive debate that broke down along regional lines and lasted well into the following decade. Requirements for Scrubbers The largest impact of the 1977 amendments centered on the requirement that all new coal-fired utilities had to install the best continuous emissions-reduction technology to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions. Flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems, commonly called scrubbers, are considered to be the most effective means of reducing pollution—but also the most expensive. This ruling mandating the use of scrubbers set up a regional conflict between the states in the East and Midwest, which had the most high-sulfur coal and the greatest number of old, established utility plants, and states in the West, which had the most low-sulfur coal and the fewest old, established utility plants. Because the requirement for scrubbers was only for new plants, and because scrubbers were very expensive to install, the pollution-control costs were loaded disproportionately on new sources and, therefore, on geographic areas where the prospects for new investment in basic industries was strong. The older, less competitive power plants in the Eastern and Midwestern states benefited because their power systems were already in place; the Western states, which were experiencing tremendous population and industrial growth, had to pay the higher costs of installing scrubbers. These new regulations mandated scrubbers on all new emitters of sulfur dioxide, regardless of whether they burned clean lowsulfur coal or dirty high-sulfur coal. This was a distinct advantage to the Eastern and Midwestern states, for two reasons. First, these requirements eliminated the incentive for utilities in the Midwest to 1326

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import low-sulfur Western coal to comply with the new-source standards. Utilities instead could continue to use high-sulfur eastern coal, incurring no relative financial penalty for this inferior choice of pollution-control strategies. Second, prior to 1977, utilities in the West could use low-sulfur coal to minimize their emissions cheaply. The 1977 amendments, however, required these utilities to use scrubbers regardless of the sulfur content of the local coal. Essentially, eastern and midwestern states were put at a tremendous financial advantage because of the mandated scrubber rule of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments. The results of this conflict between high- and low-sulfur coal interests were substantial. Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming stated that people in the West would not forget the unfair treatment that they had received through the 1977 amendments. At the same time, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the majority leader of the Senate, remained determined to protect the interests of his highsulfur-coal state. Consequently, the Clean Air Act, which was supposed to be amended again in the early 1980’s, became bogged down in a contentious and divisive debate along regional lines. Leslie R. Alm Sources for Further Study Ackerman, Bruce A., and William T. Hassler. Clean Coal/Dirty Air. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981. Bryner, Gary C. Blue Skies, Green Politics: The Clean Air Act of 1990. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1993. Hamilton, Michael. Regulatory Federalism, Natural Resources, and Environmental Management. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Public Administration, 1990. Landy, Marc K., Marc J. Roberts, and Stephen R. Thomas. The Environmental Protection Agency: Asking the Wrong Questions. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Lave, Lester B., and Gilbert S. Omenn. Clearing the Air: Reforming the Clean Air Act. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1981. Marcus, Alfred A. Promise and Performance: Choosing and Implementing an Environmental Policy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. Rosenbaum, Walter A. Environmental Politics and Policy. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1985. 1327

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Schmandt, Jurgen, Judith Clarkson, and Hilliard Roderick. Acid Rain and Friendly Neighbors: The Policy Dispute Between Canada and the United States. Rev. ed. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988. Vig, Norman J., and Michael E. Kraft. Environmental Policy in the 1980’s. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1984. See also: Air Pollution Control Act (1955); Clean Air Act (1963); Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990).

Panama Canal Treaties Date: Senate ratified March 16-April 18, 1978 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Foreign Relations;

Treaties and Agreements

After seventy-five years, the United States relinquished control of the Panama Canal. The Senate’s ratification of the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal and the Panama Canal Treaty in the spring of 1978 was the culmination of a long and often dramatic effort to achieve mutually satisfactory new agreements between the United States and the Republic of Panama. Opponents fought the treaties with conviction and determination, leaving the outcome in doubt until the day of the vote. The Panama Canal had became a major political issue, and the debate was charged with emotion and intensity. The Panama Canal U.S. interest in a transisthmian canal grew following the SpanishAmerican War of 1898, and specific plans were developed. Before buying out the French company’s rights and resuming construction, the United States intended to ensure its complete control over the future canal. At the time, the Panamanian territory was a 1328

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part of the Republic of Colombia, which was unwilling to make the kind of concessions sought by the United States. Thus, the United States saw its interests well served by assisting a Panamanian nationalist faction in forming the independent Republic of Panama in 1903. Two weeks after the independence proclamation, a treaty was signed between the new republic and the United States, granting the latter the use, occupation, and control of a ten-mile-wide strip of land across the isthmus in perpetuity. In return, Panama received ten million dollars and subsequent annual rent payments. The building of the Panama Canal through the center of the Canal Zone required ten years, at a cost of more than $310 million and approximately four thousand lives, many of which were lost to sickness. It was formally opened to traffic on August 15, 1914. The construction of the canal was, and remains, one of the world’s greatest engineering marvels. Through a series of locks, ships are raised or lowered for crossing from one ocean to the other. The canal has been immensely important for maritime transport and enormously beneficial to the Panamanian economy. Thousands of Panamanians have been employed in either the operation of or support services for the canal, or work for those living in the Canal Zone. The Republic of Panama, especially the cities of Cólon and Panama City, also has benefited from the presence of thousands of U.S. civilian and military personnel living in the Canal Zone. Cólon and Panama City are important centers of international banking and commerce. Treaty Negotiations The fact that Panama did not control its major resource became a fundamental issue in the country. A growing nationalistic sentiment generated vehement resentment of the “neocolonial enclave.” A bloody confrontation in January, 1964—precipitated by an attempt by Panamanian students to hoist their national flag in the Canal Zone and resulting in two dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries—convinced U.S. government leaders of the need to enter into negotiations with Panama for a new treaty. In 1967, after three years of deliberations, three treaties were drafted. They dealt with jurisdiction over the canal, defense and status of the military forces, and the possibility of a new sea-level canal. These tentative agreements subsequently were repudiated by Panama. The negotiations resumed in June, 1971, but remained intractable. Meanwhile, Panama succeeded in drawing worldwide attention to, and 1329

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critical scrutiny of, the canal controversy. In March, 1973, the United Nations Security Council held a special meeting in Panama. A resolution calling for a just and equitable solution to the dispute and effective sovereignty for Panama over all its territory was introduced. The United States defeated the motion through the exercise of its veto power. Nevertheless, these actions gave Panama an important propaganda victory. On February 7, 1974, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Foreign Minister Juan Antonio Tack of Panama met in Panama City and signed a joint statement of principle to serve as a framework for a new round of negotiations. The mutual goal was to arrive at a new treaty satisfying the basic concerns of both nations. This effort reached a successful conclusion on September 7, 1977, when the new Panama Canal Treaty and the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal were signed in Washington. The Treaties’ Provisions One treaty governed the operations and defense of the Panama Canal through December 31, 1999; the other guaranteed the permanent neutrality of the canal. The treaties provided for the orderly and complete transfer of jurisdiction over the canal and the Canal Zone from the United States to Panama by the year 2000. A major point in the treaties was the removal of U.S. military forces, leaving Panamanian military forces as the sole guardians of the canal. A new U.S. government agency, the Panama Canal Commission, was to operate the canal for the rest of the century. Its board of directors would comprise five U.S. directors and four Panamanians. The plans called for a U.S. director to be the administrator until 1990 and a Panamanian the deputy; thereafter, the roles would be reversed. Negotiations, and Ratification with Reservations The new treaties encountered formidable opposition from conservative and rightist elements and required an intense public relations campaign, as well as vigorous lobbying, to ensure ratification by the United States Senate. President Jimmy Carter, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, and other leading administration officials made every effort to persuade the country that the treaties were in the national interest. The agreements were presented as constituting a better 1330

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defense against possible sabotage and terrorist attacks, because they gave the Panamanian people a greater stake in keeping the canal open. Moreover, the treaties were designed to promote a constructive, positive relationship between the United States and the other nations of the Western Hemisphere; a failure to ratify them could be expected to lead to an increasingly hostile, anti-American atmosphere. President Carter talked of “fairness, not force” in U.S. dealings with other nations, positing such a policy not solely as a moral imperative but as an element of pragmatic foreign policy. The Senate ratified the Neutrality Treaty on March 16, 1978, by a vote of 68 to 32. Two “reservations”—instead of amendments, which might have required a repetition of the ratification process in Panama—were added. The first reservation was introduced by Senator Dennis De Concini of Arizona, providing for U.S. armed intervention in Panama in the event the Panama Canal was closed. The second was introduced by Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, allowing the United States and Panama to agree on stationing U.S. troops in Panama after 1999. Panamanian spokesmen indicated acceptance of these changes, but there was growing opposition in Panama to the Senate’s efforts to alter the negotiated terms. The Panama Canal Treaty was ratified on April 18, 1978, again by a vote of 68 to 32. The added reservations included another by De Concini, allowing for U.S. troops to reopen the canal if operations were disrupted. Relieved that the long and intense process had finally come to an end, President Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos Herrera hailed the ratifications and predicted a new and amicable relationship between their countries. Both sides agreed to work toward making a smooth transition during the next two decades, allowing for Panama to work its way into running the canal and taking over the Canal Zone and the military installations. The predictions of Carter and Torrijos were not immeditately realized, as the political stability of Panama deteriorated with each passing year. Political corruption and the growing influence of criminals resulted in widespread poverty and high crime rates. By 1989, the situation had become so severe that it was believed that U.S. civilian and military personnel were endangered. In December, President George H. W. Bush launched Operation Just Cause, sending U.S. military forces to arrest Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega, whose administration was involved in drug dealing, money laundering, and murder. 1331

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Canal Transition By 1995, only five years before the final transfer of the canal, some questioned whether sufficient progress toward transition had been made. The United States had a timetable to turn over property so that by noon, December 31, 1999, it would all be under Panamanian control. There was hope of turning military bases into colleges, industrial parks, or tourist meccas. One of the first items turned over was the Panama Railroad, which had been in operation since 1855. By 1995, however, the railroad no longer operated. Depots were boarded up, engines sat rusting on the tracks, and the jungle had overtaken much of the track in the interior. Former railroad employees were without jobs, adding to unemployment rolls and street crime. One military installation had also been turned back to Panama, but squatters occupied it. Nevertheless, plans moved forward: On January 25, 1995, Panamanian president Ernesto Pérez Balladares created the Transition Committee for the Canal transfer, and in 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the law that made the Panama Canal Commission a government corporation. In May of 1997, the Panama Canal Authority Organic Act was approved, and in December the new Panama Canal Authority was created. The new authority and the Panama Canal Commission met for the first time in June, 1998, and in September Alberto Alemán Zubieta was sworn in as the first Administrator of the Panama Canal Authority. The Canal Authority board of directors approves the regulations on procedures to revise Panama Canal toll rates and and measurement regulations. In June of 1999, the Panama Legislative Assembly approved the Panama Canal Authority’s budget for fiscal year 2000, and the Authority began to make job offers to Canal employees. In August, the Panama Legislative Assembly approved new boundaries of the Panama Canal Watershed, and finally, in October, the Panama Canal Authority’s contracting regulations were approved. On December 31, 1999, as agreed to in the 1978 treaties, the Panama Canal was transferred to the Republic of Panama. Manfred Grote, updated by Kay Hively and Christina J. Moose

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Sources for Further Study Buckley, Kevin. Panama: The Whole Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Crane, Philip M. Surrender in Panama: The Case Against the Treaty. New York: Dale Books, 1978. Koster, R. M., and Guillermo Sanchez Borbon. In the Time of the Tyrants: Panama, 1968-1990. New York: Putnam, 1990. LeFeber, Walter. The Panama Canal. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977. See also: Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850); Treaty of Paris (1898); Panama Canal Act (1912); Good Neighbor Policy (1933).

American Indian Religious Freedom Act Date: August 11, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 92 Stat. 469 Public law: 95-341 U.S. Code: 42 § 1996 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Native Americans; Religious

Liberty

Congress recognized its obligation “to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise traditional religions.” Throughout most of U.S. history, the federal government has discouraged and abridged the free exercise of traditional American Indian religions. The federal government provided direct and indirect support to a variety of Christian denominations who sought to Christianize and “civilize” American Indians. In 1883, bowing to pressure from Christian churches, the federal government forbade “the savage and barbarous practices that are calculated to continue [American Indians] in savagery, no matter what exterior influ1333

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ences are brought to bear on them.” The Sun Dance, rites of purification, other religious ceremonies, and the practices of medicine men were forbidden. Violators could be prosecuted and receive ten days in jail if they continued their “heathenish practices.” Such a law restricting freedom of religion was possible because tribes were regarded as distinct political units separate and apart from the United States, and so were not covered by the protections of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. John Collier and Indian Religious Freedom In the 1920’s, there was a crusade for reform in federal American Indian policy, and there were outspoken concerns for the support of freedom of religion for American Indian peoples. In 1933, John Collier was appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs under Franklin Roosevelt. On January 31, 1934, he circulated a pamphlet entitled Indian Religious Freedom and Indian Culture among employees of the Indian Service. This pamphlet, which stressed that “the fullest constitutional liberty, in all matters affecting religion, conscience, and culture” should be extended to all American Indians, established policies for Indian Service employees to follow. Collier directed unequivocally, “No interference with Indian religious life or ceremonial expression will hereafter be tolerated. The cultural liberty of Indians in all respects is to be considered equal to that of any non-Indian group.” Two weeks later, Collier issued a second order, which dealt with religious services at government-operated schools. It had been common practice to require students in government schools to attend church services. This new policy statement, “Regulations for Religious Worship and Instruction,” prohibited compulsory attendance at services, although it did allow religious denominations to use school facilities for services. Religious instruction was permitted one hour per week in the day schools; however, parents had to give written permission for their children to attend. This policy was especially controversial, because these regulations extended to representatives of native religions as well as to Christian missionaries. These policy statements were not well received by missionaries who had been active on various reservations, and many regarded Collier’s move to protect American Indian religious freedoms as a direct attack on the churches and Christianity. Collier was accused of being an atheist and of being antireligious. Criticism of Collier 1334

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was especially strong among Protestant missionary societies and included attacks from Christian Indians who decried this return to the old ways as subverting American Indian progress. Nevertheless, Collier insisted that American Indians be granted complete constitutional liberty in all matters affecting religion, conscience, and culture, and he asserted that religious liberty extended to all people, not just Christians. Most tribal governments endorsed Collier’s policy of religious freedom, and, on many reservations, there was a revival of the older spiritual traditions. However, federal and state laws did not endorse or permitted freedom of religion for American Indians consistently. Certain state and federal laws and policies prevented the free exercise of religion for many American Indian people. A large area of concern was that many lands that were considered to be sacred by the tribes had passed from Indian control to state or federal jurisdiction. Access to such sacred sites often was limited or not permitted. The use of peyote in Native American Church ceremonies was a contentious issue, because peyote is a restricted substance because it has hallucinogenic properties. The use of eagle feathers in a variety of rituals was another source of friction with federal officials, because eagles were protected under endangered species laws. There also have been occasions of interference in religious ceremonies by government agents and curious onlookers. American Indian people had little recourse to remedy these situations, and tribal governments had no powers of prosecution or enforcement. Passage and Provisions As a result of continuing problems with the free exercise of traditional American Indian religions, Congress passed a broad policy statement, Senate Joint Resolution 102, commonly known as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), on August 11, 1978. After noting the U.S. right to freedom of religion and the inconsistent extension of that right to American Indian people, Congress acknowledged its obligation to “protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiian, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonial and traditional rites.” 1335

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AIRFA also required all federal agencies to examine their regulations and practices for any inherent conflict with the practice of American Indian religions. These agencies were required to report back to Congress and recommend areas in which changes in policies and procedures were needed to ensure that American Indian religious freedoms were protected. Impact The American Indian Religious Freedom Act is a key element in self-determination and cultural freedom in the United States. However, even with passage of this act, Native Americans have continued to experience problems in access to sacred sites and the use of peyote. The right of Native Americans to use peyote is an unsettled issue in both federal and state courts. Although peyote is subject to control under the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, a number of states exempt its use in Native American Church ceremonies. Some courts uphold the right of Native Americans who are church members to possess and use peyote; other courts do not. Likewise, American Indians are not guaranteed access to sacred sites that are located outside the bounds of Indian lands, even when these lands are under federal control. Court Rulings The Supreme Court has ruled that AIRFA is a policy statement only, and it does now allow American Indians to sue when federal agencies disregard native religious practices or when agencies pursue plans that will have an adverse impact on Native American religion or beliefs. In 1987, in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemeteries Association, the United States was granted the right to build a logging road through federal lands that were central to the traditional religions of the Yurok, Karuk, and Talowac tribes. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon et al. v. Smith, that the state of Oregon could prohibit a member of the Native American Church from using peyote, because that state regarded peyote as an illegal substance. These Supreme Court decisions made clear that if federal or state agencies fail to comply with the policies established in AIRFA, American Indian people had no legal recourse to sue or claim adverse impact on their religion. The extension of full religious freedom to Native American people is an evolving concept in 1336

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U.S. jurisprudence, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act constitutes an important philosophical foundation toward ensuring the free exercise of religion and access to sacred areas. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Deloria, Vine, Jr., ed. American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. Deloria, Vine, Jr., and Clifford Lytle. The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Echo-Hawk, Walter E. “Loopholes in Religious Liberty. The Need for a Federal Law to Protect Freedom of Worship for Native American People.” NARF Legal Review 14 (Summer, 1991): 7-14. Josephy, Alvin M. Now That the Buffalo’s Gone: A Study of Today’s American Indians. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984. Long, Carolyn N. Religious Freedom and Indian Rights: The Case of Oregon v. Smith. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. See also: Indian Offenses Act (1883); Indian Citizenship Act

(1924); Indian Reorganization Act (1934); Indian Civil Rights Act (1968); Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970); Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975); Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990).

Port and Tanker Safety Act Date: October 17, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 92 Stat. 1471 Public law: 95-474 U.S. Code: 33 § 1221 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

This act provided protections for the marine environment and public safety. 1337

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After World War I, the United States and other emerging industrialized nations witnessed a tremendous growth in both oil imports and domestic movements of refined petroleum products. Movement of oil remained comparatively unregulated until the 1930’s, when a number of maritime casualties drew attention to some of the problems associated with maritime activities. Incidents involving loss of life, water pollution, and port safety prompted the government to enact the Tank Vessel Act of 1936, which addressed tank vessels carrying flammable or combustible liquid cargoes. This act concentrated on fire protection, safety equipment, standards for crews, and a general tightening of federal authority over the shipping industry. The legislation did not, however, address authority for pollution prevention within ports in the United States. Federal authority over port safety could be invoked only for considerations of national security. The 1936 legislation remained essentially unchanged until it was extensively revised by the Port and Waterways Safety Act of 1972. This act contained the 1970 presidential proposal to expand the Coast Guard’s jurisdiction over all vessels that use U.S. ports and provided the Coast Guard with the authority to protect inland waters and adjacent shore areas from environmental harm and structural damage. There were provisions in the law to establish and operate services for vessel traffic, to require certain navigational equipment, and to control vessel traffic and movement. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard was slow to implement these provisions, mostly because of budgetary constraints. In 1976, a series of major tanker accidents focused public and congressional attention on the continued problem of marine pollution. The tremendous growth in maritime traffic, commensurate with a massive increase in oil importation and the existence of generally larger vessels, led to increasing damage to the environment from accidental spills and from normal tanker operations. It also became clear to U.S. officials that a lack of control over foreign ships calling on U.S. ports was a serious problem. Results from federal studies of marine pollution conducted in late 1976 and early 1977, including a study of the shortcomings of the 1972 act, prompted President Jimmy Carter to announce a number of proposals to Congress in March, 1977. These included recommendations for new tanker regulations, spill liability, and U.S. ratification of the 1973 International Conference for the Pre1338

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vention of Pollution from Ships. More important perhaps, the president directed the State Department to begin diplomatic efforts to improve the international system of tanker inspection and certification through the International Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO). Continued tanker accidents, most notably the Amoco Cadiz in early 1978, coupled with diplomatic pressure from the United States, resulted in the early convening of IMCO’s Council Conference on Tanker Safety and Pollution Prevention (TSPP). Given a climate of international concern over tanker pollution, the conference made recommendations to signatory nations to adopt provisions for tanker equipment, inspections, and certification. Passage in Congress Early activity in the Ninety-fifth Congress included the introduction of approximately thirty bills to address tanker safety, port safety, and environmental protection from oil. It was during the bill consolidation process that some congressional members and government officials expressed concern, arguing that the initial Senate bill contained provisions that severely departed from harmonization with concurrent international standards being proposed by IMCO. It was believed by many in government that if the United States were to impose unilateral tanker requirements on the international shipping community, it would seriously jeopardize international relationships. The proposed U.S. legislation was seen by many to be hypocritical, illegal, and selfdefeating, given the fact that the United States was already a signatory to the international agreements. Breaking away from international commitments (with subsequent loss of credibility among other maritime nations) was not viewed as a constructive way to bring about solutions to the worldwide oil pollution problem. After much debate and committee work, an amended version of Senate Bill 682 was drafted from much of the language contained in a House version of the bill. The Senate eventually accepted the House changes to the bill and inserted its own minor alterations concerning offshore oil-drilling platforms and wider federal authority to impose stricter standards on domestic shipping than those being contemplated in the international TSPP conference. The amended Senate Bill 682—which ironically deleted the initial 1339

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requirement for double-hulled tank vessels that the United States subsequently unilaterally mandated under OPA-90—passed both houses of Congress in October, 1978, and was signed into law by President Carter. Provisions The law included provisions for mandatory state or federal pilots for every vessel calling on U.S. ports; expanded federal authority to investigate accidents and maintain ship and company performance databases; annual inspections of all tank vessels using U.S. ports; Coast Guard authority to deny entry or detain vessels that were not in compliance with the regulations; Coast Guard authority to issue regulations for domestic trade vessels that differed from regulations imposed by the multination agreement; federal authority to operate harbor traffic control systems (similar to those for aircraft); the requirement that certain tank vessels implement segregated ballast systems, crude-oil washing systems, and tank safety inert gas systems over a period of eight years; the requirement that tank vessels, except barges, carry electronic navigation and collision-avoidance equipment by 1982; implementation of new requirements for offshore lightering operations; prohibition of any ship docking in a U.S. port if it had dumped oil-tank washwater at sea; and authority for the secretary of transportation to assess stiffer civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance. Oil Spills Quantitative statistics vary dramatically as they relate to sources of oil in the sea. The National Academy of Sciences estimated in 1976, for example, that of the 6.1 million metric tons of oil that reached the sea each year, only 35 percent could be attributed to the commercial movement of oil. Of this, 18 percent was directly attributable to tanker operations and a mere 3 percent to collisions, groundings, and explosions. Different studies estimated that 85 percent of the oil spilled into the sea was the result of tank cleaning, whereas others put the figure at 26 percent from accidental spills and routine ship discharges. These conflicting figures were used by various special-interest lobbies, depending on their political and philosophical agendas. Regardless of the viewpoint, however, it was undisputed that while the lowest percentage of oil came from accidental discharges such as groundings and collisions, 1340

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those discharges always gained the most media attention and caused great public outcry. The various provisions of the Port and Tanker Safety Act of 1978 and those resulting from the international TSPP conference addressed issues that included prevention of accidental discharge through equipment, training, and traffic control; abatement of operational discharge through vessel design changes such as segregated ballast and crude-oil wash systems; and the use of terminal facilities to receive and recycle wastewater from washing out oil tanks (this was meant to discourage the practice of cleaning out huge oil tanks with water and pumping the liquid overboard). The cleaning and segregated ballast systems eventually eliminated most of the routine oil pollution from tanker operations. These major equipment systems also caused the greatest financial burden on the maritime oil industry. Fitting an existing tanker in 1978 with a segregated ballast system cost approximately $2 million and reduced the vessel’s carrying capability by 20-25 percent. Crude-oil wash and inert gas systems cost about $1 million for each vessel. These requirements forced most ship owners to build entirely new vessels and retire older tonnage. The resultant shipbuilding boom lasted until the worldwide oil shortages of the early 1980’s. Compliance Difficulties For many operators, the cost of financing new vessels or retrofitting existing ones was prohibitively high and resulted in the replacement of competent operators with cheaper carriers who were willing to take chances. This rebound effect of regulation often contributed to yet more operational pollution and accidents. It was difficult to enforce laws on those who used the open sea. Yet while oil slicks from tank cleaning and bilge pumping were common throughout the world in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, the situation did improve as a result of the new regulations, and oil pollution in the sea from tanker operations was reduced. Just how many catastrophic accidents were prevented as a result of better equipment and systems, stricter port movement regulations, and better crew and pilot training was not readily quantifiable. The fact that many accidents nevertheless continued to happens suggested that equipment-based regulation and political 1341

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entreaties for international compliance to regulation may have overlooked other underlying causes. Nevertheless, the 1978 Port and Tanker Safety Act and its influence on the international shipping community appeared to be instrumental in reducing worldwide pollution. The act forced a completely new operational doctrine for tanker operations into existence, along with technologically improved navigational safety measures. It also provided an inland vessel traffic control system designed to aid mariners at harbor entrance choke points, thereby avoiding growth of marine traffic congestion. Paul Leyda Sources for Further Study Barak, Joanne H. “Time Charters: Who Bears the Burden of Complying with Subsequent Legislation—The Port and Tanker Safety Act of 1978.” The George Washington Journal of International Law and Economics 16, no. 2 (1982): 271-298. Congressional Quarterly Almanac. “Tanker Safety.” 34 (1978): 713714. Oil Companies International Marine Forum. Tanker Safety and Pollution Prevention. London: Author, 1976. Peterson, Roger Andrew. Maritime Oil Tanker Casualties (19641977): An Analysis of Safety and Policy Issues. Knoxville, Tenn.: UMI, 1982. U.S. Congress. House. United States Code: Congressional and Administrative News. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1978. Waters, W. G., II, T. D. Heaver, and T. Verrier. Oil Pollution from Tanker Operations: Causes, Costs, Controls. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1980. See also: Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924); Coastal Zone Management Act (1972); Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972); Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979); Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990).

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Airline Deregulation Act

Airline Deregulation Act Date: October 24, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 92 Stat. 1705 Public law: 95-504 U.S. Code: 49 § 334 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Transportation

Although deregulation gave managers more flexibility to develop their business strategies, the subsequent shakeout in the airline industry underscored the need to avoid poorly planned rapid expansion. Before Deregulation: The Civil Aeronautics Board Prior to the Airline Deregulation Act, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) strictly regulated airline routes, fares, and mergers. For example, before a trunk carrier (an airline that primarily served large cities and high-density routes) could provide service on a new route, it had to petition the CAB for approval. Approval was contingent upon the CAB’s judgment regarding three issues: need for additional service on the route, which airline should be awarded the route, and whether the route tied into an airline’s existing network. Incumbent airlines usually contended that the petitioned route could not support any additional service, so proceedings often dragged on for years. The CAB also regulated airfares by establishing maximums, minimums, or both maximums and minimums. Each carrier was required to obtain permission before introducing a new fare. The CAB ruled on these fare changes to determine whether they were reasonable. Although the CAB designed the fare limits to provide a rate of return on investment equal to 12 percent, this target was rarely reached. Mergers were a third area in which the CAB exercised control. The airlines used mergers to acquire the route networks and aircraft capacity of other carriers. This strategy was often more expedient than petitioning the CAB for individual routes because the acquiring carrier could receive many new routes simultaneously. The CAB generally approved a merger, however, only if it prevented a carrier from going bankrupt, with the result that a particular geographic area would lose air service. 1343

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The CAB regulations effectively prevented trunk carriers from competing on the basis of fares and routes. Although the airlines could offer different in-flight amenities, each aircraft had approximately the same level of comfort. Because their product was undifferentiated, airline managers realized that customers were more concerned with scheduling the most convenient flight than with maintaining brand loyalty. As a result, frequency of service became the most important determinant of market share. The CAB did not regulate flight frequency except to prevent de facto abandonment of routes. The Argument for Deregulation Proponents of deregulation argued that the CAB regulations were responsible for increasing the cost of air transportation. Their argument was based on the premise that as the airlines scheduled more flights to increase market exposure, each flight carried fewer passengers. Costs, and thus fares, rose because the fixed cost of each flight was spread among fewer passengers. They argued that deregulation would permit the airlines to differentiate their product and provide a wider range of fares and services. One anticipated outcome was lower prices. Advocates of deregulation also argued that the legislation would result in greater efficiency and flexibility. First, by increasing a carrier’s flexibility to improve route structures and flight schedules, deregulation would permit better aircraft utilization. Second, assets would not be wasted simply to seek future route awards. Under regulations, some carriers had used artificially low fares to strengthen their bargaining position when seeking future routes. Third, carriers would have more leverage when dealing with labor unions because the U.S. government would not be obligated to aid an ailing airline. Arguments Against Deregulation With the exception of United Air Lines, the trunk carriers either vehemently or tacitly opposed deregulation. They argued that the absence of entry restrictions on the more profitable routes would result in duplication and overcapacity. Because more planes would fly these routes, higher rather than lower fares would result. If increased competition resulted in excess capacity, then profitability would decline because each flight would carry more empty seats. 1344

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In addition, they argued that deregulation would diminish stable and reliable air service. In a deregulated environment, an airline could enter a market on weekends or holidays and carry full flights by offering reduced fares. During periods of reduced traffic demand, however, the carier could suspend its service. Finally, critics feared that rate wars would develop as airlines offered cut-rate fares to establish themselves in new markets. As incumbent airlines lowered their fares to remain competitive, profits would be reduced. As a result, carriers would have difficulty replacing their fleets. Opponents of deregulation also argued that smaller cities would suffer reduced or suspended service because the trunk carriers would concentrate their equipment capacity on the lucrative longhaul routes between high-density population centers. This argument was similar to a cross-subsidy issue: The trunk airlines claimed that they used profits from their long-haul routes to negate losses on their shorter, less profitable routes. If deregulation eliminated these profits, then carriers would not be able to offset the losses from their shorter routes and might have to abandon them. Flights over shorter distances are relatively more expensive in terms of cost per mile because fixed costs, such as passenger and luggage processing, are spread over fewer miles. In addition, slower average aircraft speeds cause higher labor costs per seat mile. Finally, fuel costs per seat mile are proportionately higher because the rate of fuel consumption is greater during takeoff and landing than it is during flight. Because other forms of transportation, such as the automobile, are relatively attractive at shorter distances, demand is highly elastic; that is, customers are very likely to choose a substitute form of transportation if prices go up. As a result, the higher costs of shorter flights cannot be offset by fares that reflect those costs and allow as much profit as earned on longer flights. Deregulation and Its Impact The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 ended the government’s regulation of the airlines and eliminated the CAB by the end of 1984. Airlines now were subject to market competition to “regulate” price, routes, and qualities of air travel. The effect was to reduce airfares significantly over the first decade of the law’s existence. The aftermath of airline deregulation underscored the need for managers to accurately evaluate corporate strategy. For many years, the airlines preferred to pay the costs of CAB regulation 1345

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rather than face the uncertain environment that would exist without controls. Once the industry was deregulated, however, many carriers were lured by the freedom to expand and increase market share. The result was that many airlines overexpanded, faced overcapacity, and therefore had to sell their product at low prices, suffering declining profits as a result. Prior to deregulation, managers were enamored of the concept of flight frequency. Because CAB regulations severely limited the trunk carriers’ ability to compete on the basis of fares and routes, flight frequency became the most important determinant of market share. This led to the widespread practice of using long-term debt to finance large aircraft fleets that could provide frequent service. As a result, trunk carriers were highly leveraged, faced large interest charges, and were adversely affected by the 1980-1981 recession that reduced air traffic demand. A brief description of the corporate strategies implemented by Delta Air Lines and Braniff Airways following deregulation illustrates these points. Delta and Braniff implemented strategies that resulted in good and poor performance, respectively. Both companies used a hub-and-spoke route network prior to deregulation, and both carriers flew the less popular routes to small and midsized cities. These flights were then aggregated at a hub city and efficiently scheduled to connect with the carrier’s more profitable long-distance flights. This system minimized passenger inconvenience resulting from layovers and made the airlines less dependent on other carriers for their feeder traffic. A major advantage of this type of network was that each airline was generally a monopoly carrier on its short-haul routes. Consequently, older planes could be used without worrying about flight frequency, competition, or price wars. As a result, these carriers entered the deregulated era in better financial shape than did the larger carriers. Delta had one of the industry’s lowest debt ratios, whereas Braniff’s leverage was commensurate with the industry average. These two carriers also tended to be more profitable than the larger carriers. Following deregulation, Braniff changed its strategy and placed more emphasis on adding long-haul routes. In 1979, for example, Braniff added new routes to Europe and the Far East, even though it lacked marketing exposure in these areas. Braniff hoped that the new domestic and international routes would feed each other and 1346

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increase traffic flow through its domestic hub cities. It also expected that new traffic patterns would help smooth demand over the entire system. This rapid expansion strategy was not compatible with the environment. Braniff tried to expand its operations during a period of rising interest, fuel, and operating costs, but it had to lower prices to remain competitive on existing routes and offer promotional fares to increase its market exposure on the new routes. Braniff ignored the importance of flight frequency and its relationship to market share. In many cases, Braniff initiated only one flight on its new routes, sometimes with an inconvenient arrival or departure time. As a result, Braniff was not able to schedule its system as efficiently as it initially hoped. Braniff also shifted capacity from markets in which it previously held a prominent position, with the result that competitors entered these cities and gained market share. In contrast to Braniff, Delta maintained its position as one of the trunk industry’s most profitable carriers. It did not deplete its resources in price wars on the more popular routes, and it added routes only when it perceived a need for additional service. Delta also added routes that could be profitable in the short term. As a result, it initiated service to fast-growing regions in the Pacific Northwest, California, and Texas. Delta did not sacrifice flight frequency in its traditional markets to provide service on these new routes. When Eastern Airlines increased flight frequency to Atlanta, Delta’s major hub, Delta countered by simultaneously adding more flights. To combat the tendency toward providing excess capacity, Delta introduced flight complexes at its Atlanta hub. Thirty or forty planes would converge on Atlanta at two-hour intervals, exchange passengers, and fly to different spoke cities. The strategy kept a greater percentage of passengers within the feeder and connector system. Passenger layover was minimized through efficient scheduling, which, in turn, reduced the chance that passengers would defect to another airline. Delta became one of the dominant U.S. carriers, and Braniff filed for bankruptcy in 1982. Along with lower fares, therefore, the hub-and-spoke strategy was one of the major outcomes of deregulation. Passengers now needed to travel from major hub to major hub, using connecting flights or ground travel to reach the hubs, as fewer direct flights were available. Other changes that passengers noticed were a broader variation in the quality of service and amenities such as 1347

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meals (“no-frills” trips now could be offered to passengers wanting to minimize the cost of their tickets). The increase in competition—with the choice with the number of certified large-aircraft carriers doubling over the following three decades—provided passengers with more options in airlines and allowed them to benefit from discount pricing, frequent flyer programs, and cross-industry credit card promotions. Increasingly, however, passengers also saw overbooking, delayed schedules and missed connections, and longer overall travel times. Older passengers complained that the civility and graceful amenities of their earlier flying experience had been replaced with coach travel that resembled a bus trip. Nevertheless, in 1999, the Brookings Institution estimated that deregulation had saved travelers more than $20 billion per year, and the increase in travelers seemed in line with that estimate: According to the Air Transport Association of America, in 1999 U.S. airlines 640 million passengers, more than two and one-half times the number of passengers traveling in 1977. M. Mark Walker, updated by Christina J. Moose Sources for Further Study Dempsey, Paul Stephen, and Andrew R. Goetz. Airline Deregulation and Laissez-Faire Mythology. Westport Connecticut: Quorum Books, 1992. Fruhan, William E., Jr. The Fight for Competitive Advantage: A Study of the United States Trunk Air Carriers. Boston: Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, 1972. Lewis, W. Davis, and Wesley P. Newton. Delta: The History of an Airline. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979. Comprehensive review of the history of Delta Air Lines from 1929 to 1979. MacAvoy, Paul W., and John W. Snow, eds. Regulation of Passenger Fares and Competition Among the Airlines. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Research, 1977. Saunders, Martha D. Eastern’s Armageddon: Labor Conflict and the Destruction of Eastern Airlines. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992. See also: Air Commerce Act (1926); Aviation and Transportation

Security Act (2001).

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Ethics in Government Act

Ethics in Government Act Date: October 26, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 92 Stat. 1824-1867 Public law: 95-521 U.S. Code: 28 § 591 Categories: Government Procedure and Organization

This law mandated that nominees for positions requiring Senate confirmation make financial disclosure reports; it also established the Office of Government Ethics to oversee the administration of ethics policies in the executive branch. The Ethics in Government Act was passed in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration to lessen the likelihood that presidential nominees for government positions would have conflicts of interest that might result in personal or financial gain. The law requires that presidential nominees for positions requiring Senate confirmation file financial disclosure reports. The required report lists sources of income, assets and liabilities, and affiliations with organizations that may lead to conflicts of interest. The act also created the Office of Government Ethics, which reviews the disclosure reports of presidential nominees and issues opinion letters concerning possible conflicts of interest. Possible Conflicts of Interest The principal concerns that guide the reviews of financial disclosure reports are the potentials for officials to (1) participate in matters in which they have personal financial interests, (2) receive income from nongovernment sources for government service, (3) participate in outside activities that may involve the government, and (4) experience conflicts following their government employment because of restrictions on dealings with former agencies. The latter issue primarily affects former officials, but it is frequently a concern for officials entering government service because it can affect their future employment prospects. The Review Process The Office of Counsel to the President typically solicits complete financial records to anticipate problems before nominations are 1349

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announced and explains reporting requirements to potential nominees. The Office of Counsel provides forms to potential nominees and gives the completed reports to designated agency ethics officials and to the Office of Government Ethics. Agency heads are responsible for compliance with the ethics program, and they appoint the agency’s ethics official. The financial disclosure reports are also reviewed by the employing agency’s representative, and the agency’s evaluation is included in the Office of Government Ethics’ opinion letter. The opinion letters are reviewed by the president before the nomination is sent forward. The members of the Senate involved in the confirmation process review the letters and generally include their own assessment of possible conflicts of interest. The identification of possible conflicts may result in nominees being asked to disqualify, or recuse, themselves from participation in decisions regarding firms or industries in which they may have personal or financial interests, divest themselves of financial interests in particular firms or industries which may cause conflicts of interest, or put their financial holdings into “blind trusts” so that they will have no knowledge of their financial interests in particular firms or industries. A waiver may also be granted if it is determined that a nominee’s interests in a particular firm or industry are so slight or peripheral as to assure that any conflict of interest will be very minor. Restrictions on Future Employment President George H. W. Bush appointed a Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform, which in 1989 recommended strengthening the provisions dealing with “influence peddling” as well as broadening the provisions dealing with conflicts of interest when officials may gain personally or financially. Subsequent amendment of the Ethics in Government Act expanded its scope to include influence peddling by former officials. The act restricts what former government officials may do upon leaving office, principally in terms of a two-year prohibition against representing private interests before their former agencies. These provisions were designed to lessen conflicts of interest that may arise during an official’s tenure with an agency, when he or she may be anticipating future employment outside government, and to help stop the “revolving door” pattern of employment in which individuals move from gov1350

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ernment agencies to the industries they were responsible for regulating and vice versa. The provisions also include a one-year prohibition on former officials representing private interests before their former government employer when the individual had no responsibilities relating to his or her current employer. Impact of the Act Critics of the Ethics in Government Act have charged that it makes it very difficult to recruit potential officials from the private sector. This criticism was expressed numerous times during the Reagan administration. At issue are whether the financial disclosure requirements themselves are impediments to recruitment because individuals do not want to make their finances public or whether other restrictions on employment discourage individuals from accepting nominations. In addition to financial disclosure and limitations on relationships with former and future employers, the act restricts the freedom of officials to manage their own financial affairs. Supporters of the act argue that it focuses attention on the issue of ethics and, in particular, reinforces the principle that even the appearance of impropriety is to be avoided in public-sector employment. The Ethics in Government Act also reaffirms the principles that government officials should not use their positions for personal gain and that government business should be conducted “in the sunshine.” Moreover, the act serves to protect appointing officials from inadvertently selecting someone who might be motivated to seek public employment for personal gain or who might later be charged with bias in making decisions. The standards set in the Ethics in Government Act have had a broad impact in government. States and municipalities are increasingly requiring financial disclosure by political appointees and elected officials to lessen the potential for conflicts of interest. Conflicts that may arise because of dual employment, financial interests in businesses that deal with government agencies, and the use of public positions to benefit private interests are examined closely. Conflicts arising from the employment of law enforcement officers in private security during their off-duty hours are cases in point. William L. Waugh, Jr. 1351

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Sources for Further Study Denhardt, Robert B. Public Administration: An Action Orientation. 2d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1995. Richter, William L., Frances Burke, and Jameson Doig, eds. Combating Corruption: Encouraging Ethics, a Sourcebook for Public Service Ethics. 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: American Society for Public Administration, 1995. See also: Pendleton Act (1883); Hatch Act (1939); Securities Exchange Act (1934); Federal Election Campaign Act (1972); Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992); Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002).

Pregnancy Discrimination Act Date: October 31, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 92 Stat. 2076 Public law: 95-555 U.S. Code: 42 § 2000e et seq. Categories: Health and Welfare; Labor and Employment; Women’s

Issues

This act banned various forms of discrimination against pregnant employees. When Congress banned employment discrimination on the basis of gender in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, some employers refused to give reasonable accommodation to pregnant women and even fired pregnant employees or canceled their accumulated seniority when they went on unpaid maternity leave. Accordingly, Congress amended Title VII to provide that the terms in the statute “because of sex” or “on the basis of sex” should include “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” Abortions, however, were covered only if necessary to protect the lives of mothers. Further protections were later extended under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1352

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1993, including the opportunity under some conditions for men to go on leave to assist their pregnant wives and newborn children. The nondiscrimination requirement does not place any affirmative requirements on employers, who are vaguely instructed to treat pregnancy and childbirth as they would all other medical conditions. In Troupe v. May Department Stores, the Seventh Circuit Court ruled in 1994 that the employer was justified in firing a pregnant woman who, as a result of “morning sickness,” was repeatedly late to work. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Eisenstein, Zillah. The Female Body and the Law. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Furnish, Hannah Arterian. “Prenatal Exposure to Fetally Toxic Work Environments: The Dilemma of the 1978 Amendments to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Iowa Law Review 66 (1980): 63-129. Kenney, Sally J. For Whose Protection? Reproductive Hazards and Exclusionary Politics in the United States and Britain. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. Littleton, Christine A. “Reconstructing Sexual Equality.” California Law Review 75 (1987): 1279-1337. Vogel, Lise. Mothers on the Job: Maternity Policy in the U.S. Workplace. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993. Williams, Wendy. “Equality’s Riddle: Pregnancy and the Equal Treatment/Special Treatment Debate.” New York University Review of Law and Social Change 13 (1984-1985): 325-380. See also: Equal Pay Act (1963); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964); Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970); Family Support Act (1988); Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992); Family and Medical Leave Act (1993).

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Women’s Educational Equity Act Date: November 1, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 92 Stat. 2298 Public law: 95-561 U.S. Code: 20 § 7231 et seq. Categories: Education; Women’s Issues

This program was established by Congress to combat sexual discrimination and to develop a curriculum that does not perpetuate sex-role stereotyping in education, thereby recognizing that excellence in education cannot be achieved without gender equity. The purpose of the Women’s Educational Equity Act (WEEA) is to provide educational equity for women and girls in the United States and financial assistance to enable educational agencies and institutions to meet the requirements of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. At first, the effort to purge sexism from curricular materials was enthusiastically embraced by educators and publishers. When President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, however, the WEEA was immediately targeted for funding cuts. The program would continue to struggle against opponents. The program funds programs to open mathematics, science, and technology courses and careers to girls and women; helps female students gain access to nontraditional vocational education; funds projects to eliminate bias against girls and women in school and the workplace; funds major programs to improve educational opportunities and career choices for women who do not earn incomes; and targets resources toward the educational needs of disabled women. It was again amended in 1994. Netiva Caftori Source for Further Study Williams, Kathleen L., Beverly J. Parks, and Carmen J. Finley. Measures of Educational Equity for Women. Washington, D.C.: American Institutes for Research, 1977. See also: Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (1972);

Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975).

1354

Indian Child Welfare Act

Indian Child Welfare Act Date: November 8, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 92 Stat. 3069 Public law: 95-608 U.S. Code: 25 § 1901 Categories: Children’s Issues; Native Americans

This act established minimum standards for placement of Indian children in foster or adoptive homes to prevent the breakup of Indian families. The Indian Child Welfare Act, passed into law in 1978, establishes minimum federal standards for the removal of Indian children from their families and the placement of these children in foster or adoptive homes. In essence, the act restricts the placement of Indian children in non-Indian homes and gives jurisdiction to tribal courts in deciding matters of child welfare involving adoptive or foster placement. The law removes state jurisdiction in most Indian child welfare cases, even when problems occur off the reservation. The law affirms the continued existence and the integrity of Indian tribes and was specifically designed to end discriminatory practices of state and county welfare agencies which disregarded Indian extended family arrangements and placed large numbers of Indian children in non-Indian homes. Senate hearings conducted in 1974 documented evidence that as many as 25 percent of Indian children were being systematically removed from their natural families. This in turn was causing the breakup of the Indian family and a high degree of social disruption in Indian communities. The law provides that when foster care or adoption is necessary, the child’s extended family has first priority to assume custody. If no extended family member is available, a member of the child’s tribe or an Indian from another tribe has priority over nonIndians. Carole A. Barrett 1355

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Sources for Further Study Johnson, Troy R., ed. Indian Child Welfare Act: Unto the Seventh Generations Conference Proceedings. Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, University of California, 1993. Jones, Billy Joe. Indian Child Welfare Act Handbook: A Legal Guide to the Custody and Adoption of Native American Children. Chicago: Section of Family Law, American Bar Association, 1995. Richardson, John G. Indian Child Welfare Act: A Cultural and Legal Education Program. Washington, D.C.: National Center for State Courts, 1997. Thompson, Edward L. Protecting Abused Children: A Judge’s Perspective on Public Law, Deprived Child Proceedings, and the Impact of the Indian Child Welfare Acts. New York: Garland, 1993. See also: Family Planning Services and Population Research Act

(1970); Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974); Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975); Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975); Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984); Family Support Act (1988); Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990).

Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act Date: November 9, 1978 U.S. Statutes at Large: 92 Stat. 3119 Public law: 95-617 U.S. Code: 16 § 2601 Categories: Energy

Part of the National Energy Act, this law was designed to prevent energy crises and to encourage innovation in the production of electricity without the use of fossil fuels. When President Jimmy Carter signed the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) into law in 1978, it was one of five 1356

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pieces of legislation that together formed the National Energy Act. Drafted as a response to the so-called energy crisis, PURPA’s provisions were meant to reduce dependence on foreign oil by encouraging the development of alternative energy. PURPA restructured the electric-utility industry by permitting the emergence of power producers who were not subject to the regulations that governed normal utility operations. In the ten years following enactment of the legislation, generation of electricity by independent nonutility producers more than doubled. Response to the “Energy Crisis” As a former nuclear engineer, Carter had campaigned for office on a platform that promised to prevent any oil shortages similar to the one that had panicked the country in 1973. At that time, members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had sharply curtailed sales of crude oil to the United States in what became a successful attempt to drive prices up. Although the United States was itself a major producer of petroleum, the OPEC oil embargo resulted in numerous shortages, higher prices, and impromptu rationing at gasoline service stations. The government responded to the crisis with a wide variety of new legislation designed either to relieve the existing shortages or to prevent future problems. The Federal Highway Administration, for example, lowered speed limits on federal interstate highways to 55 miles per hour after researchers determined that this was the most energyefficient speed for motor vehicles. Oil and Electricity Although many people think of petroleum products such as gasoline and fuel oil as being used primarily for transportation or home heating, fuel oil is also a major source of energy for the generation of electricity. The bulk of electricity produced in the United States in the 1970’s came from power plants that generated electricity using steam boilers, and many of those boilers were fired with fuel oil refined from the crude petroleum imported from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. Both elected officials and government analysts recognized the implications of an overdependence on foreign oil. Transporting crude oil in large tanker ships not only presented risks to the environment but also made the U.S. economy vulnerable in case of war. 1357

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Washington senator Henry Martin (Scoop) Jackson, for example, had long been critical of big oil companies. While serving as chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1974, Jackson rebuked U.S. executives of major oil companies regarding the high profits the oil companies enjoyed following the 1973 oil crisis. By the mid-1970’s, when he became chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Jackson had amassed a solid record on defense, environmental, and energy issues. As a supporter of both the defense industries and environmental causes, Jackson could push for environmental legislation without alienating more conservative members of the Senate. Jackson believed in achieving a balance between the environment and the economy. PURPA, which proposed reducing the use of fossil fuels, particularly foreign oil (despite the 1973 crisis, in 1977 the United States imported half the oil it consumed), while encouraging the development of alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power, seemed to strike such a balance. By encouraging entrepreneurs to enter the electrical power production industry, new technologies could be developed, using renewable resources. The National Energy Act provided for incentives such as tax breaks and government grants to new independent power producers. Easing Regulations, Funding Alternative Energy In addition, PURPA removed many of the existing restrictions on independent power producers while requiring utility companies to purchase electricity from those independents at a rate that made entry into the electrical-power market by entrepreneurs in alternative energy financially attractive. The legislation exempted small power producers and cogenerators of electricity from many of the regulations to which public utilities were subject. PURPA defined a small power producer as any independent producer whose facility generated less than eighty megawatts of electricity. (A megawatt is one million watts of electricity.) Cogeneration facilities are industrial plants, such as paper mills or other factories, that can generate electricity as a by-product of the waste heat their plants produce. Rather than being vented through a smokestack, the heat is captured and used to generate steam and electrical power. PURPA not only permitted such industries to sell any surplus power to the local public electrical utility but also mandated that the utility pay a 1358

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fair market rate for that surplus. In addition, PURPA required that utilities make electricity available to cogenerators as needed. Officials in the Carter administration, legislators in Congress, and citizens concerned about both the environment and national security all hoped that PURPA would lead to the development of more alternative energy sources, such as small-scale hydroelectric plants, wind power, and geothermal sources. (Small-scale hydropower facilities are considered environmentally friendly, as they utilize the water from the run of a river without requiring construction of large dams.) By altering the regulatory structure, the electric-power industry would become more diversified, electricutility companies would be able to meet increased consumer demand without having to build additional facilities, and consumers would benefit from lower rates for power. PURPA was designed to complement other pieces of the National Energy Act. While it focused on the utility industry and particularly on altering the regulations governing public utilities, other legislation within the framework of the National Energy Act provided for research funding in alternative energy. For example, funds allocated to the Department of Energy (then under Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger) supported research projects in solar, wind, and small-scale hydropower as part of the administration’s commitment to alternative energy. Thus, for a few brief years, the United States made a serious commitment to developing renewable resources for electrical-power generation. With the support of Scoop Jackson in the Senate and Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill in the House, the Carter administration passed a comprehensive National Energy Act. Of the five separate pieces of legislation that constituted the NEA, PURPA perhaps had the greatest impact. The Reagan Administration Following Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, many of the environmental initiatives of the Carter administration experienced reduced funding, revocation, or drastic revisions. Bipartisan support for environmental legislation dwindled during the economic recession the United States experienced as the 1970’s ended. Many aspects of alternative-energy development suddenly appeared financially impractical or technically unattainable. Federal support 1359

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for research into solar energy and wind power began to disappear. PURPA, however, because it dealt with regulations rather than with direct funding, initially remained relatively unaffected by the change in political administrations and societal conditions. Still, without active federal support for research into alternative sources of energy, the effects of PURPA inevitably were not what its supporters had envisioned. Unintended Impacts PURPA had been intended to reduce the use of nonrenewable resources; that is, it was meant to discourage the use of fossil fuels such as oil. Because it forms over millions of years, oil is a finite resource. Although as-yet-unknown petroleum reserves may exist, those that have been untapped will last for only a limited period of time, and sooner or later all the earth’s petroleum deposits will be exhausted. Sources of electrical energy such as solar or wind power, in contrast, theoretically are infinitely renewable. Rather than specifically stimulating the development of wind and solar power, however, the main effect of PURPA was simply to encourage the growth of independent power producers. Until the passage of PURPA in 1978, most electricity for individual consumption in the United States was produced by public utility companies at central generating stations. The cost of electricity for the average ratepayer was based on what it cost the local utility to produce power at its own power plants, although there were exceptions. Smaller utilities, such as some municipal systems and rural electric cooperatives, did not always own their own generating facilities. These utilities purchased power from regional electric companies. In all cases, the states strictly regulated the rates the consumer, be it an individual household or a large manufacturing firm, paid for electricity. This regulation was meant to prevent the utilities from abusing their position as monopolies and overcharging consumers. Both the industry and state and federal government viewed regulation of electrical power production as being the prerogative of the states. PURPA was an attempt to change that. It was the first entry of the federal government into public utility-rate regulation since the 1930’s and the New Deal. From the viewpoint of advocates of alternative energy, however, PURPA contained a fatal flaw: While state public utility commissions were required to consider the use 1360

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of energy-conservation methods, actual implementation of those energy-saving methods was strictly voluntary. Large volume discounts, for example, formed one target for the Carter administration’s energy-conservation policy. Under standard utility-system rate structures, the more electricity a business or industry consumed, the lower the rates it paid for power would become. Rather than rewarding consumers for attempting to conserve energy, the conventional rate structures imposed penalties. The lower an individual customer’s consumption became, the more that individual consumer paid per kilowatt hour (the standard unit for measuring power consumption, representing the energy expended by 1,000 watts of electricity in one hour). Schlesinger and Carter both wanted to require the state utility commissions to force utility companies to discontinue large volume discounts. As part of the compromises that form an essential part of the legislative process, however, many of the energy-conservation provisions within PURPA were written as suggestions rather than as mandates. The utility commissions that reviewed the rate structures for the utility companies within each state thus might look at energy-conservation ideas but did not have to require that utilities actually employ them. The practical effect of energy conservation being voluntary rather than mandatory was that, although PURPA did shake up the electric-utility industry, it did not result in the widespread substitution of alternative energy for fossil fuels. In his book Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry (1989), historian Richard Hirsh documented the stagnation and conservative thinking that characterized electric public utilities in the early 1970’s. The industry had experienced decades of expansion, everincreasing consumer demand, greater technological efficiencies, falling costs, and minimal competition. The 1973 OPEC oil embargo found the utility companies complacent and sluggish. If the oil crisis woke up the utilities, PURPA helped to keep them awake. Most significant, the act led to an upsurge in the generation of electricity by independent power producers. PURPA aimed to increase cogeneration and small power production through financial incentives and the removal of regulatory barriers. The number of both small power production facilities and cogeneration plants have indeed increased. Qualifying cogeneration facilities, however, were not required to employ alternative energy sources, so 1361

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the development of cogeneration did not automatically lead to a reduction in fossil-fuel usage. Most cogeneration facilities are, in fact, fired with natural gas, a nonrenewable fuel source that is as finite as petroleum. PURPA did require independent power producers to develop alternative energy sources, such as small-scale hydroelectricity and windmills. Since the curtailment of federal research funding for solar and wind, most of the growth of independent power production has occurred in areas where a proven technology existed, that is, in steam-power plants that burn renewable fuels such as wood or garbage and in hydroelectric plants. While these plants do reduce reliance on fossil fuels, their development often raises other environmental questions. It thus appears that PURPA failed to achieve most of its original objectives. Most telling, although it led to some diversification within the electric-power industry, it did not lead to the widespread adoption of alternative energy, nor did it provide consumers with lower rates. In fact, thirty years after the energy crisis of the 1970’s, the United States remained dependent upon fossil fuels and foreign oil and actually imported a greater percentage of fuel than it had in 1973. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, hope for the development of renewable fuels, although technologically feasible, had not advanced much further, despite some development of wind farms and the appearance on the market of a few automobiles using electricity and hydrogen fuel technology. During the 1990’s, deregulation of public utilities by many states had coincided with the fraudulent business practices of power brokers such as Enron, and a brewing conflict in the Middle East after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, both underscored the need for alternative enery and undermined steps toward it. Nancy Farm Männikkö Sources for Further Study Dickson, David. The New Politics of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Hirsh, Richard F. Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Joskow, Paul L., and Richard Schmanslee. Markets for Power: An Analysis of Electric Utility Deregulation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1983. 1362

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Navarro, Peter. The Dimming of America: The Real Costs of Electric Utility Regulatory Failure. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1985. Piasecki, Bruce, and Peter Asmus. In Search of Environmental Excellence. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Victor, Richard H. K. Energy Policy in America Since 1945: A Study of Business-Government Regulations. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984. See also: Federal Power Act (1920); Tennessee Valley Authority

Act (1933); Natural Gas Act (1938); Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (1954); Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975); Department of Energy Organization Act (1977); Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988).

Taiwan Relations Act Date: Passed April 10, 1979; retroactively effective January 1, 1979 U.S. Statutes at Large: 93 Stat. 14 Public law: 96-8 U.S. Code: 22 § 3301 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations

Relations with China gained greater leverage for the United States in negotiations with the Soviet Union. In 1949, guerrilla leader Mao Zedong completed his long struggle to overthrow the nationalist government of China. Mao consolidated his victory by establishing a communist government on the Chinese mainland. The nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, fled to the island of Taiwan, where they established a rival Chinese government. Both Chiang and Mao claimed to represent all of China. The United States officially recognized Chiang’s government in Taipei as the sole legitimate Chinese government. As the Cold War intensified in subsequent years, the United States sought to isolate and weaken the communist Chinese government, just as Washington had sought to contain the power and 1363

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influence of the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1950’s, however, the nominal ideological affinity between the world’s two largest communist countries, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union, was unable to prevent a widening rift in their bilateral relations. In the 1960’s, the growing Sino-Soviet split led policymakers in Washington, D.C., to consider improving relations with the PRC as a way of isolating the Soviet Union, which was seen as the larger threat to U.S. security. In 1971, the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate held hearings on the possible establishment of official ties with the PRC, and on admitting it to the United Nations as the proper representative of China. The United Nations recognized the PRC that year, coincident with Taiwan’s expulsion from that seat. Nixon in China A major breakthrough in U.S.-PRC relations came with President Richard Nixon’s state visit to Beijing in 1972. As a champion of the realist school of foreign policy, Nixon believed that the PRC’s ideological rhetoric and its disagreeable domestic behavior (including human rights abuses and intolerance of dissent) mattered less to U.S. interests than the PRC’s foreign policy. By establishing contact with the PRC, Nixon sought to give the communist government a stake in friendly relations with the United States. Nixon’s official visit opened the door to increased U.S.-PRC trade and a variety of military and security agreements. Nevertheless, the Nixon administration stopped short of granting the PRC full diplomatic recognition. Ironically, it was President Jimmy Carter, noted for his selfprofessed commitment to human rights and morality in international affairs, who officially recognized the PRC. The political environment in which Carter found himself was fundamentally altered from the time of Nixon’s visit to Beijing. Nixon had resigned the presidency in 1974 in disgrace as a result of the Watergate scandal. Mao had died in 1976. The leadership in the PRC came to be dominated by Deng Xiaoping, who promoted modernization, economic reform, and improved ties with the West. Although the PRC under Deng still was seen as a communist state guilty of continuing human rights abuses, it was considered to be an improvement over the Mao era. In addition, the PRC’s improving economy presented 1364

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enticing trade and business opportunities to the United States. U.S.-PRC relations were continually improving. Washington made overtures to Beijing on the subject of establishing full diplomatic relations. Although formal recognition was attractive to the PRC, the communist leadership steadfastly demanded of the United States three conditions: the termination of official relations with Taiwan, the removal of U.S. troops from Taiwan, and the abrogation of the U.S.-Taiwan mutual defense treaty. These conditions would be difficult for the pro-Taiwanese and anticommunist groups who forcefully, and often successfully, lobbied Congress. Nevertheless, the Carter administration was motivated to reach an agreement with Beijing. As a result of a number of factors, including renewed Soviet military involvement in Africa and stalled arms control talks, U.S.-Soviet relations were worsening. Playing the “China card” therefore became increasingly attractive to the Carter administration. Behind-the-scenes negotiations continually sought a compromise on the various issues. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski held numerous and regular discussions with PRC officials in Washington, D.C. U.S. Concessions to China By the end of 1978, a breakthrough had occurred. On December 15, the White House announced that full diplomatic relations with China would be established on the first of the new year. It formally acknowledged “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.” It also recognized the People’s Republic of China as “the sole legal Government of China.” As a small concession to Taiwan, the United States proclaimed that “the people of the United States will maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.” All this largely had been kept secret, and even much of the Congress had been kept in the dark. Shortly thereafter, Deng Xiaoping was officially received in Washington, D.C. In their joint statements, the leaders of the United States and the PRC emphasized a shared anti-Soviet perspective. Despite scattered protests, most notably from Taiwan, the establishment of official ties between the United States and the PRC was widely applauded by governments around the world as a move that squared diplomacy with reality. 1365

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Carter Criticized Within the United States itself, however, the Carter administration came under heavy criticism for “selling out” Taiwan. Making good on his promises to Beijing, Carter sought to replace the U.S.Taiwan mutual defense treaty with a Taiwan Enabling Act, which did not guarantee Taiwan’s security and which would replace the U.S. embassy in Taipei with an American Institute in Taiwan to represent U.S. interests. Senator Barry Goldwater challenged the president’s right to terminate the mutual defense treaty without Senate approval. Although Goldwater failed in that effort, the final bill passed by the U.S. Congress in the spring of 1979, the Taiwan Relations Act, provided several concessions to Taiwan. It expressed an intent to ensure that Taiwan receive enough defensive arms to protect itself and guaranteed that the lack of formal diplomatic relations would not disqualify Taiwan from various aid programs. Significance of the Agreement The establishment of relations between Washington and Beijing consolidated the tripolar diplomacy that had been begun under Nixon. U.S.-PRC relations remained largely cooperative, although by no means was the PRC pulled into the United States’ political orbit. In fact, when the Soviet Union and most other communist countries implemented radical reforms in the late 1980’s and renounced communism altogether a short time later, China remained a committed communist state. Aside from a few anomalies like Cuba and Vietnam, in the mid-1990’s the PRC was the only globally significant communist state in existence. Despite continued human rights abuses, including the mass murder of student demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989, U.S.-PRC relations have remained relatively steady, with Washington regularly granting Beijing “most favored nation” trade status. Steve D. Boilard Sources for Further Study Daley, John Charles, moderator. The Future of Chinese-American Relations. AEI Forum 29. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1979. Garrett, Banning N., and Bonnie S. Glaser. “From Nixon to Reagan: China’s Changing Role in American Strategy.” In Eagle Re1366

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surgent? The Reagan Era in American Foreign Policy, edited by Kenneth A. Oye, Robert J. Lieber, and Donald Rothchild. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987. Garson, Robert. The United States and China Since 1949: A Troubled Affair. London: Pinter, 1994. Gregor, A. James. The China Connection: U.S. Policy and the People’s Republic of China. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1986. Harding, Harry. A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China Since 1972. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1992. Starr, John Bryan, ed. The Future of U.S.-China Relations. New York: New York University Press, 1981. See also: Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844); Burlingame Treaty (1868);

Formosa Resolution (1955).

