Senate Resolution 301: Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1954)

Senate Resolution 301: Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1954)

The early years of the Cold War saw the United States facing a hostile Soviet Union, the “loss” of China to communism, and war in Korea. In this politically charged atmosphere, fears of Communist influence over American institutions spread easily. On February 9, 1950, Joseph McCarthy, a Republican Senator from Wisconsin, claimed that he had a list of 205 State Department employees who were Communists. While he offered little proof, the claims gained the Senator great notoriety. In June, Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and six fellow Republicans issued a “Declaration of Conscience” asserting that because of McCarthy’s tactics, the Senate had been “debased to the level of a forum for hate and character assassination.” However, McCarthy took advantage of the Cold War atmosphere of fear and suspicion and with strong support in the opinion polls, McCarthy’s attacks and interventions in senatorial elections brought defeat to some of his party’s Democratic opponents.

After Republicans took control of the White House and Congress in 1953, McCarthy was named chairman of the Committee on Government Operations and its Subcommittee on Investigations. From these posts he continued to accuse Government agencies of being “soft” on communism, but he was now attacking a Republican administration. In 1954 McCarthy’s investigation of security threats in the U.S. Army was televised. McCarthy’s bullying of witnesses turned public opinion against the Senator. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure him, describing his behavior as “contrary to senatorial traditions.”

Republican Senators Ralph Flanders of Vermont, Arthur Watkins of Utah, and Margaret Chase Smith of Maine led the efforts to discipline McCarthy. Flanders introduced two separate resolutions against McCarthy, one removing McCarthy from his chairmanships and the other calling for his censure. The censure resolution moved forward with debate beginning July 30, 1954. The full Senate took up the resolution on November 5. This copy of the resolution catches the debate on November 9 as the Senate refined the wording of its resolution. The substance of the first count, charging McCarthy with failure to cooperate with a Senate subcommittee, remained unchanged in the final resolution. The second count was dropped for a condemnation of McCarthy’s attacks on the very members of the committee that considered his censure.

Transcript of Senate Resolution 301: Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1954)

Resolved, That the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, failed to cooperate with the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration in clearing up matters referred to that subcommittee which concerned his conduct as a Senator and affected the honor of the Senate and, instead, repeatedly abused the subcommittee and its members who were trying to carry out assigned duties, thereby obstructing the constitutional processes of the Senate, and that this conduct of the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, is contrary to senatorial traditions and is hereby condemned.

Sec 2. The Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. McCarthy, in writing to the chairman of the Select Committee to Study Censure Charges (Mr. Watkins) after the Select Committee had issued its report and before the report was presented to the Senate charging three members of the Select Committee with “deliberate deception” and “fraud” for failure to disqualify themselves; in stating to the press on November 4, 1954, that the special Senate session that was to begin November 8, 1954, was a “lynch-party”; in repeatedly describing this special Senate session as a “lynch bee” in a nationwide television and radio show on November 7, 1954; in stating to the public press on November 13, 1954, that the chairman of the Select Committee (Mr. Watkins) was guilty of “the most unusual, most cowardly things I’ve ever heard of” and stating further: “I expected he would be afraid to answer the questions, but didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to make a public statement”; and in characterizing the said committee as the “unwitting handmaiden,” “involuntary agent” and “attorneys-in-fact” of the Communist Party and in charging that the said committee in writing its report “imitated Communist methods — that it distorted, misrepresented, and omitted in its effort to manufacture a plausible rationalization” in support of its recommendations to the Senate, which characterizations and charges were contained in a statement released to the press and inserted in the Congressional Record of November 10, 1954, acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute, to obstruct the constitutional processes of the Senate, and to impair its dignity; and such conduct is hereby condemned.

Selective Service Act of 1917

Selective Service Act of 1917

The Selective Service Act of 1917 (P.L. 65-12, 40 Stat. 76) was the first act mandating American military service since the Civil War. In April 1917, before the act’s passage, there were only 110,000 servicemen who could be deployed if America joined the war then raging in Europe. An army of this size would have been destroyed within months considering the brutal trench warfare employed during the Great War. All told, there were 116,516 American casualties in World War I—more than were in the service at the time war was declared.

President Woodrow Wilson, who had avoided American entry in the war for about three years, initially wanted to use only volunteers to augment the forces needed to fight and win the war. In his address before Congress calling for a declaration of war, Wilson stated:

Our object now … is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.

However, three weeks after war was declared, only 32,000 Americans had volunteered for service. Wilson realized that this was not enough military strength to win the war, so he called for a draft, which was decried by many members of his own party. Progressive Democrats, who usually sided with the president, asserted that a draft would destroy “democracy at home while fighting for it abroad.” Republicans attacked Wilson on the draft issue to take political advantage of the Democrat’s wartime leadership.

The World War I Draft

Wilson, however, would not lose on the issue of the draft. With the aid of Newton Baker, his secretary of war, Wilson brought about passage of the act, which allowed him to raise all branches of the armed forces to a level that could compete with the Axis powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. All males aged twenty-one to thirty were required to register at local polling stations. The age limits were later changed to include all men from ages eighteen to forty-five. The drafts carried out during World War I led to the successful registration of almost 24 million American men. Because of a concerted effort to invoke a sense of patriotism in all Americans, the U.S. enlisted many to fight against the Axis powers. Less than 350,000 men “dodged” the World War I draft.

The 1917 act also contained a significant change from the Civil War draft: replacements could not be hired to fight in a person’s place. Section 3 stated:

No person liable to military service shall hereafter be permitted or allowed to furnish a substitute for such service; nor shall any substitute be received, enlisted, or enrolled in the military service of the United States; and no such person shall be permitted to escape such service or to be discharged therefrom prior to the expiration of his term of service by the payment of money or any other valuable thing whatsoever as consideration for his release from military service or liability thereto.

This provision meant that wealthy people could not buy their way out of service. It was designed to ensure that all Americans fought in the war, not just the poor who could not buy their way out.

Black Servicemen

Black Americans, of whom nearly 2.3 million were drafted, made a special sacrifice for the war effort. Conditions in America during the 1910s were in direct opposition to the ideals of the Republic: equality in voting rights, education, and use of public accommodations would not come for many black Americans for almost another half-century. Yet blacks were called on to defend the rights of Europeans while their own rights as America’s citizen-soldiers were denied. This dichotomy was even the subject of a German propaganda campaign. However, many black Americans felt that their service would be rewarded with a concerted push for civil rights upon their return. W.E.B. DuBois, the famous black activist, spoke out in support of the war: “Let us, while the war lasts, forget our special grievances and close ranks shoulder to shoulder with our white fellow citizens … fighting for democracy. We make no ordinary sacrifice, but we make it gladly and willingly.”

Many black soldiers would not receive the honors they deserved back home, although some did in Europe. The French government awardedCroix de Guerre medals, high honors for bravery, to members of New York’s 396th Infantry, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters. Sadly, though they made no ordinary sacrifice, many of the returning veterans were denied the basic opportunities and rights they fought for in Europe. Some were even subjected to lynching and mob brutality as they reentered the American workforce because white workers feared the black veterans would take their jobs.

Successful War Effort

American servicemen were supported by a patriotic push on the homefront. Wilson called for farmers, miners, housewives and other domestic workers to keep the nation’s armed forces well supplied by treating their everyday jobs as a part of the war effort. Because of the manpower the act brought into service, America and its allies emerged victorious from World War I.

Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists

Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists 1772

All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.

When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact.

Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains.

All positive and civil laws should conform, as far as possible, to the law of natural reason and equity.

As neither reason requires nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of a state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.

“Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty,” in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, [Page 418] as well as by the law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former.

In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practised, and, both by precept and example, inculcated on mankind. And it is now generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society, is the chief characteristical mark of the Church. Insomuch that Mr. Locke has asserted and proved, beyond the possibility of contradiction on any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be extended to all whose doctrines are not subversive of society. The only sects which he thinks ought to be, and which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration, are those who teach doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live. The Roman Catholics or Papists are excluded by reason of such doctrines as these, that princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those that they call heretics may be destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the Pope in so absolute a manner, in subversion of government, by introducing, as far as possible into the states under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty, and property, that solecism in politics, imperium in imperio, leading directly to the worst anarchy and confusion, civil discord, war, and bloodshed.

The natural liberty of man, by entering into society, is abridged or restrained, so far only as is necessary for the great end of society, the best good of the whole.

In the state of nature every man is, under God, judge and sole judge of his own rights and of the injuries done him. By entering into society he agrees to an arbiter or indifferent judge between him and his neighbors; but he no more renounces his original right than by taking a cause out of the ordinary course of law, and leaving the decision to referees or indifferent arbitrators.

In the last case, he must pay the referees for time and trouble. He should also be willing to pay his just quota for the support of government, the law, and the constitution; the end of which is to furnish indifferent and impartial judges in all cases that may happen, whether civil, ecclesiastical, marine, or military.

[Page 419] The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

In the state of nature men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their lives, liberties, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence, and those who hold the reins of government have an equitable, natural right to an honorable support from the same principle that ” the laborer is worthy of his hire.” But then the same community which they serve ought to be the assessors of their pay. Governors have no right to seek and take what they please; by this, instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honorable servants of the society, they would soon become absolute masters, despots, and tyrants. Hence, as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the administration of public affairs. And, in both cases, more are ready to offer their service at the proposed and stipulated price than are able and willing to perform their duty.

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

[Page 420] By the act of the British Parliament, commonly called the Toleration Act, every subject in England, except Papists, &c., was restored to, and re-established in, his natural right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. And, by the charter of this Province, it is granted, ordained, and established (that is, declared as an original right) that there shall be liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians, except Papists, inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, such Province or Territory. Magna Charta itself is in substance but a constrained declaration or proclamation and promulgation in the name of the King, Lords, and Commons, of the sense the latter had of their original, inherent, indefeasible natural rights, as also those of free citizens equally perdurable with the other. That great author, that great jurist, and even that court writer, Mr. Justice Blackstone, holds that this recognition was justly obtained of King John, sword in hand. And peradventure it must be one day, sword in hand, again rescued and preserved from total destruction and oblivion.

The absolute rights of Englishmen and all freemen, in or out of civil society, are principally personal security, personal liberty, and private property.

All persons born in the British American Colonies are, by the laws of God and nature and by the common law of England, exclusive of all charters from the Crown, well entitled, and by acts of the British Parliament are declared to be entitled, to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights, liberties, and privileges of subjects born in Great Britain or within the realm. Among those rights are the following, which no man, or body of men, consistently with their own rights as men and citizens, or members of society, can for themselves give up or take away from others.

[Page 421] First, “The first fundamental, positive law of all common wealths or states is the establishing the legislative power. As the first fundamental natural law, also, which is to govern even the legislative power itself, is the preservation of the society.”

Secondly, The Legislative has no right to absolute, arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people; nor can mortals assume a prerogative not only too high for men, but for angels, and therefore reserved for the exercise of the Deity alone.

“The Legislative cannot justly assume to itself a power to rule by extempore arbitrary decrees; but it is bound to see that justice is dispensed, and that the rights of the subjects be decided by promulgated, standing, and known laws, and authorized independent judges”; that is, independent, as far as possible, of Prince and people. “There should be one rule of justice for rich and poor, for the favorite at court, and the countryman at the plough.”

