HCC How Workers at Houston’s Hughes Tool Company Exploited the Wagner Act Analysis Each essay must be a minimum of 275-300 words. Note: The essays must be

HCC How Workers at Houston’s Hughes Tool Company Exploited the Wagner Act Analysis Each essay must be a minimum of 275-300
words. Note: The essays must be answered in paragraphs. I am gonna upload three articles. These questions is related to those articles.1)Compare and contrast the events that took place in the articles, “Fighting Everything
German in Texas, 1917-1919,” and “The Houston Mutiny and Riot of 1917,” discuss
how and why this kind of persecution takes place in a country that prides itself on its
diversity. This question is taken from the article, “Jim Crow Fighting Everything
German in Texas, 1917-1919.” 2)Explain how workers at Houston’s Hughes Tool Company exploited the Wagner Act
and the CIO in their quest for economic and racial justice. This question is taken
from the article, “Jim Crow Wearing Steel-Toed Shoes and Safety Glasses: Dual
Unionism at the Hughes Tool Company, 1918-1942.” 654
THE HISTORIAN
whid1 olacks were invited. Russell also directed the peaceful integration of
Clemson, bringing the long-anticipated end to segregated education in South
Carolina that Byrnes had failed to prevent.22
.· Should Byrnes be oondemned for not exhibiting the oourage of a Waites
Waring? Even from the perspective of a decade after his governorship, such a
judgment would have been tempting. Yet, one must try to understand the
pervasiveness of the opinion supporting segregation and the sincerity of
Byrnes’ beliefs. In the last years of his tenn, Byrnes went on to try to lead the
state to support a Republican for president and oontinued to refuse to integrate its schools. Yet, when we assess his overall performance, we find that he
was not a rabble-rousing segregrationist like many of his fellow, contemporary southern governors. He reflected a gentlemanly attitude in his leadership. People saw him as a statesman of national and even international
repute who chose to spend his last public efforts staving off integration and
working to move the state from the national Democratic party.
Byrnes was a man of honor and honesty, but one imbued with an older
conception of morality and practice. He could be personally very kind and
thoughtful to black people who were close to him, but in the abstract he refused to take a position of leadership that could have been the beaoon for other
southern states. Byrnes’ efforts led to a much-needed improvement of black
education in South Carolina, but his aim was to prevent the one real improvement needed in education in the state. As is often the case, Byrnes’ intentions
made a difference, but not the difference he intended.23
One of the problems in looking back at any historical development is the
advantage of hindsfght. We know how events turned out. The person in the
midst of the crisis did not know the outcome. The Byrneses of the 1950s were
not all anti-black, but they were so mired in the system that they oould not
imagine its termination. If they had only had the vision to see the future, they
would likely have acted differently.
We are all faced to some degree or another with that lack of vision. We
believe that our actions are right in the tenns that we see the world. With the
wisdom of hindsight, we may someday feel different about what we have
done. Nevertheless, we follow our best instincts and believe that our actions
will lead to a better future.
22 Jack Bass and Walter DeVries, The ‘Itrmsforrnatitm of Southern Politics: Sod41 Chtmge arul
Politiad Ctmsequerta since 1945 (New York, 1976), 258.
23 Newman V. Bartley, 11re Rise of Massive ResistJmce: RAce arul Politics in the South during the
1950s (Baton Rouge, 1969), 44-46; Bass and DeVries, 1’rrms{rmruliio of Southern Politics, 254.
FIGHTING EVERYTHING GERMAN
IN TEXAS, 1917-1919
MARK SoNNTAG
s 11iE UNITED STATES elfERED mE~ CEN’l’UR’t’, many Americans
felt that the American way of life was under serious challenge. 1be year
1890 marked the closing of the frontier, and many worried its close would
end democracy as they had known it. Although industrialization kept the
U.S. economy apace with the economies of Western Europe, economic
expansion came at the price of urban squalor unmatched in the American
experience to that time. Industrialization also contributed to the rise of
organized labor, which seemed to be infiltrated, if not dominated, by
anarchists and syndicalists. Americans of Anglo-Saxon descent were
particularly distressed at the large_ influx of Catholic and Orthodox southand east-European immigrants, whose apparent resistance to assimilation
seemed an affront to American values.
World War I not only intensified fears that the “melting pot” was failing,
but also broadened this ooncem to include Gennan Americans as a suspect
ethnic group. Before the war, German Americans were one of the most
respected immigrant groups in America, having achieved success in many
spheres. Brewery magnate Adolf Busch, intellectual and U.S. Senator Carl
Schurz, and financier John D. Rockefeller were among the German Americans who had risen to prominence in the United States. Significantly, German
Americans acquired their favorable reputation despite being the ethnic
group most resistant to assimilation.1
Although historians have addressed the wartime experiences of German Americans in the Midwest and Northeastern states, none has dealt
substantively with Germans in Texas. In 1910, Texas had 44,929 residents
born in Germany and 171,776 residents of “German stock,” placing the state
fourteenth in terms of German-;American population. California was the
A
Mark Sonntag is a graduate student in history at Ohio Urdf1ersity. He wishes to thank Nomum D.
