The Importance Of Self-Help In The United States

During the great depression fallowing WWI people were in dire need for governmental support. The government however, failed its people and thus Self-help (better known as socialism) began. The people took matters into their own hands practicing a form of direct action. Self- help was designed out of the American’s desire for change and support regardless of government help. Self- help was pretty much something that worked like this, the benefit of the group over the benefit of the individual. You may have heard of the saying, “ If you scratch my back I will scratch yours” and this was precisely what self-help was, a trade off. Still not really making sense? Here is an example, fisherman in Seattle began to exchange their fish to farmers who …show more content…
These people were serious and they were not going to stop until their needs were met. Self-help involved heavy unionization and massive strikes. Self-Help really began to empower the people. The government considered self-help to be a form of “bootleg.” They tried to prostitute but found local juries would not convict self help members and local jailers would not imprison these people either. This threatened the capitalist system in many different ways. First, it showed that the capitalist system was beginning to lose control. Control over the economic system was now shifting and being put in the hands of the workers (not the wealthy). Big business was almost irrelevant in a self-help system. Even more frightening to the capitalist economy, no money was being generated this way since it was all trade based. Self-Help began exposing the serious issues in capitalism. It showed the capitalist system was not as stable as people were told. Finally, it showed a there could be a different form of economy that could be successful regardless of capitalism and money. Most threating of all to the capitalist was that Workers now had …show more content…
The government did not want people solving problems their selves. They tried thinking of new Bills and Acts to pass to help settle the people down. They came up with the Wagner-Connery Bill. This bill for instance would regulate labor disputes and provide elections so unions could have some kind of representation which to settle their grievances. But big business still felt this was too threating and opposed it. Workers were extremely fed up and took matters into their own hands. As seen before labor strikes and riots soon broke out in response to lack of government support. These strikes were quite threating because they would show that general strikes were possible. The government feared general strikes. More then a million workers began to strike and legislative action now needed to be taken. Longshoreman rose up against their union leadership, demanding the abolition of shape-up. They refused to let cargo into the piers and police soon took action. But the strikers were too numerous and resisted; still two strikers ended up dead due to police gunfire. A mass funeral took place and the strike mobilized to San Francisco. In response the government sent out five hundred police, over four thousand guardsmen, and massive amounts of artillery. Now under massive pressure longshoremen accepted a compromise. Next a teamster strike broke