The Linguistic Culture-8 (Years of Growth) (1157934), страница 2
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Colgate, Procter and Gamble and financial magnateJ.P.Morgan were widely admired as the creators of nation’s prosperity, themodels of so-called “American Dream.” In 1913 Ford began using the worldwere his cars, by 1930 there were over 26.7 million cars Model T, registered inthe USA. Cars in America became the “family horses”, used for more thancommuting to work or driving for leisure.
The automobile revolution started theconsumer revolution. Appliances-radios, telephones, electric refrigerators,washing machines, vacuum cleaners led the parade. The consumer boomstimulated advertising. Americans had to be convinced to spend their money, tobuy all-electric kitchen, “to keep up with the Joneses” (to live better than theneighbors). “Live now, pay tomorrow” was the general motto. Incrediblenumber of Americans began to buy goods on the installment plan (monthlypayments).
Thousands of Americans invested money in successful firms so thatthey could share their profits. There was also an orgy of speculation in realestate and stocks, buying and selling shares - “playing the market” became anational hobby and a sort of fever. Many Americans borrowed the large sums ofmoney from the banks to buy shares on credit and to get “easy money” onselling them later “on the margin” (a higher price).The first two decades of the 20th century came into American historynot only as the years of industrial and manufacturing boom. On the surface itseemed that prosperity would continue forever but below the surface there werealready a lot of troubles.
Bank debts were mounting. Low wages of mostworkers led to underconsumption. Excessive industrial profits and low industrialwages distributed one third of all personal income to only 5% of the population.The agricultural sector was also plagued with overproduction.One of the serious problems of the 20s was the terrible growth ofcrime.
“The Roaring Twenties” was the general name which many historianscalled that time. After adoption of the 18th Amendment to the USA Constitution,prohibiting selling of alcoholic drinks, so-called “speakeasies” (illegal bars)were opened in basements and backrooms all over the country. The drinks wereobtained from criminals, united in gangs or mobs, called “bootleggers”.One of the best-known mobs worked in Chicago. It was led bythe gangster “Scarface” Al Capone, who turned into the great celebrities of the1920s. His income was over 100 million dollars a year.
He had a private army ofnearly a thousand thugs and was the real ruler of Chicago. Capone madedonations to various charities and was viewed by many to be a "modern-dayRobin Hood".Competition between rival mobs sometimes caused bloody street wars,fought out with armored cars and machine guns. The winners of the gangsterwars became so powerful that they bribed police and other public officers.Organized crime opened the way for the new kind of American business.Depression and the Policy of New DealIn October 1924 stock prices dropped dramatically.
The nation began topanic. The money crash started a devastating depression. Between 1929 and1933 the shock of the depression was felt in all areas of American life. Distressinfluenced such industries like coal, railroads, construction and textiles. By theend of 1931 nearly eight million Americans were out of work, but unlikeunemployed British or German workers in Europe they received no governmentunemployment pay. Millions spent hours moving slowly forward in “breadlines»where they received free pieces of bread or bowls of soup, paid for by themoney collected from those who could afford charity.By 1932 the situation became still harder.
Thousand of banks and over100000 businesses had closed down. Industrial production had fallen down byhalf and wage payments by 60%. Twelve million people, one out of every fourof the country’s workers, were unemployed. The factories were silent, shops andbanks closed. With the number of people out of work rising day by day, farmerscould not sell their produce. In despair some of thembanded together andparaded with the workers in angry demonstrations, demanding that PresidentHoover (1929-33) take strong action against depression. Hoover who stronglybelieved in market economy said that he could do two things to end theDepression: to balance the budget and to restore businessmen’s confidence inthe future.
Time and time again in the early 1930s Hoover told people that“prosperity was just around the corner”. But the factories remained closed andthe breadlines grew longer.A favorable change took place with the election of Franklin D.Roosevelt as president in 1933. Although Roosevelt was crippled by polio hewas energetic and determined to care for the welfare of ordinary people.Roosevelt’s main idea was that the federal government should take the lead inthe fight against the Depression.
His program, which he called The New Deal 15major, consisted of a number of legislative measures. At first Roosevelt tookactive steps to stabilize banking. He also put right agricultural production bypaying subsidies to farmers and introduced a system of regulated prices for corn,cotton, wheat, rice and diary products.
Believing that his most urgent task was togive employment to the American people, he proposed a plan for public worksand relief payments to the needed citizens. Roosevelt was especially anxiousabout the young people. The Civilian Conservation Corps found work for manyyoung people. Part-time employment was provided for students who wereinvited to build roads and construct hospitals and schools.
Roosevelt’s New dealprogram financed the painting of murals and the staging of plays. Writers werepaid to write guidebooks and ads. In 1935 the Act was passed that grantedworkers the right to unionize and bargain collectively. New trade unions wereorganized.During his first term Franklin Roosevelt did not manage to fightunemployment and solve some other tasks completely As a result of all hismeasures unemployment dropped from 13 million people in 1933 to 9 million in1936, but there were still over four million jobless people in the country andthere was no real increase in the life of Afro-Americans, Indians and otherminorities.Ultimately it was the Second World War that put the American people back towork.The Second World War and the USAWhen the Second World War broke out in 1939 F.Roosevelt, who had been reelected for the secondterm, persuaded the USA Congress to approve the firstpeacetime military conscription act in the USA historyand later to accept his Lend Lease Plan.
The USAquickly became the main supplier of weapons and other goods to the countriesfighting Hitler Germany. American factories began working at full swing again.The unemployment practically ended.In 1941 after Japanese warplanes bombed, sank and badly damaged 8American battleships in American base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing over2000 men, the USA declared war against Germany and Japan. They joined thecountries of anti-Hitler coalition.The USA government organized the whole American economy towardswinning the war.
“Old Dr. New Deal has to be replaced by Dr. Win-the-War”,said. Roosevelt. Controls on wages and prices were placed, and high incometaxes were introduced. Gasoline and some foods were rationed. Factoriesstopped producing consumer goods such as cars and washing machines, andstarted making tanks, bombers and other war supplies. The USA war productionbecame six times greater than the military output before the war. The overalleffect of the war was a positive one for the economy in general and the businesscommunity in particular.In November 1942 Combined British and American forces landed in NorthAfrica, defeating the German general Rommel’s Africa Corps.
1943 theyinvaded Sicily, the mainland of Italy and months of bitter fighting freed Romefrom German control.At Tehran conference (Iran, 1943) Stalin met Roosevelt and Churchill tocoordinate their military plans with the Allied cross-channel invasion. In 1944the Allied troops opened so-called The Second Front in Europe and after hardfighting occupied France and liberated Paris. In September Allied forces crossedGermany western border. On the 25th of April the remarkable event took place –British and American soldiers met advancing Soviet troops on the banks of theRiver Elbe in the middle of Germany. In five days Hitler committed a suicide.German soldiers everywhere laid down their weapons and on the 5th of May1945, Germany surrendered.The final details of the war and plans for the postwar world werehammered out at the Yalta Conference in the Crimea in 1945.
Russia was tobecome the guardian of the nations of Eastern Europe. Defeated Germany wasto be divided into four zones of military occupation, and a conference was to beconvened in San Francisco on April 25 to create the United NationsOrganization and formulate its Charter.Roosevelt left Yalta physically weak but pleased that he had broughtAllied unity. Nine weeks after Yalta conference he had a stroke and died.
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