Thirdly, The supreme power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property, without his consent in person or by his representative.

These are some of the first principles of natural law and justice, and the great barriers of all free states and of the British Constitution in particular. It is utterly irreconcilable to these principles and to many other fundamental maxims of the common law, common sense, and reason that a British House of Commons should have a right at pleasure to give and grant the property of the Colonists. (That the Colonists are well entitled to all the essential rights, liberties, and privileges of men and freemen born in Britain is manifest not only from the Colony charters in general, but acts of the British Parliament.) The statute of the 13th of Geo. 2, C. 7, naturalizes even foreigners after seven years’ residence. The words of the Massachusetts charter are these: “And further, our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby for us, our heirs, and successors, grant, establish, and ordain, that all and every of the subjects of us, our heirs, and successors, which shall go to, and inhabit within our said Province or Territory, and every of their children, which shall happen to be born there or on the seas in going thither or returning from thence, shall have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects within any of the dominions [Page 422] of us, our heirs, and successors, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever as if they and every one of them were born within this our realm of England.”

Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent? Can it be said with any color of truth and justice, that this continent of three thousand miles in length, and of a breadth as yet unexplored, in which, however, it is supposed there are five millions of people, has the least voice, vote, or influence in the British Parliament? Have they all together any more weight or power to return a single member to that House of Commons who have not inadvertently, but deliberately, assumed a power to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties, than to choose an Emperor of China? Had the Colonists a right to return members to the British Parliament, it would only be hurtful; as, from their local situation and circumstances, it is impossible they should ever be truly and properly represented there. The inhabitants of this country, in all probability, in a few years, will be more numerous than those of Great Britain and Ireland together; yet it is absurdly expected by the promoters of the present measures that these, with their posterity to all generations, should be easy, while their property shall be disposed of by a House of Commons at three thousand miles’ distance from them, and who cannot be supposed to have the least care or concern for their real interest; who have not only no natural care for their interest, but must be in effect bribed against it, as every burden they lay on the Colonists is so much saved or gained to themselves. Hitherto, many of the Colonists have been free from quit rents; but if the breath of a British House of Commons can originate an act for taking away all our money, our lands will go next, or be subject to rack rents from haughty and relentless landlords, who will ride at ease, while we are trodden in the dirt. The Colonists have been branded with the odious names of traitors and rebels only for complaining of their grievances. How long such treatment will or ought to be borne, is submitted.

The colonies had from their first settlement been governed with more ease than perhaps can be equalled by any instance in history of dominions so distant. Their affection and respect for this country, while they were treated with kindness, produced an almost implicit obedience to the instructions of the Prince, and even to acts of the British Parliament; though the right of binding them by a legislature in which they were unrepresented was never clearly understood. That respect and affection produced a partiality in favor of everything that was English; whence their preference of English modes and manufactures; their submission to restraints on the importation of foreign goods, which they had but little desire to use; and the monopoly we so long enjoyed of their commerce, to the great enriching of our merchants and artificers.

The mistaken policy of the Stamp Act first disturbed this happy situation; but the flame thereby raised was soon extinguished by its repeal, and the old harmony restored, with all its concomitant advantage to our commerce. The subsequent act of another administration, which, not content with an established exclusion of foreign manufactures, began to make our own merchandise dearer to the consumers there, by heavy duties, revived it again; and combinations were entered into throughout the continent to stop trading with Britain till those duties should be repealed. All were accordingly repealed but [Page 423] one, the duty on tea. This was reserved (professedly so) as a standing claim and exercise of the right assumed by Parliament of laying such duties.

The colonies, on this repeal, retracted their agreement, so far as related to all other goods, except that on which the duty was retained. This was trumpeted here by the minister for the colonies as a triumph; there it was considered only as a decent and equitable measure, showing a willingness to meet the mother country in every advance towards a reconciliation, and a disposition to a good understanding so prevalent that possibly they might soon have relaxed in the article of tea also. But the system of commissioners of customs, officers without end, with fleets and armies for collecting and enforcing those duties, being continued, and these acting with much indiscretion and rashness (giving great and unnecessary trouble and obstruction to business, commencing unjust and vexatious suits, and harassing commerce in all its branches, while that the minister kept the people in a constant state of irritation by instructions which appeared to have no other end than the gratifying his private resentments), occasioned a persevering adherence to their resolutions in that particular; and the event should be a lesson to ministers not to risk through pique the obstructing any one branch of trade; since the course and connection of general business may be thereby disturbed to a degree impossible to be foreseen or imagined. For it appears that the colonies finding their humble petitions to have this duty repealed were rejected and treated with contempt, and that the produce of the duty was applied to the rewarding with undeserved salaries and pensions every one of their enemies, the duty itself became more odious, and their resolution to share it more vigorous and obstinate.

The Dutch, the Danes, and French took this opportunity thus offered them by our imprudence, and began to smuggle their teas into the plantation. At first this was something difficult; but at length, as all business is improved by practice, it became easy. A coast fifteen hundred miles in length could not in all parts be guarded, even by the whole navy of England; especially when their restraining authority was by all the inhabitants deemed unconstitutional, the smuggling of course considered as patriotism. The needy wretches, too, who, with small salaries, were trusted to watch the ports day and night, in all weathers, found it easier and more profitable not only to [Page 424] wink, but to sleep in their beds; the merchant’s pay being more generous than the King’s. Other India goods, also, which, by themselves, would not have made a smuggling voyage sufficiently profitable, accompanied tea to advantage; and it is feared the cheap French silks, formerly rejected, as not to the tastes of the colonies, may have found their way with the wares of India, and now established themselves in the popular use and opinion.

It is supposed that at least a million of Americans drink tea twice a day, which, at the first cost here, can scarce be reckoned at less than half a guinea a head per annum. This market, that in the five years which have run on since the act passed, would have paid two million five hundred thousand guineas for tea alone, into the coffers of the Company, we have wantonly lost to foreigners.

Meanwhile it is said the duties have so diminished that the whole remittance of the last year amounted to no more than the pitiful sum of eighty-five pounds, for the expense of some hundred thousands, in armed ships and soldiers, to support the officers. Hence the tea, and other India goods, which might have been sold in America, remain rotting in the Company’s warehouses; while those of foreign ports are known to be cleared by the American demand. Hence, in some degree, the Company’s inability to pay their bills; the sinking of their stock, by which millions of property have been annihilated; the lowering of their dividend, whereby so many must be distressed; the loss to government of the stipulated four hundred thousand pounds a year, which must make a proportionable reduction in our savings towards the discharge of our enormous debt; and hence, in part, the severe blow suffered by credit in general, to the ruin of many families; the stagnation of business in Spitalfields and Manchester, through want of vent for their goods; with other future evils, which, as they cannot, from the numerous and secret connections in general commerce, easily be foreseen, can hardly be avoided.

[Page 425] Mr. Adams’s motion, creating the Committee of Correspondence, had specified three distinct duties to be performed, -to draw up a statement of the rights of the Colonists as men, as Christians, and as subjects; a declaration of the infringement and violation of those rights; and a letter to be sent to the several towns in the Province and to the world as the sense of the town. The drafting of the first was assigned to Samuel Adams, the second to Joseph Warren, and the last to Benjamin Church.

When the reports of the several committees were prepared, they were presented on the 20th of November to a town meeting at Faneuil Hall by James Otis, who now, as chairman, made his final appearance in public, –the wreck of one of the most brilliant men of genius that America has produced, but yet sustained by the care and sympathy of some friends and the tender reverence of the people, whose cause he had ever ardently and sincerely supported.

“Samuel Adams,” says Hutchinson, writing to a friend, ” had prepared a long report, but he let Otis appear in it”; and again, in another letter: “the Grand Incendiary of the Province prepared a long report for a committee appointed by the town, in which, after many principles inferring independence were laid down, many resolves followed, all of them tending to sedition and mutiny, and some of them expressly denying Parliamentary authority.”

The report created a powerful sensation, both in America and in England, where it was for some time attributed to Franklin, by whom it was republished. It is divided into the three subjects specified in the original motion. The first, in three subdivisions, considering the rights of the Colonists as men, as Christians, and as subjects, was from the pen of Samuel Adams; his original draft, together with the preparatory rough notes or headings, being in perfect preservation. It is important, not only as a platform upon which were afterwards built many of the celebrated state papers of the Revolution, but as the first fruits of the Committee of Correspondence.

The error of John Adams, when, fifty years afterwards, he attributed this pamphlet to James Otis, gave rise to some interesting letters from both Jefferson and Adams a few years before their death. John Adams, while questioning the credit due to Jefferson, as the author of the Declaration of Independence, had called that document a “recapitulation” of the Declaration of Rights by the Congress of 1774; and, again, writing to Mr. Pickering, he says: “As you justly observe, there is not an idea in it [the Declaration of Independence] but what had been hackneyed in Congress two years before. The substance of it is contained in the Declaration of Rights, and the Violations of those Rights, in the journals of Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet voted and printed by the town of Boston before the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned and polished by Samuel Adams.” (John Adams’s Works, II. 514).

The fact that Otis was allowed to present the report as his final public act may have given John Adams this impression; for, at this time (1772), he himself took no part in public affairs, but devoted his time to professional pursuits. Otis, however, had nothing to do with preparing the paper, and, to the grief of his friends and his country, had long been incapable of any public service. Jefferson, adopting [Page 426] the “supposition” of John Adams as to the authorship of the “Rights of the Colonists,” wrote to Mr. Madison a year later that the “Otis pamphlet he never saw,” and upon this his biographer, continuing the subject in defence of Jefferson’s originality, refers repeatedly to the pamphlet in question as the production of Otis. (Randall’s Jefferson, I. 189.) There certainly is a similarity between the “Rights of the Colonists” in 1772 and the “Declaration of Rights” in 1774, and between them both and the Declaration of Independence; but, as all are founded on the time-honored principles of Locke, Hooker, Sydney, and Harrington, some of whom are duly quoted by Samuel Adams in his treatise, the disputes as to the originality are needless.

But John Adams’s memory failed him in relation to the Declaration of Rights made by the first Congress, as well as in attributing the pamphlet now under consideration to James Otis. He implies that there were two Declarations, the one of Rights, and the other of Violations, which is manifestly incorrect. It would seem, too, that any attempt to lessen the credit of Jefferson, by showing that the essence of the Declaration of Independence was contained in Samuel Adams’s pamphlet of 1772 and the Declaraton of Rights in 1774, must reflect upon whoever claims the authorship of the latter (since the sentiments are identical), unless it be conceded that Samuel Adams, as is more than probable, was largely engaged in composing the Declaration of Rights, and introduced into that paper the same principles he had advanced in 1772.

Here [in the paper of 1772] is embodied the whole philosophy of human rights, condensed from the doctrines of all time, and applied to the immediate circumstances of America. Upon this paper was based all that was written or spoken on human liberty in the Congress which declared independence; and the immortal instrument itself is, in many features, but a repetition of the principles here enunciated, and of Joseph Warren’s list of grievances, which followed the Rights of the Colonists in the report. -Wells, Life of Samuel Adams.

