Government Documents Of The 20th Century

The principles of what it meant to be American in the 20th century evolved through government documents that were released at the time and interpreted by the public. By and large however, government documents further instilled values of what it meant to be American that had been core to the American identity since its conception. Through an examination of public documents, it is clear that these sentiments were not always immediately shared by the general public, or the legislation passed through government documents immediately impactful. In general, while government documents painted a clear picture of the United States as a defender for equality and freedom, public documents depict a less rosy representation of American life in the 20th
century, one where the virtues described in government documents weren’t experienced in full by the public without significant time lags, if ever at all. Theodore Roosevelt’s fourth annual message at the turn of the century was a speech that was progressive and idealistic on many fronts. One topic that Theodore Roosevelt emphasized was labor and labor unions, stating, “Wage-workers have an entire right to organize and by all peaceful and honorable means to endeavor to persuade their fellows to join with them in organizations”. The fourth annual message stressed “a feeling of respect… not merely of capitalists among themselves, and wage-workers among themselves, but of capitalists and wage-workers in their relations to each other.” The sentiment that both capitalists and wage-earners must work together and respect each other was in line with core American values, that America is a land of opportunity and a highly industrial efficient society. Theodore Roosevelt took the sentiment a step further in his fourth annual message, indicating that not only should capitalists and wage-workers get along, but that wage-workers had the right to form organizations and protest, and should not be discriminated because of it. While Roosevelt’s message calls for important shifts of mindset in American people, public documents tell a contradictory story about the relationship between capitalists and wage-workers, and their rights to protest. The shifts that Roosevelt was calling for did not take place, and the tensions between workers and capitalists persisted, nearly 30 years later during the great depression. Dr. Lewis Andreas recalls the Wagner Act coming into law in the 1930s, which gave workers “the right…to picket, to organize”. The fact that it took so long for a law to be passed that reflected Theodore Roosevelt’s vision shows that while Government documents can put forth morally admirable notions, reality does not immediately follow suit. Dr. Lewis Andreas also describes the conflict that came about when steel workers exercised their new rights under the Wagner act by picketing: “there were about fifty shot. Ten of them died”. Even though progress was made through the Wagner Act, the concept of unions was still under contention many years after Roosevelt openly supported it. Theodore Roosevelt also stressed equality in his speech, and defined what it meant to be a good American, calling it: “a matter of heart, conscience, of lofty aspiration, of sound common sense, but not of birthplace or creed”. The most powerful man in the United States at the time is clear, immigrants should be treated with respect, and “it makes no difference from what country they come”. Roosevelt’s attitude towards immigrants in the early 20th century was not the same sentiment that many immigrants felt in reality, as described by Paul Pisicano, an Italian immigrant. Pisicano called it “very painful to live in America”, and noted that legislation like the GI bill and the American Dream actually left Italian-Americans “worse off than before”. Americans still saw immigrants, even white immigrants, as second class, according to Pisicano. He says of Italian-Americans, “When one of these guys walks into a room, and he’s got money, everyone presumes his money is ill-gotten, because he’s Italian”. Even 40 years later after Roosevelt calls the “distinction between the man whose parents came to this country several and the man whose ancestors came to it several generations back” an absurdity, in reality first generation immigrants still faced discriminations on the account of exactly such a distinction. When viewed in discussion with each other, government documents of the 20th century preserve and extend the narrative that America been a nation that pursued the protection of individual freedom and liberties, even if the price of such liberties was war.
The Cuban-American Treaty of 1903 included a section which allowed the US “the right to intervene for the preservation of…life, property, and individual liberty”. Roosevelt, in his Fourth Annual Message offered similar sentiments, saying “it is necessary for us firmly to insist upon the rights of our own citizens without regard to their creed or race.” Roosevelt insisted that the Navy and must not stop growing and building in order to preserve the freedoms of the United States. Another government document that maintained this narrative was NSC 68, which outlined America’s objectives for national security in the
1950. The Feminine Mystique was a public document that offered relevant insight into the women’s movement at the time, and how legislation can often have unintended and unexpected effects on the public as a whole.
The Feminine Mystique describes a situation in the 1960s where there is “a problem that has no name”. Betty Freidan describes many housewives of “all education levels suffer[ing] from the same feeling of desperation”, and a yearning “for something more than [their] husband and [their] children and [their] home”. Betty Freidan acknowledges an interesting event that has occurred in the women’s movement, one that indicates that, almost paradoxically, the women’s movement has taken a step back as “all professions are finally open to women in America”. Freidan notes a seemingly contradictory relationship “that as higher education for women becomes available to any woman with the capacity for it…more and more drop out of high school and college to marry and have babies”. The government opening more doors for women in terms of careers seem to push them away from the opportunities they were given, at least initially. This is not to say that there was no point in expanding the opportunities for women, but rather legislation can have unintended consequences, and sometimes the intended goal of legislation can take additional time to be realized. Freidan argues that these expanded rights for women pushed women to “become aware of an identity crisis in their own lives,” and women
will still need to suffer through it “simply to become fully human”. The legislation that expanded women’s rights had the unintended consequence of actually pushing more women to the role of housewife, and it was through experiencing “the problem that has no name” women were forced to acknowledge an identity crisis that men uniquely had to confront throughout history. Freidan wrote, “it has always been considered right in America, good, for men to suffer these agonies of growth, to search for and find their own identities”. Finally, she argues, women were permitted to do the same. The Equal Rights Amendment of 1972 was a government document that introduced legislation that further expanded the women’s rights movement. The amendment stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex”. The meaning of the amendment is clear and direct, it bans discrimination of civil rights on the basis of one’s sex. The amendment was certainly a sign of improvement for the women’s right movement, and a confirmation that the United States was moving towards a truer sense of equality. The Equals Right Amendment was brought about at a time when many housewives were still struggling with a feeling of insignificance, and was a piece of legislation that propagated the notion that the United Stated truly was a land of equality and opportunity. While the Equal Rights Amendment was certainly legislation that intended to increase the rights of women, and seemed to represent a government that was moving towards complete equality between men and women, public documents indicate a very different sentiment in the aftermath of the Equal Rights Amendment. The Power of the Positive Woman was a book that offered very different sentiments several years after the Equal Rights Amendment in 1977. The author of The Power of the Positive Woman, Phyllis Schlafly, represented a popular sentiment at the time, one that asserted “it makes no sense to deprive us[women] of the ability to make reasonable distinctions based on sex”. Schlafly argues that the movement towards equality for women actually “robs the woman of her virtue, her beauty, and her love—for nothing”. While the Equal Rights Amendment indicated progress for the movement, public documents indicate that the legislation was still a point of contention and the problem would require more than legislation. Government documents in the 20th century further the notion of freedom and equality for American’s and attempt to push the boundaries of citizenship for immigrants and women. Public documents on the other hand indicate that the sentiments expressed and legislation passed in government documents do not necessarily translate in reality. This is not to say the government documents were useless, but that government documents do not immediately impact the public in a predictable way. What these documents often did was open up discussions or additional points of contention that had to be reached before the progress that the government had hoped for could be realized.