SALT II Treaty Date: Signed June 18, 1979 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

This significant step in a long process toward arms reductions committed the United States and the Soviet Union to limitations in strategic weapons but failed to see ratification. The SALT II treaty signed by Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev in Vienna on June 18, 1979, committed the United States and the Soviet Union to the first significant reduction in nuclear weapons since the beginning of the nuclear arms race after World War II. The treaty represented an attempt to mitigate the military buildup that characterized the Cold War. SALT I The Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) process started November 17, 1969, with negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union and produced the first SALT agreement 1367

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(SALT I), signed in Moscow on May 26, 1972. SALT I comprised two separate agreements: an antiballistic missile treaty, prohibiting each country from building a nationwide defense against ballistic missiles; and an interim agreement establishing a five-year moratorium on the construction of strategic ballistic missile launchers. SALT I was intended to be the first of several arms control agreements to end the arms race in strategic weapons. SALT II Negotiations Following ratification of the SALT I agreements by the United States in the summer of 1972, negotiations for SALT II began in November. Almost immediately, the two sides found themselves stalemated on a number of difficult issues. Each party wanted to legalize a strategic force structure that maximized its advantages against the other. Thus, a principal objective of the United States was to eliminate the Soviet numerical superiority by equalizing the number of launchers each side could possess. At the time of the moratorium, the Soviet Union possessed 1,618 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) compared to 1,054 in the United States, and 740 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) compared to the United States’ 656. This U.S. deficit was compensated for by the fact that the United States had the ability to deploy more than one warhead in a single missile. Technically, that capacity is referred to as a multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle (MIRV). Thus, at the time of SALT I, the United States could hit more targets with nuclear weapons than could the Soviet Union. However, it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union would acquire MIRV ability for its missiles; then its total destructive capacity would exceed that of the United States. The Soviets wanted to include in the total calculations weapons systems that were deployed in the European theater, which had not been included in the SALT I accord. These were known as forwardbased systems (FBS) and consisted of tactical aircraft based in Europe or on aircraft carriers in waters around Europe. Because the United States considered FBS forces to be dedicated to the defense of Europe, it had refused to count them as strategic weapons. The United States wanted to limit indirectly the anticipated Soviet deployment of MIRV’d missiles by mandating deep reductions in the total weight (called throwweight) of Soviet missiles. Soviet missiles were larger than U.S. missiles and had greater throw1368

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weight. Other difficult issues were what to do about cruise missiles (air-breathing guided missiles developed first by the United States); whether to require the Soviets to include their Backfire bomber in the totals permitted to them; and what kinds of modernization of weapons to permit. Compounding the difficulty of the military-technical issues was a deteriorating political climate. In 1973, war in the Middle East had exacerbated tensions in U.S.-Soviet relations. In 1974, the Watergate trauma had eroded the political authority of the Nixon administration, undercutting both public and congressional support for the SALT process. The mood of détente produced by SALT I had deteriorated during the mid-1970’s. A renewed effort to negotiate was undertaken by the Ford administration, which came into office in 1974. In December, Gerald Ford and Leonid Brezhnev met in the Soviet city of Vladivostok to sign an interim agreement. The Vladivostok agreement simply set a number of goals for a future SALT treaty: a maximum of 2,400 strategic nuclear vehicles for each side, with a subceiling of 1,320 that could be MIRV’d. The SALT II negotiations were completed during the administration of Jimmy Carter, but only after a series of tense and acrimonious exchanges between the two sides. After a comprehensive review of the negotiations, President Carter’s advisers came up with a comprehensive proposal to reduce strategic nuclear launchers well below the figures agreed to at Vladivostok. Presented to the Soviets in March, 1977, the new plan was harshly rejected by the Soviet leaders, who charged the United States with repudiating previously agreed-upon positions. That setback proved to be only temporary, however. In October, 1977, when the five-year period of the SALT I moratorium expired, both countries agreed to abide by its terms, although were not formally bound to do so. By May, 1979, the text of the SALT II treaty was completed, and Carter and Brezhnev journeyed to Vienna to sign the treaty in an elaborate ceremony. Treaty Provisions The SALT II treaty was a lengthy and complex agreement, comprising four parts. The treaty itself contained numerical ceilings and subceilings on launchers and was to remain in force until 1985. SALT II set a limit of 2,400 for strategic launchers (ICBMs, SLBMs and strategic bombers), to decline to 2,250 by 1981. This provision 1369

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would have required the Soviet Union to dismantle 250 launchers but would not have affected the United States’ arsenal, which was then under the ceiling. A subceiling of 1,320 was established for MIRV’d systems; within that limit, a further subceiling of 1,200 applied to all ballistic missiles and a further subceiling of 820 was set for all ICBMs. Other provisions in the treaty placed qualitative restraints on the development of new weapons and prohibited mobile launchers for heavy missiles. To meet U.S. demands, limits were set for the number of warheads that could be placed in MIRV’d missiles; to satisfy the Soviets, limits were placed on the number of cruise missiles that could be deployed on an airplane. A protocol to the treaty provided for limitations that would apply for only two years. In a separate document, Leonid Brezhnev promised to build no more than thirty Backfire bombers per year. The final part of the treaty specified principles for future SALT negotiations. Failure to Ratify For all the effort that went into the negotiations, SALT II was never ratified. The single most important factor in derailing SALT II was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, 1979. In response to the invasion, President Carter withdrew the treaty from Senate consideration. Even before the Afghan crisis, opposition to the treaty had been building in the U.S. Congress and in the public at large. Support for arms control during the mid- to latter 1970’s declined as a result of the collapse of détente in Soviet-United States relations. A major factor in the collapse was the spurt of Soviet activism in the Third World, particularly in Africa. Between 1975 and 1978, the Soviet Union and Cuba became active participants in the civil and regional wars in Angola and the Horn of Africa. Their involvement contributed to the strengthening of Marxist, antiWestern regimes in Angola and Ethiopia, which led to an intensification of anti-Soviet sentiment in the United States. In the face of that sentiment, the prospects for arms control declined. There was still widespread agreement in Washington and Moscow that the substance of SALT II served the security interests of both countries well. As a result, both governments agreed that they would continue to observe its provisions, if the other side continued to do so. This observance continued even under the administration of Ronald Reagan, who, in his presidential campaign, 1370

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called SALT II fatally flawed. The failure of SALT II’s ratification was only a temporary setback in the long effort to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the two superpowers. U.S.-Soviet relations altered dramatically during the 1980’s, following the accession to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, treaties such as the INF (intermediate nuclear force) and START I and START II (strategic arms reduction talks) agreements brought about nuclear arms reduction unimaginable during the 1970’s. Joseph L. Nogee Sources for Further Study Blacker, Coit D. “The Soviets and Arms Control: The SALT II Negotiations, November 1972-March 1976.” In The Other Side of the Table: The Soviet Approach to Arms Control, edited by Michael Mandelbaum. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1990. Blacker, Coit D., and Gloria Duffy, eds. International Arms Control, Issues and Agreements. 2d ed. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1984. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years. New York: Random House, 1988. Flanagan, Stephen J. “SALT II.” In Superpower Arms Control: Setting the Record Straight, edited by Albert Carnesale and Richard N. Haass. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1987. Talbott, Strobe. Endgame: The Inside Story of SALT II. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Arms Control and Disarmament Agreements: Texts and Histories of Negotiations. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1982. See also: Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963); Nuclear Nonprolifera-

tion Treaty (1968); SALT I Treaty (1973); INF Treaty (1987); START II Treaty (1993); U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002).

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Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals Date: Signed June 23, 1979 Categories: Animals; Environment and Conservation; Treaties

and Agreements

This international treaty is designed to protect vulnerable species of wild animals that migrate across national boundaries. On June 23, 1979, several sovereign nations and regional economic organizations signed the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals in Bonn, Germany. After receiving the necessary fifteen ratifications, the treaty went into effect on November 1, 1983. Treaty Provisions The signatories to the treaty agreed to protect any endangered species whose entire population (or a significant portion of the population) “cyclically and predictably cross one or more national jurisdictional boundaries.” The term “endangered” was defined as meaning that “the migratory species is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.” In addition, the treaty obligated the signatories to take appropriate action to prevent unfavorable-status species from becoming endangered. The treaty established a Conference of the Parties, which makes decisions concerning the obligations of the signatories. The conference determines its budget and formulates a scale for assessing the contribution of each party to the conference. The treaty also provided for a Secretariat, which is appointed by the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The Secretariat has several executive functions, which include listing endangered species, arranging meetings of the conference, promoting liaisons between the parties, and performing duties entrusted to it by the conference. Finally, the treaty established a Scientific Council for the purpose of providing scientific recommendations to the conference. 1372

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Appendix I of the treaty lists those migratory species that are considered endangered, and the list is regularly updated and generally is increasing. Some of those listed include species of whales, birds, marine turtles, and the one remaining species of gorilla. In regard to such species, the parties to the treaty agreed to conserve and, where feasible, restore the habitats that were important “in removing the species from danger of extinction.” The parties agreed to prohibit the taking of members of species on the list, with exceptions for scientific purposes and a few extraordinary circumstances. Appendix II lists those migratory species that have an “unfavorable conservation status,” as well as additional “conservation status” species that would benefit from an international agreement. In regard to the species of Appendix II, the parties agreed to endeavor to conclude agreements that would promote survival of the species, especially those in an unfavorable conservation status. The Secretariat is provided with a copy of each such agreement. The convention of 1979 was primarily a declaration of principles, and it delegated almost no enforcement powers to the Conference of the Parties or to the Secretariat. Although sometimes referred to as an example of “soft law,” the convention’s importance is enhanced by other international agreements that deal with related problems, and it has the potential of making a significant impact on public opinion. Thomas T. Lewis Sources for Further Study Ehrlich, Paul, and Anne Ehrlich. Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species. New York: Random House, 1981. Mann, Charles, and Mark Plummer. Noah’s Choice: The Future of Endangered Species, 1995. McNeely, Jeffrey A., et al. Conserving the World’s Biological Diversity. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1990. Rodgers, William H. Environmental Law. 2d ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1994. Twiss, John R., Jr., and Randall R. Reeves, eds. Conservation and Management of Marine Mammals. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999. 1373

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Migratory Bird Act (1913); Migratory Bird Treaty Act

(1918); Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934); Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966); Endangered Species Act (1973); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975).

Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution Date: Signed November 13, 1979 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Treaties and Agree-

ments

In 1979, thirty-two nations signed this agreement to limit air pollution, including pollution created in one country that affects the environment in another. Until the 1970’s most local, regional, and national regulations regarding industrial air pollution were concerned only with pollution generated in the immediate area. For example, regulations in a particular community might call for taller industrial smokestacks to carry pollution farther away, but there was little official concern about where that pollution might eventually return to earth. Similarly, local assessments and treatments of pollution tended not to consider pollution that might come to an area from distant generators. The only exceptions were a small number of treaties between two countries, such as the United States and Canada, or Germany and France. A Transnational Problem In 1972 the United Nations Environmental Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, drew attention to the harmful effects of acid rain, including damage to forests, crops, surface water, and building and monuments, especially in Europe. Data revealed that while all European nations produced alarming levels of air pollution, several nations were receiving more pollution from beyond their borders than they were generating on their own. It became clear that pollu1374

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tion is both imported and exported, that sulfur and nitrogen compounds can travel through the air for thousands of miles, and that any serious attempt to deal with air pollution must reach beyond political boundaries. Two major studies of the long-range transport of air pollutants (LRTAP) were conducted under United Nations (U.N.) sponsorship in 1972 and 1977, conclusively proving that air pollution was an international—even a global—problem primarily caused by fossil fuel combustion. However, the pollution caused harm to both industrial and nonindustrial nations around the world. In 1979 the United Nations Environment Program organized a convention in Geneva, Switzerland, for the thirty-four member countries of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), a group that includes all European nations, the United States, and Canada. Significantly, the gathering had the participation of Eastern European nations under the Soviet Union, marking the first time that these nations had collaborated with Western Europe to solve an international environmental problem. The Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution was signed by thirty-two nations on November 13, 1979, and went into effect on March 16, 1983. Provisions and Response The agreement called upon signatory nations to limit and eventually reduce air pollution, in particular sulfur emissions, using the best and most economically feasible technology; share scientific and technical information regarding air pollution and its reduction; permit transboundary monitoring; and collaborate in developing new antipollution policies. Under the terms of the convention, an international panel would undertake a comprehensive review every four years to determine whether goals were being met, and an executive body would meet each year. The convention did not include any specific plan for the reduction of air pollution; there was no language calling for particular amounts by which emissions would be reduced, nor was there a schedule by which the reductions would occur. Scandinavian nations, which were among the countries most affected by acid rain, urged the other participants to adopt these kinds of policies, but other countries, led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and West Germany, defeated the proposal. 1375

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In the years following the convention, however, several nations did make commitments to reduce emissions by specific amounts, although neither the United States nor the United Kingdom agreed to the 30 percent reductions, and neither country signed the 1985 protocol. The United Kingdom informally agreed to attempt to reduce emissions by 30 percent but was unwilling to commit the financial resources to guarantee it, especially since the benefits were uncertain. In fact, many scientists felt that 30 percent reductions would not be enough to yield significant improvement. The United States argued that it had already taken major steps to reduce its emissions prior to 1980, so using 1980 data as a baseline would subject the it to unrealistic and unfair demands for further reduction. This refusal to ratify the protocol caused tension between the United States and Canada, because much of the air pollution that affects Eastern Canada comes from the Great Lakes industrial belt in the United States. Cynthia A. Bily Sources for Further Study Brunnée, Jutta. Acid Rain and Ozone Layer Depletion: International Law and Regulation. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Transnational, 1988. Elsom, Derek. Atmospheric Pollution: A Global Problem. 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1992. Fishman, Jack, and Robert Kalish. Global Alert: The Ozone Pollution Crisis. New York: Plenum, 1990. Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution: Protocols Between the United States of America and Other Governments. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1996. Sand, Peter H. “Air Pollution in Europe: International Policy Responses.” Environment (1987). Wetstone, G. S., and Armin Rosencranz. Acid Rain in Europe and North America: National Responses to an International Problem. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Law Institute, 1983. See also: Air Pollution Control Act (1955); Clean Air Act (1963);

Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990); Montreal Protocol (1990); Pollution Prevention Act (1990). 1376

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Maine Indian Claims Act Date: October 10, 1980 U.S. Statutes at Large: 94 Stat. 1785 Public law: 96-420 U.S. Code: 25 § 1721 Categories: Land Management; Native Americans

Beginning in the 1960’s, tribes in the eastern United States alleged that state governments had illegally taken their lands; the Maine Indian Claims Act prompted a number of eastern tribes to settle similar claims rather than go through the courts. In 1964, the Passamaquoddy tribe, recognized by the state of Maine but not the federal government, sought protection from what it determined were illegal incursions on their lands. Both state and federal governments refused to assist the tribe. The Passamaquoddy, joined by the Penobscots, initiated a lawsuit in which they asserted protection under the Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790, which prevented tribes from selling lands unless approved by Congress. The basis of the lawsuit was that their land transfers never received such approval. The tribes won a series of lower court cases, and so the United States was obliged to bring suit against Maine for illegal purchase of Indian land. The court decisions left 1.25 million acres, two-thirds of Maine, under clouded land titles. The Maliseet tribe also joined the lawsuit. Maine agreed to settle out of court rather than face complicated, expensive legal negotiations. The settlement extinguished all Indian claims to land. In return, the United States provided $27 million in a trust fund for the tribes, and another $54.5 million was set aside for the tribes to purchase land. The tribes also received federal recognition. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Bourque, Bruce J. Twelve Thousand Years: American Indians in Maine. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. 1377

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Confederation of American Indians, comp. Indian Reservations: A State and Federal Handbook. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1986. Deloria, Vine, Jr., and David E. Wilkins. Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999. See also: Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790-1834).

Privacy Protection Act Also known as: News Room Search Act Date: October 13, 1980 U.S. Statutes at Large: 94 Stat. 1879 Public law: 96-440 U.S. Code: 42 § 2000aa Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Communications and Me-

dia; Privacy

This federal law increased protections against unreasonable government searches of newsrooms by requiring officials to secure subpoenas. The United States has never had a national shield law giving journalists special privileges to protect their news sources. The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 arose from incidents occurring during the 1970’s that heightened congressional awareness of the need for greater protection of news gatherers. In 1971, police searching for evidence in a criminal investigation rifled the offices of Stanford University’s student newspaper. When the U.S. Supreme Court, in Zurcher v. The Stanford Daily (1978), upheld the power of government to conduct such searches armed only with court-issued warrants, the nation’s press was outraged. President Jimmy Carter responded by proposing legislation to protect newspapers and others from such searches. Fresh incidents of government invasions of newsrooms around this same time moved Congress to pass legislation, which Carter signed into law in October, 1980. The Privacy Protection Act of 1980—also known as the News Room Search Act—went into effect for the federal government the following New Year’s Day, and for state and local governments exactly one year later. 1378

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Avoiding a problem common to such legislation, the new law did not single out the press for protection. Instead, it offered protection to all persons preparing material for publication. The law specifically forbade government officials from either seeking or issuing warrants to search for, or to seize, any work owned by persons “reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate [it] to the public.” Its protections covered documentary materials, including magnetically or electronically recorded cards, tapes, and computer media; and any work product materials, created for the purpose of disseminating information to the public. The law exempted cases in which there is “probable cause to believe” that the custodians of the work in question have committed, or are planning to commit, criminal acts to which the materials relate. Also exempted were instances in which seizure of material is necessary to save human life, or in which the custodians would not comply with a valid subpoena, or try to hide or destroy material if a search is not undertaken. The act established guidelines for federal officers mandating that recognition be given to the personal privacy of those holding the materials sought and requiring that the least intrusive means be used to obtain materials needed by the government. That act further mandated that care be given not to impair confidential relationships, such as those between doctor and patient or attorney and client, and required that except in rare and genuine emergencies, only a government attorney can authorize search and seizure under one of the exceptions built into the act. Violations of the act are not punishable under criminal law, but aggrieved persons can seek redress against offenders in the civil courts. Damages are limited to actual damages, but the act is weakened by language that says a “reasonable good faith belief in the lawfulness of his conduct” would excuse an officer who violated the terms of the act. Dwight Wm. Jensen Sources for Further Study Cranberg, Gilbert. Malice in Wonderland: Intrusion in the Newsroom. Iowa City: University of Iowa, 1992. Franklin, Marc A. Mass Media Law: Cases and Materials. New York: Foundations Press, 2000. 1379

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Holsinger, Ralph L., and Jon Paul Dilts. Media Law. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997. Lively, Donald E. Modern Communications Law. New York: Praeger, 1991. See also: Ninth Amendment (1789); Freedom of Information Act (1966); Privacy Act (1974).

Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act Also known as: Alaska Lands Act Date: December 2, 1980 U.S. Statutes at Large: 94 Stat. 2371 Public law: 96-487 U.S. Code: 16 § 3101 Categories: Agriculture; Environment and Conservation; Land

Management; Native Americans

This act added more than 100 million acres of pristine lands to existing parks, preserves, and refuges. Under the 1958 Alaska Statehood Act, section 17(d)(2) authorized the secretary of the interior to set aside as much as 80 million acres of Alaskan land for addition to national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, or the wild and scenic rivers systems. Section 17(d)(1) allowed the secretary to set aside other unreserved and unappropriated public lands for study and classification in order to protect the public’s interest in such lands. Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Morton signed both of these sections into law on March 15, 1972. Congress set the deadline for passage of an Alaska lands conservation law as midnight on December 16, 1978. The “d-2" decision on Alaska represented many things to many people. It was a unique decision in America’s history, serving as a commitment to protect national treasures for all times and all peoples. Selection of these lands pitted the idealistic conservation 1380

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movement, centered in the eastern United States, against the pragmatic, development-oriented, individualistic Westerners. It was a decision made by all in an open, democratic fashion. It affected more than conservation issues in Alaska: This legislation influenced how the country acted on conservation decisions elsewhere. A Battle in Congress In 1972, various federal agencies—the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, and the U.S. Forest Service—began studying Alaska national interest lands for d-2 selection. Some 125 million acres were proposed for selection by these different federal agencies. The U.S. House of Representatives had voted in May, 1958, to set aside more than 116 million acres of federally owned lands and waters in Alaska, out of a total of about 375 million acres. The bill, authored by Morris K. Udall of Arizona in the House and Lee Metcalf of Montana in the Senate, would have placed all of these lands in the wilderness classification. President Jimmy Carter declared the Alaskan wildlands his administration’s top environmental priority. Secretary Cecil D. Andrus proposed that more than 92 million acres be preserved with this legislation. The House Subcommittee on General Oversight and Alaska Lands studied these proposals and held extensive hearings. The state of Alaska disputed some of the d-2 lands chosen for selection; compromise revised the Udall bill and reduced the d-2 lands’ acreage. In the Senate, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska delayed action on the Senate bill, and it was badly weakened by state and development interests. Senator Mike Gravel killed the bill on the last day of the Ninety-fifth Congress with his filibuster at 2:00 a.m. The real issue was not the protection of lands but rather the preservation of the Alaskan lifestyle and freedom, especially in regard to mining and hunting activities. Compromises failed to extend the congressional deadline for acting on the d-2 legislation; its seven-year deadline was fast approaching. If the legislation did not pass by December 16, 1978, the d-2 lands under consideration for annexation to other protected federal areas would become available for state selection and development. The Carter administration had to act to save these lands. 1381

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In November, 1978, Andrus, by special order, closed 110 million acres of Alaska to development for three years to give Congress more time to act on the d-2 legislation. On December 1, 1978, Carter invoked the 1906 Antiquities Act and declared 56 million acres as seventeen national monuments and directed Secretary Andrus to protect another 39 million acres as national wildlife refuges. Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland closed mining on another 11 million acres in southeastern Alaska. New d-2 legislation again passed the House in 1979, but Senate resistance to the legislation again stalled passage of any Alaska lands bill. A weakened compromise bill finally passed the Senate in August, 1980, surviving massive attacks from development interests and from those who believed that Alaska’s individualistic lifestyle was being threatened by outside interests. As the Senate compromise bill went to the House for approval, little time remained for conservationists to restore many of the deleted lands to the bill. No action was taken on this lands bill until the lame duck session following the 1980 election. Threats of Senate filibusters by Alaska’s Stevens and Gravel convinced congressional supporters that this compromise legislation was the best action that could be achieved. The unfavorable political climate for d-2 legislation forecast by the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency and many conservatives to both houses of Congress stimulated acceptance of the Senate land bill. Consequently, the House passed the Senate bill on November 12, 1980, and Carter signed it into law on December 2, 1980. Provisions Despite the compromise, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, often known as the Alaska Lands Act, was one of the greatest conservation actions of the twentieth century. It doubled the acreage of the national park system with its 43.6 million acres, added 53.8 million acres to the national wildlife refuge system, and added 3.4 million acres to the national forest system, including two new national monuments on Forest Service land. It also designated the protection of twenty-six wild and scenic rivers or segments of rivers. It tripled the size of the national wilderness preservation system with its 56.4 million acres. This single legislative act, born of the Alaska Statehood Act and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, set aside a total of 104.3 million acres. 1382

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Impact on Alaska Alaska is in many ways considered to be the last frontier, but the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act opened a new era in conservation history, in state and federal cooperation, and in the preservation of resources, cultural heritages, and lifestyles. Because of their importance to Alaskan natives, subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering were allowed on some of the d-2 lands that were added to the National Park Service in Alaska. The cultural values and lifestyles of Alaska Natives were considered as important as the physical features of these new parks. Subsistence hunting rights for Alaskan natives is, however, a controversial issue and has not been successfully resolved between the state of Alaska and the federal government. Other federal legislation has recognized the needs of subsistence rights for Alaska Natives. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 allowed them to hunt sea mammals for subsistence. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 exempted Alaska’s Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and non-native village residents from its provisions as long as these peoples were engaged in nonwasteful subsistence activities. Subsistence use of wildlife receives priority over sport hunting. Conflict over the state of Alaska’s refusal to recognize these subsistence rights led the U.S. government to usurp the rights of wildlife management from the state of Alaska on all federal lands. Alaska’s federally owned lands constitute about 256 million acres, more than one-third of the state’s total area. Recreational or sport hunting generates several million dollars for Alaskan businesses each year. Normally, no sport hunting is allowed on lands managed by the National Park Service. D-2 lands legislation, however, recognized the importance of this activity in Alaska and designated some 18.9 million acres of land to be added to the national park system as preserves rather than parks; sport hunting is allowed on these preserve lands in Alaska. National parks in Alaska where sport hunting is not allowed make up about 8 percent of Alaska’s total area. Subsistence activities are also allowed on the newly established national wildlife refuges under section 810 of the Alaska Lands Act. It requires federal land managers to assess the impacts of their management actions on the refuges in light of subsistence needs. Six regional councils were established to advise the secretary of the interior on the management of the refuge system as it related to subsistence needs of Native Americans. 1383

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Other sections of the Alaska Lands Act were proposed for special interests within the state. One section of this legislation provided an annual subsidy of $40 million to guarantee that timber production from the Tongass National Forest averaged 450 million board feet per year, even if the timber harvest lost money. The legislation also required the U.S. Forest Service to re-evaluate timbersale prices every five years if these prices had declined; no recalculation was required if the timber prices rose during this time. A price increase added to the profits of the timber company holding the sale rights but did not increase the revenues gained by the Forest Service. This provision encouraged disastrous timber harvests in the Tongass National Forest and in 1990, was repealed. The Reagan Administration In the early 1980’s, the Reagan administration selectively distorted, ignored, and violated the intent of the Alaska Lands Act; in many instances, the administration made it a development act. Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt led the attack on these lands in Alaska by controlling the budgets for their management. Without adequate funds to hire personnel to study the d-2 lands and to prepare scientifically sound management plans as required by the act, many lands were not adequately protected or managed. The remoteness and size of Alaska and its resources produce special problems for land management. Strong pressures for development of oil and gas areas, increased timber harvest, more mining, and consumptive use of wildlife resources continue on the d-2 lands of Alaska. Many of the lands that were excluded from d-2 land acquisitions are under federal control, particularly by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. A lack of funding prevented the adequate study of these lands so that they could be added to federal preserves under the 17(d)(1) section of the Alaska Lands Act. In the early 1990’s, adequate funding for the d-2 lands and those that should be studied under the d-1 section of this act still had not been provided. Questions of Future Development Many of the d-2 lands include parcels owned by Alaska Natives through lands selected under the jurisdiction of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. These lands represent potential development within otherwise undisturbed wilderness areas. Effective 1384

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planning is needed to control development of these areas so that it does not destroy the unique qualities of the surrounding d-2 lands. What has been preserved by congressional action is not always protected. Section 810 of the act requires that federal land managers assess the impacts of their decisions on subsistence users. The Supreme Court in 1987 heard the case of Amoco Production Company v. the Village of Gambell. The village sought to enjoin the secretary of the interior from leasing Outer Continental Shelf areas in Norton Sound and the Navarin Basin of the Bering Sea for oil and gas exploration. The native Alaskans argued that such exploration damaged their subsistence rights activities. The Court held that section 810 did not apply to these leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. A key concept of the d-2 land selections was to include entire ecosystems so that the ecological integrity of these biological systems on wildlife refuges would be maintained in Alaska. Detailed plans were to be compiled for sixteen areas. The greatest conservation fight involving d-2 lands was expected to be related to the development of oil reserves within the boundaries of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Enlarged by the addition of d-2 lands, the refuge lies east of the Prudhoe Bay oil field and may contain more oil and natural gas reserves than did Prudhoe Bay. Its 19.3 million acres also contain perhaps the most pristine wilderness in North America. A legacy of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, it serves as a constant reminder that lands once preserved by Congress must continue to be protected and defended from development. David L. Chesemore Sources for Further Study National Geographic Society. A Guide to Our Federal Lands. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1984. National Parks Magazine 55, no. 3 (1981). Stock, Dennis. Alaska. New York: Harrison House, 1983. Strohmeyer, John. Extreme Conditions: Big Oil and the Transformation of Alaska. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. Wilderness 41, no. 164 (1984). See also: Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System

Act (1968); Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971).

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Superfund Act Also known as: Comprehensive Environmental Response, Com-

pensation, and Liability Act Date: December 11, 1980 U.S. Statutes at Large: 94 Stat. 2767 Public law: 96-510 U.S. Code: 42 § 9601 et seq. Categories: Energy; Environment and Conservation

Known also by its acronym CERCLA, this act provided cleanup funding and assistance for hazardous waste sites. More than six billion metric tons of solid waste are disposed of in the United States every year. These wastes include municipal garbage and industrial wastes that contain complex and sometimes hazardous substances. Solid wastes also include sewage, agricultural refuse, demolition wastes, and mining residues. Disposal of these wastes, especially those considered to be hazardous, is timeconsuming. Waste presents serious environmental risks and requires complex measures to control its disposal. One of the most important environmental problems is the problem of hazardous waste disposal. Hazardous wastes are defined as wastes that cause or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, or disposed of or otherwise managed. Passage of Superfund The U.S. Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), more commonly known as Superfund, in 1980 to allocate money for the cleanup of hazardous waste. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had determined that by January of 1979 there were between 32,000 and 50,000 disposal sites in the United States that needed to be cleaned up. The Superfund Act required notification of any release into the environment of substances that might “present substantial danger to public health or welfare, or to the environment.” The act imposed criminal sanctions for failure to give notice of 1386

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such releases and imposed strict liability on owners and operators of facilities that released hazardous wastes or substances, as well as on transporters of hazardous wastes or substances. The Superfund law was also intended to provide compensation for damages caused by hazardous wastes and hazardous substances. Love Canal Congress passed CERCLA mainly in response to several highly publicized incidents of improper disposal of hazardous wastes and toxic chemicals. One of the main incidents was the discovery of buried toxic wastes at Love Canal, an uncompleted, abandoned nineteenth-century waterway in Niagara Falls, New York. An industrial dump site since the 1930’s, it had been purchased in 1947 by Hooker Chemical and Plastics Company as a site in which to dispose of its toxic chemical waste. Afterwards, the dump was covered and sold to the Niagara Falls Board of Education in 1953, which built an elementary school and a playing field on the site. Part of the site was also sold to a developer, who built several hundred houses on the periphery of the old canal. In 1976, after unusually heavy rains and snow, the chemicals began seeping into the basements of houses. The canal itself overflowed and chemicals that had leaked from the drums spilled out into the environment. In August, 1978, New York State’s Department of Health declared the Love Canal area a “grave and imminent peril” to the health of those living nearby. Investigations into complaints about the abnormally high number of miscarriages, birth defects, cancer, and a variety of other illnesses found eleven different actual or suspected carcinogens, including dioxin, in the air, water, and soil. Air-monitoring equipment found pollution levels as high as five thousand times the maximum safe level. President Jimmy Carter eventually declared Love Canal a disaster area and made federal disaster relief available to the residents, who were relocated. Managing Hazardous Wastes CERCLA was also enacted because of concerns that serious gaps existed in the regulatory scheme for management of hazardous wastes, particularly with respect to abandoned or dormant sites where hazardous substances had been disposed of in the past. These sites continued to present either immediate or long-term threats to public health and environmental quality. CERCLA was 1387

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designed to bring order to the federal laws regulating the cleanup of hazardous substances and compensation, which were regarded as inadequate and redundant. Two concerns motivated Congress in the drafting and passage of the Superfund act: CERCLA was intended to provide the federal government with the enforcement tools for responding promptly, adequately, and appropriately to releases of hazardous substances into the environment, and the act was to shift the costs of cleaning up hazardous substances to those who had created or otherwise contributed to the situation. Responses: Remedial or Removal CERCLA applied mainly to inactive or abandoned sites from which hazardous substances were being released. The act authorized two kinds of response to releases of hazardous substances: remedial response, which generally involved permanent actions to contain, treat, or dispose of hazardous substances, and removal actions involving relatively rapid action to control, contain, and clean up spills or other releases of hazardous substances. CERCLA allocated funds to the EPA and gave it the authority to direct and oversee cleanup of old and abandoned waste sites. The first phase of the effort was to make a nationwide inventory of the sites that contained hazardous wastes and to list them in order of priority. Once the sites were identified, the EPA could require owners of old or abandoned dumps to perform the cleanup work themselves; alternatively, the EPA or the states could step in and perform the cleanup. Five Major Provisions There were five major provisions of CERCLA. The first provided means for enforcement. Through agreements and other judicial procedures, owners of abandoned sites were directed to clean up the sites themselves; if the EPA had to step in, the owners could be charged as much as three times the cost of the cleanup. Second, CERCLA was designed to respond to emergencies. Where ownership of sites was difficult to determine or danger imminent, CERCLA authorized the EPA to take immediate steps to correct the problem; the state in which the site was located was required to pay at least 10 percent of the cleanup costs. Third, the act provided for remedial response, ensuring a series of actions to be taken by 1388

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the cleanup team. The fourth provision in CERCLA established regulations for federal-state collaboration; in addition to sharing costs, the states participated in selecting the sites and in establishing priorities for cleanup. States also provided new sites to receive waste removed from old ones. Finally, the fifth CERCLA provision used a federal tax on chemical manufacturers, importers, and oil refiners, supplemented by federally appropriated funds, to create a fund of $1.6 billion for the cleanup of abandoned sites. Slow Progress Progress cleaning up the dump sites was slow. The EPA became embroiled in controversy, which resulted in the discharge of the head of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response over alleged sweetheart deals with companies. In 1982, the EPA found 418 sites where federal funds could be used to pay for cleanup work. Nearly one-fourth of those sites were in Michigan and New Jersey, while Pennsylvania, New York, and Florida had at least twenty-five such sites. That same year, though, the EPA released a three-volume, five-million-dollar study that reported that Love Canal once again appeared to be a safe place to live. Under new leadership the EPA in 1983 proposed that 133 additional sites be added to the list. New Jersey moved to the top of the expanded list, with eighty-five sites, including the worst site at the LiPari landfill in Pitman, where the EPA estimated that three million gallons of paint solvents, heavy metals, and various toxic organic compounds were stored. The EPA was expected to adopt more stringent standards for cleaning up those dumps and to require companies to pay 80 percent of the cleanup costs at a specific site before the EPA would negotiate for possible settlement of pollution charges. One of the problems addressed by the Superfund act was the fair allocation of responsibility. Congress had charged the EPA with locating and supervising responsible parties in conducting cleanup operations. Cooperation by potentially responsible parties was mandated through administratively imposed fines. Often, parties were called upon to clean up dumps for which they denied responsibility. Enormous sums of money were spent by parties defending against actions they considered to be grossly unfair. This resulted in litigation that expended money and time, while the cleanup of dangerous sites remained postponed. 1389

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In 1984, spokespeople for industry noted that the EPA was not moving fast enough to clean up these sites. In the first three years, final cleanup had been certified in only three dumps. Some environmentalists and leaders from the chemical industry joined forces to form Clean Sites Inc., a company that tried to expedite the cleanup process and negotiate with the companies involved to share the costs of cleanup. It was hoped that these voluntary efforts would prove to be more cost efficient than the Superfund program. Impact and Outlook The Superfund program was hampered by the sheer number of the sites identified, as well as by the limits of technology for cleaning up toxic compounds. Perhaps most troublesome, there was no consensus on how clean a site had to become to conform to EPA standards. Usually, the EPA chose the strictest and most expensive standards, regardless of whether a site would be used as a factory or as a playground. As of 1994, only about 12 percent of the 1,300 sites listed on the National Priorities List (NPL) had been cleaned up. In the first fourteen years of the Superfund law, more than $18 billion was spent, at an average of between $25 and $30 million per site. Superfund litigation accounted for as much as 25 percent of total expenditures. Despite its problems, however, Superfund continues to make headway, and maintains a Web site listing current projects. Amy Bloom Sources for Further Study Freedman, Warren. Federal Statutes of Environmental Protection. New York: Quorum Books, 1987. Grad, Frank. Grad on Environmental Law. New York: Matthew Bender, 1994. Lake, Laura. Environmental Protection. New York: Praeger, 1982. Lewis, Cynthia A., and James M. Thunder. Federal Chemical Regulation: TSCA, EPCRA, and the Pollution Prevention Act. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1997. Stolaff, Neil. Regulating the Environment. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1991. Worobec, Mary Devine. Toxic Substances Control Primer. Washington, D.C.: BNA Books, 1984. 1390

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act See also: Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965); National Environmen-

tal Policy Act (1970); Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972); Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974); Toxic Substances Control Act (1976); Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983); Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986).

Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act Date: December 22, 1980 U.S. Statutes at Large: 94 Stat. 3347 Public law: 96-573 U.S. Code: 42 § 2021 Categories: Energy; Environment and Conservation

This law provided a program for states to dispose of low-level radioactive wastes. Different types of nuclear wastes present varying kinds of danger. High-level radioactive wastes are liquids that are generated when used nuclear reactor fuel is reprocessed. In the 1970’s, Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter both banned commercial reprocessing of such wastes on the grounds that the plutonium produced in the process could lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The U.S. government continued, however, to reprocess fuel for military use. By 1979, about 75 million gallons of high-level waste had been generated, and it was stored at sites in Washington State, Idaho, South Carolina, and New York. A second type of nuclear waste, uranium tailings, contain naturally occurring radioactive materials. Huge piles of these tailings, in the form of fine sand, were dumped at abandoned mills and mines in eleven states. A third type, spent nuclear fuel, while technically not classified as nuclear waste, contains minerals that can still be reused. Because of the ban on reprocessing, however, utilities had to store spent fuels in pools of water near their reactors, 1391

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but the pools filled up rapidly. The Department of Energy (DOE) estimated that twenty-seven nuclear power plants would require additional nuclear storage before 1985. “Low-Level” Nuclear Wastes A fourth type of nuclear waste is low-level radioactive waste generated by all activities that involve radioactive materials; this includes contaminated paper, plastics, construction materials, tools, protective clothing, and industrial and medical wastes. The term “lowlevel” refers not to the degree of radioactivity but to the source; all wastes not produced in nuclear reactors or in the reprocessing of nuclear fuel are classified as low-level. Some experts complain that the name implies that low-level wastes are not dangerous when some are highly radioactive and dangerous. Of the more than 100,000 cubic meters of low-level wastes buried each year in three commercial dumps in the United States, about 43 percent comes from nuclear power plants, 25 percent from hospitals, 24 percent from industry, and 8 percent from the federal government. The DOE buries another 50,000 cubic meters of low-level waste each year in its own dumps, which are adjacent to the commercial dumps. For twenty-five years, until 1970, a large amount of low-level waste was placed into metal barrels and dumped in fifty sites in the oceans. Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) testified before Congress in 1980, when the bill was being debated, that as many as one-fourth of those barrels were leaking. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, low-level wastes were either buried in shallow trenches at sites owned and operated by the federal government or packaged in steel drums and dumped at sea. The government-owned sites were developed primarily to serve defense and government nuclear research activities. Until the 1960’s, the wastes were simply placed onto Navy ships and hauled out to sea. With the increase in waste caused by commercial nuclear power, it became more economical to replace ocean dumping with landfills, and to allow a shift from federal to private control. Commercial landfills were patterned after those at defense installations, where wastes were packaged in steel drums and dumped into trenches that were dumped into the earth once they were filled. These low-level waste dumps were created with almost no comprehensive planning or federal oversight. The first commercial dump 1392

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opened near Beatty, Nevada, in 1962, and was followed in 1963 by dumps in Maxey Flats, Kentucky, and West Valley, New York. More dumps opened in Richland, Washington, in 1965; Sheffield, Illinois, in 1967; and Barnwell, South Carolina, in 1971. The West Valley dump closed in 1975, Maxey Flats in 1977, and Sheffield in 1978, because radioactive materials had migrated off the sites. Merely closing the sites did not end the problems at the sites. At Maxey Flats, the largest of the closed dumps, plutonium was detected more than one mile from the site. Groundwater contaminated with tritium was moving out of the Sheffield site at the rate of one-half mile per year. At West Valley, trenches were infiltrated with water, creating a bathtub effect that spilled tritium and strontium into nearby streams. As Marvin Resnikoff, the codirector of the Sierra Club Radioactive Waste Campaign put it, “Landfills act a lot like teabags: the water goes in, the flavor goes out.” As a result of the closures and problems at other sites, the dump at South Carolina became the largest commercial dump in the country. Piling the Problem on a Few States As the amount of wastes accumulated, however, Congress became aware of the need to create a comprehensive nuclear waste policy to deal with nuclear wastes. The National Governors Association pushed for a low-level waste bill, asserting that the problem of dealing with low-level radioactive wastes was approaching crisis stage. The problem of low-level nuclear wastes was particularly crucial because of the vast amounts of waste being generated in every state throughout the United States; only three states—Washington, Nevada, and South Carolina—had dumps for these wastes, and they were threatening to stop taking it all. Washington voters had approved a ballot initiative on November 4, 1980, to close the disposal site of Hanford, Washington, to out-of-state nuclear garbage beginning in the summer of 1981. Nevada governor Robert List had promised to close his state’s dump at Beatty, Nevada; and South Carolina’s governor, Richard Riley, whose state accepted the majority of the low-level wastes from around the country, decided that his state would accept less in the future. Congress was, however, unable to reach an agreement on a comprehensive plan. On December 10, 1980, Governor Riley let it be known that he was considering closing one dump to all out-of-state waste if Congress did not pass a bill that dealt with the problem. As 1393

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a result, Butler Derrick, a Democrat from South Carolina, put together an unusually forceful effort to get at least a compromise bill passed in the Senate. This was finally accomplished on December 13, 1980, and the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Act was signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 22, 1980. Provisions of the 1980 Act and 1985 Amendments The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Act encouraged individual states where low-level radioactive waste was dumped to enter into clubs, agreements, or regional “compacts” with neighboring states to create new regional disposal sites. As of 1986, it was decided that individual states would be allowed to restrict access to their disposal sites and to accept only waste generated within their region. At the time, it was anticipated that some six or seven compact sites would be established. By 1985, however, progress had been so slow that the January 1, 1986, deadline was declared to be unmanageable. Congress realized that the law had provided no incentives to meet the deadline. As a result, under President Ronald Reagan, Congress in 1985 passed an updated version of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act; this act revised the timetable and allowed continued access, on a limited basis, to the three existing sites until January 1, 1993. With the 1985 act, the DOE became responsible for facilitating the compact arrangement between states, for coordinating the national program on low-level radioactive waste disposal, and for reporting on progress to Congress. Penalties and surcharges were to be paid to the DOE escrow account, which was established to ensure compliance by the states with the conditions and the timetable of the 1985 act. The revisions of the 1985 Low-Level Radioactive Policy Act resulted in the states becoming responsible for their own radioactive wastes. The revised law ordered the states to create more low-level nuclear-waste sites, however, not fewer, and to speed up the process rather than focus on better waste management. Criticisms There were various criticisms of the 1985 amendments. Instead of having the three original low-level radioactive waste sites, which were located in remote areas geographically suitable for radiation contaminants, the act called for twelve or more waste sites, some of 1394

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them in more populated and geographically unsuitable areas. As a result of the mandated timetables, states were discouraged from using more innovative techniques to dispose of low-level nuclear waste. Scientific debate continued on how much radiation was harmful. Some authorities, including those setting federal exposure standards, believed that the effects of exposure below a certain level of radiation were imperceptible, while others argued that exposure to radiation of any amount could cause damage. Different substances could have different effects. Some radioactive substances decayed to the point of harmlessness in less than one day; others emitted energy and remained hazardous for thousands of years. Some radioactive substances posed a threat to humans through mere external exposure, while others presented a danger only if the substance was inhaled or swallowed. The disposal of low-level radioactive waste remained problematic. It was difficult to define or to determine who should be responsible for it or where it should be discarded. Although several studies recommended that the low-level radioactive burial sites be returned to federal jurisdiction, the 1985 act returned the problem to the states. It called on them to form interstate compacts and construct burial sites to handle each region’s wastes. The compacts then applied to Congress for ratification. Putting the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act into effect was not easy. Some states formed compacts, particularly those that already had dump sites, but others delayed. In some areas, negotiations broke down, as states negotiated with several different regions looking for the best deal. The situation in the Northeast, which generated 37 percent of the volume and 57 percent of the activity, was the worst. The situation gradually improved, however, and more cooperation was seen as the dangers of exposure to radioactive wastes through touching, breathing, or drinking became better understood. Amy Bloom Sources for Further Study Davis, Charles E., and James P. Lester, eds. Dimensions of Hazardous Waste Politics and Policy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988. Long, Robert Emmet. The Problem of Waste Disposal. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1988. 1395

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McCuen, Gary. Nuclear Waste: The Biggest Clean-up in History. Hudson, Wis.: G.E.M., 1990. Murray, Raymond L. Understanding Radioactive Waste. Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Press, 1982. Slesser, Malcolm. Dictionary of Energy. New York: Schocken Books, 1983. See also: Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974); Super-

fund Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983).

Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act Date: December 28, 1980 U.S. Statutes at Large: 94 Stat. 3566 Public law: 96-611 Categories: Children’s Issues; Crimes and Criminal Procedure;

Women’s Issues

This law is designed to discourage drawn-out interstate custody battles and prevent parents from fleeing with their children to states with more sympathetic custody laws than their states of residence. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, approximately 350,000 children are abducted by family members each year in custody disputes. Revenge is often the motive, and nearly half of these cases involve concealment of the children, transportation of the children out of state, or the intention of keeping the children permanently. Before 1968 noncustodial parents were able to take children out of state and get a new custody order, even if the children were wrongfully kept after visitation. Courts viewed custody orders as subject to modification, and the presence of the children in a different state, even if briefly, gave new courts jurisdiction. The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA) was drafted in 1968 to remedy the problem of conflicting state custody laws. 1396

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By 1980 only forty-three states had enacted the UCCJA, prompting Congress to institute a federal law. The PKPA applies to all interstate child-custody cases, requires all states to honor and enforce other states’ custody and visitation decrees, and prevents other states from modifying already existing custody and visitation orders except under very limited circumstances. P. S. Ramsey Source for Further Study Greif, Geoffrey L., and Rebecca L. Hegar. When Parents Kidnap: The Families Behind the Headlines. New York: Maxwell Macmillian, 1993. See also: Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974);

Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984); Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984); Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984); Megan’s Law (1996).

Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act Date: August 13, 1981 U.S. Statutes at Large: 95 Stat. 170 (ERTA); 97-35 (OBRA) Public law: 97-34 (ERA); 95 Stat. 357 (OBRA) U.S. Code: 42 § 9801 Categories: Tariffs and Taxation

These bills epitomized Reaganomics by cutting both government spending and taxes. During the 1980 election campaign, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan taunted President Jimmy Carter by asking voters: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Carter had struggled with 1397

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declining productivity rates, double-digit inflation, 20 percent interest rates, nearly eight million people unemployed, and a 5 percent drop in real hourly wages over the previous five years. Supply-Side Economics Reagan defeated Carter in November, 1980, largely by promising new solutions to economic problems. Reagan championed freemarket, supply-side economic theory rather than the use of governmental power to fine-tune the economy. Government regulations weighed down the natural tendency of a capitalist economy to grow, Reagan asserted: Government was the problem, not the solution. Reagan’s economic policies over the next several years would come to be known as Reaganomics. When Reagan took office in January, 1981, he subordinated all issues to economic recovery. David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, became the lead figure in formulating Reagan’s program. Stockman, bright and hardworking, used his knowledge of budgetary details to dominate economic policy making in 1981. While Reagan left the details to his economic experts, he established the basic elements of the programs: a massive tax cut, a huge increase in military spending, reduced nondefense spending, and a balanced budget by 1984. He believed that lower taxes would lead to economic growth and that that growth, along with cuts in nondefense programs, would allow a balanced budget. However, when Reagan succumbed to political pressure and ruled that there would be no cuts in Social Security or other major entitlement programs, Stockman’s reductions could only come from a small part of the budget. Stockman’s final figures projected a balanced budget in 1984 only by using overly optimistic forecasts of revenue gains and economic growth. A Four-Part Recovery Program On February 18, 1981, Reagan presented his program to a joint session of Congress. He proposed a four-part program: cutting government spending, reducing taxes, eliminating unnecessary and unproductive economic regulations, and encouraging a consistent anti-inflationary monetary policy. Reagan labeled government as the main source of the nation’s economic problems and promised that his program would return government to its proper province, 1398

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while restoring to the people the right to decide how to dispose of their earnings. He predicted that his recovery plan would create thirteen million new jobs and control inflation, while achieving a balanced budget by 1984. He asked Congress to cut $41.4 billion from eighty-three programs, without cutting Social Security, Medicare, or veterans’ pensions. He increased defense spending, the president said, because even in its straitened economic condition, the United States had to respond to the Soviet military buildup. Reagan proposed 10 percent reductions in individual income taxes in each of the next three years and an increase in tax depreciation allowances for business. Budget Cuts, Tax Cuts After Reagan made his initial proposals, the hard political work began. Reagan met ninety-six times with senators and representatives and spent hours with them on the telephone, using charm, intimidation, and artful deal-making. After Reagan promised protection for the sugar industry, one important Louisiana Democrat admitted that while he could not be bought, he could be rented. The first step toward a Reagan victory came when Congress decided to use the relatively new budget reconciliation process, by which appropriations were packaged into one omnibus bill rather than voted on as separate items. The Democratic-dominated House Budget Committee had formulated its own budget, which made less than half the spending cuts that the president wanted, but Reagan’s work paid off on May 7, when sixty-three Democrats revolted against party leaders and joined the Republicans to support the administration bill. On July 31, Congress agreed to the most widespread package of budget cuts in its history. The final bill cut nearly $35.2 billion from a spending level of $740 billion projected by the Congressional Budget Office for fiscal year 1982, and it trimmed $130.6 billion of expected outlays for fiscal years 1981-1984. The bill tightened eligibility for food stamps and public assistance, cut funds for subsidized housing programs, reduced school lunch subsidies, instituted a “needs test” for student loans, limited pay raises for federal employees, and made hundreds of other changes. The battle over Reagan’s tax legislation was even more hardfought than that over the budget bill. Reagan said government was a kind of organism with an insatiable appetite for money and a ten1399

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dency to grow forever, unless he could starve it by reducing its food—tax revenue. In his February 18 message, Reagan asked for a 10 percent reduction in individual income taxes on July 1, 1981, followed by two additional 10 percent cuts in 1982 and 1983. He also called for more liberal depreciation allowances for business. Two days before the vote, the outcome was still considered too close to call, but Reagan’s skillful deal-making again brought him crucial Democratic support. Congress gave him most of what he wanted. The final bill reduced all individual income tax rates by 5 percent on October 1, 1981, 10 percent on July 1, 1982, and an additional 10 percent on July 1, 1983. The bill liberalized depreciation allowances for business; reduced the top rate on investment income from 70 percent to 50 percent; and indexed individual tax brackets to inflation, preventing inflation from pushing people into higher brackets. On August 13, 1981, Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981. He told reporters that over the next three years, the budget bill represented $130 billion in savings and the tax bill $750 billion in tax cuts. Impact Reagan’s economic program had mixed results. In late 1981, the economy entered a severe recession, with the unemployment rate peaking at 10.3 percent in early 1983. The recession was followed by the longest period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history, but half the millions of new jobs created paid less than povertylevel wages. Reagan’s most important economic success came through working with the Federal Reserve Board to bring inflation under control. His greatest failure was the exploding national debt. Although he had projected a balanced budget by 1984, deficits rose to record heights. From George Washington through Jimmy Carter’s administration, the United States had accumulated $1.1 trillion in national debt; under Reagan the United States added $1.8 trillion to its debt. Reagan’s legacy placed several constraints on his successors, which resulted in the need to allocate more than 10 percent of the nation’s yearly budgets required to pay the interest on the debt, rather than being available to be reinvested in the country’s social and economic infrastructure. William E. Pemberton 1400

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Sources for Further Study Boskin, Michael J. Reagan and the Economy: The Successes, Failures, and Unfinished Agenda. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies Press, 1987. Campagna, Anthony S. The Economy in the Reagan Years: The Economic Consequences of the Reagan Administrations. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Friedman, Benjamin M. Day of Reckoning: The Consequences of American Economic Policy Under Reagan and After. New York: Random House, 1988. Stockman, David A. The Triumph of Politics: How the Reagan Revolution Failed. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Wilber, Charles K., and Kenneth P. Jameson. Beyond Reaganomics: A Further Inquiry into the Poverty of Economics. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990. See also: Tax Reform Act of 1986 (1986).

Intelligence Identities Protection Act Date: June 23, 1982 U.S. Statutes at Large: 96 Stat. 122 Public law: 97-200 U.S. Code: 50 § 421 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Military and Na-

tional Security

This federal law made it a crime to publish the names of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents. Congress’s passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) in 1982 outlawed publication of the names of covert government agents. The law was drafted as a response to former CIA employee Philip Agee’s publication of Dirty Work: The CIA in 1401

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Western Europe (1978) and Dirty Work Two: The CIA in Africa (1980), books that revealed the names of more than a thousand alleged CIA officers. Congress was also reacting to the work of Louis Wolf, co-editor of the Covert Action Information Bulletin, a magazine containing a section devoted to identifying CIA operatives. According to the congressional report accompanying the IIPA, Agee’s practice of “naming names” had led directly to the assassination of CIA station chief Richard Welch in Athens, Greece, in 1975, and to other violent attacks on persons Agee identified as CIA officers. The IIPA made it a crime intentionally to disclose the identities of CIA agents, establishing various penalties based on the accused’s degree of access to classified information. The harshest penalties were reserved for “insiders”—persons holding authorized access to classified information. Any person with access to information identifying CIA agents who purposely disclosed an agent’s identity could be jailed for up to ten years and fined as much as fifty thousand dollars. Any person who intentionally revealed the identity of a CIA agent after having had access to classified information in general could face up to five years in jail and a fine of twenty-five thousand dollars. Those penalties applied primarily to current and former government employees. “Outsiders”—persons who did not have authorized access to classified information—were to be treated differently. Any such person who intentionally disclosed an agent’s identity while knowing that such disclosure might harm U.S. foreign intelligence operations could be imprisoned for up to three years and fined up to fifteen thousand dollars. A survey of news stories written before the IIPA was passed in 1982 turned up more than eighty major books and news articles whose authors could arguably have been indicted under the law. A representative sample would include revelations that former CIA agents were involved in the Watergate break-in, accounts of illegal domestic spying by the CIA, and disclosures that a CIA employee tried to infiltrate the House and Senate intelligence committees in 1980 at the direction of the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB). Juliet Dee 1402

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Source for Further Study Mello, Tara Baukus, and Arthur M. Schlesinger, eds. The Central Intelligence Agency. Broomall, Pa.: Chelsea House, 2000. See also: Freedom of Information Act (1966); Privacy Protection

Act (1980).

Law of the Sea Treaty Date: Signed December 10, 1982; effective November 24, 1994 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Foreign Relations;

Treaties and Agreements

The treaty was designed to help ensure and maintain the peaceful use of the seas for all nations; its signatories hoped to accomplish this goal by standardizing and regulating areas of potential conflict between nations, including ship safety, mineral exploration and exploitation, and environmental protection. The phrase “law of the sea” implies that activities at sea, like those on land, are subject to the rule of law and that compliance with the law is mandatory and enforced. In fact, the “law of the sea” is not a law but an agreement among nations. This agreement sets standards and regulations on all activities at sea and establishes clear lines of national jurisdiction. Compliance is voluntary, and there is no provision in the 1982 agreement for its enforcement. Despite the apparent weaknesses of such an agreement, compliance on most points has been excellent. The reason is that the “law of the sea” is based on a fundamental principle on which all nations can agree: the freedom of the seas. Early Concepts As long as there have been ships, there has been some concept of freedom of the seas. While there were no written rules, a spirit of cooperation among mariners existed during times of peace. By the seventeenth century the Dutch had begun global maritime trade, 1403

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and their economy was very much dependent on free access to the seas. In 1609 Hugo Grotius, a Dutch lawyer, was asked to codify the concept of freedom of the seas. Grotius produced a large treatise on the law of the seas entitled Mare Liberum (1609). This work established the “freedom of the seas” as a concept based on law. The conclusion of Grotius was that all nations could use the oceans provided they did not interfere with one another’s use. This first attempt at a law of the sea recognized three divisions of the seas: internal waters, territorial seas, and the high seas. Grotius maintained that a nation had sovereignty over internal and territorial seas but that the high seas were open to all. This concept of the law of the sea survived into the twentieth century. The Truman Proclamation In 1947 President Harry S. Truman of the United States was advised by geologists of the potential of large oil reserves on the continental shelf. To protect these resources, Truman declared that all resources of the continental shelf belonged exclusively to the United States. This became known as the Truman Proclamation. It had broad international implications, with many nations issuing similar decrees regarding the continental shelf. The Geneva Conferences Because of increased economic and military activity at sea, it became apparent that some formal agreement regarding the use of the oceans was needed to ensure peace. In 1958 and again in 1960, conferences on the law of the sea were convened in Geneva. A treaty was drafted and ratified; it included many basic issues on which there was wide agreement. Two points included in the treaty were particularly important. The depth limit of the continental shelf was limited by treaty to 200 meters. This depth limit included an “exploitability clause,” however, whereby a nation could exploit ocean resources below 200 meters on adjacent seafloor if it had the technology to do so. Such a concept was favorable to the industrial nations and placed less developed nations at a disadvantage. After 1960 many formerly colonial countries received independence; these were primarily nonindustrial states. They feared that the ocean’s resources would be exploited by the industrial nations. So great was the fear that in 1967 the nation of Malta proposed to 1404

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the United Nations that a treaty be developed that would reserve the economic resources of the seafloor. The Maltese ambassador, Arvid Pardo, further declared that the ocean floor should be reserved for peaceful uses alone and that the ocean resources were the “common heritage of all mankind.” The Third Law of the Sea Conference The Third Law of the Sea Conference was begun in 1973 and continued meeting until 1982. The major result of this conference was the Law of the Sea Treaty dealing with boundary issues, economic rights of nations, rights of passage through straits, the freedom of scientific research, and the exploitation of ocean-floor resources. The Law of the Sea Treaty established the width of the territorial sea at 12 nautical miles. This could be modified to allow passage of ships through narrow straits critical to international commerce. The territorial sea is under the direct jurisdiction of the adjacent nation, and that nation may enforce its laws and regulate the passage of ships through it. Beyond the territorial limit, a coastal nation or any inhabitable land can also declare an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles. The EEZ is open to ships of all nations, but the resources within it can be exploited only by the nation declaring the EEZ. The Law of the Sea Treaty established regulations on scientific research in the oceans. While the freedom of scientific research in the open ocean is universally recognized, investigations in a nation’s territorial seas and EEZ require the permission of that nation. The treaty also governs the mining of deep sea mineral resources. In certain locations on the deep seafloor, there are nodules of manganese, cobalt, nickel, and copper. Exploitation of these resources requires a highly advanced and expensive technology. Such requirements place less developed nations at a disadvantage. The Law of the Sea Treaty attempts to address this problem. Any group wishing to mine the deep seafloor must declare its intent to do so and state the geographic location of the mining operation. An international authority will grant permission to mine. All revenues from a successful mining operation on the deep seafloor must be shared among the nations of the world. Further, the technology used to mine the deep seafloor must be shared with all nations. 1405

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The Law of the Sea Treaty left many issues unresolved and others open to multiple interpretations. Despite areas of disagreement, however, most maritime nations adhere to the majority of the provisions of the Law of the Sea Treaty. Richard H. Fluegeman, Jr. Sources for Further Study Borgese, E. M. “The Law of the Sea.” Scientific American 247, no. 3 (1982). Ross, David A., and J. A. Knauss. “How the Law of the Sea Treaty Will Affect U.S. Marine Science.” Science 217 (September 10, 1982). Zuleta, B. “The Law of the Sea: Myths and Realities.” Oceanus 25, no. 3 (1982). See also: Outer Space Treaty (1967); Seabed Treaty (1972).