From the Editor Sparks.

[Page 427] The report was the boldest exposition of the American grievances which had hitherto been made public, and was drawn up with as much ability as freedom. Hutchinson says of this report of the committee, that, “although at its first appearance it was considered as their own work, yet they had little more to do than to make the necessary alterations in the arrangement of materials prepared for them by their great director in England, whose counsels they obeyed, and in whose wisdom and dexterity they had an implicit faith. Such principles in government were avowed as would be sufficient to justify the colonies in revolting, and forming an independent state; and such instances were given of the infringement of their rights by the exercise of Parliamentary authority as, upon like reasons, would justify an exception to the authority in all cases whatever; nevertheless, [Page 428] there was color for alleging that it was not ‘expressly’ denied in ‘every’ case. The whole frame of it, however, was calculated to strike the colonists with a sense of their just claim to independence, and to stimulate them to assert it.”

The person alluded to by Governor Hutchinson, as “the great director in England,” was Dr. Franklin, and it is insinuated that he was in effect the author of the report, but this is in no sense true; nor did he wholly approve the measures adopted at that meeting. He thought the affair was carried a little farther than the occasion required at the time, and was afraid that ill consequences would result. It was only the time and manner of bringing the subject forward, however, upon which he had any doubts. To the sentiments expressed in the report of the committee, and adopted by the inhabitants of the town, he fully assented. This is proved by his sending a copy of the proceedings to the press, as soon as he received it in London, with a prefatory notice written by himself. The pamphlet was entitled “The Votes and Proceedings of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Town Meeting assembled, according to Law. Published by Order of the Town.”-Sparks.

Rush-Bagot Agreement  (1817)

Rush-Bagot Agreement  1817

One of the shortest Agreements defining peace/disarmement terms ever written ¹ , started with HRH the Prince Regent agreeing on 2 August 1816 to a proposal by President Munroe, was negociated as an exchange of notes during 1817, ratified by the US Senate on April 28, 1818 and by Great Britain on October 2, 1818. This Agreement led to the “longest undefended border” which has only begun to crumple since 11 Septeber 2001.

     The naval force to be maintained upon the American Lakes by His Majesty and the Govermment of the United States shall henceforth be confined to the following vessels on each side, that is —

• On Lake Ontario, to one vessel not exceeding one hundred tons burden, and armed with one eighteen pound cannon.
• On the upper lakes, to two vessels, not exceeding like burden each, and armed with like force.
• On the waters of Lake Champlain, to one vessel not exceeding like burden, and armed with like force.

     All other armed vessels on these lakes shall be forthwith dismantled, and no other vessels of war shall be there built or armed.

     If either party should hereafter be desirous of annulling this stipulation, and should give notice to that effect to the other party it shall cease to be binding after the expiration of six months from the date of such notice.

     The naval force so to be limited shall be restricted to such services as will, in no respect, interfere with the proper duties of the armed vessels of the other party.

In 1864, during the American Civil War, strained relations with Canada caused the Secretary of State, William H. Seward, to announce that the United States intended to abrogate, but before the six months of grace had elapsed the announcement was canceled.

Exchange of notes (November 18 and December 5, 1946) between Canada and the United States of America relating to the application and interpretation of the (Rush-Bagot) agreement of 1817 concerning the naval forces on the Great Lakes ² :

The Canadian Ambassador to the United States to the Secretary of State of the United States

CANADIAN EMBASSY

Washington, November 18, 1946.

Note 421

Sir,

You will recall that the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817 has been the subject of discussion between our Governments on several Occasions in recent years and that notes were exchanged in 1939, 1940 and 1942 ³ relating to the application and interpretation of this Agreement. It has been recognized by both our Governments that the detailed provisions of the Rush-Bagot Agreement are not applicable to present day conditions, but that as a symbol of friendly relations extending over a period of nearly one hundred and thirty years the Agreement possesses great historic importance. It is thus the spirit of the Agreement rather than its detailed provisions which serves to guide our Governments in matters relating to naval forces on the Great Lakes.

Discussions have taken place in the Permanent Joint Board on Defence with regard to the stationing on the Great Lakes of naval vessels for the purpose of training naval reserve personnel. The naval authorities of both our Governments regard such a course as valuable from the point of view of naval training and the Board has recorded its opinion that such action would be consistent with the spirit of existing agreements. The Canadian Government concurs in this opinion.

In order that the views of our two Governments may be placed on record, I have the honour to propose that the stationing of naval vessels on the Great Lakes for training purposes by either the Canadian Government or the United States Government shall be regarded as consistent with the spirit of the Rush-Bagot Agreement provided that full information about the number, disposition, functions and armament of such vessels shall be communicated by each Government to the other in advance of the assignment of vessels to service on the Great Lakes. If your Government concurs in this view, this note and your reply thereto shall be regarded as constituting a further interpretation of the Rush-Bagot Agreement accepted by our two Governments.

Accept, Sir, the renewed assurances of my highest consideration.

[signed]
H. H. WRONG,
Canadian Ambassador.

The Acting Secretary of State of the United States to the Canadian Ambassador to the United States

Department of State

Washington, December 5, 1946.

Excellency:

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 421 of November 18, 1946, in which you advised me that your Government has proposed a further interpretation of the detailed provisions of the Rush-Bagot Agreement. My Government is in complete accord with yours as to the historic importance of this Agreement as a symbol of the friendship between our two countries and agrees that it is the spirit of this Agreement which guides our Governments in matters relating to naval forces on the Great Lakes.

I am now pleased to inform you that my Government concurs with your proposal, namely, that the stationing of naval vessels on the Great Lakes for training purposes by either the Canadian Government or the United States Government shall be regarded as consistent with the spirit of the Rush-Bagot Agreement provided that full information about the number, disposition, functions and armament of such vessels shall be communicated by each Government to the other in advance of the assignment of vessels to service on the Great Lakes.

Accept, Excellency, the renewed assurances of my highest consideration.

[signed]
DEAN ACHESON,
Acting Secretary of State.

The Reconstruction Acts: 1867

The Reconstruction Acts: 1867

Chap. CLIII – An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States [Passed over President Johnson’s veto March 2, 1867]

Whereas no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida. Texas and Arkansas; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: Therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States as hereinafter prescribed, and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and South Carolina the second district; Georgia, Alabama and Florida the third district; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district.

Sec. 2 And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the President to assign to the command of each of the said districts an officer of the army, not below the rank of brigadier-general, and to detail a sufficient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority within the district to which he is assigned.

Sec. 3 And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned as aforesaid, to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals; and to this end he may allow local civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or, when in his judgment it may be necessary for the trial of offenders, he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals for that purpose, and all interference under color of State authority with the exercise of military authority under this act, shall be null and void.

Sec. 4 And be it further enacted, That all persons put under military arrest by virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted, and no sentence of any military commission or tribunal hereby authorized, affecting the life or liberty of any person, shall be executed until it is approved by the officer in command of the district, and the laws and regulations for the government of the army shall not be affected by this act, except in so far as they conflict with its provisions: Provided, That no sentence of death under the provisions of this act shall be carried into effect without the approval of the President.

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Sec. 5 And be it further enacted, That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when such article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State: Provided, That no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shall be eligible to election as a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such convention.

Sec. 6 And be it further enacted, That, until the people of said rebel States shall be by law admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the same; and in all elections to any office under such provisional governments all persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote under the provisions of the fifth section of this act; and no person shall be eligible to any office under any provisional governments who would be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the third article of said constitutional amendment.

 

 

Chap. VI. An Act supplementary to an Act entitled “An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States,” passed March second, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and to facilitate Restoration [Passed over President Johnson’s veto March 23, 1867].

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That before the first day of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, the commanding general in each district defined by an act entitled “An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,” passed March second, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, shall cause a registration to be made of the male citizens of the United States, twenty-one years of age and upwards, resident in each county or parish in the State or States included in his district, which registration shall include only those persons who are qualified to vote for delegates by the act aforesaid, and who shall have taken and subscribed the following oath or affirmation: “I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm), in the presence of Almighty God, that I am a citizen of the State of _____; that I have resided in said State for _____ months next preceding this day, and now reside in the county of _____ or the parish of _____, in said State (as the case may be); that I am twenty-one years old; that I have not be disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States, nor for felony committed against the laws of any State or of the United States; that I have never been a member of any State legislature, nor held any executive or judicial office in any State and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I have never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States, 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, and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I will faithfully support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, encourage others so to do, so help me God”‘ which oath or affirmation may be administered by any registering officer.

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Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That after the completion of the registration hereby provided for in any State, at such time and places therein as the commanding general shall appoint and direct, of which at least thirty days’ public notice shall be given, an election shall be held of delegates to a convention for the purpose of establishing a constitution and civil government for such State loyal to the Union, said convention in each State, except Virginia, to consist of the same number of members as the most numerous branch of the State legislature of such State in the year eighteen hundred and sixty, to be apportioned among the several districts, counties, or parishes of such State by the commanding general, giving to each representation in the ratio of voters registered as aforesaid as nearly as may be. The convention in Virginia shall consist of the same number of members as represented the territory now constituting Virginia in the most numerous branch of the legislature of said State in the year eighteen hundred and sixty, to be apportioned as aforesaid.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That at said election the registered voters of each State shall vote for or against a convention to form a constitution therefor under this act. Those voting in favor of such a convention shall have written or printed on the ballots by which they vote for delegates, as aforesaid, the words “For a convention,” and those voting against such a convention shall have written or printed on such ballots the words “Against a convention.” The persons appointed to superintend said election, and to make return of the votes given thereat, as herein provided, shall count and make return of the votes given for and against a convention; and the commanding general to whom the same shall have been returned shall ascertain and declare the total vote in each State for and against a convention. If a majority of the votes given on that question shall be for a convention, then such convention shall be held as hereinafter provided; but if a majority of said votes shall be against a convention, then no such convention shall be held under this act: Provided, That such convention shall not be held unless a majority of all such registered voters shall have voted on the question of holding such convention.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the commanding general of each district shall appoint as many boards of registration as may be necessary, consisting of three loyal officers or persons, to make and complete the registration, superintend the election, and make return to him of the votes, list of voters, and of the persons elected as delegates by a plurality of the votes cast at said election; and upon receiving said returns he shall open the same, ascertain the persons elected as delegates,according to the returns of the officers who conducted said election, make proclamation thereof; and if a majority of the votes given on that question shall be for a convention, the commanding general, within sixty days from the date of election, shall notify the delegates to assemble in convention, at a time and place to be mentioned in the notification, and said convention, when organized, shall proceed to frame a constitution and civil government according to the provisions of this act, and the act to which it is supplementary; and when the same shall have been so framed, said constitution shall be submitted by the convention for ratification to the persons registered under the provisions of this act at an election to be conducted by the officers or persons appointed or to be appointed by the commanding general, as hereinbefore provided, and to be held after the expiration of thirty days from the date of notice thereof, to be given by said convention; and the returns thereof shall be made to the commanding general of the district.

