Topic 4

The Progressive Movement: Local, State, National Reforms

A. The Progressive Movement (or Progressivism): What was it?

1. A reform movement that started in the 1890s and reached its peak during the first two decades of the 20^th century. Its purpose was to correct many of the economic, social, and political problems America faced at that time.

2. It was also a movement that cut across party lines.

B. What were the Problems?

1. Big Business – The feelings of Progressives were a mixture or pride and disgust.

– Reckless use of natural resources

– Exploitation of workers, including women and children – Hundreds of thousands of children still employed, and one of the most tragic events of that time, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, showed how badly women were being treated.

– Power of monopolies like Standard Oil that crushed all their competitors completely controlled their area of the economy.

– The answer: new regulation whose purpose was not so much to destroy big business as to regulate it and make it more humane, more in harmony with the public interest.

2. Corruption in government – To the Progressives, America had more than its share, especially at the local and state levels.

– The cause: Government was too much controlled by the special interests, especially the business community. Government and business leaders often engaged in dishonest deals to promote their selfish interests and ignored the interests of the people.

– The cure: Make government more democratic: Through various political reforms (to be discussed) they would take government out of the hands of the special interests and place it back in the hands of the people.

3. Urbanization (the rapid growth of the cities) – About 1/3 of the American people lived in towns and cities by 1900, and many of these communities were struggling just to keep up and provide basic services for their citizens. A combination of inefficiency and corruption.

– The Progressive response: new types of city government that would provide urban dwellers with more honest and efficient government

4. Wealth, or at least the way our wealth was distributed! There was too much of it in too few hands, and one answer to this situation was the income tax.

C. The Agitators who brought us to what I would call the “tipping point” of concern

1. Populists – Did not win too many elections but opened a lot of eyes.

2. Socialists and Eugene V. Debs – Played basically the same role as the Populists.

3. The muckrakers – Writers who wanted to touch the soul and conscience of the American people.

– Ida Tarbell – “The History of the Standard Oil Corporation” – 1903 in McClures.

– Lincoln Steffens – “The Shame of the Cities” – 1904 in McClures.

– Upton Sinclair – The Jungle, 1906. One of the best examples of muckraking fiction, but fiction based on fact.

– And their message was ….. We are all to blame and we all must do what we can.

D. Reform at the Local level: New kinds of city government

1. City Commission Plan of government – Galveston, 1901

2. City Manager Plan – Staunton, VA, 1908

E. Reform at the State Level

1. Political reforms

– The purpose of these reforms was to reduce the powers of the legislatures (which were usually dominated by the business community) and place more power in the hands of the people and give the people the final word in many matters.

– What the reformers did was to go to work and push laws through their legislatures that gave the people more power. The legislatures often resisted and often took a long time to accomplish these reforms but they kept working until they got what they wanted!

REFORM	How it worked
Initiative	Initiative laws gave the people the authority of originate legislation. They no longer had to wait on the legislature! You proposed an idea; you circulate petitions to get signatures; if you get enough signatures your proposal is submitted to the voters. If they voters approve, the proposal becomes law.
Referendum	Referendum laws gave the people the power to veto certain laws passed by the legislature (or at the local level by the city council). The legislature, for example, proposes to raise property taxes, but your state referendum law might say that any new tax bill has to be submitted to the people for final approval. If the people go to the polls and vote it down, they have vetoed the tax increase, and it does not go into effect even though passed by the legislature.
Recall	Recall laws gave the people the authority to remove dishonest or incompetent public officials. To carry out a recall, you circulate petitions to get signatures; if you get enough you hold a recall election. If a majority of the voters vote in favor, the official is removed from office.
Secret Ballot	Allowed people to vote as they wanted rather than the way local political bosses (or their employers) wanted them to vote.
Direct Primary	Enabled the people to go to the polls in primary elections and choose the candidates to run in the general election. Nominating elections, in short. Winners of the primaries would run against each other in the general elections.

2. Robert LaFollette – the model reform governor:

– Maverick Republican who challenged the conservative Republican establishment in Wisconsin and served three terms as governor of Wisconsin

– During his governorship Wisconsin was the first to carry out many of these new reforms and many other governors of both parties followed his example in their own states.

F. Progressivism at the National Level: Election of 1900

1. First a detour: what constitutes presidential greatness?

– The ability to withstand adversity and become a stronger person for it –Lincoln, FDR, JFK

– A willingness to tolerate diverse perspectives – Want loyal people around them, but people who are not afraid to offer diverse views. Lincoln, LBJ

– The ability to inspire loyalty, not only from your staff but from the people as a whole – Washington, Lincoln, FDR

– A willingness to acknowledge a mistake and change your mind – FDR

– Articulate a vision of where they want to lead the country

2. Republicans were sure to renominate William McKinley, but what about the vice presidential nomination? Garrett Hobart

3. Senator Thomas Platt was determined to push for the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt to try to bury Roosevelt politically. (Secretly, McKinley wanted Roosevelt, too; wanted to use Roosevelt’s popular appeal to promote his own reelection.)

4. The Democrats again nominated Bryan, and McKinley won easily.

G. Fate intervenes: the assassination of McKinley

1. Shot on September 6, 1901 at the Pan American Exposition by Leon Czolgosz

2. Died on September 14, 1901, and Roosevelt, trying to reassure the American people, makes a promise …

3. Never really lived up to the promise because …. Well, not an easy answer.

– An old-fashioned romantic who believed the wrongs exist in order to be righted

– Through the exercise of intelligence, you can find solutions to these wrongs

– Through the exercise of courage, you can carry out the solutions needed to right these wrongs

– Intelligence combined with courage was the way to lead and the way to overcome society’s ills.

