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The years after World War I have often been seen as an era when Republican presidents and business leaders brought the growth of government in the United States to a sudden and emphatic halt. In When Good Government Meant Big Government, the historian Jesse Tarbert inverts the traditional story by revealing a forgotten effort by business-allied reformers to expand federal power—and how that effort was foiled by Southern Democrats and their political allies. Tarbert traces how a loose-knit coalition of corporate lawyers, bankers, executives, genteel reformers, and philanthropists emerged as the leading proponents of central control and national authority in government during the 1910s and 1920s. Motivated by principles of “good government” and using large national corporations as a model, these elite reformers sought to transform the federal government’s ineffectual executive branch into a modern organization with the capacity to solve national problems. They achieved some success during the presidency of Warren G. Harding, but the elite reformers’ support for federal antilynching legislation confirmed the worries of white Southerners who feared that federal power would pose a threat to white supremacy. Working with others who shared their preference for local control of public administration, Southern Democrats led a backlash that blocked enactment of the elite reformers’ broader vision for a responsive and responsible national government. Offering a novel perspective on politics and policy in the years before the New Deal, this book sheds new light on the roots of the modern American state and uncovers a crucial episode in the long history of racist and antigovernment forces in American life.

"Learn About the United States" is intended to help permanent residents gain a deeper understanding of U.S. history and government as they prepare to become citizens. The product presents 96 short lessons, based on the sample questions from which the civics portion of the naturalization test is drawn. An audio CD that allows students to listen to the questions, answers, and civics lessons read aloud is also included. For immigrants preparing to naturalize, the chance to learn more about the history and government of the United States will make their journey toward citizenship a more meaningful one.

The author's aim in writing this book has been to present in an elementary way the leading facts concerning the organization and activities of national, state, and local government in the United States. He has given rather greater emphasis than is customarily done in textbooks of this character to what may be called the dynamics of government, that is, its actual workings, as contradistinguished from organization. Likewise, the author has highlighted the activities and methods of political parties, party conventions, primaries, the conduct of political campaigns, the regulation of campaign methods, and the like. The increasing importance of citizenship has led the author to devote a chapter to that subject.

"The present volume is the outgrowth of the authors' experience over many years in teaching large college classes in American Government at the University of Illinois. This experience has demonstrated the need of a book of documents and readings to supplement the textbook, since the size of the class renders it impracticable, even in the best equipped libraries, to send the students to the books and documents from which the material has been selected. The volume covers the whole field of American government, national, state, and local, and is designed for use in connection with, and supplementary to, any of the standard texts now available in this field"--Unedited summary from book preface.