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That if, according to said returns, the constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the votes of the registered electors qualified as herein specified, cast at said election, at least one half of all the registered voters voting upon the question of such ratification, the president of the convention shall transmit a copy of the same, duly certified, to the President of the United States, who shall forthwith transmit the same to Congress, if then in session, and if not in session, then immediately upon its next assembling; and if it shall moreover appear to Congress that the election was one at which all the registered and qualified electors in the State had an opportunity to vote freely and without restraint, fear, or the influence of fraud, and if the Congress shall be satisfied that such constitution meets the approval of a majority of all the qualified electors in the State, and if the said constitution shall be declared by Congress to be in conformity with the provisions of the act to which this is supplementary, and the other provisions of said act shall have been complied with, and the said constitution shall be approved by Congress, the State shall be declared entitled to representation, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom as therein provided.

Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That all elections in the States mentioned in said “Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,” shall, during the operation of said act, be by ballot; and all officers making the said registration of voters and conducting said elections shall, before entering upon the discharge of their duties, take and subscribe the oath prescribed by the act approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two entitled “An act to prescribe an oath of office”: Provided, That if any person shall knowingly and falsely take and subscribe any oath in this act prescribed, such person so offending and being thereof duly convicted shall be subject to the pains, penalties, and disabilities which by law are provided for the punishment of the crime of willful and corrupt perjury.

Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That all expenses incurred by the several commanding generals or by virtue of any orders issued, or appointments made, by them, under or by virtue of this act, shall be paid out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated.

Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That the convention for each State shall prescribe the fees, salary, and compensation to be paid to all delegates and other officers and agents herein authorized or necessary to carry into effect the purposes of this act not herein otherwise provided for, and shall provide for the levy and collection of such taxes on the property in such State as may be necessary to pay the same.

Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That the word “article,” in the sixth section of the act to which this is supplementary, shall be construed to mean “section.”

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Chap. XXX. An Act supplementary to an Act entitled “An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States,” passed on the second day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and the Act supplementary thereto, passed on the twenty-third day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven [Passed over President Johnson’s veto July 19, 1867].

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it is hereby declared to have been the true intent and meaning of the act of the second day of March, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, entitled “An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,” and of the act supplementary thereto, passed on the twenty-third day of March, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, that the governments then existing in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas were not legal State governments; and that thereafter said governments, if continued, were to be continued subject in all respects to the military commanders of the respective districts, and to the paramount authority of Congress.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the commander of any district named in said act shall have power, subject to the disapproval of the General of the army of the United States, and to have effect till disapproved, whenever in the opinion of such commander the proper administration of said act shall require it, to suspend or remove from office, or from the performance of official duties and the exercise of official powers, any officer or person holding or exercising, or professing to hold or exercise, any civil or military office or duty in such district under any power, election, appointment or authority derived from, or granted by, or claimed under, any so-called State or the government thereof, or any municipal or other division thereof, and upon such suspension or removal such commander, subject to the disapproval of the General as aforesaid, shall have power to provide from time to time for the performance of the said duties of such officer or person so suspended or removed, by the detail of some competent officer or soldier of the army, or by the appointment of some other person, to perform the same, and to fill vacancies occasioned by death, resignation, or otherwise.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the General of the army of the United Sates shall be invested with all the powers of suspension, removal, appointment, and detail granted in the preceding section to district commanders.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the acts of the officers of the army already done in removing in said districts persons exercising the functions of civil officers, and appointing others in their stead, are hereby confirmed: Provided, That any person heretofore or hereafter appointed by any district commander to exercise the functions of any civil office, may be removed either by the military officer in command of the district, or by the General of the army. And it shall be the duty of such commander to remove from office as aforesaid all persons who are disloyal to the government of the United States, or who use their official influence in any manner to hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct the due and proper administration of this act and the acts to which it is supplementary.

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That the boards of registration provided for in the act entitled “An act supplementary to an act entitled ‘An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,’ passed March two, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and to facilitate restoration,” passed March twenty-three, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, shall have power, and it shall be their duty before allowing the registration of any person, to ascertain, upon such facts or information as they can obtain, whether such person is entitled to be registered under said act, and the oath required by said act shall not be conclusive on such question, and no person shall be registered unless such board shall decide that he is entitled thereto; and such board shall also have power to examine, under oath, (to be administered by any member of such board,) any one touching the qualification of any person claiming registration; but in every case of refusal by the board to register an applicant, and in every case of striking his name from the list as hereinafter provided, the board shall make a note or memorandum, which shall be returned with the registration list to the commanding general of the district, setting forth the grounds of such refusal or such striking from the list: Provided, That no person shall be disqualified as member of any board of registration by reason of race or color.

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Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That the true intent and meaning of the oath prescribed in said supplementary act is, (among other things,) that no person who has been a member of the legislature of any State, or who has held any executive or judicial office in any State, whether he has taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United Sates or not, and whether he was holding such office at the commencement of the rebellion, or had held it before, and who has afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof, is entitled to be registered or to vote; and the words “executive or judicial office in any State” in said oath mentioned shall be construed to include all civil offices created by law for the administration of any general law of a State, or for the administration of justice.

Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the time for completing the original registration provided for in said act may, in the discretion of the commander of any district be extended to the first day of October, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven; and the boards of registration shall have power, and it shall be their duty, commencing fourteen days prior to any election under said act, and upon reasonable public notice of the time and place thereof, to revise, for a period of five days, the registration lists, and upon being satisfied that any person not entitled thereto has been registered, to strike the name of such person from the list, and such person shall not be allowed to vote. And such board shall also, during the same period, add to such registry the names of all persons who at that time possess the qualifications required by said act who have not been already registered; and no person shall, at any time, be entitled to be registered or to vote by reason of any executive pardon or amnesty for any act or thing which, without such pardon or amnesty, would disqualify him from registration or voting.

Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That section four of said last-named act shall be construed to authorize the commanding general named therein, whenever he shall deem it needful, to remove any member of a board of registration and to appoint another in his stead, and to fill any vacancy in such board.

Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That all members of said boards of registration and all persons hereafter elected or appointed to office in said military districts, under any so-called State or municipal authority, or by detail or appointment of the district commanders, shall be required to take and to subscribe the oath of office prescribed by law for officers of the United States.

Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That no district commander or member of the board of registration, or any of the officers or appointees acting under them shall be bound in his action by any opinion of any civil officer of the United States.

Sec. 11. And be it further enacted, That all the provisions of this act and of the acts to which this is supplementary shall be construed liberally, to the end that all intents thereof may be fully and perfectly carried out.

Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

United States Statutes at Large (59th Cong., Sess. I, Chp. 3915, p. 768-772)

AN ACT

For preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That is shall be unlawful for Columbia any article of food or drug which is adulterated or misbranded, within the meaning of this Act; and any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and for each offense shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not to exceed five hundred dollars or shall be sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court, and for each subsequent offense and conviction thereof shall be fined not less than one thousand dollars or sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court.

Sec. 2. That the introduction into any State or Territory or the District of Columbia from any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia, or from any foreign country, or shipment to any foreign country of any article of food or drugs which is adulterated or misbranded, within the meaning of this Act, is hereby prohibited; and any person who shall ship or deliver for shipment from any State or Territory or the District of Columbia to any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia, or to a foreign country, or who shall receive in any State or Territory or the District of Columbia from any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia, or foreign country, and having so received, shall deliver, in original unbroken packages, for pay or otherwise, or offer to deliver to any other person, any such article so adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act, or any person who shall sell or offer for sale in the District of Columbia or the Territories of the United States any such adulterated or misbranded foods or drugs, or export or offer to export the same to any foreign country, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and for such offense be fined not exceeding two hundred dollars for the first offense, and upon conviction for each subsequent offense not exceeding three hundred dollars or be imprisoned not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court: Provided, That no article shall be deemed misbranded or adulterated within the provisions of this Act when intended for except to any foreign country and prepared or packed according to the specifications or directions of the foreign purchaser when no substance is used in the preparation or packing thereof in conflict with the laws of the foreign country to which said article is intended to be shipped; but if said article shall be in fact sold or offered for sale for domestic use or consumption, then this proviso shall not exempt said article from the operation of any of the other provisions of this Act.

Sec. 3. That the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall make uniform rules and regulations for carrying out the provisions of this Act, including the collection and examination of specimens of foods and drugs manufactured or offered for sale in the District of Columbia, or in any Territory of the United States, or which shall be offered for sale in unbroken packages in any State other than that in which they shall have been respectively manufactured or produced, or which shall be received from any foreign country, or intended for shipment to any foreign country, or which may be submitted for examination by the chief health, food, or drug officer of any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, or at any domestic or foreign port through which such product is offered for interstate commerce, or for export or import between the United States and any foreign port or country.

Sec. 4. That the examinations of specimens of foods and drugs shall be made in the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, or under the direction and supervision of such Bureau, for the purpose of determining from such examinations whether such articles are adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act; and if it shall appear from any such examination that any of such specimens is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act, the Secretary of Agriculture shall cause notice thereof to be given to the party from whom such sample was obtained. Any party so notified shall be given an opportunity to be heard, under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed as aforesaid, and if it appears that any of the provisions of this Act have been violated by such party, then the Secretary of Agriculture shall at once certify the facts to the proper United States district attorney, with a copy of the results of the analysis or the examination of such article duly authenticated by the analyst or officer making such examination, under the oath of such officer. After judgment of the court, notice shall be given by publication in such manner as may be prescribed by the rules and regulations aforesaid.

Sec. 5. That is shall be the duty of each district attorney to whom the Secretary of Agriculture shall report any violation of this Act, or to whom any health or food or drug officer or agent of any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia shall present satisfactory evidence of any such violation, to cause appropriate proceedings to be commenced and prosecuted in the proper courts of the United States, without delay, for the enforcement of the penalties as in such case herein provided.

Sec. 6. That the term “drug,” as used in this Act, shall include all medicines and preparations recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary for internal or external use, and any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used for the cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease of either man or other animals. The term “food,” as used herein, shall include all articles used for food, drink, confectionery, or condiment by man or other animals, whether simple, mixed, or compound.

Sec. 7. That for the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be adulterated:

In case of drugs:

First. If, when a drug is sold under or by a name recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary, it differs from the standard of strength, quality, or purity, as determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary official at the time of investigation: Provided, That no drug defined in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary shall be deemed to be adulterated under this provision if the standard of strength, quality, or purity be plainly stated upon the bottle, box, or other container thereof although the standard may differ from that determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary.

Second. If its strength or purity fall below the professed standard or quality under which it is sold.

In the case of confectionery:

If it contain terra alba, barytes, talc, chrome yellow, or other mineral substance or poisonous color or flavor, or other ingredient deleterious or detrimental to health, or any vinous, malt or spirituous liquor or compound or narcotic drug.

In the case of food:

First. If any substance has been mixed and packed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength.

Second. If any substance has been substituted wholly or in part for the article.

Third. If any valuable constituent of the article has been wholly or in part abstracted.

Fourth. If it be mixed, colored, powdered, coated, or stained in a manner whereby damage or inferiority is concealed.

