Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The Progressive Movement
THE ERA OF PROGRESSIVE REFORM
1900-1914
PROGRESSIVISM
• A call for government regulation
• An attempt to bring order to a chaotic, free market economy
– An attack on: concentration of economic power
– Inequitable taxation
– Waste of natural resources
– Corruption in politics
– Slums, sweatshops and child labor
THE PROGRESSIVE IDEA
• Called for-
– consumer protection
– direct election of senators
– municipal ownership of utilities
– breakup of monopolies
– city-manager system local government
– factory inspections and laws protecting women
– prohibition
THE MUCKRAKERS
• Journalists out to expose corruption in American society
• Goal: to awaken public opinion to the problems of inequality in the
– Term used first by Theodore Roosevelt
– Jacob Riis, John Spargo, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell
– Wanted to save democracy
THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD
• Radical Progressives; Marxist in philosophy
• Nicknamed “The Wobblies” (by TR)
– Organized in 1905 in
– Called for overthrow of capitalism
– Supported strikes, boycotts, and sabotage
– Strong among miners, migrant workers, and lumberjacks in the West
– Songbook called for class warfare
PROGRESSIVES IN THE STATES
• The
– Primary elections for candidates
– Controls on campaign spending
– the initiative: voters can pass laws
– referendum: voters approve laws passed by legislature
– recall: voters can remove officials between elections
OTHER STATE SOCIAL LEGISLATION
• Protect women and children from abuse
• Provide protection for industrial workers and miners
• Workmen’s compensation
• Municipal ownership of utilities
• Reform the tax structure
• Support prohibition and women’s suffrage
POLITICAL REFORM IN THE CITIES
• Break-Up political machines
• Elect honest mayors and aldermen
• Close down saloons
• Make city government run more like a business
• A city manager should be hired to run city efficiently and honestly; avoid politics
THE 17th Amendment
• Seventeenth Amendment (1913)
– Direct Election of Senators
– Muckrakers had condemned Senate as a “rich man’s club.”
– Under original Constitution senators had been elected by state legislatures
19th Amendment
• Ratified in 1920
– Prohibits federal or state governments from restricting the right to vote “on account of sex”
– Culmination of the Woman Suffrage movement
– Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Howard Shaw were two prominent leaders
– First call for voting rights came in 1848
AN AGE OF REFORM
1. The Progressive Presidents
2. Theodore Roosevelt
3. William Howard Taft
THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858-1919)
• 26th President (1901-1908)
– A Republican progressive from
– 42 years old when McKinley assassinated
– Pursued “the strenuous life”
– Denounced “malefactors of great wealth”
– Advocated “trust-busting” and conservation
– Demanded a “square deal” for labor
– Called for regulation of corporations and banks
THE SQUARE DEAL
• “I stand for the square deal . . . I stand for having these rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and reward.”
• Human welfare was more important than rights of private property.
– Theodore Roosevelt, Speech in 1910
THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
– Fought by business lobbies; called it “socialistic”
– The Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair called attention to conditions in stockyards
– Public demand led Congress to act
– Passed meat inspection law and FDA
– Also took action against “patent medicines”
CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES
• Conservatives argued needs of business and economy should come first
• Progressive liberals argued for preserving resources for the future
• And saving some areas entirely from exploitation by mining or lumber industry
• TR set aside vast areas in west to Forest Service Bureau under Gifford Pinchot
PROGRESSIVES AND MINORITY RIGHTS
• Generally ignored crossing the “color line”
• TR invited B. T. Washington to White House
• Lynching continued to be a problem; but “states rights” issue prevented federal action
•
– TR dishonorably discharges 3 companies of African American soldiers for involvement
NAACP AND REFORM
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (February 1909)
– Organized in
• In aftermath of
– Began with false charge of rape
– 8 Blacks killed; 2,000 fled city
– Whites who did not fire black employees received death threats
THE NAACP PROGRAM
• Published in “The Call”; first membership was 47 whites and 6 blacks.
– Moorfield Storey, a white lawyer, first president
– W. E. B. DuBois edited Crisis “A Journal of the Darker Races”, 1910-1933
– Sought political and civil equality
– Through court action and the Constitution
– Opposed segregation and violence
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
• A Republican-President (1909-1912)
– Defeated W. J. Bryan in 1908
– Broke with TR shortly after
• Differed on conservation and tariffs
• “Insurgents” in Congress fought for more progressive action
– Led in Senate by George Norris (R-Neb)
–
Campaign Themes of 1912
• New Nationalism
– Supports right of community to regulate property for the public welfare
– An Industrial Comm. should be established
– Trusts not harmful if they are regulated
• New Freedom
– Federal government should stay out of regulating economy
– Free Men Need No Masters
– Trusts threatened the existence of free competition
BREAKUP OF REPUBLICAN PARTY, 1912
• Taft-Republican party—Traditional conservative
• TR-Progressive candidate (Bull Moose)
• Woodrow Wilson-Democrat—Governor of
–
– Socialist Eugene Debs gets 897,000 votes
– Democrats gain control of both Senate and House
• 28th President, 1913-1921
• Successes: 1913-1914
– Underwood Tariff (first reduction in 60 years)
– Federal Reserve System
– Federal Trade Commission-to regulate trusts
– Clayton Antitrust Act: forbade price fixing; exempted unions from law (because human beings were not commodities)
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