Nuclear Waste Policy Act Date: January 7, 1983 U.S. Statutes at Large: 96 Stat. 2202 Public law: 97-425 U.S. Code: 42 § 10101 Categories: Energy; Environment and Conservation

This legislation mandated the Department of Energy to locate and develop a permanent repository for high-level nuclear wastes. After a long process of negotiations, both the Senate and the House of Representatives on December 21, 1982, gave final passage to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), and President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law on January 7, 1983. The NWPA was designed to deal with the controversial issue of spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants. Such rods contained high-level nuclear wastes that were intensely radioactive and lethal and were expected 1406

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to remain so for thousands of years. By 1982, about ten thousand tons of spent fuel were in temporary storage tanks next to power plants, and it was projected that, by the end of the century, the figure would be 41,500 tons. While small in volume compared with other industrial wastes, this high-level waste was deadly to humans and could render land or water unusable. Provisions The NWPA authorized the Department of Energy (DOE) to choose potential sites for both permanent and long-term storage. There were to be two permanent sites, thousands of feet under the ground, in basalt or granite caverns. The DOE was to recommend from three to five satisfactory sites to the Congress by 1985, and the president was to make the final choices in consultation with the states involved. Before making its selection, the DOE was required to make a comprehensive environmental impact statement, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was to provide an independent supervision of the DOE’s activities. The president was to choose the first permanent site in a Western state before 1987, and he was to select the second in the East or Midwest by 1989. The law stipulated that the first repository would begin accepting wastes for permanent storage by 1998. The long-term repositories were also called “monitored, retrievable storage” (MRS) facilities because they were expected to hold, for one hundred years, spent fuel which would be available for reprocessing, a complex job of separating useful uranium and plutonium from wastes. This provision of the law was based on hopes for future technological innovations that would make reprocessing truly feasible, thereby reducing the volume of storage. Many critics of nuclear power disliked the idea of MRS facilities, because the facilities could simply become a cheaper, less secure alternative for dealing with wastes. The NWPA required the nuclear power plants to continue to store their spent fuel rods in temporary storage pools until such time as the repositories were constructed. The financing of the future repositories would be accomplished through a federal surcharge on nuclear plants and the charges would be passed on to consumers. An amendment to the act gave states the power to veto any proposed site. The veto required a vote in both houses of Congress to override the veto. Another amendment allowed high-level 1407

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military wastes (about 10 percent of the total volume) to be stored with the civilian wastes. Background In its early years, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had placed a low priority on the question of nuclear wastes. In part, this was because officials had assumed that much of the waste could be dealt with in reprocessing plants. By the late 1960’s, however, the nuclear power plants were beginning to run out of storage capacity for spent fuel, and in a comprehensive study in 1969, AEC scientists concluded that spent fuel should be converted to solid form and sent to federally controlled repositories. The AEC recommended and publicized that a salt mine in Lyons, Kansas, was a suitable location, but agency personnel were embarrassed when nonAEC scientists discovered serious leakage problems in 1970. When Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, the issue of nuclear wastes was of widespread concern. Private industry appeared to be abandoning the hope that reprocessing could be profitable, and in any case, the Carter administration concluded that reprocessing plants posed a threat to the policy of controlling the proliferation of plutonium used in nuclear weapons. Carter did appoint an interagency review group to suggest policy options; the group’s report in 1979 expressed urgency about the problem of spent fuel rods and recommended consideration of deep geologic storage. With Carter’s endorsement of the report, both houses of Congress passed different bills in 1980, but the two houses were unable to agree on the question of a veto for potential host states. When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, all concerned parties were anxious for a law dealing with high-level wastes. Reagan, long a supporter of nuclear power, was hopeful that private enterprise could make reprocessing profitable, but he did not disagree with most of Carter’s recommendations on storage sites. By 1982, ninety-five orders for nuclear reactors had been canceled, and with all of the negative publicity associated with nuclear power plants, industrial leaders hoped that waste-disposal legislation would help their public-relations image. Environmental lobbyists also wanted to see legislation enacted, but they were not going to allow the nuclear industry to claim prematurely that the wastedisposal problem had been solved. 1408

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Passage Through Congress In this context in 1981, Senator James McClure, the Republican chairman of the Energy Committee, introduced the McClure bill, which resembled the earlier recommendations of the Carter administration. In the debates, senators from sparsely populated states tended to be in favor of many regional repositories, but states with larger populations had the votes to reject this idea. Senator Alan Simpson added a controversial amendment to combine military and civilian wastes in the same repository. After a number of adjustments, the McClure bill easily passed the Senate in April, 1982. Approval in the House of Representatives, with its Democratic majority, was more difficult. Representative Morris Udall, the chairman of the House Interior Committee, and other Democrats managed to write a bill that was more sensitive to the views of the host states, and the bill passed the House by a voice vote on December 2. House and Senate leaders met to work out their differences on December 14. Just as they believed they had worked out a compromise, Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin threatened a filibuster unless the bill required both chambers to override a state’s veto. When Senator McClure agreed to Proxmire’s amendment, McClure and Udall put together the final bill and sent it to the lame-duck session of Congress, where it passed easily on December 20, just hours before Congress was to adjourn. In signing the bill in January, 1983, Reagan stated that the bill “should demonstrate to the public that the challenge of coping with nuclear wastes can and will be met.” The NIMBY Response In 1982, the progress heralded by enactment of the NWPA was overshadowed by frustrations in locating an appropriate site for high-level wastes. When hearings were held in potential host states, angry crowds turned out in huge numbers with the cry of NIMBY (not in my backyard). The Department of Energy found it impossible to meet the earliest deadlines for site selection. In 1984, moreover, Getty Oil Company announced that it was abandoning its attempt to reprocess spent fuel at the Barnwell plant; since no other serious efforts were being made to reprocess spent fuel, it appeared that the reprocessing business was financially unfeasible. This meant that the storing of high-level nuclear wastes would be more difficult than had been anticipated. 1409

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In 1986, the secretary of the interior announced that its list of three candidates for the first permanent repository included the states of Texas, Nevada, and Washington. The secretary also announced that an attempt to find a second site in the East or Midwest had been postponed indefinitely because of public opposition and political realities. The next year, the DOE announced that Yucca Mountain, Nevada, had been chosen as the site for the repository. In Nevada, the opposition to high-level wastes was not as great as elsewhere, although the governor and others expressed concern about a negative influence on tourism. Although Yucca Mountain appeared to be ideal in many ways, some scientists expressed concerns about climatic change and possible volcanic activity. The 1987 Amendments On December 22, 1987, Congress, as part of a deficit reconciliation bill, passed important amendments to the NWPA. The major provision designated Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the only candidate site eligible for consideration as a permanent repository. In the event that the DOE were to decide that the site were unsatisfactory, the department would be required to notify Congress, to take steps to reclaim the site, and to recommend further action for permanent disposal. The NWPA amendments also authorized the DOE to designate, construct, and operate a long-term, retrievable-storage facility, and to recommend to Congress whether such a facility should be a part of the nuclear-waste management system. Another provision created the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board as an independent agency to evaluate the DOE’s activities in nuclear-waste management. Finally, the amendments established a nuclear-waste negotiator, appointed by the president, to reach agreements with states or Indian tribes about the hosting of long-term or permanent repositories. Such an agreement, however, would require statutory approval by Congress. After the passage of the 1987 amendments, frustrations and unforeseen problems complicated the efforts to deal with high-level nuclear wastes. Few observers were surprised in November, 1989, when the Department of Energy announced that it was moving the target date for opening a storage site to the year 2010 at the earliest. New temporary storage pools would be constructed to house 1410

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the increasing number of spent fuel rods. In effect, the search for a satisfactory resolution to the problem of disposal of high-level nuclear wastes was postponed until the twenty-first century. Yucca Mountain As of 2002, nuclear materials were stored in 131 aboveground facilities in thirty-nine states, with 161 million Americans residing within 75 miles of those sites. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon made fullfilment of the NWPA mandate more compelling than ever, and the consensus of the administration of George W. Bush was that a central site offered more protection for high-level nuclear wastes than did the existing 131 sites. On February 14, 2002, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham recommended approval of the Yucca Mountain site to President George W. Bush. President Bush accepted the recommendation and forwarded it to Congress the next day. Both the House and the Senate approved the selection of the site on July 9, 2002. President Bush issued the following statement through his press secretary: Finding a safe and central repository is not only mandated by law, but it is in America’s national security and homeland security interests. . . . Since the Congress passed a law requiring a repository in 1982, this has been a serious issue for the American people. The President recognizes that the law now gives Nevada the opportunity to disapprove the recommendation and, if they do, then the Congress will have an opportunity to act. After two decades, the time has come to resolve this issue once and for all.

Thomas T. Lewis, updated by Christina J. Moose Sources for Further Study Barlett, Donald, and James Steele. Forevermore: Nuclear Wastes in America. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985. Campbell, John. Collapse of an Industry: Nuclear Power and the Contradictions of U.S. Policy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988. Carter, Luther J. Nuclear Imperatives and the Public Trust: Dealing with Radioactive Wastes. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1987. 1411

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Cohen, Bernard. Before It’s Too Late: A Scientist’s Case for Nuclear Energy. New York: Plenum Press, 1982. Hare, Tony. Nuclear Waste Disposal. New York: Gloucester Press, 1991. Krukschke, Earl. Nuclear Energy Policy: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1990. See also: Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (1954); Price-Anderson Act

(1957); Seabed Treaty (1972); Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974); Superfund Act (1980); Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983); Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986).

Equal Access Act Date: August 11, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 1302 Public law: 98-377 U.S. Code: 20 § 4071 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Speech and Expression

This federal law requires public secondary schools receiving federal financial assistance not to deny students opportunities to conduct meetings on their premises solely on the basis of the content of the speech at such meetings. In a 1981 case entitled Widmar v. Vincent, the Supreme Court ruled that a student religious group at the University of Missouri should be allowed to use campus facilities for its meetings. The statesupported public institution had previously allowed only nonreligious student groups access to its facilities. When it was approached by members of a student religious group, the university denied the group use of its facilities in order not to violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In deciding in favor of these students, the Court ruled that allowing only nonreligious groups to use the same facilities violated the religious groups’ rights to freedom of speech. 1412

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Provisions of the Law Following the Widmar decision Congress passed the Equal Access Act in 1984. This act effectively extended the Supreme Court’s Widmar decision to include all pubic secondary schools that receive federal funds. The act required all such secondary schools that create limited open forums for noncurriculum-related student groups to meet during noninstructional times not to deny similar access to other student groups solely on the basis of the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of their meetings. Thus, any public secondary school that allowed at least one voluntary student-initiated and nonschool-sponsored club or group unrelated to specific classes to meet on school premises outside of normal classroom instructional settings, must allow any other student groups to conduct their meetings at school in a similar fashion. Although broadly worded, the legislation limited the scope of access in certain situations. For example, school administrators were permitted to deny access to any student group whose meetings had the potential to interfere with the orderly conduct of educational activities within the school. Otherwise eligible student groups were also restricted in certain other ways; for example, nonschool persons could not direct, control, or regularly attend group activities. Also, if a student group were to embrace a religious orientation, school personnel could be present at its meetings only in a nonparticipatory capacity. Along these same lines, student groups would lose their eligibility under the act if they were sponsored by the school, its agents, or its employees. However, the act also provided that schools and their employees had the authority to maintain order and discipline, to protect the wellbeing of students and faculty, and to ensure that student involvement in group activities would be strictly voluntary. The law gave public secondary schools the option of avoiding its requirements by simply declining to create limited open forums. Schools could accomplish this by denying the use of their facilities to all noncurriculum-related student groups, while restricting access only to groups directly connected to existing school curricula. For example, the existence of a student-initiated Spanish club in a high school that provides Spanish-language instruction would not fall under the act’s jurisdiction. By contrast, groups such as a scuba club or student service club closely related to nonschool organiza1413

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tions probably would trigger the act, thereby opening the door for other noncurriculum-related groups to request access to school facilities. It should also be noted that any school district that would normally be subject to the Equal Access Act that forgoes federal funding is not affected by the act. Court Rulings In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to consider the constitutionality of the Equal Access Act and whether the establishment clause of the First Amendment prohibited a secondary school with a limited open forum from denying access to a student religious group. In Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (1990) the Court ruled that the act was constitutional. The Court concluded that Congress had not implied an endorsement of religion when it acknowledged the presumed maturity of secondary school students in schools with limited open forums voluntarily to form religious or other types of clubs. In reaching this decision, the Court confronted Congress’s failure to define several key terms and concepts within its act. For example, since “noncurriculum-related student group” was not defined, the Court had to develop its own interpretation of what Congress meant by the term. The Court held that any student club involving subject matter comparable to that in a class that was being taught—or that would soon be taught—in a regularly scheduled course would not trigger the act. Similarly, the act would not be triggered if the group’s subject matter concerned a body of courses taken as a whole (such as student government), or in cases in which group participation is either required or results in the awarding of academic credit (such as school band or choir). After the Mergens case was decided in 1990 at least one court ruled on the question of the durational length of a secondary school limited open forum. In Pope v. East Brunswick Board of Education (1993), the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that although a school district had created a limited open forum at a high school when it recognized a noncurriculum-related student group, the district retained authority to eliminate all its noncurriculumrelated student groups and totally close its forum. As the Equal Access Act has been interpreted by the Supreme Court, public secondary schools that create limited open forums by allowing noncurriculum-related student clubs to meet on their 1414

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premises during noninstructional hours may not arbitrarily discriminate against other student groups solely on the basis of their religious, philosophical, or political content or orientations. As the act’s title implies, Congress supports the notion that all students wishing to meet for legal and nondisruptive purposes must have the same access to public facilities that is afforded to other noncurricular student clubs or groups. Whenever the act has been triggered, it has generally prevented public school authorities from unilaterally abridging the rights of secondary school students to gather and discuss topics and issues of common interest on school grounds during noninstructional time. Fred Hartmeister Sources for Further Study Hartmeister, Fred. Surviving as a Teacher: The Legal Dimension. Chicago: Precept Press, 1995. McCarthy, Martha M., and Nelda H. Cambron-McCabe. Public School Law. 3d ed. Boseon, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon, 1992. Morris, Arval A. “The Equal Access Act After Mergens.” West’s Education Law Reporter 61, no. 4 (1990). Rossow, Lawrence F., and Mark G. Rice. “The Constitutionality of the Equal Access Act: Board of Education of Westside Community School District v. Mergens.” West’s Education Law Reporter 64, no. 3 (1991). See also: First Amendment (1789).

Child Support Enforcement Amendments Date: August 16, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 1305 Public law: 98-378 U.S. Code: 42 § 651 Categories: Children’s Issues; Women’s Issues 1415

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Congress set a goal of establishing an efficient system to find absent parents, establish paternity, obtain support orders, and collect back support. Following a sharp increase in divorce and out-of-wedlock births in the early 1970’s, the federal government established the Child Support Enforcement Program to collect money from fathers whose children received welfare. At that time, the collections reimbursed the government and did not go directly to the affected children. The Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984 extended this program to all noncustodial parents and required that each state establish one set of guidelines for determining and modifying child support. These guidelines must take into account all earnings and income of noncustodial parents, define the dollar amounts of support obligations, and provide for the children’s health care needs. Courts may deviate from these guidelines in limited circumstances—for example, when the guideline amount would be unjust or inappropriate in particular cases. Individual states vary between judicial and administrative processes, but all must ensure that payments are made to custodial parents. Above all, each state’s criteria must take into the consideration the best interests of the children. P. S. Ramsey Source for Further Study Garfinkel, Irwin, et al., eds. Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support Enforcement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1998. See also: Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980); Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984); Family Support Act (1988); Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990).

1416

Family Violence Prevention and Services Act

Family Violence Prevention and Services Act Date: October 9, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 1757 Public law: 98-457 U.S. Code: 42 § 10401 Categories: Children’s Issues; Crimes and Criminal Procedure;

Women’s Issues

The act was the first comprehensive federal measure to address the problem of domestic violence. The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act of 1984, Title III of the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984, provided $65 million to states to fund shelters for abused women and for research into domestic violence. It authorized, among other things, state demonstration grants to provide shelter and related services. It also established a National Clearinghouse on Family Violence. The programs established by the act were intended to emphasize support for effective community-based projects operated by nonprofit organizations, particularly those whose primary purpose is to operate shelters for victims of family violence and their dependents and those which provide counseling, treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, and self-help services to victims and abusers. The federal government distributed funds under the act according to states’ population size, although each state was guaranteed a minimum of $50,000. Sixty percent of this money had to be spent on immediate shelter and related assistance to victims of family violence. In 1994 the act was amended to include provisions making interstate domestic violence a crime. In general, the new provisions make it a crime to cross a state line and commit domestic violence or to cause spouses or intimate partners to cross a state line and then commit domestic violence against them. Timothy L. Hall Sources for Further Study Dalton, Clare, and Elizabeth M. Schneider. Battered Women and the Law. New York: Foundation Press, 2001. 1417

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Schneider, Elizabeth M. Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000. See also: Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980); Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984); Family Support Act (1988); Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990).

Comprehensive Crime Control Act Date: October 12, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 1837 Public law: 98-473 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

A selective but fundamental overhaul of the federal criminal code, this act expanded the government’s law-enforcement power and emphasized the rights of the public over those of the criminal or accused criminal. Work on this legislation began in the 1970’s in a Democraticcontrolled Senate. Passage of the bill (by a vote of 94 to 1) reflected close cooperation between Democrat Edward Kennedy and Republican Strom Thurmond. Democrats in the House of Representatives were less cooperative because they wanted a more piecemeal approach to the revision of the federal criminal code than the major recodification supported in the Senate. Thus a collection of procedural and substantive crime proposals were made instead of a systematic overhaul. Fearing that the Democratic House leadership would block passage of the proposals, Republican Dan Lungren moved to add the crime proposals to an unrelated resolution on continuing appropriations, which would require urgent consideration on the House floor in order to keep the government in operation. Facing reelection in November, 1984, congressional Democrats voted in favor of law and order rather than explain a recorded “no” vote to their constituents. When the joint appropriations resolution emerged from the House, it had tacked to it a Title XI: the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. 1418

Comprehensive Crime Control Act

Provisions For the first time federal judges could detain repeat offenders in preventive detention, without bail, before trial. They could also detain individuals accused of certain major crimes if they were deemed dangerous to the community. In the past, bail was granted unless there was reason to believe the defendant would flee. Moreover, if the detained defendant were later acquitted or the charges dismissed, no recompense would be given for the time spent in jail awaiting trial. Under the act, federal judges follow a system of guidelines in imposing sentences. The guidelines, established by a presidentially appointed sentencing commission, eliminate disparities in sentences for the same crimes and dismantle the early-release parole system. Under the guidelines, federal prosecutors are able to select charges that carry the likelihood of the longest sentence. Judges are required to explain in writing any departure from the guidelines, while both prosecutors and defendants are entitled to appeal sentences that depart from the standard. The act also restricts the use of insanity as a defense to individuals who are unable to understand the nature and wrongfulness of their acts. The law prevents expert testimony on the ultimate issue of whether the defendant has a particular mental state or condition. It shifts the burden of proof from the prosecutor, who formerly had to prove that the defendant was not insane, to the defendant, who must prove that he or she is. This change in the insanity defense was a direct response to the John Hinckley case. Hinckley’s lawyer proved that Hinckley was psychotic and depressed. The jury found him not guilty because of insanity in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. Finally, the legislation allows the government to seize profits and assets, including real estate, that are used in organized crime enterprises such as drug trafficking. Bill Manikas Sources for Further Study Abrams, Norman, and Sara Sun Beale. Federal Criminal Law and Its Enforcement. 3d ed. Eagan, Minn.: West Group, 2000. Strazzella, James A., ed. Federal Role in Criminal Law. Philadelphia, Pa.: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1996. 1419

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984); Missing Children’s

Assistance Act (1984); National Narcotics Act (1984); Victims of Crime Act (1984); Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994).

Insanity Defense Reform Act Date: October 12, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 2057 Public law: 98-473 U.S. Code: 18 § 4241 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Health and Welfare

This act was the first federal law to establish a uniform definition of criminal insanity and require mandatory incarceration of the criminally insane; it significantly narrowed the opportunities for mounting a successful insanity defense. After the 1982 acquittal of John Hinckley, an allegedly insane defendant who had tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, public outcry spurred the Congress to place new restrictions on the use of the insanity defense. Previously, insanity as a defense generally was defined in federal courts as lacking the capacity to understand the criminality of one’s conduct (the “cognitive” test), or lacking the ability to conform one’s behavior to the requirements of law (the “volitional” test). The Insanity Defense Reform Act limited the definition of insanity to the cognitive test. It also required that the defendant prove insanity with “clear and convincing evidence.” Prior to the act, no uniform requirements had been established for the disposition of defendants found to be criminally insane. The act required that all such defendants be committed to a mental hospital and made them ineligible for release until after they could demonstrate that they pose no substantial risk to others. Steve D. Boilard 1420

Missing Children’s Assistance Act

Sources for Further Study Robinson, Daniel N. Wild Beasts and Idle Humours: The Insanity Defense from Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996. Simon, Rita James, and David E. Aaronson. The Insanity Defense: A Critical Assessment of Law and Policy in the Post-Hinckley Era. New York: Praeger, 1988. Wrightsman, Lawrence S., et al. Psychology and the Legal System. 5th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002. See also: Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984); Victims of

Crime Act (1984).

Missing Children’s Assistance Act Date: October 12, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 2107 Public law: 98-473 U.S. Code: 42 § 5771 Categories: Children’s Issues; Crimes and Criminal Procedure;

Health and Welfare

This act focused national attention on the approximately one million cases of missing, abducted, and runaway children in the United States. On October 12, 1984, Congress passed the Missing Children’s Assistance Act, leading to establishment of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in Arlington, Virginia. The center was established under the auspices of the Justice Department. A 1982 bill known as the Missing Children’s Act had been sponsored by Representative Paul Simon, a Democrat from Illinois, and Senator Paul Hawkins, a Republican from Florida. This bill mandated the entry of data on missing children into the national crime computer maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The 1984 law focused further attention on a serious national problem: the growing population of missing, abducted, runaway, and exploited children. According to a somewhat 1421

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

conservative estimate, some one million children fall within this definition. While media attention has focused on high-profile cases of abduction, sexual molestation, and murder, such as the Adam Walsh case in Florida and the Polly Klaas case in California, the majority of cases that fall under the jurisdiction of the Missing Children’s Assistance Act of 1984 involve abductions by family members, particularly in child-custody battles; short-term abduction by strangers, often involving sexual abuse and violence; runaways; and lost or missing children who may have been injured. The NCMEC is aided by the FBI’s crime computer and by other technological advances, including age-progression computer programs that can create images of missing children as they might look many months or years after their initial disappearance. Other techniques, such as infant footprinting, are also invaluable in tracking abducted children. Ongoing school and communitybased programs aimed at educating children and parents about the dangers of abduction have contributed to greater social awareness of the problem of missing children, while enthusiastic support from private and corporate donors, including IBM and Intel, have helped safeguard children and youths. Jo Manning Source for Further Study Forst, Martin Lyle. Missing Children: The Law Enforcement Response. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1990. See also: Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974); Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980); Megan’s Law (1996).

National Narcotics Act Date: October 12, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 2168 Public law: 98-473 U.S. Code: 21 § 1201 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Food and Drugs 1422

National Narcotics Act

This law, chapter 13 of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, created the National Drug Enforcement Policy Board as a high-level interagency council to coordinate federal drug-enforcement activities. The National Narcotics Act was part of an omnibus crime package that had been eleven years in the making. Congress passed this package, the most extensive revision of the federal criminal code since 1968, after President Ronald Reagan made it a high priority. The narcotics act proclaimed that the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States fed drug use that had reached epidemic proportions. Drug trafficking was an eighty-billion-dollar-per-year industry, and government agencies were able to interdict only 5 to 15 percent of the illegal product crossing American borders. The law created the National Drug Enforcement Policy Board (NDEPB) as a high-level board to coordinate drug interdiction activities. The attorney general chaired the board, which included the secretaries of state, defense, treasury, and health and human services along with other officials. It authorized the board to develop and coordinate all U.S. efforts to halt national and international drug trafficking. William E. Pemberton Sources for Further Study Bewley-Taylor, David R. The United States and International Drug Control, 1909-1997. New York: Pinter, 1999. Musto, David F. The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. _______, ed. Drugs in America: A Documentary History. New York: New York University Press, 2002. See also: Organized Crime Control Act (1970); Comprehensive

Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970); Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984); Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994).

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U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Victims of Crime Act Date: October 12, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 2170 Public law: 98-473 U.S. Code: 42 § 10601 Categories: Health and Welfare

This legislation established a Crime Victims Fund to help finance state compensation programs as well as assist victims of federal crimes. Demonstrating the federal commitment to assist crime victims, the Victims of Crime Act quickly became a key component in the funding of programs throughout the nation. In the early 1980’s, many groups worked for the right of crime victims to receive fair treatment. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan, a supporter of the movement, proclaimed an annual National Victims of Crime Week. In April, 1982, Reagan established the President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime, which made sixty-eight recommendations to help victims. On October 18, 1982, he signed the Victim and Witness Protection Act, which increased penalties on those who tried to intimidate victims or witnesses, mandated restitution to victims from offenders, and required the consideration of victim impact statements at sentencing in federal criminal trials. The Victims of Crime Act of 1984 (VOCA) established the Crime Victims Fund, which at first had a cap of $100 million a year. Each state was to receive at least $100,000, and 5 percent of the fund would go to victims of federal crimes. Rather than coming from the taxpayer, revenues for the fund are obtained from fines, penalty fees, forfeitures of bail bonds, and literary profits from convicted offenders. By 1988, the fund was supporting fifteen hundred programs a year, and its maximum was increased to $150 million. VOCA was well received by the public, and it encouraged states to do more to assist victims. Thomas T. Lewis Source for Further Study Adams, Aileen, ed. Victims of Crime Act of 1984 as Amended: A Report to the President and the Congress. Collingdale, Pa.: DIANE, 1998. 1424

Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act See also: Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984);

Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984); Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984); Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984); Violence Against Women Act (1994).

Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act Date: October 25, 1984 U.S. Statutes at Large: 98 Stat. 2754 Public law: 98-547 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

This law established criminal penalties for trafficking in stolen vehicles and their parts. To facilitate prosecutions, it required automobile manufacturers to mark fourteen major car parts with a vehicle identification number (VIN). Pressure for legislation to combat vehicle theft stemmed from a dramatic increase in the number of stolen automobiles. Organized crime controlled networks of “chop shops” that dismantled stolen cars and sold their parts, costing the nation five billion dollars annually. The law required manufacturers to place vehicle identification number (VIN) marks on major parts of automobile models that were subject to higher than average theft rates. In response to company complaints that the proposal added to car costs, the final act signed by President Ronald Reagan limited the number of marked parts to fourteen and required each manufacturer to mark no more than fourteen of its models. It established penalties for altering VIN marks (a fine of up to five thousand dollars and/or a maximum of five years in prison) and for trafficking in stolen vehicles and their parts (up to twenty-five thousand dollars and/or ten years in prison). The secretary of transportation selected the parts and models to be marked. William E. Pemberton 1425

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Sources for Further Study Stewart, M. G., et al. Evaluation of Methods and Costs to Mark Vehicle Parts for Theft Prevention. Washington, D.C.: National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration, 1988. United States. Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act of 1984. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1984. See also: Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919).

Food Security Act Also known as: Farm Act of 1985 Date: December 23, 1985 U.S. Statutes at Large: 99 Stat. 1535 Public law: 99-198 Categories: Agriculture; Environment and Conservation; Food

and Drugs

This law contained conservation provisions to reduce soil erosion, to prevent an overabundance of grain crops, and to protect wetlands. The Food Security Act (FSA) created the largest change in farmsubsidy programs since the middle of the twentieth century. Prior to the act, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated that 3.1 billion tons of soil were eroding annually on approximately 420 million acres of cropland, and 3.7 million acres of land were being converted annually from pasture and wetlands to cropland. Under the FSA, agricultural producers could be denied farm benefits for implementing improper land-use practices on cropland and non-cropland. Objectives of the 1985 FSA were to reduce the increasing problems of sedimentation and water and wind erosion, to enhance water quality and habitat for fish and wildlife populations, to protect the long-term ability to produce food and fiber resources, to reduce the supply of grain crops, and to provide income to farmers. 1426

Food Security Act

The Swampbuster Provision The Swampbuster provision was established to discourage the conversion of wetlands to agricultural land. This provision was considered an essential component of the legislation, since more than one-half of the wetlands that existed when the United States was first settled had been eliminated by the mid-1980’s. Protecting wetlands would have significant implications in controlling floodwaters and providing recreational opportunities. Under the Swampbuster provision, farmers who produced agricultural crops on wetlands converted after December 23, 1985, would be ineligible for farm benefits, including commodity loans and purchases, subsidies, and crop insurance. In addition, benefits would be lost not only on converted land but also on all lands farmers wanted to enroll into the program. The Sodbuster Provision The Sodbuster provision was similar to Swampbuster but focused on the conversion of highly erodible land to agricultural production. This provision applied to highly erodible land that was not planted to annually tilled crops during the period between 1981 and 1985. For land to be considered highly erodible, potential erosion had to be estimated at more than eight times the rate at which soil could maintain continued productivity. Farmers who produced commodities on previously uncultivated land with highly erodible soils after December 23, 1985, were ineligible for federal farm programs unless the owner farmed under a conservation plan approved by the local soil and water conservation district. Naturalresource managers estimated that implementing the Sodbuster and Swampbuster programs would prevent the conversion of more than 225 million acres of grasslands, forests, and wetlands to croplands. The Conservation Compliance Provision The Conservation Compliance provision was developed to discourage the production of crops on highly erodible cropland where land was not protected from erosion. Under this provision, if landowners produced crops on fields with highly erodible soils without an approved conservation plan, they could lose their eligibility for specific USDA benefits. Conservation Compliance applied to land 1427

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

where annually tilled crops were grown at least once between 1981 and 1985; the provision was to apply to all highly erodible land in annual crop production by 1990. The Conservation Reserve Program The Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) administered the CRP provision of the Farm Bill with the intention of converting up to 45 million acres of highly erodible farmland to permanent cover. Federal officials hoped that this program would reduce soil erosion by 760 million tons, stream sedimentation by in excess of 200 million tons, pesticide use by 61 million pounds, and fertilizer use by approximately 1.4 million tons annually. Specific objectives of the CRP, were to assist in controlling soil erosion, reduce surplus crop production, improve water quality, and provide wildlife habitat. Under the CRP, landowners would submit bids through the ASCS to establish ten-year contracts with the USDA. While under contract, landowners received annual rental payments for converting highly erodible cropland to permanent vegetative cover for the duration of the contracts. Participants in the program were required to establish permanent vegetative cover (grasses, legumes, forest plantations, field windbreaks, shallow-water areas, or a combination of these practices) as quickly as possible. Approximately one-half the cost was shared by the USDA. In some states, additional funds were available to farmers for developing selected permanent cover on CRP lands for wildlife species. Impact By implementing the conservation provisions of the 1985 FSA, the USDA was able to provide economic benefits to landowners and to conserve natural resources on agricultural lands. These programs would produce large-scale changes in the composition of agricultural landscapes in the United States by the early 1990’s. In the first year under the 1985 FSA, from March, 1986, through the fourth sign-up in February, 1987, nearly 18 million acres were enrolled in the CRP alone. One year later, more than 25 million acres had been enrolled. Henry Campa III 1428

Food Security Act

Sources for Further Study Berner, Alfred. “The 1985 Farm Act and Its Implications for Wildlife.” In Audubon Wildlife Reports 1988/1989, edited by T. Chandler and L. Labate. New York: Audubon Society and Academic Press, 1989. Bjerke, Keith. “An Overview of the Agricultural Resources Conservation Program.” In The Conservation Reserve—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, edited by Linda Joyce, John Mitchell, and Melvin Skold. Fort Collins, Colo.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1991. Burger, Loren, Jr., Eric Kurzejeski, Thomas Dailey, and Mark Ryan. “Structural Characteristics of Vegetation in CRP Fields in Northern Missouri and Their Suitability as Bobwhite Habitat.” Transactions of the 55th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference 55 (March, 1990): 74-83. Chapman, E. Wayne. “Rationale and Legislation for the Creation of the Conservation Reserve Program.” In Impacts of the Conservation Reserve Program in the Great Plains, edited by John Mitchell. Fort Collins, Colo.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1988. Hayden, F. Gregory. “Wetlands Provisions in the 1985 and 1990 Farm Bills.” Journal of Economic Issues 24 (June, 1990): 575-587. Isaacs, Barry, and David Howell. “Opportunities for Enhancing Wildlife Benefits Through the Conservation Reserve Program.” Transactions of the 53rd North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference 53 (March, 1988): 222-231. Kurzejeski, Eric, Loren Burger, Jr., M. Monson, and Robert Lenkner. “Wildlife Conservation Attitudes and Land Use Intentions of Conservation Reserve Program Participants in Missouri.” Wildlife Society Bulletin 20 (Fall, 1992): 253-259. Payne, Neil, and Fred Bryant. Techniques for Wildlife Habitat Management of Uplands. San Francisco: McGraw-Hill, 1994. Schenck, Eric, and Lonnie Williamson. “Conservation Reserve Program Effects on Wildlife and Recreation.” In The Conservation Reserve—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, edited by Linda Joyce, John Mitchell, and Melvin Skold. Fort Collins, Colo.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1991. See also: Reclamation Act (1902); Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906);

Agricultural Marketing Act (1929): Taylor Grazing Act (1934); Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960).

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Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act Also known as: Title III of Superfund Amendments Reauthoriza-

tion Act

Date: October 17, 1986 U.S. Statutes at Large: 100 Stat. 1741 Public law: 99-499 U.S. Code: 42 § 11001 et seq. Categories: Environment and Conservation; Health and Welfare

This law required federal, state, and local governments and industry to work together to keep the public informed about toxic chemicals and to develop plans to deal with emergencies. Enacted in 1986 as part of the Superfund Reauthorization Act, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) was passed to increase public awareness of the nature and extent of hazardous and toxic substances in communities and to require governmental emergency planning and notification. The law was enacted after the accidental release of chemicals at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, claimed thousands of lives in 1985. Provisions Congress decided that legislation was needed to prevent similar accidents in the United States. As a first step toward establishing an inventory of all the toxic chemicals used, stored, and disposed of in the United States, EPCRA made it mandatory for every owner and operator of a facility containing hazardous substances to register the information officially. Each state governor was required to establish a state emergency response commission (SERC), which was in turn responsible for designating emergency planning districts and appointing local emergency planning committees (LEPC) for each district; local governments were made responsible for the preparation and implementation of emergency plans. The state committees, whose members were required to have technical experience in emergency response, were to supervise and coordinate the local communities. Under EPCRA, the state committees were also responsible for establishing procedures for receiving and pro1430

Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act

cessing requests for information and for designating an official information coordinator. EPCRA stipulated that the state committees designate the local districts within nine months of the law’s passage. Each local committee was to reflect, as far as possible, those segments of the community with an interest in emergency planning. Each was to have representatives from local environmental and community groups; transportation, law enforcement, civil defense, and firefighting agencies; health departments and hospitals; broadcast and print media; and owners and operators of facilities using hazardous substances. Finally, each local committee was required to prepare an emergency plan (to be reviewed annually), establish provisions for public notification of committee activities, and hold public meetings to discuss the emergency plan. EPCRA permitted state committees to revise their designations and appointments, and local citizens could petition the state committees to modify the membership of local committees. The law also identified the conditions under which facilities were to notify the local committee and the state commission in the event that a toxic substance had been released in an amount exceeding the threshold quantity established for that substance. Local Emergency Plans The local emergency planning committee was required under EPCRA to complete an emergency plan; evaluate the need for resources to develop, implement, and exercise the plan; and determine if additional resources were necessary. The local committee was made responsible for identifying the facilities that were subject to EPCRA, the routes used to transport hazardous substances, and any additional facilities that might pose risks because of their proximity to facilities with hazardous substances. The plan was to contain the methods and procedures that facility owners and operators and local emergency and medical personnel were to follow in responding to releases of toxic substances. A community emergency coordinator and facility emergency coordinators were to be appointed to implement the plan. The plan was also to include the methods for determining when a release occurred, the area and population affected by such a release, the community’s available emergency equipment and facilities, and the names of people responsible for operating the equipment and facilities. Training pro1431

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

grams for local emergency response and medical personnel were also called for, as well as methods and schedules for exercising the emergency plan. Once the plan had been completed by the local district, the local planning committee was to submit it to the state emergency response commission for review. The commission could make further recommendations. A regional response team established under EPCRA could also review the plan, but the law specified that reviews were not to delay implementation of a plan. Notification of Chemical Releases All owners of facilities subject to EPCRA requirements were required to notify the state emergency response commission for the state in which each facility was located. Notification of a release or anticipation of a release of an extremely hazardous substance was to be made to the local emergency planning committee. Notification would include the chemical name or identity of the substance to be released and identify whether the material was an extremely hazardous substance. Notification also had to include indication of any health effects that were anticipated from the release and, if appropriate, medical advice for exposed individuals, as well as what precautions were required as a result of the release. Facilities could also be required to provide information to health professionals upon request. Other Provisions EPCRA also provided appropriations for training and authorized federal officials who were already carrying out existing federal programs for emergency training when EPCRA was enacted to provide education programs for federal, state, and local employees in hazard mitigation, emergency preparedness, fire prevention and control, disaster response, long-term disaster recovery, national security, technological and natural hazards, and emergency processes. Finally, EPCRA required that owners and operators of plants and facilities that had to provide a material data safety sheet for a hazardous chemical under the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act to submit a copy of the sheet for each hazardous chemical to the appropriate local emergency planning committee, state emergency response commission, and fire department with juris1432

Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act

diction over the facility. The inventories were also to be made available to the general public. Response and Consequences Industry officials objected strongly to the act’s requirements that companies submit information on the chemicals they use. Often, the identity of these chemicals was considered to be a trade secret. Industry officials argued that if information submitted to government agencies was made available to the general public, the government should not be permitted to require the submission of information that qualified as a trade secret. As a consequence, EPCRA included a provision that facilities could withhold information upon demonstrating that it constituted a trade secret. EPCRA provided for both criminal and civil penalties for individuals and organizations found to be in violation of the law. The EPA could assess administrative penalties as high as $25,000 per day per violation for the first incident, and up to $75,000 per day for subsequent violations. EPCRA also authorized the use of citizen suits, which, for example, allowed victims of toxic dumping to bring lawsuits against those proven to be responsible. Civil actions could be brought by state or local authorities against a facility owner or operator for failing to submit a material data safety sheet, a followup emergency notice, or an inventory form, or for failing to comply with any of the regulations. Amy Bloom Sources for Further Study Arbuckle, J. Gordon, Timothy A. Vanderver, Jr., and Paul A. J. Wilson. SARA Title III Law and Regulations. Rockville, Md.: Government Institutes, 1989. Berger, Donald A., and Christopher Harris. A Guide to Emergency Preparedness and Community Right-to-Know. New York: Executive Enterprises, 1988. Grad, Frank. Grad on Environmental Law. New York: Matthew Bender, 1994. Lowry, George, and Robert Lowry. Right-to-Know and Emergency Planning. Chelsea, Mich.: Lewis, 1985. Stoloff, Neil. Regulating the Environment: An Overview of Environmental Law. Dobbs, Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana, 1991. 1433

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976); LowLevel Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980); Superfund Act (1980); Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983).

Tax Reform Act of 1986 Date: October 22, 1986 U.S. Statutes at Large: 100 Stat. 2085 Public law: 99-514 Categories: Tariffs and Taxation

The most sweeping reform of the federal income tax law since World War II, this law reduced top marginal income tax rates substantially and eliminated or reduced several popular deductions. The purposes of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 were to reduce tax rates and to broaden the tax base. The basic rate of corporate tax was reduced from 46 percent to 34 percent, and the marginal rate of individual income tax at higher levels of income fell from 50 percent to 28 percent. The Tax Reform Act also eliminated investment tax credits, slowed depreciation schedules, and scrapped several other deductions for corporations. On the individual side, it eliminated sales tax deduction, scrapped preferential treatment of capital gains, and imposed limits on passive losses and deductibility of individual retirement account (IRA) contributions. The Tax Reform Act enjoyed broad bipartisan congressional support. Critics argued that it would reduce nonresident investment, the gross national product (GNP), and the competitiveness of U.S. business. Supporters argued that it would remove distortions from the economy and improve fairness. Nonresident investment proved to be stable, and savings increased marginally in the 1987-1989 period. Fairness in the tax system, however, did not improve. The Congress repealed parts of the act in 1990; the top tax rate increased to 31 percent, payroll taxes increased, and itemized deductions were limited. Srinivasan Ragothaman 1434

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Sources for Further Study Joint Commission of Taxation. General Explanation of Tax Reform Act 1986. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1987. Prentice-Hall Staff. Complete Guide to the Tax Reform Act of 1986, as Passed by the Congress and Sent to the President: Explanation, Code Sections as Amended, Committee Reports, Index. Paramus, N.J.: PrenticeHall Information Services, 1986. Reams, Bernard D., Jr., and Margaret H. McDermott. Tax Reform 1986: A Legislative History of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The Law, Reports, Hearings, Debates, and Documents. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1987. Slemrod, Joel, ed. Do Taxes Matter? The Impact of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991. Tax Reform Act of 1986: Quick Reference Guide. Chicago: Dearborn Financial Publishing, 1986. See also: Sixteenth Amendment (1913); Earned Income Tax

Credit (1975); Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1981).

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 Date: November 6, 1986 U.S. Statutes at Large: 100 Stat. 3359 Public law: 99-603 Categories: Immigration; Latinos

This law provided for the legalization of illegal aliens and established sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986. The act amended the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and was based in part on the findings and recommendations of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy (1978-1981). In 1435

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its 1981 report to Congress, this commission had proposed that the United States continue to accept large numbers of immigrants and enact a program of amnesty for undocumented aliens already in the United States. To deter further migration of undocumented aliens to the United States, the commission also proposed to make the employment of illegal aliens a punishable offense. Development of the Bill These proposals were incorporated into the Simpson-Mazzoli bill, a first version of which was introduced in 1982. In the five years between its introduction and its enactment, the bill ran into opposition from a variety of quarters. Agricultural interests, especially growers of perishable commodities, were concerned that the proposed employer sanctions would jeopardize their labor supply. Mexican American advocacy groups also opposed employer sanctions, while organized labor and restrictionists who were concerned about the massive influx of foreign workers favored employer sanctions. Many liberals and humanitarians supported the notion of legalizing the status of undocumented aliens and expressed concerns over potential discrimination against them. In the 1980’s, the bill repeatedly was pronounced dead only to be revived again as various lawmakers, notably Representatives Leon Panetta, Charles Schumer, and Peter Rodino, introduced compromises and amendments to respond to their constituencies or to overcome opposition by congressional factions. Differences also developed between the House Democratic leadership and the Republican White House over funding the legalization program. On October 15, 1986, the House at last approved the bill, by a vote of 238 to 173; the Senate approved the bill on October 17, by a vote of 63 to 24. Provisions The major components of the Immigration Control and Reform Act provided for the control of illegal immigration (Title I), the legalization of undocumented aliens (Title II), and the reform of legal immigration (Title III). Other sections of the act provided for reports to Congress (Title IV), state assistance for the incarceration costs of illegal aliens and certain Cuban nationals (Title V), the creation of a commission for the study of international migration and cooperative economic development (Title VI), and fed1436

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eral responsibility for deportable and excludable aliens convicted of crimes (Title VII). A major objective of the IRCA, the control of illegal immigration, was to be achieved by imposing sanctions on employers. The IRCA made it unlawful for any person knowingly to hire, recruit, or refer for a fee any alien not authorized to work in the United States. Before hiring new employees, employers would be required to examine certain specified documents to verify a job applicant’s identity and authority to work. Penalties to Noncompliant Employers The act established civil and criminal penalties, and employers could be fined up to two thousand dollars per unauthorized alien, even for a first offense. Employers who demonstrated a pattern of knowingly hiring undocumented aliens could face felony penalties of up to six months’ imprisonment and/or a three-thousand-dollar fine per violation. Employers also were required to keep appropriate records. Failure to do so could result in a civil fine of up to one thousand dollars. In order to allow time for a public education campaign to become effective, penalties against employers for hiring undocumented aliens were not phased in until June, 1987. Legalization of Undocument Aliens The second major objective of the IRCA, the legalization of undocumented aliens, was to be realized by granting temporary residence status to aliens who had entered the United States illegally prior to January 1, 1982, and who had resided in the United States continuously since then. They could be granted permanent residence status after eighteen months if they could demonstrate a minimal understanding of English and some knowledge of the history and government of the United States. After a five-year period of permanent residence, they would become eligible for citizenship. The act also permitted the attorney general to grant legal status to aliens who could show that they had entered the United States prior to January, 1972, and lived in the country since then. Newly legalized aliens were barred from most forms of public assistance for five years, although exceptions could be made for emergency medical care, aid to the blind or disabled, or other assistance deemed to be in the interest of public health. 1437

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Support from Farmers To assure passage of the bill, support of the growers in the West and Southwest was essential. After protracted negotiations, the growers succeeded in getting the kind of legislation that assured them of a continued supply of temporary agricultural workers. The new program differed from earlier bracero programs by providing for the legalization of special agricultural workers who could work anywhere and who could become eligible for permanent resident status or for citizenship. The IRCA granted temporary residence status to aliens who had performed field labor in perishable agricultural commodities in the United States for at least ninety days during the twelve-month period ending May 1, 1986, as well as to persons who could demonstrate to the Immigration and Naturalization Service that they had performed appropriate agricultural field labor for ninety days in three successive previous years while residing in the United States for six months in each year. Expanding the H-2 Program The act also revised and expanded an existing temporary foreign worker program known as H-2. In case of a shortage of seasonal farmworkers, employers could apply to the secretary of labor no more than sixty days in advance of needing workers. The employer also was required to try to recruit domestic workers for the jobs. H-2 also provided that during fiscal years 1990-1993, additional special agricultural workers could be admitted to temporary residence status as “replenishment workers.” Their admission was contingent upon certification of the need for such workers by the secretaries of labor and of agriculture. Replenishment workers who performed ninety days of field work in perishable agricultural commodities in each of the first three years would be eligible for permanent resident status. They were, however, disqualified from public assistance. In order to become eligible for citizenship, they would have to perform seasonal agricultural services for ninety days during five separate years. Cuban and Haitian Immigrants The IRCA also provided permanent resident status for one hundred thousand specified Cubans and Haitians who entered the United States prior to January 1, 1982. The law increased quotas from former colonies and dependencies from five hundred to six 1438

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thousand and provided for the admission of five thousand immigrants annually for two years, to be chosen from nationals of thirtysix countries with low rates of immigration. Altogether, the Immigration Reform and Control Act led to the legalization of the status of three million aliens; however, IRCA was not as successful in curbing illegal immigration as had been anticipated. Mindful of the potential for discrimination, Congress established an Office of Special Counsel in the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute charges of discrimination connected with unlawful immigration practices. The act also required states to verify the status of noncitizens applying for public aid and provided that states be reimbursed for the implementation costs of this provision. To reimburse states for the public assistance, health, and education costs resulting from legalizing aliens, the act provided for the appropriation of one billion dollars in each of the four fiscal years following its enactment. Helmut J. Schmeller Sources for Further Study Bean, Frank D., Georges Vernez, and Charles B. Keely. Opening and Closing the Doors: Evaluating Immigration Reform and Control. Washington, D.C.: Rand Corporation and the Urban Institute, 1989. Daniels, Roger. “The 1980’s and Beyond.” In Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Fuchs, Lawrence H. The American Kaleidoscope: Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic Culture. Hannover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1990. Ueda, Reed. Postwar Immigrant America: A Social History. Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Zolberg, Aristide R. “Reforming the Back Door: The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 in Historical Perspective.” In Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology, and Politics, edited by Virginia Yans-McLaughlin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. See also: Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952); Refugee Relief Act (1953); Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (1965); Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987); Immigration Act of 1990 (1990). 1439

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McKinney Homeless Assistance Act Date: July 22, 1987 U.S. Statutes at Large: 101 Stat. 482 Public law: 100-77 Categories: Health and Welfare

This act provided a substantial increase in federal funds for emergency support to shelter programs for the homeless. The passage of the Stewart McKinney Homeless Assistance Act in the summer of 1987 represented the culmination of a decade of debate about homelessness, its causes, and the federal government’s responsibility to respond to the problem. The prominence of the issue in 1980’s was the result of the visibility of homeless people on the streets of America cities. The “New Homeless” The homeless of the 1980’s were a different group both in size and in demographics from those who had traditionally occupied the skid rows of large cities. The “new homeless,” although also plagued with alcohol and drug problems, were more likely to be younger and to be members of ethnic or racial minorities. Further, they were more likely to be completely lacking in shelter and employment of any kind. Finally, there were many more women and children among the new homeless. Call for Action A 1987 report by the United States Conference of Mayors found that there had been a 25 percent increase in the number of families with children seeking shelter. In 1986, New York City provided shelter in welfare hotels for an average of thirty-five hundred families every month. During the 1980’s, families were the fastestgrowing segment of the homeless population and, by the end of the decade, constituted approximately 30 percent of the homeless. The visibility and changed nature of the homeless population were largely responsible for the pressure placed on the federal government to respond to the problem. 1440

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During the 1986-1987 winter, several events helped motivate Congress to act on emergency housing assistance. A U.S. Conference of Mayors study released the week before Christmas announced a marked increase in the number of people seeking emergency shelter. The study found that a quarter of the demand was not satisfied with the existing provision of shelter and food by private charity groups. It called for Congress to provide federal aid to the overtaxed services of local governments and private groups. The National Coalition for the Homeless released a similar report that winter, demonstrating that families with children were the fastest growing group among the homeless. To encourage support for legislation, Mitch Snyder and actor Martin Sheen organized a “Grate American Sleep Out,” encouraging members of Congress to spend the night on the streets of Washington, D.C. Some did, including Stewart B. McKinney, the ranking minority member of the House Subcommittee on Housing and Community Development and an active supporter of aid to the homeless. Government Response Prior to this period, Congress had allocated some increased aid, through existing housing programs, to the homeless, and in 1982 the Housing and Community Development Subcommittee of the House Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs held a series of hearings on the problems of the homeless. However, in 1986 the Reagan administration and Congress argued over the number of homeless and whether that number warranted increased federal aid. Many congressional Democrats also argued that the increasing number of homeless was the result of 70 percent cuts in federal housing programs and tightened eligibility requirements for welfare, which had moved members of the working poor to the ranks of the homeless. In its final report on the McKinney bill, the House subcommittee argued: “In a nation so blessed with natural resources and material wealth, as in the United States, there is no justifiable reason for the Federal Government to abdicate an appropriate role to assist these most needy citizens.” When the emergency aid package was first introduced in January of 1987, President Reagan threatened to veto the package as unnecessary and fiscally irresponsible. The bill nevertheless 1441

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passed with broad bipartisan support in both houses of Congress (65-8 in the Senate and 301-115 in the House) and was signed into law by the president on July 22, 1987. The bill was named after Stewart B. McKinney, who had died on May 7, 1987, of AIDS, complicated by pneumonia that had resulted from his participation in the “Grate American Sleep Out” in March. Provisions and Impact The McKinney Act appropriated $442 million for homeless assistance in fiscal year 1987 and promised $616 million for 1988. The funds were to be channeled through a number of existing housing programs and provided housing assistance, subsidies for existing private and public shelter programs, funds for rehabilitation of abandoned buildings to provide increased shelter, and help for programs of health care, mental health, and assistance to the handicapped serving the homeless. It also created an Interagency Commission on the Homeless, made up of representatives of various federal agencies, with oversight responsibilities for programs assisting the homeless. Passage of the McKinney Act was important because it acknowledged the extent to which the needs of the homeless in the United States had reached emergency proportions and admitted a federal responsibility to respond to that emergency. In the short term, it certainly helped ease the burden of care that small private shelters throughout the country were experiencing in trying to meet the increased demands for aid. Even its short-term effect, however, was less than its supporters had hoped, because the money authorized in the bill was never fully allocated, a pattern that continued in later years. Spiraling federal budget deficits through the 1980’s made the intentions of the bill increasingly difficult to fulfill. With its focus on the provision of emergency assistance, the McKinney Act did little to provide any long-term solutions to the problems underlying homelessness. Its emphasis on shelter support meant that there was less attention to addressing the root causes of homelessness or to the provision of larger quantities of stable low-income housing. The problem of homelessness did not disappear as a result of the McKinney Act, but the prominence of the issue of homelessness diminished. A study by the United States 1442

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Conference of Mayors in 1990 found declining public concern about and support for aiding the homeless. The public had become weary of the issue and demonstrated a marked lack of sympathy for the plight of homeless people. As Congress and the president struggled with a burgeoning federal deficit that made increased funding for any social programs unlikely, the issue faded from the public agenda. Katy Jean Harriger Sources for Further Study Belcher, John R., and Frederick A. DiBlasio. Helping the Homeless: Where Do We Go from Here? Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990. Bingham, Richard D., Roy E. Green, and Sammis B. White, eds. The Homeless in Contemporary Society. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1987. Hollyman, Stephenie. We the Homeless: Portraits of America’s Displaced People. Text by Victoria Irwin. New York: Philosophical Library, 1988. Hombs, Mary Ellen, and Mitch Snyder. Homelessness in America: A Forced March to Nowhere. Washington, D.C.: Community for Creative Non-Violence, 1982. Kozol, Jonathan. Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1988. Rossi, Peter. Without Shelter: Homelessness in the 1980’s. New York: Priority Press Publications, 1989. See also: Social Security Act (1935); Aid to Families with Depen-

dent Children (1935); Refugee Relief Act (1953); Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963); Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965); Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974); Americans with Disabilities Act (1990); Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996).

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INF Treaty Date: Signed December 8, 1987 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

This nuclear arms control agreement eliminated an entire class of American and Soviet missiles in the European theater. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles, SS-4’s and SS-5’s, capable of reaching Western European countries. U.S. nuclear missiles capable of reaching Soviet targets were deployed in small numbers in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Turkey in the early 1960’s. These missiles were removed after Soviet missiles in Cuba were withdrawn in the wake of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Thereafter, there were no land-based intermediate-range missiles in Europe until 1983. Renewed Nuclear Threats Beginning in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the Soviet Union began to deploy new and modernized intermediate-range missiles, SS-20’s. Coupled with the simultaneous deployment of the new Backfire bomber, these nuclear forces roused concerns in Western Europe about security and the nuclear deterrence capability of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Led by West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, NATO leaders concluded that the increased threat posed to Europe by the mobile and highly accurate SS-20 missiles, each capable of carrying three independently targetable nuclear warheads, needed a strong NATO response. In December, 1979, NATO foreign and defense ministries adopted a dual-track strategy of deploying U.S. intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles with a total of 572 nuclear warheads, while negotiating with the Soviets on arms control treaties to reduce the overall nuclear threat as well as the SS-20 threat. Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCM) were to be deployed in Belgium, the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy. The first deployment of these missiles began in late 1983. 1444

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Negotiating a Compromise The negotiations on an intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty began in November, 1980, at the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. With the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president, these talks proceeded fitfully. In November, 1981, Reagan presented his new zero-option proposal in the INF talks, offering to cancel planned deployment of the Pershing II and GLCMs if the Soviets would dismantle their SS-20, SS-4, and SS-5 missiles. In response, Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev sought a moratorium on the deployment of new intermediate-range launchers in Europe. Faced with U.S. and Soviet negotiating positions unacceptable to both sides, chief U.S. and Soviet negotiators in Geneva, Paul Nitze and Yuli Kvitsinskiy, devised a compromise formula. It called for a two-thirds reduction in the SS-20’s directed at Western Europe in exchange for the elimination of Pershing II deployments, but not the GLCMs. The compromise formula was rejected by both Moscow and Washington, D.C. When, in November, 1983, the German Bundestag voted in favor of the deployments of the Pershing II and cruise missiles, the Soviet Union walked out of the INF talks, thus ending the first phase of these negotiations. The INF talks did not resume until March, 1985, by which time two significant developments had occurred. Mikhail Gorbachev had assumed leadership of the Soviet Union and, over the period of the next several years, made a series of concessions that eliminated the major differences in positions in the INF talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. On the U.S. side, there was mounting popular pressure to pursue serious arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union, and Reagan, during his second term in office, gave this issue priority. The INF negotiations were complex and featured prominently in the Reagan-Gorbachev summits in Geneva in November, 1985, and Reykjavik in October, 1986. In April, 1987, Gorbachev proposed an INF treaty that would eliminate both long-range and shorter-range intermediate missiles in Europe, a proposal expanded later to include such missiles globally—in effect, a global zero-option. With U.S. and German acceptance of the global zero option and Soviet acquiescence to on-site verification, the last stumbling blocks to the treaty were removed. 1445

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Provisions and Ratification This second phase ended with the signing of the INF Treaty by President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev on December 8, 1987, at a summit meeting in Washington, D.C. The treaty consisted of seventeen articles, supplemented by two protocols and a memorandum of understanding (MOU). The first protocol defined the elimination procedures. The second protocol spelled out the purpose, rules, and procedures for conducting on-site inspections regarding treaty compliance. The MOU provided for an accounting by each party of the number and location of missiles and other systems and facilities covered in the treaty. The treaty called for elimination of all ground-launched missiles, of which there were approximately twenty-seven hundred with ranges between five hundred and five thousand kilometers (approximately three hundred to thirty-three hundred miles). On the U.S. side, the intermediate long-range missiles slated for elimination were the Pershing II and the BGM-109 GLCM; the intermediate shorter-range missiles included the Pershing IA. On the Soviet side, the intermediate long-range missiles were the SS-20, SS-4, SS-5, and SSC-X-4; the intermediate shorter-range missiles were the SS-23 and SS-12. All U.S. and Soviet INF missile systems had to be eliminated by the third treaty year. The INF Treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate on May 27, 1988, and was ratified by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. the following day. At the Moscow summit on June 1, 1988, Reagan and Gorbachev exchanged the instruments of ratification, and the INF Treaty entered into force. Inspection and Verification In order to assist the mission of on-site inspections and escort responsibilities under the provisions of the INF Treaty, on January 18, 1988, Reagan instructed Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci to establish the On-Site Inspection Agency. Its first director, Major General Roland Lajoie of the U.S. Army, was appointed on February 1, 1988. Together with their counterparts from the Soviet Union, Lajoie’s staff adhered to the meticulous timetable for elimination of the affected intermediate-range missiles. All such missiles were eliminated by the target year of 1991. The INF Treaty represented a significant milestone in the history of U.S.-Soviet arms control talks. It eliminated, for the first 1446

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time, an entire class of missiles; more important, it set a precedent for intensive on-site inspections to monitor treaty compliance. The treaty required or permitted the United States and the Soviet Union to conduct several hundred such inspections at operational missile sites, repair facilities, storage depots, training sites, and former missile production or assembly facilities. Soviet INF sites in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, and United States INF sites in West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Great Britain, and the United States were targeted for inspections. The INF Treaty set in motion the U.S.-Soviet arms control agenda for the future and was an important precursor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty I (START I), which was signed in 1991; the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty of 1992; and START II in 1993. Together, these treaties laid the groundwork for significant reductions in Soviet and U.S. nuclear arsenals. Vidya Nadkarni Sources for Further Study Brady, Linda P. The Politics of Negotiation: America’s Dealing with Allies, Adversaries, and Friends. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Bunn, George. Arms Control by Committee: Managing Negotiations with the Russians. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992. Dewitt, David, and Hans Rattinger, eds. East-West Arms Control: Challenges for the Western Alliance. London: Routledge, 1992. Mayers, Teena Karsa. Understanding Weapons and Arms Control: A Guide to the Issues. Rev. 6th ed. McLean, Va.: Brassey’s, 1991. Rueckert, George L. Global Double Zero: The INF Treaty from Its Origins to Implementation. Contributions in Military Studies 135. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. See also: SALT I Treaty (1972); SALT II Treaty (1979); START II

Treaty (1993); U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002).

