This text comes from our book, Light to the Nations, Part II . On a summer’s day in August 1819, tens of thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Fields, near Manchester, in Lancashire County, England. They had come, summoned by radical leaders, to hear the reformer Henry Hunt give a speech on the causes he stood for—yearly elections for members of Parliament, universal manhood suffrage, and voting by secret ballot. Great throngs of people had begun to arrive a little befo

In a city in Holland called Leyden lived a colony of Englishmen. These English men and women had come to live in Holland for only one reason: they wanted the freedom to practice their religion without interference from the government or anyone else.

This text comes from our book, The American Venture . Such swift work was thought necessary, especially because, since the election in November, the federal government had done nothing about the depression. For three months, Hoover initiated no new policies, though he tried to get Roosevelt to endorse measures which made the New Deal much more like the old deal that had lost Hoover the election. With government doing nothing, panicky investors withdrew their savings from bank

This text comes from our book, The American Venture . Theodore Roosevelt was a man of strong passions and commitments—to justice, for instance, and American glory and power. Yet, Roosevelt shared with other progressives of his time another passion—the conservation of regions of great natural beauty and utility. At the turn of the century, ranchers and timber companies were looting federal public lands, particularly in the West, of their rich harvest of wood. Roosevelt believe

This text comes from our book, The American Venture . Since resuming control of La Florida following the American Revolution, Spain had done little with the territory. Long gone were the days of the Florida missions, and far removed was the era of Spain’s glory and power. Revolutionaries in Mexico and South America were challenging Spain’s hold on the very lands that she had conquered over 300 years before. In Florida itself, Spanish power was especially weak, barely extendin

This text comes from our book, The American Venture . The cause of the Cuban rebels was generally popular in the United States, and some Americans favored U.S. intervention in their favor. The publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, though running rival newspapers, were united in promoting American entrance into the Cuban war. Despite President McKinley’s own reservations, his cabinet members divided over the question of war, with the assistant secretary of th