– These thoughts led Roosevelt to conclude that the president has a special relationship with the people. He is their steward, and he can do anything to promote their welfare as long as his actions are not prohibited by law or the Constitution. (stewardship theory)

– His belief that he was the people’s steward led him to support what he began calling the Square Deal. The Square Deal rested on Roosevelt’s belief that the special interests would no longer dominate the nation. Instead the federal government would act as a mediator between the special interests and the people and try to create a society where all would prosper.

– So, believing it was his job to promote the people’s welfare, knowing that the country faced serious problems, and wanting to use federal powers and resources to create a more just society, Roosevelt stepped to the forefront and begin leading the Progressive Movement at the national level.

4. But he was always a bit cautious…. Did not demand too much, did not try to push too far too fast. Was a very pragmatic politician. (A pragmatist is a practical person who sees things as they really are and is willing to bend and adapt in the pursuit of his or her goals.) Did not want to anger conservative Republicans.

5. And it worked! Roosevelt easily defeated Alton B. Parker in 1904

H. Reforms of the Roosevelt administration: the Square Deal, a brief summary

Area	Action
Big Business	Enforced the Sherman Act against the “bad trusts” – 44 antitrust suits Elkins Act – 1903 – again prohibited rebating and imposed fines Hepburn Act -1906 – ICC could set maximum railroad rates
Food and Drug legislation	Both passed in summer of 1906 - The Jungle Pure Food and Drug Act – required listing of contents and prohibited shipment of “adulterated foods” Meat Inspection Act – regular federal inspection of meat packing houses
Conservation	Enforced Forest Reserve Act of 1890 Newlands Act of 1904 – Hundreds of thousands of acres of dry, arid lands in the West made into productive land through federally financed irrigation projects.

I. Election of 1908

1. Roosevelt could have been renominated but had made a pledge in 1904

2. William Howard Taft vs. William Jennings Bryan – An easy Taft victory, despite Bryan’s effort to inject religion into the campaign!

J. Roosevelt’s other contributions

1. Created the modern American presidency – In the last half of the 19^th century, Congress was the dominant branch of the federal government. Through the force of his personality and through the policies he supported TR changed this situation and the presidency started to emerge as the dominant branch in determining national policy. Since Roosevelt’s time, with few exceptions, American presidents have led rather than followed.

2. Gave the Progressive Movement credibility by giving it the support of the presidency.

3. Changed the relationship between the federal government and the business community. Prior to his presidency, the government had generally given the titans of industry carte blanche (a blank check) to accomplish their goals. Roosevelt believed that the government had the right and the responsibility to regulate big business so that its actions did not negatively affect the general public. However, he never fundamentally challenged the status of big business, believing that its existence marked a naturally occurring phase of the country’s economic evolution. In other words, it is here to stay; you cannot turn the clock back to an earlier day in which the economy was dominated by shops and small businesses.

K. The Taft Administration

1. Another Roosevelt? Well, not quite! The two men differed in several important ways.

2. Reform accomplishments:

– Continued Roosevelt’s trust-busting program – 90 antitrust suits (44)

– Mann-Elkins Act, 1910 – Gave ICC jurisdiction over telephone and telegraph companies

– Mann Act – An anti-prostitution law that made it a federal crime to move women from state to state for “immoral purposes.”

– 16th amendment – Income tax – Taft fully supported

– 17th amendment – Direct election of U.S. senators – Taft did not support

3. But Taft did not have the “fire” to inspire most reformers

– 1910 – Republicans lost both houses of Congress to the Democrats.

– So, who could Progressive Republicans support in 1912

L. Election of 1912

1. Republican Party

2. Progressive Party (Bull Moose)

3. Democratic Party

4. Campaign and outcome:

– Wilson

– Roosevelt

– Taft – defeated but not a failure. His best days were still ahead.

M. The Wilson Administration

1. Tommy Wilson: facts in brief

2. The New Freedom

Proposal	Law
Tariff reductions	Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act - October 1913
Banking reform – We had no national banking system after Andrew Jackson killed the Bank of the U.S.	Federal Reserve Act – December 1913 Set the discount rate Adjust the money supply through Federal Reserve Notes
Business – the reestablishment of competition in the American economy. Regulation or destruction? Initially, Wilson wanted to take us back to a version of Jeffersonian America, an America whose economy would be dominated by farmers and small businessmen.	Federal Trade Commission Act – September 1914 – cease and desist orders (Businessmen kind of liked this idea!) Clayton Antitrust Act – October 1914 – close loopholes in the Sherman Antitrust Act by prohibiting specific business activities that had not been outlawed earlier.

3. Personal tragedy and a rebirth: the death of the first Mrs. Wilson and the emergence of the second Mrs. Woodrow Wilson

4. The election of 1916: Wilson moves beyond the New Freedom

– Keating-Owen Act – Federal child labor law – declared unconstitutional in Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)

– Adamson Act – 8 hour day for railroad workers

– Federal Farm Loan Act – low interest, long-term loans for farmers

5. Wilson wins reelection, but just barely: California put him over the top!

6. The racial scene in the South

– Gradually, blacks lose the right to vote

– They also become victims of social segregation – the Jim Crow system

– Plessy vs. Ferguson – The separate but equal doctrine

– Lynching

7. The response of the black community: be patient or push back?

– Be patient: Booker T. Washington and the Atlanta Compromise

– Push back: W.E.B. DuBois, The Soul’s of Black Folk, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

8. Roosevelt and Taft

9. Wilson and the race question

– Wilson’s promise in the election of 1912

– NAACP proposes a National Race Commission

– Wilson says no. Why?