Fifth. If it contain any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render such article injurious to health: Provided, That when in the preparation of food products for shipment they are preserved by any external application applied in such manner that the preservative is necessarily removed mechanically, or by maceration in water, or otherwise, and directions for the removal of said preservative shall be printed on the covering or the package, the provisions of this Act shall be construed as applying only when said products are ready for consumption.

Sixth. If it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, decomposed, or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or any portion of an animal unfit for food, whether manufactured or not, or if it is the product of a diseased animal, or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter.

Sec. 8. That the term, “misbranded,” as used herein, shall apply to all drugs, or articles of food, or articles which enter into the composition of food, the package or label of which shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding such article, or the ingredients or substances contained therein which shall be false or misleading in any particular, and to any food or drug product which is falsely branded as to the State, Territory, or country in which it is manufactured or produced.

That for the purposes of this Act an article shall also be deemed to be misbranded:

In case of drugs:

First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the name of another article.

Second. If the contents of the package as originally put up shall have been removed, in whole or in part, and other contents shall have been placed in such package, or if the package fail to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any such substances contained therein.

In the case of food:

First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the distinctive name of another article.

Second. If it be labeled or branded so as to deceive or mislead the purchaser, or purport to be a foreign product when not so, or if the contents of the package as originally put up shall have been removed in whole or in part and other contents shall have been placed in such package, or if it fail to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any such substances contained therein.

Third. If in package form, and the contents are stated in terms of weight or measure, they are not plainly and correctly stated on the outside of the package.

Fourth. If the package containing it or its label shall bear any statement, design, or device regarding the ingredients or the substances contained therein, which statement, design, or device shall be false or misleading in any particular: Provided , That an article of food which does not contain any added poisonous or deleterious ingredients shall not be deemed to be adulterated or misbranded in the following cases:

First. In the case of mixtures or compounds which may be now or from time to time hereafter known as articles of food, under their own distinctive names, and not an imitation of or offered for sale under the distinctive name of another article, if the name be accompanied on the same label or brand with a statement of the place where said article has been manufactured or produced.

Second. In the case of articles labeled, branded, or tagged so as to plainly indicate that they are compounds, imitations, or blends, and the word “compound,” “imitation,” or “blend,” as the case may be, is plainly stated on the package in which it is offered for sale: Provided , That the term blend as used herein shall be construed to mean a mixture of like substances, not excluding harmless coloring or flavoring ingredients used for the purpose of coloring and flavoring only: And provided further , That nothing in this Act shall be construed as requiring or compelling proprietors or manufacturers of proprietary foods which contain no unwholesome added ingredient to disclose their trade formulas, except in so far as the provisions of this Act may require to secure freedom from adulteration or misbranding.

Sec. 9. That no dealer shall be prosecuted under the provisions of this Act when he can establish a guaranty signed by the wholesaler, jobber, manufacturer, or other party residing in the United States, from whom he purchases such articles, to the effect that the same is not adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act, designating it. Said guaranty, to afford protection, shall contain the name and address of the party or parties making the sale of such articles to such dealer, and in such case said party or parties shall be amenable to the prosecutions, fines, and other penalties which would attach, in due course, to the dealer under the provisions of this Act.

Sec. 10. That any article of food, drug, or liquor that is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act, and is being transported from one State, Territory, District, or insular possession to another for sale, or, having been transported, remains unloaded, unsold, or in original unbroken packages, or if it be sold or offered for sale in the District of Columbia or the Territories, or insular possessions of the United States, or if it be imported from a foreign country for sale, or if it is intended for export to a foreign country, shall be liable to be proceeded against in any district court of the United States within the district where the same is found, and seized for confiscation by a process of libel for condemnation. And if such article is condemned as being adulterated or misbranded, or of a poisonous or deleterious character, within the meaning of this Act, the same shall be disposed of by destruction or sale, as the said court may direct, and the proceeds thereof, if sold, less the legal costs and charges, shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States, but such goods shall not be sold in any jurisdiction contrary to the provisions of this Act or the laws of that jurisdiction: Provided, however , That upon the payment of the costs of such libel proceedings and the execution and delivery of a good and sufficient bond to the effect that such articles shall not be sold or otherwise disposed of contrary to the provisions of this Act, or the laws of any State, Territory, District, or insular possession, the court may by order direct that such articles be delivered to the owner thereof. The proceedings of such libel cases shall conform, as near as may be, to the proceedings in admiralty, except that either party may demand trial by jury of any issue of fact joined in any such case, and all such proceedings shall be at the suit of and in the name of the United States.

Sec. 11. The Secretary of the Treasury shall deliver to the Secretary of Agriculture, upon his request from time to time, samples of foods and drugs which are being imported into the United States or offered for import, giving notice thereof to the owner or consignee, who may appear before the Secretary of Agriculture, and have the right to introduce testimony, and if it appear from the examination of such samples that any article of food or drug offered to be imported into the United States is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act, or is otherwise dangerous to the health of the people of the United States, or is of a kind forbidden entry into, or forbidden to be sold or restricted in sale in the country in which it is made or from which it is exported, or is otherwise falsely labeled in any respect, the said article shall be refused admission, and the Secretary of the Treasury shall refuse delivery to the consignee and shall cause the destruction of any goods refused delivery which shall not be exported by the consignee within three months from the date of notice of such refusal under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe: Provided , That the Secretary of the Treasury may deliver to the consignee such goods pending examination and decision in the matter on execution of a penal bond for the amount of the full invoice value of such goods, together with the duty thereon, and on refusal to return such goods for any cause to the custody of the Secretary of the Treasury, when demanded, for the purpose of excluding them from the country, or for any other purpose, said consignee shall forfeit the full amount of the bond: And provided further , That all charges for storage, cartage, and labor on goods which are refused admission or delivery shall be paid by the owner or consignee, and in default of such payment shall constitute a lien against any future importation made by such owner or consignee.

Sec. 12. That the term “Territory” as used in this Act shall include the insular possessions of the United States. The word “person” as used in this Act shall be construed to import both the plural and the singular, as the case demands, and shall include corporations, companies, societies and associations. When construing and enforcing the provisions of this Act, the act, omission, or failure of any officer, agent, or other person acting for or employed by any corporation, company, society, or association, within the scope of his employment or office, shall in every case be also deemed to be the act, omission, or failure of such corporation, company, society, or association as well as that of the person.

Sec. 13. That this Act shall be in force and effect from and after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and seven.

OVERVIEW:
The Story Behind Project Follow Through

Bonnie Grossen, Editor

Project Follow Through (FT) remains today the world’s largest educational experiment. It began in 1967 as part of President Johnson’s ambitious War on Poverty and continued until the summer of 1995, having cost about a billion dollars. Over the first 10 years more than 22 sponsors worked with over 180 sites at a cost of over $500 million in a massive effort to find ways to break the cycle of poverty through improved education.

The noble intent of the fledgling Department of Education (DOE) and the Office of Economic Opportunity was to break the cycle of poverty through better education. Poor academic performance was known to correlate directly with poverty. Poor education then led to less economic opportunity for those children when they became adults, thus ensuring poverty for the next generation. FT planned to evaluate whether the poorest schools in America, both economically and academically impoverished, could be brought up to a level comparable with mainstream America. The actual achievement of the children would be used to determine success.

The architects of various theories and approaches who believed their methods could alleviate the detrimental educational effects of poverty were invited to submit applications to become sponsors of their models. Once the slate of models was selected, parent groups of the targeted schools serving children of poverty could select from among these sponsors one that their school would commit to work with over a period of several years.

The DOE-approved models were developed by academics in education with the exception of one, the Direct Instruction model, which had been developed by an expert Illinois preschool teacher with no formal training in educational methods. The models developed by the academics were similar in many ways. These similarities were particularly apparent when juxtaposed with the model developed by the expert preschool teacher from Illinois. The models developed by the academics consisted largely of general statements of democratic ideals and the philosophies of famous figures, such as John Dewey and Jean Piaget. The expert preschool teacher’s model was a set of lesson plans that he had designed in order to share his expertise with other teachers.

The preschool teacher, Zig Engelmann, had begun developing his model in 1963 as he taught his non-identical twin boys at home, while he was still working for an advertising agency. From the time the boys had learned to count at age 3 until a year later, Zig had taught them multi-digit multiplication, addition of fractions with like and unlike denominators, and basic algebraic concepts using only 20 minutes a day.

Many parents may have dismissed such an accomplishment as the result of having brilliant children. Zig thought differently; he thought he might be able to accomplish the same results with any child, especially children of poverty. He thought that children of poverty did not learn any differently than his very young boys, whose cognitive growth he had accelerated by providing them with carefully engineered instruction, rather than waiting for them to learn through random experience.

Zig filmed his infant sons doing math problems and showed the home movie to Carl Bereiter at the University of Illinois, where Carl was leading a preschool project to accelerate the cognitive growth of disadvantaged young children. Nothing was working. After seeing Zig’s film, he asked Zig if he could accomplish similar results with other children. Zig said “yes” and got a job working with him. Excerpts from the home movie of Zig working with his twin sons was shown at the 1994 Eugene conference and are included in the Conference ’94 video tape available through ADI. The Conference ’94 tape also includes footage of Zig working with the economically disadvantaged preschool children and comments from those who were there in the early days of Zig’s career and FT.

Carl Bereiter decided to leave Illinois to go to the Ontario Institute for Studies in education. The preschool project needed a director with faculty rank, a ranking that Zig did not have, in order to continue to receive funding on a grant from the Carnegie Foundation.

Wes Becker, a professor of psychology saved the preschool by joining it as a co-director. Wes had graduated as a hot shot clinical psychologist from Stanford, having completed the undergraduate and graduate programs in a record six years. Wes had then moved from the orientation of a development a list to much the opposite, that of a behaviorist. At the time Wes became familiar with Zig’s work Wes was doing a demonstration project to show how behavioral principles apply to human subjects. Wes’s demonstration was having difficulties because the instructional program for teaching reading was not working (Sullivan Programmed Phonics). One of Wes’s graduate students, Charlotte Giovanetti, also worked with Zig in the preschool. She told Wes, “We know how to do that,” and proceeded to develop a small group program for teaching sounds in the Sullivan sequence. It was successful and impressed Wes.

As chance would have it, about the same time that Zig and Carl’s preschool program was looking for a new director, Wes heard Jean Osborn describe the Direct Instruction program used in the preschool at a symposium. Wes personally commented to Jean afterward how taken he was with the careful analysis (building skills on preskills, choice of examples, etc.). That night he was attacked by phone calls, strategically planned, requesting him to replace Carl Bereiter. The callers assured him it would take only a little bit of his time.

So Wes agreed to a partnership that then consumed his life. Only a few months after Wes became involved in the preschool project with Zig, Project FT began. Wes and Zig became the Engelmann-Becker team and joined Project FT under the sponsorship of the University of Illinois in 1967.