Brown, Lewis L. Gould, arul Philip Nash.
1 Frederick C Luebke, Boruls of l.J¥1lty: Germrm Ameriams arul World Nrr I (DeKalb, 1974),
27-33; Christine M. Totten, “‘Elusive Affinities: Acceptance and Rejection of the German
Americans,.. In Amerial arul the Germans: An ~t rf a ’11Im! Hundrtll Yarr History, ed.
Frank Trommler and Joseph McVeigh (Phlladelphla, 1985), 2:187.
656
THE HISTORIAN
only state outside of the Midwest and Northeast with a larger GermanAmerican population than Texas. Still, German Americans represented a
relatively insignificant proportion of the Texas population. In 1910, only one
percent of Texans claimed Germany as their birthplace, and first- and
second-generation German Americans formed less than five percent of the
Texas population. Moreover, from 1890 to 1910, their proportion of the total
immigrant population in Texas fell from 31.9 percent to 18.6 percent, while
Mexican Americans’ proportion increased from 33.7 percent to 51.7 percent
in the same period.2
German Texans’ limited demographic significance and their adherence
to many of the same values held by Texans of other northern and western
European backgrounds did not, however, make them immune from the
pressures that German Americans in other areas of the country faced during
World War I. German Texans settled in compact communities, establishing
an especially strong presence in central Texas, in the areas around Austin
and San Antonio. The clannish appearance they projected through their concentrated settlement annoyed many Texans, as did their retention of German culture. In many communities German was the language of religious,
educational, and commercial affairs. As many as 75,000 to 100,000 German
Texans may have still used German predominantly or exclusively in 1910,
and in 1914 twenty-four German-language newspapers in Texas claimed a
combined circulation of over 70,000.3
Furthermore, Texans’ historic distrust of German Texans helped inspire
anti-German activities. During the antebellum period, slaveholders had
viewed German Texans with suspicion, especially after an 1854 convention of
German Texans adopted an anti-slavery resolution. In fact, only a minority of
German Texans supported this resolution, but most Texans did not
understand that subtlety. They were preoccupied with Gennan Texans’
common culture which prevented them from discerning political, religious,
and social differences among Gennans. During the Civil War, violence
against “the disloyal” occurred throughout Texas, but a particularly
gruesome manifestation of Confederate animosities toward German Texans
occurred in August 1862, when Confederate forces caught up with a group of
2 United States, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of
the United States, 1:30, 813, 834-838, 918-924; United States, Department of Commerce,
Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1: 692, 895, 903.
3 James Marten, TaRS Divided: Dissent and Disloytdty in the Lone Star State, 1856-1874
(Lexington, Ky., 1990), 121; Walter L. Buenger, Secession and the Union in TaRS (Austin,
1984), 80-83; Jurgen Eichhoff, “‘1le Gennan Language In America,” In Ameriar and the
Germans, 1:232; N. W. Ayer and Son’s Ntrl15J11l11U Annual and Dirtelory (Philadelphia, 1914),
1257-1258.
GERMANS IN TEXAS
• O:JI
German Texans fleeing Texas to join Union forces in New Orleans. Thirty
German Texans died in the battle, another twenty were wounded, and a
Confederate squad shot the nine wounded who had not escaped.4
Relations between Anglo Texans and their German neighbors were not
always adversarial. The first state constitution recognized Germans’ significance in Texas by requiring all important laws to be published in German as
well as in English and Spanish. Although many German Texans were proUnion, many others served in the Confederate Anny during the Civil War.
Until World War I, Texas law allowed Germans and other immigrants who
had initiated citizenship proceedings to vote before naturalization was
completed.5
Nonetheless, many resented German Texans’ influence on Texas politics
and society. Prohibitionists blamed German Texans for blocking a statewide
prohibition amendment and for supporting “wet” candidates. SuffTagists disliked Gennan Texans because of their opposition to women’s suffrage.