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Amerasian Homecoming Act Date: December 22, 1987 U.S. Statutes at Large: 101 Stat. 1329 Public law: 100-202 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Immigration

This law authorized appropriations for the U.S. Department of State to extend its program of admitting Amerasian children to the United States. When the United States withdrew all personnel from Vietnam in 1975, many Vietnamese wives of American citizens and their Amerasian children remained. The Amerasian children were excluded from the mainstream of Vietnamese society, and their mothers were unable to secure employment with the Vietnamese government or in government enterprises. The children were often placed in orphanages, awaiting adoption by unknown fathers in the United States. In 1984, the U.S. State Department informed Vietnam that all Amerasian children and their qualifying family members would be admitted as refugees by the end of 1987 under the Orderly Departure Program (ODP) of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. However, on January 1, 1986, Vietnam ceased cooperating with the program because of differences with the United States on other issues. When Vietnam resumed processing ODP applicants on October 19, 1987, the three-year deadline was running out. Accordingly, on December 22, 1987, Congress passed the Amerasian Homecoming Act as a part of legislation authorizing appropriations for the U.S. Department of State to establish the program on a more permanent basis. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Bass, Thomas A. Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home. New York: Soho Press, 1996. McKelvey, Robert S. The Dust of Life: America’s Children Abandoned in Vietnam. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999. See also: United States recognition of Vietnam (1995). 1448

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Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act Date: December 29, 1987 U.S. Statutes at Large: 101 Stat. 1460 Public law: 100-220 U.S. Code: 33 § 1901 Categories: Environment and Conservation

This legislation prohibited dumping of plastics into the sea and required shoreside reception facilities for plastics. By the mid-1980’s, the world’s oceans had become a dumping ground for all types of garbage and pollution. Beaches, estuaries, and marshes were becoming clogged with garbage rising with the tide. Animals large and small were killed year after year by garbage dumped into the sea. Much of this garbage and waste decomposed after being dumped into the sea, but some types of debris, such as plastic and styrofoam, could not decompose in seawater. The international community had banded together in 1973 to pass the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. This convention, commonly called the MARPOL (for “Marine Pollution”) convention, was amended in 1978. This international protocol was adopted by virtually all maritime nations. The MARPOL convention has five different annexes that address oil, sewage, garbage, and plastics. Each of the annexes not only highlights a prohibited commodity but also indicates where garbage may not be dumped and designates controlled amounts and allowable concentrations of these commodities. It was necessary for these protocols to be incorporated in U.S. law in order for them to be enforceable in the United States. Thus, legislation was needed to commit U.S. government support to these conventions and to their enforcement. U.S. jurisdiction included U.S. waters and U.S.-registered ships anywhere in the world. There were also a number of issues that dealt with the oceans and the environment that needed to be addressed. Thus, U.S. legislation in support of the MARPOL convention, ultimately named the Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act, included other environmental topics, not simply ocean pollution by plastics. 1449

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Provisions: Five Titles Each of the five components of the Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act addressed a specific problem, area of the ocean, or ocean research. Taken alone, none of the topics was significant enough to generate its own legislation. Titles I and IV of the legislation dealt with fishing. Title I was the recognition of the U.S.-Japan Fishing Agreement. This agreement allowed control over Japanese vessels fishing in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The EEZ extends two hundred miles from the coast of the United States. This agreement was a component of the 1982 Law of the Sea convention. The number of vessels, types of fishing, areas of fishing, and amount of each type of fish caught were all covered in this agreement. (The United States has similar agreements with other nations as well.) Title II of the act addressed the issue of plastics and attempted not only to limit the disposal of plastic at sea from ship dumping but also to address shoreside disposal sites for shipboard plastics. The issues of violations, penalties, and enforcement monitoring were also contained in this title. One specific area south of Long Island and east of the coast of New Jersey, called the New York Bight, was singled out for cleanup and restoration. Title III of the legislation addressed research and development. This component renewed the Sea Grant College Program. This program authorizes the funding of various studies of the sea and its environment through funding by a number of different colleges, universities, and facilities in the United States. As with the fishing agreement, this legislation is renewable in its appropriation. In this title, the legislation also addressed the issue of the Great Lakes shoreline mapping; these shorelines had not been mapped for a number of years. Resources and environmental concerns also were addressed in the act. Title IV was controversial in that it addressed drift nets, extremely large fishing nets that are placed in the open ocean. They float at or near the surface but may extend hundreds of feet down into the sea. Because they are miles long and drift with the current, they may trap and kill a variety of fish and animals regardless of the type of catch desired. This type of fishing was relatively new at the time the act was passed and was very effective in catching large volumes of fish. Drift nets were producing an adverse impact on the environment, killing unwanted fish and animals unnecessarily. 1450

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Title V of this legislation was introduced by Representative Walter Jones, whose district in North Carolina had been experiencing a bloom of plankton commonly called red tide. Red tides had had a disastrous effect on the local fishing and tourist industries. The legislation provided for assistance to this region. Implementation and Enforcement The Coast Guard was charged with enforcing the elimination of plastic pollution, not only from U.S.-registered ships but also from ships from other nations operating in U.S. territorial waters. Fines and punishments were set in the regulations, and vessels could be inspected either at the dock or while under way to determine if they are in compliance with regulations. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with the inspection and licensing of the required shoreside reception facilities for shipboard-generated waste. Ports and other facilities are certifiable by the EPA as acceptable sites for disposal. Further, the EPA was mandated to study the use of plastics and the effects of the legislation on the marine environment and also to report its findings to Congress. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was required by the act to generate a public-service program to educate Americans about the hazards that plastic objects pose to animals in the marine environment, the proper use and disposal of plastics in the marine environment, and the use of alternative, environmentally friendly products. Impact Passage of the 1987 Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act has had a dramatic impact on a variety of fronts. The funding of the National College Sea Grant Program continues to benefit the marine environment through research and development programs. The reduction in the use of large-scale drift-net fishing operations has had a positive effect on the ability of many species of fish and other marine organisms to survive and reproduce in the open ocean. The use of plastic packaging aboard ships has decreased dramatically, while the availability of alternative packaging increased. The availability of shoreside reception sites for waste has also increased. Robert J. Stewart 1451

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Sources for Further Study Gourlay, K. A. Poisoners of the Seas. London: Zed Books International, 1988. Ketchum, Bostwick, H., et al. Nearshore Waste Disposal. Vol. 6 in Wastes in the Ocean. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1985. O’Hara, Kathryn. A Citizen’s Guide to Plastics in the Ocean. 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: Center for Environmental Education, 1988. Talan, Maria. Ocean Pollution. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1991. Wild, R. The Earth Care Annual. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Press, 1990. See also: Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924); Solid Waste Disposal

Act (1965); Seabed Treaty (1972); Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972); Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990).

Civil Rights Restoration Act Date: March 22, 1988 U.S. Statutes at Large: 102 Stat. 28 Public law: 100-259 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Education

Schools receiving federal financial assistance were obligated by nondiscriminatory requirements in all respects, not merely in activity aided by federal funds. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated that federal funds could not be used to support segregation or discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. The law did not affect a number of other civil rights problems, however. At Cornell University’s School of Agriculture, for example, women could not gain admission unless their entrance exam scores were 30 to 40 percent higher than those of male applicants. Epileptics were often barred from employment, and persons in wheelchairs had difficulty gaining access to libraries and schools. Persons in their fifties were often told that they were qualified for a job but too old. 1452

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Rectifying Civil Rights Loopholes To rectify these problems, Congress extended the scope of unlawful discrimination in federally assisted schools in Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 to cover gender, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to cover the disabled, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 to cover older persons. Enforcement of the statute regarding education was initially assigned to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which later became the U.S. Department of Education. OCR ruled that the statute outlawed not only discrimination in the particular program supported by federal funds but also discrimination in programs supported by nonfederal funds. All recipients of federal financial assistance were asked to sign an agreement with OCR, known as the “Assurance of Compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Regulation Issued by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in Implementation Thereof,” as a condition of receiving a federal grant. The Grove City College Case From 1974 to 1984, Grove City College, located in western Pennsylvania, received $1.8 million in tuition grants and guaranteed student loans but was the only such recipient to refuse to sign an assurance of compliance. The college argued that the funds were for students, not the college, but OCR insisted that the financial aid was administered as a part of the college’s financial aid program, so the college must pledge as a whole not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, or gender. OCR instituted enforcement proceedings against Grove City College, and an administrative law judge ruled in 1978 that the college could no longer receive federal student loan monies. Grove City College and four students desiring financial aid (Marianne Sickafuse, Kenneth J. Hockenberry, Jennifer S. Smith, and Victor E. Vouga) then sued. The original defendant was Patricia Roberts Harris, secretary of health, education, and welfare. In 1980, when the case was first tried, the federal district court ruled in favor of Grove City College on the grounds that no sex discrimination had actually occurred. On appeal, the court of appeals reversed the lower court’s decision, and the matter was taken up by the Supreme Court of the United States, this time with Terrel H. 1453

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Bell, head of the newly created federal Department of Education, as the defendant. In Grove City College v. Bell (1984), Justice Byron R. White delivered the majority opinion of the court, which held that OCR did not have sufficient congressional authority to withhold funds from Grove City College for failure to sign the assurance of compliance. Moreover, according to the court, violations of Title VI could occur only in the specific program or activity supported directly with federal funds, a judgment that went beyond the question raised by the case. Justices William J. Brennan, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall dissented, arguing that the Court’s ruling gutted Title VI. Conflicts in Congress Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, OCR dropped some seven hundred pending enforcement actions, resulting in an outcry from civil rights groups over the decision. Representative Augustus F. Hawkins then authored the Civil Rights Restoration Act in the House, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy sponsored the bill in the Senate. Their aim was to amend all the affected statutes—Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975. According to the bill, any agency or private firm that wanted to receive federal financial assistance would have to comply with the nondiscrimination requirement as a whole, even if the aid went to only one subunit of that agency or firm. The road toward passage of the proposed statute was full of potholes, however. Although Hawkins’s version quickly passed in the House of Representatives, the measure was caught up in the politics of abortion, and the bill died in the Senate. Opponents advanced more than one thousand amendments over a period of four years, and representatives of the administration of President Ronald Reagan testified against passage of the law. A group known as the Moral Majority broadcast the fear that the bill would protect alcoholics, drug addicts, and homosexuals from discrimination, although there were no such provisions in the proposal. More crucially, the Catholic Conference of Bishops, which was traditionally aligned with the Civil Rights movement, wanted two amendments to the bill. One proposed amendment, which was unsuccessful, would have exempted institutions affiliated with religious institutions from complying with the law if religious views 1454

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would be compromised thereby. The other proposed amendment, which was opposed by the National Organization for Women, was an assurance that no federal funds would be spent on abortion. With two parts of the Civil Rights movement at loggerheads, Congress delayed finding a compromise. In 1987, leaving out references to abortion, Congress finally adopted the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which then went to President Ronald Reagan for his signature to become law. Reagan, however, became the first president to veto a civil rights bill since Andrew Johnson. Instead, he sent a substitute bill to Congress, which would have exempted farmers, grocery stores, ranchers, and religious institutions. Overriding a Presidential Veto Supporters of the act next sought to gain sufficient votes to override the presidential veto, and the act had sufficient support. With the gallery filled with persons in wheelchairs, opponents in the Senate tried to destroy the bill by various amendments in debate on the floor of the Senate on January 28, 1988. An amendment by Senator Orrin G. Hatch, for example, would have legislatively exempted organizations closely identified with the tenets of a religious organization, although the bill enabled such groups to obtain exemptions from OCR. He also sought to restrict coverage to the specific affected statutes. Both efforts were defeated. Senators Thomas R. Harkin and Gordon J. Humphrey gained support for an amendment that permitted employers to discriminate against persons with an infection or contagious disease whose presence on the job might threaten the health or safety of others or could not otherwise perform the duties of the job. This reflected contemporary concerns about acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Senator John C. Danforth proposed an amendment that would disallow federal payments for abortion. This amendment passed, providing that neither Title VI nor Title IX was intended to require an abortion or payment for an abortion. With the passage of the act by the Senate on March 22, 1988, Congress overrode Reagan’s veto, and the law went into effect immediately. The law restored civil rights enforcement to where it was before the Grove case. Michael Haas 1455

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Sources for Further Study Blow, Richard. “Don’t Look NOW.” New Republic 198 (April 11, 1988): 11-12. Gillespie, Veronica M., and Gregory L. McClinton. “The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987: A Defeat for Judicial Conservatism.” National Black Law Journal 12 (Spring, 1990): 61-72. Robinson, Robert K., Billie Morgan Allen, and Geralyn McClure Franklin. “The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987: Broadening the Scope of Civil Rights Legislation.” Labor Law Journal 40 (January, 1989): 45-49. Schultz, Jon S., comp. Legislative History and Analysis of the Civil Rights Restoration Act. Littleton, Colo.: F. B. Rothman, 1989. Watson, Robert. “Effects of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 upon Private Organizations and Religious Institutions.” Capital University Law Review 18 (Spring, 1989): 93-118. Willen, Mark. “Congress Overrides Reagan’s Grove City Veto.” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Review 46 (March 26, 1988): 774-776. See also: Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Architectural Barriers Act (1968); Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (1972); Age Discrimination Act (1975); Americans with Disabilities Act (1990); Civil Rights Act of 1991 (1991).

Civil Liberties Act Date: August 10, 1988 U.S. Statutes at Large: 102 Stat. 903 Public law: 100-383 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Civil Rights and Liberties

This act mandated monetary damages as reparations to U.S. residents of Japanese ancestry, as well as relocated Aleuts, who were interned during World War II. During World War II, Japanese residents on the West Coast and Aleuts in Alaska were interned by the U.S. military. In effect, Amer1456

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ican citizens—merely because they shared a national or ethnic heritage with the Japanese enemy—were imprisoned and forced to live under bleak conditions in isolated camps for the duration of the war. Although after the war the Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 provided some compensation, the amounts were not enough for those displaced to recover the resulting wartime losses. Pressure from the affected groups prompted Congress on August 10, 1988, to pass the Civil Liberties Act, which authorized the attorney general of the United States to pay $20,000 in damages to each interned Japanese or his or her immediate family heirs, with a ceiling of $1.25 billion. The law also provided payments of $12,000 to each Aleut who was similarly relocated (up to a ceiling of $5 million); $1.4 million for wartime damage to Aleut church property; $15 million for the loss of Aleut lands that resulted from designating part of Attu Island as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System; and $5 million to aid elderly, disabled, and seriously ill Aleuts, to provide scholarships for Aleuts, to improve Aleut community centers, and to provide for Aleut cultural preservation. No funds were appropriated until November 21, 1989. The first letters of apology were sent out October 9, 1990. Recipients, in turn, gave up all claims for future recovery of damages. Michael Haas Source for Further Study Hatamiya, Leslie T. Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994. See also: Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907); Alien land laws (1913);

Immigration Act of 1921 (1921); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943); War Brides Act (1945).

1457

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Family Support Act Date: October 13, 1988 U.S. Statutes at Large: 102 Stat. 2343 Public law: 100-485 Categories: Children’s Issues; Health and Welfare; Women’s Issues

The first overhaul of the welfare system in more than half a century, the act cemented a link between welfare and work. After years of debate, Congress cleared welfare reform legislation on September 30, 1988, and on October 13, President Ronald Reagan signed the Family Support Act of 1988 (FSA) into law. The new law affirmed an evolving vision of the responsibilities of parents and government for the well-being of poor adults and their dependent children. Provisions FSA left intact the basic entitlement nature of the federal-state Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and even expanded it by requiring states to extend coverage to certain twoparent families. The anchoring principle of FSA was that parents should be the primary supports of their children and that, for many people, public assistance should be coupled with encouragement, support, and requirements to aid them in moving from welfare to self-support. FSA placed a responsibility both on welfare recipients to take jobs and participate in employment services, and on government to provide the incentives and services to help welfare recipients find employment. For noncustodial parents, usually absent fathers, this was reflected in greater enforcement of child support collections. For custodial parents, usually mothers, this meant new obligations to cooperate in child support collection efforts, as well as new opportunities for publicly supported child care, education, training, and employment services, coupled with obligations to take a job or cooperate with the program. Third Attempt at Welfare Reform FSA was Congress’s third attempt in twenty years to overhaul the welfare system. Two previous efforts, in 1969 and 1977, had foun1458

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dered over many of the same philosophical differences and technical issues about how best to reduce welfare dependency that threatened to defeat the new law. Most elusive was how to maintain an economic safety net for government-assisted poor parents and their children, while discouraging nonsubsidized working-poor parents from becoming welfare-dependent and preventing the underwriting of low-wage labor. President Reagan’s vow in his 1986 state of the union message to make welfare reform a priority buoyed advocates of the law. A commitment by the nation’s governors to overhaul welfare also encouraged reformers. Work vs. Welfare A consensus emerged around the idea that work was better than welfare, but it proved fragile in 1987 when the White House proposed that states should experiment with existing programs without benefit of new federal funds, while House Democrats pushed through a bill that expanded benefits and cost more than $7 billion. Senators Daniel P. Moynihan (Democrat, New York) and Lloyd Bentson (Democrat, Texas), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, steered a more modest $2.8 billion plan through the Senate on June 16, 1988. To gain White House and Republican support, Moynihan and Bentson accepted work and participation requirements added by Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (Republican, Kansas) and Senator William L. Armstrong (Republican, Colorado). Liberal Democrats recoiled at the thought of work requirements, and many governors worried about increased costs associated with meeting job training and other requirements. JOBS Program FSA established the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) training program to assure that needy families with children would obtain the education, training, and employment necessary to help them avoid long-term welfare dependency. The JOBS program replaced several other work-incentive programs, such as the Work Incentive (WIN) and WIN DEMO projects of the 1980’s. Child care and supportive services were provided to enable individuals to accept employment or receive training. State JOBS programs were required to include appropriate educational activities, such as high school or equivalent education, combined with training as needed; basic and remedial education 1459

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to achieve functional literacy, and education for individuals with limited English proficiency; job skills training; job readiness activities; and job development and placement. State programs also included, but were not limited to, two of the four following services: group and individual job search; on-the-job training, during which the recipient would be placed in a paid job for which the employer provided training and wages and, in return, would be paid a supplement for the employee’s wages by the state Social Security Act Title IV-A (AFDC) agency; work supplementation, in which the employed recipient’s AFDC grant could be diverted to an employer to cover part of the cost of the wages paid to the recipient; and community work experience programs or other Department of Health and Human Services-approved work programs, which generally provided short-term work experience in public projects. The JOBS program also amended the unemployed-parent component of AFDC to provide that at least one parent in a family must participate for a minimum of sixteen hours a week in a work program specified by the state. If a parent was less than twenty-five years of age and had not completed high school, the state could require the parent to participate in educational activities directed at attaining a high school diploma or in another basic education program. The second parent could be required to participate at state option, unless he or she met another exemption criteria. At the outset, many AFDC parents were excluded from participation in JOBS, and the legislation called for gradually increasing the participation rates throughout the 1990’s from 5 to 20 percent. Early critics of FSA’s design and implementation noted that many JOBS requirements did not apply to AFDC recipients in twoparent families. Where they did, fathers were placed mainly in onthe-job training or “workplace” programs and provided with far fewer services than were available to mothers. A possible reason for this differential treatment is that work training and placement experiments with men receiving AFDC have resulted, at best, in only marginal, if at all measurable, gains when experimental groups are compared with controls. Another criticism has been that funding for JOBS is a “capped” entitlement: The federal government matches expenditures by each state up to a fixed amount. Congressional appropriations for this part of FSA cannot legally exceed the cap, regardless of state need or demand. 1460

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Child-Support Enforcement The other major provision of FSA concerned child-support enforcement. FSA required automatic withholding of child support from an absent parent’s paycheck for all new and modified support orders, commencing two years after enactment, regardless of whether the payments were in arrears, as had been specified in 1984 legislation. Initially this provision applied only to all cases being enforced by the state child-support agency, but after January 1, 1994, it covered all orders, regardless of whether a parent had sought assistance from the state child-support agency. FSA also required states, beginning in fiscal 1992, to meet federal standards in establishing paternity for children born out of wedlock. States must either establish paternity for half of all children born out of wedlock who were receiving state child-support services (with some exceptions for good cause); equal or exceed the average paternityestablishment percentage for all states; or have increased their paternity-establishment percentage by three percentage points or more from fiscal 1988-1991 or in any year thereafter. Groups representing divorced fathers complained that automatic wage withholding could lead to their losing jobs, and that actually handing over the monthly support check was the only leverage they had to ensure that mothers obeyed visitation orders. Congress overruled such objections in the light of evidence showing that 52 percent of all women with children less than twenty-one years of age did not receive part or all of the child support legally due to them, and that nearly 40 percent of households with children in need of support did not have court orders or legal support agreements. Richard K. Caputo Sources for Further Study Berry, Mary Frances. The Politics of Parenthood: Child Care, Women’s Rights, and the Myth of the Good Mother. New York: Viking Press, 1993. Caputo, Richard K. “Limits of Welfare Reform.” Social Casework 70, no. 2 (February, 1989): 85-95. Chilman, Catherine S. “Welfare Reform or Revision? The Family Support Act of 1988.” Social Service Review 66, no. 3 (September, 1992): 349-377. 1461

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Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1988. Vol. 44, pp. 349-364. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1988. Gueron, Judith M., and Edward Pauly. From Welfare to Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1991. Handler, Joel, and Yeheskel Hasenfeld. The Moral Construction of Poverty: Welfare Reform in America. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1991. See also: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935); Child

Support Enforcement Amendments (1984); Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996).

Alternative Motor Fuels Act Date: October 14, 1988 U.S. Statutes at Large: 102 Stat. 2441 Public law: 100-494 U.S. Code: 42 § 6374 Categories: Energy; Environment and Conservation

The Alternative Motor Fuels Act encouraged automobile manufacturers to design and build cars that could burn alternative fuels such as methanol and ethanol. The Alternative Motor Fuels Act of 1988 was passed both to reduce American dependence on foreign oil and to address automobile makers’ lack of interest in designing cars for nonexistent fuel—as well as fuel companies’ unwillingness to produce fuel for nonexistent cars. The legislation was intended to resolve the problem by giving incentives to automobile makers and by requiring that a part of the federal fleet use alternative fuels. Provisions The act required that a percentage of government vehicles use alternative fuels and established a timetable that enforced government purchase of vehicles capable of using alternative fuels. This 1462

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provided an immediate market for the fuel, although a limited one. The act also allowed federal fleet operators to exceed their operational gasoline allowances by counting only the actual amount of gasoline in a gallon of fuel, rather than the total amount of fuel, against their allotment. Because the alternative fuels then contained approximately 15 percent gasoline, fleet operators could use more fuel and do more business. This provision provided an incentive to the private sector to develop and use alternative-fueled vehicles. Because the technology was so new, little information was available on the performance of alternative-fueled vehicles. To solve this problem, an Alternative Fuels Council was established and charged with gathering information and filing the reports required by the act. The law required a methanol study: Data would be collected on the use of methanol as an alternative fuel, methanol’s operating characteristics, and the ecological effect of using the fuel. The act also required a study of the safety of alternative fuel, mandated because some oxygenated fuels release harmful elements when transferred from storage tanks to individual automobiles. Another report required by the act was an independent environmental study to analyze air quality and make comparisons of the air quality of cities where alternative fuels were used and those where it was not. The act also called for an extended reasonable forecast on the impact of alternative fuels on the economy. A significant provision of the act was to establish a national bustesting program, wherein mass transit buses were to be developed that could use either compressed natural gas or other alternative fuels. Funding was established and guidelines were set to conduct tests in several cities using buses designed to run on alternative fuels and comparing their operating characteristics and maintenance records with those of diesel-fueled buses. An equally important aspect of the new legislation was to amend existing laws to take into consideration the differences between alterative-fueled and petroleum-fueled vehicles. The laws that were in effect prior to the passage of the Alternative Motor Fuels Act of 1988 would have created economic obstacles to development of the technologies needed to make alternative-fueled vehicles a reality. The act established the Interagency Commission on Alternative Motor Fuels, responsible for ensuring that all agencies within the government work together in implementing the law. 1463

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Impact With the incentives offered by this act, it was hoped that alternative fuels and the vehicles to use them would be developed and that dependence on foreign oil and the overall dependence on nonrenewable resources would be relieved. It was thought that the United States would be able to maintain its standard of living and at the same time exert a less harmful impact on the environment. The immediate impact of the legislation was to encourage development of the necessary technology. The Interagency Commission on Alternative Motor Fuels reported that a significant market for alternative-fueled vehicles developed within government and commercial fleets within three years of the passage of the Alternative Motor Fuels Act. The commission also noted in its final report, however, that additional amendments were necessary to ensure that alternative-fueled vehicles would be available. Carl A. Thames Sources for Further Study Lincoln, John Ware. Methanol and Other Ways Around the Gas Pump. Charlotte, Vt.: Garden Way, 1976. Nadis, Steve, and James J. MacKenzie. Car Trouble. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. Pack, Janet. Fueling the Future. Chicago: Children’s Press, 1992. Solar Energy Research Institute. Fuel from Farms: A Guide to SmallScale Ethanol Production. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980. U.S. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment. Gasohol: A Technical Memorandum. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979. See also: Clean Air Act (1963); Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977); Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990); Montreal Protocol (1990); Pollution Prevention Act (1990).

1464

Indian Gaming Regulatory Act

Indian Gaming Regulatory Act Date: October 17, 1988 U.S. Statutes at Large: 102 Stat. 2467 Public law: 100-497 U.S. Code: 25 § 2701 Categories: Native Americans

Congress regulated gaming on Indian lands by dividing it into three classes and authorizing compacts between tribes and states. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), signed into law on October 17, 1988, by President George H. W. Bush, represents an amalgamation of ideas presented in various bills introduced in Congress from 1983 through 1987 and provides a system to permit and regulate gaming on American Indian lands. Provisions The IGRA divides gaming into three classes. Class I gaming includes social games of minimal value, as well as traditional games played as a part of tribal ceremonies or celebrations. Class I gaming is exclusively regulated by the tribes. Class II gaming includes bingo, and if played within the same location, pull tabs, lotto, tip jars, instant bingo, games similar to bingo, and certain card games. A tribe may engage in Class II games if the state in which the tribe is located permits such gaming for any purpose by any person, organization, or entity. Class III gaming includes all forms of gaming other than Class I or II, for example, banking card games like blackjack, baccarat and chemin de fer, slot machines, craps, parimutuel horse racing, and dog racing. Class III gaming is prohibited unless authorized by a tribal-state compact. In addition to classifying games, the IGRA established a threemember National Indian Gaming Commission within the Department of the Interior. The commission chairman is appointed by the president of the United States with Senate approval; the other two members are appointed by the secretary of the interior. At least two members must be enrolled members of an American Indian tribe. The commission has the power to approve all tribal gam1465

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ing ordinances and resolutions, shut down gaming activities, levy and collect fines, and approve gaming management contracts for Class II and III gaming. The commission has broad power to monitor Class II gaming by inspecting gaming permits, conducting background investigations of personnel, and inspecting and auditing books and records. Regulation and jurisdiction of Class III gaming is more complicated. Class III gaming is lawful when it is authorized by a tribal ordinance, approved by the chairman of the commission, located in a state that permits such gaming (whether for charitable, commercial, or government purposes), and conducted in compliance with a tribal-state compact that is approved by the secretary of the interior. A tribe seeking to conduct Class III gaming must request that the state in which its lands are located negotiate a tribal-state compact governing the conduct of gaming activities. The compact may include provisions concerning the application of tribal or state criminal and civil laws directly related to gaming, the allocation of jurisdiction between the state and tribe, state assessments to defray the costs of regulation, standards for operation and maintenance of the gaming facility, and other subjects related to the gaming activity. The state is not authorized to impose a tax or assessment upon a tribe unless the tribe agrees. The state cannot refuse to negotiate a compact based on its inability to impose a tax, fee, or other assessment. Sovereignty and Economy The question of gaming on American Indian reservations is one that involves both sovereignty and economic issues for tribes and states alike. The IGRA grants U.S. district courts jurisdiction over actions by tribes. Reasons for such action include failure of a state to negotiate with a tribe seeking to enter a compact; failure of the state to negotiate in good faith; or any violation of the tribal-state compact. The IGRA provides that a federal district court may order a tribe and state to reach a compact if the state fails to meet its burden of proving that it negotiated in good faith. If no compact is forthcoming, a court may appoint a mediator to recommend a compact. In March, 1996, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Seminole Tribe of Indians v. Florida that Congress cannot force states into federal court to settle disputes over gambling on reser1466

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vations. Federal law, through the IGRA, still permits tribes to seek help from the secretary of the interior when state officials balk at tribal plans for gaming operations. The IGRA requires that all gaming facilities be tribally owned and that revenue from gaming operations be directed for specific tribal programs, such as education, elderly programs, or housing. Restriction of gaming to tribal governments ensures that American Indian gaming remains a government function rather than a personal endeavor. The most controversial aspect of the IGRA involves the tribalstate compacting required for Class III gaming. Tribal sovereignty is diminished by the IGRA, because it forces states and tribes into an agreement. Most laws recognize that tribes have a governmentto-government relationship with the federal government and are not under state jurisdiction unless there is prior agreement (as in Public Law 280 states). The IGRA specifically requires negotiations between tribes and states, a relationship they do not normally have. Impact States objected to the tribal-state compacting on the grounds that it violated their sovereignty under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution, which protects states from being sued in federal court against their will. In a 1996 Supreme Court decision, it was ruled that Congress cannot attempt to resolve stalled negotiations between states and tribes over on-reservation gambling by making states and their officials targets of federal lawsuits. The Eleventh Amendment rights of states were upheld. The IGRA has been embraced by many tribes in the United States as a way to bolster reservation economies. Some of the most poverty-stricken areas in the United States are American Indian reservations, and gaming revenues give tribes income to reinvest in other business ventures. The need to generate widespread support for ballot initiatives such as California’s Propositions 5 (1998) and 1A (2000), the California Indian Self-Reliance Initiative, helped Native American tribes develop more powerful political lobbies, with influence beyond issues of gambling. However, the compacting process can result in conflict of interest for some states that rely heavily on gaming revenues. In addition, the issue of untaxed revenues resulting from American Indian gaming operations is a factor 1467

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in establishing compacts, and states in need of such revenue cannot act dispassionately with tribes when they negotiate those compacts. Gaming on American Indian reservations is fraught with issues of competing interests for both tribes and states. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Canby, William C. American Indian Law in a Nutshell. Minneapolis: West, 1981. Eisler, Kim Isaac. The Revenge of the Pequots: How a Small Native American Tribe Created the World’s Most Profitable Casino. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. MacFarlan, Allan A. Book of American Indian Games. New York: Associated Press, 1958. Pommersheim, Frank. “Economic Development in Indian Country: What Are the Questions?” American Indian Law Review 12 (1987): 195-217. Santoni, Roland J. “The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act: How Did We Get Here? Where Are We Going?” Creighton Law Review 26 (1993): 387-447. Turner, Allen C. “Evolution, Assimilation, and State Control of Gambling in Indian Country: Is Cabazon v. California an Assimilationist Wolf in Preemptive Clothing?” Idaho Law Review 24, no. 2 (1987-1988): 317-338. Wilkinson, Charles F. American Indians, Time, and the Law: Native Societies in a Modern Constitutional Democracy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987. Wunder, John R. “Retained by the People”: A History of American Indians and the Bill of Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. See also: Public Law 280 (1953); Indian Self-Determination and

Education Assistance Act (1975).

1468

Trademark Law Revision Act

Trademark Law Revision Act Also known as: Trademark Act Date: November 16, 1988 U.S. Statutes at Large: 102 Stat. 3943 Public law: 100-667 U.S. Code: 15 § 1051-1127 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Copyrights, Patents,

and Trademarks

A response to global marketing, this act was the most sweeping revision of trademark law since the 1946 Lanham Act. Trademarks have had a long history but have not had a great deal of protection for commercial products in the United States. Congress enacted the first trademark law in 1870, primarily to protect product identity. Manufacturers were concerned that the law did not go far enough for protection and at times was too vague. In 1900 the Congress reviewed a blue ribbon commission report that recommended that commercial names, patents, and other marks be included for protection, which became the basis of the TradeMark Act of 1905. The United States, fifteen years later, modified the 1905 act with an updated version that implemented international commitment for the general protection of industrial property and the Trade-Mark Act of 1920 was established. Lanham Act and Other Prior Legislation In 1945 the postwar economy was producing an enormous growth in both communications systems and new technology. The expansion brought about a vast amount of trademark and patent registration. Congressman Fritz Lanham from Texas introduced a bill in Congress that sought registration and protection for unfair competition in the marketplace. The bill defined what a trademark was and how it could be distinguished from other marks or symbols. After a year and a half of debate and discussion, the bill was passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Truman on July 5, 1946. The Lanham Act, as it came to be known, was enacted under its constitutional grant of authority to regulate interstate and international commerce. 1469

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With the continued growth in new ideas and inventions, fraud became a legal problem. Trademark and patent counterfeiting became a cottage industry, and vast quantities of inferior or bogus products were sold to unsuspecting customers. Because of this problem, the Congress passed the Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984, which amended the Lanham Act (1946) by allowing several new types of civil actions to be established with mandatory financial awards for damages and lawyers’ fees. During the same year, Congress also established the Trademark Clarification Act, which nullified the efforts of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Anti-Monopoly, Inc. v. General Mills Fun Group, Inc. In this case, the court held that in determining if a trademark was or was not generic, the buyer’s reason for purchasing the product was the crucial test. The 1988 Provisions The Trademark Law Revision Act of 1988 was the most far-reaching of the Lanham Act’s amendments. The legislative change was brought about because of the ever-increasing expansion of global marketing. The act made many minor as well as technical changes in the Lanham Act, but what is considered the most significant element of the amendment was the creation of an “intent-to-use” system that required that a mark or symbol must be used in commerce before it could be registered. What this means is that an organization can file a registration application with the Patents and Trademark Office that will allow the mark to become officially recognized before it is used in the marketplace. The establishment of the intent-to-use system had an enormous change in U.S. trademark protection. The change itself conforms to trademark laws by almost all other nations in the world. The adoption was a major step forward for U.S. membership in the international filing pact that is part of the Trademark Registration Treaty of 1980. Earl R. Andresen Sources for Further Study Pember, Don R., and Michelle Johnson. Mass Media Law: 2003 Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. Teeter, Dwight L., Don R. Le Duc, and Bill Loving. Law of Mass Communications. New York: Foundation Press, 2001. 1470

Hate Crime Statistics Act See also: Copyright Act of 1909 (1909); Copyright Act of 1976 (1976); North American Free Trade Agreement (1993); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994); Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998).

Hate Crime Statistics Act Date: Passed April 23, 1990; reauthorized September 13, 1994 U.S. Statutes at Large: 102 Stat. 4469 Public law: 100-690 U.S. Code: 28 § 534 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

This law required the U.S. attorney general to collect data annually on crimes that “manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” The responsibility to collect data on crimes of discrimination, mandated by this law, was assigned by the attorney general to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The data enable the government and other agencies to conduct accurate research and perform statistical analysis on these types of crimes. Until passage of this law, there was no way to identify crimes that were committed as a result of hate. This was a concern both in the law enforcement community and among civil rights organizations that represented affected constituencies. The FBI wanted to make sure that the various police agencies across the nation used sufficiently objective criteria, as described in a set of guidelines that the FBI distributed, to assess hate accurately as a motivation for a particular offense. Most jurisdictions found it necessary to create legislation to address hate crimes to facilitate the counting of these offenses. These cases were eventually litigated to the Supreme Court on First Amendment issues. The cases of R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) and Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993) settled the constitutional questions surrounding this act and related local and state legislation. Michael L. Barrett 1471

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Sources for Further Study Altschiller, Donald. Hate Crimes. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1999. Association of State Uniform Crime Reporting Programs and the Center for Applied Social Research, Northeastern University, comp. Hate Crime Statistics: A Resource Book. Collingdale, Pa.: DIANE, 1994. U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Reauthorization of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. 104th Congress, 2d session. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1997. See also: First Amendment (1789).

Montreal Protocol Date: June 29, 1990 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Treaties and Agree-

ments

The members of the United Nations met to ratify an agreement initially fashioned in Montreal to phase out the use of substances known to be damaging the stratosphere’s vitally important ozone layer. Representatives of many nations met at Montreal Protocol sessions in Canada in 1987 in the hope that the governments of all nations of the world would eventually ratify the document that was fashioned there. Some governments were eager to do so, but others balked because of the possible expenses and hardships that would be entailed following the protocol’s recommendations, which included phasing out the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and converting to harmless substitutes. It had been scientifically demonstrated that CFCs (used widely in aerosol propellants, refrigerators, and air conditioners) were damaging the earth’s protective atmospheric ozone layer, and the impact on skin cancers and global warming had led to the meeting. Representatives of twenty-four na1472

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tions, mostly the developed, industrialized nations of the world, signed the agreement in Montreal on September 16, 1987. The Third World countries that had balked at ratifying the protocol were eventually persuaded to do so by the creation of the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund. The developed nations had created most of the ozone depletion problem with heavy commercial use of destructive chemicals. Their representatives thought it appropriate that developed nations bear the cost because they were the nations that had created the problem. On June 29, 1990, representatives of ninety-three nations agreed in London to ban production of most ozone-destroying chemicals by the end of the twentieth century. In November, 1992, delegates from all over the world met in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss further revisions of the protocol because of alarming new discoveries about the damage being done to the ozone layer. It was agreed to phase out production of CFCs and carbon tetrachloride by January 1, 1996; to ban the production of halons by 1994; to ban production of methyl chloroform by 1996; to control the use of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFSs) and eliminate them completely by 2030; and to increase the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund in order to make it possible for developing nations to accelerate the changeover from machinery and consumer products using ozone-destroying gases to harmless alternatives. Bill Delaney Sources for Further Study Benedick, R. E. Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet. Washington, D.C.: World Wildlife Fund, 1991. Clark, S. L. Protecting the Ozone Layer—What You Can Do: A Citizen’s Guide to Reducing the Use of Ozone-Depleting Chemicals. New York: Environmental Information Exchange, Environmental Defense Fund, 1988. Firor, John. The Changing Atmosphere: A Global Challenge. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990. Gliedman, John. “Is the Pact Too Little, Too Late?” The Nation, October 10, 1987, 376-380. Gore, Albert. Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992. 1473

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Gribbin, John R. The Hole in the Sky: Man’s Threat to the Ozone Layer. New York: Bantam Books, 1988. Klingeman, Henry. “The Twilight Ozone: D. Hodel’s Alleged Remarks Concerning the International Protocol on Ozone.” National Review, August 14, 1987, 40-41. Lemonick, Michael D. “The Ozone Vanishes.” Time, February 17, 1992, 60-68. Molina, M. J., and F. S. Rowland. “Stratospheric Sink for Chlorofluoromethanes: Chlorine Atom-Catalyzed Destruction of Ozone.” Nature 249 (1974): 810-812. Van Dusen, Lisa. “Fresh Hope in the Sky.” Maclean’s, September 28, 1987, 56-57. See also: Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938); Air Pollution Control Act (1955); Clean Air Act (1963); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977); Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990).

Americans with Disabilities Act Date: July 26, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 327 Public law: 101-336 U.S. Code: 42 § 12101-12213 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Disability Issues; Health and

Welfare

This law guaranteed equal opportunity for people with disabilities by mandating access in public accommodations, transportation, state and local government services, and telecommunications. It also prohibited employment discrimination. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, programs, and services provided by state and local governments, private companies, and commercial facilities. It also mandates establishment of telecommunications devices for deaf persons. The employment provision 1474

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covers all companies that employ fifteen or more people. American Indian tribes, tax-exempt private-membership clubs (not including labor unions), and the federal government are not covered by the ADA. However, the federal government is covered by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prevents the federal government, federal contractors, and educational programs receiving federal funds from discriminating against disabled persons. Religious organizations are governed by the ADA but may give employment preference to people of their own religion or religious organization. Qualified Individuals Under the ADA Only individuals who are qualified under the ADA may claim discrimination under the act. The act establishes three categories of criteria for such qualification. To qualify as a disabled individual, a person must have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, have a record of such an impairment, or be regarded as having such an impairment. Persons discriminated against because they have a known association or relationship with a disabled individual are also protected by the act. The first category includes disabilities such as impairments in seeing, hearing, speaking, walking, breathing, performing manual tasks, learning, caring for oneself, and working. It does not include minor, nonchronic conditions of short duration such as sprains, influenza, and broken limbs. However, an individual with a broken limb that does not heal within a few months or that fails to heal properly may be considered disabled; determining whether a condition is a disability under the ADA is done on a case-by-case basis. The second category covers people who have recovered from cancer, heart disease, mental illness, or other debilitating illness. It also includes individuals who were misdiagnosed with such illnesses if the misdiagnosis leads to discrimination. The third category protects individuals who are regarded as having a substantially limiting impairment, even though they may not. This would include individuals with controlled high blood pressure, individuals rumored to be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and individuals with observable deformities such as severe facial disfigurement. Characteristics that are not considered disabilities under the ADA include current illegal drug use (although rehabilitated drug abusers may be covered), homosexuality, bisexuality, various sex1475

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ual disorders (including pedophilia, exhibitionism, and voyeurism), certain behavioral disorders (such as compulsive gambling, kleptomania, and pyromania), and such personality traits as poor judgment, a quick temper, or irresponsible behavior. Environmental, cultural, and economic disadvantages, such as lack of education or a prison record, are not covered by the ADA. Title I: Employment The ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals in all employment practices, including job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, and training. A qualified individual is a person who meets legitimate skill, experience, education, or other requirements of an employment position and who can perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation. A written job description can provide evidence of the essential functions of a position but is not necessarily definitive. Whether an activity is an essential function must be determined on a case-by-case basis. Reasonable accommodations are those that would not impose an undue hardship on the operation of the employer’s business; an undue hardship is an action that requires difficulty or expense when considered in the light of the size, resources, nature, and structure of the employer’s operation. Reasonable accommodations may include remodeling existing facilities to make them readily accessible and usable by an individual with a disability, restructuring a job or work schedule, providing qualified readers or interpreters, or modifying examination or training to allow a disabled individual to demonstrate the knowledge or skills actually required for the position. An employer may not ask or require a job applicant to have a medical examination before making a job offer but may condition a job offer on the satisfactory result of a postoffer medical examination or medical inquiry if such an examination or inquiry is required of all entering employees in the same job category. Information from all medical examinations and inquiries must be kept apart from general personnel files as a separate, confidential medical record. Drug testing is not a medical examination under the ADA. An employer cannot make any preemployment inquiry about the nature or severity of a disability but can ask about an applicant’s ability to perform specific job functions and may ask for a reasonable demonstration of the required ability. 1476

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Employers may refuse to hire or may terminate the employment of disabled individuals if such individuals would pose a direct threat to the health and safety of themselves or others. This type of discrimination is allowed only if there is significant risk of substantial harm. The direct threat must be based on valid medical analyses or other objective evidence, not on speculation by the employer. The employer must attempt to eliminate the threat or reduce it to acceptable levels with reasonable accommodations. If elimination or reduction is not possible, the employer may refuse to hire or may terminate the employment of a disabled person. For example, an employer at a day care center might refuse to hire an individual with an active tuberculosis infection if no reasonable accommodation could be made to reduce the risk of infection to others. Title II: Public Services Under the ADA’s provisions, state and local government facilities, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, and public transportation systems cannot deny services to people with disabilities. This prohibition extends to publicly owned buildings and vehicles and also affirmatively requires state and local governments to provide access to programs offered to the public. The ADA also covers effective communication with people with disabilities that may restrict or prevent their access to such programs. The act does not require that state and local governments provide all documents in Braille if workers are present to read documents to persons with vision or reading disabilities, nor does it require that sign-language interpreters be available if communication can be accomplished via note-writing. However, the act does require reasonable modifications of policies and practices that may be discriminatory. For example, if a town council were to meet on the second floor of a building with no elevator, it would discriminate against disabled persons with mobility problems who could not walk to the second floor. Such an act would violate the ADA’s provisions. However, if the town council were to meet without a sign-language interpreter, it would not discriminate against a deaf person who chooses to attend the meeting alone. Title III: Public Accommodations The ADA requires that construction of and modifications to structures that house entities providing goods or services to the public 1477

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must be accessible to the disabled. Organizations that provide goods or services to the public, regardless of their size or number of employees, are considered to be public accommodations; these include stores, banks, libraries, hotels, restaurants, nursing homes, and privately owned transportation systems such as taxis and cruise ships. Residential facilities, independent-living centers, and retirement communities are covered by Title III if they provide a significant enough level of social services such as medical care, assistance with daily-living activities, provision of meals, transportation, counseling, and organized recreational activities. The ADA also contains requirements for improving access to existing facilities. The act requires public accommodations to remove architectural barriers in existing facilities when such alteration is readily achievable without much difficulty or expense. Examples of readily achievable alterations include the ramping of one or a few steps, the installation of a bathroom grab bar, the lowering of towel dispensers, the rearranging of furniture, the installation of offset hinges to widen a doorway, and the painting of new lines to create an accessible parking space. Titles IV and V: Telecommunications and Other Provisions The ADA mandates establishment of TDD/telephone relay systems and prohibits telecommunications companies from substituting a seven-number emergency line for the 911 emergency line for hearing-impaired individuals. The ADA prohibits coercing, threatening, or retaliating against disabled persons when those persons assert their rights under the act. Further, it prohibits threats or retaliation against individuals who attempt to aid disabled persons in asserting their rights under the ADA. Complaints concerning violations of the ADA may be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or with designated state human rights agencies. Available remedies include hiring, reinstatement, promotion, back pay, restored benefits, reasonable accommodation, attorneys’ fees, expert witness fees, and court costs as well as real and punitive damages. Lisa M. Sardinia

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Sources for Further Study Anderson, Robert C. A Look Back: The Birth of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth Press, 1997. Congressional Quarterly Almanac. “Sweeping Law for Rights of Disabled: Private Discrimination Barred; Access Mandated.” 46 (1990): 447-461. Gostin, Lawrence O., and Henry A. Beyer, eds. Implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act: Rights and Responsibilities of All Americans. Baltimore: P. H. Brookes, 1993. Johnson, William G. The Americans with Disabilities Act: Social Contract or Special Privilege? Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1996. Perritt, Henry H. Americans with Disabilities Act Handbook. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1990. Reams, Bernard D., Jr., Peter J. McGovern, and Jon S. Schultz. Disability Law in the United States: A Legislative History of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Public Law 101-336. 6 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1992. Shapiro, Joseph P. No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement. New York: Times Books, 1993. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Staff. Americans with Disabilities Act with Resource Directory. Indianapolis: JIST Works, 1992. West, Jane, ed. The Americans with Disabilities Act: From Policy to Practice. New York: Mill Bank Memorial Fund, 1991. See also: Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963); Architectural Barriers Act (1968); Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970); Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972); Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974); Age Discrimination Act (1975); Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975); Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978); McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987); Family and Medical Leave Act (1993).

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Oil Pollution Act of 1990 Date: August 18, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 486 Public law: 101-380 U.S. Code: 33 § 2701 Categories: Environment and Conservation

Congress passed comprehensive environmental legislation, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, in response to the grounding of the Exxon Valdez. Congress turned its attention to legislation regulating oil spills following the grounding of the oil tanker Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The oil spill and accompanying damage to the wildlife and its ecosystem were the subject of broadcast news for weeks following the accident and rallied public pressure for action. Previous Legislation To be effective, oil spill legislation had to be at the federal level, because state and local governments could legislate only those terminals and facilities within their jurisdictions. Comprehensive federal legislation had to address not only pollution cleanup problems but also the entire transport system. A number of laws already existed that addressed some of the problems. The earliest of these, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1970, concerned oil spilled into the navigable waters of the United States. The Deepwater Ports Act of 1974 covered spillage in the territorial sea, which extends twelve miles from the U.S. coasts, and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1978 covered oil spilled into the waters of the Exclusive Economic Zone. In 1980, Congress had passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, which created the first “superfund.” The fund was designed to provide the resources needed to clean up an oil spill if a cargo or ship owner was unwilling or unable to pay for it. Provisions The Oil Pollution Act addressed not only the prevention of oil pollution but also oil pollution response and cleanup. It set standards 1480

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for crew certification, work hours, and vessel traffic systems. Further, the legislation set new design and life-span requirements for tank vessels and addressed the question of liability for the cleanup of spills and accidents involving tank vessels. Finally, the bill continued provisions for the superfund established by the 1980 act. The bill had eight sections, each of which added something to the existing body of law. In the first two, Congress significantly increased the liability of the “polluter” and added third-party liability, as well as addressing the new law’s relationship with already existing regulations and allowing states to override the federal standards with stricter legislation of their own. The third section addressed the international aspects covered by the act, and the fourth set higher standards for the industry. Issues specifically related to the Prince William Sound situation were covered in the fifth section, in which provisions were made for a technical committee, better oversight of the tanker terminal, and modifications to the navigation aids in that area. The act went on to address miscellaneous issues such as administrative appropriations and a ban on drilling off the North Carolina coast; oil pollution research and development programs, which included recommendations for the types of equipment required to track and contain oil spills; and liability and pollution issues associated with oil transported by pipeline. Impact The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was a far-reaching piece of legislation. Almost immediately, the act had a dramatic impact, not only on the operation of tanker fleets in the United States but also on the operation of international tanker fleets that called at American ports. The act mandated new standards that required both short-term and long-term adaptation on the part of the maritime industry. The legislation also had a significant impact on the government because it required that a number of agencies, including the Department of Energy, institute the new policies and programs and cooperate in implementing the stricter standards. The U.S. Coast Guard, for example, was made responsible for issues such as crew licensing, vessel inspection, and plans to deal with oil spills and oil transfers. 1481

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The act also generated the need for new agencies, such as the Marine Spill Response Corporation, to support oil spill recovery procedures. Vessels specially designed, equipped, and staffed to handle oil spills were stationed around the country, their crews permanently on call to respond to emergencies. The act affected owners and operators of U.S.-flag tank vessels as well as their crews, who were subject to a new set of certification and licensing standards. The Coast Guard began checking the driving records of all applicants, and periodic renewal became mandatory for a number of endorsements, or jobs, for which crew members were certified. Daily ship operations were also affected by the legislation. To cut down on shipboard fatigue, which often underlies human error, the act limited work hours to no more than twelve per day. That in turn usually required vessels, in order to operate competitively, to hire additional crew. The act also addressed the issue of vessel obsolescence by requiring that all vessels calling in U.S. ports be double-hulled by the year 2015. Shipyards and ship repair facilities worldwide had to develop plans to meet the new construction standard. Ship terminals, too, were affected by the legislation, which required that they develop and maintain oil spill contingency plans and provide terminal operations manuals to shipboard and shoreside personnel during oil transfers. The law has also had an effect on nonmaritime businesses such as banking and insurance: The act called for minimum insurance coverage and strengthened the government’s power to enforce oil pollution liability. Robert J. Stewart Sources for Further Study Alaska Oil Spill Commission. Spill, Wreck of the Exxon Valdez. Juneau, Alaska: Author, 1990. National Research Council, Marine Board, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems. Using Oil Spill Dispersants on the Sea. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1989. Smith, Zachary A. The Environmental Paradox. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992. Wardley-Smith, J. The Control of Oil Pollution. London: Graham & Trotman, 1983. 1482

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White, Harris H. Concepts in Marine Pollution. College Park: University of Maryland Press, 1984. See also: Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924); Clean Water Act and

Amendments (1965); Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972); Coastal Zone Management Act (1972); Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974); Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978); Superfund Act (1980); Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987).

Perkins Act Also known as: Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act Date: September 25, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 753 Public law: 101-392 Categories: Education

Designed to make the United States more competitive by developing the academic and occupational skills of all segments of the population, the Perkins Act addressed state and local vocational education programs and services. A reauthorization of the Perkins Act of 1984, the 1990 act shifted responsibility for the design and implementation of vocational programs from the federal government to states and localities. It required participation in planning by those most concerned, including students and parents. While giving state and local educational agencies more flexibility in the design of programs, it also required them to address accountability at the state and local level. Based on the projection that members of certain groups— including those who are educationally and economically disadvantaged, disabled, or limited in English proficiency; and those who are in correctional institutions—will make up an increasingly large segment of the American labor pool in the twenty-first century, this act addressed diversity of the workforce and student body, the skills 1483

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needed to keep the United States competitive, the role that vocational education plays in restructuring schools, professional development, and the accountability of vocational programs. It can be seen as a step toward achieving civil rights for individuals who face barriers to education and employment. Rebecca Lovell Scott Sources for Further Study Felder, Henry, and Sarah L. Glavin, eds. Vocational Education: Changes at High School Level After Amendments to Perkins Act. Collingdale, Pa.: DIANE, 1997. Plawin, Paul. Official Guide to the Perkins Act of 1998. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Career and Technical Education, 1998. See also: Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 (1862); Morrill Land

Grant Act of 1890 (1890); G.I. Bill (1944); National Defense Education Act (1958); Economic Opportunity Act (1964); Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972); Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973).

Older Workers Benefit Protection Act Date: October 16, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 978 Public law: 101-433 Categories: Aging Issues; Labor and Employment

This act ensures that older workers cannot be tricked by employers into losing retirement benefits. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 was designed to deter employers from discriminating against workers over the age of forty. Unscrupulous employers, however, decided to offer early retirement incentives to older workers—often threatening to 1484

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lay off older workers just before they became eligible for a pension—provided that the workers waived their ADEA rights. When one of these schemes was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Ohio v. Betts (1989), that such waivers were perfectly legal. Congress then passed the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) in 1990 to establish procedural safeguards so that such waivers could not be signed in haste and so employers could not target older workers in staff-cutting programs. The OWBPA established the following requirements: The waiver must be written in a manner that can be understood by the average employee; the waiver cannot relinquish non-ADEA rights; the waiver cannot refer to rights subsequently established by an amended ADEA; the employee must be advised in writing to consult an attorney before signing a waiver; the employee can take at least three weeks before signing the waiver; and the waiver can be revoked within one week after signing. The OWBPA provides that the burden of proof about the legality of a waiver falls on the employer. When an employer challenged the OWBPA, the Supreme Court, in Oubre v. Entergy (1998), affirmed that an employee has the right to sue under ADEA if an employer’s waiver agreement fails to comply with these six procedural requirements. Moreover, an employee suing for a violation of the OWBPA need not return the severance pay provided in the waiver. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Crown, William H., ed. Handbook on Employment and the Elderly. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. Gregory, Raymond F. Age Discrimination in the American Workplace: Old at a Young Age. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Handa, Jagdish. Discrimination, Retirement, and Pensions. Brookfield, Vt.: Avebury, 1994. Player, Mack A. Federal Law of Employment Discrimination in a Nutshell. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group, 1999. Segrave, Kerry. Age Discrimination by Employers. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Press, 2002. 1485

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: Executive Order 11141 (1964); Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965); Older Americans Act (1965); Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967); Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974); Age Discrimination Act (1975).

Child Care and Development Block Grant Act Date: November 5, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 1388 Public law: 97-35; 101-508 U.S. Code: 42 § 9858 Categories: Children’s Issues; Health and Welfare

The purpose of this act was to improve child-care options for lowincome families. Many factors influenced the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990. One of the most important factors was that by 1990 more than 50 percent of U.S. mothers of infants worked outside the home. Another was that during the 1980’s criminal charges were filed against child-care workers in various parts of the United States, alleging that they were guilty of child abuse and neglect. The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act attempted to provide child-care assistance for those working mothers while establishing programs and guidelines to train and monitor child-care workers. This act was an effort on the part of the federal government to provide support to states to improve child-care options for lowincome workers. The act provides funds to low-income families to assist them in paying for child care, to increase the number of community child-care centers in the United States, and to pay professionals to train licensed caregivers and to allow such caregivers to attend training classes. Through a series of modest block grants, states receive money so that they can license and monitor child1486

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care facilities. In general, the act has made more child-care options available to working mothers and has contributed to the public scrutiny of those who work in child-care facilities. Annita Marie Ward Source for Further Study Hayes, Cheryl D., John L. Palmer, and Martha J. Zaslow, eds. Who Cares for America’s Children?: Child Care Policy for the 1990s. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990. See also: Sheppard-Towner Act (1921); Aid to Families with De-

pendent Children (1935); Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970); Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975); Indian Child Welfare Act (1978); Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978); Family Support Act (1988); Family and Medical Leave Act (1993).

Pollution Prevention Act Date: November 5, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 1388-321 Public law: 101-508 U.S. Code: 42 § 13101 Categories: Environment and Conservation

This act renewed an old approach to environmental management based on reduction of pollution at the source. Until 1990, with the notable exception of the National Environmental Policy Act (1970), the federal government’s approach to environmental management was remedial and medium-specific (that is, specifically limited to air, water, or land pollution problems) rather than preventive and comprehensive. This approach failed to address several critical issues in environmental management. First, pollutants do not remain in a single medium, such as 1487

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air or water; second, there are many thousands of pollutants, with more being created each year; and finally, dealing with pollution at the point of its release to the environment often created new problems. That was the case with efforts to restrict pollutant discharges into surface water, which led to groundwater pollution as generators turned to on-site storage of liquid wastes in unlined ponds. It gradually became clear that a successful approach must attempt to prevent pollutants from being created in the first place, recycle those that are created, and look at the environment in which pollution takes place as an interdependent ecological unit. The result was the major policy shift reflected in the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. Provisions That Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) established pollution prevention as a “national objective” and declared that pollution can be prevented or reduced at the point of its creation. The law emphasized that the source-reduction approach to pollution management was “fundamentally different and more desirable” than the approach of the preceding federal laws and regulations, which had focused on the treatment and disposal of pollutants rather than on reduction at the source of their production. The PPA specified a hierarchical approach to the reduction and prevention of pollution that enters the environment through recycling, treatment, disposal, or unintended escape. The act defined the most desirable approach as reduction at the source, that is, reducing the amounts of hazardous substances before they enter the environment; reduction should occur in such a way as to reduce the health and environmental hazards associated with release. Pollutants that cannot be eliminated at the source should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner. If recycling cannot eliminate all pollutants, those remaining should be treated. Attempts at disposal or other releases of pollutants into the environment should be regarded only as a last resort. Three Programs The act mandated three specific programs. The first was the establishment of an Office of Pollution Prevention within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) but independent of its “single-medium” programs. The office was made responsible for 1488

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the development and implementation of a strategy to promote source-reduction and reduce hazardous wastes. It was charged with encouraging businesses and other federal agencies to adopt source-reduction techniques, establishing standard methods for measuring source reduction, reviewing regulations to determine their effect on source reduction, determining instances in which the federal procurement process can be used to encourage source reduction, improving public access to data collected under federal environmental laws, and developing a source-reduction clearinghouse, model procedures for auditing source reduction, a training program on opportunities for source reduction, and an annual awards program. This last requirement resulted in EPA’s developing several videos, a speakers bureau, a newsletter, brochures, conferences, courses, and a resource guide to training programs. The EPA also established the Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse (PPIC), which offers a telephone hotline for pollutionprevention questions, an electronic bulletin board, several computerized databases, a reference library, and a document ordering system. In the second program, the act, in order to encourage businesses to practice source reduction, authorized an $8 million, oneto three-year grant program, with funds allocated to those states that match the federal money. Individual states are responsible for developing their own source-reduction programs. The third important program established by the act involves facilities that fall under the reporting provisions of the Toxic Release Inventory established by Title III of the Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act, or SARA. Commonly known as the Community Right-to-Know Act, Title III of SARA requires many businesses and industries to report the amounts of toxic substances released to the air, water, and land each year. These facilities were now additionally required to report their sourcereduction practices and changes in production for each facility and each toxic chemical used, including the quantities of each toxic substance emitted, quantities recycled, and the percentage change in these figures from the previous year. The act also required that the EPA report to Congress every other year on the actions needed to implement the source-reduction strategy and that it provide an assessment of the grant and clearinghouse programs. 1489

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Impact Since its inception, the PPIC responded to tens of thousands of requests for information. Data from the Toxics Release Inventory showed a 35 percent decline in the total amount of toxic chemicals released to the nation’s environment between 1988 and 1992 and a 6 percent decline from 1991 to 1992. In the first four years of the grant program, more than $30 million was awarded to more than one hundred regional, state, and tribal organizations for pollutionprevention activities. The major policy shift legislated with the Pollution Prevention Act was based on the approach taken in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which mandated consideration of the cumulative environmental effects of certain activities. NEPA, one of the most successful U.S. environmental laws, radically improved the way these activities were planned, and it withstood many court challenges and was never substantially amended. After NEPA, however, and until the passage of the 1990 Pollution Prevention Act, federal environmental management had taken a very different course. Most of those laws were repeatedly amended, and although billions of dollars were spent, it is questionable whether environmental quality improved during that time. The greatest significance of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 may lie not in its substantive programs but in its indication of a return to the environmental approach of NEPA. Many of the specific programs defined by the Pollution Prevention Act already existed before 1990. Between the beginning of fiscal year 1988 and May, 1990, the EPA had awarded nearly $10.9 million in multimedia pollution-prevention grants to states; in 1989, the agency published a guidance document for industry to use in its efforts to minimize the generation of hazardous waste; and the Office of Pollution Prevention had been established several years before the act’s passage. By legislatively sanctioning and strengthening these programs, Congress tried to ensure that their preventive, comprehensive focus would continue to shape federal environmental policy. In the wake of the Pollution Prevention Act’s passage, a number of state offices of pollution prevention were established, most of which received grant funding from the act for special projects. In fact, state involvement and response to industry needs generally increased in response to the act; states adopted their own pollution1490

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prevention acts and regulations, and some began to require that companies convicted of violating state laws be environmentally audited. Such increased state activity in turn led to increased industrial compliance. Local governments also became active in pollution prevention, as reflected in such activities as using waste-disposal companies that offer recycling and sponsorship of household hazardous waste pickups and educational seminars on waste minimization and conservation. To what extent these changes can be attributed directly to the Pollution Prevention Act is unclear, but the federal government’s policy shift toward prevention was undoubtedly an important factor. Elise M. Bright Sources for Further Study Bergeson, Lynn L. “Pollution Prevention Act of 1990.” Pollution Engineering 23 (February, 1991): 25-26. Change Management Center. Applying Industrial Ecology. Oakland, Calif.: Author, 1993. McGraw, J. “The Denver Airport: Pollution Prevention by Design.” Pollution Engineering, January 1, 1993, 2-12. Scerbo, Dominic. “The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 and the Revised Toxic Chemical Release Inventory Reporting.” Wire Journal International 26 (March, 1993): 70-77. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Notice of Availability of Pollution Prevention Grants.” Federal Register 59 (February 23, 1994): 8613-8615. _______. Pollution Prevention Incentives for States. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1993. _______. “TRI Releases Decline by 6.6% in 1992.” Pollution Prevention News, March-May, 1994, 1. See also: National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979); Superfund Act (1980); Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986); Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990); Montreal Protocol (1990).