Zig began sharing his expertise with other teachers in the form of the Direct Instruction System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading (DISTAR or Direct Instruction). His phenomenal success started getting attention. Other talented people began working with Zig. Bob Egbert, who for years was the National Director of Project FT, describes a scene from those early days in a letter he wrote to Zig for the 20th anniversary celebration:

The University of Kansas was having its first summer workshop for teachers. Don Bushell had invited Ziggy to do a demonstration lesson. My image of that occasion is still crystal clear. Ziggy was at the front of the large classroom when a half dozen five-year-old children were brought in. They were shy in front of the large audience and had to be encouraged to sit in the semi-circle in front of Ziggy. “How in the world,” I thought, “will this large, imposing man who has not been educated as a teacher cope with this impossible situation?” I need not have been concerned. Within three minutes the excited youngsters, now on the edge of their chairs, were calling out answers individually or in unison, as requested, to the most “difficult” of Ziggy’s challenges and questions. By the end of the demonstration lesson, the children had learned the material that Ziggy taught; they also had learned that they were very smart. They knew this because they could answer all of the questions that Ziggy had assured them were too hard for them! (The full text of Bob Egbert’s letter is in the Fall, 1994 issue of Effective School Practices on pages 20-21.)

Problems began to develop immediately with the University of Illinois’ sponsorship. Illinois allowed no discounts for the large volume printing of materials that were sent to the schools. Furthermore, Illinois would not allow a Direct Instruction teacher training program as part of its undergraduate elementary education program. Teachers learning Direct Instruction could not get college credit toward teacher certification. Wes and Zig began looking for a new sponsor. They sent letters to 13 universities that had publicized an interest in the needs of disadvantaged children, offering their one and a half million dollar per annum grant to a more friendly campus. Only two universities even responded, Temple University in Pennsylvania and the University of Oregon. Being more centrally located, Temple seemed more desirable. But then the faculty of two departments at Temple voted on the question of whether Temple should invite the DI model to join them. The faculty were unanimously opposed.

That left only the University of Oregon in tiny remote Eugene, hours of flying time from all the sites. Bob Mattson and Richard Schminke, Associate Deans of the College of Education, expressed the eagerness of the University to have the Engelmann-Becker model come to Oregon. The DI project staff took a vote on whether to move to Eugene. At this point Zig voted against the move. (He hates to travel.) But he was outvoted. As if on signal, Wes Becker, along with a number of his former students who had started working on the project (Doug Carnine was one of those students), and Zig Engelmann, along with a number of his co-teachers and co-developers, left their homes in Illinois and moved to Eugene, Oregon in 1970.

The Effects of FT

One of the most interesting aspects of FT that is rarely discussed in the technical reports is the way schools selected the models they would implement. The model a school adopted was not selected by teachers, administrators, or central office educrats. Parents selected the model. Large assemblies were held where the sponsors of the various models pitched their model to groups of parents comprising a Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) for the school. Administrators were usually present at these meetings and tried to influence parents’ decisions. Using this selection process, the Direct Instruction model was the most popular model among schools; DI was implemented in more sites during FT than any other model. Yet among educrats, DI was the darkhorse. Most educrats’ bets would undoubtedly have been placed on any of the models but the Direct Instruction model. The model developed by the Illinois preschool teacher who didn’t even have a teaching credential, much less a Ph.D. in education, was not expected by many educrats to amount to much, especially since it seemed largely to contradict most of the current thinking. All sponsors were eagerly looking forward to the results.

The U.S. Department of Ed hired two independent agencies to collect and evaluate the effects of the various models. The data were evaluated in two primary ways. Each participating school was to be compared with a matched nonparticipating school to see if there were improvements. In reality, it became difficult to find matching schools. Many of the comparison schools were not equivalent on pretest scores to the respective FT schools. These pretest differences were adjusted with covariance statistics. In addition, norm-referenced measures were used to determine if the participating schools had reached the goal of the 50th percentile. This represented a common standard for all schools. Prior scores had indicated that schools with economically disadvantaged students would normally be expected to achieve at only the 20th percentile, without special intervention. The 20th percentile was therefore used as the “expected level” in the evaluation of the results.

The preliminary annual reports of the results were a horrifying surprise to most sponsors. By 1974, when San Diego School District dropped the self-sponsored models they had been using with little success since 1968, the U.S. Department of Ed allowed San Diego only two choices: Direct Instruction or the Kansas Behavioral Analysis model. It was evident by this time that the only two models that were demonstrating any positive results were these two. The results of the evaluation were already moving into policy. This was not well-received by the many sponsors of models that were not successful.

Before the final report was even released, the Ford foundation arranged with Ernest House to do a third evaluation & critique of the FT evaluation & discredit the embarrassing results. The critique was published in the Harvard Educational Review and widely disseminated.

Ernest House describes the political context for this third evaluation as follows:

In view of the importance of the FT program and its potential impact on education, a program officer from the Ford Foundation asked Ernest House in the fall of 1976 whether a third-party review of the FT evaluation might be warranted. FT had already received considerable attention, and the findings of the evaluation could affect education for a long time to come. Although the sample was drawn from a non representative group of disadvantaged children, the findings would likely be generalized far beyond the group of children involved. Moreover, while the study had not yet been completed, the evaluation had generated considerable controversy, and most of the sponsors were quite unhappy with preliminary reports. Finally, the evaluation represented the culmination of years of federal policy, stretching back to the evaluation of Head Start. Would this evaluation entail the same difficulties and controversies as previous ones? Would there be lessons to be learned for the future? For these reasons and after examining various documents and talking to major participants in the evaluation, House recommended that a third-party review would be advisable. If such a review could not settle the controversies, it could at least provide another perspective. The evaluation promised to be far too influential on the national scene not to be critically examined. In January 1977 the Ford Foundation awarded a grant to the Center for Instructional Research and Curriculum Evaluation at the University of Illinois to conduct the study, with Ernest House named as project director. House then solicited names of people to serve on the panel from leading authorities in measurement, evaluation, and early-childhood education. The major selection criteria were that panel members have a national reputation in their fields and no significant affiliation with FT. The panelists chosen by this procedure were Gene V. Glass of the University of Colorado, Leslie D. McLean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and Decker F. Walker of Stanford University. (p. 129, House, Glass, McLean, & Walker, 1978)

The main purpose of House et. al.’s critique seemed directed at preventing the FT evaluation results from influencing education policy. House implied that it was even inappropriate to ask “Which model works best?” as the FT evaluation had: “The ultimate question posed in the evaluation was ‘Which model works best?’ rather than such other questions as ‘What makes the models work?’ or ‘How can one make the models work better?'” (p. 131, House, Glass, McLean, & Walker, 1978).

Glass wrote another report for the National Institute of Education (NIE), which convinced them not to disseminate the results of the FT evaluations they had paid 30 to 40 million dollars to have done. The following is an ERIC abstract of Glass’s report to the NIE:

Two questions are addressed in this document: What is worth knowing about Project FT? And, How should the National Institute of Education (NIE) evaluate the FT program? Discussion of the first question focuses on findings of past FT evaluations, problems associated with the use of experimental design and statistics, and prospects for discovering new knowledge about the program. With respect to the second question, it is suggested that NIE should conduct evaluation emphasizing an ethnographic, principally descriptive case- study approach to enable informed choice by those involved in the program. The discussion is based on the following assumptions: (1) Past evaluations of FT have been quantitative, experimental approaches to deriving value judgments; (2) The deficiencies of quantitative, experimental evaluation approaches are so thorough and irreparable as to disqualify their use; (3) There are probably at most a half-dozen important approaches to teaching children, and these are already well-represented in existing FT models; and (4) The audience for FT evaluations is an audience of teachers to whom appeals to the need for accountability for public funds or the rationality of science are largely irrelevant. Appended to the discussion are Cronbach’s 95 theses about the proper roles, methods, and uses of evaluation. Theses running counter to a federal model of program evaluation are asterisked. (Eric Reproduction Service ED244738. Abstract of Glass, G. & Camilli, G., 1981, “FT” Evaluation, National Institute of Education, Washington, DC).

“The audience for FT evaluations is an audience of teachers to whom appeals to the need for accountability for public funds or the rationality of science are largely irrelevant.” ERIC abstract of Gene V. Glass’s critique

The final Abt report (Bock, Stebbins, & Proper, 1977) showed that the aggregate effects of all the models rendered FT to be a failure. FT was a failure because all of the models, except one, did not produce the desired results. (The Kansas Behavioral Analysis model also got positive results, but they were not as strong as the Direct Instruction model.) However, the FT Project did successfully identify what does work. The only model that brought children close to the 50th percentile in all subject areas was the Direct Instruction model.

These remarkable results were achieved by the Direct Instruction model in spite of the fact that Grand Rapids, MI was included in the analysis. The PAC in Grand Rapids had originally chosen to participate in FT using the Direct Instruction model. A new superintendent to the district later convinced the PAC to reject the model. The Direct Instruction sponsors subsequently withdrew from Grand Rapids; however, the US Office of Education continued to fund the site and continued to categorize it as Direct Instruction. It is probably not irrelevant that at this time Gerald Ford from Michigan was the U.S. President. In any case, because Grand Rapids had received FT funding throughout the evaluation period (1971-1976), they were included in the Abt analysis even though they had not implemented Direct Instruction for several years.

The most popular models were not only unable to demonstrate many positive effects; most of them produced a large number of negative effects. (See articles in this issue for details.)

After the House-Glass critiques were published, Bereiter and Kurland reviewed the FT data once again in 1981-2, responding in detail to each question and issue raised by House-Glass in a comprehensive and very readable report of the results.

In spite of the counter arguments raised by Bereiter and Kurland and others, the House-Glass critique was successful. The results of Project FT were not used to shape education policy. Though much of the House and Glass critiques were based on a rejection of the use of experimental science in education, other critics, who did not reject experimental science, argued that the outcomes valued by the losing approaches had not been measured in the FT evaluation. Though some pleaded for more extensive evaluation studies of multiple outcomes, no further evaluation was funded. The following excerpts from Bob Egbert’s letter to Zig provide his perspective on the evaluation.

No one who was not there during the early years of Head Start and FT can know how much your initiative, intellect and commitment contributed to the development of those programs. You simply shook off criticism and attempts at censorship and moved ahead, because you knew you were right and that what you were doing was important for kids. Lest you think that censorship is too strong a word, let me remind you that many in the early education field did not want your program included in FT. As confirming evidence for my personal experience and memory I cite the Head Start consultant meeting held in, I think, September 1966, in which a group of consultants, by their shrill complaints, stopped the full release of a Head Start Rainbow Series pamphlet which described an approach more direct than the approach favored by mainline early childhood educators: but one that was much less direct than the one you and Carl Bereiter were developing and using. The endorsement of Milton Akers for inclusion of “all” approaches in Head Start and FT Planned Variation made our task much easier. Ziggy, despite what some critics have said, your program’s educational achievement success through the third grade is thoroughly documented in the Abt reports. Your own follow up studies have validated the program’s longer term success. I am completely convinced that more extensive studies of multiple outcomes, which the Department of Education has been unwilling to fund, would provide a great deal more evidence for your program’s success.

After the Abt report in 1977, there was no further independent evaluation of FT. However, the DOE did provide research funds to individual sponsors to do follow-up studies. The Becker and Engelmann article in this issue summarizes the results of the follow-up studies by the Direct Instruction sponsors. Gary Adams’ summary of the various reports of the results of FT provides a discussion of the reasons for the different reports and the consistencies and differences across them. This summary is excerpted from a chapter on Project FT research in a new book summarizing Direct Instruction research (Adams & Engelmann, Direct Instruction Research, Educational Achievement Systems).