Political reformers believed German Texans hindered good government because of their support for corrupt Governor James E. Ferguson. In the crucible
of war with Germany, Texans combined patriotism with ethnic intolerance
and resentment to create anti-German hysteria.6
German Texans, like most German Americans, remained proud of their
ethnic heritage. Yet, to many Americans, cultural loyalty to Germany conflicted
with political loyalty to the United States. German Americans’ resistance to
assimilation seemed a rejection of all things American, inc~ud:ng the American
government. There were legitimate reasons for cor :em over Gennan
Americans’ support for the war against Germany. ‘Throughout the period of
American neutrality, German-American newspapers, including those in Texas,
defended the Central Powers, denounced the Allies, and criticized the Wllson
4 Marten, Texas Divided, 113-121.
5 John Higham, Strangers in the Lind: Patterns of Ameriam Ntdiuism, 1860-1920 (New
Brunswick, N.J., 1955), 214; Richard Egon Tausch, “Southern Sentiment among the Texas
Germans during the Civil War and ReconstnJction,” (M.A. thesis, University of Texas,
1965), 23-25; Buenger, Secession and the Union in TaRS, 62; Texas, House, H.B. no. 107,
House Journal, 35th Leg., 4th CS., 1918.
6 R. P. Shuler to Martin McNulty Crane, 26 January 1918, and Martin M. Crane to
William P. Hobby, 6 March 1918, in Martin McNulty Crane Papers, University of Texas
Archives; Janet G. Humphrey, ed., A Texas Suffragist: Diaries and Writings of Jane J.
McCallum (Austin, 1988), 102-103; Texas Women’s Democratic League, “S.O.S. Call to
Texas Women,” Texas War Records Collection (hereafter TWRC), University of Texas
Archives, n.d.; Hobby Campaign Committee, “German-American Alliance Made Plans to
Control Texas; Was ‘Interested’ in Jas. E. Ferguson,” W. P. Hobby Collection, Barker
History Center, University of Texas Archives, n.d.; Lewis L. Gould, Progressives and
Prohibitionists: Texas Democrats in the Wilson Enz (Austin, 1973), 54,239-243, 255.
658
THE HISTORIAN
administration’s foreign policy. German Texans formed chapters of the
German Red Cross and participated in hwnanitarian relief efforts to benefit the
Central Powers. After the US. entered the war there were additional reasons
for suspicion. A German-American private stationed in San Antonio received a
five-year sentence for trying to provide U.S. military information to Germany.
In El Paso, U.S. soldiers shot a German citizen as he attempted to cross the Rio
Grande, purportedly to provide the Mexican government with U.S. military
infonnation.1
Although incidents like these justified concern, the response soon lost all
sense of proportion to the danger. Simply being German or using the German
language aroused suspicion. If the state could not rid itself of troublesome
German Texans, assimilation, or “Americanization,” would eliminate or at
least punish the ethnicity that seemed to cause disloyalty. Mayors, ministers,
school boards, legislators, businessmen, and students all participated in antiGerman activities, but state and local councils of defense played the biggest
role in the campaign against German Texans. Created as subordinate units of
the Council of National Defense-which Congress had established in 1916 to
foster business-government relations-the state and local councils quickly
concentrated on the alleged threat posed by German Americans. The Texas
legislature created the Texas State Coundl of Defense in May 1917, and
Governor Ferguson appointed its members, naming San Antonio judge J. F.
Carl as secretary. As the only full-time officer, Carl corresponded with the
local secretaries and managed the State Council’s daily operations. At the
county level, county judges appointed council members to over two hundred
county councils of defense (CCDs).8
Claiming that German Texans’ ethnicity was equivalent to disloyalty,
many council of defense members in Texas were determined to purge all
traces of German culture from their state. They targeted German-language
1 Carl Wittke, Gemum .AIMriams ll1lll the World 1-br (With Specilll Empluuis on Ohio’s
Gtmllln Ltlnpge Press) (Columbus, Ohio, 1936), 3-129; Mark Sonntag, “‘Hyphenated
Texans: World War I and the German Americans of Texas,• (M.A. thesis, University of
Texas, 1990), 19-37; Olfton J. Child, The Gmn4m Ameriarns in Politia,1914-1917 (Madison,
Wis., 1939), 37-39; Austin Wochenblatt, 16 September 1914; Brenlulm Texas Volksbote, 2
October 1914; Frethridcsburg WoclrntblAtt, 27 August 1914; Sue Bruns, “Persecution of
German Americans In Central’Jexas during World War 1,• (M.A. thesis, Southwest Texas
State University, 1972), 64; Ferguson Forum, 27 December 1917.
8 William J. Breen. Uncle ·Smn 11t Home: Civililln Mobiliution, W11rtime Federalism, ll1lll
the Council of N11timull Defons4, 1917-1919 (Westport, Conn., 1984), 4-11, 97-10.; David
Kennedy,~ Here: The First WorLI w.r 11rul American 5ode1y (New York, 19110), 117; Army
Appropriation Ad (29 August 1916), Statutes at Large 39, pt. 2, 64~ Thxas, House,
H.B. no. 87, House Journal, 35th Leg., 1st CS., 1917; J. F. Carl toW. G. Gifford, 22 May
1917, 1WRC; Sam H. Acheson et al., Te:rilln Who’s Who: A Blogrrrphiad Dictiorlllry of the StAte
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