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Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 Date: November 15, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 2399 Public law: 101-549 U.S. Code: 42 § 7401 Categories: Environment and Conservation; Natural Resources

The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments provided comprehensive regulations dealing with some of the nation’s worst air pollution problems, including hazardous air pollutants and acid deposition. On November 15, 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. These amendments were designed to improve and strengthen the regulations already established by the 1970 Clean Air Act and its 1977 amendments, which had given the federal government authority to set national standards to protect human health and welfare. Conditions for Passage A series of events prompted passage of legislation. After years of political obstacles to such an act, the political conditions were right: President Bush supported legislation, and Representative John Dingell (Democrat, Michigan), who had previously opposed similar legislation given his state’s connection with the automobile industry, was more open to the law after a compromise on motor vehicle emissions. There was also a new majority leader in the Senate, George Mitchell, who replaced Robert Byrd, a previous opponent. Mitchell supported clean air legislation. The president’s chief of staff, John Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire, who had worked for air pollution controls in the past, and William Reilly, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), known to have a strong environmental background, were also on board. These changes, all occurring between 1989 and 1990, appear to have been instrumental in the final passage of acid rain legislation. One last influence must be mentioned: Canada. A scientific report released in 1979 confirmed what Canadians had been publicly stating for a long time: that U.S. sources contributed five times as 1492

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much transboundary pollution in Canada as did Canadian sources. This concern spurred Canadians to use a multifaceted foreign policy approach in hopes of gaining U.S. reductions in emissions. Canada attempted to influence U.S. clean air policy through quiet diplomacy (formal diplomatic avenues), interventionist public diplomacy (agreements and conferences), personal diplomacy (interactions between the prime minister and the president), and by strengthening its own domestic environmental programs. Provisions The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments were divided into four main categories: attainment and maintenance of air quality standards (smog); motor vehicles and alternative fuels; toxic air pollutants; and acid deposition (acid rain). Furthermore, the acid rain provision created a new market system allowing the trading of air pollution allowances. Businesses that pollute below established standards may earn air pollution credits which may then be sold to companies that pollute more than the federally mandated standards allow. The provisions on ambient air quality (smog) directly affect ozone, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. Cities that failed to meet standards for human health were allowed six years to come under compliance. An exception was made for Los Angeles, the most highly polluted city in the United States, which was given approximately twenty years to attain the new standards. States were required to initiate or upgrade inspection and maintenance programs, install vapor recovery at gas stations, and otherwise reduce hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions from both small and major stationary sources. States were also mandated to adopt transportation controls that would offset the rapid growth in vehicle miles traveled. In addition, the new act strengthened the ability of the EPA and the states to enforce standards by requiring individual sources of pollution to meet their obligations within a single five-year operating permit. The states were given three years to develop permit programs and submit them to the EPA. Sources were required to pay permit fees covering the costs of operating the programs. The provisions on motor vehicles centered on vehicle emissions, alternative fuels, and the production of “clean” cars. Manufacturers of 1994-model-year cars were required to reduce tailpipe 1493

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emissions of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides and to maintain these standards over a longer vehicle life. Requirements were put in place to ensure that reformulated gasolines would be used in cities with severe ozone problems and that gasoline blended with alcohol (oxyfuels) would be sold during winter months in those cities having the worst carbon monoxide problems. California was instructed to implement tighter emission limits through a combination of vehicle technology and clean fuels—substitutes for gasoline or blends of substitutes with gasoline. In a departure from the 1970 law, Congress required emission limits for all major sources of hazardous or toxic air pollutants. Furthermore, Congress did not leave the determination of “toxic” and “hazardous” to the EPA but instead specifically listed 189 chemicals to be regulated. Congress required the EPA to list the categories of industrial processes in chemical plants, oil refineries, steel plants, and other facilities that emit these pollutants; to issue standards for each of the source categories by the deadlines specified; and to use as a basis the minimum regulatory standards provided in Title III of the law. Moreover, Congress required risk management plans for accidental release of air toxics and established the independent Chemical Safety Board to investigate chemical accidents to determine their causes. Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments centered on reducing the major precursors of acid rain—sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. A two-phase, market-based system was established to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants by more than half. Plants are issued allowances based on fixed emission rates set in the law and on their previous fossil fuel use. They pay penalties if emissions exceed the allowances they hold. Allowances can be banked or traded. In phase 1, large high-emission plants located in eastern and midwestern states were mandated to achieve reductions by 1995. In phase 2, commencing on January 1, 2000, emission limits were imposed on smaller, cleaner plants and tightened on phase 1 plants. All sources were required to install continuous emission monitors to ensure compliance. Emissions of nitrogen oxides were to be reduced by two million tons a year from the 1980 levels. The new act phased out production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloride by the year 1494

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2000 and methyl chloroform by the year 2002. Companies servicing air conditioning for cars are required to purchase certified recycling equipment and to train employees to use this equipment. The EPA is directed to develop regulations requiring reduced emissions from all other refrigeration sectors to their lowest achievable levels. By November, 1992, use of CFCs in nonessential applications was prohibited. Finally, the act mandated warning labels on all containers and products (refrigerators, foam insulation) that enclose CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals. Impact The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments were a notable achievement on several accounts. They are considered the most comprehensive set of regulations ever developed to reduce air pollution. In this regard, the amendments set up controls for three major pollution problems (CFCs, air toxics, and acid rain) that were not covered by the Clean Air Act of 1970 or the 1977 amendments. They clearly limited administrative discretion by specifying the requirements and deadlines for the EPA, states, and regulated industries to come under compliance, and they provided marketlike incentives to encourage compliance. Leslie R. Alm Sources for Further Study Bryner, Gary C. Blue Skies, Green Politics: The Clean Air Act of 1990. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1993. Cohen, Richard E. Washington at Work: Back Rooms and Clean Air. New York: Macmillan, 1992. Environmental Law 21, no. 4 (1991). Special issue on the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Hollander, Jack M. The Energy-Environment Connection. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1992. Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division. A Legislative History of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1998. Rosenbaum, Walter A. Environmental Politics and Policy. 2d ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1991. 1495

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Schmandt, Jurgen, Judith Clarkson, and Hilliard Roderick. Acid Rain and Friendly Neighbors: The Policy Dispute Between Canada and the United States. Rev. ed. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1988. Switzer, Jacqueline Vaughn. Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Vig, Norman J., and Michael E. Kraft. Environmental Policy in the 1990’s. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 1990. See also: Air Pollution Control Act (1955); Clean Air Act (1963); Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970); National Environmental Policy Act (1970); Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977); Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979); Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988); Montreal Protocol (1990); Pollution Prevention Act (1990).

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Date: November 16, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 3042 Public law: 101-601 U.S. Code: 25 § 3001-3013 Categories: Native Americans; Religious Liberty

This act changed the relationship between American Indians and mainstream museums and academic institutions by insisting that rights of scientific inquiry do not supersede basic human rights to respect the dead. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Americans were fascinated with the science of phrenology, a process of measuring skulls to determine intelligence. The so-called science operated on the premise that racial minority groups, including American Indians, were inferior to Europeans, and that this inferiority was detectable 1496

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in their physical appearance. Indian graves were looted to provide skulls for study. Later in the nineteenth century, the U.S. surgeon general allowed Indian remains to be collected from battlefields and other areas, and these were shipped to the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C., for study. Eventually, the remains were transferred to the Smithsonian Institution for exhibit and study. By the 1880’s, Indians were considered a vanishing race and there was a rush to collect Indian remains and artifacts. Many graves were looted to build museum collections. In 1906, Congress passed the Antiquities Act, which made it illegal to excavate Indian grave sites on public lands without a permit. However, Indian remains and funeral objects were categorized as “natural resources,” and universities and museums readily obtained permits. In the 1930’s, Indian artifacts became popular art collectibles and looting burial sites became a major way of supplying the market. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Indian activists began to seek return of remains and artifacts, but their requests were ignored. In the mid1980’s, Indian people sought congressional support to draft legislation for return of skeletal remains and funeral objects. In Indian belief, the remains of the dead should be returned to Mother Earth to complete their journey into the spirit world. However, the museum and scientific communities opposed return of any remains or grave items, stating these were necessary objects for study. Indians countered that all other Americans were protected against grave robbing and human remains were not property to be taken and studied at will. In 1990, Indian groups and the scientific and museum communities worked to craft compromise legislation known as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This law states that all agencies who receive federal funds must notify tribes of all human remains, funeral artifacts, and sacred objects in their collections, including objects of cultural patrimony, or objects that have ongoing importance to the tribe. Indian graves on federal lands are protected, and the sale of human remains and funeral objects is forbidden. NAGPRA permits tribes to negotiate for return of artifacts. Human remains are to be returned to the proper tribe for burial. A review committee appointed by the secretary of the interior mediates disputes; however, dissatisfied parties can go to court. The Smithsonian Institution is exempt from NAGPRA regulations, but the national museum does work closely 1497

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with tribes on return of human remains. NAGPRA, though it has some loopholes, is an important piece of legislation, because it recognizes the sanctity of tribal religious teachings and honors the rights of American Indians to oversee and maintain cultural continuity from generation to generation. Carole A. Barrett Sources for Further Study Bray, Tamara L., ed. The Future of the Past: Archaeologists, Native Americans and Repatriation. New York: Garland Publishing, 2001. Mihesuah, Devon A., ed. Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. Swindler, Nina, et al., eds. Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 1997. See also: American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978); Alaska

National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980).

Immigration Act of 1990 Date: November 29, 1990 U.S. Statutes at Large: 104 Stat. 4978 Public law: 101-649 Categories: Immigration

This law set numerical limits for immigrants to the United States and established a system of preferences to determine which of the many applicants for admission should be accepted. This law was passed in response to a widespread belief among legislators and the general public that many of the economic and social ills of the United States are caused by large populations of poor, non-English-speaking immigrants and in response to a growing need for skilled workers in technical fields in an increasingly inter1498

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national marketplace. The act, one of a number of immigration laws passed since the Immigration Act of 1891, set numerical limits for immigrants to the United States and established a system of preferences to determine which of the many applicants for admission should be accepted. Under the terms of the 1990 act, only 675,000 immigrants, not including political refugees, were to be admitted to the United States each year. These immigrants were eligible for preferential admission consideration if they fell into one of three groups: immigrants who had family members already legally in the country; employment-based immigrants who were able to prove that they had exceptional ability in certain professions with a high demand; and those from designated underrepresented nations, who were labeled “diversity immigrants.” Because the new law nearly tripled the annual allotment of employment-based immigrants from 54,000 to 140,000, business and industry leaders heralded their increased opportunity to compete internationally for experienced and talented engineers, technicians, and multinational executives. Others believed that the preference for certain kinds of workers masked a preference for whites over nonwhites, and wealthier immigrants over poorer. Divisions over the law between racial and political groups intensified when successful lobbying led to refinements in the law making it easier for fashion models and musicians, especially from Europe, to gain visas, while efforts to gain admittance for more women fleeing abuse in African and Muslim nations failed. The act made it easier for certain people—contract workers, musicians and other artists, researchers and educators participating in exchange programs—to perform skilled work in the United States on a temporary basis, with no intention of seeking citizenship. At the same time, the new law made it more difficult for unskilled workers, such as domestic workers and laborers, to obtain immigrant visas. Finally, the Immigration Act of 1990 attempted to correct criticism of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act by increasing that act’s antidiscrimination provisions and increasing the penalties for discrimination. In a significant change in U.S. immigration law, the act revised the reasons a person might be refused immigrant status or be deported. After 1952, for example, communists were denied permission to enter the country on nonimmigrant work visas and were subject to deportation if identified, and 1499

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potential political refugees from nations friendly to the United States were turned away as a matter of foreign policy. Under the new law, a wider range of political and ideological beliefs became acceptable. Cynthia A. Bily Sources for Further Study Kavass, Igor I., and Bernard D. Reams, eds. Legislative History of the Immigration Act of 1990. Public Law 101-649. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1997. National Immigration Project. Immigration Act of 1990 Handbook: The Complete Guide to the 1990 Act. New York: Clark Boardman Callaghan, 1994-1995. See also: Immigration Act of 1917 (1917); Immigration Act of

1921 (1921); Immigration Act of 1924 (1924); Immigration Act of 1943 (1943); Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952); Refugee Relief Act (1953); Communist Control Act (1954); Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (1965); Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (1986); Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987).

Civil Rights Act of 1991 Date: November 21, 1991 U.S. Statutes at Large: 105 Stat. 1071 Public law: 102-166 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties

This act restored equal-opportunity law to its status before 1989, the year in which several Supreme Court decisions weakened two decades of legal precedents. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 has been described as among the most sweeping civil rights laws to be passed by Congress. In response to 1500

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several adverse decisions by the Supreme Court, Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John C. Danforth jointly sponsored the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which was drafted with the objective of overturning these decisions. President George H. W. Bush, who had vetoed a similar bill in 1990, signed the bill into law in 1991. Reversing Supreme Court Rulings Through congressional hearings, Congress concluded that additional remedies under federal law were needed to deter unlawful harassment and intentional discrimination in the workplace; decisions of the Supreme Court had weakened the effectiveness of federal civil rights protection; and legislation was necessary to provide additional protection against unlawful discrimination in employment. The expressed purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 was to restore the state of discrimination law to what it had been before 1989, the year in which a conservative Supreme Court issued several decisions that seriously threatened the enforceability of equal opportunity laws. The act further expanded the scope of coverage of relevant civil rights statutes to include individuals or plaintiffs who sued under the Age Discrimination Act (ADA) or the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and granted coverage to federal employees of Congress and employees of U.S. companies located in foreign countries. Title VII Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had made it unlawful to discriminate in employment because of race, ethnicity, color, sex, or religion. The primary issue facing judicial bodies empowered to adjudicate claims of discrimination was to define what employment practices violated Title VII and other antidiscrimination laws. Traditionally, employers screened potential employees by the use of general intelligence and aptitude tests, word-of-mouth recruiting, and other subjective criteria that disproportionately excluded or disparately impacted minorities from employment and promotion. In Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), which is considered the most important decision in the evolution of equal employment opportunity law, the Supreme Court had articulated the major principle that invalidated general intelligence tests and other criteria that had the effect of excluding minorities, regardless of the intent of the employer. The Court stated that if any criteria had 1501

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a disparate impact upon the protected group, the criteria were unlawful and could be sustained only if they were related to the job and necessary for business. The burden of proof to rebut the claim shifted to the employer once the possibility of discrimination had been shown through statistical or other evidence. In 1989, the Supreme Court issued several decisions that reversed the Griggs burden-of-proof standard and several other major legal principles governing unlawful discrimination. In Wards Cove Packing Company v. Atonio, the Supreme Court changed the Griggs standard by holding that employees not only must show that they were disparately and discriminatorily impacted but also must prove that the employer could have employed alternate ways with less disparate impact. In Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the Court held that even after the employer has been found guilty of unlawful discrimination, it could still escape liability by showing that the employee would have been dismissed or treated differently for another nondiscriminatory reason. These changes made it significantly more difficult for plaintiffs to prevail in suits. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 restored the Griggs principle. It also reversed the Price Waterhouse decision, stipulating that an unlawful practice is established when the complaining party demonstrates that race, color, religion, or national origin was a motivating factor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the decision. Civil Rights Act of 1866 In Paterson v. McLean Credit Union (1989) the Supreme Court severely limited section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 when it held that the act covered only unlawful discrimination with regard to race and national origin at the time of hiring. Acts of discrimination that occurred after hiring were no longer illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 reversed this decision by prohibiting pre- and post-employment discrimination. In Lorance v. AT&T Technologies (1989) the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of discrimination charges by female employees who charged that the implementation of a new seniority system discriminated against them. This decision established the principle that although women had been adversely affected by a new seniority policy, their complaint was barred because the statute of limita1502

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tions had expired. The Supreme Court ruled that the timing began at the time of the policy change and not when the women became aware of the discriminatory effects of the policy. This reasoning was criticized on the grounds that an individual often may not know the discriminatory impact of the policy change until long after the statute of limitations for filing has passed. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 restored the legal principle that the statute of limitations began when the individual becomes aware of the discrimination. Consent Decrees Many municipalities have entered into consent decrees that grant relief to minority employees to avoid lengthy and costly litigations. Such consent decrees may adversely affect the interests of white male employees. However, all parties affected by the decree are notified and given an opportunity to intervene to protect the interests of their members. Once the consent decree has been approved by the court, it cannot be challenged in the future. In Martin v. Wilks (1989) the Supreme Court established a new principle. It allowed new white firefighters who were not a party to the original consent decree and judgment to reopen the decision. Had this new principle been allowed to stand, it would have threatened the validity of hundreds of consent decrees in the United States. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 reversed this decision. The act precluded any later challenge by a present employee, former employee, or applicant to a consent decree granting affirmative rights to minority employees. Remedies to Plaintiffs Several major differences existed between section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and other equal opportunity laws with respect to remedies available to plaintiffs. Whereas a plaintiff had a right to a jury trial and compensatory and punitive damages under section 1981 of the 1866 act, plaintiffs who sued under Title VII, the ADA, and the Rehabilitation Act had no right to a jury trial and could only seek compensatory damages. The Civil Rights Acts of 1991 expanded these rights accorded to plaintiffs under section 1981 to plaintiffs who were subjected to intentional discrimination under Title VII, the ADA, and the Rehabilitation Act. 1503

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Federal Employees Another notable limitation in the equal opportunity law was the absence of protection from discrimination for federal employees and U.S. citizens working in U.S. firms overseas. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 extended the right to sue to federal employees in the legislative and executive branches under Title VII, ADA, and the Rehabilitation Act. One exception was made to the definition of unlawful practices: that party affiliation and political compatibility may not be attacked as unfair employment practices. Furthermore, the act extended coverage to U.S. employees employed in foreign lands by U.S. firms. Civil service examinations are required for most jobs and promotions in the public sector. Applicants are supposed to be chosen based on competitive scores earned. It has been charged, however, that these tests are biased in favor of white men in particular and white applicants and employees in general. Generally, a higher proportion of whites will score higher than members of minority groups. To ensure that a larger number of minorities will be hired and promoted, the scores are adjusted for minorities such that some minorities with lower scores occasionally may be selected over whites with higher scores. This adjustment of test scores, which is referred to as race norming, emerged as a contentious issue in the United States. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 expressly prohibits compensatory adjustments to test scores in employment based upon race or other protected characteristics. Richard Hudson Sources for Further Study Cathcart, David A., et al. The Civil Rights Act of 1991. Philadelphia: American Law Institute, 1993. Kmiec, D. W., et al. “The Civil Rights Act of 1991: Theory and Practice—A Symposium.” Notre Dame Law Review 68 (1993): 9111164. McDowell, Douglas, S., ed. Civil Rights Act of 1991: Legislative History. Washington, D.C.: Employment Policy Foundation, 1992. Practising Law Institute. The Civil Rights Act of 1991: Its Impact on Employment Discrimination Litigation. New York: Author, 1992. Reams, Bernard D, and Faye Couture, eds. The Civil Rights Act of 1504

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1991: A Legislative History of Public Law 102-166. 7 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1994. Rutgers Law Review 45, no. 4 (Summer, 1993): 887-1087. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Affirmative Action in 1980’s: Dismantling the Process of Discrimination: A Statement of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1981. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEOC Compliance Manual. Chicago: Commerce Clearing House, 1995. See also: Thirteenth Amendment (1865); Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866); Fourteenth Amendment (1868); Fifteenth Amendment (1870); Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957); Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960); Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964); Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964); Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965); Civil Rights Act of 1968 (1968); Fair Housing Act (1968); Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975).

Twenty-seventh Amendment Also known as: Madison Amendment Date: Ratified May 7, 1992; proclaimed May 19, 1992 U.S. Statutes at Large: 1 Stat. 97 Categories: Constitutional Law; Government Procedure and Or-

ganization

Although it has had little practical effect, the overwhelming public support for this amendment, which places controls on pay raises for politicians, signaled public dissatisfaction with the way in which its representatives were conducting themselves. On September 25, 1789, in response to public pressure, Congress submitted twelve proposed amendments to the state legislatures. These had been introduced by James Madison of Virginia. The first two of these dealt with the formula for congressional representation and with congressional pay. The first would have fixed the ratio of one representative for every thirty thousand people. The 1505

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other required that an intervening election take place before any change in congressional salaries could take effect. The first proposal, had it been ratified and continued, would require that the House of Representatives consist of approximately nine thousand members in the year 2000. In December, 1791, the third through twelfth of the 1789 proposals were ratified and became the Bill of Rights. The first two proposals were ratified by only six states—not reaching the three-quarters required for approval by the Constitution. For years afterward they seemed to have no more than academic or historical significance. Reviving Madison’s Pay Raise Amendment In March, 1982, a student at the University of Texas discovered this bit of history and decided to promote a ratification movement for Madison’s congressional pay raise amendment. This seemed possible because the Madison Amendment did not contain the sevenyear time limit on ratification that had been used ever since Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition) on to the states in 1917. Fueled by public disdain for politicians and the government, the ratification movement gained momentum. Although an earlier decision of the Supreme Court suggests that the ratification process must be “sufficiently contemporaneous . . . to reflect the will of the people,” Congress voted to accept the amendment after Michigan became the thirty-eighth state to ratify it on May 7, 1992. The congressional vote also finally laid to rest a few other amendments that had been proposed but never ratified. These included the Child Labor Amendment of 1924 and the very first of Madison’s group of twelve. Thus, the first of Madison’s proposals became part of the Constitution as the Twenty-seventh Amendment after 202 years. Provisions The amendment provides that “No law, varying the compensation of the senators and representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.” Its purpose is to permit the public to vote out of office any members of Congress who have voted large pay raises for themselves. Although it has little practical effect, the overwhelming public support it received served as an indicator that the public was dissatisfied with the way in which its representatives were conducting themselves. It spoke 1506

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to generalized contempt for “politicians.” It may be that this same attitude contributed to bringing about the change from Democratic to Republican control only two years after the ratification of the Twenty-seventh Amendment. Robert Jacobs Sources for Further Study Farber, Daniel A., and Suzanna Sherry. History of the American Constitution. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1999. Peltason, J. W. Corwin & Peltason’s Understanding the Constitution. 14th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997. Vile, John R. Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-1995. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 1996. See also: Pendleton Act (1883); Hatch Act (1939); Federal Elec-

tion Campaign Act (1972); Ethics in Government Act (1978); Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002).

Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act Date: October 27, 1992 U.S. Statutes at Large: 106 Stat. 3468 Public law: 102-530 Categories: Labor and Employment; Women’s Issues

This law recognized and attempted to remedy the exclusion of women from skilled trades, particularly those in which apprenticeship is required. After the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and other federal civil rights laws that were designed to equalize women’s position in the labor market many inequalities remained. Women were still not to be found in many occupations, especially in such skilled oc1507

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cupations as machinist, plumber, electrician, carpenter, or mason. In most of these skilled trades, apprenticeship programs are required for entry. Few women attempted to enter these occupations, largely because they had been traditionally filled by men. In response, Congress passed the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act in 1992. Congress recognized that two of every three new entrants to the labor market would be women and that significant barriers to women’s employment in the skilled trades continued to exist. The law encourages women to enter nontraditional and apprenticeable occupations by establishing two new functions in the Department of Labor. First, employers and labor unions are to be informed of the availability of technical assistance to assist them in preparing for the employment of women in nontraditional occupations. Second, a program of grants to community organizations was established to provide technical assistance to employers and skills training for women. By 1995, some progress had been made toward achieving the goals of the act, although there had not yet been any large-scale entry of women into nontraditional occupations. The program continued, however, and was expected to bring about more significant changes in the long run. Robert Jacobs Sources for Further Study Kerka, Sandra. Has Nontraditional Training Worked for Women? Columbus: Ohio State University, 1999. United States. Nontraditional Employment for Women Act. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991. United States Department of Labor. Get the Skills That Pay the Bills: Secretary’s Initiative to Support Women and Minorities in the Skilled Trades. Washington, D.C.: Department of Labor, 1992. See also: Equal Pay Act (1963); Pregnancy Discrimination Act

(1978).

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START II Treaty

START II Treaty Date: January 3, 1993 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The United States and the Soviet Union agreed to deep reductions in their nuclear arsenals in an attempt to inaugurate a post-Cold War environment of reduced threats from superpowers. For decades after the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union amassed ever-increasing numbers of weapons. For most of that time, arms control agreements were elusive. The continuous improvement in East-West relations in the late 1980’s paved the way for unprecedented agreements to reverse the arms race in Europe, including the treaty to eliminate intermediaterange nuclear forces (INF) in 1987 and to significantly cut conventional forces in Europe (CFE) in 1990. A year later, culminating almost a decade of arms control talks initiated by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to reduce strategic nuclear weapons, which by definition threatened the territory of the superpowers themselves. Only months after the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty, or START, was signed, however, the Soviet Union dissolved into fifteen sovereign countries. Post-Cold War World The United States and the former Soviet republics—particularly Russia—set about to restructure their relationships in the postSoviet, post-Cold War world. In terms of nuclear arms, two issues were paramount. First, how could START be implemented when one of its signatories no longer existed? It was agreed at a meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 23, 1992, that all the former Soviet republics would be bound by the treaty, that Russia would possess the remaining, permitted nuclear weapons, and that the other former Soviet republics would commit to forgo the acquisition of any nuclear arms. The second issue was how the nuclear reductions called for in START could be extended, acknowledging that the Cold War’s nuclear legacy posed an unacceptable threat that must be reduced even more severely. Accordingly, the United States and Russia began work on a START II treaty. 1509

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Negotiations The president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, was absorbed by numerous issues during his country’s first year as a sovereign state. Russia was threatened by ethnic and national tensions, economic collapse, burgeoning crime, societal instability, tense relations with its newly independent neighbors, and a variety of other problems. Yeltsin, like Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev before him, sought above all else to stabilize relations with the West, particularly the United States. Western cooperation, technical assistance, and financial aid would be critical to Yeltsin’s efforts to address his country’s problems. The United States, as the world’s sole superpower, clearly approached the START II talks from a position of strength. In a Washington, D.C., summit on June 17, 1992, scarcely six months after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and Russia signed a joint understanding to reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals by two-thirds. In Moscow, six months later, on January 3, 1993, Yeltsin and President George H. W. Bush signed the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START II). Treaty Provisions One of the key features of START II was that it called for the complete elimination of heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and all ICBMs with multiple warheads. These land-based ICBMs are considered particularly threatening to international stability because they are effective offensive weapons and are relatively vulnerable to destruction by a preemptive strike. As a result, logic compels leaders in charge of these weapons to favor using them in a time of heightened international tensions. Therefore, eliminating these weapons can be expected to enhance stability in crisis situations. Because the Soviet Union, and thus Russia, traditionally had placed a large proportion of their nuclear warheads on heavy ICBMs, this provision of START II was seen to be of greater benefit to the United States. Although START II was to eliminate the most destabilizing ICBMs, single-warhead ICBMs were still permitted. So were nuclear weapons deployed on aircraft and on submarines. The Central Limits provision of START II placed ceilings on the total num1510

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ber of strategic nuclear weapons, irrespective of deployment. The first phase of this provision, to be completed seven years after implementation of the first START treaty (now known as START I), required that Russia and the United States reduce their number of deployed strategic warheads to 3,800 and 4,250, respectively. (START I had set a limit of 6,000 for each country.) The second phase of START II, which was to be concluded by January 1, 2003, requires a further reduction to 3,000 for Russia and 3,500 for the United States. By this date, all heavy and multiwarhead ICBMs must be eliminated. Unlike its predecessor, START II required that certain classes of decommissioned missiles be destroyed. In general, START I allowed undeployed, decommissioned missiles to be stored or converted. START II could not be implemented until START I was ratified by the respective legislatures and entered into force. In many ways, START II built upon and complemented START I. Specific sublimits placed on submarine- and plane-deployed warheads by START I remain in effect under START II. START I’s ceiling of sixteen hundred total strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (such as missiles and bombers, as opposed to the warheads deployed on them) also remains in effect. START II did, however, change the way that bombers are counted. Under START I, each bomber would count toward the country’s nuclear ceilings as one warhead, regardless of how many warheads were actually on board. START II counts the actual number of warheads on board. Compliance with the provisions of START II was to be ensured by a series of highly intrusive verification measures. U.S. and Russian representatives would be permitted to observe the removal, conversion, and destruction of missiles. Heavy bombers could be inspected to confirm weapon loads. Various other remaining weapons systems must be exhibited to confirm their compliance with the treaty’s provisions. The verification regime of START II built substantially upon that of START I. Ratification Although START II was signed by the Russian and U.S. presidents, ratification of the treaty was not assured. Several factors interacted to complicate the situation. The first START treaty, a precondition for START II, had not gone into force at the time START II was signed. In addition, the Republican Bush administration was re1511

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placed by the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton only weeks after the Moscow summit. Although Yeltsin remained president of Russia, his policies and international agreements, including START II, were seen as too hasty and pro-Western by the new, independent Russian Parliament—a far cry from the compliant Sovietera legislature. Finally, the legal questions arising from the disintegration of the Soviet Union complicated the question of precisely who was bound by START. For these reasons, the Clinton administration withdrew the treaty from Senate consideration until a more opportune political environment could be achieved. The December, 1998, bombing of Iraq by the United States and the Kosovo conflict in March, 1999, played a large part in the delay. START I finally went into force on December 5, 1994. Controlled by the new Republican majority, Senate hearings on START II resumed in early 1995, and in January the Senate ratified the treaty. The Russian parliament also was considering the treaty, and on April 14, 2000, the Duma, the lower house, ratified START II, opening the door to negotiations on START III, which was designed to make even greater arms reductions. Steve D. Boilard, updated by Christina J. Moose Sources for Further Study Arbotov, Alexei. “START II, Red Ink, and Boris Yeltsin.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 49, no. 3 (April, 1993): 16-21. Arms Control Today. “START II: Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offense Arms.” 23, no. 1 (January/ February, 1990): S5-S8. Mendelsohn, Jack. “Next Steps in Nuclear Arms Control.” Issues in Science and Technology 9, no. 3 (Spring, 1993): 28-34. Quester, George H., and Victor A. Utgoff. “Toward an International Nuclear Security Policy.” Washington Quarterly 17, no. 4 (Autumn, 1994): 5-19. U.S. Department of State Dispatch. “START II Treaty Approval Urged.” 4, no. 20 (May 17, 1993): 345-347. Winkler, Allan M. “Keep Pressing for Arms Control.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 39, no. 37 (May 19, 1993): B1-B4. 1512

Family and Medical Leave Act See also: Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968); SALT I Treaty

(1973); SALT II Treaty (1979); INF Treaty (1987); U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002).

Family and Medical Leave Act Date: February 5, 1993 U.S. Statutes at Large: 107 Stat. 6 Public law: 103-3 U.S. Code: 29 § 2601 Categories: Children’s Issues; Health and Welfare; Women’s Issues

This law was the first federal act to protect employment status for workers who need to take leave in order to care for a sick relative or newborn child. On February 3, 1993, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, a comprehensive plan to ensure job security and leave opportunities for U.S. employees in times of family and medical need or crisis. President Bill Clinton signed the act into law on February 5, and it took full effect on August 6, 1993. Changing Social Conditions Through much of the twentieth century, the paradigm for families in North America was clearly defined: Husbands worked in the marketplace and provided financial support, and wives stayed home managing domestic life and child care. Women looked after children or ailing family members. Husbands tended to be “company men,” so employers were not likely to accommodate family crises. Extended families were concentrated; there was often a grandparent, cousin, or other relative nearby who could help with family caretaking. Shifts in lifestyles, demographics, and work patterns had rendered this paradigm virtually meaningless by the 1980’s. The number of women in the workforce increased dramatically during the wartime 1940’s, declined temporarily after the war’s end, but then 1513

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grew again. Economic realities engendered double-income families, and the women’s movement encouraged women to establish their own careers. Only 19 percent of women in the United States worked outside the home in 1900, but by the early 1990’s, that figure was as high as 74 percent. With increased rates of divorce and unmarried parenthood, single-parent families became common, especially in inner-city, impoverished, and minority communities. In 1988, 27 percent of families had a single parent, twice the percentage of 1970. Another change was the increase in life expectancies as a result of advances in medical technology, both in general and in the treatment of serious illnesses. People lived longer, and the U.S. population as a whole had aged dramatically. In 1993, the thirty-two million citizens over the age of sixty-five constituted 12 percent of the populace and was its fastest-growing segment. Home care of the elderly often was viewed as preferable to institutionalization, and many serious illnesses could be treated without hospitalization. According to the National Council on Aging, at least 20 percent of the workforce had some caregiving responsibilities. As a result of these factors, a vast majority of U.S. workers potentially faced difficult choices between work and family. A 1990 study by the Southport Institute for Policy Analysis estimated that 11 percent of caregivers were forced to quit their jobs to care for relatives. The U.S. Small Business Administration estimated that 150,000 workers were losing their jobs annually because they could not take medical leave. Others found their jobs less than secure upon returning from leave. In the absence of a national policy, even sympathetic employers could change policy without notice. The employee had little true protection. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 provided certain guarantees, but comprehensive federal legislation was needed. Prior to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the United States was the only industrialized nation in the world without such a law; Japan provided twelve weeks of pregnancy leave with partial pay, and Canadian women were given forty-one weeks. Sweden offered eighteen months of family leave for use at the time of birth and when a child entered school. Norway, Austria, France, England, and Luxembourg had laws that provided leave for the care of an elderly parent. 1514

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Passage and Provisions Family and medical leave legislation was proposed several times during the 1980’s, only to meet congressional gridlock and presidential vetoes. Earlier versions of the act were very strong, offering up to twenty-six weeks of leave. Conservatives of both parties feared that such legislation would weigh heavily on businesses and strongly opposed any federally mandated employee policies. President George H. W. Bush vetoed a watered-down 1992 bill, offering instead his own plan based on refundable tax credits for employers. Even the 1993 measure was almost blocked by Senate Republicans with an extraneous amendment reaffirming the ban on homosexuals in the military. However, in the opening weeks of the Clinton administration, the 1993 act was passed by bipartisan margins in both houses. The Family and Medical Leave Act required U.S. employers to offer limited unpaid leave in four circumstances: upon the birth of an employee’s child; upon the arrival of an adopted child; in cases in which the employee is needed to provide care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition; or in cases in which the employee is afflicted with a debilitating health condition. The act also provided definitions and restrictions to balance employers’ and employees’ interests. It ensured that employees returning from leave be given the same or a comparable position and salary with full benefits reinstated. The act exempted businesses with fewer than fifty employees, which could be seriously impaired by the loss of essential employees, and established employee eligibility according to length of employment. It also dealt with issues such as the substitution of available paid leave, advance notification of leave-taking, and formal certification of debilitating health conditions. The act established a bipartisan, sixteen-member Commission on Leave and gave the secretary of labor investigative authority for enforcement. It also opened the door for employees to initiate civil actions to remedy alleged violations. Response and Impact The act was viewed by many as a halfway measure that achieved more by its mere existence than by its specific guarantees. The national policy stopped short of numerous state laws and countless corporate policies already in effect. Conversely, an estimated 50 1515

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percent of U.S. workers did not work enough hours or for large enough companies to be covered. The cost to the employee of unpaid time off remained too high for many workers to afford to leave to take care of family problems. In 1992, the Family and Work Institute released a three-year study of a thousand companies in Rhode Island, Oregon, Minnesota, and Wisconsin regarding compliance with state leave laws. Ninety-one percent reported no trouble adapting to state rules; 94 percent of leave takers had returned to their positions; and 75 percent of supervisors reported a positive effect on company business. It was estimated to be two to five times as expensive to replace an employee permanently as to grant temporary leave. A large number of companies with established leave policies, including such giants as DuPont, AT&T, and Aetna, reported limited problems and favorable results—including cost-effectiveness—from their family leave programs. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 established important guarantees without a major overall effect on either the nation’s economic health or its business practices. It helped to standardize those practices and relieve family leave policy making of the pressures of business competitiveness. Since the act has taken effect, hundreds of lawsuits and complaints have been brought to the courts and the Department of Labor. In 1995, new rules were issued to clarify the situations covered by the act and the procedures required of both employees and employers in requesting and granting leave. Barry Mann Sources for Further Study Bauer, Gary L. “Leaving Families Out.” National Review 45, no. 6 (March 29, 1993): 58-60. Congressional Digest. “Family and Medical Leave Legislation.” 72, no. 1 (January, 1993): 2-32. Maynard, Roberta. “Meet the New Law on Family Leave.” Nation’s Business 81, no. 4 (April, 1993): 26. Murray, Marjorie. “Family Leave: Read This Before You Take (or Give) It.” Working Woman 20, no. 5 (May, 1995): 15. Saltzman, Amy. “Time Off Without Pain.” U.S. News & World Report 115, no. 5 (August 2, 1993): 52-55. 1516

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Wilcox, Brian L., and Janet E. O’Keefe. “Families, Policy, and Family Support Policies.” Prevention in Human Services 9, no. 1 (1990): 109-125. Wisenale, Steven K., and Michael D. Allinson. “Family Leave Legislation: State and Federal Initiatives.” Family Relations 38, no. 2 (1989): 182-189. Zuckman, Jill. “Provisions: Family Leave Law.” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 51, no. 7 (February 13, 1993): 335. _______. “Top Priority Given Family Leave Bill.” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 51, no. 2 (January 9, 1993): 79. See also: Age Discrimination Act (1975); Pregnancy Discrimina-

tion Act (1978); Family Support Act (1988); Americans with Disabilities Act (1990); Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990).

National and Community Service Trust Act Date: September 21, 1993 U.S. Statutes at Large: 107 Stat. 883 Public law: 103-82 Categories: Health and Welfare

This act was designed to coordinate and increase national service programs, establishing, among others, the AmeriCorps program. The National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 was drafted by the Clinton administration and a bipartisan group of legislators. Earlier national service programs include the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to enable young people to restore and conserve public lands; the Peace Corps, established in 1961 to provide service opportunities for young people in less developed counties; and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), established in 1964 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. 1517

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Those promoting the 1993 bill believed that it would encourage civic engagement among young people and would address pressing social problems found among the poor and disadvantaged in the United States. The bill also represents part of the “reinventing government” movement, which supports innovative means, such as private-public partnerships, for solving public problems. The 1993 legislation both built upon and amended the National and Community Service Act of 1990. Signed by President George H. W. Bush, the 1990 legislation created the Points of Light Foundation, which was a private and nonprofit corporation, and established the Commission on National and Community Service. The commission directed model service programs and educational programs for students in elementary and secondary schools. The 1993 act eliminated the Commission on National and Community Service and established a public corporation, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), to oversee and network federal service programs. A board of directors consisting of private citizens governs the CNCS. The act also established two programs to be overseen by the CNCS, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America. VISTA was made a part of AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps AmeriCorps is the best-known program established by the 1993 act. Through this program, young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four work in poor and disadvantaged communities to help health and educational needs. In addition to a small stipend, participants receive financial support for college education. In its first year, 20,000 young people participated. At the end of 2001, more than 250,000 had served under the auspices of the program. Participants in AmeriCorps-VISTA work in existing agencies, mostly state agencies and some national nonprofit organizations, which have sought additional support. Participants in AmeriCorpsNational Civilian Community Corps work for ten months and are based in five regional campuses; they work in teams of ten to fifteen on public safety and public health projects. Senior Corps The CNCS also supports Senior Corps, a program that provides opportunities for Americans over fifty-five years of age. Senior Corps directs three programs: Retired and Senior Volunteer Program 1518

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(RSVP), a program that engages engages people over fifty-five in a variety of programs; Foster Grandparents, a program that provides those over sixty with limited incomes an opportunity to serve young people with exceptional needs; and Senior Companions, provides opportunities for those over sixty to help adult clients with living needs. Such programs continued after the Clinton administration: President George W. Bush, a strong advocate of community service, created the USA Freedom Corps through an executive order and supported legislation that would increase funding for the CNCS. Michael L. Coulter Sources for Further Study Lenkowsky, Leslie, and James L. Perry. “Reinventing Government: The Case of National Service.” Public Administration Review 60, no. 4 (July, 2000). Waldman, Steven. The Bill: How the Adventures of Clinton’s National Service Bill Reveal What Is Corrupt, Comic, Cynical, and Noble About Washington. New York: Viking, 1995. See also: Economic Opportunity Act (1964); Higher Education

Act (1965).

North American Free Trade Agreement Date: Approved November 20, 1993 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Foreign Relations;

Treaties and Agreements

This agreement reduced barriers to the flow of goods, services, and investment among Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 was one in a long series of policy actions reflecting a commitment by the United States government to relatively unrestricted 1519

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international trade and finance. This commitment began in 1934, when, in the depths of the Great Depression, the United States adopted a policy of reciprocal trade agreements. Agreements were negotiated whereby the United States reduced tariffs on the products of other countries that agreed to the do the same for U.S. products. This helped trade to expand and gave each country an opportunity both to sell more exports and to buy more imports. At the end of World War II, this policy was extended by the formation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which involved many countries negotiating at once. GATT negotiations involved a series of “rounds,” with the Uruguay round ending in new agreements in 1994. Free Trade vs. Protection Policy toward international trade has always been controversial. Most economists argue that relatively free international trade encourages each country to specialize in the products it can produce most efficiently. Advocates claim that competition is intensified and innovation encouraged, allowing consumers to benefit from lower prices and higher productivity. Such benefits were evident in products such as automobiles (after the 1950’s) and electronic products (after the 1970’s). However, within each country there are industries that believe they would not be able to compete with imports. U.S. companies producing clothing and shoes, for example, have complained that they are undersold by imports from lowwage countries such as China. One reason that wages are low in China, however, is that labor productivity has typically also been low there. As NAFTA was being developed, many firms and labor unions opposed the liberalization of trade, arguing that competition from imports would reduce job opportunities. These issues were strongly debated in the presidential election of 1992. President George H. W. Bush had initiated and encouraged the formulation of NAFTA, and Democratic candidate Bill Clinton supported it, but Independent candidate H. Ross Perot strongly opposed NAFTA. He claimed there would be a “giant sucking sound” as U.S. jobs were transferred to Mexico. Many environmentalists also opposed NAFTA, claiming that Mexican products had another unfair advantage because requirements for environmental protection were lax in Mexico. Some libertarian groups opposed NAFTA 1520

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on the basis that it did not really provide free trade, because of the substantial bureaucratic involvement required to carry out its many complex provisions. Supporters of NAFTA argued that many U.S. business firms would gain by improved access to Mexican markets. For example, privatization of the Mexican telephone system in 1991 created profit opportunities for U.S. firms who were among the world leaders in this high-tech sector. U.S. firms producing motion pictures, recorded music, television programs, and computer software received much revenue from sales to other countries and often were damaged by intellectual piracy. NAFTA offered them the prospect of improved protection of their intellectual property rights. ProNAFTA forces also argued that the treaty would increase the prosperity of the Mexican economy, increasing wage levels and decreasing the large flow of Mexican immigrants across the southern border of the United States. They also pointed out that the economies of Canada and Mexico were far smaller than that of the United States, and thus were unable to flood U.S. markets with goods. Approval and Provisions The treaty was first approved in Canada, where it was supported by the ruling Progressive Conservative Party, completing legislative approval June 23, 1993. In the U.S. Congress, there was considerable opposition, but strong lobbying by President Clinton secured the treaty’s approval on November 20, 1993. In Mexico, support by the dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari assured relatively easy approval on November 22, 1993. As finally approved, the agreement was a long and complex document. It had four major types of provisions. First, NAFTA reduced, and promised to eliminate, all tariffs (taxes on imports) and most nontariff barriers (such as quantitative quotas on imports) among the three countries. These liberalizations were to be spread over fifteen years, but two-thirds of Mexican imports to the United States and half of U.S. exports to Mexico were duty-free or became so immediately. Government contracts were to be open to competitive bidding by firms from all three countries. Second, NAFTA provided rules to protect investment and intellectual property rights. NAFTA expanded Canadian and U.S. companies’ ability to set up or buy a business in Mexico and made it eas1521

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ier for them sell out if they wanted to quit. U.S. and Canadian banks were given greater freedom to invest in Mexican banks. Restrictions on bringing profits back were removed. Protection of intellectual property rights involved patents, copyrights, trademarks, and computer software. U.S. firms strongly desired protection against people copying books, records, videotapes and audiotapes, and software without permission or payment of royalties. This had been more of a problem in Mexico than in Canada. Third, NAFTA reduced barriers to trade in services, such as banking and finance, transportation, telecommunications, and audiovisual activities. Mexico extended temporary work permits to service providers from Canada and the United States. Last, NAFTA provided administrative procedures to settle disputes over the way each country applied the rules. Special commissions were created to exert influence over environmental policies and over labor-market conditions. Impact NAFTA did not have a large immediate impact on economic relations between the United States and Canada, since their trade, services, investment, and intellectual property conditions were already on a relatively harmonious basis. For the first year after NAFTA’s adoption, both the United States and Mexico appeared to benefit. U.S. export sales to Mexico and imports from Mexico increased substantially. Mexico benefited from substantial capital inflow, increasing production capacity, and improving technology. In December, 1994, however, Mexico was hit by a financial crisis that resulted in a devaluation of the Mexican peso by about one-half. The International Monetary Fund attributed the panic to a reaction by Mexican investors to a large government deficit and declining foreign reserves. Inflation in Mexico had been running at a rate of nearly 200 percent per year. Feeling the peso was overvalued, investors sold Mexican securities and used the proceeds to buy dollars and other foreign currency. Previous NAFTA opponents pointed to the panic as justification for their views, although the panic could not be directly traced to NAFTA. The panic led to severe economic depression in Mexico. As Mexican prices and incomes fell, Mexicans reduced their purchases of imports and U.S. export sales to Mexico fell by 40 percent in the spring of 1995. NAFTA did help cushion the impact of the 1522

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crisis on the Mexican economy. Export-oriented areas, such as the city of Juarez, found their sales to the United States greatly increased. In 1995, there was a large inflow of direct investment by U.S. firms eager to buy or build factories and take advantage of the momentarily inexpensive Mexican property, labor, and materials. Controversy over the impact of NAFTA has continued since its inception, with labor and liberal interests generally against the agreement and conservative interests generally for it. In 2001, the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank devoted to “the economic condition of low- and middle-income Americans,” founded by academicians including economist Lester Thurow and former U.S. secretaries of labor Ray Marshall and Robert Reich, noted that all fifty U.S. states had experienced a net loss of more than 766,000 “actual and potential jobs” under NAFTA as of the year 2000. At the same time, U.S., Canadian, and Mexican government officials continued to hail the agreement as a success in lowering labor costs and increasing returns to companies and their investors. While the long-term effects on the economies of these nations remained to be seen, it appeared at the beginning of the twenty-first century that the agreement placed individual workers at a disadvantage when it came to job security and collective bargaining. The debate over NAFTA’s impact formed only part of a much larger discussion that had begun in 1994 at the Summit of the Americas. At that meeting, the heads of state of thirty-four democracies of the Western Hemisphere proposed the Free Trade Area of the Americas, an agreement to unite the economies of the Western Hemisphere into a single free trade zone by progressively removing all barriers to trade and investment. Paul B. Trescott Sources for Further Study Belous, Richard S., and Jonathan Lemco, eds. NAFTA as a Model of Development. Washington, D.C.: National Planning Association, 1993. Cameron, Maxwell A., and Brian W. Tomlin. The Making of NAFTA: How the Deal Was Done. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002. Deere, Carolyn L., and Daniel C. Esty, eds. Greening the Americas: NAFTA’s Lessons for Hemispheric Trade. Boston: MIT Press, 2002. 1523

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Gereffi, Gary, David Spener, and Jennifer Bair, eds. Free Trade and Uneven Development: The North American Apparel Industry After NAFTA. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002. Gianaris, Nicholas V. The North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1998. Grayson, George W. The North American Free Trade Agreement: Regional Community and the New World Order. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995. Hakim, Peter, and Robert E. Litan, eds. The Future of North American Integration: Beyond NAFTA. Foreword by Strobe Talbott. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2002. Kingsolver, Ann E. NAFTA Stories: Fears and Hopes in Mexico and the United States. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001. MacArthur, John R. The Selling of “Free Trade”: NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. McKinney, Joseph A. Created from NAFTA: The Structure, Function, and Significance of the Treaty’s Related Institutions. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. Weintraub, Sidney. NAFTA: What Comes Next? Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994. Zangari, B. J., ed. NAFTA: Issues, Industry Sector Profiles and Bibliography. Commack, N.Y.: Nova Science, 1994. See also: Bretton Woods Agreement (1944); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994).

Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act Date: March 1, 1994 U.S. Statutes at Large: 107 Stat. 1536 Public law: 103-159 U.S. Code: 18 § 921 et seq. Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Health and Welfare 1524

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This legislation established a mandatory five-day waiting period and background check before a handgun could be purchased in the United States. On November 30, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act into law—the first significant federal gun control legislation passed since 1968. Its passage came after a six-year campaign by James and Sarah Brady and Handgun Control, Inc., which was fiercely opposed by the National Rifle Association. Out of Tragedy James Brady had been active in Republican Party politics from the early 1960’s. He had held posts in the administrations of presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. In 1980, he joined the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan as director of public affairs. When Reagan became president in January, 1981, Brady was named White House press secretary. On March 30, 1981, a mentally disturbed young man shot at President Reagan and his entourage as they left a Washington, D.C., hotel at which the president had delivered a speech. Reagan was seriously wounded, as were a Washington police officer and a secret service agent. James Brady was the most seriously injured, with a gunshot wound to the head. For several days, Brady was near death. His recovery was long and painful. He was not allowed to go home for eight months and did not return to work for almost two years. Even then, he continued to suffer paralysis of the left side, problems with speech, and memory difficulties. Sarah Kemp Brady was a Republican Party activist when she met James in 1970. They were married in 1973. At the time Brady was shot, they had a two-year-old son, Scott. Sarah helped her husband in his long recovery. In 1984, when Scott was five years of age, Sarah found him playing with a friend’s loaded pistol. This event, along with her husband’s experience, convinced her to become active in the gun control movement. She called Handgun Control, Inc., the most influential gun control advocacy group, and offered to help. From that point on, Sarah Brady became a tireless advocate for stricter gun control laws. Gun Control: Pros and Cons A proposed federal gun control law, called the Brady bill because of the activism of Jim and Sarah Brady, was first introduced in Con1525

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gress by Democratic representative Ed Feighan of Ohio, on February 4, 1987. The main provision of the bill was a seven-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns. Polls at the time showed that the American public favored such a measure, but the bill was strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association (NRA). The position of the NRA was that any new gun control legislation violated the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, which was ratified in 1791. It says simply, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Legal interpretations of the amendment have usually concluded that some restrictions on firearms are constitutional. During the 1930’s, violence perpetrated by organized crime had led to the passage of the first federal gun control laws. These laws banned private ownership of submachine guns and banned the sale of firearms to known criminals. In 1939, in Miller v. United States, the Supreme Court found that these restrictions were constitutional, since such weapons had no relationship to the formation of a well-regulated militia. The next significant piece of federal gun control legislation was passed in 1968, in response to the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. This law prohibited interstate sales of firearms and required gun dealers to keep records of sales. Defeats Before Passage The NRA worked throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s to repeal some provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act. They had some success in 1986, when Congress voted to repeal the ban on interstate sales of rifles and shotguns. In 1987, the NRA mounted an intense lobbying campaign to defeat the Brady bill and spent approximately two million dollars in the effort. The Brady bill was to be voted on in the House of Representatives in September of 1988. Handgun Control, Inc. and the Bradys lobbied hard for it, and on September 7, a group of 120 uniformed police officers marched on the Capitol in support of it. However, the bill was defeated by a vote of 228 to 182. The Brady bill was reintroduced in Congress in 1990, but it was never brought to a vote because of opposition from powerful members of Congress, including House Speaker Tom Foley (Democrat, Washington). The bill was introduced again in 1991. On May 8, 1526

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1991, the House of Representatives passed a bill requiring a sevenday waiting period for gun purchases. The Senate version, passed on June 28, called for a five-day waiting period. The compromise bill, incorporating the Senate requirements, was passed by the House on November 27, but Republican senators launched a filibuster against it and it never came to a vote in the Senate. In 1992, supporters of the Brady bill once again tried to bring it up for a vote in the Senate, but were unable to get enough votes to end the filibuster. Passage and Provisions By 1993, public support for gun control legislation had increased dramatically. A poll conducted in March of that year showed that 70 percent of all Americans and 57 percent of gun owners felt that there should be more restrictions on the sale of firearms. Passage of the Brady bill was favored by 88 percent of people in the United States. The bill was introduced in the House by Democrat Charles Schumer of New York on February 22, 1993, and in the Senate by Ohio Democrat Howard Metzenbaum on February 24. The NRA and Handgun Control, Inc. kept up their intensive lobbying efforts. On November 10, 1993, the House passed the bill by a vote of 238 to 182. Ten days later, the Senate passed its bill by a vote of 63 to 36. There were significant differences in the bills passed by the two houses of Congress, and a conference committee negotiated for two days before presenting a conference report to both houses. On November 22, the House of Representatives passed the compromise bill by a vote of 238 to 187. In the Senate, minority leader Robert Dole (Republican, Kansas) threatened to block passage of the bill with a filibuster. Dole negotiated with Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, and finally agreed not to block passage of the bill if the Senate would consider modifications to it early in the new year. The Senate passed the bill by voice vote on November 24. Jim Brady called it a “Thanksgiving present for the American people.” The law went into effect on March 1, 1994. Impact Assessments of the effectiveness of the Brady bill after its first year of enforcement were mixed. The NRA and other antigun-control groups asserted that the law not only was a clear violation of the 1527

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Second Amendment but also was ineffective, because it did not keep criminals from buying guns illegally. They pointed to the fact that the Department of Justice prosecuted only four cases under the Brady bill it its first year. They also pointed out several loopholes that have allowed limitations on law enforcement recordkeeping and have exempted pawn shops from some of the rules. Several judges found some provisions of the law unconstitutional, although it has remained in effect pending appeal. The Bradys and other supporters of the bill maintain that it was a success. They pointed to government figures showing that seventy thousand convicted felons were prevented from buying guns under the law in its first year. They admitted that the bill was weak, but asserted that it was an important first step in stopping handgun violence. Jim Brady called his namesake bill “the end of unchecked madness and the commencement of a heartfelt crusade for a safer and saner country.” Deborah D. Wallin Sources for Further Study Cozic, Charles P., ed. Gun Control. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1992. Davidson, Osha Gray. Under Fire: The NRA and the Battle for Gun Control. New York: Henry Holt, 1993. Dickenson, Mollie. Thumbs Up: The Life and Courageous Comeback of White House Press Secretary Jim Brady. New York: Wiliam Morrow, 1987. LaPierre, Wayne. Guns, Crime and Freedom. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1994. Siegel, Mark A., et al. Gun Control: Restricting Rights or Protecting People? Wylie, Tex.: Information Plus, 1995. See also: National Firearms Act and Federal Firearms Act (1934);

Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968); Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984); Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994).

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Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act Date: September 13, 1994 U.S. Statutes at Large: 108 Stat. 1796 Public law: 103-322 Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure

This law provided significant funds for hiring and training community police officers and set more severe punishments for a number of crimes. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act increased punishment for many federal crimes. One of the more controversial provisions of the act had to do with firearms ownership. The act bans the manufacture of certain types of “assault weapons” and limits the number of rounds weapons can hold. Because of this, the National Rifle Association opposed the bill, arguing that such restrictions impinge on the rights specified in the United States Constitution. Such opposition meant that the bill had to go through several revisions before being accepted by Congress and President Bill Clinton. The final bill also placed restrictions on the purchase of weapons, and it contained a provision that individuals who have been convicted of crimes of domestic violence are prohibited from purchasing weapons. Besides addressing weapon ownership, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act increased the penalties for a large number of crimes, specifically gang-related crimes, terrorism, illegal immigration, and fraud at the federal level. Terrorism and illegal immigration are both crimes that are under federal jurisdiction. While fraud and gang-related crimes are not necessarily under federal jurisdiction, the definition of these crimes was expanded under the act. For example, using telephone lines to commit fraud is a federal crime and therefore can be punished under the 1994 act’s provisions. The act also dictates that individuals who have been incarcerated for sex crimes must notify the community to which they are moving following the term of incarceration. One of the most controversial provisions of the act was the “Three Strikes, You’re Out” provision. Under this part of the law, a 1529

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defendant would receive mandatory life in prison if he or she had been conviced in federal court of a “serious violent felony” and also had two or more prior convictions in federal or state courts, at least one being a “serious violent felony.” The other prior offense could be a “serious drug offense.” Finally, the act allocated a large amount of funding for research in criminal justice topics, especially domestic violence and community policing. Over eight billion dollars was set aside to hire and train more than 100,000 new police officers. These officers would be trained to work with community members to help reduce crime in their neighborhoods. Christina Polsenberg Sources for Further Study DIANE Publishing Company, ed. Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-322). Collingdale, Pa.: Editor, 1994. Felde, Jon, Christopher Zimmerman, and Christine Wnuk. States and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Denver, Colo.: National Conference of State Legislatures, 1995. Reams, Bernard D., Jr., ed. Omnibus Anti-Crime Act: A Legislative History of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Public Law 103-322. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 1997. See also: Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968); Or-

ganized Crime Control Act (1970); Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970); Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984); Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994); Violence Against Women Act (1994).