FT and Public Policy Today

In responding to the critique by House et al., Wisler, Burns,& Iwamoto summarized the two important findings of Project FT:

With a few exceptions, the models assessed in the national FT evaluation did not overcome the educational disadvantages poor children have. The most notable exception was the Direct Instruction model sponsored by the University of Oregon.

Another lesson of FT is that educational innovations do not always work better than what they replace. Many might say that we do not need an experiment to prove that, but it needs to be mentioned because education has just come through a period in which the not-always- stated assumption was that any change was for the better. The result was a climate in which those responsible for the changes did not worry too much about the consequences. The FT evaluation and other recent evaluations should temper our expectations. (p. 179-181,Wisler, Burns, & Iwamoto, 1978).

The most expensive educational experiment in the world showed that change alone will not improve education. Yet change for the sake of change is the major theme of the current educational reform effort. Improving education requires more thought than simply making changes.

Perhaps the ultimate irony of the FT evaluation is that the critics advocated extreme caution in adopting any practice as policy in education; they judged the extensive evaluation of the FT Project inadequate. Yet 10 short years later, the models that achieved the worst results, even negative results, are the ones that are, in fact, becoming legislated policy in many states, under new names. Descriptions of each of the models evaluated in FT, excerpted from the Abt report, are included in this issue. The Abt Associates ensured that these descriptions were carefully edited and approved by each of the participating sponsors, so they would accurately describe the important features of each of the models. Any reader familiar with current trendy practices that are becoming policy in many areas of North America, will easily recognize these practices in the descriptions of models evaluated in Project FT, perhaps under different names.

Curriculum organizations, in particular, are working to get these failed models adopted as public policy. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), for example, advocates for legislative adoption of the failed Open Education model under the new name “developmentally appropriate practices.” This model has been mandated in Kentucky, Oregon, and British Columbia. Oregon and British Columbia have since overturned these mandates. However, the NAEYC effort continues. Several curricular organizations advocate the language experience approach that was the Tucson Early Education Model in FT, under the new name “whole language.”

That these curricular organizations can be so successful in influencing public policy, in spite of a national effort to reach world class standards and the results of scientific research as extensive as that in FT, is alarming. That the major source of scientific knowledge in education, the educational research program of the federal government, is in danger of being cut is alarming.

That the scientific knowledge we have about education needs to be better disseminated is clear. At the very least the models that failed, even to the point of producing lower levels of performance, should not be the educational models being adopted in public policy.

I, personally, would not advocate mandating Direct Instruction, even though it was the clear winner. I don’t think that mandates work very well. But every educator in the country should know that in the history of education, no educational model has ever been documented to achieve such positive results with such consistency across so many variable sites as Direct Instruction. It never happened before FT, and it hasn’t happened since. What Wes, Zig, and their associates accomplished in Project FT should be recognized as one of the most important educational accomplishments in history. Not enough people know this.

References

Wisler, C., Burns, G.P.,Jr.,& Iwamoto, D. (1978). FT redux: A response to the critique by House, Glass,McLean, & Walker. Harvard Educational Review, 48(2), 171-185).

House, E.,Glass, G., McLean, L., & Walker, D. (1978). No simple answer: Critique ofthe FT evaluation. Harvard Educational Review, 48(2), 128-160).

Bock, G.,Stebbins, L., & Proper, E. (1977). Education as experimentation: A planned variation model (Volume IV-A & B) Effects of follow through models. Washington,D.C.: Abt Associates.

Proclamation of 1763

Proclamation of 1763

The end of the French and Indian War in 1763 was a cause for great celebration in the colonies, for it removed several ominous barriers and opened up a host of new opportunities for the colonists. The French had effectively hemmed in the British settlers and had, from the perspective of the settlers, played the “Indians” against them. The first thing on the minds of colonists was the great western frontier that had opened to them when the French ceded that contested territory to the British. The royal proclamation of 1763 did much to dampen that celebration. The proclamation, in effect, closed off the frontier to colonial expansion. The King and his council presented the proclamation as a measure to calm the fears of the Indians, who felt that the colonists would drive them from their lands as they expanded westward. Many in the colonies felt that the object was to pen them in along the Atlantic seaboard where they would be easier to regulate. No doubt there was a large measure of truth in both of these positions. However the colonists could not help but feel a strong resentment when what they perceived to be their prize was snatched away from them. The proclamation provided that all lands west of the heads of all rivers which flowed into the Atlantic Ocean from the west or northwest were off-limits to the colonists. This excluded the rich Ohio Valley and all territory from the Ohio to the Mississippi rivers from settlement.

The proclamation also established or defined four new colonies, three of them on the continent proper. Quebec, which was of course already well settled, two colonies to be called East Florida and West Florida — and off the continent, Grenada. These facts were established immediately, but most of the proclamation is devoted to the subject of Indians and Indian lands. It asserted that all of the Indian peoples were thereafter under the protection of the King. It required that all lands within the “Indian territory” occupied by Englishmen were to be abandoned. It included a list of prohibited activities, provided for enforcement of the new laws, and indicted unnamed persons for fraudulent practices in acquiring lands from the Indians in times past. Resolution of the hostilities of the French and Indian War was a difficult problem for the crown. Most of the Indian tribes had been allied with the French during the war, because they found the French less hostile and generally more trustworthy that the English settlers. Now the French would depart, and the Indians were left behind to defend themselves and their grounds as best they could. Relations between the Indians and the English colonials were so poor that few settlers would argue in public that the Indians had rights to any lands. In this proclamation the King sided with the Indians, against the perceived interests of the settlers. Moreover, it provided, and Parliament soon after executed, British royal posts along the proclamation boundary. Parliament was under no illusions about relations between the Indians and the colonists. They understood that the colonists would not respect the boundary without some enforcement mechanism. Finally, the English were interested in improving the fur trade, which involved the Indians and independent trappers who lived out on the frontier.

The Proclamation line extended from the Atlantic coast at Quebec to the newly established border of West Florida. Establishing and manning posts along the length of this boundary was a very costly undertaking. The British ministry would argue that these outposts were for colonial defense, and as such should be paid for by the colonies. From the American perspective this amounted to a tax on the colonies to pay for a matter of Imperial regulation that was opposed to the interests of the colonies. A bitter pill indeed.

 

A ROYAL PROCLAMATION

October 7, 1763

WHEREAS we have taken into Our Royal Consideration the extensive and valuable Acquisitions in America, secured to our Crown by the late Definitive Treaty of Peace, concluded at Paris the 10th Day of February last; and being desirous that all Our loving Subjects, as well of our Kingdom as of our Colonies in America, may avail themselves with all convenient Speed, of the great Benefits and Advantages which must accrue therefrom to their Commerce, Manufactures, and Navigation, We have thought fit, with the Advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our Royal Proclamation, hereby to publish and declare to all our loving Subjects, that we have, with the Advice of our Said Privy Council, granted our Letters Patent, under our Great Seal of Great Britain, to erect, within the Countries and Islands ceded and confirmed to Us by the said Treaty, Four distinct and separate Governments, styled and called by the names of Quebec, East Florida, West Florida and Grenada, and limited and bounded as follows, viz.

First — The Government of Quebec bounded on the Labrador Coast by the River St. John, and from thence by a Line drawn from the Head of that River through the Lake St. John, to the South end of the Lake Nipissing; from whence the said Line, crossing the River St. Lawrence, and the Lake Champlain, in 45 Degrees of North Latitude, passes along the High Lands which divide the Rivers that empty themselves into the said River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Sea; and also along the North Coast of the Baye des Châleurs, and the Coast of the Gulph of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosières, and from thence crossing the Mouth of the River St. Lawrence by the West End of the Island of Anticosti, terminates at the aforesaid River of St. John.

Secondly — The Government of East Florida, bounded to the Westward by the Gulph of Mexico and the Apalachicola River; to the Northward by a Line drawn from that part of the said River where the Chatahouchee and Flint Rivers meet, to the source of St. Mary’s River, and by the course of the said River to the Atlantic Ocean; and to the Eastward and Southward by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulph of Florida, including all Islands within Six Leagues of the Sea Coast.

Thirdly — The Government of West Florida, bounded to the Southward by the Gulph of Mexico, including all Islands within Six Leagues of the Coast; from the River Apalachicola to Lake Pontchartrain; to the Westward by the said Lake, the Lake Maurepas, and the River Mississippi; to the Northward by a Line drawn due East from that part of the River Mississippi which lies in 31 Degrees North Latitude, to the River Apalachicola or Chatahouchee; and to the Eastward by the said River.

Fourthly — The Government of Grenada, comprehending the Island of that name, together with the Grenadines, and the Islands of Dominico, St. Vincent’s and Tobago. And to the end that the open and free Fishery of our Subjects may be extended to and carried on upon the Coast of Labrador, and the adjacent Islands. We have thought fit, with the advice of our said Privy Council to put all that Coast, from the River St. John’s to Hudson’s Streights, together with the Islands of Anticosti and Madelaine, and all other smaller Islands lying upon the said Coast, under the care and Inspection of our Governor of Newfoundland.

We have also, with the advice of our Privy Council, thought fit to annex the Islands of St. John’s [now known as Prince Edward Island] and Cape Breton, or Isle Royale, with the lesser Islands adjacent thereto, to our Government of Nova Scotia. We have also, with the advice of our ivy Council aforesaid, annexed to our Province of Georgia all the Lands Iying between the Rivers Alatamaha and St. Mary’s.

And whereas it will greatly contribute to the speedy settling of our said new Governments, that our loving Subjects should be informed of our Paternal care, for the security of the Liberties and Properties of those who are and shall become Inhabitants thereof, We have thought fit to publish and declare, by this Our Proclamation, that We have, in the Letters Patent under our Great Seal of Great Britain, by which the said Governments are constituted, given express Power and Direction to our Governors of our Said Colonies respectively, that so soon as the state and circumstances of the said Colonies will admit thereof, they shall, with the Advice and Consent of the Members of our Council, summon and call General Assemblies within the said Governments respectively, in such Manner and Form as is used and directed in those Colonies and Provinces in America which are under our immediate Government: And We have also given Power to the said Governors, with the consent of our Said Councils, and the Representatives of the People so to be summoned as aforesaid, to make, constitute, and ordain Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances for the Public Peace, Welfare, and good Government of our said Colonies, and of the People and Inhabitants thereof, as near as may be agreeable to the Laws of England, and under such Regulations and Restrictions as are used in other Colonies; and in the mean Time, and until such Assemblies can be called as aforesaid, all Persons Inhabiting in or resorting to our Said Colonies may confide in our Royal Protection for the Enjoyment of the Benefit of the Laws of our Realm of England; for which Purpose We have given Power under our Great Seal to the Governors of our said Colonies respectively to erect and constitute, with the Advice of our said Councils respectively, Courts of Judicature and public Justice within our Said Colonies for hearing and determining all Causes, as well Criminal as Civil, according to Law and Equity, and as near as may be agreeable to the Laws of England, with Liberty to all Persons who may think themselves aggrieved by the Sentences of such Courts, in all Civil Cases, to appeal, under the usual Limitations and Restrictions, to Us in our Privy Council.

