LAD #25: Wilson's 14 Points

Wilson's 14 Points:

1. Agreements between nations should be public and open. (One of the main causes of World War I was the secret alliances between many nations.)

2. Freedom of navigation.

3. Free trade.

4. Reduce the militaries as much as possible.

5. The destinies of occupied nations and colonies should be determined in a fair way -- including the needs of the people who live in those countries.

6. Foreign occupation of Russia should end, and Russia should be welcomed back into the family of nations.

7. Foreign occupation of Belgium should end, and she should be allowed to rule herself without any interference.

8. Alsace and Lorraine should be give Àn back to France. (Germany had won them from France during the Franco-Prussian War during the early 1870s.)

9. Italy's boundaries should include the areas of primarily Italian peoples. (Formerly, Austria-Hungary controlled significant Italian areas.)

10. Austria should be a free and independent nation.

11. Foreign occupation in the Balkans should end. Serbia should have access to the sea. The Balkan states should be organized according to their nationalities (ethnic groups).

12. The Ottoman Empire should allow for a new Turkey comprised primarily of Turkish people. Other areas that were formerly ruled by the Ottoman Empire should be allowed to form their own nations according to traditional ethnic groups.

13. A Polish nation should be formed in predominantly Polish areas.

14. Equal treatment for all nations -- great and small. A League of Nations should be created to protect the political independence and territories of all nations.

LAD #24: The Clayton Antitrust Act

This act was passed in order to fix the problems from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Some of the changes made in this Act were price discrimination, changes in merger laws, sales conditions, and ownership laws. If competition is lessened by price discrimination and monopolies are formed than it becomes illegal. The mergers executed by a company may not lessen competition, nor may the buyer deal with the seller’s competitor. These revisions primarily dealt with unfair competition created by the outlined situations, all of which were made illegal to further help the consumer and the small businesses. Probably the most significant section in the Clayton was the Act Section 8. This prevented any one person from being the director of more than one competing businesses to prevent monopolies.

LAD #23: Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916

The issue of this act was child labor and whether children should be able to work or not. Lewis Hine took photographs of children working and this caused social reformers to take stands against child labor. They pointed out that it was bad for the welfare and health of children. The Keating-Owen Child labor Act used the government to regulate interstate commerce which controlled child labor. It outlawed the sale of products by business that employed children that were too young. This act was passed by Woodrow Wilson and was decided as unconstitutional, yet latter it became constitutional again. It is still in effect today.

Lad #22: First Inaugural Address of Woodrow Wilson

The government is now controlled by the democrats. This change of government takes a new view on old ways. The government of the United States is a very good form which has held the nation till current times. Though, bad has also come with the good, the government has been abused for selfish and undemocratic proposes. In his inaugural address, Wilson states that his job is to “cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it”. Wilson wants to fix and restore the country. Wilson points out the places which need to be restored and makes it apparent that he wants to restore the government not destroy it.