Violence Against Women Act Date: September 13, 1994 U.S. Statutes at Large: 108 Stat. 1902 Public law: 103-322 U.S. Code: 42 § 3796gg Categories: Crimes and Criminal Procedure; Women’s Issues 1530

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This act provided federal protection to the victims of gender-motivated violence. The Violence Against Women Act of 1994, Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, was the result of four years of testimony before Congress and was drafted in response to what its chief legislative sponsor, Senator Joseph R. Biden, called a “national tragedy.” In a 1991 report, for example, the Senate concluded after an investigation of the subject that violence perpetrated by men was at the top of the list of dangers to women’s health in the United States, that every fifteen seconds a woman is battered, and that every six minutes a woman is raped. Signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, the act authorized $1.6 billion in grants over six years to assist state and local law enforcement officers and prosecutors in their efforts to reduce violent crimes against women, including domestic violence. The act also created a federal right to be free from gender-based violence and allowed victims of gender-motivated violence to bring suit for damages. Additionally, the act assured that protective orders against domestic violence obtained in one state would be given “full faith and credit” in other states. Finally, the act increased penalties for federal rape convictions. Timothy L. Hall Source for Further Study Meyer-Emerick, Nancy. The Violence Against Women Act of 1994: An Analysis of Intent and Perception. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. See also: Mann Act (1910); Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984); Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994).

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North Korea Pact Also known as: Agreed Framework of 1994 Date: October 21, 1994 Categories: Asia or Asian Americans; Foreign Relations; Treaties

and Agreements

The threat of North Korean nuclear arms prompted the United States to develop incentives for the complete dismantling of that nation’s nuclear program. The isolated communist dictatorship of North Korea signed a pact, or “agreement framework,” with the United States on October 21, 1994, outlining a timetable for steps by each side that would end in the complete dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program within ten years. In return, the United States promised to reduce trade barriers, supply North Korea with oil to fill its energy needs, and assist in the replacement of North Korea’s old graphite reactors with new, safer, light-water reactors. Experts said the new reactors would be less suited to producing weapons-grade plutonium, the raw material for making nuclear bombs. However, U.S. officials admitted that the agreement posed a risk that North Korea could discard the agreement during the ten-year period and obtain fuel to make nuclear weapons. Sources at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asserted that there was a better than even chance that North Korea had already developed a nuclear weapon but believed that, without the pact, it would have developed many more bombs—as many as one hundred over the subsequent ten years. Withdrawal from Nuclear Nonproliferation Tension had grown between the United States and North Korea as a result of North Korea’s repeated refusal to allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities, which some U.S. experts believed were being used to extract plutonium for nuclear bombs. This refusal was in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, an international agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons that had been signed in 1968 by many countries, including 1532

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North Korea. Moreover, in defiance of International Atomic Energy Agency regulations, North Korea had removed eight thousand highly radioactive fuel rods from a major nuclear complex at Yongbyon. If the rods were reprocessed, which the North Koreans said was necessary for safety reasons, they would yield enough plutonium to make five nuclear bombs. The United States responded to these violations by pushing for trade sanctions against North Korea, which in turn said it would interpret any U.S.-led embargo as an act of war. The standoff was eased by a peace mission in early summer, led by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. The North Korean president, Kim Il Sung, agreed to open negotiations with U.S. government representatives. Kim also suggested a meeting with the South Korean president, Kim Young Sam, which would have been the first meeting between the two leaders since Korea was divided at the end of World War II. After a promising start, however, negotiations were halted by the sudden death in July of Kim Il Sung. They were resumed under the leadership of his chosen successor, his fifty-two-year-old son Kim Jong Il, and the agreement was signed. The Pact and Its Phases The agreement would take about ten years to be fully implemented, allowing at least five years before international monitors would carry out inspections to determine how much weaponsgrade plutonium had been extracted by the North Koreans. It was expected to be at least eight years before all of North Korea’s eight thousand plutonium-laden fuel rods could be removed from the country. This delay in the pact was criticized by South Korea and by some U.S. Republicans, who feared that North Korea would take Western aid money and later renege on the pact. The North Koreans feared that the United States’ commitment to aid would evaporate as soon as North Korea relinquished its nuclear potential. To alleviate fears on both sides, President Bill Clinton’s administration pointed to the pact’s carefully synchronized steps. It also said that North Korea would not possess a functioning nuclear reactor until it fulfilled its side of the pact. The pact was a three-phase plan. In the first phase, scheduled to begin at the time of signing the pact and expected to take five years to carry out, North Korea was to freeze its nuclear program while the United States and its allies undertook a massive aid effort to 1533

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provide North Korea with new sources of energy. The North Koreans would not refuel their Yongbyon reactor and would stop building two larger reactors. The fuel rods already removed were to be properly stored and regularly inspected. In return for the North Korean freeze, the United States and its allies were to begin work on the first of two light-water reactors, at a cost of four billion dollars, most of which would be provided by South Korea and Japan. At this stage, no nuclear components of the reactor would be installed. Pending completion of the new reactors, the United States and its allies would provide up to half a million metric tons of free oil per year. In the second phase, North Korea would allow monitors to inspect the two waste sites that were previously off limits, so that it could be determined how much weapons-grade plutonium had been removed. The North Koreans would also begin sending their rods to a third country. Removal of all the rods was expected to take up to eight years. In return, the United States was to complete work on the first light-water reactor, which would begin producing electricity. In the third and final phase, the North Koreans were to dismantle the plants that were involved in its nuclear weapons program. In return, the United States and its allies would complete work on the second light-water reactor. Renewed Tensions The progress of the pact after the signing was far from smooth. On December 17, 1994, a U.S. Army helicopter that had strayed five kilometers north of a demilitarized zone into North Korean air space was shot down by the North Koreans. One of the two pilots was killed; the second was held by the North Koreans before being released on December 30, after U.S. warnings that any further delay could jeopardize the pact. In early 1995, another problem was encountered. On March 8, North Korea threatened to jettison the agreement if the United States continued to insist that South Korea build the two new light-water reactors. Observers said that it would be humiliating for North Korea to obtain reactors from its long-term enemy, South Korea, because that would prove that South Korea was richer and more technologically advanced than North Korea. North Korea also feared that South Korea would somehow use the deal to gain control over North Korea. The 1534

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Clinton administration pointed out, however, that South Korea was the only country willing to take the lead in financing the lightwater reactors. Furthermore, the Clinton administration protested the diversion of some of the fifty thousand tons of heavy fuel oil supplied by the United States to North Korea for heating and electricity. Intelligence reports suggested that the oil was diverted by officials unconnected with the pact. This type of oil cannot be used to power planes and tanks in North Korea’s army, but it may have been used in industrial sites. According to U.S. officials, the diversion meant either that North Korea’s leadership could not control the implementation of the accord or that it had chosen not to do so. In either case, the incident fueled the fears of some analysts that the leadership of North Korea was unstable or uncertain. Fears escalated in early April, 1996, when for three consecutive days heavily armed North Korean troops entered the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. The zone had been established in 1953 as part of the armistice agreement ending the Korean War. The incursions followed an announcement by the North Korean government that it no longer recognized the demilitarized zone. A few days later, on April 16, President Clinton and South Korean president Kim Young Sam proposed “four-party” talks (among South Korea, North Korea, the United States, and the People’s Republic of China) to bring about a permanent peace deal replacing the 1953 armistice. Plenary sessions of the talks occurred in 1997 and 1998, and in 1998 South Korea’s Kim Dae Jung announced his nonaggressive, pro-economic-cooperation Sunshine Policy toward North Korea, which was followed by ministerial talks between the two Koreas and, in September, by a ceremony inaugurating plans to rejoin the broken railway line between the two nations. On the nuclear front, the United States and North Korea had negotiated a method to store spent fuel from North Korea’s five-megawatt nuclear reactor in canisters, a process completed in 2000. On August 31, 1998, North Korea launched a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile, which was met by the United States with a renewed effort at diplomatic talks. On April 25, 1999, representatives of the United States, South Korea, and Japan announced the creation of a Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) to coordinate policy; the group held meetings in 1999 and 2000. 1535

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In the summer and fall of 2002, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the United States was gearing up for a possible war with Iraq in the event that renewed U.N. weapons inspections in that country failed to prove Iraq’s full compliance with previous U.N. resolutions that it dismantle its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs. President George W. Bush had named North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, as members of an “axis of evil” that might give aid to terrorists. U.S. intelligence had provided evidence that North Korea had been pursuing the manufacture of enriched uranium, which would be of use only in nuclear weapons rather than commercial nuclear energy programs—a violation of both the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Agreed Framework. In the first week of October, U.S. State Department officials confronted North Korea with this evidence, which North Korea initially denied but then confirmed in a stunning admission. President Bush’s response was low-key; he called the admission “troubling” but did not call on the United Nations to censure North Korea and did not threaten military action—a response that drew criticism from those who found parallels in the Iraq situation. In November, 2002, the United States, South Korea, Japan, and the European Union cut off fuel oil shipments to North Korea. North Korea refused to indicate why it had made the admission but maintained that the 1994 agreement had been nullified by this retaliatory action. The United States was not willing to do the same, recognizing the Agreed Framework as its instrument for keeping North Korea in check. The South Korean government of President Kim Dae Jung, which had been pursuing a relaxed “sunshine policy” with North Korea, similarly responded with caution and expressed hopes that the breach could be resolved through diplomatic talks. After a September summit with Japan, North Korea’s diplomatic relations with that nation were on hold over conflicts regarding Japanese aid and repatriation of kidnapped Japanese citizens. As the winter of 2002 set in, North Korea’s citizens faced not only a lack of heat and energy but worsening impoverishment and geopolitical isolation as well. Claire J. Robinson, updated by Christina J. Moose 1536

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Sources for Further Study Albright, David. “How Much Plutonium Does North Korea Have?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50, no. 5 (September/October, 1994): 46-53. Powell, Bill, and Russell Watson. “Headless Beast: North Korea After Kim.” Newsweek 124, no. 3 (July 18, 1994): 18-23. Tai Sung An. North Korea: A Political Handbook. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1983. Watson, Russell. “Home for New Year’s Eve.” Newsweek 125, no. 2 (January 9, 1995): 49. See also: Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968).

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 Date: December 1, 1994 Categories: Agriculture; Business, Commerce, and Trade; Foreign

Relations; Tariffs and Taxation; Treaties and Agreements

The most ambitious trade agreement to date, GATT was designed to facilitate free trade and increase exports worldwide. On December 1, 1994, the U.S. Senate joined the House of Representatives in voting overwhelmingly in favor of what was widely considered to be the most far-reaching trade agreement reached to date. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) slashed tariffs (taxes on imports) by an average of 40 percent in the 124 participating countries. Cuts in tariffs were expected to bring a boom in U.S. exports, leading to more jobs. In addition, American consumers would have access to cheaper imported goods. GATT, which had taken eight years to negotiate, represented a huge leap toward free trade worldwide. A version of GATT had governed most international trade since 1948, but negotiations to expand the agreement began only in 1986. The new GATT was governed by a new organization, the 1537

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World Trade Organization, located in Geneva. This organization had more power over signatory nations than its predecessor, the GATT Secretariat, and had the authority to enforce agreements through the imposition of trade penalties. The Senate’s and House of Representatives’ vote in favor of GATT sounded a rare note of unity between Democrats and Republicans. They were brought together by their confidence that the agreement would revitalize the economy. President Bill Clinton’s administration estimated that the agreement would create half a million new jobs. The administration also predicted an annual increase of $150 billion in U.S. economic growth when the agreement was fully implemented, after ten years. Worldwide, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Growth estimated that GATT’s lower tariffs and higher import quotas (limits on amounts of goods permitted to be imported) would increase world income by $270 billion per year. Reasons for the Agreement Tariffs have been used by almost all nations in the world to protect their own farmers and native industries against competition from cheaper foreign goods. Increasingly, however, many economists have come to oppose such self-protectionist measures. They believe that free trade, without the barriers of tariffs, is the key to worldwide economic growth. The principles of free trade that inspired GATT hold that a country that is good at producing a given product will profit from exporting it to countries that are less efficient at producing that product. In return, a country can use the wealth it gains from exports to buy goods and services that are produced more efficiently elsewhere. It is theorized that, when each country focuses on what it does best, market forces of supply and demand organize distribution for maximum economic growth and consumers benefit from lower prices. However, governments have interfered with these market forces by imposing tariffs and strict quotas limiting the amounts of a product that can be imported, giving the product a false scarcity value that pushes up its price. Opposition and Resistance Not all economists are convinced that promoting free trade through initiatives such as GATT is the answer to the world’s economic problems. Some argue that free trade benefits developed nations 1538

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more than developing nations, since the richer nations can import goods from countries where labor and materials are cheaper. Critics of this view cite the Asian nations as proof of the benefits of free trade for developing nations. During the early 1960’s, these countries were in serious economic trouble. Those that favored free trade (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore) experienced more growth than countries that did not (India, North Korea, and Vietnam). Manufacturing did tend to flow toward sources of cheap labor, but this tendency helped develop the local economy and raise the standard of living. Concerns over the possible negative effects of GATT are not restricted to economics. Cultural conflicts have arisen from the agreement, such as a disagreement between the United States and Japan over rice. The Japanese have always banned the import of rice to protect their own rice crop, which occupies a central position in their culture and religion, but under GATT the Japanese agreed to allow the import of some rice. Although the conflict was resolved, the episode presented an important challenge to advocates of free trade: How far should a country’s cultural traditions be compromised to facilitate world trade? Resistance to GATT also came from within the United States. Critics expressed fears that the World Trade Organization could attack U.S. consumer protection laws (such as the labeling of food product ingredients), worker protection laws, and environmental regulations as trade barriers. Among those who raised questions about the power of the World Trade Organization were Republican Senator Bob Dole, consumer advocate and 2000 presidential candidate Ralph Nader, and various environmental lobby groups. Critics have presented many scenarios to back up their arguments. For example, if the United States decided on ethical grounds to ban the import of South Asian rugs made using child labor, countries that suffered from the decision could take their case to a panel of three World Trade Organization judges. If the judges ruled against the United States, then Congress or the state whose regulation was under challenge would have to decide whether to change that regulation. If the lawmakers refused, trade sanctions could be imposed against U.S. exports. As another example, environmentalists have expressed concern that under GATT, the United States could not impose its own stringent environmental laws on other nations. In 1991, under existing GATT rules whose enforce1539

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ment provisions were far weaker than those ratified in 1994, the United States lost a case brought against one of its federal laws banning the importation of tuna caught in nets that also trapped dolphins. A GATT panel ruled that the United States could not impose its environmental restrictions on the rest of the world. Otherwise, the panel said, the United States could use those restrictions to keep out foreign competitors. In an attempt to allay fears about the World Trade Organization and its possible threat to U.S. sovereignty, President Clinton reached an agreement with Senator Dole to create a commission in the United States to review judgments that the organization makes against the United States. Trade Affected The main areas of trade affected by GATT and its stipulations are as follows. In agriculture, U.S. GATT negotiators were at odds for years with the European Community over agricultural issues. The Europeans wanted to maintain subsidies to their farmers, but the United States wanted subsidies eliminated because they gave an unfair advantage in the marketplace at high cost to consumers. GATT produced a compromise that stipulates that agricultural tariffs be reduced by 36 percent in industrial nations and 24 percent in developing nations. Regarding intellectual property, GATT required all member countries to respect patents, trademarks, and copyrights. This requirement was expected to eradicate the pirated computer programs, records, videocassettes, and prescription drugs rampant in developing nations. Regarding automobiles, restrictions on auto exports, such as those that the United States imposed on Japan, were eliminated. The agreement also banned the widespread practice of requiring high local content in some products, such as cars, a practice that protects local jobs but discourages imports. The agreement also limited the ability of countries to favor domestically owned factories at the expense of foreign-owned ones. Finally, richer nations were required to phase out quotas on clothing imports over a ten-year period. Quotas were to be replaced by less restrictive tariffs. Some of the strongest opposition to GATT in the United States had come from textile states such as North Carolina and South Carolina, which feared that their industries would suffer as a result of cheap foreign imports. 1540

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It seemed inevitable that GATT would continue to provoke conflicts of nationalistic self-interest, but there is also hope that its ratification marked the beginning of a new era of increased global cooperation and trust between its signatory nations. Claire J. Robinson Sources for Further Study Boskin, Michael J. “Pass GATT Now.” Fortune 130, no. 12 (December 12, 1994): 137-138. Dentzer, Susan. “A New Tapestry of Protectionism.” U.S. News and World Report 117, no. 22 (December 5, 1994): 83. Harbrecht, Douglas. “GATT: Tales from the Dark Side.” Business Week, no. 3404 (December 19, 1994): 52. Nader, Ralph. “Drop the GATT.” The Nation 259, no. 11 (October 10, 1994): 368-369. Thomas, Rich. “Tempest over Trade.” Newsweek 124, no. 23 (December 5, 1994): 50. See also: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947);

North American Free Trade Agreement (1993).

United States recognition of Vietnam Date: Announced July 11, 1995 Categories: Foreign Relations

U.S. diplomatic recognition of Vietnam marked the end of the traumatic and divisive Vietnam War era. President Bill Clinton, on July 11, 1995, announced the diplomatic recognition of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam by the United States. Recognition of Vietnam brought to a close a war that officially had ended more than twenty years before. In announcing his decision, Clinton said, “We can now move on to common ground. Whatever divided us before, let us consign to the past.” 1541

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Aftermath of the Vietnam War Concerning Vietnam, moving away from the past had proved a long and agonizing process for the United States. The Vietnam War took the lives of more than fifty-eight thousand U.S. personnel between 1961 and the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. The United States had hoped that the peace agreement of January, 1973, which provided for a cease-fire, withdrawal of foreign troops, return of prisoners of war, and a peaceful reunification of Vietnam, might prevent a communist takeover of all of Vietnam. North Vietnamese forces, however, remained in South Vietnam after the agreement and, after consolidating their areas of control, launched an offensive in March, 1975, that would lead, by the end of April, to complete victory and establishment of one Vietnam, with Hanoi as its capital. The final resolution of the war intensified United States resentment toward Vietnam and made reconciliation with the former enemy even more difficult. An embargo on trade with North Vietnam, imposed in 1964, was extended to all of Vietnam. Nevertheless, President Jimmy Carter, elected in 1976, took some first steps toward a rapprochement by lifting the prohibition on travel to Vietnam, beginning discussions with the Vietnamese government, and accepting Vietnam as a member of the United Nations. These initial steps were halted by the Vietnamese demand in 1978 for reconstruction aid promised in the 1973 Peace Accords. Hostility between Vietnam and the United States was increased in the same year by a Vietnamese friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, recognition of the People’s Republic of China (Vietnam’s historic enemy) by the United States, and Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. From the United States’ perspective, improved relations with Vietnam henceforth were dependent on that nation’s withdrawal from Cambodia, its recognition of an independent Cambodian government, commitment to basic human rights for its own citizens, and, most important, a strict accounting of all U.S. servicemen missing in action or taken prisoner in Vietnam. Roadmap to Diplomatic Recognition The Vietnamese agreement in 1989 to withdraw from Cambodia opened the way for a sequence of steps that ultimately would lead to normalization of relations. In 1991, President George H. W. Bush defined the incremental steps, known as the “Roadmap,” that 1542

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Vietnam would have to take before the United States would grant diplomatic recognition. One of these steps, a peace agreement between Vietnam and Cambodia, was completed in October, 1991. The United States reciprocated in 1992 by permitting U.S. companies to open offices in Vietnam. With the trade embargo still in effect, however, there was little incentive for companies to do so. The next significant development was Clinton’s decision in 1993 to end U.S. opposition to international institutions and other nations making money available to Vietnam. Soon afterward, U.S. businesses were declared free to bid on projects funded by international financial institutions, so that they would not be shut out of business opportunities partially financed by U.S. dollars. Throughout the early 1990’s, the Vietnamese had been increasingly helpful in locating the remains of missing U.S. servicemen. Teams from the United States were permitted to search the Vietnamese countryside; and war records, including the archives of the war museum in Hanoi, were turned over to the United States. Lifting the Trade Embargo One major step short of diplomatic recognition remained: lifting the trade embargo. Debate centered on several issues, including the economic implications of maintaining the trade embargo. The U.S. business community recognized Vietnam’s resources, including oil reserves estimated to be the fourth largest in the world and a labor force with one of the highest literacy rates in Southeast Asia. It also was obvious that other nations were gaining significant investment advantages in the country. Impediments to foreign investments also were recognized, among them inadequate distribution capabilities, state control of businesses, and both a market philosophy and legal system still in flux. The continuing communist nature of the government and restrictions on individual rights raised concerns with many persons in the United States, but others noted that the United States had long done business with a variety of repressive regimes, including China. From a geopolitical perspective, it was argued that an economically strengthened Vietnam would be a counterbalance to Chinese domination in the region. The most emotional issue surrounding the trade embargo and diplomatic recognition of Vietnam was continuing uncertainty 1543

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over the fate of U.S. troops still listed as missing in action or known to have been taken prisoner. The trade embargo was viewed by many as a means to pressure the Vietnamese government into cooperating on the prisoner-of-war/missing-in-action (POW/MIA) issue. On the other hand, many argued that improving relations with Hanoi would both reward the country for past cooperation and encourage future efforts. On February 3, 1994, President Clinton announced an end to the United States’ trade embargo against Vietnam. This decision, Clinton stated, had been based on only one criterion: “gaining the fullest possible accounting for our prisoners of war and our missing in action.” The president continued: Today I am lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam because I am absolutely convinced it offers the best way to resolve the fate of those who remain missing and about whom we are not sure.

Lifting the embargo did not involve granting most favored nation trade status to Vietnam, so tariffs on Vietnamese goods imported into the United States remained high. In addition, U.S. businesses operating in Vietnam would not have the support afforded by a U.S. embassy. Diplomatic Recognition Diplomatic recognition was the next logical step, but it also excited controversy. The arguments for and against lifting the trade embargo, especially regarding POW/MIA issues, were also applied to normalization of relations. President Clinton’s announcement on July 11, 1995, was boycotted by the American Legion and by several family groups, including the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. Members of Congress were divided, arguing either that recognition acknowledged Vietnam’s cooperation and would further the effort to reach as final an accounting as possible, or that it would remove the final incentive for Vietnamese cooperation. As Clinton spoke, he was accompanied by politicians from both parties, including Republican Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war, and Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey, who had lost part of a leg in combat during his tour of duty. “Never before in the history of warfare has such an extensive effort been made to resolve 1544

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the fate of soldiers who did not return,” the president said. He promised that “normalization of our relations with Vietnam is not the end of [that] effort.” Response Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet of Vietnam greeted the resumption of diplomatic relations with an expression of gratitude to President Clinton and a promise that Vietnam would continue to help the United States resolve questions concerning the fate of the missing U.S. servicemen. The U.S. business community generally welcomed the president’s decision but called for additional steps, such as granting most favored nation status to reduce tariffs and making insurance available from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in order to protect U.S. investments. Edward J. Rielly Sources for Further Study Castelli, Beth. “The Lifting of the Trade Embargo Between the United States and Vietnam: The Loss of a Potential Bargaining Tool or a Means of Fostering Cooperation?” Dickinson Journal of International Law 13, no. 1 (Winter, 1995): 297-328. Chang, Tim Tien-Chun. “Joint Ventures in Vietnam.” Commercial Law Bulletin 9, no. 4 (July 1, 1994): 17-19. Howes, Craig. Voices of the Vietnam POWs. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Moss, George Donelson. Vietnam: An American Ordeal. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990. Sutter, Robert G. Vietnam-U.S. Relations: The Debate over Normalization. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1992. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs. U.S. Economic Embargo on Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993. See also: Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987).

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Communications Decency Act Date: February 8, 1996 U.S. Statutes at Large: 110 Stat. 86 Public law: 104-104 U.S. Code: 47 § 151 Categories: Communications and Media; Speech and Expression

Also known as Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, this act revised earlier laws to mandate that telecommunication service providers be held criminally accountable if they failed to censor “indecent material.” In 1995 Nebraska’s Democratic senator J. James Exon responded to increased public concern over the growing use of telecommunications technologies to transmit pornography and to engage children in inappropriate contacts with adults by introducing a bill called the Communications Decency Act. Exon complained that the Internet contained “not simply nude pictures or ‘cheesecake,’ but the most debased, lewd material one can imagine.” There is no valid reason, he said, that “these perverts should be allowed unimpeded on the Internet.” His goal was to “help make the information superhighway safer for kids and families to travel.” Provisions and Debate Exon’s bill broadened the protections already existing in the Communications Act of 1934, and increased penalties for their violation. A key aspect of the law was its replacing of the term “telephone” with “telecommunications device” in order to encompass facsimile (fax) machines, computer modems, and other devices. The act made it a criminal offense to use interactive computer systems to send communications to specific persons, or to persons less than eighteen years of age, that depict or describe sexual or excretory activities or organs in manners that might be deemed patently offensive—as measured by local community standards. The law made violations punishable by prison terms and fines up to $250,000. The act specifically excluded from liability telecommunications and information service providers, system operators, and 1546

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employers who do not knowingly participate in such violations themselves. Immediately after the act’s original bill was introduced to Congress, it met strong criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU); the telecommunication, computer, and publishing industries; and such professional organizations as American Library Association; Human Rights Watch; Association of Publishers, Editors and Writers; American Booksellers Association; and American Society of Newspaper Editors. Passage and Court Reaction On February 1, 1996, Exon’s bill was passed overwhelmingly in both houses of Congress and became part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which President Bill Clinton signed into law a week later. Minutes after the president signed the act—the ACLU and nineteen other groups filed suit at a federal court in Philadelphia to block the new law by challenging its constitutionality. These groups argued that the law would criminalize forms of expression that were protected under the First Amendment. On June 12, 1996, a federal court voted 3-0 to grant a motion for a preliminary injunction on the law’s “indecency” provisions. The court also found that the act went too far in restricting the First Amendment rights of all computer users in its effort to protect children. On July 1 the Justice Department filed papers in Philadelphia asking the Supreme Court to let the law take effect, as President Clinton and a majority of senators and representatives intended. Conservative groups supporting the act promised to help Congress write new legislation if the lower court’s ruling was allowed to stand. Richard Keenan Sources for Further Study Aufderheide, Patricia. Communications Policy and the Public Interest: The Telecommunications Act of 1996. New York: Guilford Press, 1999. Kennedy, Charles H. An Introduction to U.S. Telecommunications Law. 2d ed. Boston: Artech House, 2001. 1547

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties See also: First Amendment (1789); Comstock Act (1873); Communications Act (1934); Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938); Communications Act Amendments (1960).

Megan’s Law Also known as: Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sex-

ually Violent Offender Registration Act

Date: May 17, 1996 U.S. Statutes at Large: 110 Stat. 1345 Public law: 104-145 U.S. Code: 42 § 14701 Categories: Children’s Issues; Crimes and Criminal Procedure;

Health and Welfare

This law required communities to be informed of the whereabouts of sex offenders. In some states persons convicted of sexual crimes were required to register their addresses with state or local police departments, but officials were not required to notify the community and those convicted of sexual offenses often failed to register. After seven-yearold Megan Kanka was kidnapped, raped, and killed in New Jersey on July 29, 1994, her parents and the nation were shocked that the person accused of the crime was a two-time sex offender who lived across the street. As a result, New Jersey adopted the New Jersey Sexual Offender Registration Act of 1994, requiring prison officials to notify communities when a sex offender has been released to live or work in a neighborhood. Similar laws were adopted by the remaining forty-nine states between 1994 and 1996. On September 13, 1994, Congress enacted the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act as part of its omnibus crime control act. This federal legislation required state prison officials to notify local police when a person convicted of sex offenses moves into a neighborhood. On May 17, 1996, Congress strengthened the law by requiring local 1548

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law enforcement officials to make this information available to the community. This amendment became known informally as Megan’s Law. States are allowed to decide how dangerous those accused of sexual offenses are and what type of notification is required. DNA, saliva samples, names, and addresses of convicted offenders are updated in a nationwide database system. In some states the information on such persons is placed in a computerized online database, and journalists and photographers have accessed the information in order to provide publicity for the community. Nevertheless, some two thousand released sex offenders successfully challenged the constitutionality of the statute in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, and the district court ruling was appealed. Michael Haas Sources for Further Study Cohen, Fred, and Elizabeth Rahmberg-Walsh. Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification: A “Megan’s Law” Sourcebook. Kingston, N.J.: Civic Research Institute, 1998. Fodor, Megan Druss. Megan’s Law: Protection of Privacy. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2001. See also: Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974); Pa-

rental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980); Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984); Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994); Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984).

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act Also known as: Welfare Reform Act Date: August 22, 1996 U.S. Statutes at Large: 110 Stat. 2105, 2268 Public law: 104-193 Categories: Health and Welfare 1549

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This act represented the most significant change in public welfare policies since the inception of Aid to Families with Dependent Children in 1935. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 dramatically changed the impact of the welfare system on recipient families. The new welfare system demanded work in return for time-limited aid. Under this act, states were given broad discretion to design their own welfare policies, as long as most recipients were required to go to work and aid ended after two years. A maximum of five years of aid was to be granted over persons’ lifetimes, and state spending on welfare was to be maintained at no less than 80 percent of what was spent in 1994. Some $14 billion was allocated for child care. Recipients’ skills and needs were to be assessed formally, and Medicaid coverage was provided for at least one year after recipients began employment. There were also provisions for stringent child-support enforcement and possible job subsidies. These provisions set out to make welfare a transitional program, to move recipients toward work and family independence. Proponents believed that long-term poverty would be reduced, improving the lives of millions of families. Opponents argued that public assistance would decline significantly without any guarantee of jobs, driving families deeper into poverty. The intensity of the debate highlighted the dramatic nature and significance of the act. David Carleton Sources for Further Study Duncan, Greg J., and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, eds. For Better and for Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-Being of Children and Families. New York: Russell Sage, 2002. Weil, Alan, and Kenneth Finegold, eds. Welfare Reform: The Next Act. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 2002. See also: Social Security Act (1935); Aid to Families with Depen-

dent Children (1935); Family Support Act (1988).

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Defense of Marriage Act Date: September 21, 1996 U.S. Statutes at Large: 110 Stat. 2419 Public law: 104-199 Categories: Health and Welfare; Women’s Issues

This law was enacted to relieve states of any federal obligation under the U.S. Constitution to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Before the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996, issues of same-sex marriages had been prominent in public policy discussions. Although since the 1970’s questions involving same-sex unions have come before various state courts, it was not until 1993 that the question of legal recognition emerged as part of a national debate. At its core was a 1990 same-sex marriage case in Hawaii, Baehr v. Lewin (852 P2d 44 Haw. 1993). In that case a samesex couple, Baeher and Dancel, and other same-sex couples, applied for marriage licenses. When their requests were denied, they filed suit against the state. After an unsuccessful attempt in the lower court, the Hawaiian Supreme Court, in a groundbreaking decision on appeal in 1993, overturned the lower court and held that denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples constituted a violation of the equal protection clause under the Constitution of Hawaii. In rejecting the notion that the right to marry is a “fundamental right to privacy,” the court concluded that by restricting the right to marry of same-sex couples only, the state had created a sex-based class, one that was forbidden by the constitution. Opponents of gay marriage decried this decision across the United States. In Hawaii, the state legislature moved to clarify its marriage law, stating that legal recognition of marriage should be granted only to oppositesex couples. Across the United States, more than thirty state legislatures also moved to define marriage by excluding same-sex couples. The fear was not only that same-sex marriages were contrary to public policy but also that if legally recognized in Hawaii, then, under the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, all other states of the Union would be required to recognize the legal1551

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ity of such marriages. While sixteen states ultimately enacted legislation in direct response to the Hawaii situation, in 1996 Congress acted to minimize developing state concerns on this matter. Passage and Provisions In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The act’s expressed purpose was to relieve states of any federal obligation under the U.S. Constitution to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Introduced simultaneously in the both houses as “a bill to define and protect the institution of marriage,” the final act did two things. First, it amended the federal judicial code to provide that no State, territory, or possession of the United States or Indian tribe shall be required to give effect to any marriage between persons of the same sex under the laws of any other such jurisdiction or to any right or claim arising from such a relationship.

Second, it established a federal definition of “marriage” as only “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and also defined spouse as only “a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” While the law does not impose a federal law on the states or bar states from legalizing same-sex marriages, it seeks to prevent the imposition of one state’s definition of marriage on other states and on federal programs. Critics and Supporters Introduced at the height of a presidential election year, DOMA was viewed by some critics as part of an election year politics. Robert Dole, the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1996, was one of the bill’s cosponsors in the Senate, where it passed 85-14-1. A similar version sponsored by Bob Barr, a Republican from Georgia, overwhelmingly passed the House 290-133-10. President Bill Clinton signed the final version into law on September 21, 1996. Alarmed by the case that made Hawaii the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 1993, conservative supporters of DOMA argued that the traditional family has stood for five thousand years and should not be changed. Opponents and liberal supporters of same-sex unions argued that DOMA violates constitutional requirements and that states must recognize legal contracts made in 1552

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other states; they also argued that DOMA furthers the politics of fear and division, inciting people in an area that is admittedly controversial. The Defense of Marriage Act as enacted remained law as of 2002. Clearly it did not give states additional rights with respect to which marriages they need not recognize but only with respect to those whose divorces they need not recognize. Although arguments framed on the act’s morality could not be litigated, the questions of whether DOMA was constitutional, within the powers of the Congress, or sound public policy still needed to be determined by the courts. In the meantime, same-sex couples remained ineligible for spousal benefits in states outlawing same-sex unions and remained ineligible for benefits and privileges reserved for oppositesex couples under federal law. Marc Georges Pufong Sources for Further Study Eskeridge, William N. The Case for Same-Sex Marriage: From Sexual Liberty to Civilized Commitment. New York: Free Press, 1996. _______. Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. Strasser, Mark P. Legally Wed: Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997. See also: Cable Act (1922); War Brides Act (1945); Privacy Act

(1974); Privacy Protection Act (1980).

Internet Tax Freedom Act Date: October 21, 1998 U.S. Statutes at Large: 112 Stat. 2681 Public law: 105-277 U.S. Code: 47 § 151 Categories: Communications and Media; Tariffs and Taxation 1553

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

This law temporarily shielded consumers shopping on the Internet from taxation of fees imposed by Internet service providers as well as merchandise taxes not already in line with existing mail-order taxes. The rapid growth of the Internet during the final decade of the twentieth century witnessed a corollary growth in sales transactions accomplished over the Internet. More and more Americans were obtaining access to the Internet, often by private Internet service providers. Once online, they discovered that the Internet provided the equivalent of a vast mail-order catalog, and they quickly took advantage of the new technology to shop. The rising tide of Internet transactions did not go unnoticed by state and local governments. Many of these determined to tax not only the transactions by which consumers were obtaining access to the Internet but also those transactions consummated by consumers once they arrived on the Internet. The Internet Tax Freedom Act had its genesis in fears that state and local governments, ever hungry for new tax revenues, would concentrate attention in a discriminatory fashion on the Internet. Provisions The Internet Tax Freedom Act prohibits three forms of taxes. In the first place, it forbids state and local governments from taxing Internet access. Thus, when a consumer pays $19.95 per month for unlimited access to the Internet through a national provider such as America Online (AOL) or a local Internet service provider, governments may not assess a tax against this transaction. However, states that had already begun to levy such taxes against Internet access were “grandfathered”—that is, allowed to continue this taxation in spite of the act. In the second place, the act prohibits multiple taxation of a single Internet transaction. This provision assures that two states—for example, the state in which a business is located and the state in which a consumer is located—may not both attempt to tax the same consumer transaction. Finally, the act prohibits discriminatory taxes levied on Internet commerce. Thus, if a particular state does not tax mail-order transactions where a business has no retail outlet in the state where a consumer resides, the state may not tax Internet transactions with the same characteristics. 1554

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Amendments On November 21, 2001, Public Law 107-75 amended the Internet Tax Freedom Act to extend its moratorium on Internet taxes until November 1, 2003. This extended moratorium reflected a continued desire by Congress to shield the Internet from particular forms of taxation. Nevertheless, the amendment, by failing to make the moratorium on Internet taxes permanent, also signified that Congress was reluctant to address definitively a tax issue affecting a fast-growing area of technological development. Timothy L. Hall Sources for Further Study Imparato, Nicholas, ed. Public Policy and the Internet: Privacy, Taxes, and Contract. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 2000. Wiseman, Alan E. The Internet Economy: Access, Taxes, and Market Structure. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000. See also: Communications Act (1934); Communications Act Amendments (1960); Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998).

Digital Millennium Copyright Act Date: October 28, 1998 U.S. Statutes at Large: 112 Stat. 2860 Public law: 105-304 U.S. Code: 17 § 112, 114 Categories: Business, Commerce, and Trade; Communications

and Media; Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks

The act was the first legislation to address copyright protection of intellectual property in electronic form. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 was the most sweeping reform of U.S. copyright law in a generation. The act was designed to comply with the 1996 World Intellectual Property Orga1555

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nization (WIPO) Treaties, which addressed copyright issues raised by the advent of global electronic communication. The Concept of Copyright Copyright laws are designed to protect the “intellectual property” (words, music, and other original creative works) of individuals from theft and unauthorized use. Historically, works such as books, records, and other “hard copy” media have been relatively easy to protect from copyright theft, but during the 1990’s the rapid development of the Internet, including e-mail and the World Wide Web, erected new obstacles to copyright enforcement by making it easy for Internet users to reproduce and distribute copyrighted information without compensating copyright owners. The spread of electronic communications worldwide made enforcement more difficult, because users were able to circumvent international copyright laws that were inconsistent and inadequate to address new technologies. Works most vulnerable to copyright infringement were recorded music and computer software programs, which were frequently exchanged by Internet users. By the mid-1990’s, mounting pressure from the entertainment and software industries prompted the United Nations to seek an international remedy to copyright infringement through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a U.N. organization founded in 1893 to administer international copyright treaties. In December, 1996, at a WIPO conference in Geneva, Switzerland, more than sixty countries signed two international copyright treaties that are known collectively as the WIPO Treaties. The treaties emphasized that copyright applies on the Internet just as in the “offline” world, granting copyright holders the right to use passwords, encryption, and other technologies to restrict online access to copyrighted works. Passage and Provisions The legislation that would become the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives in July, 1997. After contentious debate and the defeat of competing bills in both houses, Congress passed the final version of the bill on October 12, 1998, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law two weeks later. In compliance with the WIPO Treaties, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act affirmed that copyright protection ap1556

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

plied to online content, required that “webcasters” offering free music to Internet users pay licensing fees to record companies, and made it a crime in most cases to circumvent antipiracy measures built into commercial software. In addition, the act outlawed the use of computer programs that copy software illegally, limited the liability of Internet service providers for content transmitted through their servers, and reaffirmed the doctrine of “fair use,” permitting academic and other nonprofit use of copyrighted materials. Reaction The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was welcomed by record companies and software firms but did not completely resolve the numerous issues surrounding the use of copyrighted materials online. Free music sites and online file-sharing networks continued to operate, often under the shadow of lawsuits, and libraries and academic institutions continued to argue that the act denied citizens the right to access information. Michael H. Burchett Sources for Further Study Grossman, George S. Omnibus Copyright Revision Legislative History. Reprint. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 2001. Hawke, Constance S. Computer and Internet Use on Campus. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000. Samuels, Edward. The Illustrated Story of Copyright. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. Wilbur, Marcia K. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. iUniverse .com, 2000. See also: Copyright Act of 1909 (1909); Copyright Act of 1976 (1976); Trademark Law Revision Act (1988); North American Free Trade Agreement (1993); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994).

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USA Patriot Act Also known as: Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing

Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act Date: October 26, 2001 U.S. Statutes at Large: 115 Stat. 272 Public law: 107-56 U.S. Code: 18 § 175, 817 Categories: Military and National Security Quickly passed in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, several provisions of this sweeping legislation were called into question by civil libertarians. On September 11, 2001, anti-American extremists from the Middle East used two civilian passenger jets to destroy the World Trade Center towers in New York and a third to severely damage the Pentagon building. A fourth airplane, now thought to have been targeting the Capitol Building, was, with the aid of many heroic passengers, crashed in Pennsylvania before reaching its goal. In all, approximately three thousand persons were killed. Shortly thereafter, anthrax-contaminated letters were sent to members of Congress and other U.S. citizens. As part of the resulting “war on terrorism,” President George W. Bush asked Congress to eliminate many restrictions on both domestic law enforcement and international intelligence agencies. Passage and Provisions Only six weeks after the attacks of September 11, Congress overwhelmingly approved the USA Patriot Act (USAPA), a complex antiterrorist bill of 342 pages. The House vote was 356 to 66, while the Senate vote was 98 to 1. Civil libertarians strongly criticized the legislation. The director of the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union warned that it was “based on the faulty assumption that safety must come at the expense of civil liberties.” The USAPA significantly changed more than fifteen different statutes. Several of its more important provisions reduced the judicial supervision of law enforcement authorities when gathering fi1558

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nancial records and conducting surveillance of telephone and Internet communication. By expanding the field of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to include domestic crimes, the legislation authorized federal agents to monitor communications by certifying to a judge that the information to be obtained was “relevant” to an ongoing criminal investigation, without the requirement of probable cause. The act created a new crime of “domestic terrorism,” with special provisions for secret investigations of such activities. It also encouraged the sharing of information among agencies involved in domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence. Other provisions of the USAPA dealt specifically with the rights of noncitizens. The U.S. attorney general was given broad new authority to detain noncitizens based on certification of “reasonable grounds to believe” that they endangered national security. In addition, once the attorney general designated a domestic group as a terrorist organization, he had the authority to deport any noncitizen associated with the organization, without any proof that the individual was personally engaged in terrorist activities. Impact The early application of the USAPA had its greatest impact on the detention and expulsion of noncitizens, especially Arabs and others from the Middle East. Several hundred individuals were detained in federal facilities on the basis of visa and immigration violations. On the issue of surveillance, there were indications that the USAPA might face significant resistance from the courts. In August of 2002, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court rejected a request by the Department of Justice to allow broader cooperation between investigators of domestic crimes and international terrorism. The court identified more than seventy-five cases in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation had given misleading information when requesting electronic surveillance. Thomas T. Lewis Sources for Further Study Chang, Nancy. Silencing Political Dissent: How Post-September 11 AntiTerrorism Measures Threaten Our Civil Liberties. New York: Seven Stones Press, 2002. 1559

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Cole, David, and James Dempsey. Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. New York: New Press, 2002. Parenti, Michael. The Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002. Reams, Bernard D., Jr. USA Patriot Act: A Legislative History of the Uniting and Strengthening of America, Public Law No. 107-56. Buffalo, N.Y.: William S. Hein, 2002. See also: Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994); Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001).

Aviation and Transportation Security Act Also known as: Sky Marshals Bill Date: November 19, 2001 U.S. Statutes at Large: 115 Stat. 297 Public law: 107-71 U.S. Code: 49 § 114 Categories: Military and National Security; Transportation

A reaction to the terrorist hijackings of September 11, 2001, this law mandated sweeping and expensive changes in airport security devices and personnel. On September 11, 2001, two jetliners hijacked by terrorists plunged into and destroyed the Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center, leaving more than 2,750 people confirmed dead. A third jet flew into the Pentagon, adding more than 120 individuals to the day’s terrorist casualties. A fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing all 45 people aboard, after passengers apparently frustrated hijackers’ attempt to use it as a flying weapon against another significant target in Washington, D.C., thought to be either the White House or, more likely, the Capitol. 1560

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These horrific events led to calls by the public for enhanced aviation security, and, within a little more than two months of September 11, Congress and President George W. Bush responded by passing and signing into law the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. The most significant accomplishment of the act was to place airport security in the hands of the federal government. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act created a new administration within the Department of Transportation, called the Transportation Security Administration, to be administered by an undersecretary of the Department of Transportation. At least initially, the act required the federal government to assume responsibility for screening luggage and other passenger belongings for dangerous items. Furthermore, it provided minimum qualifications for screeners themselves, including the requirement that they be U.S. citizens, and mandated that the federal government take steps to conduct background checks not only on baggage-screening personnel but also on all persons with access to secure areas in the nation’s airports. The act also stipulated that devices capable of detecting explosives in baggage be installed in the nation’s airports within a little more than a year after the passage of the act. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act also addressed inflight security issues. For example, it authorized the undersecretary of the newly created Transportation Security Administration to place U.S. marshals either on all airline flights or at least on those that posed high security risks. Moreover, to frustrate future attempts by terrorists to take control of airline cockpits, the act specified that cockpit doors be kept locked during flights and that they be fortified against attempts at forcible entry. The massive upgrades to aviation security mandated by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act were expensive. Congress, recognizing the need for revenue to implement security changes, provided for a fee to be charged to airline travelers to cover the cost of these implementations. This fee would vary with the number of times a particular traveler boards planes in the course of a journey but was capped at five dollars per one-way trip. For the time being, Americans seemed willing to bear this cost. Timothy L. Hall 1561

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Sources for Further Study Friedman, Thomas L. Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2002. Henderson, Harry. Terrorism. New York: Facts On File, 2001. Wallis, Rodney. Combating Air Terrorism. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1993. See also: USA Patriot Act (2001).

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act Also known as: Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Bill Date: March 27, 2002 U.S. Statutes at Large: 116 Stat. 81 Public law: 107-155 U.S. Code: 2 § 431 Categories: Voting and Elections

The act attempted to eliminate what many saw as corruption of the political process by regulating “soft money” contributions to political parties and by prohibiting “issue ads” sixty days prior to an election. Campaign finance reform became a hot-button political issue during the 1990’s. Public figures such as senator and presidential hopeful John McCain (Republican of Arizona) made the issue a centerpiece of their political careers. Supporters of reform insisted that Congress had to rein in the power of money to influence and corrupt the political process. Opponents argued with equal vehemence that reform trespassed on free speech rights. In the spring of 2002, however, campaign finance reform leaped out of the domain of mere political argument and onto the pages of law. With the signature of President George W. Bush, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 became federal law. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act regulates campaign finance practices in two principal ways. First, it bans so-called soft money contributions from corporations and individuals to the na1562

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tional political parties and prohibits state and local parties from spending soft money on federal elections. “Soft money” refers to contributions made to political parties for so-called party-building activities—that is, activities intended to benefit the party generically as opposed to supporting a particular political candidate. Under existing federal law, soft money contributions were virtually unlimited. These were contrasted with “hard money” contributions, which might be used to support specific political candidates and which were severely limited by the terms of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (passed in 1972). Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, candidates are permitted to raise somewhat more “hard money” to offset the restrictions on “soft money.” Second, the Act prohibits “issue ads” in the sixty days before an election. These, while not specifically calling upon voters to elect a particular candidate, have often been used in contested political races to sway potential voters toward one candidate or another. On the same day President Bush signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act into law, Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican of Kentucky), one of campaign finance reform’s most implacable foes, brought suit challenging the constitutionality of the law. The National Rifle Association (NRA) filed a similar suit the same day. Moreover, in early fall of 2002, the Federal Elections Committee, charged with creating specific regulations to implement the general terms of the act, issued regulations that many observers viewed as weakening the effectiveness of the act. The impact of both developments remain unclear. The Supreme Court, in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), upheld provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 that restricted the amounts that supporters could contribute to a political campaign. It remained to be seen, however, whether the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, especially in its prohibition against issue ads, would be found to have violated freedom of speech. Timothy L. Hall Sources for Further Study Corrado, Anthony. Campaign Finance Reform. New York: Century Foundation Press, 2000. Luna, Christopher, ed. Campaign Finance Reform. New York: H. W. Wilson, 2001. 1563

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Smith, Bradley A. Unfree Speech: The Folly of Campaign Finance Reform. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. See also: First Amendment (1789); Seventeenth Amendment

(1913); Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925); Twenty-third Amendment (1961); Federal Election Campaign Act (1972); Ethics in Government Act (1978); Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992).

U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement Also known as: Moscow Treaty Date: Signed May 24, 2002 Categories: Foreign Relations; Treaties and Agreements

The treaty sought to reduce the number of active nuclear warheads to between seventeen hundred and twenty-two hundred by the end of 2012. With the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into fifteen “new” sovereign states and the concomitant end of the Cold War in the early 1990’s, the United States and the new Russian Federation sought to move into an era of closer relations. Although what came to be called START I had been signed in 1991, this new era brought about another treaty proposal, known as START II, although START II was never ratified by the U.S. Senate. START II was the first arms control treaty that would have substantially reduced the number of nuclear weapons in Russia and the United States. Continuing on this path in 1997, the two countries agreed on a framework of new negotiations that was to create START III. Due to political problems faced by the presidents of both countries, these negotiations never materialized. In 1999 Russia elected a new president, Vladimir Putin, and in 2000 George W. Bush was elected president of the United States. Both presidents desired a reduction in the number of nuclear weapons, although for different reasons. Russia faced economic hardship and had been reducing the size of its armed forces since 1564

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the demise of the Soviet Union. The expense of keeping its nuclear arsenal intact was beyond the funds available. Thus Russia desired to decrease the number of weapons systems in order to stabilize governmental expenditures. However, it was reluctant to make massive cuts unilaterally. In the United States, President Bush had stated during his campaign that he would like to decrease the size of the nuclear arsenal. After taking office in 2001, he sought to assess the military strength of the United States and decided that some significant changes should be made. In November, 2001, President Bush announced that the United States would reduce its nuclear arsenal to between seventeen hundred and twenty-two hundred warheads. This announcement essentially began the process of negotiating a new treaty. In December, 2001, President Putin stated that he was in basic agreement with President Bush. It took until May 13, 2002, to negotiate the details of what is a relatively short treaty. While the impetus for the treaty was the decision by President Bush to cut the number of nuclear weapons, the details relied on negotiations that had taken place for START I, II, and III. The Moscow Treaty, as it is called, is a very simple but flexible document that commits both nations to reduce the number of active nuclear warheads to between seventeen hundred and twentytwo hundred. This must take place by December 31, 2012. It recognizes that the START I treaty remains in force. The number of warheads mandated by the treaty would be about one-third the number of active warheads in each country’s 2002 arsenal. Counting warheads, rather than delivery vehicles, was first proposed in 1997. Exactly how each country will verify the compliance of the other will be negotiated by the Bilateral Implementation Commission. The treaty was to be in force through December 31, 2012. Donald A. Watt Sources for Further Study Rumsfeld, Donald H. “Transforming the Military.” Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2002. Talbot, Strobe. The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy. New York: Random House, 2002. See also: START II Treaty (1993). 1565

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Homeland Security Act Date: November 19, 2002 Public law: 107-296 Categories: Civil Rights and Liberties; Government Procedure

and Organization; Military and National Security

The Homeland Security Act instituted the most sweeping reorganization of federal government since passage of the National Security Act more than fifty years earlier. On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced the worst attack on its territory since the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when hijackers later identified as members of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda flew passenger airliners into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing approximately three thousand innocent civilians from many nations. A fourth jet crashed in Pennsylvania when passengers resisted the hijackers; it is now thought to have been targeting either the White House or the Capitol Building. President George W. Bush and Congress responded over the next year with legislation that culminated in the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which President Bush signed into law on November 25, 2002. This massive reorganization of the federal government was spurred by the need to ensure national security at the borders and within the country against anticipated future attacks. Provisions The act created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to function as a clearinghouse for intelligence for protection against terrorist attacks. In so doing, the new department would oversee approximately 170,000 workers from twenty-two federal agencies, including the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Animal and Plant Health 1566

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Inspection Service’s border inspection section. The new agency was to be organized into four divisions: Border and Transportation Security; Emergency Preparedness and Response; Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Countermeasures; and Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency were not brought under DHS, it was expected that these law enforcement and intelligence agencies would work closely with the new department. President Bush nominated former governor of Pennsylvania and head of the former Office of Homeland Security Tom Ridge to head the new department. The law thus imposed a huge and complicated reorganization on the existing structure of federal government, and although it required that the new department be operational within a year of its signing (by the end of November, 2003), both members of Congress and White House officials predicted that it would take at least two years for the reorganization to take place and be running smoothly. Issues and Controversies Many doubts surrounded the new law, not the least of which concerned the logistical problems posed by such massive reorganization. Critics and supporters alike expressed their concerns over diversion of resources, interagency turf battles, national security during the transition, failure to appropriate resources to cities, and labor rights of the workers who would be transferred. President Bush fought for and succeeded in securing a great deal of flexibility in hiring and firing employees in the new department. Two issues in particular worried critics: First, the final bill was passed with liability protections for drug companies that manufactured vaccines that would be used to shore up defenses in the event of biological attacks. Second, the new law created an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act, which provided that information that companies give to the government “related to the security of critical infrastructure or protected systems” would automatically be withheld from the public. Such concerns were given little hearing the the lame-duck session of Congress that passed the bill 90-9. As one of the most vocal critics of the bill, Senator Robert Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia), said only a few hours prior to the law’s passage on November 19: 1567

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties There have been no hearings on this bill. . . . And we are being asked to vote on that 484 pages tomorrow. Our poor staffs were up most of the night studying it. They know some of the things that are in there, but they don’t know all of them. It is a sham and it is a shame. We are all complicit in going along with it.

Christina J. Moose Sources for Further Study Bremmer, L. Paul, and Edwin Meese. Defending the American Homeland: A Report of the Heritage Foundation Homeland Security Task Force. Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 2002. Friedman, Thomas L. Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Lee, Nancy, Lonnie Schlein, and Mitchel Levitas, eds. A Nation Challenged. New York: New York Times, 2002. Rather, Dan. What We Saw: The Events of September 11, 2001, in Words, Pictures, and Video. New York: Simon and Schuster/CBS News, 2002. See also: National Defense Act (1916); National Security Act (1947); North Atlantic Treaty (1949); Internal Security Act (1950); Freedom of Information Act (1966); War Powers Resolution (1973); USA Patriot Act (2001).

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The Declaration of Independence In Congress, July 4, 1776 The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World. 1569

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He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only. He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People. He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries. He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance. He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us: 1570

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For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People. He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People. 1571

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Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

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The Constitution of the United States of America We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ARTICLE I. section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature. No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. 1573

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When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of

two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote. Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided. The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States. The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

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The Constitution of the United States of America section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for

Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide. Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member. Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal. Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Com-

pensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office. 1575

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House

of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

section 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,

Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

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To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; To establish Post Offices and post Roads; To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court; To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations; To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings;—And To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof. section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of

the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. 1577

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The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another. No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time. No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility. No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress. No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. 1578

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ARTICLE II. section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President. The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States. 1579

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No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of the President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected. The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them. Before he enter the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army

and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but

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the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session. section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Informa-

tion of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

ARTICLE III. section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office. section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and

Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under 1581

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Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects. In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in

levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. ARTICLE IV.

section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the

public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State; And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privi-

leges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime. No person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any 1582

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Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due. section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State. section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this

Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. ARTICLE V. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of it’s equal Suffrage in the Senate. ARTICLE VI. All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. 1583

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. ARTICLE VII. The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same. Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names

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Amendments to the U.S. Constitution AMENDMENT I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT II. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT III. No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT V. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand 1585

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Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT VI. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed; which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT VII. In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT IX. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. [ratified December, 1791] 1586

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

AMENDMENT X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. [ratified December, 1791] AMENDMENT XI. The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. [ratified February, 1795] AMENDMENT XII. The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;—The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day 1587

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.—The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. [ratified June, 1804] AMENDMENT XIII. section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

[ratified December, 1865] AMENDMENT XIV. section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the 1588

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, au-

thorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropri-

ate legislation, the provisions of this article.

[ratified July, 1868] AMENDMENT XV. section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by

appropriate legislation.

[ratified February, 1870] 1589

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AMENDMENT XVI. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. [ratified February, 1913] AMENDMENT XVII. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution. [ratified April, 1913] AMENDMENT XVIII. section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concur-

rent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress. [ratified January, 1919, repealed December, 1933] 1590

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

AMENDMENT XIX. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. [ratified August, 1920] AMENDMENT XX. section 1. The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin. section 2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year,

and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the

President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

section 4. The Congress may by law provide for the case of the

death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

section 5. Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of Octo-

ber following the ratification of this article.

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U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties section 6. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission. [ratified January, 1933]

AMENDMENT XXI. section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress. [ratified December, 1933]

AMENDMENT XXII. section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term. section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

[ratified February, 1951] 1592

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

AMENDMENT XXIII. section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment. section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by

appropriate legislation.

[ratified March, 1961] AMENDMENT XXIV. section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by

appropriate legislation.

[ratified January, 1964] AMENDMENT XXV. section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President. section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress. 1593

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro

tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President. section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the

principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office. [ratified February, 1967] AMENDMENT XXVI.

section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eigh-

teen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age. 1594

Amendments to the U.S. Constitution section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by

appropriate legislation.

[ratified July, 1971] AMENDMENT XXVII. No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened. [ratified May 7, 1992]

1595

Legal Resources The reality of legal research is that no single volume of books contains the whole law applicable to a particular person or circumstance. Rather, different governments and different branches within these governments create law, and the products of this multiple creative work are scattered across innumerable volumes. One of the professional skills of attorneys is the ability to navigate these multiple sources of legal authority, but interested laypersons may profit from understanding at least the broad contours of the legal terrain. Primary Sources of the Law The first major division of legal authority has to do with the divisions among federal, state, and local lawmaking authorities. Authorities at each of these levels create law, with the higher authority sometimes but not always displacing laws of the lower authority. For example, according to the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, when the federal government creates laws inconsistent with those of state or local governments, the federal law prevails. However, federal laws frequently leave room for state and local laws on the same subject. As a consequence, a given situation may be subject to the law of one or all of these authorities, and legal researchers must be prepared to consult resources available for each. The second division of legal authority is among the various branches within government. Laws or legal rules may have their genesis in the legislative, executive, or the judicial branches of federal, state, or local governments. Legislatures create law in the form of statutes, which are ultimately collected in codes. Executives, at least at the federal level, create law in the form of executive orders or administrative regulations. Judicial branches create law in the form of case opinions and rules governing legal practice and procedure. Moreover, courts routinely interpret other legal materials, such as constitutions or statutes, and these interpretations are of sufficient importance that their content may be included in legal volumes containing constitutions or statutes. For example, a very common version of federal statutes is referred to as the United States Code Annotated and consists not only of statutes collected 1596

Legal Resources Level

Branch

Chief Source of Legal Authority

Federal

Legislative (Congress)

United States Code or United States Code Annotated.

Federal

Executive branch

Executive orders and regulations enacted by federal departments and agencies and collected in the Code of Federal Regulations.

Federal

Judicial

Opinions in cases decided at the district court, court of appeals, and Supreme Court levels and collected in multivolume sets known as the Federal Supplement, Federal Reporter, and the United States Reports, respectively.

State

Legislative

Each state has a code of laws similar to the United States Code Annotated. Such codes include, for example, the Annotated California Code and the Code of Virginia Annotated.

State

Executive

State governors and other executive officials may produce executive orders comparable to those of the U.S. president. In addition, state administrative agencies generally promulgate regulations on a variety of subjects entrusted to them by state law.

State

Judicial

States have one or more levels of courts that produce published judicial opinions on questions of law. These opinions are collected in one or more “reporters,” as they are called. In addition, West Publishing in St. Paul, Minnesota, a leading publisher of legal materials, collects opinions decided by the courts of states in various regions of the country into regional reporters, such as the Pacific Reporter, which includes cases decided by California and other western states, and the Southern Reporter, which includes cases decided by Mississippi courts and the courts of other southern states.