We have also thought fit, with the advice of our Privy Council as aforesaid, to give unto the Governors and Councils of our said Three new Colonies upon the Continent, full Power and Authority to settle and agree with the Inhabitants of our said new Colonies or with any other Persons who shall resort thereto, for such Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments, as are now or hereafter shall be in our Power to dispose of; and them to grant to any such Person or Persons upon such Terms, and under such moderate Quit-Rents, Services and Acknowledgments, as have been appointed and settled in our other Colonies, and under such other Conditions as shall appear to us to be necessary and expedient for the Advantage of the Grantees, and the Improvement and settlement of our said Colonies.

And Whereas, We are desirous, upon all occasions, to testify our Royal Sense and Approbation of the Conduct and bravery of the Officers and Soldiers of our Armies, and to reward the same, We do hereby command and impower our Governors of our said Three new Colonies, and all other our Governors of our several Provinces on the Continent of North America, to grant without Fee or Reward, to such reduced Officers as have served in North America during the late War, and to such Private Soldiers as have been or shall be disbanded in America, and are actually residing there, and shall personally apply for the same, the following Quantities of Lands, subject, at the Expiration of Ten Years, to the same Quit-Rents as other Lands are subject to in the Province within which they are granted, as also subject to the same Conditions of Cultivation and Improvement; viz.

To every Person having the Rank of a Field Officer—5,000 Acres.

To every Captain—3,000 Acres.
To every Subaltern or Staff Officer—2,000 Acres.
To every Non-Commission Officer—200 Acres.
To every Private Man—50 Acres.

We do likewise authorize and require the Governors and Commanders in Chief of all our said Colonies upon the Continent of North America to grant the like Quantities of Land, and upon the same conditions, to such reduced Officers of our Navy of like Rank as served on board our Ships of War in North America at the times of the Reduction of Louisbourg and Quebec in the late War, and who shall personally apply to our respective Governors for such Grants.

And whereas it is just and reasonable, and essential to our Interest, and the Security of our Colonies, that the several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom We are connected, and who live under our Protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts of Our Dominions and Territories as, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are reserved to them, or any of them, as their Hunting Grounds —We do therefore, with the Advice of our Privy Council, declare it to be our Royal Will and Pleasure, that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of our Colonies of Quebec, East Florida, or West Florida, do presume, upon any Pretence whatever, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass any Patents for Lands beyond the Bounds of their respective Governments, as described in their Commissions: as also that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of our other Colonies or Plantations in America do presume for the present, and until our further Pleasure be known, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass Patents for any Lands beyond the Heads or Sources of any of the Rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West and North West, or upon any Lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians, or any of them.

And We do further declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure, for the present as aforesaid, to reserve under our Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three new Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West as aforesaid.

And We do hereby strictly forbid, on Pain of our Displeasure, all our loving Subjects from making any Purchases or Settlements whatever, or taking Possession of any of the Lands above reserved, without our especial leave and Licence for that Purpose first obtained.

And We do further strictly enjoin and require all Persons whatever who have either wilfully or inadvertently seated themselves upon any Lands within the Countries above described or upon any other Lands which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are still reserved to the said Indians as aforesaid, forthwith to remove themselves from such Settlements.

And whereas great Frauds and Abuses have been committed in purchasing Lands of the Indians, to the great Prejudice of our Interests, and to the great Dissatisfaction of the said Indians: In order, therefore, to prevent such Irregularities for the future, and to the end that the Indians may be convinced of our Justice and determined Resolution to remove all reasonable Cause of Discontent, We do, with the Advice of our Privy Council strictly enjoin and require, that no private Person do presume to make any purchase from the said Indians of any Lands reserved to the said Indians, within those parts of our Colonies where We have thought proper to allow Settlement: but that, if at any Time any of the Said Indians should be inclined to dispose of the said Lands, the same shall be Purchased only for Us, in our Name, at some public Meeting or Assembly of the said Indians, to be held for that Purpose by the Governor or Commander in Chief of our Colony respectively within which they shall lie: and in case they shall lie within the limits of any Proprietary Government, they shall be purchased only for the Use and in the name of such Proprietaries, conformable to such Directions and Instructions as We or they shall think proper to give for that Purpose: And we do, by the Advice of our Privy Council, declare and enjoin, that the Trade with the said Indians shall be free and open to all our Subjects whatever, provided that every Person who may incline to Trade with the said Indians do take out a Licence for carrying on such Trade from the Governor or Commander in Chief of any of our Colonies respectively where such Person shall reside, and also give Security to observe such Regulations as We shall at any Time think fit, by ourselves or by our Commissaries to be appointed for this Purpose, to direct and appoint for the Benefit of the said Trade:

And we do hereby authorize, enjoin, and require the Governors and Commanders in Chief of all our Colonies respectively, as well those under Our immediate Government as those under the Government and Direction of Proprietaries, to grant such Licences without Fee or Reward, taking especial Care to insert therein a Condition, that such Licence shall be void, and the Security forfeited in case the Person to whom the same is granted shall refuse or neglect to observe such Regulations as We shall think proper to prescribe as aforesaid.

And we do further expressly conjoin and require all Officers whatever, as well Military as those Employed in the Management and Direction of Indian Affairs, within the Territories reserved as aforesaid for the use of the said Indians, to seize and apprehend all Persons whatever, who standing charged with Treason, Misprisions of Treason, Murders, or other Felonies or Misdemeanors, shall fly from Justice and take Refuge in the said Territory, and to send them under a proper guard to the Colony where the Crime was committed, of which they stand accused, in order to take their Trial for the same.

Given at our Court at St. James’s the 7th Day of October 1763, in the Third Year of our Reign.

God Save the King

Press Release Announcing U.S. Recognition of Israel (1948)

Press Release Announcing U.S. Recognition of Israel (1948)

In 1917 Chaim Weizmann, scientist, statesperson, and supporter of the effort to establish a state of Israel, persuaded the British government to issue a statement favoring the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. The statement, which became known as the Balfour Declaration, was, in part, payment to the Jews for their support of the British against the Turks during World War I. After the war, the League of Nations ratified the declaration and in 1922 appointed Britain to rule Palestine.

This course of events caused Jews to be optimistic about the eventual establishment of a homeland. Their optimism inspired the immigration to Palestine of Jews from many countries, particularly from Germany when Nazi persecution of Jews began. The arrival of many Jewish immigrants in the 1930s awakened Arab fears that Palestine would become a national homeland for the Jews. By 1936 guerrilla fighting had broken out between the Jews and the Arabs. Unable to maintain peace, Britain issued a white paper in 1939 that restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The Jews, feeling betrayed, bitterly opposed the policy and looked to the United States for support.

While President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared to be sympathetic to the Jewish cause, his assurances to the Arabs that the United States would not intervene without consulting both parties caused public uncertainty about his position. When Harry S. Truman took office, he made clear that his sympathies were with the Jews and accepted the Balfour Declaration, explaining that it was in keeping with former President Woodrow Wilson’s principle of “self-determination.” Truman initiated several studies of the Palestine situation that supported his belief that, as a result of the Holocaust, Jews were oppressed and also in need of a homeland. Throughout the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, the Departments of War and State, recognizing the possibility of a Soviet-Arab connection and the potential Arab restriction on oil supplies to this country, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews.

Britain and the United States, in a joint effort to examine the dilemma, established the “Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.” In April 1946 the committee submitted recommendations that Palestine not be dominated by either Arabs or Jews. It concluded that attempts to establish nationhood or independence would result in civil strife; that a trusteeship agreement aimed at bringing Jews and Arabs together should be established by the United Nations; that full Jewish immigration be allowed into Palestine; and that two autonomous states be established with a strong central government to control Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Negev, the southernmost section of Palestine.

British, Arab, and Jewish reactions to the recommendations were not favorable. Britain, anxious to rid itself of the problem, set the United Nations in motion, formally requesting on April 2, 1947, that the UN General Assembly set up the Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). This committee recommended that the British mandate over Palestine be ended and that the territory be partitioned into two states. Jewish reaction was mixed—some wanted control of all of Palestine; others realized that partition spelled hope for their dream of a homeland. The Arabs were not at all agreeable to the UNSCOP plan. In October the Arab League Council directed the governments of its member states to move troops to the Palestine border. Meanwhile, President Truman instructed the State Department to support the UN plan, and it reluctantly did so. On November 29, 1947, the partition plan was passed by the UN General Assembly.

At midnight on May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed a new State of Israel. On that same date, the United States, in the person of President Truman, recognized the provisional Jewish government as de facto authority of the Jewish state (de jure recognition was extended on January 31, 1949). The U.S. delegates to the UN and top-ranking State Department officials were angered that Truman released his recognition statement to the press without notifying them first. On May 15, 1948, the first day of Israeli Independence and exactly one year after UNSCOP was established, Arab armies invaded Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war began.

Transcript of Press Release Announcing U.S. Recognition of Israel (1948)

This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional Government thereof.

The United States recognizes the provision government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.

[Endorsement]

Approved, May 14, 1948.

President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918)

President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918)

In this January 8, 1918, speech on War Aims and Peace Terms, President Wilson set down 14 points as a blueprint for world peace that was to be used for peace negotiations after World War I. The details of the speech were based on reports generated by “The Inquiry,” a group of about 150 political and social scientists organized by Wilson’s adviser and long-time friend, Col. Edward M House. Their job was to study Allied and American policy in virtually every region of the globe and analyze economic, social, and political facts likely to come up in discussions during the peace conference. The team began its work in secret and in the end produced and collected nearly 2,000 separate reports and documents plus at least 1,200 maps.

In the speech, Wilson directly addressed what he perceived as the causes for the world war by calling for the abolition of secret treaties, a reduction in armaments, an adjustment in colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and colonists, and freedom of the seas. Wilson also made proposals that would ensure world peace in the future. For example, he proposed the removal of economic barriers between nations, the promise of “self-determination” for those oppressed minorities, and a world organization that would provide a system of collective security for all nations. Wilson’s 14 Points were designed to undermine the Central Powers’ will to continue and to inspire the Allies to victory. The 14 Points were broadcast throughout the world and were showered from rockets and shells behind the enemy’s lines.

When the Allies met in Versailles to formulate the treaty to end World War I with Germany and Austria-Hungary, most of Wilson’s 14 Points were scuttled by the leaders of England and France. To his dismay, Wilson discovered that England, France, and Italy were mostly interested in regaining what they had lost and gaining more by punishing Germany. Germany quickly found out that Wilson’s blueprint for world peace would not apply to them. However, Wilson’s capstone point calling for a world organization that would provide some system of collective security was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles. This organization would later be known as the League of Nations. Though Wilson launched a tireless missionary campaign to overcome opposition in the U.S. Senate to the adoption of the treaty and membership in the League, the treaty was never adopted by the Senate, and the United States never joined the League of Nations. Wilson would later suggest that without American participation in the League, there would be another world war within a generation.

Transcript of President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918)

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world’s peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this programme does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this programme that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace- loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, — the new world in which we now live, — instead of a place of mastery.