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in the form of a code but also of references to case opinions that interpret the various provisions of the code. Thus, a given legal problem may require that researchers consult legal authorities created by multiple branches of government within the federal, state, and local governmental systems. The preceding table attempts to summarize the key sources of legal authority for federal and state governments. In addition to the sources listed, the highest source of law for both federal and state governments is the U.S. Constitution. A copy of the U.S. Constitution is available in the United States Code Annotated and also at a number of sites on the World Wide Web, discussed below. In addition, state governments are subject to the authority of their respective state constitutions. Local governments produce laws as well in the form of municipal or county ordinances, but these laws generally lack the broad spectrum of lawmaking power as exercised by federal and state governments. Such laws enacted at the local level are generally available in local government offices and sometimes in public libraries. Finding Primary Legal Sources Primary legal sources, such as the United States Code and the various federal and state judicial opinions, are generally available from three sources. First, all the materials discussed in the table are published as multivolume hardback series. Some public libraries have copies of such items as the United States Code Annotated and the annotated code for the relevant state. To find a more complete collection of primary sources of the printed type, one must generally gain access to a law library. Local courthouses are generally the most likely place to find a law library with the resources described above. Second, all the sources above, and many more, may be accessed remotely from the two leading computer databases of the law profession: Westlaw and Lexis. These databases charge a subscription fee and per usage fees and are thus financially out of the range of most individuals other than lawyers. Third, and perhaps most important, many primary legal sources are available free of charge on the World Wide Web. Individuals may access these sites either through personal or job-related Internet connections or through Internet connections made available in many public libraries. The following section describes some of the legal resources available on the Internet. 1598

Legal Resources

Online Resources The following list contains a variety of World Wide Web resources relating to the law. One of the realities of the World Wide Web is that information sites sometimes change their locations and sometimes cease to exist altogether. Thus, readers may find that some addresses no longer work. It is impossible to briefly summarize the varieties of legal materials now available online, but two kinds of Web sites will be of most assistance to those interested in researching the law: sites that serve as indexes to legal resources generally and sites devoted to particular legal topics. The first list below contains the World Wide Web addresses of several general legal information sites on the Web. ABA Legal Research Selected Starting Points www.abanet.org/lawlink/home.html Links to legal materials maintained by the American Bar Association (ABA). ABA Network www.abanet.org Web site maintained by the American Bar Association (ABA) providing a variety of legal information for both lawyers and the public. Alan Gahtan’s Canadian Legal Resources gahtan.com/lawlinks Collection of Canadian legal resources. American Law Resources On-Line www.lawsource.com/also/usa.htm Extensive collection of legal resources. CataLaw www.catalaw.com Searchable index of legal information. Center for Information Law and Policy www.law.vill.edu Collection of legal Web resources maintained by the Villanova Law School. 1599

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Counsel Quest www.CounselQuest.com Internet legal resources locator. FedLaw www.legal.gsa.gov Web site maintained by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) devoted to legal resources useful to federal lawyers and employees. Law Lists www.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/lawlists/info.html A guide to electronic discussion groups concerning the law. LawInfo Com www.lawinfo.com Referral site for lawyers and a variety of legal resources. Legal Information Institute www.law.cornell.edu One of the Web’s most exhaustive collections of legal materials maintained by the Cornell Law School. Legal List www.lcp.com/The-Legal-List An outline of and introduction to legal resources on the Internet. Library of Congress lcweb.loc.gov/homepage/lchp_txt.html Indexes to the holdings of the Library of Congress, on-line exhibits, and a variety of resources, including some legal materials. Thomas thomas.loc.gov Detailed information about federal legislation maintained by the Library of Congress. U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library law.house.gov General information source for federal law. 1600

Legal Resources

World Wide Web Virtual Library: Law www.law.indiana.edu/law/v-lib/lawindex.html General Web resources indexed by the Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND OFFICES The next category of Web sites includes those maintained by various governmental agencies and offices that are generally devoted to a particular legal topic. Governmental agencies and offices frequently make available to the public legal information relevant to their operations. Agriculture Department 14th and Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20250 (202) 720-2791 www.usda.gov Federal agency that supports agricultural production. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms 650 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20226 (202) 927-7777 www.atf.treas.gov/mailpage.htm Collects taxes on and generally regulates alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Central Intelligence Agency Public Affairs Staff Central Intelligence Agency Washington, DC 20505 (703) 482-0623. www.odci.gov/cia Provides intelligence information on issues relating to national security and conducts counterintelligence operations.

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Consumer Product Safety Commission East West Towers 4330 East West Highway Bethesda, MD 20814 (301) 504-0580 www.cpsc.gov Federal agency charged with protecting the public from unsafe products. Customs Service 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20229 (202) 927-1350 www.customs.ustreas.gov Assesses and collects duties on imported goods. Education Department 600 Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20202-0498 (800) USA-LEARN www.ed.gov Federal agency that supports education in the United States. Environmental Protection Agency 401 M Street SW Washington, DC 20460 (202) 260-7963 www.epa.gov Federal agency with responsibility for administering environmental laws. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 1801 L Street NW Washington, DC 20507 (202) 663-4900 (800) 669-4000 www.eeoc.gov Site operated by federal commission that enforces civil rights laws relating to employment. 1602

Legal Resources

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) J. Edgar Hoover Building 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20535-0001 (202) 324-3000 www.fbi.gov Information on federal law enforcement. Federal Trade Commission CRC-240 Washington, DC 20580 (202) 382-4357 www.ftc.gov Agency that registers complaints about credit reporting agencies and debt collection agencies and handles other issues relating to credit. Fish and Wildlife Service C Street NW Washington, DC 20240 (202) 208-5634 www.fws.gov Federal office with responsibility for conserving and enhancing fish and wildlife and their habitats. Food and Drug Administration 5600 Fishers Lane Rockville, MD 20857 (301) 443-1544 www.fda.gov Federal agency with regulatory authority over food, cosmetics, and medicines. Government Printing Office Washington, DC 20402 (202) 783-3238 www.access.gpo.gov Site of the government office that prints, binds, and distributes the publications of the U.S. Congress and the executive departments and offices of the federal government. 1603

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Health and Human Services Department 200 Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20201 (202) 619-0257 www.os.dhhs.gov Principal federal agency with responsibility for protecting health of citizens and providing essential services, especially to those of limited means. Housing and Urban Development Department 451 7th Street SW Washington, DC 20410 (202) 708-3600 www.hud.gov Generally regulates housing matters in the United States. Immigration and Naturalization Service 425 I Street NW Washington, DC 20536 (202) 514-4316 www.ins.usdoj.gov Source of information relating to becoming a U.S. citizen. Internal Revenue Service 1111 Constitution Avenue NW Washington, DC 20224 (800) 829-1040 www.irs.ustreas.gov Determines, assesses, and collects taxes in the United States. Justice Department 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20530-0001 (202) 514-2001 www.usdoj.gov Chief arm of federal law enforcement.

1604

Legal Resources

Labor Department 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Room S-1032 Washington, DC 20210 (202) 219-8211 www.dol.gov Federal agency charged with enhancing job opportunities and ensuring the adequacy of workplaces. National Park Service 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240 (202) 208-6843 www.nps.gov Federal office that regulates the use and preservation of national parks. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (in the Labor Department) 200 Constitution Avenue Washington, DC 20210 (800) 321-6742 www.osha.gov Federal office with responsibility for preventing accidents and illnesses in the workplace. Official Federal Government Web Sites (maintained by the Library of Congress) lcweb.loc.gov/global/executive/fed.html List of sites maintained by various federal agencies and offices. Secret Service 1800 G Street N Washington, DC 20223 (202) 435-5708 Protects the president of the United States and other public officials; investigates certain commercial crimes, including counterfeiting.

1605

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Securities and Exchange Commission 450 Fifth Street NW Washington, DC 20549 (202) 942-7040 www.sec.gov Federal agency with responsibility for administering federal securities laws and protecting investors. Social Security Administration Office of Public Inquiries 6401 Security Boulevard Room 4-C-5 Annex Baltimore, MD 21235 (800) 772-1213 www.ssa.gov Federal office that administers the Social Security program. State Department 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520 (202) 647-4000 www.state.gov Chief agency for the implementation of U.S. foreign policy. Treasury Department 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20220 (202) 622-1100 www.ustreas.gov/menu.html Federal agency that regulates currency, taxes, customs, and related matters. White House Washington, DC 20520 (202) 456-7041 www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Welcome-plain.html Site providing a variety of information on the U.S. presidency.

1606

Legal Resources

LEGAL ORGANIZATIONS Many nongovernmental organizations also provide information to the public on particular legal topics. The following list includes a number of such organizations. ABA Center for Professional Responsibility American Bar Association 541 North Fairbanks Court Chicago, IL 60611-3314 (312) 988-5304 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.abanet.org/cpr/home.html Promotes the study and discussion of ethics relating to lawyers and judges. Alliance for Justice 2000 P Street, NW, Suite 712 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 822-6070 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.afj.org National association of environmental, civil rights, mental health, women’s, children’s and consumer advocacy organizations. American Bar Association 750 N. Lake Shore Drive Chicago, IL 60611 (312) 988-5000 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.abanet.org National association of lawyers. American Inns of Court 127 South Peyton Street, Suite 201 Alexandria, Virginia 22314 (703) 684-3590 Web site: www.innsofcourt.org Association of lawyers, judges, law teachers, and students dedicated to increasing professionalism in the practice of law. 1607

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Association of Trial Lawyers of America 1050 31st Street NW Washington, DC 20007 (800) 424-2725 e-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.atlanet.org Association of plaintiffs’ lawyers and others devoted to the cause of injured persons and other victims. Better Business Bureau Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. 4200 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 800 Arlington, VA 22203-1804 (703) 276-0100 Web site: www.bbb.org Organization devoted to promoting fair and ethical business practices. Conflict Resolution Center International 204 Thirty-seventh Street Pittsburgh, PA. 15201-1859 (412) 687-6210 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.conflictres.org Organization that promotes nonviolent dispute resolution. Electronic Privacy Information Center 666 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 301 (202) 544-9240 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.epic.org Public interest research institute devoted to issues of privacy. False Claims Act Legal Center 1220 19th Street NW, Suite 501 Washington, DC 20036 (800) 873-2573 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.taf.org/taf Organization that promotes whistle-blowers’ suits against individuals and entities that have defrauded the U.S. government. 1608

Legal Resources

National Crime Prevention Council 1700 K Street NW, Second Floor Washington, DC 20006-3817 (202) 466-6272 Web site: www.ncpc.org National organization dedicated to crime prevention. National Fraud Information Center P.O. Box 65868 Washington, DC 20035 (800) 876-7060 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.fraud.org Organization that assists consumers in obtaining advice about telephone solicitations and reporting possible telemarketing fraud to law-enforcement agencies. National Lawyers Guild 558 Capp Street San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 285-5067 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.emf.net/~cheetham/gnawld-1.html National association of progressive lawyers. National Organization for Victim Assistance 1757 Park Road NW Washington, DC 20010 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.try-nova.org Nonprofit organization that seeks to further victims’ rights. National Paralegal Association P.O. Box 406 Solebury, PA 18963 (215) 297-8333 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.nationalparalegal.org Organization for paralegals and those interested in a paralegal career. 1609

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

SELECTED RESEARCH CENTERS The following is a list of selected centers devoted to research on particular topics. Since the titles of the centers reflect the centers’ concentration, the list does not describe each organization. A few centers have e-mail addresses and/or Web sites, which have been included when available. ABA Center on Children and the Law 1800 M Street, NW Washington, DC 20036 (202) 331-2250 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.abanet.org/child American Indian Law Center P.O. Box 4456, Station A Albuquerque, NM 87196 (505) 277-5462 Arizona State University Center for the Study of Law, Science, and Technology College of Law P.O. Box 877906 Tempe, AZ 85287-7906 (602) 965-2554 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.asu.edu/law/lawscien.htm California Center for Judicial Education and Research 2000 Powell Street, 8th Floor Emeryville, CA 94608 (510) 450-3601 Center for Dispute Settlement 1666 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 501 Washington, DC 20009

1610

Legal Resources

Center for Information Technology & Privacy Law, John Marshal Law School 315 South Plymouth Court Chicago, Illinois 60604 (312) 987-1419 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.jmls.edu/info Center for Law and Computers, Chicago-Kent College of Law 565 West Adams Chicago, Illinois 60661 (312) 906-5300 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.kentlaw.edu/clc Center for Reproductive Law and Policy 120 Wall Street New York, NY 10005 (212) 514-5534 Center for Women Policy Studies 2000 P Street NW, Suite 508 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 872-1770 College of William and Mary Institute of Bill of Rights Law Marshal-Wythe School of Law Williamsburg, VA 23185 (804) 221-3808 Web site: www.wm.edu/law/programs/ bill_of_rights.htm Columbia University Center for the Study of Human Rights 1108 International Affairs Building New York, NY 10027 (212) 854-2479 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.columbia.edu/cu/humanrights

1611

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

Crime Control Institute and Crime Control Research Corporation 1063 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW Washington, DC 20007 (202) 337-2700 Florida State University Center for Employment Relations and Law College of Law Tallahassee, FL 32306 (904) 644-4287 Freedom Forum First Amendment Center Vanderbilt University 1222 16th Avenue South Nashville, TN 37212 (615) 321-9588 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.freedomforum.org Georgetown University Anne Blaine Harrison Institute for Public Law 111 F. Street NW Washington, DC 20001 (202) 662-9600 Harvard Legislative Research Bureau Harvard Law School Cambridge, MA 02138 (617) 495-4400 Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law 1101 15th Street NW, Suite 1212 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 467-5730 Loyola University of Chicago National Center for Freedom of Information Studies 820 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60611 (312) 915-7095 1612

Legal Resources

Marine Law Institute University of Maine School of Law 246 Deering Avenue Portland, Maine 04102 (207) 780-4474 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.law.usm.maine.edu/mli/mli.htm Marquette University National Sports Law Institute 1103 West Wisconsin Avenue Milwaukee, WS 53233 (414) 288-5815 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.mu.edu/law/sports/sports.htm#institute Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute P.O. Box 673 Berkeley, CA 94701-0673 (510) 848-0599 e-mail: [email protected] N. Neal Pike Institute on Law and Disability, Boston University School of Law 765 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, MA 02215 (617) 353-2904 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.bu.edu/pike/home.html National Center for Juvenile Justice 710 Fifth Avenue, Suite 3000 Pittsburgh, PA 15219-3000 (412) 227-6950 e-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.ncjj.org National Center on Women and Family Law 799 Broadway, Room 402 New York, NY 10003 (212) 674-8200 1613

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties

National Council on Crime and Delinquency 684 Market Street, Suite 620 San Francisco, CA 94105 (415) 896-6223 National Immigration Law Center 1636 West 8th Street, Suite 215 Los Angeles, CA 90017 (213) 487-2531 National Women’s Law Center 1616 P Street NW Washington, DC 20036 202-328-5160 Web site: http://www.protectchoice.org/ leadernwlc.html Vermont Law School Environmental Law Center Chelsea Street South Royalton, VT 05068 (802) 763-8303 Web site: www.vermontlaw.edu/elc/elc.htm —Timothy L. Hall

1614

Categorized Index AFRICAN AMERICANS Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807), 153 Black Codes of 1804-1807 (18041807), 143 Black Codes of 1865 (1865), 269 Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866), 278 Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957), 863 Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960), 875 Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964), 933 Civil Rights Act of 1968 (1968), 1032 Compromise of 1850 (1850), 225 Disfranchisement laws (1890), 358 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 259 Executive Order 8802 (1941), 723 Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967), 980 Fair Housing Act (1968), 1035 Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 302 Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 291 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793), 106 Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850), 221 Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954), 329 Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), 240 Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871), 305 Missouri Compromise (1820), 173 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 (1890), 362 Reconstruction Acts (1867), 280 Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 273 Three-fifths compromise (1787), 39 Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), 928 Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965), 970 AGING ISSUES Age Discrimination Act (1975), 1285 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), 1026 Executive Order 11141 (1964), 929

Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965), 959 Older Americans Act (1965), 956 Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990), 1484 AGRICULTURE Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 551 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), 1380 Animal Welfare Act (1966), 1010 Eastern Wilderness Act (1975), 1254 Federal Power Act (1920), 476 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938), 699 Food Security Act (1985), 1426 Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974), 1219 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947), 780 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994), 1537 Homestead Act (1862), 245 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 Marihuana Tax Act (1937), 674 Migratory Bird Act (1913), 415 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 454 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 (1862), 249 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 (1890), 362 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879 National Forest Management Act (1976), 1311 Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), 387 Reclamation Act (1902), 375 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 636 Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933), 582

1615

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968), 1071 Wilderness Act (1964), 954 ANIMALS Animal Welfare Act (1966), 1010 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975), 1271 Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979), 1372 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1214 Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966), 1016 Halibut Treaty (1924), 514 Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 1189 Migratory Bird Act (1913), 415 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934), 603 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 454 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879 Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937), 681 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 636 Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968), 1071 ASIA OR ASIAN AMERICANS Alien land laws (1913), 421 Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987), 1448 Bilingual Education Act (1968), 1029 Burlingame Treaty (1868), 296 Cable Act (1922), 494 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 331 Civil Liberties Act (1988), 1456 Formosa Resolution (1955), 834 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 391 Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932), 562 Immigration Act of 1917 (1917), 446 Immigration Act of 1921 (1921), 483

1616

Immigration Act of 1924 (1924), 501 Immigration Act of 1943 (1943), 736 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (1965), 985 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952), 812 North Korea Pact (1994), 1532 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 396 Page Law (1875), 322 Refugee Relief Act (1953), 820 Taiwan Relations Act (1979), 1363 Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964), 942 Treaty of Kanagawa (1854), 236 Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844), 207 U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952), 810 Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975), 1274 War Brides Act (1945), 753 BANKING, MONEY, AND FINANCE Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 551 Banking Act of 1933 (1933), 590 Banking Act of 1935 (1935), 651 Bland-Allison Act (1878), 327 Bretton Woods Agreement (1944), 744 Coinage Act (1873), 316 Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968), 1044 Currency Act (1900), 369 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), 1233 Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970), 1108 Federal Credit Union Act (1934), 630 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 425 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 209 McFadden Act (1927), 541 National Bank Acts (1863-1864), 261 Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909), 403 Securities Exchange Act (1934), 612 Truth in Lending Act (1968), 1050

Categorized Index BUSINESS, COMMERCE, AND TRADE Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 551 Air Commerce Act (1926), 530 Airline Deregulation Act (1978), 1343 Animal Welfare Act (1966), 1010 Anti-Racketeering Act (1934), 610 Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807), 153 Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974), 1248 Celler-Kefauver Act (1950), 800 Child product safety laws (1970’s), 1089 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969), 1082 Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966), 997 Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), 432 Consumer Product Safety Act (1972), 1196 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975), 1271 Copyright Act of 1909 (1909), 397 Copyright Act of 1976 (1976), 1295 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998), 1555 Dingley Tariff (1897), 363 Embargo Acts (1806), 151 Emergency Price Control Act (1942), 728 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974), 1224 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 430 Force Act of 1833 (1833), 194 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793), 106 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947), 780 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994), 1537 Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974), 1237

Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960), 886 Hobbs Act (1946), 761 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 Interest Equalization Tax Act (1964), 946 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 343 Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962), 903 Labor-Management Relations Act (1947), 769 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975), 1263 Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937), 675 National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), 596 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 1014 Natural Gas Act (1938), 693 North American Free Trade Agreement (1993), 1519 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 396 Panama Canal Act (1912), 412 Panama Canal Treaties (1978), 1328 Parens Patriae Act (1974), 1232 Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909), 403 Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), 387 Reciprocal Trade Act (1936), 670 Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936), 662 Securities Exchange Act (1934), 612 Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 353 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930), 556 Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790), 102 Trademark Law Revision Act (1988), 1469 Treaty of Kanagawa (1854), 236 Wheeler-Lea Act (1938), 685 CHILDREN’S ISSUES Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935), 647 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974), 1218

1617

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990), 1486 Child product safety laws (1970’s), 1089 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969), 1082 Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984), 1415 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), 1287 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 704 Family and Medical Leave Act (1993), 1513 Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970), 1118 Family Support Act (1988), 1458 Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984), 1417 Indian Child Welfare Act (1978), 1355 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974), 1231 Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971), 1141 Megan’s Law (1996), 1548 Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984), 1421 Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980), 1396 Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 489 CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), 1026 American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), 1333 Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1474 Bill of Rights (1789), 46 Black Codes of 1804-1807 (18041807), 143 Black Codes of 1865 (1865), 269 Civil Liberties Act (1988), 1456 Civil Rights Act of 1866 (1866), 278 Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957), 863 Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960), 875

1618

Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964), 933 Civil Rights Act of 1968 (1968), 1032 Civil Rights Act of 1991 (1991), 1500 Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988), 1452 Communist Control Act (1954), 826 Declaration of Independence (1776), 1 Direct democracy laws (1902-1913), 371 Disfranchisement laws (1890), 358 Eighth Amendment (1789), 91 Equal Access Act (1984), 1412 Equal Rights Amendment (1923), 495 Executive Order 8802 (1941), 723 Executive Order 11141 (1964), 929 Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967), 980 Fair Housing Act (1968), 1035 Federal Tort Claims Act (1946), 763 Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 302 Fifth Amendment (1789), 71 First Amendment (1789), 56 Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 291 Fourth Amendment (1789), 66 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 Freedom of Information Act (1966), 1002 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793), 106 Homeland Security Act (2002), 1566 Indian Civil Rights Act (1968), 1040 Internal Security Act (1950), 799 Jencks Act (1957), 861 Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954), 329 Nineteenth Amendment (1920), 478 Ninth Amendment (1789), 92 Privacy Act (1974), 1252 Privacy Protection Act (1980), 1378 Reconstruction Acts (1867), 280 Second Amendment (1789), 61 Seventh Amendment (1789), 90 Sixth Amendment (1789), 85 Speedy Trial Act (1975), 1260 Takings clause (1789), 77 Tenth Amendment (1789), 98

Categorized Index Third Amendment (1789), 64 Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 273 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964), 938 Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), 928 Twenty-third Amendment (1961), 896 Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965), 970 Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975), 1274 COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA Communications Act (1934), 625 Communications Act Amendments (1960), 891 Communications Decency Act (1996), 1546 Comstock Act (1873), 320 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998), 1555 Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938), 691 Internet Tax Freedom Act (1998), 1553 Privacy Protection Act (1980), 1378 Public Broadcasting Act (1967), 1024 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW Articles of Confederation (1781), 4 Bill of Rights (1789), 46 Declaration of Independence (1776), 1 Eighteenth Amendment (1919), 460 Eighth Amendment (1789), 91 Eleventh Amendment (1798), 115 Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 302 Fifth Amendment (1789), 71 First Amendment (1789), 56 Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 291 Fourth Amendment (1789), 66 Nineteenth Amendment (1920), 478 Ninth Amendment (1789), 92 Ordinance of 1785 (1785), 17 Second Amendment (1789), 61

Seventeenth Amendment (1913), 419 Seventh Amendment (1789), 90 Sixteenth Amendment (1913), 414 Sixth Amendment (1789), 85 Takings clause (1789), 77 Tenth Amendment (1789), 98 Third Amendment (1789), 64 Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 273 Three-fifths compromise (1787), 39 Twelfth Amendment (1804), 147 Twentieth Amendment (1933), 571 Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967), 1020 Twenty-first Amendment (1933), 601 Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), 928 Twenty-second Amendment (1951), 806 Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), 1505 Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), 1147 Twenty-third Amendment (1961), 896 U.S. Constitution: History (1787), 28 U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787), 33 COPYRIGHTS, PATENTS, AND TRADEMARKS Copyright Act of 1909 (1909), 397 Copyright Act of 1976 (1976), 1295 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998), 1555 Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937), 675 Trademark Law Revision Act (1988), 1469 CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE Anti-Racketeering Act (1934), 610 Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994), 1524 Communications Act Amendments (1960), 891

1619

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984), 1418 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), 1117 Eighteenth Amendment (1919), 460 Eighth Amendment (1789), 91 Espionage Acts (1917-1918), 451 Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984), 1417 Federal Crimes Act (1790), 105 Fifth Amendment (1789), 71 Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990), 1471 Hobbs Act (1946), 761 Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984), 1420 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982), 1401 Jencks Act (1957), 861 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974), 1231 Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871), 305 Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), 874 Major Crimes Act (1885), 340 Mann Act (1910), 409 Megan’s Law (1996), 1548 Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984), 1421 Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919), 469 Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act (1984), 1425 National Firearms Act and Federal Firearms Act (1934), 619 National Narcotics Act (1984), 1422 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968), 1052 Organized Crime Control Act (1970), 1103 Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980), 1396 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970), 1105 Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 353 Sixth Amendment (1789), 85

1620

Smith Act (1940), 711 Speedy Trial Act (1975), 1260 Violence Against Women Act (1994), 1530 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994), 1529 DISABILITY ISSUES Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1474 Architectural Barriers Act (1968), 1066 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), 1287 Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963), 921 EDUCATION Bilingual Education Act (1968), 1029 Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988), 1452 Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973), 1213 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 944 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), 1287 Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972), 1165 G.I. Bill (1944), 740 Higher Education Act (1965), 995 Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978), 1176 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975), 1262 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 (1862), 249 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 (1890), 362 National Arts and Cultural Development Act (1964), 952 National Defense Education Act (1958), 865 Perkins Act (1990), 1483

Categorized Index Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (1972), 1178 Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975), 1280 Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978), 1354 ENERGY Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988), 1462 Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (1954), 828 Department of Energy Organization Act (1977), 1319 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975), 1288 Federal Power Act (1920), 476 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980), 1391 Natural Gas Act (1938), 693 Niagara Power Act (1957), 859 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983), 1406 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 853 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978), 1356 Superfund Act (1980), 1386 Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933), 582 ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION Air Pollution Control Act (1955), 839 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act (1968), 1060 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), 1380 Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988), 1462 Animal Welfare Act (1966), 1010 Clean Air Act (1963), 926 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970), 1131 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977), 1323

Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990), 1492 Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.), 981 Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), 1192 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975), 1271 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979), 1374 Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979), 1372 Eastern Wilderness Act (1975), 1254 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986), 1430 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1214 Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966), 1016 Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972), 1182 Food Security Act (1985), 1426 Halibut Treaty (1924), 514 Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974), 1237 Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960), 886 Highway Beautification Act (1965), 966 Law of the Sea Treaty (1982), 1403 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980), 1391 Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 1189 Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987), 1449 Migratory Bird Act (1913), 415 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934), 603 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 454 Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970), 1137 Montreal Protocol (1990), 1472

1621

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965), 989 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879 National Environmental Policy Act (1970), 1094 National Forest Management Act (1976), 1311 National Park Service Organic Act (1916), 440 Noise Control Act (1972), 1203 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983), 1406 Oil Pollution Act of 1924 (1924), 509 Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (1990), 1480 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 1022 Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937), 681 Pollution Prevention Act (1990), 1487 Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978), 1337 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 853 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), 1306 Resource Recovery Act (1970), 1113 Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), 1242 Seabed Treaty (1972), 1157 Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965), 992 Superfund Act (1980), 1386 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977), 1317 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 636 Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933), 582 Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), 1290 Water Pollution Control Act (1948), 785 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956), 844 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972), 1159

1622

Water Resources Research Act (1964), 939 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968), 1077 Wilderness Act (1964), 954 FOOD AND DRUGS Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966), 997 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), 1117 Comstock Act (1873), 320 Eighteenth Amendment (1919), 460 Food Additives Amendment (1958), 867 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938), 699 Food Security Act (1985), 1426 Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914), 434 Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960), 886 Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962), 903 Marihuana Tax Act (1937), 674 National Narcotics Act (1984), 1422 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 396 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970), 1098 Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), 387 Twenty-first Amendment (1933), 601 Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968), 1071 FOREIGN RELATIONS Adams-Onís Treaty (1819), 169 Antarctic Treaty (1961), 898 Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807), 153 Bretton Woods Agreement (1944), 744 Burlingame Treaty (1868), 296 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), 219 Convention of 1818 (1818), 167 Eisenhower Doctrine (1957), 849

Categorized Index Embargo Acts (1806), 151 Formosa Resolution (1955), 834 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947), 780 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994), 1537 Geneva Protocol (1925), 524 Genocide Treaty (1988), 790 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 391 Good Neighbor Policy (1933), 578 Halibut Treaty (1924), 514 Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932), 562 INF Treaty (1987), 1444 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948), 778 Jay’s Treaty (1794), 110 Jones Act (1917), 448 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 547 Law of the Sea Treaty (1982), 1403 Lend-Lease Act (1941), 719 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 181 Neutrality Acts (1935-1939), 657 North American Free Trade Agreement (1993), 1519 North Atlantic Treaty (1949), 792 North Korea Pact (1994), 1532 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968), 1054 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 913 Ogdensburg Agreement (1940), 714 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 1022 Panama Canal Act (1912), 412 Panama Canal Treaties (1978), 1328 Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 123 Platt Amendment (1903), 381 Reciprocal Trade Act (1936), 670 Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 165 SALT I Treaty (1972), 1171 SALT II Treaty (1979), 1367 Seabed Treaty (1972), 1157 START II Treaty (1993), 1509 Taiwan Relations Act (1979), 1363 Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964), 942 Treaty of Ghent (1815), 160 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), 213

Treaty of Kanagawa (1854), 236 Treaty of Monfontaine (1801), 141 Treaty of Paris (1783), 9 Treaty of Paris (1898), 367 Treaty of Versailles (1919), 464 Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844), 207 Treaty of Washington (1871), 310 Tripartite Security Treaty (1952), 808 Truman Doctrine (1947), 764 Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), 606 United States recognition of Vietnam (1995), 1541 U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952), 810 U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002), 1564 U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty (1967), 931 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 202 Yalta Conference agreements (1945), 750 GOVERNMENT PROCEDURE AND ORGANIZATION Articles of Confederation (1781), 4 Department of Energy Organization Act (1977), 1319 Ethics in Government Act (1978), 1349 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 425 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 430 Homeland Security Act (2002), 1566 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 209 Pendleton Act (1883), 336 Presidential Succession Act (1947), 772 Reconstruction Acts (1867), 280 Securities Exchange Act (1934), 612 Twelfth Amendment (1804), 147 Twentieth Amendment (1933), 571 Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967), 1020 Twenty-second Amendment (1951), 806

1623

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), 1505 U.S. Constitution: History (1787), 28 U.S. Constitution: Provisions (1787), 33 HEALTH AND WELFARE Age Discrimination Act (1975), 1285 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), 1026 Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935), 647 Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1474 Architectural Barriers Act (1968), 1066 Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994), 1524 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974), 1218 Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990), 1486 Child product safety laws (1970’s), 1089 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969), 1082 Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966), 997 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), 1117 Comstock Act (1873), 320 Consumer Product Safety Act (1972), 1196 Defense of Marriage Act (1996), 1551 Dependent Pension Act (1890), 351 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 944 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986), 1430 Fair Housing Act (1968), 1035 Family and Medical Leave Act (1993), 1513 Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970), 1118

1624

Family Support Act (1988), 1458 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969), 1083 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938), 699 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 G.I. Bill (1944), 740 Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914), 434 Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960), 886 Housing Act (1961), 901 Housing and Urban Development Act (1965), 976 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984), 1420 Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962), 903 Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971), 1141 McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987), 1440 Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965), 959 Megan’s Law (1996), 1548 Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963), 921 Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984), 1421 National and Community Service Trust Act (1993), 1517 National Arts and Cultural Development Act (1964), 952 National Defense Education Act (1958), 865 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 1014 Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970), 1125 Older Americans Act (1965), 956 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 396 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996), 1549

Categorized Index Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), 1352 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970), 1098 Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), 387 Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 489 Social Security Act (1935), 642 Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), 1290 Victims of Crime Act (1984), 1424 World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924), 499 HOUSING Civil Rights Act of 1968 (1968), 1032 Fair Housing Act (1968), 1035 Housing Act (1961), 901 Housing and Urban Development Act (1965), 976 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 IMMIGRATION Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), 127 Alien land laws (1913), 421 Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987), 1448 Cable Act (1922), 494 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 331 Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907), 391 Immigration Act of 1917 (1917), 446 Immigration Act of 1921 (1921), 483 Immigration Act of 1924 (1924), 501 Immigration Act of 1943 (1943), 736 Immigration Act of 1990 (1990), 1498 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (1965), 985 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (1952), 812 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (1986), 1435 Jones Act (1917), 448 Naturalization Act (1790), 104 Page Law (1875), 322 Refugee Relief Act (1953), 820 War Brides Act (1945), 753

JUDICIARY AND JUDICIAL PROCEDURE Eleventh Amendment (1798), 115 Indian Offenses Act (1883), 335 Judiciary Act of 1789 (1789), 41 Judiciary Acts of 1801-1925 (1801), 136 Removal Act (1875), 326 Speedy Trial Act (1975), 1260 LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT Age Discrimination Act (1975), 1285 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), 1026 Black Codes of 1865 (1865), 269 Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), 432 Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973), 1213 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 944 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974), 1224 Employment Act (1946), 757 Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972), 1165 Equal Pay Act (1963), 909 Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967), 980 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 704 Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969), 1083 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 Hobbs Act (1946), 761 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 573 Labor-Management Relations Act (1947), 769 Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), 874 National Labor Relations Act (1935), 638 Norris-La Guardia Act (1932), 565 Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970), 1125 Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990), 1484 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), 1352

1625

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Railway Labor Act (1926), 534 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964), 938 Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992), 1507 LAND MANAGEMENT Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), 1380 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), 1151 Burke Act (1906), 385 Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), 1192 Eastern Wilderness Act (1975), 1254 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976), 1300 Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974), 1219 General Allotment Act (1887), 347 General Mining Act (1872), 314 Homestead Act (1862), 245 Jones Act (1917), 448 Land Act of 1820 (1820), 178 Maine Indian Claims Act (1980), 1377 Mineral Leasing Act (1920), 470 Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970), 1137 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 (1862), 249 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879 National Forest Management Act (1976), 1311 National Park Service Organic Act (1916), 440 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (1974), 1249 Northwest Ordinance (1787), 24 Ordinance of 1785 (1785), 17 Oregon Act (1848), 217 Pacific Railroad Survey Act (1853), 230

1626

Preemption Act (1841), 199 Reclamation Act (1902), 375 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977), 1317 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 636 Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), 606 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968), 1077 Wilderness Act (1964), 954 LATINOS Bilingual Education Act (1968), 1029 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (1965), 985 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (1986), 1435 Jones Act (1917), 448 Platt Amendment (1903), 381 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), 213 MILITARY AND NATIONAL SECURITY Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001), 1560 Confiscation Acts (1861-1862), 244 Emergency Price Control Act (1942), 728 Executive Order 8802 (1941), 723 Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938), 691 Homeland Security Act (2002), 1566 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982), 1401 Internal Security Act (1950), 799 Lend-Lease Act (1941), 719 Militia Act (1862), 254 National Defense Act (1916), 435 National Security Act (1947), 774 North Atlantic Treaty (1949), 792 Ogdensburg Agreement (1940), 714 Second Amendment (1789), 61 Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964), 942 Tripartite Security Treaty (1952), 808 U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952), 810

Categorized Index USA Patriot Act (2001), 1558 War Powers Resolution (1973), 1208 Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975), 1280 NATIVE AMERICANS Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), 1380 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), 1151 American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), 1333 Burke Act (1906), 385 Fort Atkinson Treaty (1853), 235 Fort Greenville Treaty (1795), 118 Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 (1851), 228 Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 (1868), 300 Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784), 13 Fort Wayne Treaty (1809), 157 General Allotment Act (1887), 347 Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814), 159 Indian Appropriation Act (1871), 306 Indian Child Welfare Act (1978), 1355 Indian Citizenship Act (1924), 505 Indian Civil Rights Act (1968), 1040 Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978), 1176 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), 1465 Indian Offenses Act (1883), 335 Indian Removal Act (1830), 186 Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 620 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975), 1262 Maine Indian Claims Act (1980), 1377 Major Crimes Act (1885), 340 Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867), 287 Menominee Restoration Act (1973), 1211

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), 1496 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (1974), 1249 Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act (1950), 797 Oklahoma Welfare Act (1936), 668 Public Law 280 (1953), 824 Termination Resolution (1953), 815 Trade and Intercourse Acts (1790), 102 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830), 192 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), 213 NATURAL RESOURCES Air Pollution Control Act (1955), 839 Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (1954), 828 Clean Air Act (1963), 926 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 (1970), 1131 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 (1977), 1323 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (1990), 1492 Clean Water Act and Amendments (1965ff.), 981 Endangered Species Act (1973), 1214 Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966), 1016 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976), 1300 Federal Power Act (1920), 476 Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974), 1219 General Mining Act (1872), 314 Halibut Treaty (1924), 514 Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 1189 Mineral Leasing Act (1920), 470 Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970), 1137 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879

1627

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties National Forest Management Act (1976), 1311 Natural Gas Act (1938), 693 Niagara Power Act (1957), 859 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 1022 Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978), 1337 Reclamation Act (1902), 375 Resource Recovery Act (1970), 1113 Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), 1242 Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965), 992 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977), 1317 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 636 Water Pollution Control Act (1948), 785 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956 (1956), 844 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (1972), 1159 Water Resources Research Act (1964), 939 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and National Trails System Act (1968), 1077 Wilderness Act (1964), 954 PRIVACY Fourth Amendment (1789), 66 Ninth Amendment (1789), 92 Privacy Act (1974), 1252 Privacy Protection Act (1980), 1378 Third Amendment (1789), 64 PROPERTY Alien land laws (1913), 421 Confiscation Acts (1861-1862), 244 Takings clause (1789), 77 Third Amendment (1789), 64 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), 1333 First Amendment (1789), 56

1628

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), 1496 Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty (1786), 21 SLAVERY Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807), 153 Black Codes of 1804-1807 (18041807), 143 Black Codes of 1865 (1865), 269 Compromise of 1850 (1850), 225 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 259 Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 291 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (1793), 106 Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (1850), 221 Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), 240 Missouri Compromise (1820), 173 Northwest Ordinance (1787), 24 Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 273 Three-fifths compromise (1787), 39 SPEECH AND EXPRESSION Alien and Sedition Acts (1798), 127 Communications Decency Act (1996), 1546 Comstock Act (1873), 320 Equal Access Act (1984), 1412 Espionage Acts (1917-1918), 451 First Amendment (1789), 56 Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938), 691 Public Broadcasting Act (1967), 1024 Sedition Act of 1798 (1798), 131 Smith Act (1940), 711 TARIFFS AND TAXATION Dingley Tariff (1897), 363 Earned Income Tax Credit (1975), 1269 Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1981), 1397 Force Act of 1833 (1833), 194

Categorized Index General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947), 780 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994), 1537 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 209 Interest Equalization Tax Act (1964), 946 Internet Tax Freedom Act (1998), 1553 Marihuana Tax Act (1937), 674 National Firearms Act and Federal Firearms Act (1934), 619 Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909), 403 Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937), 681 Sixteenth Amendment (1913), 414 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930), 556 Tax Reform Act of 1986 (1986), 1434 TRANSPORTATION Air Commerce Act (1926), 530 Airline Deregulation Act (1978), 1343 Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001), 1560 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), 219 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 343 Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965), 989 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 1014 Pacific Railroad Survey Act (1853), 230 Panama Canal Act (1912), 412 TREATIES AND AGREEMENTS Adams-Onís Treaty (1819), 169 Antarctic Treaty (1961), 898 Bretton Woods Agreement (1944), 744 Burlingame Treaty (1868), 296 Convention of 1818 (1818), 167 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975), 1271

Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (1979), 1374 Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979), 1372 Fort Atkinson Treaty (1853), 235 Fort Greenville Treaty (1795), 118 Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 (1851), 228 Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 (1868), 300 Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784), 13 Fort Wayne Treaty (1809), 157 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947 (1947), 780 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (1994), 1537 Geneva Protocol (1925), 524 Genocide Treaty (1988), 790 Halibut Treaty (1924), 514 Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814), 159 Indian Appropriation Act (1871), 306 INF Treaty (1987), 1444 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948), 778 Jay’s Treaty (1794), 110 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 547 Law of the Sea Treaty (1982), 1403 Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867), 287 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 454 Montreal Protocol (1990), 1472 North American Free Trade Agreement (1993), 1519 North Atlantic Treaty (1949), 792 North Korea Pact (1994), 1532 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968), 1054 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 913 Ogdensburg Agreement (1940), 714 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 1022 Panama Canal Treaties (1978), 1328

1629

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 123 Platt Amendment (1903), 381 Reciprocal Trade Act (1936), 670 Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 165 SALT I Treaty (1972), 1171 SALT II Treaty (1979), 1367 Seabed Treaty (1972), 1157 START II Treaty (1993), 1509 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830), 192 Treaty of Ghent (1815), 160 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), 213 Treaty of Kanagawa (1854), 236 Treaty of Monfontaine (1801), 141 Treaty of Paris (1783), 9 Treaty of Paris (1898), 367 Treaty of Versailles (1919), 464 Treaty of Wang Hiya (1844), 207 Treaty of Washington (1871), 310 Tripartite Security Treaty (1952), 808 U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952), 810 U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002), 1564 U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty (1967), 931 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 202 Yalta Conference agreements (1945), 750 VOTING AND ELECTIONS Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002), 1562 Civil Rights Act of 1957 (1957), 863 Civil Rights Act of 1960 (1960), 875 Direct democracy laws (1902-1913), 371 Disfranchisement laws (1890), 358 Electoral Count Act (1887), 341 Federal Corrupt Practices Act (1925), 518 Federal Election Campaign Act (1972), 1155

1630

Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 302 Hatch Act (1939), 709 Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871), 305 Nineteenth Amendment (1920), 478 Seventeenth Amendment (1913), 419 Twelfth Amendment (1804), 147 Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), 928 Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), 1147 Twenty-third Amendment (1961), 896 Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1965), 970 Voting Rights Act of 1975 (1975), 1274 WOMEN’S ISSUES Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935), 647 Cable Act (1922), 494 Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984), 1415 Defense of Marriage Act (1996), 1551 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), 1233 Equal Pay Act (1963), 909 Equal Rights Amendment (1923), 495 Executive Orders 11246 and 11375 (1965, 1967), 980 Family and Medical Leave Act (1993), 1513 Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970), 1118 Family Support Act (1988), 1458 Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984), 1417 Nineteenth Amendment (1920), 478 Page Law (1875), 322 Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980), 1396 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), 1352

Categorized Index Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 489 Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (1972), 1178 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964), 938 Violence Against Women Act (1994), 1530

War Brides Act (1945), 753 Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992), 1507 Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975), 1280 Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978), 1354

1631

Subject Index Abolitionist movement, 154, 274, 479 Abortion controversy, 1123, 1352, 1455 Abrams v. United States (1919), 57, 133, 453 Abzug, Bella S., 1234 Acheson, Dean, 794 Acid rain, 843, 1494 Adams, John, 128, 148 Adams, John Quincy, 165, 171 Adams-Onís Treaty (1819), 169 Addyston Pipe and Steel Co. v. U.S. (1899), 355 Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923), 704 Administration on Aging, 957 Administrative Procedures Act (1946), 1002 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (1980), 1218 Advertising practices, 686 Affirmative action, 980, 1167 Africa, Cold War in, 1370 African Americans. See Categorized Index Age discrimination, 929 Age Discrimination Act (1975), 957, 1285, 1453, 1501 Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967), 1026, 1285, 1484 Agee, Philip, 1401 Aging issues. See Categorized Index Agins v. City of Tiburon (1980), 81 Agnew, Spiro, 1021 Agreed Framework of 1994. See North Korea Pact Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933), 555, 575 Agricultural College Act. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Agricultural Marketing Act (1929), 551

1632

Agriculture. See Categorized Index Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1935), 647, 962, 1121, 1458 Air Commerce Act (1926), 530 Air Force, U.S., 775 Air Pollution Control Act (1955), 789, 839, 1132 Air Quality Control Act (1967), 1132 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act (1968), 1060, 1203 Airline Deregulation Act (1978), 1343 Alabama claims (1871), 311 Alaska Federation of Natives, 1153 Alaska Lands Act. See Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), 956, 1380 Alaska Native Brotherhood, 1153 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), 1151, 1382 Alaska Pipeline, 1153 Alaska Statehood Act (1958), 1380 Alaskan natives, 1151, 1189, 1383 Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board (1965), 799 Albright, Horace M., 442 Aldrich, Nelson W., 365, 427 Aldrich Plan, 427 Aleuts, 1456 Alien Act (1798), 127 Alien and Sedition Acts. See Sedition Act of 1798 Alien Enemies Act (1798), 127 Alien land laws (1913), 421 Allen v. Board of Elections (1969), 974 Allison, William, 327 Allotment policy, 347 Alternative Motor Fuels Act (1988), 1462

Subject Index Amendments to the Constitution, 38. See also First Amendment, Second Amendment, etc. Amerasian Homecoming Act (1987), 1448 American Bar Association (ABA), 1599 American Civil Liberties Union, 692, 1547, 1558 American Fair Trade League, 676 American Indian Citizenship Act. See Indian Citizenship Act American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), 1333 American Indians. See Native Americans, specific nations American Medical Association, 960 American Revolution. See Revolutionary War American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council (1921), 566 American Woman Suffrage Association, 480 Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), 1352, 1474 AmeriCorps, 1518 Amnesty Act (1872), 286 Amoco Cadiz accident (1978), 1339 Amoco Production Company v. the Village of Gambell (1987), 1385 Anderson, Clinton, 960 Andresen, August H., 604 Andrus, Cecil D., 1381 Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, 1190 Animal Welfare Act (1966), 1009 Animals. See Categorized Index Anslinger, Harry J., 674 Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, 900 Antarctic Environmental Protocol (1991), 900 Antarctic Treaty (1961), 898 Anthony, Susan B., 479 Antifederalists, 99

Anti-Inflation Act (1942), 732 Antiquities Act (1906), 441, 1382, 1497 Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, 610 Anti-Racketeering Act of 1946. See Hobbs Act Anti-Slave Trade Bill (1807), 153, 274 Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act (1974), 1248 Anzus Treaty. See Tripartite Security Treaty Apex Hosiery Company v. Leader (1940), 568 Apodaca v. Oregon (1972), 87 Arab-Israeli War (1973), 1288 Arab nations, 851 Arapahos, 229, 287 Architectural Barriers Act (1968), 1066 Arens, Richard, 812 Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972), 86 Arizona v. Fulminante (1991), 74 Arms, right to bear, 62 Armstrong, William L., 1459 Army Reorganization Act. See National Defense Act Army, U.S., 774 Arnold, Thurman, 801 Aroostook War (1839), 204 Arrears of Pension Act (1879), 352 Arthur, Chester A., 299, 333, 1021 Articles of Confederation (1781), 4, 17, 99 Ashburton, Baron, 204 Ashurst, Hy, 611 Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936), 95 Asia or Asian Americans. See Categorized Index Asian Exclusion League, 394, 421 Asiatic Barred Zone, 447, 813, 986 Aspinall, Wayne, 1301 Atchison, David R., 241 Atomic bomb, 1055 Atomic Energy Act of 1946, 828, 853

1633

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 828, 853 Atomic Energy Commission, 828, 853, 1152, 1408 Atoms for Peace program (1953), 829, 1055 Australian-American relations, 808 Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001), 1560 Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons, Convention on the Prohibition of (1972), 529 Baehr v. Lewin (1993), 1551 Bail, right to, 92, 1419 Bailey, David, 323 Bailey v. Drexel Furniture (1922), 707 Baltimore and Carolina Line v. Redman (1935), 90 Balzac v. Porto Rico (1922), 449 Bank closings (1933), 574 Bank Holding Company Act (1956), 544 Bank of the United States, 209 Banking Act of 1933, 574, 590, 653. See also Glass-Steagall Act Banking Act of 1935, 594, 651 Banking, money, and finance. See Categorized Index Bankruptcy Act (1933), 537 Barker v. Wingo (1972), 88 Barkley, Alben, 787 Barr, Bob, 1552 Baruch, Bernard, 436 Batista y Zaldívar, Fulgencio, 384, 579 Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952), 133 Beck, Thomas, 603 Beckwith, E. G., 232 Bedford Cut Stone Company v. Journeymen Stone Cutters’ Association (1927), 566 Beer and Wine Revenue Act (1933), 462 Benton, Thomas Hart, 200, 231, 246 Bentson, Lloyd, 1459 Bergengren, Roy F., 632

1634

Bergland, Bob, 1382 Beveridge, Albert, 390 Bhopal disaster (1985), 1430 Bicameralism, 34 Biddle, Francis, 640 Bilingual Education Act of 1968, 1029 Bilingual Education Act of 1984, 1031 Bilingual Education Act of 1988, 1031 Bilingual Education Amendments of 1981, 1031 Bilingual Education Improvement Act of 1983, 1031 Bilingual elections, 1278 Bill of Rights (1789), 46 Bill of Rights, Indian (1968), 1034 Bimetallism, 317, 370 Biological Weapons Convention (1972), 529 Biologics Control Act (1902), 887 Bioterrorism, 1558 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002), 1157, 1562 Black Codes, 266, 278, 283, 292, 329; of 1804-1807, 143; of 1865, 269 Black Kettle, 290 Black Reconstruction, 285 Black, Hugo L., 97, 576, 705, 929 Blackmun, Harry A., 97 Blackwell, Kate, 1226 Blakey, G. Robert, 1105 Bland, Richard, 327 Bland-Allison Act (1878), 319, 327 Blix, Hans, 1057 Block v. Smith (1984), 692 Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (1990), 1414 Bolle, Arnold, 1311 Bonus Act. See World War Adjusted Compensation Act Bonus Army, 500 Borah, William E., 466, 548, 659

Subject Index Bowles, Chester, 734 Bradley, Omar N., 776 Bradley, Stephen R., 155 Brady, James, 1525 Brady, Sarah Kemp, 1525 Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act (1994), 1524 Brandeis, Louis D., 57, 133, 566 Brandenburg v. Ohio (1967), 57 Brant, Joseph, 16 Breedlove v. Suttles (1937), 928, 973 Brennan, William J., Jr., 57, 133, 861 Bretton Woods Agreement (1944), 744, 781, 948 Brezhnev, Leonid, 1171, 1367, 1445 Briand, Aristide, 547 British-American relations, 151, 160, 165, 167, 217, 219, 310, 657, 719 Brock, William E., 1234 Brookhaven Report, 831 Brown, John, 275 Brown Shoe case (1962), 804 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 331 Brussels Pact (1948), 793 Bryan, William Jennings, 370, 422, 520 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 1365 Buchanan, James, 247, 251 Buckley Amendment. See Privacy Act Buckley v. Valeo (1976), 1156, 1563 Bulwer, Henry Lytton, 219 Bureau of Biological Survey, 682 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 621, 816, 1177, 1250, 1263 Bureau of Land Management, 637, 1301 Burger, Warren E., 97, 805 Burke Act (1906), 385 Burlingame, Anson, 297 Burlingame Treaty (1868), 208, 296, 332 Burnham, John B., 682 Burr, Aaron, 149

Burroughs and Cannon v. United States (1934), 523 Burton, Theodore E., 526 Bush, George H. W., 1175, 1331, 1501, 1510, 1518, 1542 Bush, George W., 342, 771, 1519, 1536, 1558, 1562, 1564 Bush v. Gore (2000), 342 Business, commerce, and trade. See Categorized Index Byrd, Robert, 1277, 1327 Byrnes, James F., 731, 766 Cable Act (1922), 494 Calhoun, John C., 195, 226 California, 226 California Coastal Act of 1972, 1195 Cambodia, 1542 Caminetti v. United States (1917), 411 Campaign finance reform, 518, 1562 Campbell, John A., 94 Canadian-American relations, 165, 167, 202, 217, 310, 514, 670, 691, 714, 1472, 1519 Canning, George, 184 Capehart, Homer, 840 Capone, Al, 461, 523 Carey Act (1894), 376 Caroline affair (1840), 204 Carroll v. United States (1925), 68, 601 Carter, Jimmy, 1174, 1330, 1364, 1367, 1378, 1381, 1408, 1445, 1533, 1542 Cases v. United States (1943), 63 Castlereagh, Viscount, 162, 165, 167, 184 Catholic Conference of Bishops, 1454 Catt, Carrie Chapman, 481 Caustic Poison Act (1927), 887 Celler, Emanuel, 677, 802, 897 Celler-Kefauver Act (1950), 357, 800 Censorship, 320, 625, 692 Central Intelligence Agency, 775, 1401

1635

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties CERCLA. See Superfund Act CFCs, 1494 Chain stores, 663, 676 Chamoun, Camille, 851 Champion v. Ames (1903), 101 Chapultepec, Act of (1945), 778 Charren, Peggy, 1093 Chase, Salmon P., 242, 261 Chase, Samuel, 132 Checks and balances in government, 36 Chemical weapons in World War I, 525 Chernobyl nuclear accident (1986), 833, 857 Cherokees, 186 Cheyennes, 229, 287 Chiang Kai-shek, 834, 1363 Chiang Kai-shek, Madame, 737 Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad Co. v. Chicago (1897), 76 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974), 1218 Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (1990), 1486 Child labor, 707 Child product safety laws (1970’s), 1089 Child Protection Act (1966), 889, 1089 Child Protection and Toy Safety Act (1969), 1082, 1089 Child protection laws, 406, 1082, 1089, 1141, 1218, 1231, 1396, 1415, 1417, 1421, 1548 Child Support Enforcement Amendments (1984), 1415 Children’s Bureau, U.S., 490 Children’s issues. See Categorized Index Chimel v. California (1969), 67 Chinese-American relations, 296, 322, 331, 396, 421, 483, 494, 501, 562, 736, 812, 834, 1363

1636

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 299, 325, 331, 447, 502, 737 Chisholm, Shirley, 1122 Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), 115 Chlorofluorocarbons, 1494 Choctaws, 187, 192 Church, Frank, 1078, 1311 Church and state, separation of, 21 Churchill, Winston, 715, 750, 765 Cigarette Warning Label Act (1966), 997, 1099 Circuit Court of Appeals Act (1891), 139 Civil Liberties Act (1988), 1456 Civil Rights Act of 1866, 268, 272, 276, 278, 1033, 1036, 1165, 1502 Civil Rights Act of 1875, 279, 1165 Civil Rights Act of 1957, 863, 876 Civil Rights Act of 1960, 864, 875 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 933, 978, 1036, 1165, 1285. See also Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1968, 978, 1032 Civil Rights Act of 1991, 1500 Civil rights and liberties. See Categorized Index Civil Rights cases (1883), 279, 330 Civil Rights Commission, 864 Civil Rights movement, 727, 863, 934, 1165, 1274 Civil Rights Restoration Act (1988), 1452 Civil Service Commission, 1167 Civil Service Reform Act (1978), 339 Civil service system, 336 Civil War (1861-1865), 65, 101, 110, 184, 212, 258-259, 261, 275, 282, 317, 351, 724 Civil War Amendments. See Thirteenth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment Civilian Conservation Corps, 444, 1517

Subject Index Civilian Conservation Corps Act (1933), 575 Classification Act (1923), 339 Clay, Henry, 176, 198, 201, 211, 225 Clayton, Henry D., 433 Clayton, John M., 219 Clayton Antitrust Act (1914), 355, 431-432, 566, 662, 800 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), 219 Clean Air Act (1963), 832, 842, 926, 1132, 1291, 1322, 1324 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1965, 1324 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, 926, 1131, 1203, 1291 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, 1323-1324 Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, 843, 1492 Clean Water Act (1965), 982 Clear and present danger test, 57 Clear-cutting, 884, 1221, 1311 Clemenceau, Georges, 465 Clements, Earle C., 999 Cleveland, Grover, 150, 345, 352, 363 Clinton, Bill, 1028, 1054, 1512-1513, 1521, 1533, 1538, 1541, 1552 Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), 1192 Cohens v. Virginia (1821), 45 Coinage Act (1873), 316 Cold War, 752, 765, 774, 778, 792, 814, 835, 851, 854, 914, 931, 1055, 1157, 1171, 1363, 1367, 1444, 1564 Colgrove v. Battin (1973), 91 Collier, John, 621, 817, 1334 Collier-Blaine Bill (1932), 462 Comanches, 287 Commerce. See Categorized Index under Business, Commerce, and Trade Commission on Civil Rights, 876, 1286 Common Sense (Paine), 1

Common Varieties Mineral Act (1955), 314 Communications Act (1934), 625, 894, 1546 Communications Act Amendments (1960), 891 Communications and media. See Categorized Index Communications Decency Act (1996), 1546 Communist Control Act (1954), 826 Communist Party of the United States, 641, 712, 826 Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board (1961), 799 Communist Party vs. Catherwood (1961), 827 Communists, fear of, 453, 465, 487, 500, 712, 799, 812, 826, 861 Competitive Equality Banking Act (1987), 544 Comprehensive Crime Control Act (1984), 1418, 1423 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), 1117, 1336 Comprehensive Employment Training Act (1973), 1213 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. See Superfund Act Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1994), 919 Compromise of 1850, 94, 109, 221, 225, 240, 274 Compromise Tariff. See Tariff of 1833 Comstock, Anthony, 320 Comstock Act (1873), 56, 320 Condemnation and eminent domain, 78 Confiscation Acts (1861-1862), 244 Congress, U.S., 34 Congress of Industrial Organizations, 568, 641 Conkling, Roscoe, 337

1637

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Connery, William P., 644, 705 Conservation. See Categorized Index under Environment and Conservation Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, Convention on the (1979), 1372 Constitution (1787); history, 28; provisions, 33 Constitutional Convention (1787), 29, 33, 41, 419, 806 Constitutional law. See Categorized Index Consumer Credit Protection Act (1968), 1044, 1233 Consumer Goods Pricing Act (1975), 680 Consumer Product Safety Act (1972), 890, 1090, 1196, 1291 Consumer Product Safety Commission, 890, 1082, 1090, 1197 Consumer Product Warranty Act of 1975. See Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act Consumer Products Safe Testing Act (1989), 1012 Consumer protection laws, 387, 430, 685, 699, 867, 886, 903, 997, 1044, 1050, 1071, 1082, 1089, 1098, 1108, 1141, 1196, 1263 Containment, 768, 792 Continental Congress (1776), 2, 5 Continental System (1940), 717 Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (1973), 1449 Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds (1916), 457 Convention of 1800. See Monfontaine, Treaty of Convention of 1815, 167 Convention of 1818, 167 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1975), 458, 1271

1638

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. See Genocide Treaty Convention on the Prohibition of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons (1972), 529 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (1992), 1447 Cooley, Thomas M., 346 Coolidge, Calvin, 486, 500, 509, 536 Coolie trade, 322, 332, 422 Copeland Act. See Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934 Copyright Act of 1909, 397 Copyright Act of 1976, 402, 1295 Copyrights, patents, and trademarks. See Categorized Index Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 1025 Corrupt Practices Act. See Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 Costello v. United States (1956), 75 Cotton gin, 154 Council of Economic Advisors, 758 Council of National Defense, 436 Counsel, right to, 86 Court system; creation of, 41 Courts of Indian Offenses, 335 Coy v. Iowa (1988), 89 Crazy Horse, 301 Credit Union Modernization Act (1977-1978), 634 Credit Union National Association, 633 Crime of 1873. See Coinage Act Crime Victims Fund, 1424 Crimes and criminal procedure. See Categorized Index Crissinger, Daniel Richard, 542 Crockett v. Reagan (1982), 1210 Crows, 229 Cruel and unusual punishment clause, 92 Cuban-American relations, 367, 381, 1370, 1444

Subject Index Cuban boat people, 987 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 779, 1444 Cuban Revolution (1895), 382 Cullen-Harrison Bill (1933), 462 Cullom, Shelby M., 345 Cummings, Homer, 619 Currency, 211 Currency Act (1834), 317 Currency Act (1900), 369 Curtis, George William, 338 Cushing, Caleb, 208, 297 Dancing Rabbit Creek, Treaty of (1830), 192 Danforth, John C., 1455, 1501 Daniels, Josephus, 471 Darling, Ding, 603, 682 Darrow, Clarence, 599 Daugherty, Harry, 535 Davis, Jefferson, 227, 231, 257 Dawes, Henry L., 309, 349, 507 Dawes Act. See General Allotment Act Day, Albert M., 683 Declaration of Independence (1776), 1, 144 De Concini, Dennis, 1331 Deepwater Ports Act (1974), 1480 Defense Department Reorganization Act (1958), 777 Defense Department, U.S., 775 Defense of Marriage Act (1996), 1551 Delaney Amendment. See Food Additives Amendment Delaney, James J., 867, 887 Democratic Party, 243 Deng Xiaoping, 1364 Dennis v. United States (1951), 135, 712 Department of Energy, 1319, 1407 Department of Energy Organization Act (1977), 1319 Dependent Pension Act (1890), 351

Depository Institutions Act (1982), 545 Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (1980), 634 Depression. See Great Depression; entries under “Panic of” Desert Land Act (1877), 248, 375 Desjardins, Alphonse, 631 Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Shareholders, 1212 Dickinson, John, 5 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (1994), 703, 872 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998), 1555 Dill, Clarence C., 644 Dillingham Commission, 446, 485, 502 Dingell, John, 1492 Dingley, Nelson, 364 Dingley Tariff (1897), 363 Direct democracy laws (1913), 371 Dirksen, Everett, 877, 934, 1033 Disability insurance, 961 Disability issues. See Categorized Index Disability Pension Act. See Dependent Pension Act Disfranchisement laws (1890), 358 Displaced Persons Act (1948), 738, 821 Distribution-Preemption Act (1841), 201 Diversity of interests, principle of, 37 Dixon, Archibald, 241 Doerfer, John C., 893 Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994), 76, 83 Dole, Robert, 1459, 1539, 1552 Doolittle, James, 506 Double jeopardy, 74 Doughton, Robert L., 674 Douglas, Paul, 644 Douglas, Paul H., 1045

1639

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Douglas, Stephen A., 227, 240 Douglas, William O., 96 Douglas Amendment (1956), 544 Douglas v. California (1963), 86 Douglass, Frederick, 275 Downes v. Bidwell (1901), 448 Draft law of 1862, 254 Draft laws, 1147, 1280 Drug laws, 320, 387, 396, 434, 460, 674, 699, 903, 997, 1098, 1117, 1422 Duck Stamp Act. See Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act Due process; grand juries, 75 Due process clause, 96 Dulles, John Foster, 808, 835 Duncan v. Louisiana (1968), 87 Duplex Printing Company v. Deering (1921), 566 Dyer Act. See Motor Vehicle Theft Act Earned Income Tax Credit (1975), 1269 Eastern Wilderness Act (1975), 1254 Eastland, James O., 877, 1277 Eaton, Dorman B., 338 Eccles, Marriner, 654 Economic Opportunity Act (1964), 944 Economic Recovery Tax Act and Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1981), 1397 Economy Act (1933), 574 Edelman v. Jordan (1974), 116 Edmunds, George F., 139 Education. See Categorized Index Education Amendments Act of 1972, 1453 Education Amendments of 1972, 1178, 1285, 1354 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), 1287 Eighteenth Amendment (1919), 460, 601

1640

Eighth Amendment (1789), 52, 91 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 750, 804, 814, 822, 825, 836, 854, 865, 876, 922, 1055, 1147 Eisenhower Doctrine (1957), 849 Elections. See Categorized Index under Voting and Elections Electoral college, 35, 148 Electoral Count Act (1887), 341 Electronic Duck Stamp Act (2001), 606 Electronic Funds Transfer Act (1978), 1049 Eleventh Amendment (1798), 115 Elk v. Wilkins (1884), 506 Elliott, Carl, 865 Ellsworth, Oliver, 132 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 245, 259, 275 Embargo Acts (1806-1807), 151 Emergency Banking Relief Act (1933), 574 Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986), 1430, 1489 Emergency Price Control Act (1942), 728 Emergency Quota Act of 1921. See Immigration Act of 1921 Emergency Transportation Act (1933), 539 Emergency Wetlands Resources Act (1986), 605 Emory, William H., 231 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974), 1224 Employment. See Categorized Index under Labor and Employment Employment Act (1946), 656, 757, 1167 Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon et al. v. Smith (1990), 1336 Endangered species, 1016, 1214, 1271, 1313, 1372

Subject Index Endangered Species, Convention on International Trade in (1975), 458, 1271 Endangered Species Act (1973), 458, 1214, 1313, 1383 Endangered Species Conservation Act (1969), 1214, 1271 Endangered Species Preservation Act (1966), 1016, 1214 Energy. See Categorized Index Energy, Department of, 1319, 1407 Energy crisis (1970’s), 1288 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (1975), 1288 Enforcement Act of 1809), 153 Enforcement Acts of 1870-1871. See Ku Klux Klan Acts Engblom v. Carey (1982), 65 Environment and conservation. See Categorized Index Environmental Protection Agency, 843, 926, 983, 1132, 1160, 1184, 1203, 1243, 1290, 1307, 1324, 1386, 1392, 1451, 1488, 1492 Epstein, Abraham, 644 Equal Access Act (1984), 1412 Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), 1233 Equal Credit Opportunity Act Amendments (1976), 1235 Equal Educational Opportunities Act (1974), 1030 Equal Employment Opportunity Act (1972), 1165 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 938, 1027, 1167 Equal Pay Act (1963), 497, 909, 1165, 1507 Equal Rights Amendment (19231983), 495 Equal Rights Association, 480 Erdman Act (1898), 537 ERISA. See Employee Retirement Income Security Act Ervin, Sam, 1034, 1041

Espionage Acts (1917-1918), 57, 451 Estuaries, 1162 Ethics in Government Act (1978), 1349 Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (1926), 80 Eugenics, 486 Evacuation Claims Act (1948), 1457 Evans, George Henry, 247 Everett Dirksen, 1037 Ex parte Crow Dog (1883), 340 Ex parte New York (1921), 116 Exclusionary rule, 69 Executive branch of government, 35 Executive Order 8802 (1941), 723, 980 Executive Order 9981 (1948), 727 Executive Order 10925 (1961), 641, 980, 1165 Executive Order 10980 (1961), 910 Executive Order 11063 (1962), 902, 1036 Executive Order 11141 (1964), 929 Executive Order 11246 (1965), 980 Executive Order 11375 (1967), 980 Executive Order 12356 (1982), 1004 Exon, J. James, 1546 Expropriation Act (1907), 494 Exxon Valdez accident (1989), 1480 Fair Credit Reporting Act (1970), 1049, 1108 Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (1978), 1049 Fair Employment Practices Commission, 726 Fair Housing Act (1968), 978, 1035 Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), 599, 704, 911 Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (1966), 890, 1073 Fair use doctrine, 1298 Falklands War (1982), 779 Fall, Albert, 474 Fallen Timbers, Battle of (1794), 121, 179

1641

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Family and Medical Leave Act (1993), 1353, 1513 Family Assistance Plan (1969), 1270 Family Planning Services and Population Research Act (1970), 1118 Family Support Act (1988), 1458 Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (1984), 1417 Farm Act of 1985. See Food Security Act Federal Aid in Wildlife Act. See Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act Federal Aviation Act (1958), 1063 Federal Aviation Administration, 1062 Federal Aviation Regulation 36, 1065 Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1471, 1559 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act. See Cigarette Warning Label Act Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act (1969), 1083 Federal Communications Commission, 625, 1025, 1295 Federal Communications Commission v. League of Women Voters (1984), 1025 Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1910, 520 Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, 518, 1155 Federal Credit Union Act (1934), 630 Federal Crimes Act (1790), 105 Federal Election Campaign Act (1972), 520, 524, 1155, 1563 Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments (1974), 1156 Federal Emergency Relief Act (1933), 575 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 1319

1642

Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972), 1182 Federal Farm Board, 552 Federal Firearms Act (1938), 619 Federal Food and Drugs Act. See Pure Food and Drugs Act Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. See Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Federal Housing Administration, 902, 977 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (1947), 886-887, 1183 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (1976), 956, 1300 Federal Mine Safety and Health Act (1977), 1088 Federal National Mortgage Association, 977 Federal Power Act of 1920, 476, 1322 Federal Power Act of 1935, 695, 1322 Federal Power Commission, 476, 694, 854, 1319 Federal Power Commission v. Hope Natural Gas (1944), 696 Federal Reserve Act (1913), 371, 425, 541, 590, 651 Federal Reserve Board, 1400 Federal Reserve System Act (1913), 263 Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, 429 Federal Tort Claims Act (1946), 763 Federal Trade Commission, 663, 694, 801, 893, 999, 1044, 1098 Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), 356, 430, 676, 686, 893 Federalism, 36 Federalist Papers, 37, 99 Federalist Party, 128 Federalists, 99 Feighan, Ed, 1526 Fielding, William S., 671

Subject Index Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 302, 358, 480, 875, 972, 1165, 1274 Fifth Amendment (1789), 49, 71, 799 Filene, Edward A., 631 Fillmore, Millard, 227, 237 Finance. See Categorized Index under Banking, Money, and Finance Financial Institutions Reform Act (1978), 634 Fireside chats (F. D. Roosevelt), 574 First Amendment (1789), 47, 56, 133, 1414, 1547 First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v. County of Los Angeles (1987), 82 Fish, Hamilton, 312 Fish and Wildlife Service, 418, 604, 684, 1190, 1216, 1255 Fish Wildlife Coordination Act (1934), 682 Fitzpatrick, Thomas, 229, 235 Five Civilized Tribes, 200, 669 Flammable Fabrics Act (1953), 1090 Fletcher, Duncan, 615 Fletcher v. Peck (1810), 94 Flint v. Stone Tracy Company (1911), 407 Food Additives Amendment (1958), 703, 867 Food and Drug Administration, 390, 700, 868, 888, 904, 1089, 1144 Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act (1997), 703 Food and drugs. See Categorized Index Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938), 390, 699, 868, 886-887, 904 Food Security Act (1985), 1426 Foraker Act (1900), 448 Force Act of 1833, 194 Force Acts. See Ku Klux Klan Acts Ford, Gerald, 1174 Ford, Henry, 522, 584

Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938), 691 Foreign Enlistment Act (1819), 311 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978), 1559 Foreign relations. See Categorized Index Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974), 884, 1219, 1313 Forest Service, 880, 955, 1219, 1254, 1303, 1311, 1384 Forestry Reserve Act (1891), 441 Formosa Resolution (1955), 834, 850 Forrestal, James V., 775 Fort Atkinson Treaty (1853), 235 Fort Greenville Treaty (1795), 118, 122, 158, 179 Fort Harmar, Treaty of (1789), 16, 120 Fort Jackson Treaty. See Horseshoe Bend Treaty Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, 228, 235 Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, 300 Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784), 13 Fort Wayne Treaty (1809), 157 Fourteen Points (1918), 465 Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 76, 94, 96, 272, 279, 284, 291, 303, 506, 1036, 1165 Fourth Amendment (1789), 49, 66 Fox, Mrs. Cyril, 967 Franco-American Treaty of 1778, 141 Frankfurter, Felix, 135 Franklin, Benjamin, 2, 10, 30, 274, 531 Free-soil doctrine, 226, 246 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (1865), 265 Freedom of Information Act (1966), 1002, 1252, 1567 Freedom of speech, 56 Frémont, John C., 228, 231 French-American relations, 110, 141, 151

1643

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Fry v. United States (1975), 101 Fuel economy standards, 1289 Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, 106 Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, 109, 156, 221, 240, 274 Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act (1978), 760 Fuller, Melville W., 139 Gabrielson, Ira N., 683 Gadsden Purchase (1853), 246 Gallatin, Albert, 167, 180 Garfield, James A., 336, 1021 Garn-St. Germain Act (1982), 545, 635 Garrison, Lloyd K., 640 Garrison, William Lloyd, 274 Garrison v. Louisiana (1964), 133 Gay and lesbian issues, 1551 Geary Act (1892), 333 Geer v. Connecticut (1896), 455 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947, 780, 1520 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994, 1537 General Allotment Act (1887), 347, 385, 507, 816 General Mining Act (1872), 314, 470, 1137 General Services Administration (GSA), 1600 Geneva Protocol (1925), 524 Genocide Treaty (1948), 790 Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1900, 395 Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907, 391, 421, 447, 484 George, James, 359 German-American relations, 464, 657, 750, 753 Gerry, Elbridge, 100 Gertz v. Robert Welch (1974), 133 Ghent, Treaty of (1814), 160, 203 G.I. Bill (1944), 740, 902, 995 Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), 86 Glasnost (Soviet openness), 1174

1644

Glass, Carter, 427, 590, 654 Glass-Owen Act. See Federal Reserve Act Glass-Steagall Act (1933), 543, 654. See also Banking Act of 1933 Godoy, Manuel de, 125 Gold rush of 1849, 332 Gold standard, 369, 429, 597, 746 Gold Standard Act. See Currency Act Goldberg, Arthur J., 96 Goldblatt v. Hempstead (1962), 82 Gompers, Samuel, 433 Good Neighbor Policy (1933-1945), 578, 672 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 1174, 1445, 1510 Gore, Al, 342 Gould, Jay, 344 Government procedure and organization. See Categorized Index Graduation Act (1854), 200 Grand jury, right to, 75 Grant, Madison, 488 Grant, Ulysses S., 279, 284, 806 Grau San Martín, Ramón, 384, 579 Gravel, Mike, 1381 Great Depression, 500, 539, 554, 567, 573, 596, 632, 636, 643, 672, 704, 757, 780 Great Society programs, 945, 957, 959, 976, 986, 995, 1127 Green, Edith, 496 Greenback movement. See Silver-gold debate Greenville, Treaty of. See Fort Greenville Treaty Griffiths, Martha W., 496, 938 Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), 1167, 1501 Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), 96 Grotius, Hugo, 1404 Grove City College v. Bell (1984), 1454 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of (1848), 213, 245 Guggenheim, Simon, 374

Subject Index Guiteau, Charles J., 336 Gulf War (1991), 1057 Gun Control Act (1968), 1526 Gun laws, 62, 1524 Gunnison, John W., 232 Hague Declaration (1899), 525 Halibut Treaty (1924), 514, 671 Hamilton, Alexander, 29, 33, 100, 112, 149, 179 Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), 101, 707 Hanford, Washington, nuclear waste, 855, 1393 Hanna, Marcus Alonzo, 520 Hans v. Louisiana (1890), 116 Harding, Warren G., 474, 486, 490, 515, 520, 535 Harkin, Thomas R., 1455 Harlan, John Marshall, 713 Harman v. Forssenius (1965), 929 Harmar, Josiah, 120 Harper & Row Publishers v. Nation Enterprises (1985), 1299 Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966), 929, 973 Harriman, Averell, 918 Harris, Oren, 894 Harris v. New York (1971), 73 Harrison, Benjamin, 354 Harrison, Francis Burton, 434 Harrison, William Henry, 157, 180, 205 Harrison Act. See Harrison Narcotic Drug Act Harrison Land Act (1800), 19 Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (1914), 434 Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act (1976), 1232 Hartzel v. United States (1944), 454 Hatch, Carl, 709 Hatch, Orrin G., 1455 Hatch Act (1939), 95, 339, 523, 709 Hate Crime Statistics Act (1990), 1471

Hathaway, William, 1281 Havana Charter (1948), 782 Havens v. Coleman (1982), 1038 Hawes-Cutting-Hare Act (1932), 607 Hawkins, Augustus F., 1454 Hawkins, Paul, 1421 Hawley, Willis, 557 Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. See SmootHawley Tariff Act Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903), 412 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901), 220, 413 Hayes, Rutherford B., 150, 286, 327, 333, 341 Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984, 1307 Hazardous Materials Control Act (1970), 1238 Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (1974), 1237 Hazardous Substances Act of 1966, 889 Hazardous Substances Act of 1969, 1082 Hazardous Substances Labeling Act (1960), 886, 1089 Head Start, Economic Opportunity, and Community Partnership Act (1975), 946 Head Start program, 945 Healing v. Jones (1962), 1250 Health and welfare. See Categorized Index Health, Education, and Welfare, Department of, 1067 Health Research Extension Act (1985), 1012 Hearst, William Randolph, 388, 420 Heckscher, August, 953 Helsinki Accords (1975), 1171 Henderson, Leon, 729 Hercules v. United States (1996), 763 Herrera, Omar Torrijos, 1331 Hickel, Walter, 1153

1645

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Hidden Persuaders, The (Packard), 1044 Higher Education Act (1965), 866, 995 Higher Education Amendments (1998), 1028 Highway Beautification Act (1965), 966 Hinckley, John, 1420 Hitchman Coal Company v. Mitchell (1917), 566 Hitler, Adolf, 719 Hobbs, Carl, 762 Hobbs Act (1946), 611, 761 Hobby, Oveta Culp, 841 Hoke v. United States (1913), 411 Holland, Spessard, 897 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 57, 133, 453, 700 Home Owners Refinancing Act (1933), 575 Homeland Security Act (2002), 1566 Homestead Act of 1862, 201, 245, 375 Homestead Act of 1866, 248 Hoover, Herbert, 461, 500, 515, 535, 552, 597, 636, 671, 705, 801 Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932), 562 Hopis, 1250 Hornaday, William T., 604 Horseshoe Bend Treaty (1814), 159 House Committee on Un-American Activities, 711, 812 House of Representatives, U.S., 34 Housing. See Categorized Index Housing Act of 1934, 901 Housing Act of 1949, 902 Housing Act of 1961, 901-902 Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, 1039 Housing and Urban Development, Department of, 976-977, 1034, 1038

1646

Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, 976 Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, 977, 1039 Howard, Edgar, 622 Hughes, Charles Evans, 95, 515 Hull, Cordell, 579, 658, 672, 781 Humphrey, Gordon J., 1455 Humphrey, Hubert H., 727, 813, 884, 1148, 1312 Humphrey-Hawkins Act (1978), 760 Humphreys, Benjamin G., 271 Hundred Days legislation (1933), 462, 573, 597 Hungarian refugees, 822 Hydrogen bomb, 1055 Ickes, Harold, 475, 599, 623 Illinois v. Perkins (1990), 73 Immigration. See Categorized Index Immigration Act of 1891, 1499 Immigration Act of 1903, 502 Immigration Act of 1917, 446, 485 Immigration Act of 1921, 483 Immigration Act of 1924, 501 Immigration Act of 1943, 736, 820 Immigration Act of 1990, 1498 Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, 738, 985, 1435 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 424, 812, 821 Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha (1983), 1210 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 1435, 1499 In re “Agent Orange” Product Liability Litigation (1980), 763 Income tax, 414 Independent Treasury Act (1846), 209 Indian Appropriation Act (1871), 306 Indian Bill of Rights. See Indian Civil Rights Act

Subject Index Indian Child Welfare Act (1978), 825, 1355 Indian Citizenship Act (1924), 348, 387, 505, 1040 Indian Civil Rights Act (1968), 825, 1034, 1040, 1041 Indian Education Acts (1972, 1978), 1176 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), 1465 Indian General Allotment Act. See General Allotment Act Indian Offenses Act (1883), 335 Indian Removal Act (1830), 186, 192 Indian Reorganization Act (1934), 387, 620, 668, 816 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975), 1262 Indians. See Native Americans; specific tribal nations Individual retirement accounts, 1225 INF Treaty (1987), 1444, 1509 Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984), 1420 Insecticides. See Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Intelligence Identities Protection Act (1982), 1401 Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (1948), 778 Interest Equalization Tax Act (1964), 946 Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, 823 Internal Security Act (1950), 799, 812, 826 International Atomic Energy Agency, 829, 1056, 1533 International Criminal Court, 791 International Monetary Fund, 744, 781, 1522 International Trade Organization, 781

Internet Tax Freedom Act (1998), 1553 Interstate Commerce Act (1887), 343, 1044 Interstate Commerce Commission, 345, 1237 Intrusion Act (1807), 200 Invalid Pension Act or Disability Pension Act. See Dependent Pension Act Iraq, 1057 Iroquois Confederacy, 13 Jackson, Andrew, 159, 171, 186, 192, 196, 203, 209, 237, 337 Jackson, Henry, 1078, 1302, 1358 Jackson, Robert H., 133 Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act. See Megan’s Law Japanese-American relations, 207, 236, 391, 421, 464, 483, 501, 562, 736, 753, 808, 810, 812 Japanese Americans, 1456 Japanese immigration, 392, 421 Japanese internment, 1457 Javits, Jacob, 1226 Jay, John, 10, 112 Jay’s Treaty (1794), 110, 122, 142, 165, 203 Jefferson, Thomas, 2, 20, 23-24, 100, 129, 148, 151 Jenckes, Thomas Allen, 337 Jencks, Clinton, 861 Jencks Act (1957), 861 Jewish refugees, 820 Jim Crow laws (1880’s-1954), 329, 724, 1032 Jin Fuey Moy v. United States (1916), 435 Job Corps, 945, 1213 Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program, 1459

1647

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Johnson-Reid Act. See Immigration Act of 1924 Johnson v. Zerbst (1938), 86 Johnson, Albert, 486 Johnson, Andrew, 247, 270, 276, 278, 282, 292, 419, 772 Johnson, Hiram W., 659 Johnson, Hugh S., 597, 639 Johnson, Lady Bird, 966 Johnson, Louis A., 776 Johnson, Lyndon B., 523, 863, 865, 877, 888, 930, 934, 942, 944, 976, 986, 1036, 1077, 1121, 1208, 1274 Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 758 Jones Act (1916). See Organic Act of the Philippine Islands Jones Act (1917), 448, 449 Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company (1968), 279, 1033, 1039 Judicial branch of government, 36 Judicial review process, 38 Judiciary Act of 1789, 41, 137, 326 Judiciary Act of 1801, 137 Judiciary Act of 1869, 138 Judiciary Act of 1875. See Removal Act Judiciary Act of 1925, 140 Judiciary and judicial procedure. See Categorized Index Jungle, The (Sinclair), 389, 700, 886, 1072 Jury, trial by, 87, 90 Just compensation, 78 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974), 1231 Kaiser Aetna v. United States (1980), 83 Kanagawa, Treaty of (1854), 236 Kanka, Megan, 1548 Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), 227, 240 Kansas v. Hendricks (1997), 75 Katz v. United States (1967), 65, 69 Katzenbach, Nicholas, 972 Kearney, Denis, 332, 502

1648

Keating, Kenneth B., 897 Keenan, Joseph B., 610 Kefauver, Estes, 801, 897, 904 Kefauver-Harris Amendment (1962), 903 Kelley, Florence, 491 Kellogg, Frank, 547, 563 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 547, 563 Kelly Air Mail Act (1925), 531 Kennan, George F., 768 Kennedy, Edward M., 1149, 1418, 1454, 1501 Kennedy, John F., 902, 917, 923, 930, 934, 953, 980, 985, 1021, 1054 Kennedy, Joseph, 617 Kennedy Report (1969), 1176 Kentucky Resolves, 100, 130 Keogh plans, 1226 Keynes, John Maynard, 745, 759 Khrushchev, Nikita, 917, 1056 Kim Dae Jung, 1535-1536 Kim Il Sung, 1533 Kim Jong Il, 1533 Kim Young Sam, 1533 King, Cecil, 960 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1033, 1037, 1275 King, Rufus, 176 King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 517, 559, 672, 715 Kintner, Earl W., 893 Kiowa-Apache tribe, 288 Kiowas, 287 Kissinger, Henry A., 777, 1330 Klaas, Polly, 1422 Knox, John Jay, 318 Knudsen, William S., 730 Komei (emperor of Japan), 238 Korean-American relations, 1532 Korean War (1950-1953), 810, 835 Ku Klux Klan, 279, 285, 305, 330 Ku Klux Klan Acts (1870-1871), 279, 285, 305 Kuchel, Thomas, 840 Kvitsinskiy, Yuli, 1445

Subject Index Labor and employment. See Categorized Index Labor-Management Relations Act (1947), 641, 769, 827, 874 Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. See LandrumGriffin Act Lacey Act (1900), 416, 456, 1017, 1214 La Follette, Robert M., 372, 471 La Guardia, Fiorello, 567 Lamar v. United States (1916), 1021 Lame-Duck Amendment. See Twentieth Amendment Land Act of 1800, 19 Land Act of 1820, 178, 199 Land and Water Conservation Fund Act (1964), 1017 Land Grant Act of 1862. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 Land Grant Act of 1890. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Land management. See Categorized Index Landfills, 1115 Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), 641, 874 Lane, Franklin K., 471 Lanham, Fritz, 1469 Lanham Act (1946), 687, 1469 Larrick, George P., 871 Latin-American relations, 219, 412, 578, 778, 985, 1328, 1498, 1519. See also Spanish-American relations; specific Caribbean or Latin American nations Latinos. See Categorized Index Lau v. Nichols (1974), 1030 Lauf v. E. G. Shinner and Company (1938), 568 Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 1053 Law of the Sea Treaty (1982), 1403, 1450

Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act (1971), 1141 League of Nations, 464, 563 Learn and Serve America program, 1518 Learning disabilities, 1287 Lebanon, 851 Lee, Richard Henry, 2 LeFlore, Greenwood, 192 Legal Tender Acts (1862), 261, 317 Legislative branch of government, 34 Lehman, Herbert, 813 Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), 58 Lend-Lease Act (1941), 715, 719 Leopold, Aldo, 603 Levinson, Salmon, 547 Levy, Herbert, 677 Lewis, David J., 643 Lewis, John L., 568 Lewis v. United States (1996), 87 Library of Congress, 1600 Limited Test Ban Treaty. See Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Lincoln, Abraham, 228, 241, 244, 247, 251, 259, 275 Lincoln-Douglas debates, 275 Linderman, Richard, 318 Linkletter v. Walker (1965), 69 Literacy tests, 360, 446, 484, 502, 970, 1274 Little Arkansas Treaty (1865), 289 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 396, 466, 484, 503 Loewe v. Lawlor (1908), 565 Logan, John J., 308 Logan, Marvel Mills, 664 Lonergan, Augustine, 787 Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, Convention on (1979), 1374 Looking Backward (Bellamy), 354 Lopez, Narcisco, 240 Lorance v. AT&T Technologies (1989), 1502 Loring, H. Sheldon, 324

1649

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Louisiana Purchase, 169, 174 Love Canal toxic wastes, 1387 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (1980), 1391 Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission (1992), 76, 82 Lucas v. the South Carolina Coastal Commission (1993), 1195 Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemeteries Association (1987), 1336 Lytton Report (1933), 564 McArdle, Richard E., 880 MacArthur, Douglas, 500 McCain, John, 1562 McCarran, Patrick A., 637, 799, 812, 821 McCarran Act. See Internal Security Act McCarran-Walter Act. See Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 McClellan, George B., 231 McClellan, John L., 1295 McClure, James, 1409 McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), 93, 100 McFadden, Louis Thomas, 542 McFadden Act (1927), 541 McGuire Act (1952), 680 Machado y Morales, Gerardo, 384, 579 Machine politics, 337, 520 McKinley, William, 364, 370, 382, 448, 522 McKinley Tariff (1890), 364 McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987), 1440 Madison, James, 22, 30, 66, 93, 99, 112, 1505 Madison Amendment. See Twentyseventh Amendment Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (Crane), 410 Magnuson, Warren, 1000, 1010

1650

Magnuson Act. See Immigration Act of 1943 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (1975), 890, 1263 Maine Indian Claims Act (1980), 1377 Major Crimes Act (1885), 340, 1042 Malcolm X, 933 Manhattan Project, 830 Mann Act (1910), 409 Mansfield, Mike, 1277 Mao Zedong, 1174, 1363 Mapp v. Ohio (1961), 69 Marbury v. Madison (1803), 44 March on Washington (1963), 934 Marihuana Tax Act (1937), 674 Marijuana, 674, 1117 Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 458, 1189, 1383 Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act (1987), 1449 Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (1972), 984, 1194 Maronick, Thomas J., 689 MARPOL convention (1973), 1449 Marriage, 1551 Marshall, George C., 767, 776 Marshall, John, 44, 93, 188, 307 Marshall Plan (1948), 767, 774, 793 Martí, José, 382 Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (1816), 44 Martin v. Wilks (1989), 1503 Maryland v. Craig (1990), 89 Mason, James, 222 Massachusetts v. Sheppard (1984), 70 Maternity Act. See Sheppard-Towner Act Mather, Stephen, 442 Meacham, Albert, 349 Meals-on-wheels programs, 958 Meat Inspection Act (1906), 390, 887, 1072 Media. See Categorized Index under Communications and Media

Subject Index Medicaid, 962, 1123 Medi-Cal, 962 Medical insurance, 959 Medicare and Medicaid Amendments (1965), 959 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act (1988), 964 Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (1867), 287 Meese v. Keene (1987), 693 Megan’s Law (1996), 1548 Menominee Restoration Act (1973), 1211 Menominees, 818, 1211 Mental Health Study Act (1955), 922 Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963), 921 Meredith, James, 934 Mergens case (1990), 1414 Merrill, Oscar C., 477 Metcalf, Lee, 1381 Metternich, Clemens von, 183 Mexican-American realtions, 213, 985 Mexican War (1846-1848), 213 Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz (1990), 68 Michigan v. Mosley (1976), 73 Michigan v. Tucker (1974), 73 Middle East, 849 Migration and Refugee Act (1980), 822 Migratory Bird Act (1913), 415, 455 Migratory Bird Conservation Act (1929), 682 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act (1934), 603, 682 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918), 417, 454, 511, 1017, 1214 Migratory Birds, Convention for the Protection of (1916), 457

Migratory Species of Wild Animals, Convention on the Conservation of (1979), 1372 Military and national security. See Categorized Index Military Appropriations Act of 1916, 436 Military Appropriations Act of 1946, 435 Military Reconstruction Acts. See Reconstruction Acts Militia Act (1862), 254 Miller, John E., 677 Miller-Tydings Fair Trade Act (1937), 675 Miller v. United States (1939), 1526 Mineral Leasing Act (1920), 314, 470, 1137 Minimum wage, 704 Mining Act. See General Mining Act Mining and Minerals Policy Act (1970), 1137 Minnesota v. Dickerson (1993), 67 Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 72 Missing Children’s Assistance Act (1984), 1421 Missouri Compromise (1820), 156, 173, 225, 241, 274 Missouri v. Holland (1920), 455, 457 Missouri v. Kansas Natural Gas (1924), 694 Mitchell, D. D., 229 Mitchell, George, 1492 Mobile v. Bolden (1980), 974 Model Cities Act (1966), 977 Molzof v. United States (1992), 764 Monaco v. Mississippi (1934), 116 Mondale, Walter, 1218 Money. See Categorized Index under Banking, Money, and Finance Monfontaine, Treaty of (1801), 141 Monroe, James, 165, 167, 171, 182 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 181, 778; Roosevelt Corollary, 578 Montgomery bus boycott, 933

1651

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Montgomery, Isaiah T., 360 Montreal Protocol (1990), 1472 Moral Majority, 1454 Morgan, J. P., 426 Morgenthau, Henry J., Jr., 745 Morrill, Justin Smith, 249 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, 248249, 362 Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890, 253, 362 Morris, Gouverneur, 32 Mortefontaine, Treaty of. See Monfontaine, Treaty of Mosby, John, 323 Moscow Treaty. See U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement Moses, Robert, 859 Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965), 989 Motor Vehicle Theft Act (1919), 469 Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act (1984), 1425 Moynihan, Daniel P., 1459 Mr. Madison’s War, 161 Muckrakers, 388, 420 Muir, John, 440 Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act (1960), 879, 1311 Muñoz Rivera, Luís, 449 Murray Act. See Employment Act Murray, James E., 758 Murray, William Vans, 142 Muscle Shoals, 584 Music copyright, 1556 Muskie, Edmund S., 1204 Mussolini, Benito, 719 Myer, Dillon, 817 Nader, Ralph, 855, 1014, 1048, 1093, 1226, 1539 Nanking, Treaty of (1842), 208, 296 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 849 National American Woman Suffrage Association, 480

1652

National and Community Service Act (1990), 1518 National and Community Service Trust Act (1993), 1517 National Arts and Cultural Development Act (1964), 952 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1033 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama (1958), 60 National Association of Retail Druggists, 676 National Bank Acts (1863-1864), 212, 261, 425, 590 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1421 National Civil Service Act. See Pendleton Act National Commission on Architectural Barriers, 1067 National Defense Act (1916), 435, 584 National Defense Education Act (1958), 865, 995 National Drug Enforcement Policy Board, 1423 National Energy Act (1978), 1357 National Environmental Policy Act (1970), 1094, 1313, 1322, 1490. See also Clean Air Act National Firearms Act (1934), 619 National Forest Management Act (1976), 884, 1221, 1311 National Grain Associations, 553 National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), 539, 576, 596, 639, 705 National Labor Relations Act (1935), 540, 599, 638, 770, 874 National Labor Relations Board, 640 National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation (1937), 641

Subject Index National Marine Fisheries Service, 1190 National Motor Vehicle Theft Act. See Motor Vehicle Theft Act National Narcotics Act (1984), 1422 National Organization for Women, 497, 938, 1455 National Organization for Women v. Scheidler (1994), 1107 National Origins Act. See Immigration Act of 1924 National Park Service, 1255 National Park Service Organic Act (1916), 440 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, 1160 National Rifle Association, 620, 1526, 1529, 1563 National security. See Categorized Index under Military and National Security National Security Act (1947), 774 National Security Council, 775 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (1966), 1014, 1046 National Trails System Act (1968), 1077 National Transportation Safety Board, 1238 National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab (1989), 68 National Water Commission Act (1968), 940 National Wilderness Preservation System, 955, 1254 National Woman Suffrage Association, 480 Native American Church, 1335 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), 1496 Native Americans. See Categorized Index Nativists, 484

Natural Gas Act (1938), 693, 1322 Natural Gas Policy Act (1978), 1321 Natural resources. See Categorized Index Naturalization Act of 1790, 104 Naturalization Act of 1798, 127 Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act (1974), 1249 Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act (1950), 797 Navajos, 1250 Navy, U.S., 774 Nectow v. City of Cambridge (1928), 80 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 851 Nelson, Donald M., 730 Nelson, Gaylord, 1078 Neuberger, Maurine B., 998 Neutrality Acts (1935-1939), 657, 719 New Deal (1930’s), 568, 575, 585, 595, 597, 621, 695, 704, 944 New Hampshire v. Louisiana (1883), 116 New Jersey Plan (1787), 30 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), 57, 133 New York v. Quarles (1984), 73 New Zealand-American relations, 808 Newberry v. United States (1927), 523 Newberry, Truman Handy, 522 Newell, Frederick H., 376 Newlands, Francis G., 376 Newlands Act. See Reclamation Act News Room Search Act. See Privacy Protection Act Niagara Power Act (1957), 859 Niagara Redevelopment Act. See Niagara Power Act Nicaragua involvement (1912-1933), 578 NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome, 1309, 1409 Nineteenth Amendment (1920), 478, 1274 Ninth Amendment (1789), 53, 92 Nitze, Paul, 1445

1653

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Nix v. Williams (1984), 70 Nixon, Richard M., 496, 748, 777, 978, 1021, 1026, 1104, 1171, 1208, 1364 Noise Control Act (1972), 1064, 1203 Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987), 83, 1195 Nonimportation Acts. See Embargo Acts Norbeck-Andresen Act (1927), 605 Norbeck, Peter, 604 Noriega, Manuel, 1331 Norris, George W., 567, 571, 583 Norris-La Guardia Act (1932), 565, 639 North American Free Trade Agreement (1993), 1519 North Atlantic Treaty (1949), 779, 792 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 792, 1444 North Korea Pact (1994), 1532 Northwest Ordinance (1787), 18, 24, 107, 143 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968), 1054, 1532 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1407 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963), 832, 900, 913, 1056 Nuclear testing moratorium (1958), 916, 1056 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1983), 1406 Nullification doctrine, 100, 130, 195 Nunn, Sam, 1331 Nye, Gerald P., 658 Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970), 1125, 1291 Office of Economic Opportunity, 944 Office of Pollution Prevention, 1488 Office of Price Administration, 730

1654

Ogdensburg Agreement (1940), 714 Ohio v. Betts (1989), 1485 Oil embargo (1970’s), 1288 Oil Pollution Act of 1924, 509, 786, 845, 981 Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 1480 Oklahoma Welfare Act (1936), 668 Older Americans Act (1965), 956 Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (1990), 1484 Olmstead v. United States (1928), 601 O’Mahoney, Senator Joseph, 802 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (1968), 1052 Onís, Luis de, 171 OPEC. See Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Operation Just Cause (1989), 1331 Opium Exclusion Act (1909), 396 Opium Wars (1840’s-1850’s), 208, 236, 296 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 830 Ordinance of 1784, 25 Ordinance of 1785, 17, 179, 250 Ordinance of 1786, 103 Ordinance of 1787. See Northwest Ordinance Oregon Act (1848), 217, 250 Oregon v. Haas (1975), 73 Organic Act of 1897, 879, 1312 Organic Act of 1900, 448 Organic Act of the Philippine Islands (1916), 449 Organization of American States, 779 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, 1288, 1357 Organized Crime Control Act (1970), 1103, 1105 Osmena, Sergio, 607 Oubre v. Entergy (1998), 1485 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (1978), 1480 Outer Space Treaty (1967), 1022, 1158 Owen, Robert Dale, 275

Subject Index Pacific Railroad Survey Act (1853), 230 Pact of Paris. See Kellogg-Briand Pact Page, Horace F., 322 Page Law (1875), 322 Paine, Thomas, 1 Paiutes, 1251 Palko v. Connecticut (1937), 72 Panama Canal Act (1912), 412 Panama Canal Treaties (1978), 413, 1328 Panama Tolls Act. See Panama Canal Act Pan-Americanism, 779 Panic of 1837, 210 Panic of 1857, 261 Panic of 1893, 426 Panic of 1907, 370, 426 Paper currency, 370, 426 Parens Patriae Act (1974), 1232 Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (1980), 1396 Paris, Treaty of (1783), 9, 14, 111, 118, 124, 165, 167, 202 Paris, Treaty of (1898), 367, 383, 448 Parke, John G., 233 Parker, Ely S., 307 Partial Test Ban Treaty. See Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Passamaquoddy tribe, 1377 Patents. See Categorized Index under Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks Paterson v. McLean Credit Union (1989), 1502 Patman, Wright, 664 Patterson, Robert P., 775 Patterson, William, 30 Paul, Alice, 481 Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (1909), 366, 403 Payola scandals, 891 Peace Corps, 1517 Peaceable assembly, right of, 59 Pearl Harbor attack, 723

Pearson, T. Gilbert, 682 Pecora, Ferdinand, 615 Pendleton Act (1883), 336 Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922), 81 Penobscots, 1377 Penrose, Boies, 519 Pension programs, 351, 642 Pension reform, 1224 Pentagon attack (2001), 779, 1558, 1560 Perestroika (Soviet restructuring), 1174 Perkins, Frances, 644, 705 Perkins Act of 1984, 1483 Perkins Act of 1990, 1483 Permanent Reciprocity Treaty of 1903. See Platt Amendment Perot, H. Ross, 1520 Perry, Matthew Calbraith, 236, 392 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996), 649, 1549 Peterson, Esther, 910 Petition government, right to, 60 Philippine-American relations, 367, 449, 606 Philippines Commonwealth Independence Act. See TydingsMcDuffie Act Phillips, Wendell, 275 Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin (1954), 696 Pickering, William, 176 Pinchot, Gifford, 377, 471, 583 Pinckney, Thomas, 148 Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), 123, 169 Pittman, Key, 661, 682 Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act (1937), 458, 681 Platt, Orville H., 383 Platt Amendment (1903), 368, 381, 579 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 330 Poison gas in World War I, 525

1655

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Polignac Memorandum (1823), 184 Political action committees, 521 Political Activities Act. See Hatch Act Political propaganda, 692 Polk, James K., 211, 217 Poll taxes, 360, 928, 971, 973, 1274 Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co. (1895), 414 Pollutant dumping, 1160 Pollution from Ships, Convention for the Prevention of (1973), 1449 Pollution Prevention Act (1990), 1487 Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse, 1489 Pony Express, 531 Pope by Pope v. East Brunswick Board of Education (1993), 1414 Port and Tanker Safety Act (1978), 1337 Port and Waterways Safety Act (1972), 1338 Postal Act (1865), 320 Postal service, U.S., 530 Powell, John Wesley, 375 Powell v. Alabama (1932), 86 Preemption Act (1830), 200 Preemption Act (1841), 199, 246, 250 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978), 1352 President of the United States; election of, 147, 341, 806; office of, 35; succession, 772, 1020 Presidential election of 2000, 342 Presidential Succession Act of 1886, 772 Presidential Succession Act of 1947, 772 Presser v. Illinois (1886), 63 Price Administration and Civilian Supply Office, 729 Price-Anderson Act (1957), 853 Price discrimination, 662 Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins (1989), 1502

1656

Prigg v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1842), 109, 222 Primary elections, 372, 420, 521 Printz v. United States (1997), 62, 101 Privacy, right to, 96, 1006, 1252, 1378, 1551. See also Categorized Index Privacy Act (1974), 1252 Privacy Protection Act (1980), 1378 Prize Cases (1863), 1210 Probable cause, 66 Progressive Era, 372, 379, 427, 470, 481, 503, 520, 571 Prohibition (1919), 460, 601. See Eighteenth Amendment Pro-life movement, 1122 Propaganda, 692 Property. See Categorized Index Proposition 5 (California, 1998), 1467 Proposition 14 (California, 1964), 1036 Proxmire, William, 1108 Public Broadcasting Act (1967), 1024 Public Contracts Act (1936), 1126 Public Credit Act (1869), 318 Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970), 1001, 1098 Public Health Service, 787, 845, 1132, 1246 Public Health Service Act (1912), 845 Public Land Law Review Commission Act (1964), 1301 Public Law 280 (1953), 817, 824, 1042 Public Protection of Maternity and Infancy Act. See Sheppard-Towner Act Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978), 1356 Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act. See Jones Act Puerto Rico, 448

Subject Index Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), 387, 699, 887 Putin, Vladimir, 1564 Pyle, Ernie, 741 Quezón, Manuel, 608 Quiet Communities Act (1978), 1307 Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove (1983), 63 Quota systems of immigration, 483, 503, 986 R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992), 1471 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (1970), 611, 1104-1105 Radioactive fallout, 1055 Railroad Safety Act (1970), 1238 Railroads, 343, 534 Railway Labor Act (1926), 534 Randolph, A. Philip, 725 Randolph, Jennings, 1148, 1312 Rankin, Jeannette, 490 Rasmussen, Norman C., 856 Rationing in World War II, 732 Rauschenbush, Elizabeth Brandeis, 644 Rauschenbush, Paul, 644 Rayburn, Samuel, 615, 695 Reagan, John H., 345 Reagan, Ronald, 1022, 1408, 1420, 1424, 1445, 1509, 1525 Reciprocal Trade Act of 1934, 672, 781 Reciprocal Trade Act of 1936, 670 Reciprocity Treaty (1854), 670 Reclamation Act (1902), 375 Reconstruction, 101, 265, 270, 273, 280, 292, 303, 305, 326, 329, 479 Reconstruction Acts (1867), 279-280 Recycling, 1114 Red Cloud, 301 Red scare (1919), 453 Reed, Stanley F., 95

Refugee Relief Act (1953), 738, 815, 820 Refuse Act (1886), 786 Refuse Act (1899), 511 Regulatory takings, 80 Rehabilitation Act of 1943, 742 Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 1069, 1285, 1453, 1475, 1501 Reifel, Ben, 1041 Reitman v. Mulkey (1967), 1036 Religious liberty. See Categorized Index Removal Act (1875), 326 Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States (Powell), 375 Representation of slaves, 39 Republican Party, 243 Republicanism, 37 Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, 1280 Residency requirements for voting, 1276 Resnick, Joseph Y., 1010 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (1976), 1116, 1306 Resource Recovery Act (1970), 1113 Resumption Act (1875), 318 Revels, Hiram R., 276, 285 Revenue Act of 1942, 729, 1225 Revenue Act of 1971, 1156 Revolutionary War, 22; Native Americans in, 13; peace treaty, 9 Revolving Loan Fund for Indians, 668 Reynolds v. United States (1879), 58 Reynolds, Grant, 725 Rice, Thomas D. “Big Daddy,” 329 Richards, James P., 850 Richardson-Merrell drug company, 905 Richardson, Eliot, 1144 Richberg, Donald, 536 Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia (1980), 97 Rickover, Hyman, 831

1657

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties RICO. See Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Ridge, John, 188 Ridge, Major, 188 Rights of Man, The (Paine), 144 Riley, Richard, 1393 Rio Treaty. See Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance Rivers and Harbors Act (1899), 786, 845, 981, 1194 Roberts, Edmund, 237 Robertson, A. Willis, 682, 1046 Robinson, Joseph T., 664 Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act (1936), 662, 678 Robinson-Patman Price Discrimination Act. See RobinsonPatman Antidiscrimination Act Robinson v. California (1962), 92 Rockefeller, John D., 662 Roe v. Wade (1973), 97, 1123 Rogers, Paul G., 1204 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 724, 821, 910 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 578, 582, 585, 597, 607, 615, 638, 658, 672, 677, 704, 711, 715, 724, 745, 750, 801, 806, 980, 1021, 1517 Roosevelt, Theodore, 377, 393, 441, 470, 520, 806 Root, Elihu, 383, 394, 396 Ross, John, 190 Roth v. United States (1957), 321 Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (1974), 1231 Rush, Benjamin, 274 Rush, Richard, 165, 167, 184 Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), 163, 165 Russian-American relations, 1564 Rust v. Sullivan (1991), 1124 Ryan, William, 1144 Sabath, Adolph, 487 Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), 984, 1163, 1242

1658

Sagebrush Rebellion (1970’s), 475, 637, 1305 St. Clair, Arthur, 15, 27, 120 Salinas de Gortari, Carlos, 1521 Salinger v. Random House (1987), 1299 SALT I Treaty (1972), 1171, 1368 SALT II Treaty (1979), 1174, 1367 Salwen v. Rees (1954), 827 Same-sex marriages, 1551 San Ildefonso, Treaty of (1800), 126, 169 San Lorenzo, Treaty of. See Pinckney’s Treaty Sand Creek Massacre (1864), 289 Sandlot Riots (1877), 298 Sanger, Margaret, 1119 Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 213 Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978), 1043 Satank, 290 Satanta (White Bear), 290 Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States (1935), 599 Schenck v. United States (1919), 453 Schlafly, Phyllis, 498 Schmidt, Helmut, 1444 Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), 69 Schwartz, Abba, 985 Scott Act (1888), 333 Scott v. Sandford (1857), 94, 274, 278 Scott, Winfield, 213 Sea otters. See Marine Mammal Protection Act Seabed Treaty (1972), 1157 Seaborg, Glenn, 830 Search warrants, 67 Seavey, Clyde, 695 Second Amendment (1789), 48, 61, 1526 Second Morrill Act. See Morrill Land Grant Act of 1890 Secret ballot, 372 Sectionalism, 246 Securities Act of 1933, 574, 615

Subject Index Securities Exchange Act (1934), 408, 612 Sedition Act of 1798, 56, 127, 131 Sedition Acts of 1917-1918. See Espionage Acts Selective Service and Training Act (1942), 1147 Self-incrimination, right against, 71 Selma to Montgomery march (1965), 971 Seminole Tribe of Indians v. Florida (1996), 1466 Seminole Wars, 171 Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (1950), 799 Senate, U.S., 34 Senators, direct election of, 419 Senior Corps, 1518 Separation of powers, 33 September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 530, 779, 1362, 1411, 1536, 1558, 1560 Sequoyah, 186 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act. See G.I. Bill Seventeenth Amendment (1913), 374, 419, 521 Seventh Amendment (1789), 51, 90 Seward, William Henry, 226, 297 Shame of the Cities, The (Steffens), 410 Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Bill. See Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), 489 Sherbert v. Verner (1963), 58 Sherman, John, 262, 354 Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), 353, 405, 431, 433, 565, 675 Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890), 319, 328 Shevardnadze, Eduard, 1175 Shoemaker, Carl, 682 Shoshones, 229 Sierra Club, 883, 1312

Silent Spring (Carson), 1183 Silver-gold debate (1870’s-1890’s), 264, 316, 327, 370, 426 Simon, Paul, 1421 Simpson, Alan, 1327, 1409 Sinclair, Upton, 388 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance (1950), 808, 810 Sioux, 229, 235, 300, 1041 Sister Carrie (Dreiser), 321, 410 Sitting Bull, 301 Sixteenth Amendment (1913), 408, 414 Sixth Amendment (1789), 49, 85 Sky Marshals Bill. See Aviation and Transportation Security Act Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), 63 Slavery; Anti-Slave Trade Bill, 153; Black Codes of 1804-1807, 143; Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, 106; Missouri Compromise, 173; Ninth Amendment, 94; Northwest Ordinance, 26; Ordinance of 1784, 25. See also Categorized Index Smith, Frank L., 522 Smith, Howard W., 711 Smith Act (1940), 57, 711, 826 Smithsonian Agreement (1971), 748 Smoot, Reed, 472, 557 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930), 553, 556, 579, 780 Smythe v. Ames (1897), 696 Social Security, 1605 Social Security Act (1935), 489, 642, 647, 959, 1120. See also Aid to Families with Dependent Children Soft money reform, 1563 Software copyright, 1556 Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965, 992, 1113 Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1980, 1307

1659

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966), 973 Southeast Asia Resolution. See Tonkin Gulf Resolution Soviet-American relations, 750, 913, 931, 1054, 1171, 1367, 1444, 1509. See also Russian-American relations Space race, 1023 Spanish-American relations, 123, 169, 367, 381. See also MexicanAmerican relations Spanish-American War (1898), 367, 382, 412, 448, 578 Special education, 1287 Speech and expression. See Categorized Index Speedy Trial Act (1975), 1260 Spoils system, 337, 519 Spooner Act (1902), 412 Sports, women in, 1178 Sputnik 1, 865, 1023 Staggers, Harley O., 1062 Stalin, Joseph, 750, 765 Standard Oil, 354, 662 Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. (1916), 414 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 479 START I Treaty (1991), 1175, 1447, 1509, 1564 START II Treaty (1993), 1175, 1447, 1509, 1564 START III negotiations, 1512, 1564 State v. Coburn (1974), 65 States’ rights, 98, 176, 194, 276, 678, 788 Steagall, Henry Bascom, 592 Sterne, Simon, 344 Stevens, Christine, 1010 Stevens, Isaac, 231 Stevens, Ted, 1381 Stevens, Thaddeus, 262, 281 Stimson, Henry, 563 Stimson Doctrine. See HooverStimson Doctrine Stockman, David, 1398

1660

Stone, Harlan Fiske, 101 Stone, John M., 359 Stone, Lucy, 479 Strategic Defense Initiative, 1174 Stratton, Samuel, 1281 Strauss, Lewis L., 830 Strong, Benjamin, 428, 652 Student loans, 866 Suffragists, 481 Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (1997), 83 Sulfanilamide deaths of 1938, 700 Sullivan, Leonor, 1046, 1233 Sumner, Charles, 242, 279, 312 Sununu, John, 1492 Superfund Act (1980), 1097, 1308, 1386, 1480 Supremacy clause, 1596 Supreme Court, 137; creation of, 36, 41 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (1977), 1140, 1317 Sustained-Yield Forest Management Act (1944), 880 Swamp Lands Acts (1849, 1850), 250 Swartz, Edward M., 1090 Tack, Juan Antonio, 1330 Taft, Robert A., 787, 795 Taft, William Howard, 140, 414, 441, 485 Taft-Hartley Act. See LaborManagement Relations Act Taiwan, 834, 1365 Taiwan Relations Act (1979), 1363 Takings clause (1789), 76-77 Tallmadge amendment (1819), 175 Talton v. Mayes (1896), 1034, 1040 Taney, Roger B., 94, 100, 209 Tank Vessel Act (1936), 1338 Tariff Act of 1909. See Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act Tariff Act of 1924. See Dingley Tariff

Subject Index Tariff Act of 1930. See Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act Tariff of 1828, 194 Tariff of 1832, 196 Tariff of 1833 (Compromise Tariff), 198 Tariffs and taxation. See Categorized Index Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (1982), 1230 Tax Reform Act of 1986, 1230, 1434 Taxation. See Categorized Index under Tariffs and Taxation Taylor, Edward, 636 Taylor, John, 149 Taylor, Nathaniel, 289, 300 Taylor Grazing Act (1934), 248, 636, 1304 Teapot Dome scandal, 474, 1156 Tecumseh, 158 Telecommunications Act (1996), 629, 1546 Television, cable, 1295 Teller, Henry M., 349 Teller Amendment (1898), 383 Tellico Dam, 586 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 650 Temporary National Economic Committee (1941), 801 Ten Bears, 290 Ten percent plan, 281 Tennessee Valley Authority, 95 Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933), 576, 582 Tenskwatawa, 158 Tenth Amendment (1789), 37, 54, 93, 98, 276 Termination Resolution (1953), 815 Terrorism, 529, 1529, 1558, 1560; Ku Klux Klan, 279 Terry v. Ohio (1968), 68 Thalidomide tragedy, 904

Third Amendment (1789), 48, 64 Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 94, 270, 273, 278, 283, 303 Thomas amendment (1820), 176 Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), 974 Thornhill v. Alabama (1940), 60 Threatened species, 1215, 1272 Three-fifths compromise (1787), 27, 39, 174, 294 Three Mile Island nuclear accident (1979), 832, 857 Threshold Test Ban Treaty (1974), 919 Thurber, F. B., 344 Thurmond, Strom, 727, 1418 Tiananmen Square incident (1989), 1366 Tiffin, Edward, 144 Tilden, Samuel, 341 Tillman Act (1907), 520 Timber Culture Act (1873), 248 Tippecanoe, Battle of (1811), 158 Title I of the Consumer Credit Protection Act. See Truth in Lending Act Title III of Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act. See Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1452 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 497, 935, 937, 980, 1029, 1165, 1352, 1501 Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 1037 Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 1038 Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, 1178, 1354, 1453 Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Ac. See Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act

1661

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Title XVIII of the Social Security Act. See Medicare and Medicaid Amendments Tocker, Phillip, 967 Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964), 942, 1208 Townsend, Francis E., 643 Toxic Release Inventory, 1489 Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), 1290 Toy safety, 1082, 1089 Toys That Kill (Swartz), 1091 Trade. See Categorized Index under Business, Commerce, and Trade Trade and Intercourse Acts (17901834), 102, 1377 Trademark Act. See Trademark Law Revision Act Trade-Mark Act of 1905, 1469 Trade-Mark Act of 1920, 1469 Trademark Clarification Act (1984), 1470 Trademark Counterfeiting Act of 1984, 1470 Trademark Law Revision Act (1988), 1469 Trademark Registration Treaty of 1980, 1470 Trademarks. See Copyright, Categorized Index under Copyrights, patents, and trademarks Trail of Tears, 190, 200 Transcontinental Treaty. See AdamsOnís Treaty Transportation. See Categorized Index Transportation Act of 1920, 535 Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability, and Documentation Act (2000), 1015 Transportation Safety Act (1974), 1237 Transportation Security Administration, 1561

1662

Treasury, U.S., 209, 263, 317, 370 Treasury Act. See Independent Treasury Act Treaties and agreements. See key word; Categorized Index Treaty of Ghent (1814), 165, 167 Treaty of Washington (1871), 671 Tripartite Security Treaty (1952), 808 Trist, Nicholas P., 214 Trop v. Dulles (1958), 92 Troupe v. May Department Stores (1994), 1353 Truax v. Corrigan (1921), 566 Truman, Harry S., 734, 772, 791-792, 799, 813, 820, 961, 1021 Truman Doctrine (1947), 764, 774, 792, 850 Truman Proclamation (1947), 1404 Trumbull, Lyman, 272 Truth in Lending Act (1968), 1050, 1235 Truth in Lending Simplification and Reform Act (1980), 1049, 1051 Tubman, Harriet, 275 Tugwell, Rexford G., 644 Tunney, John V., 1204, 1248 Tunney Act. See Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act Tweed, William Marcy “Boss”, 519 Twelfth Amendment (1804), 147 Twentieth Amendment (1933), 571 Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967), 572, 1020 Twenty-first Amendment (1933), 462, 601 Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964), 928, 1274 Twenty-second Amendment (1951), 806 Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), 1505 Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971), 1147

Subject Index Twenty-third Amendment (1961), 896 Twining v. New Jersey (1908), 72 Tydings, Joseph, 1121 Tydings, Millard, 677 Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934), 606 Tyler, John, 205, 211 Udall, Morris K., 1381 Udall, Stewart, 1152 Ukraine, 1058 Unalienable rights, 3 Un-American Activities Committee, 711, 812 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 223, 240 Underwood Tariff (1913), 366 Unenumerated rights, 93 Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (1968), 1396 Uniform Commercial Code, 1264 United Nations, 744, 752, 794, 914, 1023, 1055, 1158, 1364, 1405, 1556 United Nations Environment Program, 1272, 1372, 1375 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 823, 1448 United Public Workers v. Mitchell (1947), 95 United States recognition of Vietnam (1995), 1541 United States v. Calandra (1974), 75 United States v. Caltex (1952), 76 United States v. Cruikshank (1876), 62, 279 United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941), 101 United States v. E. C. Knight Company (1895), 355 United States v. Havens (1980), 70 United States v. Hutcheson (1941), 569 United States v. Kagama (1886), 1041

United States v. Lanza (1922), 601 United States v. Leon (1984), 70 United States v. Lopez (1995), 62 United States v. Miller (1939), 63 United States v. Sokolow (1989), 69 United States v. Sprague (1931), 601 United States v. Ursery (1996), 75 United States v. Williams (1992), 75 Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. See USA Patriot Act Unsafe at Any Speed (Nader), 1015 Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (1978), 1140 Urban stormwater runoff, 1163 U’Ren, William, 373 U.S.-Japanese Treaty (1952), 810 U.S.-Russia Arms Agreement (2002), 1564 U.S.-Soviet Consular Treaty (1967), 931 U.S. Steel Corporation, 356 U.S. v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941), 707 USA Freedom Corps, 1519 USA Patriot Act (2001), 1558 Utah Pie Company v. Continental Baking Company (1967), 666 Van Buren, Martin, 210 Vandenberg Resolution (1948), 793 Vare, William, 522 Venereal Disease Control Act (1939), 1120 Vernonia School District v. Acton (1995), 68 Versailles, Treaty of (1919), 464, 525 Veterans Citizenship Act (1919), 507 Veto, presidential power of, 36 Victim and Witness Protection Act (1982), 1424 Victims of Crime Act (1984), 1424

1663

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties Vietnam War, 942, 1174, 1208, 1542 Vietnamese-American relations, 942, 1208, 1448, 1541 Vietnamese immigrants, 1448 Vinson, Fred M., 57, 713 Violence Against Women Act (1994), 1530 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994), 1529, 1531 Virginia Plan for the Constitution (1787), 30 Virginia Resolves, 130 Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty (1786), 21 Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act. See Perkins Act of 1990 Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments (1965), 1067 Volstead Act (1919), 460 Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), 945, 1517 Voting and elections. See Categorized Index Voting Rights Act of 1965, 864, 878, 970, 1274 Voting Rights Act of 1970, 1276 Voting Rights Act of 1975, 1274 Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railway v. Illinois (1886), 344 Wade-Davis Manifesto, 282 Wage-hour legislation, 704 Wagner, Robert F., 638, 643 Wagner-Connery Act. See National Labor Relations Act Wakens, Arthur V., 816 Walcott, Frederick C., 605 Wallace, George, 934, 1275 Wallace, Henry A., 575, 766 Walsh, Adam, 1422 Walsh-Healey Act (1936), 1126 Walter, Francis, 812

1664

Walthall, Edward C., 358 Wang Hiya, Treaty of (1844), 207, 297 War, power to declare, 834, 942, 1208 War Brides Act (1945), 738, 753, 820 War on Poverty, 649, 944 War Powers Resolution (1973), 1208 Wards Cove Packing Company v. Atonio (1989), 1502 Warranties, 1263 Warsaw Pact, 1175 Washington, George, 30, 111, 337, 806 Washington, Treaty of (1871), 310 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956, 844, 1160 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, 940, 982, 1159, 1322 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1977, 983 Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1987, 983 Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, 785, 845, 982, 1160, 1194 Water Pollution Control Act of 1970, 1480 Water Pollution Control Board, 846 Water Pollution in the United States (1934), 786 Water Power Act. See Federal Power Act of 1920 Water Quality Act (1987), 983, 1162 Water Quality Improvement Act (1970), 513 Water Research and Conversion Act (1977), 940 Water Research and Development Act (1978), 940 Water Resources Planning Act (1965), 940

Subject Index Water Resources Research Act (1964), 939 Watergate scandal (1973-1974), 1021, 1156, 1349, 1364 Watt, James, 1305 Wayne, Anthony, 120, 157, 179 Weaver, Robert C., 902 Webb-Henley bill, 423 Webster, Daniel, 204, 227 Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), 202 Weeks-McLean Act. See Migratory Bird Act Weeks v. United States (1914), 69 Welfare and Pension Plan Disclosure Act (1958), 1225 Welfare reform, 1458, 1549 Welfare Reform Act. See Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act Welles, Sumner, 579 Westminster, Statute of (1931), 715 Weston, George M., 319 Wetland Loan Act (1961), 605 Whales. See Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species; Endangered Species Act; Marine Mammal Protection Act Wheeler, Burton K., 622, 695 Wheeler-Howard Act (1934), 350 Wheeler-Lea Act (1938), 431, 685 Whig Party, 243 Whipple, Amiel Weeks, 232 White, Harry Dexter, 745 White primarires, 970 White-Slave Traffic Act. See Mann Act White v. Regester (1973), 974 Whitney, Richard, 616 Whitney Benefits v. United States (1989), 82 Wholesome Meat Act, passed (1967), 1072

Wholesome Poultry Products Act (1968), 1071 Wickersham Report (1931), 461 Widmar v. Vincent (1981), 1412 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), 1077 Wilderness Act (1964), 475, 883, 954, 1139, 1254 Wilderness Society, 883 Wiley, Harvey W., 388, 699 Williams, Harrison, 1226 Williams v. Florida (1970), 87 Williamson, R. S., 233 Willis, H. Parker, 427 Wilmot Proviso, 217, 226, 246 Wilson, Eugene M., 309 Wilson, James, 419 Wilson, Woodrow, 366, 427, 430, 432, 440, 449, 464, 481, 485, 584 Wilson-Gorman Tariff (1894), 364, 382 Windscale nuclear accident (1957), 832 Wisconsin v. Mitchell (1993), 1471 Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), 58 Wolf v. Colorado (1949), 67 Woman suffrage, 478, 491 Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Act (1992), 1507 Women in Armed Services Academies Act (1975), 1280 Women’s Educational Equity Act (1978), 1354 Women’s issues. See Categorized Index Woodhull, Victoria, 480 Worcester v. Georgia (1832), 188, 307 World Bank, 744, 781 World Intellectual Property Organization, 1556 World Trade Center attacks (2001), 530, 779, 1411, 1558, 1560 World War Adjusted Compensation Act (1924), 499

1665

U.S. Laws, Acts, and Treaties World War I, 435, 451, 464, 500, 525, 538, 719 World War II, 564, 657, 718-719, 728, 750, 757, 764, 808, 810, 820 Yalta Conference agreements (1945), 750 Yarborough, Ralph W., 1029 Yates v. United States (1957), 60, 713 Yee v. Escondido (1992), 76 Yellow dog contracts, 565

1666

Yellowstone National Park, 440 Yeltsin, Boris, 1510 Yoshida Doctrine (1950’s), 811 Yucca Mountain, Nevada, nuclear waste respository, 1410 Zhou Enlai, 836 Zimmerman, William, 817 Zurcher v. The Stanford Daily (1978), 1378